1. Broers, M. Europe under Napoleon 1799-1815, (London, 1996).
2. Lane, A. The pursuit of glory: Europe, 1648-1815, (London, 2007).
3. Gildea, R. Barricades and borders: Europe, 1800-1914, (Oxford, 1996). I would say these might be a good place to start. I haven't read them all in their entirety, but each are examples of good scholarship recommended by my colleagues, and they should provide you with some background knowledge to the period. Hope this helps!

Thanks for your responses! I looked through the reading list and found a pair of titles I thought specifically useful: Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600 - 1947, and German History: 1770 - 1866. I should mention, I am looking for books to better help me locate Karl Marx historically in the political climate and context of his day - to this end, I expect surveys of European history coupled with more granular expositions of French/German/Prussian history should be pretty good. Am I far off base here? And, with that information in mind, are there any other books y'all might recommend?

You might want to take a look at /r/AskHistorians excellent book list.