The pursuit of power

About this book

Examines the century between the fall of Napoleon and the outbreak of World War I, discussing events ranging from the crumbling of the Spanish, Ottoman, and Mughal empires and the rise of British imperial ambition to the violent revolution in Spain and the unifications of Germany and Italy. "In the nineteenth century, Europe experienced unprecedented economic and technological growth, social change, and cultural transformation. It was the dawn of the railway, the telegraph, the steamship, the phonograph, the cinema, and the motor car. Covering every part of the continent from Iceland to Sicily, Ireland to Russia, Richard J. Evans delivers a masterly survey that pays due attention to the wars, revolutions, and political upheavals of the age, and sets the politics of power in a broad context of social, economic, and cultural change. This was the age of industrialization, when huge cities sprang up virtually overnight and confronted society with manifold new problems--from crime and deviance to environmental degradation and pollution--that are still with us today. Major figures from Bismarck to Beethoven, Monet to Marx, bestrode the continent, leaving an indelible impression for the future. In the period bound by the Battle of Waterloo and the outbreak of World War I, Europe dominated the rest of the world as never before or since. This book breaks new ground by showing how the continent shaped, and was shaped by, interactions with other parts of the globe. Drawing on a lifetime of thinking about nineteenth-century Europe, Evans has created an extraordinarily rich, surprising, and entertaining panorama of a continent undergoing drastic transformation."--Dust jacket.