Europe: 1715-1815

Abstract

Two useful single-volume introductions to the period, which in many ways supplement each other, are M. Beloff, The Age of Absolutism, 1660-1815 (Hutchinson, rev. edn 1966), which is a short treatment of the political facts, and S. Andrews, Eighteenth-century Europe: the 1680s to 1815 (Longman, 1965), which places a relatively heavy emphasis on political ideas and artistic and economic developments. They can be expanded, at a higher level of specialization, by volumes from three important English-language series. In Longman's General History of Europe there are M. S. Anderson, Europe in the Eighteenth Century, 1713-83 (1961) and F. L. Ford, Europe, 1780-1830 (1970); in the American Rise of Modern Europe series (Harper) there are P. Roberts, The Quest for Security, 1715-40 (1947), W. L. Dorn Competition for Empire, 1740-63 (1940), L. Gershoy, From Despotism to Revolution, 1763-89 (1944), C. Brinton, A Decade of Revolution, 1789-99 (1934) and G. Bruun, Europe and the French Imperium, 1799-1814 (1938). The most up-to-date assemblage of facts and ideas is to be found in the three relevant volumes of the New Cambridge Modern History, vol. 7, The Old Régime, 1713-63 (1957), vol. 8, The American and French Revolutions, 1763-93 (1965) and vol. 9, War and Peace in an Age of Upheaval, 1793-1830 (1965), though the arrangement and emphasis of these volumes is sometimes less than faultless. Vol. 7 of the French 'Clio' series, E. Préclin and V.-L. Tapié, Le XVIII e siècle (Paris, PUF, 1952), is still useful for its copious bibliographies and its efforts to indicate the most important points of controversy in different aspects of the history of the period.