Jean-Paul Marat is often portrayed by contemporary historians as a madman. Often they expand upon his perceived bloodlust and thirst for unnecessary violence. All of this, however, fails to explain why Marat was celebrated as one of the most prominent and popular leaders of the revolution who held thousands of readers captive and whose death was met with almost Diana-style grief. This virulent approach to such a vital historical figure also fails to seriously and critically analyze the extremely complex, principled, and revolutionary political, economic, and social ideas articulated by Marat. His ideas, as E. Belfort Bax argues in Jean-Paul Marat: The Peoples Friend, are more closely aligned with the justice and equality embodied in modern conceptions of socialist thought than vacuous bloodlust and violence.
Posted on: Sat, 04 Oct 2014 21:20:44 +0000
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