Virtue and Terror

Robespierre’s defense of the French Revolution remains one of the most powerful and unnerving justifications for political violence ever written, and has extraordinary resonance in a world obsessed with terrorism and appalled by the language of its proponents. Yet today, the French Revolution is celebrated as the event which gave birth to a nation built on the principles of Enlightenment. So how should a contemporary audience approach Robespierre’s vindication of revolutionary terror? Žižek takes a helter-skelter route through these contradictions, marshaling all the breadth of analogy for which he is famous.

About the author

Maximilien Robespierre is one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. He was instrumental in the period of the Revolution commonly known as the Reign of Terror, which ended with his arrest and execution in 1794.

Summary

Robespierre’s justification of the Terror in the French RevolutionRobespierre’s defence of the French Revolution remains one of the most powerful and unnerving justifications for political violence ever written. It has an extraordinary resonance in a world obsessed with terrorism and appalled by the language of its proponents. Yet today the French Revolution is celebrated as the event which gave birth to a nation built on the principles of Enlightenment. So how should a contemporary audience approach Robespierre’s vindication of revolutionary terror? Žižek’s introduction analyzes these contradictions with a prodigious breadth of analogy and reference.

Product details

• Authors: Jean Ducange, John Howe, Maximilien Robespierre, Slavoj Zizek
• Assisted by: Jean Ducange (Editor), Slavoj Zizek (Introduction), John Howe (Translation)
• Publisher: Verso
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.09.2017
• EAN: 9781786633378
• ISBN: 978-1-78663-337-8
• No. of pages: 154
• Dimensions: 128 mm x 197 mm x 16 mm
• Series: Revolutions
• Subjects: Non-fiction book; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; France, POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory, HISTORY / Europe / France, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / Radicalism, Political science & theory, Terrorism, armed struggle, Revolutions, uprisings, rebellions, c 1789 to c 1799 (French Revolutionary period)