Note 58 — II. THE PREHISTORY OF THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST

It seems as undesirable, therefore, to speak here of a neolithic “revolution” as it is to refer to our theme as an “urban revolution” (see below, p. 61, n. 10). Both terms, used by V. Gordon Childe, place the changes in parallelism with the “industrial revolution,” but the word “revolution” in this phrase is already used figuratively; it does not refer to an event such as the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution, but to a change of conditions. And by extending its use in this sense, an impression of violent, and especially of purposeful change is made which the facts do not suggest.