This book is an edited collection of the major writings of British political thinkers and activists responding to the French Revolution: the latter provoked a more fundamental debate on politics than anything since the Civil War. Often identified as the defining event of political modernity, the French Revolution set the terms for political debate and ideals for the following centuries. Not only ideals but more pervasive political principles emerged in this turbulent period. A full student introduction is followed by excerpts from Price, Burke, Wollstonecraft, Paine, Thelwall, Godwin and others.

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens (1789); 2. Richard Price: A Discourse on the Love of our Country (1790); 3. Edmund Burke: Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790); 4. Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790); 5. Tom Paine: Rights of Man (1791); 6. James Mackintosh: Vindiciae Gallicae (1791); 7. Edmund Burke: An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791); 8. Hannah More: Village Politics (1792); 9. William Godwin: Political Justice (1793); 10. The London Corresponding Society: Two Addresses (1793 and 1794); 11. Thomas Spence: The Real Rights of Man (1793); 12. Richard Brothers: A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times (1794); 11. Edmund Burke: Two Letters on a Regicide Peace (1796); 12. John Thelwall: The Rights of Nature against the Usurpations of Establishments (1796); Index.