The history man

Sorry - couldn't resist this story. Some of us lead much more boring lives.

Europe post 1848: the new conservatism

This post and the subsequent ones are indebted to two text-books in particular: Robert Gildea, Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800-1914, 3rd edn. (Oxford University Press, 2003) and Michael Rapport, Nineteenth-Century Europe (Palgrave, 2005).

Europe post 1848: the New Conservatism
After 1848 the conservative order re-asserted itself, but it did not simply restore the old order. The growing pace of economic and social change made this impossible. The international scene also grew more threatening. Between 1848 and 1878 a series of wars reshaped Europe and destroyed the Vienna settlement.
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The wreck of the Deutschland

When we discussed Bismarck's attack on the Catholic Church in his Kulturkampf, I mentioned in passing Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem, The Wreck of the Deutschland, his celebration of the five Franciscan nuns who drowned when the ship went down. The full story is found here - and very intriguing it is.

Science v. religion?

In my post on Darwin, I have tried to indicate the culture war between religion and science that was deliberately inflamed by 'Darwin's bulldog', T. H. Huxley. Darwin's burial in Westminster Abbey might indicate that the story is more complex than a simple dichotomy between science (good) and religion (bad).

Here are some further thoughts:
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