Scripting Revolution: A Historical Approach to the Comparative Study of Revolutions

Synopsis

The Arab Spring Was Heralded And Publicly Embraced By Foreign Leaders Of Many Countries That Define Themselves By Their Own Historic Revolutions. The Contributors To This Volume Examine The Legitimacy Of These Comparisons By Exploring Whether Or Not All Modern Revolutions Follow A Pattern Or Script. Traditionally, Historians Have Studied Revolutions As Distinct And Separate Events. Drawing On Close Familiarity With Many Different Cultures, Languages, And Historical Transitions, This Anthology Presents The First Cohesive Historical Approach To The Comparative Study Of Revolutions. As Scholars Seek To Make Sense Of The Latest Flurry Of Revolutionary Activity, They Are Hampered By The Fact That There Is Currently No Theory With Any Broad Support Of How And Why Revolutions Occur Or Follow Recognizable Paths. This Volume Of Essays Proposes A New Approach To The Comparative Study Of Revolutions. Its Guiding Insight Is That Revolutions Are Scripted; They Create, Inherit, Enact, And Extend Recognizable Scripts That Offer Frameworks For Political Action. This Volume Argues That The American And French Revolutions Provided The Genesis Of The Revolutionary Script That Was Rewritten By Marx, Which Was Revised By Lenin And The Bolshevik Revolution, Which Was Revised Again By Mao And The Chinese Communist Revolution. Later Revolutions In Cuba And Iran Improvised Further. This Script Has Once Again Been On Display In The Capitals Of The Middle East And North Africa, And It Will Serve As The Model For Future Revolutionary Movements. -- From Back Cover. Did The English Have A Script For Revolution In The Seventeenth Century? / Tim Harris -- God's Revolutions : England, Europe, And The Concept Of Revolution In The Mid-seventeenth Century / David R. Como -- Every Great Revolution Is A Civil War / David Armitage -- Revolutionizing Revolution / Keith Michael Baker -- Constitutionalism : The Happiest Revolutionary Script / Jack Rakove -- From Constitutional To Permanent Revolution : 1649 And 1793 / Dan Edelstein -- Scripting The French Revolution, Inventing The Terror : Marat's Assassination And Its Interpretations / Guillaume Mazeau -- The Antislavery Script : Haiti's Place In The Narrative Of Atlantic Revolution / Malick W. Ghachem -- Scripting The German Revolution : Marx And 1848 / Gareth Stedman Jones -- Reading And Replaying The Revolutionary Script : Revolutionary Mimicry In Nineteenth-century France / Dominica Chang -- Une Révolution Vraiment Scientifique : Russian Terrorism, The Escape From The European Orbit, And The Invention Of A New Revolutionary Paradigm / Claudia Verhoeven -- Scripting The Russian Revolution / Ian D. Thatcher -- You Say You Want A Revolution : Revolutionary And Reformist Scripts In China, 1894-2014 / Jeffrey Wasserstrom And Yidi Wu -- Mao's Little Red Book : The Spiritual Atom Bomb And Its Global Fallout / Alexander C. Cook -- The Reel, Real And Hyper-real Revolution : Scripts And Counter-scripts In Cuban Documentary Film / Lillian Guerra -- Writing On The Wall : 1968 As Event And Representation / Julian Bourg -- Scripting A Revolution : Fate Or Fortuna In The 1979 Revolution In Iran / Abbas Milani -- The Multiple Scripts Of The Arab Revolutions / Silvana Toska. Edited By Keith Michael Baker And Dan Edelstein. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.