The focus of this course is the combined study of two phenomena: the State and the Revolution. The succession of political forms—the City, the Empire, and the State (as well as the evolution of the State itself through the stages of territorial dominion, the feudal kingdom, the territorial kingdom, the hegemonic state, the confessional state, the authoritarian state, and the nation-state) is understood as the replacement of one principle of legitimation by another. This replacement can occur either through the “circulation of elites” or through revolution. Consequently, even moments of violent political change are aimed at establishing a new political order that arises from the need to “normalize” revolutionary enthusiasm. Within the established political order, the phenomenon of revolt may manifest itself as an attempt to restore a principle of legitimacy from which the very regime that officially invokes it has, in practice, strayed.