How likely are "revolutions"

Are things like the Agricultural Revolution, the Scientific Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and the Computer Revolution products of many interacting forces and events which would not have occurred for much longer times, if at all, had they been disrupted, or are they inevitable events? I have heard both views.

I will opt for the former, they are not inevitable. I base this opinion largely on the fact that there seem many times when civilization might easily have started the Industrial Revolution (Periclean Greece, Early Hellenism, Pax Romana, Sung China etc,) but it did not. This leads to the conclusion that a fairly fortuitous chain of events must happen or set of circumstances be in place, or both in order for the 'revolution' to take place.

I would say former for the same reasons although there are many people who will argue that they are inevitable.

I don't think anything in history is truly inevitable. Howerver, once you have a given accumulation of factors, a 'revolution' (often quite a misnomer, especially with some of the later ones in terms of significance, and the earlier ones in terms of sudenness) becomes increasingly likely. You *could* imagine Britain in the 1750s *not* going industrial, but it would require a great leap of faith. The same way you could imagine a civilisation aware of the possibility of growing, selecting and breeding plants *and* facing a subsistence crisis not inventing agriculture, but the alternatives are bleak. Once invented, agriculture not spreading is equally possible, but not very likely.

That is, basically, my explanation for no industrial revolution in Sung China and Hellenistic Greece, btw: not enough factor clusters. It doesn't only take technological possibility, it also takes demand and a societal niche for the users of the technology to fit into. Sung China could have built steam engines, but it did not need to. Hellenistic Greece did not need them either. They could have been useful, but the intial costs were high, the immediately comprehensible applications limited, and alternatives available. By the time Britain enters the indsustrial age, there are no viable alternatives for keeping the mines dry. OTOH, the draft horse remained viable into the 1900s, so while steam cars were built (especially for heavy draft applications like artillery), they did not get big. The 'automobile revolution' only happened when the car found a niche that the horse could not fill.

Well that's just it- you need a certain number of factors to coincide to spark a revolution, be it industrial, agricultural or otherwise.

I tend to believe that some areas (such as Europe) were unable to avoid such revolutions, only the time it took mattered. While other areas (such as China) could begin a revolution or not depending on numerouse factors.