Now covering the whole of Europe from the French Revolution to the present day, this major new edition has been completely revised and brought up-to-date. The approach embraces the whole continent from both national and regional perspectives, and combines political survey with grass roots 'people' history. Bringing this history vividly to life, the authors use a very broad range of sources including memoirs, archives, letters, songs and newspapers. In particular, there is new treatment of the following themes: Religion and the modern Papacy Immigration in Europe and relationships between minority and majority groups UNESCO The European Bill of Rights The seeds of conflict in Bosnia and Croatia Europe's relations with the wider world, with particular attention to the Middle East and Japan.
In the last generation the classic Marxist interpretation of the French Revolution has been challenged by the so-called revisionist school. The Marxist view that the Revolution was a bourgeois and capitalist revolution has been questioned by Anglo-Saxon revisionists like Alfred Cobban and William Doyle as well as a French school of criticism headed by François Furet. Today revisionism is the dominant interpretation of the Revolution both in the academic world and among the educated public. Against this conception, this book reasserts the view that the Revolution - the capital event of the modern age - was indeed a capitalist and bourgeois revolution. Based on an analysis of the latest historical scholarship as well as on knowledge of Marxist theories of the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the work confutes the main arguments and contentions of the revisionist school while laying out a narrative of the causes and unfolding of the Revolution from the eighteenth century to the Napoleonic Age.
The Oxford History of the United States is by far the most respected multi-volume history of our nation. The series includes three Pulitzer Prize winners, two New York Times bestsellers, and winners of the Bancroft and Parkman Prizes. Now, in the newest volume in the series, one of America's most esteemed historians, Gordon S. Wood, offers a brilliant account of the early American Republic, ranging from 1789 and the beginning of the national government to the end of the War of 1812. As Wood reveals, the period was marked by tumultuous change in all aspects of American life--in politics, society, economy, and culture. The men who founded the new government had high hopes for the future, but few of their hopes and dreams worked out quite as they expected. They hated political parties but parties nonetheless emerged. Some wanted the United States to become a great fiscal-military state like those of Britain and France; others wanted the country to remain a rural agricultural state very different from the European states. Instead, by 1815 the United States became something neither group anticipated. Many leaders expected American culture to flourish and surpass that of Europe; instead it became popularized and vulgarized. The leaders also hope to see the end of slavery; instead, despite the release of many slaves and the end of slavery in the North, slavery was stronger in 1815 than it had been in 1789. Many wanted to avoid entanglements with Europe, but instead the country became involved in Europe's wars and ended up waging another war with the former mother country. Still, with a new generation emerging by 1815, most Americans were confident and optimistic about the future of their country. Named a New York Times Notable Book, Empire of Liberty offers a marvelous account of this pivotal era when America took its first unsteady steps as a new and rapidly expanding nation.
Thoroughly updated best-selling textbook with new learning features. This acclaimed textbook has unmatched breadth of coverage and a global perspective.
Highlighting the most important events, ideas, and individuals that shaped modern Europe, A Concise History of Modern Europe provides a readable, succinct history of the continent from the Enlightenment and the French Revolution to the present day. Avoiding a detailed, lengthy chronology, the book focuses on key events and ideas to explore the causes and consequences of revolutions—be they political, economic, or scientific; the origins and development of human rights and democracy; and issues of European identity. Any reader needing a broad overview of the sweep of European history since 1789 will find this book, published in a first edition under the title Revolutionary Europe, an engaging and cohesive narrative.
Mastering Modern European History traces the development of Europe from the French Revolution to the present day. Political, diplomatic and socio-economic strands are woven together and supported by a wide range of pictures, maps, graphs and questions. Documentary extracts are included throughout to encourage the reader to question the nature and value of various types of historical evidence. The second edition brings us fully up to the present day. Chapters on European Decolonisation, Communist Europe 1985-9, and European Unity and Discord have been added, and others have been substantially rewritten. An even wider range of illustrations and documentary source questions are included. The book is presented in a readable and well ordered format and is an ideal reference text for students.
The Birth of a Great Power System, 1740-1815 examines a key development in modern European history: the origins and emergence of a competitive state system. H.M. Scott demonstrates how the well-known and dramatic events of these decades - the emergence of Russia and Prussia; the three partitions of Poland; the continuing retreat of the Ottoman Empire; the unprecedented territorial expansion of Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, halted by the final defeat of Napoleon - were part of a wider process that created the modern great power system, dominated by Europe's five leading states. Enhanced by maps and a chronology of principal events, this comprehensive and accessible textbook is fully up-to-date in its coverage of recent scholarship. Unlike many other treatments of this period, Scott extends his beyond the French Revolution of 1789 in order to demonstrate how events both before and after this great upheaval merged to produce the central political development in modern European history. This book addresses the crucial phase in the emergence of the modern international system which, with the subsequent addition of the USA, Japan and Russia, has prevailed until the present day.
This comprehensive account analyses the people, places and issues at the heart of modern Europes major historical events. All the major themes, personalities and issues during this period of great upheaval and change are analysed. An ideal reference guide to the period, this book highlights the various developments and changes that have occurred in Europe during the last 200 years and examines the participation of the major European powers in each. Major topics include the Napoleonic era, the unification of Italy and Germany, Victorian England, Fascism and Nazism, the Cold War, and the expansion and consolidation of the European Union.
