Revolutionary Spring

Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849

By: Christopher Clark

Narrated by: Christopher Clark

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, with deep resonance and frightening parallels to today.

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. The insurgents asked questions that sound modern to our ears: What happens when demands for political or economic liberty conflict with demands for social rights? How do we reconcile representative and direct forms of democracy? How is capitalism connected to social inequality? The revolutions of 1848 were short-lived, but their impact on public life and political thought throughout Europe and beyond has been profound.

Elegantly written, meticulously researched, and filled with a cast of charismatic figures, including the social theorist Alexis de Tocqueville and the troubled priest Félicité de Lamennais, who struggled to reconcile his faith with politics, Revolutionary Spring is a new understanding of 1848 that offers chilling parallels to our present moment. “Looking back at the revolutions from the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century, it is impossible not to be struck by the resonances,” Clark writes. “If a revolution is coming for us, it may look something like 1848.”


* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF of detailed historic maps, illustrations, portraits, and works of art pertaining to the material.

Critic reviews

“Refreshingly original . . . it’s fascinating, suspenseful, revelatory, alive. Familiar characters are given vibrancy and previously unknown players emerge from the shadows. Clark’s prose is beautiful but also crystal clear.”—The Times

“Magnificent, authoritative and deeply-researched . . . a supreme work of scholarship.”—The Telegraph

“Exhilarating, heroic, horrifying and tragic, the events of the mid-19th century in Europe invite a good retelling . . . Christopher Clark’s new book is, arguably, the best to date . . . deeply researched, rich, engaging and though-provoking. There is now no better place to turn for readers who want to immerse themselves in this period and to reflect on how it resonates today.”—Literary Review

“An engrossing dissection of a revolutionary year in European society.”—The Independent

‘Full of characters, colour and story, but also makes the arresting case that the revolutions . . . changed Europe and the world in ways felt to this day . . .the history teacher you wished you’d had.”—Daily Mail

“Christopher Clark is that rare thing: a great historian who is also a brilliant storyteller, with a gift for sketching scenes and delineating characters with a few deft brushstrokes. Revolutionary Spring is a beautifully written, richly detailed account of a historical moment that rhymes and resonates, in many strange ways, with our own era of turmoil and disruption.”—Amitav Ghosh, author of Sea of Poppies and The Great Derangement

Tremendous accomplishment!

Brilliantly read by the author, filled with imagery, irony, and sympathy for (most of) the actors in this Cecil B DeMille production. The text is sometimes witty, often poetic, always clear.

Scholarly but accessible

Like any good scholar the author throws a lot of information out there. However, this book is very listiinable and understandable. Sometimes a book about one subject deals with individuals no one knows and there background is not discribed. This one does not do that.

Wide, deep, and fascinating

Perhaps the best book I read or listened to this year - incredible detail and analysis, somehow able to make political turmoil in countless (at least I lost count) countries and regions understandable and relatable. This period was a huge blank spot in my historical understanding and now it feels like the last 250 years of Western history finally has a coherent arc. Striking parallels to our current era. Highly recommended.

Good Lord this is an amazing book

Every now and then you find history so well done that you just drop to your knees in awe. This is such a book. It’s long but it never dragged. And it application to today is obvious. And I wish more authors narrated their books. It makes all the difference in the world

Towards the World as it is Now.

Few authors are also good narrators but when they are, like Christopher Clark it is a treat because you know they are reading the book as it was intended. As a historian myself I have always felt foolish that I had a tenuous grasp of the revolutions of 1848 but I feel a little better now because as Clark says in his conclusion, nobody can fully understand the movement, including himself. That said, I do have a much better understanding and appreciation of this time. In a sense it is the birth of modern politics and constitutional government which has paved the way to evolution rather than revolution towards the democracies of the 20th century.