Metternich
Strategist and Visionary
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Metternich
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Narrated by:
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Nigel Patterson
About this listen
Metternich has a reputation as the epitome of reactionary conservatism. Historians treat him as the archenemy of progress, a ruthless aristocrat who used his power as the dominant European statesman of the first half of the nineteenth century to stifle liberalism, suppress national independence, and oppose the dreams of social change that inspired the revolutionaries of 1848. Wolfram Siemann paints a fundamentally new image of the man who shaped Europe for over four decades. He reveals Metternich as more modern and his career much more forward-looking than we have ever recognized.
Clemens von Metternich emerged from the horrors of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, Siemann shows, committed above all to the preservation of peace. That often required him, as the Austrian Empire's foreign minister and chancellor, to back authority. He was, as Henry Kissinger has observed, the father of realpolitik. But short of compromising on his overarching goal Metternich aimed to accommodate liberalism and nationalism as much as possible. Siemann draws on previously unexamined archives to bring this multilayered and dazzling man to life.
©2019 the President and Fellows of Harvard College (P)2022 TantorWhat listeners say about Metternich
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 07-06-2024
Enlightening
A fascinating insight into one of modern Europe’s most important political figures. A book that gives credit when it is due and dispels a raft of myths.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 16-11-2024
A contradictory book worthy of this man of contradiction
Illuminating, sprawling, multifaceted - this book engages deeply with Metternich and does much to exonerate his much vilified character, painting him as the man of contradiction he truly was. Be prepared for some stunningly conservative leaps and contradictions, as all good modern German history writing is likely to hold - the author is stunningly honest about Metternich, but painfully obtuse about the world in which Metternich lived (to confuse fascism and socialism as being one in the same because they are borne of the same contradictions within capitalism, for example). Not quite hagiographic though and I strongly encourage active engagement, this book is a clear example of the illuminating benefit of meeting Metternich in the context and worldviews in which he thought he existed, thus dispelling strange conspiracy theory or Satan-spawn narratives
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