"[An] informative and moving new history."
~David A. Bell, The Nation
"Eichner’s narrative weaves together many aspects–religious secularism, economic policies, cooperative economics and property rights, education, culture, and the arts–precisely because the Commune affected all of it. The Paris Commune is an enjoyable, brilliant, scholarly, and readable adventure."
~Capital & Class
"[A] richly documented and gripping historical narrative. . . . With an innovative structure and engaging prose, this book is a welcome addition to the existing field of general histories of the Commune and will appeal to academics, an educated public, and university students alike. . . . [Eichner] engages extensively with existing secondary literature while also illuminating potential avenues for future exploration; an approach ensuring, in a sense, that the Commune really will live on."
~Nineteenth-Century French Studies
"This compelling account of the Paris Commune makes a complicated event understandable and vivid. Eichner’s rich portraits bring to life the freedom and empowerment the Communards experienced, juxtaposed with the bloody repression of its final days."
~Sarah Fishman, author of From Vichy to the Sexual Revolution: Gender and Family Life in Postwar France
Like the Commune itself, Eichner’s history is brief, complex, and full of drama. A fresh and compelling account for scholars and students of 1871 and its legacies.
~Roxanne Panchasi, author of Future Tense: The Culture of Anticipation in France between the Wars
