
Revolutionary Spring
Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849
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Narrated by:
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Christopher Clark
From the bestselling author of The Sleepwalkers comes an epic history of the 1848 revolutions that swept Europe, and the charismatic figures who propelled them forward, with deep resonance and frightening parallels to today.
As history, the uprisings of 1848 have long been overshadowed by the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian revolutions of the early twentieth century. And yet in 1848 nearly all of Europe was aflame with conflict. Parallel political tumults spread like brush fire across the entire continent, leading to significant changes that continue to shape our world today. These battles for the future were fought with one eye kept squarely on the past: The men and women of 1848 saw the urgent challenges of their world as shaped profoundly by the past, and saw themselves as inheritors of a revolutionary tradition.
Celebrated Cambridge historian Christopher Clark describes 1848 as “the particle collision chamber at the center of the European nineteenth century,” a moment when political movements and ideas—from socialism and democratic radicalism to liberalism, nationalism, corporatism, and conservatism—were tested and transformed. The insurgents asked questions that sound modern to our ears: What happens when demands for political or economic liberty conflict with demands for social rights? How do we reconcile representative and direct forms of democracy? How is capitalism connected to social inequality? The revolutions of 1848 were short-lived, but their impact on public life and political thought throughout Europe and beyond has been profound.
Elegantly written, meticulously researched, and filled with a cast of charismatic figures, including the social theorist Alexis de Tocqueville and the troubled priest Félicité de Lamennais, who struggled to reconcile his faith with politics, Revolutionary Spring is a new understanding of 1848 that offers chilling parallels to our present moment. “Looking back at the revolutions from the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century, it is impossible not to be struck by the resonances,” Clark writes. “If a revolution is coming for us, it may look something like 1848.”
* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF of detailed historic maps, illustrations, portraits, and works of art pertaining to the material.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2023 Christopher Clark (P)2023 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
“Refreshingly original . . . it’s fascinating, suspenseful, revelatory, alive. Familiar characters are given vibrancy and previously unknown players emerge from the shadows. Clark’s prose is beautiful but also crystal clear.”—The Times
“Exhilarating, heroic, horrifying and tragic, the events of the mid-19th century in Europe invite a good retelling . . . Christopher Clark’s new book is, arguably, the best to date . . . deeply researched, rich, engaging and though-provoking. There is now no better place to turn for readers who want to immerse themselves in this period and to reflect on how it resonates today.”—Literary Review
“Christopher Clark is that rare thing: a great historian who is also a brilliant storyteller, with a gift for sketching scenes and delineating characters with a few deft brushstrokes. Revolutionary Spring is a beautifully written, richly detailed account of a historical moment that rhymes and resonates, in many strange ways, with our own era of turmoil and disruption.”—Amitav Ghosh, author of Sea of Poppies and The Great Derangement
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Scholarly but accessible
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Towards the World as it is Now.
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Tremendous accomplishment!
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Good Lord this is an amazing book
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A truly amazing history book
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Great History
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Ambitious and brilliantly executed
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Excellent for History Nuts
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Wonderful history, well read
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As far as the history, if I was not already pretty familiar with the various revolutions of 1848, I think it would have been pretty hard to put together from this book. Telling the story with either some kind of chronological or geographical structure would have made it more coherent.
Like the revolutions, it got off to a good start
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