welcoming it. And so on. To some extent, differences may bereduced by a number of approaches, of which the most fruitfulis the comparative. This approach is of two kinds: the synchronicand the diachronic. That is, one may consider any historicalphenomenon in the global context of the time at which it madeitself known—synchronic—or trace its development andconsequences (and/or its antecedents and origins) throughtime— diachronic. For example, Catherine the Great could beconsidered either as one of the enlightened despots or absolutistsof the late eighteenth century or as one of a succession of Russianrulers after Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great but beforeNicholas II and Lenin. Similarly, Pugachev could be comparednot only with such predecessors as Bolotnikov, Razin andBulavin—all leaders of peasant revolts in Russia—but also withsuccessors, including some of the peasant insurgents in theRevolution of 1917, or with similar figures elsewhere in theeighteenth century.7 There may indeed be distant echoes of theedicts of Pugachev in the promises and threats of Zhirinovsky,although more conventional parallels would be sought in morerecent ultra-nationalists at home or abroad. In fact, manycomparative approaches, including that to be adopted in thepresent book, are a mixture of the synchronic and the diachronic.To give one more example, the concepts in the slogan of Russia’sChoice—Liberty, Property, Legality—have evolved and beendiscussed in other countries over a longer period than in Russiaitself, as is already clear from the observations of Max Weber in1906, quoted above. We need to look no further than John Locke,who, at the time of the ‘Glorious and Bloodless Revolution’ of1688, gave much attention to liberty and property, along withlife, as basic human rights within the framework of civilgovernment, drawing on well-established English traditions oflegality as he did so. Looking forward from 1688, we could drawa line of development through to the American and FrenchRevolutions of the late eighteenth century and beyond. Here,as already mentioned in the Preface, special emphasis will begiven to the American case.Ultimately, any comparative investigation should be carriedout within some kind of global framework: hence the theme ofthis book, as clearly indicated in its title. Yet, though simpleenough to be spelled out in eight words, this basic idea has metso far with less than general acceptance, and therefore requires a