Civic Continuities in an Age of Revolutionary Change, c.1750–1850

This open access book explores the role of continuity in political processes and practices during the Age of Revolutions. It argues that the changes that took place in the years around 1800 were enabled by different types of continuities across Europe and in the Americas. With historians of modernity tending to emphasise the rise of the new, scholarship has leaned towards an assumption that existing modes of action, thought and practice simply became extinct, irrelevant or at least subordinate to new modes. In contrast, this collection examines continuities between early modern and modern political cultures and organization in Europe and the Americas. Shifting the focus from political modernization, the authors examine the continued relevance of older, often local, practices in (post)revolutionary politics. By doing so,they aim to highlight the role of local political traditions and practices in forging and enabling political change. The book argues that while political change was in fact at the centre of both the old and new polities that emerged in the Age of Revolutions, it coexisted with, and was indeed enabled by, continuities at other levels.

1. Civic continuities in an Age of Revolutionary Change. Europe and the Americas, c. 1750-1850; Judith Pollmann and Henk te Velde.- Part 1: Residual powers.- 2. Distance and Proximity. Parliamentary Representation and the Persistence of Local Ties in Britain, France and the Netherlands, c. 1780s – 1850; Henk te Velde.- 3. Post-revolutionary France: the ultimate test case?; Bernard Rulof.- 4. Regional resilience in the Age of Revolutions: the persistence of the Dutch provinces, 1748-1848; Diederik Smit.- 5. Order, War and Religion: the Chilean Republic between Tradition and Change; Ana María Stuven.- Part 2: The power of practice.- 6. The ‘Sanction of Precedent’: Publishers and Political Dissent in Central Europe during the Age of Revolution; James M. Brophy.- 7. Maintaining Order in Revolutionary Times – The Political Practices of a Mercantile Elite in the Rhineland, 1770-1830; Anne Sophie Overkamp.- 8. Indigenous Citizens and Black Republicans:  Continuities andEvolutions of Subalterns’ Political Visions and Repertoires in post-Independence Colombia and Mexico; James E. Sanders.- 9. Restoring the Moral Order of the Community. The Symbolic Repertoire of Collective Action in the Dutch Age of Revolutions; Joris Oddens.- Part 3: Experiencing and domesticating change.- 10. The experience of ‘reform’ in English local governance in the era of the ‘Reform ministry’ (1830-41); Joanna Innes.- 11. ‘The free action of the collective power of individuals’: Vernacular Democracy and the Sovereign People; Dana D. Nelson.- 12. The spirit of the belltower. Chronicling urban time in an age of revolution; Judith Pollmann.