David A. Bell publishes a review of Dan Edelstein's 2025 book The Revolution to Come: A History of an Idea from Thucydides to Lenin. Princeton University Press. ("The Jervis Forum", 6th February 2026)
Dan Edelstein has written a truly important work of history—in my view, one of the most important of the decade. On one level, it is the most complete and persuasive history we have of the concept of “revolution,” across the sweep of Western history from the Greeks to the present. This achievement, hard won from research in an impressively voluminous source base, would already be cause for celebration. But in addition, the book has deep implications for how we should understand modern revolutions themselves, above all the American and the French: a remarkable feat for such a relatively slim volume. And along the way Edelstein implicitly makes one of the strongest cases in recent memory for the importance of the Western canon. Do you want to understand the American constitution, and all the problems it poses today? Edelstein responds: Read Polybius and Thucydides.
Jervis Forum Review 165: Bell on Edelstein, The Revolution to Come - H-Diplo|RJISSF
No comments:
Post a Comment