Just had a thought today. The word "revolution" is tossed around quite frequently in world history or current events discussions.
My question is... at what point does a revolution end?
Example:
So there's a major upheaval in a country, let's say Roughageland. The working class is tired of the way King Broccoli is treating them, so the masses start to simmer, a.k.a. the beginning of the Revolution. One day (after loud chants of "Lettuce Free") the angry mob storms the castle and they cut King Broccoli's head off, and declare Major Zucchini the new leader. Is this the end of the revolution? The old regime is out, the new one is in, life has changed, but it will still take some time for Major Zucchini to make all the necessary changes to bring happiness upon the land. So now that it's back to peas, sorry, peace time, and historians go and write the history books, what are they looking for when deciding when the revolution ended?
And if you think about a revolution in cosmic terms-- as in "it takes one year for the Earth to make one revolution around the sun," which is a very definitive distance and period of time-- how did it become associated with such a vague notion of change in historic terms when there's not always an official beginning or end? Just curious.
Silly questions, I know, but I can't always control when, where, and why these things turnip in my head. But thanks for listening.
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