21H.001
How to Stage a Revolution
Explores fundamental questions about the causes and nature of revolutions by looking at how people overthrow their rulers and establish new governments. Considers a set of major political transformations throughout the world and across centuries to understand the meaning of revolution and evaluate its impact. Examines how revolutionaries have attempted to establish their ideals and realize their goals. Asks whether radical upheavals require bloodshed, violence, or even terror. Seeks to explain why some revolutions succeed and others fail. Materials include the writings of revolutionaries, declarations and constitutions, music, films, art, novels, memoirs, and newspapers.
Fall 2013
This course explores fundamental questions about the causes and nature of revolutions by looking at how people overthrow their rulers and establish new governments. Considers a set of major political transformations throughout the world and across centuries to understand the meaning of revolution and evaluate its impact. Examines how revolutionaries have attempted to establish their ideals and realize their goals. Asks whether radical upheavals require bloodshed, violence, or even terror. Seeks to explain why some revolutions succeed and others fail. Materials include the writings of revolutionaries, declarations and constitutions, music, films, art, novels, memoirs, and newspapers.
Readings
- [El Rashidi] = El Rashidi, Yasmine. The Battle for Egypt: Dispatches From the Revolution . New York Review Books, 2011. (E-Book only; available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Books, etc.)
- [D&G] = Dubois, Laurent, and John D. Garrigus. Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789–1804: A Brief History With Documents . Bedford-St Martin’s, 2006. ISBN: 9780312415013.
- [Arendt] = Arendt, Hannah. On Revolution . Penguin Classics, 2006. ISBN: 9780143039907.
- [Mason] = Mason, Laura, and Tracey Rizzo. The French Revolution: A Document Collection. Cengage Learning, 1998. ISBN: 9780669417807.
- SES #: 1 · TOPICS: Introduction · READINGS: No readings.
- Washington Post Timeline of the Egyptian Revolution, January 2011 to June 2012.
- [El Rashidi] Chapters 3–5.
- [El Rashidi] Chapters 1–2.
- Hofstadter, Richard. Chapter 1 in The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It . Vintage, 1954. ISBN: 9780394700090.
- Bancroft, George. History of the United States, from the Discovery of the American Continent . Charles Bowen, 1837, selection.
- Recommended Readings
- Gipson, Lawrence Henry. The Coming of the Revolution, 1763–1775 . Harper Torchbookss, 1962.
- Maier, Pauline. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence . Vintage, 1998. ISBN: 9780679779087.
- Franklin, Benjamin. Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind and the Peopling of Countries. BiblioLife, 2009. ISBN: 9781113348074.
- Stevens, Sylvester K., and Donald H. Kant, eds. Letters between General Jeffrey Amherst and Col. Henry Bouquet, 25 June-25 September, 1763. In The Papers of Col. Henry Bouquet . Pennsylvania Historical Commission, 1943, pp. 203–77.
- Franklin, Benjamin. A Narrative of the Late Massacres, in Lancaster County, of a Number of Indians, Friends of this Province, by Persons Unknown, with Some Observations on the Same . Anthony Armbruster, 1764.
- Anonymous. The Conduct of the Paxton Men, Impartially Represented: With Some Remarks on the Narrative. Andrew Steuart, 1764.
- Fowler Jr., William. Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle for North America, 1754–1763. Walker and Company, 2005, pp. 27–265. ISBN: 9780802714114.
- Anderson, Fred. Part 1 in Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of British North America, 1754–1766. Vintage, 2001. ISBN: 9780375706363.
- Jennings, Francis. Empires of Fortune: Crowns, Colonies, & Tribes in the Seven Years War in America . W. W. Norton and Company, 1988. ISBN: 9780393025378.
- SES #: R2 · TOPICS: Recitation: Ethnic Cleansing in Modern Warfare · READINGS: No readings.
- ———. Common Sense. Reprint Services Corporation, 1776. ISBN: 9780781247184.
- Holton, Woody. Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, & the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia . The University of North Carolina Press, 1999. ISBN: 9780807847848.
- Steele, Ian K. Part III in Warpaths: Invasions of North America . Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780195082227.
- Silver, Peter. Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America . W. W. Norton & Company, 2009. ISBN: 9780393334906.
- Letters from General George Washington to Major General Sullivan, 31 May 1779, and General George Washington to the Marquis de Lafayette, 20 October 1779. In The Writings of George Washington; Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts; With a Life of the Author, Notes, and Illustrations . Little, Brown, and Company, 1858, pp. VI: 264–7, and 382–6.
- Cook, Frederick, ed. “Journal of Lieut. Erkuries Beatty, of the 4th Penn Line,” April 1779-October 1779. In Journals of the Military Expedition of Major General John Sullivan, 1779 . Knapp, Peck, and Thomson, 1887.
- Richter, Daniel K. Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America . Harvard University Press, 2001.
- Wallace, Anthony F. C. The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca . Vintage, 1972. ISBN: 9780394716992.
- Graymont, Barbara. The Iroquois in the American Revolution . Syracuse University Press, 1972. ISBN: 9780815600831.
- Henry, Alexander Purdie. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union Between the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia . Alexander Purdie, 1777.
- The Constitution of the United States of America. Barnes & Noble Inc, 1996. ISBN: 9780760700761.
- Stiles, Ezra. The United States Elevated to Glory and Honor: A Sermon, Preached before His Excellency Jonathan Trumbull, Esq. L. L. D., Governor and Commander in Chief, and the Honorable the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, Convened in Hartford, at the Anniversary Election, May 8th, 1783. Thomas and Samuel Green, 1783.
- Hamilton, Alexander, James Madison, and John Jay. The Federalist Papers. Penguin Classics, 1987. ISBN: 9780140444957.
- Taylor, Alan. The Divided Ground: Indians, Settlers, and the Northern Borderland of the American Revolution . Vintage, 2007. ISBN: 9781400077076.
- Trachtenberg, Alan. Shades of Hiawatha: Staging Indians, Making Americans, 1880–1930 . Hill and Wang, 2004. ISBN: 9780374299750.
- SES #: R3 · TOPICS: Recitation: Is Revolution Contagious? · READINGS: No readings.
- Paul, Beik, ed. Excerpts from the 1789 French “Lists of Grievances.” In The French Revolution . Macmillan, 1970, pp. 45–63.
- Recommended Reading
- [Censer] Chapters 1, and 2: “Social Causes of the Revolution,” and “Monarchy Embattled.”
- [Censer] Chapters 3, and 4: “The Enlightenment and Human Rights,” and “Paris and the Politics of Rebellion.”
- Dawson, Philip, ed. “The Fall of the Bastille.” In The French Revolution . Prentice-Hall, 1967, pp. 33–46. ISBN: 9780133312157.
- Rudé, George. “July 1789,” and “The March to Versailles.” In The Crowd in the French Revolution . Oxford University Press, 1967, pp. 45–79.
- [Censer] Chapters 6, and 7: “The Monarchy Falls,” and “War, Terror, and Resistance to the Revolution.”
- Frank A. Kafker, et al. “Why Terror in 1793–1794?” In The French Revolution: Conflicting Interpretations. 5th ed. Krieger Publishing Company, 2002, pp. 185–226. ISBN: 9781575240923.
- Frank A. Kafker, et al. “The Causes of the Vendée Revolt of 1793.” In The French Revolution: Conflicting Interpretations. 5th ed. Krieger Publishing Company, 2002, pp. 155–83. ISBN: 9781575240923.
- Brown, Howard. “From Organic Society to Security State: The War on Brigandage in France, 1797–1802.” Journal of Modern History 69, no. 4 (1997): 661–95.
- Blaufarb, Rafe, ed. “Documents on Napoleon’s Civil Code and the Napoleonic Regime in Europe.” In Napoleon: Symbol for an Age: A Brief History with Documents . Bedford Books, 2008, pp. 140–9, and 158–65.
- Lyons, Martyn. “The Napoleonic Empire: Collaboration and Resistance.” In Napoleon Bonaparte and The Legacy of the French Revolution . Palgrave Macmillan, 1994, pp. 244–59. ISBN: 9780312121235.
- [Censer] Chapter 9: “The Napoleonic Experience.”
- Casas, Bartolomé de las. A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies . Penguin Classics, 1992, pp. 14–7. ISBN: 9780140445626.
- Dubois, Laurent. Chapters 1–2 in Avengers of the New World . Belknap Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780674013049.
- Dubois, Laurent. Chapter 3 in Avengers of the New World . Belknap Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780674013049.
- Dubois, Laurent, and Julius S. Scott. “An African Revolutionary in the Atlantic World.” In Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn . Edited by Thomas Bender, Laurent Dubois, and Richard Rabinowitz. Giles, 2011, pp. 139–58. ISBN: 9781904832942.
- Bell, Madison Smartt. Toussaint Louverture . Vintage, 2008. ISBN: 9781400079353.
- Dubois, Laurent. Chapters 1–3 in Haiti: The Aftershocks of History . Metropolitan, 2012.
- Dangerfield, George. Chapter 2 in The Awakening of American Nationalism, 1815–1828. Harper and Row, 1965. ISBN: 9781135578275.
- Madison, James. “Letter from James Madison to the Marquis de Lafayette, November 1826.” In The Writings Of James Madison V9, 1819–1836: Comprising His Public Papers And His Private Correspondence (1910) . Edited by Gaillard Hunt. Kessinger Publishing, 2010, pp. 261–66. ISBN: 9781167244780.
- SES #: R10 · TOPICS: Recitation: Race and Revolutionary Nation Building · READINGS: No readings.
- Marx, Karl. “Bourgeois and Proletarians.” In The Communist Manifesto . Edited and with an introduction by John E. Toews. BrdfordStMartins, 1999, pp. 65–77.
- Popkin, Jeremy D. A History of Modern France . 3rd ed. Pearson, 2005, pp. 115–50. ISBN: 9780131932937.
- SES #: 22 · TOPICS: Panel Discussion: Hannah Arendt, “The Social Question” · READINGS: [Arendt] pp. 63–105.
- Serna, Pierre. “Every Revolution is a War of Independence.” In The French Revolution in Global Perspective . Edited by Suzanne Desan, Lynn Hunt, and William Max Nelson. Cornell University Press, 2013, pp. 165–82. ISBN: 9780801478680.
- Coller, Ian. “Egypt in the French Revolution.” In The French Revolution in Global Perspective . Edited by Suzanne Desan, Lynn Hunt, and William Max Nelson. Cornell University Press, 2013, pp. 115–31. ISBN: 9780801478680.
- SES #: 24 · TOPICS: Comparing the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions · READINGS: [Arendt] pp. 125–50, 156–60, and 186–91.
- Jr. Fatton, Robert. The Roots of Haitian Despotism . Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007, pp. 1–12. ISBN: 9781588265449.
- SES #: R12 · TOPICS: Recitation: Violence, Freedom, and the Atlantic Revolutionary Tradition · READINGS: [Arendt] pp. 207–16, 223–51, 259–61, and 267–73.
- SES #: 26 · TOPICS: Revolution Today: Faculty and Student Discussion · READINGS: Reading on Egypt TBA
- SES #: 27 · TOPICS: Conclusion and Student Evaluations · READINGS: No readings.
Prerequisites & course information
Prereq: None Acad Year 2027-2028: U (Spring) Acad Year 2028-2029: Not offered 3-0-9 units. HASS-H
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Fall 2013
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.