The new edition of this seminal history of Europe's century of global ascendancy has been thoroughly revised throughout and includes a new introduction and bibliography. More than a narrative of major events, this is a series of challenging analytical surveys on a comparative and continent-wide basis. Giving full weight not to social and intellectual factors as well as political and economic ones, the survey provides students with an invaluable guide to a notoriously complex period. Suitable for 2nd year undergraduates upwards studying 19th Century Europe and Revolutionary Europe.