The Revolution to Come: A History of an Idea from Thucydides to Lenin

The Hoover History Lab hosted a Book Talk with Dan Edelstein - A Revolution to Come: A History of an Idea from Thucydides to Lenin on Tuesday, April 29, 2025 from 11:30 am - 1:00 pm PT.

Revolution! How did an event once considered the greatest of all political dangers come to be seen as a solution to all social problems? Political thinkers from Plato to America’s John Adams viewed revolutions as a grave threat to society and advocated for a constitution that prevented them by balancing competing interests and forms of government. The Revolution to Come traces how since the 18th century a modern doctrine of historical progress drove a belief in revolution’s ability to create just and reasonable societies.

SPEAKER

Dan Edelstein is the William H. Bonsall Professor of French, and Professor of Political Science and History (by courtesy) at Stanford. He studied at the University of Geneva (BA) and the University of Pennsylvania (PhD).  Revolution to Come is his fourth book on European intellectual and political history.

MODERATOR

In addition to his Hoover fellowship, Stephen Kotkin is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also the Birkelund Professor in History and International Affairs emeritus at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School), where he taught for 33 years. He earned his PhD at the University of California–Berkeley and has been conducting research in the Hoover Library & Archives for more than three decades.