Americans have great difficulty understanding the domi- nant world faith of our time: the belief in revolution.
The plain fact is that the militant revolutionaries we see in so many places are believers, no less committed and intense than the Christians or Muslims of an earlier era. What is new is the belief that a perfect secular order will emerge from the vio- lent overthrow of traditional authority. This inherently im- plausible idea gave political dynamism to Europe during the 19th century...