Mike Rapport offers a wide-ranging story of the revolutions that swept throughout Western, Central, and East Central Europe in the years 1848–1849. The narrative is structured into six chapters following in chronological order the tumultuous happenings in the European monarchies most exposed to sociopolitical changes. The author concentrates predominantly on the major revolutionary events that occurred in France, the German lands, the Italian peninsula, and the lands of the Habsburg Empire. He devotes less attention to the revolutionary events in the Romanian principalities of Moldova and Wallachia, as well as in other European countries, which remained more or less unaffected by the revolutionary current, including Russia, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, and Spain.

Rapport relies heavily on secondary literature, his most important sources being some of the classical works on the 1848 revolutions in Europe and other secondary literature mostly in English. With few exceptions, Rapport does not work with primary sources; and even when he is quoting historical actors, witnesses, or commentators, he often cites the secondary literature. The dominant part of the text is a traditional narrative of events, in places detailed to the extent of unwieldiness; however, Rapport also analyzes sociopolitical, economical, and ideological determinants that led to the outbursts of revolutions in Europe. He documents similar patterns in the course of revolutions in all of the major cases listed above (with the partial exception of Hungary): the sudden and somewhat surprising success of radicals in what was essentially a series of urban uprisings in the spring of 1848 and the subsequent establishment of constitutional order (and a republic in the case of France). The old regimes crumbled and the conservative elites remained on the defensive until autumn and winter 1848; by spring and summer 1849, they regained their positions and very quickly consolidated their power.

According to Rapport, several intersecting factors were of great importance in this process. The first was the deep ideological and political split between the liberals and radicals that emerged after the initial enthusiasm and sense of fraternity born of their success in the spring. The second was the violent involvement of the working class, with several insurrections and outbursts in the revolutionary capitals in the summer and autumn 1848, and the ensuing dismay of the urban middle class that increasingly regarded the restoration of order the highest priority, even at the cost of revolutionary achievements. The third was the ambiguous role of the rural populations. The peasantry, who was initially almost everywhere keenly supportive of the revolution because of the abolition of serfdom and the promise of (at least partial) emancipation, gradually turned against it, especially after the workers' uprisings in the cities.

A further factor that Rapport highlights is nationalism and ethnicity. Though he devotes a subchapter to this issue, his treatment of nationalism lacks the analytical depth he provides when analyzing the Socialist movement. Yet Rapport himself admits that nationalism was, following social tensions (especially the working classes' poverty, worsened by the economic crisis of the late 1840s and put to the extreme by the upheavals of the revolution), the second most decisive factor and the reason for which the revolutions failed and the counterrevolution succeeded.

As is generally the case with compilations on such large themes, Rapport's book is not void of minor factual and terminological mistakes. Throughout the work, Rapport speaks about Budapest, yet Budapest did not exist as a single city until 1873. The inappropriate use of state names such as Germany, Italy, or Slovakia should be viewed critically—none of these states existed in 1848–1849, and the fact that the aim of many of the revolutionaries and others was to bring these to life as geopolitical entities does not justify their anachronistic use by the historian. It seems that Rapport's book was not meant for specialist readers; rather, it falls into the category of literature for the general public. Because this work is obviously aimed at a nonprofessional readership, the general map of Europe—the only map in the book—is not sufficient. Adding more detailed maps would have dramatically helped the reader with understanding and orientation in the very complex story of the 1848-1849 revolutions in Europe.