Explores the French Revolution in terms of the vitality and infatuation with technology that motivated French citizenry toward change and the conflicting, strained economics frustrating their visions for France

Prologue: Powers of recall: forty years later -- PART ONE: ALTERATIONS: THE FRANCE OF LOUIS XVI: New men -- Blue horizons, red ink -- Absolutism attacked -- Cultural construction of a citizen -- Cost of modernity -- PART TWO: EXPECTATIONS: Body politics -- Suicides, 1787-1788 -- Grievances, Autumn 1788-Spring 1789 -- Improving a nation -- Bastille, July 1789 -- PART THREE: Reason and unreason, July-November 1789 -- Acts of faith, October 1789-July 1790 -- Departures, August 1790-July 1791 -- "Marsellaise": September 1791-August 1792 -- Impure blood, August 1792--January 1793 -- PART FOUR: VIRTUE AND DEATH: Enemies of the people? Winter-Spring 1793 -- "Terror is the order of the day" -- Politics of turpitude -- Chiliasm, April-July 1794 -- Epilogue