[3][4][5] The book was written in 1978 and is derived from Skocpol's PhD dissertation which was supervised by George Homans, Daniel Bell, and Seymour Martin Lipset.

[6] Her project started as a graduate seminar paper comparing revolutions, read by Daniel Bell who suggested she should do her thesis on this topic.

She describes the processes by which the centralized administrative and military machinery disintegrated in these countries, which made class relations vulnerable to assaults from below.

Criticism of Skocpol's book centers around her deemphasis of agency (role of individuals and ideology) and her mixed use of comparative methodological strategies.

[12] According to Peter Manicas, Skocpol denies claims by historians that social revolutions should be analyzed as separate and distinct movements.

"[16] Pfaff goes on to say, even if Skocpol didn't explain the causes that might have triggered state crisis and the mobilization of the people, "and if, in its enthusiasm for revolution, it overestimated the gains of revolutionary transformation, the book nevertheless deserves its place among the canonical works of comparative and historical research.

[19] Although published over thirty years ago, Theda Skocpol's book continues to influence historians and sociologists alike today.

In Barbara Geddes's Paradigms and Sand Castles: Theory Building and Research Design in Comparative Politics, she writes that Skocpol's use of contrasting cases (cases where revolutions did happen and did not happen) makes her claims regarding the importance of class structures and alliances in determining revolution outcomes persuasive.

[22] James Mahoney and Gary Goertz found no evidence that Skocpol exclusively picked negative cases to intentionally lend support for her theory.

"[24] Cambridge University Press includes States and Social Revolutions in its "Canto Classics" series and the book remains in print as of 2016.