OPINIONSnRevolution and the American MindnRevolutions: Reflections onnAmerican Equality and ForeignnLiberationsnby David Brion DavisnCambridge: Harvard University Press;n130 pp., $19.95nFood lines lengthen in Moscow;nshow trials continue in Beijing;nbicycles replace motor vehicles in Havana.nAs the Warsaw Pact and BeriinnWall crumble, so does the standing ofnMao and Che, even on college campuses.nThe closing of this millenniumnmay not bring the kingdom of heaven,nRobert L. Paquette is an associatenprofessor of history at HamiltonnCollege in Clinton, New York.n32/CHRONICLESnby Robert L. Paquetten”The world has never had a good definition of liberty.”n—Abraham Lincolnnbut it has brought searching reconsiderationnof the meaning of revolution.nIn three essays composed for thenMassey lectures at Harvard University,nDavid Brion Davis, one of this country’snpreeminent intellectual historiansnand author of two prize-winning volumesnin a proposed trilogy on thenhistory of slavery, reflects on how thenmeaning of revolution shaped the birthnand maturation of the United States.nFor many scholars the outbreak of thenAmerican Revolution marked the beginningnof an Age of Democratic Revolution,nwhich extended to the middle ofnthe 19th century. It was a remarkablenperiod of economic growth and socialnupheaval to be sure, arguably the mostnimportant period in the making of thenmodern world. On both sides of thennnAtlantic, in country after country, disaffectednsocial groups emerged and coalescedninto mass insurgencies. Taken asna whole, they threw down the gauntletnto hierarchy, challenged arbitrary andndespotic power, and championed citizenship,ncivil liberty, and natural rights.nAlexis de Tocqueville captured the centralntendency of this age when henconcluded in 1840 that democratic revolutionnis “an irresistible fact. Graduallynthe distinctions of rank are done awaynwith; the barriers that once severednmankind are falling; property is divided,npower is shared by many, the light ofnintelligence spreads and the capacitiesnof all classes tend toward equality.”nBy this time revolution had acquiredna whole new meaning, thanks in largenpart to Tocqueville’s countrymen. Longn