Revolutionary Spring
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $23.99
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- $23.99
Publisher Description
Brought to you by Penguin.
'People embraced each other, shook hands, joy radiated from every eye, there was no limit to the celebrations . . .'
There can be few more exciting or frightening moments in European history than the spring of 1848. Almost as if by magic, in city after city, from Palermo to Paris to Venice, huge crowds gathered, sometimes peaceful and sometimes violent, and the political order that had held sway since the defeat of Napoleon simply collapsed.
Christopher Clark's spectacular new book recreates with verve, wit and insight this extraordinary period. Some rulers gave up at once, others fought bitterly, but everywhere new politicians, beliefs and expectations surged forward. The role of women in society, the end of slavery, the right to work, national independence and the final emancipation of the Jews all became live issues.
In a brilliant series of set-pieces, Clark conjures up both this ferment of new ideas and then the increasingly ruthless and effective series of counter-attacks launched by regimes who still turned out to have many cards to play. But even in defeat, exiles spread the ideas of 1848 around the world and - for better and sometimes much worse - a new and very different Europe emerged from the wreckage.
©2023 Christopher Clark (P)2023 Penguin Audio
Customer Reviews
Heavy going
Many know (or think they know) something about the French Revolution of 1789, and the Russian revolutions of the early twentieth century. The Paris Commune of 1870 less so. The series of uprisings across Europe that started in early 1848, whose spirit was evoked in the ‘Prague Spring’ of 1968, and the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011-12, remain obscure to most. Indeed, according to the author, all his history master at school (a Sydney private boys school that shall remain nameless) had to say about them was that they were complicated and none came to anything. The former is true, as this book clearly demonstrates. The latter is not if you look to the longer term according the author, who takes readers on a tour of various locations across the continent looking at the influence of hunger, economic downturns, plague, high mortality, exploitative landlords etc in the origins of local uprisings, describes each of them chronologically, then endeavours to find a common political, as distinct from socioeconomic, theme. Whether he succeeds is a matter of opinion.
Impressive research, balanced fact-based opinions, but overly wordy IMO. I made it to the end by employing a policy of selective skipping. That having been said, explaining the events of 1848 in a detailed and coherent way is hellishly difficult. This is about as close as anyone has got so far.