Fighting Terror after Napoleon

Fighting Terror after Napoleon: How Europe Became Secure after 1815 Beatrice de Graaf (Author)

Hardcover: 440 pages

Publisher: Cambridge University Press (September 30, 2020)

ISBN-13: 9781108842068

Europe was forged out of the ashes of the Napoleonic wars by means of a collective fight against revolutionary terror. The Allied Council created a culture of in- and exclusion, of people that were persecuted and those who were protected, using secret police, black lists, border controls and fortifications, and financed by European capital holders.

After twenty-six years of unprecedented revolutionary upheavals and endless fighting, the victorious powers craved stability after Napoleon's defeat in 1815. With the threat of war and revolutionary terror still looming large, the coalition launched an unprecedented experiment to re-establish European security. With over one million troops remaining in France, they established the Allied Council to mitigate the threat of war and terror and to design and consolidate a system of deterrence. The Council transformed the norm of interstate relations into the first, modern system of collective security in Europe. Drawing on the records of the Council and the correspondence of key figures such as Metternich, Castlereagh, Wellington and Alexander I, Beatrice de Graaf tells the story of Europe's transition from concluding a war to consolidating a new order. She reveals how, long before commercial interest and economic considerations on scale and productivity dictated and inspired the project of European integration, the common denominator behind this first impulse for a unification of Europe in norms and institutions was the collective fight against terror.

Reviews

‘Beatrice de Graaf provides a deep and brilliantly original history of the idea of Europe, not as an imagined essence, but as a dynamic co-operative platform, a trans-national way of legitimating authority and action. Compellingly argued, elegantly written and rich in arresting episodes, Fighting Terror after Napoleon is a stimulating and provocative re-reading of early nineteenth-century Europe.' Sir Christopher Clark, author of The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 ‘A celebrity scholar of terrorism in the Netherlands, the indomitable Beatrice de Graaf now delivers us a new history of terror and security. Fighting Terror after Napoleon makes the nineteenth century matter again, as a way of understanding our present, not only the international order we are on the verge of losing, but its wildest realistic ambitions.' Glenda Sluga, author of Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism ‘An absorbing and insightful account of the Allied occupation of France after Waterloo that shows how its mechanisms served as the keystone for the broader efforts to maintain peace and security after the French Revolution and Napoleon, across Europe and beyond.' Brian Vick, author of The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon ‘International history at its best. Analysing the Vienna system after 1815 as a security culture, the book not only unfolds a stimulating new view on post-Napoleonic Europe, but also demonstrates the enormous potential of historical security research.' Eckart Conze, co-editor of Nuclear Threats, Nuclear Fear, and the Cold War of the 1980s 'Beatrice de Graaf provides a deep and brilliantly original history of the idea of Europe, not as an imagined essence, but as a dynamic co-operative platform, a trans-national way of legitimating authority and action. Compellingly argued, elegantly written and rich in arresting episodes, Fighting Terror after Napoleon is a stimulating and provocative re-reading of early nineteenth-century Europe.' Sir Christopher Clark, author of The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 'International history at its best. Analysing the Vienna system after 1815 as a security culture, the book not only unfolds a stimulating new view on post-Napoleonic Europe, but also demonstrates the enormous potential of historical security research.' Eckart Conze, co-editor of Nuclear Threats, Nuclear Fear, and the Cold War of the 1980s 'A celebrity scholar of terrorism in the Netherlands, the indomitable Beatrice de Graaf now delivers us a new history of terror and security. Fighting Terror after Napoleon makes the nineteenth century matter again, as a way of understanding our present, not only the international order we are on the verge of losing, but its wildest realistic ambitions.' Glenda Sluga, author of Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism 'An absorbing and insightful account of the Allied occupation of France after Waterloo that shows how its mechanisms served as the keystone for the broader efforts to maintain peace and security after the French Revolution and Napoleon, across Europe and beyond.' Brian Vick, author of The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon

Author

Beatrice de Graaf is Distinguished Professor and holds the Chair of History of International Relations at Utrecht University. She was awarded the Stevin Prize in 2018, the highest distinction in Dutch academia. Tegen de Terreur, the Dutch version of this book, was shortlisted for the Libris Prize.