Sans-Culottes

A riveting portrait of the radical and militant partisans who changed the course of the French RevolutionA phenomenon of the preindustrial age, the sans-culottesmaster craftsmen, shopkeepers, small merchants, domestic servantswere as hostile to the ideas of capitalist bourgeoisie as they were to those of the ancien regime that was overthrown in the first years of the French Revolution. For half a decade, their movement exerted a powerful control over the central wards of Paris and other large commercial centers, changing the course of the revolution. Here is a detailed portrait of who these people were and a sympathetic account of their moment in history.