Read Hilary Mantel's Place of Greater Safety on holiday and thought it was aces, so embarked on long-overdue reading of Schama's Citizens when I got back. On Googling about, however, I see that lefty types think that Schama is a right-wing propagandist who should be placed in a tumbril without further ado, and that the popular conception of the Terror is wrong-headed and overcooked. I'm only 80 pages in to Citizens so I'm reluctant to write it off yet... Anyway, in classical history student style I would like to talk vaguely about the French Revolution without actually doing tedious things like reading primary sources.