The European Revolutions, 1848-1851 (New Approaches to European History) [Hardcover]

Jonathan Sperber (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521385261 | ISBN-13: 978-0521385268 | Publication Date: January 28, 1994

The European Revolutions, 1848-1851 is a student textbook, designed to introduce, in an accessible manner, all the principal themes and problems of this sometimes bewildering period in European history. Professor Sperber's account, which is supplemented by extensive notes for further reading and potted biographies of the principal individuals involved, incorporates the very latest scholarship on the revolution as a social and political mass movement. It describes the events of the various national revolutions (both in 1848, and the subsequent, often-neglected period 1849-51), analyses the contrasting social and political tensions underlying the outbreak of revolution, explores the different varieties of revolutionary experience, and compares the events of 1848-51 both with the previous wave of 1789-95 and the successor of 1917-23.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'... the annotated bibliography, excellent chronology and neat biographies ... add to a highly readable volume.' Teaching History

Book Description

The European Revolutions, 1848-1851 is a student textbook, designed to introduce, in an accessible manner, all the principal themes and problems of this sometimes bewildering period in European history. Professor Sperber's account incorporates the very latest scholarship on the revolution as a social and political mass movement, and is unique in its comprehensive comparative coverage.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (January 28, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521385261
• ISBN-13: 978-0521385268
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,520,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Time for a change of orthodoxy?, May 6, 2009

By 

reader 451 - See all my reviews

This review is from: The European Revolutions, 1848 - 1851 (New Approaches to European History) (Paperback)

Sperber's book is impeccable as a bird's eye view of the 1848 revolutions. It is probably the most up-to-date general work on the subject. The book has considerable background on the restoration or `pre-March' period, without which the events of 1848 are meaningless. And it marries social and economic with political history, providing a coherent narrative (or narratives) alongside anecdotes of revolutionary experience and a description of the revolutions at ground level. Finally, Sperber provides a chronology, something which, useful in most history books, is essential to follow the tumultuous flow of 1848-49.

That said, I was mildly disappointed that this remains a recycling of the same used, mainstream views (after all, the book belongs to the New Approaches to European History collection). Because the revolutions were seen as a major missed opportunity by guilt-ridden German historians, and because of the weight of Marxist writing (the Communist Manifesto was issued in 1848 - you may know that already) portraying the radicals as the only `true' revolutionaries, 1848 has long been the subject of a dominantly leftist reading. This reading contains limited consideration of the revolutions as an originally liberal movement, or of the socially conservative dimension of the nationalist programs, and it attributes a debatable continuity between these and the second-round, radical uprisings.

Apologies if this is long-winded. I know of no general work that takes a less pro-radical angle. For Prussia and Austria-Hungary, Christopher Clark (The Iron Kingdom 1600-1947) and C.A. Macartney (The Habsburg Empire 1790-1918) respectively have good chapters on the subject, and Ginsborg is worth reading on Manin and the Venetian exotica.

16 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A well researched and excellently written take on this perio, February 10, 2001

By 

Jeff Williams (Clinton, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The European Revolutions, 1848-1851 (New Approaches to European History) (Paperback)

Not only is this an extremely informative title, but it does something virtually unheard of in a scholarly text: make the reader laugh. While providing all the essentials that one desires in an history, Sperber has a great knack for the telling (and often comic) details of history that make it so much fun to read.