War, Culture and Society, 1750-1850

The Editors

RAFE BLAUFARB
Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution /
Department of History
Florida State University
113 Collegiate Loop
Tallahassee, FL32306-2200, United States
Email: rblaufarb@fsu.edu

ALAN FORREST
Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies
University of York,
The King«s Manor
York Y01 7EP, United Kingdom.
Email: aif1@york.ac.uk

KAREN HAGEMANN
Department of History 
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Hamilton Hall, CB # 3195
Chapel Hill, NC27599-3195, United States
Email: hagemann@unc.edu

Publishing Contact

MICHAEL STRANG (Publisher History)
Palgrave Macmillan
Houndmills, Basingstoke, 
Hampshire RG21 6XS, UK
Email: m.strang@palgrave.com

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The Editorial Board

CHRISTOPHER BAYLY

University of Cambridge (Indian History, British Imperial History, Global History

RICHARD BESSEL
University of York (German and European History)

MICHAEL BROERS
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford (Italian, Spanish and Comparative European History)

SARAH CHAMBERS
University of Minnesota (Spanish America and Gender) 

LAURENT DUBOIS
Duke University (Caribbean History) 

ETIENNE FRANÇOIS

Free University of Berlin (French and German History)

JANET HARTLEY
London School of Economics (The Russian Empire) 

WAYNE LEE
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (American History) 

JANE RENDALL
University of York (Britain, Culture and Gender)

REINHARD STAUBER
University of Klagenfurt (Habsburg Empire)

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The century from 1750 to 1850 marked a seminal period of change in world history. The Seven Years War, 1756-63, had seen continuing rivalry between European powers, rivalry that extended into competition for empire. The political landscape was to be transformed by a series of revolutions fought in the name of liberty ö in America and France most notably, but also in Holland and Geneva in the eighteenth century, and across much of mainland Europe by 1848. The new ideas, as well as the rivalry of imperial nations, were carried to the furthest outposts of empire, to Egypt, India and the Caribbean, where the 1790s were the formative period in creating the first black republic in Haiti, the former French colony of Saint-Domingue, in 1801. Those ideas continued to inspire anti-colonial and liberation movements in Central and Latin America throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. The Age of Revolutions was not confined to any one continent; it was a world movement which requires study in its global dimension.

If social and political institutions were transformed by revolution in this period, so, too, was warfare. During the quarter-century of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars in particular, Europe was faced with the prospect of Îtotalâ warfare, a war that was unprecedented before the twentieth century. Military hardware, it is true, evolved only slowly. But in other ways these can legitimately be described as the first modern wars, fought by mass armies mobilized by patriotic and national propaganda, leading to the circulation of millions of people throughout Europe and beyond (soldiers first and foremost, but also prisoners of war, civilians and refugees). The civilian population had to contribute to these wars at a level that had not been seen before, and had to provide huge quantities of food, clothing and equipment for the armies. Those who lived through the period as children, youths, and adults, shared formative common experiences and memories that would help shape their ambitions and their identities. 

The changing nature of war had a number of consequences. Because of mass mobilization and the spatial extension of war, even ordinary men traveled as soldiers to regions they had barely heard about, encountered unknown people, languages and customs, and crossed new borders within Europe and overseas. Both soldiers and civilians experienced a further brutalization of warfare, with war casualties rising to previously unheard-of levels. Yet, because of their character as Înational warsâ, these conflicts were closely intertwined with the process of political and cultural nation-building in Europe. It was not only America, France and Britain but also monarchies such as Prussia, Russia and Spain that sought, through appeals to national sentiment, the mobilization not only of young men but also of civilian populations ö men and women alike. Without the support of civilian society the leading powers would not have been able to go to war. They needed broad civilian support to provide equipment for armies, militias and volunteers, medical services for sick and wounded soldiers, and war charities for invalids, widows and orphans. Women's activity steadily expanded, since they were not only solely responsible for supporting their families and carrying on the business of their soldier husbands, but also played a leading role in wartime nursing and relief work. New gender images were brought into play, and gender roles were renegotiated around the mobilization of men and the enhanced if frequently complementary and subordinate range of womenâs activities. These images could be used to legitimise the gender-specific tasks of men and women in the state, the military, society and the family.

The consequences of the various Wars of Revolution and Liberation between 1750 and 1850 are often discussed in terms of the redrawn map of Europe and the Americas, of political reaction and the stimulation of national aspirations and identities. But the individual and collective memories of those wartime experiences, and their impact on future generations across Europe and the Americas, remain relatively understudied. This series will for the first time place those experiences, perceptions and memories in their full cultural context.

It is the Objective of this Series

▪ to extend the scope of traditional histories of the period by discussing war across the Atlantic as well as within Europe, thereby contributing to a new global history

▪ to relate political, social, cultural and military history and art history and thus develop a multidisciplinary approach to the analysis of war

▪ to analyse the construction of identities and power relations by integrating various categories of difference ö most particularly class, gender, religion, generational difference, race and ethnicity

▪ to examine elements of comparison and transfer, so as to tease out the complexities of national, regional and global history

▪ to cross the traditional borders between early modern and modern history since this is a period which integrates aspects of old and new, traditional and modern. 

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Book Proposals for the Series are Welcome

The series will publish both:

▪ themed collections addressing key aspects of the social and cultural history of war and society in this period;

▪ single-authored books.

Please send your proposal to one of the three editors

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Published Books

	Alan Forrest, Karen Hagemann and Jane Rendall (editors) SOLDIERS, CITIZENS AND CIVILIANS Experiences and Perceptions of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1790-1820 [2009] For more information see the flyer
	Alan Forrest and Peter H. Wilson (editors) THE BEE AND THE EAGLE Napoleonic France and the End of the Holy Roman Empire, 1806 [2009] For more information see the flyer
	Richard Bessel, Nicholas Guyatt and Jane Rendall (editors) WAR, EMPIRE AND SLAVERY, 1770-1830 [2010] For more information see the flyer
	Karen Hagemann, Gisela Mettele and Jane Rendall (editors) GENDER, WAR AND POLITICS Transatlantic Comparisons, 1775-1830 [2010] For more information see the flyer
	Marie-Cécile Thoral FROM VALMY TO WATERLOO France at War, 1792-1815 [2010] For more information see the flyer
	Kevin Linch BRITAIN AND WELLINGTON'S ARMY Recruitment, Society and Tradition, 1807-15 [2011]
	Christine Wright WELLINGTON'S MEN IN AUSTRALIA Peninsular War Veterans and the Making of Empire c.1820-40 [2011 forthcoming] For more information see the flyer

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Forthcoming Books

Eveline G. Bouwers

PUBLIC PANTHEONS AND EXEMPLARY MEN
A Journey in the European Imagination, c. 1790-1840

Michael Broers, Agustin Guimera and Peter Hicks (editors)

THE NAPOLEONIC EMPIRE AND THE NEW EUROPEAN POLITICAL CULTURE

Alan Forrest, Etienne François and Karen Hagemann (editors)

WAR MEMORIES
The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Europe

Rasmus Glenthøj and Morten Nordhagen Ottosen

EXPERIENCES OF WAR AND NATIONALITY IN DENMARK AND NORWAY, 1807-1815

Leighton S. James

WITNESSING WAR
The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in German Central Europe, 1792-1815

Catriona Kennedy

NARRATIVES OF WAR
Military and Civilian Experience in Britain and Ireland, 1793-1815

Catriona Kennedy and Matthew McCormack (editors)

MEN OF ARMS
Soldiering in Britain and Ireland, 1750-1850

Ralph Kingston

OFFICE POLITICS
Bureaucrats and Bourgeois Culture in Post-Revolutionary France, 1789-1848

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