The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics After Napoleon - Hardcover

Brian E. Vick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674729714 ISBN 13: 9780674729711

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2014

Synopsis

Convened following Napoleon s defeat in 1814, the Congress of Vienna is remembered as much for the pageantry of the royals and elites who gathered there as for the landmark diplomatic agreements they brokered. Historians have nevertheless generally dismissed these spectacular festivities as window dressing when compared with the serious, behind-the-scenes maneuverings of sovereigns and statesmen. Brian Vick finds this conventional view shortsighted, seeing these instead as two interconnected dimensions of politics. Examining them together yields a more complete picture of how one of the most important diplomatic summits in history managed to redraw the map of Europe and the international system of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Congress of Vienna" investigates the Vienna Congress within a broad framework of influence networks that included unofficial opinion-shapers of all kinds, both men and women: artists and composers, entrepreneurs and writers, hosts and attendees of fashionable salons. In addition to high-profile negotiation and diplomatic wrangling over the post-Napoleonic fates of Germany, Italy, and Poland, Vick brings into focus other understudied yet significant issues: the African slave trade, Jewish rights, and relations with Islamic powers such as the Ottoman Empire and Barbary Corsairs. Challenging the usual portrayal of a reactionary Congress obsessed with rolling back Napoleon s liberal reforms, Vick demonstrates that the Congress s promotion of limited constitutionalism, respect for religious and nationality rights, and humanitarian interventions was influenced as much by liberal currents as by conservative ones."

About this title

Review:

A new and intriguing interpretation of one of the major events of nineteenth-century Europe. Vick expands and transforms our view of the Congress of Vienna and, more broadly, of the history of European diplomacy. Written with both clarity and grace, this book will be read by all historians of modern Europe. --Jonathan Sperber, University of Missouri

It is interesting to read about the broader social life of the Congress [...] [Vick is] successful at expanding the historian s purview in another way, by arguing for the significance of overlooked issues at Vienna [...] such as initiatives for religious toleration and efforts to abolish the slave trade. --Times Literary Supplement

"The public culture of diplomacy is the central focus of this valuable work on the Congress of Vienna, a gathering of Europe s diplomats from September 1814 to June 1815 to undertake negotiations whose legacy would prove to be far-reaching. Drawing on a wide range of manuscript and printed sources, Brian Vick shows that the event defies easy categorisation. Far from the Congress having been the stage for rigid conservatives, as is often presented or implied, Vick shows that it was emblematic of the vitality, porosity and adaptability of conservatism in this period... In a particularly valuable chapter on salon networks, Vick considers the impact of salon opinion on diplomacy and politics, and the important roles played by women in generating and disseminating such opinion... The Congress of Vienna also offers a valuable discussion of religious sociability and politics, as with the issue of Jewish rights... This is a thoughtful and significant study that will be of wide-ranging importance for our understanding of early 19th-century Europe. --Times Higher Education

About the Author:

Brian E. Vick is Associate Professor of History at Emory University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0674729714
• ISBN 13: 9780674729711
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 448