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Comment by ImaCake | Hacker News Reader

Building on the history theme here; plenty of modern revolutions have been preceeded by a rise in polarising media. The french revolution had the pulp paper of Jean-Paul Marat [0], the soviets had Lenin's writings [1], and the Nazis had Julius Streicher's Der Sturmer [2]. It's not difficult to draw comparisons to Bannon's Breitbart here.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Marat 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iskra 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_St%C3%BCrmer

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Nit: the first issue of Marat's "L'Ami du peuple" wasn't published until several months after the fall of the Bastille and thus played no role in radicalizing the populace prior to the Revolution.

But the broader point that the French Revolution was proceeded by a radicalized literature [0] is accurate (Sieyes' "What is the Third Estate?" is the most famous work [1]). Though it's contribution to the origins of the Revolution is the matter of some debate [2].

[0] For a good overview, see the work of Robert Darnton, esp. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674536579 [1] https://fr.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Qu’est-ce_que_le_tiers_état... (I don't recall if there's a full English translation of this... there are excerpts in Keith Baker's French Revolution reader (U Chicago Press) [2] One of the better treatments of this is https://www.dukeupress.edu/The-Cultural-Origins-of-the-Frenc...

Ok but the fall of the bastile was an early milestone, it was over 3 years before the insurrection of august the 10th toppled the king

Thanks this is a great nit pick :) My knowledge on this topic is hazy at best so I jumped to the most famous populist screed writer of the french revolution.

Correlation does not imply causation. Moreover, when hasn't there been polarizing media? There are countless radical publications that did not imminently result in a political revolution. Also, today's afternoon riot doesn't really compare with the aforementioned historical events.

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