Trimberger outlines several criteria for what she calls "revolution from above" and attempts to explicate this social phenomenon's emergence developed through a comparative historical analysis.
Most of the book is dedicated to explaining the Meiji Restoration in Japan and the Turkish War of Independence.
Trimberger outlines five characteristics which make a case a "revolution from above" (p. 3): Trimberger departs from the Marxian theories of the state as simply the political "superstructure" on top of the economic "base", or the more substantive theory of "relatively autonomy" as described by Nicos Poulantzas.
These state bureaucrats become "dynamically autonomous" during periods of crisis, in which they take measures to destroy the existing economic and class order.
The five criteria are the following (p. 41-43): Trimberger removes the final criterion in applying the theory to the Egyptian and Peruvian cases, given that these conflicts did not need a provincial base to succeed.