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Product Identifiers

PublisherRoutledge

ISBN-100765804719

ISBN-139780765804716

eBay Product ID (ePID)391733

Product Key Features

Number of Pages677 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication NameFire in the Minds of Men : Origins of the Revolutionary Faith

Publication Year1998

SubjectSociology / General, Revolutionary, General, Europe / General

TypeTextbook

Subject AreaPolitical Science, Social Science, History

AuthorJames H. Billington

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height1.3 in

Item Weight30 Oz

Item Length9.1 in

Item Width6.9 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceCollege Audience

LCCN98-024144

Dewey Edition18

Dewey Decimal322.4/2/0903

SynopsisThis book traces the origins of a faith--perhaps the faith of the century. Modern revolutionaries are believers, no less committed and intense than were Christians or Muslims of an earlier era. What is new is the belief that a perfect secular order will emerge from forcible overthrow of traditional authority. This inherently implausible idea energized Europe in the nineteenth century, and became the most pronounced ideological export of the West to the rest of the world in the twentieth century. Billington is interested in revolutionaries--the innovative creators of a new tradition. His historical frame extends from the waning of the French Revolution in the late eighteenth century to the beginnings of the Russian Revolution in the early twentieth century. The theater was Europe of the industrial era; the main stage was the journalistic offices within great cities such as Paris, Berlin, London, and St. Petersburg. Billington claims with considerable evidence that revolutionary ideologies were shaped as much by the occultism and proto-romanticism of Germany as the critical rationalism of the French Enlightenment. The conversion of social theory to political practice was essentially the work of three Russian revolutions: in 1905, March 1917, and November 1917. Events in the outer rim of the European world brought discussions about revolution out of the school rooms and press rooms of Paris and Berlin into the halls of power. Despite his hard realism about the adverse practical consequences of revolutionary dogma, Billington appreciates the identity of its best sponsors, people who preached social justice transcending traditional national, ethnic, and gender boundaries. When this book originally appeared The New Republic hailed it as "remarkable, learned and lively," while The New Yorker noted that Billington "pays great attention to the lives and emotions of individuals and this makes his book absorbing." It is an invaluable work of history and contribution to our understanding of political life., This text traces the origins of a faith - modern revolutionaries are believers, no less committed and intense than were Christians or Muslims of an earlier era. What is different is the belief that a perfect secular order will emerge from forcible overthrow of traditional authority.

LC Classification NumberHM283.B54 1998