Revolutions and History

Acknowledgements.

ntroduction: Meanings of Revolution in Time and Space.

Part I: How Revolutions Happen:.

1. Revolutions in Past History.

2. Why Revolutions have Occurred.

3. The Trend in Revolutions.

4. Revolutions and Modernity in the Twentieth Century.

Part II: Why Revolutions Matter: .

5. Revolutions and Historical Change: the 'Revolutionary
Narrative'.

6. The Revolutionary Narrative in History.

7. The Revolutionary Narrative at the End of the Twentieth
Century.

Appendix: Revolutions and the Understanding of History.

Notes.

References.

Index.

'Revolutions and History combines the virtues of two very
different kinds of study. It is a lucid, concise and reliable guide
through the forest of literature on the subject: an ideal
introduction for students. It is also a wide-ranging essay full of
original ideas on topics as diverse as world-system theory and the
effects of what the author describes as 'the revolutionary
narrative'. I don't know of any book which so skilfully combines
history with theory in a study of revolution.' Peter Burke,
Emmanuel College, Cambridge

'[Covers] the topic from its beginnings in modern European
history up to the present. Parker has more in mind than a mere
typology. He wishes also to give a structural-analytic explanation
of revolutions, along with a hermeneutically inflected history of
their appearance over time.' American Historical Review

Noel Parker is Senior Lecturer in European Politics, in the Department of Linguistic and International Studies at the University of Surrey.

N. Parker, University of Surrey