Download Mrs. Shortal`s Big Ole AP Review

Big Ol’ AP Review
By Mrs. Shortal
Sources:
 McKay, et al., A History of Western Society: Since 1300, 9th and 10th editions
 Palmer, et al., A History of the Modern World, 9th edition
Renaissance (1350-1550 … height in the early 16th c.)
 Definition: period of cultural and artistic revival after the so-called “darkness” of the Middle Ages (Petrarch); revived
the culture of Greece/Rome (i.e. classical period)
o urban
o movement among the elite
 Where: Italy (Florence 1st)  Northern Europe
 Causes:
o geography (Mediterranean crossroads)
o strong economy (trade & banking – Medicis)
o urban
 Politics:
o Italy = a bunch of feuding city-states
o Goal = balance of power
 rise of modern diplomacy – permanent embassies w/ resident ambassadors
 Habsburg-Valois Wars (1494-1559): series of wars b/t great Euro powers, fought largely in Italy to try to
control its independent states; Italy’s lack of unity made it subject to invasion (Rome sacked in 1527)
o Types of governments:
 communes aka merchant oligarchies – not based on free love and collective agriculture, but a bunch of
“free men” who broke away from local nobles and formed their own gov’t. and allowed the wealthy (a very
small group) to vote
 republics (the basis of one of Machiavelli’s books that we didn’t read, Discourses on Livy) – rule by the
people (popolo)
 not so successful b/c although more people were included than in the communes, the masses were still
neglected and did not give their support
 principalities, run by condottieri (military leaders) or signori (despots) – think of Machiavelli’s The Prince
 Themes:
o individualism – celebration of the greatness of individuals; great men have virtù, or “virtue free of moralic acid”
[Nietzsche], ability … vs. relying on fortuna, chance)
o humanism – study Greco-Roman literature to understand human nature
 civic humanism – educated individuals should serve their states, lead active public life (vs. medieval ideal of
being a monk who studies and prays in isolation)
o secularism – more focus on this life, not the next one; materialism; less religious
o scientific naturalism (this last one less pervasive … more a feature of art – ex. perspective achieved)
 Art:
o patronage (wealthy individuals, the Catholic Church)
o some key artists: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael (i.e. the Ninja Turtles … Donatello was a sculptor),
Titian (Venetian mannerist = more exaggerated figures and heightened colors, very dramatic)
o new concept of artist as genius
o architecture: Greco-Roman principles, ex. columns, arches, domes, arrange doors/windows symmetrically
o sculpture: freestanding sculpture is new (ex. Michelangelo’s David), medieval sculpture was confined to
cathedral niches and portals
o painting: oil paint and mastery of perspective are new
 Italian writers:
o Petrarch – “the first man of letters”; identified the “dark ages,” said living in new era of light and learning
o Bruni – 1st modern historian (history of Florence); 1st to divide history into ancient, medieval, modern periods
o
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Lorenzo Valla, On the Donation of Constantine – refinement of textual criticism … proved that the Donation of
Constantine was a forgery
o Machiavelli, The Prince – how a prince should gain and maintain power
o Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man – humanism … “O supreme generosity of God the Father,
O highest and most marvelous felicity of man! To him it is granted to have whatever he chooses, to be whatever
he wills.”
o Vasari, Lives of the Artists – bios of Renaissance artists, emphasis on their achievements
o Baldassare Castiglione, The Courtier – guide on how to educate a gentleman
Northern Renaissance – Christian humanism = humanism through Christian lens, focus on reform
o Erasmus – criticized abuses of the Catholic Church and advocated and advocated reform; education is the means
to reform; “the philosophy of Christ” (focus on spirituality vs. rites and laws)
o Thomas More, Utopia – ideal society; perhaps a critique of More’s own society
Education:
o universities arose in the Middle Ages; univs focused on theology, philosophy, medicine, law
o Renaissance saw growth of secondary edu. w/ emphasis on liberal arts and broader, more practical education
for Castiglione’s courtly gentleman
o education to serve the state – civic humanism
o humanist academies were for men; only wealthy women got education, from private tutors
Other bits:
o printing press/Gutenberg Bible (1456)  increased literacy
o writers used Latin and the vernacular – use of vernacular relatively new (late medieval)
o Hanseatic League (Hansa) – commercial & defensive confederation of N. German trading towns, dominated
trade in N. Europe 13th-15th c.
 helped protect each other from rivals, pirates, etc.
 fell apart due to competition w/ more powerful emerging states like Sweden & Denmark
Social hierarchies:
o race – not just based on skin color, but also on ethnic, national, religious, etc. identities; black Africans brought
to Europe in 15th c., largely in Iberian Peninsula; blacks regarded as exotic curiosities, and did slave labor in
many occupations (racism as we know it today began w/ 18th c. Atlantic slave trade)
o class – concept of class different from today; social hierarchy based on both medieval concept of orders (like
1st/2nd/3rd estate in France), but also now to some extent based on wealth, which was new; nobility and
merchant elite began to intermarry
o women – overall women lost equality of Middle Ages; just got married and kept the home; lower class women
did work outside the home for $; upper class women lost status, losing access to property, political power,
variety of jobs – they could get a Renaissance edu. and it was their job to maintain a refined home
 Christine de Pisan – French writer, early 15th c.
“new monarchs” (mid-15th – early 16th c.) = Machiavellian rulers … strong rulers who made their states strong and
suppressed opposition (response to war, aristocratic threats, etc. – remember the “calamitous” 14th c.)
o Some common types of policies: suppression of aristocratic power, enlistment of support from urban middle
class, strengthening of state finances, standing armies (vs. feudal militias), expulsion of invaders, enforcing
religious unity
o Spain – Ferdinand and Isabella – Spain not united, only a loose confederation and no sense of Spanish national
feeling, Catholic Church was only unifying factor; great lords excluded from royal council; gained right to appt.
bishops in Spain and its American colonies; end of reconquista (taking Spanish lands back from Muslims) in 1492
w/ conquest of Granada; “nobody ever expects the Spanish Inquisition” – esp. went after conversos (New
Christians, converted from Islam or Judaism); 1492 expulsion of Jews (big deal, though Jews already expelled
o
o
from England and France); revived hermandades (medieval “brotherhoods”) to serve for a time as local police
and courts
France –
 Charles VII – ended civil war; expelled the English; strengthened royal council and kept great lords out;
strengthened finances w/ new taxes
 Louis XI – improved the army and used it against nobility; territorial expansion
 Francis I – 1516 Concordat of Bologna – French monarchy gained right to appt. French bishops and abbots
England – esp. Henry VII (1st Tudor): ended Wars of the Roses; used diplomacy rather than costly wars (meant
king didn’t have to pander to the aristocrats in Parli for $$); strengthened royal council and kept great lords out;
est. jury-less Court of Star Chamber to deal w/ aristocratic threats and disputes
Connections to other eras … remember that:
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The Age of Exploration (1450-1650) began during the Renaissance. Extension of Renaissance curiosity.

Skepticism of the Catholic Church appeared well before the Protestant Reformation, which also began during
the Renaissance. Individuals like Erasmus (N. Renaissance guy) appear as precursors to Luther.
The Scientific Revolution (1540-1690) had its roots in the Renaissance. Again, Renaissance curiosity. Copernicus
(1473-1543) fits squarely into the Renaissance era, and in fact he did study abroad at Italian universities.
Reformation (16th c. – 1517 forward)
 Definition: split in Christian Church … “protest” against and desire to “reform” Catholic Church leads to formation of
new branch of Christianity
 Where: Germany (the HRE)  spread elsewhere
 Causes:
o Long term: all sorts of problems in the C.C. … pluralism, absenteeism, simony, Babylonian Captivity, Great
Schism, immoral priests – ex. priests having children, uneducated priests, fake relics, indulgences, clerical
extravagance
o Spark: Tetzel’s sale of indulgences (to repay a bank from which the papacy had borrowed $ to fund the
construction of St. Peter’s)
 Key Events in Germany:
o *1517* – Martin Luther’s 95 Theses
o 1521 – Diet of Worms – Luther’s excommunication complete and Charles V denounces him
o 1525 – German Peasants’ War
o 1555 – Peace of Augsburg – each HRE prince chooses Catholicism or Lutheranism
 Protestant Theology
o salvation by faith alone (vs. faith & good works)
o authority of Bible alone (vs. Bible & Church doctrine)
o priesthood of all believers (vs. Church hierarchy)
o all vocations have equal merit (vs. monastic and religious vocations being superior)
o 2 sacraments (though actual # debatable) – baptism, Eucharist (consubstantiation vs. C.C.’s transubstantiation)
 How did Luther’s ideas appeal to all social classes in Germany?
 printing press and use of vernacular helped spread Lutheranism
o for all classes: priesthood of all believers
o nobility: adopting Protestantism = way of exerting independence from Catholic emperor; opportunity for
land/$$ gain from confiscation of Catholic holdings
o middle class: educated group that liked direct access to Scripture … appealed to their intelligence
o peasantry: direct access to Scripture … found biblical support for their demands for better economic/social
conditions  launched the German Peasants’ War, which Luther supported at 1st but then withdrew b/c he
didn’t support rebellion against secular, political authority – advocated obedience to the state
 Impact of Luther’s ideas on women:
o Luther celebrated marriage – not a sacrament, but elevated hugely
o men and women spiritually equal, though husband has authority and wife is to obey (husbands should be kind
but may use force)
o women couldn’t become Protestant clerics in the 16th c. (though they can now)
o divorce allowed (not allowed in C.C.), though used only as last resort
o prostitution condemned and brothels closed – good in some ways though illegal brothels opened
o closed monasteries and convents  marriage only occupation option for upper class women
 16th c. German politics:
o Habsburgs become powerful family, through strategic marriages … gained emperorship of HRE in 15th c. –
height under Charles V (r. 1519-1556)
o Division in HRE – emperor was Catholic and some princes stayed Catholic, while others adopted Protestantism
either for sincere reasons or for $$ gain and to exert independence from emperor  Germany broke into war –
began in Switzerland, 1520s … tensions high in HRE in 1530s-1540s after Charles V rejected the 1530 Augsburg
Confession (a Lutheran statement of faith) … HRE descended into civil war in 1546 until Peace of Augsburg
(1555), which solidified HRE’s religious division:
Lutheran
-
HRE = roughly 300 states
some states adopted Calvinism illegally
Catholic
 Other Protestant reformers:
o Zwingli (Switzerland) – same ideas as Luther w/ exception of the Eucharist … saw it as purely a memorial of the
Last Supper (no change at all in the bread and wine) vs. Luther believed in consubstantiation (bread and wine
change spiritually so Christ is present, but bread and wine are not actually body and blood)
o Calvin (Geneva, Switzerland) – predestination = salvation is predetermined by God (the Elect); unlike Luther,
refused to recognize subordination of church to state … combined church and state in Geneva; VERY strict
morality; hard work valued; The Institutes of the Christian Religion = his formulation of Xtian doctrine, became
a systematic theology for Protestants; offshoots include Huguenots, Puritans, Presbyterians
o Anabaptists – adult baptism, pacifism, separation of church & state  Quakers an offshoot
o John Knox (Scotland) – Presbyterianism (like Calvinism)
 Henry VIII (r. 1509-1547) & the English Reformation
o early reform movement: John Wyclif’s Lollards (14th-15th c.)
o motivation: personal (annulment of marriage to Catherine of Aragon who didn’t bear him a son … wanted to
marry Anne Boleyn  pope wouldn’t grant annulment); later economic (took over English monasteries for $)
o Supremacy Act (1534) – Henry VIII head of Anglican Church
o Pilgrimage of Grace (1536) – N. rebellion against Henry’s religious policies (largest rebellion in English history )
o Irish were under English rule but most remained Catholic against England’s will
o Mary Tudor (r. 1553-1558) – Henry VIII’s daughter by Catherine of Aragon, a Spaniard, hence Catholic; married
Philip II of Spain and restored Catholicism in England (unpopular!) … “Bloody Mary” for massacring Protestants
o Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603) – Henry VIII’s daughter by Anne Boleyn, hence a Protestant; est. Elizabethan
Settlement (1559) – middle course b/t Catholicism & Puritanism … outward conformity to Anglican Church but
can practice other faith silently
o Mary Queen of Scots (r. 1542-1567, Queen of Scotland) – Catholic; imprisoned by Elizabeth when she was
driven out of Scotland by Calvinist lords b/c she posed a threat to the English throne – there were many Catholic
plots to replace Protestant Elizabeth w/ Catholic Mary
 Reformation in Eastern Europe:
o Bohemia – mix of Hussites (i.e. followers of Jan Hus, early reformer), Lutherans (adopted by nobles to oppose
the Catholic Habsburgs), and Catholics  tensions … defenestration of Prague!
o Poland – very Catholic
o Hungary – majority Lutheran til late 17th c. when Catholicism made resurgence b/c nobles recognized Catholic
Habsburg rule and b/c Turks, who had taken over territory in 1526, withdrew
 Catholic Reformation (pre-1517 renewal) & Counter-Reformation (post-1517 reaction)
o Council of Trent (1545-1563) – reform practices, maintain doctrine (reforming Pope Paul III kicked it off)
o New religious orders: Jesuits (founded by Ignatius Loyola), Ursulines – both emphasized education; Jesuits also
renowned for Christianizing the Third World and for their influence in European politics
o Inquisition
o Index of Prohibited Books
o baroque art – emotive art intended to rekindle spirituality of viewer
 Education, 16th-17th c.
o expansion of schools due to:
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
Renaissance – interest in learning
Reformation – desire for educated Catholic and Protestant clergy; Protestant emphasis on individuals being
able to read and interpret the Bible for themselves; new Catholic orders such as Jesuits and Ursulines
 growth of commerce – need for literate clerks and agents
 expansion of bureaucracies under new monarchs and the like – need for educated people to serve in gov’t
o est. of more secondary schools, colleges, universities, endowed scholarships
o a wider range of social classes was able to attend these schools than previously
o schools more readily available for boys, though there were some girls’ schools – ex. Ursulines
 Religious Violence (1560-1648)
o Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559) ended the Habsburg-Valois wars and marked end of dynastic wars … centurylong (1560-1650) era of religious wars followed, from French civil wars through Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648)
o “religious wars” had religious causes (Catholic vs. Protestant) + political motives, some economic
o French civil wars (1560s-1598)
 religious reason (Catholic vs. Huguenot) & political reason (nobles wanted to retain local autonomy, didn’t
want to submit to centralization under the monarchy … hence nobles adopted Calvinism; French monarchy
was weak upon death of King Henry II in 1559)
 St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (1572) – Catholic massacre of Huguenots at wedding of Catholic Margaret
of Valois and Protestant Henry of Navarre
 War of the Three Henrys – fighting for both religious and political reasons; Catholic King Henry III vs.
Catholic Henry of Guise (a noble who wanted the throne) vs. Protestant Henry of Navarre (future Henry IV)
 Ended by Henry IV & politiques (political moderates who sought political over religious unity)
 Edict of Nantes (1598) – religious toleration to Huguenots, granted by Henry IV
o Dutch Revolt (1560s-1580s)
 religious reason (Calvinism vs. Catholicism) & political reason (Dutch independence from Spain)
 Philip II’s policies before the revolt began and during it angered the Dutch: suppressed Calvinism, raised
taxes, executed dissidents, est. Inquisition
 Dutch revolted (iconoclasm)  Spain responded violently w/ Inquisition, troops, and Duke of Alva’s Council
of Blood  civil war
 1581 – Union of Utrecht (7 N provinces) declared independence (became United Provinces, aka Dutch
Republic, aka Holland after the most dominant of the 7 provinces)
- 10 S provinces (Belgium) remain under Spanish Habsburg rule
- United Provinces got help from English ↘
o Spanish Armada (1588) – with papal support, Spain attacked England, and lost
 religious reason (re-Catholicize Europe, get rid of Protestant Elizabeth) & political reasons (retaliation for
English aid to the Dutch, and English attacks on Spanish shipping)
 armada was huge! 130 ships, carrying 30,000 men and 2,400 pieces of artillery
 outcome: English victory, big time!
 impact: end of Spanish attempt to impose Catholic unity on Europe; English and Dutch gain freer access to
the sea  ex. English E. India Co. est. 1600, Dutch E. India Co. est. 1602
o Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648)
 religious reason (Catholics vs. Protestants in HRE) & political reasons (ex. German princes wanted to exert
independence from the emperor while emperor wanted to keep the HRE together, France fought w/
Protestants to weaken the Habsburgs, Catholic military leader Albert of Wallenstein fought for his own
financial gain)
 fought in HRE – Catholic League (south) vs. Protestant Union (north)
 became international conflict

o
4 phases:
- Bohemian – began w/ defenestration of Prague; Catholic victories, Bohemia (Protestant) subdued
- Danish – Protestants led by Danish king Christian IV; Catholic emperor commissioned Albert of
Wallenstein to form a private army, he fought for own private gain; more Catholic victories  Edict of
Restitution (1629) restored property Catholic church had lost to Protestants since 1552
- Swedish – Protestants led by great Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus; a bunch of big Swedish victories
but came to little, both sides weak
- French/International – enter France on Protestant side … to weaken Habsburgs
 victor: Protestants! (w/ France)
 Germany left devastated – disease, famine, war (up to 1/3 of pop. died in many parts); economy ruined
 Peace of Westphalia (1648) – affirmed independence of HRE’s 300 states; affirmed ind. of United Provinces
and Swiss cantons; France gained land (Alsace-Lorraine area) and prestige; Sweden gained $ and some
German lands; papacy ousted from German religious affairs; affirmed Peace of Augsburg + added Calvinism
 implications for European politics: (1) Germany not a big player in Euro affairs til 19th c. (though Prussia and
Austria were important), (2) marked advent of European system of sovereign states, i.e. a disunified Europe
in which states followed their own laws and interests
Great European Witch-Hunt (increased persecution 1480s-1660, became esp common after 1560)
 causes: Reformation, change in idea of witch (became ppl associated w/ Devil) … witches became the
ultimate heretics in an era of heretic-seeking (think Inquisition), change from accusatorial to inquisitorial
trial procedure meant accusers didn’t have to face the ppl they accused
 primary targets: older women … women more vulnerable to Devil’s temptation than men
 100,000-200,000 tried; 40,000-60,000 executed
 declined w/ 17th c. emphasis on science and reason – increased disbelief in witchcraft
Religious Situation in Europe, ca. 1560
Exploration (1450-1650)
 Pre-Columbian World Contacts
o Indian Ocean = center of trade
o China had most advanced economy until at least 18th c.
o Venice and Genoa = middlemen who controlled European luxury trade w/ the East  became wealthy … Genoa
turned to finance and became big financier of Spanish exploration
 Exploration
o motives: 3 G’s … God, *gold*, glory; also: demand for spices from the East, Renaissance curiosity
o more causes of exploration: young men lacked opportunity at home, gov’t’s more powerful and competing w/
one another, Europeans at home were very interested in exploration (ex. the literate liked adventure tales)
o technology: caravel (replace galley) w/ sternpost rudder & lateen sail, cannon, gunpowder, compass, astrolabe,
better maps … several of these inventions came from China or Arab world
o Portuguese 1st out of the gates and Spain quickly followed; Portuguese started w/ a series of trading posts in the
Indian Ocean (direct access to eastern luxuries like spices!) while Spain settled in the New World. English,
French, Dutch didn’t join in until about 1600.
o explorers for Portugal: Prince Henry “the Navigator” (not an explorer; supported study of navigation and
sponsored voyages down West Africa), Diaz (Cape of Good Hope), da Gama (reached India), Cabral (Brazil)
o explorers for Spain: Columbus (New World – Caribbean), Vespucci (New World – South America), Magellan
(circumnavigation), Cortés (Aztecs), Pizarro (Incas)
o other explorers: Cabot (Newfoundland, New England coast), Cartier (St. Lawrence region in Canada)
o how conquistadors Cortés and Pizarro were able to conquer powerful Aztec and Inca empires: European
diseases, European guns, internal weaknesses of the empires (ex. division, civil warfare … Europeans formed
alliances w/ disaffected groups)
o Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) – N/S line splitting New World b/t Spain and Portugal – much better deal for Spain
 Impact of Conquest
o colonial administration: Spain set up 4 viceroyalties (Mexico and Peru were the 2 greatest ones); government
officials sent over from Spain and Portugal to run the colonies
o Treatment of indigenous peoples:
 encomienda system – Spanish system of forced labor by Native Americans
 huge native population loss due to disease, overwork, malnutrition, reduced fertility rates, warfare  hence
the importation of African slaves, believed to be heartier
 Bartolomé de Las Casas – Spanish missionary who called for better treatment of the Native Americans
 lots of Xtian missionary activity  very successful in obtaining converts, though debatable how much
natives adhered to Xtianity (blended new and old faiths)
 Europeans, Native Americans, Africans produced new cultures and ethnic mixes (mestizo = Native American
+ European; mulatto = African + European)
o Columbian Exchange – exchange of animals, plants, and diseases b/t Old and New Worlds
 Impact of exploration on the 16th c. economy:
o a truly global economy emerged (previously the Americas were not part of it)
o key New World commodities:
 sugar – once a luxury, became cheaper and in huge demand in 15th c.; grown on plantations manned by
Native Americans 1st, but they died in huge numbers, so Europeans turned to African slave labor … hence
the start of the Atlantic slave trade, which reached its peak in the 18th c.
 silver – key to Spain’s golden century (16th c.); lucrative mine at Potosí, Peru (produced 60% of all silver)
o price revolution (ca. 1550-1650) = period of high inflation that began in Spain and spread to Europe


cause: used to be pinned on influx of silver, but now historians say silver just exacerbated the situation,
which began due to an increase in demand from an increasing population (in Spain + its new colonies) and
Spain’s inability to meet that demand (expulsion of Muslims and Jews = loss of producers) + gov’t habit of
debasing currency
China was the main buyer of world silver (Europeans wanted to buy Chinese luxury goods but Europe didn’t
have anything the Chinese wanted, except silver)  ∴ example of new global economy
o 16th c. commercial empires:
 Portugal (1st) – primarily est. trading posts around Africa and Indian Ocean; Brazil too
 Spain (entered a few decades after Portugal) – New World; Philippines too (enabled trade w/ Asia)
 Dutch (emerged by end of 16th c. as most powerful commercial empire  17th c. Dutch golden age) –
became rich from spice trade; Dutch East India Co. est. colony in Indonesia; Dutch West India Co. took
territory in Caribbean and Brazil and became a principal operator in the Atlantic slave trade)
 Social History – changes in attitudes and beliefs that reflect the European encounter w/ new peoples and places
o race: Atlantic slave trade heightened and solidified racism. The modern, biological concept of race emerged by
the 18th c.: race based on biological differences, ex. skin color and hair texture (vs. on cultural differences,
though these were believed to be a product of biological differences). Europeans justified slavery w/ the Bible.
o Montaigne: skepticism, cultural relativism, invented the essay (remember “Of Cannibals”)
o Elizabethan and Jacobean period: Shakespeare, King James Bible
 More on economics … exploration was part of a broader period called Europe’s Commercial Revolution = period of
economic expansion that resulted in the development of new mechanisms for organizing large-scale economic
activity; ≈14th-late 18th/early 19th c. (IR signified something new) … features of the commercial revolution:
o ↑ exploration to get to new markets
 era saw population growth which fueled the demand for goods and therefore new markets
o ↑ in trade, development of new international trade networks  economy becomes more global, and Europe
sits at the center of it (i.e. center of the Americas, Africa, and Asia vs. it was more peripheral in the old Indian
Ocean trading world)
o development of global commercial empires that compete w/ one another
o transition from a town-centered to a nation-centered economic system (ex. gov’t’s est. nationwide econ policies
vs. previous regulations est. by the local guild; goods reached a much larger, more distant market than
previously)
o mercantilism – gov’t regulation of the economy to try to secure the most wealth, which was measured by the
nation’s supply of bullion; increase wealth by achieving a favorable balance of trade (exports > imports); believe
that the colony exists for the benefit of the mother country
o emergence of capitalism – not free trade yet (mercantilism is the opposite of free trade!), but:
 the drive to accumulate capital (essentially wealth) for its own sake
 the practice of taking risks
 reinvestment of profits to grow one’s capital
 est. of joint-stock companies (ex. Dutch E. India company) – joint ventures b/t gov’t and private individuals
to turn a profit
 creation of financial services to support wealth accumulation:
 banking – ex. Medici in Italy, Fuggers in Germany, Bank of Amsterdam (1609), Bank of London (1694);
eventually the charge that bankers were practicing “usury” by lending money was dropped, and interest
rates dropped as well, increasing people’s trust in and use of banks
 insurance companies
 stock exchanges – ex. Bourse at Antwerp
o
and another extension of capitalism: development of the putting-out system (aka domestic system, cottage
industry, protoindustrialization): merchants “put out” the work of spinning, weaving, and dyeing cloth to
people in the countryside
 (+): way for merchant to avoid guild restrictions; merchant could accumulate more wealth; way for farm
families to supplement incomes; goods became more abundant and cheaper
 “commercial capitalism” (where key person was the merchant, not the artisan or worker) became dominant
system until replaced in 19th c. w/ “industrial capitalism” (where key person was the industrialist, ex. big
factory owner who owned the machines)
Absolutism and Constitutionalism (ca. 1589-1725)
 Context for the rise of abs & const:
o new forms of gov’t = response to 17th c. “age of crisis”:
 crises: religious wars, “little ice age” resulted in poor harvests and famine, outbreaks of plague, econ.
problems (soaring food prices, stagnant wages, unemployment) led to popular revolts / bread riots
 new gov’ts provided 2 different means of dealing w/ crisis: abs = use force to restore order; const =
appease/involve the ppl to restore order
o absolutism = monarch is sovereign; backed by concept of divine right
o constitutionalism = sovereignty shared b/t monarch & the ppl; ppl’s rights laid out in a constitution
o Challenges common to abs & const states:
 lack of communication/road infrastructure hard to convey monarchs’ orders to the provinces
 lack of census info + small bureaucracies  hard to tax or police effectively
 cultural/linguistic differences  ppl didn’t want to obey a foreign crown
 competition for power (ex. nobles) – challenged monarch’s authority
o Achievements common to abs & const states:
 greater taxation
 growth in armed forces – est. of permanent armies (kept in peacetime, not just raised for war), army officers
had to obey monarchs (vs. mercenaries), more professional standards, growth in size (France took lead here)
 larger, more efficient bureaucracies
 increased ability to compel subjects’ obedience
o East vs. West: similar paths of development/growth up to 1300 … but after Black Death eastern landlords gained
power at the expense of peasants (↑ serfdom) and townspeople, and the opposite happened in the west
 eastern landlords dealt w/ labor shortage by cracking down on peasants (taking land, requiring them to
labor + enforced changes b/c they controlled local justice system) vs. in the west peasants escaped serfdom
as the deaths caused by the plague offered opportunities for them to acquire land
Western Europe
Eastern Europe
Serfdom
abolished
reestablished (robot)
Lords
lost power
maintained/gained power
Middle class
strong
weak
Urban vs. agrarian
urban
agrarian
Central authority (monarchs)
stronger
weaker
 War in this era: shifting alliances as countries sought to maintain a balance of power against threats; former
enemies formed alliances when their interest aligned
ABSOLUTIST STATES
 FRANCE – how did France develop an absolutist state (the epitome of an absolutist state):
o Henry IV (r. 1589-1610) – most loved French king
 est. religious peace – Edict of Nantes (toleration of Huguenots) / converted to Catholicism / 1st minister was
Protestant
 taxes – lowered taxes on poor / est. paulette (tax on royal officials to pass their position to their heirs)
 infrastructure – repair bridges and roads, build highway system
 improved economy – introduced new manufactures, “chicken in every pot”
 peace (just 1 short war)
 but never called Estates General (holy Louis XIV!)
o Louis XIII (r. 1610-1643) – first minister Richelieu did much to build absolutism:
 reshuffled royal council

est. intendant system, staffed by new judicial nobility (noblesse de robe) – carried out central gov’t’s orders
in the provinces
 repressed Protestantism – siege of La Rochelle weakened influence of aristocratic Huguenots
 strengthened economy – mercantilist principles
 measures to curb aristocratic violence – prohibition of private warfare and dueling, destruction of all
fortified castles
 foreign policy focused on weakening Habsburgs (ex. supported Protestants in 30 Years’ War)
 raison d’état: interests of state are above all … God absolves crimes committed in the interest of the state
 French Academy – standardization of French language
o Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715) – the epitome of absolutist rule, the “Sun King”
 first minister Mazarin (until 1661) – policies led to the Fronde (violent uprisings against the monarchy, in
reaction to increasing royal power and oppressive taxation) – happened when Louis was young and freaked
him out
 claimed divine right
 est. government councils to administer state, and personally attended them
 gave positions to new nobility (noblesse de robe)
 never called Estates General
 no 1st minister after Mazarin
 spying and terror: secret police, informers, open private letters
 revoked Edict of Nantes
 collaboration with nobility (vs. being dominated by them) – ex. nobles had to spend part of year at Versailles
 built Versailles – glorified monarchy, ex. through elaborate rituals (the levee); copied by many monarchs
 big patron of the arts – French classicism (echoing Renaissance classicism); French culture and language
became IT across Europe (French lang. even gradually replaced Latin in academic circles)
 mercantilist economic policy guided by Colbert: goal of self-sufficiency (state support of industry, state
inspection/regulation of industry, formation of guilds, welcomed foreign craftsmen, abolish domestic tariffs
& est. protective tariffs, merchant marine to transport French goods); expansion of French empire in New
World (Canada, Louisiana); Co. of E. Indies to try to compete w/ Dutch; raised tax revenue by reducing
inefficiency and corruption
 war:
 est. professional army and French army became the largest in Europe
 lots of it (33 of 54 years)  territorial expansion into lands adjacent to France (Franche Comte + parts of
Alsace Lorraine, Savoy, Spanish Netherlands – all smallish territories on France’s eastern border),
America (Louisiana Purchase)
 War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713)
- cause: conflict over succession to Spanish throne … Louis XIV wanted to put his grandson on the
throne = united France + Spain would be too powerful
- outcome: France lost to Grand Alliance (Britain, Dutch Republic, Austria, Prussia)
- Peace of Utrecht (1713): principle of partition (Louis’s grandson remains king of Spain w/ promise
that Fr and Span crowns will never be united); Fr cedes territory in N. America to GB; Spain cedes
Spanish Netherlands to Austria, W. African slave trade to GB, has to allow GB to send 1 ship of goods
into Span colonies each year … significance of P of U: balance of power in action, end of Spanish
power and French expansion, expansion of the British Empire
 SPAIN – reasons for absolutist Spain’s 17th c. decline:
o Economic: debt (from wars), inflation, colonies lost productivity (silver mining declined – resource depletion +
deaths of workers), decreasing demand for Spanish goods due to competition from other Euro countries, tiny
middle class (see Social causes), aristocracy made bad decisions for agriculture (imposed high rents and taxes on
peasants, didn’t adopt new agri. tech)
o Political: kings were literally stupid, and made poor econ decisions
o Social/cultural: culture opposed to industrious work (large aristocracy shunned work, best ppl entered church) +
religious intolerance (expulsion of Jews in 1492 and Muslims from various cities in early 17th c.)  both factors
contributed to economic decline; psychological malaise (seen in Cervantes’s Don Quixote)
o Military struggles: defeat of Spanish Armada (1588); Portugal and Catalan revolted for ind. (1640); France fought
Spain (1640s-1650s)  Spain lost and surrendered territory to France
 AUSTRIA – how did Austria develop an absolutist state, w/ absolutism partially achieved:
o ruled by Catholic Habsburgs, who also served as HRE emperors
o 30 Years’ War set stage for Austrian state-building and allow Habsburgs to (1) reconquer Bohemia:
 Habsburgs (losers) turn inward and eastward to strengthen state
 Habsburgs reestablished control over Bohemia: Bohemian Estates (rep assembly, filled w/ Protestant
nobles) revolted and crushed at Battle of White Mtn. (1620)  Habsburgs take land/power from
Protestants and give it to Catholics = new nobility loyal to Habsburgs  Habsburgs eliminate Protestantism
& reinforce serfdom (est. the robot)
o Habsburgs (2) acquire Hungary (& Transylvania) from Ottomans
o new Habsburg state = Austria, Bohemia + Hungary
o absolutism partially achieved:
 1 Habsburg ruler, but each state keeps its own gov’t (Estates)
 Pragmatic Sanction (1713) – Habsburg possessions never to be divided, must be passed to 1 heir
 Hungary not fully integrated, as Hungarian nobles retained privileges (1703 Rákóczy revolt)
o Key monarchs:
 Ferdinand II (r. 1619-1637): reconquest of Bohemia
 Ferdinand III (r. 1637-1657): consolidates German-speaking provinces, create permanent standing army
 Charles VI (r. 1711-1740): Pragmatic Sanction (1713), Rákóczy’s revolt
 PRUSSIA – how did Prussia develop an absolutist state and become so militaristic (setting up 20th c. Germany):
o ruled by Hohenzollerns, who had little power under 30 Years’ War
o 30 Years’ War weakened the Estates  allowed monarchs to take more power (as in Bohemia)
o Frederick William, the “Great Elector” (r. 1640-1688): unified the territories, forced Estates to accept taxation,
created permanent army, got the cooperation of the Junkers (nobles, who got to keep traditional privileges and
serfdom in exchange for supporting the monarchy), undercut power of the towns
o Frederick William I, “the Soldiers’ King” (r. 1713-1740): the super duper military-loving guy … made a great
military and even made civil society more military-like … but few wars; strengthened bureaucracy, eliminated
Junker threat (got Junkers to serve in army)
 RUSSIA (aka Muscovy) – how did Russia develop an absolutist state:
o Russia was similar to W. Europe up to ≈1250, but then became different due to Mongol rule
o Mongol Yoke (13th-15th c.): Mongols conquered area around Moscow and Kiev, unified eastern Slavs, allowed
Russian princes who served them well to retain some authority  Muscovite princes served Mongols well and
were rewarded … over time they consolidated power
o Ivan III, “Ivan the Great” (r. 1462-1505): 1st to stop recognizing Mongol leadership  hello Russian absolutism!
o factors that legitimized the new Russian tsars: (1) continued Mongol policies, (2) got cooperation of nobles, (3)
claimed to carry on Byzantine legacy; Moscow as “Third Rome” after Constantinople
o Ivan IV, “Ivan the Terrible” (r. 1533-1584): 1st to take title of “tsar,” wars of expansion (successful in the E. –
took Mongol land, unsuccessful in the W. (Poland-Lithuania)], subjugated boyars – reign of terror, service
nobles demand more from peasants  peasants flee and form independent outlaw groups = Cossacks, urban
traders & artisans bound to towns so Ivan could tax them
o Time of Troubles (1598-1613): fighting over who would be tsar (Ivan IV’s son died heirless), bloody Cossack
rebellion led by Ivan Bolotnikov (nobles crushed it), famine and disease, invasions by Sweden and Poland …
period ended when the nobles elected Michael Romanov (r. 1613-1645)
o Michael Romanov (r. 1613-1645): his election by nobles ended Time of Troubles and restored power to tsar
o Alexis (r. 1645-1676): 1649 – peasants enserfed, social class gap widens, split in Russian Orthodox church: Nikon
wants reforms along Greek Orthodox model vs. “Old Believers” want to stick to Russian ways  “Old Believers”
persecuted & Russians alienated from church, 1670-71 – unsuccessful Cossack rebellion led by Stenka Razin
o Peter the Great (r. 1682-1725) – his reforms made Russia stronger:
 military reforms and conquest made Russia a Great European Power: est. military service requirements for
nobles and commoners, recruited foreigners, upgraded weaponry and uniforms, est. meritocratic system,
defeated Poland and Sweden (the latter in the Great Northern War)
 government/civil reforms: required service for nobility (gov’t or military), meritocratic system
 /improved education: new schools/univs., nobles required 5 years edu. away from home
 built new capital, St. Petersburg (though exploited people to build it)
 peasantry suffered:  taxes and service requirement, forced labor on St. Petersburg, serfdom worsened, 
divide b/t rich and poor
  power of the tsar: tsar chooses successor (vs. hereditary line), church under tsar’s leadership
 outlawed traditional cultural practices – ex. forbade beards
 OTTOMAN EMPIRE – distinctive features of Ottoman absolutism:
o gov’t: led by sultan, who was not challenged by nobles as elsewhere … b/c there was no landed nobility as all
land belonged to the sultan; top bureaucrats were slaves (devshirme – tax on Xtian populations, took Xtian boys
from the Balkans)
o the harem: sultan kept a harem of women, a combo of wives and concubines; had kids only w/ the concubines
to prevent elite families from gaining influence; each concubine allowed only 1 male child, each one of which got
to govern a province  system intended to stabilize power (but system began to unravel under Suleiman the
Magnificent)
o military: very mighty military that laid siege as far as Vienna; janissary corps – army core, composed of slave
conscripts (devshirme) … until 1683, when it became voluntary
o religion: Islamic state w/ religious toleration, millet system – each non-Muslim religious community had
autonomy in exchange for supporting the state
CONSTITUTIONAL STATES
 ENGLAND – constitutional monarchy
2 key 17th c. English political philosophers:
- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651) – absolutism; life in the state of nature is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish,
and short” so a strong monarch is necessary; influenced by English civil war
- John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690) – constitutionalism; “natural” rights of “life, liberty,
and property” should be protected; influenced by Glorious Revolution
o Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603) – great personal power but also very popular … manipulated Parli cleverly, selected
ministers wisely, managed finances carefully (though left James w/ a big debt)
o Stuart family – attempted absolutism
 James I (r. 1603-1625): hated b/c:
 didn’t appeal to the ppl, claimed divine right (which opposed the English idea that a person’s property
could not be taken w/o due process), Scottish

House of Commons began demanding more sovereignty – b/c members were much wealthier & better
educated than before
 religious conflict – ppl dissatisfied w/ Anglican Church – Puritans wanted to purify Anglican church of
Catholic elements
 Charles I (r. 1625-1649): English Civil War (1642-1649) – Charles I vs. Parli (Cavaliers vs. Roundheads) over
who should possess sovereignty … Parli won … causes/events leading up to war:
 hatred of king – cont. w/ absolutism (Charles ruled w/o Parli for 11 yrs!), sympathetic to Catholicism
 Scottish revolt: in response to English Archbishop William Laud’s imposition of Anglican elements on
the Scots (new prayer book and bishoprics)  king asked Parli for $$ to finance army  Parli forced king
to summon it after 11 years  Long Parliament (1640-1660) enacted laws to limit king’s power (ex.
Triennial Act – req’d king to call Parli every 3 years)
 spark: Irish revolt – Catholics feared invasion by anti-Catholic English Parli forces  Parli refused Charles
an army, so he gathered his own and fought Parli
o Commonwealth (1649-1660) under Cromwell – republic in theory, Puritan military dictatorship in practice
 aka: Interregnum, Cromwell’s rule called the Protectorate (“Lord Protector” Cromwell)
 military dictatorship: constitution est. and then torn up  Parli dismissed; military ruled country – cont.
standing army in peacetime, est. quasi-martial law, est. 12 military districts; press censorship
 Puritan elements: sports forbidden, theaters closed, Catholicism banned in England & Ireland ( Irish
rebelled and Cromwell crushed it ruthlessly  left legacy of Irish hatred for England)
 economic policy: mercantilism … Navigation Act (1651) – English goods must be transported on English
ships, war w/ Dutch (commercial rival), Jewish immigration encouraged to help industry
o Restoration (1660): restoration of Stuart monarchy, Parli, Anglican church under Charles II (r. 1660-1685):
 Test Act (1673): required conformity to Anglicanism (but not enforceable)
 worked pretty well w/ Parli – est. Cabal (council of 5 MPs who advised the king, ancestor of cabinet system),
which had to answer to Parli for king’s decisions (new concept!)
 Parli didn’t give Charles enough $$, so Charles sought $$ from Louis XIV in exchange for a promise to reCatholicize England and support France against the Dutch  everyone freaked out that England would
become Catholic and fall under French absolutist influence
o James II (r. 1685-1688): disliked b/c he turned back towards absolutism + was Catholic + violated Test Act by
giving important positions to Catholics and granting religious freedom
o Glorious Revolution (1688-1689): bloodless overthrow of James II by Parli, which invited in William & Mary (r.
1689-1702) who accepted a Bill of Rights dividing sovereignty b/t king and Parli (constitutionalism achieved!)
o Hanoverians (the German cousins who succeeded poor Queen Anne): kings George I-IV, r. 1714-1830
 development of cabinet system (body of leading ministers who formulate state policy = ministers, rather
than monarchs, have legislative and executive power)
 Robert Walpole (led cabinet 1721-1742) – first “Prime Minister”
 DUTCH REPUBLIC – constitutional republic … but NOT a democracy: run by commercial elite
o 17th c. Dutch golden age – highest standard of living in Europe at the time ($$$$!); great era of Dutch
intellectual (ex. Spinoza) and artistic (ex. Vermeer, Rembrandt) achievement
o Dutch were most bourgeois state in Europe at the time (had nobles, but commercial elite predominated)
o gov't: confederation (weak union of strong provinces); weak States General (federal assembly, handled foreign
affairs only); each of the 7 provinces governed by its own elected Estates and stadholder – by practice the
stadholder was given to the House of Orange, so the same guy tended to govern most of the provinces (William
III of Orange was one – same guy who took the English throne in 1688 w/ Mary)
o Holland = wealthiest, most powerful province; Amsterdam (in Holland) = banking and trading center of Europe
o religious toleration (unique in that time!)
o
o
sources of Dutch wealth: fishing, shipbuilding, largest merchant marine in Europe – **made $ from transporting
goods** (ex. bulk commodities from other parties of Europe – Baltic grain), some luxury exports like Delft
pottery, trade outside of Europe and imperialism (Dutch East India Co. and Dutch West India Co.)
Dutch decline resulted from costly wars w/ England and France:
 England aimed to break Dutch trade: 1651 Navigation Act req’d goods to be transported on English ships or
ships of the exporting country as means of undercutting Dutch shipping business; 3 Anglo-Dutch wars, 16521674, were indecisive but weakened the Dutch
 France (under Louis XIV) wanted Spanish Netherlands – Dutch formed a couple different alliances to fight
France, which was encroaching on its border … 1 of the alliances was w/ England (hello shifting alliances!!!)
Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment, and Enlightened Absolutism (1540-1789)
The subject here is the intellectual revolutions of the 16th-18th c. Think of these revolutions as an extension of
Renaissance. The Renaissance, Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment shared: curiosity, new ideas, and the use of
reason, movements among the elite only.
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION (1540-1690)
change in scientific thought, mainly astronomy & math
Medieval/Pre-Modern
- religious
- authorities: Aristotle, Ptolemy
- major ideas:
 geocentric universe
 universe is relatively small
 rest is natural state – someone (angels?) causes movement
 heavens and earth made of different materials; emphasis
on perfection of celestial bodies
 planets rotate in perfect crystalline spheres
Scientific Revolution/Modern
- secular
- authorities: Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, Newton
- new ideas:
 heliocentric universe
 vastness of universe
 inertia – body in motion stays in motion until stopped
 heavens and earth made of same materials; celestial bodies
not perfect (ex. Galileo’s scarred moon)
 planets rotate in elliptal orbits; crystal spheres debunked
 Causes: (1) individual genius; (2) medieval universities introduce new professorships in natural philosophy (math and
science fields); (3) Renaissance – dug up ancient texts, curiosity/interest in learning, patrons funded scientists,
artistic realism encouraged close observations of natural world, printing press facilitated spread of knowledge; (4)
exploration – navigational problems spurred development of new scientific instruments; (5) pre-existing interest in
astrology, math, alchemy; (6) role of religion is up for debate (Protestantism as “pro-science” – but not until after
1630)
 Consequences: (1) new social group: scientific community; (2) government investment in science (ex. national
academies of science in London and Paris); (3) new way of obtaining knowledge: scientific method
 What didn’t change: (1) gender inequality continued; (2) living standards; (3) technology – no immediate application
of science to tech
 Astronomers and mathematicians:
o Copernicus: heliocentricity  implications: crystal spheres don’t exist, universe is much bigger than previously
believed, destroyed notion of distinction b/t earth and heavens (earth is just another planet rotating around the
sun)
o Brahe: built an observatory and collected a mass of data for Rudolfine Tables
o Kepler: 3 laws of planetary motion: (1) planetary orbits are elliptical, (2) planets don’t move at uniform speed in
their orbits, (3) time a planet takes to complete its orbit is precisely related to its distance from the sun;
provided math to prove the heliocentric universe that Copernicus hypothesized
o Galileo: experimental method (controlled experiments); theorized the law of inertia (a body in motion stays in
motion); discovered Jupiter’s 1st 4 moons, which disproved notion of crystal spheres; showed that the moon is
not a perfectly smooth sphere; reaffirmed Copernican hypothesis  CC found him guilty of heresy
o Newton: provided 3 laws of motion that tied together the scientists’ discoveries and used math to prove them;
includes law of inertia (1st law) and law of universal gravitation (3rd law)
 scientific method crystallized from the combination of Bacon and Descartes’s ideas
o Bacon – inductive reasoning, aka empiricism (collect data through observation and experimentation and then
analyze to find general principles; use this rather than reason and speculation; relies on experimentation)
 Ex. Every animal I have tested dies; probably all animals die.
o Descartes – deductive reasoning (start with general principle, apply to data, and find conclusion; makes use of
reason and speculation … we can reasonably apply a principle to data to deduce a conclusion, even if we don’t
have data that directly proves the conclusion; relies on mathematical reasoning)
 Ex. All animals die; this is an animal; therefore, this will die.
 Cartesian dualism = Descartes’s view that all reality could ultimately be reduced to mind and matter
 Medicine – Galen was the ancient authority, like Aristotle. He thought illness comes from imbalance of 4 humors
and advised bloodletting. Here are the new guys:
o Paracelsus: pioneered use of chemicals/drugs to fix chemical imbalances (imbalances not in humors)
o Vesalius: tons of drawings of human anatomy
o Harvey: discovered circulation of blood
o Boyle: founded modern chemistry; 1st to create a vacuum; Boyle’s law governing pressure of gases
ENLIGHTENMENT (1690-1789)
change in social & political thought; advocated reforms
 Enlightenment basics:
o central concepts: (1) use of reason; (2) scientific method could be used to discover laws of human society
(hence origin of social science); (3) progress
o movement among the educated elite; philosophes looked down on the lower classes
o France was the center … b/c it was wealthiest and most populous country; French was int’l lang of educated
elite; gov’t not as oppressive of ideas as in E. Europe; French philosophes aimed to get their ideas out to large
audience, using all kinds of literary forms and making use of satire and double meaning
o reading revolution = transition from communal, patriarchal reading of religious texts (think dad reading aloud to
family) to reading individually, silently, and w/ a more diverse reading list (i.e.  literacy &  #s/types of books,
↓ book prices)
o salons = where educated elite met to discuss ideas, hosted by wealthy women in their homes
o rococo = artistic style, 1720-1780; “soft pastels, ornate interiors, sentimental portraits, starry-eyed lovers
protected by hovering cupids” (check out Fragonard)
o new institutions where ppl could learn and/or debate new ideas (less restrictive than salons): lending libraries,
coffeehouses, book clubs, Masonic lodges, journals – creation of public sphere
 Factors that contributed to emergence of Enlightenment:
o Sci Rev – notion of progress, doubts about absolute truth
o Religious wars – skepticism of absolute religious truths
o New types of literature: novels that popularized science, like Bernard de Fontenelle’s Conversations on the
Plurality of Worlds (helped introduce ppl to Sci Rev ideas and the notion of progress); travel lit (exposure to
different cultures made ppl see truth and morality as relative, not absolute)
 Enlightenment ideas and philosophes:
o Government: advocate giving more rights to the people (though generally not to all ppl – just wealthy males)
 Locke, Two Treatises of Civil Government (1690) – constitutionalism; natural rights to life, liberty, property;
right to rebel when there has been a long train of abuses
 Remember that Hobbes (another 17th c. English political philosopher) is his opposite – Hobbes wrote
Leviathan (mid-17th c.) justifying absolutism
 Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws (1748) – separation of powers/checks and balances
The Persian Letters – collection of letters supposedly written by 2 Persian travelers in Europe; satire
criticizing European customs & despotism, including informal power women wielded in absolutist system
 Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762) – democracy; general will, popular sovereignty; “Man is born free, but
he is everywhere in chains.”
 Voltaire (an exception) – a good monarch was the best one could hope for in a gov’t; praised Louis XIV
o Society: focused on empowering the educated elite, did not trust the lower classes and did not believe in social
and economic equality; people are shaped by society, so society should be good

Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) – tabula rasa; human development is shaped by
education and social institutions, so these should be good
 Voltaire – maintained class hierarchy, thought lower classes were lesser
 Locke – advocated constitutionalism, but not democracy
 D’Alembert – lower classes are “blind and noisy multitude” – superstitious, wild, needing guidance
o Religion: religious toleration; questioning of religious institutions and God’s nature (Deism) or the ability to
prove His existence
 Pierre Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary – nothing (like religious “truths”) can be known beyond all
doubt, therefore advocated toleration
 Voltaire – Deism; religious toleration
 David Hume (most important Scottish Enlightenment guy) – all knowledge must be verified by sense
experience, reason alone is not enough; therefore cannot conclude anything about the origin of the universe
or existence of God
 Baron d’Holbach – God does not exist, souls are not immortal (atheism), ppl do not have free will
(determinism)
o Women: lacked political rights; limited participation in the Enlightenment … salon hostesses and a few
academics … excluded from academic societies
 Madame du Chatelet – translated Newton’s Principia into French; studied math and science; concentrated
on spreading Enlightenment ideas; excluded from the Royal Academy of Sciences; criticized the exclusion of
women from edu and academic societies; Voltaire’s special lady-friend
 Madame Geoffrin and Julie de Lespinasse – ran salons
 Rousseau, Emile – rigid division of gender roles; women limited to the domestic role
o Race: new idea of “race” to designate biologically distinct groups of people, rather than dividing people into
“nations” based on historical, political, and cultural affiliations; white race placed at top of racial hierarchy
 Carl von Linné – nature is organized into a God-given hierarchy  basis for other thinkers classifying human
races into a hierarchy
 Comte de Buffon, Hume, Kant – all touted white superiority; notion of white race as original race
 A few thinkers challenged racist ideas – Diderot, Beattie, von Herder
 A bit more stuff that didn’t fit elsewhere:
o Encyclopedia, ed. Diderot and d’Alembert – compilation of articles, intended to imbue critical thinking, very
influential
o Rousseau served as a bridge to Romanticism, which was a reaction against the order and rationality of the
Enlightenment, and embraced emotion/feeling in its place. Rousseau attacked rationalism and civilization as
destroying the individual; advocated warm, spontaneous feeling.
o Immanuel Kant (greatest German philosophe), What is Enlightenment? (1784) – “dare to know!”; advocated
freedom of the press, but said ppl but must still follow laws, no matter how unreasonable
ENLIGHTENED ABSOLUTISM (1740-1790)
absolute monarchs influenced by Enlightenment ideas; made reforms and aimed to rule in an “enlightened” manner
– Q is to what extent were they sincere in their efforts? Was reform or state building more important? Were their
efforts blocked by the nobility? Do the limits to their efforts simply reveal inherent limitations in Enlightenment
thought on equality and social justice?
 Frederick the Great of Prussia (r. 1740-1786)
o Enlightened policies: religious toleration (religion); built schools, permitted scholars to publish (edu); simplified
law code, abolished torture, made judges decide cases quickly and impartially (legal system); justified monarch
in terms of practical results vs. divine right; reconstruction of agri and industry after years of war (econ)
o
Limits to reform: social structure didn’t change … condemned serfdom in theory but allowed it to stay, extended
Junker privileges, Jews lacked civil rights (lived in ghettos, excluded from professions)
o cameralism – monarchy is best form of gov’t and all elements of society should serve the monarch, and in turn
the state should act to improve society; idea emerged in mid-late 17th c.
o Wars:
o War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) – took Silesia from MT  Prussia became strongest German state
and European Great Power
o Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) – Austria, France, and Russia vs. Prussia (MT wanted Silesia back, all wanted to
divide Prussia up)  Russia backed out in 1762 b/c Peter III admired Fred, so Prussia remained safe
 Catherine the Great of Russia (r. 1762-1796)
o Enlightened policies:
 westernization of Russian culture: imported W. artists, patronized philosophes (corresponded w/ Voltaire,
funded Diderot)
 limited religious toleration (religion); improved edu (edu); planned to prep new law code (never actually
produced), restricted torture, tried to strengthen local gov’t (legal system)
o Limits to reform: social structure didn’t change … (unsuccessful) serf uprising led by Emelian Pugachev  Cathy
reinforced serfdom, extending it into Ukraine and extending noble privileges (freed from taxes & state service)
o Territorial expansion (very successful … + kept nobles happy b/c Cathy gave them land):
 subjugated last descendants of Mongols, Crimean Tartars, and began conquest of the Caucasus
 partition of Poland (1772, 1793, 1795) – b/t Russia, Austria, Prussia
 Maria Theresa (r. 1740-1780) and her son Joseph II (r. 1780-1790) of Austria
o MT’s reforms: limited papacy’s influence in Austria; administrative reforms – strengthened bureaucracy,
improved unity of provincial admin, revamped tax system; reduced power of lords over serfs
o Joe’s reforms: controlled CC more closely; religious tol and civil rights to Protestants and Jews; **abolished
serfdom (1781)** and decreed peasants pay landlords in cash rather than in compulsory labor (1789) … serfdom
reforms didn’t work – nobles wanted serfdom + peasants lacked $ … Leopold II (r. 1790-1792) restored serfdom
 Haskalah: Jewish Enlightenment, led by Moses Mendelssohn in 2nd half of 18th c., advocated rights for Jews
o Some countries gave Jews rights: GB repealed a law that denied naturalization; Joe granted Jews eligibility for
military service, admission to higher ed and artisanal trade, removed reqs for special clothing/emblems
o Many monarchs did not make reforms: Fred denied Jews rights; Cathy denied Jews rights + est. the Pale of
Settlement, a territory where most Jews were required to live, 1791-1917
o Jews gained more rights after the Enlightenment: France, 1791, became 1st country to remove all restrictions; in
19th c. Jews gained more rights around Europe, until 1870s financial crash resulted in scapegoating them
European Expansion (1650-1800)
Section is more or less on 18th c. economic history. Key Qs are: How did Europe expand in the 18th c. … internally? (rising
food production, population boom, expansion of industry) … externally? (global trade, empire building)
 Agricultural Revolution (1650-1850): revolution in farming practices that allowed land to be planted at all times
(eliminated the practice of letting fields lie fallow to become fertile again)  food production 
o Prior to 1650, farmers used open-field system (open fields, cut into strips for each family; no fences; common
lands)  problem was soil exhaustion (so had to let fields lie fallow), low output, and periods of famine
o Agricultural Rev introduced 2 new practices: (1) crop rotation (rotate crops so fields don’t have to lie fallow and
(2) enclosure (put up fences)
o Consequences:  food, rise of market-oriented estate agriculture (big landowners turn a big profit),
proletarianization (creation of landless peasants who lost out w/ enclosure and had to hire themselves out for
wage work)
o Leaders: Low Countries (b/c densely populated & urban – needed fields to be productive), then England
o Innovators: Cornelius Vermuyden – drainage; Jethro Tull – seed drill, horses for plowing, selective breeding
 Population Explosion (18th c.)
o Pop patterns up to 1700: irregular cyclical pattern of slow growth … famine, disease, and war held down growth
o Reason for 18th c. pop explosion: decline in mortality (famine, disease and war less problematic – ex. improved
sanitation reduced disease, new foods like the potato diminished famine … until the Irish Potato Famine, that is)
 Cottage Industry, aka putting-out system
o what it was: manufacturing with hand tools in peasant homes; merchant capitalist “put out” raw materials to
cottage workers, who manufactured it into finished products and returned them to the merchant
o competitive advantages (over guilds): low wages, no regulation of industry allowed for more experimentation +
variety of goods
o developed 1st in England’s textile industry
o more characteristics:
 family enterprise
 shortage of spinners (couldn’t keep up w/ weavers)  unmarried women did spinning and became called
“spinsters”
 conflict b/t workers & merchant-capitalists
 erratic pace
o “industrious revolution”: social/econ Δs of late 17th-early 18th c.
 rise of wage work,  leisure time
 new pattern = foundation for IR (1780) – cottage industry can be called proto-industrialization
 debate over consequences … life better or worse for … the poor? women?
 Decline of Urban Guilds
o guilds = trade-based associations, each of which had a monopoly over its trade and right to train apprentices
and hire workers
o guilds were elitist & monopolistic, ex: restricted membership to men; employed nepotism; costly to join; gov’ts
gave them exclusive rights to produce certain goods and exclusive access to limited raw materials
 but  openness to women (ex. dressmaking) in 18th c.
o historians debate the rigidity of guilds: were they more open to experimentation than previously thought?
o originated ca. 1200 and reached peak in 17th-18th c.  lost power in late 18th c. – mid-19th c. (w/ French Rev,
which abolished guilds in France, and the rise of the free market that accompanied the IR – think Adam Smith)
 Global Economy
o GB beat out Dutch, French and Spanish to become 18th c. commercial leader … through war (econ and military):
 Navigation Acts (1651-1663)

o
o
o
GB imports must be carried on GB ships (or on ships of country producing the goods) / GB colonies must
ship goods on GB (or US) ships + buy goods from GB
 passed by Cromwell
 gave GB a trade monopoly – helped beat out Dutch
 Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652-1674)
 series of 3 wars that produced little Δ, but coupled w/ Nav. Acts, Dutch commerce 
 War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713)
 cause: threat of French/Spanish union (Louis XIV was going to put his grandson Philip V on Spain’s
throne when Charles II of Spain died w/o an her + unite the 2 countries)
 France vs. Grand Alliance (GB, Dutch, Austria, Prussia)
 Grand Alliance won!
 Peace of Utrecht (1713) – (1) Fr/Sp could not be united, (2) France lost some of its Amer. colonies to GB
[Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Hudson Bay territory], (3) Spain lost land to Austria et al, & gave control of
the lucrative slave trade [called the asiento] to GB
 War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748)
 cause: Prussia (Fred the Great) took Silesia from Austria (MT)
 came to include Anglo-French conflicts in India & N. America
 outcome: Prussian victory; no land Δ in N. America
 Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) – 1st global war (fought in Europe, US, Caribbean, W. Africa, India)
 cause: MT wanted Silesia back + continuation of Anglo-French conflict over access to colonies/trade
 outcome: indecisive in Europe; British victory in colonies
 Treaty of Paris (1763) – France & Spain lost land in N. Amer. & India to GB
In the American colonies …
 Atlantic slave trade (18th c. = height)
 slaves worked plantation agriculture: sugar, coffee, tobacco, rice, cotton
 GB becomes leader of slave trade ca. 1700 and then began an abolition campaign in 1770s-80s … Parli
abolished GB slave trade in 1807
 18th c. Spanish revival (after 16th c. golden age and 17th c. decline)
 causes: better leadership under Philip V (r. 1700-1746) and ministers; reform of military and finances
 signs of revival: Spanish colonies in the New World benefit … better defense; expansion into Louisiana
(France gave Spain LA in 1763 at end of 7 Years War b/c Spain had to cede Florida to GB … Spain kept LA
until 1802, when it went back to France and Napoleon sold it to the US) and CA; silver mining recovers;
new class of wealthy Creoles (ppl of Spanish blood, born in America)
 debt peonage – 17th c. labor system in Spanish America, akin to serfdom; owner keeps Indians in
bondage by advancing pay
European colonies in Asia …
 Portugal – no major colonies, but trading posts all around the Indian O.
 Dutch Rep – mostly Dutch E. Indies
 France – India, until GB beat them out in the 1760s
 Britain – India
Economic systems: rise of industrial capitalism in late 18th c.
 replaced mercantilism (17th-18th c.) – mercantilists believed that colonies exist to serve the mother country
 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776) – gov’t should stay out of the economy, w/ only 3 exceptions …
provide: (1) military, (2) courts and police, (3) public works; “invisible hand” (by pursuing self-interest,
individuals benefit the economy as a whole); market economy, capitalism, laissez-faire, classical liberalism
18th century Social History
MARRIAGE AND FAMILY
 Nuclear family
 Marriage
o Late marriage … average age: late 20s; takes longer for couple to be ready economically
o Many never married
o Marriages based more on romance than $$ reasons
 Young people increasingly worked away from home in the city
 Illegitimate children
o Low rates of illegitimacy until 1750 partly due to community controls – women got pregnant before marriage,
but social pressure (ex. public humiliation) forced couples to marry
o Illegitimacy explosion (1750-1850), at least partly b/c of increasing urbanization and the subsequent loss of
village community controls
More on CHILDREN
 Urban women hired wet nurses (i.e. another woman to nurse their baby)
 Increase in infanticide
 Increase in foundling homes
 Parental attitudes towards children: either (1) parents don’t get attached because of high mortality rates, or (2)
parents did care
 Severe discipline: “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”
 Enlightenment encouraged greater tenderness towards children and new teaching methods (Rousseau’s Emile): ex.
advocated breast-feeding (vs. wet nurse) and loose, comfy clothes (vs. swaddling)
STATUS OF WOMEN
 Emphasis on domestic role … women = homemakers
 Upper-class Catholic women had self-development options in religious orders.
 Working class girls took jobs outside the home. Most common job was domestic servant. Often suffered emotional
and physical abuse.
EDUCATION
 Protestantism spurred increased education for boys and girls (Protestants encouraged people to read the Bible for
themselves)
 Significant growth in literacy, 1600-1800
 Growth in reading … reading materials of common people: Bible, chapbooks (cheap pamphlets, religious subjects),
entertaining stories, almanacs/practical guides
FOOD
 Diets
o Poor: *brown bread/grains*, veggies, little fruit/eggs/meat/dairy
o Middle Class: *bread/beans*, but greatest variety
o Rich: *meat* and *excessive alcohol*
 Improved diet: more vegetables (esp. potato)
 Former luxury goods became products of mass consumption: *sugar*, *tea*, coffee, tobacco, chocolate (=
Europeans became hyped up on sugar and caffeine)
MEDICINE
 5 types of medical practitioners:
1. Faith healers – exorcism of evil spirits, which they believed caused disease; rural areas
2. Apothecaries – i.e. pharmacists
3. Physicians – treated variety of illnesses; common treatments were purging of bowels and bloodletting
4. Surgeons – previously seen as a trade like butchery; made significant progress in knowledge and technique; no
painkillers and unsanitary conditions
5. Midwives – delivered babies; women’s domain
 Greatest medical triumph of 18th c.: conquest of smallpox
o Lady Mary Wortley Montague – smallpox inoculation brought over from Asia (1722)
o Edward Jenner – smallpox vaccination (1796)
NEW CONSUMPTION HABITS
 “consumer revolution” = huge increase in consumption … set foundation for society of mass consumption that
emerged in the 19th c.
 Producers sought to incite demand: ex. marketing campaigns, patronage of royals, decorated shop windows
 Increasing consumption of, for example:
o *sugar*, *tea*, coffee, tobacco, chocolate
o clothing – fashion became important, both to elites AND to working classes, who could buy cheap knock-offs
o household items, ex. variety of kitchen dishes
RELIGION
 local parish church = basic religious unit; center of community; many functions including sermons and religious
events, documentation of population, etc., distribution of charity, provider of education for common people
 Pietism = Protestant revival, began in Germany
o Why Pietism was so appealing: (1) call for warm, emotional, enthusiastic faith (think of a congregation “filled
with spirit”), (2) reasserted Protestant idea of priesthood of all believers, which had gotten a little lost as the
Protestant church became increasingly bureaucratized and influenced by secular authorities, (3) support of
Christian rebirth – people could be “reborn” and lead good, moral lives
 Rise of Methodism, a denomination of Protestantism founded by John Wesley in England
o response to problems in Anglican Church, ex. loss of inspiration in sermons, corruption, lack of churches,
expanding influence of Enlightenment skepticism
o Wesley delivered 40,000+ sermons and won many converts
 Catholic piety remains
o Jansenism = movement advocating return to austere early Christianity of St. Augustine, emphasis on original sin
and predestination … declared a heresy, but popular esp. with the French elite
o Rural Catholics – tended to combine Catholicism w/ “pagan” superstitions
RECREATION
 Religious celebrations – ex. Carnival (several days of partying before Lent)
 Urban fairs
 Variety of spectator sports, including blood sports (ex. bullbaiting, cockfighting)
 Spending time with family/friends at home (ex. women sewing and talking, families telling stories around the
fireplace)
 Drinking in taverns
French Revolution (1789-1815)
 After Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715) …
o Louis XV (r. 1715-1774) – began to lose power to nobility, then crushed their power and incited more discontent
 Duke of Orleans (1674-1723) – regent for Louis XV … helped nobility regain power by restoring to
parlements (French high courts) ancient right to evaluate royal decrees publicly in writing before they were
registered and given force of law  Parlement of Paris rejected king’s attempts to issue new taxes and even
questioned king’s power to do so
 1768 – Louis appointed René de Maupeou chancellor  Maupeou abolished parlements, and created new,
docile “Meapeou parlements” that obeyed the king and allowed his taxes
 discontent w/ monarchy grew b/c of Maupeou parlements + hated mistress Madame de Pompadour
o Louis XVI (r. 1774-1792) – dismissed Maupeou, reinstated parlements, but did not make real enlightened
reforms toward more representative government  people angry (here comes the French Revolution….)
 Causes:
o political – discontent w/ absolutism
o social – inequity of the estate system (1st – clergy; 2nd – nobility; 3rd – everybody else)
o economic – long-term debt, esp. from wars, including American Rev.; rising bread prices caused unrest among
the poor; *spark* was Louis XVI’s attempt to issue a tax w/o consent of the EG
o ideological – Enlightenment ideas + American Revolution as model
 Phase 1: Liberal Phase (1789-1791) – absolutist  constitutional monarchy
o May 1789 – Estates General convenes to vote on new tax Louis XVI was trying to impose
 1st Q was how to vote: by estate or by head … voted on how to vote, chose by estate – 3rd estate angry
o June 17 – formation of National Assembly (3rd estate + sympathetic members of 1st and 2nd)
o June 20 – Tennis Court Oath – NA’s promise to stick together until it produced a new constitution
o July 14 – storming of the Bastille – Paris mob broke into the prison b/c of rumors that king was stockpiling arms
o July-Aug – Great Fear – peasant uprising in the countryside; effectively got rid of old feudal ways
o Aug. 4-11 – August Decrees – NA reform that made legal the gains of the Great Fear – eliminated feudalism
o Aug. 27 – Declaration of the Rights of Man… - NA doc that spelled out fundamental rights a la Locke
o Oct. 5 – women’s March on Versailles – mob of Parisian women (angered by bread prices) marched to Versailles
and forced the royal family to move back to Paris
o NA’s reforms (made over the course of a couple years):
  women’s rights: divorce, inheritance, child support (but no political rights)
 rezoning: departments (replaced old provincial divisions)
 metric system
  econ liberty – ex. abolished guilds, trade barriers, monopolies
 religious toleration of Jews & Protestants
 Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) – subjugated CC to state, creating a nat’l church; clergy elected and
had to take a loyalty oath
 new paper currency: assignats (created to help state finances)
o Sept. 1791 – constitution of 1791 – est. constitutional monarchy w/ Legislative Assembly (bye bye NA, hello LA)
 Phase 2: Radical Phase – constitutional monarchy  republic; violent period
o causes of radicalization:
 monarchs’ actions suggest they couldn’t be trusted (ex. flee attempt in June 1791)
 new leaders & political divisions: LA dominated by Jacobins (younger and more radical than NA members)
 Jacobins divided b/t Girondists (more moderate) and the Mountain (more radical, and this group won)
 war contributed to fears that revolutionary gains would be lost
 fear of counter-revolution
 continuing economic crises (sans-culottes played a big role, backing the Mtn, and their primary need was $)
o June 1791 – royal family attempts to flee
o Aug. – Declaration of Pillnitz – Austria & Prussia pledge to intervene in France to support Louis XVI if necessary
o April 1792 – war begins … 1st it was France vs. Austria & Prussia (war continues until 1815)
o Aug. – storming of Tuileries (Paris mob broke into palace and monarchs fled to LA for safety)  LA suspended
king’s powers and called for the election of a new National Convention to replace LA (NC elected by universal
male suffrage, which was more democratic than the limited male suffrage used for LA election)
o
Sept. – September Massacres – Paris mob massacred prisoners who were rumored to be plotting counterrevolution  2nd revolution: NC declared France a republic (constitution #2)
 The Mountain takes control – led by Robespierre and Danton
 gov't. was a democracy in name, dictatorship in practice
o Jan. 1793 – Louis XVI executed
o Feb. – France declares war on GB, Holland, Spain
o April – Committee of Public Safety est – 12-man committee, functioned as executive body, led by Robespierre …
oversaw total war efforts, such as:
 planned economy – ex. rationing, price ceilings
 Reign of Terror (1793-1794) – use of guillotine to execute all “enemies”
o July 1794 – Robespierre arrested and “shaved by the revolutionary razor”
o 1794-1795 – Thermidorian Reaction – gov’t fell into more moderate hands … crazy violence ends
 Phase 3: Directory (1795-1799)
o constitution #3: still a republic, but headed by 5-man executive (called the Directory)
o democracy in name, weak dictatorship in practice
o problems continued: continuing unpopular war, cont. econ crises (inflation, unemployment, starvation),
Directory didn’t follow democracy (ex. nullified an election)
 Phase 4: Napoleon (1799-1815)
o rise to power:
 1799: overthrew Directory in a coup and est. the “Consulate,” naming himself “First Consul” (Julius Caesar’s
title)  new constitution (#4) approved in a plebiscite (vote of the people)
 1802: named himself sole “Consul for Life” (plebiscite to approve)
 1804: proclaimed himself emperor Napoleon I ( plebiscite to approve)  Consulate became the Empire
o domestic reforms:
 Concordat of 1801 – Nap’s agreement w/ CC, which made peace w/ the CC after the FR’s turn against it
 CC’s gains: declaration that “Catholicism was the religion of the great majority of the French,” pope can
depose French bishops, CC seminaries permitted
 Nap’s gains: religious freedom kept (CC not a state church), pope accepts loss of church land and tithes,
state nominates bishops & pays clergy
 Civil Code of 1804 (Napoleonic Code) – granted legal equality to all male citizens, security of $$/private
property … women lost rights: dependents on fathers or husbands, could not make contracts or have bank
accounts in their own names
 carried to countries Nap conquered – contributed to spread of liberty, end of feudalism
 strengthened the bureaucracy
 former revolutionaries put in gov’t posts
 emigrés invited back, given jobs, swear loyalty oath
 new imperial nobility – positions granted on the basis of merit (meritocracy)
 financial reforms – important b/c Directory had left finances in a mess
 tax reform – no tax exemptions due to status
 improvement of accounting methods
 est. sound currency, public credit, Bank of France
 education: lycée system – meritocratic, state-supported post-secondary school system designed to produce
gov’t and military officials and professionals
 1/3 of slots reserved for children of gov’t/military officials … rest reserved for best students
 scholarships available
 6 year term of study, liberal arts curriculum
 patriotic aim too – seek to build loyalty to French state
 authoritarian domestic policies:
 women lost rights (see Napoleonic Code)
 little freedom of speech/press
 occasional elections … not run fairly
 spy system
o
 unfair detainment & sentencing for pol. crimes
foreign policy: WAR!
 France was at war 1792-1815. It was a series of wars … only GB remained almost continually at war w/
France (1 year of peace, 1802-1803) and was never on Nap’s side. Austria, Prussia, Russia fought against
Nap, but also lost and had to sign treaties, so became allies of sorts, accepting French rule in other places
and supporting the continental system for a while, before allying to defeat France in the end. Not until 1813
were all the Great Powers (Britain, Austria, Russia, Prussia) simultaneously at war with France.
 timeline of wars & treaties:
 1801 – Treaty of Lunéville (French win) – France acquires Austrian and German territory
 1802 – Treaty of Amiens (w/ GB; French win) – France keeps Holland, Austrian Netherlands, German and
Italian lands
 1803 – renews war with GB
 1805 – Battle of Trafalgar – GB beats France &Spain in naval battle = end of Nap’s hope to invade GB
Battle of Austerlitz – France defeats Austria and Russia
 1806 – Nap dissolves HRE and est. German Confederation of the Rhine (controls western Germany)
 1807 – treaties of Tilsit (French win) – Prussia loses ½ its pop; Russia accepts French reorg. of
western/central Europe and promises to enforce blockade of GB goods
 1812 – invasion of Russia  French retreat, major military disaster for France (horrid Russian winter)
 1814 – Treaty of Chaumont – Austria, Prussia, Russia, GB pledge alliance to defeat Napoleon
 1814 – Nap exiled to Elba
 1815 – Battle of Waterloo – final defeat of Nap  exiled to St. Helena
 continental system: French system of excluding GB goods from the continent; purpose was to weaken GB,
but it failed
 Nap’s Grand Empire: (1) France (bigger than before) + (2) satellites (governed by member’s of Nap’s family –
remember nepotism) + (3) independent but allied states (Austria, Prussia, Russia)

o
o
treatment of areas incorporated into Nap’s empire: (+) introduced French laws – ex. abolished serfdom
and feudal dues (spreading FR reforms); (-) imposed heavy taxes and req’d men to serve in French army
 response of countries subsumed into Grand Empire:  nationalism and revolts (ex. Spanish Peninsular
War, 1808-1814, depicted in Goya’s Second of May and Third of May paintings)
 in the New World:
 Haitian independence (1791-1804) – St. Domingue fought and won independence from France
 Louisiana Purchase (1803) – Nap sold Louisiana to US for $15m (Louisiana was under French rule from
1699-1762 [acquired by Louis XIV]; France gave LA to Spain in 1762 during 7 Years’ War b/c Spain cede
Florida to GB … Spain kept LA 1762-1800, when it returned LA to France)
fall from power:
 1814 – Nap abdicates in face of defeat by Austria, Prussia, Russia, GB  exile #1: Elba (island near Italy)
 Bourbon Restoration – Louis XVIII and Constitutional Charter – constitutional monarchy
 Feb. 1815 – Nap escapes Elba and marches on Paris  Louis XVIII flees and Nap remains for Hundred Days
 June 1815 – Napoleon defeated at Waterloo  exile #2: St. Helena (island near W. Africa)
The arts: Napoleonic era defined by Neoclassical style = “new classical,” or Greco-Roman (like Renaissance stuff)
Governments of France During the Revolution
Government
Old Regime
Date
up to 1791
Type of Government
Absolute Monarchy
National Assembly
1789-1791
Third Estate
Legislative
Assembly
1791-1792
National
Convention
1792-1794
(Committee of
Public Safety)
Directory
(1793-1794)
Consulate
1799-1815
Constitutional Monarchy,
745 representatives,
mostly the affluent
Dominated by lawyers,
professionals, property
owners
(gave power to special
committee)
Five directors as executive
authority, relied on military
Dictatorship (Emperor)
1795-1799
Major Events
Financial collapse,
unemployment, food shortages,
high taxes
Storming of the Bastille,
abolished rights of landlords and
fiscal privileges of clergy,
adopted Declaration of Rights of
Man, wrote constitution
War with Austria
Important People
Louis XVI, Marie
Antoinette
Abolish monarchy, establish
republic, execute king
Maximilien
Robespierre
Olympe de
Gouges
(Reign of Terror)
Era of corruption and graft
Code Napoléon, Grand Army,
Conquest of Europe
Napoleon
Bonaparte
Industrial Revolution (ca. 1780-1850)
 Definition: econ expansion w/ rise of factories, machine-made products, urbanization
o major changes in: patterns of work (less leisure time, live by the bell), social class structure (rise of proletariat &
industrial middle class), standard of living ( … eventually), int’l balance of power (West pulls ahead)
o began in 1780s in British textile industry
 IR in Britain – began ca. 1780
o Why GB?: (1) large market (domestic & colonial), (2) rivers & canals – easy transport, (3) natural resources – iron
& coal, (4) large labor force, (5) agricultural revolution – created large labor force of landless workers + reduced
food prices so ppl could buy manufactured goods, (6) strong central bank & well-developed credit markets, (7)
stable gov’t, (8) laissez-faire economy (inclu. no domestic tariffs)
o 1st factories = in cotton textiles
 spinning inventions: James Hargreaves’s spinning jenny, Richard Arkwright’s water frame, Samuel
Crompton’s spinning mule
 weaving invention: Edmund Cartwright’s power loom (1785)
 consequences of changes in textile industry: (1) cheaper cotton goods, (2) weavers’ wages  until 1792 b/c
weavers couldn’t keep up w/ spinners, (3) poor factory working conditions, (4) child labor, (5) textiles
dominated GB industry (1831 – 22% of GB’s industrial production)
o problem of energy shortage solved by the steam engine (James Watt) – used in mines, textile factories, mills,
iron industry (huge boom there w/ help of Henry Cort’s puddling furnace), RRs
o railroads built – iron for rails, steam engine for locomotive
 George Stephenson’s Rocket (1830) – 16 mph
 consequences: (1) ↓ shipping cost & uncertainty, (2) larger markets  larger factories  cheaper goods, (3)
expanded labor market, (4) change in social values: new obsession w/ power, speed
o GB = “workshop of the world”
30
 huge production: provided 20% of world’s industrial goods in 1860
 huge growth, 17805-1851: GNP quadrupled, population doubled
 Crystal Palace exhibition (London, 1851) celebrated GB’s industrial dominance
o some gloomy 18th c. British economists:
 Thomas Malthus, Essay on the Principle of Population – pop. would always grow faster than food supply
 David Ricardo – iron law of wages = wages would always sink to subsistence level
 IR in Continental Europe – began ca. 1815 … lagged behind GB due to FR and war that resulted
o timing of IR in continental European countries varied – Belgium led the way
o agents of continental industrialization: (1) skilled GB workers who carried ideas abroad, (2) entrepreneurs, (3)
gov’ts – ex. France used protective tariffs, gov’ts bore heavy cost of RR construction, (4) banks – ex. France’s
Crédit Mobilier built RR’s all over Europe (limited liability brought in more investors)
o Friedrich List, National System of Political Economy (1841) – economic nationalism = gov’t should enact
policies to help protect & develop a country’s economy … ex. tariffs (opposite of Adam Smith)
 Second Industrial Revolution (1860-1914): key products = steel, chemicals, oil, electricity; planes, cars, subs;
telephone, telegraph; movies, radio
 Relations b/t capital and labor – i.e. social classes and labor movement:
o rise of class-consciousness / notion of conflicting classes … 2 key classes were: industrial middle class
(bourgeoisie) – factory owners & industrial working class (proletariat) – factory workers
o was the IR good or bad for factory workers? (question of debate)
 IR was bad (majority view at the time):
 romantic poets (ex. Blake, Wordsworth),
 Luddites = workers who smashed machines which they believed were putting them out of work
 Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England – told of exploitation of laborers …
Engels went on to co-author the Communist Manifesto w/ Marx
 Malthus & Ricardo = gloomy view of workers’ conditions
 IR was good (minority view at the time):
 Andrew Ure = conditions in cotton factories were good
 Edwin Chadwick = ppl could buy more stuff
 historians have decided: early decades were hard for GB workers … only after 1820, & esp after 1840, did
real wages  substantially; econ conditions of Euro workers improved after 1850
 evidence of improvement: wage , more varied diets, improved clothing
o work in early factories was awful: relentless pace, long hours, monotonous, punishment for breaking rules
(fines, beatings)  cottage workers reluctant to work in factories, hence use of child labor
o working families and children:
 1790s – rise of employing entire family units in factories (replaced 1st decade of pauper apprentices) –
helped make new conditions more tolerable, though it also meant child labor
 Robert Owen – 19th c. Scottish factory owner and reformer – spoke out against child labor (also formed
socialist community at New Harmony, IN and organized a nat’l trade union)
 Factory Act of 1833 (in GB) – limited child labor … children <9 had to go to factory-run elementary schools,
children 9-18 had limited # of hours
 kinship ties important – helped ppl get jobs, helpful for new arrivals
o sexual division of labor: new pattern of separate spheres, w/ wife at home as mother/homemaker and husband
as wage earner (largely in place by 1850 in GB) – exception was poor women and unmarried women who
worked in a limited range of jobs for low pay (ex. domestic service, which was 2nd largest occupation in 1850)
 Mines Act of 1842 (in GB) – prohibited underground work for all women and for boys <10
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o
early labor movement in GB:
 Combination Acts (1799) – outlawed unions and strikes  but unions and strikes happened anyway … Parli
outlawed Combination Acts in 1824 and unions were tolerated thereafter
 attempt to create a single large nat’l union: ex. Robert Owen’s Grand National Consolidated Trades Union
(1834)
 grand nat’l union didn’t work, so after 1851 labor movement turned back to craft unions – ex. Amalgamated
Society of Engineers
 Chartist movement – fought for universal male suffrage
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Ideologies and Upheavals – aka The “Isms” and Reforms/Revs (1815-1850)
 The “Isms”
Political
o conservatism – pro-monarchy, maintain tradition and special privileges of the privileged orders (aristocracy,
church, gov’t officials); evident in Metternich’s policies – ex. Holy Alliance, Carlsbad Decrees
 important conservative: Metternich
o liberalism – pro-representative gov’t, pro-individual freedoms, want extension of suffrage (but early liberals esp.
wanted property qual.), pro-capitalism; key advocates = middle class; key force in FR and 19th c. revolutions
 liberals vs. radical democratic republicans – difference is who can participate in gov’t – latter called for
universal (male, usually) suffrage
o nationalism – idea that each ppl has its own genius and specific unity, manifested esp. in common language &
history, and therefore ppls should have their own nation-states; resulted in formation of new nation-states (ex.
Italy, Germany) + division of multiethnic empires (ex. Austria); worked w/ liberalism to foment revolution
 important nationalists: Johann Gottfried von Herder (18th c. German philosopher/historian who est.
foundations of cultural nationalism); Mazzini (leading Italian nationalist before 1848)
Economic
o capitalism – laissez-faire = gov’t leaves economy alone (Adam Smith)
o socialism (utopian socialism, France ca. 1815) – gov’t involvement in economy to bring about econ equality
 Saint-Simon – “doers” (scientists, engineers, etc.) should plan the economy, goal = improve conditions for
poor
 Charles Fourier – hilarious phalanx guy; seas turning into lemonade and children doing the dirty work
 Louis Blanc – social workshops (much more practical than Fourier; implemented in 1848)
 Proudhon – What is Property? (1840) = property is profit stolen from the worker
o communism (revolutionary socialism, Marxism, ca. 1848) – same goals as utopian socialism, but says revolution
is how to get there; history is the story of class struggle… bourgeoisie vs. proletariat in 19th c.; abolition of
private property; Workers of the World, Unite! (int’l worker movement); view of history as dialectic process of
change is derived from Hegel’s dialectic; surplus value of labor – profits are wages stolen from workers; view of
gender – women were 2x oppressed, by men & by capitalists
Artistic
o Neoclassicism (1750-1850) – classical revival (Greco-Roman figures); often a sense of heroism; seen in
Napoleon’s France; in paintings, lines are sharp, brushstrokes are smooth, spotlight effect … Jacques Louis David
o Romanticism (height, 1790-1840s) – revolt against order/rationality of classicism/Enlightenment; characterized
by emotion, imagination, spontaneity, individualism (Sturm und Drang, “storm and stress” – German romantics),
love nature (nature as awesome and fearsome or nature as peaceful escape from industrial society), idealized
the Middle Ages (paintings of the Gothic), interested in history and promoted nationalism
 British poets: *Wordsworth*, Coleridge, Scott, Byron, Shelley, Keats
 other Romantic writers: Germain de Staël, Victor Hugo (Hunchback, Les Mis), George Sand, Brothers Grimm,
Pushkin
 artists: Delacroix (ex. Liberty Leading the People, 1830), Turner (ex. tempestuous ocean scenes), Constable
(ex. peaceful English landscapes – “cow in meadow”! “cows by river!” “cows near church by river!”), Caspar
David Friedrich (the rugged individual contemplating nature)
 musicians: *Beethoven*, Liszt, Chopin (strong Polish nationalist); grew the orchestra into something big,
very intense and dramatic pieces
o Realism (1830s-1900) – shows harsh lives of working class people
 Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) – meeting to hammer out peace treaties ending Napoleonic Wars
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o
main participants: GB (Castlereagh), Austria (**Metternich**), Prussia, Russia (Tsar Alexander I), France
(Talleyrand)
o goals: restore balance of power (did so w/ peace treaties + est. of congress system, aka Concert of Europe –
periodic meetings of Great Powers to discuss common interests and state of Europe)
o 1st Peace of Paris (1814) – treated France leniently: no reparations, boundaries restored to 1792 borders; set up
counter-balance to a strong France: Belgium + Holland united, Prussia received territory on France’s E. border;
Great Powers also received various lands as compensation for their struggle
o 2nd Peace of Paris (1815) – after Nap’s escape from Elba and final defeat … still pretty lenient … Louis XVIII
restored again, France lost a little territory, paid small reparations, occupied for 5 yrs; otherwise 1st Peace
remained intact
o contrast leniency w/ Germany’s treatment of France in 1871 and France’s treatment of Germany in 1919
 Conservative reaction after Napoleonic Wars (Metternich was the quintessential conservative):
o reacting against the dual revolution – historian Eric Hobsbawm’s term for econ + pol changes that fused and
reinforced each other after 1815 … ex. Rev of 1830 fueled by demands for better conditions for the poor
(socialism) + rep gov’t. (liberalism)
o Holy Alliance (1815) – Austria, Prussia Russia – conservative alliance that crushed liberal revolutionary
movements
 principle of legitimacy – proclamation of support for legitimate monarchs
 principle of active intervention – promise to intervene to support legitimate monarchs if necessary (actually
used, ex. restored monarch in Two Sicilies)
o Carlsbad Decrees (1819) – est. by Metternich, laws suppressing spread of liberal ideas/orgs in German Confed.
 Pre-1848 Reforms & Revolutions
o driven by liberalism, nationalism, and/or socialism (depending on country)
o GREECE (1821-1830) – successful revolution against Ottomans for independence
 leader: Alexander Ypsilanti
 many Europeans & Americans supported Greeks b/c of classical revival – loved ancient Greek culture
 Great Powers (GB, France, Russia) at 1st supported Ottomans b/c they were conservative, but changed sides
in response to popular demands + to extend their influence in the Balkans
o GREAT BRITAIN – period of liberal pol/econ reform in 1820s-40s
 18th c. GB: constitutional monarchy w/ suffrage for only 8% of pop; country run by old aristocracy; 2 political
parties: Tory (old aristocratic interests) vs. Whig (middle class interests) – growing middle class wants liberal
economic reforms + more power in gov’t.
 GB saw peaceful evolution instead of revolution … b/c aristocracy & middle class competed for working class
support
 CON: Conservative reaction to FR after 1815. Tories aimed to keep power w/ aristocracy:
 1815 – *Corn Laws* revised: prohibition on importation of foreign grain unless home prices rose hugely
- aristocratic (pro-Corn laws) vs. middle class (anti-) interests
 1817 – suspension of rights to peaceable assembly and habeas corpus
 1819 – Battle of Peterloo – gov’t. savagely crushed a protest against its policies
 1819 – Six Acts – gave power to gov’t to prevent revolution (like Carlsbad Decrees) – ex. tax on printed
works, press censorship, prohibit civilian weapons training, gave gov’t right to search houses for
weapons, restrict mass meetings
 LIB: IR produced new industrial middle class who called for liberal reform – carried out by Whigs and Tories:
 1820s Tory reforms: better urban admin, more econ liberalism, civil equality for Catholics, Corn Laws
revised – prohibition on imports of foreign grain replace by heavy tariff
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
Reform Bill of 1832 – expanded suffrage to 12% of adult men; redistributed seats in House of Commons,
giving new industrial areas more seats at expense of old aristocratic areas; signified new power of
Commons (Whig reform)
 1839 – Anti-Corn Law League – working + middle classes demand repeal of Corn Laws
- repealed in 1846 by Tory PM Robert Peel
- Irish potato famine accelerated repeal
- (side note: The Economist was founded in 1843 in opposition to the Corn Laws)
 Ten Hours Act of 1847 – limited factory workday for women/youth to 10 hours (Tory reform)
 RADICAL: 1838 – Chartists – demanded universal male suffrage (all petitions failed)
o IRELAND – no reform or revolution yet … nationalism build (Irish want freedom from GB)
 Ireland under GB control … Irish Catholics worked wealthy English Protestants’ land = Irish poor, exploited
 Great Famine (1845-1851) – potato blight results in huge famine, and GB, trumpeting laissez-faire
economics, responded w/ a pathetic relief effort
 results:  Irish nationalism + pop.  due to death, emigration, later marriage and celibacy (after a
century of huge pop.  that was due largely to the potato + earlier marriage)
o FRENCH REV. OF 1830 – largely unsuccessful revolution for more representative gov’t. & social reforms
(remember Les Mis!)
 Louis XVIII (r. 1814-1824)’s Constitutional Charter of 1814 – liberal const.  suffrage to include part of
middle class (but still only 0.33% of pop. could vote) + protects civil liberties
 Charles X (r. 1824-1830) – CONSERVATIVE! repudiates Constitutional Charter (strips middle class of voting
rights, censors press)  upper middle class leads uprising and ousts Charles, installing Louis Philippe (this is
the Revolution of 1830)
 Louis Philippe (r. 1830-1848) – appears liberal, but he was corrupt and there was no real change …
“bourgeois monarchy” b/c only upper middle class benefits … poor and republicans angry about really
limited suffrage + lack of social reforms
 Revolutions of 1848
o General patterns:
 driven by liberalism, nationalism, socialism depending on country)
 began in France … spread all over Europe except GB and Russia
 brief success, but ultimately all ended in failure
o FRANCE – liberalism (middle class wants suffrage) & socialism (working class wants social reforms) … Rev. of
1830 didn’t go far enough + rising food prices and unemployment exacerbated the situation
 February – middle + working class revolt in Paris  Louis Philippe abdicates and ppl proclaim the Second
Republic
 Second Republic made a bunch of initial reforms (universal male suffrage, abolition of slavery in the
colonies, abolition of death penalty, est. 10-hr. workday), but then couldn’t agree on further reforms …
divided over social/econ policies (moderate republicans/liberals, ex. Alexis de Tocqueville vs. radical
republicans/socialists, ex. Louis Blanc) … tried to compromise, ex. tested Blanc’s idea of national
workshops, but no one was happy
 April – in Constituent Assembly election (vote done by universal male suffrage), socialists won 11% of seats
 socialists freaked out everyone but the urban poor, so gov’t began excluding them from exec committee
 May – National Guard crushes socialist attempt to take over Constituent Assembly
 “June Days” – 3 days of bloody uprising by Parisian working class in response to closure of national
workshops  crushed by National Guard under General Louis Cavaignac
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
o
o
Rev was a failure b/c Second Republic (1848-1852) was not democratic or socialist … not favorable to
interests of the urban poor who wanted social reforms + est. a strong executive under Louis Napoleon
AUSTRIA – nationalism + liberalism (Austria’s ethnic groups want their own nation-states)
 Began w/ Hungary demanding autonomy (popular uprisings)
 Ferdinand I (r. 1835-1848) gave in – promised reforms and liberal constitution
 But revolutionary coalition unstable … peasants lost interest when monarchy abolished serfdom, urban
working class / middle class divide over worker demands for socialism & univ. suffrage, conflicting national
aspirations among various ethnic groups
 Conservatives crushed the rev: Archduchess Sophia demanded Ferdinand abdicate to her son, Francis
Joseph (r. 1848-1916), who used the army to crush all but Hungarians … then Nicholas I of Russia (r. 18251855) crushed Hungarians
PRUSSIA – 2 threads … liberal reform of Prussia + German national unification (Germany was just a loose union
at the time … German Confederation, 1815-1866 = 39 states)
 uprising of workers + middle class in Berlin  Prussian King Frederick William IV (r. 1840-1861) promised
liberal constitution and German unification
 2 assemblies formed to tackle each goal:
 Constituent Assembly (Berlin) – liberal constitution for Prussia
 National Assembly (Frankfurt) – constitution for unified Germany … though issue over SchleswigHolstein (ruled by Denmark but sizable German pop.)  Germans in S-H revolted unsuccessfully
 1849 – National Assembly finished liberal constitution, elected Frederick William IV emperor of unified
Germany (minus Austria & S-H)
 By 1850 both efforts had failed: (a) liberal reform of Prussia failed – Fred Will IV disbanded CA & granted
conservative constitution, (b) national unification failed – Austria wouldn’t let it happen
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Life in the Emerging Urban Society (1840-1900)
 Cities – were awful: overcrowded, poor sanitation, no mass transit … improvements in:
o Public health movement:
 Jeremy Bentham – utilitarianism … “greatest good for the greatest number”
 *Edwin Chadwick* – most famous early public health reformer; Benthamite; said disease and death cause
poverty  “sanitary idea” = clean up the cities (published influential report in 1842)
 1840s – GB est. public health law (est. nat’l health board and gave cities authority to build sanitary systems)
 US, France, Germany followed … real progress by 1860s-70s
o Bacterial revolution:
 Louis Pasteur – germ theory = disease caused by spread of living organisms that could be controlled
 replaced erroneous miasmatic theory = filth causes disease (ppl get sick from breathing bad smells)
 Robert Koch – studied bacteria, discovered organisms responsible for many diseases
 Joseph Lister – antiseptic principle = sterilization to kill bacteria (wounds, doctors in ORs, etc.)
 Impact of public health movement + bacterial rev: after ca. 1880 mortality rates plummeted + by 1910 urban
death rate no higher than rural death rate
o Urban planning (France took lead in 1850s-60s, others followed esp after 1870): Georges Haussmann – rebuilt
Paris for Napoleon III … replaced twisty roads w/ big boulevards (helped prevent rev, helped traffic congestion),
better housing, parks, improved sanitation w/ sewers & aqueducts
o Public transportation: adopted horse-drawn streetcars in 1870s, electric streetcars in 1890s  reduced city
congestion as cities could expand
 Social Classes
o by 1850 standard of living was improving though huge income inequality remained
o middle classes (20% of pop):
 sub-classes & jobs:
 upper middle: banking, industry, big business; lived like and even merged w/ aristocracy
 middle middle: lawyers, doctors, businessmen
 lower middle: independent small business owners, small manufacturers
 some jobs newly became “professional” jobs: ex. architecture, chemistry, accounting, surveying, business
management
 expansion of lower middle class – # of white collar employees grew (ex. traveling salesmen, clerks, store
managers) & some jobs moved up in status (ex. teaching, nursing, dentistry)
 leisure activities: dinner parties (food biggest household expenditure), books, music, travel
 culture: had servants (# depended on wealth); lived in city apartment + had country home if $$; clothesconscious; used private coaches
 values: strict Xtian morality, emphasis on hard work, value education
o working classes (80% of pop, including both urban and rural):
 sub-classes – big divergence in lifestyle/values among these groups, and strong sense of hierarchy:
 highly skilled (labor aristocracy): factory foremen, construction bosses, skilled artisans, ex. jewelers,
printers
o in state of flux as jobs changed – ex. some skilled artisan jobs replaced by machines
o middle class values: strict Xtian morality, hard work, education, family
 semiskilled: craftsmen (carpenters, bricklayers, pipe fitters), factory workers, inclu. unmarried women
 unskilled: day laborers (longshoremen, wagon-drivers, “helpers”), domestic servants (majority women),
sweated industries (piecework done at home, like cottage industry – majority clothesmaking)
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

leisure activities: drinking (in late 19th c.: heavy drinking ↓, café/pub drinking , women drinking ), sports
(racing, soccer most popular), gambling on sports, music halls and vaudeville
religion: early 19th c. religious revival  late 19th c. ↓ church attendance b/c: (1) church construction didn’t
keep up w/ pop., (2) churches because associated w/ social conservatism
 Family
o Premarital sex and marriage
 reasons to marry: increasingly LOVE, $$ reasons ↓ among middle classes after 1850 but remained (later
marriage for men to make $ first, then marry younger women)
 married couples developed strong emotional ties to each other
 illegitimacy explosion (1750-1850) ended b/c pregnant couples tended to marry … due to social pressures,
marriage not being so hard economically
o Prostitution – men of all classes (though esp men w/ $$) went to prostitutes
o Kinship ties strong – families very close, helped each other out a lot (ex. newlyweds live near parents, families
help struggling members w/ $, etc.)
o Gender roles & early feminism
 separate spheres esp. after 1850 – husband as wage earner, wife as homemaker
 new historical interpretation: “breadwinner-homemaker” household was a rational choice that
benefitted everyone (vs. looking at women’s homemaking role as a form of subordination)
 wife gained increasing power in home – ex. decide how to spend family’s $$
 women discriminated against: gender wage gap, legally subordinate to husbands, lacked legal rights (ex.
can’t own property, can’t vote)
 19th c. feminist movement:
 (1) middle-class feminists founded orgs. to campaign for legal rights, edu, access to jobs  some
victories in late 19th c., ex. 1882 law gave English married women property rights,  white collar
employment after 1880
 (2) socialist feminists argued that women’s rights could only come w/ working class revolution
 women gained right to vote in 20th c.
o Child rearing
  love and concern for children (b/c they were more apt to live than previously) … evident in:  breastfeeding by mothers (vs. wet nurses), wave of child rearing books, ↓ foundlings, swaddling disappeared
 **↓ birthrate by end of 19th c. until after WWII** – ppl had fewer children since they were more apt to live
and so that they could do more to care for their kids and improve their family’s life (kids are $$!)
 lots of focus on children created tension (esp middle classes had 19th c. version of helicopter parents)
 believed parents’ emotional characteristics were passed on to children, so parents directly responsible
for any abnormalities in children’s behavior
 parents concerned about children’s sexual behavior and attempted to repress sexuality
 rigid gender role division: believed mother and child loved each other easily, but father was more of a
demanding stranger; Oedipal complex (Freud’s idea that son hates father b/c they compete for
mother’s love)
 Freud emphasized impact of parents and early childhood experiences in shaping human behavior –
memories retained in unconscious
 working class kids had more opportunity than middle class kids to escape family tension b/c they went
to work as adolescents
 Science and Thought
o Science and Industry
38

o
o
o
IR stimulated science: growth of scientific discoveries from 1830s on, which then also produced more
advances in industry … scientific developments:
 bacterial revolution
 thermodynamics = new branch of physics, studied relationship b/t heat and mechanical energy
 chemistry – Mendeleev’s Periodic Law and table; chemistry divided into branches; Germans developed
synthetic dyes (huge boon to clothing industry)
 electricity – transformed from scientific curiosity to common tool to power factories, light homes, power
telecommunications, etc.
 application of scientific research to industry led to: (1) development of systematic R&D, (2) second industrial
revolution (1860-1914) – steel, chemicals, oil, electricity, etc. (3) strong economic growth
 social impact of science and tech: (1) science became popularized, (2) popularization of science led to more
widespread belief in progress + questioning of religious beliefs, (3) method of scientific inquiry became
prestigious – only source of obtaining truth (vs. poetry, religion lost out)
Evolution: *Darwin* and some guys before him
 Charles Lyell – geologist, principle of uniformitarianism = same geological processes at work today slowly
formed earth’s surface over time = evolutionary view of geology (vs. idea that earth’s surface formed from
short cataclysmic events like floods and earthquakes)
 Lamarck – characteristics parents acquire during their lives can be passed on to children (ex. giraffe got a
long neck because it had to reach the trees, then passed on trait to children) … fyi he was wrong
 Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species – theory of natural selection: “survival of the fittest” = fittest
survive and pass their genes on to children, thus species evolve and new species emerge (aka transmute)
 influenced by Malthus (pop. outgrows food supply)  Darwin said fittest will survive in this scenario
social science (application of scientific method to study society; development of massive sets of # data and new
statistical methods to analyze them … religion on the defensive as science used to explain everything)
 August Comte – all intellectual activity progresses through predictable stages, from theological/fictitious to
metaphysical/abstract to scientific/positive … by applying the positivist method (i.e. scientific method),
sociology could discover the laws of human society – in short he was big into using a scientific approach to
explaining social phenomena
 Herbert Spencer – Social Darwinism: application of “survival of the fittest” to human societies
Realism in Literature (1840s-90s)
 characteristics: portrayed life as it really was; scientific objectivity; focus on urban working class hardship
(remember Dickens’s Hard Times); deterministic (humans lack individual freedom)
 began in France: Honoré de Balzac’s The Human Comedy, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Emile Zola’s Germinal
 England: George Eliot’s Middlemarch, Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, etc.
 Russia: Tolstoy’s War and Peace
 naturalism = US term for realism, which arrived a bit later there
39
Age of Nationalism, 1850-1914
 Louis Napoleon/Napoleon III (1848-1870) in FRANCE … conservative? liberal? radical? authoritarian nationalist?
o Second Republic (1848-1852) – President Louis Napoleon
 1848 – elected by univ. male suffrage, wildly popular b/c of his heritage, his toughness (middle class and
peasant property owners feared socialism), + he promised to represent all ppl and help them economically
 Nap passed conservative measures to get con NA to approve funds to pay his personal debts and to let him
change the const so he could run for a 2nd term:  role of CC in edu; disenfranchised the poor
 1851 coup (overthrew NA)  called plebiscites (w/ univ male suffrage) to (a) legalize the coup, (b) make him
president for 10 years, and (c) make him hereditary emperor – received massive approval
o Second Empire (1852-1870) – Emperor Napoleon III
 economic development: encouraged investment banks and RRs, rebuilding of Paris (under Haussmann),
regulation of pawn shops, support credit unions, better housing for working classes, grant right to form
unions and strike  economy boomed, unemployment 
 politics: kept power to himself in 1850s (chose ministers, restricted NA, played heavy hand in choosing NA
candidates to support and telling ppl to vote for them)  gave up some power in 1860s in response to 
criticism (gave NA more powers and opposition candidates greater freedom)
 new constitution (1870): parli monarchy – hereditary emperor + parli elected by univ male suffrage
o Analysis of LN/Nap III:
 complicated electoral politics, flip flopping b/t authoritarianism and more democratic rule: elected by univ
male suffrage in 1848  coup in 1851  restored univ male suffrage and held plebiscites  new const. in
1870 est. parli monarchy
 economics are complicated – looked to help out all classes … reforms to help the working class verge on
socialism … his goal was to build up France and make it great … really successful in rebuilding Paris and
strengthening the economy (maybe this is evidence of his nationalism – policies aimed to help the state)
 ITALIAN Unification (1859-1870)
o 3 approaches: (1) Mazzini’s radical idea of democratic republic w/ univ male suffrage, (2) priest Gioberti’s idea
of progressive pope as president, (3) union under Sardinia-Piedmont
 1st 2 approaches lost & 3rd approach won b/c of 1848 Rev: (1) failure of rev. ended Mazzini’s idea, (2) Pope
Pius IX driven out of Rome and turned conservative – Syllabus of Errors (1864) denounced unification & all
things liberal/modern, (2) Victor Emmanuel kept liberal const. father accepted in 1848
o early 1860 – unification of N led by Cavour, Sardinian statesman:
 1850s – helped build Sardinia-Piedmont into strong liberal constitutional state capable of leading northern
Italy (built highways & roads, promoted civil liberties, opposed clerical privilege)
 1858-1860 – Cavour allied w/ France to attack Austria to take Lombardy & Venetia  Franco-Sardinian
victory, but Nap III made separate peace w/ Austria, which got to keep Venetia (Nap III didn’t want to anger
French Catholics b/c Cavour was pope’s enemy + Nap III worried about new strong state on French border)
 Cavour resigns  popular nationalist revolts in central Italy  Cavour returns & Nap III re-pledges
support (Cavour gave France Savoy & Nice)  N. and central Italy unify via a plebiscite
o late 1860 – unification of N and S, initiated by Garibaldi’s Red Shirts
 invaded Sicily  prepared to attack Rome, but Cavour stopped him (bad idea to attack the pope – France
would go to war)  Cavour organized plebiscite, S voted to join w/ N
o newly united Italy: parli monarchy under Victor Emmanuel; limited suffrage; divisions remained b/t rich/poor &
industrialized N/agrarian S
o Venice added in 1866 & Rome in 1870
 GERMAN Unification (1860s-1871)
40
German Confederation (1815-1866) = 39 states, very loose union  North German Confederation (est. 1866) =
N Germany united  German Empire / Second Reich (1871-1918) = Germany united
o failed attempt to unify in 1848 – National (Frankfurt) Assembly wrote const. for united Germany, but in 1850
Austria, aided by Russia, crushed the movement
o unification led by Prussia, which was governed by Wilhelm I (r. 1861-1888) and his chief minister, Bismarck
(“blood and iron” guy)
o obstacles to German unification: Austrian opposition, Denmark, Prussian parli
 Austria: (1) blocked 1848 unif attempt, (2) refused to join Zollverein, the German customs union est. 1834
 Austro-Prussian War (1866) booted Austria from German affairs
 Denmark: governed Schleswig-Holstein, which had majority German citizens  2nd Schleswig War (1864)
took S-H for Germany
 Prussian parli: liberals refused Wilhelm’s budget in 1862, so Bismarck ran Prussia w/o Parli’s consent for 4
years  in 1866 offered Parli indemnity bill = retroactive approval of previous 4 year’s spending, etc. … Parli
signed b/c they wanted German unif and saw Bismarck as man to do it
o key events on path to German unification – war was critical:
 1864 – 2nd Schleswig War (aka Danish War) – Austro-Prussian victory takes S-H from Denmark
 1866 – Austro-Prussian War – Prussian victory kicks Austria out of German affairs  N. German Confed. est
 1870-1871 – Franco-Prussian War – patriotic war to bring S in w/ N  German victory  Germany united
( German nationalism; harsh peace for France … paid lots of $ and lost Alsace-Lorraine)
o newly united Germany: parli monarchy under Kaiser Wilhelm I (r. 1871-1888), Chancellor Bismarck (appointed
by Kaiser), bicameral legislature – key house was Reichstag, elected by univ male suffrage
 RUSSIA – modernized after its loss in the Crimean War (1853-1856) showed that it was losing power relative to
other countries. Russia was most successful in industrializing (though economy remained peasant-based); its
political reforms were too limited, which is why 1917 Russian Revolution took place.
o Nicholas I (r. 1825-1855) – helped Francis Joseph (Austria) put down 1848 Hungarian revolution
 Crimean War (1853-1856) – Russia vs. France, GB, Sardinia, Ottomans over control of Xtian shrines in
Ottoman Empire  Russia lost b/c of poor transportation & military tech.
o 1850s – state of Russia: absolute monarchy, poor and agrarian (90% of pop. lived in rural areas), outdated
agricultural techniques (open-field system), serfdom remained, enormous empire = potential for nationalism to
rip country apart
o Alexander II (r. 1855-1881) – reformer : (1) “Great Reforms”: abolished serfdom (1861 – last Euro country to
do so), est. zemstvo (local elected assembly), legal reforms (est. independent courts & equality before the law),
edu reforms, better treatment of Jews, relaxation of censorship; (2) 1st industrial surge in 1860s (focus on RRs),
(3) territorial expansion to S and E
o Alexander III (r. 1881-1894) – conservative : (1) ended era or reform; (2) 2nd industrial surge in 1890s, led by
finance minister Sergei Witte (doubled RR network, built trans-Siberian line, high protective tariffs, put Russia
on gold standard, encouraged foreigners to invest and build factories in Russia)
o Nicholas II (r. 1894-1917)
 Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) – Japan attacked Russia in response to Russia’s plan to take northern
Korea  Japanese victory  spark for 1905 Rev.
 Revolution of 1905
 goal: replace absolute mon w/ liberal, representative gov’t. (middle class wants political power, poor
want gov’t. to look out for their interests – suffered from IR, ethnic minorities want independence)
 January – Bloody Sunday – urban workers led by Father Gapon (trade-unionist priest) brought peaceful
petition to Nicholas II in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg  Russian troops massacred petitioners
o
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

Summer – strikes, peasant uprisings, minority group revolts, troop mutinies
October – general strike forced Nicholas II to issue October Manifesto (granted full civil rights, est.
Duma = parli elected by univ male suffrage)
 1906-1907 – Nicholas took power away from Duma and returned it to the tsar (Fundamental Laws =
new constitution, gave tsar absolute veto power; dismissed Duma twice; rewrote electoral law to
increase weight of wealthy, pro-tsarist landowners in Duma) = conservative constitutional monarchy
 OTTOMAN EMPIRE Reforms: Tanzimat (1839-1876)
o cause: falling behind Europe + internal instability: (1) Europeans encroaching on Ottoman territory (ex. Russia
took land on Danube R., Greeks won independence, France took Algeria); (2) military out of date and janissary
corps corrupt; (3) ppl challenging sultan’s power – ex. Muhammad Ali in Egypt
o reforms: (1) religious toleration / equality before the law; (2) new, but short-lived constitution and parli; (3)
military reforms; (4) more free trade laws; (5) elite embraced Western edu and some secular values
o outcome: only partial recovery … continuing nationalism among Balkan Xtians, continuing W. imperialism
(GB/France in Egypt), religious equality increased religious disputes
 Responsive National State, 1871-1914
o General trends: rise of mass politics =  suffrage, multiparty systems, political parties represent ppl more
responsively; strong nationalism =  loyalty to nation-state, exploitation of nationalism (ex. gov’ts stir up
nationalist feelings to divert attention from other problems, extremist nationalist movements target “enemies,”
esp. Jews)
o GERMAN EMPIRE
 est. 1871 … lasted until 1918 – aka the “Second Reich”
 mass politics:
 Reichstag elected by universal male suffrage
 multiple parties: National Liberals (middle class liberals), Catholic Center Party (Catholics), Social
Democrats (SPD, socialists)
 policies under Kaiser Wilhelm I (r. 1871-1888) / Chancellor Bismarck (1871-1890):
 Kulturkampf (1873-1878) – Bismarck’s attack on CC ... to make CC subject to gov’t, but unsuccessful
(only limited success in Protestant Prussia, elsewhere Catholics kept anti-Cath laws from going through)
 protective tariff (1879) – protect German economic interests in wake of 1873 crash (econ nationalism)
 Social Democratic Party outlawed (1878-1890) – fear devotion to socialism over nation-state
 1st national social security system (1880s) – appease workers after banning SPD
 Kaiser Wilhelm II (r. 1888-1918): fired Bismarck, est. laws to help workers, legalized SPD … but socialism
wouldn’t go away … became evolutionary rather than revolutionary  1912 – SPD largest party in Reichstag
o FRANCE
 Third Republic est. 1870 when Nap III died, lasted until 1940 (First Republic Robespierre, Second Republic
Louis Napoleon)
 Paris Commune (March 1871) – socialist gov’t proclaimed in Paris when gov’t of new 3rd Republic accepted
defeat in Franco-Prussian War and surrendered Alsace-Lorraine  crushed by French army
 mass politics: elected gov’t – bicameral National Assembly + president; many competing groups –
monarchists/conservatives, middle class, socialists
 how France obtained unity/stability after 1871 Paris Commune:
 retention of republican gov’t / gov’t of Thiers won over multiple social classes
 good, moderate republican leaders in early years – esp. Leon Gambetta
 gov’t responsive to ppl’s wants: (1) legalization of trade unions, (2) build colonial empire, (3) free
compulsory edu. +  # of public schools
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
Dreyfus Affair (1890s) – Jewish captain in French army falsely accused of treason, later declared innocent
 France split: army, Catholics, anti-Semites (guilty) vs. civil libertarians, radical republicans (innocent)
 outcome: French gov’t cut all ties b/t state and CC  gov’t stopped paying clergy’s salaries, Catholic
schools lost gov’t funding (and subsequently 1/3 of students)
o GB – evolution of democracy over 19th c.
 Bicameral parli: House of Lords (stodgy conservatives), House of Commons (more democratic) + 2-party
system: Liberal Party, Conservative Party
 Towards democracy – expansion of suffrage in House of Commons:
 Reform Bill of 1832 – suffrage extended to solid middle-class males
 Second Reform Bill of 1867 – suffrage extended to all middle-class males and best-paid worker
 Third Reform Bill of 1884 – suffrage extended to almost every adult male
 Away from democracy: House of Lords more conservative than Commons … in early 20th c. ruled against
labor unions and vetoed People’s Budget ( spending on social welfare,  taxes on rich)
 Towards democracy: Liberal Party led by Lloyd George passed People’s Budget and extensive social welfare
measures, 1906-1914
o IRELAND – ruled by GB, wanted independence
 1840s – Great Famine fuels Irish nationalism
 1886 and 1893 – Gladstone introduces bills to give Ireland self-gov’t  rejected
 ca. 1901-1910 – Irish nationalists in Parli support Liberals in battle for People’s Budget and get home-rule bill
for Ireland in return … but Ireland was divided: Irish Catholic majority in S. counties want home rule (Ireland
today) vs. Irish Protestant minority (Ulsterites) in N. counties want to stick w/ GB (N. Ireland today)
 1914 – home-rule bill passed but suspended during WWI
 1921 – independence achieved (N. counties remained w/ UK)
o AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN EMPIRE – multinational empire divided by nationalist aspirations of minority groups
 Hungarians (Magyars) = largest minority
 failed attempt in 1848
 success for Hungarians in 1866 – est. Dual Monarchy = Austro-Hungarian Empire – virtual independence for
Hungary
 Anti-Semitism –  in late 19th c.
o Jews persecuted for centuries (anti-Semitism)
o late 18th c. / 19th c. – Jews gain more rights and better treatment (anti-Semitism ) – ex. civil rights granted in
French const. of 1791, German Frankfurt Assembly of 1848, German const. of 1871
o 1873 – worldwide financial crisis reignites anti-Semitism (anti-Semitism ) – Jews targeted for their wealth
 Ex: pogroms (Russia), Karl Lueger and Christian Socialists (Vienna, 1890s-1910), Dreyfus Affair (France)
 Jewish response: Theodor Herzl and Zionism (1896) – movement for Jewish homeland
 Socialism – became less revolutionary in late 19th c. … emergence of evolutionary socialism/revisionism
o early socialism (utopian socialism) – France, ca. 1815; Saint-Simon, Fourier, Blanc, Proudhon
o revolutionary socialism (communism) – Marx & Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1848); Marx, Kapital (1867);
First Int’l (1864-1876) & Second Int’l (1889-1914) = int’l orgs of socialists, had periodic meetings but didn’t really
do anything
o evolutionary socialism (revisionism) – late 19th c.; socialists begin to seek reforms through democratic means
(the vote) rather than through revolution (ex. SPD in Germany – socialist party)
 Edward Bernstein, Evolutionary Socialism (1899)
 why soc became less radical: (1)  suffrage, (2) patriotic edu  nationalism, (3) workers’ standard of living
 after 1850, (4) workers not unified sufficiently for rev, (5) growth of labor unions
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The West & the World (1815-1914)
 World Economy (i.e. economy becomes global)
o cause: Industrial Revolution
o effects:
 rise of global inequality: 1st/2nd/3rd World … huge gap in wealth b/t industrialized world (Europe, N.
America, Japan) and nonindustrialized world (Africa, Asia, Latin America)
 debate over how West got so rich: West created its own wealth, using science, tech, and capitalism OR
West got wealth by stealing from others, via colonialism
 growth of world market (in 1913, value of world trade was 25x what it was in 1800)
 GB took the lead … huge trade b/t GB and its colonies: GB bought raw materials from colonies and sold
finished products to them
 new forms of transportation & communication facilitate trade: RRs, steamships, refrigeration (for RRs
and ships), canals, transoceanic telegraph
 principal countries investing abroad: GB, France, Germany
 Great Migration (= mass migration of Europeans in 19th c. – >60m ppl left Europe)
o causes: (1) pop. pressure (grew more than 2x in 19th c.)  go abroad for more land & opportunities, (2) desire
for more rights – ex. Jews
o where migrants went: “areas of European settlement, “ i.e. N. and S. America, Australia, New Zealand, Siberia
o typical European immigrant = small farmer or skilled artisan looking for opportunity – not too rich b/c then there
wasn’t a reason to leave, and not too poor b/c $ needed to pay for relocation
o some migrants returned home after time abroad – likelihood of repatriation varied by nationality … possibility of
buying land in old country was of central importance here
o migration slowed when ppl won pol/social reforms – ex. right to vote, social security
 Imperialism
o 1815-1880: economic imperialism
 China – GB forced China open to trade, esp. of opium (opium wars, 1839-42 & 1856-60 – GB won both and
forced China to let its merchants keep selling opium … Treaty of Nanking, 1842)  China carved into
spheres of influence = regions where designated countries had exclusive trading privileges
 Japan – US forced Japan open to trade (1853 – Commodore Matthew Perry’s arrival in Tokyo forces Japan
open – gunboat diplomacy)
 Egypt – modernization under Muhammad Ali and Ismail was pricey, borrowed money from Europe  1876
– GB and France forced Egypt to appoint a commission to oversee Egyptian finances
 France built Suez Canal (1869)
o 1880-1914: new imperialism = imposition of formal political control (colonialism) by western nations (+ Japan)
in Africa and Asia, 1880-1914
 Motives and justifications:
 economic – new markets, resources, outlet for capital
 political – display nationalism, compete w/ other countries, build up strength, obtain strategic locations
 religious – spread Xtianity … + humanitarian motive to end the slave trade in Africa
 ideological – (1) Social Darwinism = survival of the fittest applied to society, (2) White Man’s Burden =
“civilizing mission” derived from Rudyard Kipling’s poem
 More causes:
 ease domestic turmoil – politicians trumpet colonization to unite the nation and distract citizens from
problems at home, ex. socialist class struggle
 special interest groups pushed for colonization – ex. shipping companies, white settlers in Africa, etc.
44

European technological and military superiority helped them: Maxim machine gun, quinine (malaria
medicine), steamship & telegraph for transportation and communication
 Africa (scramble for Africa)
 involvement of Europeans in Africa before scramble: French in Algeria (1830), Dutch & then GB in S.
Africa (Dutch arrive in 1652, GB in 1806), old slave trading posts on W. coast, Portugal in Angola &
Mozambique
 2 events triggered it: Leopold II’s acquisition of the Congo as his personal colony (1878) + GB’s takeover
of Egypt (1882)
 only 2 countries stayed independent: Liberia (colony for freed US slaves), Ethiopia (fought off Italians)
 2 Euro countries that claimed the most land: GB (N/S: “Cairo to Cape Town”) and France (W/E)
 Berlin Conference (1884-1885) – mtg. of European states to lay down the rules for how to claim colonies
in Africa (organized by Jules Ferry and Bismarck)
 conflicts b/t Europeans and Africans: Omdurman (1898, GB vs. Muslim tribesmen in the Sudan … GB
won big time due to maxim machine gun … guns trump spears)
 conflicts b/t Euro. Countries: Fashoda (1898 – threat of war b/t GB & France over Sudan … France
backed down) + Anglo-Boer War, aka South African War (1899-1902, GB vs. Dutch over S. Africa … GB
won)
 some people to know (they supported or in some way facilitated imperialism): French PM Jules Ferry,
Cecil Rhodes (British financier, founder of DeBeers diamonds, governor of Cape Colony, Rhodesia
named after him), Bismarck (but only starting in the 1880s), King Leopold II of Belgium, Henry Stanley
(journalist/explorer who explored Congo for Leopold), General Horatio Kitchener (GB officer who led
British conquest of the Sudan)
 Asia
 1815 forward – Dutch in East Indies (Indonesia)
 1880s – French in Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos)
 British in India – starting in 1600, but made India a colony in 1858 after the Sepoy Rebellion
 1898 – US in Philippines (took it from Spain after victory in the Spanish-American War)
 What’s up w/ other major countries/continents: (1) Latin America – Monroe Doctrine declares that there
will be no further colonization of LA, (2) Ottoman Empire – “Sick Man of Europe” = too weak to become
imperial power
 Western critics of imperialism:
 Hobson, Imperialism (1902) – criticized imperialism for being an extension of unregulated capitalism
that only profited special interests & diverted attention away from problems at home; $ motive is
foremost
 Marx/Lenin – imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism; Marxist critique of cap is that rich
(bourgeoisie) exploit poor (proletariat) … in imperialism, rich nations exploit poor nations
 Edmund Morel, The Black Man’s Burden – humanitarian arguments against imperialism, uncovered
travesty occurring in the Congo
 Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness – novel based on the Congo that criticized notion of WMB
 Nonwestern Responses to Imperialism
o Pattern of response:
 traditionalists (fight back) – tended to be the 1st response
 westernizers/modernizers (make modernizing reforms, assimilate) – tended to come later
 majority of Africans and Asians accepted imperial rule b/c (a) they had to – Euro. had superior force, (b) they
were used to gov’ts. run by small elites and being told what to do
45

o
o
o
rise of nationalism – esp. among educated elites (they got to study in western institutions and read authors
like Locke … European edu. taught them the importance of liberty!) + socialism aligned with demands for
independence
India – GB involved there since 1600  eventually fought against British influence, esp. Sepoy/Great Rebellion
(1857)  GB crushed rebellion and est. colonial rule (1858-1947)  Indians made western-style reforms and
eventually fought against GB for independence (though tended to use peaceful methods … Gandhi!)
 GB employed indirect rule = rule largely through Indian officials (though there were GB officials for sure)
 question of whether GB rule brought more benefits (ex. education, RRs, unification of legal code and gov’t.,
improved healthcare) or more problems (ex. destruction of local economy – Gandhi’s homespun movement
to get Indians to stop buying manufactured British textiles, treatment of Indians as inferior)
 nationalism arose – 1885 formation of Indian National Congress to fight for rights and, eventually,
independence
Japan – responded by undergoing rapid modernization & became imperial power like the Europeans
 Meiji Restoration (1867) – restored power to the emperor
 gov’t’s goal: “Enrich the state and strengthen the armed forces” – est. social equality, a strong economy (RRs
+ modern factories), built up the military and est. compulsory service, brought in foreign experts to help
make reforms in industry, medicine, education
 became an imperialist power – took Korea, Formosa (Taiwan), competed for influence in China, won the
1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War
China – responded with ineffective reforms – didn’t go far enough  revolution overthrows Qing dynasty
 Qing dynasty in decline ca. 1860, but then it bounced back for 30 years b/c of effective leaders (Empress
Dowager Tzu Hsi) and Europeans backed off
 Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) – Japan defeated China, accelerating foreign encroachment (spheres of
influence est.) and creating renewed drive for reform
 hundred days of reform (1898) – Western-style reforms effected in response to foreign encroachment 
but Tzu Hsi rejected the reforms and put conservatives in power
 Boxer Rebellion (1900) – attack on westerners, est. missionaries, in China  West responded w/ force and
issued penalties (ex. China had to pay $$) … things were not good in China! Increasing discontent w/ gov’t. +
increasing foreign influence
 1912 – Sun Yat-Sen’s revolution overthrows Qing & sets up a Western-style republic
46
World War I (1914-1918) & Russian Revolution (1917)
WWI (1914-1918)
 Overview
o Allies (GB, France, Russia, US, et al) vs. Central Powers (Germany, A-H, Bulgaria, Ottomans)
o Key events:
 1914 – war begins w/ assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
 1915 – Italy joins the Allies (switched sides)
 1916 – deadly battles on the Western Front (Verdun & Somme) represent stalemate
 1917 – US enters war (big boost to Allies) + Russian Revolution
 1918 – war ends w/ armistice, 11/11 @ 11 a.m.
 1919 – Paris Peace Conference convenes, produces treaties – Treaty of Versailles most important
 Causes
o MAIN causes: militarism (esp. German-GB naval rivalry), alliances (Triple Alliance [Ger, A-H, Italy] vs. Triple
Entente [GB, France, Russia]), imperialism (ex. First Moroccan Crisis), nationalism (ex. newly united countries
like Germany feeling strong, France angry over loss in Franco-Prussian War, divisive nationalism in the Balkans)
o Balkans = powder keg of Europe – nationalist tensions cause First Balkan War (1912), Second Balkan War (1913)
o spark: assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo (Bosnia) by Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Black
Hand (Serbian nationalist org.), in protest of A-H’s ownership of Bosnia … then, key events that followed:
 Germany supports A-H – urges them to deal strongly w/ Serbia
 A-H gives Serbia ultimatum – 10 demands Serbia must meet in 48 hours or Austria would attack
 Serbia agrees to 9 demands (10th was annexation of Serbia)
 Russia starts mobilization  after July 28 Ger asks Russia to back down, but Russia doesn’t
 July 28 – A-H declares war on Serbia
 Germany declares war on Russia (Aug. 1) and France (Aug. 3) … executes Schlieffen Plan – invasion of France
via neutral Belgium w/ intent of defeating France and then turning forces to defeat Russia (plan to avoid a 2front war, but failed b/c Germany got bogged down in trenches at the First Battle of the Marne [the one
where French taxis helped get soldiers to the front] and Russia mobilized too quickly)
 Aug. 4 – GB declares war on Germany (supporting Belgium)
o short war illusion – ppl excited to go to war, thought they’d be home in 6 weeks
 Battlefront
o 2 fronts: Western Front (in France/Belgium/Germany) + Eastern Front (in Russia/Ottoman Empire)
o trench warfare – soldiers fired artillery across to weaken enemy trenches, then got the call to go over the top
and run across no man’s land to overtake the enemy’s trench … resulted in stalemate (no more than 3 miles of
territory taken from the enemy in 1915)
o new, deadly technology: machine gun, hand grenades, poison gas, long-range artillery, airplane, tank
o 2 very bloody battles in 1916: Verdun (German attack on a French fortress … 700,000 lives lost + no winner) and
the Somme (GB offensive in France … >1.2m casualties + GB gained only 7 miles)
o 1917: US enters war b/c of German resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare (had stopped after sinking of
Lusitania in 1915) & Zimmerman Telegram (Germany asked Mexico to join war in exchange for US territory)
 Home Front
o first total war = all segments of society mobilized for the war effort
 included: conscription, censorship, propaganda, suspension of civil liberties, central economic planning (ex.
rationing, wage and price controls, production quotas)
 total war in Germany – went further than elsewhere, set groundwork for totalitarianism:
 Walter Rathenau set up War Raw Materials Board – rationed and distributed raw materials
47
 Auxiliary Service Law – req’d all men age 17-60 to work in jobs critical to war effort
 food rationing / lack of food (only ≈1,000 calories/day)
 Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff took over gov’t in 1917 – est. military dictatorship
o social impact of WWI
 labor unions gain power (b/c of demand for workers)
 women: entered jobs previously reserved for men, gained vote in many countries after WWI, looser sexual
morality (but after war women lost jobs to men + feminist movement faded in 1920s-30s)
  social equality (b/c of full employment, shared hardship of war, death doesn’t distinguish ppl by class)
o growing political tensions starting in 1916 (weary after a few years of war) … ex:
 strikes and protests across Europe over lack of food (inspired by German radical socialist Karl Liebknecht)
 Easter Rebellion – Irish rebellion against British rule (GB crushed it)
 decline in all soldiers’ morale (arrival of fresh US troops for Allies in 1917 was therefore really critical)
 A-H – Emperor Francis Joseph died, Austrian chief minister assassinated, ethnic minorities demanding ind.
 Germany – moderate socialists call for compromise peace (conservatives won’t allow it), surge of workers’
strikes in 1917
 End of WWI & Peace Settlement
o End of war (1918)
 key events: 2nd Battle of the Marne (fresh US troops help defeat Germany) + armistice (11/11 @ 11 a.m.)
 factors contributing to end of war: war weariness, strikes in Germany, Russian Revolution, US entry, 2nd
Battle of the Marne
o German Revolution (1918): working class + army revolt against the slowness of the kaiser’s gov’t. to bring about
peace  Kaiser Wilhelm II overthrown and Weimar Republic is est. (Nov. 9, 1918)
 Nov. 9 significant: new gov’t. signs armistice & Versailles Treaty  blamed for stabling Germany in the back
(“Der Dolchstoss”)
 1st pres. Friedrich Ebert (SPD = moderate socialist)
 Spartacist Uprising (1919) = failed communist attempt to seize gov’t, led by Liebknecht and Luxemburg
o Paris Peace Conference (began Jan. 1919)
 27 nations attended (no Germany or Russia)
 Big Four: Lloyd George (GB), Clemenceau (Fr), Wilson (US), Orlando (It)
 produced 5 treaties, 1 w/ each loser … most significant was Treaty of Versailles w/ Germany
 agendas of the Big Three (US, GB, France):
 Wilson: just peace … Fourteen Points: freedom of the seas and trade, no secret treaties, armaments
reduction, self-determination, League of Nations
 Lloyd George: wanted moderate peace but succumbed to voter pressure for harsh peace
 Clemenceau: harsh peace (recalled Franco-Prussian War + Germany’s invasion of France in 1914)
 Treaty of Versailles (June 28, 1919)
 Germany: (1)  military [inclu. est. of DMZ in the Rhineland], (2)  land [among other things, lost all
colonies to the Allies and returned Alsace-Lorraine to France], (3) war guilt [Article 231], (4) reparations
[$33b]
 est. League of Nations
 US did not ratify … Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge led opposition b/c treaty req’d US to join League of Nations
which could draw US into unwanted foreign entanglements (violation of Congress’s right to declare war)
 peace settlements produced significant territorial changes:
 Germany lost colonies + border territories in Europe, most significantly to France (A-L + coal-producing
Saar Basin), Poland (Polish Corridor + Danzig)
48

o
new countries formed in Europe out of A-H and Russian Empires: Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia,
Finland, Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania)
 Germany’s colonies given mostly to GB and France as League of Nations mandates
 Ottoman Empire carved up into Turkey + League of Nations mandates (France got Syria & Lebanon, GB
got Iraq, Transjordan, & Palestine)
o GB made conflicting promises over future of ME: (1) supported Arab revolt against Ottomans during
WWI and made vague promises of independent Arab kingdom, (2) Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916) –
GB and France plan how to divide up ME among themselves, (3) Balfour Declaration (1917) –
promised Jews an independent state in Palestine
human costs of war: 10-13m soldiers dead, 7-10m civilians dead b/c of war, 20m dead from 1918 Spanish
influenza; nations built their 1st tomb of the unknown soldier; lots of memorials built; millions of widows and
orphans … gov’ts tried to take care of disabled and survivors, but simply not enough $$
Russian Revolution (1917)
 Revolution #1: February Revolution (March 1917, by our calendar): Duma overthrows tsar Nicholas II and est.
Provisional Government, led by PM Alexander Kerensky
o causes: war exhaustion, divide b/t gov’t. and people
o sequence of events: Progressive Bloc calls for new gov’t responsible to Duma (Sept. 1915)  Nicholas II adjourns
Duma and goes to warfront, leaving Tsarina Alexandra and Rasputin (crazy holy guy who said he could help the
heir’s hemophilia; murdered in Dec. 1916)  Russia continues to suffer terribly in the war: soldier desertions,
lack of equipment, food shortages  Petrograd bread riots (spark for rev.)  revolution! (March 1917): Duma
declares provisional gov’t. and Nicholas abdicates
 Revolution #2: Bolshevik, or October, Revolution (Nov. 1917, by our calendar): Bolshevik overthrow of Provisional
Government; led by Lenin
o causes: socialists want more radical reforms, cont. war exhaustion
o sequence of events: Lenin returns to Russia (April)  Petrograd Soviet issues Army Order No. 1, which took
power from military officers and gave it to soldiers … put army into chaos (May)  General Kornilov’s failed
attack on the Prov. Gov’t. weakens gov’t and strengthens Bolsheviks (Sept.)  Bolsheviks gain majority in
Petrograd Soviet, over Mensheviks (Oct.)  led by Trotsky, Bolsheviks seize power, relatively peacefully (Nov.)
 Lenininism (i.e. Lenin’s political theory – based on Marxism, but also adapted to 20th c. Russian conditions)
o only violent revolution could destroy capitalism (agrees w/ Marx on this point)
o argued that revolution could happen in Russia (vs. Marx thought it would happen in a more industrialized
nation, like GB or Germany)
o argued that a vanguard party (i.e. Bolshevik Party) was needed to lead the revolution (vs. Marx thought it would
happen spontaneously)
o “Bread, Land, and Peace” = Lenin’s promise to the ppl. (i.e. get food, redistribute land to peasants, end WWI)
 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918) = peace treaty b/t Russia & Germany; Russia ceded 1/3 of its pop. to leave the war
 Russian Civil War (1918-1921): Reds (Bolsheviks) vs. Whites (opposed to Bolsheviks)
o cause: Bolshevik Revolution, pro-tsarist groups fought to get rid of the Bolsheviks
o Reds won b/c: (1) controlled the center of the country; (2) more united, defined ideology; (3) better army (led by
Trotsky); (4) war communism (central econ. planning during civil war: seized grain from peasants, introduced
rationing, nationalized banks and industry, req’d everyone to work); (5) Cheka (secret police) destroyed
opposition; (6) foreign intervention on behalf of Whites didn’t help them and did ignite nationalism that helped
the Reds
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Age of Anxiety (1880s-1930s)
 Uncertainty in modern thought (1880s-1930s) = questioning/abandoning of Enlightenment values … what ppl always
knew was overturned … world less certain
o Philosophy
Pre-WWI:
 Nietzsche (German) – nihilism (values have no meaning); West’s emphasis on reason stifled human’s animal
instincts and creativity; anti … democracy, socialism, capitalism, Christianity (“God is dead”), feminism,
equality, weakness, ethics; pro (if that can be said) … power, destruction; übermensch (powerful individual
who accepts meaninglessness of life … becomes free and strong … think Hitler); precursor to existentialism
 Bergson (French) – immediate experience & intuition as important as rational & scientific thinking for
understanding reality
 Sorel (French socialist) – Marxian socialism an unprovable religion, not a scientific truth … in socialist society,
masses would need to be controlled by small revolutionary elite (ex. like Lenin’s Bolsheviks)
Post-WWI – logical positivism in English-speaking countries / existentialism in continental countries:
 logical positivism (Ludwig Wittgenstein) – philosophy should look at only beliefs that can be proven
empirically (i.e. w/ concrete experimentation and observation)  therefore most of the concerns of
traditional philosophy (ex. God’s existence, meaning of happiness) have to be tossed b/c they can’t be
proven
 existentialism – existence is meaningless  individuals must search for values (forerunners were Nietzsche
and Kierkegaard); most existentialists were atheists
 Heidegger and Jaspers (German) – loneliness and meaninglessness of human existence in a godless
world – ppl need to come to terms w/ fears this causes
 Sartre (French) – humans are alone + no God to help  ppl must create their own meaning and define
themselves through their actions, which they choose (Sartre: “man is condemned to be free”)
 Camus (French) – leading French existentialist, along w/ Sartre
o Christianity – revival (offered hope in age of despair)
 Christian existentialism – like existentialists, believed in loneliness and despair of human condition; stressed
humans’ sinful nature, need for faith, mystery of God’s forgiveness
 Kierkegaard (19th c. Danish theologian) – rediscovery of his works fed revival of Xtianity after WWI; ppl must
take a “leap of faith” – accept existence of unknowable but great God
 Karl Barth (Swiss Protestant) – humans are imperfect, sinful; ppl have to trust in God w/ faith, not reason
 Marcel (French, leading Catholic existentialist) – Catholicism provides hope, humanity, etc. in a broken
world; denounced anti-Semitism + supported closer ties w/ non-Catholics
o Physics – 17th c. Newtonian universe w/ rational laws called into question by new discoveries
 Marie Curie – radium does not have a constant atomic weight b/c it constantly emits subatomic particles
 Max Planck – “quanta” – subatomic energy emitted in uneven spurts; questioned hard distinction b/t
matter and energy
 Einstein – theory of special relativity – time and space are relative to the observer, only speed of light
remains constant; matter and energy are interchangeable
 Rutherford – atom could be split (7 subatomic particles discovered by 1944 … hello atomic bomb)
 Heisenberg – uncertainty principle – nature is unknowable, unpredictable
o Psychology – Sigmund Freud – founder of psychoanalysis; behavior is no longer totally rational
 behavior determined by the interplay of: id (the unconscious – instinctual desires, ex. sexual), superego
(irrational, moral conscience – voice of social norms, checks the id), ego (the rational conscious, negotiates
b/t the 2)
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
mental illness = result of id/superego/ego being out of balance – use “talking cure” (think patient lying on a
couch talking to a shrink)
 Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) – civilization only possible when ppl renounce irrational instincts to
get along w/ the community … w/ basic instincts unfulfilled, there’s widespread unhappiness
 Oedipus complex – son loves his mother and competes w/ father for mother’s love
o Literature – explored irrationality, narrators confused, dystopian lit.
 stream-of-consciousness – wandering internal monologue, explores character’s psyche … Virginia Woolf,
James Joyce (Ulysses – most famous stream-of-consciousness novel)
 dystopian lit – Oswald Spengler, T.C. Eliot, Kafka, Orwell (1984)
 modernism in architecture, art, music = 1860s-1970s, rejection of old forms, constant experimentation
o architecture
 US pioneered the new arch. w/ Chicago school of architects – Sullivan (skyscrapers w/ steel, concrete,
elevators), Frank Lloyd Wright (houses w/ low lines, openness to nature, mass-produced materials)
 functionalism = idea that bldgs should be useful, “functional” (Le Corbusier: “a house is a machine for living
in”)
 Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus = German school of design combining study of crafts & fine arts,
1920s
o art – became increasingly abstract, and experimental … to the point of challenging “what is art?”
 impressionism (France, late 19th c.) = study of light; Monet, Degas, Renoir, Pissarro, et al.

Monet’s water lilies
Renoir, Le Moulin de la Galette
postimpressionism & Expressionism = focus on emotion and imagination, form rather than light; van Gogh,
Gauguin, Cezanne
Gauguin, Tahitian Women
van Gogh, Self-Portrait with Straw Hat
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
Cubism (founded in 1907) – abstract, geometric shapes; Picasso (Guernica about the Spanish Civil War is his
most famous painting)

more extreme abstraction – Kandinsky (German Expressionist)

Composition VIII
Dadaism (founded in 1916) – attacked all standards of art and behavior; refused to pander to patrons

Duchamp, Fountain
Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q.
Surrealism (1920s/30s) – world of dreams and the unconscious; inspired by psychologists Freud & Jung
Dali, The Persistence of Memory
Magritte, L’art de vivre
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o
music – emotional intensity, experimentation, atonal (lacking a central key & expected pattern)
 Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring – shocking, sexual ballet that resulted in a riot in Paris (1913)
 Schönberg – 12-tone music (very mathematical, atonal)
 Emerging consumer society (1920s)
o mass culture:
 modern appliances: telephone, radio, electric oven, washing machine, refrigerator
 aggressive advertising of clothing and personal care products creates the notion of youthful “sex appeal”
 mass production of cars + rise of tourist agencies  increased mobility
 commercialized mass entertainment: ex. movies, radio, sports, newspapers/magazines/books, clubs …
 department stores (est. by 1890s) typify 1920s consumer society – they sold everything!
 impact on women: changed how housework was done, women become more visible; “new woman” =
somewhat stereotypical image of the modern, independent working woman popular in 1920s (think flapper)
 criticism of consumer culture from all types: socialists, conservatives, religious leaders, et al.
o movies & radio:
 became really big in 1920s (movies 1st appeared in 1890s … became big in 1920s til after WWII; 1st major
radio broadcast was 1920  every major country quickly set up broadcasting networks, ex. BBC)
 used for propaganda purposes: Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (Hitler), Sergei Eisenstein’s October
(celebrating Russian Rev.); radio – Mussolini & Hitler made speeches, FDR’s “fireside chats”
 more on movies: 1st were silent  “talkies” came out in late 1920s; US-dominated industry; Charlie
Chaplin (British comedic actor in 1920s)
 Postwar Politics & Economics – 1920s
o 1919-1923 : Germany suffering from T of V – reparations ($33b in 1919 terms) were crushing, but France
didn’t want to budge. GB not on same page w/ France … John Maynard Keynes (British economist), Economic
Consequences of the Peace (1919) – denounced T of V for reparations … foresaw what would happen to German
econ.
 1921: Weimar Rep. (WR) makes 1st reparations payment
 1922: WR announces in cannot make further payments & proposes moratorium  GB willing to accept but
France (under PM Poincaré) was not
 1923: French occupation of the Ruhr (Germany’s industrial heartland) b/c of WR’s default on reparations 
Germans respond w/ passive resistance = refusal to work  France seals off Rhineland (includes Ruhr) from
rest of Germany
 Summer 1923: WR begins printing money to pay bills  hyperinflation!!
o
1924-1929 : Postwar econ situation in Germany was at its bleakest in 1923. Starting in late 1923, and really in
1924, the situation began to improve.
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
Aug. 1923: Gustav Stresemann becomes German chancellor  WR’s situation begins to improve … Ruhr
occupation ends as France and WR agree to compromise, GB and US agree to help
 1924: Dawes Plan – reduced German reparations payments + US loans $$ to Germany
 1925: Locarno Pact – series of border agreements … Germany & France accept their border, GB & Italy will
step in if border is violated; German agrees to settle eastern border dispute peacefully, France promises to
step in if Germany attacks to the east
 1926: Germany joins League of Nations
 1928: Kellogg Briand Pact – 15 nations renounce the use of war
 gov'ts. move in moderate, democratic direction
 Germany – Hitler’s 1923 Munich Beer Hall Putsch failed … instead moderate leaders (SPD) ran gov’t,
held regular elections, stabilized econ (Stresemann key figure)
 France – sharp political divisions like Germany but moderates came to power after 1924, rebuilt wartorn north, eventually stabilized econ. after a period of inflation
 GB – state provided welfare (unemployment benefits, subsidized housing, healthcare, pensions) to help
maintain living standards during high postwar unemployment; rise of Labour Party – moderately
socialist, replaced Liberal Party (pro-capitalism) as main opposition to Conservatives; 1922 grant Ireland
full autonomy; limited social unrest in 1920s-30s
 Great Depression, 1929-1939 
o cause: speculation – ppl were buying stocks “on margin,” meaning w/ money they didn’t have (on the belief that
stocks could only go up)  US stock market crashed in October  spread worldwide
o consequences:
 unemployment, poverty, psycho-social impact (postponed marriages,  birthrate,  suicide and mental
illness)
 world output  38%
 countries turned inward to try to manage the crisis – went off gold standard (all trying to make their goods
cheaper to promote exports),  protective tariffs
 crisis continued prob b/c of: (1) int’l economy lacked leadership, (2) poor nat’l econ policies – gov’ts slashed
spending instead of  it to stimulate the econ. (as Obama did in 2008)
o Gov’t responses to Great Depression:
 USA – Hoover didn’t do much, but FDR is considered a hero in history partly for the success of the New Deal
= gov’t. intervention in economy through creation of new programs, ex. to boost agricultural recovery (AAA),
provide jobs (WPA), & support unions (NLRA) – partly successful
 Scandinavia – Social Democrats implement socialist policies: ex. gov’t-financed public works +  social
welfare benefits – most successful response to Great Depression
 GB – stuck to traditional economics (didn’t go very socialist like the Scandinavian countries); went off gold
standard, est. protective tariffs, lowered interest rates, focused on national (vs. int’l market) – pretty
successful … better than US or France
 France – economic situation was so poor that politics became unstable with threatening revolution 
politics stabilized with the formation of the Popular Front, which instituted socialist reforms designed to
help the lower classes (but economic problems continued, w/ reforms too extreme & pricey and  inflation
= France still politically unstable in the late 1930s)
 Germany – unstable coalition politics + poor economy = here comes Hitler….
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Rise of Totalitarianism (1920s-30s) and WWII (1939-1945)
 totalitarianism = radical dictatorship that regulates every aspect of citizens’ lives – economic, social, cultural, etc.
o characteristics: 1 political party; ppl forced to live by ruler’s beliefs; propaganda (using technology – ex. film and
radio) to generate support from the masses; secret police to terrorize ppl; censorship to silence critics; control of
economy (though not necessarily communism); strong military; youth groups; cult of the leader; different from
authoritarian gov’t’s in level of control + use propaganda to win hearts & minds, not just obedience; emerged in
20th c.
totalitarianism of the left (communism)
totalitarianism of the right (fascism)
- internationalist (workers of world unite)
- nationalist
- econ: no private property
- econ: gov’t intervenes, but not to the same extent
- not a racist agenda – Soviets sometimes
- Nazism (Hitler’s fascism) = racist … Mussolini just
persecuted specific ethnic groups, but not
followed
genocidal
o label applied sparingly – Stalin & Hitler qualify, while Muss does not
o fascism = emphasizes subordination of the individual to advance the interests of the state; extreme,
expansionistic nationalism; anti-socialism; dynamic and violent leader; glorification of war and military
 USSR – Stalin (succeeded Lenin, governed 1924-1953)
o Timeline:
 1917: Russian Revolution (February Rev. overthrows tsar & est. provisional gov’t.  October/Bolshevik Rev.
replaces prov. gov't. w/ Bolsheviks, led by Lenin)
 1918-1921: Russian civil war – Reds vs. Whites – Bolshevik victory
 1921-1927: Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) – some capitalism allowed, to rebuild USSR after civil war –
successful
 1922: USSR created – 15 Soviet republics formally united (USSR broken apart in 1991)
 1924: Lenin dies and Stalin becomes leader (crushes rival Trotsky)
 “socialism in one country”: Stalin’s idea … USSR can build soc alone (vs. Trotsky’s “permanent rev”)
 1927: NEP ends and Stalin institutes first five-year plan – industrialization (heavy industry – think steel) +
collectivization (consolidation of peasant land into state-run farms)
 industrialization successful, collectivization unsuccessful
 collectivization’s impact: food output ; de-kulakization = liquidation of kulaks (wealthy peasants);
famine in Ukraine, 1932-1933
 mid-1930s: Great Purges – Stalin purged party of “traitors” in “show trials” (victims executed or sent to
gulag = forced labor camp)
o impact of Stalin’s policies on Soviet standard of living (standard of living ):
 (+) almost no unemployment, women allowed to work and get education (doctors!), social welfare, more
skilled jobs so those ppl had potential to gain
 (-) famine, shortage of consumer goods, de-kulakization, housing shortage, low wages, persecution of
religion (soviet state was atheist)
o socialist realism = state-sponsored style of art; art must serve and glorify the soviet state (think children handing
flowers to a nice, grandpa-ish Stalin, or portraits of the proletariat)
 Fascist Italy – Mussolini (governed 1922-1945) – Il Duce (“the leader”)
o Timeline:
 post-1918: Italy on victors’ side of WWI but 2 major groups not content w/ outcome: (1) nationalists –
unhappy w/ Italy’s only modest territorial gains, (2) socialists – gov’t had promised social and land reforms,
55
but did not carry through w/ promise – RR further motivated them  Mussolini began gathering followers
among nationalists and socialists – developed private army called Black Shirts
 1919: Muss organizes Black Shirts = Muss’s private militia that attacked socialists
 1920: Muss becomes anti-socialist b/c couldn’t compete w/ Socialist Party (gathered supports from anti-soc)
 1922: March on Rome – Fascists threaten King Victor Emmanuel III to hand control over to Muss. Muss
became PM. Legal seizure of power b/c VE handed control over – w/in constitutional framework to do so.
 1924: (1) Fascist party wins majority in parli due to new electoral law that gave 2/3 of seats to party that
won most votes, (2) Black Shirts murder Giacomo Matteotti (socialist politician), (3) Muss begins to pass
repressive laws / develop Fascist control of Italy
 1929: Lateran Agreement – Mussolini’s reconciliation w/ CC … Muss recognizes Vatican as independent
state + promises to give CC $$ support AND pope pledges to support Muss publicly
 1935-1936: invasion of Ethiopia  part of Muss’s territorial expansion agenda, reclaim Ethiopia b/c it fought
off Italian rule in 19th c.; event brought Muss and Hitler closer together
o view on women: traditional gender roles … man as warrior, woman as wife and mother (regime promoted
motherhood to try to ↑ pop.)
o not racist/anti-Semitic in ideology but did follow Hitler’s footsteps … enacted anti-Semitic laws in 1938 but didn’t
really enforce them until later in WWII when Italy was under Nazi control
o not truly totalitarian … compromised w/ conservative elites (vs. Stalin, for ex, who purged them) – ex. Lateran
Agreement w/ CC, let big business regulate itself and didn’t do land reform; ever est. a truly ruthless police state
 Nazi Germany – Hitler (governed 1933-1945) – the Führer (“leader”)
o Timeline:
 1919: Hitler joins German Workers’ Party (later becomes National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or
NSDAP, or Nazis)
 1921: Hitler is in control of German Workers’ Party
 1923: Munich Beer Hall Putsch – Hitler’s failed coup  sent to prison where he writes Mein Kampf and
realizes he must take power legally
 Mein Kampf (1924): 2 major ideas were race and space: (1) racism/anti-Semitism – notion of Aryans as
a master race, (2) Lebensraum (“living space”) – idea that Germans need more living space = expansion
of German state at expense of other, inferior peoples (ex. Slavs to Germany’s east)
 1924-1929: under Hitler (released from prison in 1924), Nazi Party grows and gains supporters
 1932: election of 1932 – Reichstag election: NSDAP wins most votes of any party; Presidential election:
Hitler gaining support though Hindenburg (the WWI general) is elected
 1933:
 Jan. 30: Hindenburg appoints Hitler chancellor = Hitler comes to power legally
 Feb. 27: Reichstag fire – Hitler blames Communists & uses the event to justify passing laws that gave
him more power and took freedoms away from Germans
 March 20: Dachau – 1st concentration camp
 March 23: Enabling Act – Hitler has full dictatorial power
 July 14: no political parties other than Nazis allowed
 1934:
 June 30: Night of the Long Knives – Hitler sends SS (his personal body guard) under control of Heinrich
Himmler to arrest and shoot ≈1000 SA leaders b/c decided that SA, aka Brown Shirts (thuggish quasimilitary group), posed a threat to his power + he wanted support of the army
 Aug. 2: Hindenburg dies  Hitler is Führer
56

1935: Nuremberg Laws – bunch of anti-Semitic laws (ex. Jews are not German citizens, Jews cannot marry or
have sexual relationships w/ Aryans, Jew = anyone w/ 3 Jewish grandparents)
 1938: Kristallnacht (“Night of the Broken Glass”) – horrific attack on Jews & their property all across
Germany
o view on women: glorified traditional role as mother and housewife… switch in late 1930s – encouraged women
to work b/c of a labor shortage
o Why did people support Hitler: (1) charismatic leader, (2) economic problems – Hitler promised and delivered
recovery, (3) Hitler promoted German pride at a time when it was low (post-T of V), (4) Weimar Republic was
weak – blamed for Germany’s problems, proportional representation in Reichstag allowed for rise of NSDAP, (5)
well-organized party machine w/ effective propaganda, mass party rallies (think of Triumph of the Will),
organizations like Hitler Youth and League of German Women, (6) did cool things like inventing new holidays
(Mother and Child Day, Hitler’s bday), est. “Strength through Joy” program (ex. free vacations for workers!),
provide affordable consumer goods like the Volkswagen, (7) effective at repression of opposition – ex. Gestapo
(Nazi police)
 Nazi Expansion – Hitler began a path of aggression in the mid-1930s, violating the T of V and annexing other
countries. GB & France responded w/ policy of appeasement (gave Hitler what he wanted, trying to avoid war).
o 1933: Hitler withdraws Germany from League of Nations
o 1935: Hitler starts to build up military (violates T of V)
o 1936: Hitler moves army to into Rhineland (DMZ)
o 1936: Rome-Berlin Axis – alliance b/t Hitler & Muss, Japan joined later
o 1938: Anschluss – union with Austria
o 1938: Hitler moves into Sudetenland (German-speaking section of CzSl)  Munich Conference – GB and France
agree to let Hitler take Sudetenland
o March 1939: Hitler annexes Czechoslovakia
o April-Aug. 1939: Polish Corridor problem – Hitler makes noise about wanting Polish Corridor & Danzig
o Aug. 1939: Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact – Hitler & Stalin agreed to remain neutral if the other began war +
made secret agreement to divide Poland b/t them in the event of war (Hitler later violated the pact)
 WWII (1939-1945)
WWII was fought in 2 theaters: Europe and the Pacific. Sides: Allies (GB, France, USSR, US, et al) vs. Axis (mainly
Germany, Italy, Japan). The cause of the war was German aggression. Italy and Japan were expansionistic too.
o Sept. 1, 1939: Germany invades Poland & crushes it in 4 weeks (blitzkrieg)  GB & France declare war on
Germany (Sept. 3) / Nazis & Soviets divide up Poland b/t them
o April-June 1940: Germany invades Denmark, Norway, France, BeNeLux  German victories & occupation
 May 1940 – Battle of Dunkirk (aka “miracle of Dunkirk”)  GB got out, but France fell to Nazis. HenriPhilippe Pétain becomes PM of new Vichy gov’t (puppet to the Nazis) & Charles de Gaulle est. the Free
French resistance movement w/ a gov’t-in-exile in London
o July 1940-May 1941: Battle of Britain  British victory!! Royal Air Force (RAF) heroically fought back against
German Luftwaffe, which waged war from the air (dropped lots of bombs on GB, including its major cities). PM
Winston Churchill said: “We shall never surrender.”
o June 1941: Germany invades USSR, violating nonaggression pact  Soviet winter stops German advance
o Dec. 7, 1941: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor  US enters war
Allies adopt the Europe first policy and unconditional surrender policy. How did the war in Europe end?
o May 1942: Battle of El Alamein (North Africa) – Allied victory
o July/Sept. 1942: Battle of Stalingrad  Germans surround city but Soviets take offensive by summer 1943
o June 6, 1944: D-Day – Allied invasion of Normandy  Allied victory
57
o
Aug. 1944: Warsaw Uprising – Poles rose up against Nazi occupation, as they expected Soviets to come liberate
them … too early and Poles lost tragically (though they fought heroically)
o spring 1945: Allies march toward Germany (GB/US come from W & Soviets come from E) – this is key for
explaining how postwar Europe became divided into spheres of influence (democratic west, Soviet east)
o May 1945: Germany surrenders … May 8 = V-E Day (Victory in Europe)
How did the war in the Pacific end?
o “island hopping” campaign – Allies jump from island to island fighting the Japanese until they reach Japan
o Aug. 6 &9, 1945: US drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki  Japan surrenders Aug. 14
o Sept. 2, 1945: V-J Day (Victory over Japan)
Consequences of WWII:
o destruction of entire cities
o est. 50m dead
o displaced persons (DPs) – postwar refugees, inclu. concentration camp survivors (some of whom went to new
country of Israel)
o trials across Europe of war criminals and collaborators – most significant were Nuremberg Trials (1945-1946) in
Germany, organized by 4 Allied Powers (US, GB, USSR, France) to deal w/ highest-ranking Nazis
 Holocaust = Nazi genocide of Jews (+ other “inferior” groups: homosexuals, Slavs, Romani, et al). 6m Jews killed.
o Nazis started by putting Jews in ghettos, est. anti-Semitic laws (ex. Nuremberg Laws), and est. a program to
sterilize or euthanize the disabled (both means were used)
o set up concentration camps where Jews et al. were sent to labor (1st camp = Dachau in Germany, est. 1933)
o used Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) to round up Jews, take them to a remote area, have them dig their
own grave, and kill them – followed Nazi military … eventually seen as too slow a means of killing ppl … so:
o Final Solution (1941/42) set up death camps – 6 of them, all in Poland; differed from concentration camps in
that they had gas chambers (“shower rooms”) and crematoria; most infamous was Auschwitz-Birkenau
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Cold War Era, 1945-1991
 Cold War (≈1945-1990): clash of ideologies and power rivalry b/t US (dem, cap) vs. USSR (communism); inclu.
nuclear arms race + space race + propaganda war + fighting through client states (ex. Korea, Vietnam)
 Origins of the Cold War – no definitive start date, tensions develop starting w/ wartime conferences
o Nov. 1943: Teheran Conference (Big Three: Churchill, Stalin, FDR) – plan to beat Germany … US-British armies
liberate West, Soviet armies liberate East
o Feb. 1945: Yalta Conference (Churchill, Stalin, FDR) – compromise decision: postwar Germany to pay
reparations to USSR and be divided into occupation zones; USSR to declare war on Japan; E. Europe to be proRussian but freely elected (whatever that means)
[May 8, 1945: V-E Day]
o July 1945: Potsdam Conference (Churchill, Stalin, Truman) – US demands free elections & USSR refuses
[Aug. 1945: US drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki / [Sept. 2, 1945: V-J Day]
o March 1946: Churchill’s “iron curtain” speech – Europe divided!
o March 1947: Truman Doctrine – US policy of containment
o June 1947: Marshall Plan – US $$ to Europe for rebuilding (very successful, though Stalin refuses $ for E. Europe)
 instead Stalin est. Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) to rebuild E. Europe
o 1948: Berlin blockade and airlift – Stalin blocks western access to Berlin but West provides supplies via air for
324 days until Stalin backs down
o 1949: Germany splits in 2: Federal Republic of West Germany (West) & German Democratic Republic (East)
o 1949: NATO formed (alliance of Western governments)
o 1955: Warsaw Pact formed (alliance of European communist states)
 Western Europe – Politics & Economics from 1945-1980s
o politics
 new leaders post-WWII: Christian Democrats (center-right party … sort of like US Republicans but w/ more
social welfare – anti-communist, pro-democracy, pro-free market, championing of traditional family values)
came to power in much of continental Europe; Labour Party came to power in GB – “cradle-to-grave”
welfare state, nationalization of industries
 1950s-early 1980s: welfare state = heavy gov’t. spending + generally high taxes (though in 1970s during the
recession ppl resisted higher taxes, so deficits grew big time)
 1980s: conservatism restored (philosophy of neoliberalism = FREE MARKET;  gov’t spending on social
services + privatization of state-run industries)
 Ronald Reagan (US) – Republican –  taxes but also  spending on military buildup (star wars) & social
programs, the latter due to early 80s recession = huge debt!
 Margaret Thatcher, aka “iron lady” (GB) – Conservative –  taxes &  spending on social programs;
privatized gov’t.-run industries; shut down heavy industries  huge unemployment,  rich/poor divide
& lots of working class anger; Falklands War (1982) – fought Argentina to maintain GB control
 Helmut Kohl (W. Germany) – Christian Democrat –  taxes &  spending; oversaw solid econ. growth
… became one of the world’s richest countries; oversaw fall of Berlin Wall (1989) & reunification of E.
and W. Germany (1990)
 1 exception to 1980s conservatism = Francois Mitterand (France) – Socialist – change after 25 years of
center-right parties; nationalized industries & attempted to spend the country out of economic stagnation,
but failed, & had to re-privatize industries + institute austerity measures
o economics
 postwar – rapid growth 
 why: Marshall Plan aid, gov’t. stimulus, ppl. ready to work, consumer demand, est. of Common Market
59

consumer revolution –  consumerism began well before WWII, but it became revolutionary after WWII as
% of income spent on necessities fell + employment , so ppl had more $$ to spend on goods like washing
machines, TVs, record players, etc. (installment payment plans + expansion of social security also helped)
 1970s-early 80s – series of econ. crises 
 early 70s: collapse of int’l monetary system, when US$ plummeted in value  global inflation
 oil shocks in 1973 (OPEC – put embargo on oil to US b/c of its support for Israel in the 1973 Arab-Israeli
War) & 1979 (Iranian Rev. – resulted in collapse of Iranian oil production)  oil prices skyrocketed, and
when fuel prices ↑, so does everything else = inflation!
 worldwide recession in 1970s, w/ uneven recovery beginning only in 1982 – recession characterized by
stagflation (stagnant econ., i.e. low growth/high unemployment, + inflation – different from typical
pattern of low growth + deflation, which happened during the Great Depression) … in 1985 western
Europe had its highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression
 1970s-early 80s – more econ. trends:
 Common Market cont. to attract new members
 ↑ income inequality
 shift toward high-tech information industries (computers, biotech) & services (banking, finance,
medicine) – “information age” / postindustrial society / knowledge economy
 welfare state caused high gov’t spending + gov’t spending ↑ in response to recession, but ppl didn’t
allow higher taxes  debt-laden countries that needed reform (hence the 1980s conservatives!)
 Soviet Eastern Europe – Soviet leaders in emoticons
o Lenin (1917-1924)

o Stalin (1924-1953)

 totalitarian, central planning (5 Year Plans: industrialization + collectivization), propaganda, censorship,
KGB, gulag, attacks on religion (ex. tearing down churches)
 est. Cominform to maintain Russian control over Communist parties abroad
 extended Soviet control over E. Europe w/ same policies and effects as in USSR (5-year plans, censorship,
problems of shortages and poor working conditions; police terror less intense in East Bloc than USSR) …
**exception was Yugoslavia under Tito = communist, but not under Soviet thumb**
o Khrushchev (1955-1964)

 de-Stalinization: made a speech criticizing Stalin, made reforms liberalizing USSR
 economics reforms:  production of consumer goods and agriculture, relaxation of controls on workers
  standard of living in 1960s and mini-consumer revolution
 relaxation of censorship: ex. Boris Pasternak (Doctor Zhivago) denounced but not shot; Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – story of life in a gulag!) published in USSR
 East Bloc saw de-Stalinization too: market-oriented reforms + some relaxation of censorship
 econ. reforms:
- market reforms (ex. Hungary’s New Economic Mechanism, E. Germany’s New Economic System) –
very mixed results … Hungary’s NEM most successful, but overall econ. growth East Bloc flagged
- ↑ consumer goods production (vs. heavy industry), w/ varying success at implementation
 relaxation of censorship:
- ex. Bitterfield Movement in E. Germany (allowed intellectuals to take a more critical view of the
regime as long as they did not oppose communism), Christa Wolf’s Divided Heaven
- samizdat = underground publishing industry, published censored works – emerged in 1950s,
blossomed in 1960s
 de-Stalinization spurred rebellion in East Bloc:
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
1956 – Poland rioted, brought in new gov’t and won greater autonomy from USSR – toleration of free
peasantry and independent Catholic Church (CC important – Pope John Paul II was Polish)
 1956 – Hungarian revolution brought in reform communist, Imre Nagy  USSR invades and crushes
rev. brutally (like w/ Prague Spring)
 Cold War tensions  in mid-1950s but then  in 1960s:
 1961 Bay of Pigs – failed US invasion of Cuba
 1961 Berlin Wall constructed
 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis – USSR put nukes in Cuba  13 days of crisis b/t US and USSR until USSR
backed down
o Brezhnev (1964-1982) 
 re-Stalinization: return to harsh rule of Stalin … praised Stalin, launched massive arms buildup
 crushed Prague Spring (1968), when reform communist Alexander Dubček came to power in CzSl w/
promise of “socialism w/ a human face” – lovely time of hope until Brezhnev rolled in the tanks
 Brezhnev Doctrine: USSR has right to intervene in any socialist country when it saw the need (proclaimed
after Soviet tanks crushed Prague Spring)
o Gorbachev (1985-1991) 
 end Cold War (see more below)
 decolonization = colonies gain independence in decades after WWII
o causes: rising demand for ind. from colonial ppls,  power of Euro. nations (exhausted after WWII), freedoms
promised by US (pro-democracy) and Soviet (anti-imperialism) ideals
o newly independent nations often followed policy of nonalignment = neutral in Cold War; play to both US and
USSR as convenient for them
o Asia
 Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) – 4 yrs. of deadly guerrilla war after WWII  ind. in 1949. Nonaligned.
 French Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos) – France tried hard to maintain colonies but was defeated in
1954 by Ho Chi Minh, communist supported by USSR and China  Vietnam divided b/t N and S, leading to
Vietnam War, in which US supported the S against the communist N. Split alignment b/t US and USSR.
 India – relatively peaceful path to ind. from GB, led by Gandhi, who advocated nonviolence  ind. in 1947,
w/ division of British India into India (Hindu) and Pakistan (Muslim) [partition was bloody, as Hindus and
Muslims migrated to their respective states]. Pakistan aligned w/ US, India nonaligned.
 China – not under colonial rule … but civil war b/t communists under Mao and Kuomintang under Chiang
Kai-shek  Mao’s forces won and took over China in 1949, and Kuomintang went to Taiwan. Aligned w/
USSR.
o Middle East
 Israel/Palestine – GB relinquished their mandate in 1947, and Israel est. in 1948  1st Arab-Israeli War
followed immediately, w/ Israeli victory (as w/ all Arab-Israeli wars). Israel aligned w/ US.
 Egypt – Nasser booted out pro-western king and est. ind. in first half of 1950s (remember GB had governed
Egypt). Nationalized Suez Canal in 1956 (canal = last symbol of western domination)  resulted in war w/
Israel, GB, France … US and USSR worked together to support Egypt, successfully. Nonaligned – played US
and USSR brilliantly!
o Africa
 GB’s colonies – ind. mostly peaceful & most colonies stayed loosely connected w/ GB in British
Commonwealth.
 Kenya – exception to peacefulness … GB crushed bloody Mau Mau rebellion
 South Africa – ind. in 1910 but stayed under white settler rule & est. apartheid (racial segregation)
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
Belgian Congo – ind. in 1960, rapid pullout by Belgium left new gov’t unprepared; CIA killed ind. leader/new
PM Patrice Lumumba b/c of concerns he was communist, & installed dictator Mobutu (terrible guy,
governed 1965-1997).
 France’s colonies – mostly peaceful & most colonies chose to stay in association w/ France (identified w/
France & wanted aid; France wanted to keep econ. benefits of colonies).
 Algeria – exception to peacefulness … French permanent residents (called pieds noirs) ran the country &
treated Algerians as lesser citizens. Algerians formed National Liberation Front (FLN) to rebel. Bloody,
dirty civil war b/t FLN and France, 1954-1962. French PM Charles de Gaulle granted ind. in 1962.
o neocolonialism = Western nations still had heavy influence in former colonies, ex. through econ. ties and
influence on edu; this term is critical of that relationship
 Late Cold War, 1968-1985
o Vietnam War (height 1968-1973)
o détente (1970s) = relaxation of Cold War tensions (after 1960s heightening of tensions – remember Cuban
Missile Crisis, Bay of Pigs, Berlin Wall, Brezhnev’s crushing of Prague Spring)
 Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik = “eastern policy”; W. Germany’s reconciliation w/ E. Europe (laid wreaths at Polish
monuments; treaties w/ USSR, CzSl, Poland to accept state boundaries and renounce force; entered into
direct relations w/ E. Germany) – controversial policy in W. Germ. but Brandt won NPP in 1971
 1975 Final Act of the Helsinki Conference = 35 nations reaffirm Euro. borders + guarantee human rights
o 1970s – econ. decline in communist countries (global recession hit East Bloc hard, but leaders didn’t make
reforms) + increasing knowledge of Western prosperity (from TV!) caused ppl to start questioning the system
o late 1970s/early 1980s reform movements in CzSl & Poland:
 1977, CzSl: Vaclav Havel’s Charter 77 manifesto criticized regime
 1978-81, Poland: most unruly Soviet satellite; farmland remained privatized + CC strong (not squelched by
Soviet atheism)
 1978: Pope John Paul II elected – Polish pope, electrified the nation
 1980: Gdansk shipyard strike results in temporary gains w/ Gdansk Agreement (freedom of speech,
right to unionize, econ. reforms, release of pol. prisoners)  formation of Solidarity under Lech
Wałensa
 1981: Jaruzelski declares martial law and drives Solidarity underground
o détente ends (late ‘70s to mid-‘80s): Brezhnev ignored Helsinki human rights, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
(1979), Reagan calls USSR the “evil empire” & ↑ defense spending
 Cold War Ends (1985-1991)
o Gorbachev’s reforms:
 perestroika (econ. “restructuring,” = capitalism) – good at 1st, but shortages => consumer unhappiness
 glasnost (“openness,” relaxation of censorship)
 democratization – 1989 1st free elections since 1917  Communists won majority, but minority of
independents elected  demands for independence from non-Russian minorities in Soviet republics
 new foreign policy: relax E-W tensions … pull troops out of Afghanistan, arms reductions agreements w/
Reagan, encourage reform movements in E. Europe
o Revolutions of 1989
 Poland 1st: country on brink of econ. collapse, so to deal w/ labor unrest Communists legalize Solidarity &
hold free elections  Solidarity wins w/ Lech Wałensa elected president  made gradual political reforms +
very rapid free market econ. reforms (“shock therapy”)
 Hungary
 E. Germany – Berlin Wall falls, starting Nov. 9
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 Czechoslovakia – Velvet Revolution under Vaclav Havel
 Romania – only violent rev. b/c Ceauşescu didn’t want to give up power (but he and his wife were executed)
o German reunification (1990) – led by W. German Chancellor Helmut Kohl … and Gorby said ok in return for $$
loans to USSR & promise that Germany would be peaceful; Kohl granted a 1:1 exchange of E. German marks for
W. German marks … W. Germany enticing to E. Germans for much higher standard of living
o Further cooling of E-W tensions:
 Paris Accord (1990): Europe, US, USSR … military reduction, affirmation of existing Euro. borders
 additional US-USSR agreements to reduce nuclear arms
o Collapse of the USSR (1991)
 Gorby wanted to reform communism & keep the USSR, which pleased no one, neither the hardline commies
nor the democrats (the latter led by Boris Yeltsin, eventual pres. of Russia) – Gorby tried but failed to keep
the USSR together
 1990 events: (1) Communists lose local elections nationwide, (2) Lithuania declares ind., (3) Gorby gets new
const. breaking Communist monopoly on power (hardliners unhappy) & party deputies elect Gorby Pres. of
USSR (democrats unhappy b/c want univ. suffrage election), (4) Yeltsin elected leader of Russia’s parli & says
Russia will decare ind.
 1991 events: (1) Yeltsin elected Pres. of Russia, (2) hardliners kidnap Gorby & fam. in coup attempt 
Yeltsin rescues them, (3) Yeltsin bans Communist Party in Russia & declares Russian ind., (4) Dec. 25 – USSR
dissolves (Gorby’s job is gone)
 Cold War Era Trends (really trends for second half of 20th c.)
o Movement for European Unity – real political unif. fail / economic unif. succeed
 OEEC (1948) – Org. for European Economic Cooperation – promoted commerce
 Council of Europe (1949) – political org., hope was that it would evolve into a Euro. parliament, but that
didn’t happen – GB a big opponent, didn't want to lose sovereignty … goal became to achieve econ. unity
 Coal and Steel Community (1952-2002) – group of 6 W. Euro. countries, tariff- and quota-less steel and coal
market
 European Econ. Community (EEC) / Common Market (1958-1993) – 1st est. by members of Coal and Steel
Community by the Treaty of Rome (1957); created free trade and common econ policies among members
o remained econ. union instead of political esp. b/c of French opposition to losing its sovereignty
 European Union, EU (1993-present) – econ/cultural/political alliance of European nations
o Maastricht Treaty (1991) – basis for formation of EU, w/ est. standards for member states; included
criteria for monetary union, i.e. € (€ introduced in 2002)
 discontent w/ treaty existed – opposition disliked ountries having to follow new regulations & adopt
new fiscal standards, make budget cuts, contribute to EU budget, etc. + growing bureaucracy in
Brussels (EU headquarters)
o 2004 – EU began admitting former East Bloc countries; writing of new constitution to est. a more
centralized gov’t. but ratification failed in France & Netherlands b/c of fears of losing sovereignty
o Treaty of Lisbon (2007) – replaced rejected 2004 constitution; kept parts of 2004 const. but further
streamlined EU bureaucracy & reformed its political structure
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EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER STATES, 2014 – 28 member states
o
o
o
o
Science & Technology (Big Science = big orgs., projects, gov’t. funding)
 emerged w/ WWII – ex. Manhattan Project developed atomic bomb, British developed radar
 space race b/t US & USSR (1960s) – Soviets launched Sputnik (1st satellite in orbit) in 1957  US landed on
moon in 1969
 computer revolution – development of weapons in WWII led to development of computers
 results: scientific community grows, greater specialization, more teamwork, more competition
Social Classes, Leisure & Religion
 greater social mobility: middle class more open and growing / lower class more urban and decreasing
 greater social equality due to social security reforms, ↑ standard of living, “gadget revolution”
 recreation: explosion of mass travel & tourism (and TV at home)
 church membership (Catholic & Protestant)  – Europe has been becoming increasingly secular (makes US
look super religious by comparison)
o Vatican II (1962-1965) – Vatican council that made a bunch of reforms, trying to boost its appeal amid
declining church attendance – ex. decided masses would be said in vernacular, not Latin
Migration (postwar … 1950s-1960s)
 influx of migrants, esp. into prosperous NW Europe (high demand for labor) – W. Germany et al. est. guest
worker programs – young, unskilled single men who worked in low-wage jobs and sent $ home … supposed
to go home after a time, but many stayed (ex. large Turkish pop. est. in W. Germany) – change from
previous pattern of emigration
 patterns of movement: (a) rural  urban areas, (b) less-developed south  industrial north, (c) former
colonies  European mother countries (postcolonial migration)
 impact of immigraiton: helped econ recovery; growing ethnic diversity; integration difficulties
Women’s Movement
 1950s-1960s:
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o
o
o
o
early marriage & childbearing (baby boom in late 40s/50s), small families, women work outside the
home esp. b/c done w/ having children at an early age (+ birthrates resumed decline in 1960s)
o 3 forces helping women get jobs: (1) econ boom, 1950-1973, (2) ↑ white collar jobs, (3) ↑ education
o East Bloc – women worked too! Women = 50% of workers. Included highly skilled jobs like medicine &
engineering.
 1970s-1980s: feminist movement
o Goals: workplace rights; right to divorce, abortion, protection against violence, help for single moms
o Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949) – feminism + existentialism – women had long been
trapped by society’s conditions, must take own action to be free and escape the role of the interior
o Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (1963); NOW (1966)
Youth & Counterculture
 postwar: youth became increasingly important part of European society – developed unique new fashion
styles and musical tastes (ex. GB’s Teddy Boys, rock ’n’ roll); played big part in consumer rev. – marketers
pander to youth tastes; rapid growth in college students (skyrocketing enrollment b/c of baby boom + gov’t
subsidies reduced price) … problem was overcrowding
 1960s-70s counterculture: rebellion against traditional authorities & status quo (think sex, drugs & rock ‘n’
roll + leftist politics, student protesters – hippies!)
o causes: baby boomers coming of age, growing up in an era of political liberalism, affluence, & education
– had opp. to pursue things like social justice issues instead of just how to put food on the table
o leftist politics: New Left = movement of students in the West who advocated Marxist ideals, i.e. the nice
ones that he theorized, not Soviet communism
o lots of student protests, inspired esp. by black civil rights movement in US
 1968 = revolutionary year around the world. Lots of youth protests & police violence in response:
black riots after assassination of MLK, anti-Vietnam war protests in US and Japan, protests for
political reform in Mexico, student protests against censorship in Poland, Prague Spring, and:
 France, 1968 – Univ. of Paris students protest overcrowding in univs. & seek edu. reforms  turned
into broader protest against de Gaulle’s gov’t, spreading across France & including a workers’
general strike … bloody clashes w/ police, France in chaos, but de Gaulle was able to reassert power,
as he gained support from ppl who were worried about a communist takeover)
o sexual revolution: a lot more sexual freedom / premarital sex, “free love”; invention of birth control pill
(aka oral contraceptives) made all this sex seem safer
Environmental Movement (starting in 1970s; grew from 1960s counterculture)
 goals: (1) clean up the environment, (2) link local environmental issues to poverty/inequality/violence on a
global scale
 methods: mass media, protests, work w/ politicians, new institutions (Greenpeace founded in 1971; Green
Parties founded starting in late 1970s in Belgium & W. Germany)
Separatism & Right-Wing Extremism (1970s forward)
 Spain – Basque separatism … bombings by ETA
 N. Ireland – want ind. from UK – bombings by IRA (Irish Republican Army), British retaliation (Bloody
Sunday, 1972 – GB soldiers kill 13 demonstrators who were protesting anti-Catholic discrimination … U2
wrote a song about it) … negotiations b/t IRA & GB began in late 1990s
 new right political parties founded or gained popularity in 1970s-80s (ex. French National Front – Jean-Marie
Le Pen) – champion (white) workers, anti-immigration, verge on racism
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Post-Cold War (1990s-present)
 Russia (1990s-2000s)
o Yeltsin (pres. 1991-1999): oversaw rapid trans. from com to cap (shock therapy)  unfortunately econ. decline,
corruption (“crony capitalism” – stays in hands of old communist elite), poverty,  income inequality,  life
expectancy, crime = 1990s were not so great!
 biggest sources of $$ = oil, natural gas
o Putin (pres. 2000-2008, 2012-present; PM for Medvedev 2008-2012): relative capitalism but semi-authoritarian
 popular at 1st b/c restored prosperity (oil & gas $$) and is a strong Russian nationalist (though 2008 econ.
downturn hurt)
 lost popularity w/ educated middle class b/c of authoritarianism (ex. ppl who speak out against the regime
get into trouble, ex. Khodorkovsky & Pussy Riot)
 ↑ military spending, hates West, trouble in the Caucasus (Muslims in Chechnya want ind. and launch
terrorist attacks; invaded Georgia in 2008 to support South Ossetian ind.; invaded Ukraine in 2014)
 Eastern Europe (1990s-2000s)
o Poland, CzSl, Hungary most successful transition to cap & dem / Romania & Bulgaria biggest laggards
o Velvet Divorce (1993) – CzSl split into Czech Republic & Slovakia
o trends: income inequality ↑ w/ transition to cap  crime ↑; nationalism reemerges; nostalgia for old East Bloc
(Ostalgie = German term for this nostalgia)
o breakup of Yugoslavia (1990s) – divisive nationalism:
 Slobodan Milosevic = Serbian pres.; wanted to unite all Serbs in a “greater Serbia” and used war and ethnic
cleansing of Muslims to try to accomplish his goal … ultimately unsuccessful … put on trial for war crimes
 Croatian war (1991): Croatia declares ind.  Milosevic invades to support Serbs there and takes ≈30% of
Croatia’s territory  int’l community does little (UN imposes econ. sanctions)
 Bosnian war (1992-95): Bosnia declares ind.  Milosevic invades to support Bosnian Serbs & launches
ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims)  int’l community stays out until Srebenica massacre (Serb
massacre of 7,000 Bosniaks in 5 days) … then NATO enters and beats the Serbs
 Kosovo war (1999): Kosovo’s Albanian Muslim majority want ind. from Serbian rule  war b/t Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) & Serbs  NATO bombs Serbs and forces Milosevic to withdraw
 Yugoslavia broke into: Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia (all 1991), Bosnia & Herzegovina (1992), Serbia,
Montenegro (both 2006), Kosovo (2008)
 Europe part of globalization = interconnected global economy, accompanied by global exchange of cultural,
political, religious ideas; facilitated by technology, freer markets, multinational corps.
o w/ world economy more interconnected, econ.  in one place has global impact – ex. 2008 global recession
o  manufacturing,  service industries in W. Europe (cheaper to outsource)
o  income inequality
o EU est. in 1993 / euro introduced in 2002 (see European Unity section under Cold War Era Trends)
o Euro. countries part of supranational orgs, ex. UN, ICJ, World Bank, IMF, WTO, NGOs like Doctors w/o Borders
 Some 21st c. challenges:
o pop.  (how to fund social security & healthcare & keep up economic growth?)
o immigration, inclu. illegal immigration + how to integrate ppl from different cultures
o growing strains in US-European relations – ex. Iraq War, values gap, et al.
o war on terror / European security (ex. Islamic terrorist bombings in Europe – ex. in Madrid & London subways)
o energy shortage (what will replace oil?) + environmental problems, ex. global warming
o promoting human rights – ex. humanitarian intervention in Yugoslavia’s wars, EU abolished death penalty
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