Why did reasonable demands of Ethiopian masses for change lead not only to the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie, but also to a radical revolution that caused civil wars, economic decline, secession, and ethnic politics, all in the name of socialist equality and freedom? The answer of the book is that elite conflicts over scarce resources promoted mutually exclusive struggles for power, and so mobilized ideologies suitable for zero sum politics, of which radical revolutions are typical expressions.

"In the 20th and 21st century revolutions have become more urban, often less violent, but also more frequent and more transformative of the international order. Whether it is the revolutions against Communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR; the "color revolutions" across Asia, Europe and North Africa; or the religious revolutions in Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria; today's revolutions are quite different from those of the past. Modern theories of revolution have therefore replaced the older class-based theories with more varied, dynamic, and contingent models of social and political change. This new edition updates the history of revolutions, from Classical Greece and Rome to the Revolution of Dignity in the Ukraine, with attention to the changing types and outcomes of revolutionary struggles. It also presents the latest advances in the theory of revolutions, including the issues of revolutionary waves, revolutionary leadership, international influences, and the likelihood of revolutions to come. This volume provides a brief but comprehensive introduction to the nature of revolutions and their role in global history"--

Thomas Sowell’s “extraordinary” explication of the competing visions of human nature lie at the heart of our political conflicts (New York Times) Controversies in politics arise from many sources, but the conflicts that endure for generations or centuries show a remarkably consistent pattern. In this classic work, Thomas Sowell analyzes this pattern. He describes the two competing visions that shape our debates about the nature of reason, justice, equality, and power: the "constrained" vision, which sees human nature as unchanging and selfish, and the "unconstrained" vision, in which human nature is malleable and perfectible. A Conflict of Visions offers a convincing case that ethical and policy disputes circle around the disparity between both outlooks.

Presents a new conceptual framework drawing on human security to evaluate the claim that climate change caused the conflict in Syria.

In the years between the Revolutionary War and the drafting of the Constitution, American gentlemen—the merchants, lawyers, planters, and landowners who comprised the independent republic's elite—worked hard to maintain their positions of power. Gentlemen Revolutionaries shows how their struggles over status, hierarchy, property, and control shaped the ideologies and institutions of the fledgling nation. Tom Cutterham examines how, facing pressure from populist movements as well as the threat of foreign empires, these gentlemen argued among themselves to find new ways of justifying economic and political inequality in a republican society. At the heart of their ideology was a regime of property and contract rights derived from the norms of international commerce and eighteenth-century jurisprudence. But these gentlemen were not concerned with property alone. They also sought personal prestige and cultural preeminence. Cutterham describes how, painting the egalitarian freedom of the republic's "lower sort" as dangerous licentiousness, they constructed a vision of proper social order around their own fantasies of power and justice. In pamphlets, speeches, letters, and poetry, they argued that the survival of the republican experiment in the United States depended on the leadership of worthy gentlemen and the obedience of everyone else. Lively and elegantly written, Gentlemen Revolutionaries demonstrates how these elites, far from giving up their attachment to gentility and privilege, recast the new republic in their own image.

Citizens, parties, and movements are increasingly contesting issues connected to globalization, such as whether to welcome immigrants, promote free trade, and support international integration. The resulting political fault line, precipitated by a deepening rift between elites and mass publics, has created space for the rise of populism. Responding to these issues and debates, this book presents a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of how economic, cultural and political globalization have transformed democratic politics. This study offers a fresh perspective on the rise of populism based on analyses of public and elite opinion and party politics, as well as mass media debates on climate change, human rights, migration, regional integration, and trade in the USA, Germany, Poland, Turkey, and Mexico. Furthermore, it considers similar conflicts taking place within the European Union and the United Nations. Appealing to political scientists, sociologists and international relations scholars, this book is also an accessible introduction to these debates for undergraduate and masters students.