Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution - Paperback

by Ruth Scurr (Author)

Franco-British Society Literary Prize Winner
Shortlisted for The Duff Cooper Prize.
Long-listed for The Samuel Johnson Prize.
A "One Hundred Best Books of the Decade" in The Times (London)

"Judicious, balanced, and admirably clear at every point. This is quite the calmest and least abusive history of the Revolution you will ever read." --Hilary Mantel, London Review of Books

Written with epic sweep, full of nuance and insight, Fatal Purity is a fascinating portrait of a man who identified with the Revolution to the point of madness, and in so doing changed the course of history.

Since his execution by guillotine in July 1794, Maximilien Robespierre has been contested terrain for historians. Was he a bloodthirsty charlatan or the only true defender of revolutionary ideals? The first modern dictator or the earliest democrat? Was his extreme moralism a heroic virtue or a ruinous flaw?

Author Biography

Born in 1971, Ruth Scurr studied at Oxford and Cambridge, where she currently teaches politics and history. A prominent literary critic, she has written for The New York Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement. Fatal Purity is her first book.