History Repeating

Political risk analyst Sam Wilkin was taken aback when he noticed that key indicators of trouble had started showing up in his own back yard. Could it really be true that Peru, the Philippines and Thailand were less risky than places like France? Bear in mind, Thailand's last military coup was about three years ago... Reader: it was true.

Now that political instability has come home, it's a good moment to ask: what causes it? How can you tell when your country is headed for turbulence? And what does the best social science say we can do about it?

A colourful romp through the history of recent revolutionary moments becomes a profound enquiry into the machinery of social unrest. Why are farming nations so unstable? Is there really a "resource curse" on mineral-rich nations? Do tall rulers last longer? Just how good was the Czar's wine cellar? Wilkin answers all these questions and more in pursuit of the holy grail of political science: how to make things better without first making them much, much worse.