Readers of the Austrian History Yearbook and Central European History will be familiar with articles by this gifted young Czech historian. In these journals, Miroslav Šedivý has already reminded us of Metternich's interest in the Ottoman Empire in the period between 1839 and 1841. In Metternich, the Great Powers and the Eastern Question, Šedivý contextualizes these years and gives us the rest of the story. His exhaustive research, and sometimes exhaustingly detailed enumeration of events, begins with the Greek insurrection against the Ottomans in 1821 and concludes with the end of the Turko-Egyptian crisis in 1841. Does this sound forbidding and off-putting because of the seemingly narrow regional focus? Quite the contrary! This is a book about Metternich's realistic and pragmatic efforts to maintain sovereign legitimacy and international peace throughout all of Europe through respect for traditions and judicious humanitarian reforms, even as far away as in the Ottoman Empire.

Šedivý's thesis is very persuasively argued in this well-written and carefully edited volume. His extensive archival and bibliographical research provides us with more than new insights about the importance of the Ottoman Empire to an aging Austrian chancellor. This young Metternich scholar's scrupulous and detailed archival research presents to us very persuasive revisionist thinking regarding the “realism, pragmatism, and toleration” of Metternich, the statesman and the man (986).

First and foremost, Šedivý is to be commended for his extensive and excellent use of archival materials found in Vienna, Berlin, London, Moscow, Paris, Munich, the Vatican, and even Metternich's former library in Chateau Königswart. These materials enhance his ability to evaluate not only what Metternich expressed in his diplomatic correspondence, but also what other diplomatic contemporaries made of his written and oral analyses and pronouncements. Particularly useful are the reports of Bavarian, British, French, Prussian, and Russian diplomats both in Vienna and in Constantinople. They allow the author to reevaluate various myths and misunderstandings that contemporaries and later historians have propagated. One myth, among others, is Metternich's supposed lack of interest, knowledge, and involvement in the foreign and domestic affairs of the Ottoman Empire. Quite to the contrary, Šedivý reveals Metternich to have had an avid interest in, active knowledge about, and sustained involvement in efforts to both preserve and reform the Ottoman Empire. For Metternich, the Ottoman Empire's survival was a quintessential necessity for the maintenance of a general European peace. The breakup of the Ottoman Empire would have resulted in diplomatic and potential military clashes between the great powers. Šedivý shows how European peace was especially endangered during the Rhine Crisis of 1840 − 1841, when French diplomatic support for Mohammed Ali, the rebellious Egyptian vassal of the Ottomans, led to a split between the French and the Austrian, British, Prussian, and Russian governments that had aligned with the legitimate Ottoman ruler. The diplomatic split generated a surge of popular nationalism in France and Germany that threatened European peace. Little understood developments far to the east of the Rhine destabilized the European Concert, which Metternich fostered throughout the period between 1815 and 1848.

Šedivý's careful analysis of Metternich's European diplomacy does more than leading him to assert the need for further archival research that will lead to a better understanding of Metternich's “considerably European outlook in a generally egoistic world” (984). He has perceptive things to say about Metternich's knowledge about the Near East. There are especially good chapters concerning Metternich's insights regarding “Occident against Orient” (chap. 12), “Economic Interests and the First Mohammed Ali Crisis” (chap. 14), and “Mahmud II's Reformatory Effort” (chap. 20). The Austrian chancellor's insistence on the importance of maintaining Islamic traditions while bringing justice and efficiency to the Ottoman government and administration placed him in sharp contrast to more “Euro-centric thinkers” who showed “little regard for local conditions, traditions and customs.” (382).

Šedivý's magnum opus will not be his last contribution to revisionist Metternich studies and to diplomatic history of the first half of the nineteenth century. This great beginning will solidify his scholarly reputation and give him the freedom to produce similarly provocative, but less weighty, tomes in coming years. Welcome to the guild, Professor Šedivý. We are glad to count you among those of us who still think that careful study of the documents should trump incautious generalities every time.