Book review. If Men Define Situations As Real They Are Real In Their Consequences

Abstract

The so-called Thomas theorem would probably best define Adam Zamoyski’s book. In a history of the years between 1789 and 1848, he shows how the fear of revolution and the belief that there was an organized conspiracy to overthrow the governments of the day shaped the contemporary politics. It shows how the search for this phantom conspiracy and phantom revolution led to the development of the contemporary surveillance state1 with the rulers determined to get into the heads of their subjects and to deal with the potential subversion before it happened. The book is beautifully written, its sombre topic diffused by the sarcastic style of the author. It is full of amusing anecdotes about the leaders of the times and their subjects, and paints a picture of the forces of order of the times which would strongly resemble a caricature if it was not based on true facts and real, well-researched events. At the same time, the events described are rather tragicomic. The eagerness to please (and thus to uncover as many ‘plots’ as possible) and the blunders of ‘secret agents’