What a job early education does to us. Rote-learned expressions turn out to be nonsense, or after-the-fact rationalization
The first wonder in "Pursuit of Power" is its range and breadth. Politics and government, of course. But also the economy, architecture, music, painting, inventions, the labor movement, women's rights and votes for women, urban design, literature, revolutions in transportation, power production, cast-iron engineering, "colonial" and Far and Middle Eastern issues as they involved European countries, and on and on.
"Enlightenment"? Assert people were enlightened during that time and you're laughed out of the room. "Golden" this, and "Silver" that? No, we grow and learn better.
But the notion the world was "at peace" - with its clearly-intended implication that it was "peaceful", and not just free from war - from the Congress of Vienna (1818) till World War One in 1914 is still widespread. Two superb books eloquently prove the opposite. First, Adam Zamoyski's 2015 "Phantom Terror - Political Paranoia and the Creation of the Modern State", and now Richard Evans' "The Pursuit of Power."
Evans is best known as the author of a three-volume history of NazI Germany. Many many people, expert and otherwise, think it is simply the best - period - on that overcrowded shelf.
Literally a compendium of human activity in what, contrary to the implications of the "century of peace" farrago, Evans makes clear was one of the most tempestuous, questioning, creative periods ever. Without saying it in so many words, he leaves in tatters the image of a "Victorian" age, prosperous, settled, following the mores and dislikes of Victoria herself at Osborne House.
Rarely in recent times have I had a more fascinating read. Felicitous and nicely structured prose about topics often so complex and interwover it's a wonder fluent sense can be made of them at all. And - noticeably - a creative intermixture of writing and illustrations. Not something one can automatically assume nowadays: often enough a book gives the impression that one mind has written the text, then another has called in an "art director" or some such to paste in a few pictures. With Evans, you end up feeling the same fine mind has addressed both.
What with high-quality paper and 800 pages it's a bit of a doorstop. But take a chance - you can stop the door with it later. Meantime, if you have any interest in what we were really doing between the Congress of Vienna and the First World War, you'll've been set aglow with admiration. And curiosity for more.