HIST 3907 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Jacquerie, Praetorian Guard, Leon Czolgosz
26 Jan 2017
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Lecture three (september 22) war against the state: terror from the streets. Our word politics comes from the greek polis = city. Political history is largely the story of what has happened in cities (normally urban). The ability to channel the potential energy of cities is a major driver of human history. There are many examples in history where terror in the streets has been used to change the political system. Protests and riots are as old as cities themselves. There are records of thousands of such events: most eventually zzle out. The application of terror, however changes the equation. If terror is used by the state, the protest can be suppressed quickly or it may never even arise. If terror is used in a directed way by the rioters, there is a real possibility of systemic change. In ancient rome, the decline of the republic was marked by increasing violence in the streets.
