Abstract

Recent efforts to define or describe revolution have centered on discussions of the mode, impact, and purpose of political change. It is generally conceded that the characterization of revolution as strictly a violent mode of political change is too limiting, that such change must have an impact beyond ruling-class circles for it to be truly revolutionary, and that "revolution" has represented an effort to reconstruct society along theoretical principles animated by some vision of an ideal order, an ideology. That revolution is also a cultural phenomenon is emphasized in the most fruitful inquiry with respect to definition, the paradigm notion of Schrecker and Kuhn. The political explanation of revolution is decisive in each of the other models; the economic, sociological, and psychological