After 6 months of reading on-and-off, I’ve finally finished with this history of the 1848 revolutions by Christopher Clark (also behind “The Sleepwalkers”, “Iron Kingdom”).

It was a very good read, if a little ponderous at times. It’s a blend of social history, economic history, literary history… all at once and the scope is staggering. Clark will sometimes spend almost as many pages laying out the political philosophy of an obscure 19th century Italian theorist as he does describing the March days uprising in Berlin. Many other asides like this, relating the changes in political theory across the 19th century (different conceptions of how Italy should be unified, the impact of the counter-revolutionaries on radical thinkers in the years to follow, etc.)
Clark really has his work cut out of him with this subject - having to both draw out the interconnectedness between the different revolutions in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Palermo, Milan, but also making it clear how they each took their own course, and why… even if all followed broadly the same arc of “revolution (bringing liberals to the fore), entropy, failed radical take-over, counter-revolution). It was a little complicated to keep up with the timeline of events across all the different theaters at times. I also come into the topic not knowing much, except for the French side (July Monarchy, 2nd Republic, Louis Napoleon, etc.)
I thought the writing slowed a bit too much at times, with a lot of academic fluff when the book veered more into theory (for example, when discussing the social aims and national aims coming into contradiction, or merging). Like I said, slightly ponderous and abstract in those places.

I hope Clark continues to write and get published. For me, “The Sleepwalkers” was a masterpiece.