Writing the History of Modern Revolutions

Rezensionen / Stimmen

This fascinating book argues that revolutions and the modern discipline of history developed together. While historical narratives have sought to make sense of revolutionary episodes, these histories have, in turn, had a major impact on how revolutions are practised. Murray-Miller unpacks this dynamic process of meaning making with great subtlety in an elegantly written, well-crafted narrative that takes the reader from 18th century French republicans to 21st century militant Salafists. The result is a book of great dexterity and acumen. This is a must read for all students and scholars of revolutions. * George Lawson, Professor of International Relations, Australian National University, Australia * Since R. R. Palmer, Jacques Godechot and Eric Hobsbawm, the historiography of revolutions has grown and expanded from a Western- or Atlantic- focused area of scholarship into a field of research and critical reflection responding to global challenges. Gavin Murray-Miller offers his readers an extremely useful vade mecum to help them come to terms with the contours and multiplicity of directions marking the historiography of revolutions as global phenomena, at the same time reminding us, very reasonably, that the subject has a much longer lineage going back to the Abbe Raynal and, of course, Edmund Burke in the eighteenth century and to the great historians, French and British, of the nineteenth century. A very welcome and sobering invitation to critical self- awareness addressed to historians of revolutions of all persuasions and to general readers wishing to understand the logic of the narrative of revolutionary change. * Paschalis M. Kitromilides, Professor of Political Science, Academy of Athens, Greece *