Age of Moderation: Liberal Patriotism in the Mediterranean, 1814-1848

This project will investigate the transnational conceptualisation and diffusion of moderate liberal thought in Mediterranean Europe in the first half of the nineteenth century.

It will explore moderate thinkers’ formulation of a third political way for the future of Europe between revolution and reaction, by focussing on their transnational correspondence across France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece and Spain.

While historians have largely neglected the study of moderation theory by regarding it as an unoriginal and self-serving strand of thought, this project’s overarching argument is that moderation theory was an original strand of liberalism, which southern Europeans, in dialogue with their northern neighbours, conceptualised and implemented as an alternative to the political challenges of the revolutionary age.

The proposed research presents two new dimensions.

First, while historians have recently studied moderation theory in national contexts, this project will be the first transnational history of moderation theory in nineteenth-century Europe.

The international scope of moderate liberalism and its application in different national contexts are revealing of its significance in post-revolutionary Europe.

The second original dimension is that this project will use moderation theory to investigate the transnationalism of nations-in-the-making in the nineteenth-century Mediterranean.

As scholars have recently started studying the modern Mediterranean as a transnational zone of contact, this project will add a further dimension, by focussing on moderation theory as a primary trigger for intellectual encounters in the Mediterranean in the nineteenth century.