Louis Blanc (1811–82) was a French historian and politician whose writings had a considerable influence on the development of French socialism. In his famous Organisation du travail (1839) he called for social reform by action of the State, an unusual position at the time. As a member of the provisional government established after the 1848 Revolution, he campaigned for workers' rights, advocating the creation of cooperative workshops. His twelve-volume Histoire de la Révolution Française (1847–62), most of which he wrote while in exile in England, combines years of thorough research with Blanc's characteristic socialist and republican enthusiasm. Volume 12, first published in 1862, focuses on the period of the 'White Terror', during which royalist forces attacked Jacobins and their suspected allies. It covers the social implications of the Revolution, and concludes with the end of the National Convention, which had governed France between 1792 and 1795.
