Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions

Review

by Evan Rothera
published on 08 August 2024

"Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions" offers a detailed account of the revolutions in Spain, Naples, Portugal, Piedmont, Sicily, and Greece in the 1820s. The author’s focus complements other studies emphasizing revolutions in British North America, France, Haiti, and Spanish America to provide more thorough coverage of the Age of Revolutions. This book, well suited for scholars and students, guides readers through a tumultuous period in southern European history and is highly recommended.

From the outbreak of war in the 13 British North American colonies in 1775 to the conflicts that erupted throughout the Spanish New World colonies in the 1810s, revolutions convulsed the Atlantic World for half a century. The power and consequences of the revolutionary wave that swept throughout the Atlantic should not be understated. Scholars have spent a great deal of time examining the birth of the United States, the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, and the Spanish American Revolutions. However, contends Maurizio Isabella, currently Professor of Modern History at Queen Mary University of London, scholars have spent far less time on revolutions in southern Europe, such as the simultaneous revolutions in Spain, Portugal, Piedmont, Naples, Sicily, and Greece. Although southern Europe has long been absent or minimized in the vast scholarly literature on the Age of Revolutions, Isabella demonstrates that the books that have dismissed or neglected these struggles need revision and argues for a broader understating of a critical period in world history.

Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions is divided into four parts. Part I, “War, Army and Revolution” contains five chapters that explore the complex relationship between the army, war, and revolution. Chapter Five, “Crossing the Mediterranean,” is particularly noteworthy. Isabella examines three individuals involved in the revolution in Sicily – Sir Richard Church, Emmanuele Scordili, and Andrea Mangiaruva – to illustrate mobility and conflict as well as connected revolutions and counterrevolutions throughout the Atlantic World. Part II, “Experiencing the Constitution: Citizenship, Communities and Territories” includes three chapters about petitions, political culture, and demands from the people. The people did indeed speak. As Isabella notes in Chapter Seven, “Electing Parliamentary Assemblies,” revolutions during the 1820s, in contrast to pre-revolutionary electoral practices, saw national assemblies elected by quasi-universal suffrage. Part III, “Building Consensus, Pracising Protest: The Revolutionary Public Sphere and its Enemies” analyzes, throughout three chapters, the birth of a revolutionary public sphere. Readers will particularly appreciate Chapter Ten, “Taking Control of Public Space,” which discusses revolutionary ceremonies and the fascinating role singing played in this revolutionary moment. Finally, Part IV, “Citizens or the Faithful? Religion and the Foundation of a New Political Order” concludes with two chapters covering the relationship between constitutional culture and religion. Chapter Twelve, “Christianity against Despotism,” cautions against making assumptions about religion and revolution. Indeed, southern European constitutionalism placed a tremendous amount of emphasis on a religious definition of the nation, and religious figures joined both revolutionary and counterrevolutionary camps.

Throughout the book, Isabella contends that revolutions in southern Europe were part of the same global crisis of sovereignty as other revolutions throughout the Atlantic World. Thus, rather than treating them as minor events – as other studies of the Age of Revolutions have done – Isabella offers a detailed and incisive analysis of the revolutions and the people who drove them. That point is also critical. Isabella does not focus exclusively on theoretical debates but, rather, seeks to explore how the population at large experienced constitutions and revolutions. Critically, these revolutions “politicised new sectors of society, generated unprecedented quantities of printed material and fostered the discussion of novel ideas and experimentation with practices such as elections” (28). Isabella introduces readers to a wide array of people – revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries, soldiers and civilians, elites and the masses, religious and non-religious, men and women – and shows how these people experienced the tumult of revolution and new political awareness. Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions makes an important contribution to scholarly understandings of the Age of Revolutions, and Isabella anchors his analysis in extensive primary and secondary sources. This book will appeal to students and scholars interested in revolutions, politics, and Atlantic history.

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