German moderates and radicals were ill-prepared to function as a unit, carrying through their revolution of 1848 in order to produce a united constitution-based nation. Their Frankfurt Parlament has been unfairly blamed for the fiasco. Failure was rooted in the socioeconomic situation of the early nineteenth century, on the verge of the Industrial Age. Vestiges of the guild system, along with rigid class structure, official surveillance, and inappropriate education all contributed to the leaders' incomprehension of principles of political accommodation. The radicals lacked the basis of effective labor organization. German unity was threatened by chauvinism and by Austria's intervention. Hostility of various factions opened the way to the conservatives, whose vindictiveness caused many a Forty-Eighter to seek a new life in the United States.
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Editorial Reviews
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"Although seen through the prism of Forty-Eighter immigration to the United States, this book is about Europe; it exposes the smoldering unrest that resulted in periodic flame-ups which in turn smoked out thousands of high-quality young idealists for the good of America's nineteenth-century needs. What is phenomenal about this superb volume is its scope: Concentrating on Germany and its supply of the resulting immigrants, the author flashes brilliantly twenty to thirty years backward and forward in time; it sweeps geographically out to the horizons of Europe including all nations on Germany's periphery only to zero back into the German heartland where the wide scope of socioeconomic issues conditioned the political revolutions that erupted in 1848. This highly readable, deeply insightful labor of love belongs on the shelf of every library worthy of the name, as well as in the hands of anyone probing the history, political science, economic, or genealogical backdrop of the U.S. immigration from Germany. I recommend it with highest enthusiasm!" -- La Vern J. Rippley, St. Olaf College, German Department
"Randers-Pehrson portrays masterfully the jigsaw pieces that in their totality represent the sociopolitical context as well as the events, institutions, and leading personalities of the revolutionary years 1848 and 1849 in the thirty-nine German states. The multifaceted complexities that ultimately doomed successful reform of the political and social structure of the German nation in the mid-nineteenth century are presented chapter by chapter, leaving the reader with a bittersweet understanding of what might have been at that time and what might have been prevented from happening in twentieth-century Germany." -- William Keel, Professor of German, University of Kansas, and Editor, Yearbook of German-American Studies
"Randers-Pehrson portrays masterfully the jigsaw pieces that in their totality represent the sociopolitical context as well as the events, institutions, and leading personalities of the revolutionary years 1848 and 1849 in the thirty-nine German states. The multifaceted complexities that ultimately doomed successful reform of the political and social structure of the German nation in the mid-nineteenth century are presented chapter by chapter, leaving the reader with a bittersweet understanding of what might have been at that time and what might have been prevented from happening in twentieth-century Germany." -- William Keel, Professor of German, University of Kansas, and Editor, Yearbook of German-American Studies
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great piece of work with some annoying flaws,
This review is from: Germans and the Revolution of 1848-1849 (New German-American Studies/Neue Deutsch-Amerikanische Studien) (Hardcover)
I have mixed feelings about this book. It definitely does a great job in explaining the causes of revolutionary unrest in Central Europe, and depicting the course of events as well as the revolution's final failure which caused so many disappointed German patriots to emigrate to the United States, among them most notably Carl Schurz. What annoys me though is the many little factual errors and misspellings: - p.3: In 1848 there were no "ecclesiastical principalities" in Germany any more. They had been dissolved by the Principal Decree of the Imperial Deputation or "Reichsdeputationshauptschluß" in 1803 already! - p.3: "Even now, Germans refer to each other as Burgundians or Swabians, so long is their memory of the past". Germans may refer to each other as Swabians or Bavarians but certainly not as Burgundians. Burgundy is a region in France; and you have to go back to as early as the 5th century AD to find the Germanic tribe of the Burgundians settling in the area around Worms and Mainz. But the collective memory does not go back that far. This is simply ridiculous. - p.5: "In the following year [1806], sixteen principalities as well as Westphalia and the new grand duchy of Warsaw joined in a shaky confederation known as the Rheinbund..." The Napoleonic Kingdom of Westphalia came into being only a year later (1807) and the duchy [!] of Warsaw was never member of the Rheinbund (there was only a personal union with Frederick August, King of Saxony, as duke). - p. 7: Misspelling: recte Holstein-Gottorp, not "Holstein-Göttorp". - p. 143: "The Prussian envoy in Karlsruhe was troubled because Stephanie, the widowed Grossherzogin of Hesse-Darmstadt, seemed to be encouraging these undesirable international heroes". Stephanie de Beauharnais, Napoleon's stepdaughter, was Grossherzogin of Baden! p. 145: "... after the Vienna settlement of 1815 the territories on the right bank of the Rhine had been ceded to Bavaria". It was territories on the left bank of the Rhine! p. 145: "For some reason, press censorship had not been as strict in the Palatinate as in other parts of Bavaria ..." The reasons were quite obvious: the Palatinate had been incorporated into France for about twenty years, and its inhabitants had kept the French law and French institutions after the territory was ceded to Bavaria. p. 171: recte Grossherzog of Baden, not "Herzog" and not "archduke" (pp. 226 and 229). p. 236: recte Ludwig zu Oettingen-Wallerstein, not "Öltingen-Wallenstein". p.251: Bulgarians were not among the nationalities of the Habsburg Empire. p. 281: "The document stated ... that Preussen geht fortan in Deutschland [auf]" - the particle "auf" is missing here but it is decisive for the meaning of the phrase. p. 380: recte zum Hahner Hof, not "zum hahner Hof". p. 454: Frederic William IV was elected as "Emperor of the Germans" not "King of the Germans". p. 465: recte Reichsstatthalter, not "Reischsstatthalter". Is this because the author relied on bad sources, or did she just not care? Nonetheless, this is a great piece of work based on eyewitness reports and contemporary documents and it does not follow the popular notion that attributes the revolution's eventual failure to German obedience and passivity but tries to unveil the complexities of the issues and understand the leading personalities as people of their time.
5.0 out of 5 stars
regarding 1st review,
By
This review is from: Germans and the Revolution of 1848-1849 (Paperback)
wow! I am impressed; not only a scholar of German and a scholar of German history, but proof reading skills as well. Very impressive, and were I the author, I would be honored.
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