Customer Reviews

The Anatomy of Revolution

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Brinton's Anatomy of a Revolution is based on a brilliant premise - that all revolutions go through specific "stages." Using the English, French, and Russian revolutions and the American War for Independence as his models, he seeks to show common threads between the four of them.

However, there are some flaws in his thesis. As one reader pointed out, Brinton never defines what a "revolution" is - a problem especially given the fact that many do not consider the American Revolution a revolution at all. But beyond this point, there are problems as well. His model does not fit each revolution very well - especially the English Revolution's "Thermidorian Reaction" (which Brinton uses to describe the "calm" after the relative chaos and violence one usually associates with revolution.) His argument on the origins of revolution is similarly does not fit all revolutions well.

However, it is a fascinating read, and Brinton does a remarkable job in briefly and succinctly summarizing each revolution, their causes and the major players and events in them. This, if for no other reason makes it a worthwhile read.

A former teacher, who had used this book in the mid-sixties in her social studies class, introduced me to Crane Brinton's work. The Anatomy of Revolution provides the perfect companion for high school educators who want to step away from the stodgy lecture method of teaching the English, French, American, and Russian revolutions. The book is invaluable for assisting in creating lesson plans that discuss the characteristics and commonalities of revolutions. Once learned, a model can be created that students can use to analyze and evaluate any of the world's major and minor revolutions. Crane Brinton's book is a "must have" for any high school social studies teacher interested in creating similar lessons on the topic of revolution that foster higher levels of learning.

I have always been an avid student of the great modern revolutions both as a matter of practical politics and in order to glean some insights into how they have affected human history. In short, how the ideas and practice of those revolutions have acted as nodal points on the further progress of humankind. Crane Brinton's little book was probably the first book I read that tried to put that idea into some kind of order. While some of the material in the book is dated and some has been superseded by events and further research every serious student of comparative revolutions depends in some way or another on his pioneering methodology.

Brinton took the four great revolutions of his time (the Chinese Revolution had not occurred when he originally wrote the book)-the English of the 17th century, the French and American of the 18th century and the Russian of the 20th century and drew some common conclusions from them. Here the American Revolution acted as a kind of control for viewing the others. While no one would deny that each great revolution had its own perculiarities some lessons, so to speak, can be drawn from the various experiences.

Brinton traced the role of ideas, all kinds of ideas, some fanciful some serious that accompanied the dawn of every pre-revolutionary period as those who want to make a revolution or at least change things got a hearing from layers of society that they would not have gotten in more stable times. He also noted that the old regimes had run out of steam both in ideas and personnel, as exemplified by those who ruled at the time of revolutionary upheaval.

While the spark that ignited each revolution had different causes the revolutionary process itself started out as a broad coalition of forces opposed, for various reasons, to the old regime. Then a process of differentiation occured where various more moderate or modest revolutionary types fell by the wayside or were pushed aside under pressure from the more plebian masses and those committed to see the revolution through to the end, the Cromwells, the Robsepierres and the Lenins. During the course of these changes the counter-revolution, usually aided by foreign powers, reared its head.

I want to give particular attention to the question of Thermidor- that is the point where the revolution itself loses steam. The term stems from that point in the French Revolution in 1794 where the extreme left under Robespierre was defeated by more moderate forces within his own party (the Jacobins) and while not returning back to the old regime most definitely marked the end of progressive social experimentation. This has always been a thorny question on the political left. The Bolsheviks, particularly Trotsky, in the period of decline of the Russian Revolution poured out reams of polemics on its meaning (and even its applicability to their revolution). There are various causes for Thermidor; the leadership cadre gets tired, complacent or dies defending the revolution against counter-revolution; the people who previously supported the more extreme measures act likewise; and, those who want to stop the revolution in its tracks find a voice for their frustrations.

That much is clear from Brinton. What may need some revising is the question of whether in light of the destruction of the Soviet Union in 1991-92 and the return to capitalism there and the reverses in the Chinese Revolution which place it on the road back to capitalism that the previous premise about not going back to the old regime still holds true. The only way out of that dilemma is to argue that in neither case has the situation returned to the semi-feudal state before those revolutions. In any case, while you will need to read other books on comparative revolutions this is the place to start.

While it is true that comparisons of the American and English, especially the American, with the Russian and French Revolutions are very imperfect, theories proposed by Britton in
examining these revolutions are interesting. One of the most valuable ideas of his is that revolutions tend not to occur when things are really horrid, but when they are getting better. This concept proposes a tool for examining socities and predicting the future. This is consistent with the urban riots of the late 1960s with the rights gained by Blacks as opposed to the absence of such riots under Jim Crow. This could be expected using Britton's analytical tool. Another valuable concept is the return of the old order, perhaps in a different form, following the revolution, therefore Stalin follows the Czars and the First Empire after the killing of the king. Britton offers King George and the re-establishment of central authority by the Constitution, court rulings and such as an American comparison. This is really stretching a valuable idea. The British king before the revolution was certainly not a tyrant in North America. In fact the Royal Governor in Virginia was so popular that his statue still stands in front of the Wren building at William and Mary, as it did before the revolution. To compare the power of the Georges in America to that of the Czars is stretching a point. But to compare George Washington, John Adams and John Marshal to Stalin is absurd. Britton's real point is that centralization followed centralization. As Patrick Henry said of the Constittution "I smell a rat." Of course the centralization of power in Washington today is vastly greater than it ever was before 1776. The analytical tools Britton proposes are useful in predicting what will happen in particular situations , but they cannot be applied in the manner of
mathamatical formulars predicting physical, chemical or even biologic events.

The Anatomy of Revolution is a fascinating, if sometimes flowery, study of the similarities between 4 major revolutions (English, American, French and Russian). Brinton does an admirable job of pulling together some very complex pieces of history into a fairly cohesive argument.

Though there are some holes, Brinton goes to great pains to emphasize that this study is tentative, that his theorems are "vague and undramatic" (p.262) and warns the reader "not to expect too much" (p.262) from the book. His integrity is admirable.

What strikes home the most is his view that the life of the common person is not significantly changed over the long term by revolution, despite the ideals and violence associated with it, and that the increasing scale of promises made to the "average Joe" are never fully realized.

This is an ambitious book that largely succeeds in its stated goal of drawing a simple theoretical construct of revolution. I'd recommend it to students of history, sociology and politics.

The Anatomy of Revolution is a great book, but Brinton does a dangerous thing: he fails to define revolution. This leads him to include the American Revolution, which many historians and theorists of revolution do not consider a revolution at all. Indeed, it is difficult to write a useful book if your readers do not know, exactly, what your observations refer to: do these observations hold true for a coup d'etat, for example? Without defining revolution, Brinton leaves us wondering what his book does and does not appply to.
This book examines four events: the French, Russian, English and American Revolutions. Of the four, two are controversial, the American and British Revolutions. While the observations mostly dovetail with the more scientific literature on revolution and are presented in an interesting and readable format, a careful reader will be struck by how many of the comments refer only to the French and Russian revolutions, while noting that the British and American revolutions were "exceptions".
With its faults, this book ends up being more a historical case study rather than a study of revolution. It's observations are no less useful for that, however, and for those new to the field, Brinton's book makes for a readable and survivable introduction; something not to be underestimated.

To those who argue that this book is confusing, I have to disagree. This is one of the true classic texts in the study of revolution and the ideas here have been spun out for 3 decades or more by 'revolution theorists.' As someone who has completed a degree in revolution, I have to say that this is one of the best books out there for someone interested in the anatomy of the great revolutions. A real winner and a highly recommended book.

Crane Brinton produced the first edition of his "Anatomy of Revolution" while the Stalin Terror was at or near its crescendo in Russia. I am sure that edition looked very different from the one I read, published in 1965, and am grateful to Brinton for revisiting and updating his work. While the book is informative and helpful, it treats all revolutions stemming from Enlightenment ideals as basically the same (and as falling under the rubric of "popular democratic" revolutions), which I question vigorously.

Brinton develops a broad conceptual outline into which he claims at least the four revolutions he studies fit. These revolutions are the English Civil War of the 1640's, the American War for Independence of 1775-1783, the French Revolution (1789-rise of Napoleon), and the Russian Revolution (started 1917, end date unknown to Crinton). The outline is really more of a sequence. Brinton identifies
---The decadence of the old regime
---A revolutionary movement arising out of the middle classes, or whichever class is "half fulfilled", to borrow from another famous thinker on revolution
---A brief period of rule by moderate revolutionaries
---A "reign of terror" as the moderates find themselves without allies and are ejected in turn by extremists
---A period of reaction in which either the revivified moderates or the previously apolitical end the reign of terror and gradually reestablish a stable society.

The evidence Brinton finds matches his hypothesis, but only up to a point. The most obvious example of an imperfect fit is the American Revolution. Yes, Loyalists in the United States were terrorized by the revolutionary patriots throughout the 1770's and not allowed to come back in the 1780's. The conspicuous and extralegal removal of even those Brinton would identify as moderates from political life, however, did not happen in the United States, not at any point during the Articles of Confederation period, and certainly not after the Constitutional Convention of 1787 (my own choice for when the period of "reaction" set in). At times Brinton seems to acknowledge this by providing pages and pages of examples from the other three revolutions and a paragraph or so on the American.

One could easily come up with other popular democratic revolutions in which the moderates kept power or at least a voice. Perhaps the most obvious example is the German Revolution of 1918. According to Brinton's hypothesis the entire Weimar Republic should have been impossible and it is difficult to see the Nazi revolution of 1933 as the sort of reaction which Brinton argues a healthy society inevitably offers to revolutionary extremists. Another good example is the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689 in England, which made the English bill of rights and system of limited government possible but which Brinton mentions exactly once, despite its being obviously more popular and democratic than the Civil War, where leadership of England was taken over by what amount to fundamentalist Protestants.

I agree with Brinton that a healthy society does inevitably react against revolutionary excesses, which leads us to the point where his framework really breaks down -- the Russian Revolution. Brinton has to admit that Russia is an outlier, which he does in a section of his chapter on reaction entitled "Russia: Permanent Revolution?" But he will not admit what appears clear to contemporary historians, namely, that what we have in the Russian Revolution is at least a 40-year reign of terror. He prefers to claim that Russia experienced two separate reigns of terror. Indeed, he will also not admit that a popular revolution can do without a reign of terror. Of course, he was writing significantly before the "velvet revolutions" against Communism of the late 1980's which were more than anything else revolutions against the terror, amplified by modern technology, with which Communism had resisted all efforts at a real reaction throughout its tenure of power. I submit that these revolutions and similar ones in other countries cry out for a new conceptual framework, as do rightist oligarchic revolutions, which are outside the scope of the book. These types of revolutions would be useful fields for further study and revision of Brinton's thesis.

There are several books on revolution since Marx till Ana Arendt, including Trotsky and Jacques Ellul. But I never read a so clear essay in revolution as this book of Professor Crane Brinton. It is a modern classic, impossible to set apart, it resists against time,and criticism. Brinton uses good models of revolution for a sound comparative theory, he discloses a pattern in all revolutions studied, though the american revolution can be seen as a long process of reformulation of a distant identity, clearly demarked from Great Britain. For students of Social and Political Sciences, for Teachers, the little book is a pearl. A M. Bessa, Portugal, Lisbon

Compares the histories of four significant revolutions (English Civil War, American, French, Russian), looking for common patterns. First strong impression: for Brinton the French Revolution is *the* type specimen; each of the others falls short in some way, or skips or slights or re-arranges some stages of the process, but the French are the Real Thing. (Our American Revolution is especially skimpy: Brinton's only evidence of a Reign of Terror here is an anecdote about a Tory getting tarred and feathered.) Second strong impression: anything written about the Russian Revolution in 1938 (date of the first edition; heck, also mostly true about anything written in 1965) will and must be partial and incomplete; even so, I notice that he's saying the revolution is really over, and seems to expect that the whole communist/soviet state will collapse sooner or later. So points to Brinton there.

The book does feel dated, very dated. For one thing, of course, it is, being written in 1938; especially, most of what he's saying about Russia must be outdated. For another and more important thing, his thesis has become Accepted Truth over the past 70 years or so, so the book sometimes reads like belaboring the obvious. Remember, back when he was first writing, revolutions were perceived as the rising up of the poorest, most oppressed, bottom-most classes (and/or crazed wild-eyed fanatics), and had no internal dynamics, no structure or sequence, just blood and terror until the new synthesis was achieved--except for the American Revolution of course, which was all Goodness and Light and nothing the DAR wouldn't approve of.

Hard to rate on a simple 1-5 scale. I want to give it five stars, on account of its importance in the field and if read in the context of its time; on the other hand, the content and style are both so dated that I'd give it only one or two for a non-historian looking for a casual read. So call it three on average, a good solid three.

PS: Although the title is a medical metaphor (anatomy), the book itself describes revolution via a very different medical metaphor, the progress of a fever. Picky me just can't help pointing out.