ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the actual development of Continental Europe during the Napoleonic era. In charting the impact of the Napoleonic Wars on social and economic development, however, the historian is confronted with an immediate problem. Distorting though the impact of Napoleon’s economic policies may have been, it is therefore necessary to examine it in another light. If the Napoleonic Wars matter, it is because they brought fundamental change to European society. Though the Marxian tradition from which Markov stems has been increasingly challenged, to pretend that the Europe of 1814 was the same as that of 1803 would be to tilt at windmills. Napoleon did bring change to Europe, it being in large part through the onward march of his armies that the French Revolution was exported to the rest of the Continent. To nationalists and liberals alike, meanwhile, the Napoleonic Wars were not only the cause of much nostalgia, but also the source of considerable inspiration for the future.
