The Fall of Robespierre

Reviews / Votes

Vital, incisive, revelatory, The Fall of Robespierre offers a crisis anatomised, 'by the map and by the clock.' Its close-focus intensity makes us question everything we thought we knew about the bloody events of Thermidor Year II. It takes us to the place, to the instant, to the heartbeat of revolution in the making. * Hilary Mantel, author A Place of Greater Safety and the Wolf Hall trilogy * In this admirable account, Jones meticulously reconstructs the day on an hour-by-hour basis, criss-crossing the city as he does so to convey how revolutions messily unfold. * 'The best new paperbacks for July 2023', The Times * The melodramatic story of Maximilien Robespierre's fall has been told many times before, but never in such gloriously sensual detail... Colin Jones brings the French Revolution to life in all its colour and horror... Above all he is brilliant on the psychological twists of politics, which would cost Robespierre his life. * Dominic Sandbrook, 21 Best History Books of 2021, The Times * The book is suspenseful because, even though we know the way things end, it relates the build-up to Robespierre's execution in breathless detail. Mining abundant archival material (from the reports of government functionaries, soldiers and spies to the diaries and letters of private citizens of all political beliefs), Jones shows how turbulence, confusion and contingency shaped each moment of that day. * Caroline Weber, London Review of Books * ... a thrilling blow-by-blow account of that fateful day in the summer of 1794. One can almost hear the ticking of the clock, minute by minute, second by second, counting down to the guillotine. * Joseph Hone, Books of the Year 2021, History Today * A brilliant hour-by-hour recreation... He has a marvellous eye for colour: the sweat and fear in the Parisian prisons, the exhausted paranoia of the government committees, the stench of the guillotined bodies in the death pits outside the city. He is excellent on the contingency of political history... And, above all, he is brilliant on the psychology of politics, the way the mood of an assembly can switch in a moment with devastating consequences. * Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times * Jones insists that to understand 9 Thermidor it's necessary to dig down to the level of "infinitely small" details. In his admirable account he meticulously reconstructs the day on an hour-by-hour basis, crisscrossing the city as he does so. * Gerard deGroot, The Times * Colin Jones, a professor of history at Queen Mary University of London, handles a huge amount of material with skill and verve. He creates an extraordinarily vivid minute-by-minute portrait of Paris and its people on that pivotal day... * Constance Craig Smith, Daily Mail * The Historian Colin Jones has a gift for examining events afresh. * New Statesman * ... minutely detailed and unfailingly gripping... Jones's superbly researched and strikingly original book produces an optic of a radically different kind. 'Only by getting "up close" and drilling down into the "infinitely small" details of the revolutionary process', its author insists, can the day's course and outcome be understood. And for once this counsel of perfection can be put into practice. * John Adamson, Literary Review * The greatest merit of Colin Jones's microscopic study of those deadly days in the summer of 1794 is that he succeeds in conveying the terrified uncertainty of the many actors, including large numbers of ordinary Parisians...His account required a massive amount of archival work, and his bibliography is testimony to his labors... The broader educated public with an interest in this extraordinary period will enjoy Jones's lively narrative... * Peter McPhee, H-France * An incisively argued and thrilling moment-by-moment examination of one of the French Revolution's most dramatic days... Colin Jones achieves the exceptional feat of putting 9 Thermidor in a new perspective... Jones's enthralling, incisively argued book is a fine contribution to the debate. * Tony Barber, Financial Times * Behind the books general reader-friendly narrative structure, academics will find historical virtuosity on display. * Katie Jarvis, The English Historical Review * The story of the Ninth of Thermidor has been told many times, but never so well as in Colin Jones's The Fall of Robespierre. * David A Bell, The New York Review * ... Colin Jones, as well informed about eighteenth century France as any professor of history could be, leads us through Paris on the exceptional day of 9 Thermidor, Year II. * Johan Hakelius, Engelsberg Ideas * Jones offers a new perspective on the Terror and nature of the Thermidorian Reaction. The unconventional narrative structure and style bring contingency to the fore and, in so doing, lead to new interpretations not only of Maximilien Robespierres downfall but of the course of the French Revolution. * Katlyn Carter, Age of Revolutions * ... overall this is a classic: living up to the title exactly, it does so with full marks for style and substance... If you have any interest in the French Revolution, or politics in general, or the "processes of history" you will find The Fall of Robespierre a riveting, rigorous and thought-provoking read. * Anthony Webb, Popular History * The work Jones produced to support his point is remarkable... With its minute detailing of human characters, The Fall of Robespierre has the texture of literature and is good material for a mini-series or...how about another Hamilton?... * David Luhrssen, Shepherd Express * This is an astoundingly scholarly book, written with a beautifully assured hand... a book for the historian of the French Revolution itself... The minutiae of detail, and the ability to convey it, along with the mounting tension, is a specific talent, and which has been so obviously achieved by the author of this fascinating and superb volume. * Sandra Callard, On: Yorkshire Magazine * This is a remarkable, barnstorming doorstop of a book. * David Andress, French History * Colin Jones's micro-history can be fundamental reading. * Timothy Tackett, University of California, Irvine, Journal of Modern History *