Sophie Wahnich's is a provocative, succinct essay that challenges modern "moralising" views of the Reign of Terror. Rather than seeing it as a descent into madness, Wahnich argues it was a rational institutional response designed to control and curb anarchic popular violence. Core Arguments & Themes
Wahnich suggests the Terror was established to prevent massacres by the populace (like the September Massacres) by transferring the "right of vengeance" to the state. In Danton's words, the state had to "be terrible so as to spare the people the need to be so". In Defence of the Terror: Liberty or Death in t...
Wahnich makes a sharp distinction between the 18th-century "Terror" (a state-led process for sovereignty) and contemporary "terrorism," which she argues aims at neither liberty nor equality. Sophie Wahnich's is a provocative, succinct essay that