Customer Reviews

The Birth of the Modern: World Society, 1815-1830

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Paul Johnson has written a 1,000-page book about various and sundry aspects of the years 1815-1830, years in which he rightly claims to find the origins of many aspects of the world as we know it today. Johnson's chosen foci are certainly broad: he ranges from events in politics and law to music, science, and even opium use. While almost every page is loaded with fascinating morsels of information that will certainly come in handy when you want to impress people at your next social function, Johnson's roving eye and pen can be disconcerting: he tends to shift topics very quickly and without warning. Also, while the book claims to be about "world society," Johnson spends the largest part of his time talking about British society -- but he's found plenty of ways to range geographically from the "western" United States (like Kentucky) to China and Singapore. Throughout, his prose is generally crisp and pleasant to read.

Overall, Johnson has given us what might be the ultimate in bedtime reading: a vast book that one can pick up, open nearly at random, and learn something interesting about the past but which retains significance today.

Out of the ashes of the French Revolutionary Wars and the era of Napolean, the world reemerged better and stronger than it had ever been. Johnson's history centers on England (probably rightly so), but it seems to touch everywhere else. This is a quirky little book with lots of interesting/fascinating stories. Yet, they are stories that center around a powerful theme. For the first time in history, the ordinary guy could rise to the top based on nothing more than his own guts and initiative. I was continually struck by how many men from Faraday to Dalton to the Stephensons were self-educated. Knowledge, particularly scientific knowledge, was the sports and the entertainment of the day. People flocked to hear lectures and read books that would bore most to tears today. I wish I could instill that drive in my children. Read this, it is a thousand pages of enjoyment.

Johnson's intriguing premise is that 1815-1830 were the years when the modern era blossomed, and he does a convincing and commendable job of telling us why this is so. One of the reasons why this fat volume is so enjoyable is that Johnson is in no hurry to tell his story. Unlike so many historians that focus only on the big picture, he delights in giving this era a personality by acquainting us with so many of its personalities, in remarkable detail. His scholarship is astonishing, and his story-telling arresting. Being a Brit, I think, gives him wonderful insight into the European characters whom he describes. Ultimately, his history is about real people--some great, others small, some we admire, others we despise--and that is what makes every page interesting. If you're in no hurry, this book is worth the stroll.

Paul Johnson writes in a unique style. Many say his style is quirky, but I think his way of writing history is really the best. My reading his book is like being taken to a month-long tour of the early nineteenth century, mostly to England and Europe, but also to other parts of the world - American, Australia, Latin America and Asia - by virtue of the English (mostly) influence. It was like waking up in the morning and reading the morning paper of the era, learning about the what were unfolding in politics, business, industry, literature, music, art, science, and even gossip as they happened.

In this 1000 page volume, Johnson tells how the modern society rapidly took shape in a relatively short period of time after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. It is an interesting and compelling thesis. The industrial revolution, which created a lot of "self-made" men, and the arrival of the white men to all continents with their modern morals and superior weapons, the emergence of science, the popularization of music, art, communication media and eventually politics, all interacted to bring about an era of politics of the masses, or democracy, in the West.

Johnson tells us that this was not just another period of progress. It was the birth of the modern society. After reading his book, I am inclined to agree. Many of the salient features of today's society first took shape then. From little ills like traffic jams and parking tickets, for example, which started with increasing number of horse carriages, to party politics fanned by the media, newly juiced up by the steam-powered printing press. As if he anticipated what would happen in September 2000, at the ending pages of the book, Johnson innocuously chronicled the invention of the Lucifer match, a godsend for housewives but which also spawned arson. Does that not sound like a foretaste of terrorists and weapons of mass destruction?

The Birth of the Modern is a very unique history book. It is well worth your time. It gives meaning to the author's famous quote: "The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false."

It is the best answer to anyone who might ask why we should study history.

The Birth of the Modern is an amazing achievement! This history of the world during the period from defeat of Napoleon in 1815 to end of the Bourbon dynasty in 1830 is amazing in depth and breadth. The author chose to cover the history in all parts of the world from gunboats in Siam to the Russian conquest of Chechnya in graphic detail.

Paul Johnson covers art, poetry, philosophy, technology, as well as the life of the common man. He explores the philosophies of Fichte and Hegel. Byron and the Hellenists are discussed in detail, ending in the death of Byron at 36 years old in 1824 Greece. The large families and incredible population explosion in Europe is explained. The expansion of the railroad in Britain, and throughout the world comes to life. I found such discussions as the availability of opium at corner drugstores (at its effects upon colonialism in China) quite interesting.

In short, this is one comprehensive overview about world history at this interesting place in time. I do agree the author does have a tendency to go off on tangents at times. For me this kept the book from being dry reading. At times while I read this book, I genuinely felt transported back in time, almost like I was reading the newspaper headlines of the day. My thanks to Paul Johnson for making history come to life.

The Birth of the Modern is a definite aid in understanding the romantic period of Western civilization. Johnson is especially good at detailing the literary achievements of this period, focusing on Shelley and Byron. The cultural and economic growth of Europe also is detailed well. The only minute flaw I can see is that sometimes the author goes on an occasional tangent that is not central to the thesis of the book, but as I said, the fault is minor

As an "avid reader" (pardon the pun) of Johnson, I judge this book as a real jewel. It does not have the broad sweep of Modern Times or the monumentalism of History of the American People or the meditative quality of History of the Jews but it does have a thoroughly detailed examination of a relatively unknown era.

He asserts that this era is of immense importance to the modern world in that the rhythm of our life - politics, music, science, religion - was established during this time. In his usual quirky and entertaining way, his presentations of the personalities of the time provide a startling behind-the-scenes look at those we thought we knew. He also includes those we do not know or those on the fringes and insists their contributions are many times more than those we celebrate. The movement of the story is a work of art in itself as it switches from subject to subject without ever losing either interest or direction. If you are interested in the Romantic Movement and the establishiment of modern social strucures, read this book.

Will and Ariel Durant's classic "Story of Civilization" only got as far as 1815 and Napoleon's conquests and defeats. Paul M. Johnson's "Birth of the Modern" takes up where the Durants left off, and covers "world society" from 1815 to 1830. Though Johnson's conservative bias colors his narrative, he does a good job covering an important era in world history. Since Johnson already did the 20th century, he should fill in the gaps by writing a book or books to cover the years from 1830 to 1919.

Johnson tells his readers in the preface that he selected 1815-30 as the years in which the modern world was largely formed. He knowledges that others would disagree with that choice, but goes on to justify his selection by explaining his reasons.
The first chapter starts with the Battle of New Orleans. From here the story unfolds with the persona of Andrew Jackson, the hero of that war, who would eventually become president as the transition was made to popular politics and away from elite decision-makers.
The Battle of Waterloo, back on the European continent is also described and labeled as "one of the decisive battles of history" (p. 83).
The book contains insightful asides such as the one about Talleyrand's love of music. We're told "He hired one of Joseph Haydn's pupils, Sigismond Neukomm, to play the piano softly--background music, hours at a time--while he worked at his desk" (p. 99).
Johnson's analysis throughout the book is helpful in placing happenings into an understandable context. For example he talks about the defense of religion given by Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand, saying, "It explained why, as the French themselves had discovered during the atheistic 1790s, religion was a necessary part of human life--and always would be so--why reason and the cold intellect were not enough and why Blaise Pascal had been right to insist that 'the Heart has its reasons which Reason knoweth not'" (p. 111).
The anguish of the lack of the heart's desire being met is illustrated in the life of one of the famous composers of the era. "Beethoven's overbearing selfishness was compounded by his failure to marry and the loneliness it bred--'Oh God,' he wrote in anguish, 'may I find her at last, the woman who may strengthen me in virtue, who is permitted to be mine.' But no one was willing to be Beethoven's wife" (p. 122).
Johnson contributes greatly to our understanding of this epoch in this well-written and clearly documented book.

An entertaining and detail-packed overview of the period, marred mostly by the inexplicable overuse of the word "adumbrate", which the author employs exhaustively in relation to every conceivable issue or personality. If one can look past this, the occasional factual error, and the author's rabid anti-intellectualism -- demonstrated throughout in such statements as "China was that worst of all systems: a society run by its intelligentsia... The system was obnoxious because it placed scholars at the top." -- then one can still enjoy this work, bearing in mind that it takes a somewhat crankish mind to find a collection of corrupt Confucian scholars more obnoxious than, say, Franco, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Pinochet, Perón, or any of the other innumerable vicious and incompetent despots and generalissimos we have seen before and since the period studied by the author.