The Transformation of European Politics 1763-1848

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  2022-01-03
  This outlook, in addition to the fact that he usually reacted to events rather than controlled them, accounts for the striking flexibility in expedients he displayed and the frequent obscurity of his manœuvres. Perhaps Metternich was, as he believed, the coachman of Europe; if so, his efforts went mainly to keeping the horses under control, the coach upright, the passengers reasonably peaceable, and himself at the reins rather than bringing the coach to his choice of destination.
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  2021-08-28
  Pace R. R. Palmer, Jacques Godechot, Franco Venturi, and other distinguished historians of this era, Europe in the 1780s was not heading inexorably toward revolution, but toward war, whether or not there was revolution. Revolution was contingent; war systemic and structural.