Fitzsimmons, Michael P. The Night the Old Regime Ended: August 4, 1789, and the French Revolution.(Book Review)(Brief Article)

History: Review of New Books, September, 2003 by Arnold, Eric A., Jr.

College Station: Penn State University Press 245 pp., $49.95, ISBN 0-271-02233-7 Publication Date: January 2003

Two American political historians, Timothy Tackett and Barry M. Shappiro have achieved pre-eminence in the study of the first two crucial years of the French Revolution. With the publication of The Night the Old Regime Ended: August 4, 1789, and the French Revolution, Michael P. Fitzsimmons must be counted among their company.

Like Shappiro before him, Fitzsimmons takes to task the argument that the night of 4 August 1789 saw the origins of the Reign of Terror, which began three years later and lasted from June 1792 to July 1793. Fitzsimmons--mirroring Shappiro--persuasively argues that the National Assembly in 1789 never instituted any...

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