The Anatomy of Revolution Revisited
A Comparative Analysis of England, France, and Russia

This study aims to update a classic of comparative revolutionary analysis, Crane Brinton's 1938 study The Anatomy of Revolution.

Bailey Stone (Author)

9781107045729, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 November 2013

544 pages
22.9 x 3 x 15.2 cm, 0.89 kg

'As its title suggests, this book seeks to offer a comparative analysis of the three great revolutions in European history - the English (1640–60), the French (1789–99), and the Russian (1917–29), revisiting themes first explored by Crane Brinton in his Anatomy of Revolution of 1938. … There is much to admire here, and throughout the author makes a powerful case for the importance of comparative history.' Tim Harris, Journal of Modern History

This study aims to update a classic of comparative revolutionary analysis, Crane Brinton's 1938 study The Anatomy of Revolution. It invokes the latest research and theoretical writing in history, political science and political sociology to compare and contrast, in their successive phases, the English Revolution of 1640–60, the French Revolution of 1789–99 and the Russian Revolution of 1917–29. This book intends to do what no other comparative analysis of revolutionary change has yet adequately done. It not only progresses beyond Marxian socioeconomic 'class' analysis and early 'revisionist' stresses on short-term, accidental factors involved in revolutionary causation and process; it also finds ways to reconcile 'state-centered' structuralist accounts of the three major European revolutions with postmodernist explanations of those upheavals that play up the centrality of human agency, revolutionary discourse, mentalities, ideology and political culture.

Introduction: from revolutionary theory to revolutionary historiography: England, France, and Russia
1. Anciens régimes
2. Transitions: breakthroughs to revolution
3. Revolutionary 'honeymoons'?
4. The 'revolutionizing' of the revolutions
5. Revolutionary climacterics
6. Thermidor?
Conclusion: 'revolutions from below' and 'revolutions from above'.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1], European history [HBJD]