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 vi
... Russia , 1818–1881 — Influence . 4. Statesmen - History - 19th century . 5. United States - History —- 1849–1877 . 6. Germany -- History — 1848–1870 . 7. Russia - History - Alexander II , 1855-1881 . I. Title . E457.B44 2007 909.81 ...
... Russia , 1818–1881 — Influence . 4. Statesmen - History - 19th century . 5. United States - History —- 1849–1877 . 6. Germany -- History — 1848–1870 . 7. Russia - History - Alexander II , 1855-1881 . I. Title . E457.B44 2007 909.81 ...
Page 2
... Russia . But she was of noble rather than royal or imperial blood , and what the Tsar's nephew , Grand Duke ... Russians , to the Fortress of Peter and Paul , the dungeon and crypt of the Russian tsars . The midday sun gleamed on the ...
... Russia . But she was of noble rather than royal or imperial blood , and what the Tsar's nephew , Grand Duke ... Russians , to the Fortress of Peter and Paul , the dungeon and crypt of the Russian tsars . The midday sun gleamed on the ...
Page 6
... Russia . Bismarck threw over the petty Teutonic princes , defeated the House of Austria and the last of the imperial Napoleons , and united the Ger- man nation . The three men helped to forge the superpowers that during the twentieth ...
... Russia . Bismarck threw over the petty Teutonic princes , defeated the House of Austria and the last of the imperial Napoleons , and united the Ger- man nation . The three men helped to forge the superpowers that during the twentieth ...
Page 11
... Russia emerged from the seclu- sion of his private apartments , together with his Tsaritsa . As he passed through galleries of his palace , the Tsar acknowledged , with the merest nod of his head , the bows and curtsies of the court ...
... Russia emerged from the seclu- sion of his private apartments , together with his Tsaritsa . As he passed through galleries of his palace , the Tsar acknowledged , with the merest nod of his head , the bows and curtsies of the court ...
Page 12
... Russia figured as the beau ideal of government by force . The Tsar and Tsaritsa opened the ball with a polonaise . When the dance ended , the imperial couple mingled with their guests . Those who had never before attended an imperial ...
... Russia figured as the beau ideal of government by force . The Tsar and Tsaritsa opened the ball with a polonaise . When the dance ended , the imperial couple mingled with their guests . Those who had never before attended an imperial ...
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Abraham Lincoln Alexander Alexander II Alexander's American April army August Austria battle Bazaine Benedetti Berlin Bismarck Civil command Confederate diplomat Emancipation Emancipation Proclamation Emperor Empire Empress England Eugénie father France free-state freedom French Gedanken German Gesammelten Werke Gladstone Henry History Ibid imperial James Chesnut John Lothrop Motley July Kate Chase Katya King knew Kropotkin liberal London Lord Lord Augustus Loftus Louis-Napoleon Ludwig March marck Mary Chesnut McClellan MCCW military Minister Moltke Motley to Seward Napoleon Napoleon III nation never New-York Nicholas Nietzsche Orlov Palmerston Paris peasants political President Prince Prussian reform régime revolution revolutionary Richmond romantic Russia Saint Petersburg SD NARA M44/ROLL SD NARA T157/ROLL Senate slavery slaves soldiers South Southern thought tion told Tolstoy took trans troops Tsar Tsar's Tuileries Union University Press Wagner Washington Whitman wife Wilhelm William wrote Yasnaya Polyana York young
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.