""Revolution and Social Change: The American Revolution..." Topic

… as a People's War".

"Just as "no man is an island," no historical event is isolated from its context of space and time. The American Revolution drew upon diverse ideas stretching back to the ancient world, was influenced by numerous social conditions each with its own past development, and involved the actions of millions of individuals over a span of years within a transatlantic area.

In examining a "symbolic" event such as the Revolution, however, we often overlook how our whole conceptualization of the boundaries of that "extended" event is largely based upon a sense of comparison.2 In this regard, the key word is not "American," but "Revolution." Thus our perception of when the Revolution began and ended follows from our beliefs around the class of events we designate "revolutions."

Perez Zagorin defines three distinct lines of inquiry for studying revolution. The first is a detailed or general account of one specific revolution. The second presents a formal comparison of two or more revolutions to uncover any significant relationships between them. And, "finally, the third kind of inquiry is theoretical; its purpose is to establish a theory of revolution capable of explaining causes, processes, and effects as a type of change."3 But, as Perez Zagorin observes, it is the third theoretical study of revolutions which is most impoverished:…"
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