This book, if I'm not mistaken start out as Hunt's PhD thesis. She started out trying to prove that there was still some merit to the Marxist interpretation of the revolution. However, it would seem her research then changed to studying the Symbology of the revolution which the first half of the book is dedicated to. In the first half of the book she looks at multiple symbols ranging from modes of the dress to seals to the minting of coins. It was interesting to see that in a revolution that wanted to see everyone is equal they wrestled with the idea of creating clothes that would distinguish the political leaders and ordinary citizen which in a way reinforce the old class distinctions. Another interesting thing that you see in the revolution is the use of a Hercules as an image to represent the people's will in the sense that it is an unstoppable and deadly force. While later on in the revolution, after the Terror images of the Hercules change to one of a more fatherly figure represented downswing in popular violence.

The second half of the book is more technical and looks at The revolution in the in a sociological mode which looks at the class breakdown across France during the revolution. It wasn't as interesting as the first half of the book and more than likely put in to have quantitative data to support her conclusion, which basically was that the politics of the day do not fit into the Marxist framework as there's too many things going on for the revolution just to be based on social classes. Although, it still has merit and can help you in understanding the revolution it just might be able to slog.

Overall the book was pretty interesting, however the average reader will probably only be interested in the first half of the book as the second half is bogged down with stats, that are probably only of interest to historical researchers.One thing I like about Hunt is that she'd are readable and although she takes complex topics shipwreck sit down and away that the average reader can understand. While probably not as interesting as the latest page turner if you're interested in the French revolution Hunt's is not a bad place to start. ( )