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A landmark biography of one of the most notorious and controversial protagonists of the French Revolution—Jean-Paul Marat.
Who better to pen an authoritative biography of Jean-Paul Marat (1743–93) than preeminent historian of France Keith Michael Baker? Decades in the making, this monumental work takes readers on a journey through the intriguing, sometimes shocking life of this writer and thinker.
Starting with Marat’s Swiss family and upbringing, Baker then sheds light on his early years in England, his career as an aspiring scientist in Paris, his gradual transformation from impassioned pamphleteer to revolutionary newspaperman, and, finally, his murder and martyrdom. Throughout, Baker offers readers the unique opportunity to reconsider the outbreak and development of the French Revolution through Marat’s eyes and in his own words. To help make sense of Marat’s trajectory, he shows how his violent and incendiary public calls to render unseen forces visible, to inject immediacy into an increasingly abstract modern world, would transform classical republicanism into the language of Terror.
Far beyond a standard rendering of Marat’s life and its milestones, this biography offers readers an opportunity to see the French Revolution as never before, through the perspective of one of its major figures. Baker’s book reveals how someone like Marat could go from translating Newton and engaging with Franklin to calling for an ever-growing number of heads to roll—a transformation as chilling as ever.
Introduction
1. The Swiss Family Mara
“A Little Man . . . A Quick Eye”
2. On the Move
3. Making It in London
4. Locating the Soul
5. Wilkes and Liberty
6. The Chains of Slavery
7. Doctor to the Incurable
Agonistic Science
8. Big Game
9. A New Newton?
10. Following Franklin
11. The Fight for Glory
12. Destination Madrid?
Thymotic Politics
13. Revolutionary Rebirth
14. The People’s Eye
15. Enemies of the People
16. How Many Heads?
17. Remember Nancy
18. Mobilizing the People
19. Salus populi
20. Repression, Revision, Despair
The First Modern Populist
21. A Machine That Would Not Work
22. The People’s Revolution
23. The Monster and the Mountain
24. To Kill a King?
25. A Party of One
26. The Marat Moment
27. Purge
Conclusion: A Revolutionary Diptych
Acknowledgments
Note on Sources
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Index
Description
A landmark biography of one of the most notorious and controversial protagonists of the French Revolution—Jean-Paul Marat.
Who better to pen an authoritative biography of Jean-Paul Marat (1743–93) than preeminent historian of France Keith Michael Baker? Decades in the making, this monumental work takes readers on a journey through the intriguing, sometimes shocking life of this writer and thinker.
Starting with Marat’s Swiss family and upbringing, Baker then sheds light on his early years in England, his career as an aspiring scientist in Paris, his gradual transformation from impassioned pamphleteer to revolutionary newspaperman, and, finally, his murder and martyrdom. Throughout, Baker offers readers the unique opportunity to reconsider the outbreak and development of the French Revolution through Marat’s eyes and in his own words. To help make sense of Marat’s trajectory, he shows how his violent and incendiary public calls to render unseen forces visible, to inject immediacy into an increasingly abstract modern world, would transform classical republicanism into the language of Terror.
Far beyond a standard rendering of Marat’s life and its milestones, this biography offers readers an opportunity to see the French Revolution as never before, through the perspective of one of its major figures. Baker’s book reveals how someone like Marat could go from translating Newton and engaging with Franklin to calling for an ever-growing number of heads to roll—a transformation as chilling as ever.
