Ho Chi Minh, the revolutionary name of Nguyen That Thanh (1890–1969), was the leader of the Vietnamese revolution for independence from the French. He was educated in France, where he became a communist. He returned home to fight Japanese occupation…
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) was an Italian intellectual who joined first the Socialist and then the Communist Party. Between 1924 and 1926 Gramsci was the head of the Italian Communist Party. In 1926 he was arrested by the Mussolini fascist…
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940), whose original name was Lev Davidovich Bronstein, was one of the chief figures in the Russian Revolution of 1917. After years spent in exile agitating in favor of Russian communism, he put his ideas into practice as one of…
Gustave Le Bon (1841–1931) disparaged the Revolution and the revolutionary legacy because he distrusted the common person, particularly when making collective decisions. His analysis of revolutionary crowds pictured them as primitive animals devoid…
One of the most widely–read authors of the late nineteenth century, Anatole France (1844–1924) saw the humanity of even the most notorious revolutionary figures such as Jean–Paul Marat. Yet, dedicated to the principles of 1789, France preferred the…
Sun Yat–Sen (1866–1925) was a Chinese doctor who led the revolution against the Qing dynasty in 1911. Educated in Hawaii and Japan, he tried to compare Western concepts to Chinese conditions. Although his republic proved relatively short–lived, it…
The prefect of the Haute-Garonne department headquartered in Toulouse reported on his efforts to establish control in a region known for its rebelliousness.
Bonaparte’s young secretary was a firsthand, if uncritical, observer who took detailed notes and left his memoirs for posterity. He was clearly enthralled by the young general. Here he describes the difficulty of convincing the Egyptians of French…
Bonaparte’s secretary naively complained how the hopes of the French invasion were shattered by the reality of the situation in Egypt. He clearly expected that the invaded would regard the French as liberators instead of attackers.
Bonaparte’s secretary describes the religious practices, attitudes, and views of Bonaparte with regard to Islam. Accepting that the general curried favor with Muslims, he also hoped to deflect criticism of Bonaparte, claiming that what he did was…
