This book, first published in 1971, is a close analysis of some of the typical peasant uprisings of the seventeenth century. The goal of the movements in France and China was a return to an older and more traditional society, rather than a profound transformation of the social structure. In Russia, however, the peasants attempted to overturn the rigid order of a two-class structure and replace it with a more democratic society.

State structures, international forces, and class relations: Theda Skocpol shows how all three combine to explain the origins and accomplishments of social-revolutionary transformations. Social revolutions have been rare but undeniably of enormous importance in modern world history. States and Social Revolutions provides a new frame of reference for analyzing the causes, the conflicts, and the outcomes of such revolutions. It develops a rigorous, comparative historical analysis of three major cases: the French Revolution of 1787 through the early 1800s, the Russian Revolution of 1917 through the 1930s, and the Chinese Revolution of 1911 through the 1960s. Believing that existing theories of revolution, both Marxist and non-Marxist, are inadequate to explain the actual historical patterns of revolutions, Skocpol urges us to adopt fresh perspectives. Above all, she maintains that states conceived as administrative and coercive organizations potentially autonomous from class controls and interests must be made central to explanations of revolutions.

Presenting the regional, social and economic variety of pre-modern France, this survey of rural life examines the crucial external relationships between peasant/priest and peasant/seigneur as well as the not less important ones that existed within the peasant life lived from cradle to grave.

This thoroughly readable and stimulating social history of Western Europe, first published in 1984, explores the family, religion and the supernatural, and the social structure and social controls of rural society. This title will be of interest not only to students, but to anyone who is anxious to understand the lives – both internal and external – of rural people in his fascinating period that is so central to everyone’s past.

As before, the second edition of this widely-used survey is in two main parts. The first analyses the major themes of seventeenth-century European history on a continent-wide basis. The second part moves on to outline political, diplomatic and military events in the various states and nations of the time. For the second edition all the chapters have been rewritten to take account of recent scholarship. Moreover, many new topics are discussed: the family; crime; the impact of printing; climate; population and social mobility; Islam in seventeenth-century Europe. Throughout, the book emphasises current lines of research and controversy to illustrate that the history of the period is a process of enquiry and argument rather than incontrovertible fact.

James C. Scott places the critical problem of the peasant household—subsistence—at the center of this study. The fear of food shortages, he argues persuasively, explains many otherwise puzzling technical, social, and moral arrangements in peasant society, such as resistance to innovation, the desire to own land even at some cost in terms of income, relationships with other people, and relationships with institutions, including the state. Once the centrality of the subsistence problem is recognized, its effects on notions of economic and political justice can also be seen. Scott draws from the history of agrarian society in lower Burma and Vietnam to show how the transformations of the colonial era systematically violated the peasants’ “moral economy” and created a situation of potential rebellion and revolution. Demonstrating keen insights into the behavior of people in other cultures and a rare ability to generalize soundly from case studies, Scott offers a different perspective on peasant behavior that will be of interest particularly to political scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and Southeast Asianists. “The book is extraordinarily original and valuable and will have a very broad appeal. I think the central thesis is correct and compelling.”—Clifford Geertz “In this major work, … Scott views peasants as political and moral actors defending their values as well as their individual security, making his book vital to an understanding of peasant politics.”—Library Journal James C. Scott is professor of political science at Yale University.

In 1640 the term Europe was without real political significance. In the following years the idea of Europe came to mean much more - a period documented in this fascinating book.

Social movements have shaped and are shaping modern societies around the globe; this is evident when we look at examples such as the Arab Spring, Spain’s Indignados and the wider Occupy movement. In this volume, experts analyse the ‘classic’ and new social movements from a uniquely global perspective and offer insights in current theoretical discussions on social mobilisation. Chapters are devoted both to the study of continental developments of social movements going back to the nineteenth century and ranging to the present day, and to an emphasis on the transnational dimension of these movements. Interdisciplinary and truly international, this book is an essential text on social movements for historians, political scientists, sociologists, philosophers and social scientists.

A broad-ranging survey of violence in western Europe from the Reformation to the French Revolution. Julius Ruff summarises a huge body of research and provides readers with a clear, accessible, and engaging introduction to the topic of violence in early modern Europe. His book, enriched with fascinating illustrations, underlines the fact that modern preoccupations with the problem of violence are not unique, and that late medieval and early modern European societies produced levels of violence that may have exceeded those in the most violent modern inner-city neighbourhoods. Julius Ruff examines the role of the emerging state in controlling violence; the roots and forms of the period's widespread interpersonal violence; violence and its impact on women; infanticide; and rioting. This book, in the successful textbook series New Approaches to European History, will be of great value to students of European history, criminal justice sciences, and anthropology.