The World Turned on Its Head

Abstract

In many historiographical circles, there was an accepted consensus, which treated WWI as the turning point that lead to the decline of great empires. This is true especially for the watershed year of 1917 when the first (Russian) empire crumbled; first with the February and later with the October revolution, which was, in fact, a coup d’état. Yet viewing WWI as the end of imperialism is too Europe-centric a concept and needs to be amended.