Lord Acton’s Lectures on the French Revolution, delivered at Cambridge in the 1890s, represent one of the great works of Victorian historical interpretation. Acton examines the causes, course, and consequences of the French Revolution with characteristic moral rigour, contextualising it within the broader history of European liberalism and the British political response.
Famous for his dictum that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, Acton brings his liberal Catholic perspective to the Terror, Napoleon, and the Revolution’s long aftermath. Download the free EPUB for one of the nineteenth century’s most searching and eloquent engagements with the defining event of the modern age.