From Ancient Egypt to the Arab Spring, iconoclasm

has occurred throughout history and across cultures.

Both a vehicle for protest and a means of imagining

change, it was rife during the tumultuous years of

the French Revolution, and in this richly illustrated

book Richard Clay examines how politically diverse

groups used such attacks to play out their own

complex power struggles.

Drawing on extensive archival evidence to uncover

a variety of iconoclastic acts - from the beheading

or defacing of sculptures, to the smashing of busts,

slashing of paintings and toppling of statues - Clay

explores the turbulent political undercurrents in

revolutionary Paris. Objects whose physical integrity

had been respected for years were now targets for

attack: while many revolutionary leaders believed

that the aesthetic or historical value of symbols

should save them from destruction, Clay argues that

few Parisians shared such views. He suggests that

beneath this treatment of representational objects

lay a sophisticated understanding of the power

of public spaces and symbols to convey meaning.

Unofficial iconoclasm became a means of exerting

influence over government policy, leading to

official programmes of systematic iconoclasm that

transformed Paris.

Iconoclasm in revolutionary Paris is not only a major

contribution to the historiography of so-called

'vandalism' during the Revolution, but it also has

significant implications for debates about heritage

preservation in our own time.