An analysis of the revolutions of the 1820s in Greece, Sicily, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Italian Peninsula, revealing the popular constitutional culture of southern Europe.

After the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars and the attempt by the Congress of Vienna to guarantee peace and stability across Europe, a new revolutionary movement emerged in the southern regions of the old continent. In this groundbreaking study, Maurizio Isabella examines the historical context of the 1820s, when a series of simultaneous uprisings ignited the search for constitutional government in Portugal, Spain, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, and Greece.

The author places these events in a broader context and moves away from conventional narratives surrounding the origins of political modernity, aiming to reveal the existence of an authentic popular constitutional culture in Southern Europe.

Isabella focuses on the role played by secret societies, electoral processes, mass protests, and the experience of war, as well as the circulation of people and information across seas and borders to politicize new social groups. By studying the ways of mobilizing the army, the clergy, rural communities, and urban populations for or against the revolutions, he concludes that the southern uprisings enjoyed significant popular support, even though their ultimate outcome was determined by the interventions of more powerful foreign forces.

These movements fueled the political life of Portugal and Spain for decades, while contributing to the forging of a long-lasting revolutionary tradition in the Italian Peninsula. According to the author, the liberalism that emerged subsequently as a strong political force across Southern Europe exhibited distinct differences compared to its French and British counterparts.

Author: MAURIZIO ISABELLA

Language: GREEK

Pages: 768

Dimensions: 240X170X0

Year of Publication: 2025