Neil Davidson explores classic themes of nation, state, and revolution in this collection of essays. Ranging from the extent to which nationalism can be a component of led-wing politics to the difference between bourgeois and socialist revolutions, the book concludes with an extended discussion of the different meanings history has for conservatives, radicals, and Marxists.
Chapter 1. How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions?
Chapter 2. Asiatic, Tributary, or Absolutist? A Comment on Chris Harman’s “The Rise of Capitalism”
Chapter 3. Centuries of Transition: Chris Wickham on the Feudal Revolution
Chapter 4. Scotland: Birthplace of Passive Revolution?
Chapter 5. The French Revolution Is Not Over: Henry Heller on France, 1789–1815
Chapter 6. The American Civil War Considered as a Bourgeois Revolution
Chapter 7. When History Failed to Turn: Pierre Broué on the German Revolution
Chapter 8. From Uneven to Combined Development
Chapter 9. China: Unevenness, Combination, Revolution?
Chapter 10. Third World Revolution
Chapter 11. From Deflected Permanent Revolution to the Law of Uneven and Combined Development
Chapter 12. Revolutions between Theory and History: A Reply to Alex Callinicos and Donny Gluckstein
Afterword: We Cannot Escape History