?An interesting, concise analysis of the differences between political elites or leaders who are "loyalists" and those who are "revolutionaries." The authors, academic social scientists, attempt to differentiate among those who come to power through peaceful processes and those who seize power--or attempt to do so--through violence. For this, they chose 50 matched pairs of elites from a wide variety of political systems around the world and subjected their lives and their backgrounds to intense, social, economic, and psychological scrutiny. The results are surprising from the perspective of conventional political commentary, which tends to see loyalists as stable and respectable and revolutionaries as zealots and outcasts. The findings show few differences between the two groups. What is most notable is the similarity between them. It will be valued by other social scientists, especially by students of revolution.?-Choice
