Book Reviews : France and the Atlantic Revolution of the Eighteenth Century, 1770-1799. By JACQUES GODECHOT. Translated by Herbert H. Rowen. (New York: The Free Press, 1965. Pp. vii, 279. $6.95.)

• DOI: 10.1177/106591296601900423
• Date: 01 December 1966
• Author: Truman Driggs
• Published date: 01 December 1966
• Subject Matter: Articles

746
as well as of the legislation, executive action, and diplomatic negotiation under-
lying it. Foreign aid, an obviously cloudy subject, is treated with clarity, and in the
reviewer’s opinion, with soundness.
The volume ends with an &dquo;epilogue&dquo; giving certain observations on &dquo;emergent
challenges&dquo; and possible future developments.
The book has its defects. But its merits greatly outweigh any faults to be found
with it. And the student and reader, amidst the mass of confusing books on the
subject, will welcome this clear, simply and intelligibly written and carefully rea-
soned work.
CHARLES E. MARTIN
University of Washington, Seattle
France and the Atlantic Revolution of the Eighteenth Century, 1770-1799. By
JACQUES GODECHOT. Translated by Herbert H. Rowen. (New York: The
Free Press, 1965. Pp. vii, 279. $6.95.)
Jacques Godechot is one of the most prolific and creative of contemporary
historians. It is surprising that some of his basic works have not been translated
into English before now. For more than a decade he has been pouring forth
articles and books, most of them dealing with the period of the French Revolution.
He has helped to establish a new view of political, social, and economic conditions
in the Europe of the late eighteenth century.
He, writing in French, and Robert Palmer, writing in English, have substan-
tiated what is coming more and mare to be called the Godechot-Palmer thesis.
Stated very briefly, this is the view that the French Revolution and, to a certain
extent, the American Revolution were parts of a general revolutionary movement
which swept through most of Western Europe after the middle of the eighteenth
century. Godechot, a professor at the University of Toulouse, still sees France as
the effective heart of the European revolutionary movement; but any suspicion of
a nationalistic bias is reduced by the fact that Palmer generally shares the same
opinion. Thus, Godechot is contributing substantially to a new body of...