How and why did the French Revolution's lofty ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity descend into violence and terror? The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution offers a new interpretation of this turning point in world history. Timothy Tackett traces the inexorable emergence of a culture of violence among the Revolution's political elite amid the turbulence of popular uprisings, pervasive subversion, and foreign invasion. Violence was neither a preplanned strategy nor an ideological imperative but rather the consequence of multiple factors of the Revolutionary process itself, including an initial breakdown in authority, the impact of the popular classes, and a cycle of rumors, denunciations, and panic fed by fear -- fear of counterrevolutionary conspiracies, fear of anarchy, fear of oneself becoming the target of vengeance. To comprehend the coming of the Terror, we must understand the contagion of fear that left the revolutionaries themselves terrorized.--Provided by publisher

Introduction: the revolutionary process -- The revolutionaries and their world in 1789 -- The spirit of '89 -- The breakdown of authority -- The menace of counterrevolution -- Between hope and fear -- The factionalization of France -- Fall of the monarchy -- The first terror -- The convention and the trial of the king -- The Crisis of '93 -- Revolution and terror until victory -- The year II and the great terror -- Conclusion: becoming a terrorist.