James Billington's 1980 history of revolutionary ideology from the Romantic era to the early 20th century — arguing that modern revolutionary movements drew on a quasi-religious faith in secular salvation through historical transformation.
Traces the religious dimension of secular revolutionary ideology — Billington argues that the utopian faith animating the French Revolution, the 1848 revolutions, and Russian Bolshevism is a secularized version of apocalyptic Christianity, with history replacing God and the revolutionary party replacing the church.
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