Ruth Scurr
Vintage, £8.99 £8.54 (free p&p)

Though guillotined in 1794 at the age of 36, Robespierre remains a watchword. For what? There are many accounts of the man and his bloody times. Most are hagiographies or demonisations of the unassuming lawyer from the provincial town of Arras who led the French Revolution through its most rapacious and bloody phase. Under his seemingly gentle leadership, the guillotine was seldom still.

What Scurr brings is balance. She acknowledges that her subject and the years 1789-94 are “spectacularly complicated”, but is consistent and disciplined in seeking the essence of her enigmatic subject. “Neither partisan adulation nor exaggerated animosity” are the admirable characteristics of her approach as she examines how, after 31 years of obscurity, Robespierre’s five years in Paris took him — and the Revolution — so far so quickly. It is an astonishing and salutary tale.

Scurr touches on the ironic aspects of history. She relates “the crimes against humanity that the revolutionaries would today be called to answer for under . . . legislation they themselves pioneered”. But we want more: why did the Revolution take place? What are Robespierre’s legacies? This is a minor fault in a marvellous, scholarly yet accessible book. There is great narrative drive: “The city gates were closed. The tocsin was rung.” Above all, there is understanding of the Revolution’s greatest leader, and its most fatally flawed.

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