The Nineteenth Century: Europe 1789-1914 (Short Oxford History of Europe) [Paperback]

Europe underwent colossal political, economic and social change in the long century between the fall of the Bastille in 1789 and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, and this volume in the Short Oxford History of Europe provides an expert and entertaining overview of the principal developments. This is sonic-boom history, with Professor Blanning and his team placing a firm emphasis on the modernising and global transformations at work, although there are important reminders along the way of the persistence of monarchy and the established Church. And for a change, here Europe manifestly includes Britain, which makes for a thoughtful perspective on all manner of comparisons and contrasts. Particularly enjoyable are Niall Ferguson's survey of economic change, spiced with sideline commentary from Dickens and Wagner, and Tony Hopkins' sweep through the history of European imperialism. Readers may find some of the chapters too absorbed with historiography, rather than history, and perhaps everyone pays too much attention to Blanning's dictum that the 19th was the "German century". One wonders what a group of Mediterranean or Eastern European scholars would have made of such a topic. But for a readable history written by specialists The Nineteenth Century is hard to beat. --Miles Taylor

The complete Short Oxford History of Europe (series editor, Professor TCW Blanning) will cover the history of Europe from Classical Greece to the present in eleven volumes. In each, experts write to their strengths tackling the key issues including society, economy, religion, politics, and culture head-on in chapters that will be at once wide-ranging surveys and searching analyses. Each book is specifically designed with the non-specialist reader in mind; but the authority of the contributors and the vigour of the interpretations will make them necessary and challenging reading for fellow academics across a range of disciplines. Europe changed more rapidly and more radically during the nineteenth century than during any prior period. A population explosion, a communications revolution, mass literacy, secularisation, urbanisation, Imperialism - these were just a few of the many ways in which the lives of Europeans of every class were dramatically changed. It was the century when most of the ideologies of the modern world - liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, socialism, and racism - came of age. Yet in some respects, especially international relations, there was a surprising degree of continuity and harmony. In six pithy chapters experts on the political, international, social, economic, cultural, and imperial history of the period address and answer the big questions of the period.

T.C.W. Blanning is Professor of Modern European History at the University of Cambridge.