My last novel, Heyday, opens in 1848. When I wrote the book, I was struck by the resonance between the 1840s and the 2000s in America — the go-go economy, all the new technological marvels, the birth of marketing and youth culture, the anti-immigrant backlash, and more.

But these last two months, as the democratic protests and rebellions broke out and spread across North Africa and Egypt, I found myself once again gobsmacked by the historical parallels: the 2011 revolutions bear a lot of uncanny resemblances to the 1848 revolutions.

So this week I wrote a piece for Time on the subject — consisting of a short article and (if I do say so myself) very cool 2-page graphic that you'll need to download as a PDF.

You can also listen to and download this show Studio 360 did about 1848, featuring Simon Schama: