Holy Madness: Romantics, Patriots, and Revolutionaries, 1776-1871

Abstract

The dramatic journey of Holy Madness begins in America in 1776 and travels through the last agony of the Paris Commune in 1871, documenting in one continuous narrative an extraordinary century that changed the face of the world. Romantics and revolutionaries, fired by the political visions of the Englightenment, transformed the society of Europe and its colonies in a widespread desire to create ideal communities: witness the American Revolution, the Irish rebellion, uprisings in Hungary, Russia, and Poland; the war of Greek liberation, the liberation of South America, and the Italian Risorgimento. On this vast canvas, Zamoyski elegantly captures the passionate partisans Lafayette, Garibaldi, Mazzini, Napoleon, Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Coleridge, Byron, Rousseau, Bolivar, and countless others willing to die in a kind of crusade whose Jerusalem was an idealized nation. As the cult of the nation rises again around the world, this magnificent, and stimulating consideration of the causes and consequences of nationalism takes on a chilling relevance.

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