The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815–1914

Citation

Evans, R. J. (2017). The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815–1914. Penguin Books.

Chapter Summary

The Penguin paperback runs to 848 pages and forms volume 7 of the Penguin History of Europe, the series volume that covers the century between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of the First World War. It is organised in eight long chapters, followed by a further reading section and an index. The titles below follow the table of contents. The publisher's description and published reviews show the book's general approach; they do not say in detail what each chapter argues, so the notes below stay close to the titles and to those descriptions.

Chapter 1: The Legacies of Revolution

The opening chapter, by its title, takes up what the revolutionary and Napoleonic era left behind in 1815. The publisher describes the century as one that begins at the Battle of Waterloo and ends in 1914, and the chapter title marks that starting point.

Chapter 2: The Paradoxes of Freedom

The title points to the tensions in the idea of freedom in the nineteenth century. The publisher names serfdom among the subjects the book covers, alongside illness, religion and philosophy, which fits a chapter on the limits of liberty.

Chapter 3: The European Spring

A chapter title that echoes the "springtime of peoples", the name often given to the revolutions of the mid-century. The publisher states that the book gives full coverage to revolutions, empire-building and wars, and this chapter belongs to the revolutionary strand of that coverage.

Chapter 4: The Social Revolution

The fourth chapter turns from political upheaval to society. A Publishers Weekly review stresses that Evans defines power broadly and gives space to social and economic change as well as to war and diplomacy.

Chapter 5: The Conquest of Nature

This chapter title matches the same review's observation that the book treats advances in medicine and technological sources of power, from steam to electricity, as part of the story of power.

Chapter 6: The Age of Emotion

Publishers Weekly uses the phrase "age of emotion" for a period marked by a passion for knowledge and the pursuit of happiness, and the sixth chapter carries it as its title. It belongs to the book's attention to cultural and intellectual change.

Chapter 7: The Challenge of Democracy

By its title, the seventh chapter takes up the pressure of democratic politics in the decades before the war. The Times reviewer, as quoted by the publisher, calls the book transnational history.

Chapter 8: The Wages of Empire

The closing chapter concerns empire, as its title indicates. The publisher says the book shows how Europe shaped, and was shaped by, its interactions with other parts of the globe in an age when it dominated the rest of the world as never before or since.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3: Revolution and freedom

• Legacies of the revolutionary era: the starting point of the book's century at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
• Freedom and its paradoxes: the book's second chapter makes the contradictory character of freedom its subject.
• The European spring: the revolutionary wave of the mid-century.

Chapters 4–6: Society, nature and emotion

• Social revolution: the social transformation that accompanied political change.
• Conquest of nature: technological and medical mastery over the natural world, which Publishers Weekly counts as part of the book's idea of power.
• Age of emotion: the cultural and intellectual climate that the reviewer links to a passion for knowledge and the pursuit of happiness.

Chapters 7–8: Democracy and empire

• Challenge of democracy: the pressure for wider political participation.
• Wages of empire: the costs and consequences of European expansion overseas.
• Power: the book's organising question, who held it, who wanted it and how it was gained and kept, according to Publishers Weekly.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A broad definition of power. Publishers Weekly notes that Evans does not confine himself to war and diplomacy but includes medicine and technology, which gives the political narrative a social and material basis.
• Whole-continent coverage with a global frame. The publisher stresses that the book covers the continent and its relations with other parts of the world, and the Sunday Times reviewer lists material as varied as hunting in Hungary, trade unions in Dorset and Italian unification.
• A blend of political, social, economic, cultural and intellectual history. Richard Overy in the New Statesman credits the book with achieving this mixture while keeping coherence, in contrast to older accounts centred on high politics and the balance of power.
• Series context. As a volume of the Penguin History of Europe, it is written to stand as a full-length treatment of its century within a continent-wide series, by a historian whose earlier work centred on modern Germany.

Limitations

• Length. At 848 pages it is a long read, and it assumes a reader who will stay with a continental narrative. A shorter survey is a better first choice for a student who needs only an outline.
• A traditional framework. The Financial Times reviewer, as quoted by the publisher, calls the framework perhaps traditional while praising the scholarship. Readers who want a thematic, global treatment of the century will need a second book.
• Density of detail. The Sunday Times reviewer's description of "an almost impossibly vast range of material" is an indicator that the book is easier to read in sections than to absorb in one pass.

Where It Fits in the Course

The modern European history group contains broad surveys at different scales. Mason's A Concise History of Modern Europe is a short survey organised around liberty, equality and solidarity, and Doyle's The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction is a brief entry point to the revolutionary era that Evans's first chapter looks back on. Merriman's A History of Modern Europe is a comprehensive survey from the Renaissance to the present, and Davies's Europe: A History covers the whole of European history from ancient times. Two general textbooks of Western history, The Making of the West and Western Civilizations, treat the nineteenth century as one section of a longer course.

Evans is the one to read for depth on the long nineteenth century alone. It follows naturally after a short survey or a general textbook, and it makes sense before reading specialist studies of a country or a theme. Osterhammel's The Transformation of the World in the world and global history course approaches the same century by themes and on a global scale, so the two books complement each other.

How to Use This Book

The book is for undergraduates who already have the outline of modern European history, from a survey course or from general reading, and who want a full account of the nineteenth century. It suits a course on the nineteenth century, a reading list for a European history paper, or a reader preparing for specialist work on a region.

A practical plan:

• Read in order for the first time. The eight chapters build from the aftermath of revolution to empire, so reading them in sequence gives the overall shape of the century.
• Use the chapters as units. Each is long enough to serve as a self-contained reading for a week of a course. By their titles, chapters 2 and 4 lean to social history, chapters 3 and 7 to political history, chapter 5 to technology and the natural world, chapter 6 to cultural history and chapter 8 to empire.
• Keep a timeline and a map beside you. A book that covers the whole continent is easier to follow with a chronology of the main revolutions, wars and unifications in front of you.
• Follow the further reading section. The book ends with a further reading section, which is the natural route to monographs on a country or topic that interests you.