Overview
This talk addresses the question of what revolutions were by looking at the way in which they were conceived, understood and performed by historical actors in the early 19th century. It does so by discussing a wave of uprisings demanding the introduction of constitutions that broke out in Portugal, Spain, Piedmont, Naples and the Ottoman Empire in the 1820s. In particular, it looks at the military origins of these events, all organized by army officers, and the ideals and practices related to them. By so doing, this talk will point to an alternative chronology and geography of the European age of revolutions that questions existing historical narratives, based on 1789, 1830 and 1848, and centered around France. It shows that the events of the 1820s inaugurated a wave of revolutions in Southern Europe that was independent from its French counterpart and that lasted up to 1870, thereby highlighting their significance in the history of representative governments and popular politics in Europe.
Speaker
Maurizio Isabella is Professor of Modern History at QMUL. He is the author of Risorgimento in Exile (2009), and the coauthor, with Konstantina Zanou, of Mediterranean Diasporas: Politics and Ideas in the Long Nineteenth Century (2016). His Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions was published by Princeton University Press in May 2023.
Professor Maurizio Isabella will be in conversation with professor Sujit Sivasundaram (Gonville and Caius) and professor Renaud Morieux (Pembroke).
Details
This is a hybrid event, which will take place in-person in the Gatsby Room (Chancellor's Centre) and also on Zoom.
If you would like to attend online, please register for the Zoom link.
Refreshments will be available for the in-person audience.
The Humanities Society organises regular talks spanning a wide range of topics. Every Tuesday during term time.
Access
This event will take place in Gatsby Room on the first floor of the Chancellor's Centre. It has step-free access with a lift and there is an accessible toilet located each floor of the building.
For more details please view our AccessAble guide.
