The Age of Revolutions
Explore the Age of Revolutions — the era from 1640 to 1804 when political upheavals in England, America, France, and Haiti transformed the modern political world.
The Age of Revolutions (c. 1640–1804) was the era when political upheavals across the Atlantic world destroyed absolute monarchies, challenged colonial empires, and established new forms of government based on popular sovereignty, constitutional rights, and the principle that political authority requires the consent of the governed.
The English Civil War (1642–1651) and Glorious Revolution (1688) established the precedent of parliamentary supremacy and constitutional limits on royal power. The American Revolution (1775–1783) created the first large-scale modern republic, demonstrating that self-government could work on a continental scale. The French Revolution (1789–1799) was the most radical and consequential, destroying the ancien régime, proclaiming universal rights, and producing Napoleon, whose wars reshaped Europe. The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) was the most radical of all — the only successful slave revolt in history.
These revolutions were interconnected. The American Revolution inspired the French. The French Revolution inspired the Haitian. Ideas, personnel, and precedents flowed between them. Together, they established the principles — popular sovereignty, natural rights, constitutional government, the abolition of feudal privilege — that define modern democratic politics. But they also demonstrated that revolutions are unpredictable, often violent, and rarely deliver all that they promise.
Lessons covering this topic
Browse all lessons →The English Civil War & Glorious Revolution
Parliament vs. the Crown and the origins of constitutional monarchy.
The American Revolution
Taxation, representation, and the birth of a republic.
The French Revolution
Liberty, equality, fraternity — and the Terror.
The Haitian Revolution
The only successful slave revolution in history.