Seeking a mandate from the French people for his policies, Louis XVI convened the Estates General. Events soon outran the king’s intentions.

It’s no secret that food is political. Everyday commodities, including food, have the power to uproot, shatter and recreate societies. A particularly dramatic example of food upending the status quo ...

IN The Atlantic for October, 1890, we reviewed Captain Mahan’s Influence of Sea Power upon History ; pointing out the originality and worth of the book, and expressing the hope that it would be ...

I’m embarrassed by how little I know about the French Revolution. I mean, I thought I knew more than I did. I suppose one can never really know enough about an event as epochal as the French ...

Their voices sang out from the scaffold as they went to their deaths on July 17, 1794, during the Reign of Terror, the frightening period of the French Revolution that oversaw the execution of at ...