Syria: a civil war (closed)

[Tukhachevskii]

Good thinking, yes seems a lot like the "Springtime of the Peoples" in Europe in 1848.

... puts Europe about 150 years ahead on the curve... which is also probably correct.

Why not include the peasant revolts of the middle ages? Or 1789? or 1968? Or even the Arab Revolt and the Young Turks (is this a punctuated equilibrium situation or the continuation of a century old process of Arab Nationalism that began with the Arab "revolts" against the European powers and the Ottomans...in which case you could go back farther)? Are they, in fact, comparable phenomena either ontologically or causatively? I can't say, but apparently you have all the answers. I have a problem with universalising comparisons which imply an almost "whiggish" conception of the march of progress/reason/liberty. Sociologist Charles Tilly's classic but oft ignored book Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons covers a lot of these concerns better than I could ever articulate them. He also has an excellent criticism of theories of revolution based upon J-Curve hypotheses.