The Terror of Natural Right

Natural rightthe idea that there is a collection of laws and rights based not on custom or belief but that are "natural" in originis typically associated with liberal politics and freedom. InThe Terror of Natural Right, Dan Edelstein argues that the revolutionaries used the natural right concept of the "enemy of the human race"an individual who has transgressed the laws of nature and must be executed without judicial formalitiesto authorize three-quarters of the deaths during the Terror. Edelstein further contends that the Jacobins shared a political philosophy that he calls "natural republicanism," which assumed that the natural state of society was a republic and that natural right provided its only acceptable laws. Ultimately, he proves that what we call the Terror was in fact only one facet of the republican theory that prevailed from Louis's trial until the fall of Robespierre.A highly original work of historical analysis, political theory, literary criticism, and intellectual history,The Terror of Natural Rightchallenges prevailing assumptions of the Terror to offer a new perspective on the Revolutionary period.

Dan Edelstein is associate professor of French at Stanford University and author of The Enlightenment: A Genealogy.