ABSTRACT
Not all forms of social change entail discrete turning points. For much of human history, modifications in the ways people live or are governed have not deserved the designation 'revolution'. Politics, economics, and personal relationships were to be overhauled such that no one stood above anyone else. The Arabs, under Muhammad, were more transformative. When political activists talk about a revolution, they have something else in mind. If Rousseau is the grandfather of revolutionary theories, Marx is their ideological father. During the Middle Ages, when the primary means of production was tilling the land, the aristocracy was in command. Property, especially industrial property, would be stripped from those who had no right to monopolize it and transferred to the control of a government that was run by, and for, the benefit of the people. Marx spent years in the British Museum attempting to reinforce the scientific credentials of his theory; nonetheless he was an agitator at heart.
