The Birth of the Modern: World Society 1815-1830 [Paperback]

Paul Johnson (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 24, 1992

From the prizewinning author of Modern Times comes an extraordinary chronicle of the period that laid the foundations of the modern world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This marvelously readable work from the author of Modern Times , a BOMC main selection in cloth, chronicles the formation of the modern world, illuminating the epoch of Andrew Jackson, Wordsworth, Goya and Beethoven.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Johnson is the author of several wide-ranging historical narratives. His best known is probably Modern Times ( LJ 5/1/83), and his most recent is Intellectuals (HarperCollins, 1988). This literally weighty but lively tome argues for the years 1815-30 as "those during which the matrix of the modern world was formed," citing developments like the rise of democracy and the separation of science from the broader culture. Johnson leaps from country to country, from politics to art to literature to medicine, in a fashion that makes for better browsing than consecutive reading. Not essential for smaller collections, but larger ones will want to continue to acquire the provocative Johnson output. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/91.
- Nancy C. Cridland, Indiana Univ. Libs., Bloomington
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1120 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (April 24, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060922826
• ISBN-13: 978-0060922825
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #530,523 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Beginning with Modern Times (1985), Paul Johnson's books are acknowledged masterpieces of historical analysis. He is a regular columnist for Forbes and The Spectator, and his work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.

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#93 in Books > History

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars History that reads (almost) like a novel March 8, 2006

By With Favourable Winds

Format:Paperback

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.

28 of 31 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fanfare for the Common Man February 24, 2002

By oldfatslow

Format:Paperback

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.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Leisurely Stroll through a Largely Overlooked Era May 21, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

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.

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Why Study History? This Book Is The Best Answer June 18, 2003

By Redmund K. Sum

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

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. Read more ›

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine adumbration of the era July 14, 2007

By Bandy

Format:Paperback

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.