History books
A leading historian of the French Revolution, Marisa has written extensively about its politics and its leaders.
Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship and Authenticity in the French Revolution (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013)
Choosing Terror examines the gradual process whereby leaders of the French Revolution, including Robespierre and his fellow Jacobins, came to 'choose terror'. It looks at the problem of creating an authentic identity as a revolutionary politician, and portrays the Jacobins as complex human beings who were influenced by emotions and personal loyalties and friendships, as well as by their revolutionary ideology.
ISBN: 9780198733096
“This excellent study ... is a refreshingly existentialist interpretation of revolutionary politics, exploring such politico-philosophical issues as the limits of individual freedom, the power and fear of choosing sides, the striving for authenticity, and the dizzying realisation that one's meaning in the world is often little more than the credibility it carries in the eyes of others ... an original, superbly researched piece of work.”
– David McCallam, English Historical Review
Terror: The French Revolution and its Demons, co-authored with Professor Michel Biard (Cambridge, Polity Press, 2021)
At the heart of how history sees the French Revolution lies the enigma of the revolutionary terror. How did this archetypal revolution, founded on the principles of liberty and equality and the promotion of human rights, arrive at circumstances where it carried out the violent and terrible repression of its opponents? This book reconstructs the revolution’s terror in all its complexity.
ISBN: 9781509548361
“This is historical scholarship at its finest. Two of our leading historians of the Revolution dissect its most contentious, confronting period with lucidity, conceptual skill and cutting-edge knowledge. The result is a wise and illuminating rethinking of ‘the Terror’.”
– Peter McPhee, The University of Melbourne
Terreur! La Révolution française face à ses démons, co-authored with Professor Michel Biard (Paris, Armand Colin, 2020)
This is the original French edition of Terror: The French Revolution and its Demons.
ISBN: 9782200623517
The Politics of Virtue in Enlightenment France (Palgrave Press, 2020)
The first book to focus on the key role played by the language of virtue in political thought in pre-revolutionary France. It shows how the rhetoric of political virtue was used strategically to empower the speaker and give moral authority to arguments about political power.
ISBN: 9781349663873
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