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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

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posted on 2023-06-08, 15:53 authored by Catherine PackhamCatherine Packham
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 Review

ISSN

1050-9585

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Issue

6

Volume

25

Page range

705-722

Department affiliated with

  • English Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2013-09-23

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2016-04-29

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2016-03-07

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