HIST362: Modern Revolutions

How do we define revolution? In 1970, the Chinese leader Zhou Enlai said that the outcome of the French Revolution was unclear – 200 years is too soon to determine its long-term effects! Revolutions are complex and nuanced and can shift the global balance in fundamental ways – from England's Civil War in the 1600s to the United States, France, Haiti, Russia, China, and the modern independence movements in Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. In this course, we explore the causes of revolution, analyze the ideologies that inspired the revolutionaries, examine the use of violence, and consider how historical revolutions have shaped contemporary politics. Our exploration includes reading and evaluating critical historical sources. Most revolutionaries rose to protest a failure of Thomas Hobbes' Social Contract. These instigators felt their government no longer served the needs of its people or had become unresponsive and oppressive.

The protesters use different methods – from relatively peaceful civil disobedience in India to extreme violence in France, Russia, China, and Cambodia to subversive terrorist tactics against colonialism in the United States, Latin America, Vietnam, and the modern Middle East. Although the jury is still out, several revolutions created stable representative governments, such as India, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Did China and Russia create stable governments, or did the autocratic leaders simply stifle discontent? As Zhou Enlai said, history will decide. Many countries elected or appointed a series of failed leaders who prompted counter-revolutionaries to rise in civil war and subsequent revolution. This occurred in France, Haiti, Latin America, and the Middle East. Many of the revolutions we study in this course were direct responses to colonialism and European imperialism, such as in the United States, Haiti, Latin America, Southeast Asia, Vietnam, India, and the Middle East. Revolutions come in many forms: political, social, agricultural, and scientific. We begin by examining the nature of political revolution and how pre-revolutionary Europe and the Enlightenment have shaped modern revolutions. We will also explore European colonialism and imperialism since the oppression the foreign powers caused prompted revolutionaries to rebel in search of independence. By the end of this course, you will be able to discuss the nature of political revolution, identify commonalities and differences among these events, and understand how they individually and collectively transformed the modern world.