This thought-provoking study engages with a hidden dimension of the great Parisian revolutionary upheavals of the first half of the nineteenth century—the extent to which insurgent successes and failures were shaped by the fluctuating strength of their opponents, the official forces of order. Paris was a remarkable testing-ground for the efficacy of popular insurgency during this era, having both the memory of the revolutionary republicanism of the 1790s and a rapidly growing population of discontented workers on which to draw and a backdrop of various political elites stirring unrest and provoking uprisings. Widespread possession (or at least availability) of firearms allowed insurrectionaries to stand up to government forces in the street-level tactical combat of revolt. With barricades in place to slow down the movement of troops and to impede the use of artillery, soldiers had little more than their discipline to distinguish them from their adversaries.
These insurrections have attracted...