This course will run from October to December 2025 and will be delivered entirely online. It will include ten live lectures with discussion led by one of the academics on the course but will be supported by the other academics taking part.

Throughout the course you will have access to a specially selected bank of online resources to support your learning and understanding of the topic. Recordings of the live sessions will be added to the resource unit around a week after they have taken place.

Those who sign up for the course can dip in and out as they wish, attend the live lectures, or catch up on the recordings afterwards; however, we encourage live participation in these lectures and workshops to make the most of the experience. There are no requirements for participants to produce any output or assessment for the course – just to take part and enjoy the opportunity to learn about a fascinating subject from leading academics in the field.

Unless otherwise stated, all sessions will take place between 7.30–9.00pm (45mins lecture, 45mins chat, discussion and Q&A). You need to book for the course to receive the meeting link details and access to the accompanying resource unit.

Sessions include:

• • 7 Oct: The Ancien Regime: the shadow of Louis XIV | William Doyle
• • 14 Oct: Overthrow or Collapse? the end of the Ancien Regime | William Doyle
• • 21 Oct: 1789 as social revolution | David Andress
• • 28 Oct: Politics 1: The Monarchy, 1787-92 | John Hardman
• • 4 Nov: Popular radicalism 1790-94 | David Andress
• • 11 Nov: Politics 2: The Republic, 1792-95 | John Hardman
• • 18 Nov: The Army of the French Revolution | Alan Forrest
• • 25 Nov: The Legacy of the Revolutionary Wars | Alan Forrest
• • 2 Dec: 1789: A Global Revolution | Malcolm Crook
• • 9 Dec: The French Revolution and Democracy | Malcolm Crook

This course is free to all current HA members, subject to booking. You must have a valid membership at the time of booking and attending the course. If you have a corporate membership, the additional staff users on your account can also register for free.

The course is charged at £60 (including VAT) for non-members. Registration is available online only through Cademy, and payment must be made at the point of booking by credit or debit card.

To access the module content, you will either need to have an active HA membership or a free basic account. Become a member or register for a free basic account.

The course is open to everybody but is particularly designed for lifelong learners. It is available to anybody with an interest or curiosity in the topic who wants to learn more while developing their historical knowledge and skills, without the pressure of any form of assessment. It is ideal for those who prefer a flexible pace of learning and who would like the opportunity to interact with the course leaders and participants. You do not need any prior knowledge of the topic to take part.

Professor David Andress is at Portsmouth University and is an historian of the French Revolution, and of the social and cultural history of conflicts in Europe and the Atlantic world more generally in the period between the 1760s and 1840s. His publications include: The Terror (2005), an edited major collection of essays, The Oxford Handbook of the French Revolution (2015). Recently he edited the Routledge Handbook of French History (2024), a comprehensive overview with over sixty contributors. He is a popular source for A-level students, as the author of the Connell Guide to the French Revolution, (2016).

Professor Malcolm Crook is Emeritus Professor of French History, Keele University. Author of  Toulon in War and Revolution, from the Ancien Regime to the Restoration, 1750–1820 (1991); Elections in the French Revolution, 1789–1799: an apprenticeship in democracy (1996 and 2002); Napoleon Comes to Power: democracy and dictatorship in revolutionary France, 1795–1804 (editor) (1998); Revolutionary France 1788–1880 (2002).

Professor Willian Doyle is Emeritus Professor of History, Bristol University. Author of The Parlement of Bordeaux and the End of the Old Regime, 1771–1790 (1974); The Old European Order, 1660–1800 (1978); Origins of the French Revolution (1980); The Ancien Regime (1986); The Oxford History of the French Revolution (1989); Venality: the sale of offices in eighteenth-century France (1996); The French Revolution: a very short introduction (2001).

Professor Alan Forrest is Emeritus Professor of Modern History at York. Between 2005 and 2009 he led a research project on ‘The Experience of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars’. Recent books include Waterloo, in Oxford’s ‘Great Battles’ series, which examines the different ways in which the battle was remembered and commemorated in the nations represented on the battlefield; and The Death of the French Atlantic, for Oxford University Press, which discusses the importance of trade, war and slavery in the crisis afflicting France’s Atlantic ports in the Age of Revolution. In 2016, he co-edited, with Matthias Middell (University of Leipzig), The Routledge Companion to the French Revolution in World History.

He is general editor of a three-volume Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars, Cambridge University Press. Since retirement Alan Forrest continues to work with the International Commission on the History of the French Revolution, a commission of the World Historical Congress (CISH). He has served as a trustee on the British Napoleonic Bicentenary Trust.

Dr John Hardman was a lecturer at Edinburgh and Sussex universities. His books include The French Revolution: a political history (Y2025); The Life of Louis XVI (2023); Overture to Revolution: the 1787 Assembly of Notables and the crisis of France’s Old Regime (2010); French Politics 1774–1789 (1995). Robespierre (1999). He also advises on TV and film productions.

Booking is now available via this link. The course is free for members or £60 for non-members. More information about membership can be found here.

(Registration is via Cademy which opens in a new window. Please read the course terms and conditions before registering)