What Dickens understood about revolution and modern politics has forgotten
This commentary explores Charles Dickens's warnings in 'A Tale of Two Cities' regarding the dangers of revolutionary vengeance and the blindness of elites. It suggests that modern political movements often repeat these cycles by focusing on the removal of adversaries without addressing the underlying institutional failures.
Why it matters
The analysis provides a historical and literary lens to understand contemporary political polarization and the risks inherent in rapid, populist-driven regime changes.
Political upheavals are increasingly watched live, narrated through the media in real time. The build-up to crisis, the anger of crowds and finally the fall of an unpopular order can be compelling. It is easy to be swept up in the euphoria when justice seems to have won a battle.
It can conceal a longer history of institutional failure and social fracture, the different motives carried by those in the streets, and the harder question of what follows once the common adversary has been removed.
In his novel about the French Revolution, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens was concerned with both what produced the revolution and what followed it. His warning was double-edged.
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