You say you want a revolution

Given the futility of establishing a single, comprehensive taxonomy of revolution, Sassoon, a Cairo-born emeritus professor of comparative history at the University of London whose doctoral supervisor was historian Eric Hobsbawm, adopts a descriptive rather than analytical approach. Which isn’t to say the six revolutions he discusses, the English, American, French, Russian, Chinese, and European “national revolutions” of the nineteenth century, don’t have several features in common; “All involved the overthrow of the old regime.” But that by itself doesn’t suffice, since old regimes don’t need revolutions to be overthrown. Revolutions, as Sassoon sees it, are a way of effecting “change when mere reforms are not possible or sufficient. They are supposed to establish something entirely new, to abolish the old, to change political and economic structures in a radical manner, and they are often accompanied by a violent shock or an uprising.” Change alone isn’t enough. “What matters” is the combination of change “tied to a radical event.” 

On that score, even some of the revolutions Sassoon includes might be counted out. Conceive revolution too narrowly, and you’re left with just the “usual suspects” (French, Russian, Chinese), but cast too wide a net and there were over 100 “revolutions” in the 20th century alone. Even though Sassoon rejects the restrictive view, he appears to sympathize with it: the chapters on the “usual suspects” are twice as long as those on the other three. It’s an assessment that the English have honored in deed if not word. As Sassoon observes to start his chapter about it, “There is no memorable date on which to celebrate the English Civil War,” no equivalent of July Fourth or Bastille Day. A revolution without a memorable date hardly seems one at all. Yet for all their embarrassment that he executed a king and became a dictator, the British still put Oliver Cromwell’s statue next to the Palace of Westminster. “The celebration of revolutionaries rests not on their actual achievements but on how they are regarded by posterity.” Ultimately, then, something becomes a revolution instead of a mere revolt, uprising, or rebellion when enough people say that it is.

Two aspects of Sassoon’s treatment stand out. The first is that it is strictly political. He emphasizes more than once that the revolutionary struggle, “in all cases, was about political power and control.” Events such as the scientific and industrial revolutions are therefore ignored. The second is that each chapter goes well beyond the limits of the revolution itself. Thus, the chapter on the English Revolution ends not with King Charles I’s execution nor King Charles II’s Restoration, nor even the Glorious Revolution, but the accession of King George I and the consolidation of parliamentary rule. Sassoon carries the story of the American Revolution all the way through the Civil War, as it was only then that a final resolution to the vexatious matter of slavery was achieved. He sails past the usual termini ad quem of the French Revolution, the end of the Terror, Napoleon’s seizure of power, even Waterloo, stopping only in 1880, when the Third Republic was secured and France’s future as a republic was settled for good. The sections on Russia and China cover both countries’ histories from their revolutions to the present day. 

Sassoon’s justification is that “revolutions are not sudden, short-lived events resolved in a few years.” Rather, by the time the “original spark” burns out, it has ignited “a process with new demands and grievances.” Like most historical processes, he argues, revolutions rarely have clear beginnings or ends. They continue and evolve, continue or dissipate, or collapse — but never reach their goal. 

If I’m giving short shrift to Sassoon’s narration of the individual revolutions, that shouldn’t be construed as a negative verdict. It’s simply that the ground has been trodden many times. What makes the endeavor worthwhile isn’t reading about the storming of the Bastille or Winter Palace, but the judgments and interpretations, the asides and aperçus Sassoon pronounces along the way. And he makes plenty. “Revolutions are usually initiated by a minority taking advantage of an exceptional conjuncture which they have not created,” he contends. “It is not the identity of leaders that define the class aspects of a revolution,” he opines, “but how these leaders define the classes and groups for whom they say they fight.” If the middle class triumphs, that means only “that the subsequent political and economic set-up favoured their prosperity and ascent.” He declares the Russian Revolution “a historical minefield.” Nor is he above deflating national pretensions. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was heavily influenced by the Declaration of Independence, “though in the mythology of the French Revolution this is seldom acknowledged.” 

The book’s real strength is its thematic framework, and it does have one, even if Sassoon doesn’t identify it as such. The first two chapters, on England and America, are by no means perfunctory, but they very much serve as a prelude. It’s only with the French Revolution that revolution as we think of it, revolution proper, begins: massive social upheaval, rapid, frequent changes of government, and legal and extrajudicial violence by the revolution’s champions to extirpate the revolution’s enemies. That many historians still call them the “English Civil War” (as Sassoon entitles his chapter on it) and “War of Independence” (here he uses the phrase “settlers’ rebellion”) is an indication there’s still some doubt about whether they qualify. There’s no such uncertainty with the French. 

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Sassoon’s presentation is not unlike that of an entertaining tour guide whose commentary occasionally causes you to narrow your eyes in bemusement when some particularly idiosyncratic or questionable remark penetrates your consciousness as the scenery goes zooming by. You suspect you might get a more impartial, less slanted take from a different guide, but also that it would be offered in such staid tones it would bore you to tears if it didn’t put you to sleep. And there are several dubious claims, such as his contention that China lacks “imperial or colonial ambitions beyond the boundaries of … China proper,” to cite the most egregious example. That said, it’s hard to get too worked up about someone who writes that for all its “bluster” about liberté, égalité, and fraternité, “France was never in the forefront of any of these three aspirations.”  

The Beatles were right: “We all wanna change the world.” For 200 years, revolutionaries on both sides of the Atlantic did just that. But the cost of changing the world became revolution in its 20th-century guise, made by minds that hate talking about destruction and carrying pictures of Chairman Mao. Little wonder, then, that more and more people have found themselves saying, as John Lennon did, that when it comes to revolution, “You can count me out.”

Varad Mehta is a writer and historian. He lives in the Philadelphia area. Find him on X @VaradMehta.