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Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849
by Christopher Clark
From the bestselling author of The Sleepwalkers comes an epic history of the 1848 revolutions that swept Europe, and the charismatic figures who propelled them forward, with deep resonance and frightening parallels to today.
As history, the uprisings of 1848 have long been overshadowed by the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian revolutions of the early twentieth 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 significant changes that continue to shape our world today. These battles for the future were fought with one eye kept squarely on the past: The men and women of 1848 saw the urgent challenges of their world as shaped profoundly by the past, and saw themselves as inheritors of a revolutionary tradition.
Celebrated Cambridge historian Christopher Clark describes 1848 as "the particle collision chamber at the center of the European nineteenth century," a moment when 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? The revolutions of 1848 were short-lived, but their impact on public life and political thought throughout Europe and beyond has been profound.
Meticulously researched, elegantly written, and filled with a cast of charismatic figures, including the social theorist Alexis de Tocqueville, the writer George Sand, and the troubled priest Félicité de Lamennais, who struggled to reconcile his faith with politics, Revolutionary Spring offers a new understanding of 1848 that suggests chilling parallels to our present moment. "Looking back at the revolutions from the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first 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."
"The author thrillingly captures the excitement of cities 'humming with political emotion,' the effect of the uprisings on geopolitical tensions around the world, and the international interventions that 'shaped the revolutions' course and conclusion'...A meticulously researched, authoritative history." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[A] sweeping history...Clark integrates the welter of local conflicts into a coherent grand narrative, grounding it in searching analyses of the era's economic and social tensions, political instabilities, and ideological fervors while also spotlighting the magnetic personalities (Karl Marx, Richard Wagner) and tragic romance of the upheaval. It's a magisterial recreation of an explosion that birthed the modern world." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Clark does a remarkable job weaving together the myriad strands that make up the narrative, allowing us to see the events in granular detail and with synoptic, Europe-wide vision." —The Guardian (UK)
"Christopher Clark is that rare thing: a great historian who is also a brilliant storyteller, with a gift for sketching scenes and delineating characters with a few deft brushstrokes. Revolutionary Spring is a beautifully written, richly detailed account of a historical moment that rhymes and resonates, in many strange ways, with our own era of turmoil and disruption." —Amitav Ghosh, author of Sea of Poppies and The Great Derangement
This information about Revolutionary Spring was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Christopher Clark is a professor of modern European history and a fellow of St. Catharine's College at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of The Sleepwalkers, Time and Power, Iron Kingdom, and other books.
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