Introduction to Two Forums

Abstract

contributions that follow are based on papers originally presented at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in San Francisco, 27-30 December 1989. theme of the conference was the French Revolution. AHA meeting thus represented only one of about one hundred and seventy conferences organized all over the world during 1988 and 1989, commemorating the Bicentennial of the events of 1789.1 At the AHA meeting some seventeen panels focused on aspects of the French Revolution and its impact in various corners of the world, while an additional twenty sessions treated other uprisings and revolutions over a broad spectrum of time and place. It would have been impossible to publish all of these papers in one historical journal, though many of them were of exceptional quality and historical interest. Here we present a selection taken from three different panels, a selection we believe to be cohesive and which focuses on two major themes: (1) the debate over the and interpretations of the French Revolution, and (2) a discussion of Francois Furet's interpretation of the French Revolution. first set of papers is taken from the AHA panel entitled The Origins of the French Revolution: A Debate. This panel was intended to bring together the two leading representatives of the Jacobin and revisionist perspectives, Michel Vovelle and William Doyle. Unfortunately, illness compelled Vovelle to withdraw shortly before the San Francisco meeting, and Doyle decided not to attend alone. Fortunately,