The essays presented in this volume have been written over the span of a dozen years that have seen remarkable changes in the manner in which historians are approaching the study of the French Revolution and its origins. In the most general terms, the reorientation that has occurred can be characterized as a shift from Marx to Tocqueville, from a basically social approach to the subject to a basically political one. Twenty years ago, the prevailing historical interpretation of the French Revolution was social. It started from the assumption that the Revolution marked the critical point of transition from a feudal to a capitalist society; that it was essentially the product of the long-term social changes usually summed up in the notion of the rise of the bourgeoisie; and that its fundamental significance lay in the creation of a political and legal order appropriate to the needs and interests of the new dominant class. Thus the principal aim, in explaining the Revolution, was to derive its character as a political event from social phenomena that were held to be more basic. This was to be achieved by tracking economic and social changes in eighteenthcentury French society; by identifying the latent social conflicts that found open political expression in 1789; and by reading off the subsequent political history of the Revolution from the class conflicts initiated by the efforts of the bourgeoisie to throw off the remnants of a feudal regime and institute a political order that would ensure its dominance.