Media And Revolution

by Jeremy D. Popkin

As television screens across America showed Chinese students blocking government tanks in Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and missiles searching their targets in Baghdad, the connection between media and revolution seemed more significant than ever. In this book, thirteen prominent scholars examine the role of the communication media in revolutionary crises―from the Puritan Revolution of the 1640s to the upheaval in the former Czechoslovakia.

Their central Do the media in fact have a real influence on the unfolding of revolutionary crises? On this question, the contributors diverge, some arguing that the press does not bring about revolution but is part of the revolutionary process, others downplaying the role of the media.

Essays focus on areas as diverse as pamphlet literature, newspapers, political cartoons, and the modern electronic media. The authors' wide-ranging views form a balanced and perceptive examination of the impact of the media on the making of history.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published February 23, 1995

About the author

Jeremy D. Popkin received his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and holds an A.M. degree from Harvard University. When he was hired on a one-year contract at the University of Kentucky in 1978, the History Department secretary put him in what was then the department's conference room, saying, "Since you won't be staying long, it won't matter." Popkin is still occupying the same office.
Popkin's scholarly interests include the history of the French and Haitian revolutions, autobiographical literature and American Jewish history.