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Watercra t1_je3cy3v wrote

What would be some good books about the Congress of Vienna? With the roles/POV of Metternich, Talleyrand, etc.

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quantdave t1_je5qk8h wrote

A related question popped up here, and I was surprised not to find more recent works, so I hope someone can add other suggestions.

Besides the Jarrett title mentioned there, Harold Nicolson's The Congress of Vienna relates the contributions of the various principals, but after 77 years that's getting pretty long in the tooth.

For the perspectives of individual players it might be worth consulting biographies: there's a recent sympathetic reappraisal of Metternich by Wolfram Siemann, but sceptics might be left unconvinced that he was the visionary suggested.

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Watercra t1_je660qu wrote

I remember listening to a podcast that had a really great book in their reading recommendations, but it's only in German and not translated - at least not when I checked last

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quantdave t1_je67v7k wrote

A translation might come along - it may be worth asking the publisher if one's planned.

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Watercra t1_je69rju wrote

I actually found it and it's been translated now - I couldn't find it at first because I forgot it wasn't just about the Congress, it's a book of around 1000 pages on Metternich, and ofc includes what happened at the Congress.

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quantdave t1_je6vxw7 wrote

Excellent, that was timely! It's not Siemann, is it? That came out in the original German a few years earlier.

In Our Time did an episode back in 2017: the associated reading list fills in a few gaps, closer to what I expected:

Mark Jarrett, The Congress of Vienna and Its Legacy: War and Great Power Diplomacy After Napoleon (I.B. Tauris 2014)

David King, Vienna 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna (Broadway Books 1993)

Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812-22 (first published 1954; Echo Point Books & Media 2013)

Harold Nicolson, The Congress of Vienna: A Study in Allied Unity 1812-1822 (1946; Grove Press 2000)

Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics: 1763-1848 (Clarendon Press 1996)

Brian E. Vick, The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon (Harvard University Press 2014)

Adam Zamoyski, Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna (Harper Perennial 2008)

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Watercra t1_je6x3mw wrote

Yup this is exactly it, I just totally blanked out on the show name so I couldn't find the reading list and such 😅 And it is the Siemann book indeed

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