Matt Elton: Before we explore the causes of the revolutions of 1848, could you sketch out where and when they took place?
Christopher Clark: In January 1848, revolution broke out in Palermo and Naples, two major cities of what was then called the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. This happened against a backdrop of demonstrations and protests that had been building across Europe. And then came the really big news: the revolution in Paris in the last week of February, which led to the flight of the king from the city and the collapse of the French monarchy. After that, the revolutions enter a kind of fusion phase in which there are chain reactions of uprisings: in Vienna, Berlin, Budapest, Bucharest. It just went on and on, cascading across the continent.