![]() ![]() Thermidor coming up!” - and that in turn leads to ideas like being carried along by irresistible historical forces, which de-emphasizes human agency (both practical and moral) and leads to all sorts of unpleasant rationalizations. Stages are great for lesson plans (as another reviewer points out), but the concept is dangerous because the claim can be made (and a second reviewer makes it) that such schematics or checklists can “predict the future.” I think that claim confuses an interpretation of the world with “a description of reality” - “We’re in the reign of terror. However, in this quick tour of Crinton’s book, I’m going to avoid (I hope) being seduced, especially by the idea of stages. It has had such a rare seductive appeal that policy-makers have, on occasion, confused it with a description of reality and allowed it to guide their actions.Īnd from (sorry) a prolific Amazon reviewer:īrinton’s Anatomy of a Revolution is based on a brilliant premise – that all revolutions go through specific “stages.” Using the English, French, and Russian revolutions and the American War for Independence as his models, he seeks to show common threads between the four of them. Brinton imposes a vision of order on the chaos of revolutionary politics. It offers an exemplary application of the comparative historical method it discusses its subject matter brilliantly it provides a coherent and parsimonious conceptual scheme of a central political issue. This book, which compares four case studies - the English, the American, the French, and the Russian Revolutions - is rich in insights. Here’s a review from the Journal of Peace Research:įor half a century Crane Brinton’s Anatomy of Revolution has remained one of the most widely read scholarly accounts of revolutions. (People on Wall Street have no trouble reading and quoting Lenin, after all, since they worry about political risk he’s a clear thinker, and a master at his trade.) Brinton’s Anatomy was first written in 1938, and revised in 19. Me, I’m not so sure that’s true, and not sure that would be a good thing, if true, but it’s certainly a matter of due diligence to consider it. One of my tsundoku has long been Crane Brinton’s The Anatomy of Revolution a friend of mine recommended this little paperback to me, since they believe the United States is in a pre-revolutionary state. An appropriate topic for Labor Day, given the history? I’d say yes.
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