This collection of essays provides a new introduction to the revolutions of 1848. In that year Europe's traditional order broke down dramatically across much of the continent. Well-known experts in the field provide a colourful account of the events themselves, and demonstrate their profound significance for the development of modern European politics.

Despite his Jewish origins, Walter Rathenau became a star of Berlin society, and his political career took him to the head of the AEG, the Ministry for Reconstruction, and, in 1922, the Foreign Ministry. This first English edition of his notes and diaries provides a fascinating insight into the personality and achievements of one of the most influential figures in Wilhemine and Weimar Germany.

These essays arose out of lectures given in Oxford to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the 1848 revolutions in Europe. They comprise judicicious summaries of the existing state of knowledge, as well as insights and unfamiliar information. The book also seeks to place the revolutionary events in their wider context: apart from chapters covering the main centres of disturbance in France, Germany, Italy, and the Habsburg lands, there are discussions of the situation in Britain and Russia, which were affected but not convulse and by the disorders elsewhere of reactions in the United States of America and of the symbolism of 1848 for the later democratic, radical, and socialist movements. 1848 marked the first breakdown of traditional authority across much of the continent, and as such is of profound significance in the development of modern European politics as a whole.

The debate about the conflict which transformed Europe between 1914 and 1918 is one of the most fundamental in modern European history. This book, based on public lectures given in Oxford, makes two distinctive contributions to that debate. It presents readable and judicious accounts of the events and decisions which directly precipitated the outbreak of war in each of the main countries and assesses the role of public opinion and popular mood in determining and responding to the "July Crisis." The book offers a stimulating survey of the historiography of the immediate causes of the war, before and since the famous "Fischer controversy" over German responsibility, and new reflections on the character of the official and unofficial "mentalites" during the last weeks of peace. Published on the seventieth anniversary of the 1918 Armistice, this book will appeal to anyone interested in how wars begin.