Revolution

Arendt, Hannah. On Revolution. London: Faber and Faber, 1963.

Blackey, Robert, ed. Revolutions and Revolutionists: A Comprehensive Guide to the Literature., 2nd ed. Oxford and Santa Barbara, Calif.: Clio Press, 1982. A unique bibliography of over six thousand books, articles, and eyewitness accounts covering past and present revolutions.

Brinton, Crane. The Anatomy of Revolution. Rev. and expanded ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1965. Still a first-rate introduction to the comparative history of revolution.

Burke, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin Books, 1984. A classic statement on the significance of the French Revolution, even though couched in hostile terms.

Castro, Fidel. History Will Absolve Me. London: Jonathan Cape, 1968.

Donald, Moira, and Tim Rees, eds. Reinterpreting Revolution in Twentieth-Century Europe. London: Macmillan, 2001.

Draper, Hal. Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution. 2 vols. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978. The fullest account of the most influential theory of the twentieth century.

Dunn, John, Modern Revolutions: An Introduction to the Analysis of a Political Phenomenon. 2nd ed. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Fehér, Ferenc, ed. The French Revolution and the Birth of Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.

Goldstone, Jack, ed. Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical, Studies. 3rd ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003.

Griewank, Karl. Der Neuzeithliche Revolutionsbegriff. 2nd ed. Frankfurt-am-Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1969. The best account of the history of the concept. Nothing in English like it.

Halliday, Fred. Revolution and World Politics: The Rise and Fall of the Sixth Great Power. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. The Philosophy of History (1830–1831). Translated by J. Sibree. New York: Dover, 1956.

Hobsbawm, E. J. Echoes of the Marseillaise: Two Centuries Look Back on the French Revolution. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1990.

Keddie, Nikki R., ed. Debating Revolutions. New York: New York University Press, 1995.

Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. An influential account that has important implications for the idea of revolution in general.

Kumar, Krishan, ed. Revolution: The Theory and Practice of a European Idea. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971. Classic statements documenting the evolution of the idea of revolution.

Kumar, Krishan. 1989: Revolutionary Ideas and Ideals. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.

Lasky, Melvin. Utopia and Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. Packed with fascinating, hard-to-find material on the ideology and imagery of revolution.

Lintott, Andrew. Violence, Civil Strife and Revolution in the Classical City. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.

Paine, Tom. The Rights of Man (1791–1792). Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin Books, 1984. The best riposte to Burke's attack on the French Revolution, and in general a stirring affirmation of the epochal significance of the French and American Revolutions.

Palmer, R. R. The Age of the Democratic Revolutions. 2 vols. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970. Still the fullest and most stimulating account of the eighteenth-century revolutions, seen as having world-historical significance.

Parker, Noel. Revolutions and History: An Essay in Interpretation. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 2000.

Porter, Roy, and Mikulés Teich, eds. Revolution in History. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Rice, E. E., ed. Revolution and Counter-Revolution. Oxford and Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1991.

Skocpol, Theda. Social Revolutions in the Modern World. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Tilly, Charles. European Revolutions, 1492–1992. Oxford and Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1993.

Tocqueville, Alexis de, The Old Régime and the French Revolution (1856). Translated by Alan S. Kahan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. The best book, not just on the French Revolution, but on revolution in general.

Wheatcroft, Andrew. The World Atlas of Revolutions. London: H. Hamilton, 1983. The best single source of detailed accounts, complete with maps, of the major revolutions from the eighteenth to the late twentieth centuries.

Zagorin, Perez. Rebels and Rulers, 1500–1660. 2 vols. Cambridge, U.K., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982. A comprehensive and invaluable survey of a controversial period in the development of the idea of revolution.