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Beyond the Barricades is an original study of government after the 1848 revolutions. It focuses on the state of Prussia, where a number of conservative ministers sought to learn lessons from their experiences of upheaval and introduce a wave of reform in the 1850s. Using extensive archival research, the work explores Prussia's entry into the constitutional age, charting initiatives to transform criminal justice, agriculture, industry, communications, urban life, and the press. Reform strengthened contact with the Prussian population, making this a classic episode of state-building, but Beyond the Barricades seeks to go further. It makes a case for taking notice of government activity at this particular juncture because the measures endorsed by conservative statesmen in the 1850s sought to remove the feudal intermediaries that had lingered long into the nineteenth century and replace them with an array of government institutions, legal regimes, and official practices. In sum, this book recasts the post-revolutionary decade as a period which saw the transition from an old to a new world, pivotal to the making of modern Prussia and ultimately, modern Germany.
Über den Autor / die Autorin
Anna Ross is Associate Professor of Modern European History at the University of Warwick. She received her PhD from the University of Cambridge, and later held a Junior Research Fellowship at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. At Warwick, she is a member of the European History Research Centre, and the Global History and Culture Centre.
Zusammenfassung
In the wake of the 1848/9 revolutions, the government of the state of Prussia used the impetus of the recent political upheaval to introduce a wave of reform in the fields of criminal justice, agriculture, industry, communications, urban life, and press management, which proved pivotal in the making of modern Prussia and ultimately, modern Germany.
Zusatztext
Ross recognizes parallels with previous state-building projects in the Napoleonic era, illuminating threads of continuity that are too often overlooked in histories of the nineteenth century.
Bericht
This book changes how we understand the history of nineteenth-century Prussia in fundamental ways, and it will be required reading for students and scholars of modern Germany for decades to come. Abigail Green, Brasenose College, University of Oxford, American Historical Review
