Reflections on the Revolution in France causes and sided with the Americans in their war for independence; opponents and allies alike were surprised at the strength of his conviction that the French Revolution was a disaster and the revolutionists 'a swinish multitude.'". In 1789, soon after the fall of the Bastille, the French aristocrat Charles-Jean-François Depont asked his impressions of the Revolution; Burke replied with two letters. The longer, second letter, drafted after he read Richard Price's speech "A Discourse on the Love of Our Country" in January 1790, became "Reflections on the Revolution in France". Published in November 1790, the work was an instant bestseller:
Historiography of the French Revolution American historian working in this tradition is Keith Michael Baker. A collection of his essays ("Inventing the French Revolution", 1990) examines the ideological origins of the Revolution. Timothy Tackett in particular has changed approach, preferring archival research to historiographical dialectics. He challenges the ideas about nobility and bourgeoise in "Becoming a Revolutionary" (2006), a "collective biography" via letters and diaries of the third estate deputies of 1789. His other major work is "When the King Took Flight" (2004), a study of the rise of republicanism and radicalism in the Legislative Assembly in 1791/2. Tackett also has several works focusing on