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"The common grievance of the revolution”: bread, the grain trade, and political economy in Mary Wollstonecraft’s View of the French Revolution
This article considers Wollstonecraft’s Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution (1794), and especially its treatment of bread shortages and the march on Versailles of October 1789, in the context of debates over political economy in the 1790s. It argues that in Wollstonecraft’s history, bread (or its absence) denotes a symbolic economy of the impeded circulation of knowledge, provision and improvement. The liberation of the grain trade, which, unlike other contemporary chroniclers of the revolution, Wollstonecraft foregrounds, is thus more than an attempt at economic reform. It marks Wollstonecraft’s larger effort to co-opt a chaotic narrative of revolution to that of improvement, and economic and political liberty. The role of the mob, however, brings to a head the problems faced by philosophical historians such as Wollstonecraft in accommodating commerce to their narratives of improvement, and opens out wider ambivalences over the futures of both political economy and liberty.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
European Romantic ReviewISSN
1050-9585Publisher
Taylor & FrancisExternal DOI
Issue
6Volume
25Page range
705-722Department affiliated with
- English Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2013-09-23First Open Access (FOA) Date
2016-04-29First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2016-03-07Usage metrics
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