Forge of Empires: Three Revolutionary Statesmen and the World They Made, 1861-1871In the space of a single decade, three leaders liberated tens of millions of souls, remade their own vast countries, and altered forever the forms of national power:
The three statesmen forged the empires that would dominate the twentieth century through two world wars, the Cold War, and beyond. Each of the three was a revolutionary, yet each consolidated a nation that differed profoundly from the others in its conceptions of liberty, power, and human destiny. Michael Knox Beran's Forge of Empires brilliantly entwines the stories of the three epochal transformations and their fateful legacies. Telling the stories from the point of view of those who participated in the momentous events -- among them Walt Whitman and Friedrich Nietzsche, Mary Chesnut and Leo Tolstoy, Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie -- Beran weaves a rich tapestry of high drama and human pathos. Great events often turned on the decisions of a few lone souls, and each of the three statesmen faced moments of painful doubt or denial as well as significant decisions that would redefine their nations. With its vivid narrative and memorable portraiture, Forge of Empires sheds new light on a question of perennial importance: How are free states made, and how are they unmade? In the same decade that saw freedom's victories, one of the trinity of liberators revealed himself as an enemy to the free state, and another lost heart. What Lincoln called the "germ" of freedom, which was "to grow and expand into the universal liberty of mankind," came close to being annihilated in a world crisis that pitted the free state against new philosophies of terror and coercion. Forge of Empires is a masterly story of one of history's most significant decades. |
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Page xiv
... Nicholas and Alexandra . My parents , struck , I suppose , by my curiosity about Russia , took me to see the country for myself . Very different was the experience of my mother's family . My mother's mother's family comes from ...
... Nicholas and Alexandra . My parents , struck , I suppose , by my curiosity about Russia , took me to see the country for myself . Very different was the experience of my mother's family . My mother's mother's family comes from ...
Page 5
... Nicholas II , grandson of the mur- dered Alexander , was blunter in his assessment of “ Cousin Willy . ” “ He's raving mad ! " exclaimed Nicholas . Bismarck , from the Olympian heights of his power , was unable to take the imperial ...
... Nicholas II , grandson of the mur- dered Alexander , was blunter in his assessment of “ Cousin Willy . ” “ He's raving mad ! " exclaimed Nicholas . Bismarck , from the Olympian heights of his power , was unable to take the imperial ...
Page 11
... Nicholas Hall , blazing with the light of a dozen chandeliers and ten thousand candles . Diamonds and sapphires sparkled on aristocratic bosoms ; the cross and star of Alexander Nevsky flashed on glittering uniforms ; moiré sashes shim ...
... Nicholas Hall , blazing with the light of a dozen chandeliers and ten thousand candles . Diamonds and sapphires sparkled on aristocratic bosoms ; the cross and star of Alexander Nevsky flashed on glittering uniforms ; moiré sashes shim ...
Page 12
... Nicholas I , though of a strong and despotic nature , with acts of blood and cruelty to his name , had nevertheless ... Nicholas II , the last of the Tsars , the Order of Saint Andrew slipped from Nicholas's shoulder and fell to the ...
... Nicholas I , though of a strong and despotic nature , with acts of blood and cruelty to his name , had nevertheless ... Nicholas II , the last of the Tsars , the Order of Saint Andrew slipped from Nicholas's shoulder and fell to the ...
Page 28
... Nicholas I , came close to sharing the fate of Peter III and Paul I. On the day Nicholas was proclaimed Tsar , rebellious troops marched into the center of Saint Petersburg . At their head was a body of disaffected officers , some of ...
... Nicholas I , came close to sharing the fate of Peter III and Paul I. On the day Nicholas was proclaimed Tsar , rebellious troops marched into the center of Saint Petersburg . At their head was a body of disaffected officers , some of ...
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Popular passages
Page 390 - This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men...
Page 224 - In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party; and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect his purpose.
Page 384 - In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill.
Page 231 - Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.
Page 106 - I beg to assure you that I have never written you or spoken to you in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose to sustain you, so far as, in my most anxious judgment, I consistently can. But you must act.
Page 139 - I have not so much of the confidence of the people as I had some time since, I do not know that, all things considered, any other person has more; and, however this may be, there is no way in which I can have any other man put where I am. I am here. I must do the best I can, and bear the responsibility of taking the course which I feel I ought to take.
Page 146 - Like the patriarchs of old, our men live all in one house with their wives and their concubines; and the mulattoes one sees in every family partly resemble the white children.
Page 163 - South; but there is no doubt that Jefferson Davis and other leaders of the South have made an army; they are making, it appears, a navy; and they have made,— what is more than either,— they have made a nation.
Page 113 - If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you, or to any other persons in Washington. " You have done your best to sacrifice this army.