Everything about Alfred Cobban totally explained
Alfred Cobban (
1901–
1968) was a Professor of French History at
University College, London, who along with prominent
French historian Francois Furet held a '
Revisionist' view of the
French Revolution. Cobban and Furet believed that the Revolution did little to change French society, in direct contrast to the orthodox Marxist school, which saw the Revolution as the rise of the
bourgeoisie against the
nobility and the transition from feudalism to capitalism. As such, the Revolution was a symbol of progress.
However, Cobban claimed that the quality of daily life after the Revolution remained basically unchanged, identifying that:
- France was still a rural society with small farms.
- The French Industrial Revolution came later in the nineteenth century as most cities retained a majority of small workshops and artisan's small enterprises (often employing around four people) rather than large-scale production facilities (factories), although the latter were found in Anzin, for example. This was a town of iron foundries and coal mining and employed 4000 in these trades.
Cobban claimed that the
urban poor fared worse than before as they lost the
charity supplied by the
Roman Catholic Church. This occurred in
1791 when the
National Constituent Assembly abolished the
tithe and sold Church properties. Cobban also notes that French society still had a significant amount of
social inequality, as many
nobles still retained
political and
economic leadership and dominance under the collective title with the bourgeois as 'Notables'.
Gender equality didn't advance far, with women still considered the 'lesser' sex as they lost the rights gained during the Revolution under the reign of
Napoleon I.
However, Cobban's views and works in the macrocosm were to be the inspiration and birthplace of the historical school now known as Revisionism. Along with
George V. Taylor, Cobban vehemently attacked the traditional Marxist conception of the past within Marx's dialectic, particularly in his work
The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution. His resultant argument was that the Revolution couldn't be seen as a social revolution exacerbated by economic changes (specifically the development of capitalism and by corollary, class conflict between the bourgeoisie and the nobility). Rather, argued Cobban, the French Revolution should be seen as a political revolution with social consequences.
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