Alfred Cobban

This occurred in 1791 when the National Constituent Assembly abolished the tithe and sold Church properties.

Cobban also notes that French society still had a significant amount of social inequality, as many nobles still retained political and economic leadership and dominance under the collective title with the bourgeois as 'Notables'.

Sex equality did not advance far, with women still considered the 'lesser' sex as they lost the rights gained during the Revolution under the reign of Napoleon I.

Cobban's views and works in the macrocosm were to be the inspiration and birthplace of the historical school now known as "Revisionism" or "Liberalism".

Along with George V. Taylor, Cobban vehemently attacked the traditional Marxist conception of the past within Marx's dialectic, particularly in his work The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution.

His resultant argument was that the Revolution could not be seen as a social revolution exacerbated by economic changes (specifically the development of capitalism and by corollary, class conflict between the bourgeoisie and the nobility).

Rather, argued Cobban, the French Revolution should be seen as a political revolution with social consequences.

Alfred Bert Carter Cobban (24 May 1901 – 1 April 1968) was an English historian and Professor of French History at University College, London, who along with prominent French historian François Furet advocated a classical liberal view of the French Revolution.

Born in London, Cobban was educated at Latymer Upper School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.

Before his professorship at University College London, he was a lecturer in history at King's College in Newcastle-on-Tyne (now part of Newcastle University).

He held a Rockefeller Fellowship for research in France and was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and Harvard University.

An editor of History magazine, Cobban also published articles in the English Historical Review, the Political Science Quarterly, International Affairs and other historical and political journals.

A photograph of Alfred Cobban, a complete list of his publications, and an essay on his life and work by C.V. Wedgwood, may be found in 'French Government and Society 1500–1850: Essays in Memory of Alfred Cobban', ed.

In 1954 Cobban used his inaugural lecture as professor of French history at University College London to attack what he called the "social interpretation" of the French Revolution.

The lecture was later published as "The Myth of the French Revolution" (1955).

Cobban and Furet believed that the Revolution did little to change French society, in direct opposition to the orthodox Marxist school, which saw the Revolution as the rise of the bourgeoisie and proletariat against the nobility and the transition from feudalism to capitalism, making it a symbol of progress.

He believed traditional landowners and the middle class wanted access to political power.

He had a predominantly negative view on the incumbent system.

Cobban claimed that the quality of daily life after the Revolution remained basically unchanged, identifying that:

Cobban claimed that the urban poor fared worse than before as they lost the charity supplied by the Roman Catholic Church.

Cobban died in London on 1 April 1968.

J.F. Bosher (London, The Athlone Press of the University of London, 1973), 336 pp. The essays in this volume were all written by his students, except one by his friend, George Rudé.