The purpose of the Recently Published Book Spotlight is to disseminate information about new scholarship to the field, explore the motivations for authors’ projects, and discuss the potential implications of the books. Our goal is to cover research from a broad array of philosophical areas and perspectives, reflecting the variety of work being done by APA members. If you have a suggestion for the series, please contact us here.
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David Potter is the Francis W. Kelsey Professor of Greek and Roman History and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at the University of Michigan. He has authored books on a range of topics including ancient sport, the history of the Roman Republic, and the empress Theodora. His most recent book, Disruption: Why Things Change, explores historical disruptions from the Roman empire’s conversion to Christianity to the rise of Bolshevism and what these changes meant for the societies they occurred in. In this Recently Published Book Spotlight, Potter discusses the defining features of the sorts of radical changes he is interested in as well as the importance of understanding history in our rapidly changing society.
What inspired you to write this book?
I owe the inspiration for this book to the combination of the 2016 Presidential election and the Brexit movement. I was deeply disturbed then and am even more deeply concerned in the wake of the events of January 6, 2021 (with which the book ends) that we are at a point in which the first of the crucial factors in a disruption—loss of faith in central institutions—is all too evident.
What is your book about?
Disruption: Why Things Change is about the structure of radical change. Through a series of case studies, patterns emerge which enable readers to identify characteristics of radical change, and how things might turn out, for well or ill. Disruptions of the sort I’m interested in result in changes that are so radical that a society cannot go back to where it had been. The key aspects of these disruptions are that they:
- Stem from a loss of faith in a society’s central institutions;
- Establish a set of ideas from what was once the fringe of the intellectual world, placing them at the center of a revamped political order;
- Involve a coherent leadership group committed to the change.
These disruptions are apparent in, but not synonymous with, some of the events commonly called revolutions, a term that is used loosely, and often to describe failed movements (the Arab Spring is an example). The range of meanings that attach to the word “revolution” is such that I needed a way to distinguish the sorts of change I’m talking about from other periods of distress. A further point is that disruptions don’t always change who is in charge – they are, in fact, sometimes necessary to preserve a government that is on the verge of failure. But they will change the way that a governing group thinks and acts.
The case studies I work with include the conversion of the Roman empire to Christianity, the emergence of the Islamic state replacing the Roman and Persian empires in the seventh century, the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, the development of constitutions based on political theory in the eighteenth century (looking in particular at why events in France differed so much from those leading to the formation of the United States Constitution), and the use of “social science” to remodel societies in the twentieth century, looking especially at the influence of Marxism and Social Darwinism in the cases of the rise of Bolshevism and of Nazism.
In all these cases we see that a loss of faith in central institutions precipitates the crisis—in the case of the rise of Islam, for instance, the more than quarter-century of warfare between Rome and Persia undermined both states; the persistent failures of the third century CE undermined the traditional mode of Roman government prior to Constantine; Weimar Germany was undermined by the Great Depression; World War I wrecked the Tsarist regime in Russia; and a general loss of confidence in the European order lead to the Protestant Reformation. These events explain why change happened, but they’re not sufficient to explain how specific changes were the result.
In all true disruptions, ideological change is linked to major societal change. Societies promote ideologies that support their way of doing business—and if the way of viewing the world doesn’t change, the way of doing business isn’t going to change either. It’s easy enough to look to the past to find discarded ideas that were once central, such as the theory that kings rule by “divine right.”
In the first three case studies we can see how the final factor in a disruption — leadership — was of great importance. Constantine worked with a very tightly knit group of officials and a few Christians to shape what was still an amorphous, counter-cultural intellectual movement (Christianity) into one that could provide the ideology for his regime. Abd al-Malik did the same thing, ending decades of civil war which had wracked the new Arab regime in the wake of its defeat of the Roman and Persian empires, when he used the teachings of Muhammad to provide a coherent ideology for the Abbasid state. Constantine and Abd al-Malik were also very good at manipulating the technologies of communication—buildings, festivals etc. in their eras—but this becomes a much bigger issue in later disruptions. Martin Luther is the first person we can see making political use of a technology—printing—whose possibilities he understood better than did his contemporaries. He used print to spread his message in accessible and exciting ways to his public; Thomas Paine’s bestselling pamphlet, Common Sense played a big role in transforming the American rebellion against British economic policies into a movement for independence. In France, the radical movement took control of public discussion from a royal regime that had relied on censorship in a failed effort to silence dissent. A regime that relies on silencing debate is not well equipped to join one. So too Lenin immediately took control of the press and Hitler proved to be a master of all forms of public media.
Most of these cases saw the group which had overthrown the existing system takes power for itself, the French case stands as a counter example to the others in that the disruption that succeeded in destroying previous institutions did not succeed in building a lasting alternative. The great strength of their contemporaries who framed the Constitution of the United States was their understanding that radical change could be achieved through compromise. Similarly, Lenin who seized power through a bloody civil war realized that the policies he had used to take power could not secure power and introduced the New Economic Policy, essentially state-sponsored capitalism, to give people a vested interest in what might generously be described as a modified communist regime. Hitler’s rise to power stemmed in part from the tight organization of the Nazi party, but also from the fact that the sort of racist Social Darwinism he spewed resonated with conservative ideologues elsewhere (including the United States). This obscured the danger he posed to the world order.
Why do you think it is important that we look towards history, especially in our present moment?
Readers of the book will notice that the ancient world is never absent. The social theories of Locke and Rousseau, for instance, are influenced by classical political theory, and even Lenin had a strong background in Classics – he was a reader amongst many other authors of Theodor Mommsen. The year that Mommsen won his Nobel Prize in literature, 1902, the person who finished second was Herbert Spencer, the founder of Social Darwinism. Spencer had no background in Classics.
What is important about the difference in these two thinkers – Lenin and Spencer – is that Lenin’s theory of revolution was based on understanding history, hence his attraction to a real historian like Mommsen, while Spencer was just sloppy – he and his follower, Francis Galton (the father of eugenics) use bogus historical examples to support their theories about hierarchies of races and individuals within society. Without knowing the history, it may be hard to tell how bogus their arguments really were.
The study of history is especially important now because events move so much more rapidly these days. It is often hard to see bigger patterns, but the study of history provides context to help us understand what the significance of current events could be – the January 6 riot is not an isolated event, but a sign of mass alienation, which is a precondition for large scale disruption (or so I think).
What impact do you hope this book will have?
I hope very much that the book will promote discussion of where we are and how it will be possible to work towards a future in which civil public discourse is again possible. The book has received some good media attention in podcasts like the New Books Network, the Nicole Sandler Show, Historically Thinking, and the New Left Radio as well as in a piece on AEON. It has also irritated some people (who I am not sorry to have irritated). I hope that it shows how the study of history can help us understand the present with greater clarity.
What advice do you have for other writers?
I think the most important thing in writing a book like this, or any book, really, is to get into a rhythm of composing a few pages every day and not being afraid to revise, revise, revise. Also very important was the advice from readers of early drafts, who gave me great advice for the modern chapters. I felt that I was helped by the peer review process working at its best. The criticism I received was genuinely constructive.
What’s next for you?
Caesar. I’m working on the book now, working out from Caesar’s writings to look at his political program. I think we’ve learned that populists are not always very interested in democracy (that can certainly be said of a few of the characters in Disruption). Neither was he. The via popularis is not the same as demokratia.
David Potter
David Potter is the Francis W. Kelsey Professor of Greek and Roman History and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at the University of Michigan where he has taught since 1986. He has written and taught on a range of topics including ancient sport, the history of the Roman Republic, the empress Theodora and, now, Caesar.
Maryellen Stohlman-Vanderveen is the APA Blog's Diversity and Inclusion Editor and Research Editor. She graduated from the London School of Economics with an MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy in 2023 and currently works in strategic communications. Her philosophical interests include conceptual engineering, normative ethics, philosophy of technology, and how to live a good life.
