![]() ![]() ![]() “The geography of hunger,” as Clark puts it, does not map on to “the geography of revolution.” Political, more than economic or social, concerns drove the insurrections.Ĭlark does a remarkable job weaving together the myriad strands that make up the narrative, allowing us to see the events in granular detail and with synoptic, Europe-wide vision. Revolution, though, was not simply the product of discontent at such social conditions. We can, he insists, only judge uprisings by their impact and, in his view, the legacy of 1848 is immense.Ĭlark begins by describing in great detail the material backdrop to revolution, the “economic precarity” of vast numbers of Europeans, ravaged by hunger and plague, and the greed and immorality of employers, landlords and rulers. ![]() Regius professor of history at Cambridge University, Clark rejects the historians’ consensus that the insurrections failed, arguing that to talk of “success” and “failure” is to miss the point. Revolutionary Spring, Christopher Clark’s magnificent new history of the revolutions, challenges that judgment, seeking to reset our understanding of 1848. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |