The flow and counter flow of revolution and counterrevolution have become the norm of the twentieth century. In this fascinating and well-rounded volume, the author illuminates the revolutionary process as it has developed from antiquity to the present day, from the vantage points of political science, history, and sociology.

Meisel's work is presented in the form of twelve absorbing episodes in the history of Western civilization. His remarkable for the detail with which he approaches a subject often difficult to define and even more difficult to explain. He suggests a new and highly useful perspective of history by viewing it as a process of revolution and counterrevolution and their transitional stages. As it is the nature of revolutions to fall short of their objectives and to enjoy only a brief heyday that becomes the stereotype accepted by posterity, the author emphasizes their antithetical closing phases--whose lessons posterity tends to forget.

Meisel's belief is that second-echelon figures teach us more about the natural process of revolution than the atypical "men of destiny," and he illustrates his account with many portrayals of comparative unknowns who lived through all the stages of revolution and counterrevolution. But revolutions can also be aborted or be preceded by counterrevolutions, as Meisel demonstrates by enlightening analyses of Mussolini's "coup d'tat," the origins of the Spanish Civil War, and General de Gaulle's defeat of a potential army insurrection in behalf of French Algeria.

In this profound and wide-ranging work, Meisel achieves an admirable balance between theory, action, and biography. The result is a unique survey of revolutionary history, in which a sophisticated thinker provides on almost every page a deepening understanding of the problems of revolution for the scholar and student of political processes, political theory, and comparative politics. The reader with a lively interest in the "modus operandi" of history will also find this book compelling reading.

"James H. Meisel" who died in 1991 was professor emeritus of political science at the University of Michigan. He is the author of "The Genesis of Georges Sorel, The Myth of the Ruling Class, The Fall of the Republic: Military Revolt in France," and edited "Makers of Modern Social Science: Pareto and Mosca."

How can we save politics from the politician? How can we save ourselves? This book looks at the example of those who leave the city and break the social contract, rebellious exiles and freedom fighters escaping the wheel of necessity, and learns from them.

This book centers on a foundational moment for Latin American racial constructs. While most contemporary scholarship has focused the explanation for racial tolerance-or its lack-in the colonial period, Marixa Lasso argues that the key to understanding the origins of modern race relations are to be found later, in the Age of Revolution. Lasso rejects the common assumption that subalterns were passive and alienated from Creole-led patriot movements, and instead demonstrates that during Colombia's revolution, free blacks and mulattos (pardos) actively joined and occasionally even led the cause to overthrow the Spanish colonial government. As part of their platform, patriots declared legal racial equality for all citizens, and promulgated an ideology of harmony and fraternity for Colombians of all colors. The fact that blacks were mentioned as equals in the discourse of the revolution and later served in republican government posts was a radical political departure. These factors were instrumental in constructing a powerful myth of racial equality-a myth that would fuel revolutionary activity throughout Latin America. Thus emerged a historical paradox central to Latin American nation-building: the coexistence of the principle of racial equality with actual racism at the very inception of the republic. Ironically, the discourse of equality meant that grievances of racial discrimination were construed as unpatriotic and divisive acts-in its most extreme form, blacks were accused of preparing a race war. Lasso's work brings much-needed attention to the important role of the anticolonial struggles in shaping the nature of contemporary race relations and racial identities in Latin America.

The bitter struggle of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, against the Turkish state has delivered inspirational but often tragic stories. This memoir by Kurdish revolutionary Sakine Cansiz is one of them. Sakine, whose code name was 'Sara', co-founded the PKK in 1974 and dedicated her life to its cause. On the 9 January 2013 she was assassinated in Paris in circumstances that remain officially unresolved. This is the first chapter of her iconic life, leading up to her arrest in 1979, penned as dramatic events unfolded against the backdrop of the Turkish revolutionary left. She writes about the excitement of entering the movement as a young woman, discovering she would have to challenge traditional gender roles as she rose amongst its ranks. She was one of the first to demand the recruitment and education of female revolutionaries, and demanded total gender equality within the PKK, which is now one of its central tenets. Today, 'Sara' is an inspiration to women fighting for liberation across the world. This is her story in her own words, and is in turns shocking, violent and path-breaking. Translated by Janet Biehl.

This comprehensive volume is the first systematic effort to explore the ways in which recognised states and international organisations interact with secessionist 'de facto states', while maintaining the position that they are not regarded as independent sovereign actors in the international system. It is generally accepted by policy makers and scholars that some interaction with de facto states is vital, if only to promote a resolution of the underlying conflict that led to their decision to break away, and yet this policy of 'engagement without recognition' is not without complications and controversy. This book analyses the range of issues and problems that such interaction inevitably raises. The authors highlight fundamental questions of sovereignty, conflict management and resolution, settlement processes, foreign policy and statehood. This book will be of interest to policy makers, students and researchers of international relations. It was originally published as a special issue of the journal Ethnopolitics.

This is the first modern scholarly study of the political culture of Scotland during the 1790s. Harris compares the emergence of 'the people' as a political force in Scotland with popular political movements in England and Ireland. He is the first to analyse Scottish responses to the French Revolution across the political spectrum; explaining Loyalist as well as Radical opinions and organisations. He also takes regional difference into account, moving scholarly attention beyond Edinburgh and Glasgow. This book adds significantly to the growing wealth of studies into the popular politics of the 1790s. It also sets the context for current scholarly debates about Robert Burns' engagement with the French Revolution.

Intimate Enemies is a brilliant study of the transformation of Bolshevik Party ideology, language, and power relations during the crucial period leading up to Stalin's seizure of power. Combining extensive research in recently opened Soviet archives with an insightful rereading of intra-Party struggles, Igal Halfin uncovers this evolution in the language of Bolshevism. This language defined the methods for judging true party loyalty-in what Halfin describes as an examination of the 'hermeneutics of the soul,' and became the basis for prosecuting the Party's enemies, particularly the \u201cintimate enemies\u201d within the Party itself. Halfin argues that Bolshevism-which claimed sole access to truth and morality-ultimately demonized its enemies, and became in effect a theology that facilitated a monumental power shift.

The revolution in Nicaragua was unique in that a large percentage of the combatants were women. The Role of Female Combatants in the Nicaraguan Revolution and Counter Revolutionary War is a study of these women and those who fought in the Contra counter revolution on the Atlantic Coast. This book is a qualitative study based on 85 interviews with female ex-combatants in the revolution and counter revolution from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s, as well as field observations in Nicaragua and the autonomous regions of the Atlantic Coast. It explores the reasons why women fought, the sacrifices they made, their treatment by male combatants, and their insights into the impact of the revolution and counter-revolution on today's Nicaragua. The analytical approach draws from political psychology, social identity dynamics such as nationalism and indigenous identities, and the role of liberation theology in the willingness of the female revolutionaries to risk their lives. Researchers and students of Gender Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies, and Political History will find this an illuminating account of the Nicaraguan Revolution and counter revolution, which until now has been rarely shared.

A memoir of a political prisoner from Mexico's 'dirty war' of the 1970s, this book provides an inside story of guerrilla activities and a gripping tale of imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Mexican governemnt.

In 1941, the Franco regime established the Spanish Division of Volunteers to take part in the Russian campaign as a unit integrated into the German Wehrmacht. Recruited by both the Fascist Party (Falange) and the Spanish army, around 47,000 Spanish volunteers joined what would become known as the "Blue Division." The Spanish Blue Division on the Eastern Front, 1941-1945 explores an intimate history of the Blue Division "from below," using personal war diaries, letters, and memoirs, as well as official documents from military archives in Spain, Germany, Britain, and Russia. In addition to describing the Spanish experience on the Eastern Front, Xose M. Nunez Seixas takes on controversial topics including the Blue Division's proximity to the Holocaust and how members of the Blue Division have been remembered and commemorated. Addressing issues such as the behaviour of the Spaniards as occupiers, their perception by the Russians, their witnessing of the Holocaust, their commitment to the war aims of Nazi Germany, and their narratives on the war after 1945, this book illuminates the experience of Spanish combatants and occupied civilians.

The Cartulary of Premontre offers a full critical edition, consisting of a transcription of the cartulary's 509 charters together with historical notes and apparatus. The thirteenth-century cartulary of the abbey of Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Premontre is one of the few manuscripts to survive from this monastery. Offering a window into daily life in medieval France and to contemporary documentary practices, the cartulary of Premontre is a rich source for the socio-economic and religious history of the Picardy and Champagne regions during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The charters contained in the cartulary illuminate how this major northern French abbey functioned as a mother house for the Premonstratensian Order, and how it interacted with people - both elite and non-elite as well as secular and ecclesiastical. It also reveals the complexities of cartulary production within a larger institutional and archival context. In an introductory essay, Heather Wacha and Yvonne Seale consider not only the history of the manuscript and of the abbey of Premontre, but also the cartulary's materiality, its place within the broader field of cartulary studies, and what it shows us about women's roles in contemporary society. In doing so, this volume offers new connections between the field of cartulary studies and feminist studies.

This book explores rural political change in China from 1850 to 1949 to help us understand China's transformation from a weak, decaying agrarian empire to a unified, strong nation-state during this period.

Based on local gazetteers, contemporary field studies, government archives, personal memoirs and other primary sources, it systematically compares two key macro-regions of rural China - the North China plain and the Yangzi delta - to demonstrate the ways in which the forces of political change, shaped by different local conditions, operated to transform the country. It shows that on the North China plain, the village community composed mainly of owner-cultivators was the focal point for political mobilization, whilst in the Yangzi delta absentee landlordism was exploited by the state for local control and tax extraction. However, these both set the stage, in different ways, for the communist mobilization in the first half of the twentieth century.

Peasants and Revolution in Rural China is an important addition to the literature on the history of the Chinese Revolution, and will be of interest to anyone seeking to understand the course of Chinese social and political development.

There has been a significant increase in the twenty-first century in the frequency and intensity of violent incidents in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the far northwest province of China, where the Uyghurs, the Turkic-speaking Muslim people who historically constituted the majority population, feel themselves displaced and discriminated against by the growing in-migration of Han Chinese. The book explores the continuing unrest in Xinjiang. It focuses in particular on the major violence of July 2009 in the city of Urumqi, on repression and the practice of Islam in southern Xinjiang, and on the policy of the Chinese Communist Party which has used the rhetoric of the "War on Terror" to justify its repression in terms which it hopes will gain sympathy from the international community. The book relates these particular points to the development of China-Uyghur relations more broadly in the longer historical perspective, and concludes by discussing how the situation is likely to unfold in future.

Professor C.E. Black of Princeton University called this "a valuable contribution to our understanding of the revolutionary movements that are now a worldwide phenomenon. It includes thoughtful essays on many varieties of revolution, considered in the light both of past developments and future prospects. The twentieth century was an age of revolution. Over many areas of the world the two great ideologies of nationalism and communism spawned violent upheavals, often differing in form but aiming at the transformation of the existing order by means of "coups d'etat," revolutions, and "wars of national liberation." Eleven distinguished political scientists and policy theorists offer a penetrating analysis of the theoretical and substantive aspects of revolution. Their scholarly, lucid, and well-balanced essays explore the revolutionary theories and experience of several centuries and apply them to the most crucial problem of this century. "Carl J. Friedrich" argues that it is the failure of government, which is at the core of the political revolution, and shows that constitutional regimes that have allowed "little revolutions" promoting gradual political and social change have been singularly free of revolutionary upheaval. Presenting the thinking of some of the best minds of the 20th century, this volume offers important guideposts for the future study of the etiology of revolutions. Here are not mere speculative and historical distillations, but new insights and conclusions regarding the origin, purpose, and impact of revolution on the world of today and tomorrow. An indispensable work for every student and scholar of comparative politics, international relations, and the history and theory of Communism, it will also be welcomed by the statesman and the educated layman who want to probe the causes of the historical upheavals of our time. "Carl J. Friedrich" was Eaton Professor of the Science of Government, Harvard University. During World War II he helped to found the School of Overseas Administration at Harvard to train officers for work in military government abroad, and he was its Director from 1943-1946. He was Professor of Political Science at the University of Heidelberg from 1956 to 1966, where he founded and helped to develop the Institut fr Politische Wissenschaft. He served as President of the American Political Science Association in 1962, the International Political Science Association from 1967-1970, and the Institut international de philosophie politique in 1969.

Women played a major part in the French revolution of 1789, but have received very little recognition for their contributions. The many claims and protests put forth by women at that time were suppressed, women's clubs were banned, and Olympe de Gouges, a leading contemporary advocate for women's rights, was silenced. De Gouges, author of the "fundamental Declarations des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne" ("Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen"), has been left out of dictionaries and history books. But in 1993, French women demanded that she be interred in the Pantheon. Sophie Mousset's is the first biography of this astonishing woman. De Gouges dared to write and publish her "Declarations" in 1791, and was sent to the guillotine for having had the courage to mount the rostrum on behalf of women. Despite her contributions, she remains an obscure figure, even in France. Unlike many who have captured posterity's attention, de Gouges had great sympathy but no indulgence for her sex. Instead of considering her female colleagues as eternal victims, she understood that they were to some extent responsible for their misfortunes, and that if they united and devoted themselves to changing their image, they could become great. De Gouges called for the advent of a new woman, one who would relinquish cupidity and the "nocturnal administering" of men. She demanded education for girls, the prevention of arranged marriages and forced vows, the right to divorce, and the legitimization of children born out of wedlock. She advocated the feminization of professional titles, wrote a social contract between man and woman that foreshadowed other legislation, and reflected upon the problem of prostitution and the violence inflicted upon women. She also actively opposed slavery. Olympe de Gouges rightly deserves the title of pioneer, prophet, and heroine. This long-overdue biography pays her due homage. It will be of interest to students of the French Revolution, women's studies, and biography.

Winner of the African Studies Association 2016 Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize A lively account of the 1924 Revolution in Sudan and the way in which the colonial situation has affected its representation, a case in point inthe histories of nationalist anti-colonial movements in Africa and the Middle East. The 1924 Revolution was a watershed in Sudanese history, the first episode of anti-colonial resistance in which a nationalist ideology was explicitly used, and part of a global wave of anti-colonial movements after the First WorldWar that can be seen as the "spring of the colonial nations". This detailed account of the uprising, and its eventual failure, explores the cosmopolitan nationalism embraced by the White Flag League, the movement that sparked the revolution, and its ability to attract people from diverse origins, classes and professions. It examines the international genesis of the movement; the strategies put in place to spread it in different areas of Sudan and among different groups; the movement's inclusive ideology and its definition of the Sudanese nation, as well as the limitations to its inclusiveness; and the way in which this episode reveals deeper questions relating to origins, social hierarchies and power. The book also unravels the complex history of the memory of 1924, the politics of its representation and the underlying power struggles that saw 1924 largely lost from the historical record. ElenaVezzadini is a historian of modern Sudan affiliated to the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, University of Bergen, and Institut des Mondes Africains, Paris.

This groundbreaking study investigates defining themes in the field of social memory studies as they bear on the politics of post-Cold-War, post-apartheid Southern Africa. Alice Dinerman offers a detailed chronicle of the Mozambican government's attempts to revise the country's troubled postcolonial past with a view to negotiating the political challenges posed by the present. In doing so, she lays bare the path-dependence of memory practices, while tracing their divergent trajectories, shifting meanings and varied combinations within ruling discourse and performance. Central themes include: the interplay between past and present the dialectic between remembering and forgetting the dynamics between popular and official memory discourses the politics of acknowledgement. Dinerman's original analysis is essential reading for students of modern Africa, the sociology of memory, Third World politics and post-conflict societies.

Despite enormous differences between Asia and Eastern Europe, there are striking similarities between the peaceful, spontaneous, urban-based and cross-class democratic uprisings against unyielding dictatorships that have occurred in the two regions. The book explores the kind of non-democratic regimes that are particularly vulnerable to democratic revolutions. It examines why and how democrats rebel and what the results of democratic revolutions have been. Questions posed in this book include: * Why were communist rulers shot in China but not in Eastern Europe? * Why did stolen elections lead to the overthrow of Miloevic in Serbia? * Why have there been so many women leading democratic revolutions in Asia? This book attempts to democratize theories of revolution and revolutionize democratic transitions. Cases and comparisons are drawn from 15 democratic revolutions over the last two decades and the book includes in-depth studies of East Germany, China, Serbia and the Philippines.

What does it mean to have a voice in a formal democracy operating under neoliberal guidelines and with an almost entirely private media system? How can the people gain their voice and engage in a dialogue with hegemonic actors and discourses? In this book, Jorge Saavedra Utman examines the role of media and communicative practices during one of the largest social mobilizations in Latin America in the last 30 years: Chile's 2011 students' movement. Saavedra Utman observes the eye-catching, subversive, but also intimate practices that, in a country with a liberal democracy and neoliberal policies, allowed people to speak up and become political actors from grassroots positions. Presenting rich qualitative data that is sourced from interviews and focus groups with activists, he introduces a fresh perspective on the study of media and communications and social movements. Saavedra Utman paints a clearer picture of contentious events since 2011 - like the Arab Spring and Occupy - to understand the relevance of media and communications in contemporary quests for participation and democracy. Promising to be an important book, The Media Commons and Social Movements represents a significant contribution to our understanding of communicative dimensions of protest and social change.

Afeatured article in Die Zeit, the leading German weekly, begins with "Melvin, du hast gewonnen"--Mel, you have won In his extraordinary account of the final days of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) we see the reckoning of a regime, and also the vindication of a life-long devotee of European democracy. It is unlikely that any comparable memoir will be written, since Lasky's career spanned the entire history of wartime and postwar Germany, especially in divided and Wall-torn Berlin.

Voices in a Revolution, now in paperback, offers an in-depth portrayal of the Communist police state before the breakdown, followed by a blow-by-blow account of the drama of breakdown and regime transformation. Characters in the everyday cultural world of Germany come alive as harbingers and heralds of the end of the old and the necessity of the new.

Lasky understands the role of accident as well as of necessity. The West Germans had all but abandoned the slogan of One People, One Nation when they were faced with the immense task of supervising just such a reintegration. The work ends with the awakening conscience at the very point that the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. This is a memorable work--one likely to sear the conscience of lovers of freedom and analysts of tyranny alike.

Legitimacy is generally a term that is associated with the state. The term surfaces when there are problems with state legitimacy-when it is lacking or absent. This present volume attempts to think through the relevance of the concept of legitimacy for other political actors than the state. Rebel groups, in the shape of insurgents, terrorists, warlords and guerrillas, are all engaged in a process of claim making as legitimate actors representing certain political agendas and constituencies. We are interested in dissecting the processes of the emergence of legitimacy in contexts of disorder and conflict. Legitimacy is not only a belief or belief system that informs social action, but it is also a practice with a repertoire of legitimacy claiming, reinforcing, copying and emulating elements. Governance provision is an important legitimacy generating activity, just as it has been in the formation of states. The volume, however, points out that there are many more aspects to legitimacy that deserve attention. The contributors draw on a wide variety of cases and in-depth investigation to bring forward individual and micro-level dynamics related to legitimacy claims, as well as bringing forward the often-times problematic role of external actors when it comes to legitimacy and illegitimacy dynamics. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of Small Wars & Insurgencies.

This fascinating account highlights the extent the world's major powers will go to as they seek to insure their own interests and agendas, despite the wishes of those whose countries they invade and occupy. The Accidental Tourist profiles Wilfrid Scawen Blunt's involvement in the so-called Arabi Revolt in 1882. It addresses Blunt's tireless efforts on behalf of the Egyptian Nationalists to mediate the differences between Britain and Egypt and prevent a British invasion of Egypt. It highlights what amounted to a government cover-up of the actions of certain governmental officials to precipitate the invasion by falsifying intelligence information and manipulating the press. It also takes to task the scholarly tradition of maligning Blunt and questioning the accuracy of his version of the events of 1882. Blunt was branded a traitor in the House of Commons. This book was written to set the record straight. It is ideal reading for those interested in the field of Middle Eastern, Imperial or Colonial history and will provide readers with a better understanding of the real story of imperialism that went on at the time and is still going on in the Middle East today.

This volume provides a challenging and controversial explanation of the recent events in Russia. It examines the causes, processes, and consequences of Russia's recent political development. Drawing on, and criticising the existing literature, the book also shows how the recent Russian experience can cast light on general theories of revolution and comparative political developments.

Approximately one million innocent Indonesians were killed by their fellow nationals, neighbors, and kin at the height of an anti-communist campaign in the mid-1960s. This book investigates the profound political consequences of these mass killings in Indonesia upon public life, highlighting the historical specificities of the violence and comparable incidents of identity politics in more recent times.
Mixing theory with empirically based analysis, the book examines how the specter of communism and the trauma experienced in the latter half of the 1960s remain critical in understanding the dynamics of terror, coercion, and consent today. Heryanto challenges the general belief that the periodic anti-communist witch-hunts of recent Indonesian history are largely a political tool used by a powerful military elite and authoritarian government. The book investigates what drove otherwise apolitical subjects to be complicit in the engulfing cycles of witch-hunts. It argues that elements of what began asan anti-communist campaign took on a life of their own, increasingly operating independently of the violence and individual subjects who appeared to be manipulating the campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s.
Despite the profound importance of the 1965-6 events it remains one of most difficult and sensitive topics for public discussion in Indonesia today. State Terrorism and Political Identity in Indonesia is one of the first books to fully discuss the mass killings, shedding new light on a largely unspoken and unknown part of Indonesia's history.

In the early 1990s a number of violent civil wars and large-scale ethnic crises shocked the world. In Rwanda, Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere atrocities were committed that led to hundreds of thousands of dead and displaced people. Explaining the origins and dynamics of such inhuman actions and events, this new sensitive and detailed analysis includes: full analysis of the origins of civil wars, terrorism and ethnic strife insights drawn from across the social sciences practical and topical illustrations of the information provided fully updated assessments with details of key contemporary events Although the number of these conflicts has diminished over the years, the phenomenon has not disappeared: in the Sudan, the Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Iraq people are still being killed in large numbers, without authorities being able to avert or end the hostilities. On nine-eleven large-scale terrorist attacks in Washington and New York shocked the world again, and since then other violent events took place in Bali, Casablanca, Riyadh, Moscow, Istanbul and Madrid. This book of concern to all people, because recent history has shown us that such violence can strike everywhere and at any time. The final chapter delivers a number of constructive considerations aiming at the development of policies to prevent and stop such conflicts. This is an important new contribution to tackling the complex challenges of the twenty first century. This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of contemporary history, development studies, political and social sciences and International Relations.