Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I. Doing Macroscopic Social Science: 1. A critical review of Barrington Moore's social origins of dictatorship and democracy; 2. Wallerstein's world capitalist system: a theoretical and historical critique; 3. The uses of comparative history in macrohistorical research; Part II. Making Sense of the Great Revolutions: 4. Explaining social revolutions: in quest of a social-structural approach; 5. Revolutions and the world-historical development of capitalism; 6. France, Russia, and China: a structural analysis of social revolutions; Part III. A Dialogue about Culture and Ideology in Revolutions: 7. Ideologies and revolutions: reflections on the French case, byWilliam H. Sewell, Jr; 8. Cultural idioms and political ideologies in the revolutionary reconstruction of state power; Part IV. From Classical to Contemporary social revolutions: 9. What makes peasants revolutionary?; 10. Rentier state and Shi'a Islam in the Iranian revolution; 11. Explaining revolutions in the contemporary Third World; 12. Social revolutions and mass military mobilisation; Conclusion: reflections on recent scholarship about social revolutions and how to study them.

Promotional Information

Theda Skocpol, author of the award-winning 1979 book States and Social Revolutions, updates her arguments about social revolutions.

Reviews

'... provides an extremely useful companion to her thinking ... Skocpol writes with intelligence, grace and lucidity.' International Affairs