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The First Polycrisis
At a time of seemingly uncontrollable environmental, geopolitical, and economic crises, the revolutionary wave that swept Europe in 1848 has much to teach us. It, too, revealed the chaotic potential of an interconnected world, the limits of governance, and the path to a more manageable future.
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PRINCETON – The historian Christopher Clark’s profound and illuminating new book, Revolutionary Spring: Fighting for a New World, 1848-1849, is a masterly demonstration of how remote historical periods can sometimes speak with urgency to the present. Indeed, the distant past can be a better guide than even the most informed analyses of current events. In this magisterial study of the revolutions that swept through most of Europe in 1848-49, Clark concludes that, “It is impossible not to be struck by the resonances” to our own time.