Paul W. Schroeder's Concert of Europe

Abstract

Forty for Mastery in Europe, 1848-1918 was published as the first volume of the Oxford History of Modem Europe. For many years, the dustcovers of the handful of other volumes appearing in the series (there have been only ten, including Schroeder's) promised a volume by Piers Mackesy on Europe from the outbreak of the French Revolution to the revolutions of 1848. That was not to be. At some stage, the torch was passed to Paul Schroeder, who sensibly pushed the starting-date back to 1763 and, more controversially, changed the title to The Transformation of European Politics. Ironically, in a trailer for the main feature, published in 1985, Schroeder criticized Taylor for choosing as the title for his book The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, arguing that there was no struggle in Europe during the period in question until the 1890s at the earliest.1 This invites the countercharge that Schroeder's own title The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848 is a misnomer, for he argues with some insistence that the transformation did not take eighty-five years but just two, occurring during 18 13-15 (p. vii). Indeed, he emphasizes that European statesmen 'suddenly succeeded in learning how to conduct international politics differently and better', invoking the authority of Sir John Plumb to support his contention that political stability can be achieved very quickly. Of course it did not come like a clap of thunder in a clear sky, but at the very earliest, the learning process did not begin until the wars of the French Revolution, and the first statesman to show an inkling of what needed to be done was Leopold II (p. 88). There is more to this than carping about a misleading title. A reviewer in Le Monde observed that Michel Antoine's mammoth