What Counts as a Revolution?

Historians use the word revolution for a rapid, usually illegal transfer of power that also changes who holds authority and on what principles. That definition separates revolutions from ordinary changes of government, which follow existing rules, and from coups, which swap rulers but leave the system intact. Many scholars add a second test: a 'social' revolution also reshapes property, class relations or legal status, as when France abolished noble privileges in 1789 or Haiti destroyed slavery.

By that stricter test, some famous upheavals look more like political revolutions, transferring power among elites without overturning society. Comparing cases matters because each revolution was shaped by others: Americans read English history, the French read American documents, and Haitian and Latin American leaders watched both. This course compares England in 1688, America, France, Haiti, Spanish and Portuguese America, and, as a contrast, Russia in 1917.