Reddit mentions of The Oxford History of the French Revolution

Oxford History of the French Revolution by William Doyle

Khan Academy has a bunch of great video lectures about the French Revolution and Napoleon

http://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/history

Start with something like William Doyle's textbook The Oxford History of the French Revolution.

Then use the bibliography to guide further reading in subjects you're interested in.

The literature that has been written on the French Revolution is so vast that it's difficult to know where to start. I took a class on it my junior year of college, and here are just a couple of recommendations:

"The Oxford History of the French Revolution", by William Doyle, is a pretty good general overview, and helped me keep track of all the events (and boy are there a lot of them). Here is a link to it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Oxford-History-French-Revolution/dp/019925298X

Wikipedia actually has a surprisingly well-written article on the historiography of the Revolution. It is a helpful place to start, because it lists many of the most important authors and their positions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_the_French_Revolution#Contemporary_and_19th-century_historians

Timothy Tackett's book "When The King Took Flight" is a good book about the Legislative Assembly during 1791 to 1792, and King Louis XVI's attempted flight from Paris to escape across the border. This focuses on a specific incident in the Revolution.

As for when the Revolution was over, and its legacy? As Zhou Enlai said, "It is too early to say." :P But there are several conflicting dates--such as in 1794 when the Jacobins were overthrown and replaced with moderate leaders, when Napoleon seized power in 1799, or when he was defeated in 1815 and imprisoned on St. Helena. And the Revolution had a massive impact on Europe and the world--it shook aristocrats and monarchs, and after it was over things would never be the same.

Hope this helps!

The Oxford histories tend to be pretty good. I haven't read this one but Oxford is a reliable publisher. Schama gave this one a good review which means it should be clear and readable as well as comprehensive. If you'd like some insight into the cultural issues that may have led to the French Revolution, I highly recommend the work of Robert Darnton. His collection of essays in The Great Cat Massacre paints an amazing picture of 18th century French culture. The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Prerevolutionary France tackles head-on the problem of to what degree the high Enlightenment (1750-) informed and influenced the revolution.

There have been entire libraries written on the French Revolution. Doyle did a very good Oxford History of it. Used it as a sorr of textbook for my French Revolution undergraduate course.

You can try the following:

http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-History-French-Revolution/dp/019925298X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1312906453&sr=8-2