Theories of Revolution in Contemporary Historiography

Abstract

Revolution has been the subject of investigation by philosophers and historians since almost the beginning of the Western intellectual tradition. Plato and Aristotle were the first to deal with revolution as a theoretical problem and Thucydides the first to give it reflective historical treatment.2 No one who reads it is likely to forget Thucydides' penetrating account of revolutionary psychology and the effects of class war upon the Greek states. It is highly critical of revolution, yet is, on the whole, the fruit of profound insight and detached observation. From the time of Thucydides to the eighteenth century, a succession of historians, most of them men of affairs who wrote on history and politics as an avocation or as the occupation of exile or retirement, have thrown fitful light upon revolution and civil war. To this company belong Sallust, Machiavelli, Commines, Davila, de Retz, Harrington, Clarendon, and Montesquieu, together with some other well or

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