Brilliant study of the long 19th century, 06 Jun 2007
In this outstanding book, Professor Bayly studies the world crises of 1776-1820 and 1848-65, and the great acceleration of 1890-1914, when imperial rivalries, industrialisation and urbanisation really took off.

He allows, "Lenin's view that what we are calling here the great acceleration after 1890 was rooted in the uneven development of capitalism at a global level still has something to recommend it."

He accepts that empires were based on the drive for profits: "Classic Marxist and liberal theories of economic change have emphasised the rationality of expanding capitalism. On this theory, the aim of Western expansion was to seize resources and subordinate labour. This is true in great measure."

He shows how empires benefited the ruling classes of the imperial powers by exploiting the labour power of the world's workers and peasants. "The argument that European growth helped hold down living standards elsewhere works well for many areas of the incipient poor colonized `south' which became raw material exporters to the rich `north'. This is clear if one examines the figures for the distribution of profits from some of the great nineteenth-century cash crops, such as raw cotton, hides, jute, cocoa, and palm oil. In all these cases, it was the overseas shippers, insurers, carriers and vendors in Europe and North America who took the vast proportion of `value added' to a quantity of produce in world trade. Local African, Asian, or South American merchants, let alone the peasant-producers, got only a very small percentage of the profits. On the other side, developing economies were forced to buy in at high cost the machinery for processing these agricultural raw materials. Thus the terms of trade were very much to the disadvantage of the `south' throughout the nineteenth-century, and actually deteriorated as more relatively poor areas became producers of basic export crops."

Ruling classes gained, by impoverishing the masses. "Indeed, it can be suggested that the stasis in Europe was in part the product of the annexation to itself of a huge extra-European hinterland which could only be governed by force and conservatism. At the beginning of the nineteenth-century, empire-builders had argued that their brutal conquest paved the way for the rise of civilisation, trade, and humane government in erstwhile barbarous states. Asia and Africa would be transformed by Christianity, utilitarian government, the doctrine of the rights of man, and perhaps by American freedoms. The situation in 1900 hardly seemed to bear out these predictions. The urban population throughout the British and French empires in Asia and North Africa remained stubbornly stuck at about 10 percent of the total, barely changed from the precolonial figure, and standards of living may even have fallen over the previous century. Anecdotal evidence collected by the first generation of Asian and African nationalists asserted that many once-prosperous bodies of peasants and artisans were actually worse off and more dependent on magnates than they had been in 1800."

He concludes, "intensified rivalry between the great, technologically armed European powers was a critical reason for the great leap forward of European empires after 1870. ... The `great acceleration' - the dramatic speeding up of global social, intellectual, and economic change after about 1890 - set loose a series of conflicts across the world which quite suddenly, and not necessarily predictably, became unmanageable in 1913-14. This was undoubtedly a European Great War. Yet it was also a world war and, in particular, a worldwide confrontation between Britain and Germany. As many contemporaries acknowledged, this was a war which had its roots in Mesopotamia and Algeria, Tanganyika and the Caucasus, as well as on the Franco-German and German-Russian frontiers. In one sense, Lenin was right when he argued that the First World War was an `imperialist war'. Economic, political, and cultural rivalries in the Balkans, Asia, and Africa were central causes of a conflict which was international in character."

Not unusually nowadays, good historians acknowledge that the great Marxists saw things more clearly than their enemies did.


The Birth of the Modern World, 04 Oct 2004
For someone who studied this period of history for my 'A'-levels I was very impressed by this book.

It brought back to me (and to life) the twists and turns of a period in world history that saw the global economy develop (with Britain playing a crucial role) and factors that really set the scene for how the twentieth century panned-out.

I believe this book could be seen as a landmark publication for this era that is scholarly, readable and informative without being too 'in-depth'.

Top book for the period.

Brilliant study of the long 19th century, 06 Jun 2007
In this outstanding book, Professor Bayly studies the world crises of 1776-1820 and 1848-65, and the great acceleration of 1890-1914, when imperial rivalries, industrialisation and urbanisation really took off.

He allows, "Lenin's view that what we are calling here the great acceleration after 1890 was rooted in the uneven development of capitalism at a global level still has something to recommend it."

He accepts that empires were based on the drive for profits: "Classic Marxist and liberal theories of economic change have emphasised the rationality of expanding capitalism. On this theory, the aim of Western expansion was to seize resources and subordinate labour. This is true in great measure."

He shows how empires benefited the ruling classes of the imperial powers by exploiting the labour power of the world's workers and peasants. "The argument that European growth helped hold down living standards elsewhere works well for many areas of the incipient poor colonized `south' which became raw material exporters to the rich `north'. This is clear if one examines the figures for the distribution of profits from some of the great nineteenth-century cash crops, such as raw cotton, hides, jute, cocoa, and palm oil. In all these cases, it was the overseas shippers, insurers, carriers and vendors in Europe and North America who took the vast proportion of `value added' to a quantity of produce in world trade. Local African, Asian, or South American merchants, let alone the peasant-producers, got only a very small percentage of the profits. On the other side, developing economies were forced to buy in at high cost the machinery for processing these agricultural raw materials. Thus the terms of trade were very much to the disadvantage of the `south' throughout the nineteenth-century, and actually deteriorated as more relatively poor areas became producers of basic export crops."

Ruling classes gained, by impoverishing the masses. "Indeed, it can be suggested that the stasis in Europe was in part the product of the annexation to itself of a huge extra-European hinterland which could only be governed by force and conservatism. At the beginning of the nineteenth-century, empire-builders had argued that their brutal conquest paved the way for the rise of civilisation, trade, and humane government in erstwhile barbarous states. Asia and Africa would be transformed by Christianity, utilitarian government, the doctrine of the rights of man, and perhaps by American freedoms. The situation in 1900 hardly seemed to bear out these predictions. The urban population throughout the British and French empires in Asia and North Africa remained stubbornly stuck at about 10 percent of the total, barely changed from the precolonial figure, and standards of living may even have fallen over the previous century. Anecdotal evidence collected by the first generation of Asian and African nationalists asserted that many once-prosperous bodies of peasants and artisans were actually worse off and more dependent on magnates than they had been in 1800."

He concludes, "intensified rivalry between the great, technologically armed European powers was a critical reason for the great leap forward of European empires after 1870. ... The `great acceleration' - the dramatic speeding up of global social, intellectual, and economic change after about 1890 - set loose a series of conflicts across the world which quite suddenly, and not necessarily predictably, became unmanageable in 1913-14. This was undoubtedly a European Great War. Yet it was also a world war and, in particular, a worldwide confrontation between Britain and Germany. As many contemporaries acknowledged, this was a war which had its roots in Mesopotamia and Algeria, Tanganyika and the Caucasus, as well as on the Franco-German and German-Russian frontiers. In one sense, Lenin was right when he argued that the First World War was an `imperialist war'. Economic, political, and cultural rivalries in the Balkans, Asia, and Africa were central causes of a conflict which was international in character."

Not unusually nowadays, good historians acknowledge that the great Marxists saw things more clearly than their enemies did.


The Birth of the Modern World, 04 Oct 2004
For someone who studied this period of history for my 'A'-levels I was very impressed by this book.

It brought back to me (and to life) the twists and turns of a period in world history that saw the global economy develop (with Britain playing a crucial role) and factors that really set the scene for how the twentieth century panned-out.

I believe this book could be seen as a landmark publication for this era that is scholarly, readable and informative without being too 'in-depth'.

Top book for the period.

Mr Bromley - life as a legend, 13 Jul 2003
Mr Bromley - you are a legend! May the history department hold straight and true with you at the helm. Without this book my Russki revision would have been tantamount to suicide instead of a gentle walk in the park as it was! What more need I say??!!

Brilliant study of the long 19th century, 06 Jun 2007
In this outstanding book, Professor Bayly studies the world crises of 1776-1820 and 1848-65, and the great acceleration of 1890-1914, when imperial rivalries, industrialisation and urbanisation really took off.

He allows, "Lenin's view that what we are calling here the great acceleration after 1890 was rooted in the uneven development of capitalism at a global level still has something to recommend it."

He accepts that empires were based on the drive for profits: "Classic Marxist and liberal theories of economic change have emphasised the rationality of expanding capitalism. On this theory, the aim of Western expansion was to seize resources and subordinate labour. This is true in great measure."

He shows how empires benefited the ruling classes of the imperial powers by exploiting the labour power of the world's workers and peasants. "The argument that European growth helped hold down living standards elsewhere works well for many areas of the incipient poor colonized `south' which became raw material exporters to the rich `north'. This is clear if one examines the figures for the distribution of profits from some of the great nineteenth-century cash crops, such as raw cotton, hides, jute, cocoa, and palm oil. In all these cases, it was the overseas shippers, insurers, carriers and vendors in Europe and North America who took the vast proportion of `value added' to a quantity of produce in world trade. Local African, Asian, or South American merchants, let alone the peasant-producers, got only a very small percentage of the profits. On the other side, developing economies were forced to buy in at high cost the machinery for processing these agricultural raw materials. Thus the terms of trade were very much to the disadvantage of the `south' throughout the nineteenth-century, and actually deteriorated as more relatively poor areas became producers of basic export crops."

Ruling classes gained, by impoverishing the masses. "Indeed, it can be suggested that the stasis in Europe was in part the product of the annexation to itself of a huge extra-European hinterland which could only be governed by force and conservatism. At the beginning of the nineteenth-century, empire-builders had argued that their brutal conquest paved the way for the rise of civilisation, trade, and humane government in erstwhile barbarous states. Asia and Africa would be transformed by Christianity, utilitarian government, the doctrine of the rights of man, and perhaps by American freedoms. The situation in 1900 hardly seemed to bear out these predictions. The urban population throughout the British and French empires in Asia and North Africa remained stubbornly stuck at about 10 percent of the total, barely changed from the precolonial figure, and standards of living may even have fallen over the previous century. Anecdotal evidence collected by the first generation of Asian and African nationalists asserted that many once-prosperous bodies of peasants and artisans were actually worse off and more dependent on magnates than they had been in 1800."

He concludes, "intensified rivalry between the great, technologically armed European powers was a critical reason for the great leap forward of European empires after 1870. ... The `great acceleration' - the dramatic speeding up of global social, intellectual, and economic change after about 1890 - set loose a series of conflicts across the world which quite suddenly, and not necessarily predictably, became unmanageable in 1913-14. This was undoubtedly a European Great War. Yet it was also a world war and, in particular, a worldwide confrontation between Britain and Germany. As many contemporaries acknowledged, this was a war which had its roots in Mesopotamia and Algeria, Tanganyika and the Caucasus, as well as on the Franco-German and German-Russian frontiers. In one sense, Lenin was right when he argued that the First World War was an `imperialist war'. Economic, political, and cultural rivalries in the Balkans, Asia, and Africa were central causes of a conflict which was international in character."

Not unusually nowadays, good historians acknowledge that the great Marxists saw things more clearly than their enemies did.


The Birth of the Modern World, 04 Oct 2004
For someone who studied this period of history for my 'A'-levels I was very impressed by this book.

It brought back to me (and to life) the twists and turns of a period in world history that saw the global economy develop (with Britain playing a crucial role) and factors that really set the scene for how the twentieth century panned-out.

I believe this book could be seen as a landmark publication for this era that is scholarly, readable and informative without being too 'in-depth'.

Top book for the period.

Mr Bromley - life as a legend, 13 Jul 2003
Mr Bromley - you are a legend! May the history department hold straight and true with you at the helm. Without this book my Russki revision would have been tantamount to suicide instead of a gentle walk in the park as it was! What more need I say??!!

A very informative well written book., 10 May 2002
This book proved invaluable in the study of the social history of Europe at degree level. Gildeas book gives a very informative of European history, not just from the political point of view. The study of demography, industrialisation and the development of education within Europe gives a much deeper understanding of European history, and stands out from the many books written purely about European political history.

Brilliant study of the long 19th century, 06 Jun 2007
In this outstanding book, Professor Bayly studies the world crises of 1776-1820 and 1848-65, and the great acceleration of 1890-1914, when imperial rivalries, industrialisation and urbanisation really took off.

He allows, "Lenin's view that what we are calling here the great acceleration after 1890 was rooted in the uneven development of capitalism at a global level still has something to recommend it."

He accepts that empires were based on the drive for profits: "Classic Marxist and liberal theories of economic change have emphasised the rationality of expanding capitalism. On this theory, the aim of Western expansion was to seize resources and subordinate labour. This is true in great measure."

He shows how empires benefited the ruling classes of the imperial powers by exploiting the labour power of the world's workers and peasants. "The argument that European growth helped hold down living standards elsewhere works well for many areas of the incipient poor colonized `south' which became raw material exporters to the rich `north'. This is clear if one examines the figures for the distribution of profits from some of the great nineteenth-century cash crops, such as raw cotton, hides, jute, cocoa, and palm oil. In all these cases, it was the overseas shippers, insurers, carriers and vendors in Europe and North America who took the vast proportion of `value added' to a quantity of produce in world trade. Local African, Asian, or South American merchants, let alone the peasant-producers, got only a very small percentage of the profits. On the other side, developing economies were forced to buy in at high cost the machinery for processing these agricultural raw materials. Thus the terms of trade were very much to the disadvantage of the `south' throughout the nineteenth-century, and actually deteriorated as more relatively poor areas became producers of basic export crops."

Ruling classes gained, by impoverishing the masses. "Indeed, it can be suggested that the stasis in Europe was in part the product of the annexation to itself of a huge extra-European hinterland which could only be governed by force and conservatism. At the beginning of the nineteenth-century, empire-builders had argued that their brutal conquest paved the way for the rise of civilisation, trade, and humane government in erstwhile barbarous states. Asia and Africa would be transformed by Christianity, utilitarian government, the doctrine of the rights of man, and perhaps by American freedoms. The situation in 1900 hardly seemed to bear out these predictions. The urban population throughout the British and French empires in Asia and North Africa remained stubbornly stuck at about 10 percent of the total, barely changed from the precolonial figure, and standards of living may even have fallen over the previous century. Anecdotal evidence collected by the first generation of Asian and African nationalists asserted that many once-prosperous bodies of peasants and artisans were actually worse off and more dependent on magnates than they had been in 1800."

He concludes, "intensified rivalry between the great, technologically armed European powers was a critical reason for the great leap forward of European empires after 1870. ... The `great acceleration' - the dramatic speeding up of global social, intellectual, and economic change after about 1890 - set loose a series of conflicts across the world which quite suddenly, and not necessarily predictably, became unmanageable in 1913-14. This was undoubtedly a European Great War. Yet it was also a world war and, in particular, a worldwide confrontation between Britain and Germany. As many contemporaries acknowledged, this was a war which had its roots in Mesopotamia and Algeria, Tanganyika and the Caucasus, as well as on the Franco-German and German-Russian frontiers. In one sense, Lenin was right when he argued that the First World War was an `imperialist war'. Economic, political, and cultural rivalries in the Balkans, Asia, and Africa were central causes of a conflict which was international in character."

Not unusually nowadays, good historians acknowledge that the great Marxists saw things more clearly than their enemies did.


The Birth of the Modern World, 04 Oct 2004
For someone who studied this period of history for my 'A'-levels I was very impressed by this book.

It brought back to me (and to life) the twists and turns of a period in world history that saw the global economy develop (with Britain playing a crucial role) and factors that really set the scene for how the twentieth century panned-out.

I believe this book could be seen as a landmark publication for this era that is scholarly, readable and informative without being too 'in-depth'.

Top book for the period.

Mr Bromley - life as a legend, 13 Jul 2003
Mr Bromley - you are a legend! May the history department hold straight and true with you at the helm. Without this book my Russki revision would have been tantamount to suicide instead of a gentle walk in the park as it was! What more need I say??!!

A very informative well written book., 10 May 2002
This book proved invaluable in the study of the social history of Europe at degree level. Gildeas book gives a very informative of European history, not just from the political point of view. The study of demography, industrialisation and the development of education within Europe gives a much deeper understanding of European history, and stands out from the many books written purely about European political history.

Good, but you can find better, 17 Oct 2003
This is not at all a bad book; generally very readable, clear and covering the key points and the development of the war, this volume is clearly recommendable for those interested in a general overview of this conflict to an intermidiate level.
Used in conjunction with parts of Nish's other volume "The Anglo-Japanese Alliance" and with Ute Mehnert's "Deutschland, Amerika und die Gelbe Gefahr", you can form a very detailed picture of the conflict, the issues at stake and the large contextual frame involving all the major powers, gaining from greater precision and much wider perspective than you can obtain from this book alone. And, of course, if you can't read German, well, though; go and learn it! There is a (scholarly) world beyond the borders of the anglophone states, so get used to resistance to Anglo-saxon cultural imperialism!

Russo-Japanese war, 09 Nov 2002
This book was very well recieved as i had been scouring the bookshelves of shops for months to find an interesting and comprehensive history of this war. it is very well written and includes all information neccessary- and much more. it ranges from the origins of the conflict right through to the aftermath and consequences. it also gives detailed acounts and contentent of the soldiers equipment, biographies of important figuers and fantasticly detailed maps helping to add another dimesnion to the book. it is very interesting to read and i was very pleasantly surprised by it. this book gets my full, undivided backing and is a must buy for history enthusiasts of all genres and earas.

Brilliant study of the long 19th century, 06 Jun 2007
In this outstanding book, Professor Bayly studies the world crises of 1776-1820 and 1848-65, and the great acceleration of 1890-1914, when imperial rivalries, industrialisation and urbanisation really took off.

He allows, "Lenin's view that what we are calling here the great acceleration after 1890 was rooted in the uneven development of capitalism at a global level still has something to recommend it."

He accepts that empires were based on the drive for profits: "Classic Marxist and liberal theories of economic change have emphasised the rationality of expanding capitalism. On this theory, the aim of Western expansion was to seize resources and subordinate labour. This is true in great measure."

He shows how empires benefited the ruling classes of the imperial powers by exploiting the labour power of the world's workers and peasants. "The argument that European growth helped hold down living standards elsewhere works well for many areas of the incipient poor colonized `south' which became raw material exporters to the rich `north'. This is clear if one examines the figures for the distribution of profits from some of the great nineteenth-century cash crops, such as raw cotton, hides, jute, cocoa, and palm oil. In all these cases, it was the overseas shippers, insurers, carriers and vendors in Europe and North America who took the vast proportion of `value added' to a quantity of produce in world trade. Local African, Asian, or South American merchants, let alone the peasant-producers, got only a very small percentage of the profits. On the other side, developing economies were forced to buy in at high cost the machinery for processing these agricultural raw materials. Thus the terms of trade were very much to the disadvantage of the `south' throughout the nineteenth-century, and actually deteriorated as more relatively poor areas became producers of basic export crops."

Ruling classes gained, by impoverishing the masses. "Indeed, it can be suggested that the stasis in Europe was in part the product of the annexation to itself of a huge extra-European hinterland which could only be governed by force and conservatism. At the beginning of the nineteenth-century, empire-builders had argued that their brutal conquest paved the way for the rise of civilisation, trade, and humane government in erstwhile barbarous states. Asia and Africa would be transformed by Christianity, utilitarian government, the doctrine of the rights of man, and perhaps by American freedoms. The situation in 1900 hardly seemed to bear out these predictions. The urban population throughout the British and French empires in Asia and North Africa remained stubbornly stuck at about 10 percent of the total, barely changed from the precolonial figure, and standards of living may even have fallen over the previous century. Anecdotal evidence collected by the first generation of Asian and African nationalists asserted that many once-prosperous bodies of peasants and artisans were actually worse off and more dependent on magnates than they had been in 1800."

He concludes, "intensified rivalry between the great, technologically armed European powers was a critical reason for the great leap forward of European empires after 1870. ... The `great acceleration' - the dramatic speeding up of global social, intellectual, and economic change after about 1890 - set loose a series of conflicts across the world which quite suddenly, and not necessarily predictably, became unmanageable in 1913-14. This was undoubtedly a European Great War. Yet it was also a world war and, in particular, a worldwide confrontation between Britain and Germany. As many contemporaries acknowledged, this was a war which had its roots in Mesopotamia and Algeria, Tanganyika and the Caucasus, as well as on the Franco-German and German-Russian frontiers. In one sense, Lenin was right when he argued that the First World War was an `imperialist war'. Economic, political, and cultural rivalries in the Balkans, Asia, and Africa were central causes of a conflict which was international in character."

Not unusually nowadays, good historians acknowledge that the great Marxists saw things more clearly than their enemies did.


The Birth of the Modern World, 04 Oct 2004
For someone who studied this period of history for my 'A'-levels I was very impressed by this book.

It brought back to me (and to life) the twists and turns of a period in world history that saw the global economy develop (with Britain playing a crucial role) and factors that really set the scene for how the twentieth century panned-out.

I believe this book could be seen as a landmark publication for this era that is scholarly, readable and informative without being too 'in-depth'.

Top book for the period.

Mr Bromley - life as a legend, 13 Jul 2003
Mr Bromley - you are a legend! May the history department hold straight and true with you at the helm. Without this book my Russki revision would have been tantamount to suicide instead of a gentle walk in the park as it was! What more need I say??!!

A very informative well written book., 10 May 2002
This book proved invaluable in the study of the social history of Europe at degree level. Gildeas book gives a very informative of European history, not just from the political point of view. The study of demography, industrialisation and the development of education within Europe gives a much deeper understanding of European history, and stands out from the many books written purely about European political history.

Good, but you can find better, 17 Oct 2003
This is not at all a bad book; generally very readable, clear and covering the key points and the development of the war, this volume is clearly recommendable for those interested in a general overview of this conflict to an intermidiate level.
Used in conjunction with parts of Nish's other volume "The Anglo-Japanese Alliance" and with Ute Mehnert's "Deutschland, Amerika und die Gelbe Gefahr", you can form a very detailed picture of the conflict, the issues at stake and the large contextual frame involving all the major powers, gaining from greater precision and much wider perspective than you can obtain from this book alone. And, of course, if you can't read German, well, though; go and learn it! There is a (scholarly) world beyond the borders of the anglophone states, so get used to resistance to Anglo-saxon cultural imperialism!

Russo-Japanese war, 09 Nov 2002
This book was very well recieved as i had been scouring the bookshelves of shops for months to find an interesting and comprehensive history of this war. it is very well written and includes all information neccessary- and much more. it ranges from the origins of the conflict right through to the aftermath and consequences. it also gives detailed acounts and contentent of the soldiers equipment, biographies of important figuers and fantasticly detailed maps helping to add another dimesnion to the book. it is very interesting to read and i was very pleasantly surprised by it. this book gets my full, undivided backing and is a must buy for history enthusiasts of all genres and earas.

A Missed Opportunity, 18 Aug 2007
Michael Burleig is a historian of some re-known and brings his undoubted abilities in the creation of this book. His central theses

`Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism.' , 05 Jul 2007
Burleigh's main thesis is that the human desire to create a utopia here on earth, often religiously-tinged knowingly or otherwise, can unleash ferocious violence and suffering. This argument is not terribly original. In the 1950s, both Czeslaw Milosz (in 'The Captive Mind') and Albert Camus (in 'The Rebel') drew attention to the religious trappings of Communism. Nevertheless, Burleigh brings the empiricism of the historian to bear on the topic, and does so admirably. The main exemplar of secular religion explored in the book is that of French Revolution. Only two of the book's ten chapters deal with the Revolution, but ideas born in the cauldron of this seminal event, especially the secular utopian impulse, reoccurred throughout the following century and more, and therefore inform Burleigh's discussion of the period up to the Great War.
Burleigh does not provide a detailed history of the revolution. Rather, he traces the relationship between the French Catholic Church and the ever more radical revolutionaries in the period from the Estates General to the Reign of Terror. Seeing religion as an obstacle to the enlightenment of man, the revolutionaries aimed at its eradication in the long term and it's domestication in the short term. This, however, did not stop the new establishment using religiously-tinged vocabulary, motifs, art and public spectacles in an attempt to inculcate loyalty to the regime amongst the ordinary French populace. `What is Baptism?' enquired the imaginary interlocutor in a handbook aimed at fostering revolutionary enthusiasm in the young. `It is the regeneration of the French begun on 14 July 1789, and soon supported by the entire French nation,' came the reply. `What is Communion?' `It is the association proposed of all peoples by the French Republic henceforth to form on earth only one family of brothers who no longer recognize or worship any idol or tyrant' (p. 82). Robespierre's wish list of the moral principles that should inform the new Republic, with its unstated belief in the malleability of human nature, anticipates the `New Man' of Soviet propaganda: `In our country we want to substitute ethics for egotism, integrity for honour, principles for habits, duties for protocol, the empire of reason for the tyranny of changing taste...'(p. 91). Yet, when, in 1793 the Catholic inhabitants of the Vendée region, eschewing the revolution's secular religion of liberty, equality and fraternity, rose in rebellion against the increasingly heavy exactions of Paris, the revolutionary forces descended on the region to wage a virtual holy war on the heretics. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed by guillotine, cannon fire and mass drowning, in what Burleigh refers to as a `holocaust'. It was a `difficult' mission, in the words of one commander, one that demanded the ordinary soldier renounce `all the affections which nature and gentle habits have made dear to his heart' (p. 99). But somebody had to do it.
Burleigh's sympathy for organized religion is obvious. He sees it as a repository of wisdom that helped people to cope with the complexity of life. He adopts a fairly indulgent attitude towards the autocratic nature of the Church and its actions, while being quite censorious of those `liberals' (that great bogey!) who laboured for the separation of Church and State. The total laicization of elementary teaching in 1880s France, he writes, `signified the end of a venerable tradition based on the unity of religion, knowledge and moral instruction, with the attendant danger that `God', `nation', `society', `morality' and so forth would be taught as mutually exclusive entities with no sense in which they might be used to blunt one another's harder edges' (p. 346). Contrary to simple-minded rationalists who equate religion with superstition, Burleigh writes that `Christian monotheism...separated God from the world and hence encouraged man to make it intelligible' (p. 326). He also draws attention to the `palaeo-liberal religious origins of many essential limitations on secular power that the modern world has inherited from much earlier clashes of Church and state' (p. 326).
Other topics covered in the book include the secular religions of nationalism and socialism, the alliance of throne and alter in Restoration Europe, the attempts of religiously motivated people to soften the malign effects of industrial capitalism, deracinated intellectuals and purifying terrorism in late 19th century Russia, and the attitude of various religious towards the outbreak of war in 1914. Burleigh is amusing on the utopian fantasies of such intellectuals as Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte and Charles Fourier (seas of lemonade, anyone?), although the totalitarian tinges to their Positivist fantasies are quite frightening. The book does get a little tedious as Burleigh flits between Britain, France and Germany and back again, detailing the ebb and flow of Church-State relations in the mid- to late- 19th century. Nevertheless, it's a good book. As a personification of the totalitarian mindset Burleigh quotes Shigalov from Dostoyevsky's 'The Possessed': `I am perplexed by my own date and my conclusion is a direct contradiction of the original idea with which I start,' observes Shigalov. `Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism. I will add, however, that there can be no solution of the social problem but mine' (p. 295).


Between two horrors, 14 Mar 2006
Michael Burleigh has written a fine history of religion in Europe from the horrors of th French Revolution to those of the trenches of the first World War and its influence on politics, particularly the rise of nationalism.

He writes well and with great breadth of learning. You need to have a dictionary to hand. He is no bland academic pretending to an objective neutrality. He is scathingly critical of received Marxist views of history.

He concentrates on the big players, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and Italy. Presumably he sees these as the significant participants. This I believe leads to one glaring omission, The Netherlands, and the Protestants there who gave the best critique of the Enligtenment and the revolution it produced. Groen van Prinsterer and Abraham Kuyper are never mentioned. Their Anti-Revolutionary Party whose ground breaking alliance with the Catholics led to Kuyper becoming Prime Minister is ignored. Yet the influence of Kuyper continues today beyong his home country. By contrast Burleigh tells us about many people seemingly forgotten by all.

One final minor quibble. Describing English dissenters as going form being sects to churches sounds to me like Anglican prejudice unless the author thinks that sects grow into churches when they enlarge.

But this is a superb history to impove one's understanding of European history.

Brilliant study of the long 19th century, 06 Jun 2007
In this outstanding book, Professor Bayly studies the world crises of 1776-1820 and 1848-65, and the great acceleration of 1890-1914, when imperial rivalries, industrialisation and urbanisation really took off.

He allows, "Lenin's view that what we are calling here the great acceleration after 1890 was rooted in the uneven development of capitalism at a global level still has something to recommend it."

He accepts that empires were based on the drive for profits: "Classic Marxist and liberal theories of economic change have emphasised the rationality of expanding capitalism. On this theory, the aim of Western expansion was to seize resources and subordinate labour. This is true in great measure."

He shows how empires benefited the ruling classes of the imperial powers by exploiting the labour power of the world's workers and peasants. "The argument that European growth helped hold down living standards elsewhere works well for many areas of the incipient poor colonized `south' which became raw material exporters to the rich `north'. This is clear if one examines the figures for the distribution of profits from some of the great nineteenth-century cash crops, such as raw cotton, hides, jute, cocoa, and palm oil. In all these cases, it was the overseas shippers, insurers, carriers and vendors in Europe and North America who took the vast proportion of `value added' to a quantity of produce in world trade. Local African, Asian, or South American merchants, let alone the peasant-producers, got only a very small percentage of the profits. On the other side, developing economies were forced to buy in at high cost the machinery for processing these agricultural raw materials. Thus the terms of trade were very much to the disadvantage of the `south' throughout the nineteenth-century, and actually deteriorated as more relatively poor areas became producers of basic export crops."

Ruling classes gained, by impoverishing the masses. "Indeed, it can be suggested that the stasis in Europe was in part the product of the annexation to itself of a huge extra-European hinterland which could only be governed by force and conservatism. At the beginning of the nineteenth-century, empire-builders had argued that their brutal conquest paved the way for the rise of civilisation, trade, and humane government in erstwhile barbarous states. Asia and Africa would be transformed by Christianity, utilitarian government, the doctrine of the rights of man, and perhaps by American freedoms. The situation in 1900 hardly seemed to bear out these predictions. The urban population throughout the British and French empires in Asia and North Africa remained stubbornly stuck at about 10 percent of the total, barely changed from the precolonial figure, and standards of living may even have fallen over the previous century. Anecdotal evidence collected by the first generation of Asian and African nationalists asserted that many once-prosperous bodies of peasants and artisans were actually worse off and more dependent on magnates than they had been in 1800."

He concludes, "intensified rivalry between the great, technologically armed European powers was a critical reason for the great leap forward of European empires after 1870. ... The `great acceleration' - the dramatic speeding up of global social, intellectual, and economic change after about 1890 - set loose a series of conflicts across the world which quite suddenly, and not necessarily predictably, became unmanageable in 1913-14. This was undoubtedly a European Great War. Yet it was also a world war and, in particular, a worldwide confrontation between Britain and Germany. As many contemporaries acknowledged, this was a war which had its roots in Mesopotamia and Algeria, Tanganyika and the Caucasus, as well as on the Franco-German and German-Russian frontiers. In one sense, Lenin was right when he argued that the First World War was an `imperialist war'. Economic, political, and cultural rivalries in the Balkans, Asia, and Africa were central causes of a conflict which was international in character."

Not unusually nowadays, good historians acknowledge that the great Marxists saw things more clearly than their enemies did.


The Birth of the Modern World, 04 Oct 2004
For someone who studied this period of history for my 'A'-levels I was very impressed by this book.

It brought back to me (and to life) the twists and turns of a period in world history that saw the global economy develop (with Britain playing a crucial role) and factors that really set the scene for how the twentieth century panned-out.

I believe this book could be seen as a landmark publication for this era that is scholarly, readable and informative without being too 'in-depth'.

Top book for the period.

Mr Bromley - life as a legend, 13 Jul 2003
Mr Bromley - you are a legend! May the history department hold straight and true with you at the helm. Without this book my Russki revision would have been tantamount to suicide instead of a gentle walk in the park as it was! What more need I say??!!

A very informative well written book., 10 May 2002
This book proved invaluable in the study of the social history of Europe at degree level. Gildeas book gives a very informative of European history, not just from the political point of view. The study of demography, industrialisation and the development of education within Europe gives a much deeper understanding of European history, and stands out from the many books written purely about European political history.

Good, but you can find better, 17 Oct 2003
This is not at all a bad book; generally very readable, clear and covering the key points and the development of the war, this volume is clearly recommendable for those interested in a general overview of this conflict to an intermidiate level.
Used in conjunction with parts of Nish's other volume "The Anglo-Japanese Alliance" and with Ute Mehnert's "Deutschland, Amerika und die Gelbe Gefahr", you can form a very detailed picture of the conflict, the issues at stake and the large contextual frame involving all the major powers, gaining from greater precision and much wider perspective than you can obtain from this book alone. And, of course, if you can't read German, well, though; go and learn it! There is a (scholarly) world beyond the borders of the anglophone states, so get used to resistance to Anglo-saxon cultural imperialism!

Russo-Japanese war, 09 Nov 2002
This book was very well recieved as i had been scouring the bookshelves of shops for months to find an interesting and comprehensive history of this war. it is very well written and includes all information neccessary- and much more. it ranges from the origins of the conflict right through to the aftermath and consequences. it also gives detailed acounts and contentent of the soldiers equipment, biographies of important figuers and fantasticly detailed maps helping to add another dimesnion to the book. it is very interesting to read and i was very pleasantly surprised by it. this book gets my full, undivided backing and is a must buy for history enthusiasts of all genres and earas.

A Missed Opportunity, 18 Aug 2007
Michael Burleig is a historian of some re-known and brings his undoubted abilities in the creation of this book. His central theses

`Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism.' , 05 Jul 2007
Burleigh's main thesis is that the human desire to create a utopia here on earth, often religiously-tinged knowingly or otherwise, can unleash ferocious violence and suffering. This argument is not terribly original. In the 1950s, both Czeslaw Milosz (in 'The Captive Mind') and Albert Camus (in 'The Rebel') drew attention to the religious trappings of Communism. Nevertheless, Burleigh brings the empiricism of the historian to bear on the topic, and does so admirably. The main exemplar of secular religion explored in the book is that of French Revolution. Only two of the book's ten chapters deal with the Revolution, but ideas born in the cauldron of this seminal event, especially the secular utopian impulse, reoccurred throughout the following century and more, and therefore inform Burleigh's discussion of the period up to the Great War.
Burleigh does not provide a detailed history of the revolution. Rather, he traces the relationship between the French Catholic Church and the ever more radical revolutionaries in the period from the Estates General to the Reign of Terror. Seeing religion as an obstacle to the enlightenment of man, the revolutionaries aimed at its eradication in the long term and it's domestication in the short term. This, however, did not stop the new establishment using religiously-tinged vocabulary, motifs, art and public spectacles in an attempt to inculcate loyalty to the regime amongst the ordinary French populace. `What is Baptism?' enquired the imaginary interlocutor in a handbook aimed at fostering revolutionary enthusiasm in the young. `It is the regeneration of the French begun on 14 July 1789, and soon supported by the entire French nation,' came the reply. `What is Communion?' `It is the association proposed of all peoples by the French Republic henceforth to form on earth only one family of brothers who no longer recognize or worship any idol or tyrant' (p. 82). Robespierre's wish list of the moral principles that should inform the new Republic, with its unstated belief in the malleability of human nature, anticipates the `New Man' of Soviet propaganda: `In our country we want to substitute ethics for egotism, integrity for honour, principles for habits, duties for protocol, the empire of reason for the tyranny of changing taste...'(p. 91). Yet, when, in 1793 the Catholic inhabitants of the Vendée region, eschewing the revolution's secular religion of liberty, equality and fraternity, rose in rebellion against the increasingly heavy exactions of Paris, the revolutionary forces descended on the region to wage a virtual holy war on the heretics. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed by guillotine, cannon fire and mass drowning, in what Burleigh refers to as a `holocaust'. It was a `difficult' mission, in the words of one commander, one that demanded the ordinary soldier renounce `all the affections which nature and gentle habits have made dear to his heart' (p. 99). But somebody had to do it.
Burleigh's sympathy for organized religion is obvious. He sees it as a repository of wisdom that helped people to cope with the complexity of life. He adopts a fairly indulgent attitude towards the autocratic nature of the Church and its actions, while being quite censorious of those `liberals' (that great bogey!) who laboured for the separation of Church and State. The total laicization of elementary teaching in 1880s France, he writes, `signified the end of a venerable tradition based on the unity of religion, knowledge and moral instruction, with the attendant danger that `God', `nation', `society', `morality' and so forth would be taught as mutually exclusive entities with no sense in which they might be used to blunt one another's harder edges' (p. 346). Contrary to simple-minded rationalists who equate religion with superstition, Burleigh writes that `Christian monotheism...separated God from the world and hence encouraged man to make it intelligible' (p. 326). He also draws attention to the `palaeo-liberal religious origins of many essential limitations on secular power that the modern world has inherited from much earlier clashes of Church and state' (p. 326).
Other topics covered in the book include the secular religions of nationalism and socialism, the alliance of throne and alter in Restoration Europe, the attempts of religiously motivated people to soften the malign effects of industrial capitalism, deracinated intellectuals and purifying terrorism in late 19th century Russia, and the attitude of various religious towards the outbreak of war in 1914. Burleigh is amusing on the utopian fantasies of such intellectuals as Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte and Charles Fourier (seas of lemonade, anyone?), although the totalitarian tinges to their Positivist fantasies are quite frightening. The book does get a little tedious as Burleigh flits between Britain, France and Germany and back again, detailing the ebb and flow of Church-State relations in the mid- to late- 19th century. Nevertheless, it's a good book. As a personification of the totalitarian mindset Burleigh quotes Shigalov from Dostoyevsky's 'The Possessed': `I am perplexed by my own date and my conclusion is a direct contradiction of the original idea with which I start,' observes Shigalov. `Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism. I will add, however, that there can be no solution of the social problem but mine' (p. 295).


Between two horrors, 14 Mar 2006
Michael Burleigh has written a fine history of religion in Europe from the horrors of th French Revolution to those of the trenches of the first World War and its influence on politics, particularly the rise of nationalism.

He writes well and with great breadth of learning. You need to have a dictionary to hand. He is no bland academic pretending to an objective neutrality. He is scathingly critical of received Marxist views of history.

He concentrates on the big players, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and Italy. Presumably he sees these as the significant participants. This I believe leads to one glaring omission, The Netherlands, and the Protestants there who gave the best critique of the Enligtenment and the revolution it produced. Groen van Prinsterer and Abraham Kuyper are never mentioned. Their Anti-Revolutionary Party whose ground breaking alliance with the Catholics led to Kuyper becoming Prime Minister is ignored. Yet the influence of Kuyper continues today beyong his home country. By contrast Burleigh tells us about many people seemingly forgotten by all.

One final minor quibble. Describing English dissenters as going form being sects to churches sounds to me like Anglican prejudice unless the author thinks that sects grow into churches when they enlarge.

But this is a superb history to impove one's understanding of European history.

Trip to Munich, 20 Nov 2007
I took this new publication to Munich along with other, older guides to the city - I found it enormously useful, better planned and more informative than the other guides. Understandably, perhaps, the authorities in Munich have somewhat toned down many of the Hitler-related sites. This book flags up important places and events that you might normally miss. I was on a reconnaisance trip for a modern history tour I'm doing for a group of sixth formers - I'll certainly use this (very portable!) book as part of the course material. Good stuff - am looking forward to the next guides.

Fascinating read, 16 Sep 2006
This book is truly amazing. The author takes us on this incredible journey
around Munich visiting old (and erased)) Nazi sites. How they can be left
in Munich is unbelievable. The flat where Hitler met Chamberlain is still
standing and happily occupied by a family. It all gave me the shudders.
These places need to be recognised and brought to our attention so that we
can learn from them; certainly not to be brushed under the carpet!

Apart from this fascinating insight into the German psyche, where the past
seems to have somewhat vanished, this book gives a potted history of the
time. Terrific! Can't wait to get to Munich and go hunting those sites.

Brilliant study of the long 19th century, 06 Jun 2007
In this outstanding book, Professor Bayly studies the world crises of 1776-1820 and 1848-65, and the great acceleration of 1890-1914, when imperial rivalries, industrialisation and urbanisation really took off.

He allows, "Lenin's view that what we are calling here the great acceleration after 1890 was rooted in the uneven development of capitalism at a global level still has something to recommend it."

He accepts that empires were based on the drive for profits: "Classic Marxist and liberal theories of economic change have emphasised the rationality of expanding capitalism. On this theory, the aim of Western expansion was to seize resources and subordinate labour. This is true in great measure."

He shows how empires benefited the ruling classes of the imperial powers by exploiting the labour power of the world's workers and peasants. "The argument that European growth helped hold down living standards elsewhere works well for many areas of the incipient poor colonized `south' which became raw material exporters to the rich `north'. This is clear if one examines the figures for the distribution of profits from some of the great nineteenth-century cash crops, such as raw cotton, hides, jute, cocoa, and palm oil. In all these cases, it was the overseas shippers, insurers, carriers and vendors in Europe and North America who took the vast proportion of `value added' to a quantity of produce in world trade. Local African, Asian, or South American merchants, let alone the peasant-producers, got only a very small percentage of the profits. On the other side, developing economies were forced to buy in at high cost the machinery for processing these agricultural raw materials. Thus the terms of trade were very much to the disadvantage of the `south' throughout the nineteenth-century, and actually deteriorated as more relatively poor areas became producers of basic export crops."

Ruling classes gained, by impoverishing the masses. "Indeed, it can be suggested that the stasis in Europe was in part the product of the annexation to itself of a huge extra-European hinterland which could only be governed by force and conservatism. At the beginning of the nineteenth-century, empire-builders had argued that their brutal conquest paved the way for the rise of civilisation, trade, and humane government in erstwhile barbarous states. Asia and Africa would be transformed by Christianity, utilitarian government, the doctrine of the rights of man, and perhaps by American freedoms. The situation in 1900 hardly seemed to bear out these predictions. The urban population throughout the British and French empires in Asia and North Africa remained stubbornly stuck at about 10 percent of the total, barely changed from the precolonial figure, and standards of living may even have fallen over the previous century. Anecdotal evidence collected by the first generation of Asian and African nationalists asserted that many once-prosperous bodies of peasants and artisans were actually worse off and more dependent on magnates than they had been in 1800."

He concludes, "intensified rivalry between the great, technologically armed European powers was a critical reason for the great leap forward of European empires after 1870. ... The `great acceleration' - the dramatic speeding up of global social, intellectual, and economic change after about 1890 - set loose a series of conflicts across the world which quite suddenly, and not necessarily predictably, became unmanageable in 1913-14. This was undoubtedly a European Great War. Yet it was also a world war and, in particular, a worldwide confrontation between Britain and Germany. As many contemporaries acknowledged, this was a war which had its roots in Mesopotamia and Algeria, Tanganyika and the Caucasus, as well as on the Franco-German and German-Russian frontiers. In one sense, Lenin was right when he argued that the First World War was an `imperialist war'. Economic, political, and cultural rivalries in the Balkans, Asia, and Africa were central causes of a conflict which was international in character."

Not unusually nowadays, good historians acknowledge that the great Marxists saw things more clearly than their enemies did.


The Birth of the Modern World, 04 Oct 2004
For someone who studied this period of history for my 'A'-levels I was very impressed by this book.

It brought back to me (and to life) the twists and turns of a period in world history that saw the global economy develop (with Britain playing a crucial role) and factors that really set the scene for how the twentieth century panned-out.

I believe this book could be seen as a landmark publication for this era that is scholarly, readable and informative without being too 'in-depth'.

Top book for the period.

Mr Bromley - life as a legend, 13 Jul 2003
Mr Bromley - you are a legend! May the history department hold straight and true with you at the helm. Without this book my Russki revision would have been tantamount to suicide instead of a gentle walk in the park as it was! What more need I say??!!

A very informative well written book., 10 May 2002
This book proved invaluable in the study of the social history of Europe at degree level. Gildeas book gives a very informative of European history, not just from the political point of view. The study of demography, industrialisation and the development of education within Europe gives a much deeper understanding of European history, and stands out from the many books written purely about European political history.

Good, but you can find better, 17 Oct 2003
This is not at all a bad book; generally very readable, clear and covering the key points and the development of the war, this volume is clearly recommendable for those interested in a general overview of this conflict to an intermidiate level.
Used in conjunction with parts of Nish's other volume "The Anglo-Japanese Alliance" and with Ute Mehnert's "Deutschland, Amerika und die Gelbe Gefahr", you can form a very detailed picture of the conflict, the issues at stake and the large contextual frame involving all the major powers, gaining from greater precision and much wider perspective than you can obtain from this book alone. And, of course, if you can't read German, well, though; go and learn it! There is a (scholarly) world beyond the borders of the anglophone states, so get used to resistance to Anglo-saxon cultural imperialism!

Russo-Japanese war, 09 Nov 2002
This book was very well recieved as i had been scouring the bookshelves of shops for months to find an interesting and comprehensive history of this war. it is very well written and includes all information neccessary- and much more. it ranges from the origins of the conflict right through to the aftermath and consequences. it also gives detailed acounts and contentent of the soldiers equipment, biographies of important figuers and fantasticly detailed maps helping to add another dimesnion to the book. it is very interesting to read and i was very pleasantly surprised by it. this book gets my full, undivided backing and is a must buy for history enthusiasts of all genres and earas.

A Missed Opportunity, 18 Aug 2007
Michael Burleig is a historian of some re-known and brings his undoubted abilities in the creation of this book. His central theses

`Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism.' , 05 Jul 2007
Burleigh's main thesis is that the human desire to create a utopia here on earth, often religiously-tinged knowingly or otherwise, can unleash ferocious violence and suffering. This argument is not terribly original. In the 1950s, both Czeslaw Milosz (in 'The Captive Mind') and Albert Camus (in 'The Rebel') drew attention to the religious trappings of Communism. Nevertheless, Burleigh brings the empiricism of the historian to bear on the topic, and does so admirably. The main exemplar of secular religion explored in the book is that of French Revolution. Only two of the book's ten chapters deal with the Revolution, but ideas born in the cauldron of this seminal event, especially the secular utopian impulse, reoccurred throughout the following century and more, and therefore inform Burleigh's discussion of the period up to the Great War.
Burleigh does not provide a detailed history of the revolution. Rather, he traces the relationship between the French Catholic Church and the ever more radical revolutionaries in the period from the Estates General to the Reign of Terror. Seeing religion as an obstacle to the enlightenment of man, the revolutionaries aimed at its eradication in the long term and it's domestication in the short term. This, however, did not stop the new establishment using religiously-tinged vocabulary, motifs, art and public spectacles in an attempt to inculcate loyalty to the regime amongst the ordinary French populace. `What is Baptism?' enquired the imaginary interlocutor in a handbook aimed at fostering revolutionary enthusiasm in the young. `It is the regeneration of the French begun on 14 July 1789, and soon supported by the entire French nation,' came the reply. `What is Communion?' `It is the association proposed of all peoples by the French Republic henceforth to form on earth only one family of brothers who no longer recognize or worship any idol or tyrant' (p. 82). Robespierre's wish list of the moral principles that should inform the new Republic, with its unstated belief in the malleability of human nature, anticipates the `New Man' of Soviet propaganda: `In our country we want to substitute ethics for egotism, integrity for honour, principles for habits, duties for protocol, the empire of reason for the tyranny of changing taste...'(p. 91). Yet, when, in 1793 the Catholic inhabitants of the Vendée region, eschewing the revolution's secular religion of liberty, equality and fraternity, rose in rebellion against the increasingly heavy exactions of Paris, the revolutionary forces descended on the region to wage a virtual holy war on the heretics. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed by guillotine, cannon fire and mass drowning, in what Burleigh refers to as a `holocaust'. It was a `difficult' mission, in the words of one commander, one that demanded the ordinary soldier renounce `all the affections which nature and gentle habits have made dear to his heart' (p. 99). But somebody had to do it.
Burleigh's sympathy for organized religion is obvious. He sees it as a repository of wisdom that helped people to cope with the complexity of life. He adopts a fairly indulgent attitude towards the autocratic nature of the Church and its actions, while being quite censorious of those `liberals' (that great bogey!) who laboured for the separation of Church and State. The total laicization of elementary teaching in 1880s France, he writes, `signified the end of a venerable tradition based on the unity of religion, knowledge and moral instruction, with the attendant danger that `God', `nation', `society', `morality' and so forth would be taught as mutually exclusive entities with no sense in which they might be used to blunt one another's harder edges' (p. 346). Contrary to simple-minded rationalists who equate religion with superstition, Burleigh writes that `Christian monotheism...separated God from the world and hence encouraged man to make it intelligible' (p. 326). He also draws attention to the `palaeo-liberal religious origins of many essential limitations on secular power that the modern world has inherited from much earlier clashes of Church and state' (p. 326).
Other topics covered in the book include the secular religions of nationalism and socialism, the alliance of throne and alter in Restoration Europe, the attempts of religiously motivated people to soften the malign effects of industrial capitalism, deracinated intellectuals and purifying terrorism in late 19th century Russia, and the attitude of various religious towards the outbreak of war in 1914. Burleigh is amusing on the utopian fantasies of such intellectuals as Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte and Charles Fourier (seas of lemonade, anyone?), although the totalitarian tinges to their Positivist fantasies are quite frightening. The book does get a little tedious as Burleigh flits between Britain, France and Germany and back again, detailing the ebb and flow of Church-State relations in the mid- to late- 19th century. Nevertheless, it's a good book. As a personification of the totalitarian mindset Burleigh quotes Shigalov from Dostoyevsky's 'The Possessed': `I am perplexed by my own date and my conclusion is a direct contradiction of the original idea with which I start,' observes Shigalov. `Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism. I will add, however, that there can be no solution of the social problem but mine' (p. 295).


Between two horrors, 14 Mar 2006
Michael Burleigh has written a fine history of religion in Europe from the horrors of th French Revolution to those of the trenches of the first World War and its influence on politics, particularly the rise of nationalism.

He writes well and with great breadth of learning. You need to have a dictionary to hand. He is no bland academic pretending to an objective neutrality. He is scathingly critical of received Marxist views of history.

He concentrates on the big players, France, Germany, Britain, Russia and Italy. Presumably he sees these as the significant participants. This I believe leads to one glaring omission, The Netherlands, and the Protestants there who gave the best critique of the Enligtenment and the revolution it produced. Groen van Prinsterer and Abraham Kuyper are never mentioned. Their Anti-Revolutionary Party whose ground breaking alliance with the Catholics led to Kuyper becoming Prime Minister is ignored. Yet the influence of Kuyper continues today beyong his home country. By contrast Burleigh tells us about many people seemingly forgotten by all.

One final minor quibble. Describing English dissenters as going form being sects to churches sounds to me like Anglican prejudice unless the author thinks that sects grow into churches when they enlarge.

But this is a superb history to impove one's understanding of European history.

Trip to Munich, 20 Nov 2007
I took this new publication to Munich along with other, older guides to the city - I found it enormously useful, better planned and more informative than the other guides. Understandably, perhaps, the authorities in Munich have somewhat toned down many of the Hitler-related sites. This book flags up important places and events that you might normally miss. I was on a reconnaisance trip for a modern history tour I'm doing for a group of sixth formers - I'll certainly use this (very portable!) book as part of the course material. Good stuff - am looking forward to the next guides.

Fascinating read, 16 Sep 2006
This book is truly amazing. The author takes us on this incredible journey
around Munich visiting old (and erased)) Nazi sites. How they can be left
in Munich is unbelievable. The flat where Hitler met Chamberlain is still
standing and happily occupied by a family. It all gave me the shudders.
These places need to be recognised and brought to our attention so that we
can learn from them; certainly not to be brushed under the carpet!

Apart from this fascinating insight into the German psyche, where the past
seems to have somewhat vanished, this book gives a potted history of the
time. Terrific! Can't wait to get to Munich and go hunting those sites.

Mediocre at best - a missed opportunity!, 29 Jul 2007
The book is readable and quite well written. However it is fundamentally flawed as a history book because there are no endnotes, complete references within the text, or index only a select bibliography. Therefore the book was of no use to me as I was unable to easily follow up anything that really interested me in the text. Personally I thought that the book relied quite heavily on other people's books and research and because of the lack of references I was unable to get a clear grasp of how much individual or primary research the author had conducted herself. I had hoped that interviews would have been held with any remaining relatives of Franziska Schanzkowski and in this sense I feel it was a lost opportunity which could have given the book an interesting angle.

The book is ok for someone who has not read anything about the Romanovs or Anna Anderson possibly as an introduction but I could not personally recommend it to anyone who intends to study the subject at greater depth or has already read a number of books about them.

A Thorough Recounting of Anna Anderson's Life, 19 Mar 2007
Whilst the blurb for this book claims that the author set out to show how Anna Anderson was able to decieve so many people into believing she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia, youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, it in fact does the exact opposite. The author recounts Anna's life story from when she was pulled from a German canal in the 1920's to her death in Charlottesville in America in the 1980's. What Welch doesn't do is provide any new insights into just how Anderson was able to convince so many Imperial hangers-on that she was a Romanov.

Instead of providing evidence that Anderson wasn't Anastasia, Welch seems convinced that she was. She recounts the many times Anna was 'recognized' and juxtaposes them with sparse information on the Polish factory worker she was really supposed to be. Her greatest opponents such as her Uncle Ernest and Aunts Olga and Xenia are presented as devious and money-hungry or in Olga's case as meek doormats who had to deny Anna her 'right' due to family pressure.

As Anna Anderson's claim was one of the greatest deceptions of the 20th century this should have made for a fascinating insight into her mind and motives, instead it provides little insight into what made Anderson tick and why her followers believed her so throughly with so little evidence.

Romanov fantasy turns out to be a Romanov Disappointment, 11 Feb 2007
Frances Welch sets out to answer the question who was Anna Anderson - and how did she manage to convince so many people that she was the real Anastasia. This was and still is the question long overdue to be answered and that is why I bought this book in the first place. How did a Polish factory worker manage to slip into the role of a Romanov grand duchess so convincingly that many believed her and only DNA-testing could contradict this believe?

However Frances Welch did not answer this question at all. She recounts the story of Anna Anderson in full, but more or less from the perspective of her followers and especially from the point of view of the Gleb Botkin, son of the imperial family's physician who did with them. The book's title should rather be "Anna Anderson & the Botkins". The underlining theme seems to be she was indeed the grand duchess, even tough the starting point is she was not. There is more or less nothing how she could have acquire certain knowledge and behaviour of a member of the imperial family. In certain technical aspects the book is not very well written f. e; the passages on Anastasia becoming heed of the family and empress. Where is the hint that this would have been in contradiction of the Imperial rules of succession?

So all in all, I found this book a disappointment if one compares the self-proclaimed goal of the author and the results delivered by her.

Brilliant study of the long 19th century, 06 Jun 2007
In this outstanding book, Professor Bayly studies the world crises of 1776-1820 and 1848-65, and the great acceleration of 1890-1914, when imperial rivalries, industrialisation and urbanisation really took off.

He allows, "Lenin's view that what we are calling here the great acceleration after 1890 was rooted in the uneven development of capitalism at a global level still has something to recommend it."

He accepts that empires were based on the drive for profits: "Classic Marxist and liberal theories of economic change have emphasised the rationality of expanding capitalism. On this theory, the aim of Western expansion was to seize resources and subordinate labour. This is true in great measure."

He shows how empires benefited the ruling classes of the imperial powers by exploiting the labour power of the world's workers and peasants. "The argument that European growth helped hold down living standards elsewhere works well for many areas of the incipient poor colonized `south' which became raw material exporters to the rich `north'. This is clear if one examines the figures for the distribution of profits from some of the great nineteenth-century cash crops, such as raw cotton, hides, jute, cocoa, and palm oil. In all these cases, it was the overseas shippers, insurers, carriers and vendors in Europe and North America who took the vast proportion of `value added' to a quantity of produce in world trade. Local African, Asian, or South American merchants, let alone the peasant-producers, got only a very small percentage of the profits. On the other side, developing economies were forced to buy in at high cost the machinery for processing these agricultural raw materials. Thus the terms of trade were very much to the disadvantage of the `south' throughout the nineteenth-century, and actually deteriorated as more relatively poor areas became producers of basic export crops."

Ruling classes gained, by impoverishing the masses. "Indeed, it can be suggested that the stasis in Europe was in part the product of the annexation to itself of a huge extra-European hinterland which could only be governed by force and conservatism. At the beginning of the nineteenth-century, empire-builders had argued that their brutal conquest paved the way for the rise of civilisation, trade, and humane government in erstwhile barbarous states. Asia and Africa would be transformed by Christianity, utilitarian government, the doctrine of the rights of man, and perhaps by American freedoms. The situation in 1900 hardly seemed to bear out these predictions. The urban population throughout the British and French empires in Asia and North Africa remained stubbornly stuck at about 10 percent of the total, barely changed from the precolonial figure, and standards of living may even have fallen over the previous century. Anecdotal evidence collected by the first generation of Asian and African nationalists asserted that many once-prosperous bodies of peasants and artisans were actually worse off and more dependent on magnates than they had been in 1800."

He concludes, "intensified rivalry between the great, technologically armed European powers was a critical reason for the great leap forward of European empires after 1870. ... The `great acceleration' - the dramatic speeding up of global social, intellectual, and economic change after about 1890 - set loose a series of conflicts across the world which quite suddenly, and not necessarily predictably, became unmanageable in 1913-14. This was undoubtedly a European Great War. Yet it was also a world war and, in particular, a worldwide confrontation between Britain and Germany. As many contemporaries acknowledged, this was a war which had its roots in Mesopotamia and Algeria, Tanganyika and the Caucasus, as well as on the Franco-German and German-Russian frontiers. In one sense, Lenin was right when he argued that the First World War was an `imperialist war'. Economic, political, and cultural rivalries in the Balkans, Asia, and Africa were central causes of a conflict which was international in character."

Not unusually nowadays, good historians acknowledge that the great Marxists saw things more clearly than their enemies did.


The Birth of the Modern World, 04 Oct 2004
For someone who studied this period of history for my 'A'-levels I was very impressed by this book.

It brought back to me (and to life) the twists and turns of a period in world history that saw the global economy develop (with Britain playing a crucial role) and factors that really set the scene for how the twentieth century panned-out.

I believe this book could be seen as a landmark publication for this era that is scholarly, readable and informative without being too 'in-depth'.

Top book for the period.

Mr Bromley - life as a legend, 13 Jul 2003
Mr Bromley - you are a legend! May the history department hold straight and true with you at the helm. Without this book my Russki revision would have been tantamount to suicide instead of a gentle walk in the park as it was! What more need I say??!!

A very informative well written book., 10 May 2002
This book proved invaluable in the study of the social history of Europe at degree level. Gildeas book gives a very informative of European history, not just from the political point of view. The study of demography, industrialisation and the development of education within Europe gives a much deeper understanding of European history, and stands out from the many books written purely about European political history.

Good, but you can find better, 17 Oct 2003
This is not at all a bad book; generally very readable, clear and covering the key points and the development of the war, this volume is clearly recommendable for those interested in a general overview of this conflict to an intermidiate level.
Used in conjunction with parts of Nish's other volume "The Anglo-Japanese Alliance" and with Ute Mehnert's "Deutschland, Amerika und die Gelbe Gefahr", you can form a very detailed picture of the conflict, the issues at stake and the large contextual frame involving all the major powers, gaining from greater precision and much wider perspective than you can obtain from this book alone. And, of course, if you can't read German, well, though; go and learn it! There is a (scholarly) world beyond the borders of the anglophone states, so get used to resistance to Anglo-saxon cultural imperialism!

Russo-Japanese war, 09 Nov 2002
This book was very well recieved as i had been scouring the bookshelves of shops for months to find an interesting and comprehensive history of this war. it is very well written and includes all information neccessary- and much more. it ranges from the origins of the conflict right through to the aftermath and consequences. it also gives detailed acounts and contentent of the soldiers equipment, biographies of important figuers and fantasticly detailed maps helping to add another dimesnion to the book. it is very interesting to read and i was very pleasantly surprised by it. this book gets my full, undivided backing and is a must buy for history enthusiasts of all genres and earas.

A Missed Opportunity, 18 Aug 2007
Michael Burleig is a historian of some re-known and brings his undoubted abilities in the creation of this book. His central theses

`Starting from unlimited freedom, I arrive at unlimited despotism.' , 05 Jul 2007
Burleigh's main thesis is that the human desire to create a utopia here on earth, often religiously-tinged knowingly or otherwise, can unleash ferocious violence and suffering. This argument is not terribly original. In the 1950s, both Czeslaw Milosz (in 'The Captive Mind') and Albert Camus (in 'The Rebel') drew attention to the religious trappings of Communism. Nevertheless, Burleigh brings the empiricism of the historian to bear on the topic, and does so admirably. The main exemplar of secular religion explored in the book is that of French Revolution. Only two of the book's ten chapters deal with the Revolution, but ideas born in the cauldron of this seminal event, especially the secular utopian impulse, reoccurred throughout the following century and more, and therefore inform Burleigh's discussion of the period up to the Great War.
Burleigh does not provide a detailed history of the revolution. Rather, he traces the relationship between the French Catholic Church and the ever more radical revolutionaries in the period from the Estates General to the Reign of Terror. Seeing religion as an obstacle to the enlightenment of man, the revolutionaries aimed at its eradication in the long term and it's domestication in the short term. This, however, did not stop the new establishment using religiously-tinged vocabulary, motifs, art and public spectacles in an attempt to inculc