This volume follows Metternich's career up to the restoration of the Bourbons in France. Originally published in 1963. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Using new archival sources, this book shows that Prussia sought not the unity of Germany but its partition into five masses loosely enough joined to assure her control of the North. Hardenberg, not Metternich, supported the feudalistic claims of the estates suppressed by Napoleon and the resurrection of ancient estates' assemblies based mainly on corporate orders. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

A compelling new biography that recasts the most important European statesman of the first half of the nineteenth century, famous for his alleged archconservatism, as a friend of realpolitik and reform, pursuing international peace. Metternich has a reputation as the epitome of reactionary conservatism. Historians treat him as the archenemy of progress, a ruthless aristocrat who used his power as the dominant European statesman of the first half of the nineteenth century to stifle liberalism, suppress national independence, and oppose the dreams of social change that inspired the revolutionaries of 1848. Wolfram Siemann paints a fundamentally new image of the man who shaped Europe for over four decades. He reveals Metternich as more modern and his career much more forward-looking than we have ever recognized. Clemens von Metternich emerged from the horrors of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, Siemann shows, committed above all to the preservation of peace. That often required him, as the Austrian Empire’s foreign minister and chancellor, to back authority. He was, as Henry Kissinger has observed, the father of realpolitik. But short of compromising on his overarching goal Metternich aimed to accommodate liberalism and nationalism as much as possible. Siemann draws on previously unexamined archives to bring this multilayered and dazzling man to life. We meet him as a tradition-conscious imperial count, an early industrial entrepreneur, an admirer of Britain’s liberal constitution, a failing reformer in a fragile multiethnic state, and a man prone to sometimes scandalous relations with glamorous women. Hailed on its German publication as a masterpiece of historical writing, Metternich will endure as an essential guide to nineteenth-century Europe, indispensable for understanding the forces of revolution, reaction, and moderation that shaped the modern world.

Despite the large number of books and studies written about Metternich, there is still a period of his political career that scholars neglect to this day, the 1840s. This book offers an analysis of Metternich's German policy in the years 1840–1848 and thus fills a gap in Metternich studies. Analysing this period is important due to the fact that over the course of those less than nine years, Metternich lost his influence within the German Confederation. He represented a certain way of behaving – moderate, calm and reconciliatory – but it was an attitude which was rejected during the period of rising mass nationalism. Nevertheless, he continued to endeavour to steer this escalating nationalism, and by applying calming policies prevent it from causing armed conflicts in Europe. Since Metternich conceived the German Confederation at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as one of the pillars of the European peace settlement, the issue is viewed from the perspective of European crises of the time, from the Rhine Crisis to the Swiss civil war. Similarly, it presents his policy in a broader context of economic and social history. The book follows revisionist research on Metternich and refutes some of the clichés still associated with his policy.

Originally published in 1957—years before he was Secretary of State and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize—, Henry Kissinger wrote A World Restored, to understand and explain one of history’s most important and dramatic periods; a time when Europe went from political chaos to a balanced peace that lasted for almost a hundred years. After the fall of Napoleon, European diplomats gathered in a festive Vienna with the task of restoring stability following the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. The central figures at the Congress of Vienna were the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, Viscount Castlereagh and the Foreign Minister of Austria Klemens Wenzel von Mettern Metternich. Castlereagh was primarily concerned with maintaining balanced powers, while Metternich based his diplomacy on the idea of legitimacy—that is, establishing and working with governments that citizens accept without force. The peace they brokered lasted until the outbreak of World War I. Through trenchant analysis of the history and forces that create stability, A World Restored gives insight into how to create long-lasting geopolitical peace-lessons that Kissinger saw as applicable to the period immediately following World War II, when he was writing this book. But the lessons don’t stop there. Like all good insights, the book’s wisdom transcends any single political period. Kissinger’s understanding of coalitions and balance of power can be applied to personal and professional situations, such as dealing with a tyrannical boss or co-worker or formulating business or organizational tactics. Regardless of his ideology, Henry Kissinger has had an important impact on modern politics and few would dispute his brilliance as a strategist. For anyone interested in Western history, the tactics of diplomacy, or political strategy, this volume will provide deep understanding of a pivotal time.

Like volume one of Michael Broers’s magnificent biography, The Spirit of the Age is based on the new version of Napoleon’s correspondence, made available by the Fondation Napoléon in Paris. It is the story of Napoleon’s conquest of Europe—and that of his magnificent Grande Armée—as they sweep through the length and breadth of Europe. This narrative opens with Napoleon’s as yet untested army making its way through the Bavarian Alps in the early winter of 1805 to fall upon the unsuspecting Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz. This was only the beginning of a series of spectacular victories over the Prussians and Russians over the next two years. The chronicle then follows the army into Spain, in 1808, the most ill-considered step in Napoleon’s career as ruler, and then through the most daunting triumph of all, the final defeat of Austria at Wagram, in 1809, the bloodiest battle in European history up to that time.

A History of Germany, 1800 to the Present is a commanding survey of modern German history that guides you from the turn of the 19th century right the way through to Germany's continuing world-power status today. Covering the revolutions of 1848-49, Bismarck, the World Wars, the Cold War and the progress of a reunified Germany, the 5th edition of this classic textbook provides an authoritative exploration of the country across the whole period like no other. This edition includes: * A new first chapter covering 1800-1815 * A greatly expanded chapter on the re-unification in 1989-90 * An absorbing final chapter on the political, economic, and social developments in the 'new' Federal Republic from 1990 to the present, including a comprehensive analysis of the financial crisis of 2008-2010 * Additional content throughout on: the political activism and engagement of women from 1848-49 to the present; the significance of German colonialism from 1884 to 1919; the origins of WWI; the Third Reich; and the GDR * Biographical textbox vignettes of key actors * For the first time, 40 images and 9 maps Rich with insights into the key historiographical debates, this book offers a thorough introduction to Germany's complex modern history.

Biography of Clemons von Metternich, who destroyed Napoleon, directed Habsburg Censtria's policy for forty years, and tried to unify Europe.

The Habsburg Empire's grand strategy for outmaneuvering and outlasting stronger rivals in a complicated geopolitical world The Empire of Habsburg Austria faced more enemies than any other European great power. Flanked on four sides by rivals, it possessed few of the advantages that explain successful empires. Yet somehow Austria endured, outlasting Ottoman sieges, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. A. Wess Mitchell tells the story of how this cash-strapped, polyglot empire survived for centuries in Europe's most dangerous neighborhood without succumbing to the pressures of multisided warfare. He shows how the Habsburgs played the long game in geopolitics, corralling friend and foe alike into voluntarily managing the empire's lengthy frontiers and extending a benign hegemony across the turbulent lands of middle Europe. The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire offers lessons on how to navigate a messy geopolitical map, stand firm without the advantage of military predominance, and prevail against multiple rivals.