New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice From the bestselling author of The Sleepwalkers comes an epic history of the 1848 revolutions that swept Europe, and the charismatic figures who propelled them forward, Refreshingly original . . . Familiar characters are given vibrancy and previously unknown players emerge from the shadows. The Times (Uk)As history, the uprisings of 1848 have long been overshadowed by the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian revolutions of the early twentieth century. And yet in 1848 nearly all of Europe was aflame with conflict. Parallel political tumults spread like brush fire across the entire continent, leading to significant changes that continue to shape our world today. These battles for the future were fought with one eye kept squarely on the past- The men and women of 1848 saw the urgent challenges of their world as shaped profoundly by the past, and saw themselves as inheritors of a revolutionary tradition. Celebrated Cambridge historian Christopher Clark describes 1848 as, the particle collision chamber at the center of the European nineteenth century, a moment when political movements and ideas from socialism and democratic radicalism to liberalism, nationalism, corporatism, and conservatism were tested and transformed.