oday, we are happy to bring you our conversation with Bryan A. Banks and Cindy Ermus, editors of The Global Age of Revolutions: A History from 1650 to Today

What inspired you to write this book? 

BB&CE: Most books on the Age of Revolutions are written by a single author. When edited collections appear, they may be the result of someone identifying a theme and then seeking contributors, or of a workshop or symposium where individual papers are presented and later selected and compiled into a volume. This edited collection came together in a different way. Over the past 10 years, we have published hundreds of short essays on our digital publication, AgeofRevolutions.com, which is free to access anywhere in the world. Over the course of the decade, we noticed recurring trends in the topics authors chose to explore, as well as patterns in readership engagement. As it turns out, these trends reinforced one another and became the guiding themes of the book: What was the Age of Revolutions? Where did revolutions occur during this period, and how did they connect to one another beyond the typical Atlantic model? Lastly, are we still living in an Age of Revolutions? Essays addressing these questions became more common, and readership increased whenever we published pieces focused on these themes. Our goal was to capture these insights and make them accessible in a book for general interest, research purposes, as well as classroom use.

What did you learn and what are you hoping readers will learn from your book? 

BB&CE: One of the things we learned, not only while assembling this book but over years of editing the site that inspired it, is that many of the categories that are central in the study of revolutions—concepts like sovereignty, citizenship, race, religion, popular politics, and others–look quite different when viewed from colonial, subaltern, or non-Atlantic perspectives. They take on new meanings and raise new questions. Seeing revolutions from these vantage points exposes the limits of familiar frameworks and also highlights what becomes possible when the Atlantic world is no longer treated as the unquestioned center. Read together, the essays in this volume invite readers to reconsider not only where and when the Age of Revolutions unfolded, but how we understand and interpret revolutionary change itself. Rather than offering a single new model, the collection argues for a more open-ended approach, one that takes perspective, power, and place seriously. To be clear, this is not a call to abandon the Atlantic framework. Instead, the essays place it in conversation with broader imperial, colonial, and global histories. By shifting our vantage points in this way, the volume brings into view questions and connections that are easier to miss when the Atlantic world between roughly 1776 and 1830 remains the primary frame. In the process, it asks us to rethink what counts as revolutionary, and why those moments and processes mattered to the people who lived through them--and still matter to us today.

What surprised you the most in the process of writing your book? 

BB&CE: We have to say that we were pleasantly surprised by how smooth it was working with 20 scholars on a volume like this! We both have experience with editing printed volumes. At times, it can be difficult to wrangle so many different people to meet deadlines and to keep the project moving forward through the publication process. This volume defied many of those frustrations. We’re both incredibly grateful to all our authors and to UVA Press!

What’s your favorite anecdote from your book?

BB&CE: We don’t have a favorite necessarily, but we will say that we had a hard time settling on what pieces to include and what to develop from scratch. With hundreds of incredibly insightful essays to draw from, this book could have easily included a hundred or more chapters. For that version, though, readers should visit the website at www.AgeofRevolutions.com.

What’s next?

BB & CE: AgeofRevoutions.com lives on! The space will continue to publish research related to revolutions. Interested parties can send submissions through the portal on the site. The editorial board will continue to promote authors and help them bring their research to wider audiences. We imagine that the site will also provide space for scholars to reflect on the themes of the book. From that new discourse, we may need to pursue another volume (or perhaps a second edition!).

Also, both Cindy and Bryan are working on new projects. Cindy is co-authoring a book with Claire Edington (UCSD) tentatively titled Epidemics: A Global History (University of California Press) and is researching her next book project on disease and public health in the Age of Revolutions. Bryan is developing a digital humanities project for a book on what he is calling the Great Pigeon Massacre of 1789. This project aims to examine eco-feudal power struggles in Old Regime France through the Revolution.