So why have the revolutionary generation's achievements - "the brilliance of their thought, the creativity of their politics" - gone unmatched since?
Even when it came to slavery, the one great failure of the revolutionary generation, he made a point of identifying it as a failure.
"American Expressionism brings back into the light a revolutionary generation of artists whom cynicism had conspired, for half a century and more, to airbrush out."
That revolutionary generation has now departed and its successors will not be able to rule the same way.
A revolutionary generation is a generation of people for whom a revolution was a major event or influence in their lives.
The political leadership of the revolutionary generation in China, such as Mao Zedong, had extraordinary self-confidence.
His rise signalled control of the Party by the revolutionary generation of military leaders.
Upon his arrival, he transformed a college designed predominantly to train clergymen into a school that would equip the leaders of a revolutionary generation.
The first wave of purges between 1929 and 1934 targeted the revolutionary generation of the party that in Ukraine included many supporters of Ukrainization.
The entire revolutionary generation of Chinese leaders may leave the scene before long.