World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolu­tion, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wear­able sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manu­facturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individu­als. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frame­works that advance progress.

What can the great crises of the past teach us about contemporary revolutions? Arguing from an exciting and original perspective, Goldstone suggests that great revolutions were the product of 'ecological crises' that occurred when inflexible political, economic, and social institutions were overwhelmed by the cumulative pressure of population growth on limited available resources. Moreover, he contends that the causes of the great revolutions of Europe—the English and French revolutions—were similar to those of the great rebellions of Asia, which shattered dynasties in Ottoman Turkey, China, and Japan. The author observes that revolutions and rebellions have more often produced a crushing state orthodoxy than liberal institutions, leading to the conclusion that perhaps it is vain to expect revolution to bring democracy and economic progress. Instead, contends Goldstone, the path to these goals must begin with respect for individual liberty rather than authoritarian movements of 'national liberation.' Arguing that the threat of revolution is still with us, Goldstone urges us to heed the lessons of the past. He sees in the United States a repetition of the behavior patterns that have led to internal decay and international decline in the past, a situation calling for new leadership and careful attention to the balance between our consumption and our resources. Meticulously researched, forcefully argued, and strikingly original, Revolutions and Rebellions in the Early Modern World is a tour de force by a brilliant young scholar. It is a book that will surely engender much discussion and debate.

The first truly global history of revolutions and revolutionary waves in the modern age, from Atlantic Revolutions to Arab Spring.

A historical account of ideology in the Global South as the postwar laboratory of socialism, its legacy following the Cold War, and the continuing influence of socialist ideas worldwide. In the first decades after World War II, many newly independent Asian and African countries and established Latin American states pursued a socialist development model. Jeremy Friedman traces the socialist experiment over forty years through the experience of five countries: Indonesia, Chile, Tanzania, Angola, and Iran. These states sought paths to socialism without formal adherence to the Soviet bloc or the programs that Soviets, East Germans, Cubans, Chinese, and other outsiders tried to promote. Instead, they attempted to forge new models of socialist development through their own trial and error, together with the help of existing socialist countries, demonstrating the flexibility and adaptability of socialism. All five countries would become Cold War battlegrounds and regional models, as new policies in one shaped evolving conceptions of development in another. Lessons from the collapse of democracy in Indonesia were later applied in Chile, just as the challenge of political Islam in Indonesia informed the policies of the left in Iran. Efforts to build agrarian economies in West Africa influenced TanzaniaÕs approach to socialism, which in turn influenced the trajectory of the Angolan model. Ripe for Revolution shows socialism as more adaptable and pragmatic than often supposed. When we view it through the prism of a Stalinist orthodoxy, we miss its real effects and legacies, both good and bad. To understand how socialism succeeds and fails, and to grasp its evolution and potential horizons, we must do more than read manifestos. We must attend to history.

On January 2, 1959, Fidel Castro, the rebel comandante who had just overthrown Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, addressed a crowd of jubilant supporters. Recalling the failed popular uprisings of past decades, Castro assured them that this time “the real Revolution” had arrived. As Jonathan Brown shows in this capacious history of the Cuban Revolution, Castro’s words proved prophetic not only for his countrymen but for Latin America and the wider world. Cuba’s Revolutionary World examines in forensic detail how the turmoil that rocked a small Caribbean nation in the 1950s became one of the twentieth century’s most transformative events. Initially, Castro’s revolution augured well for democratic reform movements gaining traction in Latin America. But what had begun promisingly veered off course as Castro took a heavy hand in efforts to centralize Cuba’s economy and stamp out private enterprise. Embracing the Soviet Union as an ally, Castro and his lieutenant Che Guevara sought to export the socialist revolution abroad through armed insurrection. Castro’s provocations inspired intense opposition. Cuban anticommunists who had fled to Miami found a patron in the CIA, which actively supported their efforts to topple Castro’s regime. The unrest fomented by Cuban-trained leftist guerrillas lent support to Latin America’s military castes, who promised to restore stability. Brazil was the first to succumb to a coup in 1964; a decade later, military juntas governed most Latin American states. Thus did a revolution that had seemed to signal the death knell of dictatorship in Latin America bring about its tragic opposite.

Reassesses the role of revolution as a force that has shaped the development of world politics.

Originally published in 1937, C. L. R. James's World Revolution is a pioneering Marxist analysis of the history of revolutions during the interwar period and of the fundamental conflict between Trotsky and Stalin. James, who was a leading Trotskyist activist in Britain, outlines Russia's transition from Communist revolution to a Stalinist totalitarian state bureaucracy. He also provides an account of the ideological contestations within the Communist International while examining its influence on the development of the Soviet Union and its changing role in revolutions in Spain, China, Germany, and Central Europe. Published to commemorate the centenary of the Russian Revolution, this definitive edition of World Revolution features a new introduction by Christian Høgsbjerg and includes rare archival material, selected contemporary reviews, and extracts from James's 1939 interview with Trotsky.

A never-before published history of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution and its post-colonial legacy, woven together from lecture excerpts by the renowned Pan-African revolutionary socialist theorist In his short life, Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the foremost thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Wherever he was, Rodney was a lightning rod for working-class Black Power organizing. His deportation sparked Jamaica’s Rodney Riots in 1968, and his scholarship trained a generation how to approach politics on an international scale. In 1980, shortly after founding the Working People’s Alliance in Guyana, the 38-year-old Rodney was assassinated. Walter Rodney’s The Russian Revolution collects surviving texts from a series of lectures he delivered at the University of Dar es Salaam, an intellectual hub of the independent Third World. It had been his intention to work these into a book, a goal completed posthumously with the editorial aid of Robin D.G. Kelley and Jesse Benjamin. Moving across the historiography of the long Russian Revolution with clarity and insight, Rodney transcends the ideological fault lines of the Cold War. Surveying a broad range of subjects—the Narodniks, social democracy, the October Revolution, civil war, and the challenges of Stalinism—Rodney articulates a distinct viewpoint from the Third World, one that grounds revolutionary theory and history with the people in motion.

This readable and cogent book provides a much-needed overview of the information revolution in a global context. First tracing the historical evolution of communications since the development of the printing press, Elizabeth C. Hanson then explores the profound ways that new information and communication technologies are transforming international relations. More people have access to more diverse sources of information than ever before, as well as a greater capacity to influence national and international agendas. More transcontinental channels of contact are available to more people in the world at far less cost than ever before in history. Hanson illustrates how these dramatic changes have raised a set of key questions: What is the impact of the information revolution on diplomacy, foreign policymaking, and the conduct of war? How are these new technologies affecting the structure of the global economy and the distribution of the world's wealth? How and to what extent are they affecting the nation-state—its centrality in the international system, its sovereignty, and its relationship to its citizens? In answering these questions, Hanson considers the controversies over the present and future impact of a radically new information and communications environment as part of larger debates over globalization and the role of technology in historical change. Her carefully chosen case studies and judicious use of relevant research provide a firm basis for readers to evaluate competing arguments on this contentious issue.

The first comprehensive political history of the communist party Vanguard of the Revolution is a sweeping history of one of the most significant political institutions of the modern world. The communist party was a revolutionary idea long before its supporters came to power. A. James McAdams argues that the rise and fall of communism can be understood only by taking into account the origins and evolution of this compelling idea. He shows how the leaders of parties in countries as diverse as the Soviet Union, China, Germany, Yugoslavia, Cuba, and North Korea adapted the original ideas of revolutionaries like Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin to profoundly different social and cultural settings. Vanguard of the Revolution is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand world communism and the captivating idea that gave it life.