@426baron THE Albert Einstein himself said “If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.” If one understands a subject deeply, one can explain it to others in a simple way. Academics who babble on without being able to explain it at a level that their listeners can understand doesn’t necessarily mean those people you would listen to on the radio are that brilliant or that they truly understand the fundamentals and nuances of what they’re going on about.
@@ZachDift-kc4nk indeed. I forgot to mention the "what are they talking about ?" game is better played when not listening from the start of the program. Preferably late at night with some of France Culture's station rehash of some 70s panel about mid 11th century poetry or a study of the perception of one's own image across populations such as psychiatric children and Belgian nuns. They did it so well, it made boring subjetcs fascinating.
I listened to the audio book but this book a new world begins by Jeremy Popkins. I'm listening to it for the 2nd time it's like 25 hrs long but I felt like I was there. My younger more niave American self always thought the American Revolution was the big deal and give 2nd place to the French one. But wow as the real meaning of the French Revolution sets in I was just completely wrong. The American Revolution was like a foreshadowing or up and coming opening act for the French Revolution. The person per Sq mile difference between US and France was enormous. Anyway history matters a lot of people understand that and it's great seeing these guys basically record their conversations then let us listen so we can all learn and get maybe not on the same page yet across the board but we are at least on the same book again. Hopefully I made sense all love
I was on the same flight as Tom a few months ago, I was reading Rubicon on the flight, put the book down then just turned round and behind me was Tom.now I'm not a selfie kind of guy at 61 that's not a good look but boy oh boy was I tempted. In case your seeing this Tom,,,it wasaflight from belfast International....loved ur book.
I work on site and have had all 7 parts on back to back all day long. I've had a few funny looks, but this was one of the most interesting retellings of this whole period. Absolutely brilliant 👌👌👌
I have always been entranced by Marie Antoinette. I was a French teacher for many years. I’m almost 70, so Marie was the embodiment of evil. The first inkling it may not be the case was a letter she sent to her sister-in-law. Her love and care for her children and her refusal to blame the people for what they have done as well as the sadness that she thought her son had made it out made a big difference in my thinking. Since then more information has been coming out and I feel I have a better grasp of her. What I have been thinking is that the prevalence of political cartoons and mass-produced propaganda was what historians had readily available. Then I read Christopher Hibbert and oh! what a terrible time to live!
Brilliant podcast, brilliant story. I hope that there will be a story about the Jacobins and the impact that they made on the later times. Once more, brilliant podcast!
Er . . . . You do know, Dominic, that Cromwell and Napoleon are hardly role models for democratic leadership? Lafayette's own role model was Washington, who stepped away from the ultimate power that was offered to him by his officers at Newburgh after the revolution. When Benjamin West assured George III that Washington would do that very thing, the King replied, perhaps in doubt, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." THAT was Lafayette's ambition--not an iron throne of bayonets.
It's interesting that France, often held to be so enlightened, was the last major nation to give women the right to vote, decades after most industrialized nations of the West. (1944)
There are interesting parallels of ineptitude of Nicholas II, Charles I and Louis. They are given chances time and time to compromise and just can't read the room. They live in bubbles and lose their lives because of it.
For non Brits, Alan Shearer is a former international footballer who now commentates on football and is a pundit on TV alongside Gary Lineker also a former international footballer, who happens to own the Rest is Politics franchise.
Love the series. It’s terrific story telling. One point: the American system, while at its core primarily English, including in its bicameralism and the reduction of the rights of Englishmen to the Bill of Rights, in one important way it is not, as the separation of powers is not really all that English, although was useful in the U.S. system of federated government. The English constitutional system, with the office of Prime Minister, is in essence the Monarch in Parliament, in that it is the Prime Minister who exercises the Monarch’s prerogatives in Parliament, by delegation of Royal power and authority, and by the principle of Royal assent. Thus, Parliament is sovereign, and thereby is the beginning and end of all law, for which reason the House of Peers was the highest legal authority (a role later assumed by the Supreme Court under the 1998 Act creating it). It may therefore be fairer to say the U.S. has the separation of powers, while England has a system of distinguishable and evolved powers (legislative, executive and judicial) but unified and shared within Parliament, subject to custom and law.
I think the documentary Dominic Sandbrook is referring to might be the one presented by Peter Purves from 1979 - it’s on you tube! I associated it with Blue Peter and it’s great - exactly the kind of thing the BBC no longer seems to do.
YOU are too easily distracted from his naked GENIUS.. I for one think it's a Great Look; it makes him more distinguishable from & less WELL GROOMED AS ROBESPIERRE!!
I'm with Mr. Holland regarding Lafayette; it IS to his credit that he did not pursue ruthless self-aggrandizement in the manner of a Napoleon or a Cromwell. There is nothing admirable about men of whose lust for power and personal glory lead them to acts of ruthlessness. The world has had one Cromwell, and he was one too many. An eternal curse on all Cromwells, says I.
Sleep is not a nap or lazy, it’s about as necessary to humans as water, we can go far long without food than sleep without sleep cognitive decline is cliff like without sleep, so the guards commander grabbing a small amount is not crazy or incompetent, he is going to have to try and retain command for at least another day maybe two before he will be able to sleep again. History as the two commentators know is real humans, with real needs Other than that this is wonderful history telling by both thank you
This was the role model for the killing of the Romanovs in Russia. Violent murders of roman rulers is also more associated with the period of the roman empire, it didn`t happen that often during the time of the roman republic. The french desperatly wanted to create a successfull empire, but failed miserably in their military conquests on the continent.
It's a detailed recounting and I thank you for that. But when the masses are hungry due to the misappropriation of funds on such a large scale... I'm with Theo. Now I gotta find the same series but from the opposite perspective. Any suggestions?
Maybe this channel is not the right one for some people, who think the main take- away from this fascinating chat is the fact that Tom didn’t make his bed. He certainly doesn’t look dishevelled. Come on guys! Really? I noticed the bed and then was so enthralled with history and the guys knowledge, I never gave it another thought. If you don’t like what you see, just listen like a regular podcast. However, please don’t discuss such trivial things in this forum, when they are giving us such rich information to discuss. Maybe you should go to an interior design channel or a housekeeping forum.
Just a little bit of an aside suggestion and comment. In reference to the French Revolution I've always been fascinated by a little tidbit of fact regarding the Bastille building, itself. I once read some place that because the anger of the people was of such a great degree that they literally over a matter of (I think months or years) tore down the building by hand. Does that sound accurate to either of, you....or did they actually blast it down with cannons over time?
A theme that seems to return throughout this series…Paris is pain in the butt! Democracy can be a messy thing, especially when a nation has never experienced it before.
YOU are too easily distracted from his naked GENIUS.. I for one think it's a Great Look; it makes him more distinguishable from & less WELL GROOMED AS ROBESPIERRE!!!
"Secret tunnel"? All biographies I've read said Marie Antoinette escaped the mob via the private apartments and corridors that connect the queen's and king's rooms.
When it comes to lavishness, Marie Antoinette never reached the level of Empress Josephine (Napoleons spouse, you know) That was how the French revolution ended. Besides all the killings of French soldiers - not only Russians, Germans etc.etc.
Dominic what is your weird issue with Lafayette? Last time you were slagging him off for going to America on his "gap year," now you think he should have seized power and made himself a dictator by force? This is all over the map, and it smells to me like envy + resentment
Personally I'm wondering if he on the show as an academic or to be entertaining. His sense of academic accuracy is slaughtered on a regular basis in the dubious pricilple of making history'entertaining.
@@kevinmoore7010 Oh calm down you bunch of snowflakes. He's mostly just teasing/joking. He's an amazing and very well qualified historian. It's not his fault that some people have no sense of humour.
@@midnightwolfee2128 I am neither. What I am is a historian, and while I enjoy the show and it is sometimes funny, Dominic gets these bizarre hangups where his judgement is clouded by inexpliccable personal grudges. (It seems this is his MO -- the conservative Weekly Standard said his biography of Eugene McCarthy "verges on character assassination.") It really is not funny or enlightening and he should get over it, if only to make the show less tedious.
@@ambitionbird I just think this is a massive overreaction on your part and ignores the all the obvious humour and dynamics that they've developed during this show. Dom always plays up to the role of French hating conservative proud Englishman for comic effort and Tom the soft hearted liberal.
Dom doesn't get that you cant seize power when one is the trophy at the head of 5000 men who have had enough of seeing their fellow French starving while the king dithers. Something i suspect lLayfette understood quite vividly. But the for all the talk of tough men did Sandbrok ever don a uniform and walk into battle.? Dont think so....
I think I know exactly the documentary on Marie Antoinette and the Women's march that you saw in childhood, as I saw exactly that same programme, and credit it (alongside my first viewing of Zulu!) with igniting my interest in history at an early age. Was it the Blue Peter special narrated by Peter Purves? If so, I was delighted to find it on RU-vid: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-K9QVU8EgFSA.html - the Women's march and storming of Versailles terrified me when I first saw it, aged 6, but I never forgot it.
Yes she was the scape goat and more craps is coming her way . This is only the beginning. That said she was also constantly in contact with foreign armies , nobles and monarchs to get into france and take arms against the French people. Her origin didn’t help either.
For the Revolution it was very helpful that Marie-Antoinette was NOT butchered that night. Such an event would have radicalized not only the Revolution but also the counter-Revolution and the king himself. The king would have been able to rally support for his cause. (Including the aristocratic and bourgouis moderates who would than have been eager to kill off the monster they had created. And also if necessary including Imperial troops, I presume). The way events instead turned out was a much more gradual radicalization. The revolutionaries were already sufficiently firmly installed by the time they finally sent Louis and Marie-Antoinette to the guillotine.
Calling the women 'fishwives' is just a misogynistic slur. Most of them were people from various backgrounds who bought and sold food at the different markets ( plural). Modern theory says this was probably a pre-planned event and not a spontaneous uprising. For those who don't know Versailles was about a four hour walk from Paris in those days. Dragging the cannon etc it took about 6 hours before all the 'women's march' arrived. Giving a banquet to visiting troops was a long standing tradition, usually followed by lots of drunken toasts to the King. It was not the exceptional event you seem to imply. Lafayette was instructed by the commune (Parisian municipal government) to lead out the troops - it wasn't his decision. Apart from the fifteen thousand troops, Lafayette's command was followed by several thousand citizens from Paris. Your description of the death of the guards is completely wrong. The two guards who had just taken up their stations at the gates to the 'cour Royal' were indeed seized by assailants, only one ( Deshuttes ) was killed, the other ( Moreau ) managed to tear free from his assaillants and escape. Later, when the door of the Queen's guardroom was breached, several guards managed to escape and join their comrades in the King's guardroom; but one of them ( Varicourt ) was hit from behind, wounded and dragged down the stairs into the cour des Ministres where he was beheaded with an axe.
That's why it's nessesary to listen carefully before subscribing to a channel: a real and very seldom endorsement of a real and live time war criminal 50:40 😮 Wow!... But good that I found out.
Can you please stop apologising to women? Every episode on any subject seems to contain an apology by Tom for some apparent act of misogyny. It's very distracting and seems to betray a very BBC style approach to history. People were of their time as you well know. Men suffered horrendously throughout the ages and often far worse than women. I won't rant on but just give it a rest. If females are offended by the behaviour of French revolutionaries attitudes toward women they can get in line with countless other demographics who were targeted by them.
No need to be so emotional. I suggested you go watch Barbie, that should have a calming effect. BTW men have suffered from men. As well as from there own stupidity
The proposition that public discourse is somehow mysogenistic because it uses the expression "man" when eeferring to women is a ridiculous notion comung from professional historians. Before industrialisation the security of the family unit, and the very survival of women and children lay solely with the man. There was no notion of women as independant of their fathers and then their husband. Consequently women were not so much "owned" by men, but were as depwndant upin their father or husband for their protection, their sustenance and their status. It is absolutely bizarre to expect any political revolution to consider women as independant people.
Good Morning! I love these chats, but on this video I was distracted by Tom's appearance-his disheveled hair and bedclothese make it appear that he literally just rolled out of bed. I'm not a stickler for stuffy formality, but.... That aside, love this Revolution series.
Sorry, I'm a bit of a sceptic... is this gay fella who just woke up on the sofa behind him after too many reds last night, telling me on a historical basis that a load of woman just wandered into Versailles and because of the detail that he gave.. "steaming" remembering the fact that the soldiers were shooting directly into the crowds in Paris...they just mosseyed on up and had instant access to the queen?
