MAJOR UNIT THEMES

1.   The French Revolution, supporting ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity, broke out in l789, leading to the fall of the French monarchy and a series of radical reforms in almost all areas of life.

2.   A second revolution occurred in l792, leading France into a radical phase dominated by Jacobins on the Committee of Public Safety and by the Terror.

3.   The government, having surmounted the internal and external crises, turned against the sans-culottes - - its earlier supporters.  This development paved the way for the Thermidorian reaction, the establishment of the more moderate Directory, and the eventual rise of Bonaparte.

4.   Napoleon consolidated and firmly established many of the institutional gains of l789 whle rejecting more radical revolutionary policies.  He then expanded the French imperium over the Continent; but he finally extended himself too far and was defeated in battle by a coalition of opposing powers in l8l4.

5. Some argue that the American Revolution was not a revolution at all but merely a war for independence.  Regardless, the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights consolidated the revolutionary program of liberty and equality.  The American Revolution encouraged European revolution.

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