Reframing the Age of Revolutions

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The 'age of revolutions' of about 1750 to 1850 is a central concept for many different kinds of historians. We hear references to it in histories of science and culture as well as politics and economics; many point to its global reach, discovering an 'age of revolutions' in the Indian Ocean, the Pacific, or the Middle East, as well as the more familiar Europe and North Atlantic spheres. The 'age' has a broad contemporary relevance, too: central problems we face today, from climate change to nationalism, find origin-points in its revolutionary transformations, and the very notion of a period of major but unplanned and often chaotic change strikes a chord with the present unsettled moment. Yet since the concept of an 'age of revolutions' was first popularised in the 1960s by Eric Hobsbawm and R. R. Palmer, there has been little re-examination of what we mean by it as a historical framing. This project will bring together historians across different subdisciplines with civil society activists and NGO representatives facing similar challenges today. Through dialogue between their different angles of approach to this revolutionary age, we will work towards a new set of framings. What does it mean to call a change 'revolutionary'? Should we speak of an 'age of revolutions' across the globe in 1750-1850, or in particular regions of it? Were there 'revolutionary' developments in the histories of thought and science as well as in politics or industry? The results of our conversations will be made available to academic, activist, and wider publics, opening up broader public discussions on how we should understand this crucial moment in world history.