Associate Professor, Department of History, Sungkyunkwan University

Research Fellow, Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford

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Minchul Kim received his doctorate from the School of History, University of St Andrews in 2018. His work offers a fresh take on the French Revolution, shifting the spotlight to the often-overlooked Directory (1795–1799). Rather than writing this era off as a chaotic pause, he argues that it was actually the laboratory where modern democratic theory was painfully forged. He traces how the concept of “representative democracy” emerged and extensively analyzes the “political economy of democracy,” pushing back against the old assumption that radical revolutionaries were economically illiterate. Through figures like Antoine Français de Nantes, Étienne-Géry Lenglet, Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Chaussard, and Pierre-Antoine Antonelle, he demonstrates their sophisticated efforts to balance a commercial society with democratic mœurs. Crucially, he situates these debates within the languages of the Enlightenment: by examining Bertrand Barère, Sophie de Grouchy, Rougier-Labergerie, Salaville, Jean-Baptiste Say, and Volney, he illustrates how Enlightenment tools—such as natural jurisprudence and historical analysis—were used to navigate the Revolution’s turmoil. His second monograph (in Korean), The Impossible Republic: Commercial Society and the French Revolution, will be published in 2026 by the publisher Changbi.

Responsibilities

• Editorial Board, History of European Ideas: 2024–current
• Scholarly Advisory Board, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment: 2023–current
• International Board, Institute of Intellectual History, University of St Andrews: 2023–current

Books

• An Intellectual History of Democracy (누가 민주주의를 두려워하는가: 지성사로 보는 민주주의 혐오의 역사) (Seoul: Changbi, May 2023), ISBN: 9788936479367.

Articles

• “Commerce and Peace in the French Revolution: Rougier-Labergerie’s International Political Economy,” Journal of the History of Economic Thought (forthcoming in 2026).
• “La Révolution française jugée par un philosophe des Lumières: une étude sur Jacques-Henri Meister,” Nottingham French Studies (forthcoming in 2026).
• “Jean-Baptiste Say and the Political Economy of Republican Utopia in Revolutionary France,” History: The Journal of the Historical Association, 111:394 (January 2026), pp. 54–65.
• “William Godwin on Democracy: The Time-Regime of Political Thought in the Age of Revolutions,” Modern Intellectual History (October 2025).
• “Political Equality and Economic Inequality in Étienne-Géry Lenglet’s Recipe for the Modern Republic,” The Historical Journal (October 2025).
• “프랑스혁명과 언론의 자유: 총재정부기 신문 규제 논쟁,” 서양사론, 166 (September 2025), pp. 41–82.
• “Bordeaux and Abolitionism in Revolutionary France: The Case of André-Daniel Laffon de Ladébat and the Girondins,” French Studies Bulletin, 45:171 (July 2024), pp. 1–4.
• “Sophie de Grouchy’s Political Thought in the Letters on Sympathy (1798),” Journal of the History of Ideas, 85:2 (April 2024), pp. 237–255.
• “Theories of Representative Government against Democracy during the French Revolution,” The Historian, 84 :4 (2022), pp. 565–585. [c2024, January].
• “1799년 11월 9일, 시에예스와 나폴레옹 보나파르트의 무월 18일 정변,” 프랑스사 연구, 48 (February 2023), pp. 93–127.
• “The Political Economy of Democracy in the French Revolution: Publicola Chaussard and the Democrats under the Directory,” History of Political Thought, 43:4 (November 2022), pp. 729–758.
• “18세기 상업의 사회사: 프랑스의 해상무역과 상인들의 세계,” 프랑스사 연구, 46 (February 2022), pp. 143–186.
• “프랑스혁명에 대한 결산으로서의 19세기 정치사상,” 사림, 78 (October 2021), pp. 507–538.
• “근대 초기 유럽 자연법의 세계관과 정치사상,” 역사교육, 159 (September 2021), pp. 281–311.
• “루소의 사회계약 이론에 대한 역사적 독해,” 역사비평, 131 (May 2020), pp. 445–472.
• “분류하고 저장하고 기억하기: 프랑스혁명과 아카이브,” 역사학보, 245 (March 2020), pp. 373–403. (공저자: 김한결)
• “프랑스혁명과 1798년 국민개병제 법안,” 서양사론, 143 (December 2019), pp. 104–132.
• “Démocratiser le gouvernement représentatif? La pensée politique d’Antoine Français de Nantes sous le Directoire,” Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 396 (June 2019), pp. 71–93.
• “Condorcet and the Viability of Democracy in Modern Republics, 1789–1794,” European History Quarterly, 49:2 (April 2019), pp. 179–202.
• “The Historical Politics of Volney’s Leçons d’histoire (1795),” French Studies Bulletin, 39:148 (December 2018), pp. 43–47.
• “Sociability, Natural Jurisprudence, and Republicanism in the French Revolution: Jean-Baptiste Salaville’s Empiricist Science of the Legislator,” French Studies, 72:4 (October 2018), pp. 505–520.
• “Volney and the French Revolution,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 79:2 (April 2018), pp. 221–242.
• “Pierre-Antoine Antonelle and Representative Democracy in the French Revolution,” History of European Ideas, 44:3 (April 2018), pp. 344–369.
• “Republicanism in the Age of Commerce and Revolutions: Barère’s Reading of Montesquieu,” French History, 30:3 (September 2016), pp. 354–375.
• “프랑스 총재정부기 앙토넬의 대의민주주의론,” 서양사 연구, 53 (November 2015), pp. 53–103.
• “공화주의와 민주주의: 17세기 영국에서 18세기 프랑스까지,” 서양사 연구, 51 (November 2014), pp. 31–67.

Translations

• Korean translation of Michael Sonenscher, Capitalism: The Story behind the Word (Seoul, forthcoming in 2026)
• Korean translation of Istvan Hont, Politics in Commercial Society: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith (Seoul, 2025) – <상업사회의 정치사상: 루소와 스미스로 읽는 18세기 지성사>, 김민철 역, 오월의봄, 2025년 9월.
• Korean co-translation of a selection of Catherine II’s letters (Seoul, 2022) – <예카테리나 서한집>, 김민철ㆍ이승은 공역, 읻다, 2022년 4월.
• Korean translation of Nicholas Cronk, Voltaire: A Very Short Introduction (Seoul, 2020) – <인간 볼테르: 계몽의 시인, 관용의 투사>, 김민철 역, 후마니타스, 2020년 9월.
• Korean translation of Franco Venturi, Utopia and Reform in the Enlightenment (Seoul, 2018) – <계몽사상의 유토피아와 개혁: 철학이 아닌 역사로 밝힌 18세기 계몽사상>, 김민철 역, 글항아리, 2018년 11월.
• Korean co-translation of Pierre Serna et al, Pour quoi faire la révolution (Seoul, 2013) – <무엇을 위하여 혁명을 하는가: 끝나지 않은 프랑스혁명>, 김민철ㆍ김민호 공역, 두더지, 2013년 12월.
• Korean co-translation of Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation (Seoul, 2011) – <캘리번과 마녀: 여성, 신체 그리고 시초축적>, 김민철, 황성원 공역, 갈무리, 2011년 11월.

Reviews

• “Katlyn Marie Carter, Democracy in Darkness: Secrecy and Transparency in the Age of Revolutions,” European History Quarterly, 54:3 (2024), pp. 530–532.
• “Can States Trust Each Other?,” History of European Ideas, 45:4 (2019), pp. 603–612 (co-authored with Chaeyoung Yong).
• “J. C. D. Clark, Thomas Paine: Britain, America, and France in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution,” History: The Journal of the Historical Association, 104:360 (2019), pp. 368–370.
• “Mariana Saad, Cabanis. Comprendre l’homme pour changer le monde,” Medical History, 63:1 (2019), pp. 103–104 (co-authored with Richard Whatmore).
• “Chad Denton, Decadence, Radicalism, and the Early Modern French Nobility: The Enlightened and Depraved,” History of European Ideas, 44:3 (2018), pp. 394–395.
• “Recent Volumes in the Complete Works of Voltaire,” History of European Ideas, 43:6 (2017), pp. 698–699.
• “Pierre Serna, L’animal en République: 1789–1802, genèse du droit des bêtes,” History of European Ideas, 43:5 (2017), pp. 531–532.
• “The Voltaire Foundation Edition of the Essai sur les mœurs et l’esprit des nations,” Global Intellectual History, 2:2 (2017), pp. 241–243.
• “Two Visions of Commercial Society in the Eighteenth Century,” Global Intellectual History, 1:1 (2016), pp. 91–94.
• “Andrew Mansfield, Ideas of Monarchical Reform: Fénelon, Jacobitism, and the Political Works of the Chevalier Ramsay,” History of European Ideas, 42:3 (2016), pp. 449–451.
• “Rebecca Spang, Stuff and Money in the Time of the French Revolution,” History of European Ideas, 42:1 (2016), pp. 164–166.
• “Aurelian Craiutu, A Virtue for Courageous Minds: Moderation in French Political Thought, 1748–1830,” History of European Ideas, 41:8 (2015), pp. 1195–1197.
• “The Many Robespierres from 1794 to the Present,” History of European Ideas, 41:7 (2015), pp. 992–996.
• “Jonathan Israel, Revolutionary Ideas: An Intellectual History of the French Revolution from the Rights of Man to Robespierre,” History of European Ideas, 41:6 (2015), pp. 825–830.