There are striking historical parallels in the history of modern revolutions ever since the Jacobin faction of French revolutionaries, led by Maximilien Robespierre, introduced the political concept of ‘terror’and decapitation by guillotine; this extreme measure for the defence of democracy was seen as a divine form of violence. For a decade, at the end of the 18th century, the French Revolution consumed its own like bloodied sharks, all the while fighting a fractious coalition of great powers that sought to destroy it. Yet it thrived. United and transformed into an imperial mission to reform and save humankind – as all revolutions since have endeavoured to do – revolutionary forces conquered nearly all of Europe before the Empire’s fall. And ever after, commitment to ‘total war’ in the service of some indomitable moral and spiritual force has continued to inspire nearly all revolutions.