Dancing Before Storms

America 1776
France 1789
Europe 1848
China 1911
Russia 1917

These five revolutions shaped the power structures of our modern world.

Each time, the elites of the day ignored the warning signs. Each time they continued 'dancing before storms'.

Dancing Before Storms is about times of anger and upheaval, the connections between them, and the personal stories of men and women who had power and influence but were overtaken by events.

Is revolution brewing again? What can we learn from the violence of the past?

Praise for Dancing Before Storms

'The scope is ambitious ... the author pulls it off well by focusing on particular historical characters and pointing to links that have often been obscured.' - Professor Peter Monteath

'What an extraordinarily insightful, well researched and superbly told narrative.' - John Riddell

'Dancing Before Storms is about times of fury and turmoil, the links between them and the personal stories of men and women who had power and influence, but were overtaken by events. While these revolts offer lessons on how to manage the forces of political, economic and social change, Robert T. Harris argues the human propensity for denial means that we are likely heading toward new revolutions. There's no doubt this is an ambitious gambit, but this superior narrative achieves that with insightful research and focus on historical personalities and concealed connections. It's a captivating parade of characters including Germaine de Stael, Sun Yat Sen, Jacques Necker and Benjamin Franklin.' - Rama Gaind, PS News

'Dancing Before Storms is thought provoking. It recounts the expression of discontent in the revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as that of our current century, which again highlights widening gaps in equity and equality.' - Christina Ealing-Godbold, PHA (Qld), Professional Historians Australia

Robert (Bob) T. Harris is a well-known spokesperson for civil society and non-government organisations, and for many years represented them in a wide range of global institutions, including as former president of the Conferences of NGOs at the UN and UNESCO, secretary-general of the World Confederation of Organisations of the Teaching Profession (WCOTP), and chair of an OECD Working Group on education, training and employment policies.

In 1993, he co-founded Education International, which now represents more than 32 million educators in 178 countries.

A life member of the Australian Education Union, Bob regularly appears as an invited speaker on a range of education and public policy issues. He has edited and contributed to UNESCO, OECD and Education International Research Institute publications. In 2016, Bob and his wife, Yuko Matsuoka Harris, established the Swiss-based Magic Libraries Foundation to promote libraries for children in disadvantaged countries and regions, and to train translators in minority languages.