Dimensions
155 x 228 x 13mm
An Essay in Interpretation.
This book offers a fresh framework for the historical understanding of revolutions and ideas about revolution. As the glow fades on the triumph of liberalism over the so-called Soviet revolutionary bloc, 'Revolutions and History' shows how revolutions can be located in the longer worldwide spread of modernity. Seen in that setting, earlier views have persistently misconstrued the potential of revolution. Rather than being conscious steps forward into the future, revolutions have always been hazardous responses, disrupting and accommodating a complex historical process.
Yet if the potential of revolution has been overestimated, so has the meaning of its defeat. The author argues that revolutions do not matter just because they happen. They also have a meaning, and that meaning has historical impacts of its own. By adapting ideas from the theory of narrative and the philosophy of action and of time, 'Revolution and History' sets out a new concept of revolutionary narrative.
Suitable for second-year undergraduates and above in history, historical sociology, the sociology of modernity, international relations, political theory, and those on courses on revolution and resistance.
