Download 2010 Question 2 Analyze the ways in which European monarchs

2010 Question 2
Analyze the ways in which European monarchs used both the arts and the sciences toenhance state
power in the period circa 1500–1800.
Question 2 — Historical Background Notes
Central elements of the question
• Analyze — determine the component parts; examine their nature and relationship.
• European monarchs — aside from the accepted royal dynasties, textbooks and students treat
somepopes as secular political leaders. Despots of some Renaissance city-states (the Sforza and de
Medici) are also often treated as single rulers.
• The arts — textbooks are in agreement regarding the dominant artistic styles for the period 1500–
1800 as Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassicism.
• The sciences — consideration of the physical and the social sciences appears in a number of essays.
Aside from discussions of the Scientific Revolution, students are likely to focus much of their analysis on
the application of scientific knowledge (technology) or the application of Enlightenment ideals for the
benefit of royal or state power, or both. The textbooks are in some respects less specific about
technological developments (military, navigational/cartographic, agricultural/industrial) explicitly linked
to European monarchs.
• State power — textbooks treat royal authority in symbolic terms (usually in the discussion of the use
of the arts) and political/military/coercive terms (usually in their discussion of the use of the
sciences,sometimes when considering the architecture of palaces).
• Circa 1500–1800 — periodization is often a challenge to many students. The phrasing of the
questionsuggests that some flexibility is allowed when setting standards. The second half of the 15th
century, circa 1450–1500, encompassed the Renaissance and the start of European exploration of the
Atlantic and Indian Ocean basins and contains legitimate evidence for the question. The closing date,
circa 1800, suggests that students who discuss policies enacted during the Napoleonic Era by monarchs
are providing appropriate information for the question.
Question 3 — Historical Background Notes
This topic is widely covered in most European history textbooks; however, the discussions are generally
couched in larger discussions of the evolution of the Protestant Reformation movement, rather than an
explicit discussion of relationships between church and state. There are numerous examples from which
students may choose, and the information below highlights background information for those examples
most commonly chosen by students. It is by no means an exhaustive list of acceptable views that can be
used. It is important to note that this question focuses on the relationship of church and state; students
who recount only a narrative of the Protestant Reformation without addressing church/state
relationships explicitly have failed to recognize a key component of the question.
Lutheranism
Martin Luther maintained that religious reform should not affect the political status quo, except for its
impact on the break with the papacy. Luther’s “Address to the Nobility of the German Nation” (1520)
appealed to the German princes to support his cause, in part, as a means of resisting papal power and
taxation demands. When a group of early followers who were fed up with longstanding economic
problems led the Peasants Revolt (1524–1525) against local authorities, Luther vehemently condemned
their actions and called for a strong response against those who challenged legitimate authority. Luther
maintained that his challenges were spiritual and not political, though he appealed to German
patriotism to build support. Further, as a result of his defiance at the Diet of Worms, Luther needed the
support of local German princes against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The Peace of Augsburg (1555)
established a compromise allowing each local prince the right to determine the religion of his territory.
Thus, wherever Lutheranism became the dominant religion, the church was generally sanctioned by the
state. Though the Peace of Augsburg (1555) recognized only Catholicism and Lutheranism, the Peace of
Westphalia (1648) eventually extended recognition to Calvinism in the German states. Sweden,
Denmark and Norway also established Lutheran state churches in the 16th century under the leadership
of their respective monarchs.
Calvinism
John Calvin accepted some of Luther’s reform ideology, but Calvin placed greater emphasis on
predestination. The heart of his reform movement was located in Geneva, Switzerland, where he
eventually assumed a strong leadership position. Calvin worked to establish Geneva as a model city
ruled by God through both civil magistrates and reformed ministers. He believed the fundamental
principle of a political system was to fulfill the moral laws of a Christian community. Calvin emphasized
the role of the church community in punishing violation of both civil and moral laws against such
practices as gambling and public drunkenness. Thus, church leaders played a major role in linking public
affairs with Calvinist ideology. Calvinism spread quickly among the nobility and middle class, many of
whom likely saw themselves as members of the elect while also resenting the privileges of the Catholic
clergy. One of the most influential of Calvin’s followers was John Knox, who took Calvin’s ideas to
Scotland. Knox, despite opposition from the monarchy, won support from the Scottish Parliament for
legislation severing papal authority. Knox established the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which
became the official state church.
Ulrich Zwingli
Ulrich Zwingli established a base in Zurich, Switzerland, a city that had grown increasingly resentful of
clerical privileges and immunities. Zwingli, the chief preacher of Zurich, openly declared himself a
reformer in 1520. He espoused some of the basic tenets adopted by Luther, but there were also
fundamental differences: Zwingli and Luther disagreed vehemently on the nature of the Lord’s Supper,
and Zwingli embraced a simpler style of worship as a means of eliminating “distractions” in the worship
service. These differences proved irreconcilable and led to a split in the early Protestant movement.
Zwingli’s influence in Zurich established the area as a center for the Swiss and southern German reform
movement. Zwingli was among the most outspoken critics of the new Anabaptist movement as a threat
to the existing order, and he persuaded local magistrates to use the death penalty against the
Anabaptists.
Anabaptism
The Anabaptists were among the more radical groups of the early reformation movement. Many early
Anabaptists were peasants who became disenchanted with Martin Luther after his condemnation of the
Peasant’s Revolts in the German states. Perhaps not surprisingly, they emphasized principles of equality
in the eyes of God. They stressed the conscious choice of believers to join the faith, hence their practice
of baptizing only adults. Many leaders outside the Anabaptist movement believed that their views on
religious choice undermined the predominant mindset that stressed the necessity of state-established
churches to maintain order. Most Anabaptists believed in separation of church and state and refused to
swear oaths of loyalty to local governments, often earning them the ire of both Catholics and other
Protestants. Though most Anabaptists desired to live peacefully outside the confines of state-mandated
obligations, there were exceptions. For example, John of Leiden established a theocracy in Münster,
where he sanctioned practices such as polygamy and burned all books except the Bible. He was believed
to be a threat to the existing political and social order and was suppressed by joint Protestant and
Catholic efforts and later tortured and executed. Though Anabaptism did not sustain itself as an
independent movement, the ideology was influential in the development of other groups, including the
Quakers.
English Reformation
Though the Catholic Church was strong in England in the early 16th century, some reformation
sentiment had been present in England dating back to the 14th century. It was ultimately Henry VIII’s
personal life that motivated a break with Roman Catholicism. Unlike other reform movements of the
time, this one was strictly political in nature. When negotiations with the papacy were unsuccessful in
granting Henry the annulment he sought from Catherine of Aragon, Henry used Parliament to legalize a
break with the papacy. Parliament passed a law that forbade judicial appeals to the papacy and
established the monarch as the highest law in the land, and the Supremacy Act of 1534 made the
monarch the supreme head of the Church of England. Further, Henry decided to dissolve the
monasteries in order to obtain their wealth; this led to a redistribution of wealth among middle- and
upper-class families, reinforcing ties to the Crown and a desire to maintain the break with the papacy.
The Church of England saw a move toward more Protestant ideas under Henry’s successor Edward VI, a
return to Roman Catholicism under Mary I, and the “Elizabethan Settlement” under Elizabeth I that
demanded outward conformity to a Church of England that had embraced some tenets of moderate
Protestant ideology. English politics continued to be shaped in significant ways by religious dispute
during the period. For example, many Irish vehemently opposed the break with Catholicism and the
subsequent establishment of the Church of Ireland patterned after the Church of England; an Irish
rebellion in 1649 was brutally crushed by Oliver Cromwell. The English Civil War (1642–1649) was also
shaped by religious dissent. Charles I was forced to call Parliament as a result of a rebellion — sparked in
part by religion — in Scotland. Cromwell, as leader of the Parliamentary forces in the civil war, was
deeply influenced by his own Puritan sentiments, which continued to influence his leadership during the
Interregnum. Similarly, the Glorious Revolution (1688) was spurred by fears of a return to Catholicism
under James II and his successor, a situation no longer tenable in a now strongly Protestant nation.
France
Calvin’s ideas, despite official condemnation and persecution, gained a foothold in France by the middle
of the 16th century, particularly among the middle class. Calvinism continued to gain converts as a result
of weak leadership in the latter part of the century, and many of these new converts were among the
nobility. This divisive religious climate led to a series of power struggles among Catholic royalists and
Calvinist nobles desiring to assert greater independence. The motivation among the lower classes was
perhaps more closely tied to matters of religious belief; each side felt strongly that the other was
weakening their society, and both sides endorsed violence in their struggles against each other.
Thousands of Huguenots were killed during the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre in 1572, an event that
launched the War of the Three Henrys. Three factions emerged during the conflict; they were led by the
ultra-Catholic Henry of Guise, the Protestant Henry of Navarre, and King Henry III. Ultimately, Henry of
Navarre emerged victorious, in large part thanks to the influence of politiques who were more
concerned with reestablishing a strong monarchy and strong nation than strict religious conformity.
Though Henry of Navarre converted to Catholicism to make his ascension to the throne more palatable
to the majority of the French, he issued the Edict of Nantes, which recognized the right of the
Huguenots to worship in certain sections of France. In doing so, he reestablished internal order by
allowing a small degree of religious toleration, though the decree was weakened under Louis XIII (and
Cardinal Richelieu), who believed that Protestantism was a cloak for political intrigue against the
monarch. Louis XIV established a firm principle of “one king, one law, one faith,” thus nullifying the early
gains made by the Huguenots.
Netherlands
By the late 16th century the Netherlands had emerged as a leading commercial and banking center, and
each of the 17 provinces that comprised the Low Countries enjoyed some degree of autonomy in
political matters; their chief unifying factor was that each recognized the Holy Roman Emperor as their
common leader. Lutheranism had made some inroads into the region; Charles V’s repressive policies
had limited reach, and Lutheranism was not regarded as an especially strong threat to existing authority.
Calvinism’s growing appeal to the commercial classes, however, was viewed as more dangerous, and
Philip II’s regent authorized the Inquisition while also increasing the tax burden. The ensuing rebellion
led Philip II to call for brutal suppression, resulting in a civil war that pitted Catholics against Protestants
and the provinces against Spain. In 1581 the seven northern provinces declared themselves
independent of Spain (backed by aid from Elizabeth I), though their independence was not fully
acknowledged until 1648. The United Provinces were established as a republican confederation that
embraced a degree of religious toleration unparalleled in the 17th century.
Question #4 2010
Analyze the various effects of the expansion of the Atlantic trade on the economy ofWestern Europe
in the period circa 1450–1700.
• The African slave trade generated major profits for Europeans. By 1700 slave ships delivered about
30,000 slaves to the Americas every year. (In 1494 Columbus proposed setting up a slave trade from the
New World to Spain. Some enslaved Native Americans were brought to Spain and sold in Seville. This
fact will occasionally be mentioned.)
• Europe joined a worldwide market as Europeans sought slaves from Africa and luxury goods and spices
from Asia.
• The standard of living increased, and there was a growth in demand for luxury goods.
• The population grew, leading to more producers and consumers, as well as greater price pressure.
• The flood of Spanish coins and the new demand for luxury goods (as well as demand outpacing supply
for agricultural products and the rising standard of living) led to inflation. In the 16th century the price of
cereal rose five times and the price of manufactured goods rose three times.
• Related to inflation was the Commercial Revolution, as merchants and entrepreneurs sought to make
and handle wealth. The Dutch were the leaders here — they built huge warehouses, where they
stockpiled goods to control supplies and keep prices high.
• Joint-stock companies were formed, which allowed ordinary people to participate in overseas
ventures.
• Piracy and privateering developed circa 1550–1700. This was another aspect of the worldwide
economy. Privateers were licensed by their governments to raid the ships of other countries.
• Warfare was generated by economic competition, including the Anglo–Dutch wars and the Dutch–
French wars.
• Off task: industrialization; England as a major power in the 18th century; Asian trade (unless the essay
discusses the purchase of luxury goods); war (unless it is tied to the economy).
Question #5 2010
Compare and contrast how TWO of the following states attempted to hold together their empires in
the period circa 1850 to 1914.
Austria-Hungary
Russia
Ottoman Empire
Austria-Hungary
• Following upheavals of revolutions of 1848, Austria-Hungary imposed martial law and issued a Patent
of 1851 to restore absolutism.
• Francis Joseph ruled 1848–1916.
• 1850s — wave of centralization brought improvements aimed at dissuading people from liberty:
reform of legal system; creation of free trading area within the empire; subsidized highways and railroad
construction.
• 1855 — Bach signed Concordat with Catholic Church, restoring privileges and extending ecclesiastical
authority; banned Protestant teachers from Catholic schools; banned civil marriages; limited Jews’ rights
to property.
• Professional armies under Jelacic, Radetzky and Windischgratz crushed rebellions in Bohemia, Hungary
and Northern Italy.
• Emerged as one of the two dominant powers for German unification.
• 1859 — defeated by French and Piedmontese.
• 1860 (October) — Diploma reestablished conservative federalism.
• 1861 (February) — Patent constitution, bicameral parliament, maintained German dominance, kept
German-speaking bureaucracy.
• 1866 — Austro-Prussian War attempted to promote German-speaking dominance; reflected reliance
on German-speaking bureaucracy and middle class for support.
• Repression of ethnic minorities and political opposition:
o Germans — 35 percent
o Magyars — 23 percent
o Czechs — 23 percent
o Romanians — 19 percent
• 1867 — Ausgleich created Dual Monarchy, allowed Hungarian to be language of administration in
Hungary, limited rights of emperor as king of Hungary, and gave more power to nobility. Hungarians
ruled domestic policy; Austria retained control of foreign policy, military, common system of finances.
Austria received a constitution establishing a parliamentary system with the principle of ministerial
responsibility, but Francis Joseph largely ignored or bypassed this.
• 1867 — full legal rights were extended to Jews.
• 1868 — Nationality Law gave rights to languages in schools, churches, government offices; Croatia was
given semiautonomy.
• 1882 — Dual Alliance (with Germany) became Triple Alliance.
• 1903 — Hungary demanded separation of Hungary's army from the Imperial Army; Francis
Josephthreatened imposition of universal male suffrage.
• 1907 — universal male suffrage introduced in Austria. Two strong parties gradually emerged: Social
Democrats and Christian Socialists.
• 1908 — Bosnian Crisis.
• 1914 — Francis Ferdinand assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Black Hand, a Serbian
nationalist group.
Russia
• Tsars
o Alexander I (1801–1825)
o Nicholas I (1825–1855)
o Alexander II (1855–1881)
o Alexander III (1881–1894)
o Nicholas II (1894–1917)
• Increased distrust of Western bourgeois life was evident, particularly among Slavophiles.
• 1856 — defeated in Crimean War, followed by Peace of Paris: Russia gave up Moldavia, Wallachia and
Bessarabia and accepted neutrality of Black Sea.
• 1860–1870s — Expanded eastward across Siberia to Vladivostok.
• 1861 — serfs emancipated; replaced services owed to nobles with taxes to the state.
• 1863 — Polish uprising, repressed by Russia. Russification was initiated; Russian law, language and
administration were imposed on all areas of life.
• 1864 — Polish serfs were emancipated to punish the nobility.
• 1864 — Alexander II established Zemstvos (district or village assemblies).
• 1870 — Alexander II established dumas (councils) with authority to assess taxes and establish
education and public services. He also created local and provincial courts, and a judicial code that
accepted the idea of equality before the law.
• Populism, or the People’s Will, based on ideas of village commune-based society promoted by
Alexander Herzen and more militant individuals and groups, such as Vera Zasulich, wanted to overthrow
the autocracy.
• The military was modernized, but Third Section police were retained, and there was increased use of
secret court martials for political cases.
• 1875–1914 – levels of violent anti-Semitism increased in the last quarter of the 19th century.
Persecutions and pogroms were widespread, leading to increased levels of emigration. Between 1881
and 1889 an average of 23,000 Jews left Russia each year.
• 1878 — Treaty of San Stefano with Turkey created large independent state of Bulgaria, which Russia
would dominate. In reaction, Congress of Berlin (1878) reduced Bulgaria and recognized Serbia,
Montenegro and Romania as independent states.
• Invasion was undertaken of Turkestan, smaller Muslim states and Afghanistan, which Britain made a
puppet monarchy.
• Protective tariffs, promoted by Sergei Witte and foreign investment, enabled large-scale
industrialization, especially in steel production.
• Alexander II responded to increasing agitation from Nihilists by disbanding the Third Section.
• 1881 — Alexander III thought reform was a mistake and expanded secret police powers and pursued
Russification program.
• 1881 — Russia rejoined the resurrected Three Emperors’ League.
• 1887 — Reinsurance Treaty with Germany.
• 1892 — Alliance with France (later Britain as well).
• Industrialization increased; by 1900, 35,000 miles of railway were constructed, including large parts of
the trans-Siberian connection between Moscow and Vladivostok.
• 1903 — Lenin forced a split in the Russian Social Democratic Party ranks at the London Congress into
Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.
• Russo-Japanese War 1904-05 resulted in loss of prestige; food shortages (brought on by transport
needed for war) led to protest and unrest.
• Bloody Sunday — tsar’s troops fired on a peaceful demonstration, killing hundreds, wounding
thousands. Led to calls for strikes and unions. Responses: October Manifesto (in 1906 modified by the
Fundamental Laws).
• The Duma and an Upper House, half of whose members would be appointed by the tsar, were
recreated. Land reforms under Peter Stolypin opened the doorway for private ownership of land (no
more village ownership).
• 1912 — Bolsheviks organized their own party, based on Lenin's program of leadership by a party elite,
and a dual social revolution (discontent in countryside and among the proletariat).
Ottoman Empire
• 1853 — war with Russia in the Crimea erupted when Russia demanded the right to protect Christian
shrines in Palestine, a right already granted to the French.
• 1854 — Great Britain and France declared war on Russia.
• 1856 — Treaty of Paris admitted Turkey to European concert and promised to respect independence
of the empire.
• 1856–1876 — Hatt-i-Humayun
o created Ottoman national citizenship for all persons in the empire;
o ended the civil authority of religious hierarchy;
o recognized equality before the law (regardless of religious affiliation);
o opened the army to both Muslims and Christians
o reformed taxation policy and secured property rights;
o promoted the abolition of torture and prison reform; and
o attempted to battle graft and inefficiency in the government.
• 1860 — insurrection in Syria and conflict between Muslim Druses and Maronite Christians —
intervention by France restored order.
• 1861–1876 — Abdul Aziz reign included rapid spread of Western influence, building of railroads from
Danube to Black Sea, increased literary output, journalism, and increased calls for liberal reforms.
• 1863 —Banque Imperiale Ottomane founded.
• 1864 — Vilayet Law reorganization established larger provinces under governors-general, with
subdivisions beneath.
• 1867 — Abdul Aziz visited Great Exposition at Paris; first sultan to travel abroad.
• 1867 — Suez Canal opened.
• 1875 — uprising occurred in Bosnia.
• 1876 — April Uprising of Bulgarians was violently crushed; thousands of Bulgarians were slaughtered.
• 1876 — Abdul Aziz was deposed; eventually replaced by Abdul Hamid II. Later that year a constitution
was proclaimed, guaranteeing freedom of conscience, individual liberty, freedom of press, education,
representative government, equality in taxation. The reform process is known as the Tanzimat.
• 1878 — Treaty of San Stefano created the large independent state of Bulgaria, which Russia would
dominate; a product of pan-Slavism.
• Reaction: Congress of Berlin (1878) reduced Bulgaria and recognized Serbia, Montenegro and Romania
as independent states.
• The Tanzimat was largely set aside by the sultan, who tried to use Islam to counteract the forces of
nationalism in the empire. His actions only fed the desire for Turkish nationalism.
• 1881 — French occupied Tunis.
• 1882 — British occupied Egypt.
• 1888 — Railway from Hungary to Constantinople was opened.
• 1889 — Committee of Union and Progress (a.k.a. Young Turks) was formed; found support in
bureaucracy and army.
• 1890–1897 — Armenian Revolutionary movement. In 1894-95 about 200,000 Armenians were
slaughtered in eastern Anatolia in response to Turkish fears about Armenian nationalism.
• 1908 — revolution led by Young Turks led to reimposition of the Constitution. Abdul Hamid II
supported a counterrevolution.
• 1909 — Abdul Hamid II was deposed. His replacement, his brother Mohammed V, was weak and
helpless. He lasted until the fall of the empire in 1918.
• 1912 — First Balkan War.
• 1913 — Second Balkan War.
Question #6 2010
Compare and contrast the goals and achievements of the feminist movement in the period circa
1850–1920 with those of the feminist movement in the period 1945 to the present.
The comparison will elicit common elements in the movements — the process of bringing about
substantial (and presumably positive) change (primarily political, legal and economic in the first case;
cultural, economic, social and sexual in the second) for European women. The contrast should elicit
distinctions in goals and achievements.
Some goals and achievements students may cite
• Goals of feminist movement circa 1850–1920:
o political, legal and educational equality
o suffrage
o control of property
o access to university education
o access to divorce
o custody of children
• Achievements from perspective of feminist movement:
o suffrage (at end of period) but not everywhere
o a woman’s right to control her own property
o more favorable divorce laws (Britain, Germany, France)
o right to train as a teacher
o more university enrollments
• Goals of feminist movement from 1945 to present:
o social, cultural and intellectual equality
o reproductive rights
o better divorce laws
o child care and maternity leave
o reduction of violence against women
o professional advancement in fields of law, medicine, business
o equal pay for equal work
• Achievements from perspective of feminist movement:
o legal birth control
o legal abortion
o better legal protections against domestic violence
o women politicians
o greater educational and professional attainments
Textbooks
The feminist movements in the 19th and 20th centuries are effectively treated in the textbooks. The
suffrage movement (as well as the legal struggle for property rights and reasonable divorce laws) in
Great Britain receives attention, and feminism in the postwar period is also treated. Reproductive rights
(abortion, contraception) were a leading feminist issue, especially in France and Italy.
Feminist movement circa 1850–1920:
the struggle for equal rights in the political and legal realm, primarily by achieving the right to vote.
• Socialism and Marxism — socialism and socialist parties in Europe sometimes favored women’s
suffrage. From a socialist perspective, women’s rights took second place to the overturning of
capitalism. Education — in issues related to suffrage, women sought easier access to education.
• France
o Hubertine Auclert (1848–1914) campaigned for women’s suffrage in France in the 1880s.
o Roman Catholic feminist Marie Mauguet (1844–1928) also supported votes for women.
o French women’s organizations rejected violence and pursued legalism but failed in their bid. French
women did not get the right to vote until after World War II.
• Germany
o It was illegal for German women to engage in political activity in the Second Reich.
o German Social Democrats favored women’s suffrage, but their support made it even more suspect in
the eyes of the Catholic Church and the authorities.
o The Weimar Republic gave suffrage to German women in 1919.
o Marie Juhacz was elected to the Reichstag, along with 36 other women, in 1919. She was the first
woman to make a speech there.
• Great Britain
o Women’s rights’ movements arose in the wake of the Great Reform Bill (1832). Method was generally
petitioning (influenced by and related to Chartism).
o By the end of the century, women of property could vote in municipal elections but not in national
ones.
o There were even a few women mayors.
• Russia
o The March 1917 revolution in Russia began on International Women’s Day with women demonstrating
in the streets of Saint Petersburg. Women gained the right to vote in 1917 after the Bolshevik
revolution.
• Catholicism
o Women in Catholic countries achieved the right to vote later than in most Protestant countries. The
papacy opposed female suffrage for a long while, even though many liberals feared that Catholic women
would vote as their priests told them.
• Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847–1929) was president of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage
Societies (NUWSS) and advocated peaceful methods.
• Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928) split from the NUWSS and founded the Women’s Social and Political
Union (WSPU) in 1903. These “suffragettes” espoused violence against property and other militant and
“unladylike” actions. “Deeds, not words” was their motto.
• In 1913 Emily Davison, a militant suffragette who had studied at Oxford, threw herself in front of a
horse owned by King George V at the Derby at Epsom Downs and was killed.
Feminist movement of 1945 to the present:
the struggle for cultural, economic, social and reproductive rights; desire to refashion personal relations
between men and women; desire to transform the family, the workplace and scholarship to reflect the
concerns of women.
• Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) published The Second Sex in 1949. It emphasized the cultural aspects
of female identity inscribed in the notion that “women are not born but are made.” Women were
viewed as the “other.” Her book and personal participation helped generate a women’s movement in
France focusing on changing the family structure, further liberalizing divorce laws, legalizing abortion
(not achieved until the 1970s), and agitating against rape. Her organization was called the French League
of Women’s Rights.
• Civil rights and feminism — several textbooks (e.g., Palmer) describe the women’s liberation
movement as a sequel to the civil rights movement in the United States.
• Contemporary women leaders — Palmer lists 20th-century women leaders to show that women at
times held the highest governmental positions. Palmer mentions Margaret Thatcher, among others.
Students may also mention Margaret Thatcher as a positive example of the possible attainments of
women (though she is not generally associated with feminism).
• Improved medical technology, especially contraceptives — discussed in some texts.
• Gains in Catholic countries — in Italy a 1970 divorce law permitted divorce. In France the sale of
contraceptives was legalized in 1968 and abortion was legalized in 1970.
• Environmental and antinuclear concerns — European feminists have been active in groups such as the
Green Party and Greenpeace. The West German leader of the Green Party, Petra Kelly, is the best
known. This is sometimes referred to as “eco-feminism.”
Question #7 2010
Analyze the ways in which the theories of both Darwin and Freud challenged traditional European
ways of thinking about religion, morality, and human behavior in the period circa 1850–1950.
Charles Darwin (1809–1882)
Context for Darwin:
• Growth of scientific education and institutions
• Declining church attendance and growing secularization
• New social discourses
o Positivism and the growing prestige of science — Auguste Comte (1798–1857), Positive Philosophy
(1830–1842); science as culminating point of human intellectual and social development.
o Materialism — mental and spiritual forces and cultural ideals were seen to be the product of physical
forces; truth found in material existence, not intuition or feeling. Darwin’s major contributions and ideas
• On the Origin of Species (1859)
o Theory of natural selection articulated as the principle mechanism through which evolution occurred;
similar ideas were developed nearly simultaneously by Alfred R. Wallace (1823–1913).
o More living organisms came into existence than could survive; variety of species is infinite; new
biological forms emerged from older ones.
o Those species possessing unique traits that made survival possible were thought to have a marginal
advantage; only those well adapted to a specific environment survived to reproduce.
o Life constituted a competitive struggle for existence (some textbooks note Darwin borrowing ideas for
this theory from Thomas Malthus).
• The Descent of Man (1871)
o Discussed implications of natural selection for humans.
o Indicated that the human body, consciousness and religious intuition evolved to ensure the survival of
the species.
o A divine being was not needed to provide an image or model for humanity. Consequences (challenges
to traditional ways of thinking)
• Called into question biblical narrative of creation; challenged traditional Judeo-Christian view of nature
as immutable and humanity as the unique creation of God.
• Challenged Enlightenment perspectives.
o Rejected the idea that nature and society were harmonious by focusing instead on ideas of
competition and continual struggle.
o Undermined assumption that nature was tranquil and noble and humans were universally rational;
emphasized that only the fittest survived in a process of constant conflict.
o Emphasized the ability of biology to determine culture.
o Undermined liberal belief in human mastery of nature and idea of engineering social progress.
o Undermined deistic view of God as the creator of a rational and rule-bound universe.
• Influenced social scientists who misapplied some of Darwin’s theories to formulate hypotheses about
racial difference and the evolution of civilizations (Social Darwinism). Social Darwinists — e.g., Herbert
Spencer (1820–1903) — asserted the following:
o Superior and inferior cultures were in perpetual competition with each other.
z-faire policies and individual competition;
argued that progress was possible only in a society where the unfit were not allowed to succeed.
–1896) argued that evolution is a progressive movement of all things from
simplicity to complexity; uninhibited marketplace is the truest test of fitness.
o Darwin’s ideas could be applied to explain cultural difference and the capacity (or lack thereof) of
primitive peoples to become civilized.
o Racial traits and differences were permanent and unchangeable — e.g., Benjamin Kidd in Social
Evolution (1894) argued that Africans were biologically defective and doomed to extinction. For Kidd,
this functioned as a justification for white rule.
o Different cultures and races (which Social Darwinists sometimes misidentified as different species)
followed distinct and separate developmental paths.
• Other areas of impact for Darwinian and Social Darwinian thought between 1850 and 1950:
o Encouraged the study of heredity and genetics.
o Influenced the development of eugenics (founded 1883 by Francis Galton and Karl Pearson) and,
ultimately, Nazi racial ideologies.
o Influenced the development of new social scientific disciplines like anthropology and criminology.
o Promoted ethics of individualism and competition; justified the exploitation of colonial peoples.
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
Context for Freud:
• Challenge to 19th-century norms; turn toward the irrational in psychology, literature and art.
• Questioning of the Enlightenment faith in reason — e.g., Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
o The Birth of Tragedy (1872) — the irrational in human behavior is as important as the rational; instinct
and ecstasy are crucial in assessing human motivation.
o Beyond Good and Evil (1886) and The Genealogy of Morals (1887) — morality as a human
creation/convention with little relation to reality; Christianity and notions of respectability are
stultifying.
• Growing concerns about social fatigue, weakness and unsettledness — e.g., Max Nordau (1849–1923)
o Degeneration (1892) — modern art, male lethargy and female hysteria were signs of decline and
overstimulation.
Freud’s major contributions and ideas
• Study of the unconscious
o Unconscious was the place where the patient’s psychic reality resided.
o In the Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Freud indicates that dreams can provide a point of access to
hidden realities and desires; interpreting dreams can reveal a repressed part of the personality.
• Discovery of infantile sexuality
o Noted that infantile sexuality was universal (Oedipus and Electra Complex).
o Ideas articulated in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905).
• Psychoanalysis/talking cure
o Nonjudgmental therapist could help patient, through talk, discover aspects of the self that society
called deviant or unmentionable and uncover the unconscious sources of neuroses.
• Id, ego and superego (mental processes below the level of consciousness)
o Id (primal, innate, irrational drives for sexual and sensual pleasures, aggressive impulses, etc.).
o Superego (internalization of social and moral regulations that society imposes on human behavior).
o Ego (mediates between the id and superego; individual personality is the result of attempts by the ego
to deal with impulsive desires and social or cultural limitations on behavior).
o Ideas were formulated from the late 19th century on and first published in a 1923 paper titled
“The Ego and the Id.”
Consequences (challenges to traditional ways of thinking)
• Challenged traditional moral (religious) evaluations of human behavior.
o Religiously inspired ideas of guilt were problematic impositions that did not correspond to human
nature; sexual life should be explored from a scientific point of view, not a moral one.
o Argued that personal, social and religious/institutional repression led to neuroses.
• Abandoned optimism of the Enlightenment; embraced a more pessimistic worldview that saw humans
as being motivated by sexual impulses, death and destruction.
• Argued that civilization was based on the repression of primitive drives that might emerge at any time.
o Freud did not argue that the id should prevail or that society should free itself from all forms of
repression; he said that the survival of human civilization depended on the repression of some
instinctual drives.
• Asserted that gender identities were not purely biological or anatomical; gender identities were
created through various mental processes and life experiences.
o Freud rejected 19th-century ideas about passionless women; still tended to privilege motherhood as
the most important female role (these ideas were challenged by female psychoanalysts like Karen
Horney [1885–1952] and Melanie Klein [1882–1960]).
• 20th-century implications:
o Freud provided European society with psychoanalytic discourses (id, ego, superego; talking cure;
infantile sexuality; Oedipus complex; etc.) that would, by the 1920s, permeate Western culture.
o Freud provided the basis for a psychoanalytic movement that experienced some fragmentation.
–1961) — subconscious is a soul formed by personal experience and collective
memories inherited from ancestors.
o Freud and many others said that World War I revealed human irrationality.
o Freud’s ideas influenced how sociologists, political scientists and anthropologists understood social
conflict and group behavior.
o Freud’s ideas influenced surrealist art (especially those works that depicted dreamlike visions),
modern literary techniques (including stream-of-consciousness writing), and new attitudes about
sexuality.
2009 Question 2
Analyze the long-term and short-term factors responsible for the disintegration of communist rule in
TWO of the following states:
Czechoslovakia
East Germany
Hungary
Poland
1. 1945-49/late 1940s
In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin extended its
authority over Eastern Europe and gradually imposed communist rule in a number of states. Possibly
motivated by concerns over security and traditional Russian expansionist ambitions, Stalin imposed one
party political systems, Soviet economic policies, attacks on traditional elites like the Roman Catholic
Church, and ideological indoctrination. Local communist rulers maintained control in large part due to
the continued presence of the Red Army. The fate of the Central and Eastern European states became
entangled in the Cold War. Germany, which had been temporarily divided among the winners after the
war, witnessed a more permanent division with the creation in 1949 of West and East Germany. The
latter was governed by communists selected by Stalin.
2. The 1950s
The death of Stalin in 1953 and Khrushchev’s endorsement of de-Stalinization and acknowledgment of
“many roads to socialism” triggered overt opposition to Soviet power in Central and Eastern Europe.
Workers unsuccessfully rioted in East Berlin in 1953, but the greatest challenge to Soviet authority came
in 1956 shortly after Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech” and its revelations about the crimes of Stalin. Poland
and Hungary served as the focal points of protest, with the Hungarian communist leader Imre Nagy
promising free elections and withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet counterpart to NATO. In the
end, Soviet forces crushed the Hungarian Revolution by force, and Nagy was executed two years later.
The Polish communists, while promising greater autonomy to their people, avoided Hungary’s fate by
retaining a monopoly on political power and remaining members of the Warsaw Pact.
3. The 1960s
The focal point of much of the Cold War was the city of Berlin. Deep inside the Soviet zone of
occupation, the economic recovery and greater personal freedom offered by West Berlin led to the
exodus of about three million East Germans between 1949 and 1961. The departure of so many skilled
and educated workers threatened to shatter the East German economy and was a propaganda disaster
for the Russians. In 1961, the Soviet and East German governments divided the city by constructing the
Berlin Wall, one of the symbols of the unpopularity of communist rule in much of Central and Eastern
Europe. By the late 1960s, however, the two German governments agreed to develop closer economic
and diplomatic relations, a policy known as Ostpolitik. The policy promoted consumerism in the East at
the expense of a growing public debt.
The 1960s are often remembered as an era of failed attempts to accomplish drastic political, economic,
and social transformation in Western and Eastern Europe. In the areas under Soviet control, the
Czechoslovakian Communist Party, led by Alexander Dubček, implemented reforms designed to create
“socialism with a human face.” The changes granted citizens greater freedom of speech and travel and
decentralized economic planning. The Soviet government, urged on by many of the Warsaw Pact
leaders, ended the Prague Spring by invading Czechoslovakia in 1968 and installing a communist
hardliner. The events of 1968 raised doubts about the possibility of reforming communism and
communist leaders’ abilities to be more responsive to the aspirations of their citizens.
4. The 1970s and 1980s
The 1970s were a decade of growing economic hardship and demands for political freedom. In 1980, the
announcement of higher food prices by the Polish government triggered a series of strikes and public
demonstrations in Poland. The independent labor movement known as Solidarity, supported by the
Polish Pope John Paul II and the Polish Catholic Church, challenged the legitimacy of communist rule.
Although the movement was temporarily suppressed by the army, Polish communists failed to solve the
economic crisis or command the enthusiastic support of the population. Few, however, anticipated that
within the decade the Soviet Union would surrender control of its satellites or that communist rule in
Central and Eastern Europe would disintegrate. Mikhail Gorbachev’s efforts to save communism in the
Soviet Union loosened Soviet control in the satellite countries. Gorbachev’s pledge to allow all nations to
pursue their own political destinies, coupled with continuing economic problems, resulted in
negotiations between the Polish government and Solidarity leaders designed to carry out a peaceful
transition of power. By the summer of 1989, Poland was led by a noncommunist leader for the first time
in over four decades. The Polish example encouraged dissident groups in other Eastern European
countries, and relatively peaceful transfers of political authority had occurred in Hungary, East Germany,
and Czechoslovakia by the end of 1989. Gorbachev was surprised by the rapidity of the communist
collapse but refused to intervene militarily.
TERMS AND NAMES YOU MAY ENCOUNTER (Not to be treated as a checklist)
Berlin Blockade and Airlift
Havel, Vaclav
Berlin Wall
John Paul II
Brezhnev Doctrine
Prague Spring
Comecon “Socialism/communism with a human face”
De-Stalinization
Solidarity Movement
Dubček, Alexander Velvet Revolution
Glasnost and perestroika Walesa, Lech
Gorbachev, Mikhail
Warsaw Pact
Question #3 2009
Considering the period 1918 to 1948, analyze the political and diplomatic problems faced byTWO of
the following newly created Eastern European states.
Austria
Czechoslovakia
Hungary
Poland
General themes: Failure of democracy and of principle of self-determination; Versailles settlement
established new weak states; geopolitical problem (location near or between powerful neighbors);
extreme right- and left-wing parties developed; rise of Nazism in 1930s; Soviet domination after Word
War II; conflicts between ethnic minorities, especially in Czechoslovakia; Eastern European states were
subject to Nazi domination and then to Soviet control (except Austria); Eastern Europeans were often
not in charge of their own destinies.
Poland
• Poland had a turbulent post–World War I period, with wars against the Soviets, the Ukrainians,
Germans, Lithuanians, and Czechs from 1918–1921.
• Established a democratic government in 1922, but it lasted only eight years.
• 68.9 percent of population ethnically Polish; 15 percent Ukrainian; 8.7 percent Jewish; 3.1 percent
Belorussian; 2.3 percent German.
• Democratic government overthrown by Joseph Pilsudski in a coup in 1926.
• New, conservative constitution in 1934 gave the president extraordinary powers.
• Death of Pilsudski, 1935.
Most often cited by students:
Political problems: Internal conflict with ethnic minorities; anti-Semitism; re-created state that had not
existed since the partitions; failure of democracy. Diplomatic problems: Buffer state; location between
Germany and the Soviet Union; Invasion of 1939; Holocaust.
Czechoslovakia
• Sole surviving Eastern European democracy until Munich agreement.
• Established the National Assembly in Prague.
• Relatively stable from 1922 to 1929.
• Thomas Masaryk was gifted leader.
• Depression exacerbated ethnic tensions: 65 percent Czechs or Slovaks; 20 percent ethnic Germans
(three million), often were pro-Nazi; 700,000 Hungarians.
• Diplomacy failed on September 18, 1938.
• Munich agreement allowed Hitler to take the Sudetenland.
Most often cited by students:
Political problems: Ethnic minorities, especially Germans in the Sudetenland; new state comprising
Czechs and Slovaks (political plus: relatively stable and viable democracy).
Diplomatic problems: Munich crisis; France and Britain did not live up to their promises; failure of
League of Nations; Little Entente (Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania) was weak.
Austria
• Republic of “German Austria” founded in 1918.
• Treaty of St. Germain (1919) made a relatively small state with a homogeneous population (except for
Jews in Vienna).
• Treaty included war reparations and prohibition of political or economic union with Germany without
permission of League of Nations.
• Fragile Republic to 1933: constitution ratified in 1920 with bicameral legislature.
• Universal suffrage (including women) in 1920.
• Parliamentary election returned Social Democrats and Christian Socialists in large number, with
Nationalists a third party. System of proportional representation—neither party could dominate.
Most often cited by students:
Political problems: Loser in World War I; shrunken state; end of Hapsburg glory; Jewish minority and
anti-Semitism; war reparations were supposed to be paid; forbidden to unite with Germany (or anyone)
without permission of League of Nations.
Diplomatic problems: Weakness of government; failure of democracy; Hitler’s (and many Austrians’)
desire for Anschluss; end of independence, 1938.
Hungary
• Became independent in 1919 but lost much territory and population.
• Communist coup in 1919 and brief rule by Béla Kun, followed by conservative reaction.
• Monarch restored in absentia.
• Dictatorship run by the landed aristocracy, with Admiral Horthy as “regent.”
• General Gyula Gombos became prime minister in 1932.
• Hungary was dictatorial and openly anti-Semitic.
• Cooperated with Germany in its efforts at European domination.
Most often cited by students:
Political problems: Loser in World War I; “dismembered” state with significant loss of territory and
population; first communist rule, then dictatorship; discontent of Magyars.
Diplomatic problems: Hard to find alliances; subordinate to Germany during World War II and then to
the Soviet Union in the post-war period.
Eastern Europe (1918–1948)
Discussion from Donald Kagan, The Western Heritage
“Trials of the Successor States in Eastern Europe” Problems faced by Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia
(Hungary is not mentioned in this section). Successor states were supposed to provide a buffer zone
against Bolshevism and a bastion of self-determination.
• They experienced difficulties establishing new parliamentary governments, and only Czechoslovakia
did not end up with an authoritarian regime.
• No tradition of self-government; ethnic division; new borders disrupted legal and economic systems;
all were in debt (except Czechoslovakia).
• All were “highly dependent on trade with Germany.”
• All had “minority groups that wanted to become part of a different nation.”
• Poland was big disappointment; class and ethnic differences ensured that parliamentary regime would
fail; Pilsudski led a coup in 1926 and ruled until his death. Minority groups in Poland were
identified: Ukrainians, Jews, Lithuanians, and Germans.
“Czechoslovakia: A Viable Democratic Experiment”
• Czechs and Slovaks had cooperated during the war.
• Leadership of Thomas Masaryk (1850–1937) was gifted and fair.
• Other nation groups were discontented: Poles, Magyars, Ukrainians, and the Germans of the
Sudetenland.
• Appeasement at Munich meant the dismemberment and disappearance of Czechoslovakia and the
creation of a Slovak client state.
“Hungary: Turn to Authoritarianism”
• Defeated power—separated from Austria but dismembered with loss of territory.
• Short-lived Soviet republic under Béla Kun.
• Admiral Horthy (1868–1957) made regent for Hapsburgs (even though the king could not take his
throne).
• Government was “parliamentary in form” but served aristocratic interests with rigged elections and
anti-Semitism.
“Austria: Political Turmoil and Nazi Occupation”
• Paris settlement forbade union with Germany.
• Christian Socialists vs. Social Democrats.
• Christian Socialist Engelbert Dollfuss (1892–1934) was chancellor.
• Growing power of Nazi Party in Austria; Dollfuss shot during unsuccessful Nazi coup; Schuschnigg ruled
until Anschluss.
“Austria and Czechoslovakia”
• Anschluss (March 12, 1938) resulted in Nazi regime surrounding Czechoslovakia.
• Hitler’s threats lead to Chamberlain’s concession of the Sudetenland and Munich agreement,
September 29, 1938.
• Prague occupied, March 15, 1939.
• Poland pressed to give up Danzig; Britain and France guarantee Polish independence, leading to
outbreak of World War II.
Nazi–Soviet Pact of August 23, 1939 “sealed the fate of Poland.”
“Polish Anti-Semitism between the Wars”
• Pilsudski favored including Jews “within the civic definition of the nation.”
• But after Pilsudski’s death, government pursued anti-Semitic policies supported by spokesmen of
Polish Catholic Church.
• Jews were discriminated against in hiring and excluded from civil service, so they moved into law and
medicine.
• Poles refused to regard even secular, assimilated Jews as fellow Poles.
• In spite of Polish anti-Semitism, Nazis alone were responsible for the destruction of the Polish
Jewish community.
“Soviet Domination of Eastern Europe”
• Eastern European satellites were to be buffer for Soviets.
• February 1948, son of Masaryk (Jan) murdered (fell out of a window mysteriously); Edvard Beneš
forced to resign, and Czechoslovakia brought under Soviet one-party rule.
• Stalin’s harsh politics were due to Tito’s escape from Soviet domination.
Question #4 2009
Analyze the extent to which Frederick the Great of Prussia and Joseph II of Austria advancedand did
not advance Enlightenment ideals during their reigns.
Discussion from John McKay, A History of Western Society
How did the Enlightenment influence political developments? There is no easy answer. Thinkers outside
of England and the Netherlands believed that political change could best come from above, rather than
from below, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. It was necessary to educate and “enlighten” the
monarch, who could then make good laws and promote human happiness. Influenced by philosophical
authors and government officials, some absolutist rulers of the later eighteenth century tried to govern
in an “enlightened” manner. Yet the actual programs and accomplishments of these rulers varied
greatly. It is necessary to examine the evolution of monarchial absolutism before trying to judge the
Enlightenment’s effect and the meaning of what historians have often called the enlightened absolutism
of the later eighteenth century.
Discussion from Jackson Spielvogel, Western Civilization Since 1300
There is no doubt that Enlightenment thought had some impact on the political development of
European states in the eighteenth century. The philosophes believed in a variety of natural rights
Most philosophes believed that people needed to be ruled by enlightened rulers. But what made them
enlightened? They must allow religious toleration, freedom of speech and press, and the rights of
private property. They must foster the arts, sciences, and education. Above all, they must obey the law
and enforce it fairly for all subjects. Only strong monarchs such as Frederick II of Prussia, Catherine the
Great, and Joseph II of Austria supposedly followed the advice of the philosophes and ruled by
enlightened principles.
Discussion from John Merriman, A History of Modern Europe
It is to the Enlightenment that we trace the origins of many of our most strongly held political beliefs:
the idea that people should be ruled by law, not rulers; the belief that a separation of powers ought to
exist within government; the concept of popular sovereignty (authority should be wholly or at least
partly based in the people, reflecting their interests, if not their consent); and the assumption that it is
the responsibility of rulers to look after the welfare of the people.
Limitations on Enlightened Absolutism
Discussion from John McKay, A History of Western Society
Necessities of state and maintenance often took precedence over reform. Indeed, many historians
maintain that Frederick and Joseph were primarily guided by a concern for the power and well-being of
their states. In the final analysis, heightened state power was used to create armies and wage wars to
gain more power.
It would be foolish, however, to overlook the fact that the ability of enlightened rulers to make reforms
was also limited by political and social realities. Everywhere in Europe, the hereditary aristocracy was
still the most powerful class in society. As the chief beneficiaries of a system based on traditional rights
and privileges for their class, they were not willing to support a political ideology that trumpeted the
principle of equal rights for all. The first serious challenge to their supremacy would come with the
French Revolution.
Question #5 2009
Compare and contrast the economic factors responsible for the decline of Spain with the economic
factors responsible for the decline of the Dutch Republic by the end of the seventeenth century.
The purpose of this question was to investigate the phenomenon of economic decline on the part of two
major European powers by the end of the seventeenth century. Spain and the Dutch Republic were two
enormously wealthy and powerful European states in the sixteenth century. Within one hundred years,
both were in a state of economic downturn. The question investigates what happened economically and
the reasons why. Both Spain and the Dutch Republic declined economically for similar reasons:
unrelenting foreign competition, smothering military expenditures, crippling inflation, and population
issues.
There were, however, major differences between the two.
• The economic decline of Spain was self-inflicted; the economic decline of the Dutch Republic was a
crisis of geography.
• The economic decline of Spain was absolute; the economic decline of the Dutch Republic was relative.
• The economic decline of Spain was due to the catastrophic mismanagement of resources; the
economic decline of the Dutch Republic was the result of hubris caused by a stellar management of
resources.
• The economic decline of Spain stemmed from the lack of a middle class; the economic decline of the
Dutch Republic can be traced back to the middle class.
• The economic decline of Spain came from military defeats; the economic decline of the Dutch Republic
stemmed from military victories.
Question #6 2009
Analyze the various ways in which the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) represented a turningpoint in
European history.
This question was intended to have the students place the Thirty Years’ War in a larger diplomatic,
social, political, and/or economic context. Students were not required to use those particular categories
of analysis, but they were expected to analyze several outcomes of the Thirty Years’ War that
established it as a major transition from one era of European history to the next.
Decline of the importance of religion as a motive for conflict
• The alliances across the Protestant–Catholic divide (France’s support for Sweden; Lutheran support for
the Holy Roman Empire later in the war) and the rivalries within the Protestant and Catholic camps
ultimately had the effect of making religion less important as a motive for conflict.
• The reaffirmation and extension of the cuis regio eius religio principle, set at the Peace of Augsburg, as
a part of the Peace of Westphalia also tended to dampen religious differences as a source of conflict.
• Students may talk about the rise of toleration in the post-1648 European world.
• Students may also discuss a rise of secularism and the decline of papal influence, made very clear at
the Westphalia negotiations where the papal representative was ignored. The pope never signed the
treaties of Münster and Osnabruck, known together as the Peace of Westphalia.
• The Peace of Westphalia effectively halted the Counter-Reformation in the German states. It added
Calvinism to the list of acceptable faiths.
The end of the Holy Roman Empire as an effective entity
• By the end of the war, the (Austrian) Hapsburgs had given up any pretensions to wielding effective
power over the German-speaking states in Central Europe.
o United Provinces and Swiss cantons withdrew from the Holy Roman Empire.
• The more than 300 German states became virtually sovereign states. They had the right to ratify any
laws, taxes, wars, etc. in the Reichstag. Some students will erroneously refer to the post-1648 Austrian
world as the beginning of the Hapsburg’s eventual demise.
• The Austrian Empire turned its attention to eastward expansion against the Ottoman Empire. Students
may discuss the reorganization of the Austrian state.
o Bohemia and Hungary now under tighter central control and re-Catholicized.
Rise of France
• Students will often discuss the rise of France, led by Cardinal Richelieu, who masterminded the antiHapsburg policy, both Austrian and Spanish.
• France received portions of Alsace and Lorraine at the Peace of Westphalia.
• Students may go on to discuss how Louis XIV built on this foundation, raising France to unparalleled
heights in the later seventeenth century. The decimation of the German states and the rise of Prussia
• Some historians argue that the destruction caused by the war (perhaps as much as a third of the
German population perished) set back the Germanic state’s economic development relative to England
and France. The economic power of the Hanseatic League was effectively ended.
• The Thirty Years’ War also confirmed the long-term division of Germany into numerous small states—
none of which could rival the power of England or France. Some students may imply that this
fragmentation was initiated by the Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia.
• Some students may discuss the beginning of the rise of Prussia as a reaction to its ordeal during the
Thirty Years’ War, led by the Great Elector Frederick William (1640-88) and trace Prussia’s leadership to
eventual German unification under Bismarck.
• By the Peace of Westphalia, Prussia received eastern Pomerania, Halberstadt, and Magdeburg.
Changes in the process of diplomacy
• The Peace of Westphalia assumed the principle of mutual recognition of sovereignty and marked the
beginning of the modern system of diplomatic relations; a Staatensystem—or modern system of
sovereign states.
• Some students will refer to subsequent treaties (e.g., Utrecht, Vienna, and Versailles) as examples of
Westphalia’s influence.
Decline of Poland and rise of Sweden
• The Thirty Years’ War contributed to the decline of Poland. Poland’s defeat by Sweden ended Poland’s
attempts to dominate the Baltic Sea region.
• The Thirty Years’ War led to the beginning of a brief period of Swedish ascendancy that lasted for
about sixty years. Students may discuss Gustavus Adolphus as the leader of that development and may
allude to Charles XII (1697–1718) as carrying on that development.
• By the Peace of Westphalia, Sweden received Bremen, Verden, and western Pomerania (including city
of Stettin).
End of Spanish influence in Northern Europe, Dutch independence
• Spanish influence eroded in Northern Europe. The achievement of Dutch independence in 1648
deprived Spain of an effective foothold in Northern Europe and greatly diminished it as a rival to
England and France.
• United Provinces was recognized as a sovereign state and received from Portugal the right to have
outposts in Brazil and Indonesia and gain greater control over maritime trade; closure of the Scheldt to
ocean-going vessels was confirmed.
Military revolution
• Students may discuss how advances in military organization (e.g., the Swedish army under Gustavus
Adolphus) led to more organized armies (regiments) where the central authority wielded more control
instead of nobles/mercenary commanders. Gustavus Adolphus also implemented new tactics with more
flexible lines of pikemen and muskets and more mobile artillery. Improved military training led to more
professionalized fighting forces that were not disbanded at the end of the war or the campaign season.
With Wallenstein we see the approach to warfare as a business for personal aggrandizement with more
enforced rules of engagement.
• Army size increased significantly. During the Thirty Years’ War, the French army had 125,000 men and
grew to 250,000 by the Dutch War (1672-78). The Swedish army had 150,000 men by 1632 (growth due
to conscription).
• All of this required supporting bureaucracies to expand, as well as increased taxes, placing new
burdens on the populations, especially the lower orders.
Question #7 2009
Analyze how Galileo, Descartes, and Newton altered traditional interpretations of nature and
challenged traditional sources of knowledge.
This question was intended to elicit students’ knowledge of the Scientific Revolution as exemplified by
the work of three of the most important figures of the age. The prompt suggests two themes. A
discussion of alterations to traditional interpretations of nature should include some account of how the
work of Galileo, Descartes, and Newton differed from earlier constructions of the cosmos and
humanity’s place in it. A discussion of challenges to traditional sources of knowledge should include
some consideration of how the three broke with the well-established methods and principles of science.
Two of the predominant issues of the times are suggested by the themes of the prompt: altered
traditional interpretations of nature and challenges to traditional sources of knowledge. These themes
are in fact not completely separable, although most students made an attempt to do so. Alterations of
traditional interpretations: Common to all three was a challenge, whether implicit or explicit, to the
Aristotelian and classical worldview espoused by scholastic philosophers and endorsed by the Catholic
Church. Galileo explicitly challenged the classical model of a geocentric universe, which in the version
endorsed by the Church encompassed moral as well as physical dimensions. Galileo also challenged the
notion of a separation between the unchanging perfect heavens and the unstable, imperfect sublunary
world. Newton systematized Galileo’s insight about the fundamental unity of the earthly and the
celestial realms and raised the possibility of a purely mechanistic universe driven by predictable laws.
Challenges to traditional sources of knowledge: The alteration of traditional interpretations of nature
carried with them an implicit or explicit refutation of the authorities that had helped form those
interpretations. Galileo’s account of the universe conflicted with both the Bible and classical authorities
such as Aristotle and Ptolemy. Descartes’s concentration on reasoning based on empirical observation
and deduction from first principles left no room for revelation. Descartes’s and Newton’s creation of
mathematical descriptions of natural phenomenon established a new scientific practice that would
generate knowledge not from established authorities but from careful experimentation, observation,
and formulation of new mathematically grounded descriptions.
The following is a select listing of the type of information students could be expected to know based on
general textbooks currently in use.
Galileo Galilei, 1564–1642
• Telescope, 1609.
• Moon was rough, imperfect, like the Earth, hence not composed of some perfect celestial substance.
• Leaning Tower Trial (1591) showed that objects fall toward the Earth at equal rates regardless of
weight.
• Experimental method.
• Two New Sciences.
• Law of Inertia.
• Discovered four moons of Jupiter.
• Sidereus Nunicus (Starry Messenger) examines the moon.
• Pope Urban VIII allowed Galileo to write Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World, 1632.
• Galileo’s trial became symbol of conflict between religious belief and scientific thinking.
• Heliocentric proponent.
• Discovered that Venus has phases, as the moon does, implying that it revolves around the sun.
• “It still moves.”
• Use of inclined planes for motion study.
René Descartes, 1596–1650
• Created coordinate geometry.
• Discourse on Method, 1637.
• “Cogito ergo sum.”
• “Cartesian Dualism.”
• “Give me motion and extension and I will build you the world.”
• Wrote tracts urging honesty in religion.
• Analytic geometry.
• Deductive reasoning from self-evident principles.
• Father of modern rationalism.
• Applied science to philosophy.
• Wrote in vernacular to show modernism.
• Materialism shows humanity can live independently from God.
Sir Isaac Newton, 1642–1727
• Development of calculus.
• Combined Kepler and Galileo on motion.
• Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687) known as Principia.
• Humans no longer center of universe.
• Wrote tracts urging honesty in religion.
• Universal Law of Gravity.
• Three Laws of Motion.
• World machine—operates in time and space.
• Connected to founding of Deism.
• Promoted scientific experiment.
• Found density of earth to be five times greater than water.
• Electrical impulses trigger nervous system.
• 1671, light can be mathematically described.
• Rejected Descartes’s theory that world is made totally of matter.
2008 Question #2
Analyze the methods and degrees of success of Russian political and social reform from the period of
Peter the Great (1689–1725) through Catherine the Great (1762–1796).
Reforms of Peter the Great (1689–1725): generally placed within the context of the development of
absolutism and/or state-building during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
• Military reforms—“Peter’s greatest reforms were military” (Kishlansky).
o The creation of a standing army along western models and trained by foreign officers.
o The development of a Russian navy originally trained by foreign officers.
o Great Northern War (1700–1721): victory over Sweden made Russia the leading power in the Baltic
and a force in European politics.
o Lifetime service in the military (sometimes simply described as lifetime service to the state) demanded
from nobles and peasants (one text notes the term of service for the peasants was 25 years).
o The establishment of schools of artillery, engineering, and military medicine.
o The disbanding of the old military units (streltsy).
• Administrative reforms
o The creation of a new capital, the city of St. Petersburg, begun in 1703; usually cited as evidence of
Peter’s determination to integrate Russia into the rest of Europe.
o The employment of foreigners in the Russian bureaucracy, although the emphasis in the textbooks is
on the role of foreigners in the training of the Russian military.
o The establishment of the Table of Ranks (1722), a hierarchy of posts in the military and civil
administration, with promotion based on merit (one major textbook describes the reform without
identifying it by name).
o Creation of the Senate, a committee of administrators who governed the country during Peter’s
absence and supervised other agencies of government.
o Creation of government bureaus called colleges to deal with specific aspects of policy.
o Division of the empire into 50 provinces.
• Ecclesiastical reform
o The abolition of the patriarch, the religious head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
o The establishment of the Holy Synod to administer the Church as the state desired (Kagan describes
the reform as “the most radical transformation of a traditional institution in Peter’s reign”).
o The Orthodox Church lost its independence; the position of patriarch remained absent after 1700,
church property was administered by the state, and priests became state employees.
o The Orthodox Church was secularized and much of its wealth seized by the state.
o The state gained control of the clergy while still supporting established religion; bishops pledged not
to interfere in state affairs.
• Economic and fiscal reforms
o The monarchy imposed a “soul” or poll tax on all males (one textbook mentions only the serfs).
o Higher taxes were imposed on the population (two texts mention a three-fold increase in taxation).
o The state raised revenues through a variety of indirect taxes and state monopolies; tobacco, rhubarb,
and dice are often offered as examples.
o The state promoted economic growth in order to raise revenue by the adoption of mercantilist policies
(texts vary on the degree of specificity). Mining, as well as the effort to export manufactured goods, is
noted by some sources.
o The state introduced the cultivation of new products like the potato.
o The state began construction of a merchant fleet.
• Educational reforms
o The monarchy established a number of schools designed to supply the regime with trained officers
and bureaucrats. The degree of specificity varies from broad statements about military and engineering
schools to the School of Navigation and Mathematics (founded in 1701) in Moscow and the Academy of
Sciences (established in 1725) in St. Petersburg.
o Sons of the nobility were sent abroad to study in western universities.
o A noble was required to receive a five-year education away from home.
o Translations of western classics were commissioned by the state.
o First Russian newspaper was issued in 1703.
• Russian aristocracy
o Peter imposed the concept of lifetime and compulsory service to the state.
o Peter began the process of westernization of the Russian nobility (e.g., the shaving of beards and the
imposition of western clothing).
o Aristocratic women were required to attend social functions; women no longer were required to wear
veils in public.
o A book on proper etiquette was published by the Russian state.
o A noble was required to receive a five-year education away from home.
• Russian peasantry—“Peasantry was the most abused in Europe” (Kagan).
o Lifetime service was imposed on all Russians by the tsar’s government.
o Peasantry was drafted for military service.
o Peasantry was conscripted for the construction of St. Petersburg, costing the deaths of thousands of
peasant workers.
• Opposition/degrees of success—“Absolute rule was never as powerful in practice as it was in theory”
(Kishlansky).
o After Peter’s reforms, Russia became a European power.
o Reforms increased the burdens of the lower classes who came to distrust westernization as a result.
o Opposition to the tsar’s reforms existed within Russian society (the tsar’s heir, some aristocrats, some
clergy, peasants, traditionalists).
o Government remained inefficient and corrupt.
o Succession was not assured; palace coups plagued Russia after Peter’s death.
o Some historians see westernization as a “sham” because it only affected the nobility. The period
1725–1762 is given minimal treatment in western civilization textbooks; some describe the era as one
that was characterized by palace coups and ineffective rulers.
Reforms of Catherine the Great (1762–1796): reforms and policies are generally placed within the
context of the Enlightenment and/or enlightened despotism.
• Military reforms
o Textbooks do not associate Catherine with any reforms of the Russian military. They credit her with
continuing the policy of territorial expansion, sometimes explicitly noting the link to Peter the Great.
o Catherine played a vital role in the three partitions of Poland.
o Territorial expansion in the South (such as the Crimea) came at the expense of the Ottoman Empire.
• Administrative/legal reforms
o Catherine corresponded with philosophes (Voltaire, Denis Diderot). Her Instructions to the Legislative
Commission borrowed heavily from the writings of philosophes like Charles Montesquieu and Cesare
Beccaria. The Instructions advocated equality before the law and questioned serfdom, torture, and
capital punishment.
o The Legislative Commission was summoned to codify Russian law and reform the governance
of the country. No code of laws or radical reform took place.
o In 1775, the empress undertook reform of local government. The empire was divided into about 50
provinces, and local administration was left in the hands of the nobility.
• Ecclesiastical reforms
o Catherine secularized all church land and made the clergy servants of the state, a development not
mentioned in many western civilization textbooks.
o The empress ended the persecution of the Old Believers, an Orthodox sect created in the
midseventeenth century during the Great Schism.
o After the First Russo–Turkish War (1768-74), Catherine claimed to serve as the protector of Orthodox
Christians living in the Ottoman Empire.
• Economic and fiscal reforms (little mention in the textbooks)
o One textbook identifies Catherine’s economic policies as a continuation of Peter’s work. Exports
(grain, flax, furs, naval stores) increased, and internal barriers to trade were removed.
o A second textbook simply states that Catherine and other eighteenth-century monarchs attempted to
collect enough tax revenues to support their standing armies.
• Educational reforms
o The empress attempted to provide formal education for women (one text specifies the daughters of
the nobility).
o The government established provincial elementary schools, engineering schools, and a college
intended to train teachers for Russia’s new schools.
o Catherine allowed for the publication of more books during her reign, although the French Revolution
resulted in a sudden shift. The regime tightened censorship in its last years.
• Nobility
o In 1785 the empress issued the Charter of the Nobility (1785), acknowledging the rights and privileges
of the Russian aristocracy. Nobles were exempted from taxation, granted “considerable” or “complete”
control over their peasants, and released from compulsory state service (although some texts indicate
that local service was now expected). The nobility received the freedom to travel abroad without the
permission of the state, their property rights were now secure, and they could petition the monarchy
directly. Finally, they were protected from corporal punishment and if charged with a crime were to be
tried by their peers.
o Local administration was left in the hands of the nobility.
• Peasantry
o Catherine extended serfdom into new areas such as Ukraine and gave away villages of state peasants
to favorites, perhaps as many as 800,000 according to one text.
o The empress placed control of the serfs in the hands of the nobility.
o Resentment of the burdens imposed by the nobility and the state led to the Pugachev Revolt (177375). The revolt was the culmination of growing peasant unrest during the 1760s. The uprising was
crushed, but the revolt destroyed any plans for improving the life of the peasantry. Catherine became
increasingly oppressive afterwards. After 1789, the books of the philosophes were banned, and critics of
the social order were exiled to Siberia.
• Opposition/degree of success
o Catherine, like other Eastern European monarchs of the time, sought to strengthen the state by the
application of reason to her policies. Historians still disagree about the sincerity of her advocacy for
reform. Was she sincere or did she hope to shape public opinion in Western Europe?
o The empress believed Russia could only be governed effectively by an autocrat but recognized that
Russia could only remain a great power by some reforms of her institutions and society. She was not
prepared, however, to risk radical reform.
o A variety of factors are cited as obstacles to reform: the empress’s background, the manner by which
she came to power, the need for the continuing support of the nobility, and the size and complexity of
the country she governed.
o Like Frederick II and Joseph II, two Eastern European enlightened despots, Catherine was prepared to
encourage greater prosperity and happiness if such developments also strengthened the state.
o The empress, although she valued favorable publicity from her contact with the philosophes,
remained skeptical of many of their proposals. The empress also reacted negatively to the French
Revolution.
2008 Question #3
Describe and analyze changes that led to Europe’s rapid population growth in the eighteenth century.
Though the evidence is fragmentary and based on few official facts, it is evident that the population of
Europe, as a whole, grew quickly in the eighteenth century. The first official European census of the era
was not taken until 1801 in Britain, but many historians estimate that the following growth took place:
• Russia’s population tripled, 1700–1800
• Prussia: population doubled
• Hungary: population tripled
• England: population increased from 5.5 million to 9 million
• France: population increased from 20 million to 26 million
• Spain: population increased from 7.6 million to 10.5 million
• Total population growth: from 120 million to 190 million, especially after 1750
The following topics are examples (certainly not limited to these) that might be included in answering
this question.
• Better transportation, better ability to deal with famine, move food around; diet improvements, great
vegetables, potatoes, and other New World foods; more meat/protein; tea, boiled water, less likely to
get sick.
• Commodities in general more available.
• Health care improvements (e.g., inoculations), gradual decline of the plague; use of cotton cloth that
could be washed; vermin destroyed.
• Industrialization leading to breakdown of traditional families; more opportunity to marry younger.
• Gradual improvement of law and order; people less vulnerable to random violence; more sense of
security.
• Not many major killing wars; armies not living off the land as much. Various texts and historians list
other changes in Europe that led to this population growth:
• All texts make reference to the benefits of the Agricultural Revolution and Enclosure Acts (in Britain),
which helped to produce more food on less land with fewer workers, thus lowering the price of food
and contributing to better diets, longer lives, etc.
Note: We must remain aware that the question refers to all of Europe and not just Britain.
Hunt
• Exploration and the Columbian Exchange introduced new foods (specifically the potato and maize)
that were quickly adapted to the European diet, were easily grown, and had an impact on the diet and
health of the poor.
• Medical care, though still embryonic in growth, led to a decline in the death rate (usually mentioned is
Edward Jenner’s inoculations against smallpox).
• Better weather (mentioned by several historians) led to more bountiful crops and cheaper food.
• End of the Bubonic Plague as an overall killer.
• Sexual liberation of the new urban dwellers led to more children; illegitimacy increased. Cannistraro
and Reich
• Agricultural workers tended to have higher birth rates with more children surviving as the death rate
dropped.
Spielvogel
• Commercial capitalism led to prosperity and the ability to afford more children.
• End of clerical celibacy and the encouragement of marriage (may be a bit of a chronological stretch for
this question).
• Legal/moral codes against infanticide.
• Kings encouraged increases in the number of subjects, leading to greater tax base, more soldiers, and
stronger economic life.
Lerner and Burns
• Clearing of more lands opened up more fields for cultivation.
• Climate of the 1700s much more favorable to agriculture than that of the 1600s.
Armesto
• Improved hygiene (but unlikely to be overwhelmingly decisive).
• End of the use of swaddling of newborns.
• Growing praise of mothers breast-feeding their infants.
• Scurvy and smallpox contained (although this was replaced with typhus, cholera, typhoid in growing
urban areas).
McKay
• Early public health measures for sewage and burials.
• Drainage of swamps reduced number of dangerous insects.
Merriman
• Use of quinine water for fevers.
• Increased use of cotton cloth led to greater use of and washing of underwear.
• More disciplined armies spared civilians most of the long, bloody battles, and there was less pillaging
of civilian property.
Kagan
• New inventions/methods of agriculture.
o Tull: seed drill, iron plows.
o “Turnip” Townsend: crop rotation.
o Arthur Young: Annals of Agriculture.
Palmer et al.
• Organized sovereign states put an end to civil wars, thereby allowing population to increase.
Additional Notes
• Earlier marriages as serfdom declined.
• Improved transportation of food (canals and roads). NOTE: NO railroads, steamships, etc., for this
particular question (out of the time frame).
• Improved sanitation in some places (usually reference to cleaner streets).
2008 #5
European women’s lives changed in the course of the nineteenth century politically, economically,
and socially. Identify and explain the reasons for those changes.
The nineteenth century has frequently been viewed as a turning point in the lives of European women.
However, this turning point has roots that lie in the distant past and the prior century. Events from the
Age of Enlightenment through the period of the French Revolution of 1789 and even the Napoleonic era
directly influenced the change in women’s lives during the nineteenth century. Writers like Olympe de
Gouges and Mary Wollstonecraft produced works that directly influenced how women were both
regarded by others and thought of themselves far into the nineteenth century. Nonetheless, the
opening decades of the century found women’s lives to be similar to what had been in place throughout
much of the eighteenth century. However, the growth of the Industrial Revolution quickly began to
change this. By the 1830s, women and children made up more than two-thirds of the labor force in the
cotton industry (this number dropped only slightly, to approximately 50 percent, by 1870). As common
laborers, they were mostly unskilled and were paid less than half of a man’s wages for similar work. In
Great Britain excessive working hours for women were outlawed in the mines and textile factories in
1844, and by 1867, they were outlawed in craft shops.
The employment of large numbers of women in factories did not produce a significant transformation in
female working patterns, as was once assumed. Throughout the nineteenth century in France and
Britain, traditional types of female labor were still the norm. In 1851, nearly 40 percent of the female
workforce in Britain engaged in domestic service, while in France about 40 percent was involved in
agriculture. British accounts indicate that only 20 percent of the female workforce was employed by
factories, and in France the proportion employed in factories was only 10 percent. Most of these
working women were single; few married women worked outside the home. The various Factory Acts
passed in the middle of the century in Great Britain limited the hours of employment for children and
women and began to break up the traditional work patterns. Men were regarded as the primary
breadwinners, and women assumed daily control of the family and sought low-paying jobs, such as
laundry, that could be done in the home. The growth of a middle class increased the need for a domestic
service industry and made it possible for women to be employed during the day and return home to
their families in the evening. The lowest class of unskilled female workers often lived on the edge of
survival. Here women had to work to help support a family and were often employed at home doing
piecework, or in the sweatshops of the urban garment trade industry.
Throughout most of the century, marriage was viewed as the only occupation acceptable for most
women. An increasing proportion of women chose or were compelled by circumstances to marry rather
than remain single, and in many regions women tended to marry at younger ages than previously. Thus,
births out of wedlock declined. The advent of vulcanized rubber in the late 1840s made possible both
the condom and the diaphragm, which lowered the birth rate and gave some women greater control
over their reproductive patterns. The legal codes of most European countries in the early nineteenth
century gave few rights to women; in particular, married women surrendered most of what rights they
had as single women to their husbands. Early movements to grant rights to married women did not fare
well. Divorce was not legalized in Britain until 1857, and married women were not granted the right to
own property until 1870. France finally permitted a limited divorce law in 1884. Catholic countries like
Spain and Italy did not grant any such rights in the nineteenth century. New ideas regarding education
made it possible for women to learn “domestic crafts,” such as singing and piano playing, to educate the
family and provide home entertainment. As the century progressed, the spread of higher-paying jobs in
heavy industry tended to eliminate the need for many married women to work to supplement the
family income. However, the increased need for clerical jobs opened other opportunities. At the same
time, middle- and working-class women in many countries began agitating for greater legal and political
rights The middle of the century also saw the beginning of compulsory education. The skilled labor
required by the Second Industrial Revolution demanded a new generation of laborers who were better
educated, and this required more teachers. Teaching was commonly regarded as a socially acceptable
occupation for women; hence new job opportunities became available for women in education. The
mass leisure culture that developed near the end of the century opened doors for actresses (e.g., Sarah
Bernhardt). Music and dance halls likewise began to proliferate from the 1850s onward, giving women
more opportunities as entertainers. The growth of participatory and spectator sports also opened a
wider range of socially acceptable activities for women (for instance, ladies’ football was sanctioned in
Britain in 1895).
Women’s Activities Involving Change in the Nineteenth Century
Nineteenth-Century Women
• Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923): famous actress.
• Florence Nightingale: nurse.
• Amalie Sieveking Hamburg: nurse.
• Emmeline Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst: Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) founders;
confrontational approach to gaining rights.
• Flora Tristan: socialist.
• Millicent Fawcett (1847–1929): favored peaceful negotiations for legal rights (1847–1929).
• Marie Curie (1867–1934): physicist; discovered polonium (1898).
• Ingebord Schroder: Swedish gymnast (1880s) (reference 2006 DBQ).
• Josephine Butler (and the Shrieking Sisters): prostitution reform.
• Octavia Hill: housing reform.
• Famous female monarchs: Victoria I of England (1837–1901) and Isabella II of Spain (1833-68).
Books and Paintings
• Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792).
• Olympe de Gouges: Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Citizeness (1789).
• Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: Frankenstein (1818).
• Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre (1847).
• Jane Austen (d. 1817): Pride and Prejudice (1813).
• George Eliot: female writer.
• George Sand: female writer.
• Émile Zola: Germinal (about mines).
• Henrik Ibsen: A Doll’s House (about oppressed woman).
• Édouard Manet: The Railroad (women being denied access).
• Gustave Caillebotte: Le Pont de l’Europe (women as the property of men).
• Pierre-Auguste Renoir: La Loge de l’Opera (women in the theater).
• Henri de Toulouse Lautrec: bar scenes showing greater social freedom for women. Employment
• Governess, clerks, typists, telephone operators, teachers, actresses, nurses, athletes.
• The “New Woman” of the mid- to late-1800s increasingly became a breadwinner, often by doing office
work.
• Note: factory work, mines, prostitution, domestic servants, seamstress/dressmaker, and scientist are
not solely nineteenth century.
In the Home (differentiated by class)
• Many roles did not change: wife, child bearing, child rearing, housekeeper, cook.
• Cult of Domesticity; Victorian “Angel in the House”: wife/mother as moral guardian and instructor of
the family.
• Possible increase in premarital sex (especially in urban areas) but also greater use of birth control.
Divorce Rights (1857 in England; allowed in cases of cruelty)
• Women gained more status as property owners.
• Ideal of affectionate marriage placed greater emphasis on respect for wives.
• The rise of mass consumerism gave women greater economic power.
Laws that Affected the Status of Women
• 1844: Mines Act (Great Britain).
• 1844: Factory Act (Great Britain) protected women workers.
• 1864: Contagious Diseases Act (Great Britain) required medical exam for prostitutes (repealed
1886).
o No law against prostitution; moral pressure against it.
• 1870s: Ferry Laws (France) formed the basis for compulsory education.
• 1875: Factory Act (Great Britain) reduced workweek to 56 hours.
• 1875: Artisans Dwelling Act (Great Britain) defined unsanitary housing; state inspection.
Organizations and Movements Important for Women
• Great Britain: WSPU (Suffragettes), 1867.
• Germany: the General German Women’s Association, 1865.
• France: the Society for the Demand for Women’s Rights, 1866.
• Sweden: The Association for Married Women’s Property Rights, 1873.
• There were also women’s rights groups in Russia from the 1860s and in Italy from the 1890s.
• Temperance movement.
• Antislavery movement.
Important Suffrage Dates
In various European countries, women were given the right to vote as follows:
• Sweden, 1862.
• Finland, 1863, conditional on property ownership; 1872, unconditional voting rights.
• Bohemia, 1864, conditional on property ownership.
• Britain, 1869, widows allowed to vote in local elections.
• Austria Hungary, (various dates) women given the vote in local elections. BUT women were not given
the general right to vote in most European countries until well into the twentieth century.
Causes from the Eighteenth Century
NOTE: Causes from the eighteenth century must be clearly linked to the nineteenth century. Increased
urbanization, the Industrial Revolution, and the Agricultural Revolution, as well as associated changes
for women began before 1800, especially in Britain.
Enlightenment
• Salons give educated women a voice in cultural affairs.
• Emilie du Chatelet (female scientist and enlightened thinker).
• Mme du Pompadour, Mlle de Lespinasse, Mme d’Alembert ran salons.
• Mary Wollstonecraft.
• Olympe de Gouges.
French Revolutionary Rights
• Divorce and property rights taken away by Napoleonic Code; not fully restored until 1881.
• March to Versailles.
• Political clubs (Jacobin Society for Women) closed down during Reign of Terror.
Scientific Revolution
• Female scientists.
2008 Question # 6
Analyze the major factors responsible for the rise of anti-Semitism in nineteenth-century Europe.
The nineteenth century, for the purposes of this question, should be defined as the period between
1789 and 1914. Responses may include references to events that occurred in the late-eighteenth
century (Jewish Emancipation in the Hapsburg Empire or France) or the early-twentieth century (the
Russian Revolution of 1905 or the later Russian pogroms).
• Jewish Emancipation.
o Rise of political liberalism following the Enlightenment.
o 1782: Joseph II placed Jews under same laws as Christians in Hapsburg Empire.
o 1789: National Assembly in France recognizes Jews as French citizens.
o Mixing of Jewish and Christian communities in Italy and Germany during the Napoleonic wars.
o Post-1848: Germany, Italy, Low Countries, and Scandinavia all allow Jews to attain full citizenship.
o 1858: Jews allowed to take seats in British Parliament.
o 1867: Austria-Hungary extends full legal rights to Jews.
o In Russia and Poland, “the traditional modes of prejudice and discrimination continued unabated until
World War I” (Kagan, p. 780). This prompted many Jews to flee to seemingly freer Western European
countries.
o The elimination of social and political barriers led to the rise of Jews in a range of professions and
financial industries.
o This assimilation and economic success created a climate where it was possible for those who
continued to view Jews as cultural outsiders to hold them accountable for the economic crises of the
1870s.
� Students may note the example of the Rothschild family in both France and England; Lionel Rothschild
(1808-79).
� Students may also cite other examples of assimilated Jews including Felix Mendelssohn, Karl Marx,
Sigmund Freud.
o This tendency toward scapegoating contributed to a new wave of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism and
the Russian Situation.
o Discrimination and political disenfranchisement continued through the nineteenth century.
o Outsider status and persistent discrimination, along with the tendency of authorities to blame Jews for
the 1881 assassination of Tsar Alexander II and the Russian Revolution of 1905, led to pogroms in Kiev,
Odessa, and Warsaw. These pogroms continued until 1917. This rise in popular anti-Semitism was
generally ignored by the tsar, the police, and the state bureaucracy.
o These large-scale attacks led to Jews fleeing from eastern to western countries.
• Jewish Migration from Russia and Eastern Europe to the West.
o Two million Eastern European Jews migrated to Western Europe between 1868 and 1914.
o 70,000 settled in Germany; vast majority moved to urban areas.
o Migration of many rural Jews to urban areas also occurred at this time.
o These migrations coincided with downturns in the economic cycle—“Jews became scapegoats
for the high rates of unemployment and high prices that seemed to follow in their wake” (Kishlansky, p.
729).
o This tendency was exacerbated by the fact that many of these migrants were peddlers, artisans, and
small shopkeepers.
o “Differing in language, culture, and dress, they were viewed as alien in every way” (Kishlansky, p. 729).
o Many came to believe that Jewish “foreigners” were taking up too much space.
� The increased presence of Jews led some intellectuals, such as Heinrich von Treitschke, to react
unfavorably. Treitschke coined the phrase: “The Jews are our misfortune.”
The Nation-State and Nationalism.
o Emerging concern with creating citizens and forging a national community based on a common
identity of citizens.
� Examples include unified Germany under Bismarck (1871-90), the Third French Republic, unified Italy,
and Great Britain.
� There were some inclusive perspectives, but many definitions of the nation (and those who belonged
to that nation) were predicated on notions of difference that could leave Jews vulnerable to exclusion.
o Austria: success of bourgeois liberalism wanes by the latter decades of the nineteenth century.
� New groups laying claim to power led to rise of socialism, intensely xenophobic nationalism, and mass
politics.
� Mass Parties including Christian Social Party (CSP) (founded 1893) embraced pan- Germanic,
anticapitalist, and anti-Semitic ideas. The CSP’s ideas were taken up by students and artisans.
� Karl Lueger (1844–1910), as leader of CSP, became mayor of Vienna in 1895. In the election campaign,
he appealed to anti-Semitic tendencies and identified Jews with the excesses of capitalism.
� These tendencies also merged in Vienna with concerns about the professional successes of Jews: “In
the 1880s, more than half of Vienna’s physicians (61 percent in 1881) and lawyers (58 percent of
barristers in 1888) were Jewish. Their professional success only heightened tensions and condemnations
of Jews as an ‘alien race’” (Kishlansky, p.730).
o France: the best example of how these forces were at work is reflected in the Dreyfus Affair of 1894.
� Alfred Dreyfus (1859–1935) was a Jewish army officer (from Alsace) accused of selling military secrets
to Germans.
� His trial became a lightning rod for xenophobia; hatred of foreigners and hatred of Jews emerged as
central issues.
� Dreyfus stripped of commission and honors, imprisoned on Devil’s Island.
� Trial revisited on several occasions; Dreyfus finally exonerated in 1906.
� The Dreyfus Affair resulted in sharp divisions between pro-Dreyfusards and anti- Dreyfusards.
� Pro-Dreyfusards (tended to be on left, wanted to uphold justice and freedom).
o Émile Zola.
• Wrote “J’Accuse” (1898).
o A spirited appeal for justice; accuses French military and judiciary of social evil.
� Anti-Dreyfusards (tended to be on the right and were associated with traditional institutions like the
Roman Catholic Church and the army; monarchist; saw themselves as defenders of France and were
often openly anti-Semitic).
o Included Édouard Adolphe Drumont (1844 –1917).
• Anti-Semitic League (founded 1889).
• La Libre Parole (anti-Semitic newspaper).
• Race and Social Darwinism.
o Charles Darwin (1809-82).
� Promotion of theory of natural selection in On the Origin of Species (1859).
� Application of this theory to human beings in Descent of Man (1871).
o Application of Darwin’s ideas to evolutionary ethics by Herbert Spencer (1820–1903).
� Belief in human society progressing through competition.
o Emergence in late-nineteenth century of idea that race was the single dominant explanation of history
and dominant factor in determining the character of large groups of people.
o Emerging belief in scientifically demonstrated racial hierarchies.
� Arthur Gobineau (1816-82).
o Wrote Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853-54).
� Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927).
o British, but worked in Germany.
o Biological determinist.
o Wrote Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (1899).
• Argued that Jews were a major enemy of European racial regeneration.
o Similar ideas in Germany found in work of Paul de Lagarde (1827-91) and Julius
Langbehn (1851–1907).
• Rise of Zionism.
o Some Jewish leaders in Central and Western Europe saw anti-Semitism as a problem with a political
solution.
� Reacting, particularly, to the Dreyfus case (1894) and to the Russian pogroms.
� Became convinced that Europe was not safe for Jews.
o Supporters of Zionism called for the creation of their own nation—a new Zion (the ancient biblical
homeland).
� Movement especially popular in Galicia (Poland), Russia, and the Hapsburg Empire
o Theodor Herzl (1860–1904).
� Austrian Jew born in Budapest.
� Most important proponent of Zionism.
� Witnessed anti-Semitism as journalist in France.
� Wrote The Jewish State (1896).
o Argued for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
o This ultimately aroused Christian and Islamic opposition; even some Jews worried that Zionism would
enable charges that Jews were bad citizens.
o For some anti-Semites, the existence of a Zionist movement allowed for the further development of
notions of Jewish difference.
Timeline
Jewish Emancipation
1782: Jews placed under same laws as Christians in the Hapsburg Empire.
1789: National Assembly recognizes Jews as French citizens.
1858: Jews allowed to take seats in British Parliament.
1868: Austria–Hungary extends full legal rights to Jews.
Anti-Semitism and the Russian Situation
1881: Tsar Alexander II assassinated.
1905: Russian Revolution.
1881–1917: Periodic pogroms.
Jewish Migration from Russia and Eastern Europe to West
1868–1914: Two million Eastern European Jews move to Western Europe.
1889: Heinrich von Treitschke writes Jews Among Us.
The Nation-State and Nationalism
1871-90: Germany under Bismarck.
1889: Édouard Drumont creates the Anti-Semitic League in France.
1893: Christian Social Party founded in Austria.
1894: Dreyfus Affair (France).
1895: Karl Lueger elected Mayor of Vienna on an anti-Semitic platform.
1898: Émile Zola writes “J’Accuse.”
Race and Social Darwinism
1820–1903: Herbert Spencer.
1853-54: Arthur Gobineau publishes Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races.
1859: Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species.
1871: Charles Darwin publishes Descent of Man.
1899: Houston Stewart Chamberlain publishes Foundations of the Nineteenth Century.
The Rise of Zionism
1896: Theodor Herzl publishes The Jewish State.