As it changed forever the political landscape of the modern world, the French Revolution was driven by a new type of personality: the confirmed, self-aware revolutionary. Maximilien Robespierre originated the role and embodied its ideological essence and extremes; the self that he projected to the people was equated with the ideals for which he strove. In creating this intellectual biography of so enigmatic a figure, David Jordan has stressed the words of the man about himself. With great imagination and insight, Jordan places Robespierre's self-conceptualization within the context of events and explains how Robespierre "The Incorruptible"-—a man seen by contemporaries as virtuous—-could not only equate justice with vengeance and demand it of the people, but also stand as its symbol before the world.

"Jordan provides a fresh and intelligent approach to one of modern history's most controversial figures." --Edward Berenson, Los Angeles Times

"In this absorbing, highly analytical biography, historian David Jordan... portrays a man who was neither bloodthirsty nor personally ambitious, but coldblooded, clearheaded, scrupulous, and utterly dedicated to the cause of revolution: Robespierre the Incorruptible, as he was known in his lifetime.... Jordan's sympathy with his subject is not so much with Robespierre the person as for the abstractions he embodied." --Merle Rubin, Christian Science Monitor

"David Jordan portrays Robespierre as the quintessential expression of the power of the word in the politics of the French Revolution. A readable and intelligent new biography charged with an interest in the Revolution as a politically and culturally creative event." --Keith Baker, Stanford University

David P. Jordan is a professor and chair of the department of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of The King's Trial: Louis XVI vs. the French Revolution; Gibbon and His Roman Empire; and Transforming Paris: The Life and Labors of Baron Haussmann.