Description: The revolutions that swept across Europe in 1848 marked a turning-point in the history of political and social thought. They raised questions of democracy, nationhood, freedom and social cohesion that have remained among the key issues of modern politics, and still help to define the major ideological currents - liberalism, socialism, republicanism, anarchism, conservatism - in which these questions continue to be debated today. This collection of essays by internationally prominent historians of political thought examines the 1848 Revolutions in a pan-European perspective, and offers research on questions of state power, nationality, religion, the economy, poverty, labour, and freedom. Even where the revolutionary movements failed to achieve their explicit objectives of transforming the state and social relations, they set the agenda for subsequent regimes, and contributed to the shaping of modern European thought and institutions.
Brief description: Gareth Stedman Jones is Professor of the History of Ideas at Queen Mary University of London. Prior to this he held the post of Professor of Political Science, at the University of Cambridge, from 1997 to 2010. He is Director of the Centre for History and Economics, Cambridge, and a Life Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Historical Society. His publications include Outcast London (1971), An End to Poverty? (2004), Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (2002), Religion and the Political Imagination, co-edited with Ira Katznelson (2010), and the Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Political Thought, co-edited with Gregory Claeys (2011). His most recent work Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion was published in August 2016.
Review Quotes: 'This is an immensely valuable and timely reappraisal of the intellectual imagination, force, and creativity of the 1848 revolutions across Europe. By drawing out both their achievements and limits, the essays allow us to appreciate how these revolutionary movements shaped our democratic modernity, while also illuminating contemporary political challenges.' Karma Nabulsi, University of Oxford