French revolution
Mainly it is important because it looks at the process of radicalization of the French Revolution’s leadership as embodied in Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety. Why this is important is because it sets the stage, so to speak, for the behavior of revolutionary leadership in subsequent modern political revolutions, such as the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, the Iranian revolution, and now the Arab Spring, particularly relevant for Egypt.
After watching the Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution on youtube explore the debate within the documentary between Slovoj Zizek and Simon Schama over the question of the necessity of discipline within a revolution. As you’ll see Zizek defends Robespierre and the decisions to make it a crime for being neutral during the revolution, while Schama argues it is never right to make neutrality a crime. Based on evidence from the film, provide a description of both arguments based on the events shown and discussed in the documentary. Why are both scholars so convinced they are correct on interpreting Robespierre’s terror? And why does it matter for modern history to take one side or another in this debate? To what extent do you believe events of the past year in Egypt represent a similar process as explored in the documentary?
Lastly, review the historical documentary as a historical documentary. It tries some “new” thinks besides using reenactments and ‘talking heads’. Do these new techniques help or hinder the overall message?
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Neutrality in War
Based in 1974, “Terror! Robespierre and the French revolution” is a documentary that highlights different views when it comes to war. The film was a compilation of interviews that were done, drama and archive to get information. In Robespierre’s view, he defended the use of terror in state wars as he felt that it was a necessary evil in an attempt to achieve peace and stability in a country……………………..
APA
287 words
