Normen und Praxis. Das europaische Konzert der Gro machte als Sicherheitssrat, 1815-1860

Abstract

Fifteen years ago, the historiography of the nineteenth century was transmogrified by Paul Schroeder's ground-breaking Transformation of European Politics. This argued that the ‘Concert of Europe’ was not simply a return—albeit a chastened one—to the old eighteenth-century ‘balance of power’ politics. Rather, Schroeder claimed, European international relations became fundamentally cooperative from the final stage of the Napoleonic Wars in 1812/13 and remained so until well into the middle of the century (his book closed in 1847 on the eve of the 1848 Revolutions). Matthias Schulz's formidable new work Normen und Praxis. Das europäische Konzert der Grossmächte als Sicherheitsrat, 1815–1860 does not set out to overturn Schroeder's thesis. If there is a problem with Schroeder, in fact, it is that he does not know how right he was. In particular, Schulz looks in much greater detail than Schroeder at the ambassadors’ conferences, basing his study not only on the massive secondary literature and printed primary material, but also on manuscript material in Prussian, Austrian and French archives (though not, oddly enough, in British ones).