Book Review: The Paris Commune: A Brief History

Abstract

Many people are familiar with the French Revolution as an iconic, transformative event of Western history. Few, however, are as familiar with the Paris Commune, which has had a similarly reverberating effect in the long struggle for human liberation under the three-barreled gun of state, capital, and patriarchy. Historian Carolyn J. Eichner offers a concise solution to those who are unfamiliar with this event from March-May 1871—a century after the French Revolution. Eichner lucidly narrates the story of how the residents of Paris managed, for 72 days, to free themselves from hegemonic political and economic authority to establish a more democratic and humane society: