Who took part in the widespread disturbances that periodically shook 18th-century London? What really motivated the food rioters who helped to spark off the French Revolution? How did the movement of agricultural laborers destroying new machinery spread from one village to another in the English countryside? How did the sans-culottes organize in revolutionary Paris?

George RudŽ was the first historian to ask such questions and in doing so he identified "the faces in the crowd" in some of the crucial episodes in modern European history. An established classic of "history from below," The Crowd in History is remarkable above all for the clarity with which it deals with the full sweep of complex events. Whether in Belgrade or Jakarta, crowds continue to make history, and George RudŽ's work retains all its freshness and relevance for students of history and politics and general readers alike.

This is an innovative discussion of the role of ordinary people in some of the turning-points of European history.