Revolutions: A New History

A rich and long history of revolutions--the English Civil War, the American War of Independence, the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions--and their lasting transformations.

Revolutions is a sparkling account of political upheaval and the power of history. We think of revolutions in terms of fleeting events, such as the Fall of the Bastille or the Storming of the Winter Palace. In reality they take decades to burn out, if they ever do. One of our great historians, Donald Sassoon, takes the long view of some of the most celebrated upheavals: the English Civil War, which killed a king; the American War of Independence, which ejected the British but allowed slavery to persist; the French Revolution, which produced the Rights of Man and years of instability; the national revolutions that unified Italy and Germany; and the Russian and Chinese revolutions, which transformed the twentieth century. Revolutions adroitly compares these historical juggernauts to the many rebellions, coups and tumults that time forgot.

It is a history rich in irony and surprises. ’Yankee Doodle Dandy’ was first sung by English troopers to make fun of dishevelled American colonials. The Long March of retreating Chinese Communists assumed a mythical dimension on a par with Washington crossing the Delaware. As Sassoon shows in this tour de force account, revolutions usually catch revolutionaries themselves by surprise, and the consequences are difficult to fathom.

Revolutions will change how you think about the transformative moments in history, both big and small.

’Unique and encyclopaedic...a monument to streetwise and cosmopolitan scholarship’
Guardian (for The Culture of the Europeans)

’Sometimes playful, sometimes caustic, but always to the point. The doyen of comparative historians’
Ferdinand Mount, Times Literary Supplement (for The Anxious Triumph)

Donald Sassoon is the author of the best-selling Mona Lisa: The History of the World’s Most Famous Painting as well as Morbid Symptoms, The Anxious Triumph, The Culture of the Europeans and One Hundred Years of Socialism, all widely translated. He is Emeritus Professor of Comparative European History at Queen Mary, University of London.