Social Revolutions in the Modern World

Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics

by Theda Skocpol

In this collection of essays, Theda Skocpol, author of the award-winning States and Social Revolutions (CUP, 1979), updates her arguments about social revolutions. How are we to understand recent revolutionary upheavals in countries across the globe? Why have social revolutions happened in some countries, but not in others that seem similar? Skocpol shows how she and other scholars have used ideas about states and societies to identify the particular types of regimes that are susceptible to the growth of revolutionary movements and vulnerable to transfers of state power to revolutionary challengers.

Genres: Political Science, Politics, History, Sociology, Theory

366 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1992

About the author

Theda Skocpol is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University and the Director of the Scholars Strategy Network. She is a past president of the American Political Science Association.

Reviews

[Troy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was an assigned text for Master's level course in Insurgency and Revolutions. It has some good theories in it but reading it is like wading through molasses in January. Getting through this book will take superior self-discipline and a lot of caffeine. If you experience the desire to quit, gouge your eyes out, or drop out of school, that's completely normal. There were so many complaints about this book the professor dropped it from the course. Bad news, I couldn't sell it back (and I am typically anti selling back text books, I'm one of those that keep them all but I would have sold this one back in a heart beat). There are better books out there that are far more interesting and easier to read in the realm of social revolutions.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sequel, of sorts, to Skocpol's first book on Social Revolutions. This one attempts to defend her structuralist approach against academic critics of that approach. There is an interesting analysis of Iran and its revolution (the one that undermines the argument in her first book), but the rest is aimed at an academic audience, exclusively.

[Nikolaus Buenconsejo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scholarly explained!

[Elizabeth Pyjov · Rating 3 out of 5]

The theory is interesting but doesn't quite apply.