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• English Historical Review
• History
• Albion. A quarterly Journal concerned with British Studies
• European History Quarterly
• Historical Journal
• H-Net
• The International History Review
• sehepunkte
• Historische Zeitschrift

"The high quality of the edition, including an annotated index of names and subjects, contribute to a very valuable collection of sources which will be welcomed by all historians interested in Anglo-German perceptions and in the history of diplomatic services in the nineteenth century. The edition of the following volumes is eagerly awaited."

Jörn Leonhard in The English Historical Review, Vol 117, Issue 470, February 2002, pp 208-09

"This volume and series will constitute a lasting and central resource for British, German and European historians, and should also be a reference work for those working in diplomatic history and international relations. The German state system, the Confederation, formed an intricate mechanism central to the European balance of power established in 1815. The Confederation reflected a view of international relations and the European political landscape which rested upon principles predating nationalism. As a result it has attracted more attention recently with the rise of multi-ethnic and regional political units and, among German historians, against the backdrop of German reunification and the reappearance of the Saxon and Prussian ghosts. With respect to such subjects, the British envoys’ dispatches will provide a wealth of insight and stimulation to reflection. The German Historical Institute and the Royal Historical Society should be praised for recapturing and making accessible a truly monumental resource."

John R. Davis in The English Historical Review, Vol 123, Issue 502, June 2008, pp 774-5

"The series [...] will be a highly useful reference point for teachers and researchers of Anglo-German relations, and nineteenth-century British, German and diplomatic history"

John R. Davis in History, Vol 87 (2002), p 624

"The documents selected for this volume make for fascinating reading. Even when the envoys turn to such matters as the postal system, trade fairs, and accounts of royal marriages and deaths, they are engaging. When they deal with the pressing issues of the day such as constitutionalism, revolution, freedom of the press, religious toleration, to name just a few, they are truly provoking. […] The dispatches vary in their tone and content depending on place and as such they reveal a remarkably diverse Germany. […] That said, this is a superb volume; intelligently and carefully put together, it is a must read for all historians of nineteenth-century Europe."

John K. Severn in Albion. A quarterly Journal concerned with British Studies, Vol 35/2 (2003), pp 323-24

"… it enables the reader to picture more clearly how developments in the German states appeared to, and were followed by, the envoys extraordinary and through them, the makers of British foreign policy in London. As a consequence this collection provides the modern-day historian with a rare set of published contemporary English-language commentaries, covering events in Germany in the immediate period after the Congress of Vienna. […] It is this more factual, official view of pre-Unification Germany, as seen through various British eyes, which is presented here. This volume serves as a substantial appetizer for the forthcoming second instalment covering the longer period of 1829-1866 [in three volumes], during which the Industrial Revolution really began to take off in Germany, and the different German states began to move more quickly towards their unification. For this reason alone, the second volume will be eagerly awaited by those who value the contribution made here by the first, giving us an insight into the early development of a nation which would go on to play such an important part in the history of the twentieth century."

Owain James Wright in European History Quarterly, Vol. 33/2 (2003), pp 269-72.

"It must surely be a costly enterprise, but will eventually become the kind of reference book generations of historians have to take into account if they want to understand the processes which led from the German Federation to the German Empire. To see these events through British spectacles gives one a fresh angle on inner German developments and it also reveals a lot about the British approach to other countries. The decision the editors have to make in selecting the most interesting out of a vast quantity of sources is of course always a difficult one. That today's scholars are not simply interested in political dispatches but, for example, want to know more about the crime statistics of German cities, has been taken into account. The result is a well balanced selection that will probably please political, social, economic and military historians as well."

Karina Urbach in Historical Journal, 46,4 (2003)

 

"The editors have done a marvellous job in selecting from the voluminous and wordy contributions as well as in introducing the sources to the reader, and in providing reports from Frankfurt, Prussia, the Hanse towns, Hanover, Saxony, Württemberg, Bavaria, and Austria. [….]The benefit of the edition of British envoy reports to the German lands lies in providing considerable and subtle evidence of the diplomatic elite’s views of liberalism and democracy, constitutional reform, and the nation state in Germany. The envoys’ reports provide substantial evidence that British Victorian elites were far less open to continental liberal-democratic reforms than a German Sonderweg view might still suggest. In this respect, the view from abroad might serve to widen horizons and interpretations of the historical place of the connections and images evoked by the revolutions of 1848 as a European phenomenon."

Christian Müller  in Historical Journal, 53,1 (2010), pp 241-2

"The colloborative enterprise of London's German Historical Institute and the Royal Historical Society to publish hundreds of envoys' reports from Germany in the period 1830-47 constitutes a significant contribution to the era's research apparatus. Editors Markus Moesslang, Sabine Freitag, and Peter Wende have done a superb job editing and annotating the volume. The introduction offers a cogent analysis of the principal themes; the subject index is thorough and thematically subdivided; and the annotated index of names is a trove of biographical information on both the famous and obscure in the Vormärz period. We have here a first-rate research tool. No mention is made of a third volume for the Revolution of 1848/49, which might have been the logical conclusion to this volume, and the remaining decades of the Confederation, but one hopes that this important third volume is in the making. [...] In conclusion, this volume and its companions are highly recommended for undergraduate and graduate seminar work. It deserves to be a standard work in every reference library."

Reviewed for H-German by James M. Brophy, University of Delaware, 24 February 2004

[full review]

"But the reports in this volume are full of interest. They represent the thoughts of generally well-informed British diplomats, often with a deeper understanding of what was happening than many Germany possessed. Beyond immediate crises, accounts of the cholera and of arrangements for poor relief, the reports provided perceptive insights into the likely future of German. In the light of the momentous changes of the next generation and the move to unification under Prussian auspices, what was written in the 1830s and 1840s takes on a special significance and value."

John Clarke on volume II in The International History Review XXVI. I: March 2004, pp 143-45

"Insgesamt handelt es sich um eine wertvolle Quellensammlung sowohl für die Heranführung von insbesondere britischen und amerikanischen Studierenden an die Arbeit mit Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte als auch für die Forschung. Die Vielfalt der deutschen Staatenlandschaft und die Mühen der Staaten des Bundes, in praktischen, etwa handelspolitischen Fragen, Interessenkonflikte zu überwinden und gemeinsam das Gesamtinteresse zu definieren, erhalten durch den Filter zeitgenössischer britischer Berichte eine interessante Nuance und im Hinblick auf die Schwierigkeiten, auf europäischer Ebene gemeinsame Nenner zu finden, auch eine vielschichtige historische Relevanz."

Matthias Schulz in sehepunkte 4 (2004), Nr. 6 [15.06.2004]

[full review]
 

"Der so vermittelte britische Blick auf den Deutschen Bund ist daher nicht nur von politikgeschichtlicher Relevanz, sondern ist auch für diejenigen Leser lohnend, die sich für Kulturtransfer, für Ideengeschichte oder für das Leben und Wirken von Diplomaten im neunzehnten Jahrhundert interessieren. Die vielseitige Benutzbarkeit des vorliegenden Bandes ist neben den aufschlussreichen Quellen vor allem der hervorragenden Editionsqualität geschuldet. Die Herausgeber haben aus der Unmenge von Berichten eine überzeugende Auswahl getroffen und die einzelnen Quellenstücke hilfreich kommentiert. Ein ausführliches Personenregister und ein Sachregister ermöglichen einen bequemen Zugriff auf Einzelaspekte der vorgelegten Texte. [...] Wer sich fortan mit der internationalen Geschichte Europas in der Revolutionsepoche, mit der britischen Europapolitik im neunzehnten Jahrhundert oder mit der außenpolitischen Dimension der deutschen Nationalstaatsgründung beschäftigen will, wird dieses Quellenwerk unentbehrlich finden."

Frank Lorenz Müller in sehepunkte 7 (2007), Nr. 9 [15.09.2007]

[full review]

"Dieser Blick auf Deutschland aus britischer Perspektive bietet einen beeindruckenden Spiegel der Ereignisse und zeigt Aspekte, die in „innerdeutschen“ Quellen üblicherweise fehlen. Somit liefert er nicht nur weitreichende Erkenntnisse über die Sichtweise (und großenteils auch die Mentalität) britischer Diplomaten, sondern in vielen Facetten auch Neues zu den Ereignissen und Vorgängen selbst. Dafür und für die Sorgfalt in der Auswahl und Präsentation ist den Editoren zu danken."

Wolfgang Elz in Historische Zeitschrift, Vol 288 (2009), pp 471-4