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1848: Year of Revolution
In 1848, a violent storm of revolutions ripped through Europe. The torrent all but swept away the conservative order that had kept peace on the continent since Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815—but which in many countries had also suppressed dreams of national freedom. Political events so dramatic had not been seen in Europe since the French Revolution, and they would not be witnessed again until 1989, with the revolutions in Eastern and Central Europe.In 1848, historian Mike Rapport examines the roots of the ferment and then, with breathtaking pace, chronicles the explosive spread of violence across Europe. A vivid narrative of a complex chain of interconnected revolutions, 1848 tells the exhilarating story of Europe’s violent “Spring of Nations” and traces its reverberations to the present day.
461 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
243 people are currently reading
2133 people want to read
About the author
Mike Rapport
10 books21 followersMike Rapport is a senior lecturer in history at the University of Stirling, in Scotland, where he teaches European history.
He is author of 1848: Year of Revolution (Basic Books, 2009), Nineteenth-Century Europe, 1789-1914 (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2005), Nationality and Citizenship in Revolutionary France: The Treatment of Foreigners (Oxford, 2000). He also has a volume forthcoming on The Napoleonic Wars: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2013).
He was elected fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2000. With his colleague, Dr. Kevin Adamson, he is working on a research project on the "domino revolutions" from 1848 to the Arab Awakening of 2011.
Mr. Rapport earned his undergraduate degree in history at the University of Edinburgh and his doctorate, on the French Revolution, at the University of Bristol.
He is author of 1848: Year of Revolution (Basic Books, 2009), Nineteenth-Century Europe, 1789-1914 (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2005), Nationality and Citizenship in Revolutionary France: The Treatment of Foreigners (Oxford, 2000). He also has a volume forthcoming on The Napoleonic Wars: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2013).
He was elected fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2000. With his colleague, Dr. Kevin Adamson, he is working on a research project on the "domino revolutions" from 1848 to the Arab Awakening of 2011.
Mr. Rapport earned his undergraduate degree in history at the University of Edinburgh and his doctorate, on the French Revolution, at the University of Bristol.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 135 reviews
December 25, 2011
I struggled with this book. As an avid reader of Victorian-era history, I expected to love it, but Rapport doesn't give us enough of a story line to hang his facts on. And he provides a never-ending flow of facts, details, and trivia. Partly the problem is the subject -- he's trying to cover Germany, with all its little states, Italy, with ditto, Austria, France, Hungary, the UK, the Baltic states -- and on and on. Each one of these countries suffered some sort of cataclysm during the 1848-49 period and Rapport provides us with a staggering level of detail about these events. It's all too much without a sense of the larger picture. Rapport will introduce a name of some obscure Austrian politician in one paragraph, give us two sentences about his views on a bill before one of the nascent political bodies, and then never mention him again. This goes on for page after page.
Historians need to tell us the story as well as the facts, and Rapport falls down on the former while excelling on the latter.
Historians need to tell us the story as well as the facts, and Rapport falls down on the former while excelling on the latter.
August 27, 2019
This is a non-fic about the tumultuous years 1848-1849. In the Soviet historical narrative the emphasis in this period was on France, after all, Marx wrote The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. This book is much more on other parts of Europe: German and Italian states, Austria, Hungary.
The years preceding this revolutionary year had an economic downturn and to a large extent it created a fertile ground for unrest. Völkerfrühling - the ‘Springtime of Peoples’ was both a national and social uprising. There is already a class of educated people, who are interested in their ethnic history and even larger group who are interested to read about it. The proletariat is not that significant yet: the main theme for the majority of Europe is to break down guild system and establish quite small scale manufacturing of skilled artisans, not unskilled factory labor.
In France I guess the most interesting part was the rise of Napoleon, for it has direct comparison to the current rise of populists across the Western world. He from the start stated “the name of Napoleon is in itself a programme. At home it means order, authority, religion and the welfare of the people; and abroad it means national self-respect.” He also had different (contradictory) messages to different parts of electorate. It is highly reminiscent of e.g. the latest (2019) elections in Ukraine.
The struggle between Czech and German, Hungarians and Slavs and Romanians is very interesting – in their desire of a sovereign state that was backed by desire to support Hungarian culture and identity, they actually repressed others, who actually saw Vienna as the true supporter of their rights. It was often bloody, tens of thousands died in ethnic purges… much more than in France or German lands.
The role of Piedmont in the unification of Italy is well known, but in 1848 there was a serious expectation that Rome and the Catholic church will lead the unification. It is also very interesting how Italian lands under Austria were able to fight their oppressors.
Overall a nice introduction to the year of revolutions. The main minus is that the ‘wall of text’ writing makes it less than engaging read.
The years preceding this revolutionary year had an economic downturn and to a large extent it created a fertile ground for unrest. Völkerfrühling - the ‘Springtime of Peoples’ was both a national and social uprising. There is already a class of educated people, who are interested in their ethnic history and even larger group who are interested to read about it. The proletariat is not that significant yet: the main theme for the majority of Europe is to break down guild system and establish quite small scale manufacturing of skilled artisans, not unskilled factory labor.
In France I guess the most interesting part was the rise of Napoleon, for it has direct comparison to the current rise of populists across the Western world. He from the start stated “the name of Napoleon is in itself a programme. At home it means order, authority, religion and the welfare of the people; and abroad it means national self-respect.” He also had different (contradictory) messages to different parts of electorate. It is highly reminiscent of e.g. the latest (2019) elections in Ukraine.
The struggle between Czech and German, Hungarians and Slavs and Romanians is very interesting – in their desire of a sovereign state that was backed by desire to support Hungarian culture and identity, they actually repressed others, who actually saw Vienna as the true supporter of their rights. It was often bloody, tens of thousands died in ethnic purges… much more than in France or German lands.
The role of Piedmont in the unification of Italy is well known, but in 1848 there was a serious expectation that Rome and the Catholic church will lead the unification. It is also very interesting how Italian lands under Austria were able to fight their oppressors.
Overall a nice introduction to the year of revolutions. The main minus is that the ‘wall of text’ writing makes it less than engaging read.
January 25, 2024
This is a very well written and detailed history of the revolutions that swept across Europe in 1848, and the reactionary counter-revolutions that overturned them a year later. The revolutions floundered from the beginning as they struggled to balance concerns of social justice with individual rights, such as property rights. Liberals wanted constitutional monarchies, radicals wanted republics and socialism, and conservatives wanted stability and order. Though the revolutions failed to endure, they did give the masses their first taste of politics: serfdom was abolished, and workers and peasants voted and served in parliaments. This is a fascinating time in Europe's history, and I enjoyed this informative book. An excellent summary of the main themes of the book is contained in the conclusion chapter.
October 4, 2013
Broad history of the momentous European revolutions of 1848. It was the year of the overthrow of French King Louis-Philippe, abolishment of serfdom in Austria and Hungary, and the establishment of the Frankfurt Assembly meeting to determine the unification of Germany.
It is the year Metternich runs from Vienna while Bismarck begins to gain favour in Prussia; the bombardment and great seige of Venice; rise and fall of Kossuth's liberal Hungary, and the heroic return to Italy of the 'red-shirted' Galibaldi from South American expeditions. Serb Ban Josip Jelacic and Marshall Radetzky jump to the Habsburg Empire's aid in dispelling nationalist urgings in Hungary and Transylvania.
This was real political action from the bottom, but perhaps because of this lack of power, they were only able to instigate a more conservative response testing the established powers. The sometimes contrary national, class (urban/rural/bourgeois/aristocrat/serf/merchant), and political (liberal/conservative...) are presented as an opaque reality.
There were some gains but most gains were longer term such as the effect it had in Bismarck's establishment of the welfare state, and propelled European organization based on more national understandings of interests. It showed the weakness in the European balance established in 1815 after the first Napoleon's fall and saw the rise to fortune of his nephew, the soon to be Napoleon III.
"The European revolution of 1848 was essentially polycentric, expressed in localised varieties of liberalism that were bound together by broad and important similarities in aims, by the patterns in which the revolutions themselves progressed, and in the problems that the newly formed liberal regimes faced." This was a difficult story to tell and one which Mike Rapport rises to deliver a truly enjoyable read, more convoluted in the reality than in his telling of it.
It is the year Metternich runs from Vienna while Bismarck begins to gain favour in Prussia; the bombardment and great seige of Venice; rise and fall of Kossuth's liberal Hungary, and the heroic return to Italy of the 'red-shirted' Galibaldi from South American expeditions. Serb Ban Josip Jelacic and Marshall Radetzky jump to the Habsburg Empire's aid in dispelling nationalist urgings in Hungary and Transylvania.
This was real political action from the bottom, but perhaps because of this lack of power, they were only able to instigate a more conservative response testing the established powers. The sometimes contrary national, class (urban/rural/bourgeois/aristocrat/serf/merchant), and political (liberal/conservative...) are presented as an opaque reality.
There were some gains but most gains were longer term such as the effect it had in Bismarck's establishment of the welfare state, and propelled European organization based on more national understandings of interests. It showed the weakness in the European balance established in 1815 after the first Napoleon's fall and saw the rise to fortune of his nephew, the soon to be Napoleon III.
"The European revolution of 1848 was essentially polycentric, expressed in localised varieties of liberalism that were bound together by broad and important similarities in aims, by the patterns in which the revolutions themselves progressed, and in the problems that the newly formed liberal regimes faced." This was a difficult story to tell and one which Mike Rapport rises to deliver a truly enjoyable read, more convoluted in the reality than in his telling of it.
July 21, 2025
Mike Rapport’s 1848: Year of Revolution offers a serious and detailed narrative of one of Europe’s most tumultuous years, a period when revolution broke out across the continent with intriguing simultaneity. From Paris to Vienna, Milan to Berlin, and Budapest to Prague, 1848 bore witness to an eruption of political upheaval, social demands, and nationalist aspirations. Rapport, a historian trained in the transnational history of modern Europe, uses a comparative framework to reconstruct these uprisings with lots of narrative drama and a touch of analytical clarity.
1848 is structured both chronologically and geographically. Rapport begins in Paris, whose February revolution is alleged to have catalyzed events elsewhere, then shifts focus across the German states, the Habsburg Empire, and the Italian peninsula. Throughout, Rapport maintains a focus on the dynamics between local conditions and pan-European trends. Each revolutionary center is portrayed with attention to its own political structure, class dynamics, and cultural tensions. For instance, Rapport contrasts the relatively coordinated liberal aspirations in Frankfurt with the more fragmented and socially charged insurgency in Vienna, and the nationalist morasses of Hungary and Italy, where revolutionary movements were deeply entangled with issues of empire and ethnicity. (I've been trying to get a handle on recent Hungarian history as my wife's family was subject to these historical forces).
What distinguishes Rapport’s narrative is his close attention to individuals and institutions. He does not shy from introducing a large cast of political actors: conservatives (namely Klemens von Metternich), radicals, moderates, aristocrats, generals, monarchs, and insurgents. He frequently draws on personal letters, speeches, and manifestos to give depth to their ideological commitments and the emotional milieu of the revolutionary year. This contrasts with the more popular structural approach to history.
Rapport’s central thesis is that the revolutions of 1848 were both more interconnected and more contingent than previous accounts have acknowledged. He doesn't explicitly make this point, but it is evident if one compares with other historical narratives. While the revolutions shared structural preconditions (likely contributing to the similar timelines), such as widespread discontent with autocracy, the rise of liberal political ideas, economic hardship, and an increasingly politicized public, they were also profoundly shaped by local social structures and the strategic decisions of elites and insurgents alike. In Rapport’s interpretation, 1848 was a “continental moment” not because there was a coordinated conspiracy or master plan, but because similar conditions gave rise to analogous responses. The local condition also help account for the differences in local outcomes. Plus, the collapse of most of these movements by 1849 revealed some of the resilience of conservative regimes, the frequent inadequacy of revolutionary organization, and the persistent tensions between liberalism, nationalism, and socialism.
In historiographic terms, Rapport’s interpretation could be seen as bridging the gap between earlier Marxist interpretations and more recent scholarship focused on nationalism and state formation. Whereas classic Marxist historians, such as Eric Hobsbawm in The Age of Revolution, emphasized 1848 as a “failed” bourgeois revolution, an abortive stage in the progress toward socialism, Rapport presents a contingent and pluralistic picture. He acknowledges the class tensions but does not reduce the revolutions to economic conditions. Instead, he foregrounds the ideological incoherence within the revolutionary coalitions, especially the uneasy alliance between liberals seeking constitutional monarchies and radicals or workers demanding universal suffrage, wage protections, and social justice.
Compared to historians such as Christopher Clark (Iron Kingdom) or Mark Mazower (The Balkans), who have emphasized state-building and geopolitical realignment in the 19th century, Rapport remains more focused on the revolutionary moment itself rather than its long-term institutional consequences. Yet his analysis indirectly supports the view that 1848 was formative in shaping the trajectory of modern European states. By stressing how nationalist uprisings, especially in Hungary and Italy, threatened multiethnic empires, Rapport lays the groundwork for understanding why nationalism became both a unifying and a destructive force in subsequent decades. Though in some ways such claims seem pedestrian as the past inevitably influences the future; the devil is always in the details.
Rapport also implicitly engages with the work of historians like Arno Mayer (The Persistence of the Old Regime), who argued that European aristocratic power structures remained largely intact well into the 20th century. While 1848 affirms that the revolutions were ultimately suppressed, Rapport suggests they were not without legacy; they injected liberalism into mainstream political discourse, advanced the cause of press freedom and parliamentary governance in some states, and left behind a generation of more politically conscious citizens.
Rapport’s strength lies in his ability to deliver a textured and clear narrative. His storytelling is energetic and occasionally cinematic, but always anchored in scholarship (so far as I can tell). One limitation, however, is that the breadth of the material is unwieldy and occasionally fragments, making it hard for a non-historian, like myself, to follow. Some revolutionary episodes receive more interpretive weight than others, e.g. the Parisian revolution. I'm not in a position to judge this choice of emphasis (it seems to be a traditional point of emphasis), but it may be worth quibbling with. Additionally, readers seeking deeper treatment of rural uprisings, women’s activities, or the intellectual currents underlying revolutionary ideologies may find these aspects underexplored.
Nevertheless, 1848: Year of Revolution appears like it was a meaningful contribution to a bottom-up revisionist perspective on 19th century European revolutionary history. It synthesized a vast array of sources and local histories into a coherent continental narrative without flattening local specificities. The focus on local actors, popular/grassroots movements in addition to the power players and institution is a balanced, comprehensive approach to history, but is also hard on non-specialist readers. Ultimately, Rapport treats the pan-European 1848 revolutions as open-ended struggles shaped by ideology, contingent conditions, and miscommunication as much as by structural pressures.
1848 is structured both chronologically and geographically. Rapport begins in Paris, whose February revolution is alleged to have catalyzed events elsewhere, then shifts focus across the German states, the Habsburg Empire, and the Italian peninsula. Throughout, Rapport maintains a focus on the dynamics between local conditions and pan-European trends. Each revolutionary center is portrayed with attention to its own political structure, class dynamics, and cultural tensions. For instance, Rapport contrasts the relatively coordinated liberal aspirations in Frankfurt with the more fragmented and socially charged insurgency in Vienna, and the nationalist morasses of Hungary and Italy, where revolutionary movements were deeply entangled with issues of empire and ethnicity. (I've been trying to get a handle on recent Hungarian history as my wife's family was subject to these historical forces).
What distinguishes Rapport’s narrative is his close attention to individuals and institutions. He does not shy from introducing a large cast of political actors: conservatives (namely Klemens von Metternich), radicals, moderates, aristocrats, generals, monarchs, and insurgents. He frequently draws on personal letters, speeches, and manifestos to give depth to their ideological commitments and the emotional milieu of the revolutionary year. This contrasts with the more popular structural approach to history.
Rapport’s central thesis is that the revolutions of 1848 were both more interconnected and more contingent than previous accounts have acknowledged. He doesn't explicitly make this point, but it is evident if one compares with other historical narratives. While the revolutions shared structural preconditions (likely contributing to the similar timelines), such as widespread discontent with autocracy, the rise of liberal political ideas, economic hardship, and an increasingly politicized public, they were also profoundly shaped by local social structures and the strategic decisions of elites and insurgents alike. In Rapport’s interpretation, 1848 was a “continental moment” not because there was a coordinated conspiracy or master plan, but because similar conditions gave rise to analogous responses. The local condition also help account for the differences in local outcomes. Plus, the collapse of most of these movements by 1849 revealed some of the resilience of conservative regimes, the frequent inadequacy of revolutionary organization, and the persistent tensions between liberalism, nationalism, and socialism.
In historiographic terms, Rapport’s interpretation could be seen as bridging the gap between earlier Marxist interpretations and more recent scholarship focused on nationalism and state formation. Whereas classic Marxist historians, such as Eric Hobsbawm in The Age of Revolution, emphasized 1848 as a “failed” bourgeois revolution, an abortive stage in the progress toward socialism, Rapport presents a contingent and pluralistic picture. He acknowledges the class tensions but does not reduce the revolutions to economic conditions. Instead, he foregrounds the ideological incoherence within the revolutionary coalitions, especially the uneasy alliance between liberals seeking constitutional monarchies and radicals or workers demanding universal suffrage, wage protections, and social justice.
Compared to historians such as Christopher Clark (Iron Kingdom) or Mark Mazower (The Balkans), who have emphasized state-building and geopolitical realignment in the 19th century, Rapport remains more focused on the revolutionary moment itself rather than its long-term institutional consequences. Yet his analysis indirectly supports the view that 1848 was formative in shaping the trajectory of modern European states. By stressing how nationalist uprisings, especially in Hungary and Italy, threatened multiethnic empires, Rapport lays the groundwork for understanding why nationalism became both a unifying and a destructive force in subsequent decades. Though in some ways such claims seem pedestrian as the past inevitably influences the future; the devil is always in the details.
Rapport also implicitly engages with the work of historians like Arno Mayer (The Persistence of the Old Regime), who argued that European aristocratic power structures remained largely intact well into the 20th century. While 1848 affirms that the revolutions were ultimately suppressed, Rapport suggests they were not without legacy; they injected liberalism into mainstream political discourse, advanced the cause of press freedom and parliamentary governance in some states, and left behind a generation of more politically conscious citizens.
Rapport’s strength lies in his ability to deliver a textured and clear narrative. His storytelling is energetic and occasionally cinematic, but always anchored in scholarship (so far as I can tell). One limitation, however, is that the breadth of the material is unwieldy and occasionally fragments, making it hard for a non-historian, like myself, to follow. Some revolutionary episodes receive more interpretive weight than others, e.g. the Parisian revolution. I'm not in a position to judge this choice of emphasis (it seems to be a traditional point of emphasis), but it may be worth quibbling with. Additionally, readers seeking deeper treatment of rural uprisings, women’s activities, or the intellectual currents underlying revolutionary ideologies may find these aspects underexplored.
Nevertheless, 1848: Year of Revolution appears like it was a meaningful contribution to a bottom-up revisionist perspective on 19th century European revolutionary history. It synthesized a vast array of sources and local histories into a coherent continental narrative without flattening local specificities. The focus on local actors, popular/grassroots movements in addition to the power players and institution is a balanced, comprehensive approach to history, but is also hard on non-specialist readers. Ultimately, Rapport treats the pan-European 1848 revolutions as open-ended struggles shaped by ideology, contingent conditions, and miscommunication as much as by structural pressures.
May 24, 2017
Sorry read this long ago. To understand Minnesota, the Eastern Dakotas, western Wisconsin, and northern Iowa you have to read this book on purely European events. The people who fled their failed democratic socialist revolutions in Northern Europe, all ended up in these states. The closest we ever came the United States to a Marxist-Socialist Revolution, was the Bonus Marcher's in Washington DC that Hoovers Army (MacArthur and Patton) rode down with Cavalry and tanks. They were led by Socialists from the Messabi Iron Range of Minnesota. Bob Dylan's parents could easily have been among them as well as mainly Lutheran's. If your from the East coast of the United States and don't understand this about that part of the US you're in big trouble. It's not the hinterlands of the South, its the dead opposite. Scratch a Minnesotan and you'll find a Socialist/Marxist.
May 17, 2016
Last fall I read a biography of Napoleon, which was awesome. But as I finished, I was left wanting to know what happened next. In that review I noted that history as taught in America (at least where I went to school) focused on Europe until the beginnings of America and then totally shifted to American history. We did not learn about Europe between the end of the Revolutionary War and the beginning of WWI. I've picked up a little and that Napoleon book helped. This book did too.
This book tells the story of the revolutionary year of 1848 (hence the title!). It is kind of a mess, which reflects the year. Country after country exploded into revolution in 1848. One of the challenges in reading this book is that there is no one main character. There are not even a few. Instead, there are many as each revolution has its own cast of characters. Rapport does the best he can in juggling this, mostly by flying through it. A book with more detail would be unreadable. That said, it is even dizzying to read this book that covers it quickly.
What struck me most in this story was the tribalism. When the liberals and revolutionaries were faced with choosing the revolution or commitment to their own country, they chose their country. The same thing came up in a recent book I read on World War 1. Prior to that war there was an international movement as socialists all over thought the working people would unite and not fight for their evil countries against other workers. Yet soon the international unity disappeared in the face of national unity. It happened in 1848 and 1914 and still today for sure.
Not only was 1848 the year of revolution, it was also the year of conservative backlash. The revolutions were short lived but cast long shadows. Soon Italy and Germany would unify and Austria soon became Austria-Hungary.
If you're interested in the time from Napoleon to WWI check this out. I doubt you are though, I was the first person to check this out of the library in seven years.
This book tells the story of the revolutionary year of 1848 (hence the title!). It is kind of a mess, which reflects the year. Country after country exploded into revolution in 1848. One of the challenges in reading this book is that there is no one main character. There are not even a few. Instead, there are many as each revolution has its own cast of characters. Rapport does the best he can in juggling this, mostly by flying through it. A book with more detail would be unreadable. That said, it is even dizzying to read this book that covers it quickly.
What struck me most in this story was the tribalism. When the liberals and revolutionaries were faced with choosing the revolution or commitment to their own country, they chose their country. The same thing came up in a recent book I read on World War 1. Prior to that war there was an international movement as socialists all over thought the working people would unite and not fight for their evil countries against other workers. Yet soon the international unity disappeared in the face of national unity. It happened in 1848 and 1914 and still today for sure.
Not only was 1848 the year of revolution, it was also the year of conservative backlash. The revolutions were short lived but cast long shadows. Soon Italy and Germany would unify and Austria soon became Austria-Hungary.
If you're interested in the time from Napoleon to WWI check this out. I doubt you are though, I was the first person to check this out of the library in seven years.
December 30, 2015
I wanted to love this book. I already love the topic and time period, so it should have been a cinch to love the book, too, right? Well.... I'm sad to say this book was a slog. It jumped right into the fray without enough historical background on the events of 1848; I felt like I needed at least a B.A. in European history to swim and not sink in the depths to which Rapport immediately plunges. The narrative jumps around among countries, regions, and people so often that it was making me seasick. Just about the time I was getting into the story, the section would end and we'd travel from Hungary to France, or to Venice, or somewhere else with an entirely new cast of characters (that had often appeared earlier but had been lost in the shuffle, so I was constantly flipping back and forth trying to figure out who these people were). Obviously Rapport knows a lot about 1848, but if I wanted a deluge of facts without context or narrative... wait, that's not what I want at all! When I read about history, I want a story, and I will just have to keep looking for a story of 1848, because I didn't find it here.
August 4, 2019
Very detailed but narrowly focused account of the events of the year 1848 itself, unfortunately without providing much insight into the historical forces of which they were a manifestation. Would recommend reading Hobsbawm's 'The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848' first. (Instead of after, as I did.)
December 7, 2023
2023 52 Book Challenge - 18) Set In A War Other Than World War One or World War Two
DNF at 52%.
The problem with this book is 100% the writing style. If the topic was split by events occurring by month, or by country, then this book would have been 100x easier to read.
Instead, we get blocks of text that goes on for pages (numerous times, one paragraph lasts longer than one page) detailing information, random facts and trivia that is way too much detail for the fact that he hasn't told you the overarching events and you can't place the wider events of the country or even Europe as a whole.
The author leapfrogs from topic to topic to topic and it makes the book a little bit of a jumbled mess because he'll start by discussing France, and then half a sentence later, he'll be discussing Germany, and one one line later, its Italy or Vienna or Hungary and then it's suddenly France again. It was so difficult to follow what he was trying to say, which is a major shame because the topic of this book sounded so interesting.
DNF at 52%.
The problem with this book is 100% the writing style. If the topic was split by events occurring by month, or by country, then this book would have been 100x easier to read.
Instead, we get blocks of text that goes on for pages (numerous times, one paragraph lasts longer than one page) detailing information, random facts and trivia that is way too much detail for the fact that he hasn't told you the overarching events and you can't place the wider events of the country or even Europe as a whole.
The author leapfrogs from topic to topic to topic and it makes the book a little bit of a jumbled mess because he'll start by discussing France, and then half a sentence later, he'll be discussing Germany, and one one line later, its Italy or Vienna or Hungary and then it's suddenly France again. It was so difficult to follow what he was trying to say, which is a major shame because the topic of this book sounded so interesting.
November 24, 2021
Reading for research purposes - useful.
September 28, 2010
This is a really fantastic overview of the Revolutions of 1848. Providing background on not just the relevant political history but also biographies of the major individuals, Rapport places the events solidly in context.
What I liked about this book was that it explains the interplay between nationalism, the movement for democracy, republicanism (meaning elections but with restricted electorate), and "social" issues, meaning workplace/wage issues, hunger (in a time of extended economic downturn), etc.
These 4 movements faced off against the conservative, monarchical political order and was largely defeated by a combination of military power and divide and conquer political strategies. The nationalists, democrats, republicans and militant urban workers could not maintain poiltical cohesion and were defeated.
For example, the Hungarians could not win support of the Serbs, Croats and Rumanians in there territory they claimed. In parts of Poland, the rural Ukrainians did not align with the conservative Polish nationalist land owners. In the cities, the militancy of the workers scared away republicans.
Good vacation read.
What I liked about this book was that it explains the interplay between nationalism, the movement for democracy, republicanism (meaning elections but with restricted electorate), and "social" issues, meaning workplace/wage issues, hunger (in a time of extended economic downturn), etc.
These 4 movements faced off against the conservative, monarchical political order and was largely defeated by a combination of military power and divide and conquer political strategies. The nationalists, democrats, republicans and militant urban workers could not maintain poiltical cohesion and were defeated.
For example, the Hungarians could not win support of the Serbs, Croats and Rumanians in there territory they claimed. In parts of Poland, the rural Ukrainians did not align with the conservative Polish nationalist land owners. In the cities, the militancy of the workers scared away republicans.
Good vacation read.
October 10, 2017
This was an interesting book, but it's very dense. Perhaps part of my issue is the way I read books these days, a few pages at bedtime, but it took a lot to keep track of everything; of everyone. Frankly, I kept wishing there had been some maps to refer to to keep track of all the nation states. The closing chapter, the Conclusion, did a good job of summarizing the whole. For me, it also probably would have been better to have read it on my Kindle, where I could have easily referred to the footnotes or checked definitions of unfamiliar words.
i just now read the 2009 NY Times review of the book and it help coalesce some of the book's themes. I was led to this book after mentioning that some of my ancestors came to the U.S. in 1846 and someone mentioned the 1848 revolutions. So the book told me some of their story, plus those of subsequent emigrating ancestors from various parts of Germany. Now to learn more about the times of my Irish ancestors over some of these same tumultuous years!
i just now read the 2009 NY Times review of the book and it help coalesce some of the book's themes. I was led to this book after mentioning that some of my ancestors came to the U.S. in 1846 and someone mentioned the 1848 revolutions. So the book told me some of their story, plus those of subsequent emigrating ancestors from various parts of Germany. Now to learn more about the times of my Irish ancestors over some of these same tumultuous years!
June 29, 2021
Previous reviewers of this volume tend to fall into two separate categories: Some find the book racy and exciting, others find it boring and overly detailed. How can this be? Rapport's 1848 is in fact both of these things -- a well-written and racy account _in detail_ of Europe's 1848. Readers familiar with lengthy blow-by-blow political journalism like Tim Alberta's "American Carnage" will recognize the form. This means you will really enjoy the book if you are ready for this level of detail. If you'd prefer a higher level over view that is less in the weeds, then this is probably not the volume for you. I personally enjoyed reading the narrative in one window while I kept Wikipedia and Google Maps open in the other in order to understand the drainage systems of major Eastern European rivers and the historical extent of St. Stephen's domain in Hungary. I learned a lot from this book and enjoyed learning it. But clearly I am not a Normal Person and if you are, you might want to skip this excellent, bracing, _and_ detailed political history of 1848.
March 8, 2011
This thing reads like a Middle Eastern newspaper.
December 10, 2021
I have long wanted to read about the revolutions that swept across Europe in 1848. As an undergrad at St. John’s University, I took a nineteenth century European history course with the great Frank Coppa. Coppa was an expert on Italian unification and the papacy. He certainly knew his stuff. But as this topic hovered on the periphery of my reading intentions, it kept getting knocked farther away by more pressing topics and projects. Finally, in 2021 I got my hands on Mike Rapport’s 1848: Year of the Revolution. Rapport examines each of the affected countries, capturing their similarities and variations, and tying them together for the continental perspective. Not all of Europe was affected. The revolutions bypassed Ireland, Great Britain, Scandinavia, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and the Iberian Peninsula. The only thing that has come as close to such a continental-wide revolution was the collapse of communism in 1989.
Three big takeaways stand out for me as an historian of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. First, the revolutions were not solely political affairs of democrats and liberals challenging the ancient regimes. Of course, there was plenty of that, but the liberal elements were too deeply fractured in their approaches to constitutions, voting, nationalism, the role of the monarchy, the structure of society, etc. Radical urban workers, middle class liberals, reactionary aristocrats, and conservative peasants battled one another in this tumultuous year. Their divisive outlooks, suspicions, understandings, and proposed solutions sprung from the enormous social and economic changes upheavals that shook Europe. Enter the social question. Industrialization, urbanization, migration, factories replacing crafts, the deskilling of labor, class conflicts, radicalism -- all the things associated with Gilded Age and Progressive Era in the United States – played a significant role in both making 1848 happen, while, at the same time, undermining its chance of success.
Second, as Rapport argues, 1848 shaped Europe and this did not change until the end of World War I. The Europe of 1914 with its long-simmering problems can trace its roots to 1848. Just to take one very important example, the question of nationalities and self-determination grows out of the conflicts of 1848. The year of revolution was the seedbed of German, Italian, and Romanian unification drives that achieved their goals in the following decades. Although less successful in other areas, 1848 nonetheless opened the nationality question among Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, Slavs, and some others, challenging the multi-ethnic Austrian Empire. I think I better understand the Europe of 1914 thanks to this book.
Finally, in addition to the internal divisions, a concerted and powerful conservative counterattack doomed the political revolutions. While 1848 produced some constitutional changes, reactionary monarchs squashed others, crushed insurrections, and reneged on promises of greater reform that they had made at the height of the revolution. Ultra conservative Franz Josef replaced the more wishy-washy and fearful Ferdinand II on the Hapsburg throne and asked Tsar Nicholas I to help defeat the Hungarian independence movement. After making some concessions to revolutionary movements, Prussian King William IV adopted a hardline approach. In France, where the revolutions started, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor’s nephew, rose to power. He mixed a conservative authoritarianism with a populist social and economic message. Although this book was published in 2008 the rise of the man who would later become Napoleon III seems a frightening precursor to more recent years (as well as the 1930s).
Three big takeaways stand out for me as an historian of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. First, the revolutions were not solely political affairs of democrats and liberals challenging the ancient regimes. Of course, there was plenty of that, but the liberal elements were too deeply fractured in their approaches to constitutions, voting, nationalism, the role of the monarchy, the structure of society, etc. Radical urban workers, middle class liberals, reactionary aristocrats, and conservative peasants battled one another in this tumultuous year. Their divisive outlooks, suspicions, understandings, and proposed solutions sprung from the enormous social and economic changes upheavals that shook Europe. Enter the social question. Industrialization, urbanization, migration, factories replacing crafts, the deskilling of labor, class conflicts, radicalism -- all the things associated with Gilded Age and Progressive Era in the United States – played a significant role in both making 1848 happen, while, at the same time, undermining its chance of success.
Second, as Rapport argues, 1848 shaped Europe and this did not change until the end of World War I. The Europe of 1914 with its long-simmering problems can trace its roots to 1848. Just to take one very important example, the question of nationalities and self-determination grows out of the conflicts of 1848. The year of revolution was the seedbed of German, Italian, and Romanian unification drives that achieved their goals in the following decades. Although less successful in other areas, 1848 nonetheless opened the nationality question among Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, Slavs, and some others, challenging the multi-ethnic Austrian Empire. I think I better understand the Europe of 1914 thanks to this book.
Finally, in addition to the internal divisions, a concerted and powerful conservative counterattack doomed the political revolutions. While 1848 produced some constitutional changes, reactionary monarchs squashed others, crushed insurrections, and reneged on promises of greater reform that they had made at the height of the revolution. Ultra conservative Franz Josef replaced the more wishy-washy and fearful Ferdinand II on the Hapsburg throne and asked Tsar Nicholas I to help defeat the Hungarian independence movement. After making some concessions to revolutionary movements, Prussian King William IV adopted a hardline approach. In France, where the revolutions started, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor’s nephew, rose to power. He mixed a conservative authoritarianism with a populist social and economic message. Although this book was published in 2008 the rise of the man who would later become Napoleon III seems a frightening precursor to more recent years (as well as the 1930s).
January 18, 2024
Famously derided as the "turning point when Europe didn't turn," the 1848 revolutions offer echoes of our times of political polarization, elite versus common interests, and the best structure for a functioning democracy. Mike Rapport provides a very thorough race across the European revolutions of 1848, with particular focus on France, Northern and Southern Italy (prior to unification), the Austrian Empire, and the German lands. The book has a dizzying quality about it, much like the revolutionary events themselves: barricades erected in the streets of Paris; tumult in Palermo, Sicily; invasion of parliamentary buildings and cities across the German lands. The names of monarchs, ministers, radicals and conservatives, and places add to the disorientation, though Rapport helpfully segregates the revolutions into stages and sub-divided the chapters by nation-state or region.
Early in 1848, republicanism appeared to emerge as the clear victor: France returned to its republican roots after the ouster of Louis Philippe; Austrians extracted promises of a ministry subject to parliamentary oversight; broader suffrage was promised across German nations. By the end of 1848, republicanism came up against the wall of conservative reaction, as Austria, Prussia, France, and other nations reeled back from parliamentarism and in fact lurched towards authoritarianism under populist-dictators like Napoleon III. Conservatives eventually discovered a surprising fact: broader suffrage uplifted conservatives, as farmers, artisans, and country folk voted, at best, as moderates and eventually coalesced around figures and parties that could buttress economic prosperity and law and order.
Rapport makes a convincing case that Europe did indeed "turn" after 1848: constitutions were promulgated (and still exist today); conservatives and radicals segregated into factions that remain potent in the 21st Century; and more men gained the right to vote (unfortunately not women). Success and failures of revolutions are difficult to judge; what is not in dispute is the wide reach and resounding echoes of the 1848 revolutions into our own time.
Early in 1848, republicanism appeared to emerge as the clear victor: France returned to its republican roots after the ouster of Louis Philippe; Austrians extracted promises of a ministry subject to parliamentary oversight; broader suffrage was promised across German nations. By the end of 1848, republicanism came up against the wall of conservative reaction, as Austria, Prussia, France, and other nations reeled back from parliamentarism and in fact lurched towards authoritarianism under populist-dictators like Napoleon III. Conservatives eventually discovered a surprising fact: broader suffrage uplifted conservatives, as farmers, artisans, and country folk voted, at best, as moderates and eventually coalesced around figures and parties that could buttress economic prosperity and law and order.
Rapport makes a convincing case that Europe did indeed "turn" after 1848: constitutions were promulgated (and still exist today); conservatives and radicals segregated into factions that remain potent in the 21st Century; and more men gained the right to vote (unfortunately not women). Success and failures of revolutions are difficult to judge; what is not in dispute is the wide reach and resounding echoes of the 1848 revolutions into our own time.
October 7, 2020
I deliberately chose this series of events because so many Europeans who fought for the Union saw the Civil War as an extension of their own various commitments to liberty, social justice and nationalism. It's a momentous year that is famously confusing, and I commend Rapport for getting through it and, for the reader's sake, returning to common trends so that we may somehow glean some wider meaning from the dates, places, names and revolutions (and counter-revolutions) that make this such a fascinating topic.
May 13, 2018
Year of Revolution was a pretty good book, but would be easier to read if you have some knowledge of the politics of Europe for that time period.
That said, I spent many hours supplementing my reading on various factions and people during my read to help me understand some parts of the book better.
That said, I spent many hours supplementing my reading on various factions and people during my read to help me understand some parts of the book better.
January 6, 2022
This is very well researched and informative, but honestly a chore to read.
May 31, 2022
Interesting and far reaching book covering a important and little understood time in European history. Very engaging and well written.
December 16, 2022
1848 was another big pivot point in European history, even though the continent-wide revolutions all technically failed. It shook the Old Order and reaffirmed the march of liberal, democratic principles, while also providing a direct link to the horrors of the first half of the twentieth century via the explosive upswing of nationalism.
November 5, 2019
This was a very readable and well-paced narrative and analysis of the revolutions of 1848-1849, a series of more or less spontaneous ground-up revolts against the national and international order that racked Europe in that two year period, touching upon virtually every nation in Europe but in particular affecting the Hapsburg Empire (which includes modern day Austria and Hungary), the various states that would one day make up Germany (particularly Prussia), France, and several of the countries that would one day form Italy (such as the Papal States and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies). Though sometimes compared to the spontaneous, grassroots revolutions in Europe in 1989 (and as discussed by the author, there are parallels) in the 1848-1849 revolutions there were many actual battles involving infantry, cavalry, artillery, and sieges of cities, with men, women, and children fighting soldiers and within the same country soldiers fighting one another, and some battles quite bloody (over two thousand perished fighting in Vienna for instance, a civil war in Transylvania between Romanians on one side and Magyars and Germans on the other resulted in 40,000 dead, and a conflict between Hungary and Austria - with Russian help on the side of Vienna - resulted all told in 50,000 dead).
The majority of the book is a day by day, often hour by hour narrative of the tumultuous politics and actual battles of the 1848 revolution (though I would not call it a military history), following the course of different insurrections, protests, dueling national leaders or legislative bodies, pitched battles, and protracted sieges, peppering in lots of vivid anecdotes about colorful personalities, observations of people who were there discussing how different things looked or sounded, and following along the career or impact of various personalities. Karl Marx figured a lot as an active participant as did Alexis de Tocqueville, both to my surprise, though the reader will make the acquaintance of a great many other figures, including Joseph Radetzky, Giuseppe Mazzini, Lajos Kossuth, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte just to name a few of the more prominent ones in the narrative. The author followed along the course of events in one country for a good many pages (I don’t have any counts I can offer but maybe 10 to 20 pages at a time) before switching from say France to the siege of Venice or high drama in the Papal States. Unlike some books that bounce around a bit I never lost a sense of the overall story; I find say for instance in books relating the events of natural disasters in the author’s desire to relate to the reader the course of events as they happened an overall sense of the narrative flow and outcome of particular parts of the narrative gets lost as we bounce from this set of victims to that set of victims to these rescuers, while in this book author Mike Rapport always made sure before leaving a particular event or series of events the reader had a good stopping point and wasn’t just reading about a series of actions but understood the importance of the events described. This was well done and appreciated.
Though I would say the book is 90% narrative of the politics, personalities, protests, and battles of 1848-1849, there was some good analysis of the cause of the revolutions, whether or not they were truly a united, European phenomenon (instead of say a sum total of various unrelated events that happened to occur at the same time; the author argued that it was a pan-European event, as all of Europe was facing the same “dire agrarian and industrial crisis…even though different people experienced the hardship in different ways,” with everywhere that experienced revolution having a “crisis of confidence both in and within the existing governments in their ability to deal with the challenges of social distress and political opposition”), and where and how the revolutions succeeded and where and how they failed and why. Though I appreciated the narrative in truth this analysis was what interested me the most when I started reading the book and I was not disappointed, with analysis provided in various points in the narrative and in a well-written conclusion.
One of the things I appreciated was driving home to this reader the revolutions weren’t just an urban phenomenon (as I had thought) but crucially either failed or succeeded (even if the success was only temporary) often on how much support the revolutionaries had in the countryside and among the peasants. Far from being passive, the peasants (and face it serfs in some cases, as going into 1848 many areas that were to be embroiled in the revolution were still outright feudal) were active participants who often shrewdly picked one side or the other and could and did make choices to sometimes back the revolutionaries and other times the counterrevolution based on their needs. Many of the revolutions often involved peasant complaints about not owning land, owing labor to the local authorities, or having to show signs of subservience (“one Galician peasant delegate complained that in his community peasants had to doff their hats within three hundred paces of a nobleman’s home”).
In addition to analyzing the causes, courses, and consequences of the revolutions other historical events and movements were analyzed, including why the War of Independence in Hungary failed (the costly, ugly, protracted war in Transylvania between Magyars and Romanians sapped a lot resources but ultimately “the Hungarians lost because the Austrians themselves mustered military superiority, particularly in the unglamorous but vital sphere of logistics,” and the “Austrians were better supplied, better equipped, and better trained than the hastily assembled Hungarian Honved battalions”) and the inevitable trend of German unification (looking at the various factions behind the Greater German or Grossdeutch solution which advocated the inclusion of Austria, the Smaller German or Kleindeutsch solution which opposed the inclusion of Austria, and how the seeds sown by this conflict and the revolution of 1848-1849 lead to “Europe’s darkest years in the twentieth century,” from proponents who felt “Germany and Austria had a mission to spread ‘German culture, language, and way of life along the Danube to the Black Sea’” to the fact that the failure of the revolution in what would become Germany meant that later when German unification was achieved it wasn’t “achieved by liberal, parliamentary means, ‘from below,’” (as attempted) but rather was later “imposed ‘from above’ by Bismarck armed with Prussian military might (a process that was completed by 1871),” with the “great lesson drawn from the revolution was that German unity could be achieved only with power – and Prussian power in particular.”
Though in many ways the 1848 revolutions failed the author wrote “one should not be too pessimistic,” as they had measures of success, something I had not ever thought about. Among other things the “events of 1848 gave millions of Europeans their first taste of politics: workers and peasants voted in elections and even stood for and entered parliament.” Also a great many women became involved in the politics and even in the fighting, another positive in the long run. Though parliaments and constitutions were often if not always rolled back “the abolition of serfdom, of the compulsory labour services and dues enforced against the peasantry” weren’t in any case if my memory serves of what I read reversed. Also the 1848 revolutions “enhanced the power of the state at the expense of the landed nobility,” as both nobles and peasants “shared the same legal and civil rights” (to the extent they existed in various places), and in “the long run this paved the way for [the peasants] to become fully integrated citizens of the modern state.”
Also useful and interesting were discussions and examples of “the realization that democracy was not always progressive” and again and again, something that doomed many a revolution, “how to reconcile social justice with individual liberty,” as while there was often very widespread support for individual liberty, often with everyone from nobles to peasants on board with it, desires for social justice (and the fear accompanying this) often undid a revolution, fatally dividing a revolutionary movement and allowing counterrevolutionary forces to win and roll back all or nearly all that was gained in some cases. Also basic human nature – the need or desire for power – weakened many a revolution was a point driven home a few times, as well as the fact that given time many of the problems (especially social) would have been addressed thanks to how “capitalism dramatically improved the overall standards of living in Europe,” and one of the reasons the revolutions (and attempts to fix the problems the revolutions started over) failed was there simply was no “constitutional framework on which all parties are (more or less) agreed and which protects democratic freedoms…[t]he ‘social question’ could therefore not be resolved within a peaceful, legal framework” as in feudal or absolutist systems, lacking parliaments, widespread suffrage, or a free press or free association, no such framework existed.
I was worried the tone would be dry, academic, or professorial but it never was. Nor was a blizzard of names thrown at me either, which I appreciated. I was also surprised and pleased by the large amount of art collected in a few places in the book; that I had not expected. There is also a good map early on in the book and extensive endnotes and an index. I had read a few times about the 1848 revolutions in my college studies but this by far was the best treatment of those events I ever read.
The majority of the book is a day by day, often hour by hour narrative of the tumultuous politics and actual battles of the 1848 revolution (though I would not call it a military history), following the course of different insurrections, protests, dueling national leaders or legislative bodies, pitched battles, and protracted sieges, peppering in lots of vivid anecdotes about colorful personalities, observations of people who were there discussing how different things looked or sounded, and following along the career or impact of various personalities. Karl Marx figured a lot as an active participant as did Alexis de Tocqueville, both to my surprise, though the reader will make the acquaintance of a great many other figures, including Joseph Radetzky, Giuseppe Mazzini, Lajos Kossuth, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte just to name a few of the more prominent ones in the narrative. The author followed along the course of events in one country for a good many pages (I don’t have any counts I can offer but maybe 10 to 20 pages at a time) before switching from say France to the siege of Venice or high drama in the Papal States. Unlike some books that bounce around a bit I never lost a sense of the overall story; I find say for instance in books relating the events of natural disasters in the author’s desire to relate to the reader the course of events as they happened an overall sense of the narrative flow and outcome of particular parts of the narrative gets lost as we bounce from this set of victims to that set of victims to these rescuers, while in this book author Mike Rapport always made sure before leaving a particular event or series of events the reader had a good stopping point and wasn’t just reading about a series of actions but understood the importance of the events described. This was well done and appreciated.
Though I would say the book is 90% narrative of the politics, personalities, protests, and battles of 1848-1849, there was some good analysis of the cause of the revolutions, whether or not they were truly a united, European phenomenon (instead of say a sum total of various unrelated events that happened to occur at the same time; the author argued that it was a pan-European event, as all of Europe was facing the same “dire agrarian and industrial crisis…even though different people experienced the hardship in different ways,” with everywhere that experienced revolution having a “crisis of confidence both in and within the existing governments in their ability to deal with the challenges of social distress and political opposition”), and where and how the revolutions succeeded and where and how they failed and why. Though I appreciated the narrative in truth this analysis was what interested me the most when I started reading the book and I was not disappointed, with analysis provided in various points in the narrative and in a well-written conclusion.
One of the things I appreciated was driving home to this reader the revolutions weren’t just an urban phenomenon (as I had thought) but crucially either failed or succeeded (even if the success was only temporary) often on how much support the revolutionaries had in the countryside and among the peasants. Far from being passive, the peasants (and face it serfs in some cases, as going into 1848 many areas that were to be embroiled in the revolution were still outright feudal) were active participants who often shrewdly picked one side or the other and could and did make choices to sometimes back the revolutionaries and other times the counterrevolution based on their needs. Many of the revolutions often involved peasant complaints about not owning land, owing labor to the local authorities, or having to show signs of subservience (“one Galician peasant delegate complained that in his community peasants had to doff their hats within three hundred paces of a nobleman’s home”).
In addition to analyzing the causes, courses, and consequences of the revolutions other historical events and movements were analyzed, including why the War of Independence in Hungary failed (the costly, ugly, protracted war in Transylvania between Magyars and Romanians sapped a lot resources but ultimately “the Hungarians lost because the Austrians themselves mustered military superiority, particularly in the unglamorous but vital sphere of logistics,” and the “Austrians were better supplied, better equipped, and better trained than the hastily assembled Hungarian Honved battalions”) and the inevitable trend of German unification (looking at the various factions behind the Greater German or Grossdeutch solution which advocated the inclusion of Austria, the Smaller German or Kleindeutsch solution which opposed the inclusion of Austria, and how the seeds sown by this conflict and the revolution of 1848-1849 lead to “Europe’s darkest years in the twentieth century,” from proponents who felt “Germany and Austria had a mission to spread ‘German culture, language, and way of life along the Danube to the Black Sea’” to the fact that the failure of the revolution in what would become Germany meant that later when German unification was achieved it wasn’t “achieved by liberal, parliamentary means, ‘from below,’” (as attempted) but rather was later “imposed ‘from above’ by Bismarck armed with Prussian military might (a process that was completed by 1871),” with the “great lesson drawn from the revolution was that German unity could be achieved only with power – and Prussian power in particular.”
Though in many ways the 1848 revolutions failed the author wrote “one should not be too pessimistic,” as they had measures of success, something I had not ever thought about. Among other things the “events of 1848 gave millions of Europeans their first taste of politics: workers and peasants voted in elections and even stood for and entered parliament.” Also a great many women became involved in the politics and even in the fighting, another positive in the long run. Though parliaments and constitutions were often if not always rolled back “the abolition of serfdom, of the compulsory labour services and dues enforced against the peasantry” weren’t in any case if my memory serves of what I read reversed. Also the 1848 revolutions “enhanced the power of the state at the expense of the landed nobility,” as both nobles and peasants “shared the same legal and civil rights” (to the extent they existed in various places), and in “the long run this paved the way for [the peasants] to become fully integrated citizens of the modern state.”
Also useful and interesting were discussions and examples of “the realization that democracy was not always progressive” and again and again, something that doomed many a revolution, “how to reconcile social justice with individual liberty,” as while there was often very widespread support for individual liberty, often with everyone from nobles to peasants on board with it, desires for social justice (and the fear accompanying this) often undid a revolution, fatally dividing a revolutionary movement and allowing counterrevolutionary forces to win and roll back all or nearly all that was gained in some cases. Also basic human nature – the need or desire for power – weakened many a revolution was a point driven home a few times, as well as the fact that given time many of the problems (especially social) would have been addressed thanks to how “capitalism dramatically improved the overall standards of living in Europe,” and one of the reasons the revolutions (and attempts to fix the problems the revolutions started over) failed was there simply was no “constitutional framework on which all parties are (more or less) agreed and which protects democratic freedoms…[t]he ‘social question’ could therefore not be resolved within a peaceful, legal framework” as in feudal or absolutist systems, lacking parliaments, widespread suffrage, or a free press or free association, no such framework existed.
I was worried the tone would be dry, academic, or professorial but it never was. Nor was a blizzard of names thrown at me either, which I appreciated. I was also surprised and pleased by the large amount of art collected in a few places in the book; that I had not expected. There is also a good map early on in the book and extensive endnotes and an index. I had read a few times about the 1848 revolutions in my college studies but this by far was the best treatment of those events I ever read.
May 30, 2023
Rapport’s book provides an insightful overview of this year of revolution and is engagingly written, but it may give more detail than some are looking for. If you’re more interested in analysis than specific details, the first chapter describes the causes well, and the Conclusion gives a good summary of the results and implications for the future. The final sections of each chapter are also good and can be skimmed.
Government-funded educational systems predictably downplay historic events that aimed at toppling the government itself.
We’ve all heard of the Russian Revolution, but are we taught that workers and the military also brought Britain to the verge of a revolution in 1919 (see Simon Webb [2016] 1919: Britain’s Year of Revolution)? Likewise, we may have heard of the French Revolution of 1848 by reading Flaubert’s (1869) Sentimental Education, but few of us are taught that most of Europe came within a hair’s breadth of falling to revolutionary uprisings in that year.
In the early nineteenth century, Europe was still largely under the rule of kings and aristocrats, but the rise of capital under the industrial revolution forged changes that destabilized the old system.
Industrial capitalists and their support system of financiers and lawyers came from the burgeoning middle class, and this group was dissatisfied at being barred from meaningful political participation. Workers underwent a tumult of social and economic change and, in places like Russia, the masses still labored under medieval conditions as serfs. The social safety net was nearly nonexistent, and the early decades of the industrial revolution were characterized by frequent and massive boom and bust cycles that forced workers to struggle for simple physical survival. A new political system arose, socialism.
These factors combined to raise demands for greater democratic participation and legal and constitutional protections. A string of economic depressions and bad crops provided the spark that spread revolutionary activity across Europe in 1848, starting with France. Their success in deposing Louis-Phillipe instilled tremendous fear among European royalty and led to promises to pursue varying levels of democratic change.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels initially thought this year would inaugurate the great global revolution of the proletariat, but this proved not to be so. In the end, the middle class realized it could negotiate, separately and peacefully, for its own socioeconomic and political improvements and protections, and it quickly threw the workers and their revolution under the bus. Isolated in this way, the workers succumbed to the violent ministrations of the military. Equally, though, the often reflexively conservative views of the rural poor reasserted themselves when it became clear that the tide had turned.
For a good discussion of similar issues in the next historical period, see Eric Hobsbawm’s (1975) The Age of Capital, 1848-1875, which introduces the factor of imperialism as a societal force.
A seemingly obvious key lesson is that successful revolutions must have majority support from all groups opposed to the existing regime. Whenever dissatisfied sub-groups can be played off against each other revolution will fail. Reading this book gave me a new respect for successful revolutionaries such as Nelson Mandela and Vaclav Havel.
Government-funded educational systems predictably downplay historic events that aimed at toppling the government itself.
We’ve all heard of the Russian Revolution, but are we taught that workers and the military also brought Britain to the verge of a revolution in 1919 (see Simon Webb [2016] 1919: Britain’s Year of Revolution)? Likewise, we may have heard of the French Revolution of 1848 by reading Flaubert’s (1869) Sentimental Education, but few of us are taught that most of Europe came within a hair’s breadth of falling to revolutionary uprisings in that year.
In the early nineteenth century, Europe was still largely under the rule of kings and aristocrats, but the rise of capital under the industrial revolution forged changes that destabilized the old system.
Industrial capitalists and their support system of financiers and lawyers came from the burgeoning middle class, and this group was dissatisfied at being barred from meaningful political participation. Workers underwent a tumult of social and economic change and, in places like Russia, the masses still labored under medieval conditions as serfs. The social safety net was nearly nonexistent, and the early decades of the industrial revolution were characterized by frequent and massive boom and bust cycles that forced workers to struggle for simple physical survival. A new political system arose, socialism.
These factors combined to raise demands for greater democratic participation and legal and constitutional protections. A string of economic depressions and bad crops provided the spark that spread revolutionary activity across Europe in 1848, starting with France. Their success in deposing Louis-Phillipe instilled tremendous fear among European royalty and led to promises to pursue varying levels of democratic change.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels initially thought this year would inaugurate the great global revolution of the proletariat, but this proved not to be so. In the end, the middle class realized it could negotiate, separately and peacefully, for its own socioeconomic and political improvements and protections, and it quickly threw the workers and their revolution under the bus. Isolated in this way, the workers succumbed to the violent ministrations of the military. Equally, though, the often reflexively conservative views of the rural poor reasserted themselves when it became clear that the tide had turned.
For a good discussion of similar issues in the next historical period, see Eric Hobsbawm’s (1975) The Age of Capital, 1848-1875, which introduces the factor of imperialism as a societal force.
A seemingly obvious key lesson is that successful revolutions must have majority support from all groups opposed to the existing regime. Whenever dissatisfied sub-groups can be played off against each other revolution will fail. Reading this book gave me a new respect for successful revolutionaries such as Nelson Mandela and Vaclav Havel.
December 4, 2012
This is what you might call a “general interest” history of the events that occurred in Europe in 1848. What started in Sicily quickly spread all over Europe: to France, Germany, Austria, the Italian states, Demark, Wallachia, Poland, and several other places. While almost no structural or political change actually took place as a result of these revolutions and therefore they are usually considered somewhat of a failure, it is often thought to be the historical location of the birth pangs of several European nationalisms.
And while some of the first European nationalists might be located here, they also may have been responsible for tearing the revolutions apart along ethnic and cultural lines, as Rapport also discusses. Revolutionaries had to build functional constitutions, often in the faces of monarchs who couldn’t be bothered with them, and avoid radical sectarianism – all in the name of getting something accomplished politically. Unfortunately because of all the countries and people that were involved, the book at times can seem like a rush to mention all of the important conflicts, places, and dates. Because the revolutionary dynamic is largely similar any place that Rapport is discussing, the conflicts run together. I also set this down several times for a few weeks on end, which couldn’t have helped with the reading comprehension and keeping things straight narratively.
Rapport writes well enough, but he doesn’t really make it easy, or overly readable, or enjoyable, like he perhaps could have. To be honest, the book is hay-dry. I was going to say that the information was “well-presented,” but I don’t even know what that means in a book of history if it’s not engaging and reader-friendly. Unfortunately, as much as I learned, it’s neither one of those things. But I’ve always been one of those people that can’t just put a book down, even if I don’t like it at all. I really should try to fix that.
If anyone knows a better recounting of the 1848 revolutions, please feel free to share.
And while some of the first European nationalists might be located here, they also may have been responsible for tearing the revolutions apart along ethnic and cultural lines, as Rapport also discusses. Revolutionaries had to build functional constitutions, often in the faces of monarchs who couldn’t be bothered with them, and avoid radical sectarianism – all in the name of getting something accomplished politically. Unfortunately because of all the countries and people that were involved, the book at times can seem like a rush to mention all of the important conflicts, places, and dates. Because the revolutionary dynamic is largely similar any place that Rapport is discussing, the conflicts run together. I also set this down several times for a few weeks on end, which couldn’t have helped with the reading comprehension and keeping things straight narratively.
Rapport writes well enough, but he doesn’t really make it easy, or overly readable, or enjoyable, like he perhaps could have. To be honest, the book is hay-dry. I was going to say that the information was “well-presented,” but I don’t even know what that means in a book of history if it’s not engaging and reader-friendly. Unfortunately, as much as I learned, it’s neither one of those things. But I’ve always been one of those people that can’t just put a book down, even if I don’t like it at all. I really should try to fix that.
If anyone knows a better recounting of the 1848 revolutions, please feel free to share.
Did not finish
July 12, 2014Back in 2007 I read Freedom & Necessity by Steven Brust and Emma Bull; although I highly enjoyed it (really, it's a great book--China Miéville even says so!), I missed out on the historical context: "It is 1849. Across Europe, the high tide of revolution has crested..." Revolution? Europe? Chartists? My knowledge of European history was (and still is) extremely poor, but I shrugged and kept reading. Four years later, with F&N on my to-reread shelf, I'm reminded again of my ignorance--but this time I've decided to do something about it. Rapport seems like a good place to start.
Update: Or not. I'm not really getting anywhere with this, so I'm going to set it aside for now. It's very well researched, very detailed, and a bit hard to follow--my fault, of course; it was probably a mistake to jump into such an important period in European history without some context. I don't feel I know enough about Europe prior to 1848, so I've decided to jump back a few more decades, read up on Napoleon and his influence and legacy, and come back to this once I feel a bit more knowledgeable.
Update: Or not. I'm not really getting anywhere with this, so I'm going to set it aside for now. It's very well researched, very detailed, and a bit hard to follow--my fault, of course; it was probably a mistake to jump into such an important period in European history without some context. I don't feel I know enough about Europe prior to 1848, so I've decided to jump back a few more decades, read up on Napoleon and his influence and legacy, and come back to this once I feel a bit more knowledgeable.
January 11, 2014
1848 was a reasonably compact telling of the revolutions that began around that year and their results. Every kingdom (there were few nations yet) in Europe, even Russia and Britain was touched to some extent. The author did not talk about where the ideas that stirred up the trouble came from but they included desire for nationhood, broader suffrage, freedom for serfs/peasants, the right to own property, universal education, and freedom of the press, speech, and association. There were popular demonstrations which included both urban and rural, educated and uneducated which led to provisional governments and then battles with the armies which were still in the control of the monarchs and the church. The results of the battles were reported but not the individual maneuvers! making the book much more readable than my last attempt at history. The author did express his opinion about why things did or did not happen - again this was a plus for me, after all he is the expert and I expected him to provide some synthesis of the details. As I read, I wished I had a comparison chart for the state of these reforms vs the reality in Britain and America. One impact on America was events in Prussia led to an estimated 100k landless poor of which 75k immigrated to America.
August 25, 2012
Interesting period of time which I, admittedly knew nothing about. However, this book is very dense. I'd recommend it only to people with prior knowledge of the events and want to learn more about it or huge history buffs.
Read
February 2, 2017Make no mistake - this is a fine, painstakingly detailed book. It's apparent problem is that it's a 70% scholarly opus and only 30% general audience non-fiction. Hence, low ratings from incensed public, tired by its density and thickness.
January 11, 2010
If you are interested in 19th Century European History this book is a must read. It is very well written and is well balanced and engrossing. I wish I'd had Mr. Rapport as a professor in college!
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