SHN Lecture Series: Maurizio Isabella

The Age of revolutions in the south

The lecture aims to answer 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 19^th century. It does so by discussing a wave of uprisings that broke out in Portugal, Spain, Piedmont, Naples and the Ottoman Empire in the 1820s to introduce constitutions. It looks in particular at the military origins of these events, all organized by army officers, and the ideals and practices related to them. By so doing, the lecture points to a chronology and geography of the age of revolutions in Europe alternative to existing historical narratives, based on 1789, 1830 and 1848, and centered around France.  It shows instead that the events of 1820s inaugurated a wave of revolutions in Southern Europe independent from French event that lasted up to 1870, and points to their importance in the history of representative government and popular politics in Europe.

Maurizio Isabella is Professor of Modern History at the Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author of Risorgimento in Exile. Italian Émigrés and the Liberal International in the Post-Napoleonic Era (2009). More recently he published his book Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions (2023), which was Longlisted for the Runciman Award.

More about this event

The lecture will be held on the 16th of May 2024 at Room 1.05, Drift 21, Utrecht, from 15:30 until 17.00. Dr. Erik de Lange (Assistant Professor of International Relations) will moderate the event. After the lecture there will be drinks at Hofman.