This brief summary of Cobban's summary of what he holds to be the "social interpretation" of the French Revolution is no doubt unfair to him - though not, one hopes, as unfair as his must seem to an intelligent Marxist. He is an expert in the field of eighteenth-century French history, a skilled conventional historian; and in the course of these lectures he brings out many pertinent bits of information, displays many useful insights - adds, in short, to our knowledge and understanding. But to this reviewer his basic position seems quite as erroneous as Lefebvre's seems to him.