Synopses & Reviews
Intellectual, social and economic developments in Victorian and Edwardian Europe threatened the wealth, status, and power of the aristocracy. What precisely were these threats? How did the aristocracy respond to them? What strategies for survival did it adopt and why did the various aristocracies adopt different strategies? What impact did aristocracy have on nineteenth- and twentieth-century European history?
In The Aristocracy in Europe, 1815
1914, Dominic Lieven looks at the German, English, and Russian aristocrats three powerful yet different ruling institutions and examines their relationship to the changes of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe. Lieven uses English, Russian, German and French material to investigate the wealth, economic activity, values, daily life, education, culture, occupations, and political roles of the European aristocracy, and in the process he challenges some of the assumptions of national historical traditions and interpretations. Above all, this book shows how the unique history, structure, and political power of each aristocracy conditioned its response to the pan-European challenge to its position as the ruling class.