For two hundred years historians have viewed England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689 as an un-revolutionary revolution—bloodless, consensual, aristocratic, and above all, sensible. In this brilliant new interpretation Steve Pincus refutes this traditional view. By expanding the interpretive lens to include a broader geographical and chronological frame, Pincus demonstrates that England’s revolution was a European event, that it took place over a number of years, not months, and that it had repercussions in India, North America, the West Indies, and throughout continental Europe. His rich historical narrative, based on masses of new archival research, traces the transformation of English foreign policy, religious culture, and political economy that, he argues, was the intended consequence of the revolutionaries of 1688–1689. James II developed a modernization program that emphasized centralized control, repression of dissidents, and territorial empire. The revolutionaries, by contrast, took advantage of the new economic possibilities to create a bureaucratic but participatory state. The postrevolutionary English state emphasized its ideological break with the past and envisioned itself as continuing to evolve. All of this, argues Pincus, makes the Glorious Revolution—not the French Revolution—the first truly modern revolution. This wide-ranging book reenvisions the nature of the Glorious Revolution and of revolutions in general, the causes and consequences of commercialization, the nature of liberalism, and ultimately the origins and contours of modernity itself.

1688年，「現代」剛破曉，在異域和異域之間，人類所經驗的「世界」仍是多數，但一個「全球社區」已開始展開、成形。地球轉動，陽光從藍灰色的太平洋出發，移向日本和呂宋島的海岸，照見北京城西郊牛街的清真寺；隔著大洋，在美洲大陸，不少歐洲人正夢想著新的夢。 作者自述，他在對歐洲與中國關係史的「正規」研究中，偶然遇見了書中的故事，從一個意外發現找到另一個驚奇，遂如此這般放任自己漂流於那一年自東徂西的世界。他說，本來也不一定非是1688不可，但希臘浪人康斯坦丁．法爾孔在暹邏宮廷被處死，康熙皇帝手下大將施琅遣人前往馬達拉斯，使1688成為無可避免的選擇。 先別問這一切隱含了什麼。這是一名博通東西古今的歷史學者回顧「現代」的黎明，所發出的浩歎，詩的浩歎。若問「意義」，也許在於：史學家作為一個人的思緒，廣闊的視野，歷史敘述的樂趣，以及一次迴腸盪氣的機會。