Help DinoDoc choose a paper topic

[DinoDoc]

I have to do a 10-15 pages paper (or three 5 page papers but he gives those topics) for a class on the French Revolution and I'm at a loss of what to choose for a topic. Any advice on possible paper topics would be most appreciated.

[Eli]

How narrow/wide should the topic be?

[DinoDoc]

Eli: Wide enough to adequately cover in 10-15 pages. So not excessively narrow just to make research easier.

[Shrapnel12]

How about this:

The Reign of Terror (5 September 1793 – 28 July 1794) or simply The Terror (French: la Terreur) was a period of about ten months during the French Revolution when struggles between rival factions led to mutual radicalization which took on a violent character with mass executions by guillotine. It is generally associated with the figures of Robespierre and Georges Danton, and is popularly represented as an archetype of revolutionary violence.

The Terror itself started on September 5, 1793. The repression accelerated in June and July 1794, a period named la Grande Terreur (The Great Terror) and lasted until the executions following the coup of 9 Thermidor Year II (July 27, 1794), in which several key leaders of the Reign of Terror were themselves executed, including Saint-Just and Maximilien Robespierre. The Terror took the lives of between 18,500 to 40,000 people (estimates vary widely, due to the difference between historical records and statistical estimates). In the single month before it ended, 1,900 executions took place.

While some consider modern tyrannies to be the legacy of the Reign of Terror, others argue that this view overlooks the French Revolution's influence in the ascendency of representative democracy and constitutionalism.

Or would that be too cliche?

[DAVOUT]

The Committee of Public Safety (Comité de Salut Public) covers a period wider than the Terror, and offers a view less political on the organization of a revolution, which must be associated with the person of Lazare Carnot.

[Zkribbler]

Marat, one of the vilest beasties that slithered out of a Paris sewer.

Once, a physician (IIRC) to the King; he fell from grace once he picked an intellectual battle with Newton. He became a rabble rouser, and one of the leaders of the Revolution, ordering excutions upon accusation -- bah, why bother with a trial?

His death by assassination was too quick and easy.

[DaShi]

How about how the French Revolution paved the way for the rise of Nazi Germany. Or something like that.

[GePap]

perhaps a paper on how the revolution played out outside of Paris, in the countryside. You don't hear that much about how the sotrming of the bastille and such played out in the small farming villages and such.

Thought I assume this would require more detailed research than some other topics.

[Wernazuma III]

"The Royalist Resistance to the French Revolution"

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Zkribbler

he fell from grace once he picked an intellectual battle with Newton.

?


C'est quoi ?


I'd suggest the influence of British thinkers on the French revolutionaries.

Or what part backing the American colonies in their rebellion led to the French Revolution.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by molly bloom

?

C'est quoi ?

He heavily criticized the methodology and findings in Newton's Opticks.

[Zkribbler]

Didn't Louis XVII disappear after his dad was guillotined? A dab of research might turn up enough stuff for a paper.

And didn't a group of Royalist land in Brittany in an attempt to restore the monarchy?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DaShi
How about how the French Revolution paved the way for the rise of Nazi Germany. Or something like that.

schama already did that, see "Citizens"

[Zkribbler]

The metric system!! Revolutionary France was the first nation to adopt the metric system! (Right?)

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by molly bloom
Or what part backing the American colonies in their rebellion led to the French Revolution.

This seems like an interesting topic but I have no real idea how to narrow its focus into something a little more manageable. Any suggestions?