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The anatomy of revolution

by Crane Brinton (1898–1968)

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  • 4 chapters

The Anatomy of Revolution is a 1938 book by Crane Brinton outlining the "uniformities" of four major political revolutions: the English Revolution of the 1640s, the American, the French, and the Russian revolutions. Brinton notes how the revolutions followed a life-cycle from the Old Order to a moderate regime to a radical regime, to Thermidorian reaction. The book has been called "classic, "famous", and a "watershed in the study of revolution" and has been influential enough to have inspired advice given to US President Jimmy Carter by his National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski during the Iranian Revolution. It has been referenced in the well-known text Political Science: An Introduction by Michael G. Roskin et al. A revised edition was published in 1952, a revised and expanded edition in 1965, and the book remains in print. Brinton summarizes the revolutionary process as moving from "financial breakdown, [to] organization of the discontented to remedy this breakdown … revolutionary demands on the part of these organized discontented, demands which if granted would mean the virtual abdication of those governing, attempted use of force by the government, its failure, and the attainment of power by the revolutionists. These revolutionists have hitherto been acting as an organized and nearly unanimous group, but with the attainment of power it is clear that they are not united. The group which dominates these first stages we call the moderates … power passes by violent … methods from Right to Left" (p. 253). (This summary is from Wikipedia.)

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  • Revolutions

Read the opening

C. H. Firth, Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England: 3rd edition. London, 1924. The great work of our generation on Cromwell

S. R. Gardiner, A History of England, 1603-1642; A History of the Great Civil War, 1642-1649; A History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649-1656. Various editions and volumes. The whole work is usually in some 17 volumes. This is the “classic” history of the period, written in the last half of the nineteenth century. It is a sound but rather dull political history, but it does not touch at all on much that would interest us in the fields of economic, social, and intellectual history.

G. P. Gooch, English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century. 2nd edition with notes and appendices by H. J. Laski. Cambridge, England, 1927. Indispensable.

H. J. C. Grierson, Cross Currents in English Literature of the Seventeenth Century. London, 1929. Excellent intellectual history.

T. C. Pease, The Leveller Movement. Washington, 1916. A very useful monograph, especially as a corrective to Bernstein’s socialistic view of Lilburne and the Levelers.

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Contents

  1. Foreword
  2. C. H. Firth, Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England: 3rd edition. London, 1924. The great work of our generation on Cromwell
  3. C. M. Andrews, Colonial Background of the American Revolution. New: Haven, 1924
  4. C. France

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About this edition

This free edition of The anatomy of revolution by Crane Brinton comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #78065, released 2026-02-27. It is in the public domain in the United States, so you can read it here in full at no cost, on any phone, tablet or computer.

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