REVOLUTIONARY SPRING: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849

Un gran libro sobre las revoluciones europeas del 1848. Ameno, con muchos datos que te sitúan en aquellos tiempos con racionalidad en sus explicaciones y descripciones.

Clarke is a master in combining the big overview with description of details, that give color to the historical events. The book also offers a balanced discussion on how far the revolutions of that time "succeeded" or "failed". I wonder what the actors in these dramas would think about their long-term effects, that are still relevant today.

EXcellent!

This is a huge book. Clark's sleepwalkers has already established him as one of key historians of the 21st century. This will cement his place as the pre-eminent historian of 19th century Europe in the English speaking world. Where to begin...Clark shows that in the 1830s and 1840s Europe was going through an intellectual and economic revolution with ideas pouring out everywhere, and new developments in agriculture (especially the importance of the potato) and industry. These were clearly developments from the late 18th century but they almost certainly meant that the Metternich system of "let's go back to 1789 as much as we can" would come under challenge at some point. Clark chronicles these revolutions, stressing where they had things in common and where they didn't. T He also shows the counter revolutions of late 1848 and 1849. How they came about (usually as the revolutionaries lacked a cohesive vision and the ancien regimes were able to pick off some revolutionaries, which allied with military power won the day). I loved this book for 2 reasons 1) his coverage of the lesser revolutions of the era. Most accounts concentrate on Germany, France, Italy and the Habsburg lands. Clark covers the Netherlands and Denmark (where autocratic monarchies gave way to enduring constitution settlements) and also the Romanian principalities. 2) how the revolutions set the political and economic agenda for 20 years. For example 1848 put German unification firmly on the map and clarified 2 major issues - Schleswig/Holstein and Austria Vs Prussia, that Bismarck resolved. But also the similar response to 1848 in all the German states probably mandated a federal state. By contrast in Italy, piedmont took on the mantle of Italian unification against the aims of every other Italian state. For Piedmont to be right, Austrian, Papal and Neopolitan rulers had to be wrong. Even in Romania - the outlines of future Romanian independence were set out in 1848 - basically it needed the weakening of Russian influence in the region And economically every state decided that one way to deal with the threat of revolution was to modernise the economy. The 1850s and 1860s were the era of the railroad for much of Europe.

WHAT A BOOK!! it is by no means an easy read--[ in fact , its a long slog]--- but so much well worth the effort 700 pages of text,83 pages of footnotes at the back and roughly 50 pages of blackandwhite contemporary illustrations I presume the primary target audience is graduate students in History / Political Science/ International Relations FOR the General Reader a few cautions 1.if this is yr first essay into 1848 STOP! you will get hopelessly bogged down /turned off 2 the " canvas" is enormous -- he doesnt even begin to provide a narrative of the events of 1848 until page 265 chapter 4 "detonations" 3. eaxch area is not discussed individually and separated out as is done in Europe in 1848 bybDieter Dowe--which has 11 separate chapters on the events in 11 different locations from Sweden to Wallachia For me, it took 6 weeks to read from cover to cover--( I did not read 20 pages426 to 443-- role of women}{otherwise as I say, I read the entire book and like a previous reviewer, I found that I couldnt wait to resume reading there is in addtion 1.a 1 hour lecture by the author on You tube 2.WIKIPedia has extensive sries on this subject with marvellous maps and contemporary illustrations the references at the back are really enormous and wideranging in a plethora of European languages I get the feeling the author has been focussing on this topic for many years a with seminars and phd candidates I apprecaiated the panoply of erudition scholarship judgement on display in these pages both for the events of 1848/1849 themselves and later on over the subsequent 30 year priod of European history that sees the Resorgimento, the Reunification of Germany and the ongoing evolutionary changes in the Balkans affecting both the Ottoman empir and Austria- Hungary finally--- a minor quibble and a suggestion 1 im not sure I see the pont in connecting up the dots between 1848 and the Arab Spring and the truckers revolt in ottawa-- however if it please the author, im glad to indulge this i have learned so much from this enormous work of synthesis and am very grateful 2 I would love to read another 700 pager by prof Clark on Marx/ Marxism--it seems to me the events in this volume are the broth in which Communism was incubated yet Marx himself has only a very minor role in these pages yet his influence and legacy are so overwhelming in our current society, escpecally now almost 175 years after the events described in this wonderful amazing book i would love another tourdeforce by sir Christopher Clark on this topic.