History and Revolution: Refuting Revisionism

In History and Revolution, a group of respected historians confronts the conservative, revisionist trends in historical enquiry that have been dominant in the last twenty years. Ranging from an exploration of the English, French, and Russian revolutions and their treatment by revisionist historiography, to the debates and themes arising from attempts to downplay revolution’s role in history, History and Revolution also engages with several prominent revisionist historians, including Orlando Figes, Conrad Russell and Simon Schama.

This important book shows the inability of revisionism to explain why millions are moved to act in defence of political causes, and why specific political currents emerge, and is a significant reassertion of the concept of revolution in human development.

Mike Haynes teaches history at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. He is the author of Nikolai Bukharin and the Transition from Capitalism to Socialism; Russia: Class and Power 1917–2000; and (with Rumy Hasan) A Century of State Murder?

Jim Wolfreys is lecturer in French political history at King’s College London, UK. He is co-author (with Peter Fysh) of The Politics of Racism in France.

Daniel Bensaïd (1946–2010) taught philosophy at the University of Paris VIII, and was the author of books on Marxism, Walter Benjamin, the French Revolution and Joan of Arc. The Marxists’ Internet Archive has a <a href="http://www.marxists.org/archive/bensaid/obits/index.htm">list of obituaries</a>.