Revolution History

The Haitian Revolution began in 1791 in the French colony of Saint Domingue, when a group of slaves rebelled in order to secure their freedom and the end of slavery. In the midst of the French Revolution, slaves took advantage of volatile political, racial, and social circumstances. With legendary leaders like Toussaint Louverture, they eventually defeated Napoleon’s France to form the independent nation of Haiti. The Haitian Revolution had both global causes and consequences.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 was one of the most cataclysmic events in world history, profoundly shaping politics, international relations, social patterns, economics and science in the century that followed. It created long-lasting aftershocks which travelled far beyond its geographical borders. How did it happen? What were the sequence of events that led, following the shocking upheaval of the old Romanov order, to a fierce and violent rivalry between a variety of revolutionary factions and the ultimate victory of the Bolsheviks?

During the late years of the 18th century, the spirit of Enlightenment thinking and revolution were in the air. The world was changing, moving away from ingrained beliefs about religion, reason, society, and the rights of the individual and turning more toward the laws of nature as interpreted by the scientific method. Nowhere was the influence of this radical new way of thinking more apparent than in France, and the upheaval this caused would come to bloody fruition in the form of revolution.

The principles of the French Revolution remain the only possible basis for a just society - even if, after more than 200 years, they are more contested than ever before. In A New World Begins, Jeremy D. Popkin offers a riveting account of the revolution that puts the listener in the thick of the debates and the violence that led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a new society.

A sweeping narrative of the wartime experience, A People's History of the American Revolution is the first book to view the Revolution through the eyes of common folk. Their stories have long been overlooked in the mythic telling of America's founding but are crucial to a comprehensive understanding of the fight for independence. Now, the experience of farmers, laborers, rank-and-file soldiers, women, Native Americans, and African Americans - found in diaries, letters, memoirs, and other revelatory primary sources - create a gritty account of rebellion....

Written by an author with plenty of experience holding a scalpel, Dr. David Schneider's in-depth biography is an encompassing history of the practice that has leapt forward over the centuries from the dangerous guesswork of ancient Greek physicians through the world-changing implant revolution of the 20th century.

In Revolution, Peter Ackroyd takes listeners from William of Orange's accession following the Glorious Revolution to the Regency, when the flamboyant Prince of Wales ruled in the stead of his mad father, George III, and England was - again - at war with France, a war that would end with the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. Late Stuart and Georgian England marked the creation of the great pillars of the English state. The Bank of England was founded, as was the stock exchange.

From an award-winning scholar comes this definitive, single-volume history that illuminates the tensions and transformations of the Russian Revolution. In The Russian Revolution, acclaimed historian Sean McMeekin traces the events which ended Romanov rule, ushered the Bolsheviks into power, and introduced Communism to the world. Between 1917 and 1922, Russia underwent a complete and irreversible transformation.

Bruce Lancaster starts his story with an examination of colonial society and the origins of the quarrel with England. He details the ensuing battles and military campaigns from Lexington and Concord to the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, as well as the tense political and social situation of the new nation. The American Heritage History of the American Revolution details the birth of America with insight and depth.

This magisterial volume follows the death of ancient traditions, the triumph of new classes, and the emergence of new technologies, sciences, and ideologies, with vast intellectual daring and aphoristic elegance. Part of Eric Hobsbawm's epic four-volume history of the modern world, along with The Age of Capitalism, The Age of Empire, and The Age of Extremes.

From the cassoulet that won a war to the crêpe that doomed Napoleon, from the rebellions sparked by bread and salt to the new cuisines forged by empire, the history of France is intimately entwined with its gastronomic pursuits. A witty exploration of the facts and legends surrounding some of the most popular French foods and wines by a French cheesemonger and an American academic, A Bite-Sized History of France tells the compelling and often surprising story of France from the Roman era to modern times.

This is the third volume in Churchill's famous account. During the long period of 1688 to 1815, three revolutions took place, and all led to war between the British and the French.

In his retelling of a Chinese history stretching back 5,000 years, author and China-expert Jonathan Clements focuses on the human stories which led to the powerful transformations in Chinese society - from the unification of China under its first emperor, Qinshi Huangdi, to the Mongol invasion under Genghis Khan and the consolidation of Communist rule under Mao Zedong. Clements even brings listeners through to the present day, outlining China's economic renaissance under Deng Xiaoping and Xi Jinping.

Here is a brisk, accessible, and vivid introduction to arguably the most important event in the history of the United States: the American Revolution. Between 1760 and 1800, the American people cast off British rule to create a new nation and a radically new form of government based on the idea that people have the right to govern themselves. In this lively account, Robert Allison provides a cohesive synthesis of the military, diplomatic, political, social, and intellectual aspects of the Revolution, paying special attention to the Revolution's causes and consequences.

The American Revolution is often portrayed as a high-minded, orderly event whose capstone, the Constitution, provided the ideal framework for a democratic, prosperous nation. Alan Taylor, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, gives us a different creation story in this magisterial history of the nation's founding. Rising out of the continental rivalries of European empires and their native allies, Taylor's Revolution builds like a ground fire overspreading Britain's mainland colonies, fueled by local conditions, destructive, hard to quell.

Groundbreaking in its inclusiveness, enthralling in its narrative of a movement whose purpose, in the words of Leon Trotsky, was "to overthrow the world", The Russian Revolution draws conclusions that aroused great controversy. Richard Pipes argues convincingly that the Russian Revolution was an intellectual, rather than a class, uprising; that it was steeped in terror from its very outset; and that it was not a revolution at all but a coup d'etat - "the capture of governmental power by a small minority."

As a Hillary voter, a New York Times reporter, and frequent attendee at her local gay bars, Nellie Bowles fit right in with her San Francisco neighbors and friends—until she started questioning whether the progressive movement she knew and loved was actually helping people. When her colleagues suggested that asking such questions meant she was “on the wrong side of history,” Bowles did what any reporter worth her salt would do: she started investigating for herself. The answers she found were stranger—and funnier—than she expected.

Populist rage, ideological fracture, economic and technological shocks, geopolitical dangers, and an international system studded with catastrophic risk—the early decades of the 21st century may be one of the most revolutionary periods in modern history. But they are not the first. Humans have lived, and thrived, through more than one great realignment. What makes an age a revolutionary one? And how do they end?

Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution. In 1980, shortly after founding of the Working People's Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney would be assassinated. In his magnum opus, Rodney incisively argues that grasping "the great divergence" between the West and the rest can only be explained as the exploitation of the latter by the former. This meticulously researched analysis of the repercussions of European colonialism in Africa remains an indispensable study for grasping global inequality today.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.