Writing a History of Revolutions in Southern Europe: Afterthoughts

This response to the Annales ’ forum on my Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions focuses on the Southern framework of my analysis, on the place of the Greece case within this context, and on the chronology of the age of revolutions. It highlights that the term “South” was adopted by the revolutionaries themselves in Portugal, Spain, Piedmont, and Naples—but not in Greece. It argues that a comparative framework enables us to explore the Greek revolution not only as a war of independence but also as a moment of political apprenticeship. Finally, it suggests that this Southern focus invites us to reintegrate what Franco Venturi termed the “first crisis” of the ancien régime in the 1760s and 1770s into the chronology of the age of revolutions.