The Pursuit of Glory: The Five Revolutions that Made Modern Europe: 1648-1815 (Penguin History of Europe)

A lovely book. A relatively light read but covers so many aspects of life in the long eighteenth century with just enough detail and constant revealing surveys. Blanning makes no attempt to simplify the period as he constantly makes it clear that it was as diverse as any other century, but in its own way. For instance while the Enlightenment was starting to undermine religion there were major religious developments which were far more important for most people than the enlightenment itself.

He sets the background up over the major part of the book covering social, political, religious, cultural, geographic etc facets of life at the time - and not just life for the bewigged elite. The concision of his coverage of the political events of show more the period is quite brilliant - all the vital detail presented, all the important trends delineated yet all in a structured way.

The title sums up his take on three of the 'great' rulers of the period, Louis XIV, Frederick the Great and Napoleon. They were chasing la gloire - the results were mixed for France and Prussia and often disastrous for other Europeans.

This book is a brilliant coverage of its subject and is an interesting case of why I read history and I guess why I think one should. In itself it’s a general introduction and/or overview of the long eighteenth century in Europe (mostly excluding the Ottoman lands) from 1648-1815 so from the Peace of Westphalia to Waterloo. I had come across politeness as a driving, revolutionary force in the late seventeenth century which was a new idea to me. It made Addison and Co so much more important and interesting. So I started to investigate a detailed study of it and failed. But I found one on the Enlightenment (slightly later period but related I suppose) which led me to this one on the same shelf. It had lots of good reviews. It’s probably widely recommended and read as a neat intro for students (undergraduate or sixth form) of history so they have some idea of the overall framework within which other denser, more detailed books operate. For this it’s excellent. Blanning covers every aspect of life, thought and politics in a lively style and without reducing himself to headlines. He definitely shows you the bigger picture.

The eighteenth century was the age of enlightenment? For some certainly but it was also the age of Methodism, Pietism and Jansenism, as well as slavery and serfdom. Many more religious books were published than anti-religious ones. The age of French dominance? Well certainly up to a point with the French language in widespread use amongst the elite – but not in England. Some French art dominated in some areas with a Versailles being built in Naples, for example, but elsewhere Italian styles would dominate. And what do you make of the signature of Prince Eugene – Eugenio von Savoie? Surely that sums up the multinational, multicultural aspects of life the further east in Europe you went. The Industrial Revolution? Well more of that anon but it’s definitely a “Yes, but ...” book. In short it shows you the bigger picture without painting every cat grey.

It’s certainly good to have an overview to refresh what I know about European history and add the occasional new nugget. I have never read a better summary narrative of the military, diplomatic and political events of the period. Blanning is unpitying in his analysis (Blenheim and Waterloo not that important in the long scheme of things, other (non-British battles) highly significant). Did the British Industrial Revolution actually come to dominate because the French were mired in bankruptcy and war? One tends, this side of the Channel, to view the eighteenth century as elegant, bewigged enlightenment gentlemen if one is not careful. Blanning makes it very evident that it was a bloodthirsty, murderous age over much of Europe suffering from la gloire of Louis XIV, Frederick the Great and Napoleon and, if it comes to that, Britain’s far from always benign interference.

You then get equally brilliant summaries of the cultural, sexual, social, religion, courts etc. How the Prussian rulers converted the Junkers into a military asset while the Russian tsars had a confused relationship with their aristocracy. The changes in religion are clarified whereby the majority of the population as far as we can tell were deeply religious, the parish clergy were admired, the higher clergy were aristocratic placeholders in various ways. The enlightened wanted to cut away the superstitions of popular religion in Catholic when that is what the populace actually liked.

In short for a quick overview of the period it's excellent. show less

In this narrative of the history of Europe from the Westphalian peace settlement, until the battle of Waterloo, Tim Blanning manages to put in almost everything. He goes threw the state and development in every field conceivable such as agriculture, trade, religion, rulers, palaces, science, the Enlightenment, art (etc.) and then finishes the book of with a more chronological part describing the wars during the period. This specific era in history and the changes during it are many times forgotten. But it was during these years that the kings manage to wrestle the power out of the hands of the nobility, thereby making the nations more powerful. In the beginning of this era anyone was easily burned as a witch whereas in the end of this show more period any accuser would probably end up in jail themselves. The world saw also the birth of the artist that wasn’t solemnly confined to wishes of a royal patron, but could instead make their living and sometimes fortune by selling their service to an increasing public. The book is interesting, witty and extremely well written. Mr Blanning seems to bee the kind of historian that wants the reader to start thinking. He gives other perspectives on things that are usually seen as matter of facts. Was for example the Holy Roman Empire such a preposterous creation if it managed to stay a float for a thousand years? Was the Industrial Revolution really a “revolution” or is that just a label attached retrospectively to an evolutionary process? It did wonders for this reader who more than occasionally had to pause to grasp the extent of what is written on the pages of this book. At the same time Tim Blanning manages to explain why the Bitts came out on top at the end after all the wars against France, and why this historical period marked the end of the glorious days for Spain, the Ottoman Empire and Sweden, and the beginning for Prussia and Russia.
What this book doesn’t give you is a total chronological order in what happened in what country, or simplified explanations over broad areas as materialist historians sometimes do. In my opinion that would have been impossible with the dept and extent of what Tim Blanning manages to cover. But he could have presented his references in other ways than just in the running text.
One of the best history books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. A five out of five… show less

This is the volume in Penguin's History of Europe series covering the "long 18th century", and it's presumably the format of the series that is responsible for some of the odder aspects of the book's design, including the total absence of notes and references, which would render it essentially useless to any serious student. Fortunately I'm only a frivolous student, so that didn't put me off too much, but it is a very important point to bear in mind if you're thinking about buying the book.

Blanning takes a thematic approach, following particular topics across the continent and across the years apparently more-or-less as the fancy takes him, without a very conspicuous plan or agenda. Broadly, the first part of the book is about social show more and technological questions, the second about kingship and power, the third about ideas, and the rather rushed and neglected fourth about warfare.

This means you're likely to get lost quite quickly if you don't already have a reasonably clear idea of the outlines of 18th century European history, but it does pick up some interesting patterns and connections. It isn't like reading Hobsbawm or someone like that, who can show you how all the pieces effortlessly fall into one clear ideological framework: most of the time Blanning is exploring at least two different ways of reading the same set of facts and showing how both approaches can teach us something interesting.

It's occasionally a little frustrating when there are important chapters Blanning would clearly have liked to write but didn't and others he wrote without much enthusiasm. Warfare, for instance, is a topic that evidently lost its novelty for Blanning long ago, but must have been included at the insistence of the Penguin editors, whilst we never get the chapter on Methodism, Pietism and Jansenism that Blanning keeps referring to.

The period is one that includes a lot of big personalities. Blanning doesn't fall into the temptation of diverting the book into a string of mini-biographies, but he does let Peter and Catherine of Russia, Frederick of Prussia, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Voltaire, Goethe and the rest all get their fair share of attention. Frederick the Great is clearly a favourite, and Blanning quotes frequently from his writings - I have no problem with that. Napoleon, on the other hand, doesn't seem to excite him at all. Altogether, thinkers get more space here than men of action: Marlborough, Wellington and Nelson are all basically offstage characters, but Clausewitz gets his few minutes in the spotlight.

I found this an enjoyable and profitable read: whilst it didn't tell me very much about the 18th century I didn't know at least vaguely already, it did show me a few new ways of linking concepts together. But I don't think it would be a good introduction to the subject for a novice, and it certainly isn't a useful reference book (no footnotes!). show less

I favor books that are not too thrilling, even a bit boring. I don't want the next page pulling at me when it's time for sleep at night. History books usually fill the bill. I know how they turn out so I am along for the ride and whatever insights the author has. But with this book, I find, there are some books too boring even for me. This is good for my sleep. I put the book down well before I had planned. I will say that it has interesting facts about birth control, transportation, the plague, etc. arranged almost encyclopedically. I am still plugging away at it though, I just read several mysteries last wek and stayed up till the early morning. Now I need to catch up on my sleep.

Not for the amateur reader. This book already assumes that the reader is familiar with all the wars (and by its own admission, there are more wars and confusing alliances in the 17th century than in the half millennium preceding it), their immediate causes and consequences. It instead concerns itself with subtler long term trends (as subtle as the health of road networks in different kingdoms on which there is a very exciting 50 page discussion) which makes for an extremely tough slog. There are some interesting bits towards the end when Bonaparte appears on the scene but overall, I didn't get much out of this book.

I'm sure it's incredibly difficult to write a book about European History covering a hundred and fifty years which is at all academically respectable; Mr Blanning has certainly done it. But the balancing of respectability with accessibility has come at great cost. First, what is surely the most bizarre decision every taken in the history of publishing, this book has no end-notes. So where an author might want to write "the condition of roads in Europe was very bad in 1648, but by the nineteenth century things were very much improved," and then throw a few statistics in the end-note, Blanning compiles thirty pages of anecdotes and figures- about *ROADS* for the love of god. Important, yes. Interesting, no. Second, the book's perspective show more is bottom up in a slightly too literal sense. That chapter on roads is the first one; you'll read virtually nothing about the 'high' realms of culture and politics until the final chapters. I understand why you might want to do that theoretically, and I agree with those theories, but reading it is water torture. Third, on the evidence of this book Blanning is a militant atheist. Whatever, many academics are, but it skews his analysis and the content of this book. You may well be interested in the gardens and hunting habits of aristos during this period, but to give as many pages to *each* of those activities as you do to the entire edifice of *both* the Catholic and Protestant churches in this time period is flat out wrong.

These three points, combined with the crazy hype surrounding this book, makes me give it two stars. He writes well, but thanks to the no-notes business it's not very readable. Maybe the second edition can be 350 pages of text plus 200 pages of notes; maybe the narrative element will be a bit stronger. That'd be a five star book, because his judgments are very persuasive and fairly independent of prevailing fashions (e.g., really, the industrial revolution happened and was kinda important.) show less

A broad book with a curious structure: its built around topics (such as transportation, or palaces, or art) and discusses their status and evolution throughout the period from roughly 1650 to 1815. The result is a set of separate pieces; the job of the reader here is to assemble them, and it's not easy.

The selection of topics seems somewhat whimsical. For instance, there is a full chapter on hunting and one on palaces and gardens, yet there is almost nothing about overseas expansionism and imperialism, almost nothing on slavery.

Perhaps the best way to approach this book is to first browse it to get an idea of its topics, and then to use it as a reference for the subject of one's interest.