This book . . . is a very considerable achievement that will have durable value. . . .It is a beautifully and carefully produced volume that does credit to the fine contents.
JOURNAL OF MODERN HISTORY
[Walshaw's] book is a lively guide to the issues and her new evidence is instructive and also tantalizing.
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW ... Read more
Walshaw's book is meticulously researched, with evidence gathered from eight different departmental archives in different areas of France. She treats her sources with care, recognizing the difficulty in drawing conclusions about peasants from sources produced and/or mediated by government officials.
H-NET REVIEWS
Walshaw's study makes important and original contributions to ongoing debates on rural politicization, peasant participation in the Revolution and counter-Revolution, and the nature of the eighteenth-century public sphere.
Jeremy Hayhoe, professor of history, Université de Moncton
A Show of Hands for the Republic offers an excellent overview of French rural society and the changing dynamics between center and periphery in the eighteenth century. Walshaw's careful analysis of prosecutions for seditious speech in southwestern villages supplies fresh insights into peasant responses to the Revolution and, just as important, the state's increasing awareness of peasant agency.
Liana Vardi, professor of history, University at Buffalo,
[A] valuable book that makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how the Revolution was received and communicated in the countryside and how certain villagers expressed their political opinions in an enlarged public sphere. Walshaw should be congratulated for a fine and detailed study of rural politicization in the eighteenth century.
H-FRANCE
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