About book Fatal Purity: Robespierre And The French Revolution (2007)
Explicitly stated in the foreword, Ruth Scurr attempts in this biography to present an unbiased documentary of the life of Maximilien Robespierre, one of the principal architects of the French Revolution. This key period in his life is a short eternity, just five years from the Revolution's inception to his execution, but packed with extremely dramatic events such that the entire makeup of the Revolution seems to change from week to week and day to day. The story of this period and of this man was as thrilling as I thought it would be. However, I do not agree with the project of this book or the essential idealistic way in which Scurr presents Robespierre's story.I feel like this trend of "unbiased history" is a new one and in most cases, as here, it is mislabeled. Rather than unbiased I would say that this book is very anxious about presenting itself as impartial and objective. What this results in is Scurr questioning Robespierre's complicity in terrible actions while never giving solid evidence of his clemency. The most she can muster in his defense are things he said or things he was supposed to have said. If Robespierre ever actually opposed the atrocities of the Terror he never did anything effective about it, and despite Scurr's desire to assure us that Robespierre was not a tyrant or a dictator, he certainly had the influence to curtail these excesses had he believed it necessary. I find Robespierre, rather than being a noble champion of justice, to be a consummate coward and a reprobate. A clear theme throughout this book, one that Scurr does not try to hide but instead to explain away, is Robespierre's tendency to set dangerous lines of thought in motion but keep his hands out of the blood. He preferred to control from removed positions of influence such as the Jacobin Club rather than to acquire meaningful powers that required his direct application. Scurr makes much out of Robespierre's reluctance to attend the executions he ordered, but I find nothing admirable about a man who is squeamish about his own justice.I make these points because these are things that I believe Scurr does her best not to face. She sets up conjecture, obvious biased reporting, and rhetoric on the same level as documented fact because without that the case that Robespierre was a good person/politician/leader becomes remarkably slim. And in saying this I think that her unfortunate stand hurts the prose of this book, which is the strongest part of it by far. Scurr does not attempt to be an "artist" but she refrains from dryness and memorization. She ebbs and flows as needed by her topic, keeping a general temporal sensibility but making sure details that are necessary are always at hand. It's a very well-compiled book and, in seeing the lengths to which she's tried to exonerate Robespierre, I have no doubt that it is a very good history of Robespierre's part in the French Revolution. The only thing I'd say is read between the lines.
Scurr ends this volume with a poem by Wordsworth, noting how he is one of the first not to "get' Robespierre. I read this book to find out how to "get" an idealist who morphs into the opposite. This book is not the interpretive narrative I was seeking.The beginning part that covers MR's childhood provides clues, and this is where the book is at its best. Scurr speculates on how his parental loss, his poverty, his "scholarship", his having to borrow clothes, his relations with his sister and brother might have molded his thinking. She writes about his early law practice and the stands he took. She writes about his election to the 3rd estate and what it might have meant for him and how his confidence grew. After this, the book becomes more narrative than interpretive.For instance, MR started as an avowed death penalty opponent. Scurr shows his first change of heart was justifying the execution of the king. While she tells us why he said he came to this, she does not demonstrate HOW he came to this, nor his total betrayal his original stance.There are many books of MR and the French Revolution. Contemporary biographers need to either unearth new facts, present a new interpretation or add dimension.
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Ruth Scurr manages to sidestep the polemics that seem natural to a subject like hers. She has that most valuable gift of the historian: implacable impartiality. Her equanimity goes a long way to give her book credibility; if all you know of Robespierre comes from "The Scarlet Pimpernel", this will complicate the issue- in a good way.As with many such impartial books, however, Scurr's greatest failing is that she tends to vagueness. No substantial analysis of contemporary political doctrine is provided- a real handicap, especially if you're new to this period of history. It is often easy, throughout the course of the book, to forget why Robespierre did what he did, what ideology drives the events of the narrative. Robespierre was responsible for the deaths of many, and he saw mercy as traitorous to his radically democratic views; that we are never given a clear understanding of the ideas that inspired such deadly devotion is a major failing of this book. The prose, likewise, manages to be colorless and dry, though perhaps this is a result of her impartiality. The book, on the whole, is too general and broad to stand on its own. I would recommend this to a reader already well-grounded in pertinent history; unfortunately such a reader is likely already familiar with this material.
—Nathan
Good book that reads well and covers Robespierre's life and participation in the French Revolution, but I found that the author left out details in exchange for a brief conclusion without proper substantiation or context. Also, while her introduction leaves the reader with the impression that she is going to attempt an impartial examination of her subject, I think she instead wades into the domain of mirky subjective biography with too much dramatization and theorizing on her subject's inner thoughts or motivations at times. Furthermore, rather than letting facts and accounts speak for themselves, she weighs in time and again with a claim that a particular source is "obviously biased" when it defends Robespierre and her humanized sympathetic accounting of some figures and not others reveals a bias that didn't sit well with me in a biography that claims pretentions of impartiality. Still, it was a good read and informative. I would have given it an extra star if not for the occasional spottiness on details.
—John Weathers
In college, I took an excellent course on the French Revolution. We read diverse accounts of the events from a variety of individuals representing all viewpoints. By the end of the course, the ideals and hopes of the revolution had ended in the carnage of the guillotine. The revolutionary period was etched in my mind as one of the greatest tragedies of western civilization. This biography of Robespierre is sympathetic, objective, and ultimately devastating. I recommend it to anyone looking for a serious study of this idealistic monster.
—Katy
