What does this quote mean? “[On closer examination] the drastic social changes imputed to the Revolution seem less clear-cut or actually not apparent at all. The ‘bourgeoisie’ are said in the classic Marxist accounts to have been the authors and beneficiaries of the event. . . . [However] continuities [between pre-Revolutionary and Revolutionary France] seem as marked as discontinuities.

Nor does the Revolution seem any longer to conform to a grand historical design, preordained by inexorable forces of social change. Instead it seems a thing of contingencies and unforeseen consequences (not least the summoning of the Estates-General itself). [And] instead of a single Revolution imposed by Paris on the rest of a homogeneous France, [the course of the Revolution in the provinces] was often determined by local passions and interests. . . . [Understanding the role of] individual agency . . . [has] become correspondingly more important"