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

Dan Edelstein, In conversation with Joanna Stalnaker and Daniel Luban

Political thinkers from Plato to John Adams saw revolutions as a grave threat to society and advocated for a constitution that prevented them by balancing social interests and forms of government. The Revolution to Come (Princeton University Press, 2025) traces how evolving conceptions of history ushered in a faith in the power of revolution to create more just and reasonable societies.

Taking readers from Greek antiquity to Leninist Russia, Dan Edelstein describes how classical philosophers viewed history as chaotic and directionless, and sought to keep historical change—especially revolutions—at bay. This conception prevailed until the eighteenth century, when Enlightenment thinkers conceived of history as a form of progress and of revolution as its catalyst. These ideas were put to the test during the French Revolution and came to define revolutions well into the twentieth century. Edelstein demonstrates how the coming of the revolution leaves societies divided over its goals, giving rise to new forms of violence in which rivals are targeted as counterrevolutionaries.

A panoramic work of intellectual history, The Revolution to Come challenges us to reflect on the aims and consequences of revolution and to balance the value of stability over the hope for change in our own moment of fear and upheaval.

This event is the first in a series of three panel discussions about “The Long Shadow of the Enlightenment” to be held at the Maison Française this fall, featuring new books on the ideas, history, and legacy of the Enlightenment and Revolution. Written by distinguished specialists of eighteenth-century French literature, history, and political thought, these books shed new light on the ways enlightened and revolutionary ideals shaped our modern world, while also interrogating their limits and fragility. Such discussions have never been more critical, at a time when the ideals of democracy, equality, freedom of speech and thought, rationality, and scientific knowledge are under attack.

Dan Edelstein is William H. Bonsall Professor of French at Stanford University; Professor, by courtesy, of History and of Political Science; Faculty Director, Stanford Introductory Studies; and W. Warren Shelden University Fellow in Undergraduate Education. His research interests mostly lie at the intersection of literature, history, political thought, and digital humanities. His books include The Terror of Natural Right: Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 2009), winner of the 2009 Oscar Kenshur Book Prize; The Enlightenment: A Genealogy (University of Chicago Press, 2010); and On the Spirit of Rights (University of Chicago Press, 2018).

Joanna Stalnaker is Professor of French at Columbia. Her work focuses on Enlightenment literature and philosophy. Her newest book, The Rest Is Silence: Enlightenment Philosophers Facing Death, will be coming out in October 2025, and her book launch will take place at the Maison Française on November 13.

Daniel Luban is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia specializing in political theory. His main academic interests are the history of modern social and political thought, with a particular focus on the 17th and 18th centuries, and in theories of capitalism and economic order. His forthcoming book on early modern social theory is entitled Children of Pride.

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