Brian Vick, "The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon" (Harvard UP, 2014)

Summary

You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who knows anything about European history--and European diplomatic history in particular--who doesn'tknow a little something about the Congress of Vienna. That "little something" is probably that the Congress fostered a post-war (Napoleonic War, that is) settlement called the "Concert of Europe" that lasted, roughly, until the outbreak of World War I in 1914. That's a good sound bite. But, as Brian Vick shows in his lively, fascinating bookThe Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon (Harvard University Press, 2014), a lot more than diplomatic toing-and-froing went on in Vienna. The diplomats and their huge entourages, well, partied a lot. The ate (generally well), drank (often too much) and "consorted" (to put it diplomatically). As Vick demonstrates, this setting has a distinct impact on the negotiations and their eventual outcome. In vino veritas? Listen in.

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Marshall Poe

Marshall Poe is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at marshallpoe@newbooksnetwork.com.

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