Abstract
On Revolutions
Against the background of an inflationary use of «revolution» in modern media the article tries to analyse the reasons behind this continuous interest in the phenomenon. It starts by looking at the relation between revolutionary experiences and the politics of history and its meaning for national self images. The main focus is to identity five epistemological perspectives and conceptions of historical interpretation: cyclical and linear models of time, universalism and particularism, contemporaneity and non-contemporaneity (Ungleichzeitigkeit), causality and contingency, revolution and evolution. Avoiding any normative approach, the idea is to test possible elements for a historical theory of revolution.
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