Providing a continent-wide history, this major survey covers the key political events of this turbulent period. Jonathan Sperber also looks at lives of ordinary people and considers broad social and economic developments. In particular he examines the relationships between the different revolutionary movements, showing how the French Revolution of 1789 set patterns which recurred over the following sixty years.

The events of 1989/90 in Europe demonstrated the renewed relevance of the mid-nineteenth century uprisings: both by showing, once again, how a revolutionary initiative could quickly spread through different European countries, but also by calling into question the nature of revolution and the criteria for a revolution's success and failure. To commemorate the 1848 revolution in a spirit of renewed critical inquiry, an international team of prominent historians have come together to produce what must be the most comprehensive work on this topic to date and to offer a synthesis that sums up the current state of scholarly research, emphasizing the many new interpretations that have developed over several decades.

Beginning with the armies, navies and internal security forces of Europe on the eve of the French Revolution, the author describes in lively detail the vast armed forces and militarized societies of the Napoleonic age.

Publisher description

Examines how narratives of the 1919 Central European revolutions promoted a violent counterrevolutionary culture in interwar Germany and Hungary.