A Natural History of Revolution : Violence and Nature in the French Revolutionary Imagination, 1789-1794.

Intro -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Ordering a Disordered World -- Natural Historians Confront Disorder -- A History of Natural Violence: The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 and the Messina and Calabria Earthquakes of 1783 -- 2. Terrible Like an Earthquake: Violence as a "Revolution of the Earth" -- The Glacière Massacres: Avignon, 1791 -- The September Massacres: Paris, 1792 -- 3. Lightning Strikes -- Lightning in the Atmosphere -- The Scepter from Tyrants: Lightning and Sovereignty in the Revolution -- The Utility of Destruction: The Victims of Lightning -- The Saltpeter Initiative: Forging Thunderbolts in Backyards -- Lightning in Crisis: The Explosion of Grenelle -- 4. Pure Mountain, Corruptive Swamp -- The Natural and Political Mountain -- The Virtuous Montagnard -- The Sublime and the Sacred Mountain -- Nature Returned to Itself: Purging the Marais -- The Festival of the Supreme Being: A Theology of Terror -- 5. "Mountain, Become a Volcano" -- Volcanoes in Scientific Inquiry -- Volcanic Volatility -- Passion, Terror, and Virtue: The Volcano in Year II -- The Terrible after the Terror -- Conclusion: Revolutionary Like Nature, Natural Like a Revolution -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

The use of nature metaphors in explaining and justifying the excesses of the French Revolutions.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.