This review focuses on chapters one to five which provide an overview of the nineteenth century. Further chapters to come!

Oxford University Press have made a specialty of selling an extensive library of multi author histories. The editor of this volume, Timothy Blanning has himself taken on the task of producing a number of these, including general editorship of the multivolume Short Oxford History of Europe. In his introduction to those volumes he highlights the challenges of depth and breadth. Really these confront all history which attempts geographic or chronological breadth. History needs to be fairly interpretive, and by nature dependent on others scholarship as it expands its sweep. The only means to avoid this is to engage multiple authors. They can either covering a specific timespan (the multi volume Oxford History of England breaks time into 30 - 50 year chunks and hands each volume to individual authors), theme (The Short Oxford History of Europe gives authors individual topics such as politics or economy) or geographic area (The Cambridge Modern History, probably the first of these efforts, features volumes on The Ottoman Conquest, Italy and her Invaders and two generous volumes on Florence!). A multi author volume can provide greater credibility for individual topics, but at the cost of coherence. The strength of J M Roberts classic Penguin History of the World or Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens is the single vision and interpretive framework drawing the book together, albeit at the sacrifice of expert and deep knowledge of particular periods and areas (as seen in the coverage of East Asia in Roberts’ book).
The Oxford History of Modern Europe takes off quite a big bite of history - the entire European continent through a period of dramatic change and European world hegemony. Blanning organises the text well. He divides the period into pre World War 1 and post, and assigns eleven experts to topics of politics, economy, war, society and culture. Blanning’s introduction expertly weaves these into a coherent summary of how Europe has undergone two centuries of dramatic change and world expansion. Without over thinking the meaning of “Modern” he identifies the end of the eighteenth century as the beginning of a new epoch.
It is hard to talk about this periodisation without mentioning Eric Hobsbawm (another example of a single author covering big sweeps of history!). In The Age of Revolution he outlined an influential interpretation of the early nineteenth century as being characterised by dual revolutions - the consequences of the French Revolution of 1789, and the economic revolution of the Industrial transformation. Blanning adds the Napoleonic Wars, the decisive transition in society from orders to classes and the cultural phenomenon of the ‘romantic revolution’ as marks of the beginning of the modern.
One of my favourite historians, J M Roberts leads the charge with a look at politics in the nineteenth century. His writing is always interpretive, looking at connections and patterns rather than specific events and personalities. Don’t expect colourful anecdotes about antics at the Congress of Vienna or amusing anecdotes of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s foreign policy fumbles. He divides the century into much the same subdivisions as Hobsbawm - a period of upheaval and war until 1815, peace until mid century, two more decades of upheaval then a second great peace until 1914.
Blanning divides each chapter with subheadings, an effective method of organisation. Robert’s first section is provocatively titled “The Myth of Revolution”. Roberts sees the myth of revolution as central to the politics of the nineteenth century; “Whether it was believed that irresistible forces were working to assure that revolution was inevitable, or that propaganda and organization could bring it about - and whether people viewed the outcome as desirable or horrific - the idea that the central issue of politics was to be for or against the revolution was a great simplifier; it provided a way of seeing, understanding, explaining things otherwise difficult or unintelligible”. Roberts believes that the spectre of Revolution was mythological in the sense that the idea more than the fact of revolution was significant. The most concrete actions were in the pre 1815 period. France was the great power of eighteenth century Europe, and thus the events of the reaction against the failures of the ancien regime. Ironically the growth in the strength of the French revolutionary state, as seen in the defeats of the other European powers in the Napoleonic Wars led to changes which strengthened the dynastic powers of Prussia, Austria and Russia. They were also influenced by another new idea from the Revolution - “that legitimacy for government is to be sought in some kind of debate and competition for the support of the public”. This idea can’t really be overstated.
Thirty years of peace were followed by the upheaval of 1848. Despite the failures Roberts sees the legacy of the second Revolutionary actions as immense. Germany saw the emigration of the radical leadership afterwards, accentuating the dominance of Prussian conservatives. In France the middle class distrusted Paris and the republicans. Italy was more firmly under Austrian hegemony. But more than all these localised effects was the recognition of the power of nationalism, a clarion call taken up by conservatives.
Roberts zeroes in on the Balkans in the late nineteenth century. After 1871 five new nations emerged in the region. They were products of the “Concert of Europe”, the post 1815 diplomacy which successfully avoided war between the great powers in the area (with the exception of the Crimean War) by the expedient of carving states out of the deflating Ottoman Empire. Eventually however Russia and Austria’s growing interest in the region along with those Balkan nation’s greed for growth would be the catalyst for the First World War.
Clive Trebilcock is not a historian I have read before (he passed away in 2004). Along with some business histories his major publications were ,i>The Industrialisation of the Continental Powers 1789-1914, a contribution to the twentieth century volume of The Fontana Economic History of Europe and editing Understanding Decline: Perceptions and Realities of British Economic Performance. He contributed an outstanding and well argued chapter on the economics of the nineteenth century, and the other arm of Hobsbawm’s ‘dual revolution’. There is no doubt about the criticality of this process, one which Trebilcock divides into three critical phases - the 1780s to 1820s, 1840 to 1870 and 1895 to 1914. Britain dominated the first with innovations in cotton textiles and ironmaking. The second phase saw the ‘take-off’ of France, the German states and the United States. Railways were the key new ingredient of this new stage of progress, both in enabling other industries as well as being a driver of both engineering and financial innovation. After a period of depression the last period of acceleration was stimulated by a new set of additions to the list of leading industrial economies - Italy, Japan, Sweden, Austria and Russia. New sectors also lead the drive - chemical and electrical engineering, bicycles and cars. The second wave economies (France, the US and Germany) led the way with Britain lagging.
Trebilcock highlights the slow gradual nature of the process - if revolution is the right term in terms of the dramatic transformation it was not a violent one. Surprisingly to me Russia, one of the late developers in fact achieved the fastest rates of growth. Prior to 1914 the tsarist empire was achieving an annual growth in industrial output of 8% in the 1890s. We are also reminded of continuities. The traditional (albeit modernised) agricultural sector still made up more than 25% of all leading economy’s national output in 1910 with the exception of Britain.
The discussion of the military could not be in better hands than Hew Strachan’s. He highlights the transformation in warfare in the nineteenth century, far greater than that of the twentieth century. Strachan insightfully points out however that success in war was not directly linked to industrial and technological development. Russia, still the most backward power in Europe managed to maintain a war against Germany singlehandedly for three years, whilst even more remarkably the Ottoman empire fought on up to four fronts for the duration of the Great War. I found Strachan’s point regarding the logic of going to war interesting. Observers prior to World War I pointed to the ‘inutility of war’ due to the massive cost to advanced economies, drawing off manpower and disrupting trade and industry. The paradox of the resilience of backward economies such as Russia (until 1917) and the Ottoman Empire certainly reinforces that “the significance of national economic development for the making of war was confused”. Technological advantage had played a major role - seen in the success in winning empire in the nineteenth century, and in Britain’s decisive naval technology (she was not to fight a fleet action between the Battle of Trafalgar and the Battle of Jutland.
Strachan also discusses the philosophy of war, the impact of the railway and rise of the ‘General Staff’ as well as the professionalisation of war and the rise of the mass army. The chapter is insightful, and although it is dominated by World War I and changes leading to it, this can be justified to some extent by the fact that it was largely a century of peace. Perhaps a little more discussion of colonial war would have been welcome.
Patricia Pilbeam discusses the people. Social history saw significant demographic changes which would accelerate in the twentieth century. Population exploded from 193 million to about 423 million, shattering the Malthusian cycle. Huge proportions emigrated. One of the most significant changes however was the shift from orders to class consciousness, a change Pilbeam originates in the French Revolution. The first half of the century saw class unrest but with specific grievances rather than a desire to overthrow governments. One effect of the legacy of the French Revolution was fear of another outbreak, which resulted in violent suppression of rebellion by governments.
A significant change was in the development of an interventionist state - to resolve social issues in an attempt to head off revolution with an accompanying increase in representation. Most countries ensured though that representation was confined to elites who also retained a disproportionate share of wealth.
In the last chapter on the nineteenth century Tim Blanning discusses culture. His chapter title gives away what he sees as two major facets - commercialisation and sacralisation. Although the French Revolution saw art aimed at a broader public rather than wealthy patron, celebrating the secular world “the culture of the French Revolution proved to be a blind alley”. The first and most important trend is Romanticism - the power of the “fabulous and the irrational” over the “universal, abstract, and rational” of the Enlightenment. Its cold rationalism was felt to be inadequate in describing a chaotic natural world. The egocentric romantics rejected the old world of patronage by royalty and elites, but were challenged by the inexorable rise of mass culture. Blanning describes well the importance of the piano as an example of this, and the relationship between technology and art. Secularisation brought the sacralisation of art as it became an object of veneration in and of itself. Although artists attempted to create an impression of the genius unaffected by their audience, success resulted from acceptance by a mass audience.
Blanning describes how music began its march towards is present day artistic hegemony in the nineteenth century with the fame of musicians such as Paganini, Rossini and Liszt. The rise of romanticism dovetailed with nationalism as artists rejected the cosmopolitanism of eighteenth century culture. The nation was “the most important point of reference in human affairs”. The rise of new political entities in Eastern Europe in the twentieth century is inextricably linked to efforts such as the long campaign to build a National Theatre in Prague.
Realism was the natural successor to, and reaction against romanticism. This was then submerged by a generation disillusioned with the long depression after 1873, reacting against liberalism with what became known as symbolism. Early in the twentieth century “art was fragmenting into stylistic anarchy”.
The Oxford History of Modern Europe may not reflect the very latest historiographic trends but overall provides an extremely useful overview of modernism. This is not a narrative history (and could not be in this space), however the various authors present a reasonably unified and well informed overview of the period. The nineteenth century chapters reinforce the importance of the industrial revolution and technology in driving social and military change, and the complex importance of political revolution, or fear thereof. The book provides a well written interpretive overview of the period for the interested reader or those taking a survey course which would be well supplemented by more detailed texts such as the Penguin History of Europe volumes by Tim Blanning, Richard Evans and Ian Kershaw or alternatively books such as Barricades and Borders by Robert Gildea or the older titles in the Fontana History of Europe series.
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Muy bueno, la division por temas es por demás interesante ya que te permite consultar o reeler un tema sin tener que soportar el resto de la obra, además buena bibliografía ( )

3029 The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern Europe, edited by T. C. W. Blanning (read 3 Nov 1997) This is made up of 11 articles by 11 different English historians. Most of the articles were very heavy going and not very interesting. The best article is one by T.C.W. Blanning entitled "The Commercialization and Sacralization of European Culture in the 19th Century." It spends some time on Caspar David Friedrich,calling him the most original of all romantic painters. The same article tells of Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840), the greatest violinist of all time. ( )

Europe > History > 1789-1900/Europe > History > 20th century