The Night the Old Regime Ended - Historical Book About Political Revolutions | Perfect for History Students & Political Science Enthusiasts | Great for Research & Classroom Discussions

Michael Fitzsimmons, in his book, The Night the Old Regime Ended, proposes the theory that the Old Regime really was obliterated because of the events of one night - the night of August 4, 1789.This night was when the National Assembly met and saw so many renunciations from the first estate (the Clergy), and the second estate (the nobility) in a wave of patriotism that led to sweeping reforms in the French polity.Fitzsimmons draws largely upon primary sources from French archives in developing his argument, and shows, quite convincingly, that the night of August 4 did indeed change French society very significantly.The clergy renounced the tithe - Fitzsimmons describes very capably how this affected not only the clerics but also the commoners. Without such a massive renunciation by the church, French society could not have been altered to accept freedom of religion and the evolution of the members of the clergy from an "esteemed" first estate position (that closest to God) to simply being members of society that preached to the masses (commoners and nobles alike).The nobles watched many of their perogatives go by the wayside this night, thus clearing the way for French peasantry (or, as they preferred to be known, the commoners) to make societal and economic gains that would have been almost unthinkable before this evening.Fitzsimmons covers the commoners in both the countryside and the cities in the final two chapters of the text, though I feel that chapter four (the commoners in the countryside) was merely regurgitation with some added detail of what had been seen when the consequences of the renunciations for the clergy and nobles had been previously discussed.The abolition of guilds, which had the most significant impact on the cities and the workers in the urban areas, is the focus of the final chapter. Fitzimmons ably describes how the eventual quashing of the guilds was also a result of the night of August 4.All told, this is a good book about the night of August 4, but it is not one to be read without having some basic knowledge about the French Revolution beforehand. Without an understanding of the orders of French society in the Old Regime and a knowledge of what the Estates-General and National Assembly are, this book is tough to comprehend until that information is gleaned from the text in the opening chapter.I chose to give the book four stars instead of five because I thought that the material in chapter 4 was a repeat of material presented in chapters 2 and 3, and was thus unnecessary; an expansion of chapters 2 and 3 to include the newer material would have made the book more concise and easier to read.