Instructor: Christy Buss
Description:
Comparative Government Through Revolutions is a year-long high school social studies course that examines how governments rise, fall, and reform through the lens of political revolution. Rather than surveying governments as static systems, this course studies moments of rupture—when people reject an existing political order and attempt to build something new.
Students will analyze several major revolutions in depth, asking the same core questions of each case:
- What was wrong with the government people revolted against?
- Why did revolution occur when it did?
- Who participated in the revolution, and whose interests did it serve?
- What type of government replaced the old regime?
- Did the revolution ultimately succeed in solving the problems it set out to address?
The course includes concepts such as legitimacy, political participation, state capacity, ideology, institutional design, and regime stability. However, instead of organizing the course around modern nation-states, we organize it around revolutions themselves, allowing students to trace how revolutionary origins shape political outcomes for decades or even centuries.
Readings combine political theory, historical analysis, and narrative accounts written close to the events themselves. Students will engage with scholars such as Jack Goldstone, C. L. R. James, and William Doyle, alongside eyewitness accounts like John Reed’s Ten Days That Shook the World. Emphasis is placed on discussion, comparative thinking, and historical reasoning rather than rote memorization.
This course may be used as a full social studies credit and provides strong preparation for advanced coursework in history, political science, law, and international relations.
This class is a wonderful option for students looking for a government credit.
Materials: The following works anchor the course and provide the shared analytical foundation:
- Revolutions: A Very Short Introduction by Jack A. Goldstone
- A People’s History of the American Revolution by Ray Raphael
- The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction by William Doyle
- The Black Jacobins by C. L. R. James (David Scott edition)
- Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed
Additional primary sources and short readings may be provided throughout the year and Instructor reserves the right to change the course texts prior to class.
Meeting Times: Monday, 2PM EST
Tuition: $600