HIST 5318 - Modern Revolutions: From France to China

Three credit hours.

A comparative examination of five modern revolutions: the French Revolution (1789-1815), The Meiji “Restoration” in Japan (1853- 1890), the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), the Russian Revolution (1917-1932), and the Chinese Revolution (1919-1949). We will consider such issues as the extent of real turnover in the state apparatus, the prevalence of state-driven “revolutions from above” as opposed to classic “revolutions from below” in modern history, the balance of internal and external causation, and the nature of revolutionary violence.