The Revolution of 1848 has proven to be a continuously interesting field for historical research. Whether one sees it as a turning point where German history failed to turn, as an uprising bungled by a bunch of impractical professors, as a revolution undermined by ethnic hostility, or as a revolution which failed because it ignored the problems of the lower classes, the question of its failure has been almost as fruitful a focus of research as other countries' successful revolutions. Historians have also been attracted to it because it seems to provide outlines and previews of future events in German history. It marks, we are told, the growing politicization of the masses, the birth of social conflict, the inception of national struggles, or the first sign of the liberals' political cowardice.