Abstract
Scholars of revolution have a habit of pointing out that despite the importance of their topic, not much seems to be going on when it comes to the study of it. However, the Handbook of Revolutions in the 21 Century implicitly suggests, quite on the contrary, that the study of revolutions is alive and well, given that it is the result of a collaboration of over 40 scholars. Furthermore, many of the contributors do not belong among the usual suspects of revolution studies, thus injecting new blood into the field and amplifying the impression that its future is not in any immediate danger. While some chapters of the book work better than others, each and every one of them provide the reader with useful ideas that, at the very least, will serve as inspiration and food for thought.
It is rare to be confronted with a volume that overdelivers. Yet, that is, in my mind, precisely what the Handbook does. Composed of 41 chapters and over 1000 pages, its editors explain that they set out to ‘develop a comparative analysis of the revolutions and its waves of the twenty-first century . . . forge new analytical tools’, and ‘develop fresh ideas about how clusters of revolutions develop and are linked, and how revolutions both are shaped by, and then in turn reshape, global relations and the World System’ (p. xi). Tall order, most definitely, but one that is delivered, albeit in somewhat unexpected ways. Because what the book provides is not ready-made templates and models for understanding and analyzing any and all revolutions, but rather an impressive array of concepts and ideas to be developed further.
The 41 chapters are divided into seven parts, most of which are focusing on revolutionary waves, either as a theoretical construct or as an empirical reality of contemporary revolutions (Beck, 2011). Three waves of revolutions are identified: the ‘Color Revolution’ wave of the early 2000s, the ‘Arab Spring’ wave centered on 2011, and the ‘Beyond the Arab Spring’ wave that seems to take off around 2013. It is in the treatment of these waves that one of the most important contributions of the volume is offered up to the reader, namely in the form of a treasure trove of case studies of revolutionary episodes that rarely make it into comparative studies of revolutions. Especially valuable are the many case studies from countries of the former Soviet Union. The majority of these chapters are written by authors working in Russia, which, in addition to focusing on new cases, provides some distinct perspective by placing more emphasis than do most European and American scholars on Western intent and support for color revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, and elsewhere. For students of revolutions keen to examine these understudied episodes, the Handbook thus provides an excellent starting point for further empirical research.
The theoretical contribution of the book is perhaps more difficult to assess, at least this shortly after its publication. Goldstone is of course one of the great theorists of revolutions, and the chapters authored by him together with the Grinin and Korotayev are particularly insightful and coherent. The book also contains some fairly bold efforts at theorizing such as Leonid and Anton Grinin’s highlighting of distinct revolutionary waves going back to the 16th century, noting how such waves (consisting of events temporally close to one another) differ from revolutionary ‘lines’, that is, events separated by many years or even decades but which share similarities in causes, goals, and organizing principles.
The remaining theoretical chapters of the book, of which there about a dozen, all serve up important points, although sometimes in a less focused manner. In some chapters it becomes slightly difficult to keep track of all the key arguments made due to their sheer numbers, which in turn makes it challenging for the reader to know which ones the authors mean to emphasize. Furthermore, with so many different authors addressing so many different cases in the empirical parts of the book, it seems unlikely that a collaboratively generated set of theoretical points forming a coherent and consistent framework would have emerged as the result of the book. Unsurprisingly, those looking for such an outcome will be disappointed. While this could be seen as a shortcoming, a failure by the editors to ‘develop a comparative analysis’ of revolutions, I would argue that it might be better thought off as another way in which the book actually over-delivers. What revolution theory needs right now is not ready-to-apply frameworks so much as broader concepts that can be elaborated on – ideas subject to development and refinement – and the Handbook offers the reader a smorgasbord of such concepts. Much like the empirical chapters discussed earlier, then, the theoretical contribution of the book constitutes more of a starting point for research and theorizing than a closing of the discussion on revolutions.
For all its merits, the book naturally also contains a few weaknesses. First, as noted earlier and as to be expected, the individual chapters are of varying quality. Second, some chapters could probably have been merged with others, especially given the fact that some authors have written consecutive chapters with clear links and overlaps between them. It is rather likely that the readability of the volume would have been improved by a slightly more condensed format. Finally, and related to the previous point, the format is at times puzzling. Handbooks usually try to summarize the state of the art within a certain subfield, but one certainly gets the feeling that the editors seek to make a rather strong programmatic statement as well. There is obviously nothing inherently wrong with such an objective – on the contrary, it is to be welcomed – but it might have been better to abandon such goals given that many of the chapters do not clearly contribute to that endpoint. (The final part of the book is bravely dedicated to predictions of revolutionary futures, which reinforces the sense that the book is somewhere between a handbook and a more traditional edited volume.)
In sum, the Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century is a terrific empirical and theoretical resource for advanced students of revolutions. I want to emphasize ‘advanced’ because the sophisticated level of the book’s theoretical chapters appears to assume that the reader arrives to its pages with a fairly intimate knowledge of the field. For those in possession of such prerequisites, the Handbook will be an invaluable tool in the process of moving the field forward.