Word: bute
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Shaw makes a convincing case for the rituals-as-rehearsals, identifying salient features such as mock crownings and infantile behavior as proto-revolutionary consciousness. When he analyzes the crowds' obsessive hatred for Lord Bute and the equally irrational love for John Wilkes, the author deftly negotiates the problem of proving the nebulous concept of evolving crowd psychology. But in his enthusiasm for his thesis. Shaw treads perilously close to overstatement, and tends to ignore other parts of the revolutionary consensus that should likely loom larger than they do in his book...