Modern Europe, 1789-Present Paperback - 2003

From the rear cover

'Modern Europe, 1789-Present', is an innovative history. While the narrative of big events that have shaped the Europe that we see today is clearly unfolded, `Modern Europe also reaches deep below the political surface to examine how European society and culture have influenced, or been influenced by, these developments. It traces the emergence, from the French Revolution onwards, of a distinctive sense of Europe and Europeanness. At the same time it explores the growth and impact of the new phenomenon of the nation state - one of nineteenth-century Europe's most powerful legacies to our own time.

The narrative and analysis are enriched and enlivened throughout by a wealth of evidence 'from below'. This is not just the official history of constitutions, institutions and ruling elites. The authors are alive throughout to the varied fortunes of Europe's diverse peoples and classes - rich and poor, urban and rural, young and old - and, not least, to the changing impact of gender on the ways of life available to them.

This new edition has been comprehensively revised and updated throughout. In particular there is original examination of:

• The Cold War and its ending
• Post-Soviet central and eastern Europe
• Europes relations with the wider world
• Immigration in Europe
• Ethnic conflict in the last two centuries

Asa Briggs

(Lord Briggs of Lewes) was Vice Chancellor of the University of Sussex (1967-1976), Provost of Worcester College, Oxford (1976-1991) and Chancellor of the Open University (1978-1995). In 2000 he was awarded the Wolfson History Prize.

Patricia Clavin is Reader in Modern History at the University of Keele. Her books include `Europe in the Great Depression, 1929-1939 (2000).