The Pursuit of Power: Europe: 1815-1914

Richard J. Evans

Nov 2016 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Napoleon Ryan

About this audiobook

Richard J. Evans's gripping narrative ranges across a century of social and national conflicts, from the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 to the unification of both Germany and Italy, from the Russo-Turkish wars to the Balkan upheavals that brought this era of relative peace and growing prosperity to an end. Among the great themes it discusses are the decline of religious belief and the rise of secular science and medicine, the journey of art, music, and literature from Romanticism to Modernism, the replacement of old-regime punishments by the modern prison, and the dramatic struggle of feminists for women's equality and emancipation. Uniting the era's broad-ranging transformations was the pursuit of power in all segments of life, from the banker striving for economic power to the serf seeking to escape the power of his landlord, from the engineer asserting society's power over the environment to the psychiatrist attempting to exert science's power over human nature itself.

The first single-volume history of the century, this comprehensive and sweeping account gives the reader a magnificently human picture of Europe in the age when it dominated the rest of the globe.

About the author

Richard J. Evans is Regius Professor Emeritus of History at Cambridge University. Knighted in 2012 for his services to scholarship, he is the author of many prizewinning and bestselling books, including his acclaimed study of the Third Reich, whose three volumes have been translated into sixteen languages.

Napoleon Ryan is a British actor from London. He began his career on stage, acting in the West End and touring with plays and musicals across Britain, Ireland, and Europe. Napoleon performs on television and in films, and is also known for his work as an audiobook narrator.