In changing forever the political landscape of the modern world, the French Revolution was driven by a new type of personality: the confirmed, self-aware revolutionary. Maximilien Robespierre originated the role, inspiring such devoted twentieth-century disciples as Lenin. Although he dominated the Committee for Public Safety -- the executive arm of the revolutionary government -- only during the last year of his life, Robespierre was the Revolution in flesh and blood. He embodied its ideological essence, its unprecedented extremes, its absolutist virtues and vices; he incarnated a new, completely politicized self to lead a new, wholly regenerated society. [Book jacket].