Wonderland or Not » Bastille Day http://wonderlandornot.net things that concern me, and things that make me laugh Sat, 19 May 2012 05:33:38 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Getting Your French Revolution On http://wonderlandornot.net/2009/07/14/getting-your-french-revolution-on/ http://wonderlandornot.net/2009/07/14/getting-your-french-revolution-on/#comments Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:22:35 +0000 cooper http://wonderlandornot.net/?p=6992 Continue Reading →

]]> It’s Bastille Day. I know at least one person who looks forward to this day all year long, but I also know that many don’t know the history of their own country, ( in my case the U.S.) never mind that of France. For those from the U.S., it’s OK if you don’t know U.S. History, pathetic and embarrassing, but OK, after all The Bachelorette is still running, and you’re still studying the names of those vying to become engaged to some women the last Bachelor didn’t chose. Priorities, priorities.

For me, because I find history fascinating, and can’t imagine anyone not wanting to know more than a little something about it, and for you, I’ve concocted a random list to help out.

History is no indicator of the future. It is a record of the past, a learning tool, and sometimes entertainment, as in “HE DID WHAT”. The French Revolution has something for everyone in this regard.

Books on the French Revolution are comprehensive and necessarily voluminous. I can’t blame the casual reader for shunning volumes of something they feel useless minutia. That attitude might deserve a rethink.

The reasons for the Revolution aren’t minute, or set in stone, but worth noting is that during the Revolution France’s economic and intellectual development was not matched by social and political change, and this should strike a note of familiarity, and with that interest, to anyone living in and aware of what is going on in these equally tenuous times. We’ve been around a long time. there is always a been there done that to reference. To see how things played out, though hopefully not prognostic, is compelling.

If your bored, and consider this kind of thing fun, explore:

Robespierre, Maximilien Marie Isidore, Marie Antoinette, King Lousie XVI, LaFayette, Georges Jacques Danton, Paul Marat, and as influence
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (leftover) Napoleone di Buonaparte.

Other musta busta’s:

The Offense: Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke.

The Defense: The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine

Declaration of the Rights of Man.

For subsequent release from all this man fighting, an indirect result of it:
Mary Wollstonecraft’s, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects [1792].

In case you could care less about “The French”, no matter the significance of their revolution on our history and way of life, here’s some good stuff I’ve read recently:

Something we can’t blame the French for:
XXXL: Why are we so fat?

“We Bring Fear”.

Tonight a film premiering on PBS at 10PM:
The Reckoning: The Battle For The International Criminal Court,by Paco de Onís, Peter Kinoy & Pamela Yates ,PBS Trailer link.

As for me, the city winery here is having a let them eat (good) cheese, crackers, fruit, and drink wine, Bastille Day, happy (almost free) hour. I do anything for (almost) free (good) cheese.

Peace

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