The “American experiment” and the origins of the modern concept of revolution

Authors

  • Marcos Reguera

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18042/cepc/rep.182.03

Keywords:

Revolución, experimento, Revolución americana, Revolución francesa, Sattelzeit, historia conceptual, Padres Fundadores.

Abstract

This article explores the conceptual change of revolution concept during the American Revolution. This event happened in a key historical moment that historian Reinhart Koselleck has called Sattelzeit, a historical period in which an unchanged political language suffered great and unexpected transformations. The main goal of my article will be to demonstrate how the old meaning of the concept revolution showed semantic limits during the American Revolution. While the old meaning of the concept was a useful rhetoric tool when the independence was seek in the north American colonies, it showed limitations when the revolutionary generation needed a notion to express their will to perform social and political changes. For that reason the Founding Fathers used the concept of experiment in order to get the political idea that the old concept of revolution can’t express.

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References

Schlesinger Jr., A. (1988). La teoría de América ¿experimento o destino? En Los ciclos de la historia americana (pp. 21-40). Madrid: Alianza Editorial.

Schofield, N. (2005). The intellectual contribution of Condorcet to the founding of the US Republic 1785-1800. Social Choice and Welfare, 25, 303-318. Disponible en: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00355-005-0005-y.

How to Cite

Reguera, M. (2018). The “American experiment” and the origins of the modern concept of revolution. Revista De Estudios Políticos, (182), 71–98. https://doi.org/10.18042/cepc/rep.182.03

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