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Article: When is a civil war a revolution? (column)
- Article from:
- U.S. News & World Report
- Article date:
- June 11, 1990
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1990 All rights reserved. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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For centuries we were misled in our thinking about nature by the dogma that the present features of our earth's surfacemountains and valleys-were formed by violent and sudden cataclysms, earthquakes and floods. But modern geology is based on a quite different notion. The bold Scotsman James Hutton in his Theory of the Earth in 1785 explained that the changes in the earth came about slowly and gradually by wind and water and climate, the same forces nowadays at work. Today, our thinking about social change is cursed by our similar reluctance to believe that nations are changed slowly and gradually. Instead, we put our faith in the cataclysms to which we give the name ...