November 22, 2025

Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World

16 minutes

Examines the causes of revolutions and major rebellions in the early modern world, particularly focusing on the English Revolution of 1640 and the French Revolution of 1789. The author challenges Eurocentric explanations, arguing that these crises were part of waves of worldwide state breakdowns that also affected Eastern empires like the Ottoman Empire and Ming China. A central theme is the development of a causal framework linking demographic change, population growth, and consequent inflation to state fiscal crises, intra-elite conflict, and heightened popular unrest, which together constitute a "state breakdown." The author uses this framework to compare state crises in England, France, Germany, China, and the Ottoman Empire, differentiating between "revolutionary" outcomes marked by ideological repudiation of tradition in the West and more conservative state reconstruction in the East.

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