--- title: French Revolution & Napoleon description: The French Revolution and Napoleon remade Europe. You will learn the fall of the monarchy, the Terror, the Napoleonic wars and reforms, and the era's lasting political legacy. category: humanities subcategory: history difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/french-revolution-and-napoleon --- # French Revolution & Napoleon The French Revolution and Napoleon remade Europe. You will learn the fall of the monarchy, the Terror, the Napoleonic wars and reforms, and the era's lasting political legacy. ## Available Resources 3 Books • 1 Courses • 2 Websites ## Websites ### 1. The Napoleon Series Free research archive run by the Waterloo Association with an editorial panel: translated primary documents, the Code Napoleon, orders of battle, campaign maps, eyewitness accounts, biographies and book reviews for the 1789 to 1821 period. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.napoleon-series.org/ **Tags:** napoleonic wars, napoleon, primary sources, military history, french revolution ### 2. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution **Author:** Jack R. Censer and Lynn Hunt A digital archive of the Revolution built by historians Lynn Hunt and Jack Censer: roughly 350 translated documents, 250 images, songs, maps, a timeline, glossary, and twelve topical essays covering 1787 to 1815. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://revolution.chnm.org/ **Tags:** french revolution, primary sources, digital archive, revolutionary france ## Books ### 1. Napoleon: A Concise Biography **Author:** David A. Bell A short critical biography by a Princeton historian of revolutionary France, placing Napoleon's rise, empire and fall in the Revolution's political context rather than treating him as a self-made genius. Bell reads Napoleon as a product of revolutionary politics and the era's cult of charisma, and is explicit about the costs of empire. About 130 pages. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0190262710?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** napoleon, biography, french empire, french revolution ### 2. The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution **Author:** Timothy Tackett Traces how the Terror emerged from contingency rather than ideology, using deputies' letters and diaries to reconstruct the fear, rumour and factional suspicion of 1789 to 1794. Assumes prior knowledge of the Revolution's chronology. The one monograph that changes how a reader understands the Revolution's central problem — why the Terror happened — and it argues against the ideological-determinism reading most popular narratives inherit from Furet. **Difficulty:** Advanced | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674979893?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** french revolution, reign of terror, revolutionary politics, historiography ### 3. The Oxford History of the French Revolution (3rd edition) **Author:** William Doyle The standard one-volume scholarly survey, third edition (2018), running from Louis XVI's accession in 1774 through revolution, Terror, and counter-revolution to Napoleon's consolidation in 1802, with analysis of the Revolution's impact beyond France. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0198804938?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** french revolution, old regime, reign of terror, counter-revolution, napoleon ## Podcasts ### 1. Revolutions Podcast — Season 3: The French Revolution **Author:** Mike Duncan Mike Duncan's narrative history podcast; season three covers the French Revolution across 55 episodes, from the fiscal crisis of the 1780s through Thermidor and the Directory, ending at Napoleon's Brumaire coup. Kept as the chronology scaffold — the Revolution's sequence of events is the hardest part for newcomers, and thirty hours of careful narrative fixes it before anyone opens Doyle or Tackett. Free on all feeds. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/revolutions/id703889772 **Tags:** french revolution, narrative history, thermidor, directory, podcast ## Courses ### 1. The French Revolution (University of Melbourne) **Author:** Peter McPhee Peter McPhee's six-module University of Melbourne course on the Revolution's origins, course and outcomes, from the Old Regime through 1789, the Republic in crisis, the Terror and its end. Forty-two videos; free to audit. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/french-revolution **Tags:** french revolution, old regime, reign of terror, french republic --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/french-revolution-and-napoleon