Carl von Clausewitz is still considered one of the most important writers on military strategy. In Prussian Military Thought 1815-1830: Beyond Clausewitz , Jacek Jędrysiak offers a new perspective on the context of his legacy, with a detailed analysis of Prussian military thought after the Napoleonic wars and an examination of the development of certain institutions, such as the General Staff, leading to a more nuanced understanding of Clausewitz’s work. The dominance of the famous figures of Clausewitz and Helmuth von Moltke the Elder has obscured much about the Prussian army in the 19th century. In this study, Jacek Jędrysiak reveals the forgotten face of the Prussian army.
A classic study of fifteen crucial years in the formation of the modern world The Birth of the Modern has established itself as a new kind of historical work - an examination of the way the matrix of the modern world was formed. Paul Johnson, one of today's most popular historians, takes fifteen critical years and subjects them to a fascinatingly detailed analysis: their geopolitics and politics, their cultural and intellectual life, their technology and science. He investigates every area of life, in every corner of the world. And he makes of this huge variety of elements a coherent narrative, told through the lives and actual words of the age's people - outstanding and ordinary - so that the reader feels he was there.
This book explores the political ideas of the Belgian Revolution of 1830, which led to the break-up of the Restoration state of the ‘united’ Kingdom of the Netherlands. It uncovers the origins of liberalism and political Catholicism in the Southern Netherlands in the wake of the French Revolution, and traces the development of political language in the context of the tensions between the Northern and Southern part of the united Netherlands. It shows how differences in ‘Dutch’ and ‘Belgian’ political and intellectual history resulted in different understandings of essential political concepts such as ‘sovereignty’ and ‘balance of powers’, as well as of the nature of the constitutional order of 1815. Finally, it traces the emergence of Belgian nationalism within the discourse of opposition against the government. Stefaan Marteel therefore provides a fresh perspective on the intellectual background of the rise of the nation-state in the nineteenth century.
Moliére's anticlerical comedy Tartuffe is the unique prism through which Sheryl Kroen views postrevolutionary France in the years of the Restoration. Following the lead of the French men and women who turned to this play in the 1820s to make sense of their world, Kroen exposes the crisis of legitimacy defining the regime in these years and demonstrates how the people of the time made steps toward a democratic resolution to this crisis. Moving from the town squares, where state and ecclesiastical officials orchestrated their public spectacles in favor of the monarchy, to the theaters, where the French used Tartuffe to mock the restored monarch and the church, this cultural history of the Restoration offers a rich and colorful portrait of a period in which critical legacies of the revolutionary period were played out and cemented. While most historians have characterized the Restoration as a period of reaction and reversal, Kroen offers convincing evidence that the Restoration was a critical bridge between the emerging practices of the Old Regime, the Revolution, and the post-1830 politics of protest. She re-creates the atmosphere of Restoration France and at the same time brings major nineteenth-century themes into focus: memory and commemoration, public and private spheres, politics and religion, anticlericalism, and the formation of democratic ideologies and practices.
Part of the Modern History for Modern Languages Series France since 1815 provides an accessible overview of the major socio-political changes in France during this period. Designed for area studies students studying French, it presents the historical context necessary for language students to understand the complexities of contemporary French society. Adopting a chronological approach, it surveys nearly two hundred years of French history, with events covered including The French Revolution, The Bourbon Restoration, The Third Republic, Occupied France, The Fourth Republic, The Gaullist Revolution and France after 2003. This revised edition includes new material that focuses on Chirac's second mandate (Iraq war, religion, suburbs and the inability/impossibility of carrying on with reform), an assessment of the controversial Sarkozy presidency, and a final chapter covering the last ten years, culminating in the results of the French presidential elections in 2012. Features include: clear timelines of main events and suggested topics for discussion glossary inserts throughout of key terms and concepts the use of primary documents to re-create and understand the past free access to a website (http://www.port.ac.uk/special/france1815to2003/) containing a wealth of complementary material Drawing on the best scholarship, particular emphasis has been given to the role of political memory, the contribution of women and the impact of colonialism and post-colonialism. The relationship between France and her European partners is analysed in greater depth and there are new sections explicitly situating France and the French within a wider transnational/global perspective.
Napoleon's contribution to Germany's development was immense. Under his hegemony, the millennium-old Holy Roman Empire dissolved, paving the way for a new order. Nowhere was the transformation more profound than in the Rhineland. Based upon an extensive range of German and French archival sources, this book locates the Napoleonic episode in this region within a broader chronological framework, encompassing the Old Regime and Restoration. It analyses not only politics, but also culture, identity, religion, society, institutions and economics. It reassesses in turn the legacy bequeathed by the Old Regime, the struggle between Revolution and Counter-Revolution in the 1790s, Napoleon's attempts to integrate the German-speaking Rhineland into the French Empire, the transition to Prussian rule, and the subsequent struggles that ultimately helped determine whether Germany would follow its own Sonderweg or the path of its western neighbours.
Known for its collection of French prints and posters, the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University has rich holdings of lithographs made over the course of the 1800s, including examples from lithography?s early years in Paris to iconic color posters from the 1890s. Invented around 1796, lithography introduced a new process and new opportunities for the creation and circulation of printed images. Artists, printers, and publishers embraced the new medium for its relative ease and economic advantages as compared with the established printmaking media of woodcut, engraving, and etching. Taking root in Paris around 1815 after the fall of Napoleon?s empire, the art and industry of lithography grew in tandem with the city, as it became Europe?s artistic and urban capital over the course of the nineteenth century. Lithographs played a distinct role in both documenting and advancing (and often satirizing) the various and competing art movements of the period as publishers responded to the unprecedented demand for printed images of all types.00Exhibition: Zimmerli Art Museum/Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA (20.1. - 29.7.2018).
ECONOMIST BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2016 'A scintillating, encyclopaedic history, rich in detail from the arcane to the familiar... a veritable tour de force' Richard Overy, New Statesman 'Transnational history at its finest ... .. social, political and cultural themes swirl together in one great canvas of immense detail and beauty' Gerard DeGroot, The Times 'Dazzlingly erudite and entertaining' Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times A masterpiece which brings to life an extraordinarly turbulent and dramatic era of revolutionary change. The Pursuit of Power draws on a lifetime of thinking about nineteenth-century Europe to create an extraordinarily rich, surprising and entertaining panorama of a continent undergoing drastic transformation. The book aims to reignite the sense of wonder that permeated this remarkable era, as rulers and ruled navigated overwhelming cultural, political and technological changes. It was a time where what was seen as modern with amazing speed appeared old-fashioned, where huge cities sprang up in a generation, new European countries were created and where, for the first time, humans could communicate almost instantly over thousands of miles. In the period bounded by the Battle of Waterloo and the outbreak of World War I, Europe dominated the rest of the world as never before or since: this book breaks new ground by showing how the continent shaped, and was shaped by, its interactions with other parts of the globe. Richard Evans explores fully the revolutions, empire-building and wars that marked the nineteenth century, but the book is about so much more, whether it is illness, serfdom, religion or philosophy. The Pursuit of Power is a work by a historian at the height of his powers: essential for anyone trying to understand Europe, then or now.
