
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 19, 1994                   TAG: 9406140218
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: A-11   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: Reviewed by RANES CHAKRAVORTY
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

1840 - THE GLOBAL VILLAGE IS BORN

IN THE BEGINNING: The Advent of the Modern Age: Europe in the 1840s. By This is the last of a series of books written by Blum on the social and political history of Europe. It explores in detail the events between 1840 and approximately 1850.

The book is organized in two sections, the first addressing changing attitudes across the continent in the 1840s. The second deals individually with people and events in the five important political entities at the time - Britain, France, Austria, Germany, Russia - and relates how global changes affected each country.

The workable harnessing of steam power had made possible the railroads. Commerical railroads first appeared in England in 1825. By 1840 traveling had become remarkably fast, easy and inexpensive as compared to the stagecoaches. The electric telegraph became practical in 1844 with the establishment of a line between Washington and Baltimore. (A cumbersome and inefficent optical telegraph had been in existence for some time.) The Penny Post was introduced into Britain through the efforts of Sir Rowland Hill in 1840.

All these innovations helped simplify communication - the global village was on its way.

The ease and rapidity of the spread of information caused changes in the belief of the people about their rights as well as the privileges of the aristocrats. Child labor laws and the rights of the poor became areas of concern and corrective legislation.

The cultivation of science had hitherto remained an occasional pursuit of the rich and the eccentric. Establishment of funded university chairs made possible careers in science by interested people, rich and poor. The result was an explosion in all scientific fields and application of much of the new information into daily activities of the populace. These changes in attitudes and expectations presage the beginnings of the modern age.

One of Blum's strengths is in bringing to life people and events that have been largely forgotten. Names that were household words 150 years ago and are hardly recognized today live again in these pages. We read about Ashley, Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, who did so much to improve the condition of laborers in England. We read of Leopold von Ranke, one of the greatest realistic historians of all time, and of Vissarion Belinsky who died of tuberculosis at teh age of 37 and is considered one of the original protagonists of Russian social democracy.

With all these people and a hundred other characters, Blum gives a short biographical account to place them in their milieu and to display their ineraction with their times. I find this helpful - just the mention of a name in connection with a critical development in human affairs often raises questions demanding answers.

With 24 pages of references and another 24 pages of texts cited, Blum's book will remain a good source for those who want to pursue further any of the diverse aspects of European civilization he discusses. I recommend "In the Beginning" strongly to all who are interested in a global view of European history and the world of the 1840s.

Ranes Chakravorty is a Roanoke physician.

by CNB