Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800-1914

by Robert Gildea

Now with a substantially revised text and fully updated bibliography, this is a comprehensive survey of European history from Napoleon Bonaparte to the First World War. It concentrates on the twin themes of revolution and nationalism, which often combined in the early part of the century but
which increasingly became rival creeds. Going beyond traditional political and diplomatic history, the book incorporates the results of recent research on topics such as population movements, the accumulation of capital, social mobility, and intellectual and artistic developments.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Textbooks, European History, Politics, 19th Century

516 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Robert Nigel Gildea is professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford and is the author of several influential books on 20th century French history.

Reviews

[WarpDrive · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a textbook that has been used in the past for University courses on Modern European History. It represents a comprehensive survey of the period between the Napoleonic Wars and the start of WWI, encompassing all major economic, social, demographic, political and cultural aspects of this critical period.

It is excellent as a reference and as a supplementary reading, rich with supporting quantitative analysis and primary source evidence, and providing very handy genealogical tables of dynasties of the main ruling houses, and a very helpful and quite detailed timeline.

The scholarship is first-rate and the book is thoroughly well-researched; some characters, historical events and themes (such as the advent and subsequent structural evolution of the Industrial Revolution, the politics of Bismarck and his central role in European history, the Imperialist colonial expansion of the European powers, the relationship between Liberalism, Conservatism and Socialism in the individual European countries, the problems associated with the multinational nature of the Habsburg Empire, and the emergence of Pan-Slavism in Eastern Europe), are treated at a very good level of details.

However I must say that there are parts of the book where I would have preferred more space and effort being allocated to analysis and interpretation, rather than to a dry and sometimes redundant recitation of facts/factlets that does not really add much to the overall narrative, and that risk drowning the appreciation of the main long-term trends into a myriad of small-scale events .

There are also some critically important episodes (such as the Boer War and the Crimean War, the progressive disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, and the Russian Revolution of 1905, just to name of few examples) that should have been developed in more depth.

This book did work for me most of the times (as this particular period is, together with Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, one of the periods of most interest to me), however I am not sure that it would be really suitable as an introductory book to readers with no prior specific knowledge (which is implicitly assumed by the author). It is in any case a good book to keep in your shelves for future reference - and I must say that there were a few interesting things that I learned, especially in specific areas such as economic developments and trade patterns in post-Napoleonic Europe.

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

[Szplug · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such a vast and important sequence of events unfolded during the enlightenment-fueled, revolutionary-fired, and reaction-smothered nineteenth century that—even with fourteen years tacked on at the millennial end in order to stretch Gildea's purview through to the opening days of the First World War—the author can only but summarize much of the key elements of this history, let alone those important-but-lesser-known developments that transpired outside of the pivotal centers of action. Gildea is superb in dealing with France, excellent at her neighbors of Great Britain and Germany, and praiseworthy as far as the Apennine peninsula is concerned—as for the rest, however, this book works better as a supplement than an introduction. Whilst an academic publication, Gildea writes pleasingly and authoritatively, dashing out the facts and figures, numbers and nuances that flesh out the skeletal storyline of tumultuous clashes between anxious liberal democracies, bourgeoning bourgeois monarchies, bristling iron-fisted empires, and freshly reformed nations, to a one adumbrated throughout by the shadow of Napoleon Bonaparte whilst the heady, thick clouds of an industrializing explosion billowed forth in quantity and chromaticity sufficient to both hearten and horrify. The final decades of comparative peace and calm at home stand juxtaposed against the furious energy of the parcelling out of the remainder of the globe between the European powers in a rapid fire imperialism that served to heighten national chauvinism; when those energies were directed inwards by the sharp crack of a bullet in Sarajevo, the murderous capacities of a machine-tooled continent were revealed in all their macabre glory. Coming into this book I had yet to read an Oxford History publication that I didn't both enjoy and learn from—and Barricades and Borders proved no exception.

[Manuel Martins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fact-heavy (which I have a hard time dealing with), but light on analysis. Haven't finished it at the time of writing, and not sure I'll be able to.

[Ruprecht · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prescribed textbook when I studied Modern European History.

[Norman Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think that this would be a very good book for someone who is getting into this aspect of history (Europe 1800 - 1914) for the first time. However, I had hoped for more analysis and interpretation but found it to be primarily a recitation of facts about various European territories. I have read a fair number of histories of the period and place, so a survey was not really what I was looking for at this time.

The author does several tours of the continent, with short sections on Russia, Poland, Parma, Modena, Switzerland, France, Britain, Norway, etc., etc. This is useful in terms of presenting an overall view, but after a while I found that the detail was more obscuring than illuminating.

The writing was fine, the organization was too, and the author certainly appears to have done his homework. However, for me, the result was that I liked it (but not enough to finish it), but didn't "really like it". Hence, three stars.

[ayanami · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this one for a university course on 19th century European history.. It's not bad. There are a lot of details and plenty of information, but it's hard to digest it all, especially since there's no real indication of whether or not certain events are more significant than others. I wish the author included a summary at the beginning of each chapter which identified the key concepts and historical events. The author throws out dates and names and mentions events without really defining or explaining them first. He made references to things that didn't come up in the text previously, which, as someone without a history background, I found really confusing. So all in all, this is a comprehensive text, as far as I can tell, but I think it's best read as a supplement to introductory material on the topic, as it can be somewhat confusing and overwhelming if you're new to the subject.

[Brandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this one up for my Poland research project. Although I read a number of chapters, this book was just about useless to me. I think the major thing that I learned from this course is that "European" historians really mean "western Europe" when they say they study Europe. Which is a bummer. People should care so much more about Eastern Europe than they do. So this book was frustrating because while it actually acknowledged Eastern Europe, it always was thrown in as a "oh yeah, and stuff was going on over here too" instead of actually analyzed. Ugh.

[Marina Schulz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overly dense; it adds too many examples when describing an event, instead of only refering to a few notable ones and remaining close to the point. Thus, "Barricades and Borders" becomes a tad confusing at times.

Not very concise; it can be a bit too general in the many themes it explores to be of practical use to the reader. If one can keep in mind only what interests oneself, we find well explained the pure, concrete facts, but there is a lot that also ends up coming across as distracting and dismissable.

[Christopher Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned everything I know about this period via this book

[Beatriz Mestre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este livro salvou a minha licenciatura com uma pinta impressionante. Ensinou-me mais do que a faculdade onde pago propinas waddup bros

[Abraham]

A pretty good text book that provides an overview of issues in 19th century Europe.