Revolution and the millennium: China, Mexico, and Iran

Abstract

An interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, cross-historical analysis of three 20th-century non-Western revolutionary societiesÑChina, Mexico, and IranÑthat were profoundly impinged upon by European and American imperialism. The study explores the role of apocalyptic beliefs in radical movements bent on sociopolitical transformation. It concludes that millennial expectations performed important and similar preparatory, leadership, and therapeutic functions in each case.||Millenarian movements are powerful and emotional social movements that expect an immediate, collective, total, this-worldly, super