| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Methods/Theory

Noel Parker. Revolutions and History: An Essay in Interpretation. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell. 1999. Pp. vi, 232. $59.95.

There have been many attempts to set forth a typology of revolutions: one thinks of the work of Crane Brinton, Chalmers A. Johnson, John Dunn, and many others. The latest in this line is by Noel Parker, whose book is an "essay" on the subject, covering in a couple of hundred pages the topic from its beginnings in modern European history up to the present. 1

Parker has more in mind than a mere typology. He wishes also to give a structural-analytic explanation of revolutions, along with a hermeneutically inflected history of their appearance over time. He aims to align revolution with modernity, arguing that attempts to deal with modernization lie at the core of all such upheavals after the seventeenth century; to analyze revolution as a narrative, in the currently popular terms of discourse; to judge the role of structure and agency; and to assess the possibilities of revolution in the present. 2

In establishing categories of revolution, Parker posits the earliest form as Reformation-like revolts, not full revolutions, which are directed at centralizing monarchies, and generally do not end up transforming them. Only the English events of 1640–1660 and 1688 succeed in crossing the boundary, because they embody a special force: the needs of a new organization of finance capital. Other categories are constitutional-republic, communist (social democratic), national liberation, and contemporary revolutions. . . .

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