The Insurgent Barricade
Mark Traugott
Abstract
“To the barricades!” The cry conjures images of angry citizens, turmoil in the streets, and skirmishes fought behind hastily improvised cover. This definitive history of the barricade charts the origins, development, and diffusion of a uniquely European revolutionary tradition. The book traces the barricade from its beginnings in the sixteenth century, to its refinement in the insurrectionary struggles of the long nineteenth century, on through its emergence as an icon of an international culture of revolution. Exploring the most compelling moments of its history, it finds that the barricade i ... More
“To the barricades!” The cry conjures images of angry citizens, turmoil in the streets, and skirmishes fought behind hastily improvised cover. This definitive history of the barricade charts the origins, development, and diffusion of a uniquely European revolutionary tradition. The book traces the barricade from its beginnings in the sixteenth century, to its refinement in the insurrectionary struggles of the long nineteenth century, on through its emergence as an icon of an international culture of revolution. Exploring the most compelling moments of its history, it finds that the barricade is more than a physical structure; it is part of a continuous insurrectionary lineage that features spontaneous collaboration even as it relies on recurrent patterns of self-conscious collective action. A case study in how techniques of protest originate and evolve, this book tells how the French perfected a repertoire of revolution over three centuries, and how students, exiles, and itinerant workers helped it spread across Europe.
Keywords:
barricades,
Europe,
revolution,
collective action,
protest,
students,
exiles,
itinerant workers
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2010 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780520266322 |
| Published to California Scholarship Online: March 2012 |
DOI:10.1525/california/9780520266322.001.0001 |
