Exam- History

1. Agro-literate Empire
characteristic agro-literate polity, the ruling class forms a small minority of the
population (they can read and write), rigidly separate from the great majority of direct
agricultural producers, or peasants. ideology exaggerates rather than underplays the
inequality of classes and the degree of separation of the ruling stratum. This can in
turn be sub-divided into a number of more specialized layers: warriors, priests,
clerics, administrators, burghers. both for the ruling stratum as a whole, and for the
various sub-strata within it, there is great stress on cultural differentiation rather than
on homogeneity. TThe whole system favours horizontal lines of cultural cleavage, and
it may invent and reinforce them when they are absent. Genetic and cultural
differences are attributed to what were in fact merely strata differentiated by function,
so as to fortify the differentiation, and endow it with authority and permanence.
Below the horizontally stratified minority at the top, Small peasant communities
generally live inward-turned lives, tied to the locality by economic need if not by
political prescription. Even if the population of a given area starts from the same
linguistic base-line a kind of culture drift soon engenders dialectal and other
differences. No-one, or almost no-one, has an interest in promoting cultural
homogeneity at this social level.

based on religion to establish a literate elite and a warrior caste

tension with different systems are between theory and practice

introduction of modern territorial state

2. Universal Religious Empire

The Pre-Modern Period from the Medieval Era to the Renaissance: Dominated by
Universal Religious Empires The fundamental identity is religion; it envisions
universal empire through religion. It is hierarchical and binary (believer vs. Nonbeliever). Examples: Holy Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire.

The Byzantine Empire: 330-1453 C.E. Constantine moved the seat of the
Roman Empirefrom Rome in the West to Constantinople in the East in 330
C.E. In 313 C.E.

Constantine signed the edict of Milan, which provided for religious toleration,
while he moved towards an Orthodox definition of Christianity. Under
Theodosius I (r. 379-395 C.E.),

Christianity became the official religion of Byzantium and all other pagan
religions were proscribed.

Fall of the Western Roman Empire: 476 C.E. by Germanic Tribes

Justinian I (ruled 527-565 C.E.): temporarily recovered some of the territories

lost from the Western Empire, including Rome. Under his direction, Roman
law was codified intoCode of Justinian (534 C.E.), the Corpus Juris Civilis.

The Rise of Islam: The Prophet Muhammad proclaims Islam in 610 C.E. at the
age of 40.

In 622, in the Hijra, he moves to Medina to escape persecution in Mecca. In

630, he conquers Mecca. He dies in 632 C.E.

The Rashidun Caliphs (the four righteous or rightly guided caliphs: Abu
Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali

Umayyad Caliphate: The Meccan clans who eventually take control of the new
Islamic

Empire; a kingly empire much more concerned with establishing the control
of Arab tribes over the massive territory of the new Islamic Community from
North Africa to the borders of China than with the spread of Islam as a
religion: 661-750 C.E.

Spanish peninsula is taken in 711 C.E.The Abbasid Caliphate: Fight rather in

the name of the Islamic religion and position themselves as the agents of the
Islamic message and law.

Move capital from Damascus to the new city of Baghdad. From the middle of
the 10th century, their rule becomes increasingly nominal

local rulers pay lip service to the supreme rule of the Caliphate while holding
power in their own hands.

More and more parts of the previously united Islamic Empire peel away to
form rival empires, some Sunni, some Shii. Officially, the Abbasid Caliphate
comes to an end with the Mongol invasions: 750-1256 C.E.

Fatimid Caliphate: Shii caliphate with its capital in Cairo, 909-1171 C.E.

Cordoba Caliphate: in 929 C.E., Abd ar-Rahman III in Spain declares himself
the Caliph,

legitimate ruler of all Muslims in the world. T

here are now three rival

caliphates, two Sunni, one Shii.

Holy Roman Empire

church was most powerful entity in europe

800: Coronation of Charlemagne led to 1000 C.E. The cobbling of the Holy
Roman Empire

counterpart to Jihad crusades

crusades: 1095 Urban II. calls out to take over the land in Muslim world

3. Sunni versus Shia

632 C.D. Muhammed died Muslims split into two groups

632-661 C.E. For the Shia, only the descendants of the prophet are the

legitimate interpreters and leaders of Islam who can succeed Islam.

Ali is for them, the first Imam.

Sunni: Ummah (collective community of islamic people) interprets the islamic

law along with the caliph (successor of Mohammed). Prophecy era over with
Mohammed. Caliph: political sovereign of the whole world. Chosen by the
community of its followers; they are the majority.

Shi'a: don't believe in Caliphs, believe that only God himself can appoint a
leader. direct descendant of the prophet they can decide islamic law for
example succession of Imans. right of the Imams of Ahlul-Bayt.) Ali= 1st
Imam (cousin + married to Mohammed's sister) Now = 12th (Hidden Iman
Mahdi)

Imams are the only right full descendants = only rightful political and
religious leader

Spain 929 C.E 3 Caliphs

Abd- Aru-Khatan III111

=> early on: Sunni Caliphs violently ended Shiite Imams life

=> depending who is currently in power oppresses the other

4. The Hundred Years War

War between England and France as running from 1337 to 1453.

reason for the outbreak: House of Plantagenet (rulers of England) against

House Valois for the control of the Kingdom of France

Edward III (Grandson of former King of France) = Vasal of the King of

France; owed him feudal homage because former english king (Henry II)
married Eleanor of Aquitane

Charles VII (1422-1461) decides english kind= french king

Phillip VI (Nephew of former King of France)

=> Edward refuses to pay homage to Phillip and declares himself rightful
King of France

outcome: House of Valois keeps the throne

Changes it brought along:

feudal armies professional troops

aristocratic dominance democratization of the manpower and weapons of

armies

=> ideas of english and french nationalism came through this war

=> War of the Roses: resulted out of the Hundred Years War due to financial
and social problems

between House of York(White) and House of Lancaster (Red)

both see themselves as descendants of Edward III

fought for the throne

all male heirs in both families get killed. 1455-1485 then Henry VII 14851309 decided that to go into war they must talk to the king: centralizing
sovereignty

Henry Tudor (Mother was related to House of Lancaster, who won in the end)

new ruling family )

The Hundred Years War 1337-1453: this war started as a conflict between two
lords, the king of France and his vassal, by virtue of lordship over territory in
France, the king of England. The king of France wanted to take over the
territories of the king of England in his kingdom; the king of England, closely
related to the French royal family, claimed the French crown itself as a result.
Over the course of a hundred years, different kings of England won over large
areas of France and one (Henry V) was in fact proclaimed the king of
France. Different lords within each kingdom brought down their own king or
openly colluded with the enemy. But, by the end of the war in 1453, the
English had been cleared from the French kingdom by Charles VII
something like a centralized kingdom that could be called France, above all
the complicated hierarchies of lordship, had emerged. The defeat in the war
led to the War of the Roses in England (1455-1485), between warring
claimants to the English crown, as a result of which England also came to be
united as a centralized kingdom by Henry Tudor (Henry VII) after 1485.

5. The Catholic Kings

Ferdinand/ Fernando II (King of Aragon from 1479-1516) and Isabella/Isabel I
(Queen of Castile from 1474-1504)
The Re-conquest of Spain and the unification of the Spanish crowns (1469-492
C.E.).The high point of the creation of a unified kingdom of Spain was the marriage
of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, who came to called the Catholic
Monarchs. They not only brought together the two largest kingdoms in the Iberian
peninsula by their marriage in 1469 C.E., but conquered the remaining territory in the
south under Muslim rule (Granada) in 1492 C.E., after which they issued an order
expelling the other outsiders in their Christian order, the Jews, despite more than two
thousand years of residence in the Iberian peninsula, from Spanish territory.

6. Machiavelli and the Secularization of Politics

Niccolo Machiavelli: 1469 1527

born in Florenz, was a philosopher, politician, diplomat...

The Prince
written for new rulers who want to achieve powers; how to manipulate and
keep appearances
is non theoretical
attempts to centralize rule
Legitimacy is based on action (Prince has power and can gain power). He
talks about church not as an organization that delivers the divine right to the
rulers but as an organization that uses strategy to maintain power.

Written in 1513 C.E. but only published after Machiavellis death in 1532,
Machiavelli explicitly argued that the power and survival of the state wasthe sole
object of politics. He thus put forward a secular conception of politics, as determined
by horizontal power relations between states, rather than vertical relationships
emanating from God and moving down through the Church and supposedly thereby
down the various grades of the aristocracy. The reason of state replaced the
hierarchy of estates as the key rubric for understanding political relations.
Machiavelli dreamt of the formation of a centralized kingdom in the Italian peninsula
like the French, English and the Spanish kingdom. This dream did not materialize.
7. The Treaty of Lodi

Signed in 1454

The non-aggression pact between Milano and Venice mediated by Florence

which came eventually to extend also to Naples and the Papal States in the
Italian peninsula

It ensured that each state in the italian peninsula was united against the larger
empires such as the HRE. Naples was being battled over by France and Spain:
it emerged the treaty in the face of such powers. There was also fear because
Constantinople fell in 1453 and because Venetia and Milan feared an Ottoman
invasion.

In this treaty, the different parties dealt with each other as sovereign city-states to
create a balance of power, based on what came to be called the reason of state.
Stories of aristocratic/military hierarchy sanctioned by God and Church played no
role hereit was the horizontal relationship between the states and their respective
degree of power that determined this agreement, which has led historians to see it as
one of the first example of modern diplomacy between self-consciously sovereign
states.
8. Martin Luther and the priesthood of all believers
1483-1546

Protestant Revolution 1517: started with 95 theses which he nailed at the door
of the church in Wittenberg

new revolutionary thoughts:

against indulgences (people pay to get through purgatory faster) that should
make time in purgatory shorter

no believe in papacy and his power of purgatory

didnt believe in church as a medium

against sacrament of holy orders in the allowance of the priest

schism with Western Christianity

ministers instead of priests

Ministers = Priesthood of all Believers: everyone is spiritually equal

Before:

priest as a superior figure to society, central role as intermediate between

society and God

Church intermedium: nothing we could undertake to satisfy God

radical changes: Now: everybody spiritually equal to God and Christ

direct relationship between God and individual

sola scriptura, sola fide

only by scripture, only by faith

Religion and politics start to shift: Lutheran perspective- church=community, leaders

of the community have power over church Martin Luther pinned his 95 theses to the
Church door in Wittenberg in 1517 C.E. He questioned the idea of spiritual hierarchy
in Christianity and so of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, standing as the first
estate, above the other estates in European Christian society. He argued instead for
the equality of all believers, making the servants of the Christian Church nothing
more than the functionaries of the Christian community, whose head he said were the
princes.
9. The Peace of Augsburg

Culmination of the wars of religion

-1555

settlement between Charles V (Catholicism) and the Schmalkadic League

(Lutheranism)

cuius regio, eius religio

o

who has the region, choose the religion

ended religious struggle between those two conflicting parties

allowed rulers two decide wether their people should be Catholic or Lutherans
o

choice is not individual

10. The Thirty Years War

1618-1648

trigger were the several wars which came about through the Reformation

Ferdinand II curtails several privileges of his subject and they turn to help to
the protestants

mainly concentrated in the Holy Roman Empire

started with principally only german state and became a struggle among
several european powers

ended with the Peace of Westphalia

(1618-1648 C.E.): A series of wars in central Europe that

culminated the wars of religion in Europe and consolidated the principle of the
uniform sovereignty of the state over its territory. The state would decide on the
matter of religion, which now came to be deemed a wholly internal affair. Tellingly,
the war began as a religious war between the Protestant subjects of the Holy Roman
Empire in Bohemia (Prague) and the emperor, drawing in other Protestant powers like
Denmark and Sweden. But, it ended as a war between the kingdoms of France and
Spain, the French having come to bankroll the Protestant forces, due to fear of the
dominance of Habsburg power and the possibility of universal monarchy in Europe.
In other words, the wars of religion started as war over the role of religious
institutions in politics and ended as a matter of the balance of power, the principle
that came to characterize interstate relations from 1648 until the French Revolution in
1789 C.E.
11. The Absolutist State (or the dynastic bureaucratic state or the
modern territorial state)
The Rise of the Absolutist State, otherwise referred to as the dynastic
bureaucratic state or the modern territorial state in the Early Modern period
(1500-1800 C.E.) The balance of power becomes the prevalent conception of
inter-state relations.
new type of state that was increasingly characterized by a centralized
bureaucracy that sought to extend the authority of the state uniformly,
throughout its territories. In other words, it worked now to overcome not only
the independent power of the Catholic Church, but also the old aristocratic
hierarchy

intendants: not of noble class, started with bourgeoisie

major voice representing king and state to rule over french territory

pursued policy of mercantilism ( state controlled economy)

replacement of church and aristocracy and attempt of creating a united law for
all territories

Bourgeoisie as middle class professionals

fixed specialization of labour through guilds

political sovereignty to a limited extent to towns

12. The Balance of Power

doctrine of english foreign politics from the middle age till the end of the
second world war

prevention of a dominating power in Europe

especially maintaining balance between France and Spain

threat to national security

everyone allies against the bigger power so its power is

13. Louis XIV

1643-1715 C.E

King of France

Did not give up divine right to rule

created Versailles in order to control the aristocracy. Before kings= figurines

now centralized king= important

nobility was living in Versailles with Louis

became on of the most powerful monarchs and created the system of an

absolute monarchical state

We are the law we create the law, tried to create a united law

the more intimate the aristocracy was with the king, the more (symbolic)
important they were

still uses his divine right of rule in the absolutist state

absolute power

Lois had a minister called Colbert 1665-1683

Created a single monopoly- national standard of production as opposed to

specific standards per guild
led the way to the triumph of the so-called absolutist state. Louis XIV built
the great palace of Versailles in the 1660s and moved there in 1682. The
highest nobility came to reside in Versailles, where Louis embroiled them in
meaningless symbolic hierarchies having to do with access to his own person,
while actual power came increasingly to be placed in the hands of bourgeois
intendants or civil servants, responsible directly to the centralized
bureaucracy, running things from Paris.

14. Versailles

created by Louis XIV

center of political power in France from 1682 when Louis moved to Versailles

symbol for absolute monarchy

Nobility were obliged to life in Versailles and be dedicated to Louis life style
the closer you were to Louis, the more relative power you had/the more
important you were

Women's march on Versailles: forced the royal family to move back to France
in 1789

With the Versailles= local governments less important

15. Mercantilism

Colbert= Louis XIV's minister who started mercantilism in which the state
controlled the economy.

He set up a national standard, rather than standards per guild.

pursued by Louis XIV in his absolutist state

dominant in Europe during the 16th to 18th century

trade as another way of thinking about war. More gold = more financial
support

national economic policy

increasing national wealth by government regulations concerning resource

Brought raw materials sold manufactured goods

Louis XIVs Minister from 1665-1683 C.E. Colbert worked to break down the
internal trade barriers within the kingdom of France. So, the state, after weakening the
independent power of the Catholic Church and the aristocracy, worked now also to
break the independent power of the guilds in towns. Each of these guilds had
organized production at a very local level and protected themselves from outside
competition through local tariffs and duties. By contrast, Colbert sought to set up, in
line with mercantilist policies, production standards across French territories and
French wide protective tariffs, while seeking simultaneously to break down internal
ones. Thus, just as a nation-wide bureaucratic bourgeoisie was coming into being, a
nation-wide mercantile bourgeoisie was also emergingthe territory of the kingdom
was thus being made into a uniform bureaucratically administered area and an
increasingly uniform market of economic exchange. This new space of uniform
market exchange and political control was what came to be the space of what was
called the nation. And, if it had been administered from above through mechanisms
of police, the social-contract theory of those like Hobbes and Locke suggested that
this newly created society could claim sovereignty on its own behalf. That is
precisely what happened in the French Revolution.
16. The Declaration of the Rights of the Man and the Citizen

passed by National Assembly in August 1789

fundamental document of FR

influenced by Thomas Jefferson; introduced by General Lafayette

rights of men are held universal

valid at all times and every place

free individuals protected equally by the law

major impact on development of liberty and democracy in Europe the Third

Estate had argued at the beginning of 1789 that voting should not occur by estate,
but by head, whereby it would have at least a slight majority, though numerically
it represented the vast majority of the people in the kingdom. Unable to achieve
this goal, it had moved away and called itself the National Assembly (June 17
1789) and sworn the Tennis Court Oath (June 20, 1789), namely, that it would stay
in session until it had promulgated a constitution for the nation. On August 26,
the National Assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the
Citizen, which argued that the sovereign power of the state could only emanate
from the sovereign power of the people, founded on their universal rights as
human beings. All citizens were said to be equal, while social distinctions could
only be based on the utility such distinctions would bring to the national
community.
17. Emancipation of Jewry
Period in which jews were given full rights as citizens of the state, started in France
in 1791 and then it soon took over Europe. With Russia and Germany being one of the
latest. Jews entitled to equality and citizenship before: isolated in residential areas the
Jews were emancipated by the National Assembly in the aftermath of the French
Revolution. The great outsiders of Christian society were now admitted as individuals
of the Jewish confession into the French nation. Religion was no longer the basis of
communal life, the nation was. Religion had been reduced to a private matter and
Jews could be French citizens despite their distinct private religious beliefs from
Christians. But note, this change itself did not occur so simply. The so-called more
civilized Sephardic Jews of the southern French regions were allowed French
citizenship already at the beginning of 1790, while the more traditional and so
allegedl backward Ashkenazi Jews of Alsace were given citizenship only in Sep.
1791.
18. The Committee of Public Safety
Founded by Maximilian Robespierre: Committee of Public Safety, political body of
the FrenchRevolution that gained virtual dictatorial control over France during the Reign
ofTerror(September 1793 to July 1794).
The Committee of Public Safety was set up on April 6, 1793, during one of the crises
of the Revolution, when France was beset by foreign and civil war. The new
committee was to provide for the defense of the nation against its enemies, foreign
and domestic, and to oversee the already existing organs of executive government.
The members of the committee, at first numbering 9 and later increased to 12, were
elected by the NationalConvention(representative assembly) for a period of one month
and were eligible for reelection

part of it: Robespierre; Saint Just, Danton

became virtual dictatorship through Robespierre = total executive power

supervisory powers over: military, judicial and legislative efforts

19. Total War

Everyone in the state fights as opposed to just the aristocracy the way it worked
before making an army of more than 800000 people in september 1794.
country that wages war mobilizes its population for war production.

Total refers to the mobilization; not destruction

differentiation between combatants and non combatants diminishes and

sometimes vanishes entirely

consider nearly every human resource as part of the war effort

FR: because of powerful coalition of European nations

mass conscription; entire resources of a nation were needed

Jacobins fostered total warfare

French army the first that had been mobilized in Western History with over a
million soldiers

before: only aristocracy had the privilege to fit and carry weapons

now the whole population

national army ( achieved by reign of terror)

20. Napoleon

-Came after the failure of the first republic

-Believes he is in touch with the people and represents the Nation of France
and can therefore stand for France and represent it justly

-Worked his way up through the ranks

Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1814 and again in 1815.

He implemented a wide array of liberal reforms across Europe, including the

abolition of feudalism and the spread of religious toleration.

He won the large majority of his battles and seized control of most of
continental Europe.
It took successive coalitions of all the great powers of Europe to dethrone
Napoleon 18 June 1815 in Waterloo.

1769 1821

French military and political leader

Directory relied on army

army in power came to power in a coup d'etat in 1799 First Consul

abolition of feudalism and spread of religious toleration

Napoleonic Civil Code

created new nobility based on merit

Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815)

changed nature of interstate politics in Europethe Committee of Public Safety

came to be dominated by the Jacobins, who were in turn progressively pushed
to the left by the Sans-culottes, the lower middle-classes in the city of Paris.
The French Revolutionaries and Jacobins had emerged as groups supporting
the untrammeled productive forces of the bourgeoisie. They had taken
equality to mean equality of individual economic opportunity and individual
political participation. But, the Sans-culottes took equality to mean more
concrete equality of outcome in prices and wages. This division within the
revolutionary ranks weakened the Convention, just as the Reign of Terror from
Sep. 1793 to July 1794 to institute revolutionary virtue throughout French
society led eventually a sense of exhaustion with the revolutionary process
once the French Revolutionary nation-state itself was no longer in danger. The
form of government called the Directory that replaced the Convention in 1795
sought to move the revolution back towards more established bourgeois rule.
But, in fact, the country was becoming more and more dependant on the
soldiers who were fighting the revolutionary wars. And, the class divisions
amongst the revolutionaries were resolved by the take-over of the French
nation-state by the greatest soldier of the revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte. He
first created the Consulate system (with three individuals acting as executive
consuls) in 1799, with himself named as First Consul. He then made himself
emperor in 1804. It would hardly be the last time that the middle-class
bourgeoisie, having initiated a democratic revolution with the masses, would
turn to an authoritarian resolution to overcome the demands of those lower on
the social scale who demanded economic rights questioning property rights.
Napoleon, meanwhile, saw himself as having consolidated the gains of the
French Revolution: in 1804, he instituted a new civil code, which made clear
that all positions were open to talent and that, as the Declaration of the Rights
and Man and of the Citizen had put it, social utility was the only justification
for social distinctions between people. And, he tried, in his own name, to
export these new values of the Revolution to all Europe. The continent of
Europe was essentially at his feet by 1812, when his conquest of Russia led to
defeat and the end of the Napoleonic wars.
21. Metternich and The Congress of Vienna

Klemens von Metternich

Minister of the emperor of the Austrian Empire. signed the TreatyofFontainebleau that
sent Napoleon into exile and led the Austrian delegation at the CongressofVienna which
divided post-Napoleonic Europe between the major powers.

1773-1859

traditional conservative

wanted to maintain balance of power and monarchical system

against liberalism

wanted to prevent the break up of the Austrian Empire

used censorship

crushed nationalist revolts in Italy and Germany

liberal revolution forces his resignation in 1848

Congress of Vienna

May 1814-15

What is to happen with the future of Europe

Sets up blue print which sticks for the next half century

All powers came together and committed themselves to prevent what

happened with Napoleon from happening again

chaired by Metternich

long term peace because of the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic
Wars

first meeting which resulted into the Concert of Europe

forging a peaceful balance of power in Europe

in the Congress of Vienna, the dynastic statesof Europe which had finally
defeated Napoleon came together to decide how the European order might be
restored after the upheaval of the revolutionary decades and how the new
democratic and national principles, enunciated by the French revolutionary
state, would be confronted. The reigning spirit of the Congress, Prince
Metternich, the foreign minister of the Austrian Empire, worked to create a
system of Great Power diplomacy, whereby the existing dynastic states would
decide events in every corner of Europe rather than the respective peoples and
societies of the continent. He was pragmatic, allowing for a restored French
Bourbon monarchy on a constitutional basis, while he also allowed for
constitutionalism within the context of the new German Confederation that
was to replace the Holy Roman Empire Napoleon had abolished. However, his
goal was the union of dynastic states to fight constitutional and national
programs wherever they might arise. And, if the Concert of Europe, founded
on Great Power diplomacy, included all the great powers, including the newly
reconstructed France, Great Britain, Russia, Prussia as well as Austria; he
worked towards the creation of a pan-European, pan-dynastic alliance that
would seek essentially to stamp out all national and democratic strivings
through the concerted action of the Christian dynastic empires of Austria,
Prussia and Russia.

22. The Holy Alliance

Till 1848

Austria (Roman Catholic), Prussia (Protestant) and Russia (Greek Orthodox)

Joined together against the idea of nationalism as radically different from

religious legitimacy

Anybody who attempted to spread the ideals of nationalism as the French did
with the revolution would attempt to stop as much as possible

alliance between Russia (greek-orthodox), Austria(catholic) and

Prussia(protestants)

three different kingdoms with three different kinds of Christianity join

together

fostered by Tsar Alexander I

created after ultimate defeat of Napoleon

wanted to prevent the ideology of nation-building from spreading to preserve

their position

prevention of more national states

Alexander I of Russias creation of the Holy Alliance between Austria,
Prussia and Russia, aimed at formulating a counter-weight to the ideal of
popular sovereignty, constitutional order and the nation-state that had been
established with such power in the course of the French Revolution. But, this
counterideal of the dynastic Christian state which brought together the
Protestant Prussian empire, the Catholic Habsburg empire and the Orthodox
Russian empire, was fundamentally a creation of the French Revolution itself.
In the eighteenth century, the various dynastic bureaucratic states had been
engaged in endless wars with one another, determined by the principle of the
balance of power. Now, these dynastic states joined together to fight, in
union, the establishment of the constitutional and national principle that
threatened their respective empires with dissolution. The Holy Alliance thus
put down respective revolutions in Italy (1820-1 and 1830), in Spain (18201823), delegated to the French to crush, and in Poland (1830-1), carried out by
the Russians themselves.

23. The 1848 Revolutions (Springtime of the Peoples)

series of politicalupheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It remains the most
widespread revolutionarywave in Europeanhistory, but within a year, reactionary forces had
regained control, and the revolutions collapsed.
essentially bourgeois-democratic in nature with the aim of removing the
old feudal structures and the creation of independent national states
The revolutionary wave began in France in February, and immediately spread to
most of Europe and parts of Latin America
The only significant lasting reforms were the abolition of serfdom in Austria and
Hungary, the end of absolute monarchy in Denmark, and the definitive end of
theCapetian monarchy in France
Marxists denounced 1848 as a betrayal of working-class ideals by a bourgeoisie
indifferent to the legitimate demands of the proletariat. For nationalists, 1848 was the
springtime of hope, when newly emerging nationalities rejected the old multinational
empires

50 countries were affected, but with no coordination or cooperation among the

revolutionaries in different countries. Five factors were involved: widespread
dissatisfaction with political leadership; demands for more participation in

government and democracy; demands for freedom of press; the demands of the
working classes; the upsurge of nationalism; and finally, the regrouping of the
reactionary forces based on the royalty, the aristocracy, the army, and the peasants
Unification from Above, Italy and Germany: If the creation of nation-states from
below had failed, it was the dynastic states themselves that in the next decades
finally embraced the principle of nationality, in an attempt to find some manner of
legitimacy for themselves, which it was now understood could only come from
the nation; in order to be able on a national basis to mobilize the population
economically and militarily; and, finally, to work against the rise of international
working-class identities. The liberals who had until this point worked towards
constitutional national orders from below and against the dynastic states now
joined this project of nationalization and managed democratization from above.
They too saw the nation as an economic unit and were equally afraid of workingclass internationalist identities and claims. Nationality thus moved, from having
been a revolutionary identity, to become the safest possible means of allowing for
mass participation in the political process. Meanwhile, the nation-state came to
Central Europe through the military action of the most powerful states in Germany
and Italy, working according to the principles of realpolitik, or blood and iron, as
Bismarck called it. Germany was unified in a series of wars fought by Prussia
against Denmark (1864), Austria (1866) and France (1870) leading to the
foundation of the German Empire in 1871. Italy was unified through wars against
Austria (1859) and Garibaldis militia activity leading to the defeat of Naples
(1860) that created the kingdom of Italy in 1861; followed by war against Austria
again, leading to the takeover of Venice (1866) and against France, adding the
Papal States to the new Italian nation-state (1870).

24. Bismarck and realpolitik

in Germany Realpolitik refers to realistic politics in opposition to idealistic
(unrealistic) politics.
era of 19th century Realpolitik policies were employed in response to the failed
revolutions of 1848, as means to strengthen states and tighten social order.
The most famous German advocate of Realpolitik was Otto von Bismarck, the
First Chancellor (18621890) to Wilhelm I of the Kingdom of Prussia.
Bismarck used Realpolitik in his quest to achieve Prussian dominance in Germany.
He manipulated political issues such as the Schleswig-Holstein Question and
the Hohenzollern candidature to antagonize other countries and cause wars if
necessary to attain his goals.
Such almost Machiavellian policies are characteristic of Bismarck, demonstrating a
pragmatic view of the "real" political world.
Another example was his willingness to adopt some social policies of the "liberals"
such as employee insurance and pensions; in doing so, he used small changes from

the top down to avoid the possibility of major change from the bottom up. Likewise
Prussia's seemingly illogical move of not demanding territory from a defeated Austria,
a move that later led to the unification of Germany, is an oft-cited example
of Realpolitik

25. The Age of Empire (or the imperial nation-state)

The Age of Empire the idea that without political control over territory, future
economic development would be doomed in a world of global competition and
proliferating protective trade barriers. This dynamic led to increasing tension
between the German Empire and Britain.
The market was now an increasingly global one, meaning based on global
competition. The test of sovereignty became thus the capacity in fact to impose
trade barriers to protect oneself from ruinous global competition. Meanwhile, the
attempt to carve out territories one could put behind ones own protectionist
barriers led to the bonanza to build vast European empires amongst the European
nation-states in the last decades before WWI.
Weak states, like the Ottomans and the Persians, were meanwhile forced by
European powers to agree to essentially open economic borders at the very time
they fought hard to modernize their militaries and bureaucracies, for which they
borrowed large sums from Europe.
The test of sovereignty became thus the capacity in fact to impose trade barriers to
protect oneself from ruinous global competition.

26. Lenin on Monopoly Capitalism (Imperialism as the Last Stage of

Capitalism)
ladimir Lenin exposes all of his well-built opinions on modern capitalism in
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. He describes the capitalism present in
1917 as monopoly capitalism; a stage in which economic power is held by a few
individuals in the society, and more globally by a few world powers such as Great
Britain, Germany, Franc; which started in different places by different means. For
example in Germany with cartels, and in Great Britain through free-competition in the
market. Such stage is considered a transformation (3); and Lenin exposes that such
world powers are able to have control over the economy due to their colonies; in
addition to the change in production.
In monopoly capitalism, the concentration of production, along with capital, increased
to the point in which monopolies determine important decisions in economic life and
the world is then divided amongst monopolies in the market (43-44), he even says that
due to monopoly capitalism, capitalism itself transitions into imperialism (44).
The type of capitalism that existed before monopoly capitalism was that in which
there existed free competition between manufacturers (10), and unlike monopoly
capitalism, where all monopolists know where to extract raw resources as well as

acquire labor in their best interest, manufacturers were also scattered and out of
touch with one another, and producing for an unknown market (10). This also
implies the creation of a new world market.
He also refers to progress in the socialization of production(10), he claims that
there no longer [exists]... competition between small and large, between technically
developed and backward enterprises (11-12), and he also points out that in monopoly
capitalism technical advance and innovation of the aforementioned also becomes
socialized. In this monopoly the sources of materials also extends from the home
country of the manufacturer, to also the colonies. Big powers then, possess the
knowledge of the work force available as well as the raw materials available in all
colonies, and they take advantage of it; even skilled labor is monopolized. Lenin also
claims that overall the small enterprises must submit to the monopolies, and that
private property belongs to the few; and that overall a new social order was created.
Due to this transformation in the way capitalism works, Lenin considers this new
pattern of capitalism as a higher stage. Firstly, it allowed for the recovery of private
industries which were on the verge of bankruptcy (24); secondly there is a huge shift
in the way market works, and at the same time trade, and economical growth acquires
a new kind of importance in the world. It is a higher stage in which production is
socialized and is moving to a controlled market.
Lenin points out however, that monopoly capitalism turns into imperialism. He
describes it as a stage in which monopolies have set their place in the world market
and have established dominance, and more importantly a stage in which the world is
divided among world powers; according to Lenin all areas in the world are taken over
by the largest capitalists powers (43).
He believes that monopoly capitalism and imperialism go hand in hand; because
world powers take advantage of their colonies by trading with them or using them for
labor, and he underlines that the world is completely divided up, so that in the future
only redivision is possible (29). With this claim he implies that this division is part of
the last stage of capitalism, and that colonies are tools that enable monopolies in
capitalism by the colonizers. The colonizers take advantage of the colonies for
economic growth and thus making imperialism and capitalism closely related to each
other.
Additionally, according to Lenin, countries will always be under the control of certain
world powers. Lenin claims that as capitalism develops and evolves, raw materials
decrease, and that increases the demand; which then leads to the need for the
acquisition of colonies (29), and thus the increase in imperialism. With the same
claim, he implies this is the final stage of capitalism; and it simply has to do with the
fact that once dominance is acquired, and a system is created it becomes difficult to
change the system, thus making imperialism the final stage. To add to that,
economically world powers would not let go of power over the colonies which offer
cheap labor as well as cheap raw materials. Imperialism emerged as the development
and direct continuation of the fundamental characteristics of capitalism in general, its
transformation into its opposite makes the transition of stages stronger.
27. The British Occupation of Egypt
1882- Through such a dynamic of uneven trade and borrowing, Egypt too, which
had assumed political autonomy within the Ottoman Empire through the rule of

Muhammad Ali (r. 1805-1849), reached a state of bankruptcy by 1876. Part of

Egypts great debt, accumulated under the Khedive Ismail Pasha (known as
Ismail the Magnificent), had in fact been due to modernizing projects like the
opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. However, the difficult situation of Egyptian
finances had led the Khedive to sell more and more shares also in such endeavors.
In 1876, the British and the French imposed financial controls over the Egyptian
state and economy. In 1879, this foreign control led to a military revolt by the
Egyptian officer, Urabi Pasha, who sought to create an autonomous parliamentary
government in Egypt controlled by Egyptians themselves. Fearing for their
finances and even more the independent control of the Suez corridor to India, the
British defeated Urabi and occupied Egypt in 1882.

28. The Scramble for Africa

(1884-1914): the so-called scramble for Africa set off by the Berlin Conference
of 1884-5 remains the most evocative symbol of the Age of Empire: in the last
decades before WWI, the European powers went from having occupied only
around 10% of African land in the 1870s to taking over virtually the whole
continent (except for Ethiopia) by the outbreak of the war. It was the attempt of
the King of Belgium, Leopold II, to take over control of the Congo Basin and the
rival claims of other powers that had led to the formation of the Berlin Conference
and the formal partition of Africa. The Congo Basin was in fact given over to
Leopold as his private territory, with the understanding that all powers would have
open economic access to it. Over the next twenty years, up to one half of the
population here died from disease as well as the harsh conditions imposed for
rubber extraction. Elsewhere, the partition proved a source of tension between
imperial powers like Britain, who sought to create a continuous empire from
South Africa to Cairo, and the French, who sought to create a continuous empire
from West to East Africa. Above all, the new interest taken by Germany in African
affairs by the beginning of the twentieth century signaled its new policy of
Weltpolitik. It attempted thereby to match its new economic power with an equal
role on the world stage. This effort and the British reaction to it would become
one of the sparks leading to WWI. Germany overtakes Britain in industrial
production by WWI. German industrial exports grow from under one half of
Britains in 1883 to a figure larger than that of Europe in 1913.
29. The Triple Entente
The Germans and the British were contesting the problem of world supremacy in
a globalized world in which economic and political strength were seen as
increasingly fused. The Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires were feuding over
the Balkans, in the wake of the dissolution of Ottoman power there and the break
out of separatist nationalisms within their own borders. The British and the
Germans fought to extend the empire by military or economic means. The
Russians and Austro-Hungarians struggled to maintain their multi-national
empires from nationalist dissolution. These two sets of tensions led to the creation
of two opposed military blocs in Europe, military alliances that set off a chain
leading to the outbreak of WWI. In 1879 the Germans and AustroHungarians had
signed the Dual Alliance, which had been joined by the Italians in 1882. In 1894,

the Russians and French had come together; in 1904, the British and the French;
in 1907, the British and the Russians. Hence, the British, in a matter of a few years
had put aside their traditional imperial rivalry with the French and the Russians to
create the Triple Entente in their bed to contain Germany. The assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Habsburg throne, on June 28, 1914, by
Serbian nationalists fighting to add Serb populated areas in empire to the Serb
nation-state, led within five weeks to the mutual declaration of war by the
members of the two blocs against one another; what we know as WWI and was
called the Great War in its own time.
30. World War One
Causes: Britain and Germany: clear eco. Powers in Europe but Britain had
decreased in terms of industrialization in relation to Germany. However, Britain
had more money than Germany, and it was the first country in export of capital.
Raw economic power (control of pop. All around the world)
In terms of power it was global or not power at all.
Britain: were the dominant until the Germans came.
Bismarck made alliance with the Austrian-Hungarian Empire then also with the
Russians (the goal was to isolate France). But then the treaty with Russia lapses,
Then the triple Alliance (Austria-Hungary) in 1882. Bur all alliances on 1894French broke isolation and made alliances with the Russians so then there were 2
blocs. Britain made treaties with the Russians and then the French which supplied
power to Germany.
Germany was officially blamed: end of the 19th century weltpolitik; they wanted
recognition as a world power which is why they strengthened their army and
Britain felt threatened.
Austria-Hungary: not a nation state until 1914: started because the serbs were
trying to break their power like Ottoman Empire, Serbs wanted their own state
leading to Archiduke Franz Ferdinand, next emperor to be shot (June 22 1914) so
they felt threatened, and Germany gives them a blank check so that A-H can
attack and confirm their power. But Russians didnt want the serbians to lose their
power and the two sides become willing to fight each other leading to a war
between the two blocs, everyone already had strategic plans on how.
4 Blocs: the fact that blocs existed in the first decade of the 20th century; every
crisis that came was a test for loyalty Germany + IDK gave blank checks
because they were afraid of losing their allies.
Around 1/3 of the world was involved in WWI, essentially the world was annexed
or connected to the US, France, Germany, Great Britain, at the exception of China
and Persia.
Europe was 25% of the world population.
Age of Progress technologically: there was power over nature.

The first war of common people: all society; breaking the will of the other side to
fight: genocidal way of thinking (First modern genocide in the context of the
empire)
Trench Warfare: lives essentially stayed the same.

31. The Bolshevik Revolution

Russia in 1917
When Tsar Nicholas II dragged 11 million peasants into World War I, the Russian
people became discouraged with their injuries and the loss of life they sustained. The
country of Russia was in ruins, ripe for revolution.
provisional Government was opposed right away by the soviets, or councils of
workers and peasants, who wanted the right to make their own decisions.
V. I. Lenin arrived from exile in the spring of 1917, he joined the Bolshevik Party in
Russia whose goal was to overthrow the Provisional Government and set up a
government for the proletariat. civilians ask for land the Provisional Government
refused to distribute the land fairly,
the peasants took matters into their own hands by taking the land themselves.
The Bolshevik party convinced them to seize power and land for themselves.
In July 1917, the workers challenged the Provisional Government and ended up
defeated,
the Provisional Government ordered a big war offensive that ended up in ruin.
the soldiers of the Provisional Government began to support the workers.
ra pro-czar section of the military threatened Petrograd, which was the city occupied
by the Bolsheviks and the Provisional Government.
The Bolsheviks had established themselves as the only party which stood in
opposition to continuing the war effort.
The Bolshevik workers had to unite and fight as one against the military.
Now that the Bolsheviks had the support of the workers, they were able to win the
important
By the middle of September, the Bolsheviks had formally acquired a majority in the
St. Petersburg Soviet.
In early October, Lenin convinced the Bolshevik Party to form an immediate
insurrection against the Provisional Government.
The Provisional Government had officially fallen to the Bolshevik regime. Once the
word came to the rest of the people that the Winter Palace had been taken, people
from all over rose and filled it. V. I. Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks, announced
his attempt to construct the socialist order in Russia.
This new government made up of Soviets, and led by the Bolsheviks. By early
November, there was little doubt that the proletariats backed the Bolshevik motto:
"All power to the soviets!"

32. Wilsons Fourteen Points

the most far-reaching impact of WWI was the collapse, by its end, of Europes last
three great multi-national empires: the Russian, the Ottoman and the AustroHungarian. President Wilson of the United States, who in April 1917 had brought
his country into the war on the British and French side, as he put it, to make the
world safe for democracy and thus to fight the war to end all wars, put forth
the plan for a new world order at the end of the war. The principle of national selfdetermination was now to be the normative model of political organization not
only for the few European imperial nation-states who could assert themselves by
military force, but more generally for Eastern Europe and even the world at large.
Wilson demanded simultaneously a more transparent diplomacy (the prohibition
of the secret treaties that it was thought had led to the war), free trade and free
access to the waterways of the world as well as a system, the League of Nations,
through which all would participate in guaranteeing their collective security. But,
if the Wilsonian ideal now projected the idea of national self-determination and
the nation-state as a global norm, it was an ideal hampered from the start by
massive contradictions and obstacles that prevented its sustained realization. For
one, it was proposed above all as a counter-ideal to the new internationalist
communist state of the Soviet Union that had displaced the Russian Empire.
Second, the notion of a League of Nations, by which the nations of the world,
weak and strong, might collectively guarantee one anothers security did not
emerge as a credible institution, not least because the U.S. Senate refused to
accept it and because the United States stepped away politically and militarily
from Europe in the interwar years. Moreover, since the Soviet Union and the new
German republic also were not envisioned as participants to begin withthe
institution was ranged against them!it ironically was left to the old imperial
nation-states of Britain and France and the squabbling new nation-states of
Eastern Europe to make it work. Both groups, in their own ways, made a mockery
of the idea of national self-determination, either by continuing with their old
imperial ways or by making the idea of the nation-state in an Eastern Europe of
large separatist, rather than assimilationist, national minorities seem completely
unworkable.
33. The Treaty of Versailles
. 28 June 1919,

one of the peacetreaties at the end of WorldWarI.

It ended the stateofwar between Germany and theAlliedPowers

required "Germany [to] accept the responsibility of Germany and her allies for
causing all the loss and damage" during the

became known as the War Guilt clause.

The treaty forced Germany to disarm, make substantial

territorial concessions, and pay reparations to certain countries that had
formed the Entente powers

In 1921 the total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion Marks

The result of these competing and sometimes conflicting goals among the
victors was a compromise that left none contented: Germany was
not pacified or conciliated, nor permanently weakened.

The problems that arose from the treaty would lead to the Locarno
Treaties, which improved relations between Germany and the other
European Powers, and the renegotiation of the reparation system resulting in
the Dawes Plan,

34. The Rise of Fascism

Three factors above all allowed for the rise of Fascism in the interwar years: the
weakness of the new (minority ridden) nation-states in Eastern Europe and even
the victorious western ones that emerged from the war; the failures of the peace
settlement at Paris in 1919, which set out to punish, isolate and weaken Germany,
in a context where European recovery could have only come alongside German
recovery, given not least the expectations of massive German reparations to pay
off the loans borrowed by the Allies from the U.S.; and, the split within the left
between the Communist international run directly from Moscow and the old
(Marxist) social democratic parties, committed to working through the system
rather than fomenting revolution against it. In the context of massive labor unrest
after the war and the inability of the parties of the left to provide a fully coherent
outlet for itone side working to turn it into revolution, the other into votes
groups of demobilized soldiers from the front banded into vigilante militias that
set the scene for the rise of the Fascist movement. Mussolini first created and
branded the fascist movement and party in Italy. His blackshirt militias took it
upon themselves to establish law and order by beating up Communists and
ending factory unrest. Parliamentary forces, even if not ecstatic about such extralegal thuggery, approved of its being directed against Communists. In October
1922, Mussolinis militia marched on Rome and the elected cabinet could not get
the king to declare martial law to maintain parliamentary government. Instead
Mussolini became the premier and consolidated dictatorial rule over Italy over the
next few years. Fascist movements everywhere adopted comparable tactics: they
acted as vigilantes outside the law, in the name of law and order; they
participated in democratic processes and came to power through respectable and
superficially democratic procedures (marred by their own vigilantism), but in
order to subvert democracy. Their experience of the war remained for the fascists
their model of what life should be and how society should function. They were not
conservatives, in that they were committed to modern mass society and its
capacity for total war. What they wanted was a society that would function as
though it was in a permanent state of total war. There would be no individual
prerogatives, as in liberalism, and no class-divisions, to be exploited for
international solidarity. The nation, as one uniform mass, pruning itself of all those
elements that might weaken its strength and unity, was the Fascist program and
goal. But, if the aftermath of WWI sufficed for the rise of the Fascist movement in
Europe and its triumph in Italy, it took the Great Depression of 1929 to allow for
its triumph in Germany

35. Anti-Semitism versus Anti-Judaism

The Nazis, under Adolf Hitler, came to power in 1933, and added a vehement
racialist ideology to Fascist national socialism: the enemy of the Aryan race
were said to be the Judeo-Bolsheviks, the international Jewish race, responsible
within Europe for all the internationalist ails of modernity (capitalism and
socialism) and the Bolshevik Communist state, on the outside, in the Eastern lands
destined for Aryan rule.
Anti-Judaism "a total or partial opposition to Judaism and to Jews as adherents
of it by persons who accept a competing system of beliefs and practices and
consider certain genuine Judaic beliefs and practices as inferior."[1]
Anti-Judaism based on religious beliefs and practices is often distinguished
from antisemitism, which is based upon racial or ethnic prejudice.
Anti-Judaism :we have replaced you as the true Chosen People
(supersessionism/replacement theology).
anti-Judaism is a compulsive discourse of superiority that needs to see and feel the
domination over Jews in order to be satisfied, a religious imperialism.
aanti-Semitism expresses a deeper paranoia. People drawn to this kind of discourse
feel that the very existence of the Jews threatens us with annihilation: exterminate
them or be destroyed ourselves. In order for us to breathe, you must be eliminated.
antitends to see Jews as at once super-human (maintaining vast conspiracies over
millennia, supernatural figures of evil like the devil, the Antichrist, the Dajjal), and
sub-human (vermin, bacteria, apes, pigs).

36. Arendt on the Stateless and the Decline of the Nation-state

there were people with no home country. Arendt highlights this fact as one of the
essential reasons for the decline of the nation-state. The stateless minorities were
created when nation-states became exclusive, meaning associated with ethnicity,
language and culture. Before, nations included whomever was within the territory, but
by the time World War I takes place, this is no longer the case; the heterogeneity
found in each European nation-state was no longer desirable, leaving all of the
minorities that were culturally different to be nationless, because they do not match
the profile of the majority. As Arendt points out, the transformation of the state from
an instrument
of the law into an instrument of the nation had been completed; the nation had
conquered the state, national interest had priority over law (275), and the national
interest was for all minorities to disappear of the nation-state. Essentially no country
welcomed these minorities, they could not fit in anywhere. An example given by
Arendt are the Jews who were a minority in several countries, but still had no rights.
This all implies the decline of the nation-state, because when the precarious balance
between nation and state, between national interest and legal institutions broke down,
the disintegration of this form of government and of organization of peoples came
about with terrifying swiftness (275). Nation-states were created as a form of

legitimacy for rulers, then evolved into a system of organization of peoples, but when
it became exclusive and easily-manipulated by the ruler, it defeated the purpose of the
nation-state; the people no longer had the voice, it was the leaders who set their goals
according to their own agenda.
37. Totalitarianism
New form of government, everybody becomes a population defending laws of the
state, people are merely humans.the state holds total authority over the society and
seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever possible.
38. The Nuremberg Laws
1935 were antisemitic laws in NaziGermany introduced at the annual NurembergRally of
the NaziParty. After the takeoverofpowerin1933 by Hitler, Nazism became an official
ideology incorporating antisemitism as a form of scientificracism.
The Nuremberg Laws classified people with four German grandparents as "German or
kindred blood", while people were classified as Jews if they descended from three or
four Jewish grandparents
These laws deprived Jews and other non-Aryans of German citizenship and
prohibited racially mixed sexual relations and marriages between Germans and Jews
On 26 November 1935, the laws were extended to "Gypsies, Negroes or their bastard
offspring".[4][5]
These laws were both an attempt to return the Jews of 20th-century Germany to the
position that Jews had held before their emancipation in the 19th century; although in
the 19th century Jews could have evaded restrictions by converting, this was no
longer possible.
The laws were a legal embodiment of an already existing Nazi boycott of Jewish
businesses.

39. Appeasement
Once Hitler came to power, the road to WWII was paved with what came to be
called appeasement, namely, the attempt by the Western powers, above all
British and France, to accommodate Hitlers insatiable expansionism rather than
risk war. In 1935, Hitler began to rearm and, in 1936, militarized the Rhineland,
both against the conventions of the Treaty of Versailles. In March 1938, he
annexed Austria. In September 1938 the British and the French colluded in giving
him the German populated Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, to prevent war. The
British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain told the British public that he had
thus brought peace for our time. But, in March 1939, Hitler took effective
control of the rest of Czechoslovakia and then made a bid for Polish territory.

World War II began with his invasion of Poland on Sep. 1, 1939. The reasons for
British and French appeasement were complex. First, liberal democracy, was on
the defensive throughout Europe, the vast majority of whose governments were by
the eve of the second world war (17 out of 27), on some continuum from
authoritarian and military dictatorship to outright Fascism. In this context, the
British and the French committed themselves to maintaining themselves through
defensive actions that would prevent another war. Second, the British and French
probably hoped that by feeding Hitlers eastern ambitions, they would bring him
into collision with the Soviet Union. If liberalism was on the defensive, the fight
for the future was being fought by Communists versus Fascists, and it was hoped
by some liberals that these two forces could be brought into open conflict that
would exhaust both of them. The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August
1939 defeated such western hopes; the Nazis and Soviets were not stupid enough
to play along and instead secretly divided up Poland between themselves. At the
start of WWII, Britain and France found themselves confronting Germany and
eventually the Axis powers (Germany and Italy) alone.
40. WWII and the Holocaust
Holocaust: genocide of jews by the nazi party.
Jews were outsiders in Christian society, they are the only really large minority
outside of the normal organized way.
Rivalry because mere existence denied the Christian faith; although some such as
St. Augustine, regarded them as witnesses for when christ comes for the second
time,
Throughout history: massive expulsions of jews, weird myths about them.
When the nation came, they began to be seen as a race rather than a religion. They
tried to be expelled east, but because the Nazis were occupying more territory in
that direction then they began fusillading them which demoralized people, they
tried to come up with other solutions but they considered this one the most
feasible. They were doing that stuff to the handicapped untl the church intervened,
so they just used the same tools but for jews.
Differences in ideology lead to WWII.

41. The Yalta Conference

At this crucial conference in Yalta in Feb. 1945, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt,
planned the post-war world order. Plans were made for the formation of a United
Nations that would include a security chamber in which the great powers would
work with one another to assure collective security. It was agreed that Germany
would be partitioned into four zones (occupied by the Americans, Soviets, the
British and, at British insistence, also by the newly reconstructed French); the
same would happen with Berlin. The initial plan for Germany (the Morgenthau
plan of 1944, named after the US Secretary of State) had been to completely de-

industrialize Germany and turn it into an agricultural country. This did not happen,
but large reparations, half of which would go to the Soviet Union, were agreed
upon. Roosevelt and Churchill pressed Stalin also to agree to elections and
democratic governance in the Eastern European territory that had already come or
was coming under the control of the Red Army in its march to Berlin. Stalin
insisted on states that would be friendly to the Soviet Union, but agreed also to
representative governments. Stalin would initially allow for the emergence of such
popular front type governments in Eastern Europe, in which all non-Fascist
political forces might participate. But, in the emerging context of the Cold War,
direct Soviet control through local Communist parties was effected by the end of
1948 (except in Titos Yugoslavia, which, as a result, broke with the Soviet Union)
42. The Cold War
The Cuban Missile Crisis: Castro overthrew the Batista dictatorship in Cuba in
1959; but, here too, an independent nationalism was prompted to move towards
the left and in this case outright inclusion in the Communist bloc, because of the
unfriendly attitude of the United States towards it. In fact, the United States
spearheaded an abortive Bay of Pigs coup in Cuba in 1961. In 1962, in the
Cuban Missile Crisis, the world came the closest it has probably ever been to fullscale global nuclear confrontation by two nuclear great powers. The Soviets,
protesting the installation of nuclear weapons in Turkey, tried to do the same in
Cuba. Eventually, both sides backed down. The preparatory missile installations in
Cuba were taken away as were those of the United States in Turkey.

43. The Marshall Plan

in the aftermath of WWII, the United States confronted what seemed at the time a
highly worrisome situation in Western Europe. The Communist parties here (i.e.
France, Italy, etc.) received large percentages of the vote and sometimes formed
the largest party. This was because of the almost singular role they had played in
anti-Nazi resistance during the war, which made them broadly popular in
collaborationist countries like France or former fascist ones like Italy that now
wanted to put on the banner of resistance. Moreover, the massive economic
dislocations that resulted from the war and the general collapse it had induced
brought again into view the specter of what had happened after WWI, with the
difference that tightly organized Communist parties were now positioned to
benefit from such misery. This time around the United States committed itself
absolutely to the welfare of Western Europe, to the point of backing the imperial
claims of its Allies (notwithstanding its own global nationalist rhetoric of
selfdetermination) to prevent the destabilization of Western European
governments. In 1947, the U.S. poured 74 billion in the form of grants into the
Western European economy, which over the next decade facilitated an economic
miracle with massive growth in the economies of West Germany, France and
Italy. The Marshall funds both got European economies back on their feet and
boosted the American exports bought by Europeans.

44. NATO and the Warsaw Pact

NATO: in 1949, the Western European Allied states (Britain, France, Italy, etc.),
alongside the United States and Canada formed the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization, as a military alliance ranged against the Eastern Soviet bloc. In
1952, Greece and Turkey came into the alliance. In 1955, West Germany was
included, as the Western Allies ended their formal occupation of West German soil
(the West Germans, however, were not allowed to develop nuclear weapons). The
Warsaw Pact: in 1955, the Eastern Bloc states formed a comparable security
agreement with one another, named the Warsaw Pact.

45. Mossadegh and the Nationalization of Iranian Oil

in 1951, Mohammad Mossadegh, the prime minister of Iran, nationalized Iranian
oil. The Allies, in WWII, had essentially taken over Iranian territory. They forced
the Pahlavi monarch, Reza Shah, whose attempts at greater autonomy against the
British had moved him to pro-Axis sympathies and Aryanist ideologies, to
abdicate in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Shah. However, the emboldened
Iranian parliament, in the aftermath of the world war, continued the bid for local
control of the economy. The British who had first received the oil concession from
the Iranian government in 1901 (the DArcy Concession) and first struck oil in the
Middle East in 1908 were not willing to change the terms of the latest oil treaty
they had signed with Reza Shah. According to this treaty, the Anglo-Iranian oil
company would be able to exploit Iranian oil until 1993, giving around 17 percent
of the proceeds to the Iranian government. Mossadegh fought for a 50-50 split like
that, which had recently been worked out with Saudi Arabia. Failing in this
endeavor, he nationalized Iranian oil. The British blockaded Iran, which helped
destabilize the Iranian economy and led to the strengthening of the Iranian
Communist party (Tudeh, meaning the masses). The British then ultimately
convinced the United States to intervene. In a CIA organized coup, code-named
Operation Ajax, Mossadegh was removed and the Shah returned from his selfimposed exile back to the country. The incident is important in that it shows that
in the context of the developing and decolonizing world, the United States came to
see local nationalist movements through the prism of Communist take over. And,
it thus moved in to fill in the interests and space of the old imperial powers,
Britain and France, in these areas. Hence, Third World nationalisms as a result
also moved increasingly towards the adoption of Marxist language and categories
to formulate what were essentially demands for national autonomy and control.
Hence, the nation-state ironically was consolidated as a global norm in the world
at large often through the use of an internationalist Marxist vocabulary.
46. The Vietnam War
The series of wars in Vietnam first fought by Ho Chi Minh against the French and
then by North Vietnam and the Communist forces in South Vietnam (the
Vietcong) against the United states and the South Vietnam government are a
perfect example of the dynamic that led the Americans to fight decolonizing
nationalism in the name of anti-Communism. Ho Chi Minh defeated the
French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. But, as against the stipulations of the Geneva

accords, that concluded this war, no elections took place in Vietnam to decide the
fate of the country after it had provisionally been split into a North Vietnamese
and South Vietnamese half. The rulers of South Vietnam refused to allow for
elections and the U.S. backed the never popular South Vietnamese government.
From 1964, using the half fabricated accusation of North Vietnamese aggression
against its forces in the Gulf of Tonkin, the U.S. became directly involved and had
more than 500,000 troops in Vietnam by 1968. Close to 50,000 American troops
died in the war and the US government threw a larger tonnage of bombs on
Vietnam than it had in all of WWII. But, by 1975, the US had moved out of the
war and the South Vietnamese government in Saigon fell. Here too, the U.S. had
taken over the mantle of French imperial power to fight the spread of
Communism, which, in this context, was in fact a byword for nationalism. Ho
Chi Minh had in fact cited the American declaration of Independence as an
inspiration of his own work.
47. Algerian Independence
while it is often said that the imperialist powers simply let go of their colonies
after WWII, Algeria gives the lie to such statements. In this case, the French
believed Algeria to be an integral part of France, a departement like any other.
Of the 9 million people in Algeria in 1954, one million were French. Hence, the
war fought by the FLN (the National Liberation Front) to decolonize Algeria
turned unconscionably brutal and bloody, with widespread use of torture by both
sides. The war led to a military coup by French forces in Algeria (1958) that
threatened the republic in France itself. Charles De Gaulle came to power in 1958,
promising to win the war and replacing the fourth republic with a new fifth
republic, with much greater power for the president. In fact, by 1961, De Gaulle
himself thought the war was not winnable and Algeria became independent in
1962. In these years, France and Britain did largely dissolve their colonies in the
African continent. With the exception of the Portuguese colonies (Mozambique
and Angola) and the white settler colonies in todays Zimbabwe and South Africa,
that had broken away from British control to create their own race based
republics, the African continent was decolonized by the end of the 1960s. But,
decolonization was only the beginning of the problem of building viable states and
societies in these regions. For, the imperial powers had built their empires and
divided up their colonial territories with no regard to the linguistic and ethnic
divisions within them (in fact, ethnic and linguistic division was a plus to the
extent that it made the imperial power indispensable as a broker). Hence, what
most of the new nations of Africa had in common was the colonial experience
itself and the colonial language and administration. A nationalization project thus
began comparable to those nationalization projects in nineteenth century Europe
that sought to bring often quite disparate peoples together into one nation, this
time ironically on the basis of an imported Western model and language. The
flip side of this reality was the contradictory growth and pronouncement of
nativist ideologies that painted all things Western as a scourge.
48. The Treaty of Rome
In 1957, these same countries signed the treaty of Rome, which created the
European Economic Community and put the continent on the path to political as
well as economic integration. The Maastricht treaty that came into effect in 1993

formally created the European Union; in 2002, the euro currency was adopted
amongst twelve of the European Union members and eventually extended to
seventeen. The Eastern European states in the Soviet Bloc were mostly integrated
in the first decade of the twenty first century. Croatia is the latest member and
negotiations are ongoing with the other parts of former Yugoslavia as well as
rather laconically with Turkey.
49. The Civilian State
the Cold War dynamic had acted to bring Western European states increasingly
together; rather than competing militarily and economically, they came to view
their welfare as based on collective mechanisms, backed by the United States, and
on economic integration, allowing them to trade freely amongst themselves and to
compete globally as one unit. Economic welfare came to displace military
competition and supremacy as the fundamental goals of European states and, as a
result, not only did the imperial nation-state dissolve. The civilian nation-state
that emerged embraced a project of ever greater political as well as economic
integration on the European continent. The imperial equation between economic
and political security (or economic and political growth), was overcome.
Ironically, given Western Europe had been welded together in opposition to the
internationalist Communist order in the East, the dropping away of the imperial
logic and the military imperative led to the creation of Europe as an international
political order of nation-states that embraced a post-national order. In 1952, the
European Steel and Coal Community began such integration on the economic
level by coordinating the production and use of coal and steel across France, West
Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries. In 1957, these same countries signed
the treaty of Rome, which created the European Economic Community and put
the continent on the path to political as well as economic integration. The
Maastricht treaty that came into effect in 1993 formally created the European
Union; in 2002, the euro currency was adopted amongst twelve of the European
Union members and eventually extended to seventeen. The Eastern European
states in the Soviet Bloc were mostly integrated in the first decade of the twenty
first century. Croatia is the latest member and negotiations are ongoing with the
other parts of former Yugoslavia as well as rather laconically with Turkey.
50. The Islamic Revolution of Iran
Another aspect of the post-national world order today is clearly the expansion of
Islamist movements and ideologies throughout the Islamic world. In the Middle
East especially, nationalism and the nation-state never became a means for the
participation of the masses in the political process, as they had in Europe. Hence,
outside of mostly western educated political and economic elites, the masses of
the population stayed essentially within traditional Islamic frameworks and
mentalities. The rise of Islamist movements in this context is itself a sign of the
growing political participation of the masses in these countries. Such participation
has, namely, occurred within the language not of nationality but the supernational one of Islam and its traditions. However, it is simply wrong to think that
this means some kind of regress into tradition and conservatism, for the use that is
accordingly being made of Islam in this context is something radically new and
is thoroughly changing what Islam means. In the Protestant Reformation,
Christianity was taken out of the hands of the Catholic Church and became a

means of thinking about everyday social conflicts and realities. This is essentially
what is today also happening with Islam; hence, Islam is being revolutionized
through the role it is playing in the politicization of the masses of the people. In
1979, the Islamic Revolution in Iran created the first Islamic Republic with
forms and institutions never seen before in Islamic history. It was also the first
social revolution in world history that had not derived directly from the legacy of
the Enlightenment (which encompassed both liberalism and Marxism). From that
point onwards, the question of what the political role of Islam will be in the
states of the Middle East has become the dominant one as people here have sought
to achieve greater cultural as well as political autonomy. The other face of such
movements has been Islamic inspired terrorist networks, reflecting the wide
spread perception of peoples in the Middle East of a lack of political and cultural
autonomy, justifying the use of terror.
51. Fukuyama versus Huntington on the Meaning of the End of the Cold
War (for U.S. Foreign Policy)
Fukuyama argues that every country will become a western-based democracy; and
there will be no conflict amongst each other but there will still be small scale
ethnic, religious, and nationalist conflicts and that terrorism will still be on the
international agenda.
Huntington argues that there will be cultural conflicts amongst peoples and
essentially that not every state will be a democracy, but rather that people need to
adjust and understand different cultures; and that there will be conflict until
everyone recognizes the differences amongst peoples and states.