The French Revolution A Short History - by Robert Matteson Johnston

Free US/UK Kindle Classic

After recently re-reading A Tale of Two Cities, I was thinking it would be good to have a history of the French Revolution.  Of course I looked for a free classic Kindle book and I found The French Revolution A Short History by Robert Matteson Johnston, an American historian born in Paris and educated in England. (US Edition)  (UK Edition) 

The first course sets us nicely on course for what sounds like a very readable history:

The magnitude of an event is too apt to lie with its reporter, and the reporter often fails in his sense of historical proportion. The nearer he is to the event the more authority he has as a witness, but the less authority as a judge. It is time alone can establish the relation and harmony of things. This is notably the case with the greatest event of modern European history, the French Revolution, and the first task of the historian writing a century later, is to attempt to catch its perspective. To do this the simplest course will be to see how the Revolution has been interpreted from the moment of its close to the present day.

Here is another passage:

The event was so great, the shock was so severe, that from that day to this France has continued to reel and rock from the blow. It is only within the most recent years that we can see going on under our eyes the last oscillations, the slow attainment of the new democratic equilibrium. The end is not yet, but what that end must eventually be now seems clear beyond a doubt. The gradual political education and coming to power of the masses is a process that is the logical outcome of the Revolution; and the joining of hands of a wing of the intellectuals with the most radical section of the working men, is a sign of our times not lightly to be passed over. From Voltaire before the Revolution to Anatole France, at {10} the present day, the tradition and development is continuous and logical.

I do not know how short a history it is at almost 300 pages - but it is certainly readable and all books weigh the same on a Kindle!

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