Last Revolutionaries

Laura Mason is a senior lecturer in history at Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of Singing the French Revolution: Popular Culture and Politics, 1787–1799. She lives in Baltimore.

“Segments of The Last Revolutionaries are cinematic (the story would make for a gripping screenplay). And Mason writes about complex concepts, such as the notion of the legitimate insurrection, with clarity, impressing on the reader the urgency of contemporary political debates.”—Rhys Jones, Financial Times“Insightful and damning. . . . Mason does not shy from present-day implications. It is a testament to the success of The Last Revolutionaries that it invites reflection on such problems while narrating a gripping and historically sensitive account of the past.”—Andrew Jainchill, Journal of Modern History“A superbly-realised vision of Gracchus Babeuf, a man who emerged from poverty with a fiery and humane idealism, and whose bitter defeat opened the road from revolutionary justice to cynical tyranny.”—David Andress, University of Portsmouth“Mason brilliantly explores the public debate engendered by the trial of Babeuf and so doing provides a new interpretation of the demise of the French Revolution.”—Timothy Tackett, author of Becoming a Revolutionary“A new and striking account of the life, ideas, following and fate of a neglected French revolutionary whose attempts to balance social justice, individual freedom and democracy speak powerfully to current concerns.”—Colin Jones, author of The Great Nation“Very much a book for our times. Mason’s retelling of the trial of Gracchus Babeuf and the French Revolution shows how democracies end. Historians of revolutions and all those concerned with the arc of social justice movements have much to learn from this remarkable story.”—Sophia Rosenfeld, University of Pennsylvania