ABSTRACT
There is no question that the French Revolution and the Napoleonic regime which followed it fundamentally changed the conditions under which history was studied, written, and read in the West. The Revolution reflected both the extent to which a process of modernization, as we described it in the Introduction, took place and the limits of this process. By 1815, the Revolution had been effectively defeated, and the attempt was made to restore many aspects of the old order. Yet in fact, although monarchical governments were reinstituted, the basic social and to an extent even political reforms of the Revolutionary period remained intact. Except to an extent in Eastern Europe, society on the Continent had been transformed profoundly. Already in its early stages, the Revolution had abolished the remnants of the feudal order in France, established equality under the law, and loosened the fetters that had stifled a free market economy. The result of the Napoleonic conquests was that these basic reforms were carried to large areas of Continental Europe – to Germany, the Low Countries, Switzerland, and important parts of Italy. In Great Britain many of these institutions were already well established before. In Prussia in the aftermath of defeat by the Napoleonic forces, reforms pointing in these directions were initiated from above. The result was the strengthening of the middle class – the bourgeoisie in France, the Bürgertum in Germany – and the growth of civil society. The period after 1815 did not undo this development but rather gave it a new impetus. Even in the political sphere the old order was not restored. Louis XVIII (1755-1824), upon his return from exile, issued a charter that transformed France into a constitutional monarchy. And although Austria, Prussia, and some of the smaller German and Italian states refused to make concessions, the movements for constitutionalism gained strength. By 1830 various German states had constitutions. In England, the Reform Act of 1832 strengthened the representation of the middle classes, but apart from England and Belgium the Industrial Revolution had not yet begun in earnest and left little impact on historical thought.
