Recommended general books, all present in the Nipissing University Library.
R.R. Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution vol. IEric Foner, The Story of American Freedom
William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution (this will be a required text)
Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution
I've given you three separate lists:
Peter Ravn Rasmussen's collated web index of significant historians and philosophers may be useful if you are studying a specific thinker.
Paul Halsall's Internet Modern History Sourcebook brings together links to many primary sources and web sites.
The Eighteenth-Century Studies
site (which has a literary orientation) may prove useful.
The Avalon Project at Yale Law School has a collection of 18th Century Documents. The Founder's Library also has an extensive collection from "the Founding Fathers."
From Revolution to Reconstruction is a hypertext on American history, and may prove useful to you from time to time. It also is linked to a variety of documents.
Another general introduction to the French Revolution, this one from the City University of New York, can be found here.
Britannia.com's Europe in Retrospect also has a short account.
My own lectures on the French Revolution in HIST 2155 can be accessed here. As in the case of the other summaries above, this is only a very brief introduction.
Much of the intellectual and political action before the revolution took place in salons run by society women. Read about them here.
Two good sites for the art of the revolutionary period are the one posted by the French Ministry of Culture The Age of Enlightenment and Carol L. Gerten's collection of Jacques-Louis David's paintings.
List #2: Sites relevant to seminar discussions
This site on The Glorious Revolution of 1688 may be useful for background.For background on earlier anti-absolutist thought in the era of the English Civil War, have a look Alan Lodge's site devoted to Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers; and a transcript of the Putney Debates (among soldiers of the Parliamentary forces). (The second page is now incomplete, but the transcript is there.)
For Locke, you may want to look again at The Glorious Revolution of 1688 or another Locke work, A Letter Concerning Toleration.
On the Stamp Act and the colonial resistance to British-mandated reform, see R. B. Bernstein's essay, The American Revolution As A Constitutional Controversy at The American Revolution under "essays"; also, Benjamin H. Irvin's essay Tar and Feathers in Revolutionary America at the same place. For background on Turgot, see the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosopy on the Encyclopedists and a Biographical note on Turgot by Paulette Taieb (in French).
See the page of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Association.
On Paine, the Friends of Thomas Paine site has a number of links of interest.There is an on-line User's Guide to the Declaration of Independence.
There is a page devoted to John Adams at the Internet Public Library POTUS site; there is a brief biography of Abigail Adams at the White House's First Ladies site.
For more on the slave experience in colonial and revolutionary America, see Gary Nash's essay, Thomas Peters: Millwright and Deliverer at The American Revolution under "Essays".
See Karin A. Wulf's "Despise the mean Distinctions [these] Times Have Made": The Complexity of Patriotism and Quaker Loyalism in One Pennsylvania Family and Benjamin H. Irvin's Tar and Feathers in Revolutionary America at The American Revolution under "Essays".
There are several relevant pieces at The American Revolution under "Essays".The Constitution Page is an all-purpose US Constitution site.
There are several relevant pieces at The American Revolution under "Essays".
See the general French Revolution sites above
See an appreciative evaluation by Andrew Webster of Edmund Burke, an immediate critic of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. The writer represents a small political party in today's Britain.See also Gregory Weston's review of Thomas Paine's defense of the Declaration, The Rights of Man.
Peder Larson's personal essay on Louis XVI and some readers' reactions make for an interesting little debate.
See the general French Revolution sites above.
Richard Geib's personal reflections on the French Revolution center on Robespierre and the Terror and this page is linked to responses from readers.See also Robespierre's speech on The Festival of the Supreme Being.
Benjamin Constant's reflections (a 19th-century liberal point of view).
Napoleon Bonaparte as a revolutionary leader
Edmund Burke -- An article using Burke to promote a modern British political party.
Was Jefferson a democrat? -- Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government.
The Marquis de Lafayette as a revolutionary leader --
Joseph de Maistre -- A short excerpt.
Maxmillien Robespierre -- Personal reflections on Robespierre.
Why was Rousseau so popular? -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau Association.
Mme de Stael and Benjamin Constant -- An excerpt from Constant's writings.
Turgot as thinker and actor -- Web site
Mary Woolstonecraft -- a short biography.
Jacques-Louis David, artist of the French Revolution -- Jacques-Louis David's paintings.
Ancient republics as an inspiration for revolutionaries
Native American peoples as an inspiration for revolutionaries -- Native American Political Systems
and the Evolution of Democracy:
Revolution: 18th century meanings for the term -- a very brief definition
Slavery
Natural rights -- there are too many to list!
What is a Nation? This page at the Nationalism Project may serve as a beginning bibliography
"Aristocratic resurgence" in France before the Revolution
The French revolution in the countryside: Causes and results
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy -- text
Women in revolutionary Paris -- a student paper to serve as intro; a bibliography
The Vendée: The peasantry against the revolution
The Trial of King Louis XVI
Sanscullotism -- a band called Les Sans Culottes
The Jacobin movement
The Constitutions of the 1790s
The Revolution in Pennsylvania -- an introduction.
Writing the constitution of Massachusetts -- the 1780 Constitution of Mass.
The disestablishment of religion in the early USA -- A Library of Congress exhibit
Antifederalism in the U.S. -- see The American Revolution under "Essays."
The Northwest Ordinance as a charter for a republican society -- its text.
The development of the American Presidency under George Washington -- George Washington
The Whiskey Rebellion -- a rather extensive introduction.
The Alien and Sedition Acts -- The Acts and the reactions.
Vermont -- Ideals and dynamics of the revolution
Canada in the 1790s -- Constitutonal issues and representative government -- The Act of 1791
The development of political parties in the early United States
Sweden -- Constitutional monarchy and reform
The Wilkes affair -- John Wilkes
Revolutionary (or anti-revolutionary) sentiment in England -- British Newspaper Coverage of the French Revolution (a small archive)
The Dutch revolution -- a very brief introduction