An article by Ken West, utilizing the studies of Crane Brinton from 1938 regarding comparative Revolutions:

Excerpt: "Crane Brinton carefully defined a revolution as the "drastic, sudden substitution of one group in charge of the running of a territorial political entity by another group hitherto not running that government"20 and added the proviso that this substitution must be by "an actual violent uprising or "some other kind of skullduggery."21 He limited his study to "'democratic' revolutions"22 or revolutions which "have a social or class . . . basis."23 He found a pattern, which he refers to as "commonalties" 24 in the four modern revolutions that he analyzed. Brinton notes that "the American Revolution does not quite fit the pattern and is therefore especially useful as a kind of control."25 This pattern will be described and compared to the events of the Jewish revolt of 66 AD. Brinton noted that a revolution could be divided into three phases: the pattern of events leading up to the revolution, the revolution itself, and the aftermath."

http://members.aol.com/FLJOSEPHUS2/brinton.htm