The representation of epochs is the supreme discipline of historical science.

It requires not only the most comprehensive research, but also the greatest rigor in the selection of the material;

nowhere else does so much of so much choice have to be sorted out again.

The question of form is not an external one, but a preliminary decision about the content.

One can, like Fernand Braudel in his history of the Mediterranean world under Philip II, illuminate an entire epoch from one event - the naval battle of Lepanto - or, like Jürgen Osterhammel in his "Transformation of the World", approach it with a dense network of approach concepts;

Depending on the situation, the depiction will be more like a wall painting with a depth view or a thousand-piece puzzle.

Andrew Kilb

Feature correspondent in Berlin.

  • Follow I follow

But one can also try to balance the anecdotal and the analytical, however delicate, so that neither gains preponderance.

This is how the British historian Tim Blanning thinks in his book about the "Awakening of Europe" between 1648 and 1815, with all the advantages and disadvantages that this middle way entails.

A decisive advantage should be mentioned here: It is the unconditional readability of Blanning's prose.

Everyone underestimated France's urge to expand

Blanning has divided his account, which originally appeared in 2006 as part of a series of books on European history, into four main parts: "Life and Death", "Power", "Religion and Culture" and "War and Peace".

It is about the conditions of everyday life, the structure of power, the world of ideas and expression and real history from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century - and the diverse connections between these spheres.

It is no coincidence that the chapter on “Castles and Gardens” is in the section on art.

With Blanning you often scroll back and forth.

This does not detract from the enjoyment of reading.

The peace congresses in Osnabrück, Münster and Vienna, between which Blanning's panorama spans, had the common goal of restoring the European power constellation to a stable state after a long period of disruption.

The contracting parties of 1815 managed to do this for at least four decades, while their predecessors of 1648 did not.

As Blanning shows in the concluding chapters, they underestimated the expansionist drive of the French monarchy, which went on the offensive after the Fronde uprising had been crushed.

Louis XIV's wars of conquest lasted a good fifty years before the territories of Western and Southern Europe were redistributed again with the treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt.

Napoleon followed in the footsteps of the Sun King

But this peace was no more than an interim stage in that "second Hundred Years' War" between France and England that forms the backbone of Blanning's narrative.

When a new actor entered the scene in the form of the rising Prussia under Frederick the Great, the conflict spread to all of Europe and, through the western powers' overseas possessions, to half the world.

Napoleon, marching first on Vienna, then Berlin and finally Moscow while his fleet engaged in battles with the British, was essentially following in the footsteps of the "Sun King".

The French Revolution had paved the way for it, in that, after initial liberation slogans, it quickly switched to a policy of military subjugation of its neighbors.