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.

For decades, political observers and pundits have characterized the Islamic Republic of Iran as an ideologically rigid state on the verge of collapse, exclusively connected to a narrow social base. In A Social Revolution, Kevan Harris convincingly demonstrates how they are wrong. Previous studies ignore the forceful consequences of three decades of social change following the 1979 revolution. Today, more people in the country are connected to welfare and social policy institutions than to any other form of state organization. In fact, much of Iran’s current political turbulence is the result of the success of these social welfare programs, which have created newly educated and mobilized social classes advocating for change. Based on extensive fieldwork conducted in Iran between 2006 and 2011, Harris shows how the revolutionary regime endured though the expansion of health, education, and aid programs that have both embedded the state in everyday life and empowered its challengers. This first serious book on the social policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran opens a new line of inquiry into the study of welfare states in countries where they are often overlooked or ignored.

A comprehensive account of how revolutions begin, unfold and end, featuring a wide range of cases from across modern world history. Drawing on international relations, sociology, and global history, Lawson outlines the benefits of a 'global historical sociology' of revolutionary change, in which international processes take centre stage.

The concept of revolution marks the ultimate horizon of modern politics. It is instantiated by sites of both hope and horror. Within progressive thought, “revolution” often perpetuates entrenched philosophical problems: a teleological philosophy of history, economic reductionism, and normative paternalism. At a time of resurgent uprisings, how can revolution be reconceptualized to grasp the dynamics of social transformation and disentangle revolutionary practice from authoritarian usurpation? Eva von Redecker reconsiders critical theory’s understanding of radical change in order to offer a bold new account of how revolution occurs. She argues that revolutions are not singular events but extended processes: beginning from the interstices of society, they succeed by gradually rearticulating social structures toward a new paradigm. Developing a theoretical account of social transformation, Praxis and Revolution incorporates a wide range of insights, from the Frankfurt School to queer theory and intersectionality. Its revised materialism furnishes prefigurative politics with their social conditions and performative critique with its collective force. Von Redecker revisits the French Revolution to show how change arises from struggle in everyday social practice. She illustrates the argument through rich literary examples—a ménage à trois inside a prison, a radical knitting circle, a queer affinity group, and petitioners pleading with the executioner—that forge a feminist, open-ended model of revolution. Praxis and Revolution urges readers not only to understand revolutions differently but also to situate them elsewhere: in collective contexts that aim to storm manifold Bastilles—but from within.

We are at the dawn of the Autonomous Revolution, a technological revolution as decisive as the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. Autonomous machines are capable of learning and adapting faster than humans and entirely on their own. And for the first time in human history we no longer require physical locations to work, play, shop, socialize, or be entertained. William Davidow and Michael Malone, authors of the seminal book The Virtual Corporation, explore the enormous implications of these developments. They show why increases in productivity no longer translate into increases in the GDP, how invisible algorithms control what you see and hear, and much more. Many of the book's recommendations—such as monetizing internet usage and making companies pay for personal information—are likely to be controversial, but this debate needs to begin now, before the Autonomous Revolution overcomes us.