Tom Holland

speaker

51,366 appearances 197 recordings 9 series first heard Oct 2024 last heard 2d ago

Tom Holland’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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The Rest Is History · 708. The Terror: The Reign of Robespierre (Part 2) · 23 Sep 2026 podcast

which in turn means that the will of the people isn't necessarily to be identified with the opinions of the majority. matched

Yes. matched

And this, I mean, this will be a kind of a trend on the left, I guess, throughout its subsequent history. matched

The people on the far left, you might say, are often very impatient with the people for not entirely corresponding. matched

to their sense of what the people should be. matched

And Robespierre identifies very strongly with this notion. matched

And I think it's probably not pushing the psychologizing too far to say that Robespierre sees himself potentially as being such a person, someone who is qualified to articulate the will of the people. matched

Of matched

I mean, it's a pre-Marxist version of worrying about the false consciousness that the working masses have and that perhaps it takes a brilliant intellectual to penetrate this and to see what really matters. matched

Yeah. matched

And that the mass of the people are unqualified to do that. matched

And I do think that Robespierre kind of... matched

sees himself in those terms. matched

And this is, I think, what explains why when the French Revolution erupts in 1789, he is desperate to be a part of it. matched

So Ruth Sker, who wrote another biography of Robespierre, Fatal Purity, which is wonderfully well written, matched

His recognition of this opportunity and the ferocity of his determination to see it was amazing. matched

He is determined to go to Versailles to be part of this great assembly of the various estates that Louis XVI has summoned. matched

And so he gets elected. matched

He goes to Versailles as an elected representative of the people of his hometown. matched

But even though he's an elected representative, he is, of course, relative to lots of other people who are assembling in Versailles, basically a nobody. matched

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