(4.5 ✶) The Age of Revolutions is a broad look at the revolutionary years between 1760 and 1825, focusing on the American, French, Haitian, and Spanish-American revolutions, specifically the impact of two main revolutionary generations and how each generation affected the character and durability of the revolutions.

For the first revolutionary generation, the author uses the biographical stories of people involved in the movements to provide an extra narrative dimension to his arguments, ranging from John Adams and Toussaint Louverture to lesser known figures like Madre Maria De La Concepción Rivadeneyra, a Peruvian nun. I found this an effective tool for providing a more individual perspective on the environment of revolution, but wish that this tactic was continued more during the discussion of the second revolutionary generation.

I found this book to be very detailed, and despite the broad geographical range of discussion, the author made connections between each revolution both to each other and to his central arguments effectively.

a fascinating account on the main revolutions that took place in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. i particularly enjoyed learning about the latin american revolutions, which i barely covered when i studied the topic in school.

I love that this book focused on the wider world of the Atlantic revolutionary world! It's been a trend lately to do so, but it really helps connect the people and ideas that were floating around at the time. An excellent read for the general public, as well as historians.