Product Description

The Pursuit of Glory brings to life one of the most extraordinary periods in European history – from the battered, introvert continent after the Thirty Years War to the dynamic one that experienced the French Revolution and the wars of Napoleon. Tim Blanning depicts the lives of ordinary people and the dominant personalities of the age (Louis XIV, Frederick the Great, Napoleon), and explores an era of almost unprecedented change, growth and cultural, political and technological ferment that shaped the societies and economies of entire countries.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11702 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 736 pages

Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph, 15 April 2007
Economics, social policy, medicine, culture, popular religion, the
position of women, the role of the Jesuits, the importance of hunting: it's
hard to think of a significant feature of human life that is not given
serious and well-informed treatment in this book. The result is one of the
most impressive general histories to have appeared for many decades.

Sunday Times 7 April 2007
Europe's early-modern history viewed from an Olympian height - a
grand, gripping and all-encompassing read.

John Adamson, Sunday Times, 29 April 2007
This work's most winning quality is the sense one has throughout
of being in the company of not only the most expert but also the most
congenial of historical guides, a man who is himself a perfect product of
the European Enlightenment: humane, rational, sceptical and with an
encyclopedic learning enlivened by a mordant Voltairian wit. Let the
nations rejoice: this history of Europe is a truly glorious book.

Customer Reviews

Took my breath away
Before having read this book, I was largely ignorant about this period (1648 - 1815) in European history. Now, having read Tim Blanning's amazing book, I think that on the one hand I not only know a lot more but, on the other hand, remain conscious that I've barely scratched the surface (the suggested reading-list in itself covers some 11 pages, in small typescript) .

Contrary to what the title might seem to indicate, this book is about ever so much more than royalty and monarchs in the pursuit of glory. There's that too of course, but - as the titles to the four parts indicate - it's about life in all its aspects between 1648 and 1815:
- Part one: Life and death
- Part two: Power
- Part three: Religion and culture
- Part four: War and peace

In all, the book offers 677 pages (not counting the preface, suggested reading-list or index) densely packed with an amazing overview of virtually every major aspect of life in those days. This is no easy reading, but the rewards for making the effort to read this book with the attention and concentration it fully deserves are definitely worthwhile. What is also very refreshing is the fact that at times Blanning is not afraid to a) indicate that for some topics he can only give a short overview and b) freely admit that in some topics he's not a specialist.

Perhaps the best praise I can offer is that this book gave me an appetite to rush out to the bookstore and stock up on more to read about this fascinating period.

I now know a lot more things, but not necessarily in the logical order
This was a really well written and entertaining book. However, the author presupposes a lot of prior knowledge which I sadly lacked, making some of the material a bit challenging - probably not the best choice of read for the inexperienced but I have learned a great deal from reading it. There is a good chance that I'll do so again.

I was a bit disappointed by the balance of the content. I felt there is a disproportionate ammount of text devoted to the social history of the period and too little on the meaty political and military events, e.g the wars of the French revolution. I also thought that given that the book does not flow in strict chronological order then it would have really benefited from the inclusion of a simple summary chapter or timeline - something I think newbies to this period of European history would find very useful. That said, I still highly recommend it to anyone.

historian's ambivalence...mostly
The existing reviews give a good sense for what this book covers and I would like to try to add a bit beyond what has been said. I am not a historian, just a general reader. (But the book was pitched to general readers, so I think I can have a say).

First, Mr. Blanning has clearly "been there, done that, and got the t-shirt to prove it" when it comes to his subject matter. He is the master of the choice example, which could only be achieved through extensive travel, terrific language skills, and years of thinking and teaching. He is positively interesting, and pulls the reader in. Would love to have dinner with this guy, my treat.

Second, like many great historians, Blanning is attracted to ambivalence. In the concluding chapter he is quite explicit: there are two narratives that can be maintained about this period, a progressive one and a pessimistic one. Actually, one would be very hard pressed to purely progressive or purely pessimistic - it's up to each person to mix the two according to taste and all sorts of mixes are plausible given the evidence. Maybe a more interesting way to put it is that this period of history is not one of pure progress by any means. Strikes me as realistic.

One of his favorite sources of ambivalence is whether "x" is a revolution or an evolution. As in industrial, commercial, communications, and so on. He seems to fall in the evolutionary camp but I found him hazy in his commitment - he strikes me as more "evolution with punctuated equilibrium." Again, realistic. Bottom-line: his ambivalences make him an interesting thinker.

In truth, I came close to giving him 4 stars, however, for several reasons. First: the material at the end of the book - the concluding chapter--would have been more helpful at the beginning of the book. Not a big deal. Second, he should have defined some limits to his subject matter. This becomes very apparent in Section 4: War and Peace. At several points he acknowledges that he is attempting summaries in a few pages that would normally take several volumes. Not a good idea. Section 4 is for the reader with a hardcore interest in war and a solid knowledge base - not me, and I was always feeling lost.

Finally, I wonder if he did the Church right. He is not a fiery anti-cleric, but he seems to have little ambivalence about religion and churches (as seen most directly in chapter 7), and so tends to lose his effectiveness. Is the story of religion during this period just one of accumulation of wealth, misuse of power, and so on? At one point he writes that perhaps most bishops were well-educated, pious, diligent and effective administrators (p. 370), but the outburst goes nowhere.
If Blanning has an Achille's heel, I think it is that on the issue of religion--which was such a central force in the lives of people in this period--he cannot really sustain any ambivalence. We learn how long it took people to walk places but nothing of their interior lives as Christian people or the centrality of the local parish to community life. I am reminded of the old peasant lady who houses a communist official in the Georgian film "Repentance." As the official eats one her cakes--shaped like a church--and brags about a road that will be built, she snarls "What good is a road if it does not lead to a church?" I suspect most of the people who are Mr. Blanning's subject matter would agree with that sentiment, but in this book we learn mostly about the road.