20th century
A01=Donald Sassoon
Age
Alan
American
Anderson
Anna
Author_Donald Sassoon
Blazing
blazing world
Branigan
capital
Category=JBSA
Category=JPFC
Category=NHTV
Chinese
civil
Continental
Devil
Earth
English
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eq_history
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European
Fall
Frankopan
French
German
healey
history
Hobbes
Hobsbawm
independence
Italian
Jonathan
Josephine
Keay
Land
Lenin
Locke
Marx
Memory
Perry
Political
Quinn
rebellions
Red
Republic
Restless
Robespierre
Russian
Taylor
Terror
Tooze
Transformed
unrest
war
World
Product details
- ISBN 9781804299920
- Weight: 594g
- Dimensions: 153 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 18 Nov 2025
- Publisher: Verso Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Revolutions is a sparkling account of political upheaval and the power of history. We think of revolutions in terms of fleeting events, such as the Fall of the Bastille or the Storming of the Winter Palace. In reality they take decades to burn out, if they ever do. One of our great historians, Donald Sassoon, takes the long view of some of the most celebrated upheavals: the English Civil War, which killed a king; the American War of Independence, which ejected the British but allowed slavery to persist; the French Revolution, which produced the Rights of Man and years of instability; the national revolutions that unified Italy and Germany; and the Russian and Chinese revolutions, which transformed the twentieth century. Revolutions adroitly compares these historical juggernauts to the many rebellions, coups and tumults that time forgot.
It is a history rich in irony and surprises. 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' was first sung by English troopers to make fun of dishevelled American colonials. The Long March of retreating Chinese Communists assumed a mythical dimension on a par with Washington crossing the Delaware. As Sassoon shows in this tour de force account, revolutions usually catch revolutionaries them-selves by surprise, and the consequences are difficult to fathom.
Revolutions will change how you think about the transformative moments in history, both big and small.
'Unique and encyclopaedic.a monument to streetwise and cosmopolitan scholarship'
Guardian (for The Culture of the Europeans)
'Sometimes playful, sometimes caustic, but always to the point. The doyen of comparative historians'
Ferdinand Mount, Times Literary Supplement (for The Anxious Triumph)
It is a history rich in irony and surprises. 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' was first sung by English troopers to make fun of dishevelled American colonials. The Long March of retreating Chinese Communists assumed a mythical dimension on a par with Washington crossing the Delaware. As Sassoon shows in this tour de force account, revolutions usually catch revolutionaries them-selves by surprise, and the consequences are difficult to fathom.
Revolutions will change how you think about the transformative moments in history, both big and small.
'Unique and encyclopaedic.a monument to streetwise and cosmopolitan scholarship'
Guardian (for The Culture of the Europeans)
'Sometimes playful, sometimes caustic, but always to the point. The doyen of comparative historians'
Ferdinand Mount, Times Literary Supplement (for The Anxious Triumph)
Donald Sassoon was born in Cairo in 1946. He taught comparative European history at Queen Mary University of London for many years. His books include Morbid Symptoms, The Anxious Triumph, The Culture of the Europeans, One Hundred Years of Socialism and Mona Lisa, all widely translated. He lives in London.
