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Toward a History of Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

John M. Gates
John M. Gates
Affiliation:
The College of Wooster
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Extract

Revolution, like war, is an historical phenomenon of great importance, and no scholar is likely to argue that revolutions have not had a significant influence on the history of nations and regions, even on the history of the entire world. Unlike war, however, revolution has no coherent chronological history, andthere are no studies of the phenomenon comparable to William McNeill's recent work The Pursuit of Power, or to Theodore Ropp's older but equally important War in the Modem World. Despite volumes written on the subject of revolution by historians, political scientists, sociologists, and others, one searches in vain for a comprehensive history.

Type
The Achievements of Revolutions
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , July 1986 , pp. 535 - 544
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1986

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References

1 McNeill, William H., The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000 (Chicago, 1982);Google ScholarRopp, , War in the Modern World (Durham, N.C., 1959).Google Scholar

2 The absence of historical surveys is evident in the comprehensive review of the literature through 1979 by Zimmerman, Ekkart, Political Violence, Crises, and Revolutions: Theories and Research (Cambridge, 1983),Google Scholar and the extensive bibliography provided by Blackey, Robert, Revolution and Revolutionists: A Comprehensive Guide to the Literature (Santa Barbara, 1982).Google Scholar

3 Hermassi, Elbaki, “Toward a Comparative Study of Revolutions,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 18:2 (1976), 212–13;Google ScholarTilly, Charles, “Revolutions and Collective Vio lence,” in Handbook of Political Science, Greenstein, Fred I. and Polsby, Nelson, eds. (Reading, Mss., 1974), 509;Google ScholarMoore, Barrington, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston, 1967);Google Scholar and Skocpol, Theda, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), 288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Wolin, Sheldon S., “The Politics of the Study of Revolution,” Comparative Politics, 5 (1973), 348,CrossRefGoogle Scholar 353. For examples of the changing nature of revolution, see Friedland, William H. et al. , Revolutionary Theory (Totowa, N.J., 1982), 173;Google ScholarMay, Glenn A., “Why the United States Won the Philippine-American War, 1899–1902,” Pacific Historical Review, 52 (1983), 353–77,CrossRefGoogle Scholar which compares the revolutionary war in the Philippines with that in Vietnam a half century later; and Duiker, William J., The Communist Road to Power in Vietnam (Boulder, 1981), ch. 13 in particular.Google Scholar

5 Laqueur, Walter, “Interpretation of Terrorism: Fact, Fiction, and Political Science,” Jour nal of Contemporary History, 12 (1977), 11;Google Scholaridem., Guerrilla, : A Historical and Critical Study (Boston, 1976),Google Scholar v; and idem., Terrorism (Boston, 1977),Google Scholar ch. 3 in particular; Zagorin, Perez, Rebels and Rulers, 1500–1660 (Cambridge, 1982), 39;Google Scholar and Skocpol, , States and Social Revolu tions, xiv.Google Scholar See, for other examples,Russell, D. E. H., Rebellion, Revolution, and Armed Force: A Comparative Study of Fifteen Countries with Special Emphasis on Cuba and South Africa (New York, 1973);Google ScholarPaige, Jeffrey M., Agrarian Revolution: Social Movements and Export Agriculture in the Underdeveloped World (New York, 1975);Google Scholar and Goldstone, Jack A., “Theories of Revolu tion: The Third Generation,” World Politics, 32 (1980), 425–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Palmer, R. R., The Age of Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1959, 1964);Google ScholarZagorin, , Rebels and Rulers;Google ScholarBillington, James H., Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith (New York, 1980). The literature on revolution is immense. Although Blackey, Revolution and Revolutionists, contains over 6,000 entries, students of specific revolutions will find a number of important works that have not been included. Documentation of an historical overview such as that presented in the remainder of this essay is a truly impossible task, and no attempt will be made to provide specific citations for the material presented. It rests upon a wide variety of sources read by the author in his more than twenty years as a student and teacher of United States, Latin American, and military history.Google Scholar