A major new account of the post-Napoleonic Holy Alliance and the
promise it held for liberals The Holy Alliance is now most familiar
as a label for conspiratorial reaction. In this book, Isaac
Nakhimovksy reveals the Enlightenment origins of this
post-Napoleonic initiative, explaining why it was embraced at first
by many contemporary liberals as the birth of a federal Europe and
the dawning of a peaceful and prosperous age of global progress.
Examining how the Holy Alliance could figure as both an idea of
progress and an emblem of reaction, Nakhimovsky offers a novel
vantage point on the history of federative alternatives to the
nation state. The result is a clearer understanding of the
recurring appeal of such alternatives—and the reasons why the
politics of federation has also come to be associated with
entrenched resistance to liberalism’s emancipatory aims.
Nakhimovsky connects the history of the Holy Alliance with the
better-known transatlantic history of eighteenth-century
constitutionalism and nineteenth-century efforts to abolish slavery
and war. He also shows how the Holy Alliance was integrated into a
variety of liberal narratives of progress. From the League of
Nations to the Cold War, historical analogies to the Holy Alliance
continued to be drawn throughout the twentieth century, and
Nakhimovsky maps how some of the fundamental political problems
raised by the Holy Alliance have continued to reappear in new forms
under new circumstances. Time will tell whether current assessments
of contemporary federal systems seem less implausible to future
generations than initial liberal expectations of the Holy Alliance
do to us today.
General
Imprint: |
Princeton University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
May 2024 |
Authors: |
Isaac Nakhimovsky
|
Dimensions: |
235 x 156mm (L x W) |
Pages: |
336 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-691-19519-3 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-691-19519-6 |
Barcode: |
9780691195193 |
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