Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World 1848–1849

Published in 2023, Revolutionary Spring examines the extraordinary wave of political upheaval that swept across Europe in 1848 and 1849. From Paris and Vienna to Berlin, Budapest, Milan and Prague, Christopher Clark follows the revolutionaries, monarchs, intellectuals and ordinary citizens who challenged the established political order. Liberalism, nationalism, socialism and republicanism converged in a period of remarkable popular mobilisation, as different visions of a new Europe emerged from the barricades. Clark gives particular attention to the international connections between these movements, showing how events in one city could transform political possibilities thousands of miles away.

Neither a simple history of revolutionary triumph nor a narrative of inevitable defeat, the book explores the contradictions and competing ambitions that ultimately fractured the revolutionary movements. With extraordinary breadth and attention to individual experience, Clark recovers a pivotal moment in the making of modern Europe. Revolutionary Spring is an ambitious contribution to the history of democracy, political identity and the unfinished struggle for a new social order.

From the book

“The year 1848 was a European event.” — Christopher Clark, Revolutionary Spring

On Revolutionary Spring

“A magnificent reappraisal of the 1848 revolutions.” — The Guardian