Book contents
- Revolutionary World
- Revolutionary World
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Global Revolution
- 1 The Atlantic Revolutions
- 2 The Revolutionary Waves of 1848
- 3 The Worlds of the Paris Commune
- 4 The Global Wave of Constitutional Revolutions, 1905–1915
- 5 The Global Red Revolution
- 6 The Wilsonian Uprisings of 1919
- 7 The Third World Revolutions
- 8 The Global Islamic Revolution
- 9 The Anticommunist Revolts of 1989
- 10 The Arab Uprisings
- Islands of Global Revolution
- Index
2 - The Revolutionary Waves of 1848
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 March 2021
- Revolutionary World
- Revolutionary World
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures and Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Global Revolution
- 1 The Atlantic Revolutions
- 2 The Revolutionary Waves of 1848
- 3 The Worlds of the Paris Commune
- 4 The Global Wave of Constitutional Revolutions, 1905–1915
- 5 The Global Red Revolution
- 6 The Wilsonian Uprisings of 1919
- 7 The Third World Revolutions
- 8 The Global Islamic Revolution
- 9 The Anticommunist Revolts of 1989
- 10 The Arab Uprisings
- Islands of Global Revolution
- Index
Summary
In their combination of intensity and geographical extent, the 1848 revolutions were unique – at least in European history. Neither the great French Revolution of 1789, nor the July Revolution of 1830, nor the Paris Commune of 1870, nor the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 sparked a comparable transcontinental cascade. The year 1989 looks like a better comparator, but there is still controversy as to whether these uprisings can be characterized as “revolutions,” and, in any case, their direct impact was limited to the Warsaw Pact states. In 1848, by contrast, parallel political tumults broke out across the entire continent, from Spain and Portugal to Wallachia and Moldavia, from Norway, Denmark, and Sweden to Naples and Palermo. And across the continent, the movements challenging the old regime – radical, democratic, or liberal – developed strikingly similar repertories of claims and objectives. This was the only truly European revolution that there has ever been.
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- Revolutionary WorldGlobal Upheaval in the Modern Age, pp. 66 - 91Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021