Revisiting the problem of revolution: method, international inertia and post-utopianism

摘要

Reading George Lawson's Anatomies of Revolution in the context of political upheavals from Santiago to Hong Kong, from Minneapolis to Brussels is refreshing, generative and also cautionary. With theoretical sophistication and empirical richness, Lawson charts what conjunctural processes give rise to revolution, how revolutions take different trajectories and why they end in success, failure or settle for negotiation. At the same time, his historicist perspective illuminates the transformation of revolutions over time, helping us to better understand why and how today's aspirations for revolutionary transformation look differently from their predecessors in their non-utopianism, commitment to mass, horizontal mobilization and the prevalence of negotiation.