Author: Wolfram Siemann
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 067474392X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 929
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Book Description
A compelling new biography that recasts the most important European statesman of the first half of the nineteenth century, famous for his alleged archconservatism, as a friend of realpolitik and reform, pursuing international peace. Metternich has a reputation as the epitome of reactionary conservatism. Historians treat him as the archenemy of progress, a ruthless aristocrat who used his power as the dominant European statesman of the first half of the nineteenth century to stifle liberalism, suppress national independence, and oppose the dreams of social change that inspired the revolutionaries of 1848. Wolfram Siemann paints a fundamentally new image of the man who shaped Europe for over four decades. He reveals Metternich as more modern and his career much more forward-looking than we have ever recognized. Clemens von Metternich emerged from the horrors of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, Siemann shows, committed above all to the preservation of peace. That often required him, as the Austrian Empire’s foreign minister and chancellor, to back authority. He was, as Henry Kissinger has observed, the father of realpolitik. But short of compromising on his overarching goal Metternich aimed to accommodate liberalism and nationalism as much as possible. Siemann draws on previously unexamined archives to bring this multilayered and dazzling man to life. We meet him as a tradition-conscious imperial count, an early industrial entrepreneur, an admirer of Britain’s liberal constitution, a failing reformer in a fragile multiethnic state, and a man prone to sometimes scandalous relations with glamorous women. Hailed on its German publication as a masterpiece of historical writing, Metternich will endure as an essential guide to nineteenth-century Europe, indispensable for understanding the forces of revolution, reaction, and moderation that shaped the modern world.
Author: Henry Kissinger
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1787204367
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 600
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Book Description
Originally published in 1957—years before he was Secretary of State and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize—, Henry Kissinger wrote A World Restored, to understand and explain one of history’s most important and dramatic periods; a time when Europe went from political chaos to a balanced peace that lasted for almost a hundred years. After the fall of Napoleon, European diplomats gathered in a festive Vienna with the task of restoring stability following the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. The central figures at the Congress of Vienna were the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, Viscount Castlereagh and the Foreign Minister of Austria Klemens Wenzel von Mettern Metternich. Castlereagh was primarily concerned with maintaining balanced powers, while Metternich based his diplomacy on the idea of legitimacy—that is, establishing and working with governments that citizens accept without force. The peace they brokered lasted until the outbreak of World War I. Through trenchant analysis of the history and forces that create stability, A World Restored gives insight into how to create long-lasting geopolitical peace-lessons that Kissinger saw as applicable to the period immediately following World War II, when he was writing this book. But the lessons don’t stop there. Like all good insights, the book’s wisdom transcends any single political period. Kissinger’s understanding of coalitions and balance of power can be applied to personal and professional situations, such as dealing with a tyrannical boss or co-worker or formulating business or organizational tactics. Regardless of his ideology, Henry Kissinger has had an important impact on modern politics and few would dispute his brilliance as a strategist. For anyone interested in Western history, the tactics of diplomacy, or political strategy, this volume will provide deep understanding of a pivotal time.
Author: Clemens Wenzel Lothar Metternich (Fürst von)
Publisher: Time Out
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 280
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Book Description
"Prince Metternich was a celebrated diplomat and statesman. Throughout his glittering and successful career he sought to counter the forces unleashed by the French Revolution. He was an enemy of change, despised by republicans and feared by radicals. Metternich used his skill for diplomacy to create alliances in order to reverse republicanism and restore the legitimate monarchies of Europe to their thrones."--Back Cover.
Author: Alan Palmer
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571305849
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 397
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Book Description
A glib assessment of Metternich might not be a favourable one, he was not without his ridiculous qualities, and yet he survived, more than survived, in fact, with the 'Age of Metternich' lasting for more than a generation, and giving Europe a measure of peace, albeit repressive, that was much needed after the Napoleonic convulsions. Alan Palmer describes well Metternich's extraordinary longevity. 'Clement von Metternich held continuous office at the head of Europe's affairs for a longer period of time than any other statesman in modern history: he became foreign minister of the Austrian Empire in the autumn of 1809 and he did not resign until the spring of 1848. For thirty-three of these thirty-nine years his statecraft and philosophy of government determined the political pattern of the continent. The 'Age of Metternich' , though often impatiently dismissed by historians as a mere interlude, lasted for twice as long as the 'Age of Napoleon' which preceded it and for half as long again as the 'Age of Bismarck' which followed in the closing decades of the century.' Metternich was a statesman to his fingertips, practising 'the skills of diplomacy with greater fluency than any contemporary Talleyrand, from whom he had learnt many of the refinement of the game.' How would he fare today? Probably quite well as he was, again in Alan Palmer's words, 'an early champion of federalism and a good European ...' 'As a work of history (it) cannot be faulted.' A. J. P. Taylor, Observer 'Well-written, well-researched, lucid and witty.' Philip Ziegler, The Times
Author: Desmond Seward
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781910198957
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 464
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Book Description
Biography of Clemons von Metternich, who destroyed Napoleon, directed Habsburg Censtria's policy for forty years, and tried to unify Europe.
Author: David Ward
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Austria
Languages : en
Pages : 300
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Book Description
Author: Dorothy Gies McGuigan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 640
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Book Description
"Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich (full name German: Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, Fürst von Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein, anglicised as Clement Wenceslas Lothar von Metternich-Winneburg-Beilstein; 15 May 1773? 11 June 1859) was a German politician and statesman of Rhenish extraction and one of the most important diplomats of his era, serving as the Foreign Minister of the Holy Roman Empire and its successor state, the Austrian Empire, from 1809 until the liberal revolutions of 1848 forced his resignation ... Katharina Friederike Wilhelmine Benigna, Princess of Courland, Duchess of Sagan (born 8 February 1781 in Mitau, Duchy of Courland and Semigallia; died 29 November 1839 in Vienna, Austrian Empire) was a German noble from the Ruling family of Courland and Semigallia (today part of Latvia) and a sovereign Duchess of Sagan. Wilhelmine is mainly known for her relationship with Klemens Metternich, a statesman of the Austrian Empire."--Wikipedia.
Author: Miroslav Šedivý
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786734036
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 374
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Book Description
Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the 'Congress System' became the primary instrument of diplomacy in Europe. So central was the Austrian Chancellor Metternich to the political-legal Congress System that the period has often been referred to as the 'Age of Metternich'. In this book, Miroslav Šedivý analyses Metternich's policy towards the pre-united Italian states from 1830 to 1848. With an emphasis on geopolitics and international law and drawing attention to the unsettled role of the Italian states within European diplomacy in the period, this book explains why the Italian peninsula never developed into the stable region that Metternich hoped to establish at the heart of the Congress System. Owing to the self-interested policies of some European Powers as well as the larger of the Italian states. Metternich proved unable to bring about 'the transformation of European politics' in Italy. Using a thorough analysis of the role that Italy played in the Congress System and based on extensive research in 18 European archives, this book explains why it was in Italy that the first war broke out after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, an event representing the first brutal blow to the Congress System.
Author: Tatiana Metternich
Publisher: Elliot & Thompson
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 368
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Book Description
Tatiana Metternich, nee Wassiltchikoff, suffered more reverses of fortunte than most in the turbulent first half of the 20th century. Born a Russian aristocrat, she and her family fled the 1917 Revolution, leaving behind their Faberge eggs and fabulous wealth and embarked on a life of emigre shabby gentility in Paris and London. They met misfortune with as insouciant a shrug as they could raise. Luckily, Tatiana's connections meant that she, her parents and her sister Missie still got to stay in Schlosses."
Author: Hsi-Huey Liang
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521522878
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370
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Book Description
A comprehensive history of Continental police systems, in the context of political and diplomatic history.
