Historical events as transformations of structures: Inventing revolution at the Bastille (original) (raw)
Conclusion
Just as the taking of the Bastille led to a cascade of further events, so the theoretical reflections touched off by my analysis of that event has led to a cascade of further reflections. And as the analyst must draw an arbitrary boundary to establish analytical closure to an event, so must I bring to a close an article that still seems to me radically open and unfinished. I believe I have written enough to establish that thinking about historical events as I do here - that is, treating them as sequences of occurrences that result in durable transformations of structures - is potentially fruitful. Precisely how fruitful can only be determined by future work on other historical events.
Access this article
Subscribe and save
- Starting from 10 chapters or articles per month
- Access and download chapters and articles from more than 300k books and 2,500 journals
- Cancel anytime View plans
Buy Now
Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.
Instant access to the full article PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
- University of Chicago, Chicago, USA
William H. Sewell Jr.
Authors
- William H. Sewell Jr.
Additional information
I have had useful comments on this article from Ronald Aminzade, Laura Downs, Muge Goçek, David Laitin, Colin Lucas, Sherry Ortner, Sharon Reitman, Sidney Tarrow, the Editors of Theory and Society, and the members of the Social Theory Workshop at the University of Chicago. Earlier versions of the article were presented at the Center for Comparative Research in History, Society, and Culture at the University of California, Davis; the Fifth Norwegian National Sociology Conference; the Sociology Department at the University of California, Berkeley; and the 1994 Dean's Symposium at the University of Chicago.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sewell, W.H. Historical events as transformations of structures: Inventing revolution at the Bastille.Theor Soc 25, 841–881 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00159818
- Issue date: December 1996
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00159818