In a dazzling new interpretation of four hundred years of modern French history, Charles Tilly focuses not on kings and courtiers but on the common people of village and farm buffeted by the inexorable advance of large-scale capitalism and the consolidation of a powerful nation-…
The book's twelve chapters function as six pairs. Complementing Chapter 1, Chapter 12 reviews the same problems in the light of the intervening historical analysis. The ten chapters in between pair off by period, one chapter dealing with a particular region, the other comparing …
"The 1960s represented a revolutionary moment around the globe. In rural Mexico, several guerrilla groups organized to fight against the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Specters of Revolution chronicles two peasant guerrilla organizations led by schoolteachers, t…
"Ferguson. Tottenham. Clichy-Sous-Bois. Oakland. Within capital's core, the riot looms increasingly large within the repertoire of struggles. Rather than inchoate spasms or immiserated absence of the revolutionary idea, this book locates the riot within longue duree of capitalis…
"Less than twenty-four months after the hope-filled Arab uprising, the popular movement had morphed into a dystopia of resurgent dictators, failed states, and civil wars. Egypt's epochal transition to democracy ended in a violent military coup. Yemen and Libya collapsed into civ…
"The name Robert Mugabe has become synonymous with failed leadership in Africa. One of the first atrocities of his shocking reign became known as the 'Gukurahundi' - a series of politically motivated killings in the 1980s. Thousands of civilians were killed in Matabeleland in th…
In 1477, the Low Countries were in chaos. On 5 January Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, was killed in the battle of Nancy. His political adversaries used this fortuitous opportunity to reverse his much-hated policies. The late duke's confidents were executed, as nobles fled f…
