“1848”

Between the heady chaos of the French RevolutionFrench Revolution and the harsher variegated realities of the mid nineteenth century stands the figure of Napoleon BonaparteBonaparte, Napoleon. As much a political genius as a military one, Napoleon managed to take over the transitional and consolidating power sharing arrangement of the Directorate that arose to govern FranceFrance at the very end of the 1700s and convert himself in short order to French Emperor in 1803 and, then, briefly, overlord of much of the European continent (McLynn in Napoleon. Pimlico, 1998). Although Napoleon’s rule was relatively brief, his impact on the modernisation of State, society and economy was long-lived, all playing a key role in the spreading industrialisation of Europe. However, this process was stormy and contested, and the first half of the century was politically unstable, cresting in the wave of rebellions and revolutionary outbreaks on and around the year 1848. Most of these revolts were unsuccessful in the end but the responses to them helped build modern government now legitimated by a new social entity called the “masses”.