Between 1793 and 1794, thousands of French citizens were imprisoned and hundreds sent to the guillotine by a powerful dictatorship that claimed to be acting in the public interest. Only a few years earlier, revolutionaries had proclaimed a new era of tolerance, equal justice, and human rights. How and why did the French Revolution's lofty ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity descend into violence and terror? ``By attending to the role of emotions in propelling the Terror, Tackett steers a more nuanced course than many previous historians have managed...Imagined terrors, as...Tackett very usefully reminds us, can have even more political potency than real ones.`` --David A. Bell, The Atlantic `` Tackett] analyzes the mentalite of those who became 'terrorists' in 18th-century France...In emphasizing weakness and uncertainty instead of fanatical strength as the driving force behind the Terror, ...Tackett...contributes to an important realignment in the study of French history. --Ruth Scurr, The Spectator `` A] boldly conceived and important book...This is a thought-provoking book that makes a major contribution to our understanding of terror and political intolerance, and also to the history of emotions more generally. It helps expose the complexity of a revolution that cannot be adequately understood in terms of principles alone.`` --Alan Forrest, Times Literary Supplement