As you may know if you read my last blog post, last week was largely occupied by me feeling sick and tired. While I think we all anticipate feeling sick and tired for the rest of the semester, it is time to march forward. It is with this attitude that I am approaching the upcoming 2,500 word and 4,000 word draft. With a project as expansive as this I am very happy I chose a topic as equally as expansive.
The two drafts conveniently split into how I imagined my paper being divided. In 2,500 words I hope to run through the first French Revolution, how nationalism colored these developments, and the reactionary responses to these developments in the lead up to the 1848 revolutions. In 4,000 words I hope to cover the entirety of the 1848 revolutions and German Unification.
I am feeling much more confident in my paper and my research after this past week. After finding some much needed primary sources, especially from German liberal constitutionalist, I have what I need to move forward and actually begin writing the paper. Specifically I found the writings of Hermann Baumgarten very useful. A liberal constitutionalist at the time of the 1848 revolutions, Baumgarten’s “A Self Criticism of German Liberalism” is an academic retreat from the principles of liberal democratic and constitutional government to conform to the principles of Bismarck and German Unification under Prussia. This is a process repeated by many of the liberal constitutionalist.