Crown Publishing Group (NY)
Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849
Key Metrics
- Christopher Clark
- Crown Publishing Group (NY)
- Hardcover
- 9780525575207
- -
- 1.25 pounds
- History > Europe - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Historically, 1848 has long been overshadowed by the French Revolution of 1789 and the Paris Commune of 1870 and the Russian revolutions of the early 20th century. And yet in 1848, nearly all of Europe was aflame with conflict. Parallel political tumults spread like brush fire across the entire continent, leading to more significant and lasting change than earlier upheavals. And they brought with them a new awareness of the concept of history; the men and women of 1848 saw and shaped what was happening around them through the lens of previous revolutions.
Celebrated Cambridge historian Christopher Clark describes this continental uprising as the particle collision chamber at the center of the European nineteenth century, a place where political movements and ideas--from socialism and democratic radicalism to liberalism, nationalism, corporatism, and conservatism--were tested and transformed. The insurgents asked questions that sound modern to our ears: What happens when demands for political or economic liberty conflict with demands for social rights? How do we reconcile representative and direct forms of democracy? How is capitalism connected to social inequality? As a result of the events of 1848, the papacy of Pius IX and even the Catholic Church changed profoundly; Denmark and Naples issued constitutions; Sicily founded its own all-Sicilian parliament; the Austrian Chancellor Metternich fled from Vienna. Even the revolutions that failed brought lasting change; in Italy, for example, the failure of the revolution paved the way for the March on Rome in 1922 and the fascist seizure of power that followed.
Elegantly written and meticulously researched, drawing deeply on personal testimonies and contemporary histories, Clark offers a new understanding of 1848 that offers chilling parallels to our present moment. Looking back at the revolutions from the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, it is impossible not to be struck by the resonances, Clark writes. If a revolution is coming for us, it may look something like 1848.
Author Bio
Christopher Clark was educated at Sydney Grammar School from 1972 to 1978, the University of Sydney (where he studied history) and the Freie Universität Berlin from 1985 to 1987.
Clark received his PhD at the University of Cambridge, having been a member of Pembroke College from 1987 to 1991. He is Professor in Modern European History at the University of Cambridge and, since 1991, has been a fellow of St Catharine's College,[3] where he is currently Director of Studies in History. In 2003, Clark was appointed University Lecturer in Modern European History and, in 2006, Reader in Modern European History. His Cambridge University professorship in history followed in 2008.[4] In September 2014 he succeeded Richard J. Evans as Regius Professor of History at Cambridge. In the birthday honours of June 2015, Clark was knighted on the recommendation of the foreign secretary for his services to Anglo-German relations.[2]
Clark's research interests are centred on the history of nineteenth-century Germany and continental Europe. His early work focused on the political and cultural history of religion. His first book was a study of the relationship between Christians and the Jewish minority in Prussia between 1728 and 1941; here he explored the ways in which contemporary understandings of Christianity shaped successive mutations of the 'Jewish Question'.
Since then he has published various articles and essays on related subjects - some of them examine the trouble that results when the state authority takes the initiative in religious questions, others look at the ways in which questions of religious allegiance were implicated in processes of political and cultural change. In 2004 he co-edited, with Wolfram Kaiser of the University of Portsmouth, an edited volume about the 'culture war' between Catholic and secular social forces that polarized so many European states in the years 1850-1890.
In the meanwhile, he has published a study of Kaiser Wilhelm II (2000) for the Longmans/Pearson series Profiles in Power and completed a general history of Prussia for Penguin, due out in spring 2006.
He is currently working on a study of political change across Europe in the aftermath of the 1848 revolutions.
Source: University of Cambridge Faculty of History and U.K. government documents
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