Revolutionary Europe, 1780-1850

491 Pages·2014·3.737 MB·English

by  Sperber, Jonathan

REVOLUTIONARY EUROPE, 1780–1850
LONGMAN HISTORY OF
MODERN EUROPE
General Editors: M.J. Rodriguez-Salgado and H.M. Scott
The Longman History of Modern Europe is innovative in including works
covering the mainstream political narrative together with regional and
thematic volumes.
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REVOLUTIONARY EUROPE,
1780–1850
JONATHAN SPERBER
University of Missouri
First published 2000 by Pearson Education Limited
Published 2013 by Routledge
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ISBN 13: 978-0-582-29446-2 (pbk)
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Typeset by 35 in 11/13.5pt Columbus
To the memory of David Wakefield—scholar, teacher, colleague and friend
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CONTENTS
List ofPlates x
List ofMaps xi
List ofTables xii
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction: The Age of Revolution seen from the
Twenty-First Century 1
1. Europe at the End of the Old Regime 9
A society of orders 9
An economy of scarcity 21
A culture of confessionalism 28
Absolutism and Estates; authoritarianism and anarchy 36
Rules and exceptions 42
The trials and tribulations of reform 46
2. A Decade of Revolution: France, 1789–99 58
The significance of the French Revolution 58
The last crisis of the old regime 60
From crisis of the old regime to revolutionary situation 62
Popular violence and the institutionalization of the revolution 65
Reforms and political polarization: 1789–91 74
A further revolution: inflation, war and the republic 82
Foreign war and civil war 86
The Reign of Terror and the republic of virtue 92
The high point of the Jacobin regime and its end 99
The Thermidoreans and the problem of ending the revolution 101
The Directory and the end of representative government 105
CONTENTS
[viii] 3. The French Revolution and Europe 110
Not just in France 110
Initial impressions 112
Hardening lines and polarizing attitudes 113
Revolutionary warfare 117
The war of the first coalition 121
Revolutions in the 1790s: domestic and imported 123
Jacobins on their own: revolutionary movements in Poland and
Great Britain 130
The war of the second coalition 140
4. Napoleon’s Europe 147
Napoleon and the French Revolution 147
The conqueror 149
The administrator 152
The reorganizer of Europe 160
Successes and failures; supporters and opponents; nature and character 171
Characterizing Napoleon’s rule 177
Outside the Napoleonic orbit 181
The end of the Napoleonic order in Europe 189
The Spanish war 189
The Austrian war of 1809 192
Prussia and its reform movement 194
Crisis and reorganization of Napoleon’s empire, 1809–12 199
The invasion of Russia and downfall of Napoleon 201
Thinking about the era of the French Revolution 204
5. Social and Economic Change, 1780–1850 208
The lash of Parson Malthus 209
Growing numbers and responses to them 211
Farming and farmers 215
Crafts and manufactures 222
Long-term trends (1): Structural change 233
Long-term trends (2): Change over time 243
Three national variations on a theme 250
6. The Shapes of Public Life, 1815–50 265
The system of international relations 266
The nature of the state 270
The structures of civil society 276
The ideologies of political action 291
The cultural dreams of totality 306
CONTENTS
7. In the Shadow of the Past, 1815–32 323 [ix]
An age of epigones 323
The Restoration that began with a revolution 325
The first cycle: conflicts and clashes after 1816 328
The revolutions of 1830 and the end of the Restoration 348
8. Old Certainties and New Vistas, 1830–51 363
Picking up the pace 363
Containing the 1830 revolution 365
Conspiracy, insurrection and repression 370
The challenge of the Chartists 371
Heading for a revolution: continental Europe in the 1840s 377
Crisis years, 1845–47 392
The revolutions of 1848 397
9. The Age of Revolution in European History 422
How revolutionary was the age of revolution? 422
Looking forward: from the age of revolution to the second half of
the nineteenth century 428
Annotated Further Reading 432
Index 459