REVOLUTIONARY SPRING

A panoramic portrait of Europe in turmoil.

Clark, a professor of modern European history, offers a sweeping view of the political turbulence that broke out across the entire European continent in 1848, “the only truly European revolution that there has ever been.” He sets the stage for these uprisings with a close examination of social, economic, and political conditions throughout Europe in the 1830s and ’40s, a period characterized by competition for scarce resources, low rates of productivity growth, and a “deepening of patriotic networks.” In the 1830s, liberal and radical activists faced sanctions “ranging from military interventions to prosecutions, the covert sponsorship of government-friendly organizations and newspapers, and networks of spies and informants,” and pressures and grievances built up and finally erupted. Examining uprisings in France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Hungary, Clark finds “no single issue at the heart of the revolutions, but rather a multitude of questions—about democracy, representation, social equality, the organization of labour, gender relations, religion, forms of state power, among many other things.” Furthermore, he writes, the revolutions did not catapult radicals into power; the new parliaments created after 1848, he reveals, were predominantly conservative. Nevertheless, they ushered in “modern representative politics: “parliaments, parties, election campaigns and the publication of parliamentary debates.” Clark’s abundantly populated narrative features major players, such as Robert Blum, Giuseppe Mazzini, Clemens von Metternich, Alexis de Tocqueville, Marx and Engels, along with lesser-known figures, including women confronted with the “immovability of the patriarchal structure.” 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.” Clark makes a clear connection between the tumults of 1848—“the unpredictable interaction of so many forces”—and “the chaotic upheavals of our own day, in which clearly defined endpoints are hard to come by.”

A meticulously researched, authoritative history.