The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848: Episode or Model in Modern History?

This book takes up the claim that the European states system underwent a fundamental transformation in the revolutionary, Napoleonic, and Vienna eras. This shift went from a system of competitive, conflictual power politics based purely on a shifting balance of power, to a more consensual, stable, and peaceful set of relations based on legality, acknowledged rights and obligations, and shared norms. The contributors to this volume, while examining this claim, primarily extend the debate to the entire history of European and world international politics from the early 17th Century to the present.