This collection of essays by American and French scholars explores the political, cultural and social implications of the most fundamentally modern event, the French Revolution. The contributors contend that the vocabulary and spirit of the French Revolution has exercised greater influence on the modern world than the more moderate and by all appearances more successful American Revolution. The Legacy of the French Revolution delineates the distinctive characters of the American and French revolutions and analyses the different variants of democratic political traditions that have evolved from this seminal event. This book should be of particular interest to political theorists, political historians and students of democratic theory.