In pursuit of politics
Education and revolution in eighteenth-century France
by Adrian O'Connor, Maire Cross
In pursuit of politics offers a new interpretation of debates over education and politics in the early years of the French Revolution. Following these debates from the 1760s to the Terror (1793-94), and putting well-known works in dialogue with previously-neglected sources, it situates education at the centre of revolutionary contests over citizenship, participatory politics and representative government. The book takes up education's role in one of history's most dramatic periods of political uncertainty and upheaval, anxiety and ambition. It traces the convergence of philosophical, political, ideological and practical concerns in Ancien Régime debates and revolutionary attempts to reform education and remake society. In doing so, it provides new insight into the relationship between the Enlightenment and the French Revolution and sheds new light on how revolutionary legislators and ordinary citizens worked to make a new sort of politics possible in eighteenth-century France.