The Revolution to Come : A History of an Idea from Thucydides to Lenin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Edelstein, Dan.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (433 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2025.

Summary:

How an event once considered the greatest of all political dangers came to be seen as a solution to all social problemsPolitical thinkers from Plato to John Adams saw revolutions as a grave threat to society and advocated for a constitution that prevented them by balancing social interests and forms of government. The Revolution to Come traces how evolving conceptions of history ushered in a faith in the power of revolution to create more just and reasonable societies.Taking readers from Greek antiquity to Leninist Russia, Dan Edelstein describes how classical philosophers viewed history as chaotic and directionless, and sought to keep historical change—especially revolutions—at bay. This conception prevailed until the eighteenth century, when Enlightenment thinkers conceived of history as a form of progress and of revolution as its catalyst. These ideas were put to the test during the French Revolution and came to define revolutions well into the twentieth century. Edelstein demonstrates how the coming of the revolution leaves societies divided over its goals, giving rise to new forms of violence in which rivals are targeted as counterrevolutionaries.A panoramic work of intellectual history, The Revolution to Come challenges us to reflect on the aims and consequences of revolution and to balance the value of stability over the hope for change in our own moment of fear and upheaval.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction: Come the Revolution

Part I Fortune’s Revolutions

Chapter one. Revolution in Ancient Greek Thought

Chapter two. Rome, Polybius, and the Revolution of Governments

Chapter three. How Translations of Polybius Transformed Political Thought

Chapter four. The Misfortunes of History

Part II Constitutions and Revolutions in the British World, 1642–1787

Introduction

Chapter five. An Eccentric Constitution (1642–60)

Chapter six. Revolution Principles (1688–1760)

Chapter seven. The Last of the Polybians (1764–87)

Part III Modern Times

Chapter eight. The Progress of History

Chapter nine. Enlightenment Revolutions

Chapter ten. The Dual Power in the French Revolution

Part IV The Progress of Revolution

Chapter eleven. Liberal Revolution and Its Discontents

Chapter twelve. Revolutionary Futures: The Politics of Imagination

Chapter thirteen. Revolution in Permanence

Chapter fourteen. Red Leviathan: authority and violence

Conclusion The Coming Revolution?

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780691231846

0691231842

OCLC:

1492931006