Amazon
I have listened to Mike Duncan on the French Revolution for weeks on end. He is a delight to listen to. I’ve ordered the book at Scorpio books in Christchurch. I’ve bought the audio online, and I’m about half way through. I want the ebook but it’s not out it seems. Later: I had to use VPN. Got it!
I have a Google Doc on the French Revolution that I add to as I read. I’ve read a bit, Hilary Mantel’s novel and Wikipedia! I am doing that here now. Public note taking.
Here is my take on Mike Duncan’s history approach. He is a Lafayette fan! Which means he has liberal enlightenment values. History, for those saturated with enlightenment ethos is a battle of values. And heroes have superb values.
So it makes for a good Hollywood epic. I’d watch it. But it is essentially Superman who fights for … the American way.
I’ll report back later.
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Saturday, 18 September
I’m up to the Second Interlude. The Prisoners of Olmütz [1792–1797]
I’m on Danton’s side. Mike Duncan is on Lafayette’s side.
Oh dear, makes the book almost impossible to read. Also I like Mike Duncan, listening to his podcasts for years is quite an intimate process. It’s a bit hard to see him so blatantly liberal. Though not a surprise.
1 October 2021
Finished it. His constant patronising obsession with the ‘hero’ grates. This man was not a saint. But that aside I’d like a more astute assessment of the French an American politics. Lafayette was a royalist.