Bio: (1953– ) American sociologist and historian. He studied at Harvard University, where his professors Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, Theda Skocpol, and George Homans inspired his interest in macro-comparative sociology. He lectured at Northwestern University and the University of California at Davis, and currently teaches at George Mason University. Goldstone made great contributions to the study of social transformations – revolutions, industrialization, and democratization.

In Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (1993), Goldstone aims to explain the causes and consequences of revolutions. He identifies a recurring pattern behind revolutions across both European and non-European societies. His central argument is that major revolutions are driven by cyclical demographic pressures interacting with shared structural features of agrarian-bureaucratic states. In particular, population growth sets off a chain reaction: fiscal crises in the state, conflicts within elites and between elites and the state, rising popular unrest, and the emergence of transformative ideologies. Goldstone presents revolutions as the result of gradual, long-term processes operating across multiple levels, which eventually culminate in sudden and dramatic change. He also shows that social movements and protests often arise from similar conditions, with revolutions occurring when mass mobilization gains broad support, and the state responds weakly or inconsistently.

He challenges the idea that events like the French Revolution represent a decisive shift to a new mode of production. Instead, he interprets revolutions primarily as crises of state breakdown in agrarian societies. The same patterns, he argues, apply globally, including in societies often seen as following different paths to modernization. According to Goldstone, any new forms of social organization that emerge after revolutions depend largely on cultural contexts and elite alignments. In many cases, especially where conservative elites remain influential, revolutions lead to a reassertion of traditional practices rather than radical change. Even major revolutions did not completely break with the past or eliminate existing elites. At most, they initiated prolonged struggles among ideologies and elites, eventually contributing—often after further upheaval—to the gradual development of more stable political institutions.

Goldstone, in his book Why Europe? The Rise of the West in World History 1500–1850 (2008) challenges the idea that the origins of industrialization can be attributed solely to capitalism or revolutions. A combination of specific circumstances that existed only in seventeenth and eighteenth century England – religious tolerance, the advent of Newtonian physics, scientific experimentation, a high level of machine construction and widespread mechanical knowledge, and a social atmosphere that promoted cooperation between artisans, philosophers, and entrepreneurs – enabled industrialization.  In Improving Democracy Assistance: Building Knowledge through Research and Evaluation (2009), Goldstone researches the factors that promote political stability and democracy.

Goldstone uses what he calls the “detective method”, in which theory building is based on systematic evaluation of potential explanations, which is done by scrutinizing historiographical evidence. His comparative-historical method relies on deductive and inductive reasoning.

Main works

Revolutions of the Late Twentieth Century (1991);

Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (1991);

“Methodological Issues in Comparative Macrosociology.” Comparative Social Research (1997);

“Prison Riots as Micro-Revolutions: An Extension of State-Centered Theories of Revolution.” American Journal of Sociology (1999);

 “Efflorescences and Economic Growth in World History: Rethinking the ‘Rise of the West’ and the British Industrial Revolution.” Journal of World History (2002);

States, Parties, and Social Movements (2003);

Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Studies (2003);

The Happy Chance: The Rise of the West in Global Context, 1500–1800. (2004);

Why Europe? The Rise of the West in World History 1500–1850 (2008);

Improving Democracy Assistance: Building Knowledge through Research and Evaluation (2009);

"The New Population Bomb", Foreign Affairs (2010);

“Understanding the Revolutions of 2011: Weakness and Resilience in Middle Eastern Autocracies”, in Foreign Affairs (2011);

Political Demography: How Population Changes are Reshaping International Security and National Politics (2012);

Revolutions: A Very Short Introduction (2014);

Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century. The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change (2022);

International Handbook of Population Policies (2022).