If real life can be funny, history should be doubly so.
For most of us, the French Revolution has been reduced to jokes about Marie-Antoinette, guillotines and the Scarlet Pimpernel. But for Mark Steel, bestselling author of 'Reasons To Be Cheerful', the French Revolution was one of the most inspirational moments in human history - a moment when ordinary people changed the world and became extraordinary. It deserves better jokes than that.
In this revolutionary new book, Steel banishes stuffiness from history, telling us what happened in France between the storming of the Bastille and the rise of Napoleon, bringing to life the people behind the events. His account is dominated by bizarre events and splendid characters, from the famously strange Robespierre, Danton and Thomas Paine, to Drouet, the less well-known local postman who arrested the fleeing King because he recognised him as the man off of the money.
'Vive La Revolution' is an uproariously serious work of history - brilliantly funny and insightful, it puts the peculiarity of individual people back at the centre of the story.
