The Pursuit of Power. Europe. 1815 - 1914 - Tapa dura

Highly impressive ... chronicles a turbulent and confusing century with wonderful clarity and verve ... transnational history at its finest ... more complete but also much more fascinating than most histories of the period (Gerard Degroot The Times)

Splendid ... a traditional framework, perhaps, but one whose enduring value is confirmed by Evans's fine scholarship (David Bell Financial Times)

Dazzlingly erudite and entertaining ... He brings together an almost impossibly vast range of material (bear-hunting in Hungary, trade unions in Dorset, the wars of Italian unification) in a sweeping narrative underpinned by a persuasive central theme ... he handles his immense body of material with enviable subtlety and skill. (Dominic Sandbrook The Sunday Times)

This is a scintillating, encyclopaedic history, rich in detail from the arcane to the familiar. The canvas is vast and so much is now known about the period, thanks to a profusion of historical writing, that giving shape to the material must have been a daunting task. Yet Evans has risen to the challenge splendidly. The Pursuit of Power mixes political, social, economic, cultural and intellectual history to give a richness of texture and presence that the existing major accounts of the century - many of them written at a time when high politics, great men and balance-of-power diplomacy were what counted as history - were unable to deliver. To achieve that blend and yet retain coherence marks this volume as a veritable tour de force... for anyone who wants to discover just how entangled Europe's history is, there can be no better starting point than The Pursuit of Power. (Richard Overy New Statesman)

The Pursuit of Power offers both a compelling big picture and a flavour of the time. Evans conveys the era's "strangeness and familiarity", revealing the many faces of a much-misunderstood century whose imperialism and revolutions remain influential. The last line of "Recessional" is ubiquitous, but its warning about the transience of power and the dangers of ignorance illustrates the timeliness of Evans's work: "Lest we forget." (Christopher Kissane Guardian)