The Age of Revolution (1789- 1848)

1789 - Construction of the first factory system of the modern world in Lancashire
-Beginning of the French Revolution
1848 - Construction of first railway network
- Publication of the Communist Manifesto

 The Age of Enlightenment (18th century)

The age of reason
The Enlightenment was a European intellectual movement of the late 17th and early 18th
centuries which emphasized skepticism, the existence of natural laws, human reason,
and optimism.
Immanuel Kant, 1784. What is Enlightenment? He defined Enlightenment as the
liberation of individuals from direction by others. People achieve this liberation when
they resolve to use their reason and to follow its dictates. “Have the courage to use your
own reason.”
The Philosophes promoted a form of government based on natural rights and criticized
absolute power of monarchs.
Classical Liberalism - Principles:

 Moral: inalienable rights

 Political: government with the consent of the people
 Economic: laissez faire
Philosophes:

 Montesquieu (1689-1755): Division of Powers (legislative, executive,

and judiciary)
 Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778): the Social Contract (1775)
 Adam Smith (1723-1790): Economic Liberalism (free trade and private
enterprise)
Its ideas inspired the American and the French Revolution

 The American Revolution (1776-1787)

Radical political upheaval that led to the 13 colonies of British America declaring their
independence from Great Britain.
Causes:

Disagreements between the colonists and the mother country over a number of
issues:
  Territorial problems of British government with natives west of
Allegheny Mountains: to pacify the tribes, Parliament forbade colonists
from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains
 After French wars, Great Britain was left with a huge national debt:

 Abandoned the policy of “salutary neglect”

 Parliament passed a series of laws levying duties on English
imports into America
 Sugar Act 1764 – tax on trade – tolerated
 Stamp Act 1765 – direct and new type of tax –
infuriated colonists
 Coercive Laws or Intolerable Acts 1774 – more
restrictions upon the colonies
First Continental Congress 1774
1775 armed conflict broke out
Second Continental Congress 1775 – an army was raised and French support
negotiated
1776 Declaration of Independence: the colonies ought to be free, independent
states
Central government needed: 1777 Articles of Confederation – proved useless
With French support, colonists finally won the war for their independence
1783 Treaty of Paris: independence of the US was recognized and boundaries
stipulated
1787 Northwest Ordinance: method by which new stated could be added to the
Union
Convention in Philadelphia 1787 – two plans for government discussed
(Virginia Plan & New Jersey Plan)
Connecticut Compromise: Congress consisting of two Houses (House of
Representatives and Senate)
1787 Constitution of the United States was approved – George Washington
elected president

.Consequences:
 Treaty of Paris – the Thirteen Colonies gained political independence
from Great Britain
 Creation of the First modern Republic: the United States

 The French Revolution

Mass social revolution originated in France in 1789.
France was one of the most populous and powerful states in Europe at the time, ruled by
an absolute monarchy.
A profound disruption of the established socio-political order.
Causes:
 International situation of France
  Economic and colonial rivalry with GB.
 France’s defeat in the Seven Years War against GB.
 GB’s defeat in the War of Independence
 Economic problems
 Bankruptcy – costly wars, royal extravagances
 Poor harvests
 Inflation
 Social tensions
 Inability of the government to rule
 Social injustice
 Fiscal privileges of the clergy and nobility
 Third State had no political representation
 Ideology
 Enlightenment influence
Consequences:
 Declaration of Rights of Man - all feudal privileges were officially
abolished.
 French absolute monarchy abolished: creation of a Republic
 The French Revolution gave modern world its ideology (nationalism,
democracy and liberalism) and it provided the vocabulary and the issues
of politics: right, left, conservative, liberal
 It spread ideas against absolutism all over Europe
 Ecumenical: its ideas spread all over the world (it led to the liberation of
Latin America after 1808)
 The French Revolution also provided the codes of law, the model of
scientific and technical organization, and the metric system of
measurement for most countries.

 The Industrial Revolution (1789-1848)

Dramatic socio-economic transformation originated in Britain, which substituted the
factory system for the traditional domestic one of production.
“the shackles were taken off” – “take-off into self-sustained growth”: restrictions
removed ; freedom to trade; economic expansion.
First railways
Causes:
 Vital revolution: improvement of the diet and conquer of diseases
 Agrarian revolution: intensive and extensive use of the land. Land
enclosure. Four field rotation system. Selective breeding.
 Urbanization and growth of population
 Natural resources: coal, iron, cotton
 Technological innovations: flying shuttle, spinning jenny, waterframe,
mule, power loom.
Consequences:
 Economic restrictions removed: expansion of the economic activity
 Growth of the two great systems of thought: economic science and its
antithesis , socialism
  Urbanization and growth of cities. Transformation of social geography.
 Poor working and living conditions
 Better means of transport and communication
 New social order: those who own the means of production, distribution
and exchange (entrepreneurs) and those who depend on their labour for
earning wages ((working class)

GLOSSARY
EMPIRE:
E. Said: It is a relationship, formal or informal, in which one state controls the effective
political sovereignty of another political society. It can be achieved by force, by
political collaboration, by economic, social or cultural dependence. (E. Said. 1993.
Culture and Imperialism)

IMPERIALISM:
E. Said: It is the process or policy of establishing or maintaining and empire. (E. Said.
1993. Culture and Imperialism)
Lenin: Imperialism is the monopoly stage of Capitalism. Imperialism is capitalism in
that stage of development in which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital
has established itself; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced
importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun;
in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers
has been completed. (V. I. Lenin. 1916. Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism.)

SPHERES OF INFLUENCE:
Lenin: Spheres for profitable deals, concessions, monopoly profits and so on, economic
territory in general. (V. I. Lenin. 1916. Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism.)
Hause & Maltby: Term in diplomacy for the claim of a strong state to exercise
significant authority in a weaker region without fully annexing it; used to describe
claims in 19th century imperialism and the cold war. (Hause and Maltby. 2004. Western
civilization. A history of European society.p.680)

DRAWBACK NATIONS:
Hause & Maltby: uncivilized and inferior peoples - Darwinian argument that Western
civilization was superior. It was their duty to help backward peoples, who were seen as
heathens or savages. (Hause and Maltby. 2004. Western civilization. A history of
European society. p.534)

COLONIAL EMPIRE:
Hobsbawm: The economic and military supremacy of the capitalist countries had long
been beyond serious challenge, but no systematic attempt to translate it into formal
conquest, annexation and administration had been made between the end of the
eighteenth and the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Between 1880 and 1914 it was
made, and most of the world outside Europe and the Americas was formally partitioned
into territories under the formal rule or informal political domination of one or other of
a handful of states: mainly Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands,
Belgium, the USA and Japan (Hobsbawm, E. 1997. The Age of Empire 1875-1914.
p.57)

COLONIALISM:
E. Said: It is almost always a consequence of imperialism. It is the implanting of
settlements on distant territory. (E. Said. 1993. Culture and Imperialism)
Hause & Maltby: policy by means of which governments send families of colonists to
live in distant colonies. “The new imperialism of 1881-1914 included little colonialism.
Europeans sent soldiers to explore and conquer, officials to organize and administer,
missionaries to teach and convert, and merchants to develop and trade, but few families
of colonists” (Hause and Maltby. 2004. Western civilization. A history of European
society.p.680)

SOCIAL EFFICIENCY:
Hobson: Social efficiency is a characteristic of the races which embody different
powers and capacities, different types of civilization. The earth should be peopled
governed and developed, as far as possible, by the races which can do this work best,
i.e. the races of the highest social efficiency. (J.A. Hobson. 1902. Imperialism: A Study)

US IMPERIALSIM:
Hause and Maltby: Annexation of territories by the US following European practices.
“The victorious United States, which had won an important naval victory against the
Spanish at Manila (in the Spanish-American War of 1898), claimed the Philippine
archipelago (the largest Spanish colony) and fought a three-year war (1899–1901) to
subdue Filipino nationalists. The United States chose to follow European imperialism
and established an American government for the islands. This stimulated a race to claim
the remaining islands of the Pacific.” The US took Hawaii (1898), Guam (1898), and
Wake Island (1900), while joining Germany and Britain in dividing the Samoan Islands
(1899). (Hause and Maltby. 2004. Western civilization. A history of European
society.p.537)

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION:
Hause & Maltby: General term for the transformation of an economy from a
predominantly rural and agricultural base to a predominantly urban and industrial-
manufacturing base; specific term for the first such transformation, which occurred in
Britain c. 1750–1850. (Hause and Maltby. 2004. Western civilization. A history of
European society.p.677)