The Abbé Grégoire and the French Revolution

"In this age of globalization, the eighteenth-century priest Henri Gregoire has often been remembered as a man ahead of his time. An icon of antiracism, a hero to people from Ho Chi Minh to French Jews, Gregoire has been particularly celebrated since 1989, when the French government placed him in the Pantheon as a model of the idels of universalism and human rights. A remarkable man with global interests, Gregoire favored many forms of liberation - of peasants from feudalism, Jews from religious discrimination, blacks from slavery. In this biography, based on newly discovered and previously overlooked material, we gain access for the first time to the full complexity of Gregoire's intellectual and political universe as well as the compelling nature of his persona. His life offers an extraordinary vantage point from which to view large issues in European and world history in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and provides insights into many of the prevailing tensions, ideals, and paradoxes of the twenty-first century." "In addition to illuminating Gregoire's life and times, Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall offers an original analysis of the French Revolution and its legacy."--Jacket.