The Revolutions of 1848: The History and Legacy of the Massive Social Uprisings across Europe

Even in the wake of Napoleon’s departure from the scene, the continental powers had to work to repress secularism and liberalism in Europe. They quashed liberal movements in Italy, Poland, and Spain but could not prevent a revolution in France in 1830, which replaced authoritarian Charles X with the more liberal Louis-Philippe d’Orleans, nor could the European powers prevent the independence of Belgium as a constitutional monarchy. Underneath the surface, revolutionary movements formed among the bourgeois classes, while urban and agricultural workers remained concerned about the cost of food, living conditions, and the burdens imposed by the remnants of feudalism.

When the French underwent another revolution in 1830, the absolutist order was reduced to Russia, Prussia, and Austria, and elsewhere, the liberal middle-classes were chafing under repression. In the United Kingdom, where the middle-classes already dominated society, the rulers looked fearfully to the Chartists, who were growing in number. In Italy and Germany, there were growing movements toward national unity, and nationalists also pined for sovereignty in Hungary and other parts of the Austrian Empire and Ottoman Empire. Looking on were the churches, often sympathetic to the plight of the poor and wary of absolutism but fearful of disorder and the diminution of their power. Europe was a tinder box waiting to be ignited, and 1848 would be the year the match struck.

The Revolutions of 1848: The History and Legacy of the Massive Social Uprisings across Europe examines the chain of events that produced the most widespread social unrest in Europe’s history.