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In the closing two chapters the focus of the inquiry widens as Thagard considers two new topics: whether the term ‘revolution’ as he understands it also applies to the development of behaviourism and cognitivism in psychology (he thinks not); and whether conceptual change in children parallels that of scientists in any significant way (again, his answer is ‘no’). These chapters may strike some readers as a refreshing closing move insofar as they point to further areas of research while at the same time cautioning against playing all too fast and loose with the terminology and methods Thagard proposes. At the same time, they occasionally introduce issues that in my view merit more attention than they receive. In the commentary on psychology, for instance, both Freud and Chomsky are relegated to a brief section with the understated heading ‘Other Developments’ (pp. 244-245). In the same chapter, an assertion that psychology ‘has not yet achieved a unifying theory comparable to Newton’s mechanics, Lavoisier’s oxygen theory, or Darwin’s theory of evolution’ (p. 225, my emphasis) suggests that such a theory might indeed emerge over time; Thagard’s actual line of argument, however, emphasises differences rather than any potential rapprochement between psychology and the natural sciences.

Taken on its own terms, the theory of scientific change in Conceptual Revo[utions represents a commendably lucid argument based on the organisation of mental representations (p. 39). Whether this kind of analysis suffices as an account of conceptual change is a question that individual readers must answer for themselves, but it should be noted that the question arises out of Thagard’s own statement of purpose, which brackets the role of socio-cultural factors in situations of revolutionary scientific change. In short, although he acknowledges that social context has played an important part in the development of scientific knowledge (p. lo), Thagard declares that he himself does not wish to pursue the issue. His study concentrates on a form of discourse analysis that, at least for some, might be read most profitably together with works such as David Lindbergh’s The Beginnings of Western Science (1992), in which social context is not merely admitted as a factor, but stands squarely in the foreground of the investigation.

University of California, San Diego Elizabeth Bredeck

Les Citoyennetis en Revolution (1789-1794), Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison (Paris: PUF, 1992), Recherches politiques, 313 pp., 198 FF, P.B.

The author has gone to the heart of the French Revolution: those eternal values which have stirred the passions of all men. The revolution he writes about concerns a new conception of citizenship, so new that it took time to become fully integrated into Western political values. However, he expresses disappointment, wondering why, after so many sacrifices, the results of the Revolution were yet so unsatisfactory?

At the Constituent Assembly, after voting the Declaration of Human Rights, the deputies unfortunately (according to the author) divided society into ‘active’ rich citizens and the many poor ‘passive’ ones (servants, bankrupts, those paying below a minimum tax level, and the destitute drifting population), deprived of full rights. Universal manhood suffrage was not obtained until 1848, but, one may query, why not appreciate fully the great step forward made to ensure a maximum of individual human rights and the principles of national sovereignty on 26 August, 1789?The author seems to forget that the

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deputies came to Versailles, not to inaugurate democracy but to obtain the end of privilege based on birth, the recognition of merit based on achievement, advancement open to all, and institutional reforms. Government was to be run by elected representatives of the people, in the interest of the people and no longer of the king or the aristocrats surrounding him. Many deputies gave greater importance to the constitution, believing the Declaration to be superficial or even dangerous. Malouet (p. 17) was not alone in opposing it and 433 deputies (against 470) voted in favour of a Declaration of Human Rights and ‘Duties’ proposed by Camus.

Furthermore, Robespierre was not alone in being shocked by the vote taken in favour of the ‘silver mark’ at the end of October 1789. On 7 December, an amendment proposed to revoke the decree was discarded by a slim majority of 11 votes (454/443). As Basquiat de Mugriet wrote to his constituents in the Landes: by a handful of votes, the Assembly had decided to ‘exclude three-quarters of the nation from representation’ (Correspondence, Municipal Archives, Bayonne AA51). This was gross exaggeration, but proved how ill at ease many deputies felt about the franchise, a fact which the author tends to overlook.

Following the overthrow of monarchy, citizenship becomes available to all men, aged 21, living on their income or the produce of their work. In a very interesting chapter (pp. 97-141), we are informed how Condorcet wanted to extend citizenship to everyone living on French soil, naturalised or not, believing that this would result in a republican and peaceful Europe. Condorcet advocated governmental reforms which would enable the electors to control their rulers, thus preventing despotic kings being replaced by legislative despots. Education was to play a major role in reducing the differences between the rulers and the people. The author then asks why the Jacobins in general, and Robespierre in particular, ‘went from an intransigeant defence of universal manhood suffrage to the annihilation of citizenship under the Terror’ (p. 96) and analyses two speeches of Robespierre. On 25 January, 1790 (pp. 143-150), Robespierre protested against electoral qualifications which, inconsistent with natural rights, excluded the people whom he qualified as the most ‘virtuous’ part of the nation. However, the introduction of ethical considerations very soon led to the condemnation of political opponents ‘who ceased to conform to the wishes of the Robespierrist leaders’ (p. 162). In the report on the principles of revolutionary government (25 December, 1793, pp. 170-180), Robespierre reveals how the Jacobins developed a theory for combating enemies of the interior since foreign enemies were no longer a problem. ‘Symbolically, everything comes from below; in practice, everything comes from above and the Revolution ought to be conducted by the virtuous men sitting on the committees’ (p. 177). Claiming to voice the wishes of the sovereign people, these men prevented all real

debate. In the last section, the author resumes his condemnation of revolutionary limitations on

citizenship for slaves, Jews and women. However, women were not a persecuted minority group and Jews acquired full citizenship rights by the end of September 1791. Slavery, never directly discussed at the Constituent Assembly, was abolished by the National Convention in 1794. As to free coloured men, it is true that shortly before breaking up, the Constituent assembly cancelled the earlier decree granting them political rights; however, a great number of deputies had come to their defence. Mougins de Roquefort wrote to Draguignan: ‘It is inconceivable that for five days we have been trying to establish whether free men should become slaves’ (14 May, 1791). In August, a week after their nomination to the Colonies Committee, Castelanet, La Rochefoucauld and Tracy resign because, as Tracy wrote, the others would not abandon ‘a system which he had always combated because he believed it to be wrong’.

Revolutionary changes should not be evaluated by modern-day standards; 1789 must be set within its historical context. Human progress generally goes two-steps forward and one-step back; such was certainly the case with the French revolution whoseinitial actors

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tried so hard to collaborate by a common consensus. These reservations, however, do not lessen the merit of this well-conceived book which stresses the fact that true democracy can probably never be completely achieved, given human nature; but it is the business of each citizen to work towards it in the belief that some progress is always possible.

N.B. Undoubtedly a typographical error, p. 18, line 17: must read ‘673 voix contre 325’ AND NOT ‘575 voix contre 235’.

Edna Lemay Centre de Recherches Historiques. E.H.E.S.S.-Paris

The Radiant Past-Ideology and Reality in Hungary’s Road to Capitalism, Michael Burawoy and Jfinos Lukacs (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), xvi + 215 pp., $24.95 cloth.

This book, the work of an American and a Hungarian Marxist, has a very questionable scientific character. According to its title, it should be an analysis of Hungary’s road to capitalism, but under this heading its sociological and micro-economical ‘realities’ are treated for the 198Os, even if now and then some hints are given of the efforts to reform the ‘economic mechanism’ from the year 1968 on, which were going back even to the early 1960s. However, the period analysed, i.e. the decade of the 198Os, represented a desperate fight of the Hungarian communist regime for survival, economically as well as politically, as the military rule in Poland and the Gorbachev era in the Soviet Union already foreshadowed the debacle on the international level. In this period the general level of life was sinking rapidly, despite the effort of people to work hard ‘in the second economy’ and despite a fantastic accumulation of foreign debts, with the help of which the regime wanted to finance bread and meat, but also the whole industry and wanted to invest it in the catastrophic B&-barrage project. In this decade the foreign debt rose from 800 million U.S.-dollars to 22 billion, but even so, the traces of its utilisation are difficult to find. As an index of the welfare of population- utilised also by the IMF and IB-the mortality and expectation of life in Hungary dropped continually and are now among the worst in the world. Is this past a ‘radiant’ one?- it is an absurdity to pretend it even with the most sophisticated scientific apparatus.

And here one arrives at the methodologic shortages of the book, which are very weighty ones. The hard core of the book represents a kind of sociological and micro-economical field work in two Hungarian and one or two American firms and by comparing life experience in them, the authors try to make generalisations on the macro-economic, sociological, political and even historical field to determine future trends of the development of modern capitalism and state-socialism all over the world on the meagre Hungarian basis. For this huge pluridisciplinary task the authors do not bother with statistics as they confess: ‘The data we use.. . are not of a hard statistical character but are based on interviews and participant and non-participant observation conducted by the two authors’ (p. 65). But what is more objectionable, the problem of representativity comes up only in a footnote, where the authors admit that the factories compared were not chosen for their representativity, but for political possibilities. However, the sampling methodology is never even mentioned (p. 178, note 9.); in this ‘limited empirical basis’ the authors believe ‘that such comparative case study is better than none’ (p. 61) and despite admitting that ‘Hungary is not a typical state socialist society. . . yet (it) undoubtedly approximates the model of state socialism presented’ (p. 62). Also by stating that ‘. . . we