Barrington Moore and the Dialectics of Revolution: An Essay Review

“When I use a word,†Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.†“The question is,†said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.†“The question is,†said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be the master—that's all.†Through the Looking GlassIt is not hard to find reasons why Barrington Moore's Social Origins of Democracy and Dictatorship has had such widespread influence. Its approach, that of comparative, historical sociology, seeks clues to the present in the past, and Moore demonstrates mastery of a wide range of historical materials. Yet I feel that the book is ultimately unsatisfactory, for it is marred by a lack of respect for its own sources of information and by contradictions and non-sequiturs at critical points in the argument.In this critique I shall first examine the general thesis of the book and then turn to the case studies which Moore uses to support his arguments. I shall also attempt to account for the sharp contrasts in the quality of scholarship which characterize the study, and will attribute them to Moore's preconceived ideological assumptions about the nature of the good society.