Scripting Revolution (eBook, ePUB)

A Historical Approach to the Comparative Study of Revolutions
Redaktion: Baker, Keith Michael; Edelstein, Dan

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

The "Arab Spring" was heralded and publicly embraced by foreign leaders of many countries that define themselves by their own historic revolutions. The contributors to this volume examine the legitimacy of these comparisons by exploring whether or not all modern revolutions follow a pattern or script. Traditionally, historians have studied revolutions as distinct and separate events. Drawing on close familiarity with many different cultures, languages, and historical transitions, this anthology presents the first cohesive historical approach to the comparative study of revolutions.

This volume argues that the American and French Revolutions provided the genesis of the revolutionary "script" that was rewritten by Marx, which was revised by Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution, which was revised again by Mao and the Chinese Communist Revolution. Later revolutions in Cuba and Iran improvised further. This script is once again on display in the capitals of the Middle East and North Africa, and it will serve as the model for future revolutionary movements.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 448
• Erscheinungstermin: 7. Oktober 2015
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780804796194
• Artikelnr.: 48418221

Autorenporträt

Keith M. Baker is Professor of Early Modern European History at Stanford University. His books include What's Left of Enlightenment? and Inventing the French Revolution. Dan Edelstein is Professor of French and History at Stanford University. He is the author of The Terror of Natural Right: Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution, which won the 2009 Oscar Kenshur Book Prize.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1Did the English Have a Script for Revolution in the Seventeenth Century?
chapter abstract
This chapter examines the various resonances the word revolution held in
seventeenth-century England. When used in a political context, it rarely
meant turning full cycle or returning to the status quo ante, but rather a
sudden and dramatic change, a turning quite around, or a regime change. The
English commonly used the term revolution (or its plural revolutions) to
refer to the political and religious upheavals of the period, and although
revolutions did not necessarily have to involve fundamental or radical
change, they could do, and by the end of the century there had emerged the
notion that these revolutions had been beneficial and desirable because
they had delivered England (and Scotland and Ireland) from tyranny.
England's script for revolution was linked to the question of how to bring
about the desired regime change and thus whether it was possible to resist
a monarchy that was deemed absolute.
2God's Revolutions: England, Europe, and the Concept of Revolution in the
mid-Seventeenth Century
chapter abstract
This chapter explores the early use of the word and concept of "revolution"
as deployed during the English Civil Wars and Interregnum. The politicized
usage of the word was chiefly adapted from continental sources, reflecting
both intensifying parallel political conflicts in several parts of Europe,
and increasingly efficient networks for the transnational dissemination of
news and information. After the regicide in 1649, the term "revolution"
appeared with growing frequency in England, as contemporaries groped for a
new vocabulary to describe the churning constitutional instability and
change that plagued their polity. Although used in several ways, the word
was appropriated with particular enthusiasm by radical puritan republicans,
who often invoked it to describe God's providential disruption of
established forms and constitutional order.
3Every Great Revolution is a Civil War
chapter abstract
The conceptual categories of 'revolution' and 'civil war' are as contested
as they are porous. This essay argues that the modern 'script' of
revolution was not as original as some scholars have claimed. As a
narrative of the violent and transformative reorganization of sovereignty,
the revolutionary script developed after 1789 had morphological and
genealogical similarities to an earlier and much more enduring script of
political change: the Roman script of civil war. The essay traces the
various narratives derived in classical and post-classical texts from the
Roman experience of civil war and shows how Roman conceptions of civil war
shaped later narratives of revolution. It concludes that civil war was the
original genus of which revolution was only a late-evolving species.
4Revolutionizing Revolution
chapter abstract
This chapter draws on digitized databases and other materials to
investigate meanings of the term "revolution" and its cognates in English,
American, and French imprints in the century between the Glorious
Revolution and the French Revolution. It traces a shift from the notion of
revolution as a fact, an expression of change and vicissitude generally
recognized ex post facto, to a conception of revolution as a collective
political act oriented toward the future. It points to the role of
Enlightenment thinking in the revalorization of revolution as long term
transformation and, more particularly, to the significance of
Raynal'sRévolution de l'Amériquein narrativizing revolution as immediate
and ongoing political action. It concludes by examining the emergence of a
revolutionary script in the French Revolution.
5Constitutionalism: The Happiest Revolutionary Script
chapter abstract
Two "stories" provide the essential script for the major aspects of the
American Revolution. One script is a story of colonial resistance to
imperial policies. Here the Americans followed familiar arguments about the
careful yet calculated ways in which "a long train of abuses" could lead an
unjustly governed people to assert their rights, including a right to
revolution, against the threat of tyranny. The second story is about the
remarkable way in which Americans worked out the central problems of
constitution making in the decade after independence. This story provides
an ideal happy ending to the complicated dynamics of revolution, by solving
problems few other revolutions have mastered.
6From Constitutional to Permanent Revolution: 1649 and 1793
chapter abstract
In early-modern times, the telos of revolution was generally perceived as
the ratification of a new constitution. Constitutions provided the
foundation for the political authority of the new regime; they derived
their own legitimacy as expressions of popular sovereignty. This
revolutionary theory was first enacted during the English Civil War; it
culminated with the American Revolution. The French Revolution started off
during this same path, but in the years 1792-94, a new model of revolution
emerged. In a dizzying circuit, it made "revolution" the new source of
authority for the revolution, and eschewed constitutionalism for what later
theorists (starting with Marx) would refer to as the "permanence" of
revolution. This new, future-oriented model could legitimate actions
undertaken by the State, rather than just a revolutionary people.
7Scripting the French Revolution, Inventing the Terror: Marat's
Assassination and Its Interpretations
chapter abstract
Despite the deconstruction since the 1960s of many of its dominant
historiographical discourses, the French Revolution remains hostage to a
script that distinguishes it from contemporary European and American sister
revolutions: the myth of the Terror, according to which the Jacobins
instituted a centralized dictatorship in Paris, in the hands of
Robespierre, and exercised a systematic violence against its opponents.
Marat's assassination is a prime example of how pivotal events of the
Revolution were immediately integrated into systems of representation and
contributed to the construction of the most enduring scripts. By
radicalizing and opposing in a Manichean manner the positions of the
revolutionary and counter-revolutionary actors, the numerous discourses and
emotions surrounding the violent death of l'Ami du peuple thereby
participated in forging the simplifying myth of the Terror, producing a
distorted image of France, split between a dictatorship of public safety,
external war, and civil war.
8The Antislavery Script: Haiti's Place in the Narrative of Atlantic
Revolution
chapter abstract
The notion that free people of color and slaves in Saint-Domingue might
have been acting out a drama first performed elsewhere has a long and
troubling history. This essay considers the two most oft-mentioned
precedents (the American and French revolutions) and finds that neither
explains the manner of Haiti's path out of the Old Regime.
Revolutionary-era influences must be balanced against prior experiences and
understandings of slavery and racial subordination, including those
embodied in colonial law. Such an approach helps to clarify the ambiguities
of emancipation as it ultimately took form in Haiti, where liberation from
slavery was obscured by the imperatives of independence from France. The
very nations that sought to contain Haiti's example would later struggle
with their own variations on this Haitian theme.
9Scripting the German Revolution: Marx and 1848
chapter abstract
TheCommunist Manifestowas treated by generations of Marxists as an example
of scientific class analysis and materialist conception of history. When it
was written, it was intended as a set of formulations addressed to a
radical German readership. This essay sets theManifestoin the context of
previous attempts to characterise the situation of Germany after the French
Revolution. Despite the transformative importance of the achievements of
German philosophy in the preceding eighty years, the political reality of
Germany was disappointing: a docile and obedient people unaffected by the
1830 revolutions in neighbouring countries. After attempting to sketch a
German route to revolution in 1844, Marx and his friends left Germany and
adopted an abstract and universal discourse embracing the whole of the
modern world. The resultingManifesto conjured up a largely imaginary
conflict between fabricated entities and proved to be of little value in
confronting events in 1848.
10Reading and Repeating the Revolutionary Script: Revolutionary Mimicry in
Nineteenth-Century France
chapter abstract
"Reading and Repeating the Revolutionary Script: Revolutionary Mimicry in
Nineteenth-Century France"examines the emergence, transformation, and
cultural and political effects of the"discourse of revolutionary mimicry"
in nineteenth-century France. First, a reading of Gustave Flaubert's 1869
novelL'Education sentimentaleillustrates how fears regarding the reading
and repeating of revolutionary scripts existed not only the political, but
also the literary sphere during the Second Empire (1852-1870). The chapter
then considers the political effects of this discourse upon the Paris
Commune of 1871 and how it directly influenced the day-to-day decisions and
actions of the Communards. Together, these analyses strongly suggest that
the post-1848 discourse of revolutionary mimicry served to de-legitimize
unambiguously positive or romantic conceptions of "revolution," ultimately
shaping how nineteenth-century revolutions were not only represented and
judged, but also how they were actually performed.
11"Une Révolution Vraiment Scientifique": Russian Terrorism, the Escape
from the European Orbit, and the Invention of a New Revolutionary Paradigm
chapter abstract
For the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia, terrorism, or the "terrorist
revolution," came to trump the revolutionary script that had been received
from the West over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
This chapter explains when and why this exchange happened, as well as what
made it thinkable. In doing so, the chapter places a special emphasis on
the various ways the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia understood
history and historical time. The chapter first traces the history of the
idea of revolution in Russia, then analyzesthe emergence of the "terrorist
revolution" in a set of political proclamations and manifestos from the mid
to late nineteenth century, and ends with some conclusions about the ways
in which terrorism allowed Russians to theorize an escape from the European
revolutionary paradigm.
12Scripting the Russian Revolution
chapter abstract
The Russian Revolution witnessed competing and overlapping scripts that
contained fundamentally divergent projections of revolutionary change. This
chapter outlines the main scripts within the liberal, moderate socialist,
extreme left, national, and popular traditions. Historians usually
prioritize intellectuals and their visions as driving the agenda of the
Russian revolution. It is clear, however, that it was the radical
consequences of the people's program of, for example, land distribution
from below that pushed Russian politics to the far left, affecting each of
the major scripts. It was precisely a peculiar intersection of peasant
aspirations and extreme left discourse that produced a triumphant Bolshevik
outcome. This hybrid script was riddled with contradictions that isolated
and undermined Soviet communism.
13You Say You Want a Revolution: Revolutionary and Reformist Scripts in
China, 1894-2014
chapter abstract
Chinese reformers and revolutionaries have long looked for inspiration to
various parts of the world, as well as to China's own past, when carving
out positions and seeking support for their stance on how the country
needed to and could be best changed. Focusing particular on two periods,
around the turn of the last two centuries, this chapter compares and
contrasts such things as the significance that Japan's Meiji Restoration
and the American and French events of 1776 and 1789, respectively, had for
reformers, who sought to maintain some kind of imperial system, and
revolutionaries, who sought to establish a republic in the late 1800s and
early 1900s. Similarities but also differences between the reform vs.
revolution debate then and that of recent decades are also discussed.
14Mao's Little Red Book: The Spiritual Atom Bomb and Its Global Fallout
chapter abstract
This chapter explores the metaphor of Mao Zedong Thought as a "spiritual
atom bomb," an idea expressed in Lin Biao's famous foreword to the Little
Red Book (Quotations from Chairman Mao). By relating this metaphor to other
concepts found in the Little Red Book, the chapter argues that Maoism was
an expression of and a response to existential anxieties of the atomic age.
The discussion proceeds from an exegesis of "The Foolish Old Man Who Moved
the Mountains" to the role of voluntarism in the strategy and tactics of
people's war; explains the weaponization of ideology and Cultural
Revolution ideal of spiritual fission, or the struggle against one's own
subjectivity; addresses Maoist denigration of the physical atom bomb as a
"paper tiger"; and presents Mao's alternative view of postcolonial global
power in the Theory of Three Worlds.
15The Reel, Real and Hyper-Real Revolution: Scripts and Counter-Scripts in
Cuban Documentary Film
chapter abstract
Focused on the work of the black Communist filmmaker Nicolás Guillén
Landrián from the mid-1960s through the early 1970s, this chapter argues
that the Cuban government interpreted visual, racial and cultural critiques
of revolutionary policies as endangering both national security and
citizens' trust in the absolute victory of the Revolution over the past.
Charged with documenting change and narrating national progress, Guillén
Landrián broke with standard techniques meant to guide viewers'
understanding of lived reality through "hyper-real" (that is,
bigger-and-better-than-life) representations of events by refusing to
engage in state-generated scripts, especially the formulaic stories and
formats typical of the government-controlled media. For his boldness,
Guillén Landrían suffered imprisonment, forced labor and ultimately
electro-shock treatments meant to nullify his ability to challenge or
disrupt oficial metanarratives, especially those authored by
"Commander-in-Chief" Fidel Castro.
16Writing on the Wall: 1968 as Event and Representation
chapter abstract
The global upheaval of the Sixties marked a significant transition in
scripts of revolution, for which 1968 was both a pivotal year and a
trenchant symbol. Contemporaneous consideration of the category of "event"
itself, notably by French critical thinkers, emphasized the open-ended and
anti-systematic qualities of happenings that year. Since then, endless
debate on the multiple meanings and experiences of "1968" has confirmed its
representational plurality. Together, reflection on the events and
representations of 1968 helps us understand the historic shift from an
earlier monolithic notion of violent revolution to new models of
pluralistic non-revolutionary social contestation.
17Scripting a Revolution: Fate or Fortuna in the 1979 Revolution in Iran
chapter abstract
Was the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran part of a divine script,
mandated in heaven? Was it a foreign conspiracy by Britain, US, Communists,
Seven Sisters? All of the above? Was the Shah's indecision, or his cancer
the cause of his downfall? Was the 1979 revolution inevitable, and if so,
was Ayatollah Khomeini's eventual hegemony no less unavoidable? "Scripting
a Revolution: Fate or Fortuna in the 1979 Revolution in Iran" offers a
critical sketch of these scenarios while attempting to map out the
endogenous and exogenous factors that contributed to the "perfect storm"
that was the revolution of 1979 - as much the result of mangled social
engineering as the unintended consequence of utopian ideologies.
18The Multiple Scripts of the Arab Revolutions
chapter abstract
This chapter examines the scripts of the Arab revolutions. It argues that,
unlike many previous revolutionary movements where ideological debates
occurredwithina largely shared revolutionary worldview, such debates during
the so-called Arab Spring occurredbetweendifferent revolutionary groups
over contradictory visions of the future political system. The chapter then
examines the Egyptian and Yemeni revolutions and argues that the different
revolutionary groups - secularists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Salafis -
briefly set aside their ideological differences in order to achieve a
common goal and overthrow the regime; but, once this was achieved, the
fissures between them led to continuing conflict. Finally, the chapter
considers how, despite these contradictions and conflicts, the failure for
any single revolutionary group to claim revolutionary authority over others
may make it possible for genuine popular sovereignty to succeed
inadvertently.
Afterword: Afterword
chapter abstract
The article returns to the themes raised by the editors in the
Introduction, analyzing why social scientific approaches have generally
prevailed over hermeneutic ones in the comparative study of revolutions. It
summarizes the main contributions of the volume, raises questions about the
nature of political "scripts," and speculates about various common factors
in the "scripts" analyzed in the volume, including appeals to the emotions,
the suspension of ordinary constitutional rules, and intellectuals as
political actors.