A new biography of French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat offers a lens through which to consider two very different reigns of terror – and what their histories might tell us about Donald Trump’s America.

President George W. Bush declared the War on Terror in 2001. The US has been stuck in the quagmire of its ‘forever war’ from then until now. Instead of getting out of it, successive presidents have dug in deeper, accusing new enemies of terrorism, and leaving a trail of destruction and failed states across the Middle East that have lasting consequences. Armed conflict with an emotion – ’terrorism’ – is nonsensical, so a war against terror can never be won, lost, nor abandoned.

Unlike the forever war from 2001, France’s Terreur lasted under a year (September 1793–July 1794), while the French Revolution was over in a decade (May 1789–November 1799). For centuries, Americans proudly recalled the inspiration their own Declaration of Independence gave to France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, claiming that US closeness to France developed from the friendship between Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette, who fought in both wars. But one revolution led to another. The French........

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