The Shortest Nineteenth Century

According to one of my uncles, the terms “right” and “left” derive from the fact that conservatism is correct while liberalism is wrong. You know, because we say “that’s right” to mean “that’s correct” and “that’s left” when we’ve suffered a serious brain hemorrhage and don’t remember how words work. In actuality, the right/left divide comes to us from the French Revolution of 1789, when the members of the National Assembly who supported the Ancien Régime would sit to the king’s right, while those in favor of the revolution sat to the left. Presto blammo: a rubric that would confuse dumb uncles for the next 240 years. Still, it’s a helpful formulation for the rest of us, if often an overly simplistic one. When I introduce the five factions from Laurent Rix’s exceptional Revolutions: France 1820-1880, I lay them out from right to left. All the easier to explain their objectives. Often, players appreciate this gesture, especially for the factions in the middle, whose aims might seem…