Robert Darnton

The question has come to haunt every article and broadcast from Egypt, Tunisia and other countries in the region whose people have revolted: what constitutes a revolution? In the 1970s, we used to chase that question in courses on comparative revolutions; and looking back on my ancient lecture notes, I can’t help but imagine a trajectory: England, 1640; France, 1789; Russia, 1917 … and Egypt, 2011?

I would not presume to pronounce on the course of events in Egypt over the past three weeks, but I think it’s fair to ask whether the information that now arrives every second by every means of communication from Twitter to television bears any relation to the classic models of revolution. Or should Egypt teach us to abandon those models altogether and to consider a kind of upheaval undreamt of in our old varieties of political science?

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Continua qui: http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2011/feb/22/1789-2011/