Léonard Bourdon: The Career of a Revolutionary, 1754-1807 illustrates the ways in which one individual was affected by and influenced the long and turbulent course of the French Revolution. It also rescues an active, intelligent and interesting man from a prolonged period of scholarly neglect and redeems his reputation from being perceived as a particularly cruel revolutionary terrorist.
Sydenham follows Bourdon’s political career from the final days of the old monarchy through Bourdon’s active participation in the Revolution. Bourdon was always aware that political development must be accompanied by educational change, and his lifelong interest in education is an integral part of his story.
Bourdon left remarkably few personal papers. During the painstaking exploration for details of his life, several critical as well as unfamiliar events of the period have been illuminated, suggesting that similar misrepresentations of many other relatively unknown French revolutionaries have distorted current understanding of this period, crucial to the growth and development of modern democracy.

Michael J. Sydenham, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, Carleton University, was the author of two lively general studies of the Revolutionary period, The French Revolution and The First French Republic, but is still known primarily for his seminal study of The Girondins. In contrast, this biography is sympathetic to one of their most notorious Montagnard opponents.

Michael J. Sydenham's profile page

• Winner, Winner of the 2000 First Prize in the International Napoleonic Society Literary Competition

...an important book, one that is original in the sense that it rectifies some distorted accounts in the past and offers new insights into the life of an important, if not prominent, revolutionary

James A. Leith

Sydenham makes an outstanding contribution, by virtue of his own mature development as a life-long student of the revolution

J. F. Bosher

Léonard Bourdon is highly recommended reading for students and scholars of the French Revolution

James A. Cox, <i>Bookwatch</i>