ABSTRACT
Revolution generates both intense enthusiasm and abhorrence. In the late Middle Ages in northern Italy, revolution gained its own physiognomy as “a long-term movement of fortunes accompanied by sudden, sharp reversal.” In the mid-sixteenth century, Copernicus popularized revolution in astronomy as the return of the stars to the point of origin. By the mid-seventeenth century, Copernicus’s notion found its way into England’s political literature. The French Revolution of 1787–1794 revolutionized the concept of revolution and gave it a new mystique and meaning, a romantic bent that has persisted to this day. Karl Marx perceived revolution as an inherently liberating necessity, the motor of historical progress. Until the 1920s, revolution was neither sought nor discussed by most Iranian reformers because monarchy was a religiously sanctioned institution. Revolutions do not “come,” as the structuralists would have us believe; they are made by the heroic actions of committed revolutionaries.
