Massacre

The life and death of the Paris Commune of 1871

John Merriman, Yale University Press, 384 pages, £20 (hardback)

The 1871 Paris Commune represented a new stage in working class struggle. For the first time, ordinary people took control of a city and attempted to govern it in their interests, rather than those of the rich.

The Commune inspired many, including Karl Marx. As Marx wrote: “When the Paris Commune took the management of the revolution in its own hands; when plain working men for the first time dared to infringe upon the governmental privilege of their “natural superiors ... the old world writhed in convulsions of rage at the sight of the Red Flag, the symbol of the Republic of Labour, floating over the Hôtel de Ville.”

Merriman explores the radical and revolutionary roots of the Commune, painting vivid portraits of the Communards — the ordinary workers, famous artists and extraordinary fire-starting women — and their daily lives behind the barricades, and examines the ramifications of the Commune on the role of the state and sovereignty in France and modern Europe.