1848: Year of Revolution

The dramatic story of the interconnected revolutions that shattered the old European order and transformed the continent

“A fully nuanced portrait of a tumultuous year.” —Wall Street Journal

In 1848 a torrent of revolutions ripped through Europe. Crowds of working-class radicals and middle-class liberals in Paris, Milan, Venice, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Krakow, Munich, and Berlin toppled the old conservative regimes and began the task of forging a new order. Political events so dramatic had not been seen in Europe since the French Revolution of 1789 and would not be witnessed again until the revolutions of Eastern and Central Europe in 1989.

In 1848, historian Mike Rapport traces the roots of the revolutionary fervor and the explosive spread of violence across Europe and reveals the many ways in which 1848 continues to shape the modern world.

Mike Rapport is a professor of history at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. The author of Nineteenth Century Europe, The Napoleonic Wars, The Unruly City, and City of Light, City of Shadows, and co-editor of Teaching and Understanding the Age of Revolutions, Rapport lives in Stirling, Scotland.