Revolution I.O *

Abstract

Revolution 1.0

This article uses digitised databases to investigate meanings of »revolution» and its cognates in English, American and French imprints in the century between the Glorious Revolution and the French Revolution. It traces a shift from the notion of revolution as event, an expression of change and vicissitude generally recognised ex post facto, to a conception of revolution as a collective political act oriented toward the future. It points to the role of Enlightenment thinking in the revalorisation of revolution as long-term transformation and, more particularly, to the significance of Raynal's Révolution de l'Amérique in narrativising revolution as immediate and ongoing political action. It concludes by examining the elaboration of the revolutionary script in the French Revolution.