Pissarro. His Life and Work by Ralph Shikes and Paula Harper

Most biographies of Impressionists shower the reader with scenes of innovative artists standing in French fields, peacefully painting light and color with a wide palette. Certainly, there are enough such scenes in any book about Camille Pissarro. But because of who he was, the additional dimensions of his politics and ideas would have to be examined. Pissarro was an anarchist and an atheist of Jewish extraction, as well as a leading member of his generations’ most revolutionary artistic movement.

The authors who wrote this biography are politically suited to sympathetically cover Pissarro’s radicalism. Ralph Shikes was Public Relations Director for both The National Citizen’s Political Action Committee and Henry Wallace’s Progressive Party, as well as having written for “The Nation.” He established the Shikes Fellowship for Civil Liberties & Civil Rights, at Harvard Law School.* Paula Harper was described as "one of the first art historians to bring a feminist perspective to the study of painting and sculpture"**.

For politically-minded readers, the authors do not disappoint. They suffuse their entire portrait of the artist with discussion of his anarchist and radical views. Not only do they show Pissarro actively involved with fellow anarchists (primarily through his illustrations for periodicals, political contacts and quotes of topical views), but additionally they discuss his painting in radical political terms. “Artists who painted in a non-academic, unconventional style…were attracted to anarchism’s stress on the rejection of authority and the exaltation of the individual” (Shikes & Harper, p. 226). The authors analyze Pissarro’s figures, pointing out that the people he chose to represent were “people in humble circumstances, the class to which he was consistently attracted most of his life” (Shikes & Harper, p. 30). Even when he is painting scenes of natural beauty without humans, the artist is aware of his revolutionary motives: “Pissarro…noted, ‘Proudhon says in La Justice that love of earth is linked with revolution, and consequently with the artistic ideal’” (Shikes & Harper, p. 67).

Pissarro’s anarchism and sense of social justice are closely related to his atheism. “Pissarro, a convinced atheist, felt that religious beliefs were a dangerous hindrance to social reform” (Shikes & Harper, p. 157). While the biographers mention several times that Pissarro was an atheist, they fail to explore his thoughts on the subject beyond its political implications.

Not just his politics, but also his life and times are seen through a radical lens. Shikes and Harper portray the artist’s ancestors as Marrano Jews who escaped the Spanish Inquisition, immigrated to Portugal and from there to St Thomas in the Virgin Islands. In spite of this experience of persecution, Pissarro’s family owned two slaves until slavery was abolished in 1848 (Shikes & Harper, p. 20). Later in Paris, the authors present the artist and his views against a backdrop of changing political regimes, French imperialism in Indochina, the Paris Commune and the socio-political scene of Pissarro’s subculture. Towards the end of the book, and the end of Pissarro’s life, Shikes and Harper discuss the Dreyfus Affair and resulting anti-Semitism endured by their subject from both society at large and his artistic circle. Renoir and Degas were both anti-Dreyfusards and anti-Semites, whereas Sisley and Monet sided with progressives and Pissarro on the issue (Shikes & Harper, pp. 304-309).

For an artistically sensitive, apolitical reader, this book would not be the best of choices unless that person were seeking to expand her horizons. By the same token, Pissarro's life itself would not be an enjoyable topic for any apolitical reader. But those who are art-focused, and political from any perspective, will find a great deal to activate their thinking in this book.

Shikes, Ralph E. & Harper, Paula. Pissarro. His Life and Work. New York: Horizon Press, 1980.

*"Ralph E. Shikes Is Dead at 79; Publisher, Editor and Art Writer." The New York Times. The New York Times, 31 Mar. 1992. (Web. 10 Oct. 2014).

**Grady, Denise. "Paula Hays Harper, Art Historian, Is Dead at 81." The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 June 2012. (Web. 10 Oct. 2014).

The Great Influenza by John M Barry.

John M. Barry is an impressive individual. His ability to self-educate while writing books has led to appointments on various policy boards as an expert advisor. The publication of Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, resulted in Barry’s appointment to The Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East and The Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. The work that this review focuses upon, The Great Influenza, led to his work on the federal government’s Infectious Disease Board of Experts. Without any background in medicine, public policy or geoscience, this is quite a set of achievements.

The Great Influenza demonstrates that Barry’s gifts are not limited to learning alone, but include an ability to impart that learning in an engaging manner. It is a highly informative, exploration of the struggle to defeat a pandemic by the best minds in US medical science. The book begins by examining the progress in medical science up until the point of the pandemic’s beginnings, then introduces “the warriors” who fought it.  Barry’s insightful portraits of the scientists involved serve to acquaint the reader with brilliant and high-achieving individuals in whose quest one becomes involved. This is followed by a useful explanation of influenza’s pathophysiology. Subsequent chapters comprise an interspersion of scientific investigation and experiences of communities during the epidemic’s progress.

Unfortunately, there is an overriding ethnocentrism to the book. Despite the worldwide effects of the 1918 pandemic, Barry only sparsely covers research efforts in Europe. While it is undoubtedly true that many in European medical science were consumed by the war effort, there were still independent researchers exploring a cure for influenza. Also, Barry’s portraits of communities devastated by and responding to the epidemic are almost entirely US examples. The rest of the world suffered as well. This ethnocentrism even taints the author’s representation of theory. Barry states “epidemiological evidence suggests that a new influenza virus originated in Haskell County Kansas” (Barry, p. 92), without mentioning that this is only one of many possible scenarios. In fact, the most recent theories indicate that the disease originated in China (Vergano, p. 1). If the book were entitled Influenza in the United States, it could be considered comprehensive. But that is not the case.

In service to engaging his reader, the author sometimes goes over the top to elicit emotion. “An infection is an act of violence; it is an invasion, a rape” (Barry, p. 107). This is not responsible history or science reporting. But this emotionalism is occasional. Barry generally captures the drama without losing the thread of history. He writes absorbingly and presents the information capably. Writing ability cannot be underestimated. If a historian cannot keep the attention of their reader, the information she wishes to convey will be lost to all but the most intrepid student.

The Great Influenza concludes with a discussion of contemporary influenza scares and epidemics. Ever the policy board expert, Barry emphasizes the importance of governments and media being honest with the public. He talks about how efforts to prevent panic, by hiding the seriousness of the 1918 occurrence, caused people to mistrust government and media when the true extent of the crisis was revealed to them. Government and media could no longer communicate with a suspicious public, hampering collective efforts to contain the spread. Through his extensive study and subsequent national positions, Barry is uniquely positioned to offer useful approaches to combat future epidemics.

Barry, John M. The Great Influenza. New York: Penguin Group Inc., 2009.

Vergano, Dan. "1918 Flu Pandemic That Killed 50 Million Originated in China, Historians Say." National Geographic. National Geographic Society, 23 Jan. 2014. Web. 28 Sept. 2014.

Alexander von Humboldt. A Metabiography by Nicholaas A. Rupke.

Metabiography studies the relationship between the individual portrayed in a biography and the socio-political context of the writer. It is an offshoot of metahistory, as first elucidated by Hayden White in his 1973 Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-century Europe, which views the relationship of a period or event to the socio-political context of the historian. The focus of such examinations is more upon what they reveal about the writer, her time and her influences, than what they say about the subject.

Nicholaas A. Rupke admirably performs an immense task by both instructing his readership about what metabiography is, as well as tackling the subject of Alexander von Humboldt and his representation in the continually changing landscape of Germany. He begins by discussing the conflicting perceptions of Humboldt during his lifetime, when both the revolutionaries of 1848 and their opposition, the monarchists, laid claim to Humboldt. Both have a point; Humboldt was a courtier of King Frederick William IV, while simultaneously writing letters that were critical of the king and democratic in their ideals. Rupke follows Humboldt scholarship through Germany’s many periods of change.

Perhaps the most profound example of differing socio-political perceptions of Humboldt is exemplified by the whiplash speed with which images of the scientist were altered between World War II and the Post-War period. During the war, the Nazi Party laid claim to Humboldt as an example of German superior genius. After the war, as Germany was divided between East and West, two differing national perceptions of the subject developed. East Germans emphasized features like his abolitionist values (as a criticism of the US), his work as a mining inspector (to develop his proto-communist worker credentials) and his anti-colonial remarks (a criticism of Western European powers). In West Germany, scholars emphasized Humboldt’s familiarity with the West (i.e. his living in France and writing major works in French), and his relationships with cosmopolitan Jews in order to de-Nazify him.

During the course of this book, my primary question was “Who is monitoring the socio-political influences of the metabiographer? This is not an attempt to play “gotcha” with a superior writer. Rupke is a brilliant, careful historian. But even the best writer will let biases slip-out if given a long enough project. The following is in the spirit of Rupke’s own self-reflection, where he states “this book itself now becomes part of the raw material for further metastudy” (Rupke, p. 217).

As a Dutch historian of science, who has worked in Britain and the US, Rupke’s Western European and Cold War views are visible in his work. In his discussion of post-war Germany, he refers to East German studies of Humboldt as “shrill political rhetoric” (Rupke, p. 141). While he does credit East German efforts in establishing “the most extensive basis of primary sources” (Rupke, p. 175), Rupke also claims that “West Germans were not under pressure to argue the legitimacy of their state” (Rupke, p. 144). I doubt this latter claim is so. Let us use the author’s own example of Werner Heisenberg, who was the first post-war president of the Humboldt Foundation. Prior to the war, Heisenberg expressed his admiration for Jewish scientist Albert Einstein. During the war, Heisenberg did not join the Nazi Party; but he did work for the Nazis on Hitler’s project to build an atomic bomb.  This was an individual in a conflicted relationship with the Nazi Party, employed to direct Humboldt scholarship by a nation equally conflicted in its relationship with the Nazi Party. The resulting scholarship was designed to “serve the cause of rapprochement between…West Germany and its occupying powers” (Rupke, p. 141). How is this not a “pressure to argue the legitimacy of their state”?

Another element of Rupke’s study that expresses a Western European/US bias is his characterization of “Spanish-American interest in Humboldt, taking at times the form of hero worship” (Rupke, p. 134). While this may be true in some quarters, there is also a strong anti-colonial tendency in Latin American historiography where some native authors would be unlikely to regard a white western explorer as a hero. However, a Germanophile westerner from a colonizing culture may not hear these voices and create a balanced view.

Thirdly, there is an interesting passage where Rupke refers to German citizen Carl Troll as a “collaborator” with the Nazis. This is an unusual choice of words, designed to separate “passive fellow travelers” from “active collaborators” (Rupke, p. 156). But a collaborator is someone who aids a foreign, invading power in its domination of a country. The Nazi Party was not a foreign power victimizing Germany, it was an elected political body supported by the majority of German citizens. It would be hard to imagine a Jewish historian defining wartime German citizens as collaborators. Conversely, it is probably difficult for a historian working among Germans to avoid insulating himself from the notion that this was once a nation which caused such widespread harm.

So Rupke’s book presents examples of how metabiographies or metahistories themselves are influenced by socio-political environment. Further, even how one views the purpose of metabiography is altered by environmental influences. Rupke chose to study Humboldt. He did so in the context of a Germany, whose politics have changed so dramatically and rapidly in the course of his lifetime, that he concluded “the task of metabiography is primarily to explore the fact and the extent of the ideological embeddedness of biographical portraits, not to settle the issue of authenticity” (Rupke, p. 214). Ideology is a system of ideas, not necessarily a system of beliefs, which are based more upon religious feeling than intellectual conclusions. If Rupke were performing a metabiography of Charles Darwin in the context of Kansas, would he change his characterization of the task of metabiography to exploring “the fact and extent of the ideological and belief-based embeddedness of biographical portraits”? Since Rupke himself states that “the issues we raise come from contemporaneous anxieties and interests” (Rupke, p. 215), it is clear that even the defined purpose of metabiography is susceptible to such influences.

History is a tangle of individual points of view on periods, events and people. The methods of metahistory and metabiography seek to untangle this fascinating mess of perspectives. But in the end, they simply represent the views of more individuals who have their own biases and personal colorings when observing historical evidence. It is only an ideal that historians employ the methods of science; using empirical evidence and primary sources to draw conclusions. Aside from the most basic conclusions (i.e. “We have evidence that Alexander von Humboldt was born in Berlin), the ideas engendered by the evidence are products of individuals with their own socio-political backgrounds. For this reason, history is as much Art as Science, (but not in a good way). Art is all about the individual perspective of the artist in a creation. History is a combination of evidence with personal creation. All of this means that a reader of history is required to have a more active role than simply reading and taking-in what one is being told. The reader is required to parse the Art from the Science; the personal coloring from the empirical evidence. This is the only way for one to determine wherein lays historical accuracy. The reader is actually required to be a historian of the piece that they are reading. One must ask whether a statement is backed-up with reference to a primary source that directly states or proves what the author claims, or whether the statement is a product of the author’s imagination. The answer will not always be clear. To cloud matters further, one must also take into account one’s own socio-political background and explore how one’s own ideas are colored. But this is the challenge of history and where active learning occurs. When one reads a history book, one learns not only some facts about the past; one learns how to investigate. The ability to investigate, to ask questions and go about answering them, is a valuable tool for an active mind; a tool that will serve a reader in most other aspects of life.

The study of history has been in the midst of a transitional period for a few decades; at least since Hayden White first began exploring the socio-political perspectives of the historians themselves. It is a somewhat confusing period where historians can no longer just tell stories and readers can no longer just read them. Since the examination of bias, based upon the historian’s and the reader’s socio-political views entered the equation, the study of history has been in a crisis (but not in a bad way). A crisis is a turning point; a decisive or critical moment. We are in the midst of more questions than answers about historiography. I’m not sure where this period of questioning will lead. But eventually someone smarter than me will develop a few useful answers and strategies. These will result in intellectual growth and new ideas about how to approach history for more accurate portrayals. For all we know, the kernel of truth may be somewhere in our biology; at least we all have that in common. Then again, maybe this is all just something I’d say because I’m merely a product of my socio-political environment.

Rupke, Nicholaas A. Alexander von Humboldt. A Metabiography. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang GmbH, 2005.

The House of Rothschild by Niall Ferguson.

The House of Rothschild is a two volume banking history. While the enthusiast of social history or biography will still find useful information, the main focus is on the rise of the first international bank. Those seeking a “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” show should look elsewhere. While this offering lacks sensationalism, there is a good deal of drama: Political and economic relationships, strategies for overcoming the competition and the rise from a poor Frankfurt underclass to eminent positions of influence in Europe, provide genuine plot without superficial glitz.

The research that went into the writing of this tome is impressive. Ferguson scoured the archives of London, Paris and Moscow. The richest trove of information he uses as evidence, is correspondence between the partners and relatives. There are 5830 source notes and 53 pages of bibliography between the two volumes. There had to be days for the author where a mallet to the head appeared preferable to reading another letter.

Given the importance of economics to the subject, one will need to have either an understanding of monetary investment instruments, or a desire to Google frequently. To offer a personal example, as a representative of the business impaired, (even with the assistance of the internet), I found myself periodically confused. Sometimes I could not even understand how one or another strategy could yield profit. Ferguson does not dumb-down the math for his audience. But those who have far to go in their understanding of economics will learn a great deal in the course of these two volumes if they are willing to apply themselves. Since finance is an often neglected area by history enthusiasts, a true education that expands one’s repertoire of ideas can take place. Those who already have the tools of commerce will find this topic easier and more entertaining.

Because this story is about money, and because the Rothschild Bank placed its acquisition above every other concern, there are readers who will find the company’s amorality repellent.  There are plenty of political histories and people’s histories that will discuss the victims of such policies. While there is a satisfaction to venting moral outrage, that is neither the purpose of this book nor the job of a historian. Ferguson does a heroic job of maintaining a neutral tone while quoting callous letters between the Rothschild brothers. These include their warm relationship with Klemens Von Metternich (who made the Hapsburg Empire a police state), their secret deal to sell guns to Russia so that the Czar could more easily suppress Polish independence and other profitable activities. Like a cheetah, engineered by evolution to run down and kill antelope, the Rothschild international bank was a perfect, ruthless animal. One can admire or abhor this bank’s heartless indifference to any consideration other than money, as one wishes. That said, it is important for a balanced individual to read books on both the cheetahs and the antelopes of history.

Ferguson does spend time discussing anti-Semitism. But again, this has nothing to do with moral outrage. Anti-Semitism is a topic of the book because it affected the banking business and the Rothschild’s ability to secure contracts. Ferguson makes it an issue because most gentiles who regarded or participated in the transactions of the Rothschilds made it an issue. The author keeps his eye on the business ball.

While Ferguson’s abilities are laudable, no one should ever expect perfection. The author occasionally stands in awe of his subject’s power and gives them too much credit for influence. When French Foreign Minister Jacques Lafitte supports war with Austria, a concerned James Rothschild approaches King Louis Philippe. A week later, Lafitte resigns. The author interprets “It would appear that James’s ‘talking to the king had the desired effect,’” (Ferguson, v.1, p. 240), as if James’s intervention was the only determining factor in the resignation. Additionally, there are maddeningly frequent quotations of novels by Benjamin Disraeli. Yes, Disraeli knew the family intimately and fictionalized them in his novels. But “fictionalized” is the operative word. These many quotations are not facts of history. One cannot determine facts from them.  However, my not infrequent nitpicking testifies to how enthusiastically I read his long history. Ferguson’s flair for writing and ability to keep the story engaging causes one to become absorbed in his narrative. A historian who can make a banking history come alive for a business impaired reader cannot be ignored.

Ferguson, Niall. The House of Rothschild. New York: Viking Penguin, 1998.

Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey

Eminent Victorians is Lytton Strachey’s 1918 British best seller. It contains the biographies of four people considered to have exemplified the era’s morality and standards (Henry Edward Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold and Charles Gordon). In its time, this book was a quiet innovation. It challenged the iconic worship of the 19^th Century’s upright British saints. It provided an alternative to the “standard biography,” which “commemorate[s] the dead” with “ill-digested masses of material” (Strachey, p. viii).  As a result, it reads like a grouping of literary profiles with more art than history.

Strachey wrote with an arch humor that will leave a wicked smile on your face. He stealthily assassinates Lord Acton as “a historian to whom learning and judgment had not been granted in equal proportions” (Strachey, p. 100). He slowly roasts Lord Hartington as a man beloved by his listeners for being dull: “It was the greatest comfort…they could always be absolutely certain that he would never…be either brilliant or subtle, or surprising or impassioned or profound…as they sat listening to his speeches, in which considerations of stolid plainness succeeded one another with complete flatness…they felt…supported by the colossal tedium” (Strachey, p. 315). It’s funny, but it’s not history.

An historian might find herself a bit frustrated with the presentation and quality of information. In service to creating a tasteful work, Strachey sometimes skimps on the facts or passes-over issues that would cause his readers to blush. Florence Nightingale and Sidney Herbert had a close working relationship and a deep friendship. The author describes this relationship as “an intimacy so utterly untinctured not only by passion itself but by the suspicion of it” (Strachey, p. 167). With all due respect to the chastity of Ms. Nightingale and the marital fidelity of Mr. Herbert, there is no way Strachey could have known this.

Though his style is largely restrained, amusing, and dilettantish, Strachey can be relentless when he has an opinion. One central theme throughout the biographies is that the idols of Victorian England are somewhat cracked. Cardinal Manning is not just the genial saint of British Catholicism; he is also a cruel, politically manipulative autocrat (Strachey, p. 86). Florence Nightingale is not at all the passive “Lady with the Lamp;” she is a driven professional whom, the author claims, pushed Sidney Herbert into an early grave (Strachey, pp. 181-2). Thomas Arnold, historically portrayed as a reformer of boys’ education, is shown to be responsible for a litany of educational missteps, not the least of which was to forestall science instruction (Strachey, p. 213). General Gordon was both a military hero and a disobedient soldier whose rashness caused his own death (Strachey, p. 283). All of this is said more softly and with a greater mass of verbiage than I have space to allow. Strachey does not pointedly hammer at the idols. He cautiously taps, relentlessly taps, until the statue has a crack and the imperfection is annoyingly obvious to those who prefer their icons flawless.

One may argue, as some did, that his characterizations are unfair and his citations sparse. But in the present, one does not read Eminent Victorians for its historical accuracy. Some of the information may be interesting, and some of it may even be true. But more important to the modern reader are an illustration of what early 20^th Century English readers appreciated and an admiration of some fine, subtle, sardonic writing.

Strachey, Lytton. Eminent Victorians. New York: Random House, 1962.

For review of a book on the British Empire during this time period, see:
http://greatnonfictionbooks.blogspot.com/2014/03/empire-by-niall-ferguson.html

For a politically progressive history of London, see:
http://greatnonfictionbooks.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-peoples-history-of-london-by-german.html

The Devil’s Broker by Frances Stonor Saunders

Frances Stonor Saunders has written a book that reads as smoothly and excitingly as fiction, but informs as skillfully as the best histories. This is a rare and difficult feat. It helps that her subject is John Hawkwood, an adventurous, villain, mercenary knight, in violent 14^th Century Italy. Still, she deserves credit: She wouldn’t have been the first historian to take a dramatic topic and wring all the moisture out of it, producing desiccated rags of paper.

Saunders presents an Italy riven by religious power, political corruption, superstition, mercenary violence, plague, famine and war. Brutal stuff. Between pages 10 and 20 is a frail, easily forgotten wave in the direction of the notion that this century wasn’t entirely savage. Repeatedly using Barbara Tuchman’s famous phrase “the calamitous century,” juxtaposed with cheery images of Chaucer and joyful peasants, Saunders takes an opportunity to distance herself from the more famous scholar of the 14^th Century against whom she will undoubtedly be compared.

But after this obligatory nod to balanced presentation, our historian dives back into her subject. Enter John Hawkwood, a minor noble’s son from Essex, recruited for adventure and profit in France, who rises to the leadership of the immense and famous White Company. While this mercenary provides the compass point around which the story revolves, he is merely a point in a wider circle of the environment described. Hawkwood’s progress from France to Italy, then up and down that peninsula, allows Saunders a context in which to depict historical development.

The primary theme that gets re-echoed throughout the book is that Hawkwood was a cold, greedy mobster; but he was no different from those of higher rank. Hawkwood’s services, largely composed of protection and pillage, were hired by two popes, one king, a couple of republics and countless respectable wealthy landowners. There are no heroes in this story. Our cast ranges from the morally questionable to the pathologically destructive.

Even those individuals depicted who do not have military or political power, are contaminated. Saint Catherine of Siena is anything but a saint. “Catherine’s joy at being splashed in the blood of a decapitated man—an experience she sought to prolong by not washing—suggests that she was now suffering from a full-blown neurosis” (Stonor, p. 197). Petrarch, though talented, is criticized as “an ornament of the Visconti court” which was known for its rapaciousness (Stonor, p. 136). The only player to escape the tainted brush is Chaucer, who is truly Saunders' touchstone in the book. He represents an incorruptible optimism that will not be beaten by the catastrophes which surround him.

Within such a story, it is difficult for an author to avoid the sensational. Stonor occasionally indulges in melodrama: “Thickset men who relished a noisy brawl in a tavern, a tussle over a whore, stole through the frozen nightscape with the lightness of ghosts” (Stonor, p. 21). But most of the time, the author is able to remain on point and continually informative. Given the subject, one should be surprised that she does not indulge more often.

The Devil’s Broker is a gift to historical writing. It is a template for scholars concerning how to compose engagingly and informatively. The readers who choose to embark upon this gallop through 14^th Century Italy will find themselves richly rewarded. The only regret will be the brevity of the journey as the read is a fast one.

Saunders, Frances Stonor. The Devil’s Broker. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2004.

For review of another book on this time period, see:
http://greatnonfictionbooks.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-distant-mirror-calamitous-14th.html

The European Revolutions, 1848 – 1851 by Jonathan Sperber.

The European Revolutions, 1848 – 1851, was designed as a textbook for early undergraduate and (optimistically) advanced high school students. As such, it does not contain intensely complex theory regarding the events. It is a basic depiction of the occurrences and major players of the period.  Some will find this approach refreshingly straightforward; a delineation of what happened without the haze of a historian’s pet theories and self-congratulatory mental gymnastics. Others will find the work unchallenging.

This is not to say that the portrayal is all action and no thought, like so many books on military battles. Sperber spends the first half of his book discussing the pre-revolutionary environment and the causes leading to the struggles of 1848. Those already familiar with living and working conditions in Early- to Mid-19^th Century Europe, who are reading primarily to inform themselves about the revolutionary years, will find this section tedious with no new information; they can skip directly to Chapter Three, “The Outbreak of Revolution.” These following chapters illustrate the rise of mass movements with particular attention to the varieties and structures of rebellious organizations.

Just about every reader of this review has grown-up within a representative form of democracy. Even those inured to the vicissitudes of history can find themselves discouraged by a story of flowering republics crushed under the military boot of autocratic kings. It was a dramatic burst of freedom and equally quick reversal. But Sperber does an excellent job of coddling the reader by discussing at length the groundwork laid by this continent-wide revolt. Post-1848 monarchs, while not required to draft a constitution, were seen as backward and faced importunate nagging from below if they did not. Press censorship was no longer a given strategy of conservative regimes. The process of organizing an opposition had been inculcated. Most importantly, people became acquainted with and accustomed to democratic notions. If seen as the first steps in a learning process that culminated, through persistent dedication, in our current period of widespread republican government, the bitter pill of this period will be swallowed in a spirit of more philosophical and sanguine remove.

I cannot say that The European Revolutions, 1848 – 1851 will be the most exhilarating read you’ve ever had (unless the period and events alone excite you), but it will be appropriately informative and clear.

Sperber, Jonathan. The European Revolutions, 1848 – 1851. Cambridge: The Cambridge University Press, 2003.

For review of a book on prior causes & events resulting in the European Revolutions, see:
http://greatnonfictionbooks.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-age-of-revolution-1789-to-1848-by.html