George Rudé

"In this Pathbreaking Work Originally Published in 1980, George Rude Examines the Role Played by Ideology in a Wide Range of Popular Rebellions in Europe and the Americas from the Middle Ages to the Early Twentieth Century. Rude was a Champion of the Role of Working People in the Making of History, and Ideology and Popular Protest was the First Book Devoted to the Comparative Study of Popular Political Ideas and Consciousness in Both Preindustrial Cultures and the Age of the Industrial Revolution." "According to Rude, the Development of Modern Revolutionary Struggles Depended on a Crucial Merger of the Culture and Ideas of the Common People with the Radical Ideologies of Intellectuals. In a New Foreword, Harvey Kaye Reviews Rude's Career as a Pioneer in the Critical Study of Social Movements and Highlights the Enduring Value of Ideology and Popular Protest as a Classroom Text."--BOOK JACKET.

At numerous points throughout the eighteenth century, the people of Paris and London –then the two largest cities in the world– rioted and demonstrated, looted property, and marches in protest. Their grievances varied as much as their aims, but the diversity notwithstanding, historians have been quick to label these groups of honest citizens as "mob", as "inhabitants of the dangerous districts, always ready to pillage", as squalid and dangerous intruders on the historical scene. George Rudé, in his classic book The Crowd in the French Revolution, established that this view was deeply mistaken. In that book and in subsequent studies, he gave a dimension and meaning to the history of pre-revolutionary protest which it had all but wholly lacked before. Now, in this book, the outcome of nearly two decades of research in the libraries and archives of the two capitals, he explores the similarities and differences in urban protests and revolts during the eighteenth century. Professor Rudé's focus in the French case is naturally on the cataclysmic events of the Revolution itself - or rather, on the people who created the insurrections that shaped and formed it. "I began by asking (it seemed a simple enough question): who actually took the Bastille? Who marched to Versailles, stormed the Tuileries, or stood silently by while Robespierre was toppled from power? Whose, in fact, were the "faces in the crowd'? In the case of London, Professor Rudé's attention was drawn to more disparate, and less well documented, events: "Mother Gin" and the riots of 1736, the "Wilkes and Liberty" movement of the 1760s, the Gordon riots of 1780. "In order to get into the skulls of the participants," the author writes, "it was not sufficient merely to establish their identity; something also had to be done to unravel the motives and impulsions that urged them to take part in these events." This fascinating and demanding task Professor Rudé has achieved with great brilliance and insight. His presentation of popular insurrection in the eighteenth century not only alters and deepens our understanding of the political and social history of that crucial time, but throws new light on the issues of urban life today.

Bibliogrpahy: p. 224-228.

What kinds of people were in the crowds that stormed the Bastille, marched to Versailles to bring the king and queen back to Paris, overthrew the monarchy in August 1792, or impassively witnessed the downfall of Robespierre on 9 Thermidor? Who led these crowds or mobilized them to action? What did they hope to achieve, and how far were their aims realized?... Using police records and other contemporary research materials, the author identifies the social groups represented in them, contrasts the crowds with their political leaders, relates their activities to underlying economic and psychological tensions, and compares the Parisian crowd "patterns" to those of other popular movements in France and Britain during the 18th and early 19th centuries. --From back cover.