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t h i r d e d i t i o n

The Making
of the West
P E O P L E S A N D C U LT U R E S
For Bedford/St. Martin’s

Executive Editor for History: Mary Dougherty


Director of Development for History: Jane Knetzger
Senior Developmental Editor: Heidi L. Hood
Senior Production Editor: Karen S. Baart
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Executive Marketing Manager: Jenna Bookin Barry
Editorial Assistants: Lindsay DiGianvittorio and Katherine Flynn
Production Associate: Lindsay DiGianvittorio
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Page Layout: Boynton Hue Studio
Photo Research: Gillian Speeth
Indexer: Leoni Z. McVey & Associates, Inc.
Cover Design: Donna Lee Dennison
Cover Art: Joseph Vernet, Inner Port of Marseilles, France, 1754, from the series of Ports of France
commissioned by Louis XV. © Musée National de la Marine/P. Dantec.
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President: Joan E. Feinberg


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Library of Congress Control Number: 2007927405

Copyright © 2009 by Bedford/St. Martin’s

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ISBN-10: 0–312–45294–2 ISBN-13: 978–0–312–45294–0 (combined edition)


ISBN-10: 0–312–45295–0 ISBN-13: 978–0–312–45295–7 (Vol. I)
ISBN-10: 0–312–45296–9 ISBN-13: 978–0–312–45296–4 (Vol. II)
ISBN-10: 0–312–46508–4 ISBN-13: 978–0–312–46508–7 (Vol. A)
ISBN-10: 0–312–46509–2 ISBN-13: 978–0–312–46509–4 (Vol. B)
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Acknowledgments: Acknowledgments and copyrights are printed at the back of the book on pages
C-1–C-3, which constitute an extension of the copyright page. It is a violation of the law to reproduce
these selections by any means whatsoever without the written permission of the copyright holder.
t h i r d e d i t i o n

The Making
of the West
P E O P L E S A N D C U LT U R E S

Lynn Hunt
University of California, Los Angeles

Thomas R. Martin
College of the Holy Cross

Barbara H. Rosenwein
Loyola University Chicago

R. Po-chia Hsia
Pennsylvania State University

Bonnie G. Smith
Rutgers University

B ED F O R D / ST. MA R T I N ’ S
Boston ■ New York
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Preface

WHEN A BOOK GOES INTO its third edition, authors feel a solid chronological framework, one with enough
affirmed but also encouraged to do even better. In- familiar benchmarks to make the material easy
structors who have read and used our book con- to grasp. Each chapter treats all the main events,
firmed that the new synthesis we offered in the first people, and themes of a period in which the West
and second editions enabled them to bring the most significantly changed; thus, students learn about po-
current conceptualizations of the West into their litical events and social and cultural developments
classroom. From the start, our goal has been to create as they unfolded. This chronological integration
a text that demonstrates that the history of the West also accords with our belief that it is important,
is the story of an ongoing process, not a finished re- above all else, for students to see the interconnec-
sult with only one fixed meaning. We wanted also tions among varieties of historical experience —
to make clear that there is no one Western people between politics and cultures, between public
or culture that has existed from the beginning until events and private experiences, between wars and
now. Instead, the history of the West includes many diplomacy and everyday life. Our chronological
different peoples and cultures. To convey these ideas, synthesis provides a unique benefit to students: it
we have written a sustained story of the West’s devel- makes these relationships clear while highlighting
opment in a broad, global context that reveals the the major changes of each age. For teachers, our
cross-cultural interactions fundamental to the shap- chronological approach ensures a balanced
ing of Western politics, societies, cultures, and account and provides the opportunity to present
economies. Indeed, the first chapter opens with a sec- themes within their greater context. But perhaps
tion on the origins and contested meaning of Western best of all, this approach provides a text that
civilization. In this conversation, we emphasize our reveals history as a process that is constantly alive,
theme of cultural borrowing between the peoples of subject to pressures, and able to surprise us.
Europe and their neighbors that has characterized Despite gratifying praise from the many re-
Western civilization from the beginning. Continu- viewers who helped shape this edition, we felt we
ing this approach in subsequent chapters, we have could do even more to help students and instruc-
insisted on an expanded vision of the West that in- tors. First, we have further highlighted thematic
cludes the United States and fully incorporates eastern coverage to help students discern major develop-
Europe and Scandinavia. Through the depth and ments. The most extensive changes we made to
breadth embraced in our narrative, we have been this end appear in the Renaissance and Reforma-
able to offer sustained treatment of crucial topics tion chapters; we rewrote and reorganized the
such as Islam and provide a more thorough treatment three chapters of the second edition to create a
of globalization than any competing text. Our aim has more meaningful two. Chapter 13 includes new
been to convey the relevance of Western history coverage of Renaissance art and architecture and
throughout the book as essential background to the Ottomans’ influence on the West, while Chap-
today’s events, from debate over European Union ter 14 offers new consideration of the European
membership to conflict in the Middle East. Instructors Reformation in the context of global exploration
have found this synthesis essential for helping students and the spread of print culture. We have worked to
understand the West in today’s ever-globalizing world. make key developments clearer in other chapters
Equally valuable to instructors has been the as well. We united and expanded the discussion of
way our book is organized with a chronological early Canaanites and Hebrews in Chapter 2, added
framework to help students understand how polit- extended coverage of the first and second crusades
ical, social, cultural, and economic histories have in Chapter 10, refocused a section on religious fer-
influenced each other over time. We know from vor and later crusades in Chapter 11, consolidated
our own teaching that introductory students need coverage of the scientific revolution in Chapter 15,
v
vi P r e fac e

and combined and strengthened a section on in- municate the vitality and excitement as well as the
dustrialization in Chapter 21. fundamental importance of history. Students
A second way we have chosen to help students should be enthused about history; we hope we
identify and absorb major developments is by have conveyed some of our own enthusiasm and
adding and refining signposts to guide student love for the study of history in these pages.
reading. Most notably, we have added new chapter-
opening focus questions. Posed at the end of the
opening vignettes, these single questions encapsulate
the essence of the era covered in the chapter and Pedagogy and Features
guide students toward the core message of the
chapter. To further help students as they read, we We know from our own teaching that students need
have worked hard to ensure that chapter and sec- all the help they can get in absorbing and making
tion overviews outline the central points of each sense of information, thinking analytically, and
section in the clearest manner possible. In addi- understanding that history itself is debated and con-
tion, we have condensed some material to better stantly revised.With these goals in mind, we retained the
illuminate key ideas. class-tested learning and teaching aids that worked
A third way we have made this book more well in the first and second editions, but we have
useful is by adding a special feature called Seeing also done more to help students distill the central
History. We know that today’s students are at- story of each age and give them more opportunities
tuned to visual sources of information, yet they do to develop their own historical skills.
not always receive systematic instruction in how The third edition incorporates more aids to
to “read” or think critically about such sources. help students sort out what is most important to
Similarly, we know instructors often wish to use learn while they read. New chapter focus ques-
visual evidence as the basis of class discussion but tions guide them toward the central themes of the
do not have materials appropriate for introduc- era and the most significant information they
tory students readily at hand. We have crafted should take away from their reading. Boldface key
our Seeing History features to address these needs. terms have been updated to concentrate on likely
Each single-page Seeing History feature contains test items and have been expanded to include
a pair of images — such as paintings, sculpture, people. To help students read and study, the key
photographs, and artifacts — accompanied by back- terms and people are defined in a new running
ground information and probing questions glossary at the bottom of pages and collected in a
designed to guide students through the process of comprehensive glossary at the end of the book.
reading images as historical evidence and to help The study tools introduced in the previous
them explore different perspectives and significant edition continue to help students check their un-
historical developments. derstanding of the chapters and the periods they
Finally, as always, we have incorporated the cover. Review questions, strategically placed at the
latest scholarly findings throughout the book so end of each major section, help students recall and
that students and instructors alike have a text that assimilate core points in digestible increments.
they can confidently rely on. In the third edition, The Chapter Review section provides a clear study
we have included new and updated discussions of plan with a table of important events, a list of key
topics such as the demography of the later Roman terms and people, section review questions re-
republic and its effect on social change, the social peated from within the chapter, and “Making
and political causes of the Great Famine of the Connections” questions that encourage students
early fourteenth century, the emergence of the to analyze chapter material or make comparisons
plague in Europe, the development of new slave- within or beyond the chapter. Vivid chapter-
trading routes in the seventeenth and eighteenth opening anecdotes with overviews and chapter out-
centuries, the refugee crisis following World War lines, timelines, and conclusions further reinforce
II, and the enlargement of the European Union, the central developments covered in the reading.
among others. But like a clear narrative synthesis, strong
Aided by a fresh and welcoming design, new pedagogical support is not enough on its own to
pedagogical aids, and new multimedia offerings encourage active learning. To reflect the richness
that give students and instructors interactive tools of the themes in the text and offer further oppor-
for study and teaching, we believe we have created tunities for historical investigation, we include a
a new edition even more suited to today’s Western rich assortment of single-source documents (two
civilization courses. In writing The Making of the per chapter). Nothing can give students a more di-
West: Peoples and Cultures, we have aimed to com- rect experience of the past than original voices,
P r e fac e vii

and we have endeavored to let those voices speak, each chapter provide a snapshot of the West at the
whether it is Frederick Barbarossa replying to the close of a transformative period and help students
Romans when they offer him the emperor’s visualize the West’s changing contours over time.
crown, Marie de Sévigné’s description of the For this edition, we have carefully considered each
French court, or an ordinary person’s account of map, simplified where possible to better highlight
the outbreak of the Russian Revolution. essential information, and clarified and updated
Accompanying these primary-source features borders and labels where needed.
are our unique features that extend the narrative We have striven to integrate art as fully as pos-
by revealing the process of interpretation, provid- sible into the narrative and to show its value for
ing a solid introduction to historical argument teaching and learning. Over 425 illustrations, care-
and critical thinking, and capturing the excite- fully chosen to reflect this edition’s broad topical
ment of historical investigation: coverage and geographic inclusion, reinforce the
text and show the varieties of visual sources from
• NEW Seeing History features guide students which historians build their narratives and inter-
through the process of reading images as historical pretations. All artifacts, illustrations, paintings, and
evidence. Each of the ten features provides a pair of photographs are contemporaneous with the chap-
images with background information and questions ter; there are no anachronistic illustrations. Fur-
that encourage visual analysis. Examples include thermore, along with the new Seeing History fea-
comparisons of pagan and Christian sarcophagi, tures, our substantive captions for the maps and
Persian and Arabic coins, Romanesque and Gothic art help students learn how to read visuals, and we
naves, pre- and post–French Revolution attire, and have frequently included specific questions or sug-
Italian propaganda posters from World War I. gestions for comparisons that might be developed.
• Contrasting Views features provide three or four Specially designed visual exercises in the Online
often conflicting primary-source accounts of a cen- Study Guide supplement this approach. A new
tral event, person, or development, such as Julius page design for the third edition supports our goal
Caesar, the First Crusade, Joan of Arc, Martin of intertwining the art and the narrative, and
Luther, the English Civil War, and late-nineteenth- makes the new study tools readily accessible.
century migration.
• New Sources, New Perspectives features show stu-
dents how historians continue to develop fresh in- Supplements
sights using new kinds of evidence about the past,
from tree rings to Holocaust museums.
As with previous editions, a well-integrated ancillary
• Terms of History features explain the meanings of program supports The Making of the West: Peoples and
some of the most important and contested terms in Cultures. Each print and new media resource has
the history of the West and show how those mean- been carefully revised to provide a host of practical
ings have developed — and changed — over time. teaching and learning aids. (Visit the online catalog
For example, the discussion of progress shows how at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt/catalog for ordering
the term took root in the eighteenth century and has information and special packaging options.)
been contested in the twentieth.
• Taking Measure features introduce students to the
For Students
intriguing stories revealed by quantitative analysis.
Each feature highlights a chart, table, graph, or PRINT RESOURCES
map of historical statistics that illuminates an Sources of THE MAKING OF THE WEST, Third
important political, social, or cultural development. Edition — Volumes I (to 1740) and II (since 1500) —
by Katharine J. Lualdi, University of Southern
The book’s map program has been widely praised Maine. This companion sourcebook provides
as the most comprehensive and inviting of any written and visual sources to accompany each
competing survey text. In each chapter, we offer chapter of The Making of the West. Political, social,
three types of maps, each with a distinct role in and cultural documents offer a variety of perspec-
conveying information to students. Four to five tives that complement the textbook and encourage
full-size maps show major developments, two to students to make connections between narrative
four “spot” maps — small maps positioned within history and primary sources. Short chapter sum-
the discussion right where students need them — maries and document headnotes contextualize the
aid students’ understanding of crucial issues, and wide array of sources and perspectives repre-
“Mapping the West” summary maps at the end of sented, while discussion questions guide students’
viii P r e fac e

reading and promote historical thinking skills. Reviews are a new tool that fits easily into stu-
The third edition features five or more written dents’ lifestyles and provides a practical new way
documents per chapter and one-third more visual for them to study. These 25- to 30-minute sum-
sources. Available free when packaged with the maries of each chapter in The Making of the West
text and now available in the e-book (see below). highlight the major themes of the text and help
reinforce student learning.
NEW Trade Books. Titles published by sister
companies Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Henry Holt A Student’s Online Guide to History Reference
and Company; Hill and Wang; Picador; and Sources at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt. This
St. Martin’s Press are available at a 50 percent Web site provides links to history-related data-
discount when packaged with Bedford /St. bases, indexes, and journals, plus contact informa-
Martin’s textbooks. For more information, visit tion for state, provincial, local, and professional
bedfordstmartins.com/tradeup. history organizations.
NEW The Bedford Glossary for European His-
The Bedford Research Room at bedfordstmartins
tory. This handy supplement for the survey
.com/hunt. The Research Room, drawn from
course gives students historically contextualized
Mike Palmquist’s The Bedford Researcher, offers
definitions for hundreds of terms — from Abbasids
a wealth of resources — including interactive tuto-
to Zionism — that students will encounter in lec-
rials, research activities, student writing samples,
tures, reading, and exams. Available free when
and links to hundreds of other places online — to
packaged with the text.
support students in courses across the disciplines.
Bedford Series in History and Culture. Over The site also offers instructors a library of helpful
100 titles in this highly praised series combine instructional tools.
first-rate scholarship, historical narrative, and im-
portant primary documents for undergraduate The Bedford Bibliographer at bedfordstmartins
courses. Each book is brief, inexpensive, and .com/hunt. The Bedford Bibliographer, a simple
focused on a specific topic or period. Package but powerful Web-based tool, assists students with
discounts are available. the process of collecting sources and generates
bibliographies in four commonly used documen-
NEW MEDIA RESOURCES tation styles.
NEW The Making of the West e-Book. This
Research and Documentation Online at
one-of-a-kind online resource integrates the text of
bedfordstmartins.com/hunt. This Web site
The Making of the West with the written and visual
provides clear advice on how to integrate primary
sources of the companion sourcebook Sources of
and secondary sources into research papers, how
THE MAKING OF THE WEST and the self-testing and
to cite sources correctly, and how to format in
activities of the Online Study Guide into one easy-
MLA, APA, Chicago, or CBE style.
to-use e-book. With search functions stronger than
in any competing text, this e-book is an ideal study
The St. Martin’s Tutorial on Avoiding Plagiarism
and reference tool for students. Instructors can eas-
at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt. This online tuto-
ily add their own documents, images, and other
rial reviews the consequences of plagiarism and ex-
class material to customize the text.
plains what sources to acknowledge, how to keep
Online Study Guide at bedfordstmartins.com/ good notes, how to organize research, and how to
hunt. The popular Online Study Guide for The integrate sources appropriately. The tutorial in-
Making of the West is a free and uniquely personal- cludes exercises to help students practice integrating
ized learning tool to help students master themes sources and recognize acceptable summaries.
and information presented in the textbook and
improve their historical skills. Assessment quizzes For Instructors
let students evaluate their comprehension and
PRINT RESOURCES
provide them with customized plans for further
study through a variety of activities. Instructors Instructor’s Resource Manual. This helpful
can monitor students’ progress through the online manual by Malia Formes (Western Kentucky Uni-
Quiz Gradebook or receive e-mail updates. versity) and Dakota Hamilton (Humboldt State
University) offers both first-time and experienced
NEW Audio Reviews for The Making of the West teachers a wealth of tools for structuring and cus-
at bedfordstmartins.com/audioreviews. Audio tomizing Western civilization history courses of
P r e fac e ix

different sizes. For each chapter in the textbook, Instructors can customize quizzes, edit both ques-
the Instructor’s Resource Manual includes an out- tions and answers, as well as export them to a vari-
line of chapter themes; a chapter summary; lecture ety of formats, including WebCT and Blackboard.
and discussion topics; film and literature sugges- The disc includes answer keys and essay outlines.
tions; writing and class-presentation assignments;
research topic suggestions; and in-class exercises Book Companion Site at bedfordstmartins.com/
for working with maps, illustrations, and sources. hunt. The companion Web site gathers all the
The new edition includes model answers for the electronic resources for The Making of the West, in-
review questions in the book as well as a chapter- cluding the Online Study Guide and related Quiz
by-chapter guide to all the supplements available Gradebook, at a single Web address, providing
with The Making of the West. convenient links to lecture, assignment, and
research materials such as PowerPoint chapter
Transparencies. A set of over 200 full-color outlines and the digital libraries at Make History.
acetate transparencies for The Making of the West
includes all full-sized maps and many images from NEW Make History at bedfordstmartins.com/
the text. makehistory. Comprising the content of
Bedford/St. Martin’s five acclaimed online li-
NEW MEDIA RESOURCES
braries — Map Central, the Bedford History Image
Library, DocLinks, HistoryLinks, and PlaceLinks,
Using the Bedford Series in History and Culture Make History provides one-stop access to relevant
with The Making of the West at bedfordstmartins digital content including maps, images, docu-
.com/usingseries. This online guide gives prac- ments, and Web links. Students and instructors
tical suggestions for using the volumes in the alike can search this free, easy-to-use database by
Bedford Series in History and Culture in conjunc- keyword, topic, date, or specific chapter of The
tion with The Making of the West. This reference Making of the West and download the content they
supplies connections between textbook themes find. Instructors can also create entire collections of
and each series book and provides ideas for class- content and store them online for later use or post
room discussions. their collections to the Web to share with students.
NEW HistoryClass. Bedford/St. Martin’s online
Content for Course Management Systems. A
learning space for history gives you the right tools
variety of student and instructor resources devel-
and the rich content to create your course, your
oped for this textbook is ready for use in course
way. An interactive e-book and e-reader enable
management systems such as Blackboard, WebCT,
you to easily assign relevant textbook sections and
and other platforms. This e-content includes
primary documents. Access to the acclaimed con-
nearly all of the offerings from the book’s Online
tent library, Make History, provides unlimited
Study Guide as well as the book’s test bank.
access to thousands of maps, images, documents,
and Web links. The tried-and-true content of the
Videos and Multimedia. A wide assortment of
Online Study Guide offers a range of activities to
videos and multimedia CD-ROMs on various top-
help students access their progress, study more
ics in European history is available to qualified
effectively, and improve their critical thinking
adopters.
skills. Customize provided content and mix in your
own with ease — everything in HistoryClass is
integrated to work together in the same space.
Acknowledgments
Instructor’s Resource CD-ROM. This disc pro-
vides PowerPoint presentations built around In the vital process of revision, the authors have
chapter outlines, maps, figures, and selected im- benefited from repeated critical readings by many tal-
ages from the textbook, plus jpeg versions of all ented scholars and teachers. Our sincere thanks go to
maps, figures, and selected images. the following instructors, whose comments often
challenged us to rethink or justify our interpretations
Computerized Test Bank — by Malia Formes, and who always provided a check on accuracy down
Western Kentucky University; available on CD- to the smallest detail.
ROM. This fully updated test bank offers over 80
exercises per chapter, including multiple-choice, Abel Alves, Ball State University
identification, timelines, map labeling and analysis, Gene Barnett, Calhoun Community College
source analysis, and full-length essay questions. Giovanna Benadusi, University of South Florida
x P r e fac e

Marjorie K. Berman, Red Rocks Community College Jason M. Osborne, Northern Kentucky University
Gregory Bruess, University of Northern Iowa James A. Ross-Nazzal, Houston Community
James M. Burns, Clemson University College–Southeast College
Kevin W. Caldwell, Blue Ridge Community College Daniel Sarefield, The Ohio State University
William R. Caraher, University of North Dakota Nancy E. Shockley, New Mexico State University
Joseph J. Casino, Villanova University, St. Joseph’s Dionysios Skentzis, College of DuPage
University Daniel Stephen, University of Colorado at Boulder
Sara Chapman, Oakland University Charles R. Sullivan, University of Dallas
Michael S. Cole, Florida Gulf Coast University Emily Sohmer Tai, Queensborough Community
Robert Cole, Utah State University College of the City University of New York
Theodore F. Cook, William Patterson University David Tengwall, Anne Arundel Community College
Jo Ann Hoeppner Moran Cruz, Georgetown Andrew Thomas, Purdue University
University Paul A. Townend, University of North
Luanne Dagley, Pellissippi State Technical Carolina–Wilmington
Community College David Ulbrich, Ball State University
Frederick H. Dotolo III, St. John Fisher College Karen T. Wagner, Pikes Peak Community College
Mari Firkatian, University of Hartford William Welch Jr., Troy University
David D. Flaten, Tompkins Cortland Community David K. White, McHenry County College
College James Theron Wilson, Ball State University
Ellen Pratt Fout, The Ohio State University
Rebecca Friedman, Florida International University Many colleagues, friends, and family members
Helen Grady, Springside School, Philadelphia, have made contributions to this work. They know
Pennsylvania how grateful we are. We also wish to acknowledge
and thank the publishing team at Bedford/St.
Padhraig S. Higgins, Pennsylvania State University Martin’s who did so much to bring this revised
Ronald K. Huch, Eastern Kentucky University edition to completion: president Joan Feinberg,
Michael Innis-Jiménez, William Paterson University editorial director Denise Wydra, publisher for his-
Jason M. Kelly, Indiana University–Purdue tory Mary Dougherty, director of development for
University Indianapolis history Jane Knetzger, senior editor Heidi Hood,
Nathaniel Knight, Seton Hall University senior editor Louise Townsend, senior editor Sara
Wise, freelance editors Betty Slack and Dale
Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt, Cleveland State University
Anderson, editorial assistant and production asso-
Charles Levine, Mesa Community College ciate Lindsay DiGianvittorio, executive marketing
Keith P. Luria, North Carolina State University manager Jenna Bookin Barry, senior production
Kathryn Lynass, Arizona State University editor Karen Baart, managing editor Elizabeth
Michael Mackey, Community College of Denver Schaaf, art researcher Gillian Speeth, text designer
John McManamon, Loyola University Janis Owens, page makeup artist Cia Boynton,
cover designer Donna Dennison, and copyeditor
Anthony Makowski, Delaware County Community
Janet Renard.
College
Our students’ questions and concerns have
John W. Mauer, Tri-County Technical College shaped much of this work, and we welcome all our
Lynn Wood Mollenauer, University of North readers’ suggestions, queries, and criticisms. Please
Carolina–Wilmington contact us at our respective institutions or via
Michelle Anne Novak, Houston Community College history@bedfordstmartins.com.
Brief Contents

Prologue: The Beginnings of Human 16 State Building and the Search for
Society, to c. 4000 B.C.E. P-3 Order, 1648–1690 483
1 Early Western Civilization, 17 The Atlantic System and Its
4000–1000 B.C.E. 3 Consequences, 1690–1740 519
2 The Near East and the Emergence of 18 The Promise of Enlightenment,
Greece, 1000–500 B.C.E. 33 1740–1789 555
3 The Greek Golden Age, 19 The Cataclysm of Revolution,
c. 500–c. 400 B.C.E. 69 1789–1799 587
4 From the Classical to the Hellenistic 20 Napoleon and the Revolutionary
World, 400–30 B.C.E. 103 Legacy, 1800–1830 619
5 The Rise of Rome, 753–44 B.C.E. 133 21 Industrialization and Social Ferment,
1830–1850 653
6 The Roman Empire, 44 B.C.E.–284 C.E. 163
7 The Transformation of the Roman 22 Politics and Culture of the Nation-
State, 1850–1870 689
Empire, 284–600 C.E. 195
8 Islam, Byzantium, and the West, 23 Industry, Empire, and Everyday Life,
1870–1890 725
600–750 231
9 Emperors, Caliphs, and Local Lords, 24 Modernity and the Road to War,
1890–1914 763
750–1050 261
10 Merchants and Kings, Popes and 25 World War I and Its Aftermath,
1914–1929 799
Crusaders, 1050–1150 295
11 The Flowering of the Middle Ages, 26 The Great Depression and
World War II, 1929–1945 839
1150–1215 327
12 The Medieval Search for Order, 27 The Cold War and the Remaking of
Europe, 1945–1960s 879
1215–1340 359
13 Crisis and Renaissance, 1340–1492 387
28 Postindustrial Society and the End
of the Cold War Order, 1960s–1989 915
14 Global Encounters and Religious
Reforms, 1492–1560 419
29 A New Globalism, 1989 to
the Present 951
15 Wars of Religion and the Clash of
Worldviews, 1560–1648 451 Appendix: Useful Facts and Figures A-1

xi
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Contents

Preface v Prologue
Brief Contents xi The Beginnings of Human Society,
to c. 4000 B.C.E. P-3
Maps and Figures xxix
Special Features xxxv
To the Student xxxix
Authors’ Note: The B.C.E. / C.E. Dating
System xlv
About the Authors xlvii The Paleolithic Age,
200,000–10,000 B.C.E. P-4
The Life of Hunter-Gatherers P-5
Technology, Trade, Religion, and Hierarchy P-6

The Neolithic Age, 10,000–4000 B.C.E. P-8


The Neolithic Revolution P-8
Neolithic Origins of Modern Life and War P-10
Daily Life in the Neolithic Village of
Çatalhöyük P-10
Gender Inequality in the Neolithic Age P-14

Conclusion P-15 • Chapter Review P-16


NEW SOURCES, NEW PERSPECTIVES: Daily Bread, Damaged Bones,
and Cracked Teeth P-12

xiii
xiv Contents

Chapter 1 Chapter 2
Early Western Civilization, The Near East and the Emergence
4000–1000 B.C.E. 3 of Greece, 1000–500 B.C.E. 33

The Controversial Concept of Western From Dark Age to Empire in the Near East,
Civilization 4 1000–500 B.C.E. 34
Defining Western Civilization 4 The New Empire of Assyria, 900–600 B.C.E. 35
Locating Early Western Civilization 6 The Neo-Babylonian Empire, 600–539 B.C.E. 36
The Persian Empire, 557–500 B.C.E. 37
Mesopotamia, Home of the First Civilization, The Hebrews, Origins to 539 B.C.E. 39
4000–1000 B.C.E. 7
Cities and Society, 4000–2350 B.C.E. 7 Remaking Greek Civilization,
Metals, the Akkadian Empire, and the Ur III 1000–750 B.C.E. 42
Dynasty, c. 2350–c. 2000 B.C.E. 12 The Greek Dark Age, 1000–750 B.C.E. 42
Assyrian, Babylonian, and Canaanite The Values of the Olympic Games 45
Achievements, 2000–1000 B.C.E. 13 Homer, Hesiod, and Divine Justice
in Greek Myth 46
Egypt, the First Unified Country,
3050–1000 B.C.E. 16 The Creation of the Greek Polis,
From Egyptian Unification to the Old Kingdom, 750–500 B.C.E. 47
3050–2190 B.C.E. 16 The Physical Environment of the Greek
The Middle and New Kingdoms in Egypt, City-State 47
2061–1081 B.C.E. 20 Trade and “Colonization,” 800–580 B.C.E. 48
The Hittites, Minoans, and Mycenaeans, Citizenship and Freedom in the Greek
City-State 51
2200–1000 B.C.E. 23
The Hittites, 1750–1200 B.C.E. 24 New Directions for the Polis,
The Minoans, 2200–1400 B.C.E. 25 750–500 B.C.E. 57
The Mycenaeans, 1800–1000 B.C.E. 27 Oligarchy in Sparta, 700–500 B.C.E. 57
The Period of Calamities, 1200–1000 B.C.E. 28 Tyranny in Corinth, 657–585 B.C.E. 60
Democracy in Athens, 632–500 B.C.E. 62
Conclusion 29 • Chapter Review 31
New Ways of Thought and Expression,
TERMS OF HISTORY: Civilization 6 630–500 B.C.E. 64
DOCUMENT: Hammurabi’s Laws for Physicians 15
DOCUMENT: Declaring Innocence on Judgment Day in
Conclusion 65 • Chapter Review 67
Ancient Egypt 22
document: Homer’s Vision of Justice in the Polis 46
seeing history: Shifting Sculptural Expression:
From Egypt to Greece 50
document: Cyrene Records Its Foundation as a Greek
Colony 52
taking measure: Greek Family Size and Agricultural
Labor in the Archaic Age 55
contrasting views: Persians Debate Democracy,
Oligarchy, and Monarchy 58
Contents xv

Chapter 3 Chapter 4
The Greek Golden Age, From the Classical to the Hellenistic
c. 500–c. 400 B.C.E. 69 World, 400–30 B.C.E. 103

Wars between Persia and Greece, Classical Greece after the Peloponnesian
499–479 B.C.E. 71 War, 400–350 B.C.E. 104
From the Ionian Revolt to the Battle of Restoring Daily Life in Athens 105
Marathon, 499–490 B.C.E. 71 The Execution of Socrates, 399 B.C.E. 106
The Great Persian Invasion, 480–479 B.C.E. 72 The Philosophy of Plato 107
Aristotle, Scientist and Philosopher 108
Athenian Confidence in the Golden Age,
Greek Political Disunity 110
478–431 B.C.E. 74
The Establishment of the Athenian Empire 74 The Rise of Macedonia, 359–323 B.C.E. 110
Radical Democracy and Pericles’ Leadership, The Roots of Macedonian Power 110
461–431 B.C.E. 75 The Rule of Philip II, 359–336 B.C.E. 111
The Urban Landscape 77 The Rule of Alexander the Great,
336–323 B.C.E. 112
Tradition and Innovation in Athens’s
Golden Age 81 The Hellenistic Kingdoms, 323–30 B.C.E. 115
Religious Tradition in a Period of Change 81 Creating New Kingdoms 115
Women, Slaves, and Metics 82 The Structure of Hellenistic Kingdoms 116
Innovations in Education and Philosophy 86 The Layers of Hellenistic Society 118
The Development of Greek Tragedy 92 The End of the Hellenistic Kingdoms 120
The Development of Greek Comedy 95
Hellenistic Culture 120
The End of the Golden Age, 431–403 B.C.E. 96 The Arts under Royal Patronage 120
The Peloponnesian War, 431–404 B.C.E. 97 Philosophy for a New Age 122
Athens Humbled: Tyranny and Civil War, Scientific Innovation 126
404–403 B.C.E. 99 Cultural and Religious Transformations 127
Conclusion 99 • Chapter Review 101 Conclusion 129 • Chapter Review 131
contrasting views: The Nature of Women and document: Aristotle on the Nature of the Greek Polis 109
Marriage 84
document: Epigrams by Women Poets 122
document: Athenian Regulations for a Rebellious Ally 88 new sources, new perspectives: Papyrus Discoveries
document: Sophists Argue Both Sides of a Case 90 and Menander’s Comedies 124
taking measure: Military Forces of Athens and Sparta
at the Beginning of the Peloponnesian War (431 B.C.E.) 98
xvi Contents

Chapter 5 Chapter 6
The Rise of Rome, The Roman Empire,
753–44 B.C.E. 133 44 B.C.E.–284 C.E. 163

Roman Social and Religious Traditions 134 Creating the Pax Romana 164
Roman Moral Values 134 From Republic to Principate, 44–27 B.C.E. 165
The Patron-Client System 136 Augustus’s “Restoration of the Republic,”
The Roman Family 136 27 B.C.E.–14 C.E. 165
Education for Public Life 138 Augustan Rome 167
Public and Private Religion 138 Imperial Education, Literature, and Art 172

From Monarchy to Republic 139 Maintaining the Pax Romana 173


Roman Society under the Kings, Making Monarchy Permanent,
753–509 B.C.E. 140 14–180 C.E. 174
The Early Roman Republic, 509–287 B.C.E. 142 Life in the Roman Golden Age,
96–180 C.E. 176
Roman Imperialism and Its Consequences 145
Expansion in Italy, 500–220 B.C.E. 145 The Emergence of Christianity 181
Wars with Carthage and in the East, Jesus and His Teachings 181
264–121 B.C.E. 146 Growth of a New Religion 182
Greek Influence on Roman Literature and Competing Beliefs 185
the Arts 149
Stresses on Republican Society 150 The Third-Century Crisis 188
Defending the Frontiers 188
Upheaval in the Late Republic 152 The Severan Emperors and Catastrophe 190
The Gracchus Brothers and Factional Politics,
133–121 B.C.E. 152 Conclusion 191 • Chapter Review 193
Marius and the Origin of Client Armies, document: Augustus, Res Gestae
107–100 B.C.E. 153 (My Accomplishments) 168
Sulla and Civil War, 91–78 B.C.E. 153 document: The Scene at a Roman Bath 170
The Republic’s Downfall, 83–44 B.C.E. 155 contrasting views: Christians in the Empire: Conspirators
or Faithful Subjects? 186
Conclusion 159 • Chapter Review 161 taking measure: The Value of Roman Imperial
Coinage, 27 B.C.E.–300 C.E. 189
document: The Rape and Suicide of Lucretia 144
taking measure: Census Records during the First and
Second Punic Wars 148
document: Polybius on Roman Military Discipline 154
contrasting views: What Was Julius Caesar Like? 156
Contents xvii

Chapter 7 Chapter 8
The Transformation of the Islam, Byzantium, and
Roman Empire, 284–600 C.E. 195 the West, 600–750 231

Reorganizing the Empire, 284–395 197 Islam: A New Religion and a New Empire 232
From Reform to Fragmentation 197 Nomads and City Dwellers 232
The High Cost of Rescuing the Empire 200 The Prophet Muhammad and the
The Emperors and Official Religion 202 Faith of Islam 233
Growth of Islam, c. 610–632 234
Christianizing the Empire, 312–c. 540 204 The Caliphs, Muhammad’s Successors,
Changing Religious Beliefs 204 632–750 236
Establishing Christian Orthodoxy 209 Peace and Prosperity in Islamic Lands 237
The Emergence of Christian Monks 212
Byzantium: A Christian Empire
Non-Roman Kingdoms in the West, under Siege 238
c. 370–550s 214 Wars on the Frontiers, c. 570–750 239
Non-Roman Migrations 215 From an Urban to a Rural Way of Life 240
Mixing Traditions 219 New Military and Cultural Forms 242
Religion, Politics, and Iconoclasm 243
The Roman Empire in the East,
c. 500–565 221 Western Europe: A Medley of Kingdoms 245
Imperial Society in the East 222 Frankish Kingdoms with Roman Roots 246
The Reign of Justinian, 527–565 223 Economic Activity in a Peasant Society 248
Preserving Classical Traditions 225 The Powerful in Merovingian Society 250
Christianity and Classical Culture in the
Conclusion 227 • Chapter Review 229 British Isles 253
document: Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices Unity in Spain, Division in Italy 255
and Wages 201 Political Tensions and the Power of the Pope 256
taking measure: Peasants’ Use of Farm Produce in the
Roman Empire 202 Conclusion 257 • Chapter Review 259
document: The Edict of Milan on Religious Liberty 203
seeing history: Changing Religious Beliefs: Pagan and terms of history: Medieval 233
Christian Sarcophagi 206 document: The Fatihah of the Qur’an 234
new sources, new perspectives: Was There a Decline seeing history: Who Conquered Whom? A Persian and an
and Fall of the Roman Empire? 218 Arabic Coin Compared 239
taking measure: Church Repair, 600–900 243
document: On Holy Images 245
new sources, new perspectives: Anthropology,
Archaeology, and Changing Notions of Ethnicity 249
xviii Contents

Chapter 9 Chapter 10
Emperors, Caliphs, and Merchants and Kings, Popes
Local Lords, 750–1050 261 and Crusaders, 1050–1150 295

The Emperor and Local Elites in the The Commercial Revolution 296
Byzantine Empire 262 Fairs, Towns, and Cities 296
Imperial Power 262 Organizing Crafts and Commerce 299
The Macedonian Renaissance, c. 870–c. 1025 264 Communes: Self-Government for the
The Dynatoi: A New Landowning Elite 266 Towns 301
In Byzantium’s Shadow: Bulgaria, Serbia, The Commercial Revolution in the
Russia 266 Countryside 301

The Caliphate and Its Fragmentation 268 Church Reform 302


The Abbasid Caliphate, 750–c. 950 268 Beginnings of Reform 303
Regional Diversity in Islamic Lands 269 The Gregorian Reform and the Investiture
Unity of Commerce and Language 270 Conflict, 1073–1122 305
The Islamic Renaissance, c. 790–c. 1050 271 The Sweep of Reform 307
New Monastic Orders of Poverty 309
The Creation and Division of a New
European Empire 272 The Crusades 311
The Rise of the Carolingians 272 Calling the Crusade 311
Charlemagne and His Kingdom, 768–814 273 The First Crusade 313
The Carolingian Renaissance, c. 790–c. 900 275 The Crusader States 316
Charlemagne’s Successors, 814–911 277 The Disastrous Second Crusade 317
Land and Power 278 The Long-Term Impact of the Crusades 317
Viking, Muslim, and Magyar Invasions, The Revival of Monarchies 319
c. 790–955 279
Reconstructing the Empire at Byzantium 319
After the Carolingians: The Emergence England under Norman Rule 319
of Local Rule 282 Praising the King of France 321
Public Power and Private Relationships 282 Surviving as Emperor 322
Warriors and Warfare 285
Conclusion 323 • Chapter Review 325
Efforts to Contain Violence 286
Political Communities in Italy, England, document: A Byzantine View of Papal Primacy 305
and France 287 contrasting views: The First Crusade 314
Emperors and Kings in Central and Eastern new sources, new perspectives: The Cairo Geniza 318
Europe 289 document: Penances for the Invaders (1070) 322
taking measure: Slaves in England in 1086 323
Conclusion 291 • Chapter Review 293
document: The Book of the Prefect 265
document: When She Approached 272
contrasting views: Charlemagne: Roman Emperor, Father
of Europe, or the Chief Bishop? 276
terms of history: Feudalism 283
taking measure: Sellers, Buyers, and Donors,
800–1000 284
Contents xix

Chapter 11 Chapter 12
The Flowering of the Middle The Medieval Search for Order,
Ages, 1150–1215 327 1215–1340 359

New Schools and Churches 328 The Church’s Mission 360


The New Learning and the Rise of the Innocent III and the Fourth Lateran
University 328 Council 360
Architectural Style: From Romanesque to The Inquisition 362
Gothic 332 Lay Piety 362
Jews and Lepers as Outcasts 365
Governments as Institutions 336
England: Unity through Common Law 336 The Medieval Synthesis 367
France: Consolidation and Conquest 340 Scholasticism: Harmonizing Faith and
Germany: The Revived Monarchy of Frederick Reason 367
Barbarossa 341 New Syntheses in Writing and Music 369
Eastern Europe and Byzantium: Fragmenting Gothic Art 370
Realms 346
The Politics of Control 373
The Growth of a Vernacular High Culture 346 The Weakening of the Empire 373
The Troubadours: Poets of Love and Play 347 Louis IX and a New Ideal of Kingship 375
The Literature of Epic and Romance 348 The Birth of Representative Institutions 376
The Weakening of the Papacy 377
Religious Fervor and Crusade 349
The Rise of the Signori 379
New Religious Orders in the Cities 349
The Mongol Takeover 380
Disastrous Crusades to the Holy Land 351
The Great Famine 380
Victorious Crusades in Europe and on Its
Frontiers 353 Conclusion 382 • Chapter Review 384
Conclusion 355 • Chapter Review 357 taking measure: Sentences Imposed by an Inquisitor,
1308–1323 363
seeing history: Romanesque versus Gothic: The View Down new sources, new perspectives: The Peasants of
the Nave 335 Montaillou 364
contrasting views: Magna Carta 342 document: The Debate between Reason and the Lover 369
document: Frederick I’s Reply to the Romans 344 document: Ausculta Fili (Listen, Beloved Son) 379
document: The Children’s Crusade (1212) 355
xx Contents

Chapter 13 Chapter 14
Crisis and Renaissance, Global Encounters and Religious
1340–1492 387 Reforms, 1492–1560 419

Crisis: Disease, War, and Schism 388 Widening Horizons 420


The Black Death, 1346–1353 388 Portuguese Explorations 420
The Hundred Years’ War, 1337–1453 391 The Voyages of Columbus 421
The Ottoman Conquest of Constantinople, A New Era in Slavery 423
1453 396 Conquering the New World 425
The Great Schism, 1378–1417 397
The Protestant Reformation 426
The Renaissance: New Forms of Thought The Invention of Printing 426
and Expression 401 Popular Piety and Christian Humanism 427
Renaissance Humanism 401 Martin Luther and the Holy Roman Empire 429
The Arts 403 Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin 432
The Anglican Church in England 433
Consolidating Power 408
New Political Formations in Eastern Reshaping Society through Religion 434
Europe 409 Protestant Challenges to the Social Order 435
Powerful States in Western Europe 410 New Forms of Discipline 437
Republics 411 Catholic Renewal 438
The Tools of Power 413
A Struggle for Mastery 441
Conclusion 414 • Chapter Review 416 The High Renaissance Court 441
taking measure: Population Losses and the Black Dynastic Wars 442
Death 389 Financing War 444
contrasting views: Joan of Arc: Who Was Divided Realms 445
“the Maid”? 394
document: Wat Tyler’s Rebellion (1381) 398 Conclusion 447 • Chapter Review 449
terms of history: Renaissance 402
document: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the document: Columbus Describes His First
Dignity of Man 404 Voyage (1493) 423
seeing history: Expanding Geographic Knowledge:
World Maps in an Age of Exploration 424
contrasting views: Martin Luther: Holy Man or
Heretic? 431
document: Ordinances for Calvinist Churches (1547) 433
Contents xxi

Chapter 15 Chapter 16
Wars of Religion and the Clash of State Building and the Search
Worldviews, 1560–1648 451 for Order, 1648–1690 483

Religious Conflicts Threaten State Power, Louis XIV: Absolutism and Its Limits 484
1560–1618 452 The Fronde, 1648–1653 485
French Wars of Religion, 1562–1598 452 Court Culture as an Element of Absolutism 486
Challenges to Spain’s Authority 455 Enforcing Religious Orthodoxy 489
Elizabeth I’s Defense of English Extending State Authority at Home and
Protestantism 458 Abroad 489
The Clash of Faiths and Empires in
Eastern Europe 459 Absolutism in Central and Eastern Europe 492
Brandenburg-Prussia: Militaristic
The Thirty Years’ War, 1618–1648 460 Absolutism 493
Origins and Course of the War 460 An Uneasy Balance: Austrian Habsburgs and
The Effects of Constant Fighting 462 Ottoman Turks 494
The Peace of Westphalia, 1648 463 Russia: Setting the Foundations of Bureaucratic
Absolutism 496
Economic Crisis and Realignment 465 Poland-Lithuania Overwhelmed 497
From Growth to Recession 465
Consequences for Daily Life 467 Constitutionalism in England 497
The Economic Balance of Power 469 England Turned Upside Down, 1642–1660 498
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 502
The Rise of Secular and Scientific Social Contract Theory: Hobbes and Locke 504
Worldviews 471
The Arts in an Age of Crisis 471 Outposts of Constitutionalism 505
The Natural Laws of Politics 472 The Dutch Republic 505
The Scientific Revolution 474 Freedom and Slavery in the New World 508
Magic and Witchcraft 478 The Search for Order in Elite and Popular
Conclusion 479 • Chapter Review 481 Culture 509
Freedom and Constraint in the Arts and
document: The Horrors of the Thirty Years’ War 462 Sciences 509
taking measure: The Rise and Fall of Silver Imports to Women and Manners 512
Spain, 1550–1660 465
Reforming Popular Culture 514
new sources, new perspectives: Tree Rings and the
Little Ice Age 466
Conclusion 515 • Chapter Review 517
seeing history: Religious Differences in Painting of the
Baroque Period: Rubens and Rembrandt 473
document: Marie de Sévigné, Letter Describing the French
document: Sentence Pronounced against Court (1675) 487
Galileo (1633) 477
taking measure: The Seventeenth-Century Army 493
contrasting views: The English Civil War 500
document: John Milton, Defense of Freedom of the
Press (1644) 511
xxii Contents

Chapter 17 Chapter 18
The Atlantic System and Its The Promise of Enlightenment,
Consequences, 1690–1740 519 1740–1789 555

The Atlantic System and the World The Enlightenment at Its Height 556
Economy 520 Men and Women of the Republic of Letters 556
Slavery and the Atlantic System 521 Conflicts with Church and State 558
World Trade and Settlement 526 The Individual and Society 560
The Birth of Consumer Society 528 Spreading the Enlightenment 564
The Limits of Reason: Roots of Romanticism
New Social and Cultural Patterns 529 and Religious Revival 566
Agricultural Revolution 529
Social Life in the Cities 531 Society and Culture in an Age of
New Tastes in the Arts 534 Enlightenment 567
Religious Revivals 536 The Nobility’s Reassertion of Privilege 567
The Middle Class and the Making of a
Consolidation of the European State New Elite 568
System 536 Life on the Margins 571
French Ambitions Thwarted 536
British Rise and Dutch Decline 538 State Power in an Era of Reform 573
Russia’s Emergence as a European Power 540 War and Diplomacy 573
The Power of Diplomacy and the Importance State-Sponsored Reform 576
of Population 544 Limits of Reform 577

The Birth of the Enlightenment 545 Rebellions against State Power 578
Popularization of Science and Challenges to Food Riots and Peasant Uprisings 578
Religion 546 Public Opinion and Political Opposition 580
Travel Literature and the Challenge to Custom Revolution in North America 581
and Tradition 549
Raising the Woman Question 549 Conclusion 583 • Chapter Review 585

Conclusion 550 • Chapter Review 552 document: Denis Diderot, “Encyclopedia” (1755) 559
contrasting views: Women and the Enlightenment 562
new sources, new perspectives: Oral History and the terms of history: Enlightenment 565
Life of Slaves 524 taking measure: World Population Growth,
document: The Social Effects of Growing Consumption 530 1700–1800 571
taking measure: Relationship of Crop Harvested to Seed document: Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence
Used, 1400–1800 531 (July 4, 1776) 582
terms of history: Progress 547
document: Voltaire, Letters Concerning the English
Nation (1733) 548
Contents xxiii

Chapter 19 Chapter 20
The Cataclysm of Revolution, Napoleon and the Revolutionary
1789–1799 587 Legacy, 1800–1830 619

The Revolutionary Wave, 1787–1789 588 The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte 620
Protesters in the Low Countries and A General Takes Over 620
Poland 589 From Republic to Empire 622
Origins of the French Revolution, The New Paternalism: The Civil Code 625
1787–1789 591 Patronage of Science and Intellectual Life 627
From Monarchy to Republic, 1789–1793 594 “Europe Was at My Feet”: Napoleon’s
The Revolution of Rights and Reason 594 Conquests 628
The End of Monarchy 598 The Grand Army and Its Victories,
1800–1807 628
Terror and Resistance 600
The Impact of French Victories 630
Robespierre and the Committee of Public
From Russian Winter to Final Defeat,
Safety 600
1812–1815 632
The Republic of Virtue, 1793–1794 602
Resisting the Revolution 604 The “Restoration” of Europe 636
The Fall of Robespierre and the End of the The Congress of Vienna, 1814–1815 636
Terror 605 The Emergence of Conservatism 638
The Revival of Religion 639
Revolution on the March 607
Arms and Conquests 607 Challenges to the Conservative Order 640
European Reactions to Revolutionary Romanticism 640
Change 608 Political Revolts in the 1820s 644
Poland Extinguished, 1793–1795 612 Revolution and Reform, 1830–1832 646
Revolution in the Colonies 613
Conclusion 649 • Chapter Review 651
Conclusion 615 • Chapter Review 617
seeing history: The Clothing Revolution: The Social
terms of history: Revolution 590 Meaning of Changes in Post-Revolutionary Fashion 624
document: The Rights of Minorities 597 document: An Ordinary Soldier on Campaign with
contrasting views: Perspectives on the French Napoleon 633
Revolution 610 contrasting views: Napoleon: For and Against 634
document: Address on Abolishing the Slave Trade document: Wordsworth’s Poetry 642
(February 5, 1790) 613
xxiv Contents

Chapter 21 Chapter 22
Industrialization and Social Politics and Culture of the
Ferment, 1830–1850 653 Nation-State, 1850–1870 689

The Industrial Revolution 654 The End of the Concert of Europe 690
Roots of Industrialization 654 Napoleon III and the Quest for French
Engines of Change 656 Glory 691
Urbanization and Its Consequences 661 The Crimean War, 1853–1856: Turning
Agricultural Perils and Prosperity 663 Point in European Affairs 692
Reform in Russia 694
Reforming the Social Order 664
Cultural Responses to the Social Question 664 War and Nation Building 696
The Varieties of Social Reform 667 Cavour, Garibaldi, and the Process of Italian
Unification 696
Abuses and Reforms Overseas 670
Bismarck and the Realpolitik of German
Ideologies and Political Movements 671 Unification 699
The Spell of Nationalism 672 Francis Joseph and the Creation of the
Liberalism in Economics and Politics 674 Austro-Hungarian Monarchy 702
Socialism and the Early Labor Movement 675 Political Stability through Gradual Reform
in Great Britain 703
The Revolutions of 1848 678 Nation Building in the United States and
The Hungry Forties 678 Canada 705
Another French Revolution 679 Establishing Social Order 705
Nationalist Revolution in Italy 680 Bringing Order to the Cities 706
Revolt and Reaction in Central Europe 681 Expanding the Reach of Government 708
Aftermath to 1848 684 Schooling and Professionalizing Society 709
Conclusion 685 • Chapter Review 687 Spreading Western Order beyond the West 710
Confronting the Nation-State’s Order at
taking measure: Railroad Lines, 1830–1850 656 Home 713
new sources, new perspectives: Statistics and the
Standard of Living of the Working Class 660 The Culture of Social Order 715
document: Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto 677 The Arts Confront Social Reality 716
document: Alexis de Tocqueville Describes the June Days
in Paris (1848) 681
Religion and National Order 718
From the Natural Sciences to Social Science 720

Conclusion 721 • Chapter Review 723


document: Mrs. Seacole: The Other Florence
Nightingale 694
terms of history: Nationalism 697
document: Bismarck Tricks the Public to Get His War 701
seeing history: Photographing the Nation: Domesticity
and War 704
Contents xxv

Chapter 23 Chapter 24
Industry, Empire, and Everyday Modernity and the Road
Life, 1870–1890 725 to War, 1890–1914 763

The Advance of Industry in an Age of Public Debate over Private Life 764
Empire 727 Population Pressure 765
Industrial Innovation 727 Reforming Marriage 766
Facing Economic Crisis 729 New Women, New Men, and the Politics of
Revolution in Business Practices 731 Sexual Identity 767
Sciences of the Modern Self 768
The New Imperialism 733
Taming the Mediterranean 733 Modernity and the Revolt in Ideas 771
Scramble for Africa 733 The Opposition to Positivism 771
Acquiring Territory in Asia 737 Revolutionizing Science 772
Japan’s Imperial Agenda 738 Modern Art 773
The Paradoxes of Imperialism 739 The Revolt in Music and Dance 775

Imperial Society and Culture 740 Growing Tensions in Mass Politics 776
The “Best Circles” and the Expanding Labor’s Expanding Power 776
Middle Class 741 Rights for Women and the Battle for Suffrage 777
Professional Sports and Organized Leisure 742 Liberalism Tested 778
Working People’s Strategies 743 Anti-Semitism, Nationalism, and Zionism in
Reform Efforts for Working-Class People 746 Mass Politics 779
Artistic Responses to Empire and Industry 747
European Imperialism Challenged 783
The Birth of Mass Politics 750 The Trials of Empire 784
Workers, Politics, and Protest 750 The Russian Empire Threatened 787
Expanding Political Participation in Growing Resistance to Colonial Domination 788
Western Europe 752
Roads to War 790
Power Politics in Central and Eastern Europe 754
Competing Alliances and Clashing
Conclusion 759 • Chapter Review 761 Ambitions 790
The Race to Arms 792
document: Imperialism’s Popularity among the People 736 1914: War Erupts 793
contrasting views: Experiences of Migration 744
document: Henrik Ibsen, From A Doll’s House 748 Conclusion 795 • Chapter Review 797
taking measure: The Decline of Illiteracy 755
terms of history: Modern 766
new sources, new perspectives: Psychohistory and Its
Lessons 770
document: Leon Pinsker Calls for a Jewish State 783
document: A Historian Promotes Militant Nationalism 795
xxvi Contents

Chapter 25 Chapter 26
World War I and Its Aftermath, The Great Depression
1914–1929 799 and World War II, 1929–1945 839

The Great War, 1914–1918 800 The Great Depression 840


Blueprints for War 800 Economic Disaster Strikes 840
The Battlefronts 803 Social Effects of the Depression 842
The Home Front 806 The Great Depression beyond the West 843

Protest, Revolution, and War’s End, Totalitarian Triumph 844


1917–1918 810 The Rise of Stalinism 844
War Protest 810 Hitler’s Rise to Power 847
Revolution in Russia 810 The Nazification of German Politics 848
Ending the War, 1918 814 Nazi Racism 849

The Search for Peace in an Era of Democracies on the Defensive 852


Revolution 815 Confronting the Economic Crisis 852
Europe in Turmoil 815 Cultural Visions in Hard Times 854
The Paris Peace Conference, 1919–1920 816
Economic and Diplomatic Consequences of The Road to Global War 856
the Peace 820 A Surge in Global Imperialism 856
The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 859
The Aftermath of War: Europe in Hitler’s Conquest of Central Europe,
the 1920s 821 1938–1939 860
Changes in the Political Landscape 822
Reconstructing the Economy 824 World War II, 1939–1945 862
Restoring Society 825 The German Onslaught 862
War Expands: The Pacific and Beyond 864
Mass Culture and the Rise of Modern The War against Civilians 864
Dictators 827 Societies at War 866
Culture for the Masses 828 From Resistance to Allied Victory 868
Cultural Debates over the Future 828 An Uneasy Postwar Settlement 873
The Communist Utopia 831
Fascism on the March in Italy 833 Conclusion 875 • Chapter Review 877
document: A Family Copes with Unemployment 842
Conclusion 835 • Chapter Review 837 terms of history: Totalitarianism 845
seeing history: Demonizing the Enemy: Italian Propaganda contrasting views: Stalin and Hitler: For and Against 850
Posters from World War I 808 document: The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere 858
document: Outbreak of the Russian Revolution 813 new sources, new perspectives: Museums and
contrasting views: Arguing with the Victors 818 Memory 867
taking measure: The Growth of Radio, 1924–1929 829
document: Battlefield Tourism 830
Contents xxvii

Chapter 27 Chapter 28
The Cold War and the Remaking Postindustrial Society and the End of
of Europe, 1945–1960s 879 the Cold War Order, 1960s–1989 915

World Politics Transformed 880 The Revolution in Technology 916


Chaos in Europe 881 The Information Age: Television and
New Superpowers: The United States and Computers 916
the Soviet Union 883 The Space Age 918
Origins of the Cold War 883 The Nuclear Age 919
The Division of Germany 886 Revolutions in Biology and Reproductive
Technology 919
Political and Economic Recovery in
Europe 888 Postindustrial Society and Culture 921
Dealing with Nazism 888 Multinational Corporations 921
Rebirth of the West 889 The New Worker 922
The Welfare State: Common Ground East The Boom in Education and Research 924
and West 893 Changing Family Life and the Generation
Recovery in the East 894 Gap 924
Art, Ideas, and Religion in a Technocratic
Decolonization in a Cold War Climate 897 Society 925
The End of Empire in Asia 897
The Struggle for Identity in the Middle East 899 Protesting Cold War Conditions 927
New Nations in Africa 900 Cracks in the Cold War Order 927
Newcomers Arrive in Europe 901 The Growth of Citizen Activism 930
1968: Year of Crisis 933
Daily Life and Culture in the Shadow of
Nuclear War 902 The Testing of Superpower Domination
Restoring “Western” Values 903 and the End of the Cold War 936
Consumerism and Shifting Gender Norms 905 A Changing Balance of World Power 936
The Culture of Cold War 908 The Western Bloc Meets Challenges with
Reform 939
The Atomic Brink 909
Collapse of Communism in the Soviet Bloc 942
Conclusion 911 • Chapter Review 913
Conclusion 947 • Chapter Review 949
new sources, new perspectives: Government Archives
and the Truth about the Cold War 885 taking measure: Postindustrial Occupational Structure,
1984 923
taking measure: World Manufacturing Output,
1950–1970 892 seeing history: Critiquing the Soviet System: Dissident Art
in the 1960s and 1970s 929
document: The Schuman Plan on European
Unity (1950) 893 contrasting views: Feminist Debates 932
document: Consumerism, Youth, and the Birth of the document: Margaret Thatcher’s Economic Vision 941
Generation Gap 905 document: Criticizing Gorbachev 944
xxviii Contents

Chapter 29
A New Globalism,
1989 to the Present 951

Collapse of the Soviet Union and Its Appendix: Useful Facts and Figures A-1
Aftermath 953
The Breakup of Yugoslavia 953 Glossary of Key Terms and People G-1
The Soviet Union Comes Apart 956 Suggested References SR-1
Toward a Market Economy 958
International Politics and the New Russia 960 Index I-1
The Nation-State in a Global Age 961
Europe Looks beyond the Nation-State 961
Globalizing Cities and Fragmenting Nations 964
Global Organizations 965

Challenges from an Interconnected World 966


The Problems of Pollution 966
Population, Health, and Disease 968
North versus South? 969
Islam Meets the West 969
World Economies on the Rise 973

Global Culture and Society in the


Twenty-first Century 974
Redefining the West: The Impact of Global
Migration 974
Global Networks and the Economy 975
A Global Culture? 977

Conclusion 981 • Chapter Review 984


document: Václav Havel, “Czechoslovakia Is Returning to
Europe” 963
document: The European Green Party Becomes Transnational
(2006) 967
taking measure: World Population Growth,
1950–2010 968
contrasting views: Muslim Immigrants and Turkey in the
EU: The Dutch Debate Globalization 976
Maps and Figures

Maps mapping the west Greece, Europe, and the


Mediterranean, 400 B.C.E. 100
Prologue
map 1 The Development of Agriculture P-9 Chapter 4
spot map Athens’s Long Walls as Rebuilt after the
Chapter 1 Peloponnesian War 106
map 1.1 The Ancient Near East, 4000–3000 B.C.E. 8 spot map Aristotle’s Lyceum, established 335 B.C.E. 108
spot map The Akkadian Empire, 2350–2200 B.C.E. 12 map 4.1 Expansion of Macedonia under Philip II,
spot map The Kingdom of Assyria, 1900 B.C.E. 13 359–336 B.C.E. 112
map 1.2 Ancient Egypt 17 map 4.2 Conquests of Alexander the Great,
map 1.3 Greece and the Aegean Sea, 1500 B.C.E. 23 336–323 B.C.E. 114
mapping the west The Period of Calamities, map 4.3 Hellenistic Kingdoms, 240 B.C.E. 116
1200–1000 B.C.E. 30 mapping the west Roman Takeover of the Hellenistic
World, to 30 B.C.E. 130

Chapter 2
map 2.1 Expansion of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Chapter 5
c. 900–650 B.C.E. 35 map 5.1 Ancient Italy, 500 B.C.E. 140
map 2.2 Expansion of the Persian Empire, map 5.2 The City of Rome during the Republic 143
c. 550–490 B.C.E. 38 spot map Rome and Central Italy, Fifth
spot map Phoenicia and Canaan/Palestine 39 Century B.C.E. 145
map 2.3 Dark Age Greece 43 spot map Roman Roads, 110 B.C.E. 145
map 2.4 Archaic Greece, 750–500 B.C.E. 48 map 5.3 Roman Expansion, 500–44 B.C.E. 147
map 2.5 Phoenician and Greek Expansion, spot map The Kingdom of Mithridates VI, 88 B.C.E. 154
750–500 B.C.E. 49 mapping the west The Roman World at the End of
spot map Sparta and Corinth, 750–500 B.C.E. 57 the Republic, 44 B.C.E. 160
spot map Athens and Central Greece, 750–500 B.C.E. 62
spot map Ionia and the Aegean, 750–500 B.C.E. 65 Chapter 6
mapping the west Mediterranean Civilizations, map 6.1 The Expansion of the Roman Empire,
c. 500 B.C.E. 66 30 B.C.E.–117 C.E. 176
map 6.2 Natural Feature and Languages
Chapter 3 of the Roman World 178
map 3.1 The Persian Wars, 499–479 B.C.E. 72 spot map Palestine in the Time of Jesus, 30 C.E. 181
spot map The Delian and Peloponnesian Leagues 74 map 6.3 Christian Populations in the Late Third
map 3.2 Fifth-Century B.C.E. Athens 78 Century C.E. 184
spot map Theaters of Classical Greece 95 mapping the west The Roman Empire in
map 3.3 The Peloponnesian War, 431–404 B.C.E. 97 Crisis, 284 C.E. 192

xxix
xxx M a p s a n d Fi g u r e s

Chapter 7 Chapter 10
map 7.1 Diocletian’s Reorganization of 293 199 map 10.1 Medieval Trade Routes in the Eleventh
spot map The Empire’s East/West Division, 395 199 and Twelfth Centuries 298
map 7.2 The Spread of Christianity, 300–600 209 spot map The World of the Investiture Conflict,
spot map Original Areas of Christian Splinter c. 1070–1122 306
Groups 211 map 10.2 The First Crusade, 1096–1099 312
map 7.3 Migrations and Invasions of the Fourth spot map Jewish Communities Attacked during
and Fifth Centuries 216 the First Crusade 313
map 7.4 Peoples and Kingdoms of the Roman spot map The Crusader States in 1109 316
World, 526 220 spot map Norman Conquest of England, 1066 320
spot map Constantinople during the Rule of mapping the west Major Religions in the West,
Justinian 225 c. 1150 324
mapping the west Western Europe and the Eastern
Roman Empire, 600 228
Chapter 11
map 11.1 Europe in the Age of Henry II
Chapter 8 and Frederick Barbarossa, 1150–1190 338
spot map The Consolidation of France under
map 8.1 Expansion of Islam to 750 236
Philip Augustus, 1180–1223 340
map 8.2 Byzantine and Sasanid Empires, c. 600 241
spot map Eastern Europe and Byzantium, c. 1200 346
map 8.3 Diagram of the City of Ephesus 242
map 11.2 Crusades and Anti-Heretic Campaigns,
map 8.4 The Merovingian Kingdoms in the
1150–1204 352
Seventh Century 247
map 11.3 The Reconquista, 1150–1212 354
spot map Tours, c. 600 248
spot map The Albigensian Crusade, 1209–1229 355
spot map The British Isles 253
mapping the west Europe and Byzantium, c. 1215 356
spot map Lombard Italy, Early Eighth Century 255
mapping the west Europe and the Mediterranean,
c. 750 258 Chapter 12
spot map Blood Libel Charges in
Europe, c. 1100–1300 366
Chapter 9 spot map Italy at the End of the Thirteenth
map 9.1 The Expansion of Byzantium, 860–1025 263 Century 373
spot map The Balkans, c. 850–950 267 map 12.1 Europe in the Time of Frederick II,
map 9.2 Islamic States, c. 1000 269 r. 1212–1250 374
map 9.3 Expansion of the Carolingian Empire map 12.2 France under Louis IX, r. 1226–1270 376
under Charlemagne 275 map 12.3 The Mongol Invasions to 1259 381
map 9.4 Muslim, Viking, and Magyar Invasions mapping the west Europe, c. 1340 383
of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries 281
spot map England in the Age of King Alfred,
871–899 288 Chapter 13
spot map The Kingdom of the Franks under Hugh map 13.1 The Hundred Years’ War, 1337–1453 393
Capet, 987–996 289 map 13.2 Ottoman Expansion in the Fourteenth
spot map The Ottoman Empire, 936–1002 289 and Fifteenth Centuries 397
mapping the west Europe and the Mediterranean, spot map The Hussite Revolution, 1415–1436 400
c. 1050 292 spot map Hanseatic League 409
M a p s a n d Fi g u r e s xxxi

spot map Spain before Unification, Late Fifteenth spot map England during the Civil War 499
Century 410 map 16.3 Dutch Commerce in the Seventeenth
spot map Expansion of Burgundy, 1384–1476 410 Century 506
spot map Growth of the Swiss Confederation, mapping the west Europe at the End of the
1291–1386 411 Seventeenth Century 516
spot map Italy at the Peace of Lodi, 1454 412
mapping the west Europe, c. 1492 415
Chapter 17
map 17.1 European Trade Patterns, c. 1740 522
Chapter 14 map 17.2 Europe, c. 1715 537
map 14.1 Early Voyages of World Exploration 422 map 17.3 Russia and Sweden after the Great
map 14.2 Spanish and Portuguese Colonies in Northern War, 1721 543
the Americas, 1492–1560 425 spot map Austrian Conquest of Hungary,
spot map Luther’s World in the Early 1657–1730 544
Sixteenth Century 430 mapping the west Europe in 1740 551
spot map Calvin’s World in the Mid-Sixteenth
Century 432
Chapter 18
map 14.3 The Peasants’ War of 1525 435
map 18.1 War of the Austrian Succession,
map 14.4 Habsburg-Valois-Ottoman Wars,
1494–1559 442 1740–1748 574
map 18.2 The Seven Years’ War, 1756–1763 575
mapping the west Reformation Europe, c. 1560 447
spot map The First Partition of Poland, 1772 576
spot map The Pugachev Rebellion, 1773 579
Chapter 15 mapping the west Europe and the World, c. 1780 583
map 15.1 Protestant Churches in France, 1562 453
map 15.2 The Empire of Philip II, r. 1556–1598 456 Chapter 19
spot map The Netherlands during the Revolt,
spot map The Low Countries in 1787 589
c. 1580 456
map 19.1 Revolutionary Paris, 1789 594
spot map Retreat of the Spanish Armada, 1588 459
spot map The Great Fear, 1789 595
spot map Russia, Poland-Lithuania, and Sweden
map 19.2 Redrawing the Map of France, 1789–1791 596
in the Late 1500s 460
spot map The Vendeé Rebellion, 1793 604
map 15.3 The Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of
map 19.3 French Expansion, 1791–1799 608
Westphalia, 1648 463
map 19.4 The Second and Third Partitions of
map 15.4 European Colonization of the Americas,
Poland, 1793 and 1795 612
c. 1640 470
spot map St. Domingue on the Eve of the
mapping the west The Religious Divisions of
Revolt, 1791 614
Europe, c. 1648 480
mapping the west Europe in 1799 616

Chapter 16 Chapter 20
spot map The Fronde, 1648–1653 486 map 20.1 Napoleon’s Empire at Its Height, 1812 628
map 16.1 Louis XIV’s Acquisitions, 1668–1697 492 spot map France’s Retreat from America 629
map 16.2 State Building in Central and Eastern spot map Consolidation of German and Italian
Europe, 1648–1699 494 States, 1812 630
spot map Poland-Lithuania in the Seventeenth spot map The Spanish War for Independence,
Century 497 1807–1813 632
xxxii M a p s a n d Fi g u r e s

map 20.2 Europe after the Congress of Vienna, Chapter 24


1815 637
spot map Principal Ethnic Groups in
map 20.3 Revolutionary Movements of the 1820s 644
Austria-Hungary, c. 1900 781
spot map Nationalistic Movements in the Balkans,
map 24.1 Jewish Migrations in the Late Nineteenth
1815–1830 645
Century 782
map 20.4 Latin American Independence, 1804–1830 647
map 24.2 Africa in 1914 784
mapping the west Europe in 1830 650
spot map The Struggle for Ethiopia, 1896 785
map 24.3 Imperialism in Asia, 1894–1914 786
Chapter 21 spot map Russian Revolution of 1905 787
map 21.1 Industrialization in Europe, c. 1850 657 map 24.4 The Balkans, 1908–1914 791
map 21.2 The Spread of Cholera, 1826–1855 662 mapping the west Europe at the Outbreak of World
spot map The Opium War, 1839–1842 671 War I, August 1914 796
map 21.3 Languages of Nineteenth-Century Europe 673
map 21.4 The Revolutions of 1848 679
spot map The Divisions of Italy, 1848 680
Chapter 25
mapping the west Europe in 1850 686 map 25. 1 The Fronts of World War I, 1914–1918 802
spot map The Schlieffen Plan 803
map 25.2 The Western Front 804
Chapter 22 map 25. 3 The Russian Civil War, 1917–1922 814
map 22.1 The Crimean War, 1853–1856 692 map 25. 4 Europe and the Middle East after the
map 22.2 Unification of Italy, 1859–1870 698 Peace Settlements of 1919–1920 817
map 22.3 Unification of Germany, 1862–1871 700 spot map The Little Entente 821
spot map The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, 1867 702 spot map National Minorities in Postwar Poland 822
map 22.4 U.S. Expansion, 1850–1870 706 spot map The Irish Free State and Ulster, 1921 824
spot map Indian Resistance, 1857 711 mapping the west Europe and the World in 1929 836
map 22.5 The Paris Commune, 1871 714
mapping the west Europe and the Mediterranean, Chapter 26
1871 722
map 26.1 The Expansion of Japan, 1931–1941 857
spot map The Ethiopian War, 1935–1936 859
map 26.2 The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 860
Chapter 23
map 26.3 The Growth of Nazi Germany,
spot map The Suez Canal and British Invasion
1933–1939 862
of Egypt, 1882 733
spot map The Division of France, 1940 863
map 23.1 Africa, c. 1890 735
map 26.4 Concentration Camps and Extermination
spot map British Colonialism in the Malay
Sites in Europe 865
Peninsula and Burma, 1826–1890 737
map 26.5 World War II in Europe and Africa 869
map 23.2 Expansion of Russia in Asia, 1865–1895 738
map 26.6 World War II in the Pacific 872
spot map The Union of Indochina, 1893 738
mapping the west Europe at War’s End, 1945 876
map 23.3 Expansion of Berlin to 1914 755
map 23.4 The Balkans, c. 1878 757
spot map Russia: The Pale of Settlement in the Chapter 27
Nineteenth Century 758 map 27.1 The Impact of World War II on Europe 883
mapping the west The West and the World, c. 1890 760 spot map Yugoslavia after the Revolution 886
M a p s a n d Fi g u r e s xxxiii

map 27.2 Divided Germany and the Berlin Airlift,


1946–1949 887
Figures
map 27.3 European NATO Members and the Warsaw figure 1.1 Cuneiform Writing 11
Pact in the 1950s 888 figure 1.2 Egyptian Hieroglyphics 18
spot map The Korean War, 1950–1953 898 figure 3.1 Triremes, the Foremost Classical
spot map Indochina, 1954 898 Greek Warships 75
map 27.4 The Partition of Palestine and the figure 3.2 Styles of Greek Capitals 78
Creation of Israel, 1947–1948 899 figure 6.1 Cutaway Reconstruction of the Forum
map 27.5 The Decolonization of Africa, 1951–1990 900 of Augustus 167
map 27.6 The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 911 figure 10.1 Floor Plan of a Cistercian Monastery 310
mapping the west The Cold War World, c. 1960 912 figure 11.1 Floor Plan of a Romanesque Church 333
figure 11.2 Elements of a Gothic Cathedral 334
Chapter 28 figure 11.3 Genealogy of Henry II 337
map 28.1 The Airbus Production System 922 figure 11.4 Troubadour Song: “I Never Died
map 28.2 The Vietnam War, 1954–1975 930 for Love” 348
spot map Prague Spring, 1968 935 figure 17.1 African Slaves Imported into American
spot map Israel after the Six-Day War, 1967 937 Territories, 1701–1810 521
spot map Nationalist Movements of the 1970s 939 figure 17.2 Annual Imports in the Atlantic Slave
mapping the west The Collapse of Communism Trade, 1450–1870 523
in Europe, 1989–1990 948 figure 23.1 European Emigration, 1870–1890 746
figure 24.1 The Growth in Armaments, 1890–1914 793
figure 25.1 The Rising Cost of Living During
Chapter 29
World War I 809
map 29.1 Eastern Europe in the 1990s 954
figure 26.1 Weapons Production of the Major
map 29.2 The Former Yugoslavia, c. 2000 955
Powers, 1939–1945 868
map 29.3 Countries of the Former Soviet Union,
figure 27.1 Military Spending and the Cold War
c. 2000 957
Arms Race, 1950–1970 891
map 29.4 The European Union in 2007 962
figure 27.2 Women in the Workforce, 1950–1960 907
map 29.5 The Middle East in the Twenty-first
figure 28.1 Fluctuating Oil Prices, 1955–1985 938
Century 971
spot map Tigers of the Pacific Rim, c. 1995 973
mapping the west The World in the New
Millennium 983
This page intentionally left blank
Special Features

Documents
Hammurabi’s Laws for Physicians 15
Declaring Innocence on Judgment Day in Ancient Egypt 22
Homer’s Vision of Justice in the Polis 46
Cyrene Records Its Foundation as a Greek Colony 52
Athenian Regulations for a Rebellious Ally 88
Sophists Argue Both Sides of a Case 90
Aristotle on the Nature of the Greek Polis 109
Epigrams by Women Poets 122
The Rape and Suicide of Lucretia 144
Polybius on Roman Military Discipline 154
Augustus, Res Gestae (My Accomplishments) 168
The Scene at a Roman Bath 170
Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices and Wages 201
The Edict of Milan on Religious Liberty 203
The Fatihah of the Qur’an 234
On Holy Images 245
The Book of the Prefect 265
When She Approached 272
A Byzantine View of Papal Primacy 305
Penances for the Invaders (1070) 322
Frederick I’s Reply to the Romans 344
The Children’s Crusade (1212) 355
The Debate between Reason and the Lover 369
Ausculta Fili (Listen, Beloved Son) 379
Wat Tyler’s Rebellion (1381) 398
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man 404
Columbus Describes His First Voyage (1493) 423
Ordinances for Calvinist Churches (1547) 433
The Horrors of the Thirty Years’ War 462
Sentence Pronounced against Galileo (1633) 477
Marie de Sévigné, Letter Describing the French Court (1675) 487
John Milton, Defense of Freedom of the Press (1644) 511
The Social Effects of Growing Consumption 530
Voltaire, Letters Concerning the English Nation (1733) 548
Denis Diderot, “Encyclopedia” (1755) 559
xxxv
xxxvi S p e c i a l Fe atu r e s

Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776) 582


The Rights of Minorities 597
Address on Abolishing the Slave Trade (February 5, 1790) 613
An Ordinary Soldier on Campaign with Napoleon 633
Wordsworth’s Poetry 642
Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto 677
Alexis de Tocqueville Describes the June Days in Paris (1848) 681
Mrs. Seacole: The Other Florence Nightingale 694
Bismarck Tricks the Public to Get His War 701
Imperialism’s Popularity among the People 736
Henrik Ibsen, From A Doll’s House 748
Leon Pinsker Calls for a Jewish State 783
A Historian Promotes Militant Nationalism 795
Outbreak of the Russian Revolution 813
Battlefield Tourism 830
A Family Copes with Unemployment 842
The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere 858
The Schuman Plan on European Unity, 1950 893
Consumerism, Youth, and the Birth of the Generation Gap 905
Margaret Thatcher’s Economic Vision 941
Criticizing Gorbachev 944
Václav Havel, “Czechoslovakia Is Returning to Europe” 963
The European Green Party Becomes Transnational (2006) 967

Contrasting Views
Persians Debate Democracy, Oligarchy, and Monarchy 58
The Nature of Women and Marriage 84
What Was Julius Caesar Like? 156
Christians in the Empire: Conspirators or Faithful Subjects? 186
Charlemagne: Roman Emperor, Father of Europe, or the Chief Bishop? 276
The First Crusade 314
Magna Carta 342
Joan of Arc: Who Was “the Maid”? 394
Martin Luther: Holy Man or Heretic? 431
The English Civil War 500
Women and the Enlightenment 562
Perspectives on the French Revolution 610
Napoleon: For and Against 634
Experiences of Migration 744
Arguing with the Victors 818
Stalin and Hitler: For and Against 850
Feminist Debates 932
Muslim Immigrants and Turkey in the EU: The Dutch Debate Globalization 976
S p e c i a l Fe atu r e s xxxvii

New Sources, New Perspectives


Daily Bread, Damaged Bones, and Cracked Teeth P-12
Papyrus Discoveries and Menander’s Comedies 124
Was There a Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire? 218
Anthropology, Archaeology, and Changing Notions of Ethnicity 249
The Cairo Geniza 318
The Peasants of Montaillou 364
Tree Rings and the Little Ice Age 466
Oral History and the Life of Slaves 524
Statistics and the Standard of Living of the Working Class 660
Psychohistory and Its Lessons 770
Museums and Memory 867
Government Archives and the Truth about the Cold War 885

Terms of History
Civilization 6
Medieval 233
Feudalism 283
Renaissance 402
Progress 547
Enlightenment 565
Revolution 590
Nationalism 697
Modern 766
Totalitarianism 845

Seeing History
Shifting Sculptural Expression: From Egypt to Greece 50
Changing Religious Beliefs: Pagan and Christian Sarcophagi 206
Who Conquered Whom? A Persian and an Arabic Coin Compared 239
Romanesque versus Gothic: The View Down the Nave 335
Expanding Geographic Knowledge: World Maps in an Age of Exploration 424
Religious Differences in Painting of the Baroque Period: Rubens and
Rembrandt 473
The Clothing Revolution: The Social Meaning of Changes in
Post-Revolutionary Fashion 624
Photographing the Nation: Domesticity and War 704
Demonizing the Enemy: Italian Propaganda Posters from World War I 808
Critiquing the Soviet System: Dissident Art in the 1960s and 1970s 929
xxxviii S p e c i a l Fe atu r e s

Taking Measure
Greek Family Size and Agricultural Labor in the Archaic Age 55
Military Forces of Athens and Sparta at the Beginning of the
Peloponnesian War (431 B.C.E.) 98
Census Records during the First and Second Punic Wars 148
The Value of Roman Imperial Coinage, 27 B.C.E.–300 C.E. 189
Peasants’ Use of Farm Produce in the Roman Empire 202
Church Repair, 600–900 243
Sellers, Buyers, and Donors, 800–1000 284
Slaves in England in 1086 323
Sentences Imposed by an Inquisitor, 1308–1323 363
Population Losses and the Black Death 389
The Rise and Fall of Silver Imports to Spain, 1550–1660 465
The Seventeenth-Century Army 493
Relationship of Crop Harvested to Seed Used, 1400–1800 531
World Population Growth, 1700–1800 571
Railroad Lines, 1830–1850 656
The Decline of Illiteracy 755
The Growth of Radio, 1924–1929 829
World Manufacturing Output, 1950–1970 892
Postindustrial Occupational Structure, 1984 923
World Population Growth, 1950–2010 968
To the Student
This guide to your textbook introduces the unique features that will help you
understand the fascinating story of Western Civilization.

Tools to help you focus


on what is important

Read the chapter outlines to preview


the topics and themes to come.

Read the focus questions at the


start of each chapter to think about
the main ideas you should look for
as you read.

Use the review questions at the end


Consult the running glossary Preview chapter events and keep of each major section to check your
for definitions of the bolded track of time with chapter timelines. understanding of key concepts.
Key Terms and People.
xxxix
xl To t h e Stu d e n t

Special features introduce the way historians work and


help you learn to think critically about the past.

Numerous individual
primary-source documents
offer direct experiences of the past
and the opportunity to consider
sources historians use.

Contrasting Views
provide three or four often conflict-
ing eyewitness accounts of a cen-
tral event, person, or development
to foster critical thinking skills.

New Sources, New Perspectives


show how new evidence leads historians
to fresh insights—and sometimes new
interpretations.

Seeing History
pairs two visuals with background informa-
tion and probing questions to encourage
analysis of images as historical evidence.

Terms of History identify a term


central to history writing and reveal
how it is hotly debated.

Taking Measure data reveal how


individual facts add up to broad trends
and introduce quantitative analysis skills.
To t h e Stu d e n t xli

Art and maps extend the chapter, and help you analyze
images and put events in geographical context.

Full-size maps show major


historical developments and
carry informative captions.

“Spot” maps offer


geographical de-
tails right where
you need them.

Mapping the West summary


maps provide a snapshot of the
West at the close of each chapter. Web references direct you
to visual activities designed
to help you analyze images.
xlii To t h e Stu d e n t

Tools to help you remember the chapter’s


main points and do further research

Read the chapter conclusions to review how the chap-


ters’ most important themes and topics fit together
and learn how they connect to the next chapter.

For print and Web resources for papers or


further study, consult the For Further Explo-
ration boxes at the end of each chapter, which
guide you to annotated lists of suggested ref-
erences, additional primary-source materials,
and related Web resources.

Answer the analytical Making Connections


questions, which will help you link ideas
within or across chapters.

Test your knowledge of the important


concepts and historical figures in the
Key Terms and People lists,
which include page references to the
text discussion and running glossary
definition. These definitions are also in
the glossary at the end of the book.

Answer the Review Questions,


which repeat the chapter’s end-of-
section comprehension prompts.

Visit the free online study guide,


which provides quizzes and activities to
help you master the chapter material.

Review the Important Events


chronologies to make sure you under-
stand the relationships between major
events in the chapter and their sequence.
To t h e Stu d e n t xliii

How to Read Primary Sources

In each chapter of this textbook you will find many primary sources to broaden your
understanding of the development of the West. Primary sources refer to firsthand,
contemporary accounts or direct evidence about a particular topic. For example,
speeches, letters, diaries, song lyrics, and newspaper articles are all primary sources that
historians use to construct accounts of the past. Nonwritten materials such as maps,
paintings, artifacts, and even architecture and music can also be primary sources. Both
types of historical documents in this textbook — written and visual — provide a glimpse
into the lives of the men and women who influenced or were influenced by the course
of Western history.
To guide your interpretation of any source, you should begin by asking several basic
questions, listed below, as starting points for observing, analyzing, and interpreting the
past. Your answers should prompt further questions of your own.
1. Who is the author? Who wrote or created the material? What was his or her author-
ity? (Personal? institutional?) Did the author have specialized knowledge or experi-
ence? If you are reading a written document, how would you describe the author’s
tone of voice? (Formal, personal, angry?)
2. Who is the audience? Who were the intended readers, listeners, or viewers? How does
the intended audience affect the ways that the author presents ideas?
3. What are the main ideas? What are the main points that the author is trying to con-
vey? Can you detect any underlying assumptions of values or attitudes? How does
the form or medium affect the meaning of this document?
4. In what context was the document created? From when and where does the docu-
ment originate? What was the interval between the initial problem or event and this
document, which responded to it? Through what form or medium was the document
communicated? (For example, a newspaper, a government record, an illustration.)
What contemporary events or conditions might have affected the creation of the doc-
ument?
5. What’s missing? What’s missing or cannot be learned from this source, and what might
this omission reveal? Are there other sources that might fill in the gaps?
Now consider these questions as you read “Columbus Describes His First Voyage
(1493),” the document on the next page. Compare your answers to the sample obser-
vations provided.
xliv To t h e Stu d e n t

1. Who is the author? The title and headnote that precede each document contain in-
formation about the authorship and date of its creation. In this case, the Italian ex-
plorer Christopher Columbus is the author. His letter describes events in which he
was both an eyewitness and a participant.
2. Who is the audience? Columbus sent the letter to Raphael Sanchez, treasurer to Fer-
dinand and Isabella — someone who Columbus knew would be keenly interested in
the fate of his patrons’ investment. Because the letter was also a public document writ-
ten to a crown official, Columbus would have expected a wider audience beyond
Sanchez. How might his letter have differed had it been written to a friend?
3. What are the main ideas? In this segment, Columbus describes his encounter with
the native people. He speaks of his desire to establish good relations by
treating them fairly, and he offers his impressions of their intelligence and naiveté —
characteristics he implies will prove useful to Europeans. He also expresses an interest
in converting them to Christianity and making them loyal subjects of the crown.
4. In what context was the document created? Columbus wrote the letter in 1493,
within six months of his first voyage. He would have been eager to announce the suc-
cess of his endeavor.
5. What’s missing? Columbus’s letter provides just one view of the encounter. We do
not have a corresponding account from the native Americans’ perspective nor from
anyone else travelling with Columbus. With no corroboration evidence, how reliable
is this description?
Note: You can use these same questions to analyze visual images. Start by determining
who created the image — whether it’s a painting, photograph, sculpture, map, or arti-
fact — and when it was made. Then consider the audience for whom the artist might
have intended the work and how viewers might have reacted. Consult the text for in-
formation about the time period, and look for visual cues such as color, artistic style, and
use of space to determine the central idea of the work. As you read, consult the captions
in this book to help you evaluate the images and to ask more questions of your own.
Authors’ Note

The B.C.E./C.E. Dating System To indicate years counted forward from the
traditional date of Jesus’ birth, numbers are fol-
“When were you born?”“What year is it?”We custom- lowed by the abbreviation C.E., standing for “of the
arily answer questions like these with a number, such common era” (or “of the Christian era”). C.E.
as “1987” or “2004.” Our replies are usually auto- therefore indicates the same chronology marked
matic, taking for granted the numerous assumptions by the traditional abbreviation A.D., which stands
Westerners make about how dates indicate chronol- for the Latin phrase anno Domini (“in the year of
ogy. But to what do numbers such as 1987 and 2004 the Lord”). A.D. properly comes before the date be-
actually refer? In this book the numbers used to ing marked. The date A.D. 1492, for example,
specify dates follow a recent revision of the system translates as “in the year of the Lord 1492,” mean-
most common in the Western secular world. This sys- ing 1492 years after the birth of Jesus. Under the
tem reckons the dates of solar years by counting B.C.E./C.E. system, this date would be written as
backward and forward from the traditional date of the 1492 C.E. For dating centuries, the term “first cen-
birth of Jesus Christ, over two thousand years ago. tury C.E.” refers to the period from 1 C.E. to 100
Using this method, numbers followed by the C.E. (which is the same period as A.D. 1 to A.D. 100).
abbreviation B.C.E., standing for “before the com- For dates C.E., the smaller the number, the earlier
mon era” (or, as some would say, “before the the date in history. The fourth century C.E. (301
Christian era”), indicate the number of years C.E. to 400 C.E.) comes before the fifth century C.E.
counting backward from the assumed date of the (401 C.E. to 500 C.E.). The year 312 C.E. is a date in
birth of Jesus Christ. B.C.E. therefore indicates the the early fourth century C.E., while 395 C.E. is a
same chronology marked by the traditional abbre- date late in the same century. When numbers are
viation B.C. (“before Christ”). The larger the num- given without either B.C.E. or C.E., they are pre-
ber following B.C.E. (or B.C.), the earlier in history sumed to be dates C.E. For example, the term eigh-
is the year to which it refers. The date 431 B.C.E., teenth century with no abbreviation accompany-
for example, refers to a year 431 years before the ing it refers to the years 1701 C.E. to 1800 C.E.
birth of Jesus and therefore comes earlier in time No standard system of numbering years, such
than the dates 430 B.C.E., 429 B.C.E., and so on. The as B.C.E./C.E., existed in antiquity. Different people
same calculation applies to numbering other time in different places identified years with varying
intervals calculated on the decimal system: those names and numbers. Consequently, it was difficult
of ten years (a decade), of one hundred years (a to match up the years in any particular local sys-
century), and of one thousand years (a millen- tem with those in a different system. Each city of
nium). For example, the decade of the 440s B.C.E. ancient Greece, for example, had its own method
(449 B.C.E. to 440 B.C.E.) is earlier than the decade for keeping track of the years. The ancient Greek
of the 430s B.C.E. (439 B.C.E. to 430 B.C.E.). “Fifth historian Thucydides, therefore, faced a problem
century B.C.E.” refers to the fifth period of 100 in presenting a chronology for the famous Pelo-
years reckoning backward from the birth of Jesus ponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, which
and covers the years 500 B.C.E. to 401 B.C.E. It is began (by our reckoning) in 431 B.C.E. To try to ex-
earlier in history than the fourth century B.C.E. plain to as many of his readers as possible the date
(400 B.C.E. to 301 B.C.E.), which followed the fifth the war had begun, he described its first year by
century B.C.E. Because this system has no year three different local systems: “the year when Chry-
“zero,” the first century B.C.E. covers the years 100 sis was in the forty-eighth year of her priesthood
B.C.E. to 1 B.C.E. Dating millennia works similarly: at Argos, and Aenesias was overseer at Sparta, and
the second millennium B.C.E. refers to the years Pythodorus was magistrate at Athens.”
2000 B.C.E. to 1001 B.C.E., the third millennium to A Catholic monk named Dionysius, who lived
the years 3000 B.C.E. to 2001 B.C.E., and so on. in Rome in the sixth century C.E., invented the

xlv
xlvi A u t h o r s ’ N ot e

system of reckoning dates forward from the birth The system of numbering years from the birth
of Jesus. Calling himself Exiguus (Latin for “the of Jesus is far from the only one in use today. The
little” or “the small”) as a mark of humility, he Jewish calendar of years, for example, counts for-
placed Jesus’ birth 754 years after the foundation ward from the date given to the creation of the
of ancient Rome. Others then and now believe his world, which would be calculated as 3761 B.C.E.
date for Jesus’s birth was in fact several years too under the B.C.E./C.E. system. Under this system,
late. Many scholars today calculate that Jesus was years are designated A.M., an abbreviation of the
born in what would be 4 B.C.E. according to Latin anno mundi, “in the year of the world.” The
Dionysius’s system, although a date a year or so Islamic calendar counts forward from the date of
earlier also seems possible. the prophet Muhammad’s flight from Mecca,
Counting backward from the supposed date called the Hijra, in what is the year 622 C.E. The
of Jesus’ birth to indicate dates earlier than that abbreviation A.H. (standing for the Latin phrase
event represented a natural complement to reck- anno Hegirae, “in the year of the Hijra”) indicates
oning forward for dates after it. The English histo- dates calculated by this system. Anthropology
rian and theologian Bede in the early eighth century commonly reckons distant dates as “before the
was the first to use both forward and backward present” (abbreviated B.P.).
reckoning from the birth of Jesus in a historical History is often defined as the study of change
work, and this system gradually gained wider ac- over time; hence the importance of dates for the
ceptance because it provided a basis for standard- historian. But just as historians argue over which
izing the many local calendars used in the Western dates are most significant, they disagree over which
Christian world. Nevertheless, B.C. and A.D. were dating system to follow. Their debate reveals per-
not used regularly until the end of the eighteenth haps the most enduring fact about history — its
century. B.C.E. and C.E. became common in the late vitality.
twentieth century.
Last H1 xlvii

About the Authors

LYNN HUNT, Eugen Weber Professor of Modern Euro- BARBARA H. ROSENWEIN, professor of history at
pean History at the University of California, Los Ange- Loyola University Chicago, earned her B.A., M.A., and
les, received her B.A. from Carleton College and her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. She is the author of
M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. She is the Rhinoceros Bound: Cluny in the Tenth Century (1982); To
author of Revolution and Urban Politics in Provincial Be the Neighbor of Saint Peter: The Social Meaning of
France (1978); Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Cluny’s Property, 909–1049 (1989); Negotiating Space:
Revolution (1984); The Family Romance of the French Power, Restraint, and Privileges of Immunity in Early Me-
Revolution (1992); and Inventing Human Rights (2007). dieval Europe (1999); A Short History of the Middle Ages
She is also the coauthor of Telling the Truth about His- (2001); Emotional Communities in the Early Middle
tory (1994); coauthor of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Ages (2006); and Reading the Middle Ages: Sources
Exploring the French Revolution (2001, with CD-ROM); from Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic World (2006).
editor of The New Cultural History (1989); editor and She is the editor of Anger’s Past: The Social Uses of an
translator of The French Revolution and Human Rights Emotion in the Middle Ages (1998) and coeditor of De-
(1996); and coeditor of Histories: French Constructions bating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings (1998) and
of the Past (1995), Beyond the Cultural Turn (1999), and Monks and Nuns, Saints and Outcasts: Religion in Me-
Human Rights and Revolutions (2000). She has been dieval Society (2000). A recipient of Guggenheim and Na-
awarded fellowships by the Guggenheim Foundation and tional Endowment for the Humanities fellowships, she
the National Endowment for the Humanities and is a fel- is currently working on a general history of emotions in
low of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. the West.
She served as president of the American Historical As-
sociation in 2002. R. PO-CHIA HSIA, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of
History at Pennsylvania State University, received his B.A.
THOMAS R. MARTIN, Jeremiah O’Connor Professor from Swarthmore College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from
in Classics at the College of the Holy Cross, earned his Yale University. He is the author of Society and Religion
B.A. at Princeton University and his M.A. and Ph.D. at in Münster, 1535–1618 (1984); The Myth of Ritual Mur-
Harvard University. He is the author of Sovereignty and der: Jews and Magic in Reformation Germany (1988); So-
Coinage in Classical Greece (1985) and Ancient Greece cial Discipline in the Reformation: Central Europe
(1996, 2000) and is one of the originators of Perseus: In- 1550–1750 (1989); Trent 1475: Stories of a Ritual Murder
teractive Sources and Studies on Ancient Greece (1992, Trial (1992); The World of the Catholic Renewal (1997);
1996, and www.perseus.tufts.edu), which, among other and Noble Patronage and Jesuit Missions: Maria Theresa
awards, was named the EDUCOM Best Software in So- von Fugger-Wellenburg (1690–1762) and Jesuit Mission-
cial Sciences (History) in 1992. He serves on the edito- aries to China and Vietnam (2006). He has edited or
rial board of STOA (www.stoa.org) and as codirector of coedited In and Out of the Ghetto: Jewish-Gentile Rela-
its DEMOS project (online resources on ancient Athen- tions in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany (1995);
ian democracy). A recipient of fellowships from the The German People and the Reformation (1998); Calvin-
National Endowment for the Humanities and the Amer- ism and Religious Toleration in the Dutch Golden Age
ican Council of Learned Societies, he is currently con- (2002); A Companion to the Reformation World (Black-
ducting research on the comparative historiography of well Companion Series, 2004); Cultural Translation in
ancient Greece and ancient China. Early Modern Europe (2007); and Cambridge History of
xlvii
xlviii About the Authors

Christianity, Volume 6, Reform and Expansion, France (1985); Changing Lives: Women in European
1500–1660 (2007). An academician at the Academia History Since 1700 (1989); The Gender of History: Men,
Sinica, Taiwan, he has also been awarded fellowships by Women, and Historical Practice (1998); Imperialism (2000);
the Woodrow Wilson International Society of Scholars, and Europe in the Contemporary World: 1900 to the Present
the National Endowment for the Humanities, the (2007). She is also the coauthor and translator of What Is
Guggenheim Foundation, the Davis Center of Princeton Property? (1994); editor of Global Feminisms since 1945
University, the Mellon Foundation, the American Coun- (2000) and Women’s History in Global Perspective (3 vols.
cil of Learned Societies, and the American Academy in 2004–2005); coeditor of History and the Texture of Modern
Berlin. Currently he is working on the cultural con- Life: Selected Writings of Lucy Maynard Salmon, Gendering
tacts between Europe and Asia between the sixteenth and Disability (2004); and general editor of Oxford Encyclope-
eighteenth centuries. dia of Women in World History (4 vols. 2007). She has re-
ceived fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the
BONNIE G. SMITH, Board of Governors Professor of National Endowment for the Humanities, the National
History at Rutgers University, earned her B.A. at Smith Col- Humanities Center, the Davis Center of Princeton Univer-
lege and her Ph.D. at the University of Rochester. She is the sity, and the American Council of Learned Societies.
author of Ladies of the Leisure Class (1981); Confessions of Currently she is studying the globalization of European
a Concierge: Madame Lucie’s History of Twentieth-Century culture since the seventeenth century.
t h i r d e d i t i o n

The Making
of the West
P E O P L E S A N D C U LT U R E S
Prologue:
The Beginnings
of Human Society
tO c. 4000 b.c.e.

n 1997, archaeologists working in the East African nation of The Paleolithic Age,

I Ethiopia discovered fossilized skulls that dated from at least 160,000


years ago. These bones are the oldest remains ever found from the
species Homo sapiens (“wise human being”)—people whose brains and
200,000–10,000 B.C.E.
• The Life of Hunter-Gatherers
• Technology, Trade, Religion,
and Hierarchy
P-4

appearances were similar (though not identical) to ours. This new in- The Neolithic Age,
formation excited scientists because it supported the “out of Africa” 10,000–4000 B.C.E. P-8
• The Neolithic Revolution
theory about human origins, which claims that Homo sapiens first ap- • Neolithic Origins of Modern Life and War
peared in Africa perhaps as early as 200,000 years ago and then spread • Daily Life in the Neolithic Village of
Çatalhöyük
from that continent all over the world. • Gender Inequality in the Neolithic Age
The innovations that early human beings made in technology, trade,
religion, and social organization formed the basis of our modern way of
life. They also led to the emergence of war. Just as with the discovery of
the skull, researchers keep uncovering new information that changes our
knowledge about the past and therefore our thinking about how the past
relates to the present. This process of discovery always involves question-
ing and debate. When we study history, therefore, we have to expect dis-
agreements, especially about how to understand past events, what those
events meant then, and what they mean today. Recent discoveries of hu-
man remains in Asia, for example, have reignited debate over the “out of
Africa” theory, bringing back the once-discarded idea that human beings
arose independently in different parts of the earth.
Scientists studying fossilized bones and those studying human mi-
tochondrial DNA (the type inherited from the mother) have shown
that it took millions of years for the earliest human species to emerge.
According to the “out of Africa” theory, human beings exactly like us

Stone Age Handaxe


Archaeologists regard stone cutting tools like this one, called a handaxe, as the first
great invention. Stone Age peoples made handaxes for hundreds of thousands of
years, probably using hammers made from bone or wood to chip off flakes from the
stone to create knifelike edges for cutting and scraping. This sharp tool would have
been especially useful for butchering animals, such as the hippopotamuses that
African hunter-gatherers killed for meat. Shown here at its full size (about seven and
three-quarter inches top to bottom), this handaxe was, like all others, shaped to fit
the human palm; users probably wrapped the tool in a piece of hide to protect their
hands from cuts. ( © The Trustees of The British Museum.)
P–3
P–4 Pro lo g u e ■ Th e B e g i n n i n g s o f H u m a n S o c i et y to c . 4 0 0 0 b. c . e .

(Homo sapiens sapiens, meaning “wise, wise human time before the invention of writing prehistory, be-
being”) first developed in sub-Saharan Africa cause history traditionally means having written
more than fifty thousand years ago. Starting about sources about the past. Historians also usually do
forty-five thousand years ago, those human beings not apply the word civilization to human society in
began moving out of Africa, first into the Near the Stone Age because people then had not yet be-
East1 and then into Europe and Asia. gun to live in cities or form political states (people
This migration took place in the period com- living in a defined territory and organized under
monly called the Stone Age, during which human a central political authority), important character-
beings made their most durable tools from stones, istics that historians look for when defining civi-
before they learned to work metals. Human soci- lization. (The first cities and political states
ety began in the Stone Age, which archaeologists emerged about the same time as writing, as we will
divide into two parts to mark the greatest turning see in Chapter 1.)
point in human history, the invention of agricul- It was in the Neolithic Age that, instead of only
ture and the domestication of animals and the hunting and gathering food in the wild, people
enormous changes in human society that these in- learned how to produce their own food by raising
novations brought. The first, older part, the Pale- crops and domesticating animals. These techno-
olithic (“Old Stone”) Age, dates from about logical innovations produced lasting changes in
200,000 B.C.E. to about 10,000 B.C.E. The second, human society, especially in strengthening social
newer part, the Neolithic (“New Stone”) Age, hierarchy, supporting gender inequality, and en-
dates from about 10,000 B.C.E. to about 4000 B.C.E. couraging war for conquest. Historians continue
Archaeology — the study of physical evidence to debate what was positive and what was negative
from the past — is our only source of information in the consequences, intentional and uninten-
about the Stone Age; there are no documents to tional, that this turning point produced for human
inform us about the lives of early human beings society.
because people did not invent writing until about
4000–3000 B.C.E. Historians sometimes label the
Focus Question: What were the most significant
changes in humans’ lives during the Stone Age?
1 The term Near East, like Middle East, has undergone several

changes in meaning over time. Both terms reflect the geographi-


cal point of view of Europeans. Today, the term Middle East, more
commonly employed in politics and journalism than in history,
usually refers to the area encompassing the Arabic-speaking coun- The Paleolithic Age,
tries of the eastern Mediterranean region as well as Israel, Iran,
Turkey, Cyprus, and much of North Africa. Ancient historians, by 200,000–10,000 B.C.E.
contrast, generally use the term ancient Near East to designate Ana-
tolia (often called Asia Minor, today occupied by the Asian por- Human society began during the Paleolithic Age
tion of Turkey), Cyprus, the lands around the eastern end of the
Mediterranean, the Arabian peninsula, Mesopotamia (the lands
and was organized to suit a mobile way of life be-
north of the Persian Gulf, today Iraq and Iran), and Egypt. In this cause human beings in this early period roamed
book we will observe the common usage of the term Near East to around in small groups to hunt and gather food
mean the lands of southwestern Asia and Egypt.
in the wild. The most notable feature of early Pa-
Paleolithic Age: The “Old Stone” Age, dating from about
200,000 to 10,000 B.C.E. political states: People living in a defined territory with bound-
Neolithic Age: The “New Stone” Age, dating from about 10,000 aries and organized under a system of government with pow-
to 4000 B.C.E. erful officials, leaders, and judges.

■ 10,000–8000 Neolithic
■ 50,000–45,000 Homo sapiens Revolution in the Fertile Crescent
sapiens migrate from Africa into and the Sahara Desert
southwest Asia and Europe

200,000 b.c.e. 50,000 b.c.e. 10,000 b.c.e. 0


■ 200,000–160,000 ■ 8000 Walled
Beginning of Paleolithic Age settlement at Jericho
■ 7000–5500 Farming
community thrives at
Çatalhöyük
to c . 4 0 0 0 b. c . e . Th e Pa l e o l i t h i c A g e , 2 0 0 , 0 0 0 – 1 0 , 0 0 0 b. c . e . P–5

leolithic society was that the group probably made Archaeological excavations of hunter-gatherers’
important decisions in common, with all adult campsites tell us about their lives on the move,
men and women having a more or less equal say. showing that over time they invented new forms
Over time, however, Paleolithic peoples created a of tools, weapons, and jewelry and began burying
more complex social organization as they devel- their dead with special care. Anthropologists have
oped trade to acquire goods from long distances, also reconstructed the lives of ancient hunter-
technology such as fire for heat and cooking, reli- gatherers from comparative study of the few
gious beliefs to express their understanding of groups who lived on as hunter-gatherers into mod-
death, and a hierarchical ranking of people in so- ern times, such as the !Kung San of southern
ciety to denote differences in status. Africa’s Kalahari Desert, the Aborigines in Aus-
tralia, and the Coahuiltecans in the American
Southwest. These two categories of evidence sug-
The Life of Hunter-Gatherers gest that Paleolithic hunter-gatherers banded to-
The characteristics of human society in the Pale- gether in groups numbering around twenty or
olithic period originally reflected the conditions of thirty to hunt and gather food that they shared
life for hunter-gatherers, the term historians use with each other. Their average life expectancy was
for people who roamed all their lives, hunting wild about twenty-five to thirty years. Since they had
animals and foraging. They never settled perma- not learned to domesticate animals or to make
nently in one place. Although they knew a great wheels for carts, they walked everywhere. Because
deal about how to survive in the natural environ- women of childbearing age had to carry and nurse
ment, they had not yet learned to produce their their babies, it was difficult for them to roam long
own food by growing crops and raising animals. distances. They and the younger children therefore
Instead, they hunted wild game for meat; fished in gathered plants, fruits, and nuts close to camp and
lakes and rivers; collected shellfish along the shore; caught small animals such as frogs and rabbits. The
and gathered wild grains, fruits, and nuts. plant food that they gathered provided the major-
Archaeology reveals that a change in weather ity of the group’s diet. Men did most of the hunt-
patterns apparently motivated hunter-gatherers of ing of large animals, which frequently took them
the Homo sapiens sapiens type to begin wander- far from camp to kill prey at close range with rocks
ing out of Africa around 50,000–45,000 B.C.E. Long and spears; butchered hippopotamus bones found
periods without rain drove game animals into near the skulls in Ethiopia show that early humans
southwest Asia and then Europe to find water, and hunted these dangerous animals. Women proba-
at least some of the mobile human populations bly participated in hunts when the group used nets
who hunted them in African lands followed this to catch wild animals.
moving food into new continents. There is no ev- Each band of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers
idence to explain why some hunter-gatherers left moved around searching for food, usually ranging
Africa in the Paleolithic period while others stayed over an area that averaged roughly sixty miles
behind. across in any one direction. They tended not to in-
When these Homo sapiens sapiens hunter- trude on other bands’ areas, but there were no set
gatherers reached Europe and Asia, they met there boundaries or central settlements to identify a
earlier types of human beings who had already mi- band’s territory. To judge from the battles observed
grated out of Africa, such as the heavy-browed, between surviving tribes of hunter-gatherers, when
squat-bodied Neanderthal type (named after the bands fought with each other, the conflict was
Neander valley in Germany, where their fossil re- more skirmish than total battle, and there was as
mains were first found; their body type is often much display as serious fighting; for ancient hunter-
used to represent “cave men” in popular art). Even- gatherers, there was nothing to take from another
tually Homo sapiens sapiens replaced all earlier group that one’s own group did not already pos-
types of people around the globe, walking across sess, except other people. Hunter-gatherers’ con-
then-existent land bridges to reach the Americas stant walking, bending, and lifting kept them in
and Australia. fine physical shape for hunting and the occasional
battle, but they counted on their knowledge as
much as their strength. Most important, they
hunter-gatherers: Human beings who roam to hunt and gather planned ahead for cooperative hunts at favorite
food in the wild and do not live in permanent, settled commu- spots, such as river crossings or lakes with shallow
nities.
banks, where experience taught they were likely to
Homo sapiens sapiens: The scientific name (in Latin) of the type
of early human being identical to people today; it means “wise, find herds of large animals fording the stream and
wise human being.” drinking water.
P–6 Pro lo g u e ■ Th e B e g i n n i n g s o f H u m a n S o c i et y to c . 4 0 0 0 b. c . e .

A Paleolithic Shelter
This is a reconstruction of a hut that Paleolithic people built around
fifteen thousand years ago from the bones of giant mammoths in
what is now Ukraine, in east-central Europe. Animal hides would
have been used to cover the structure, like a tent on poles.
It was big enough for a small group to huddle inside to
survive cold weather. (RIA Novosti.)

ing clothes from animal skins, thereby increasing


the chances for survival. The discovery of how to
make fire was especially important because Pale-
olithic people had to endure the cold of extended
ice ages, when the northern European glaciers
moved much farther south than usual. The cold-
est part of the most recent ice age started about
Paleolithic hunter-gatherers also used their twenty thousand years ago and created a harsh cli-
knowledge to establish camps year after year in mate in much of Europe for nearly ten thousand
particularly good spots for gathering wild plants. years. Hunter-gatherers’ knowledge of how to con-
They took shelter from the weather in caves or trol fire led to the invention of cooking. This was
temporary dwellings made from branches and an- a crucial innovation because it turned indigestible
imal skins. On occasion, they built sturdier shel- wild plants, such as grains, into edible and nutri-
ters, such as the dome-like hut found in Ukraine tious food.
that was constructed from the bones of mam- Long-distance trade also began in the Stone
moths. Nevertheless, they never built permanent Age. When hunter-gatherers encountered other
homes; they had to roam to survive. bands, they exchanged things they had made, such
Hunter-gatherers probably lived originally in as blades and jewelry, as well as natural objects
egalitarian societies, meaning that all adults en- such as flint or seashells. Trade could move valu-
joyed a general equality in making decisions for able objects great distances from their original re-
the group. This cooperation reflected the fact that gion: for example, ocean shells worn as jewelry
men and women both worked hard to provide made their way inland, far from the sea, through
food for the group, even if they tended to divide repeated swaps from one group to another.
this labor by gender, with men doing more hunt- Archaeological discoveries suggest that Pale-
ing and women more gathering. At some point, olithic hunter-gatherers developed religious be-
however, differences in social status began to liefs, a crucial factor in the evolution of human
emerge. Most likely, age was the first basis of so- society; ancient peoples always saw religion as nec-
cial status: older people of both genders won pres- essary for living a successful and just life. Colorful
tige and probably positions of leadership from the late Paleolithic cave paintings found in Spain and
wisdom gained from long experience of life in an France hint at hunter-gatherers’ religious ideas as
era when most people died of illness or accidents well as display their artistic ability. Using strong,
before they were thirty years old. Women past dark lines and earthy colors, Paleolithic artists
childbearing age, who were therefore free to help painted on the walls of caves that were set aside as
out in multiple ways, and strong and clever men special places, not used as day-to-day shelters. The
who hunted dangerous animals also likely held paintings, which primarily depict large animals,
higher status. suggest that these powerful beasts played a signif-
icant role in the religion of Paleolithic hunter-
gatherers. Still, there remains a great deal we
Technology, Trade, Religion,
cannot yet understand about their beliefs, such as
and Hierarchy the meaning of the dots, rectangles, and hands that
Paleolithic people made changes in their lives that they often drew beside their paintings of animals.
turned out to be important for the later develop- Stone Age burial sites provide evidence of re-
ment of civilization. In technology, learning how ligious beliefs. The early skulls found in Ethiopia
to create ever sharper edges and points in stone or have missing jaws and marks in the bone, indica-
bone or wood created better cutting tools and tions that these early people cut away the flesh
weapons for hunting, digging out roots, and mak- from dead persons’ heads as part of a careful bur-
to c . 4 0 0 0 b. c . e . Th e Pa l e o l i t h i c A g e , 2 0 0 , 0 0 0 – 1 0 , 0 0 0 b. c . e . P–7

ial process (and not for cannibalism, as some have differentiation, the marking of certain people as
said). Another indication of belief is the care with wealthier, more respected, or more powerful than
which later Paleolithic bands buried their dead, others in their society.
decorating the corpses with red paint, flowers, and Despite their varied knowledge and techno-
seashells. This elaborate procedure suggests that logical skill, prehistoric hunter-gatherers lived pre-
Stone Age people wondered about the mystery of carious lives that were dominated by the relentless
death and perhaps had ideas about an afterlife. search for something to eat. Survival was a risky
Important evidence for early religious beliefs business. The groups that survived were those that
also comes from the discovery of specially shaped
female figurines at late Paleolithic sites all over
Europe. Modern archaeologists called these stat-
uettes of women with extra-large breasts, ab-
domens, buttocks, and thighs Venus figurines, after
the Roman goddess of sexual love (see the Venus Prehistoric Venus Figurine
of Willendorf, shown here). The oversized features This limestone statuette, four and a half
inches high, was found at Willendorf, in
of these sculptures suggest that the people who
Austria. Carved in the later Paleolithic
made them had a special set of beliefs and rituals period and originally colored red, it
regarding fertility and birth. probably was meant to have symbolic
Burials reveal more than religious beliefs; they power expressing the importance of
also show that, by late Paleolithic times, hunter- women’s fertility. The emphasis on
gatherer society had begun to mark significant dif- the woman’s breasts and pubic
ferences in status among people. Those who were area have led scholars to call such
buried with valuable items such as weapons, tools, statuettes Venus figurines, after
animal figurines, ivory beads, and bracelets must the Roman goddess of love and sex;
have had special social standing. These object-rich archaeologists have uncovered many
burials reveal that late Paleolithic groups had of them all across Europe. Since no
written records exist to explain the
begun organizing their society according to a
significance of such figurines’ hairstyle,
hierarchy, a ranking system identifying certain obesity, and pronounced sexual
people as more important and more dominant characteristics, we can only speculate
than others. This is the earliest evidence for social about the complex meanings that early
peoples attributed to them. How would
hierarchy: The system of ranking people in society according you explain this figurine’s appearance?
to their importance and dominance. (© SuperStock.)

Bison Painting in the Cave at Lascaux


Stone Age people painted these bison on the
rock walls of a large cave at Lascaux in central
France about 15,000 B.C.E., to judge from
radiocarbon dating of charcoal found on the floor.
Using black, red, yellow, and white pigments, the
artists made the deep cave into an art gallery by
filling it with pictures of large mammals such as
these European buffaloes, horses, deer, bears,
and wooly rhinoceroses. Some scholars have
suggested that the scenes symbolized the
importance of hunting to the people who painted
them, but this guess seems wrong because the
bones from butchered animals found in the cave
are 90 percent reindeer, while no reindeer
pictures exist in the cave. (Caves of Lascaux, Dordogne,
France/ The Bridgeman Art Library.)

■ For more help analyzing this image, see the


visual activity for this prologue in the Online
Study Guide at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
P–8 Pro lo g u e ■ Th e B e g i n n i n g s o f H u m a n S o c i et y to c . 4 0 0 0 b. c . e .

learned to cooperate in finding food and shelter; pened to have the right combination of soil, wa-
to profit from innovations such as fire, tools, and ter, temperature, and wild mammals for the inven-
trade; and to teach their children the knowledge, tion of farming and the domestication of animals.
beliefs, and social traditions that had helped them The Fertile Crescent stretches in an arc, or cres-
endure in a harsh world. cent, along the foothills and lowlands that run
northward from modern Israel across southeast-
ern Turkey and Syria and then turn in a southeast-
Review: What were the most important activities,
erly direction down to the plain of the lower
skills, and beliefs that helped Paleolithic hunter-
gatherers survive? stretches of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what
is now southern Iraq (Map 1).
The slow process of trial and error through
which former hunter-gatherers developed agricul-
The Neolithic Age, ture had complex origins. Recent archaeological
excavations at Göbelki Tepe (“stomach-shaped
10,000–4000 B.C.E. little hill”), a site in southeastern Turkey, have
revealed stone-lined rooms in the earth decorated
By around 10,000 to 8000 B.C.E., people in the Near with stone pillars eight feet tall or more that are
East had opened the way to a different kind of so- carved to depict animals, from boars and bears to
ciety by learning to produce their food and build birds and snakes. Free-standing sculptures of an-
permanent settlements that housed larger popula- imals seem to have been placed atop the rooms’
tions than the twenty- to thirty-member bands of walls. Radiocarbon dating suggests these rooms
hunter-gatherers. In this new society, dominance were built around 9300 B.C.E., which would make
by men replaced the general equality in status and them contemporary with the first attested agri-
decision making between men and women that culture or perhaps even earlier. Some scholars
likely existed in earlier times. In addition, war be- speculate that hunter-gatherers built these mon-
came a prominent part of human life. uments for religious purposes and that the large
The invention of agriculture and permanent amount of time they spent together in one place
settlements in the Neolithic Age occurred over a to create such elaborate structures and art led
long time, but, once established, they changed for- them to develop agriculture as a new way to feed
ever the way human beings lived; eventually, these themselves.
changes would make civilization possible. Daily Only further archaeological research can re-
life as we know it today still depends on agricul- veal whether Stone Age religious activity had the
ture and the domestication of animals, develop- unintentional consequence of generating agricul-
ments that began about 10,000–8000 B.C.E., at the ture. What seems certain is that climate change
beginning of the Neolithic period. These radical contributed significantly to the Neolithic Revolu-
innovations in the way humans acquired food tion. About ten to twelve thousand years ago, the
caused such fundamental changes in our way of long-term weather pattern in the Fertile Crescent
life that they are called the Neolithic Revolution. became milder and rainier than it had been dur-
ing the ice age that had just ended. This change
The Neolithic Revolution promoted the growth of abundant fields of wild
cereal grains. Similarly, recent archaeological
Revolutionary change took place in human history
research reveals that increased rain in the Sahara
in the Neolithic Age when hunter-gatherers
Desert, in central Africa, created there lush grass-
learned to sow and harvest crops and to raise an-
lands called savannahs that attracted hunter-
imals for food. Exactly how they gained this
gatherer nomads from the southern part of the
knowledge remains mysterious. Recent archaeo-
continent; in a slow process of change, these people
logical research, however, indicates that it took
built settlements, domesticated cattle instead of
thousands of years for people to develop agricul-
only hunting wild animals, and created intricate
ture. The process began in the part of the Near East
pottery suited to their new way of life.
that we call the Fertile Crescent because, unlike
The hunter-gatherers living in the Fertile
most regions of the earth, its hillier regions hap-
Crescent began to gather more and more of their
food from the now easily available wild grains. This
regular supply of food in turn promoted human
Neolithic Revolution: The invention of agriculture, the domes-
tication of animals, and the consequent changes in human so-
fertility, which led to a growth in population, a
ciety that occurred about 10,000–8,000 B.C.E. in the Near East. process that might have already begun as a result
to c . 4 0 0 0 b. c . e . Th e N e o l i t h i c A g e , 1 0 , 0 0 0 – 4 0 0 0 b. c . e . P–9

Early agricultural sites


c. 10,000–6500 B.C.E.
c. 6500–5000 B.C.E.
BRITISH
c. 5000–4000 B.C.E.
ISLES
Fertile Crescent

EUROPE

ATLANTIC
P S
OCEAN A L
an

D
ub
eR
ASIA
.

Cas
Black Sea
CA

pi
UC
A

a n S ea
SU
SM
. TS
M TS .
Çatalhöyük US
UR
N TA

ZA
GR
Med OS
iterr

T i PO es R
W E Eu M

ES p h
anean TS

gr TA .
Sea

O rat
.

is
R. MIA
Presumed
S Jericho ancient coastline

Pe
r si
n

a
Gu
lf
R.
le
AFRICA
Ni

0 250 500 miles

0 250 500 kilometers

MAP 1 The Development of Agriculture


From around 10,000 to 8000 B.C.E., people learned to plant seeds to grow nourishing plants and to
domesticate animals in the Fertile Crescent, the foothills of the semicircle of mountains that curved
up and around from the eastern end of the Mediterranean down to Mesopotamia, where reliable
rainfall and moderate temperatures prevailed. At about the same time, domestication of animals took
place in the grasslands then flourishing in the Sahara region of Africa. The invention of irrigation in
the Fertile Crescent allowed farmers to grow lush crops in the region’s arid plains, providing resources
that eventually spurred the emergence of the first large cities by about 4000 B.C.E.

of the milder climate. The more children that were eat, a development that helped replace the meat
born, the greater the need to exploit the food sup- previously acquired by hunting large mammals,
ply efficiently. Over centuries, people learned to many of which had by now been hunted to extinc-
plant part of the seeds from one crop of grain to tion. Fortunately for the people in the Fertile Cres-
produce another crop. Since Neolithic women did cent, their region was home to surviving large
most of the gathering of plant food, they had the mammals that could be domesticated. Unlike
greatest knowledge of plant life and therefore African animals such as the zebra or the hippopota-
probably played the major role in the invention of mus, the wild sheep, goats, and cattle of the Fertile
agriculture and the fashioning of tools needed to Crescent could, over the span of generations, be
turn grains into food, such as grinding stones for turned into animals accustomed to live closely and
making flour. At this early stage in the develop- interdependently with human beings. The sheep
ment of agriculture, women and children did most was the first animal to be domesticated as a source
of the agricultural labor, using hand tools to grow of meat, beginning about 8500 B.C.E. (The dog had
and harvest crops, while men continued to hunt. been domesticated much earlier but was not usu-
During the early Neolithic period, people also ally eaten.) By about 7000 B.C.E., domesticated an-
learned to breed and herd animals that they could imals had become common throughout the Near
P–10 Pro lo g u e ■ Th e B e g i n n i n g s o f H u m a n S o c i et y to c . 4 0 0 0 b. c . e .

East. In this early period of domestication, some the human population — for example, the avian
people lived as pastoralists, meaning they obtained influenza (bird flu) virus — we are still living with
their food mainly from the herds of animals that this unintended consequence of the Neolithic
they kept, frequently moving around to find fresh Revolution.
grazing land. They also cultivated small temporary Two central features of Neolithic farming vil-
plots from time to time when they found a suit- lages helped create conditions that eventually con-
able area. Other people, relying more and more on tributed to the creation of civilization: they were
growing crops for their livelihood, kept small herds permanent, and they supported larger populations
close to their settlements. Men, women, and chil- than were characteristic of hunter-gatherer soci-
dren alike could therefore tend the animals. These ety. Much bigger and more densely packed than
earliest domesticated herds seem to have been used the temporary settlements of the Paleolithic Age,
only as a source of meat, not for products such as early farming communities had sturdy houses
milk or wool. built from mud bricks and used containers made
of pottery (whose broken remains provide evi-
dence for chronology and cultural development).
Neolithic Origins of Modern Life
The first homes were apparently circular huts, like
and War those known from Jericho (in what is today Israel).
The Neolithic Revolution laid the foundation for Around two thousand people had settled in Jeri-
civilization and our modern way of life. The re- cho by 8000 B.C.E., their huts sprawling over about
markable new knowledge of how to produce food twelve acres.
and the consequent division and specialization of Jericho’s remains also reveal that war became
labor emerged through innovative human re- a prominent part of life during the Neolithic Rev-
sponses to the link between environmental change olution. The most remarkable part of the village
and population growth (see “New Sources, New was the massive fortification wall surrounding the
Perspectives,” page P-12). Furthermore, the Ne- community. Ten feet thick, the wall was crowned
olithic Revolution reveals the importance of with a stone tower thirty feet in diameter enclos-
demography — the study of the size, growth, den- ing an internal flight of stairs; this massive struc-
sity, distribution, and vital statistics of the human ture shows that the inhabitants of Jericho feared
population — in understanding historical change. attacks by their neighbors (see Jericho’s wall and
Agriculture and population growth influenced tower, on page P-11). The growing prosperity that
each other during the Neolithic Age. First, to be the Neolithic Revolution had brought evidently
able to raise crops on a permanent basis, people also spurred war for conquest and acquisition.
had to stop roaming and settle in one place with Neolithic people from the Fertile Crescent
adequate land and water. Farming communities opened the way for civilization to develop in other
thus sprang up in the Fertile Crescent starting regions by gradually spreading their knowledge of
around 10,000 B.C.E., sharing the region with pas- agriculture abroad. Farmers looking for more land
toralists. Parents began to have more children be- migrated westward from the Near East and
cause agriculture required a great deal of labor and brought the new technology of farming into areas
because the ready availability of food from the where it was not previously known. Although re-
fields and herds could support a larger population. cent scholarship argues that human beings in other
At the same time, living in close quarters with do- areas, especially Asia, independently developed
mesticated animals, which might well be penned agriculture and the domestication of animals, mi-
right next to or even inside the house, exposed grants from the Near East were the ones who
people in these settlements to new epidemic dis- spread this knowledge across Europe by 4000 B.C.E.
eases transmitted from animals to humans.
Hunter-gatherers had largely escaped this danger
Daily Life in the Neolithic Village
because they had no groups of animals around
them every day, although they could sometimes of Çatalhöyük
become infected by eating diseased wild animals. An archaeological site northwest of the Fertile
Since many viruses that afflict people today origi- Crescent, in present-day Turkey, provides vital ev-
nated in domesticated animals before moving into idence for the vast changes in human life brought
on by this spread of knowledge during the Ne-
olithic Age, especially how agriculture’s greater ef-
demography: The study of the size, growth, density, distribu- ficiency in providing food led to the division and
tion, and vital statistics of the human population. specialization of labor. At this site, on a plain near
to c . 4 0 0 0 b. c . e . Th e N e o l i t h i c A g e , 1 0 , 0 0 0 – 4 0 0 0 b. c . e . P–11

Tower in the Stone Wall of Neolithic Jericho


The circular mass in the center of this photograph is the base of a tower in the stone
wall that the people of Jericho (today in Israel) built to protect their community around
8000–7000 B.C.E. This is one of the earliest defensive walls ever discovered: most of the
people in this era still lived in unwalled collections of mud huts, but the inhabitants of
Jericho had reached a more complex level of social organization that allowed them to
collaborate on major building projects. The agricultural fields that lay outside the walls
supplied the overwhelming majority of Jericho’s economy, while the wall surrounding
their settlement provided security for the residents’ homes and storehouses and thus
protected their improving standard of living. (Photo: Zev Radovan.)

a river, a large mound rises from the countryside. of meat and, by this time, hides and milk. They
Known to us only by its modern Turkish name, continued to hunt, too, as we can tell from the
Çatalhöyük (meaning “Fork Mound”), the site re- hunting scenes they drew on the walls of some of
veals what daily life was like in a Neolithic farm- their buildings, recalling the cave paintings of
ing community. By 7000 to 6500 B.C.E., the farmers much earlier times. Unlike hunter-gatherers, how-
of Çatalhöyük had erected a settlement of mud- ever, these villagers no longer had to depend on
brick houses sharing common walls. They con- the hit-or-miss luck of the hunt or risk being killed
structed their dwellings in the rectangular shape by wild animals to acquire meat and leather. At its
still used for most homes today, with one striking height, the village’s population reached perhaps six
difference: they had no doors in their outer walls. thousand people.
Instead, they entered their homes by climbing The diversity of occupations practiced at
down a ladder through a hole in the flat roof. Since Çatalhöyük reveals a significant change from ear-
this hole also served as a vent for smoke from the lier times, anticipating the division of labor char-
family fire, getting into a house at Çatalhöyük acteristic of the later cities of the first fully
could be a grimy experience. But the absence of ex- developed civilizations. Since the community
terior doors also meant that the walls of the com- could produce enough food to support itself with-
munity’s outermost houses served as the village’s out everyone having to work in the fields or herd
fortification wall to defend it against attacks. cattle, some people could develop crafts as full-
The people of Çatalhöyük fed themselves by time occupations. Just as others in the community
growing wheat, barley, and vegetables such as field produced food for them, craft specialists produced
peas; they diverted water from the nearby river into goods for those who produced the food. Craft spe-
their fields to increase their harvests. They also kept cialists continued to fashion tools, containers, and
domesticated cattle to provide their main supply ornaments in the traditional way — from wood,
P–12 Pro lo g u e ■ Th e B e g i n n i n g s o f H u m a n S o c i et y to c . 4 0 0 0 b. c . e .

NEW SOURCES, NEW PERSPECTIVES

Daily Bread, Damaged Bones,


and Cracked Teeth

he invention of agriculture helped people produce a more

T predictable and plentiful supply of food, which in turn al-


lowed the population to expand. This change came at a
price. Recent scientific research in biological anthropology and
osteological archaeology (the study of ancient bones and teeth)
has uncovered dramatic evidence of the physical stress endured
by some of the individuals working in early agriculture. Excava-
tors at Tell Abu Hureyra in Syria have found bones and teeth
from people living around 6000 B.C.E. that reveal the pain that
the new technology could cause. The big toes of these ancient
people especially show proof of extreme and prolonged dorsi-
flexion —bending the front of the foot up toward the shin. Dor-
siflexion made the ends of the toe bones become flatter and
broader than normal through the constant pressure of being bent
in the same position for long periods of time.
What activity could the people have been pursuing so Bones from Tell Abu Hureyra, Syria
doggedly that it deformed their bones? The only posture that These big toes from a middle-aged man reveal severe
creates such severe bending of the foot is kneeling for extended arthritic changes to the joint. Osteologists interpret
periods. Osteologists confirmed that kneeling was common in this damage as evidence of extreme and prolonged
this population by finding several cases of arthritic changes in dorsiflexion, or bending of the foot. (The Natural History
knee joints and lower spines in skeletons at the site. Museum, London. )
But why were the people kneeling for so long? Other bone
evidence offered the first clue to solving this mystery. The skele-
tons showed strongly developed attachment points for the del- their forearms. Whatever they were doing made them use their
toid muscle on the humerus (the bone in the upper arm) and shoulders and arms vigorously.
prominent growth in the lower arm bones. These characteristics The skeletons’ teeth provided the next clue. Everyone except
mean that the people had especially strong deltoids for pushing the very youngest individuals had deeply worn and often frac-
their shoulders back and forth and powerful biceps for rotating tured teeth. This damage indicated that they regularly chewed

bone, hide, and stone— but they now also worked at Çatalhöyük specialized in weaving textiles, and
with the material of the future: metal. So far, ar- the scraps of cloth discovered there are the oldest
chaeologists are certain only that metalworkers at examples of this craft ever found. Like other early
Çatalhöyük knew how to fashion lead into pen- technological innovations, metallurgy and the
dants and to hammer naturally occurring lumps production of cloth apparently also developed in-
of copper into beads and tubes for jewelry. But dependently in other places.
traces of slag, the scum that floats on molten metal, Trade — another central aspect of human ex-
have been found on the site, suggesting that the istence that became increasingly prominent in the
workers may have begun to develop the technique Neolithic Age —also figured in the economy of
of smelting metal from ore. This tricky process — this early farming community. The trading contacts
the basis of true metallurgy and an essential tech- the Neolithic villagers made with other settlements
nology of civilization — required temperatures of increased the level of economic interconnection
seven hundred degrees centigrade and took cen- among far-flung communities that had begun in
turies for metalworkers to perfect. Other workers the Paleolithic period. Trade allowed the people of
to c . 4 0 0 0 b. c . e . Th e N e o l i t h i c A g e , 1 0 , 0 0 0 – 4 0 0 0 b. c . e . P–13

this way would have to push off hard from their toes with every
stroke down the stone, and vigorously use the muscles of their
shoulders and forearms to apply pressure to the roller. In addi-
tion, the flour would pick up tiny particles from the wearing
down of the stones used to grind it; bread made from it would
have a sandy consistency hard on teeth. That Neolithic people
worked so constantly and so hard at processing the grain they
grew, no matter the toll on their bones and their teeth, shows
how vital this supply of food had become to them.
At this Syrian site, everyone’s bones — men’s, women’s, and
even children’s — show the same signs of the kneeling and grind-
ing activity. Evidently the production of flour for bread was so
crucial that no gender division of this labor was possible or de-
sirable, as it seems to have become in later times. Regardless of
who used it, this new technology that provided essential food for
the community took its toll in individual pain and hardship.
Questions to Consider
1. What other new technologies that have increased productiv-
Sculpture from Giza, Egypt
ity and bettered human life have also involved new pains and
In this statuette, a woman grinds grain into flour. The sculptor
shows her rubbing her severely flexed left foot with the toes of
stresses?
her right foot, probably trying to ease the throbbing resulting 2. How do you decide what price — financial, physical, emo-
from hours of kneeling. (Courtesy of The Oriental Institute of the University tional — is worth paying for new technology? Who will make
of Chicago.) those decisions?
Further Reading
Hillman, G. “Traditional Husbandry and Processing of Archaic
food full of rock dust, which probably resulted from grain being Cereals in Recent Times: The Operations, Products, and
ground in rock bowls. Equipment Which Might Feature in Sumerian Texts.” Bulletin
The final clue came from art. Later paintings and sculptures on Sumerian Agriculture 1 (1984): 114–52.
from the region show people, usually women, kneeling down to Molleson, Theya. “Seed Preparation in the Mesolithic: The Oste-
grind grain into flour by pushing and rotating a stone roller back ological Evidence.” Antiquity 63 (1989): 358.
and forth on heavy grinding stones tilted away from them. This Moore, A. M. T. “The Excavation of Tell Abu Hureyra in Syria:
posture is exactly what would cause deformation of the big toes A Preliminary Report.” Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society
and arthritis in the knees and lower back. People grinding grain 41 (1975): 50–71.

Çatalhöyük to acquire goods from far away, such ligion. Like the hunter-gatherers before them, they
as shells from the Mediterranean Sea to wear as sculpted figurines depicting amply endowed
ornaments and a special flint from far to the east women, who perhaps represented goddesses of
to shape into ceremonial daggers. The villagers birth, although some figurines recently found with
acquired these prized materials by offering obsid- skeletal designs suggest they were also related to
ian in exchange, a local volcanic glass whose glossy ideas about death. The villagers had a deep inter-
luster and capacity to hold a sharp edge made it est in the mystery of death, demonstrated by the
valuable. skulls displayed in the shrines and wall paintings
Religion was a central feature of life in the of vultures devouring headless corpses. They
community, as seen from the shrines and burial buried their dead, some holding skulls decorated
sites uncovered by archaeologists. The villagers with painted plaster, under the floors of their
outfitted their shrines with paintings and sculp- houses. Perhaps they believed their dead ancestors
tures of bulls’ heads and female breasts, perhaps as had power and therefore wanted to keep them
symbols of male and female elements in their re- close by. A remarkable wall painting also suggests
P–14 Pro lo g u e ■ Th e B e g i n n i n g s o f H u m a n S o c i et y to c . 4 0 0 0 b. c . e .

Model of a House at Çatalhöyük


Archaeologists built this model of a house to show how Neolithic villagers lived in Çatalhöyük
(today in central Turkey) from around 6500 to 5500 B.C.E. The wall paintings and bull-head
sculpture had religious meaning, perhaps linked to the graves that the residents dug under the
floor for their dead. The main entrance to the house was through the ceiling, as the houses
were built right next to each other without streets in between, only some space for dumping
refuse; the roofs served as walkways. Why do you think the villagers chose this arrangement
for their settlement? (Çatalhöyük Research Project.)

that the people of Çatalhöyük regarded the vol- maintain peace and order in Paleolithic hunter-
cano looming over their settlement as an angry gatherer bands because their responsibilities were
god whom they needed to please. As it turned out, more complicated. Furthermore, households that
Çatalhöyük never recovered from a volcanic erup- were successful in farming, herding, crafts produc-
tion that overwhelmed the settlement about four- tion, and trade generated surpluses in wealth that
teen hundred years after its foundation. set them apart from those whose efforts proved
The people of Çatalhöyük had a clear social less fortunate.
hierarchy, another example of the lasting changes
that occurred in the Neolithic Age. The villagers
Gender Inequality in the
developed a hierarchical society because they
needed leaders to plan and regulate irrigation, Neolithic Age
trade, the exchange of food and goods between The social equality between men and women that
farmers and crafts producers, and the defense of had existed in hunter-gatherer bands dwindled
the community against enemies. These leaders away during the Neolithic Age. By about 4000
held more authority than had been required to B.C.E., when the first political states had begun to
to c . 4 0 0 0 b. c . e . C o n c lu s i o n P–15

emerge in the Near East, patriarchy was the rule. Conclusion


(Political states also emerged at various other dis-
tant places around the world, including India, Permanent homes, more reliable food supplies
China, and the Americas — whether through inde- from agriculture and domesticated animals, spe-
pendent development or some process of mutual cialized occupations, hierarchical societies in
influence we cannot yet say.) The reasons for the which men hold the most power, and war have
appearance of patriarchy remain uncertain, but characterized Western history from the Neolithic
they perhaps involved gradual changes in agricul- period forward. For this reason, the broad outlines
ture and herding over many centuries. After about of the life of Neolithic villagers might seem unre-
4000 B.C.E., plows pulled by large animals were markable to us today. But the Neolithic way of life
used to cultivate land that was difficult to sow. Men in built environments surrounded by cultivated
apparently operated this new technology of plow- fields and herds would have seemed astounding,
ing, probably because it required much more phys- we can guess, to Paleolithic hunter-gatherers such
ical strength than digging with sticks and hoes, as as the roaming African hippopotamus hunters
women had done with hand tools in the earliest who now rank as the earliest known Homo sapi-
period of agriculture. Men also looked after the ens. The Neolithic Revolution was the most im-
larger herds that had become more common in portant change in the early history of human
settled communities; people were now keeping beings; it literally overturned the ways in which
cattle as sources of milk and raising sheep for wool. people interacted with the natural environment
The herding of a community’s large groups of an- and with one another. Now that farmers and
imals tended to take place at a distance from the herders could produce a surplus of food to sup-
home settlement because the animals continually port other people, specialists in art, architecture,
needed new grazing land. As with hunting in crafts, religion, and politics could emerge. Hand in
hunter-gatherer populations, men, free from hav- hand with these developments came a new divi-
ing to nurse children, took on this task, which re- sion of labor by gender that saw men begin to take
quired ranging a long way from home. over agriculture and herding while women took
Women probably became more tied to the up new tasks at home, leading to a loss of gender
central settlement because they had to bear and equality. At the same time, war between newly
raise more children as agriculture became more in- prosperous communities became common. These
tensive and therefore required more and more la- changes altered the course of human history and
bor than had food gathering or the earliest forms spurred the development of civilization as we
of farming. Women also took responsibility for the know it today.
new labor-intensive tasks needed to process the
secondary products of larger herds. For example,
they now turned milk into cheese and yogurt and
made cloth by spinning and weaving wool. Men’s For Further Exploration
predominant role in agriculture and herding in the ■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
late Neolithic period, combined with women’s for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
lessened mobility and increasingly home-based end of the book.
tasks, apparently led to women’s loss of equality
with men in these early times of human society. ■ For Web sites and documents related to topics
in this chapter, see Make History at
bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
Review: What were the consequences of the Neolithic
Revolution for people’s lives?

patriarchy: Dominance by men in society and politics.


P–16 Pro lo g u e ■ Th e B e g i n n i n g s o f H u m a n S o c i et y to c . 4 0 0 0 b. c . e .

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
Key Terms and People Making Connections
Paleolithic Age (P-4) hierarchy (P-7) 1. Explain whether you think human life was more stressful
Neolithic Age (P-4) Neolithic Revolution (P-8) in the Paleolithic period or the Neolithic period.
political states (P-4) demography (P-10) 2. What do you think were the most important differences
hunter-gatherers (P-5) patriarchy (P-15) and similarities between Stone Age life and modern life?
Homo sapiens sapiens Why?
(P-5)

For Practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other


Review Questions
study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
1. What were the most important activities, skills, and beliefs bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
that helped Paleolithic hunter-gatherers survive?
2. What were the consequences of the Neolithic Revolution
for people’s lives?

Important Events

200,000–160,000 b.c.e. Beginning of the Paleolithic 8000 b.c.e. Walled settlement at Jericho
(“Old Stone”) Age (in modern Israel)
50,000–45,000 b.c.e. Homo sapiens sapiens migrate 7000–5500 b.c.e. Farming community thrives at
from Africa into southwest Asia Çatalhöyük (in modern Turkey)
and Europe
10,000–8000 b.c.e. The Neolithic (“New Stone”)
Revolution in the Fertile Crescent
and the Sahara Desert
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Global Encounters C H A P T E R

and Religious Reforms


1492–1560
14
Widening Horizons 420
• Portuguese Explorations
• The Voyages of Columbus
• A New Era in Slavery
• Conquering the New World
n Tlaxcala, New Spain (present-day Mexico), Indians newly con-

I verted to Christianity performed a pageant organized in 1539 by


Catholic missionaries. The festivities celebrated a truce recently
concluded between the Habsburg emperor Charles V and the French
The Protestant Reformation 426
• The Invention of Printing
• Popular Piety and Christian Humanism
• Martin Luther and the
Holy Roman Empire
king Francis I. The Conquest of Jerusalem, as the drama was called, fea- • Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin
tured a combined army from Spain and New Spain fighting to protect • The Anglican Church in England

the pope, defeat the Muslims, and win control of the holy city of Reshaping Society through
Jerusalem. In the play, a miracle saves the Christian soldiers, and the Religion 434
• Protestant Challenges to the
Muslims give up and convert to Christianity. Although it is hard to Social Order
imagine what the Indians made of this celebration of places and people • New Forms of Discipline
• Catholic Renewal
far away, the event reveals a great deal about the Europeans: still pre-
occupied with battling the Muslims and still fighting among them- A Struggle for Mastery 441
• The High Renaissance Court
selves, Europeans now pursued their interests worldwide. Yet even as • Dynastic Wars
their explorations and conquests transformed the New World, disputes • Financing War
• Divided Realms
over the “true” religion divided Europeans into hostile camps. Catholic
missionaries saw their success in converting Indians as a sign of God’s
favor in the struggle against the Protestant reformers, who had begun
to spread their message in Europe not long before the pageant in
Tlaxcala took place.
Led first by the Portuguese and then Spanish explorers, Europeans
sailed into contact with peoples and cultures hitherto unknown to Latin
Christendom. Motivated by the desire to find gold, win personal glory,
extend the reach of Christianity, and chart the unknown, European

Cortés
In this Spanish depiction of the landing of Hernán Cortés in Mexico in 1519, the ships
and arms of the Spanish are a commanding presence, especially in comparison to the
nakedness and lack of firearms among the Indians and the kneeling stance of their
leader. A Spanish artist painted this miniature, which measures only 61⁄8 inches by
41⁄4 inches. It probably accompanied an account of the Spanish conquest of Mexico.
On the back of the picture is a small map of the west coast of Europe and Africa and
the east coast of Central America. Europeans relied on such images, and especially
on maps, to help them make sense of all the new information flooding into Europe
from faraway places. Many Spaniards viewed Cortés’s conquests as a sign of divine
favor in a time of religious division. Some even believed that Cortés was born the
same day, or at least the same year, as Martin Luther, the German monk who had
initiated the Protestant Reformation just two years before Cortés’s landing (in fact,
Luther was born two years before Cortés). (Erich Lessing/ Art Resource, NY.)
419
420 C h a pt e r 1 4 ■ G lo b a l E n co u n t e r s a n d R e l i g i o u s R e fo r m s 1492–1560

voyagers subjugated native peoples, declared their would shape the course of European history for
control over vast new lands, and established a new several generations.
system of slavery linking Africa and the New
World. Millions of Indians died of diseases un-
Focus Question: Why did Christian unity break up
knowingly imported by the Europeans. The dis-
in Europe just when Europeans began to expand their
covery of new crops — corn, potatoes, tobacco, influence overseas in dramatic fashion?
coffee, and cocoa — and of gold and silver mines
brought new patterns of consumption, and new
objects of conflict, to Europe. This spiral of
changes in ecology, agriculture, and social patterns
is so momentous that historians now call it the
Widening Horizons
Columbian exchange after Christopher Columbus, The maritime explorations of Portugal and Spain
who started the process. brought Europe to the attention of the rest of the
The invention of the printing press in the world. Fourteenth-century Mongols had been
1440s helped spread news of the European explo- more interested in conquering China and Persia —
rations, but it had an even more significant impact lands with sophisticated cultures — than in invad-
when it hastened the breakup of Christian unity ing Europe; Persian historians of the early fifteenth
under the impact of the Protestant Reformation. century dismissed Europeans as “barbaric Franks”;
After the German Catholic monk Martin Luther and China’s Ming dynasty rulers, who sent mar-
criticized corrupt church practices in 1517, printed itime expeditions to Southeast Asia and East Africa
broadsheets, pamphlets, and books quickly spread around 1400, seemed unaware of the Europeans,
his message and helped make the Protestant break even though Marco Polo and other Italian mer-
with Roman Catholicism permanent. Religious di- chants had appeared at the court of the preceding
vision soon engulfed the German states and Mongol Yuan dynasty. By the end of the fifteenth
reached into Switzerland, France, and England. Re- century, in contrast, Europeans could no longer be
sponding to the desire for reform that fed the ignored. The Portuguese and Spanish, inspired by
Protestant movement, Catholics undertook their a crusading spirit against Islam and by riches to be
own renewal. When radical Protestants threatened won through trade in spices and gold, sailed across
to overthrow the social and political order, more the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans. The
mainstream Protestants, like Catholics, insisted English, French, and Dutch followed a century
that the state oversee religious, moral, and social later, creating a new global exchange of people,
matters. crops, and diseases that would shape the modern
Confrontations between Protestants and world. As a result of these European expeditions,
Catholics complicated the long-standing rivalries the people of the Americas for the first time con-
between princes. Traditional sources of enmity fronted forces that threatened to destroy not only
between the Christian powers did not disappear, their culture but even their existence.
and the Ottomans continued their thrust into
Hungary. Now, however, the Catholic Habsburg
emperor had to wage war against Protestant Portuguese Explorations
German princes and religious divisions threatened The first phase of European overseas expansion
the stability of the monarchy in England and Scot- began in 1433 with Portuguese exploration of the
land. Divisions between Catholics and Protestants West African coast and culminated in 1519–1522

■ 1516 Erasmus publishes Greek


■ 1492 Columbus reaches the Americas New Testament; More, Utopia

1490 1500 1510 1520

■ 1494 Italian Wars begin; ■ 1517 Luther composes ninety-five theses


Treaty of Tordesillas
■ 1520 Luther publishes
three treatises; Zwingli
breaks from Rome
1492–1560 Wi d e n i n g H o r i zo n s 421

with Spanish circumnavigation of the globe. Look- mania. Until the early eighteenth century, only the
ing back, the sixteenth-century Spanish historian Chinese knew how to produce porcelain (in vases
Francisco López de Gómora described the Iberian or dinnerware), so over the next two hundred years
maritime voyages to the East and West Indies as Western merchants would import no fewer than
“the greatest event since the creation of the world, seventy million pieces of porcelain, still known to-
apart from the incarnation and death of him who day as “china.” In 1512, Ferdinand Magellan, a
created it.” Portuguese sailor in Spanish service, led the first
The Portuguese hoped to find a sea route to expedition to circumnavigate the globe. By 1517,
the spice-producing lands of South and Southeast a chain of Portuguese forts dotted the Indian
Asia in order to bypass the Ottoman Turks, who Ocean — at Mozambique, Hormuz (at the mouth
controlled the traditional land routes between of the Persian Gulf), Goa (in India), Colombo
Europe and Asia. Rumors of vast gold mines in West (in modern Sri Lanka), and Malacca (modern
Africa and the legend of a mysterious Christian Malaysia) (Map 14.1).
kingdom established by Prester John and sur-
rounded by Muslims drew sailors to voyages de-
spite the possibilities of shipwreck and death. The Voyages of Columbus
Success in the voyages of exploration depended on One of many sailors inspired by the Portuguese ex-
several technological breakthroughs, including the plorations, Christopher Columbus (1451–1506)
caravel, a small, easily maneuvered three-masted opened an entirely new direction for discovery.
ship that used triangular lateen sails adapted from Most likely born in Genoa of Italian parents,
the Arabs. (The sails permitted a ship to tack Columbus sailed the West African coast in Por-
against headwinds.) Prince Henry the Navigator of tuguese service between 1476 and 1485. Fifteenth-
Portugal (1394–1460) personally financed many century Europeans already knew that the world
voyages with revenues from a noble crusading or- was round (see “Seeing History,” page 424).
der. The first triumphs of the Portuguese attracted Columbus had studied The Travels of Marco Polo,
a host of Christian, Jewish, and even Arab sailors, written more than a century earlier, and wanted to
astronomers, and cartographers to the service of sail west to reach “the lands of the Great Khan,”
Prince Henry and King John II (r. 1481–1495). unaware that the Mongol Empire had already col-
They compiled better tide calendars and books lapsed in eastern Asia. Hugely underestimating the
of sailing directions for pilots that enabled sailors distance of such a voyage, Columbus dreamed of
to venture farther into the oceans and reduced — finding a new route to the East’s gold and spices.
though did not eliminate — the dangers of sea After the Portuguese refused to fund his plan,
travel. Columbus turned to the Spanish monarchs Is-
Searching for gold and then slaves, the Por- abella of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon, who
tuguese gradually established forts down the West agreed to finance his venture.
African coast. In 1487–1488, they reached the On August 3, 1492, with ninety men on board
Cape of Good Hope at the tip of Africa; ten years two caravels and one larger merchant ship for car-
later, Vasco da Gama led a Portuguese fleet around rying supplies, Columbus set sail westward. His
the cape and reached as far as Calicut, India, the
center of the spice trade. His return to Lisbon
Christopher Columbus: An Italian sailor (1451–1506) who
with twelve pieces of Chinese porcelain for the opened up the New World by sailing west across the Atlantic in
Portuguese king set off two centuries of porcelain search of a route to Asia.

■ 1525 German Peasants’ War


■ 1555 Peace of Augsburg
■ 1527 Charles V’s imperial troops sack Rome ■ 1540 Jesuits (Society of Jesus) established
■ 1559 Treaty of
■ 1529 Colloquy of Marburg ■ 1545–1563 Catholic Council of Trent Cateau-Cambrésis

1530 1540 1550 1560

■ 1534 Henry VIII breaks with Rome; ■ 1547 Charles V defeats Protestants at Mühlberg
Affair of the Placards in France

■ 1536 Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion


422
0 1,000 2,000 miles
0 1,000 2,000 kilometers

C h a pt e r 1 4
N

Hudson W E
Bay ENGLAND
S


EUROPE

G lo b a l E n co u n t e r s a n d R e l i g i o u s R e fo r m s
Genoa
NORTH PORTUGAL SPAIN ASIA
AMERICA Lisbon Seville
AZORES Cadiz
Ceuta CHINA
Madeira
BAHAMAS Hormuz
CANARY IS.

Cuba Hispaniola CAPE INDIA PACIFIC OCEAN


VERDE
IS. AFRICA Goa
Calicut
G UI
NEA
Colombo
Malacca
Equator São Tomé

SOUTH Luanda INDIAN


PACIFIC OCEAN AMERICA Mozambique OCEAN

AUSTRALIA
Area known to Europeans before 1450
Cape of
Good Hope Portuguese strongholds by c. 1500
Portuguese expeditions 1430s–1480s
ATLANTIC Bartholomeu Dias, 1487–1488
OCEAN Columbus’s first voyage, 1492
Cape Horn John Cabot, 1497
Vasco da Gama, 1497–1499
Demarcation line,
Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494 Amerigo Vespucci, 1499–1502
Spanish Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan, 1519–1522

MAP 14.1 Early Voyages of World Exploration


Over the course of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, European shipping dominated the Atlantic Ocean after the
pioneering voyages of the Portuguese, who also first sailed around the Cape of Good Hope to the Indian Ocean and the Cape
Horn to the Pacific. The search for spices and the need to circumnavigate the Ottoman Empire inspired these voyages.

1492–1560
1492–1560 Wi d e n i n g H o r i zo n s 423

DOCUMENT

Columbus Describes His First Voyage (1493)


In this famous letter to Raphael Sanchez, might the more easily conciliate them, that everything they observed; but they never
treasurer to his patrons, Ferdinand and Is- they might be led to become Christians, saw any people clothed, nor any ships like
abella, Columbus recounts his initial jour- and be inclined to entertain a regard for ours. On my arrival at that sea, I had taken
ney to the Bahamas, Cuba, and Hispaniola the King and Queen, our Princes and all some Indians by force from the first island
(today Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Spaniards, and that I might induce them that I came to, in order that they might
and tells of his achievements. This passage to take an interest in seeking out, and col- learn our language, and communicate to
reflects the first contact between native lecting, and delivering to us such things as us what they know respecting the country;
Americans and Europeans; already the they possessed in abundance, but which we which plan succeeded excellently, and was
themes of trade, subjugation, gold, and con- greatly needed. They practise no kind of a great advantage to us, for in a short time,
version emerge in Columbus’s own words. idolatry, but have a firm belief that all either by gestures and signs, or by words,
strength and power, and indeed all good we were enabled to understand each other.
Indians would give whatever the seller re- things, are in heaven, and that I had de- These men are still travelling with me, and
quired; . . . Thus they bartered, like idiots, scended from thence with these ships and although they have been with us now a
cotton and gold for fragments of bows, sailors, and under this impression was I re- long time, they continue to entertain the
glasses, bottles, and jars; which I forbad as ceived after they had thrown aside their idea that I have descended from heaven.
being unjust, and myself gave them many fears. Nor are they slow or stupid, but of
beautiful and acceptable articles which I very clear understanding; and those men Source: Christopher Columbus, Four Voyages to
had brought with me, taking nothing from who have crossed to the neighbouring is- the New World. Translated by R. H. Major (New
them in return; I did this in order that I lands give an admirable description of York: Corinth Books, 1961), 8–9.

contract stipulated that he would claim Castilian enslaved Indians to Spain, and slave traders sold
sovereignty over any new land and inhabitants and them in Seville. When the Spanish monarchs real-
share any profits with the crown. Reaching what is ized the vast potential for material gain of their
today the Bahamas on October 12, Columbus mis- new dominions, they asserted direct royal author-
took the islands to be part of the East Indies, not ity by sending officials and priests to the Ameri-
far from Japan. As the Spaniards explored the cas, which were named after the Italian Amerigo
Caribbean islands, they encountered communities Vespucci, who led a voyage across the Atlantic in
of peaceful Indians, the Arawaks, who were awed 1499–1502.
by the Europeans’ military technology, not to men- To head off looming conflicts between the
tion their appearance. Although many positive en- Spanish and the Portuguese, Pope Alexander VI
tries in the ship’s log testified to Columbus’s helped negotiate the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494.
personal goodwill toward the Indians, the Euro- It divided the Atlantic world between the two mar-
peans’ objectives were clear: find gold, subjugate itime powers, reserving for Portugal the West
the Indians, and propagate Christianity. (See Doc- African coast and the route to India and giving
ument, “Columbus Describes His First Voyage,” Spain the oceans and lands to the west (see Map
above.) 14.1). The agreement allowed Portugal to claim
Excited by the prospect of easy riches, many Brazil in 1500, when it was accidentally “discov-
flocked to join Columbus’s second voyage. When ered” by Pedro Alvares Cabral (1467–1520) on a
Columbus departed Cádiz in September 1493, he voyage to India.
commanded a fleet of seventeen ships carrying
some fifteen hundred men, many of whom be-
lieved that all they had to do was “to load the gold A New Era in Slavery
into the ships.” Failing to find the imagined gold The European voyages of discovery initiated a new
mines and spices, Columbus and his crew began era in slavery, both by expanding the economic
capturing Caribs, enemies of the Arawaks, with the scale of slave labor and by attaching race and color
intention of bringing them back as slaves. In 1494, to servitude. Slavery had existed since antiquity
Columbus proposed setting up a regular slave and flourished in many parts of the world. Some
trade based in Hispaniola. The Spaniards exported slaves were captured in war or by piracy; others —
424 C h a pt e r 1 4 ■ G lo b a l E n co u n t e r s a n d R e l i g i o u s R e fo r m s 1492–1560

SEEING HISTORY

Expanding Geographic Knowledge:


World Maps in an Age of Exploration
n the eve of Christopher Colum-

O bus’s voyages, most Europeans knew


that the world was round and many
shared Columbus’s view that new routes to
Asia and its riches could be found by sail-
ing west. Beyond that, however, geographic
knowledge of what precisely lay on the
other side of the Atlantic was sketchy at
best. Even those regions familiar to Europe
through trade and exploration — Africa
and parts of Asia— were often shown in-
accurately on maps of the day.
The hand-colored map at the top pro-
duced by a German geographer, Henricus
Martellus, depicts the world as Europeans
knew it just before Columbus’s first voy-
age. How accurate is its rendition of Eu-
rope, the Mediterranean, and Africa? Note
that the Americas are not shown as a sep-
arate continent, but rather are joined to the
Asian landmass on the far right. (Scholars
have identified several major Latin Amer- World Map by Henricus Martellus, 1489. (The Art Archive/ British Library.)
ican rivers, including the Orinooko and the
Amazon in part of lower right-hand quad-
rant of the map.) How does this map help
explain Columbus’s mistake about where
he had landed in 1492? What else does it
tell you about Europeans’ perceptions of
the world in this period?
By 1570, when Abraham Ortelius’s
map was printed, European knowledge
of world geography had grown by leaps
and bounds thanks to the voyages of
exploration. Ortelius, a well-traveled and
prominent geographer and cartographer,
included this map in his Theatrum Orbis
Terrarum (Theater of the World), consid-
ered to be the first modern atlas. Judging
from this map, what areas of the world
have come into greater focus? What areas
are still inaccurately portrayed and rudi-
mentary in some respects? How might you
account for that? What advantages do ac-
curate maps offer you, beyond knowing
where you are headed? What else does the
later map reveal about Europeans’ knowl- World Map by Abraham Ortelius, 1570. (By permission of the British Library.)
edge of the world after less than a century
of exploration?
1492–1560 Wi d e n i n g H o r i zo n s 425

Africans — were sold by other Africans 0 500 1,000 miles


and Bedouin traders to Christian buy- 0 500 1,000 kilometers
ers; in western Asia, parents sold their ATLANTIC
children out of poverty into servitude; Gulf of OCEAN
NEW SPAIN
and many in the Balkans became slaves (MEXICO) Mexico Cuba HISPANIOLA Demarcation line,
Tenochtitlán Treaty of
when their land was devastated by Ot- (Mexico City) 1519  Yucatán Puerto Rico Tordesillas, 1494
 MAYAS Jamaica 
toman invasions. Slaves could be Greek, AZTECS Veracruz
Santo Domingo
1496 Spanish Portuguese
TIERRA
Slav, European, African, or Turkish. N GUATEMALA
FIRME
Caribbean Sea
NICARAGUA
Many served as domestics in European W E
cities of the Mediterranean such as VENEZUELA

Barcelona or Venice. Others sweated as S

galley slaves in Ottoman and Christian PACIFIC


fleets. Still others worked as agricultural OCEAN
n R.
laborers on Mediterranean islands. In A mazo

the Ottoman army, slaves even formed

A
BRAZIL
Lima

INC

N
an important elite contingent.

AS

D
1535
From the fifteenth century onward, Portuguese colonies, c. 1550 PERU

E
Spanish colonies, c. 1550

S
Africans increasingly filled the ranks of Potosí
Hernán Cortés, 1518–1519
slaves. Exploiting warfare between Francisco Pizarro, 1524–1527
1545
PARAGUAY São Paulo Rio de Janeiro
1532  
groups within West Africa, the Por- CHILE
TUCUMAN
tuguese traded in gold and “pieces,” as
African slaves were called, a practice MAP 14.2 Spanish and Portuguese Colonies in the Americas, 1492–1560
condemned at home by some conscien- The discovery of precious metals fueled the Spanish and Portuguese explorations
tious clergy. Manoel Severim de Faria, and settlements of Central and South America, establishing the foundations of
for example, observed that “one cannot European colonial empires in the New World.
yet see any good effect resulting from
so much butchery; for this is not the
way in which commerce can flourish and the sity of social and political arrangements. Some
preaching of the gospel progress.” Critical voices, were nomads roaming large, sparsely inhabited
however, could not deny the potential for profits territories; others practiced agriculture in com-
that the slave trade brought to Portugal. Most plexly organized states. Among the settled peoples,
slaves toiled in the sugar plantations of the Por- the largest groupings could be found in the Mex-
tuguese Atlantic islands and in Brazil. A fortunate ican and Peruvian highlands. Combining an elab-
few had somewhat easier lives as domestic servants orate religious culture with a rigid social and
in Portugal, where African freedmen and slaves, political hierarchy, the Aztecs in Mexico and the
some thirty-five thousand in the early sixteenth Incas in Peru ruled over subjugated Indian popu-
century, constituted almost 3 percent of the pop- lations in their respective empires. From their large
ulation, a percentage that was much higher than urban capitals, the Aztecs and Incas controlled
in other European countries. large swaths of land and could be ruthless as
In the Americas, slavery would expand enor- conquerors.
mously in the following centuries. Even outspoken The Spanish explorers organized their expedi-
critics of colonial brutality toward indigenous tions to the mainland of the Americas from a base
peoples defended the development of African slav- in the Caribbean (Map 14.2). Two prominent
ery. The Spanish Dominican Bartolomé de Las Casas commanders, Hernán Cortés (1485–1547) and
(1474–1566), for example, argued that Africans Francisco Pizarro (c. 1475–1541), gathered men
were constitutionally more suitable for labor than and arms and set off in search of gold. With them
native Americans and should therefore be im- came Catholic priests intending to bring Chris-
ported to the plantations in the Americas to re- tianity to supposedly uncivilized peoples. Some
lieve the indigenous peoples, who were being natives who resented their subjugation by the
worked to death. Aztecs joined Cortés and his soldiers. With a band
of fewer than two hundred men, Cortés captured
Conquering the New World
Hernán Cortés: A Spanish explorer (1485–1547) who captured
In 1500, on the eve of European invasion, the na- the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán (present-day Mexico City), in
tive peoples of the Americas lived in a great diver- 1519.
426 C h a pt e r 1 4 ■ G lo b a l E n co u n t e r s a n d R e l i g i o u s R e fo r m s 1492–1560

the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán (present-day The Protestant Reformation


Mexico City), in 1519. Two years later, Mexico,
then named New Spain, was added to the empire In the sixteenth century, religious reformers led by
of the new ruler of Spain, Charles V, grandson of Martin Luther shattered the unity of Western
Ferdinand and Isabella. To the south, Pizarro con- Christendom, supplied by the Roman Catholic
quered the Peruvian highlands. The Spanish Em- Church since the fourth century. The invention of
pire was now the largest in the world, stretching printing with movable type proved crucial to the
from Mexico to Chile. rapid spread of the Protestant message. The pop-
The Aztecs and Incas fell to the superior war ular piety that swept Europe in the closing decades
technology of the Spanish conquistadores. Next of the 1400s, along with Christian humanism, also
the conquistadores subdued the Mayas on the helped pave the way for the reformers by focusing
Yucatán peninsula, a people with a sophisticated attention on corrupt practices and clerical abuses.
knowledge of cosmology and arithmetic. The gold The Catholic church might nonetheless have es-
and silver mines in Mexico proved a treasure trove caped a schism had it not been for the drive, tal-
for the Spanish crown, but the real prize was the ent, and theological brilliance of Luther and other
discovery of vast silver deposits in Potosí (today in reformers such as Huldrych Zwingli and John
Bolivia). When the Spaniards began importing the Calvin. They turned reform into protest — hence
gold and silver they found in the New World, in- the name of their movement, Protestantism.
flation soared in a fashion never before witnessed
in Europe.
Not to be outdone by the Spaniards, other The Invention of Printing
European powers joined the scramble for gold Printing with movable type, developed in the
in the New World. In North America, the French 1440s by Johannes Gutenberg, a German gold-
went in search of a “northwest passage” to smith, marked a revolutionary departure from the
China. The French wanted to establish settle- old practice of copying works by hand or stamp-
ments in what became Canada, but the climate ing pages with individually carved wood blocks.
and the hostility of the indigenous peoples de- Printing itself predated movable type: the Chinese
feated them. Permanent European settlements had been printing by woodblock since the tenth
in Canada and the present-day United States century, and woodcut pictures made their appear-
would succeed only in the seventeenth century, ance in Europe in the early fifteenth century. Mov-
and by then the English had entered the contest able type, however, allowed entire manuscripts to
for world mastery. Even before the French and be printed more quickly. Single letters, made in
the English, the Dutch entered the colonial com- metal molds, could be emptied out of a frame and
petition. After they broke away from Spain late new ones inserted to print each new page. Also,
in the sixteenth century, the Dutch set about sys- the large-scale production of paper had paved the
tematically and aggressively taking over Spanish way for the invention of printing. Papermaking
and Portuguese trade routes. By the mid-seven- came to Europe from China via Arab intermedi-
teenth century, they had become the wealthiest aries. By the fourteenth century, paper mills in
people (per capita) in the world. Italy were producing paper that was more fragile
The discovery of the Americas resulted in a but also much cheaper than parchment or vellum,
significant global movement of peoples, animals, the animal skins that Europeans had previously
plants, manufactured goods, and precious met- used for writing.
als. Tobacco and cocoa were among the exotic The invention of movable type in the West
items brought from the Americas to Europe. Voy- no doubt owed something to the twenty-six-
ages to the New World also brought diseases from character alphabets found in most European lan-
Europe to the unsuspecting peoples of America. guages; setting twenty-six characters in metal type
Without natural immunity, the Amerindians died was much easier than trying to set the hundreds
in catastrophic numbers. Within fifty years of or even thousands of different picture-like charac-
Columbus’s first voyage, the indigenous popula- ters that made up written Chinese. (See Printing
tions of the Caribbean Islands had been wiped Press, page 427.) In 1467, two German printers es-
out. tablished the first press in Rome; within five years,
they had produced twelve thousand volumes, a feat
that in the past would have required a thousand
Review: Which European countries led the way in scribes working full-time.
maritime exploration, and what were their motives? In the 1490s, the German city of Frankfurt be-
came an international meeting place for printers
1492–1560 Th e Prot e s ta n t R e fo r m at i o n 427

and booksellers, establishing a book fair that re-


mains an unbroken tradition to this day. Early
printed books attracted an elite audience; their
expense made them inaccessible to most literate
people, who comprised a minority of the popula-
tion in any case. Gutenberg’s famous two-volume
Latin Bible was a luxury item, and only 185 copies
were printed. Gutenberg Bibles remain today a
treasure that only the greatest libraries possess.
The invention of mechanical printing dramat-
ically increased the speed at which knowledge
could be transmitted and freed individuals from
having to memorize everything that they learned.
Printed books and pamphlets, even one-page fly-
ers, might create a wider community of scholars
no longer dependent on personal patronage or
church sponsorship for texts. Printing thus en-
couraged the free expression and exchange of
ideas, and its disruptive potential did not go un-
noticed by political and religious authorities.
Rulers and bishops in the German states, the birth-
place of the printing industry, moved quickly to
issue censorship regulations, but their efforts could
not prevent the outbreak of the Protestant Refor-
mation.

Popular Piety and Christian Humanism


The Christianizing of Europe had taken many cen-
turies to complete, and by 1500 most people in
Europe believed devoutly. However, the vast ma- Printing Press
jority of them had little knowledge of Catholic This illustration from a French manuscript of 1537 depicts typical
printing equipment of the sixteenth century. An artisan is using the
doctrine. More popular forms of piety such as pro-
screw press to apply the inked type to the paper. Also shown are the
cessions, festivals, and marvelous tales of saints’ composed type secured in a chase, the printed sheet (four pages of text
miracles captivated ordinary believers. printed on one sheet) held by the seated proofreader, and the bound
Urban merchants and artisans, more likely volume. When two pages of text were printed on one standard-sized
than the general population to be literate and crit- sheet, the bound book was called a folio. A bound book with four pages
ical of their local priests, yearned for a faith more of text on one sheet was called a quarto (“in four”), and a book with
meaningful to their daily lives and for a clergy eight pages of text on one sheet was called an octavo (“in eight”). The
more responsive to their needs. They wanted last is a pocket-size book, smaller than today’s paperback. (The Granger
priests to preach edifying sermons, to administer Collection, New York.)

the sacraments conscientiously, and to lead moral


lives, so they generously donated money to estab- Humanism originated during the Renaissance
lish new preaching positions for university-trained in Italy among highly educated individuals at-
clerics. The merchants resented the funneling of tached to the personal households of prominent
the Catholic church’s rich endowments to the rulers. North of the Alps, however, humanists fo-
younger children of the nobility who took up re- cused more on religious revival and the inculca-
ligious callings to protect the wealth of their fam- tion of Christian piety, through such means as the
ilies. The young, educated clerics funded by the model school of the Brethren of the Common Life.
merchants often came from cities themselves. They The Brethren preached self-discipline and often
formed the backbone of Christian humanism and criticized the local clergy for their inadequate
sometimes became reformers, too. training and lax morals. Two men, the Dutch
scholar Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536) and
the English lawyer Thomas More (1478–1535),
Christian humanism: A general intellectual trend in the six-
teenth century that coupled love of classical learning, as in stood out as representatives of these Christian hu-
Renaissance humanism, with an emphasis on Christian piety. manists, who coupled their love of classical learn-
428 C h a pt e r 1 4 ■ G lo b a l E n co u n t e r s a n d R e l i g i o u s R e fo r m s 1492–1560

ing with the emphasis on Christian piety. They appeared foolish, he concluded, for their wisdom
both longed for ideal societies based on peace and and values were not of this world.
morality but faced a world that seemed bent on He instructed the young future emperor
violent division instead. Charles V to rule as a just Christian prince and ex-
pressed deep sorrow about the brutal fighting that
Erasmus. Just as Cicero had dominated ancient had ravaged Europe for decades. A man of peace
Roman letters, Erasmus towered over the human- and moderation, Erasmus soon found himself
ist world of early-sixteenth-century Europe. An in- challenged by angry younger men and radical ideas
timate friend of kings and popes, he became once the Reformation took hold; he eventually
known across Europe. Disseminated by the print- chose Christian unity over reform and schism. His
ing press, Erasmus’s books made him famous. He dream of Christian pacifism crushed, he lived to
devoted years to preparing a critical edition of the see dissenters executed — by Catholics and Protes-
New Testament in Greek with a translation into tants alike — for speaking their conscience. Eras-
Latin, which was finally published in 1516. mus spent his last years in Freiburg and Basel,
Only through education, Erasmus believed, isolated from the Protestant community, his writ-
could individuals reform themselves and society. ings condemned by many in the Catholic church.
He strove for a unified, peaceful Christendom in After the Protestant Reformation had been se-
which charity and good works, not empty cere- cured, the saying arose that “Erasmus laid the egg
monies, would mark true religion and in which that Luther hatched.” Some blamed the humanists
learning and piety would dispel the darkness of ig- for the emergence of Luther and Protestantism, de-
norance. He elaborated many of these ideas in his spite the humanists’ decision to remain in the
Handbook of the Militant Christian (1503), an elo- Catholic church.
quent plea for a simple religion devoid of greed
and the lust for power. In The Praise of Folly (1509), Thomas More. If Erasmus found himself aban-
he satirized values held dear by his contempo- doned by his times, his good friend across the Eng-
raries. Modesty, humility, and poverty represented lish Channel, Thomas More, to whom The Praise
the true Christian virtues in a world that wor- of Folly was dedicated, met with even greater suf-
shipped pomposity, power, and wealth. The wise fering. Like the humanists of Italy, More chose to

Albrecht Dürer, The Knight, Death, and the Devil


Dürer’s 1513 engraving of the knight depicts a
grim and determined warrior advancing in the
face of devils, one of whom holds out an
hourglass with a grimace while another wields a
menacing pike. An illustration for Erasmus’s The
Handbook of the Militant Christian, this scene is
often interpreted as portraying a Christian clad in
the armor of righteousness on a path through life
beset by death and demonic temptations. Yet the
knight in early-sixteenth-century Germany had
become a mercenary, selling his martial skills to
princes. Some waylaid merchants, robbed rich
clerics, and held citizens for ransom. The most
notorious of these robber-knights, Franz von
Sickingen, was declared an outlaw by the
emperor and murdered in 1522. (Bridgeman-
Giraudon/ Art Resource, NY.)

■ For more help analyzing this image, see the


visual activity for this chapter in the Online Study
Guide at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
1492–1560 Th e Prot e s ta n t R e fo r m at i o n 429

serve his prince. In 1529, he became lord chancel- and a deeply pious mother, he began his studies in
lor, the chief officer of the English government. the law. Caught in a storm on a lonely road one
King Henry VIII had his own issues with the pa- midsummer’s night, the young student grew terri-
pacy and, in 1532, broke with the Roman Catholic fied by the thunder and lightning. He implored the
church. He pulled England out from under papal help of St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary,
control and began appointing his own bishops. In and promised to enter a monastery if she protected
protest against Henry’s newly asserted control of him. Luther abandoned his law studies and entered
the clergy, More resigned his position and was ex- the Augustinian order. There he experienced his
ecuted in 1535 for refusing to subscribe to Henry religious crisis and its resolution: the doctrine of
VIII’s version of the Protestant Reformation. By faith alone as the means to salvation.
executing More, Henry created a martyr revered Even though as a monk Luther took up all the
for centuries by Catholics and by those who be- practices offered by the church to achieve personal
lieved in liberty of conscience. salvation, he did not feel saved. He prayed, he took
From any perspective, More was an audacious, the sacraments, and as a priest he even said Mass.
even eccentric thinker. In his best-known work, He did all the good works that the church pre-
Utopia (1516), he describes an ideal imaginary scribed yet still felt bereft of God’s love. He came
land that stands in stark contrast to his own soci- to believe that the church gave external behavior
ety. A just, equitable, and hardworking commu- more weight than spiritual intentions. The sacra-
nity, Utopia (meaning both “no place” and “best ment of penance was a case in point. Instead of
place” in Greek) was the opposite of England. In emphasizing the remorse that led the sinner to
Utopia, everyone worked the land for two years; confess his sins to a priest and then receive for-
and since Utopians enjoyed public schools, com- giveness from the priest in God’s name, the church
munal kitchens, hospitals, and nurseries, they had emphasized the penance imposed by the priest.
no need for money or private property. Dedicated Some priests abused their authority by demand-
to the pursuit of knowledge and natural religion, ing sexual or monetary favors before granting for-
with equal distribution of goods and few laws, giveness. Luther found peace inside himself when
Utopians knew neither crime nor internal discord. he became convinced that sinners were saved only
Yet even in More’s Utopia some oddities through faith and that faith was a gift freely given
existed — voluntary slavery, for example, and by God. No amount of good works, he believed,
strictly controlled travel. Although premarital sex could produce the faith on which salvation de-
brought severe punishment, prospective marriage pended. Shortly before his death, Luther recalled
partners could examine each other naked before his crisis:
making their final decisions. Men headed Utopia’s
households and exercised authority over women Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that
I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed
and children. And Utopians did not shy away from conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by
declaring war on their neighbors to protect their my satisfaction [in penance]. I did not love, yes, I hated
way of life. More nonetheless created an imaginary the righteous God who punishes sinners, and se-
society that was paradise when compared with a cretly . . . I was angry with God. . . . At last, by the
Christian Europe battered by division and violence. mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to
The Christian humanists offered stirring visions of the context of the words, namely, “In [the gospel] the
a better future, but peace, moderation, unity, and righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written,‘He who
any idea of Utopia would all be submerged in the through faith is righteous shall live.’” There I began to
coming flood of radical religious change. understand that the righteousness of God is that by
which the righteous live by a gift of God, namely by
faith.
Martin Luther and the
Just as Luther was working out his own per-
Holy Roman Empire sonal search for salvation, a priest named Johann
The Protestant Reformation began when the crisis Tetzel arrived in Wittenberg, where Luther was a
of faith of one man, Martin Luther (1483–1546), university professor, to sell indulgences. Penance
started an international movement. Luther was an normally consisted of spiritual duties (prayers, pil-
improbable spiritual revolutionary. Son of a miner grimages), but the church also asked for monetary
substitutions, called indulgences. Indulgences
could even be bought for a deceased relative, which
Martin Luther: A German monk (1483–1546) who started the would forgive that person’s time in purgatory and
Protestant Reformation in 1517 by challenging the practices
and doctrines of the Catholic church and advocating salvation release the soul for heaven. Luther denounced
through faith alone. what he, like so many of the Church’s other crit-
430 C h a pt e r 1 4 ■ G lo b a l E n co u n t e r s a n d R e l i g i o u s R e fo r m s 1492–1560

ics, saw as a corrupt practice, al- 0 100 200 miles pealed to German identity and to
lowing sinners to buy rather than 0 100 200 kilometers the nobles as the natural leaders
to earn forgiveness of their sins. North DENMARK S ea of any reform movement. He de-
Sea tic
But Luther’s objections went far B al nounced the corrupt Italians in
deeper. He believed that indul- Rome who were cheating and
gences, like the sacrament of HOLY exploiting his compatriots and
penance, were ultimately useless Saxony called on the German princes to
Wittenberg POLAND

Rhin
unless one had faith. No one, he defend their nation and reform

El b
ROMAN R

e
e
.
felt, could be allowed to think the church. Luther’s third treatise,

R.
Frankfurt
that such a purchase had any-  On the Babylonian Captivity of the
 EMPIRE
thing to do with salvation. Worms Church, condemned the papacy
Armed with his sense of as the embodiment of the An-
God’s justice and grace, Luther Luther’s World in the Early tichrist.
Sixteenth Century
composed ninety-five theses for From Rome’s perspective,
academic debate in 1517. Among them were at- the “Luther Affair,” as church officials called it,
tacks on the sale of indulgences and the purchase concerned only one unruly monk. When the
of church offices. Printed, the theses became pub- pope ordered him to obey his superiors and keep
lic and unleashed a torrent of pent-up resentment quiet, Luther tore up the decree. Spread by the
and frustration among the laypeople. What began printing press, Luther’s ideas circulated through-
as a theological debate in a provincial university out the Holy Roman Empire, letting loose forces
soon engulfed the Holy Roman Empire. (See that neither the church nor Luther could control.
“Contrasting Views,” page 431.) Luther’s earliest Social, nationalist, and religious protests fused
supporters included younger Christian humanists with lower-class resentments, much as in the
and clerics who shared his critical attitude toward Czech movement that Jan Hus had inspired a
the church establishment. None of these Evangel- century earlier. Like Hus, Luther appeared before
icals, as they called themselves, came from the up- an emperor: in 1521, he defended his faith at the
per echelons of the church; many were from urban Imperial Diet of Worms before Charles V
middle-class backgrounds, and most were univer- (r. 1519–1556), the newly elected Holy Roman
sity trained. The Evangelicals represented social Emperor who, at the age of nineteen, ruled over
groups most ready to challenge clerical author- the Low Countries, Spain, Spain’s Italian and
ity — merchants, artisans, and literate urban New World dominions, and the Austrian Habs-
laypeople. But illiterate artisans and peasants also burg lands. Luther shocked Germans by declar-
rallied to Luther, sometimes with an almost fanat- ing his admiration for the Czech heretic. But
ical zeal. They and he believed they were living in unlike Hus, Luther did not suffer martyrdom be-
the last days of the world. Luther and his cause cause he enjoyed the protection of Frederick the
might be a sign of the approaching Last Judgment. Wise, the elector of Saxony and Luther’s lord.
Initially, Luther presented himself as the Frederick was one of the seven electors whom
pope’s “loyal opposition,” but in 1520, he burned Charles V had bribed to become Holy Roman
his bridges with the publication of three fiery trea- Emperor, and Charles had to treat him with re-
tises. In Freedom of a Christian, written in Latin spect. The emperor soon had cause to regret his
for the learned and addressed to Pope Leo X, reluctance to punish Luther.
Luther argued that faith, not good works, saved Lutheran propaganda flooded German towns
sinners from damnation, and he sharply distin- and villages. Hundreds of pamphlets lambasted
guished between true Gospel teachings and in- the papacy and the Catholic clergy; others simpli-
vented church doctrines. Luther advocated “the fied the message of Luther for the common folk.
priesthood of all believers,” insisting that the Bible Sometimes only a few pages in length, these broad-
provided all the teachings necessary for Christian sheets were often illustrated with crude satirical
living and that a professional caste of clerics should cartoons. City dwellers proved particularly recep-
not hold sway over laypeople. Freedom of a Chris- tive to Luther’s teachings; they were literate and
tian circulated widely in an immediate German were eager to read the Bible for themselves. Mag-
translation. Its principles “by faith alone,” “by istrates began to curtail clerical privileges and
Scripture alone,” and “the priesthood of all believ-
ers” became central features of the reform move-
ment. Charles V: Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1519–1556) and the most
powerful ruler in sixteenth-century Europe; he reigned over the
In his second treatise, To the Nobility of the Low Countries, Spain, Spain’s Italian and New World dominions,
German Nation, written in German, Luther ap- and the Austrian Habsburg lands.
1492–1560 Th e Prot e s ta n t R e fo r m at i o n 431

CONTRASTING VIEWS

Martin Luther: Holy Man or Heretic?


When Martin Luther criticized the papacy and the 2. Luther as Monk, Doctor,
Catholic church, he was hailed as a godly prophet Man of the Bible, and Saint (1521)
by some and condemned as a heretic by others.
Both Protestants and Catholics used popular prop- This woodcut by an anonymous artist appeared in
aganda to argue their cause. They spread their a volume that the Strasbourg printer Johann Schott
message to a largely illiterate or semiliterate soci- published in 1521. In addition to being one of the
ety through pamphlets, woodcuts, and broadsheets major centers of printing, Strasbourg was also a
in which visual images took on increasing impor- stronghold of the reform movement. Note the use
tance, to appeal to a wide public. These polemical of traditional symbols to signify Luther’s holiness:
works were distributed in the thousands to cities the Bible in his hands, the halo, the Holy Spirit in
and market towns throughout the Holy Roman the form of a dove, and his friar’s robes. Although
Empire. A few were even translated into Latin to the cult of saints and monasticism came under se-
reach an audience outside of Germany. vere criticism during the Reformation, the repre-
The 1521 woodcut by Matthias Gnidias rep- sentation of Luther in traditional symbols of
Luther as Monk. (The Granger sanctity stressed his conservative values instead of
resents Luther standing above his Catholic oppo- Collection, New York.)
nent, the Franciscan friar Thomas Murner, who is his radical challenge to church authorities.
depicted here as a crawling dragon, Leviathan, the
biblical monster (Document 1). Another positive image of Luther, 3. The Seven-Headed Martin Luther
also published in 1521, depicts him as inspired by the Holy Spirit by Johannes Cochlaeus (1529)
(Document 2). An anti-Luther image from a few years later rep-
resents him as a seven-headed monster (Document 3), signifying The seven heads are labeled (from left to right) doctor, Martin,
that the reformer is the source of discord within Christianity. This Luther, ecclesiast, enthusiast, visitirer, and Barrabas. The term en-
image appeared in a book published in 1529 by the Dominican thusiast represented a name of abuse, applied usually by the Catholic
friar Johannes Cochlaeus, one of Luther’s vociferous opponents. church to Anabaptists and religious radicals of all sorts. Visitirer is
Visual examples of religious propaganda worked effectively to a pun in German on the
demonize enemies and to contrast sharply good and evil. The 1520s word Tier, meaning “ani-
saw the most intense production of these cheap polemical visual mal.” Cochlaeus also mocks
prints, but the use of visual propaganda would continue for more the new practice of Protes-
than a century in the religious conflict. tant clergy visiting parishes
to check up on pastors’ and
parishioners’ adherence to
1. Matthias Gnidias’s Representation reformed doctrines and rit-
of Luther and Leviathan (1521) uals in order to enforce
Dressed in a friar’s robes, Christian discipline. From
the Murner-Leviathan monster left to right, Luther’s many
breathes “ignis, sumus, & sul- heads gradually reveal him
phur” — fire, smoke, and sul- to be a rebel, as Barrabas
phur. The good friar, Luther, was condemned to die as a
holds the Bible in his hands, and rabble-rouser by the Ro-
is represented here as a prophet mans but instead was freed
(foretelling the end of the and his place taken by Je-
world). The vertical Latin cap- sus at the crucifixion. The
tion declares that the Lord will number seven also alludes Seven-Headed Luther.
visit the earth with his sword to the seven deadly sins. (The Granger Collection, New York.)
and kill the Leviathan monster;
he will trample underfoot lions Questions to Consider
and dragons; and the dragon, 1. Why did Johannes Cochlaeus condemn Martin Luther? How
with a halter around its nostrils, did he construct a negative image of Luther?
will be dragged away on a hook. 2. Evaluate the visual representations of Luther as a godly man.
Luther and Leviathan Which one is more effective?
432 C h a pt e r 1 4 ■ G lo b a l E n co u n t e r s a n d R e l i g i o u s R e fo r m s 1492–1560

subordinate the clergy to municipal authority. read the works of the leading French humanists
Luther’s message — that each Christian could ap- who sought to reform the church from within, and
peal directly to God for salvation — spoke to he also examined Luther’s writings. Gradually, he
townspeople’s spiritual needs and social vision. came to question fundamental Catholic teachings.
From Wittenberg, the many streams of the reform On Sunday, October 18, 1534, Parisians found
movement quickly merged and threatened to church doors posted with ribald broadsheets de-
swamp all before it. nouncing the Catholic Mass. Smuggled into
France from the Protestant and French-speaking
parts of Switzerland, the broadsheets provoked a
Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin wave of royal repression in the capital. In response
Separate reform movements sprang up in Swiss to this so-called Affair of the Placards, the govern-
cities. In 1520, just three years after Luther’s initial ment arrested hundreds of French Protestants, ex-
break with Rome, the chief preacher of Zurich, ecuted some of them, and forced many more,
Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531), openly declared including Calvin, to flee abroad.
himself a reformer. Like Luther, Zwingli attacked On his way to Strasbourg, a haven for religious
corruption in the Catholic church hierarchy, and dissidents, Calvin detoured to Geneva — the
he also questioned fasting and French-speaking Swiss city-state
clerical celibacy. Under Zwingli’s North
where he would find his life’s
leadership, Zurich served as the Sea DENMARK work. Genevans had renounced
center for the Swiss and southern ENGLAND their allegiance to the Catholic

ND
German reform movement. Lu- HOLY bishop, and local supporters of

LA
PO
ther and Zwingli did not agree ROMAN reform begged Calvin to stay and
Paris
on all points of doctrine. Luther Orléans
 Strasbourg
EMPIRE
labor there. Although it took
insisted that Christ was both truly SWISS some time for Calvin to solidify

Y
FRANCE
CONFED.

GAR
and symbolically present in the Geneva his position in the city, his sup-
HUN
Eucharist, the central Christian porters eventually triumphed
PAPAL
sacrament that Christians par- SPAIN STATES and he remained in Geneva until
took of in communion; Zwingli, Rome his death in 1564.
however, viewed the Eucharistic Under Calvin’s leadership,
0 100 200 miles
bread and wine as symbols of Geneva became a Christian re-
0 200 kilometers
Christ’s union with believers. public on the model set out in his
In 1529, troubled by these Calvin’s World in the Institutes of the Christian Reli-
differences and other disagree- Mid-Sixteenth Century gion, first published in 1536. No
ments, Evangelical princes and reformer prior to Calvin had ex-
magistrates assembled the major reformers in the pounded on the doctrines, organization, history,
Colloquy of Marburg, in central Germany. After and practices of Christianity in such a systematic,
several days of intense discussions, the reformers logical, and coherent manner. Calvin followed
managed to resolve some differences over doc- Luther’s doctrine of salvation to its ultimate logi-
trine, but Luther and Zwingli failed to agree on the cal conclusion: if God is almighty and humans
meaning of the Eucharist. The issue of the Eu- cannot earn their salvation by good works, then
charist would soon divide Lutherans and Calvin- no Christian can be certain of salvation. Develop-
ists as well. ing the doctrine of predestination, Calvin argued
Under the leadership of John Calvin that God had ordained every man, woman, and
(1509–1564), another wave of reform pounded at child to salvation or damnation — even before the
the gates of Rome. Born in Picardy, in northern creation of the world. Thus, in Calvin’s theology,
France, Calvin studied in Paris and Orléans, where God saved only the “elect”; he knew their identity
he took a law degree. A gifted intellectual attracted eternally.
to humanism, Calvin could have enjoyed a bril- Predestination could terrify, but it could also
liant career in government or the church. Instead, embolden. A righteous life might be a sign of a
experiencing a crisis of faith, like Luther, he sought person’s having been chosen for salvation. Thus,
salvation through intense theological study. Calvin Calvinist doctrine demanded rigorous discipline.
The knowledge that only the elect, a small group,
John Calvin: French-born Christian humanist (1509–1564) and
founder of Calvinism, one of the major branches of the Protes- predestination: John Calvin’s doctrine that God preordained
tant Reformation; he led the reform movement in Geneva, salvation or damnation for each person before creation; those
Switzerland, from 1541 to 1564. chosen for salvation were considered the “elect.”
1492–1560 Th e Prot e s ta n t R e fo r m at i o n 433

DOCUMENT

Ordinances for Calvinist Churches (1547)


The Calvinist churches, like others during kiss the earth for the first offence; for the or other dance, he shall be put in prison
the Protestant Reformation, emphasized the second to pay 5 sous, and for the third 6 for three days and then sent to the con-
need for stricter moral regulation of indi- sous, and for the last offence be put in the sistory.
vidual behavior. These ordinances placed on pillory for one hour.
churches in Geneva and surrounding areas
show how all aspects of behavior, including Usury.
Drunkenness.
popular entertainments, were subject to
1. That no one shall invite another to That no one shall take upon interest or
scrutiny.
drink under penalty of 3 sous. profit more than five per cent., upon
2. That taverns shall be closed during the penalty of confiscation of the principal
Concerning the Times of sermon, under penalty that the tavern- and of being condemned to make restitu-
Assembling at Church keeper shall pay 3 sous, and whoever tion as the case may demand.
That the temples be closed for the rest of may be found therein shall pay the
the time [outside the time of services], in same amount.
order that no one shall enter therein out 3. If anyone be found intoxicated he shall Games.
of hours, impelled thereto by superstition; pay for the first offence 3 sous and shall That no one shall play at any dissolute
and if anyone be found engaged in any be remanded to the consistory [church game or at any game whatsoever it may
special act of devotion therein or nearby council or governing body]; for the sec- be, neither for gold nor silver nor for any
he shall be admonished for it: if it be found ond offence he shall be held to pay the excessive stake [i.e., gambling], upon
to be of a superstitious nature for which sum of 6 sous, and for the third 10 sous penalty of 5 sous and forfeiture of stake
simple correction is inadequate then he and be put in prison. played for.
shall be chastised. 4. That no one shall make roiaumes [pop-
ular festivals] under penalty of 10 sous.
Blasphemy. Source: George L. Burns, ed., in Translations and
Songs and Dances. Reprints from the Original Sources of European
Whoever shall have blasphemed, swearing History, 6 vols. (Philadelphia: University of
by the body or by the blood of our Lord, If anyone sings immoral, dissolute or Pennsylvania History Department, 1898–1912),
or in similar manner, he shall be made to outrageous songs, or dance the virollet vol. 1, 2–5.

would be saved should guide the actions of the doctrines were produced and exported all over Eu-
godly in an uncertain world. Fusing church and rope. The Calvinist movement spread to France, the
society into what followers named the Reformed Low Countries, England, Scotland, the German
church, Geneva became a theocratic city-state states, Poland, Hungary, and eventually New Eng-
dominated by Calvin and the elders of the Re- land, becoming the established form of the Refor-
formed church. Its people were rigorously moni- mation in many of these countries.
tored; detractors said that they were bullied. (See
Document, “Ordinances for Calvinist Churches,”
above.) The Anglican Church in England
Calvin tolerated no dissent. While passing England followed its own path, with reform led by
through Geneva in 1553, the Spanish physician the king rather than by men trained as Catholic
Michael Servetus was arrested because he had pub- clergy. Despite a tradition of religious dissent that
lished books attacking Calvin and questioning the went back to John Wycliffe, Protestantism gained
doctrine of the Trinity, the belief that there are three few English adherents in the 1520s. King Henry
persons in one God — the Father, the Son (Christ), VIII (r. 1509–1547) changed that when he broke
and the Holy Spirit. Upon Calvin’s advice, the au-
thorities executed Servetus. Despite the outcry over
this action, Geneva became the new center of the Henry VIII: The English king (r. 1509–1547) who first opposed
the Protestant Reformation and then broke with the Catholic
Reformation, the place where pastors trained for church, naming himself head of the Anglican church in the Act
missionary work and where books about Calvinist of Supremacy of 1534.
434 C h a pt e r 1 4 ■ G lo b a l E n co u n t e r s a n d R e l i g i o u s R e fo r m s 1492–1560

THE PROGRE SS OF THE REFORMATION


cellor and Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) as arch-
bishop of Canterbury. Under their leadership, the
1517 Martin Luther disseminates ninety-five theses attacking English Parliament passed a number of acts that
the sale of indulgences and other church practices severed ties between the English church and Rome.
The most important of these, the Act of Su-
1520 Reformer Huldrych Zwingli breaks with Rome
premacy of 1534, made Henry the head of the An-
1525 Peasants’ War in German states divides reform move- glican church (the Church of England). Other
ment legislation invalidated the claims of Mary, his
1529 Lutheran German princes protest the condemnation of daughter with Catherine, to the throne, recognized
religious reform by Charles V his marriage to Anne Boleyn, and allowed the
1534 The Act of Supremacy establishes King Henry VIII as English crown to embark on the dissolution of the
head of the Anglican church, severing ties to Rome monasteries. In an effort to consolidate support
1534–1535 Anabaptists take over the German city of Münster in a behind his version of the Reformation, Henry sold
failed experiment to create a holy community off monastic lands to the local gentry and aristoc-
1541 John Calvin establishes himself permanently in Geneva,
racy. Henry thus missed a golden opportunity to
making that city a model of Christian reform and make the English crown as rich as its French coun-
discipline terpart by adding those lands to its own holdings.
By 1536, Henry had grown tired of Anne
Boleyn, who had given birth to a daughter, the fu-
ture Queen Elizabeth I, but had produced no sons.
He ordered Anne beheaded on the charge of adul-
with the Roman Catholic church for reasons that tery, an act that he defined as treason. The king
were both personal and political. The resulting An- would go on to marry four other wives but father
glican church retained many aspects of Catholic only one son, Edward. Thomas More had also been
worship but nonetheless aligned itself in the executed for treason, in 1535, and Cromwell suf-
Protestant camp. fered the same fate in 1540 after he lost the king’s
At first, Henry opposed the Reformation, even favor. When Henry died in 1547, the principle of
receiving the title Defender of the Faith from Pope royal supremacy in religious matters was firmly
Leo X for a treatise Henry wrote against Luther. A established, but much would now depend on who
robust, ambitious, and well-educated man, Henry held the crown.
wanted to make his mark on history and, with the
aid of his chancellors Cardinal Thomas Wolsey and
Review: How did Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and Henry
Thomas More, he vigorously suppressed Protes-
VIII challenge the Roman Catholic church?
tantism and executed its leaders. But by 1527, the
king wanted to divorce his wife, Catherine of
Aragon (d. 1536), the daughter of Ferdinand and
Isabella of Spain and the aunt of Charles V. The
eighteen-year marriage had produced a daughter, Reshaping Society
Mary (known as Mary Tudor), but Henry desper- through Religion
ately needed a male heir to consolidate the rule of
the still-new Tudor dynasty. Moreover, he had The religious upheavals of the sixteenth century
fallen in love with Anne Boleyn, a lady at court and affected European society in two contradictory
a strong supporter of the Reformation. Henry ways: first, the reformers and their followers chal-
claimed that his marriage to Catherine had never lenged political authority and the social order, and
been valid because she was the widow of his older second, in reaction to the more extreme manifes-
brother, Arthur. Arthur and Catherine’s marriage, tations of the first, they underlined the need for
which apparently was never consummated, had discipline in worship and social behavior. Peasant
been annulled by Pope Julius II to allow the mar- rebels and radical Protestants known as Anabap-
riage between Henry and Catherine to take place. tists wanted to push the Reformation in a more
Now Henry asked the reigning pope, Clement VII, populist direction. They took the phrase “priest-
to declare his marriage to Catherine invalid. hood of all believers” quite literally and sided with
Around “the king’s great matter” unfolded a the poor and the downtrodden. Like Catholics,
struggle for political and religious control. When Protestant authorities then became alarmed by the
Henry failed to secure papal approval of his di- subversive potential of religious reforms. They
vorce, he chose two Protestants as his new loyal viewed the Reformation not as a political and so-
servants: Thomas Cromwell (1485–1540) as chan- cial movement, but as a way of instilling greater
1492–1560 R e s h a p i n g S o c i et y t h ro u g h R e l i g i o n 435

discipline in individual worship and church organ- nity in the German town of Münster. The results
ization. Bible reading became a potent tool in the were disastrous.
creation of this new, internally motivated person.
At the same time, the Roman Catholic church un- The Peasants’ War of 1525. The Catholic church
dertook reforms of its own and launched an was the largest landowner in the Holy Roman Em-
offensive against the Protestant Reformation, pire: about one-seventh of the empire’s territory
sometimes called the Counter-Reformation. consisted of ecclesiastical principalities in which
bishops and abbots exercised both secular and
churchly power. Luther’s anticlerical message
Protestant Challenges
struck home with peasants who paid taxes to both
to the Social Order their lord and the Catholic church. In the spring
When Luther described the freedom of the Chris- of 1525, many peasants in southern and central
tian, he meant an entirely spiritual freedom. But Germany, joined by urban workers, rose in rebel-
others interpreted his call for freedom in social and lion (Map 14.3). In Thuringia (central/eastern
political terms. During the 1520s and 1530s, two Germany), the rebels followed an ex-priest,
movements emerged in the Holy Roman Empire Thomas Müntzer (1468?–1525), who promised to
to demand more far-reaching changes. In 1525, chastise the wicked and thus clear the way for the
peasants and urban artisans rose up against the Last Judgment.
Catholic church and landed nobility and armed The Peasants’ War split the reform movement.
themselves to pursue their goals. Anabaptists ex- Princes and city officials, ultimately supported by
perimented with new social and political doc- Luther, turned against the rebels. Catholic and
trines. Some rejected violence, but one Anabaptist Protestant princes joined hands to crush Müntzer
group tried to create a perfect Christian commu- and his supporters. All over the empire, princes

0 100 200 miles MAP 14.3 The Peasants’ War of 1525


General area of conflict
Areas of severe conflict 0 100 200 kilometers The centers of uprisings clustered in
 Urban violence DE N MA R K southern and central Germany, where the
Boundary of the density of cities encouraged the spread
Holy Roman Empire of discontent and allowed for alliances
Holstein between urban masses and rural rebels.
N orth
N
Sea The proximity to the Swiss Confederation,
Pomerania
W a stronghold of the Reformation move-
E
ment, also inspired antiestablishment
S Brandenburg
POLAND uprisings.
S
ND


 
LA

Allstedt    
Cologne Saxony
ER

   Silesia
Rh

Hesse
H

Thuringia  
ine
ET

Frankfurt 
N 
R.

Friedburg
   

  Bohemia Prague
Mainz  Würzburg
Worms
Luxembourg 
Württemberg Moravia
Palatinate Weidenburg

Da
 nub
Memmingen e R.
Lorraine  
Bavaria 
Salzburg

 
Freiburg Salzburg  Styria
 Radstadt
Burgundy
FRANCE SWISS
CONFEDERATION Tyrol Carinthia
Trent

HUNGARY
Savoy REPUBLIC
OF VENICE
436 C h a pt e r 1 4 ■ G lo b a l E n co u n t e r s a n d R e l i g i o u s R e fo r m s 1492–1560

defeated the peasants, sided with Luther, and con-


fronted the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, who
declared Roman Catholicism the empire’s only le-
gitimate religion. The fragmentation of the Holy
Roman Empire only increased as people came to
support their Protestant princes against Charles’s
Catholic orthodoxy.

Anabaptists. While Zwingli challenged the Ro-


man Catholic church in public, some laypeople in
Zurich secretly pursued their own path to reform.
Taking their cue from the New Testament’s de-
scriptions of the first Christian community, these
men and women believed that true faith came only
to those with reason and free will. How could a
baby knowingly choose Christ? Only adults could
believe and accept baptism; hence, the Anabaptists
(literally, “rebaptizers”) rejected the validity of in-
fant baptism and called for adult rebaptism. Many
were pacifists who also refused to acknowledge the
authority of law courts and considered themselves
German Peasants’ War of 1525 a community of true Christians unblemished by
This colored woodcut depicts peasants attacking the sin. The Anabaptist movement drew its leadership
pope, a monk, and a nobleman during the massive primarily from the artisan class and its members
rural uprisings against the church that took place in from the middle and lower classes — men and
southern and central Germany in 1525. Even the women attracted by a simple but radical message
heavens show signs of trouble: a comet and clouds of peace and salvation.
in the shape of a goat signify bloodshed and sin. Zwingli immediately attacked the Anabaptists
(The Granger Collection, New York.) for their refusal to bear arms and swear oaths of
allegiance, sensing accurately that they were repu-
diating his theocratic (church-directed) order.
trounced peasant armies, hunted down their lead- When persuasion failed to convince the Anabap-
ers, and uprooted all opposition. By the end of the tists, Zwingli urged Zurich magistrates to impose
year, more than 100,000 rebels had been killed and the death sentence. Thus, the evangelical reform-
many others maimed, imprisoned, or exiled. Ini- ers themselves created the Reformation’s first mar-
tially, Luther had tried to mediate the conflict, crit- tyrs of conscience.
icizing the princes for their brutality toward the Despite condemnation in 1529 of the move-
peasants but also warning the rebels against mix- ment by the Holy Roman Emperor, Anabaptism
ing religion and social protest. Luther believed that spread rapidly from Zurich to many cities in south-
God ordained rulers, who must therefore be ern Germany. In 1534, one Anabaptist group, be-
obeyed even if they were tyrants. The kingdom of lieving the end of the world was imminent, seized
God belonged not to this world but to the next, he control of the city of Münster. Proclaiming them-
insisted. Luther considered Müntzer’s mixing of selves a community of saints, the Münster Anabap-
religion and politics the greatest danger to the Re- tists abolished private property in imitation of the
formation, nothing less than “the devil’s work.” early Christians and dissolved traditional mar-
When the rebels ignored Luther’s appeal and con- riages, allowing men, like Old Testament patri-
tinued to follow more radical preachers, Luther archs, to have multiple wives, to the consternation
called on the princes to slaughter the rebels and of many women. Besieged by a combined Protes-
restore the divinely ordained social order. tant and Catholic army, the city fell in June 1535.
Fundamentally conservative in its political The Anabaptist leaders died in battle or were exe-
philosophy, the Lutheran church henceforth de- cuted, their bodies hung in cages affixed to the
pended on established political authority for its church tower. Their punishment was intended as a
protection. It lost supporters in rural areas and be-
came an increasingly urban phenomenon. The ul- Anabaptists: Sixteenth-century Protestants who believed that
timate victors were the German princes. They only adults could truly have faith and accept baptism.
1492–1560 R e s h a p i n g S o c i et y t h ro u g h R e l i g i o n 437

warning to all who might want to take the Refor- German Bibles soon appeared, thus sanctioning
mation away from the Protestant authorities and Bible reading by the Catholic laity, a sharp depar-
hand it to the people. The Anabaptist movement ture from medieval church practice. In the same
in northwestern Europe nonetheless survived un- year that Luther’s German New Testament ap-
der the determined pacifist leadership of the Dutch peared in print, the French humanist Jacques
reformer Menno Simons (1469–1561), whose fol- Lefèvre d’Étaples (c. 1455–1536) translated the
lowers were eventually named Mennonites. Vulgate (Latin) New Testament into French.
Catholic authorities did not always welcome
translations, however. Sensing a potentially dan-
New Forms of Discipline gerous association between the vernacular Bible
Faced with the social firestorms ignited by reli- and heresy, England’s Catholic church hierarchy
gious reform, the middle-class urbanites who sup- had reacted swiftly against English-language
ported the Protestant Reformation urged greater Bibles. When William Tyndale (1495–1536) trans-
religious conformity and stricter moral behavior. lated the Bible into English, he was burned at the
To gain more control over religious ferment, stake as a heretic. After Henry VIII’s break with
Protestant rulers and clergy encouraged Bible Rome and adoption of the Reformation, in con-
reading and a new work ethic. Ordinary men and trast, his government promoted an English Bible
women who learned how to behave as virtuous based on Tyndale’s translation.
Christians at home and in Sunday worship applied
what they learned in their households and their Public Relief for the Poor. In the early sixteenth
businesses. Protestants did not have monasteries century, secular governments began to take over
or convents or saints’ lives to set examples; they institutions of public charity from the church. This
sought moral examples in their own homes, in development, which took place in both Catholic
the sermons of their preachers, and in their own and Protestant Europe, grew out of two trends: a
reading of the Bible. The new emphasis on self- new upsurge in poverty brought about by popu-
discipline led to growing impatience with the poor, lation growth and spiraling inflation, and the rise
now viewed as lacking personal virtue, and greater of a work ethic that included growing hostility to-
emphasis on regulation of marriage, now seen as ward the poor.
critical to social discipline in general. Although By 1500, the cycle of demographic collapse
some of these attitudes had medieval roots, the and economic depression triggered by the Black
Protestant Reformation fostered their spread and Death of 1346–1353 had passed. Between 1500
Catholics soon began to embrace them. and 1560, rapid economic and population growth
created prosperity for some and stress — caused
Reading the Bible. The only Bible authorized by or heightened by increased inflation — for many.
the Catholic church was the Latin Bible, or Vulgate, Wanderers and urban beggars were by no means
even though it contained errors of translation novel, but the reaction to poverty was. Sixteenth-
from the Greek and Hebrew. In 1522, Martin century moralists decried the crime and sloth of
Luther translated Erasmus’s Greek New Testament vagabonds. Rejecting the notion that the poor
into German, the first full vernacular translation played a central role in the Christian idea of sal-
in that language. A new Bible-centered culture be- vation and that charity and prayers united rich and
gan to take root, as more than 200,000 copies of poor, these moralists distinguished between the
Luther’s New Testament were printed over twelve genuine poor, or “God’s poor,” and vagabonds;
years, an immense number for the time. In 1534, they insisted that the latter, who were able-bodied,
Luther completed a translation of the Old Testa- should be forced to work.
ment. Peppered with witty phrases and colloquial The Reformation provided an opportunity to
expressions, Luther’s Bible was a treasure chest of restructure relief for the poor. Instead of decen-
the German language. tralized, private initiatives often overseen by reli-
Found for the most part in urban and literate gious orders, Protestant magistrates appointed
households, the German Bible occupied a central officials to head urban agencies that would certify
place in a family’s history. Generations handed the genuine poor and distribute welfare funds to
down valuable editions, and pious citizens often them. This development progressed rapidly in ur-
bound Bibles with family papers or other reading ban areas, where poverty was most visible, and
material. Bible reading became a common pastime transcended religious divisions. During the 1520s,
undertaken in solitude or in family and church cities in the Low Countries, Italy, and Spain passed
gatherings. To counter Protestant success, Catholic ordinances that prohibited begging and instituted
438 C h a pt e r 1 4 ■ G lo b a l E n co u n t e r s a n d R e l i g i o u s R e fo r m s 1492–1560

public charity. In 1526, the Spanish humanist Juan lished marital courts, passed new marriage laws,
Luis Vives, a Catholic, wrote On the Support of the closed brothels, and inflicted harsher punishments
Poor, a Latin treatise urging authorities to estab- for sexual deviance.
lish public poor relief; the work was soon trans- Prior to the Reformation, despite the legisla-
lated into French, Italian, German, and English. tion of church councils, marriages had largely been
National laws followed. In 1531, Henry VIII asked private affairs between families; some couples
justices of the peace (unpaid local magistrates) to never even registered with the church. The
license the poor in England and to differentiate be- Catholic church recognized any promise made be-
tween those who could work and those who could tween two consenting adults (with the legal age of
not. In 1540, Charles V imposed a welfare tax in twelve for females, fourteen for males) in the pres-
Spain to augment that country’s inadequate sys- ence of two witnesses as a valid marriage. Many
tem of private charity. In Spain, however, the reli- couples simply lived together as common-law hus-
gious orders continued to dominate the system of band and wife. Young men sometimes promised
almsgiving. marriage in a passionate moment, only to renege
later. The overwhelming number of cases in
Reforming Marriage. In their effort to establish Catholic church courts involved young women
order and discipline, Protestant reformers de- seeking to enforce promises after they had ex-
nounced sexual immorality and glorified the fam- changed their personal honor — that is, their
ily. The early Protestant reformers like Luther virginity — for the greater honor of marriage.
championed the end of clerical celibacy and em- The Reformation proved more effective than
braced marriage. Luther, once a celibate priest the late medieval church in suppressing common-
himself, married a former nun. The idealized pa- law marriages. Protestant governments asserted
triarchal family provided protection against the greater official control over marriage, and Catholic
forces of disorder and a place where reform values governments followed suit. A marriage was legiti-
could be inculcated. Protestant magistrates estab- mate only if registered by both a government offi-
cial and a member of the clergy. In many Protestant
countries, the new marriage ordinances also re-
The Disciplined Home quired parental consent, thus giving householders
Proper table manners reflected discipline and morality immense power in regulating not only marriage
in the godly household, an ideal of the religious but also the transmission of family property.
reformers of the sixteenth century. The householder, In the fervor of the early Reformation years,
the father patriarch, leads his wife and children in the first generation of Protestant women attained
prayer before a meal. The orderly behavior parallels greater marital equality than those of subsequent
the comfort (oven, smoked glass windows, chan- generations. Katharina Zell, wife of the reformer
deliers, timber ceiling, and cabinets) of a well-off
Matthew Zell, defended her equality by citing a
patrician family. (Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, Germany.)
Bible verse when a critic used St. Paul to support
his argument that women should remain silent in
church. Katharina retorted, “I would remind you
of the word of this same apostle that in Christ there
is no male nor female.” Katharina helped feed and
clothe the thousands of refugees who flooded
Strasbourg after their defeat in the Peasants’ War.
In 1534, she published a collection of hymns.
Outraged by the intolerance of a new breed of
Protestant clergy, she reprimanded a prominent
Lutheran pastor for his persecution of dissenters:
“You young fellows tread on the graves of the first
fathers of this church in Strasbourg and punish all
who disagree with you, but faith cannot be forced.”

Catholic Renewal
Like a slumbering giant finally awakened, the
Catholic church decided in the 1540s to undertake
drastic action to fend off the Protestant threat.
Pope Paul III convened a general council of the
1492–1560 R e s h a p i n g S o c i et y t h ro u g h R e l i g i o n 439

church in 1545 at Trent, a town on the border be- reflected an intense religious revival in the Italian
tween the Holy Roman Empire and Italy. Meeting cities from the 1490s to the 1520s. The most im-
sporadically over nearly twenty years (1545–1563), portant of these, the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits,
the Council of Trent effectively set the course was established by a Spanish nobleman, Ignatius
of Catholicism until the 1960s. Catholic leaders of Loyola (1491–1556). Inspired by tales of chival-
sought a renewal of religious devotion and spiri- ric romances and the national glory of the recon-
tuality as well as a clarification of church doctrine. quista, Ignatius eagerly sought to prove himself as
New religious orders set out to win converts over- a soldier. In 1521, while defending a Spanish bor-
seas or to reconvert Catholics who had turned to der fortress against French attack, he sustained a
Protestantism. Catholic clergy emphasized the severe injury. During his convalescence, Ignatius
pageantry of ritual and the decoration of churches read lives of the saints; once he recovered, he aban-
in order to counter the austerity of Protestant wor- doned his quest for military glory in favor of serv-
ship. At the same time, the church did not hesitate ing the church.
to root out dissent by giving greater powers to the Attracted by his activist piety, young men
Inquisition, including the power to censor books. gravitated to this charismatic figure. Thanks to a
The papal Index, or list of prohibited books, was cardinal’s intercession, Ignatius gained a hearing
established in 1557 and not abolished until 1966. before the pope, and in 1540 the church recognized
his small band. With Ignatius as its first general,
The Council of Trent. Italian and Spanish clergy the Jesuits became the most vigorous defenders of
predominated among the 255 bishops, archbish- papal authority. The society quickly expanded; by
ops, and cardinals attending the Council of Trent. the time of Ignatius’s death in 1556, Europe had
Though its deliberations were interrupted first by one thousand Jesuits. They established hundreds
an outbreak of the plague and then by warfare, the of colleges throughout the Catholic world, educat-
council came up with a remarkably wide-ranging ing future generations of Catholic leaders. Jesuit
series of decisions. It condemned the central doc- missionaries played a key role in the global Por-
trines of Protestantism. Salvation depended on tuguese maritime empire and brought Roman
faith and good works, not faith alone. On the Catholicism to Africans, Asians, and native Amer-
sacrament of the Eucharist, the council reaffirmed icans. Together with other new religious orders, the
that the bread of communion “really, truly” be- Jesuits restored the confidence of the faithful in the
comes Christ’s body — a rejection of all Protestant dedication and power of the Catholic church. They
positions on this issue so emphatic as to preclude also acquired a reputation for bringing controversy
compromise. It reasserted the supremacy of cleri- in their wake and for being drawn to power as
cal authority over the laity; the church’s interpre- counselors to powerful nobles and kings.
tation of the Bible could not be challenged, and
the Vulgate was the only authoritative version. The Missionary Zeal. To win new souls, Catholic
council rejected divorce, permitted by Protestants, missionaries set sail throughout the globe. They
and reaffirmed the legitimacy of indulgences. It saw their effort as proof of the truth of Roman
also called for reform from within, however, insist- Catholicism and the success of their missions as a
ing that bishops henceforth reside in their dio- sign of divine favor, both particularly important
ceses and decreeing that seminaries for the training in the face of Protestant challenge. But the mis-
of priests be established in every diocese. sionary zeal of Catholics brought conflicting mes-
The Council of Trent marked a watershed; sages to indigenous peoples: for some, the message
henceforth, the schism between Protestant and of a repressive and coercive alien religion; for oth-
Catholic remained permanent, and all hopes of rec- ers, a sweet sign of reason and faith. Frustrated in
onciliation faded. The focus of the Catholic church his efforts to convert Brazilian Indians, a Jesuit
turned now to rolling back the tide of dissent. missionary wrote to his superior in Rome in 1563
that “for this kind of people it is better to be
New Religious Orders. The energy of the preaching with the sword and rod of iron.”
Catholic renewal expressed itself most vigorously To ensure rapid Christianization, European
in the founding of new religious orders. Several missionaries focused initially on winning over lo-
were founded in early-sixteenth-century Italy and cal elites. The recommendation of a Spanish royal

Council of Trent: A general council of the Catholic church that Jesuits: Members of the Society of Jesus, a Catholic religious
met at Trent between 1545 and 1563 to set Catholic doctrine, order founded by Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) and approved
reform church practices, and defend the church against the by the pope in 1540. Jesuits served as missionaries and edu-
Protestant challenge. cators all over the world.
440 C h a pt e r 1 4 ■ G lo b a l E n co u n t e r s a n d R e l i g i o u s R e fo r m s 1492–1560

official in Mexico City was typical. He wrote to the In East Asia, as in the Americas, Christian
crown in 1525: missionaries under Portuguese protection con-
centrated their efforts on the elites, preaching the
In order that the sons of caciques [chiefs] and native
lords may be instructed in the faith, Your Majesty must
Gospel to Confucian scholar-officials in China
command that a college be founded wherein they may and to the samurai (the warrior aristocracy) in
be taught . . . to the end that they may be ordained Japan. However, European missionaries in Asia
priests. For he who shall become such among them, will greatly admired Chinese and Japanese civilization
be of greater profit in attracting others to the faith and thus used the sermon rather than the sword
than will fifty [European] Christians. to win converts (see the illustration on this page). The
Nevertheless, this recommendation was not Jesuit Francis Xavier preached in India and Japan,
adopted and the Catholic clergy in Spanish Amer- his work greatly assisted by a network of Por-
ica remained overwhelmingly European. tuguese trading stations. He died in 1552, await-
After an initial period of relatively little racial ing permission to travel to China. A pioneer
discrimination, the Catholic church in the Amer- missionary in Asia, Xavier had prepared the
icas and Africa adopted strict rules based on color. ground for future missionary successes in Japan
For example, the first Mexican Ecclesiastical and China. The efforts of the Catholic missionar-
Provincial Council in 1555 declared that holy or- ies seemed highly successful: vast multitudes of
ders were not to be conferred on Indians, mesti- native Americans had become nominal Christians
zos (people of mixed European-Indian parentage), by the second half of the sixteenth century, and
or mulattoes (people of mixed European-African thirty years after Francis Xavier’s 1549 landing in
heritage); along with descendants of Muslims, Japan, the Jesuits could claim more than 100,000
Jews, and persons who had been sentenced by the Japanese converts.
Spanish Inquisition, these groups were deemed
“inherently unworthy of the sacerdotal [priestly] Review: How did the forces for radical change un-
office.” Europeans’ sense of racial superiority led leashed by the Protestant Reformation interact with the
them to perceive native Americans’ and Africans’ urge for social order and stability?
resistance to domination as “treachery.”

The Portuguese in Japan


In this sixteenth-century Japanese black-
lacquer screen painting of Portuguese
missionaries, the Jesuits are dressed in
black and the Franciscans in brown. At
the lower right corner is a Portuguese
nobleman depicted with exaggerated
“Western” features. The Japanese
considered themselves lighter in skin color
than the Portuguese, whom they classified
as “barbarians.” In turn, the Portuguese
classified Japanese (and Chinese) as
“whites.” The perception of ethnic
differences in the sixteenth century,
however, depended less on skin color
than on clothing, eating habits, and other
cultural signals. Color classifications were
unstable and changed over time: by the
late seventeenth century, Europeans no
longer regarded Asians as “whites.”
(Laurie Platt Winfrey, Inc.)
1492–1560 A St r u g g l e fo r M a s t e ry 441

A Struggle for Mastery dren. The royal household employed officials to


handle finances and provide guard duty, clothing,
In the sixteenth century, conflicts generated by the and food; in addition, physicians, librarians, mu-
Reformation posed new challenges to the ambi- sicians, dwarfs, animal trainers, and a multitude of
tions of rulers. Even as courts continued to spon- hangers-on bloated its size. By 1535, the French
sor the arts and literature of the Renaissance, court numbered 1,622 members. Although Fran-
princes and kings seized opportunities to build cis built a magnificent Renaissance palace at
stronger states by fighting wars. Wars justified in- Fontainebleau, where he hired Italian artists to
creased taxes, and growing revenues fostered the produce paintings and sculpture, the French court
creation of a central bureaucracy housed at court. often moved from palace to palace. It took no
Victory on the battlefield translated into territory fewer than eighteen thousand horses to transport
and just as important into reputation and awe. But the people, furniture, and documents — not to
victory required skills in making war; monarchs mention the dogs and falcons for the royal hunt.
eagerly sought new military technology and bat- Hunting was no mere diversion; it represented a
tlefield ploys. One major obstacle complicated form of mock combat, essential in the training of
these efforts at state building: religious division. a military elite. Francis himself loved war games
Could states maintain their authority if individu- and almost lost his own life when, storming
als were allowed to choose their religion? Al- a house during one mock battle, he was hit
most everywhere, violence failed to settle on the head by a burning log.
religious differences. By 1560, an exhausted Two Italian writers helped define the
Europe had achieved a provisional peace, but new culture of courtesy, or proper court
one fraught with the seeds of future conflict. behavior, that developed in such a set-
ting: Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533),
in service at the Este court in
The High Renaissance Court Ferrara, and Baldassare Cas-
At the center of art patronage, dynastic tiglione (1478–1529), a servant
competition, and religious division of the duke of Urbino and the
lay the court, the focus of princely pope. Considered one of the
power and intrigue and the agent of greatest Renaissance poets,
state building. Kings, princes, and
popes alike used their courts to keep
an eye on their leading courtiers (car-
dinals in the case of popes) and im- Michelangelo’s David
press their other subjects. Briefly Michelangelo combined the classical nude
defined, the court was the ruler’s statue with the biblical figure of David in this
household. Around the prince gath- larger-than-life sculpture showing the young
ered a community of household ser- man preparing for action against the giant
vants, noble attendants, councilors, Goliath. Originally commissioned by church
officials, artists, and soldiers. Renais- officials in Florence, the statue ended up
sance culture had been promoted by standing in front of city hall as a com-
memoration of the recapture of the city-state’s
this political elite, and that culture now
freedom. Michelangelo’s intentions are not
entered its “high” or most sophisticated
easy to decipher. David’s slingshot is barely
phase. Its acclaimed representative was visible on his left shoulder, and his easy
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564), an slouch seems incongruous for a coming battle.
immensely talented Italian artist who sculpted An earlier drawing by Michelangelo showed
a gigantic nude statue (see right) for officials David standing on the head of the defeated
in Florence and then painted the ceiling of the Goliath, a much more common depiction.
Sistine Chapel for the recently elected Pope What do you deduce from this portrayal?
Julius II. (Nimatallah/ Art Resource, NY.)
Italian artists also flocked to the French
court of Francis I (r. 1515–1547), which
swelled to the largest in Europe. In addition to
the king’s own household, the queen and the
queen mother each had her own staff of
maids and chefs, as did each of the royal chil-
442 C h a pt e r 1 4 ■ G lo b a l E n co u n t e r s a n d R e l i g i o u s R e fo r m s 1492–1560

Ariosto composed a long epic poem, Orlando succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their
Furioso, which represented court culture as the blood, property, life and children . . . when the need is
highest synthesis of Christian and classical values. far distant; but when it approaches they turn against
you.
The poem’s tales of combat, valor, love, and magic
captivated the court’s noble readers. In The Machiavelli insisted that princes could benefit
Courtier, Castiglione represented court culture as their subjects only by maintaining a firm grip on
a synthesis of military virtues and literary and power, if necessary through deceit and manipula-
artistic cultivation. His characters debate the qual- tion. Machiavellian has remained ever since a term
ities of an ideal courtier in a series of eloquent di- for using cunning and duplicity to achieve one’s
alogues. The true courtier, Castiglione asserts, is a ends.
gentleman who speaks in a refined language and
carries himself with nobility and dignity in the
service of his prince and his lady.
Dynastic Wars
Princes faced greater challenges than did their Even as the Renaissance developed in the princely
courtiers, and courtesy was not always their most courts and the Reformation took hold in the Ger-
cherished virtue. The greatest writer on politics of man states, the Habsburgs (the ruling family in
the age, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), under- Spain and then the Holy Roman Empire) and the
lined the need for pragmatic, even cold calculation Valois (the ruling family in France) fought each
in his controversial essay The Prince. Was it better, other for domination of Europe (Map 14.4).
he asked, for a prince to be feared by his people or French claims provoked the Italian Wars in 1494,
loved? which soon escalated into a general conflict that
involved most Christian monarchs and the Mus-
It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but,
because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is lim Ottoman sultan as well. From 1494 to 1559,
much safer to be feared than loved. . . . Because this is the Valois and Habsburg dynasties, both Catholic,
to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrate- remained implacable enemies. The fighting raged
ful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you in Italy and the Low Countries. During the 1520s,

0 200 400 miles


Habsburg lands
0 200 400 kilometers
Sea

SCOTLAND Valois lands


SWEDEN Ottoman lands
N o r th
tic

Se a Ottoman attacks
al

N IRELAND DENMARK
W
B Boundary of the Holy Roman Empire
 Battle
E ENGLAND
S
MUSCOVY
NETHERLANDS
POLAND
SAXONY
BOHEMIA
A T LA N T I C BAVARIA
O CE A N Augsburg
 
Vienna
1529
FRANCE
Lyon MILAN

 HUNGARY
Pavia Mohács
1526
Nice 1525 Black Sea

Toulon PAPAL
AL

STATES
UG

Corsica O
RT

SPAIN  TT
PO

Rome OM
1527 NAPLES AN
Sardinia E M
P I R E
BALEARIC IS.
Mediterranean Sea
Tunis Sicily
1535
NORT H AF RICA

MAP 14.4 Habsburg-Valois-Ottoman Wars, 1494–1559


As the dominant European power, the Habsburg dynasty fought on two fronts: a religious war against
the Islamic Ottoman Empire and a political war against the French Valois, who challenged Habsburg
hegemony. The Mediterranean, the Balkans, and the Low Countries all became theaters of war.
1492–1560 A St r u g g l e fo r M a s t e ry 443

Charles V and Francis I Make Peace


This fresco from the Palazzo Farnese in
the town of Caprarola north of Rome shows
French king Francis I and Holy Roman
Emperor Charles V agreeing to the Truce
of Nice in 1538, one of many peace
agreements made and then broken during
the wars between the Habsburgs and the
Valois. Pope Paul III, who negotiated the
truce, stands behind and between them.
Charles is on the right pointing to Francis.
The truce is the one celebrated in the
Tlaxcala pageant described at the start
of this chapter. (The Art Archive/ Palazzo Farnese
Caprarola/ Dagli Orti.)

the Habsburgs enjoyed the upper hand. In 1525, Italian states, which did not want any one power
the troops of Charles V crushed the French army to dominate Italy. Still others chose sides for reli-
at Pavia, Italy, counting among their captives the gious reasons, such as the Protestant princes in
French king himself, Francis I. Forced to re- Germany, who exploited the Valois-Habsburg con-
nounce all claims to Italian territory to gain his flict to extract religious concessions from the em-
freedom, Francis furiously repudiated the treaty peror in 1555. The Ottoman Turks saw in this fight
the moment he reached France, reigniting the an opportunity to expand their territory.
conflict. The Ottoman Empire reached its height of
In 1527, Charles’s troops captured and sacked power under Sultan Suleiman I, known as Suleiman
Rome because the pope had allied with the French. the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566). In 1526, a Turk-
Many of the imperial troops were German Protes- ish expedition destroyed the Hungarian army at
tant mercenaries, who pillaged Catholic churches Mohács (see the illustration on page 443). Three
and brutalized the Catholic clergy. Protestants and years later, the Ottomans laid siege to Vienna;
Catholics alike interpreted the sack of Rome by im- though unsuccessful, the attack sent shock waves
perial forces as a punishment of God; even the throughout Christian Europe. In 1535, Charles V
Catholic church read it as a sign that reform was led a campaign to capture Tunis, the lair of North
necessary. Finally, in 1559, the French gave up their African pirates loyal to the Ottomans. Desperate
claims in Italy and signed the Treaty of Cateau- to overcome Charles’s superior Habsburg forces,
Cambrésis, ending the conflict. As was common in the French king Francis I forged an alliance with
such situations, marriage sealed the peace between the Turkish sultan. Coming to the aid of the
rival dynasties; the French king Henry II married French, the Turkish fleet besieged the Habsburg
his sister to the duke of Savoy, an ally of the Habs- troops holding Nice, on the southern coast of
burgs, and his daughter to the Habsburg king of France. Francis even ordered all inhabitants of
Spain, Philip II. nearby Toulon to vacate the town so that he could
The dynastic struggle (Valois versus Habsburg turn it into a Muslim colony for eight months,
ruling family) had drawn in many other belliger- complete with a mosque and slave market. The
ents, who fought on one side or the other for their French alliance with the Turks scandalized many
own benefit. Some acted purely out of power con- Christians, but it reflected the spirit of the times:
siderations, such as England, first siding with the
Valois and then with the Habsburgs. Others fought Suleiman the Magnificent: Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
for their independence, such as the papacy and the (r. 1520–1566) at the time of its greatest power.
444 C h a pt e r 1 4 ■ G lo b a l E n co u n t e r s a n d R e l i g i o u s R e fo r m s 1492–1560

The Siege of Vienna, 1529


This illustration from an Ottoman manuscript of
1588 depicts the Turkish siege of Vienna (the
siege guns can be seen in the center of the
picture). Sultan Suleiman I (Suleiman the
Magnificent) led an army of more than 100,000
men against Vienna, capital of the Austrian
Habsburg lands. Several attacks on the city
failed, and the Ottomans withdrew in October
1529. They maintained control over Hungary,
but the logistics of moving so many men and
horses kept them from advancing any farther
westward into Europe. (The Art Archive/ Topkapi
Museum Istanbul/ Dagli Orti.)

the age-old idea of the Christian crusade against pieces meant that the rectangular walls of medieval
Islam now had to compete with a new political cities had to be transformed into fortresses with
strategy that considered religion only one factor jutting ramparts and gun emplacements. Royal
among many in power politics. Religion could be revenues could not keep up with war expenditures.
sacrificed, if need be, on the altar of state building. To pay their bills, governments routinely devalued
Constantly distracted by the challenges of the their coinage (the sixteenth-century equivalent of
Ottomans to the east and the German Protestants printing more paper money), causing prices to rise
at home, Charles V could not crush the French rapidly.
with one swift blow. Years of conflict drained the Charles V boasted the largest army in Eu-
treasuries of all rulers, because warfare was becom- rope, but like everyone else he sank into debt.
ing more expensive. The formula that war raises Between 1520 and 1532, Charles borrowed 5.4
revenues that in turn build governments could de- million ducats, primarily to pay his troops; from
volve into an absurdity if wars could not be won. 1552 to 1556, his war loans soared to 9.6 million
The race for battlefield superiority was on. ducats. On his death in 1547, Francis I owed
the bankers of Lyon almost 7 million French
pounds — approximately the entire royal income
Financing War for that year. The European powers literally
The sixteenth century marked the beginning of su- fought themselves into bankruptcy. Taxation, the
perior Western military technology. All armies sale of offices, and outright confiscation failed to
grew in size and their firepower became ever more bring in enough money to satisfy the war ma-
deadly, increasing the cost of war. Heavier artillery chine. Both the Habsburg and the Valois kings
1492–1560 A St r u g g l e fo r M a s t e ry 445

looked to the leading bankers to finance their pecially in southern and western France. Francis
costly wars. and his successor, Henry II (r. 1547–1559), suc-
Foremost among these financiers was the Fug- ceeded in maintaining a balance of power between
ger bank, the largest such enterprise in sixteenth- Catholics and Calvinists, but after Henry’s death
century Europe. Based in the southern German the weakened monarchy could no longer hold to-
imperial city of Augsburg, the Fugger family and gether the fragile realm. The real drama of the Re-
their associates built an international financial em- formation in France took place after 1560, when
pire that helped to make kings. The enterprise be- the country plunged into four decades of religious
gan with Jakob Fugger (1459–1525), who became wars, whose savagery was unparalleled elsewhere
personal banker to Charles V’s grandfather Maxi- in Europe.
milian I. Constantly short of cash, Maximilian
granted the Fugger family numerous mining and England and Scotland. Religious divisions at the
minting concessions. To pay for the service of pro- very top threatened the control of the English and
viding and accepting bills of exchange, the Fuggers Scottish rulers. Before his death in 1547, Henry
charged substantial fees and made handsome prof- VIII had succeeded in making England officially
its. By the end of his life, Maximilian was so deeply Protestant, but would they remain Protestants and
in debt to Jakob Fugger that he had to pawn the if so, what kind of Protestants would his subjects
royal jewels. become? Each of his children offered answers to
In 1519, Fugger assembled a consortium of that question, and the answers could not have been
German and Italian bankers to secure the election more contradictory. The advisers of the boy king
of Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor. For the next Edward VI (r. 1547–1553) furthered the Reforma-
three decades, the alliance between Europe’s tion by welcoming prominent religious refugees
biggest international bank and its largest empire from the continent. The refugees had been deeply
remained very close. Between 1527 and 1547, the influenced by Calvinism and wanted to see Eng-
Fugger bank’s assets more than doubled; more land move in that austere direction. But Edward
than half came from loans to the Habsburgs. died at age fifteen, opening the way to his Catholic
Charles stayed barely one step ahead of his credi- half-sister, Mary Tudor, who had been restored to
tors, and his successor in Spain gradually lost con- the line of succession by an act of Parliament un-
trol of the Spanish state finances. Debt forced the der Henry VIII in 1544.
Valois and the Habsburgs to sign the Treaty of When Mary (r. 1553–1558) came to the throne,
Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559, ending more than sixty she restored Catholicism and persecuted Protes-
years of warfare, but the cycle of financial crises tants. Nearly three hundred Protestants perished
and warfare continued until the late eighteenth at the stake, and more than eight hundred fled to
century. the Protestant German states and Switzerland. Fi-
nally, when Anne Boleyn’s daughter, Elizabeth,
succeeded her half-sister Mary, becoming Queen
Divided Realms Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603), the English Protestant
All European rulers viewed religious division as a cause again gained momentum. Under Elizabeth’s
dangerous challenge to the unity and stability of leadership, Anglicanism eventually defined the
their rule. Subjects who considered their rulers character of the English nation. Catholics were tol-
heretics or blasphemers could only cause trouble, erated only if they kept their opinions on religion
as the Peasants’ War of 1525 had amply demon- and politics to themselves. A tentative but
strated. Moreover, religious differences encour- nonetheless real peace returned to England.
aged the formation of competing noble factions, Still another pattern of religious politics un-
which easily led to violence when weak monarchs folded in Scotland, where powerful noble clans di-
or children ruled. rectly challenged royal power. Protestants formed
a small minority in Scotland until the 1550s. The
France. King Francis I tolerated Protestants un- most prominent Scottish reformer, John Knox
til the Affair of the Placards in 1534. Even then, (1514–1572), spent many of his early years in ex-
the government did not try to root out Protes- ile in England and on the continent because of his
tantism, and the Reformed (Calvinist) church devout Calvinism. At the center of Scotland’s con-
grew steadily. During the 1540s and 1550s, many flict over religion stood Mary of Guise, a native
French noble families — including some of the French woman and Catholic married to the king
most powerful — converted to Calvinism and af- of Scotland, James V. After he died in 1542, she
forded the Protestants a measure of protection, es- surrounded herself and her daughter Mary Stuart,
446 C h a pt e r 1 4 ■ G lo b a l E n co u n t e r s a n d R e l i g i o u s R e fo r m s 1492–1560

also a Catholic and heir to the throne, with French tors went into exile, and riots broke out in many
advisers. When Mary Stuart married Francis, the cities.
son of Henry II and the heir to the French throne, For Charles V, the reaction of his former allies
in 1558 many Scottish noblemen, alienated by this proved far more alarming than Protestant resist-
pro-French atmosphere, joined the pro-English, ance. His success frightened some Catholic pow-
anti-French Protestant cause. ers. With Spanish troops controlling Milan and
John Knox helped bring matters to a head Naples, Pope Julius III (r. 1550–1555) feared that
when he published in 1558 a diatribe against both papal authority would be subjugated by imperial
Mary Tudor of England and Mary of Guise. The might. In the Holy Roman Empire, Protestant
era’s suspicion of female rulers and regents also princes spoke out against “imperial tyranny.” Jeal-
played a part in the work, The First Blast of the ously defending their traditional liberties against
Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment [Rule] of an overmighty emperor, the Protestant princes, led
Women. In 1560, Protestant nobles gained control by Duke Maurice of Saxony, a former ally, raised
of the Scottish Parliament and dethroned the re- another army to fight Charles. The princes de-
gent Mary of Guise. Eventually they forced her clared war in 1552 and chased a surprised, unpre-
daughter, Mary, by then known as queen of Scots, pared, and practically bankrupt emperor back to
to flee to England, and installed Mary’s infant son Italy.
James as king. Scotland would turn toward the Forced to compromise, Charles V agreed to
Calvinist version of the Reformation and thus es- the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. The settlement rec-
tablish the potential for conflict with England and ognized the Lutheran church in the empire; ac-
its Anglican church. cepted the secularization of church lands but
“reserved” the remaining ecclesiastical territories
The German States. In the German states, the (mainly the bishoprics) for Catholics; and, most
Protestant princes and cities formed the Schmal- important, established the principle that all
kaldic League in 1531. Headed by the elector of princes, whether Catholic or Lutheran, enjoyed the
Saxony and Philip of Hesse (the two leading sole right to determine the religion of their lands
Protestant princes), the league included most of and subjects. Significantly, Calvinist, Anabaptist,
the imperial cities, the chief source of the empire’s and other dissenting groups were excluded from
wealth. Opposing the league were Emperor the settlement. Ironically, the religious revolt of the
Charles V, the bishops, and the few remaining common people had culminated in a princes’ ref-
Catholic princes. Although Charles had to concen- ormation. As the constitutional framework for the
trate on fighting the French and the Turks during Holy Roman Empire, the Augsburg settlement pre-
the 1530s, he eventually secured the western served a fragile peace in central Europe until 1618,
Mediterranean and then turned his attention back but the exclusion of Calvinists would prompt fu-
home to central Europe to try to resolve the grow- ture conflict.
ing religious differences in his lands. Exhausted by decades of war and disappointed
In 1541, Charles convened an Imperial Diet by the disunity in Christian Europe, Emperor
at Regensburg in an effort to mediate between Charles V resigned his many thrones in 1555 and
Protestants and Catholics, only to see negotiations 1556, leaving his Netherlandish-Burgundian and
between the two sides rapidly break down. Rather Spanish dominions to his son, Philip II, and his
than accept a permanent religious schism, Charles Austrian lands to his brother, Ferdinand (who was
prepared to fight the Protestant Schmalkaldic also elected Holy Roman Emperor to succeed
League. To this end, he secured French neutrality Charles). Retiring to a monastery in southern
in 1544 and papal support in 1545. War broke out Spain, the most powerful of the Christian mon-
in 1547, the year after Martin Luther’s death. Us- archs spent his last years quietly seeking salvation.
ing seasoned Spanish veterans and German allies,
Charles occupied the German imperial cities in
Review: How did religious divisions complicate the
the south, restoring Catholic elites and suppress-
efforts of rulers to maintain political stability and build
ing the Reformation. In 1547, he defeated the stronger states?
Schmalkaldic League’s armies at Mühlberg and
captured the leading Lutheran princes. Jubilant,
Charles restored Catholics’ right to worship in Peace of Augsburg: The treaty of 1555 that settled disputes be-
Protestant lands while permitting Lutherans to tween Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and his Protestant
princes. It recognized the Lutheran church and established the
keep their own rites. Protestant resistance to the principle that all Catholic or Lutheran princes enjoyed the sole
declaration was deep and widespread: many pas- right to determine the religion of their lands and subjects.
1492–1560 C o n c lu s i o n 447

Conclusion Calvin, and a host of others formed competing


branches of Protestants in Europe. Lutherans,
Europe became a global power while at the same Calvinists, and Anglicans disagreed on many
time undergoing a searing internal religious up- points of doctrine and church organization, but
heaval that permanently divided Christians. Even they all broke definitively from the Roman
as Portuguese and Spanish explorers claimed new Catholic church. Protestant laypeople and priests
lands and Catholic missionaries gathered new established new Christian communities with new
souls for the church from Mexico to Japan, Luther, forms of ritual, new doctrines, new social prac-

MA P P I N G T H E W E ST

Lutheran
Anglican
Calvinist
NORWAY
Calvinist influenced SWEDEN
Roman Catholic
Mixed Protestant-Catholic

TS
SCOTLAND
 Anabaptist minorities

IGH
a
N o r th

KN
N

cS
Sea
W 

ti

IC
IRELAND DENMARK

al
E B

N
O
S
ENGLAND T
U
  T E


 
  
Mühlberg

London
   LITHUANIA
NETHERLANDS  Münster
POLAND
Antwerp   H OL Y Wittenberg
Thuringia 
  Brussels
ATLANTIC Noyon Marburg  R OM A N Saxony 
 
OCEAN 
Paris Worms EMPIRE Bohemia 

Orléans
    Regensburg 
Strasbourg Bavaria Da 
Vienna
 ube R. 
n
 Zurich
FRANCE  SWISS AUSTRIA
Geneva
 CONFED.  HUNGARY
Trent
Venice


Approximate
eastern limit
of Western
Christianity
ITALY
SPAIN Corsica OT T OM A N
Rome EMPIRE

Sardinia

Sicily

Mediterranean Sea
0 200 400 miles
0 200 400 kilometers

Reformation Europe, c. 1560


The fortunes of Roman Catholicism were at their lowest point around 1560. Northern Germany
and Scandinavia owed allegiance to the Lutheran church; England broke away under a national
church headed by its monarchs; and the Calvinist Reformation would extend across large areas
of western, central, and eastern Europe. Southern Europe remained solidly Catholic.
448 C h a pt e r 1 4 ■ G lo b a l E n co u n t e r s a n d R e l i g i o u s R e fo r m s 1492–1560

tices, and clergy with vastly different powers and religious persecution became a Christian institu-
personal lives from those of the Roman Catholic tion: Luther called on the princes to kill rebellious
clergy. Catholic priests could not marry; Protes- peasants in 1525, Zwingli advocated the drown-
tant clergymen could. Catholic clergymen said ing of Anabaptists, and Calvin supported the
Mass and heard confessions; Protestant clergy death sentence for Michael Servetus. Executions
preached the word of God and left confession and in Catholic lands provided Protestants with a
penance to the individual sinner, a matter between steady stream of martyrs. The two peace settle-
God and the human heart. Central to the Protes- ments in the 1550s failed to provide long-term so-
tant cause was the belief that people are saved by lutions: the Peace of Augsburg gradually
faith alone; no amount of good works will bring disintegrated as the religious struggles in the
salvation. empire intensified, and the Treaty of Cateau-
Erasmus and many intellectuals and artists of Cambrésis provided only a brief respite. Worse
his generation had hoped that Emperor Charles was yet to come. In the following generations, civil
V, the most powerful ruler in all Europe, would war and international conflicts would set Catholics
be able to bring peace, justice, and victory against against Protestants in numerous futile attempts to
the infidel Turks. For the generation that came of restore a single faith.
age before the Reformation, Christian humanism,
the new invention of printing, and the maritime
exploits of the Portuguese and Spanish seemed to For Further Exploration
promise a new golden age for Europe. The Protes- ■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
tant Reformation shattered their dream of pow- for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
erful princes encouraging gradual improvement end of the book.
and change from within the Catholic church. In-
stead of leading a crusade against Islam, Charles ■ For additional primary-source material from
V wore himself out in ceaseless struggle against this period, see Chapter 14 in Sources of
Francis I of France and the German Protestants. THE MAKING OF THE WEST, Third Edition.
Christianity split into a number of hostile camps
battling one another with words and swords. The ■ For Web sites and documents related to topics
consequences were censorship, repression of dis- in this chapter, see Make History at
senters, and, for many, death. After the brutal sup- bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
pression of popular revolts in the 1520s and 1530s,
1492–1560 C h a pt e r R ev i ew 449

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
Key Terms and People Making Connections
Christopher Columbus predestination (432) 1. Why was Charles V ultimately unable to prevent religious
(421) Henry VIII (433) division in his lands?
Hernán Cortés (425) Anabaptists (436) 2. How did the different religious groups respond to the
Christian humanism Council of Trent (439) opportunity presented by the printing press?
(427) Jesuits (439)
Martin Luther (429) Suleiman
Charles V (430) the Magnificent (443) For practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other
John Calvin (432) Peace of Augsburg (446) study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.

Review Questions
1. Which European countries led the way in maritime explo-
ration and what were their motives?
2. How did Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and Henry VIII challenge
the Roman Catholic church?
3. How did the forces for radical change unleashed by the
Protestant Reformation interact with the urge for social or-
der and stability?
4. How did religious divisions complicate the efforts of rulers
to maintain political stability and build stronger states?

Important Events

1492 Columbus reaches the Americas 1534 Henry VIII breaks with Rome; Affair of the
1494 Italian Wars begin; Treaty of Tordesillas di- Placards in France
vides Atlantic world between Portugal and 1536 Calvin publishes Institutes of the Christian
Spain Religion
1516 Erasmus publishes Greek edition of the 1540 Jesuits (Society of Jesus) established as new
New Testament; More writes Utopia Catholic order
1517 Luther composes ninety-five theses to chal- 1545–1563 Catholic Council of Trent condemns Protestant
lenge Catholic church beliefs and confirms church doctrine and
1520 Luther publishes three treatises; Zwingli sacraments
breaks from Rome 1547 Charles V defeats Protestants at Mühlberg
1525 German Peasants’ War 1555 Peace of Augsburg ends religious wars and
1527 Charles V’s imperial troops sack Rome recognizes Lutheran church in German states

1529 Colloquy of Marburg assembles to address 1559 Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis ends wars
disagreements between German and Swiss between Habsburg and Valois rulers
church reformers
Wars of Religion C H A P T E R

and the Clash of 15


Worldviews
1560–1648 Religious Conflicts Threaten
State Power, 1560–1618 452
• French Wars of Religion, 1562–1598
• Challenges to Spain’s Authority
• Elizabeth I’s Defense of English
Protestantism
n May 1618, Protestants in the kingdom of Bohemia furiously • The Clash of Faiths and Empires

I protested the Holy Roman Emperor’s attempts to curtail their hard-


won religious freedoms. Protestants wanted to build new churches;
the Catholic emperor wanted to stop them. Tensions boiled over when
in Eastern Europe

The Thirty Years’ War,


1618–1648 460
• Origins and Course of the War
two Catholic officials tried to dissolve the meetings of Protestants. On • The Effects of Constant Fighting
• The Peace of Westphalia, 1648
May 23, a crowd of angry Protestants surged up the stairs of the royal
castle in Prague, trapped the two Catholic deputies, dragged them Economic Crisis and
screaming for mercy to the windows, and hurled them to the pavement Realignment 465
• From Growth to Recession
below. One of the rebels jeered: “We will see if your [Virgin] Mary can • Consequences for Daily Life
help you!” But because they landed in a dung heap, the Catholic • The Economic Balance of Power

deputies survived. One of the two limped off on his own; the other was The Rise of Secular and
carried by his servants to safety. Although no one died, the defenestra- Scientific Worldviews 471
• The Arts in an Age of Crisis
tion (from the French for “window,” la fenêtre) of Prague touched off • The Natural Laws of Politics
the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), which eventually involved almost • The Scientific Revolution
• Magic and Witchcraft
every major power in Europe. Before it ended, the fighting had devas-
tated the lands of central Europe and produced permanent changes in
European politics and culture.
The Thirty Years’ War grew out of the religious conflicts initiated
by the Reformation. When Martin Luther began the Protestant Refor-
mation in 1517, few could have predicted that he would be unleashing
such dangerous forces, but religious turmoil and warfare followed al-
most immediately upon Luther’s break with the Catholic church. From
its establishment in 1555 until the early 1600s, the Peace of Augsburg
maintained relative calm in the lands of the Holy Roman Empire by
granting each ruler the right to determine the religion of his territory.
But in western Europe, religious strife increased dramatically after 1560
as Protestants made inroads in France, the Spanish-ruled Netherlands,
and England. All in all, nearly constant warfare marked the century

The Defenestration of Prague, 1618


In this copper-plate engraving by Swiss artist Matthäus Merian (1593–1650), Czech
Protestants attack the Catholic deputies sent to disband their meeting. The attackers
are about to throw the two Catholics out of the windows of the royal castle (that is,
the Catholics are about to suffer “defenestration”). The defenestration touched off
the Thirty Years’ War. (Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/ Art Resource, NY.)
451
452 C h a pt e r 1 5 ■ Wa r s o f R e l i g i o n a n d t h e C l a s h o f Wo r l dv i ew s 1560–1648

between 1560 and 1648. These struggles often be- about religious doctrine and church organization.
gan as religious conflicts, but religion was rarely The rapid expansion of Calvinism after 1560
the sole motive; political ambitions, commercial threatened to alter the religious balance of power
competition, and long-standing rivalries between in much of Europe. Calvinists challenged Catholic
the leading powers inevitably raised the stakes of dominance in France, the Spanish-ruled Nether-
conflict. lands, Scotland, and Poland-Lithuania. In England,
Although particularly dramatic and deadly, they sought to influence the new Protestant
the church-state crisis was only one of a series of monarch, Elizabeth I. Calvinists were not the only
upheavals that shaped this era. In the early seven- source of religious contention, however. Philip II
teenth century, a major economic downturn led to of Spain fought the Muslim Ottoman Turks in the
food shortages, famine, and disease in much of Mediterranean and expelled the remnants of the
Europe. These catastrophes hit especially hard in the Muslim population in Spain. To the east, the Rus-
central European lands devastated by the fighting sian tsar Ivan IV fought to make Muscovy the cen-
of the Thirty Years’ War and helped shift the bal- ter of an empire based on Russian Orthodox
ance of economic power to northwestern Europe, Christianity.
away from the Mediterranean and central Europe.
The deepening sense of crisis prompted some to
seek new, nonreligious grounds for all forms of French Wars of Religion, 1562–1598
authority, whether artistic, political, or philosoph- Calvinism spread in France after 1555, when the
ical. The emergence of a secular worldview that Genevan Company of Pastors sent missionaries
relied on new scientific methods of research would supplied with false passports and often disguised
ultimately reshape Western attitudes over the long as merchants. The Calvinist pastors moved rapidly
term. among their growing flock, which gathered in se-
cret in towns near Paris or in the south. Calvinist
nobles provided military protection to local con-
Focus Question: What were the long-term political,
gregations and helped set up a national organiza-
economic, and intellectual consequences of the conflicts
over religious belief?
tion for the French Calvinist — or Huguenot —
church. In 1562, rival Huguenot and Catholic
armies began fighting a series of wars that threat-
ened to tear the French nation into shreds (Map
15.1).
Religious Conflicts Threaten
State Power, 1560–1618 Religious Division in the Nobility. Armed strug-
gle erupted because the French kings could not
The Peace of Augsburg made Lutheranism a legal keep a lid on religious conflict. By the end of the
religion in the predominantly Catholic Holy Ro- 1560s, nearly one-third of the nobles had joined
man Empire, but it did not extend recognition to the Huguenots, and they could raise their own
Calvinists. Although the followers of Martin armies. Conversion to Calvinism in French noble
Luther (Lutherans) and those of John Calvin families often began with the noblewomen, some
(Calvinists) similarly refused the authority of the of whom sought intellectual independence as well
Catholic church, they disagreed with each other as spiritual renewal in the new faith. Charlotte de

■ 1562 French Wars of Religion

■ 1566 Calvinist revolt against Spain ■ 1588 England defeats Spanish Armada

■ 1569 Poland-Lithuania formed ■ 1598 Edict of Nantes

1560 1580 1600

■ 1571 Battle of Lepanto ■ 1601 Shakespeare, Hamlet

■ 1572 St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre


1560–1648 R e l i g i o u s C o n f l i c t s Th r e at e n Stat e P ow e r, 1 5 6 0 – 1 6 1 8 453

Bourbon, for example, fled from a 0 100 200 miles


Catholic convent and eventually married Protestant church with several pastors
0 100 200 kilometers
Protestant church
William of Orange, the leader of the anti-
Boundary of the Holy Roman Empire
Spanish resistance in the Netherlands. North
Calvinist noblewomen protected pastors, Sea
provided money and advice, and helped
found schools and establish relief for the
poor. N
A series of family tragedies prevented NETHERLANDS E
W
the French kings from acting decisively to
prevent the spread of Calvinism. King S

Henry II was accidentally killed during a


jousting tournament in 1559 and his fif- Paris

teen-year-old son, Francis, died soon after.


Ten-year-old Charles IX (r. 1560–1574) Nantes

became king, with his mother, Catherine


de Médicis, as regent, or acting ruler. An
ambassador commented on the weakness H O LY
of Catherine’s hold: “It is sufficient to say ATLANTIC ROMAN
OCEAN FRANCE
that she is a woman, a foreigner, and a Flo- EMPIRE
Geneva
rentine to boot, born of a simple house,
altogether beneath the dignity of the
Kingdom of France.” The Huguenots fol- Lyon
lowed the lead of the Bourbon family, who
were close relatives of the French king and
stood first in line to inherit the throne if
the Valois kings failed to produce a male
Navarre
heir. The most militantly Catholic nobles
took their cues from the Guise family,
who aimed to block Bourbon ambitions. SPAIN
Avignon
Marseille
Catherine tried to play the Bourbon and Catalonia
Guise factions against each other, but civil Mediterranean Sea
war erupted in 1562. Both sides commit-
ted terrible atrocities. Priests and pastors MAP 15.1 Protestant Churches in France, 1562
were murdered, and massacres of whole Calvinist missionaries took their message from their
congregations became frighteningly com- headquarters in Geneva across the border into France.
monplace. The strongest concentration of Protestants was in
southern France. The Bourbons, leaders of the
Catherine de Médicis: Italian-born mother of French Protestants in France, had their family lands in Navarre,
king Charles X; she served as regent and tried but a region in southwestern France that had been divided
failed to prevent religious warfare between Calvinists
between France and Spain.
and Catholics.

■ 1618 Thirty Years’ War ■ 1635 French declare war on Spain

■ 1648 Peace of Westphalia

1620 1640 1660

■ 1625 Grotius, The Laws of War and Peace

■ 1633 Galileo forced to recant


454 C h a pt e r 1 5 ■ Wa r s o f R e l i g i o n a n d t h e C l a s h o f Wo r l dv i ew s 1560–1648

St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, 1572. Al-


though a Catholic herself, Catherine feared the rise
of Guise influence, so she arranged the marriage
of the king’s Catholic sister, Marguerite de Valois,
to Henry of Navarre, a Huguenot and Bourbon.
Just four days after the wedding in August 1572,
assassins tried but failed to kill one of the
Huguenot nobles allied with the Bourbons. Per-
haps herself implicated in the botched plot and
panicked at the thought of Huguenot revenge,
Catherine convinced her son to go on the offen-
sive by ordering the death of Huguenot leaders
who had come to Paris for the wedding. Violence
almost immediately spiraled out of control. On St.
Bartholomew’s Day, August 24, a bloodbath began,
fueled by years of growing animosity between
Catholics and Protestants. (See Massacre Moti-
vated by Religion, at left.) In three days, Catholic
mobs murdered three thousand Huguenots in
Paris. Wherever Calvinists lacked military protec-
tion, they were at risk. Ten thousand Huguenots
died in the provinces over the next six weeks. The
pope joyfully ordered the church bells rung
throughout Catholic Europe; Spain’s Philip II
wrote Catherine that it was “the best and most
cheerful news which at present could come to me.”
The massacre settled nothing. Huguenot pam-
phleteers now proclaimed their right to resist a
tyrant who worshipped idols (a practice that
Calvinists equated with Catholicism). This right of
resistance was linked to a political notion of con-
tract; upholding the true religion was part of the
contract imagined as binding the ruler to his sub-
jects. Both the right of resistance and the idea of
a contract fed into the larger doctrine of constitu-
tionalism — that a government’s legitimacy rested
on its upholding a constitution or contract be-
tween ruler and ruled. Constitutionalism was used
to justify resistance movements from the sixteenth
century onward. Protestants and Catholics alike
now saw the religious conflict as an international
struggle for survival that required aid to their fel-
low Catholics or Protestants in other countries. In
this way, the French Wars of Religion paved the
way for wider international conflicts over religion
in the decades to come.

Henry IV and the Edict of Nantes. The religious


division in France grew even more dangerous
when Charles IX died and his brother Henry III
Massacre Motivated by Religion
(r. 1574–1589) became king. Like his brothers be-
The Italian artist Giorgio Vasari painted St. Bartho- fore him, Henry III failed to produce an heir. Next
lomew’s Night: The Massacre of the Huguenots for a in line to the throne was none other than the
public room in Pope Gregory XIII’s residence. How did Protestant Bourbon leader Henry of Navarre, a
the artist celebrate what he saw as a Catholic victory distant cousin of the Valois ruling family and
over Protestant heresy? (Scala/ Art Resource, NY.) brother-in-law of Charles and Henry. Convinced
1560–1648 R e l i g i o u s C o n f l i c t s Th r e at e n Stat e P ow e r, 1 5 6 0 – 1 6 1 8 455

that Henry III lacked the will to root out Protes- Challenges to
tantism, the Guises formed the Catholic League, Spain’s Authority
which requested help from Spanish king Philip II.
Henry III responded with a fatal trick: in 1588, he Although he failed to prevent Henry IV from tak-
summoned the two Guise leaders to a meeting and ing the French throne in 1589, Philip II of Spain
had his men kill them. A few months later, a (r. 1556–1598) was the most powerful ruler in
fanatical monk stabbed Henry III to death, and Europe (Map 15.2). In addition to the western
Henry of Navarre became Henry IV (r. 1589–1610), Habsburg lands in Spain and the Netherlands,
despite Philip II’s attempt to block his ascension Philip had inherited from his father, Charles V, all
with military intervention. the Spanish colonies recently settled in the New
Henry IV soon concluded that to establish World of the Americas. Gold and silver funneled
control over war-weary France he had to place the from the colonies supported his campaigns against
interests of the French state ahead of his Protes- the Ottoman Turks and the French and the English
tant faith. In 1593, he publicly embraced Catholi- Protestants. But all of the money of the New World
cism, reputedly explaining his conversion with the could not prevent Philip’s eventual defeat in the
statement “Paris is worth a Mass.” Within a few Netherlands, where Calvinist rebels established an
years he defeated the ultra-Catholic opposition independent Dutch Republic that soon vied with
and drove out the Spanish. In 1598, he made peace Spain, France, and England for commercial su-
with Spain and issued the Edict of Nantes, in premacy.
which he granted the Huguenots a large measure
of religious toleration. The approximately 1.25 Philip II, the Catholic King. A deeply devout
million Huguenots became a legally protected mi- Catholic, Philip II came to the Spanish throne at
nority within an officially Catholic kingdom of age twenty-eight determined to restore Catholic
some 20 million people. Protestants were free to unity in Europe and lead the Christian defense
worship in specified towns and were allowed their against the Muslims. In his quest, Philip benefited
own troops, fortresses, and even courts. Few be- from a series of misfortunes. His four wives all
lieved in religious toleration, but Henry IV fol- died, but through them he became part of four
lowed the advice of those moderate Catholics and royal families: Portuguese, English, French, and
Calvinists called politiques who urged him to give Austrian. His brief marriage to Mary Tudor (Mary
priority to the development of a durable state. Al- I of England) did not produce an heir, but it and
though their opponents hated them for their com- his subsequent marriage to Elisabeth de Valois, the
promising spirit, the politiques believed that sister of Charles IX and Henry III of France, gave
religious disputes could be resolved only in the him reason enough for involvement in English and
peace provided by strong government. French affairs. In 1580, when the king of Portugal
The Edict of Nantes ended the French Wars of died without a direct heir, Philip took over this
Religion, but Henry still needed to reestablish neighboring realm with its rich empire in Africa,
monarchical authority and hold the fractious India, and the Americas.
nobles in check. He used court festivities and royal Philip insisted on Catholic unity in his own
processions to rally subjects around him, and he possessions and worked to forge an international
allowed rich merchants and lawyers to buy offices Catholic alliance against the Ottoman Turks. In
and, in exchange for an annual payment, pass their 1571, he achieved the single greatest military vic-
positions on to their heirs to sell them to someone tory of his reign when he joined with Venice and
else. This new social elite was known as the “no- the papacy to defeat the Turks in a great sea battle
bility of the robe” (named after the robes that mag- off the Greek coast at Lepanto. Fifty thousand
istrates wore, much like those judges wear today). sailors and soldiers fought on the allied side, and
Income raised by the increased sale of offices re- eight thousand died. Spain now controlled the
duced the state debt and also helped Henry western Mediterranean. But Philip could not rest
strengthen the monarchy. His efforts did not, how- on his laurels. Between 1568 and 1570, the
ever, prevent his enemies from assassinating him Moriscos — Muslim converts to Christianity who
in 1610 after nineteen unsuccessful attempts.
Philip II: King of Spain (r. 1556–1598) and the most powerful
Edict of Nantes: The decree issued by French king Henry IV in ruler in Europe; he reigned over the western Habsburg lands
1598 that granted the Huguenots a large measure of religious and all the Spanish colonies recently settled in the New World.
toleration. Lepanto: A site off the Greek coast where, in 1571, the allied
politiques (poh lih TEEK): Political advisers during the Catholic forces of Spain’s king Philip II, Venice, and the papacy
sixteenth-century French Wars of Religion who argued that com- defeated the Ottoman Turks in a great sea battle; the victory
promise in matters of religion would strengthen the monarchy. gave the Christian powers control of the Mediterranean.
456 C h a pt e r 1 5 ■ Wa r s o f R e l i g i o n a n d t h e C l a s h o f Wo r l dv i ew s 1560–1648

The Spanish and Portuguese Colonial Empires, c. 1580 Spanish Habsburg possessions under Philip II
Austrian Habsburg possessions
Boundary of the Holy Roman Empire
NORTH ASIA  Battle
AMERICA AZORES
SPAIN
Florida

WEST INDIES
INDIA Macao PHILIPPINES
AFRICA Goa 

CAS
NEW
SPAIN

UC
BRAZIL
Zanzibar Ceylon

OL
PE

M
RU

Java
SOUTH
AMERICA

a
North

Se
Sea
ic
lt
Maritime trade routes Ba

POLAND-
Amsterdam
 Vi LITHUANIA
London stu
la R .

R h in

Elb
Armada 
1588 

e
Antwerp .

R
eR
H O L Y

.

Paris
ATLANTIC R. R O M A N
L o ir e R. Vienna
OCEAN D an
ube 
FRANCE E M P I R E

N Venice D an
ube
R.
W E
PAPAL
br

E STATES
oR

PORTUGAL Ad OTTOMAN
.

S
(1580) S PA I N Corsica ria
tic EMPIRE
Rome
Ta g u
Lisbon s R. Se
a
Naples
BALEARIC IS. Sardinia

M e d i t e r r
a n e
0 200 400 miles a n Sicily 
Lepanto
0 200 400 kilometers
S e 1571
NORTH AFRICA a

MAP 15.2 The Empire of Philip II, r. 1556–1598


Spanish king Philip II drew revenues from a truly worldwide empire. In 1580, he was
the richest European ruler, but the demands of governing and defending his control of
such far-flung territories eventually drained many of his resources.

remained secretly faithful to Islam — had revolted churches in 1566, smashing stained-glass windows
in the south of Spain, killing ninety priests and fif- and statues of the Virgin Mary, Philip sent an army
teen hundred Christians. Philip retaliated by forc- to punish the rebels. Calvinist resistance contin-
ing fifty thousand to leave their villages and resettle ued despite this occupation, and in November
in other regions. In 1609, his suc- 1576 Philip’s long-unpaid armies
cessor, Philip III, ordered their ex- Dutch Zuider
Zee
sacked Antwerp, then Europe’s
Republic
pulsion from Spanish territory, wealthiest commercial city. In
Spanish Amsterdam
and by 1614 some 300,000 Netherlands
HOLLAND
eleven days of horror known as
Moriscos had been forced to re- North Sea
the Spanish Fury, the Spanish
locate to North Africa. ENGLAND l
e
soldiers slaughtered seven thou-
Flemish- Antwerp
Rh

nn
ha sand people. Led by Prince
ine

speaking
C
sh
g li
R

The Revolt of the Netherlands. French- William of Orange (whose name


.

En speaking
The Calvinists of the Netherlands came from the lands he owned in
were less easily intimidated than southern France), the Nether-
Me u

FRANCE
HOLY
the Moriscos: they were far from lands’ seven Protestant northern
se R

0 50 100 miles ROMAN


.

EMPIRE
Spain and accustomed to being 0 50 100 kilometers provinces formally allied with the
left alone. When Calvinists in the The Netherlands during the ten Catholic southern provinces
Netherlands attacked Catholic Revolt, c. 1580 and drove out the Spaniards. The
1560–1648 R e l i g i o u s C o n f l i c t s Th r e at e n Stat e P ow e r, 1 5 6 0 – 1 6 1 8 457

Philip II of Spain
The king of Spain is shown here (kneeling
in black) with his allies at the battle of
Lepanto, the doge of Venice on his left and
Pope Pius V on his right. El Greco painted
this canvas, sometimes called The Dream
of Philip II, in 1578 or 1579. The painting
is typically mannerist in the way it crowds
figures into every available space, uses
larger-than-life or elongated bodies, and
creates new and often bizarre visual
effects. What can we conclude about Philip
II’s character from the way he is depicted
here? (© The National Gallery, London.)

southern provinces nonetheless remained Cath- egates to the one common institution, the States
olic, French-speaking in parts, and suspicious of General, which carried out the wishes of the
the increasingly strict Calvinism in the north. In strongest individual provinces and their ruling
1579, they returned to the Spanish fold. Despite families. Although the princes of Orange resembled
the assassination in 1584 of William of Orange, a ruling family, their powers paled next to those
Spanish troops never regained control in the of local elites. One-third of the Dutch population
north. Spain would not formally recognize Dutch remained Catholic, and local authorities allowed
independence until 1648, but by the end of the six- them to worship as they chose in private. The
teenth century the Dutch Republic (sometimes Dutch Republic also had a relatively large Jewish
called Holland after the most populous of its seven population because many Jews had settled there
provinces) was a self-governing state sheltering a after being driven out of Spain and Portugal. From
variety of religious groups. 1597, Jews could worship openly in their syna-
Religious toleration thrived because the cen- gogues. This openness to various religions would
tral government did not have the power to enforce help to make the Dutch Republic one of Europe’s
religious orthodoxy. Urban merchant and profes- chief intellectual and scientific centers in the sev-
sional families known as regents controlled the enteenth and eighteenth centuries.
towns and provinces. In the absence of a national Well situated for maritime commerce, the
bureaucracy, a single legal system, or a central Dutch Republic developed a thriving economy
court, each province governed itself and sent del- based on shipping and shipbuilding. Dutch
458 C h a pt e r 1 5 ■ Wa r s o f R e l i g i o n a n d t h e C l a s h o f Wo r l dv i ew s 1560–1648

merchants favored free trade in Europe because they produced goods at lower prices than competitors
could compete at an advantage. Whereas elites in and marketed them more efficiently. The Dutch
other countries focused on their landholdings, the controlled many overseas markets thanks to their
Dutch looked for investments in trade. After the preeminence in seaborne commerce: by 1670, the
Dutch gained independence, Amsterdam became Dutch commercial fleet was larger than the Eng-
the main European money market for two cen- lish, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Austrian
turies. The city was also a primary commodities fleets combined.
market and a chief supplier of arms — to allies,
neutrals, and even enemies. Dutch entrepreneurs
Elizabeth I’s Defense of
English Protestantism
As the Dutch revolt unfolded, Philip II became
increasingly infuriated with Elizabeth I (r.
1558–1603), who had succeeded her half-sister
Mary Tudor as queen of England. Philip had been
married to Mary and had enthusiastically sec-
onded Mary’s efforts to return England to Catholi-
cism. When Mary died in 1558, Elizabeth rejected
Philip’s proposal of marriage and promptly
brought Protestantism back to England. Eventu-
ally, she provided funds and troops to the Dutch
Protestant cause. As Elizabeth moved to solidify
her personal power and the authority of the An-
glican church (Church of England), she had to
squash uprisings by Catholics in the north and at
least two serious plots against her life. In the long
run, however, her greater challenges came from the
Calvinist Puritans and Philip II.

Puritanism and the Church of England. The


Puritans were strict Calvinists who opposed all
vestiges of Catholic ritual in the Church of
England. After Elizabeth became queen, many
Puritans returned from exile abroad, but Elizabeth
resisted their demands for drastic changes in
church ritual and governance. The Church of Eng-
land’s Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, issued un-
der her authority in 1563, incorporated elements
of Catholic ritual along with Calvinist doctrines.
Puritan ministers angrily denounced the Church
of England’s “popish attire and foolish disguis-
ing, . . . tithings, holy days, and a thousand more
abominations.” To accomplish their reforms,
Puritans tried to undercut the crown-appointed
bishops’ authority by placing control of church ad-
ministration in the hands of a local presbytery, that
is, a group made up of the minister and the elders
Queen Elizabeth I of England of the congregation. Elizabeth rejected this Calvin-
The Anglican (Church of England) Prayerbook of 1569 included a hand- ist presbyterianism.
colored print of Queen Elizabeth saying her prayers. As queen, Elizabeth
was also official head of the Church of England—the scepter or sword
at her feet symbolizes her power. She named bishops and made final Elizabeth I: English queen (r. 1558–1603) who oversaw the
decisions about every aspect of church governance. (HIP/ Art Resource, NY.) return of the Protestant Anglican church and, in 1588, the suc-
■ For more help analyzing this image, see the visual activity for this cessful defense of the realm against the Spanish Armada.
chapter in the Online Study Guide at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt. Puritans: Strict Calvinists who opposed all vestiges of Catholic
ritual in the Church of England.
1560–1648 R e l i g i o u s C o n f l i c t s Th r e at e n Stat e P ow e r, 1 5 6 0 – 1 6 1 8 459

The Puritans nonetheless steadily gained in- By the time Philip II died in 1598, his great
fluence. Known for their emphasis on strict moral empire had begun to lose its luster. The costs of
lives, the Puritans tried to close England’s theaters fighting the Dutch, the English, and the French had
and Sunday fairs. Every Puritan father — with the mounted, and an overburdened peasantry could
help of his wife — was to “make his house a little no longer pay the taxes required to meet rising ex-
church” by teaching the children to read the Bible. penses. In his novel Don Quixote (1605), the Span-
At Puritan urging, a new translation of the Bible, ish writer Miguel de Cervantes captured the
known as the King James Bible after Elizabeth’s disappointment of thwarted imperial ambition.
successor, James I, was authorized in 1604. Believ- Cervantes himself had been wounded at Lepanto.
ing themselves God’s elect — those whom God has His novel’s hero, a minor nobleman, wants to un-
chosen for mercy and salvation — and England an derstand “this thing they call reason of state,” but
“elect nation,” the Puritans also pushed Elizabeth he reads so many romances and books of chivalry
to help Protestants on the continent. Elizabeth ini- that he loses his wits and wanders the countryside
tially resisted, but after Philip II annexed Portugal hoping to re-create the heroic deeds of times past.
and began to interfere in French affairs, she sent England could never have defeated Spain in a
funds to the Dutch rebels and in 1585 dispatched head-to-head battle on land, but Elizabeth made
seven thousand soldiers to help them. the most of her limited means and consolidated
the country’s position as a Protestant power. In her
Triumph over Spain. Although enraged by Eliza- early years, she held out the prospect of marriage
beth’s aid to the Dutch rebels against his rule, to many political suitors; but in order to maintain
Philip II bided his time as long as Elizabeth re- her — and England’s — independence, she never
mained unmarried and her Catholic cousin Mary married. Her chosen successor, James I
Stuart, better known as Mary, Queen of Scots, (r. 1603–1625), came to the throne as king of both
stood next in line to inherit the Scotland and England. Shake-
0 200 400 miles
English throne. In 1568, Scottish speare’s tragedies Hamlet (1601),
0 200 400 kilometers Retreat of Arm
Calvinists forced Mary to abdicate King Lear (1605), and Macbeth
ad

the throne of Scotland in favor (1606), written around the time


a

of her one-year-old son James SCOTLAND of James’s succession, might all be


North
(eventually James I of England), Sea read as commentaries on the un-
Ireland
who was then raised as a Protes- certainties faced by Elizabeth and
tant. After her abdication, Mary ENGLAND James. But Elizabeth’s story, un-
s
spent nearly twenty years under like Shakespeare’s tragedies, had
nd
la

Battle with Armada


er


house arrest in England, foment- a happy ending; she left James se-
th
Ne

ing plots against Elizabeth. In cure in a kingdom of growing


ATLANTIC
1587, when a letter from Mary of- OCEAN FRANCE
weight in world politics.
fering her succession rights to
Philip was discovered, Elizabeth
The Clash of Faiths and
overcame her reluctance to exe-
cute a fellow monarch and or-
Portugal Empires in Eastern Europe
 SPAIN
dered Mary’s beheading. Lisbon In the east, the most contentious
Now determined to act, border divided Christian Europe
Philip II sent his armada (Span- Mediterranean Sea from the Islamic realm of the
ish for “fleet”) of 130 ships from Ottoman Turks. Even after their
Lisbon toward the English Chan- Retreat of the Spanish Armada, defeat at Lepanto in 1571, the
nel in May 1588. The English scat- 1588 Ottomans continued their at-
tered the Spanish Armada by tacks, seizing Venetian-held Cy-
sending blazing fire ships into its midst. A great prus in 1573. In the Balkans, the Turks allowed
gale then forced the Spanish to flee around Scot- their Christian subjects to cling to the Orthodox
land. When the armada limped home in Septem- faith rather than forcibly converting them to Is-
ber, half the ships had been lost and thousands of lam. They also tolerated many prosperous Jewish
sailors were dead or starving. Protestants through- communities, which grew with the influx of Jews
out Europe rejoiced. Philip and Catholic Spain suf- expelled from Spain.
fered a crushing psychological blow. A Spanish The Muscovite tsars officially protected the
monk lamented, “Almost the whole of Spain went Russian Orthodox church, which faced no compe-
into mourning.” tition within Russian lands. Building on the base
460 C h a pt e r 1 5 ■ Wa r s o f R e l i g i o n a n d t h e C l a s h o f Wo r l dv i ew s 1560–1648

laid by his grandfather Ivan III, Tsar Ivan IV


(r. 1533–1584) stopped at nothing in his endeavor to
The Thirty Years’ War,
make Muscovy the center of a mighty Russian em- 1618–1648
pire. Given to unpredictable fits of rage, Ivan tor-
tured priests, killed numerous boyars (nobles), and Although the eastern states managed to avoid civil
murdered his own son with an iron rod during a wars over religion in the early seventeenth century,
quarrel. His epithet “the Terrible” reflects not only the rest of Europe was drawn into the final and
the terror he unleashed but also the awesome im- most deadly of the wars of religion, the Thirty
pression he evoked. Cunning and cruel, Ivan came Years’ War. It began in 1618 with conflicts between
to embody barbarism in the eyes of Westerners. Catholics and Protestants within the Holy Roman
One English visitor commented disapprovingly Empire and eventually involved most European
that the Russian government “is very similar to the states. By its end in 1648, many central European
Turkish, which they apparently try to imitate.” lands lay in ruins and the balance of power had
Ivan initiated Russian expansion eastward into shifted away from the Habsburg powers — Spain
Siberia and also tried to gain new territory to the and Austria — toward France, England, and the
west, when he tried, unsuccessfully, to seize parts Dutch Republic. Prolonged warfare created tur-
of present-day Estonia and moil and suffering, but it also fostered the growth
0 250 500 miles
Latvia to provide Russia direct of armies and bureaucracies; out of the carnage
0 250 500 kilometers access to the Baltic Sea. Two would emerge centralized and powerful states that
SWEDEN
RUSSIA formidable foes blocked Ivan’s made increasing demands on ordinary people.
TEUTONIC
KNIGHTS plans for expansion: Sweden
Volga R.
Novgorod
 (which then included much
Moscow Origins and Course of the War
Sea

 of present-day Finland) and


tic

l
Ba Poland-Lithuania. Their rulers The fighting that devastated central Europe had its
POLAND-
LITHUANIA
hoped to annex the eastern origins in a combination of religious dispute, ethnic
Danube R.
Baltic provinces themselves. competition, and political weakness. The Austrian
Ivan IV’s campaign Poland and the grand duchy of Habsburgs officially ruled over the huge Holy
Lithuania united into a single Roman Empire, which comprised eight major ethnic
Russia, Poland-Lithuania, and
commonwealth in 1569 and groups. The emperor and four of the seven elec-
Sweden in the Late 1500s
controlled an extensive terri- tors who chose him were Catholic; the other three
tory stretching from the Baltic Sea to deep within electors were Protestants. The Peace of Augsburg
present-day Ukraine and Belarus. Poland-Lithua- of 1555 (see Chapter 14) was supposed to main-
nia, like the Dutch Republic, was one of the great tain the balance between Catholics and Lutherans,
exceptions to the general trend toward greater but it had no mechanism for resolving conflicts;
monarchical authority; the country’s nobles tensions rose as the new Catholic religious order,
elected their king and placed severe limits on his the Jesuits, won many Lutheran cities back to
authority. Noble converts to Lutheranism or Catholicism and as Calvinism, unrecognized under
Calvinism feared religious persecution by the the peace, made inroads into Lutheran areas. By
Catholic majority, so the Polish-Lithuanian nobles 1613, two of the three Protestant electors had be-
insisted that their kings accept the principle of re- come Calvinists.
ligious toleration as a prerequisite for election. These conflicts came to a head when the
Poland-Lithuania threatened the rule of Ivan’s Catholic Habsburg heir Archduke Ferdinand was
successors in Russia. After Ivan IV died in 1584, a crowned king of Bohemia in 1617. The Austrian
terrible period of chaos known as the Time of Habsburgs held not only the imperial crown of the
Troubles ensued, during which the king of Poland- Holy Roman Empire but also a collection of sep-
Lithuania tried to put his son on the Russian arately administered royal crowns, of which
throne. In 1613, an army of nobles, townspeople, Bohemia was one. Once crowned, Ferdinand began
and peasants finally expelled the intruders and put to curtail the religious freedom previously granted
on the throne a nobleman, Michael Romanov to Protestants. The Czechs, the largest ethnic group
(r. 1613–1645), who established an enduring new in Bohemia, responded with the so-called defen-
dynasty. With the return of peace, Muscovite Russia estration of Prague and promptly established
resumed the process of state building. a Protestant assembly to spearhead resistance. A
year later, when Ferdinand was elected emperor
Review: How did state power depend on religious (as Ferdinand II, r. 1619–1637), the rebellious
unity at the end of the sixteenth century and start of the Bohemians deposed him and chose in his place the
seventeenth?
young Calvinist Frederick V of the Palatinate
1560–1648 Th e Th i rt y Ye a r s ’ Wa r, 1 6 1 8 – 1 6 4 8 461

(r. 1616–1623). A quick series of clashes ended in With Protestant interests in serious jeopardy,
1620 when the imperial armies defeated the out- Gustavus Adolphus (r. 1611–1632) of Sweden
manned Czechs at the battle of White Mountain, marched into Germany in 1630. Declaring his sup-
near Prague. Like the martyrdom of the religious port for the Protestant cause, he also intended to
reformer Jan Hus in 1415, White Mountain be- gain control over trade in northern Europe. His
came an enduring symbol of the Czechs’ desire for highly trained army of some 100,000 soldiers made
self-determination. They would not gain their in- Sweden, with a population of only one million, the
dependence until 1918. supreme power of northern Europe. Hoping to
White Mountain did not end the war, which block Spanish intervention in the war and win in-
soon spread to the German lands of the empire. fluence and perhaps territory in the Holy Roman
Private mercenary armies (armies for hire) began Empire, the French monarchy’s chief minister,
to form during the fighting, and the emperor had Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642), offered to subsi-
little control over them. The meteoric rise of one dize the Lutheran Gustavus. This agreement be-
commander,Albrecht von Wallenstein (1583–1634), tween the Swedish Lutheran and French Catholic
showed how political ambition could trump powers to fight the Catholic Habsburgs showed
religious conviction. A Czech Protestant by birth, that state interests could outweigh all other con-
Wallenstein offered in 1625 to raise an army for siderations.
Ferdinand II and soon had in his employ 125,000 Gustavus defeated the imperial army and
soldiers, who occupied and plundered much of occupied the Catholic parts of southern Germany
Protestant Germany with the emperor’s approval. before he was killed at the battle of Lützen in 1632.
The Lutheran king of Denmark, Christian IV Once again the tide turned, but this time it swept
(r. 1596–1648), responded by invading northern Wallenstein with it. Because Wallenstein was
Germany to protect the Protestants and to extend rumored to be negotiating with Protestant pow-
his own influence. Despite Dutch and English en- ers, Ferdinand dismissed his general and had him
couragement, Christian lacked adequate military assassinated.
support, and Wallenstein’s forces defeated him. France openly joined the fray in 1635 by de-
Emboldened by his general’s victories, Ferdinand claring war on Spain and soon after forged an al-
issued the Edict of Restitution in 1629, which out- liance with the Calvinist Dutch to aid them in their
lawed Calvinism in the empire and reclaimed ongoing struggle for official independence from
Catholic church properties confiscated by the Spain. Religion took a backseat to dynastic rivalry
Lutherans. as the two Catholic powers France and Spain

The Violence of the Thirty Years’ War


The French artist Jacques Callot produced this engraving of the Thirty Years’ War as part of a series
called The Miseries and Misfortunes of War (1633). It shows the rape, torture, and pillaging inflicted
by soldiers on noncombatants they found in their path. (The Granger Collection, New York.)
462 C h a pt e r 1 5 ■ Wa r s o f R e l i g i o n a n d t h e C l a s h o f Wo r l dv i ew s 1560–1648

DOCUMENT

The Horrors of the Thirty Years’ War


Hans Grimmelshausen experienced the Thirty ing, as if they might sleep better on these. down his throat; they called it a Swedish
Years’ War firsthand and then wrote about it Others knocked down the hearth and cocktail. He didn’t relish it and made a
in his novel The Adventures of a Simpleton broke the windows, as if announcing an very wry face. . . . Then they used thumb-
(published in 1669). He had been a Lutheran everlasting summer. They flattened out screws, which they cleverly made out of
schoolboy when soldiers from an unidentified copper and pewter dishes and baled the their pistols, to torture the peasants, as if
army looted his town. Later he served as a ruined goods. They burned up bedsteads, they wanted to burn witches. Though he
musketeer in the Catholic imperial armies tables, chairs, and benches, though there had confessed to nothing as yet, they put
and converted to Catholicism. In the novel, were yards of dry firewood outside the one of the captured hayseeds in the bake-
he writes from the point of view of a “sim- kitchen. Jars and crocks, pots and oven and lighted a fire in it. They put a
pleton,” a naive peasant who does not under- casseroles all were broken, either because rope around someone else’s head and
stand what is happening around him as a they preferred their meat broiled or be- tightened it like a tourniquet until blood
group of cavalrymen ransack the village. cause they thought they’d eat only one came out of his mouth, nose, and ears. In
meal with us. In the barn, the hired girl short, every soldier had his favorite
What they did not intend to take along was handled so roughly that she was un- method of making life miserable for
they broke and spoiled. Some ran their able to walk away, I am ashamed to report. peasants, and every peasant had his own
swords into the hay and straw, as if there They stretched the hired man out flat on misery.
hadn’t been hogs enough to stick. Some the ground, stuck a wooden wedge in his Source: The Adventures of Simplicius Simpliccissimus,
shook the feathers out of beds and put ba- mouth to keep it open, and emptied a milk 2nd ed. Trans. George Schulz-Behrend (Columbia,
con slabs, hams, and other stuff in the tick- bucket full of stinking manure drippings S.C.: Camden House, 1993), 6–7.

pummeled each other. Advised by his minister king — serving as regent and an Italian cardinal,
Richelieu, who held the high rank of cardinal in Mazarin, providing advice, French politics once
the Catholic church, the French king Louis XIII again moved into a period of instability, rumor,
(r. 1610–1643) hoped to profit from the troubles and crisis. All sides were ready for peace.
of Spain in the Netherlands and from the conflicts
between the Austrian emperor and his Protestant
subjects. The Swedes kept up their pressure in The Effects of Constant Fighting
Germany, the Dutch attacked the Spanish fleet, When peace negotiations began in the 1640s, they
and a series of internal revolts shook the cash- did not come a moment too soon for the ordinary
strapped Spanish crown. In 1640, peasants in the people of Europe. Some towns had faced up to ten
rich northeastern province of Catalonia rebelled, or eleven prolonged sieges during the decades of
overrunning Barcelona and killing the viceroy; the fighting. Even worse suffering took place in the
Catalans resented government confiscation of countryside. Peasants fled their villages, which
their crops and demands that they house and feed were often burned down (see Document, “The
soldiers on their way to the French frontier. The Horrors of the Thirty Years’ War,” above). At times,
Portuguese revolted in 1640 and proclaimed inde- desperate peasants revolted and attacked nearby
pendence like the Dutch. In 1643, the Spanish castles and monasteries. War and intermittent out-
suffered their first major defeat at French hands. breaks of plague cost some German towns one-
Although the Spanish were forced to concede in- third or more of their population. One-third of the
dependence to Portugal (part of Spain only since inhabitants of Bohemia also perished.
1580), they eventually suppressed the Catalan Soldiers did not fare all that much better. An
revolt. Englishman who fought for the Dutch army in
France, too, finally faced exhaustion after years 1633 described how he slept on the wet ground,
of rising taxes and recurrent revolts. Richelieu died got his boots full of water, and “at peep of day
in 1642. Louis XIII followed him a few months looked like a drowned ratt.” Governments increas-
later and was succeeded by his five-year-old son, ingly short of funds often failed to pay the troops,
Louis XIV. With yet another foreign queen and frequent mutinies, looting, and pillaging re-
mother — she was the daughter of the Spanish sulted. Armies attracted all sorts of displaced people
1560–1648 Th e Th i rt y Ye a r s ’ Wa r, 1 6 1 8 – 1 6 4 8 463

Austrian Habsburg lands NORWAY


SWEDEN
Spanish Habsburg lands RUSSIA
Prussian lands
German states SCOTLAND
Swedish lands North

a
Se
Boundary of the Sea
c
Holy Roman Empire DENMARK ti
B al


0
Battle

163
DUTCH POLAND-LITHUANIA
Danish invasion REPUBLIC
BRANDENBURG-

16
Swedish invasion ENGLAND

25
Amsterdam PRUSSIA
Spanish Habsburg invasion  Warsaw
Austrian Habsburg invasion Antwerp Westphalia
Lützen
French invasion SPANISH (1632)  Saxony
643 1 6 Wa l
NETH. 1 21 lenst White Mountain
ein (1620)
16 25
Palatinate  Prague
0 150 300 miles Paris 1635 Bohemia
 RY
0 150 300 kilometers GA MOLDAVIA

Alsace
TR
Franche-  UN AN
19 AugsburgVienna H SY
Comté 16 LVA
ATLANTIC 16 4 5 AUSTRIA N IA
1633
OCEAN FRANCE
(Spain)
N WALLACHIA Black
MILAN
W SWISS Sea
E
CONFED. Ad O
PAPAL ri T
S STATES at T O
ic M A Constantinople
Catalonia Se N
Rome
a E M
PORTUGAL Madrid Barcelona Corsica
P I R E
NAPLES
Lisbon S PA I N Naples
Sardinia Aegean
Sea
BALEARIC IS. Athens

Mediterranean Sea
Sicily

Crete

MAP 15.3 The Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia, 1648
The Thirty Years’ War involved many of the major continental European powers. The arrows
marking invasion routes show that most of the fighting took place in central Europe in the lands
of the Holy Roman Empire. The German states and Bohemia sustained the greatest damage
during the fighting. None of the combatants emerged unscathed because even ultimate
winners such as Sweden and France depleted their resources of men and money.

desperately in need of provisions. In the last year time, a diplomatic congress convened to address
of the Thirty Years’ War, the Imperial-Bavarian international disputes, and those signing the
Army had 40,000 men entitled to draw rations — treaties guaranteed the resulting settlement. A
and more than 100,000 wives, prostitutes, servants, method still in use, the congress was the first to
children, and other camp followers forced to bring all parties together, rather than two or three
scrounge for their own food. at a time.

The Winners and Losers. France and Sweden


The Peace of Westphalia, 1648 gained most from the Peace of Westphalia. Al-
The comprehensive settlement provided by the though France and Spain continued fighting until
Peace of Westphalia — named after the German 1659, France acquired parts of Alsace and replaced
province where negotiations took place — would Spain as the prevailing power on the continent.
serve as a model for resolving future conflicts Baltic conflicts would not be resolved until 1661,
among warring European states. For the first but Sweden took several northern territories from
the Holy Roman Empire (Map 15.3).
The Habsburgs lost the most. The Spanish
Peace of Westphalia: The settlement (1648) of the Thirty Years’ Habsburgs recognized Dutch independence after
War; it established enduring religious divisions in the Holy Ro- eighty years of war. The Swiss Confederation and
man Empire by which Lutheranism would dominate in the north,
Calvinism in the area of the Rhine River, and Catholicism in the the German princes demanded autonomy from
south. the Austrian Habsburg rulers of the Holy Roman
464 C h a pt e r 1 5 ■ Wa r s o f R e l i g i o n a n d t h e C l a s h o f Wo r l dv i ew s 1560–1648

Empire. Each German prince gained the right to and Catholicism in the south. Most of the territo-
establish Lutheranism, Catholicism, or Calvinism rial changes in Europe remained intact until the
in his state, a right denied to Calvinist rulers by nineteenth century. In the future, international
the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. The independence warfare would be undertaken for reasons of na-
ceded to German princes sustained political divi- tional security, commercial ambition, or dynastic
sions that would remain until the nineteenth cen- pride rather than to enforce religious uniformity.
tury and prepared the way for the emergence of a As the politiques of the late sixteenth century had
new power, the Hohenzollern Elector of Branden- hoped, state interests now outweighed motivations
burg, who increased his territories and developed of faith in political affairs.
a small but effective standing army. After losing
considerable territory in the west, the Austrian Growth of State Authority. Warfare increased the
Habsburgs turned eastward to concentrate on reach of states: as armies grew to bolster the war
restoring Catholicism to Bohemia and wresting effort, governments needed more money and
Hungary from the Turks. more supervisory officials. The rate of land tax
The Peace of Westphalia permanently settled paid by French peasants doubled in the eight years
the distributions of the main religions in the Holy after France joined the war. In addition to raising
Roman Empire: Lutheranism would dominate in taxes, governments deliberately depreciated the
the north, Calvinism in the area of the Rhine River, value of the currency, which often resulted in in-
flation and soaring prices. Rulers also sold new of-
fices and manipulated the embryonic stock and
The Arts and State Power bond markets. When all else failed, they declared
King Philip IV of Spain commissioned Diego Velázquez to paint this bankruptcy. The Spanish government, for example,
portrait in 1634–1635. He hung the painting in the new palace, called did so three times in the first half of the seven-
Buen Retiro, that he built near Madrid in the 1630s. Philip’s court at teenth century. From Portugal to Muscovy, ordinary
Buen Retiro included formal gardens, artificial ponds, a huge iron bird
people resisted new taxes by forming makeshift
cage (which led some critics to call the whole thing a chicken coop), a
armies and battling royal forces. With their color-
zoo, and a courtyard for bullfights as well as rooms filled with
sculptures and paintings. Note that Philip looks completely in control, ful banners, unlikely leaders, strange names (the
almost impassive, even though the horse is rearing. In this way the Nu-Pieds, or “Barefooted,” in France, for instance),
artist emphasizes the king’s mastery. (All rights reserved. © Museo Nacional del and crude weapons, the rebels usually proved no
Prado—Madrid.) match for state armies, but they did keep officials
worried and troops occupied.
To meet these new demands, monarchs relied
on advisers who took on the role of modern prime
ministers. Continuity in Swedish affairs, especially
after the death of Gustavus Adolphus, largely de-
pended on Axel Oxenstierna, who held office for
more than forty years. Louis XIII’s chief minister,
Cardinal Richelieu, proclaimed the priority of rai-
son d’état (reason of state), that is, the state’s in-
terest above all else. He silenced Protestants within
France because they had become too independent,
and he crushed noble and popular resistance to
Louis’s policies. He set up intendants — delegates
from the king’s council dispatched to the
provinces — to oversee police, army, and financial
affairs.
To justify the growth of state authority and the
expansion of government bureaucracies, rulers
carefully cultivated their royal images. (See The
Arts and State Power, at left.) James I of England

raison d’état (ray ZOHN day TAH): French for “reason of state,”
the political doctrine, first proposed by Cardinal Richelieu of
France, which held that the state’s interests should prevail over
those of religion.
1560–1648 E co n om i c C r i s i s a n d R e a l i g n m e n t 465

argued that he ruled by divine right and was silver in the 1590s. (See “Taking Measure,” below.)
accountable only to God: “The state of monarchy This flood of precious metals combined with pop-
is the supremest thing on earth; for kings are not ulation growth to fuel an astounding inflation in
only God’s lieutenant on earth, but even by God food prices in western Europe — 400 percent in the
himself they are called gods.” He advised his son sixteenth century — and a more moderate rise in
to maintain a manly appearance (his own well- the cost of manufactured goods. Wages rose much
known homosexual liaisons did not make him more slowly, at about half the rate of the increase
seem less manly to his subjects): “Eschew to be ef- in food prices. Governments always overspent rev-
feminate in your clothes, in perfuming, preening, enues, and by 1600 most of Europe’s rulers faced
or such like.” Appearance counted for so much that deep deficits.
most rulers regulated who could wear which kinds Recession did not strike everywhere at the
of cloth and decoration, reserving the richest and same time, but the warning signs were unmistak-
rarest, such as ermine and gold, for themselves. able. Foreign trade slumped as war and an uncer-
tain money supply made business riskier. After
1625, silver imports to Spain declined, in part be-
Review: Why did a war fought over religious differ-
cause so many of the native Americans who
ences result in stronger states?
worked in Spanish colonial mines died from dis-
ease and in part because the mines themselves
were progressively depleted. Textile production
fell in many countries and in some places nearly
Economic Crisis
and Realignment
The devastation caused by the Thirty Years’ War TAKING MEASURE
deepened an economic crisis that was already
under way. After a century of rising prices, caused
partly by massive transfers of gold and silver from 40
the New World and partly by population growth,
in the early 1600s prices began to level off and even 35
to drop, and in most places population growth
slowed. With fewer goods being produced, inter- 30
national trade fell into recession. Agricultural
yields also declined, and peasants and townspeo-
Millions of pesos

25
ple alike were less able to pay the escalating taxes
needed to finance the wars. Famine and disease 20
trailed grimly behind economic crisis and war, in
some areas causing large-scale uprisings and re- 15
volts. Behind the scenes, the economic balance of
power gradually shifted as northwestern Europe 10
began to dominate international trade and broke
the stranglehold of Spain and Portugal in the New 5
World.
0
1550 1570 1590 1610 1630 1650
From Growth to Recession Year
Population grew and prices rose in the second half
of the sixteenth century. Even though religious and The Rise and Fall of Silver Imports to Spain, 1550–1660
political turbulence led to population decline in Gold and silver from the New World enabled the king of Spain to
some cities, such as war-torn Antwerp, overall rates pursue aggressive policies in Europe and around the world. At
of growth remained impressive: in the sixteenth what point did silver imports reach their highest level? Was the
century, parts of Spain doubled in population and fall in silver imports precipitous or gradual? What can we con-
England’s population grew by 70 percent. The sup- clude about the resources available to the Spanish king? (From Earl
ply of precious metals swelled, too. In the 1540s, J. Hamilton, American Revolution and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1501–1650
new silver mines were discovered in Mexico and [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934].)

Peru. Spanish gold imports peaked in the 1550s,


466 C h a pt e r 1 5 ■ Wa r s o f R e l i g i o n a n d t h e C l a s h o f Wo r l dv i ew s 1560–1648

NEW SOURCES, NEW PERSPECTIVES

Tree Rings and the Little Ice Age

lobal cooling helped bring about records of European temperatures were veloped techniques for sampling corals in

G the economic crisis of the seven-


teenth century. Glaciers advanced,
average temperatures fell, and winters
kept only from the 1700s onward, how do
historians know that the weather was
cooler?
the tropics and sediments on oceanic
shelves to provide evidence of climate
change.
were often exceptionally severe. Canals Information about climate comes But the most striking are data gath-
and rivers essential to markets froze over. from various sources. The advance of gla- ered from tree rings (the science is called
Great storms disrupted ocean traffic — in ciers can be seen in letters complaining to dendrochronology or dendroclimatol-
fact, one storm changed the escape route the authorities. In 1601, for example, ogy). Timber samples have been taken
of the Spanish Armada. Even in the val- panic-stricken villagers in Savoy (in the from very old oak trees and also from
leys far from the mountain glaciers, cooler French Alps) wrote, “We are terrified of ancient beams in buildings and ar-
weather meant lower crop yields, which the glaciers . . . which are moving forward chaeological digs and from logs left long
quickly translated into hunger and greater all the time and have just buried two of undisturbed in northern bogs and
susceptibility to disease, leading in turn our villages.” Yearly temperature fluctua- riverbeds. In cold summers, trees lay
to population decline. Some historians tions can be determined from the dates of down thinner growth rings; in warm
of climate refer to the entire period wine harvests; growers harvested their ones, thicker rings. Information about
1600–1850 as the little ice age because grapes earliest when the weather was tree rings confirms the conclusions
glaciers advanced during this time and re- warmest and latest when it was coolest. drawn from wine harvest and ice core
treated only after 1850; others argue that Scientists study ice cores taken from samples: the seventeenth century was rel-
the period 1550–1700 was the coldest, but Greenland to determine temperature vari- atively cold. Recent tree ring studies have
either time frame includes the seven- ations; such studies seem to indicate that shown that some of the coldest summers
teenth century. Given the current debates the coolest times were the periods were caused by volcanic eruptions; ac-
about global warming, how can we sift 1160–1300; the 1600s; and 1820–1850. cording to a study of more than one hun-
through the evidence to come up with a The period 1730–1800 appears to have dred sites in North America and Europe,
reliable interpretation? Since systematic been warmer. Recently, scientists have de- the five coldest summers in the past four

collapsed, largely because of decreased demand and mand, and farmers who produced for the market
a shrinking labor force. Even the relatively limited suffered. The price of grain fell most precipitously,
trade in African slaves stagnated, though its growth causing many farmers to convert grain-growing
would resume after 1650 and skyrocket after 1700. land to pasture or vineyards. In some places, peas-
African slaves were first transported to the new ants abandoned their villages and left land to
colony of Virginia in 1619, foreshadowing a ma- waste, as had happened during the plague epi-
jor transformation of economic life in the New demic of the late fourteenth century. The only
World colonies. country that emerged unscathed from this down-
Demographic slowdown also signaled eco- turn was the Dutch Republic, thanks to a growing
nomic trouble. Despite population growth in some population and tradition of agricultural innova-
areas, Europe’s total population may actually have tion. Inhabiting Europe’s most densely populated
declined, from 85 million in 1550 to 80 million in area, the Dutch developed systems of field
1650. In the Mediterranean, growth had already drainage, crop rotation, and animal husbandry
stopped in the 1570s. The most sudden reversal that provided high yields of grain for both people
occurred in central Europe as a result of the Thirty and animals. Their foreign trade, textile industry,
Years’ War: one-fourth of the inhabitants of the crop production, and population all grew. After the
Holy Roman Empire perished in the 1630s and Dutch, the English fared best; unlike the Spanish,
1640s. Population growth continued only in the English never depended on infusions of New
England, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish World gold and silver to shore up their economy,
Netherlands, and Scandinavia. and unlike most continental European countries,
Where the population stagnated or declined, England escaped the direct impact of the Thirty
agricultural prices dropped because of less de- Years’ War.
1560–1648 E co n om i c C r i s i s a n d R e a l i g n m e n t 467

The Frozen Thames


This painting by Abraham Hondius of the frozen Thames River in London dates to 1677. In the 1670s and 1680s the
Thames froze several times. Diarists recorded that shopkeepers even set up their stalls on the ice. The expected
routines of daily life changed during the cooling down of the seventeenth century, and contemporaries were shocked
enough by the changes to record them for posterity. (Museum of London.)

hundred years were in 1601, 1641, 1669, Questions to Consider Further Reading
1699, and 1912 (four out of five in the 1. What were the historical consequences of Climate of the Past: http://www.clim-past
seventeenth century), and all but the global cooling in the seventeenth century? .net/recentpapers.html
summer of 1699 came in years following 2. Why would trees be especially valuable Jones, P. D., ed. History and Climate:
recorded eruptions. sources of information about climate? Memories of the Future? 2001.

Historians have long disagreed about the aggravated the threat of food shortages, increased
causes of the early-seventeenth-century reces- the outbreaks of famine and disease, and caused
sion. Some cite the inability of agriculture to people to leave their families and homes. In the
support a growing population by the end of the long term, it deepened the division between pros-
sixteenth century; others blame the Thirty Years’ perous and poor peasants and fostered the devel-
War, the states’ demands for more taxes, the ir- opment of a new pattern of late marriages and
regularities in money supply resulting from rudi- smaller families.
mentary banking practices, or the waste caused
by middle-class expenditures in the desire to em- Famine and Disease. When grain harvests fell
ulate the nobility. To this list of causes, recent re- short, peasants immediately suffered because, out-
searchers have added climatic changes. (See side of England and the Dutch Republic, grain had
“New Sources, New Perspectives,” page 466.) replaced more expensive meat as the essential
Cold winters and wet summers meant bad har- staple of most Europeans’ diets. By the end of the
vests, and these natural disasters ushered in a sixteenth century, the average adult European ate
host of social catastrophes. When the harvest was more than four hundred pounds of grain per year.
bad, prices shot back up and many could not af- Peasants lived on bread, soup with a little fat or
ford to feed themselves. oil, peas or lentils, garden vegetables in season, and
only occasionally a piece of meat or fish. Usually
the adverse years differed from place to place, but
Consequences for Daily Life from 1594 to 1597 most of Europe suffered from
The recession of the early 1600s had both short- shortages; the resulting famine triggered revolts
term and long-term effects. In the short term, it from Ireland to Muscovy.
468 C h a pt e r 1 5 ■ Wa r s o f R e l i g i o n a n d t h e C l a s h o f Wo r l dv i ew s 1560–1648

to fear when hungry vagabonds, who sometimes


banded together to beg for bread, became more
aggressive, occasionally threatening to burn a barn
if they were not given food.
Successive bad harvests led to malnutrition,
which weakened people and made them more sus-
ceptible to such epidemic diseases as the plague,
typhoid fever, typhus, dysentery, smallpox, and in-
fluenza. Disease did not spare the rich, although
many epidemics hit the poor hardest. The plague
was feared most: in one year it could cause the
death of up to half of a town’s or village’s popula-
tion, and it struck with no discernible pattern.
Nearly 5 percent of France’s entire population died
just in the plague of 1628–1632.

The Changing Status of the Peasantry. Eco-


nomic crisis widened the gap between rich and
poor. Peasants shouldered many burdens, includ-
ing rent and various fees for inheriting or selling
land and tolls for using mills, wine presses, or
ovens. States collected direct taxes on land and
sales taxes on such consumer goods as salt, an es-
sential preservative. Protestant and Catholic
churches alike exacted a tithe (a tax equivalent to
one-tenth of the parishioner’s annual income); of-
ten the clergy took their tithe in the form of crops
and collected it directly during the harvest. Any
reversal of fortune could force peasants into the
homeless world of vagrants and beggars, who
The Life of the Poor numbered as much as 2 percent of the total pop-
This mid-seventeenth-century painting by the Dutch artist Adriaen
ulation.
Pietersz van de Venne depicts the poor peasant weighed down by his
wife and child. An empty food bowl signifies their hunger. In retrospect,
In England, the Dutch Republic, northern
this painting seems unfair to the wife of the family; she is shown in France, and northwestern Germany, the peasantry
clothes that are not nearly as tattered as her husband’s and is was disappearing. Improvements gave some peas-
portrayed entirely as a burden, rather than as a help in getting by in ants the means to become farmers who rented sub-
hard times. In reality, many poor men abandoned their homes in search stantial holdings, produced for the market, and in
of work, leaving their wives behind to cope with hungry children and good times enjoyed relative comfort and higher
what remained of the family farm. (Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, status. Those who could not afford to plant new
Mrs. F. F. Prentiss Fund, 1920. Inv # 1960.94.) crops such as maize (American corn) or to use
techniques that ensured higher yields became
simple laborers with little or no land of their own.
Most people, however, did not respond to One-half to four-fifths of the peasants did not have
their dismal circumstances by rebelling. They sim- enough land to support a family. They descended
ply left their huts and hovels and took to the road deeper into debt during difficult times and often
in search of food and charity. Men left their fam- lost their land to wealthier farmers or to city offi-
ilies to search for better conditions in other cials intent on developing rural estates.
parishes or even other countries. Those left behind As the recession deepened, women lost some
might be reduced to eating chestnuts, roots, bark, of their economic opportunities. Widows who had
and grass. Overwhelmed officials recorded pitiful been able to take over their late husbands’ trade
tales of suffering. Women and children died while now found themselves excluded by the urban
waiting in line for food at convents or churches. guilds or limited to short tenures. Many women
In eastern France in 1637, a witness reported, “The went into domestic service until they married,
roads were paved with people. . . . Finally it came some for their entire lives. When town govern-
to cannibalism.” Compassion sometimes gave way ments began to fear the effects of increased mo-
1560–1648 E co n om i c C r i s i s a n d R e a l i g n m e n t 469

bility from country to town and town to town, they The Economic Balance of Power
carefully regulated the work of female servants, re-
quiring women to stay in their positions unless Just as the recession produced winners and losers
they could prove mistreatment by a master. among ordinary people, so too it created winners
and losers among the competing states of Europe.
Effects on Marriage and Childbearing. European The economies of southern Europe declined dur-
families reacted to economic downturn by post- ing this period, whereas those of the northwest
poning marriage and having fewer children. When emerged stronger. Competition in the New World
hard times passed, more people married and had reflected and reinforced this shift as the English,
more children. But even in the best of times, one- Dutch, and French rushed to establish trading out-
fifth to one-quarter of all children died in their posts and permanent settlements to compete with
first year, and half died before age twenty. Child- the Spanish and Portuguese.
birth still carried great risks for women, about 10
percent of whom died in the process. Even in the Regional Differences. The new powers of north-
richest and most enlightened homes, childbirth of- western Europe with their growing Atlantic trade
ten occasioned an atmosphere of panic. To allay gradually displaced the Mediterranean economies,
their fears, women sometimes depended on magic which had dominated European commerce since
stones, special pilgrimages, or prayers. Midwives the time of the Greeks and Romans. With expand-
delivered most babies; physicians were scarce, and ing populations and geographical positions that
even those who did attend births were generally promoted Atlantic trade, England and the Dutch
less helpful than midwives. The Englishwoman Republic vied with France to become the leading
Alice Thornton described in her diary how a doctor mercantile powers. Northern Italian industries
bled her to prevent a miscarriage after a fall were eclipsed; Spanish commerce with the New
(bloodletting, often by the application of leeches, World dropped. Amsterdam replaced Seville,
was a common medical treatment); her son died Venice, Genoa, and Antwerp as the center of Eu-
anyway in a breech birth that almost killed her, too. ropean trade and commerce. Even the plague con-
It might be assumed that families would have tributed to this difference. Whereas central Europe
more children to compensate for high death rates, and the Mediterranean countries took generations
but beginning in the early seventeenth century and to recover from its ravages, northwestern Europe
continuing until the end of the eighteenth, fami- quickly replaced its lost population, no doubt be-
lies in all ranks of society started to limit the num- cause this area’s people had suffered less from the
ber of children. Because methods of contraception effects of the Thirty Years’ War and from the mal-
were not widely known, they did this for the most nutrition related to the economic crisis.
part by marrying later; the average age at marriage All but the remnants of serfdom had disap-
during the seventeenth century rose from the early peared in western Europe, yet in eastern Europe
twenties to the late twenties. The average family nobles reinforced their dominance over peasants,
had about four children. Poorer families seem to and the burden of serfdom increased. The price
have had fewer children, wealthier ones more. rise of the sixteenth century prompted Polish and
Peasant couples, especially in eastern and south- eastern German nobles to increase their holdings
eastern Europe, had more children than urban and step up their production of grain for western
couples because cultivation still required intensive markets. They demanded more rent and dues from
manual labor — and having children was the most their peasants, whom the government decreed
economical means of securing enough laborers. must stay in their villages. In the economic down-
The consequences of late marriage were pro- turn of the first half of the seventeenth century,
found. Young men and women were expected to peasants who were already dependent became
put off marriage (and sexual intercourse) until serfs — completely tied to the land. A local official
their mid to late twenties — if they were among the might complain of “this barbaric and as it were
lucky 50 percent who lived that long and not Egyptian servitude,” but he had no power to fight
among the 10 percent who never married. Because the nobles. In Muscovy, the complete enserfment
both Protestant and Catholic clergy alike stressed of the peasantry would eventually be recognized
sexual fidelity and abstinence before marriage, the in the Code of Laws in 1649. Although enserfment
number of births out of wedlock was relatively produced short-term profits for landlords, in the
small (2–5 percent of births); premarital inter- long run it retarded economic development in
course was generally tolerated only after a couple eastern Europe and kept most of the population
had announced their engagement. in a stranglehold of illiteracy and hardship.
470 C h a pt e r 1 5 ■ Wa r s o f R e l i g i o n a n d t h e C l a s h o f Wo r l dv i ew s 1560–1648

Competition in the New World. Economic re- way of increasing national wealth. To this end, they
alignment also took place across the Atlantic chartered private joint-stock companies to enrich
ocean. Because Spain and Portugal had divided be- investors by importing fish, furs, tobacco, and pre-
tween themselves the rich spoils of South Amer- cious metals, if they could be found, and to de-
ica, other prospective colonizers had to carve velop new markets for European products.
niches in seemingly less hospitable places, espe- In establishing permanent colonies, the Euro-
cially North America and the Caribbean (Map peans created whole new communities across the
15.4). Eventually, the English, French, and Dutch Atlantic. Careful plans could not always surmount
would dominate commerce with these colonies. the hazards of transatlantic shipping, however.
Many European states, including Sweden and Den- Originally, the warm climate of Virginia made it
mark, rushed to join the colonial competition as a an attractive destination for the Pilgrims, a small
English sect that attempted to separate
from the Church of England. But the
Mayflower, which had sailed for Vir-
Tadoussac

ginia with Pilgrim emigrants, landed
Trois
Rivières Québec  far to the north in Massachusetts,
Sault Ste. MarieMontréal  
Boston  Massachusetts Bay Company where in 1620 the settlers founded New
New New Plymouth Colony Plymouth Colony. By the 1640s, the
Netherlands Rhode Island
Connecticut British North American colonies had
 New Sweden
Santa Fé
Maryland
more than fifty thousand people — not
Virginia ATLANTIC OCEAN including the Indians, whose numbers
Florida N had been decimated in epidemics and
Monterrey
 Gulf of
E
wars — and the foundations of repre-
Mexico WE
ST
IND
W sentative government in locally chosen
N IES
EW S colonial assemblies.
SP In contrast, French Canada had
AI Caribbean Sea
N
only about three thousand European
inhabitants by 1640. Though thin in
numbers, the French rapidly moved
into the Great Lakes region. Fur traders
sought beaver pelts to make the hats
that had taken Paris fashion by storm.
Jesuit missionaries lived with native
B R A Z I L American groups, learning their
PE

languages and describing their ways of


RU

PACIFIC OCEAN life. Both England and France turned


their attention to the Caribbean in
the 1620s and 1630s when they
occupied the islands of the West Indies
after driving off the native Caribs.
These islands would prove ideal for a
plantation economy of tobacco and
sugarcane.
Even as the British and French
Dutch
English
moved into North America and the
French Caribbean, Spanish explorers traveled
Portuguese 0 500 1,000 miles the Pacific coast up to what is now
Spanish
0 500 1,000 kilometers northern California and pushed into
Swedish
New Mexico. On the other side of the
world, in the Philippines, the Spanish
MAP 15.4 European Colonization of the Americas, c. 1640 competed with local Muslim rulers and
Europeans coming to the Americas established themselves first in coastal areas. The indigenous tribal leaders to extend
English, French, and Dutch set up most of their colonies in the Caribbean and North their control. Catholic missionaries
America because the Spanish and Portuguese had already colonized the easily printed tracts in Spanish and the is-
accessible regions in South America. Vast inland areas still remained unexplored and
lands’ native Tagalog and established a
uncolonized in 1640.
university in 1611. Spanish officials
1560–1648 Th e R i s e o f S e c u l a r a n d S c i e n t i f i c Wo r l dv i ew s 471

“Savages” of the New World


The half-dressed savage appears much like a noble Italian in Paolo Farinati’s 1595 painting America; he holds a
crucifix in his right hand, signifying his conversion to Christianity. But to his left, a figure is roasting human flesh.
Europeans were convinced that many native peoples were cannibals. What can we conclude from this painting
about European attitudes toward peoples of the New World? (Villa della Torre, Mezzane de Sotto, Verona.)

worked closely with the missionaries to rule over movements in the heavens and on earth. A scien-
a colony composed of indigenous peoples, Span- tific revolution was in the making. Yet traditional
iards, and some Chinese merchants. attitudes did not disappear. Belief in magic and
witchcraft pervaded every level of society. People
of all classes believed that the laws of nature re-
Review: What were the consequences of economic
flected a divine plan for the universe. They ac-
recession in the early 1600s?
cepted supernatural explanations for natural
phenomena, a view only gradually and partially
undermined by new ideas.
The Rise of Secular and
Scientific Worldviews The Arts in an Age of Crisis
Two new forms of artistic expression — profes-
The countries that moved ahead economically sional theater and opera — provided an outlet for
in the first half of the seventeenth century — secular values in an age of conflict over religious
England, the Dutch Republic, and to some extent beliefs. The greatest playwright of the English lan-
France — turned out to be the most receptive to guage, William Shakespeare, never referred to re-
new secular worldviews. In the long-term process ligious disputes in his plays, and he always set his
known as secularization, religion became a mat- most personal reflections on political turmoil and
ter of private conscience rather than public policy. uncertainty in faraway times or places. Religion
Secularization did not entail a loss of religious played an important role in the new mannerist and
faith, but it did prompt a search for nonreligious baroque styles of painting, however, even though
explanations for political authority and natural many rulers commissioned paintings on secular
phenomena. During the late sixteenth and early subjects for their own uses.
seventeenth centuries, art, political theory, and sci-
ence all began to break their bonds with religion. Theater in the Age of Shakespeare. The first
The visual arts, for example, more frequently de- professional acting companies performed before
picted secular subjects. Scientists and scholars paying audiences in London, Seville, and Madrid
sought laws in nature to explain politics as well as in the 1570s. In previous centuries, traveling com-
panies made their living by playing at major reli-
gious festivals and by repeating their performances
secularization: The trend toward making religious faith a pri- in small towns and villages along the way. A huge
vate domain rather than one directly connected to state power
and science; it prompted a search for nonreligious explanations outpouring of playwriting followed upon the
for political authority and natural phenomena. formation of permanent professional theater
472 C h a pt e r 1 5 ■ Wa r s o f R e l i g i o n a n d t h e C l a s h o f Wo r l dv i ew s 1560–1648

companies. The Spanish playwright Lope de Vega baroque featured curves, exaggerated lighting, in-
(1562–1635) alone wrote more than fifteen hun- tense emotions, release from restraint, and even a
dred plays. Theaters were extremely popular de- kind of artistic sensationalism. Like many other
spite Puritan opposition in England and Catholic historical designations, the word baroque was not
objections in Spain. Shopkeepers, apprentices, used as a label by people living at the time; in the
lawyers, and court nobles crowded into open-air eighteenth century, art critics coined the word to
theaters to see everything from bawdy farces to mean shockingly bizarre, confused, and extrava-
profound tragedies. gant, and until the late nineteenth century, art
The most enduring and influential playwright historians and collectors largely disdained the
of the time was the Englishman William Shake- baroque.
speare (1564–1616), who wrote three dozen plays, Closely tied to Catholic resurgence after the
comedies as well as tragedies, and acted in one of Reformation, the baroque melodramatically reaf-
the chief troupes. Although Shakespeare’s plays firmed the emotional depths of the Catholic faith
were not set in contemporary England, they re- and glorified both church and monarchy (see “See-
flected the concerns of his age: the nature of power ing History,” page 473). The style spread from
and the crisis of authority. His tragedies in partic- Rome to other Italian states and then into central
ular show the uncertainty and even chaos that re- Europe. The Catholic Habsburg territories, includ-
sult when power is misappropriated or misused. ing Spain and the Spanish Netherlands, embraced
In Hamlet (1601), for example, Hamlet’s mother the style. The Spanish built baroque churches in
marries the man who murdered his royal father their American colonies as part of their massive
and usurped the crown. In the end, Hamlet, his conversion campaign.
mother, and the usurper all die. One character in
the final act describes the tragic story of Prince Opera. A new secular musical form, the opera,
Hamlet as one “Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural grew up parallel to the baroque style in the visual
acts;/Of accidental judgments, casual slaugh- arts. First influential in the Italian states, opera
ters;/Of deaths put on by cunning and forced combined music, drama, dance, and scenery in a
cause.” Like many real-life people, Shakespeare’s grand sensual display, often with themes chosen to
tragic characters found little peace in the turmoil please the ruler and the aristocracy. Operas could
of their times. be based on typically baroque sacred subjects or
on traditional stories. Like many playwrights, in-
Mannerism and the Baroque in Art. Although cluding Shakespeare, opera composers often
painting did not always touch broad popular au- turned to familiar stories their audiences would
diences in the ways that theater could, new styles recognize and readily follow. One of the most
in art and especially church architecture helped innovative composers of opera was Claudio
shape ordinary people’s experience of religion. In Monteverdi (1567–1643), whose work contributed
the late sixteenth century, the artistic style known to the development of both opera and the orches-
as mannerism emerged in the Italian states and tra. His earliest operatic production, Orfeo (1607),
soon spread across Europe. Mannerism was an al- was based on Greek mythology. It required an
most theatrical style that allowed painters to dis- orchestra of about forty instruments, and unlike
tort perspective to convey a message or emphasize previous composers, Monteverdi wrote parts for
a theme. The most famous mannerist painter, specific instruments as well as voices.
called El Greco because he was of Greek origin,
trained in Venice and Rome before he moved to
Spain in the 1570s. The religious intensity of El The Natural Laws of Politics
Greco’s pictures found a ready audience in In reaction to the religious wars, writers not only
Catholic Spain, which had proved immune to the began to defend the primacy of state interests over
Protestant suspicion of ritual and religious im- those of religious conformity but also insisted on
agery (see Philip II of Spain, page 457). secular explanations for politics. Machiavelli had
The most important new style was the pointed in this direction with his advice to Renais-
baroque, which, like mannerism, originated in the sance princes in the early sixteenth century, but
Italian states. In place of the Renaissance empha- this secular intellectual movement gathered steam
sis on harmonious design, unity, and clarity, the in the aftermath of the religious violence un-
leashed by the Reformation. Adherents believed
baroque (buh ROHK): An artistic style of the seventeenth cen- that religious toleration could not take hold until
tury that featured curves, exaggerated lighting, intense emo-
tions, release from restraint, and even a kind of artistic government could be organized on some prin-
sensationalism. ciple other than one king, one faith. The French
1560–1648 Th e R i s e o f S e c u l a r a n d S c i e n t i f i c Wo r l dv i ew s 473

SEEING HISTORY

Religious Differences in Painting of the


Baroque Period: Rubens and Rembrandt
lthough the arts rarely reflect rigid Rubens (1577–1640), the great Catholic balcony above), whereas in the Rembrandt

A religious or political divisions,


artists do respond to the times in
which they live. Protestant artists could
pioneer of the baroque style, and one
by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669), a
Dutch Protestant. The subject of the
she has just read the letter. What are the
differences in feeling conveyed in the two
depictions of Bathsheba? Why would
not ignore the growing influence of the paintings, taken from the Old Testament, Rembrandt draw attention to the sadness
baroque style, but they also sought to dis- is a scandalous one: when King David saw felt by Bathsheba, and how might this
tinguish themselves from it because of its Bathsheba bathing, he fell in love with her, relate to the Protestant emphasis on each
association with the Catholic Counter- seduced her, and arranged for her husband person’s individual relationship to God?
Reformation. The baroque style empha- to be killed in battle so that he might How do the setting and the lighting rein-
sized intense emotions, monumental marry her. force this emphasis on inwardness in the
decors, and even a kind of artistic sensa- Even though the central figure is the Rembrandt painting? Do not assume,
tionalism. Protestant artists, like Protes- same in each painting, the artists’ treat- however, that every difference in ap-
tant preachers, wanted to produce strong ments are not. Look at the differences in proach can be attributed to religious dif-
reactions, too, but they placed more em- settings, the number of people in the pic- ferences. Rembrandt created his own
phasis on the inner experience than on tures, the colors, the lighting, and espe- sensation by depicting Bathsheba almost
public display. cially the facial expressions. In the Rubens, entirely nude (and using his own mistress
Here you see two paintings on the Bathsheba is about to receive a letter of as the model).
same biblical theme, one by Peter Paul summons from King David (shown on the

Peter Paul Rubens, Bathsheba at the Fountain, c. 1635. Rembrandt van Rijn, Bathsheba at Her Bath, 1654.
(© Gemaeldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany/ The Bridgeman (© Louvre, Paris, France/ Giraudon/ The Bridgeman Art Library.)
Art Library.)
474 C h a pt e r 1 5 ■ Wa r s o f R e l i g i o n a n d t h e C l a s h o f Wo r l dv i ew s 1560–1648

politiques Michel de Montaigne and Jean Bodin religious group. Grotius argued that natural law
started the search for those principles, and the stood beyond the reach of either secular or divine
Dutch legal scholar Hugo Grotius developed ideas authority; it would be valid even if God did not
on government that would influence John Locke exist (though Grotius himself believed in God). By
and the American revolutionaries of the eigh- this account, natural law — not scripture, religious
teenth century. authority, or tradition — should govern politics.
Such ideas got Grotius into trouble with both
Montaigne and Bodin. Michel de Montaigne Catholics and Protestants. His work The Laws of
(1533–1592) was a French magistrate who re- War and Peace (1625) was condemned by the
signed his office in the midst of the wars of reli- Catholic church, while the Dutch Protestant gov-
gion to write about the need for tolerance and ernment arrested him for taking part in religious
open-mindedness. Although himself a Catholic, controversies. Grotius’s wife helped him escape
Montaigne painted on the beams of his study the prison by hiding him in a chest of books. He fled
statement “All that is certain is that nothing is cer- to Paris, where he got a small pension from Louis
tain.” To capture this need for personal reflection XIII and served as his ambassador to Sweden. The
in a tumultuous age of religious discord, he in- Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus claimed that he
vented the essay as a short and pithy form of ex- kept Grotius’s book under his pillow even while at
pression. He revived the ancient doctrine of battle. Grotius was one of the first to argue that
skepticism, which held that total certainty is never international conventions should govern the treat-
attainable — a doctrine, like toleration of religious ment of prisoners of war and the making of peace
differences, that was repugnant to Protestants and treaties.
Catholics alike, both of whom were certain that Grotius’s conception of natural law also chal-
their religion was the right one. He also questioned lenged the widespread use of torture. Most states
the common European habit of calling the native and the courts of the Catholic church used torture
peoples of the New World barbarous and savage: when a serious crime had been committed and the
“Everyone gives the title of barbarism to every- evidence seemed to point to a particular defendant
thing that is not in use in his own country.” but no definitive proof had been established. The
The French Catholic lawyer Jean Bodin judges ordered torture — hanging the accused by
(1530–1596) sought systematic secular answers to the hands with a rope thrown over a beam, press-
the problem of disorder in The Six Books of the Re- ing the legs in a leg screw, or just tying the hands
public (1576). Comparing the different forms of very tightly — to extract a confession, which had
government throughout history, he concluded that to be given with a medical expert and notary pres-
there were three basic types of sovereignty: monar- ent and had to be repeated without torture. Chil-
chy, aristocracy, and democracy. Only strong dren, pregnant women, the elderly, aristocrats,
monarchical power offered hope for maintaining kings, and even professors were exempt.
order, he insisted. Bodin rejected any doctrine of To be in accord with natural law, Grotius ar-
the right to resist tyrannical authority: “I denied gued, governments had to defend natural rights,
that it was the function of a good man or of a good which he defined as life, body, freedom, and honor.
citizen to offer violence to his prince for any rea- Grotius did not encourage rebellion in the name
son, however great a tyrant he might be” (and, it of natural law or rights, but he did hope that some-
might be added, whatever his ideas on religion). day all governments would adhere to these prin-
While Bodin’s ideas helped lay the foundation for ciples and stop killing their own and one another’s
absolutism, the idea that the monarch should be subjects in the name of religion. Natural law and
the sole and uncontested source of power, his sys- natural rights would play an important role in the
tematic discussion of types of governments im- founding of constitutional governments from the
plied that they might be subject to choice and 1640s forward and in the establishment of various
undercut the notion that monarchies were or- charters of human rights in our own time.
dained by God, as most rulers maintained.

Grotius and Natural Law. During the Dutch re- The Scientific Revolution
volt against Spain, Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) Although the Catholic and Protestant churches en-
furthered secular thinking by attempting to couraged the study of science and many prominent
systematize the notion of “natural law” — laws of scientists were themselves clerics, the search for a
nature that give legitimacy to government and secular, scientific method of determining the laws
stand above the actions of any particular ruler or of nature undermined traditional accounts of
1560–1648 Th e R i s e o f S e c u l a r a n d S c i e n t i f i c Wo r l dv i ew s 475

natural phenomena. Christian doctrine had incor- centrism, the Catholic Inquisition (set up to seek
porated the scientific teachings of ancient philoso- out heretics) arrested him and burned him at the
phers, especially Ptolemy and Aristotle; now these stake.
came into question. A revolution in astronomy Copernicus’s views began to attract wide-
contested the Ptolemaic view, endorsed by the spread attention in the early 1600s, when as-
Catholic church, which held that the sun revolved tronomers systematically collected evidence that
around the earth. Startling breakthroughs took undermined the Ptolemaic view. A leader among
place in medicine, too, which laid the foundations them was the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe
for modern anatomy and pharmacology. Support- (1546–1601), who designed his own instruments
ers of these new developments argued for a scien- and observed a new star in 1572 and a comet in
tific method that would combine experimental 1577. These discoveries called into question the
observation and mathematical deduction. The use traditional view that the universe was unchanging.
of scientific method culminated in the astounding Brahe still rejected heliocentrism, but the assistant
breakthroughs of Isaac Newton at the end of the he employed when he moved to Prague in 1599,
seventeenth century. Newton’s ability to explain the Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), was converted to
motion of the planets, as well as everyday objects the Copernican view. Kepler continued Brahe’s
on earth, gave science enormous new prestige. collection of planetary observations and used the
evidence to develop his three laws of planetary mo-
The Revolution in Astronomy. The traditional tion, published between 1609 and 1619. Kepler’s
account of the movement of the heavens derived laws provided mathematical backing for heliocen-
from the second-century Greek astronomer trism and directly challenged the claim long held,
Ptolemy, who put the earth at the center of the cos- even by Copernicus, that planetary motion was
mos. Above the earth were fixed the moon, the circular. Kepler’s first law stated that the orbits of
stars, and the planets in concentric crystalline the planets are ellipses, with the sun always at one
spheres; beyond these fixed spheres dwelt God and focus of the ellipse.
the angels. The planets revolved around the earth The Italian Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) pro-
at the command of God. In this view, the sun re- vided more evidence to support the heliocentric
volved around the earth; the heavens were perfect view and also challenged the doctrine that the
and unchanging, and the earth was “corrupted.” heavens were perfect and unchanging. After learn-
Ptolemy insisted that the planets revolved in per- ing in 1609 that two Dutch astronomers had built
fectly circular orbits (because circles were more a telescope, he built a better one and observed the
“perfect” than other figures). To account for the earth’s moon, four satellites of Jupiter, the phases
actual elliptical paths that could be observed and of Venus (a cycle of changing physical appear-
calculated, he posited orbits within orbits, or ances), and sunspots. The moon, the planets, and
epicycles. the sun were no more perfect than the earth, he
In 1543, the Polish clergyman Nicolaus Coper- insisted, and the shadows he could see on the
nicus (1473–1543) began the revolution in astron- moon could only be the product of hills and val-
omy by publishing his treatise On the Revolution leys like those on earth. Galileo portrayed the earth
of the Celestial Spheres. Copernicus attacked the as a moving part of a larger system, only one of
Ptolemaic account, arguing that the earth and many planets revolving around the sun, not as the
planets revolved around the sun, a view known as fixed center of a single, closed universe.
heliocentrism (a sun-centered universe). He dis- Because he recognized the utility of the new
covered that by placing the sun instead of the earth science for everyday projects, Galileo published his
at the center of the system of spheres, he could work in Italian, rather than Latin. But he meant
eliminate many epicycles from the calculations. In only to instruct an educated elite of merchants and
other words, he claimed that the heliocentric view aristocrats. The new science, he claimed, suited
simplified the mathematics. Copernicus died soon “the minds of the wise,” not “the shallow minds of
after publishing his theories, but when the Italian the common people.” After all, his discoveries chal-
monk Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) taught helio- lenged the commonsensical view that it is the sun
that rises and sets while the earth stands still. If the
Bible was wrong about motion in the universe, as
scientific method: The combination of experimental observa- Galileo’s position implied, the error came from the
tion and mathematical deduction that was used to determine
the laws of nature and became the secular standard of truth. Bible’s use of common language to appeal to the
heliocentrism: The view articulated by Polish clergyman Nicolaus lower orders. The Catholic church was not molli-
Copernicus that the earth and planets revolve around the sun. fied by this explanation. In 1616, the church for-
476 C h a pt e r 1 5 ■ Wa r s o f R e l i g i o n a n d t h e C l a s h o f Wo r l dv i ew s 1560–1648

The Trial of Galileo


In this anonymous painting of
the trial held in 1633, Galileo
appears seated on a chair in
the center facing the church
officials who accused him of
heresy for insisting that the
sun, not the earth, was the
center of the universe
(heliocentrism). Catholic
officials forced him to recant or
suffer the death penalty. (Erich
Lessing/ Art Resource, NY.)

bade Galileo to teach that the earth moves; then, taught medical theory, not practice) and pursued
in 1633, it accused him of not obeying the earlier his interests in magic, alchemy, and astrology. He
order. Forced to appear before the Inquisition, he also experimented with new drugs and thus helped
agreed to publicly recant his assertion about the establish the modern science of pharmacology.
movement of the earth to save himself from tor- Like Vesalius, the Englishman William Harvey
ture and death. (See Document, “Sentence Pro- (1578–1657) used dissection to examine the cir-
nounced against Galileo,” page 477, and painting, culation of blood within the body, demonstrating
The Trial of Galileo, above.) Afterward, he lived how the heart worked as a pump. The heart and
under house arrest and could publish his work its valves were “a piece of machinery,” Harvey in-
only in the Dutch Republic, which had become a sisted. They obeyed mechanical laws just as the
haven for iconoclastic scientists and thinkers. planets and earth revolved around the sun in a me-
chanical universe. Nature could be understood by
Breakthroughs in Medicine. Just as astronomical experiment and rational deduction, not by follow-
knowledge was based on Ptolemy’s work, medical ing traditional authorities.
knowledge in Europe was, until the mid-sixteenth
century, based on the writings of the second- Scientific Method: Bacon and Descartes. In the
century Greek physician Galen, Ptolemy’s contem- 1630s, the European intellectual elite began to ac-
porary. Galen derived his knowledge of the anatomy cept the new scientific views. Ancient learning, the
of the human body from partial dissections. In the churches and their theologians, and long-standing
same year that Copernicus challenged the tradi- popular beliefs all seemed to be undercut by the
tional account in astronomy (1543), the Flemish scientific method. Two men were chiefly responsi-
scientist Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) did the ble for spreading the reputation of the scientific
same for anatomy. Drawing on public dissections method in the first half of the seventeenth century:
(which had been condemned by the Catholic the English Protestant politician Sir Francis Bacon
church since 1300) he performed himself, Vesalius (1561–1626) and the French Catholic mathemati-
refuted Galen’s work in his illustrated anatomical cian and philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650).
text, On the Construction of the Human Body. The They represented the two essential halves of the
German physician Paracelsus (1493–1541) went scientific method: inductive reasoning through
even further than Vesalius. In 1527, he burned observation and experimental research, and de-
Galen’s text at the University of Basel, where he ductive reasoning from self-evident principles.
was a professor of medicine. Paracelsus performed In The Advancement of Learning (1605), Bacon
operations (at the time, most academic physicians attacked reliance on ancient writers and optimisti-
1560–1648 Th e R i s e o f S e c u l a r a n d S c i e n t i f i c Wo r l dv i ew s 477

DOCUMENT

Sentence Pronounced against Galileo (1633)


In 1633, the Roman Inquisition, a commit- Office [Inquisition] vehemently suspected errors and heresies, and every other er-
tee of cardinals of the Catholic church, of heresy, namely of having held and be- ror and heresy contrary to the Catholic
considered the case against Galileo and pro- lieved a doctrine which is false and con- and Apostolic Church, in the manner
nounced its final judgment. It found Galileo trary to the divine and Holy Scripture: and form we will prescribe to you.
guilty of heresy against Catholic doctrine for that the sun is the center of the world and Furthermore, so that this serious and
defending heliocentrism but allowed him to does not move from east to west, and the pernicious error and transgression of
recant and thus avoid the death penalty earth moves and is not the center of the yours does not remain completely unpun-
usual in cases of heresy. In 1980, Pope John world, and that one may hold and defend ished, and so that you will be more cau-
Paul II appointed a commission to review as probable an opinion after it has been tious in the future and an example for
the evidence and verdict. Four years later, declared and defined contrary to Holy others to abstain from similar crimes, we
the commission published its findings and Scripture. Consequently you have in- order that the book Dialogue [Dialogue
concluded that the judges who condemned curred all the censures and penalties im- Concerning the Two Chief World Systems,
Galileo were wrong. posed and promulgated by the sacred published in 1632] by Galileo Galilei be
canons and all particular and general laws prohibited by public edict.
We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare against such delinquents. We are willing
that you, the above-mentioned Galileo, to absolve you from them provided that
because of the things deduced in the trial first, with a sincere heart and un- Source: Maurice A. Finocchiaro, ed., The Galileo
and confessed by you as above, have ren- feigned faith, in front of us you abjure, Affairs: A Documentary History (Berkeley: Univer-
dered yourself according to this Holy curse, and detest the above-mentioned sity of California Press, 1989), 291.

cally predicted that the scientific method would states. All prior assumptions must be repudiated in
lead to social progress. The minds of the medieval favor of one elementary principle: “I think, there-
scholars, he said, had been “shut up in the cells of fore I am.” Everything else could — and should —
a few authors (chiefly Aristotle, their dictator) as be doubted, but even doubt showed the certain
their persons were shut up in the cells of monas- existence of someone thinking. Begin with the sim-
teries and colleges,” and they could therefore pro- ple and go on to the complex, Descartes asserted,
duce only “cobwebs of learning” that were “of no and believe only those ideas that present themselves
substance or profit.” Advancement would take “clearly and distinctly.” He insisted that human rea-
place only through the collection, comparison, and son could not only unravel the secrets of nature but
analysis of information. Knowledge, in Bacon’s also prove the existence of God. Although he hoped
view, must be empirically based (that is, gained by to secure the authority of both church and state,
observation and experiment). Claiming that God his reliance on human reason rather than faith
had called the Catholic church “to account for irritated authorities, and his books were banned in
their degenerate manners and ceremonies,” Bacon many places. He moved to the Dutch Republic to
looked to the Protestant English state, which he work in peace. Scientific research, like economic
served as lord chancellor, for leadership on the growth, became centered in the northern, Protes-
road to scientific advancement. tant countries, where it was less constrained by
Although Descartes agreed with Bacon’s church control than in the Catholic south.
denunciation of traditional learning, he saw that
the attack on tradition might only replace the dog- Newton and the Consolidation of the Scientific
matism of the churches with the skepticism of Revolution. The power of the new scientific
Montaigne — that nothing at all was certain. method was dramatically confirmed in the grand
Descartes aimed to establish the new science on synthesis of the laws of movement developed by
more secure philosophical foundations, those of the English natural philosopher Isaac Newton
mathematics and logic. In his Discourse on Method (1642–1727). Born five years after the publication
(1637), he argued that mathematical and mechan- of Descartes’s Discourse on Method and educated
ical principles provided the key to understanding at Cambridge University, where he later became a
all of nature, including the actions of people and professor, Newton attacked an astounding variety
478 C h a pt e r 1 5 ■ Wa r s o f R e l i g i o n a n d t h e C l a s h o f Wo r l dv i ew s 1560–1648

of problems in mathematics, mechanics, and op- Magic and Witchcraft


tics. For example, he established the basis for the
new mathematics of moving bodies, the infinites- Despite the new emphasis on clear reasoning, ob-
imal calculus. After years of labor, he finally servation, and independence from past authori-
brought his most significant mathematical and ties, magic and science were still closely linked
mechanical discoveries together in his master- even in the greatest minds. Many scholars, like
work, Principia Mathematica (1687). In it, he de- Paracelsus and Newton, studied alchemy along-
veloped his law of universal gravitation, which side other scientific pursuits. Elizabeth I main-
explained both movement on earth and the mo- tained a court astrologer who was also a serious
tion of the planets. His law held that every body mathematician, and many writers distinguished
in the universe exerts over every other body an at- between “natural magic,” which was close to ex-
tractive force directly proportional to the product perimental science, and demonic “black magic.”
of their masses and inversely proportional to the The astronomer Tycho Brahe defended his studies
square of the distance between them. This law of of alchemy and astrology as part of natural magic.
universal gravitation explained Kepler’s elliptical In a world in which most people believed in
planetary orbits just as it accounted for the way an astrology, magical healing, prophecy, and ghosts,
apple fell to the ground. it is hardly surprising that many of Europe’s
To establish his law of universal gravitation, learned people also firmly believed in witchcraft,
Newton first applied mathematical principles to that is, the exercise of magical powers gained by a
formulate three fundamental physical laws: (1) in pact with the devil. The same Jean Bodin who ar-
the absence of force, motion continues in a straight gued against religious fanaticism insisted on death
line; (2) the rate of change in the motion of an for witches — and for those magistrates who
object is a result of the forces acting on it; and would not prosecute them. In France alone, 345
(3) the action of one object on another has an books and pamphlets on witchcraft appeared be-
equal and opposite reaction. Newtonian physics tween 1550 and 1650. Trials of witches peaked in
thus combined mass, inertia, force, velocity, Europe between 1560 and 1640, the very time of
and acceleration — all key concepts in modern the celebrated breakthroughs of the new science.
science — and made them quantifiable. Newton Montaigne was one of the few to speak out against
knew that the stakes were high: “From the same executing accused witches: “It is taking one’s con-
principles [of motion] I now demonstrate the jectures rather seriously to roast someone alive for
frame of the System of the World.” them,” he wrote in 1580.
Once set in motion, in Newton’s view, the uni- Belief in witches was not new in the sixteenth
verse operated like a masterpiece made possible by century. Witches had long been blamed for de-
the ingenuity of God. Newton saw no con-
flict between faith and science. He believed
that by demonstrating that the physical uni- Giving a Child to Satan
verse followed rational principles, natural This woodcut from Francesco Maria Guazzo’s Compendium
philosophers could prove the existence of Maleficarum of 1608 shows witches giving a child to the
God and so liberate humans from doubt devil. Many believed that witches made a pact with the devil
to carry out his evil deeds. (The Art Archive/ Dagli Orti [A].)
and the fear of chaos. Even while laying the
foundation for modern physics, optics, and
mechanics, Newton spent long hours trying
to calculate the date of the beginning of the
world and its end with the second coming
of Jesus. Others, less devout than Newton,
envisioned a clockwork universe that had
no need for God’s continuing intervention.
Some scientists, especially those on the
continent, were reluctant to accept New-
ton’s planetary theories. The Dutch scien-
tist Christian Huygens, for example,
declared the concept of attraction (action at
a distance) “absurd.” But within a couple of
generations, Newton’s work had gained
widespread assent, partly because of exper-
imental verification.
1560–1648 C o n c lu s i o n 479

stroying crops and causing personal catastrophes gone to their deaths in record numbers. But when
ranging from miscarriage to madness. What was the same groups distanced themselves from pop-
new was official persecution by state and religious ular beliefs, the trials and the executions stopped.
authorities. In a time of economic crisis, plague,
warfare, and the clash of religious differences,
Review: How could belief in witchcraft and the rising
witchcraft trials provided an outlet for social stress prestige of scientific method coexist?
and anxiety, legitimated by state power. Denunci-
ation and persecution of witches coincided with
the spread of reform, both Protestant and
Catholic. Witch trials concentrated especially in Conclusion
the German lands of the Holy Roman Empire, the
boiling cauldron of the Thirty Years’ War. The witchcraft persecutions reflected the traumas
The victims of the persecution were over- of these times of religious war, economic decline,
whelmingly female: women accounted for 80 per- and crises of political and intellectual authority.
cent of the accused witches in about 100,000 trials Faced with new threats, some people blamed poor
in Europe and North America during the sixteenth widows or struggling neighbors for their prob-
and seventeenth centuries. About one-third were lems; others joined desperate revolts, and still oth-
sentenced to death. Before 1400, when witchcraft ers emigrated to the New World to seek a better
trials were rare, nearly half of those accused had life. Even rulers confronted frightening choices:
been men. Why did attention now shift to women? forced abdication, death in battle, or assassination
Official descriptions of witchcraft oozed lurid de- often accompanied their religious decisions, and
tails of sexual orgies, incest, homosexuality, and economic shocks could threaten the stability of
cannibalism, in which women acted as the devil’s their governments.
sexual slaves. Social factors help explain the promi- Deep differences over religion shaped the des-
nence of women among the accused. Accusers tinies of every European power in this period.
were almost always better off than those they ac- These quarrels came to a head in the Thirty Years’
cused. The poorest and most socially marginal War (1618–1648), which cut a path of destruction
people in most communities were elderly spinsters through central Europe and involved most of the
and widows. Because they were thought likely to European powers. Repulsed by the effects of reli-
hanker after revenge on those more fortunate, they gious violence on international relations, Euro-
were singled out as witches. pean rulers agreed to a peace that effectively
Witchcraft trials declined when scientific removed disputes between Catholics and Protes-
thinking about causes and effects raised questions tants from the international arena. The growing
about the evidence used in court: how could judges separation of political motives from religious ones
or jurors be certain that someone was a witch? The did not mean that violence or conflict had ended,
tide turned everywhere at about the same time, as however. Struggles for religious uniformity within
physicians, lawyers, judges, and even clergy came states would continue, though on a smaller scale.
to suspect that accusations were based on popular Larger armies required more state involvement,
superstition and peasant untrustworthiness. As and almost everywhere rulers emerged from these
early as the 1640s, French courts ordered the ar- decades of war with expanded powers that they
rest of witch-hunters and released suspected would seek to extend further in the second half of
witches. In 1682, a French royal decree treated the seventeenth century. The growth of state power
witchcraft as fraud and imposture, meaning that directly changed the lives of ordinary people: more
the law did not recognize anyone as a witch. In men went into the armies, and most families paid
1693, the jurors who had convicted twenty witches higher taxes. The constant extension of state power
in Salem, Massachusetts, recanted, claiming: “We is one of the defining themes of modern history;
confess that we ourselves were not capable to un- religious warfare gave it a jump-start.
derstand. . . . We justly fear that we were sadly de- For all their power and despite repeated ef-
luded and mistaken.” The Salem jurors had not forts, rulers could not control economic, social, or
stopped believing in witches; they had simply lost intellectual trends. The economic downturn of the
confidence in their ability to identify them. This seventeenth century produced unexpected conse-
was a general pattern. Popular attitudes had not quences for European states even while it made
changed; what had changed was the attitudes of life miserable for many ordinary people; eco-
the elites. When physicians and judges had be- nomic power and vibrancy shifted from the Med-
lieved in witches and carried out official persecu- iterranean world to northwestern Europe be-
tions, with torture, those accused of witchcraft had cause England, France, and the Dutch Republic,
480 C h a pt e r 1 5 ■ Wa r s o f R e l i g i o n a n d t h e C l a s h o f Wo r l dv i ew s 1560–1648

MA P P I N G T H E W E ST

Catholic NORWAY SWEDEN


Orthodox
Lutheran RUSSIA
Calvinist
SCOTLAND
Anglican
North

a
Islamic

Se
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c
Boundary of the DENMARK lti
Holy Roman Empire Ba
Stripes = mixed religions IRELAND DUTCH
REPUBLIC
POLAND-
LITHUANIA
0 150 300 miles
ENGLAND Vis BRANDENBURG-
0 150 300 kilometers Elb tul
aR PRUSSIA
eR .

.
N
SPANISH NETH.
W Dn
ie s te
r R.
E Bohemia
Moravia Y
S .
G AR

R
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Rhine
R.
Loire H
AUSTRIA
ATLANTIC
SWISS
OCEAN FRANCE CONFED.

OT e R.
Danub
A TO
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PAPAL r i
MA
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Se
a
PORTUGAL Rome 
Tagu
sR .
S PA I N Aegean
Sea

Mediterranean Sea

The Religious Divisions of Europe, c. 1648


The Peace of Westphalia recognized major religious divisions within Europe that have endured
for the most part to the present day. Catholicism dominated in southern Europe, Lutheranism
had its stronghold in northern Europe, and Calvinism flourished along the Rhine River. In
southeastern Europe, the Islamic Ottoman Turks accommodated the Greek Orthodox Christians
under their rule but bitterly fought the Catholic Austrian Habsburgs for control of Hungary.

especially, suffered less from the fighting of the fervently, but they did insist that attention to state
Thirty Years’ War and recovered more quickly from interests and scientific knowledge could diminish
the loss of population and production during religious violence and popular superstitions.
bad times.
In the face of violence and uncertainty, some
began to look for secular alternatives in art, poli- For Further Exploration
tics, and science. Although it would be foolish to ■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
claim that everyone’s mental universe changed be- for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
cause of the clash between religious and secular end of the book.
worldviews, a truly monumental shift in attitudes
had begun. Secularization encompassed the grow- ■ For additional primary-source material from
this period, see Chapter 15 in Sources of THE
ing popularity of nonreligious forms of art, such
MAKING OF THE WEST, Third Edition.
as theater and opera; the search for nonreligious
foundations of political authority; and the estab- ■ For Web sites and documents related to topics
lishment of scientific method as the standard of in this chapter, see Make History at
truth. Proponents of these changes did not re- bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
nounce their religious beliefs or even hold them less
1560–1648 C h a pt e r R ev i ew 481

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
Key Terms and People Making Connections
Catherine de Médicis Peace of Westphalia 1. How did the balance of power shift in Europe between 1560
(453) (463) and 1648? What were the main reasons for the shift?
Edict of Nantes (455) raison d’état (464) 2. Relate the new developments in the arts and sciences to the
politiques (455) secularization (471) political and economic changes of this period of crisis.
Philip II (455) baroque (472)
Lepanto (455) scientific method (475)
Elizabeth I (458) heliocentrism (475) For practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other
Puritans (458) study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.

Review Questions
1. How did state power depend on religious unity at the
end of the sixteenth century and start of the seventeenth?
2. Why did a war fought over religious differences result in
stronger states?
3. What were the consequences of economic recession in
the early 1600s?
4. How could belief in witchcraft and the rising prestige of sci-
entific method coexist?

Important Events

1562 French Wars of Religion begin 1598 French Wars of Religion end with Edict of
1566 Revolt of Calvinists in the Netherlands Nantes
against Spain begins 1601 William Shakespeare, Hamlet
1569 Formation of commonwealth of Poland- 1618 Thirty Years’ War begins
Lithuania 1625 Hugo Grotius publishes The Laws of War and Peace
1571 Battle of Lepanto marks victory of West over 1633 Galileo Galilei is forced to recant his support of
Ottomans at sea heliocentrism
1572 St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of French 1635 French join the Thirty Years’ War by declaring war
Protestants on Spain
1588 English defeat of the Spanish Armada 1648 Peace of Westphalia ends the Thirty Years’ War
State Building and C H A P T E R

the Search for Order


1648–1690
16
Louis XIV: Absolutism and
Its Limits 484
• The Fronde, 1648–1653
• Court Culture as an Element
of Absolutism
n May 1664, King Louis XIV of France organized a weeklong series • Enforcing Religious Orthodoxy

I of entertainments for his court at Versailles, where he had recently


begun construction of a magnificent new palace. More than six hun-
dred members of his court attended the series of spectacles called “The
• Extending State Authority at
Home and Abroad

Absolutism in Central and


Eastern Europe 492
Delights of the Enchanted Island.” The carefully orchestrated activities
• Brandenburg-Prussia: Militaristic
opened with an elaborate parade of the king and his courtiers, accom- Absolutism
• An Uneasy Balance: Austrian Habsburgs
panied by an eighteen-foot-high float in the form of a chariot dedi- and Ottoman Turks
cated to Apollo, Greek god of the sun and Louis’s personally chosen • Russia: Setting the Foundations
of Bureaucratic Absolutism
emblem. The king’s favorite artists presented works specially prepared for • Poland-Lithuania Overwhelmed
the occasion, including ballets, plays, and musical concerts. Equestrian
Constitutionalism in England 497
tournaments, visits to the king’s personal collection of wild animals • England Turned Upside Down,
and birds, and a huge fireworks display captivated the audience. Every 1642–1660
• The Glorious Revolution of 1688
detail of the festivities appeared in an official program published the • Social Contract Theory:
same year. Hobbes and Locke

Louis XIV spared no expense in promoting his image, especially to Outposts of Constitutionalism 505
those most dangerous to him, the leading nobles of his kingdom. Other • The Dutch Republic
• Freedom and Slavery in the New World
mid-seventeenth-century rulers followed his example or explicitly re-
jected it, but they could not afford to ignore it. All governments faced The Search for Order in
Elite and Popular Culture 509
the daunting task of rebuilding authority after the wars over religion
• Freedom and Constraint in
and the economic recession of the early seventeenth century. As part the Arts and Sciences
• Women and Manners
of his campaign to underline his majesty, Louis encouraged leading • Reforming Popular Culture
nobles to dispense huge sums to entertain him and his court. He always
spent even more in order to show that he was richer and more pow-
erful than any noble or than any other monarch.
Louis XIV’s model of state building was known as absolutism, a
system of government in which the ruler claims sole and uncontestable
power. Although absolutism exerted great influence beginning in the
mid-1600s, especially in central and eastern Europe, it faced competition

Louis XIV and His Bodyguards


One of Louis XIV’s court painters, the Flemish artist Adam Frans van der Meulen,
depicted the king arriving at the palace of Versailles, still under construction (the
painting dates from 1669). None of the gardens, pools, or statues had been installed.
Louis is the only figure facing the viewer, and his dress is much more colorful than
that of anyone else in the painting. (Réunion des Musées Nationaux/ Art Resource, NY.)

483
484 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

from constitutionalism, a system in which the as a major source of disorder. Whether absolutist
ruler shares power with an assembly of elected rep- or constitutionalist, seventeenth-century states all
resentatives. Constitutionalism led to weakness in aimed to extend control over their subjects’ lives.
Poland-Lithuania, but it provided a strong foun-
dation for state power in England, the Dutch
Focus Question: What were the most important
Republic, and the British North American colonies.
differences between absolutism and constitutionalism,
Constitutionalism triumphed in England, how- and how did they establish order?
ever, only after one king had been executed as a
traitor and another had been deposed. The Eng-
lish conflicts over the nature of authority found
their most enduring expression in the writings of
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, which laid the Louis XIV: Absolutism
foundations of modern political science. and Its Limits
Whether absolutist or constitutionalist, nations
faced similar challenges in the mid-seventeenth French king Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715) personified
century. Competition in the international arena the absolutist ruler, who in theory shared his
required resources, and all states raised taxes in this power with no one. Louis personally made all im-
period, provoking popular protests and rebellions. portant state decisions and left no room for dis-
Monarchs still relied on religion to justify their sent. In 1655, he reputedly told the Paris high court
divine right to rule, but they increasingly sought of justice, “L’état, c’est moi” (“I am the state”), em-
secular defenses of their powers, too. Absolutism phasizing that state authority rested in him per-
and constitutionalism were the two main re- sonally. Louis cleverly manipulated the affections
sponses to the threat of disorder and breakdown and ambitions of his courtiers, chose as his min-
left as a legacy of the wars over religion. isters middle-class men who owed everything to
The search for order took place not only in him, built up Europe’s largest army, and snuffed
government and politics but also in intellectual, out every hint of religious or political opposition.
cultural, and social life. Artists sought means of glo- Yet the absoluteness of his power should not be
rifying power and expressing order and symmetry exaggerated. Like all other rulers of his time, Louis
in new fashion. As states consolidated their power, depended on the cooperation of many people:
elites endeavored to distinguish themselves more local officials who enforced his decrees, peasants
clearly from the lower orders. The upper classes and artisans who joined his armies and paid his
emulated the manners developed at court and tried taxes, creditors who loaned crucial funds, clergy
in every way to distance themselves from anything who preached his notion of Catholicism, and
viewed as vulgar or lower class. Officials, clergy, and nobles who joined court festivities rather than stay-
laypeople all worked to reform the poor, now seen ing home and causing trouble.

constitutionalism: A system of government in which rulers Louis XIV: French king (r. 1643–1715) who personified the ab-
share power with parliaments made up of elected representa- solutist ruler; in theory he shared his power with no one, but
tives. in practice he had to gain the cooperation of nobles, local offi-
absolutism: A system of government in which the ruler claims cials, and even the ordinary subjects who manned his armies
sole and uncontestable power. and paid his taxes.

■ 1642–1646 English civil war ■ 1649 Charles I beheaded;


new Russian legal code

■ 1651 Hobbes, Leviathan ■ 1660 Monarchy restored in England

1640 1650 1660

■ 1648 Peace of Westphalia; ■ 1661 Barbados


Fronde revolt in France; institutes slave code
Ukranian Cossacks rebel;
Dutch Republic recognized as independent
1648–1690 Lo u i s X I V: A b s o lu t i s m a n d I t s L i m i t s 485

The Fronde, 1648–1653


Louis XIV’s absolutism built on a long French tra-
dition of increasing centralization of state author-
ity, but before he could establish his preeminence
he had to weather a series of revolts known as the
Fronde. Derived from the French word for a child’s
slingshot, the term was used by critics to signify
that the revolts were mere child’s play. In fact, how-
ever, they posed an unprecedented threat to the
French crown. Louis was only five when he came
to the throne in 1643 upon the death of his father,
Louis XIII, who with his chief minister, Cardinal
Richelieu, had steered France through increasing
involvement in the Thirty Years’ War, rapidly
climbing taxes, and innumerable tax revolts. Louis
XIV’s mother, Anne of Austria, and her Italian-
born adviser and rumored lover, Cardinal Mazarin
(1602–1661), ruled in the young monarch’s name.
To meet the financial pressure of fighting the
Thirty Years’ War, Mazarin sold new offices, raised
taxes, and forced creditors to extend loans to the
government. In 1648, a coalition of his opponents
presented him with a charter of demands that, if
granted, would have given the parlements (high
courts) a form of constitutional power with the Louis XIV, Conqueror of the Fronde
right to approve new taxes. Mazarin responded by In this painting of 1654, Louis XIV is depicted as the Roman god
arresting the leaders of the parlements. He soon Jupiter, who crushes the discord of the Fronde (represented on the
faced the series of revolts that at one time or an- shield by the Medusa’s head made up of snakes). When the Fronde
other involved nearly every social group in France. began, Louis was only ten years old; at the time of this painting, he
The Fronde posed an immediate menace to was sixteen. The propaganda about his divine qualities had already
the young king. Fearing for his safety, his mother begun. (Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY.)
and members of his court took Louis and fled
Paris. With civil war threatening, Mazarin and
Anne agreed to compromise with the parlements. Mazarin, carrying messages and forging alliances,
The nobles saw an opportunity to reassert their especially when male family members were in
claims to power against the weakened monarchy prison. While the nobles sought to regain power
and renewed their demands for greater local con- and local influence, the middle and lower classes
trol, which they had lost when the French Wars of chafed at the repeated tax increases. Conflicts
Religion ended in 1598. Leading noblewomen erupted throughout the kingdom as nobles, par-
often played key roles in the opposition to lements, and city councils all raised their own

■ 1683 Austrian Habsburgs break Turkish siege of Vienna

■ 1667 First of Louis XIV’s many wars ■ 1685 Louis XIV revokes Edict of Nantes

1670 1680 1690

■ 1678 Madame de Lafayette, ■ 1688 William and Mary crowned


The Princess of Clèves
■ 1690 Locke, Two Treatises of
Government; Essay Concerning
Human Understanding
486 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

armies to fight either the crown as a whole was still very far removed from the sen-

MAN EMPIR E
ENGLAND
or each other, and rampaging timents in which I trust you will find it.” Louis
SPANISH NETH. soldiers devastated rural areas listed many other problems in the kingdom, but
Beauvais
Se  and disrupted commerce. The none occupied him more than his attempts to con-
in Paris
eR 
. urban poor, such as those in the trol France’s leading nobles, some of whom came

H O LY R O
R.
Loire southwestern city of Bordeaux, from families that had opposed him militarily dur-
Franche-
Comté sometimes revolted as well. ing the Fronde.
FRANCE Neither the nobles nor the Typically quarrelsome, the French nobles had
.

Bordeaux
judges of the parlements really long exercised local authority by maintaining their
Rhône R

wanted to overthrow the king; own fighting forces, meting out justice on their es-
Aix-en-
Provence they simply wanted a greater tates, arranging jobs for underlings, and resolving
Marseille
share in power. Mazarin and their own conflicts through dueling. Louis set out to
S PA I N 0 150 300 miles Anne eventually got the upper domesticate the warrior nobles by replacing
0 150 300 kilometers hand because their opponents violence with court ritual, such as the festivities at
Revolts of the Fronde failed to maintain unity in Versailles described at the beginning of this chap-
fighting the king’s forces. But ter. Using a systematic policy of bestowing pen-
The Fronde, 1648–1653 Louis XIV never forgot the hu- sions, offices, honors, gifts, and the threat of
miliation and uncertainty that disfavor or punishment, Louis induced the nobles
marred his childhood. His own policies as ruler to cooperate with him and made himself the cen-
would be designed to prevent the recurrence of any ter of French power and culture. The aristocracy
such revolts. Yet, for all his success, peasants would increasingly vied for his favor, attended the ballets
revolt against the introduction of new taxes on at and theatricals he put on, and learned the rules of
least five more occasions in the 1660s and 1670s, etiquette he supervised — in short, became his
requiring tens of thousands of soldiers to reestab- clients, dependent on him for advancement. Great
lish order. Absolutism was in part a fervent hope nobles competed for the honor of holding his shirt
and not always a reality. when he dressed, foreign ambassadors squabbled
for places near him, and royal mistresses basked in
the glow of his personal favor. Far from the court,
Court Culture as an Element
however, nobles could still make considerable
of Absolutism trouble for the king, and royal officials learned to
When Cardinal Mazarin died in 1661, Louis XIV, compromise with them.
then twenty-two years old, decided to rule with- Those who did come to the king’s court were
out a first minister. He described the dangers of kept on their toes. The preferred styles changed
his situation in memoirs he wrote later for his son’s without notice, and the tiniest lapse in attention
instruction: “Everywhere was disorder. My Court to etiquette could lead to ruin. Madame de

Louis XIV Visits the Royal Tapestry


Workshop
This tapestry was woven at the Gobelins
tapestry workshop between 1673 and
1680. It shows Louis XIV (wearing a red
hat) and his minister Colbert (dressed
in black, holding his hat) visiting the
workshop on the outskirts of Paris. The
workshop artisans scurry to show Louis
all the luxury objects they manufacture.
Louis bought the workshop in 1662 and
made it a national enterprise for making
tapestries and furniture. (Bridgeman-
Giraudon / Art Resource, NY.)
1648–1690 Lo u i s X I V: A b s o lu t i s m a n d I t s L i m i t s 487

DOCUMENT

Marie de Sévigné, Letter Describing the French Court (1675)


Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de court, she could also write about it with bit- ness. You talk of the pleasures of Versailles,
Sévigné (1626–1696), was the most famous ing wit. and at the time when they were off to
letter writer of her time. A noblewoman Fontainebleau to plunge into joys, lo and
born in Paris, she frequented court circles They [the king and his court] were to set behold M. De Turenne [commander of the
and wrote about her experiences to her off today for Fontainebleau [one of the French armies during the Dutch War]
friends and relatives, especially her daugh- king’s castles near Paris], where the enter- killed, general consternation, Monsieur le
ter. Although not published in her lifetime, tainments were to become boring by their Prince [de Condé, another leading gen-
her letters soon gained fame and were copied very multiplicity. Everything was ready eral], rushing off to Germany, France in
and read by those in her circle. She wrote when a bolt fell from the blue that shat- desolation. Instead of seeing the end of the
her later letters with this audience in mind tered the joy. The populace says it is on ac- campaigns and having your brother back
and so downplayed her own personal feel- count of Quantova [Sévigné’s nickname [Sévigné’s son served in the army], we
ings, except those of missing her daughter to for the king’s mistress, Madame de Mon- don’t know where we are. There you have
whom she was deeply attached. This letter tespan, who gave birth to seven children the world in its triumph and, since you like
from 1675 to her daughter recounts court fathered by Louis XIV], the attachment is them, surprising events.
intrigue surrounding Louis XIV’s mistress still intense. Enough fuss is being made to
and the shock when one of France’s leading upset the curé [priest] and everybody else, Source: Madame de Sévigné: Selected Letters,
generals was killed in battle. Though Sévi- but perhaps not enough for her, for in her translated Leonard Tancock (New York: Penguin
gné enjoyed spending time at Louis XIV’s visible triumph there is an underlying sad- Books, 1982), 165.

Lafayette described the court in her novel The ries vaunted his achievements, and coins and
Princess of Clèves (1678): “The Court gravitated medals spread his likeness throughout the realm.
around ambition. Nobody was tranquil or indif- The king’s officials treated the arts as a branch
ferent — everybody was busily trying to better his of government. The king gave pensions to artists
or her position by pleasing, by helping, or by hin- who worked for him and sometimes protected
dering somebody else.” Elisabeth Charlotte, duchess writers from clerical critics. The most famous of
of Orléans, the German-born sister-in-law of these was the playwright Molière, whose comedy
Louis, complained that “everything here is pure Tartuffe (1664) made fun of religious hypocrites
self-interest and deviousness.” (See Document, and was loudly condemned by church leaders.
“Marie de Sévigné, Letter Describing the French Louis forced Molière to delay public performances
Court,” above.) of the play after its premiere at the festivities of
May 1664 but resisted calls for his dismissal.
Politics and the Arts. Louis XIV appreciated the Louis’s ministers set up royal academies of dance,
political uses of every form of art. Mock battles, painting, architecture, music, and science and took
extravaganzas, theatrical performances, even the control of the Académie française (French Acad-
king’s dinner — Louis’s daily life was a public per- emy), which to this day decides on correct usage
formance designed to enhance his prestige. Call- of the French language. Louis’s government also
ing himself the Sun King, after Apollo, Greek god regulated the number and locations of theaters and
of the sun, Louis stopped at nothing to burnish closely censored all forms of publication.
this radiant image. He played Apollo in ballets per- Music and theater enjoyed special promi-
formed at court; posed for portraits with the em- nence. Louis commissioned operas to celebrate
blems of Apollo (laurel, lyre, and tripod); and royal marriages, baptisms, and military victories.
adorned his palaces with statues of the god. He His favorite composer, Jean-Baptiste Lully, wrote
also emulated the style and methods of ancient sixteen operas for court performances as well
Roman emperors. At a celebration for the birth of as many ballets. Louis himself danced in the bal-
his first son in 1662, Louis dressed in Roman at- lets if a role seemed especially important. Play-
tire, and many engravings and paintings showed wrights often presented their new plays first to the
him as a Roman emperor. Commissioned histo- court. Pierre Corneille and Jean-Baptiste Racine
488 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

wrote tragedies set in Greece or Rome that cele- lines showed that art and design could tame nature
brated the new aristocratic virtues that Louis and that order and control defined the exercise of
aimed to inculcate: a reverence for order and self- power. Le Nôtre’s geometrical landscapes were
control. All the characters were regal or noble, all later imitated in places as far away as St. Petersburg
the language lofty, all the behavior aristocratic. in Russia and Washington, D.C. Versailles symbol-
ized Louis’s success in reining in the nobility and
The Palace of Versailles. Louis glorified his im- dominating Europe, and other monarchs eagerly
age as well through massive public works projects. mimicked French fashion and often conducted
Veterans’ hospitals and new fortified towns on the their business in French.
frontiers represented his military might. Urban Yet for all its apparent luxury and frivolity, life
improvements, such as the reconstruction of the at Versailles was often cramped and cold. Fifteen
Louvre palace in Paris, proved his wealth. But his thousand people crowded into the palace’s apart-
most ambitious project was the construction of a ments, including all the highest military officers,
new palace at Versailles, twelve miles from the tur- the ministers of state, and the separate households
bulent capital (see illustration below). of each member of the royal family. Refuse col-
Building began in the 1660s. By 1685, the fren- lected in the corridors during the incessant build-
zied effort engaged thirty-six thousand workers, ing, and thieves and prostitutes overran the
not including the thousands of troops who diverted grounds. By the time Louis actually moved from
a local river to supply water for pools and foun- the Louvre to Versailles in 1682, he had reigned as
tains. The gardens designed by landscape architect monarch for thirty-nine years. After his wife’s
André Le Nôtre reflected the spirit of Louis XIV’s death in 1683, he secretly married his mistress,
rule: their geometrical arrangements and clear Françoise d’Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon, and

The Palace of Versailles


This painting by Jean-Baptiste Martin from the late seventeenth century gives a good
view of one section of the palace and especially the geometrically arranged gardens.
What would observers conclude about Louis XIV when they viewed this scene?
(Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY.)
1648–1690 Lo u i s X I V: A b s o lu t i s m a n d I t s L i m i t s 489

conducted most state affairs from her apartments After many years of escalating pressure on the
at the palace. Her opponents at court complained Calvinist Huguenots, Louis decided in 1685 to
that she controlled all the appointments, but her eliminate all of the Calvinists’ rights. Louis consid-
efforts focused on her own projects, including her ered the Edict of Nantes (1598), by which his
favorite: the founding in 1686 of a royal school grandfather Henry IV granted the Protestants re-
for girls from impoverished noble families. She ligious freedom and a degree of political inde-
also inspired Louis XIV to increase his devotion to pendence, a temporary measure, and he fervently
Catholicism. hoped to reconvert the Huguenots to Catholicism.
His revocation of the Edict of Nantes closed their
churches and schools, banned all their public ac-
Enforcing Religious Orthodoxy tivities, and exiled those who refused to embrace
Louis believed that he reigned by divine right. He the state religion. Tens of thousands of Huguenots
served as God’s lieutenant on earth and even responded by emigrating to England, Brandenburg-
claimed certain godlike qualities. As Bishop Prussia, the Dutch Republic, or North America.
Jacques-Benigne Bossuet (1627–1704) explained, Many now wrote for publications attacking Louis
“We have seen that kings take the place of God, XIV’s absolutism. Protestant European countries
who is the true father of the human species. We were shocked by this crackdown on religious dis-
have also seen that the first idea of power which sent and would cite it in justification of their wars
exists among men is that of the paternal power; against Louis.
and that kings are modeled on fathers.” The king,
like a father, should instruct his subjects in the true
religion, or at least make sure that others did so.
Extending State Authority
In religious questions, too, the king’s endeavors to at Home and Abroad
gain more complete control showed both his wide- Louis XIV could not have enforced his religious
ranging ambition and the nature of the obstacles policies without the services of a nationwide bu-
he faced. reaucracy. Bureaucracy — a network of state offi-
Louis’s campaign for religious conformity first cials carrying out orders according to a regular and
focused on the Jansenists, Catholics whose doctrines routine line of authority — comes from the French
and practices resembled some aspects of Protes- word bureau, for “desk,” which came to mean
tantism. Following the posthumous publication of “office,” both in the sense of a physical space and
the book Augustinus (1640) by the Flemish theolo- a position of authority. Louis personally super-
gian Cornelius Jansen (1585–1638), the Jansenists vised the activities of his bureaucrats and worked
stressed the need for God’s grace in achieving salva- to ensure his supremacy in all matters. But he al-
tion. They emphasized the importance of original ways had to negotiate with nobles and local offi-
sin and resembled the English Puritans in their cials who sometimes thwarted his will.
austere religious practice. Prominent among the
Jansenists was Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), a mathe- Bureaucracy and Mercantilism. Louis extended
matician of genius, who wrote his Provincial Letters the bureaucratic forms his predecessors had devel-
(1656–1657) to defend Jansenism against charges of oped, especially the use of intendants, officials who
heresy. Many judges in the parlements likewise held their positions directly from the king rather
endorsed Jansenist doctrine. than owning their offices, as crown officials had tra-
Some questioned Louis’s understanding of the ditionally done. Louis handpicked an intendant for
finer points of doctrine: according to his sister-in- each region to represent his rule against entrenched
law, Louis himself “has never read anything about local interests such as the parlements, provincial es-
religion, nor the Bible either, and just goes along tates, and noble governors; they supervised the col-
believing whatever he is told.” But Louis rejected lection of taxes, the financing of public works, and
any doctrine that gave priority to considerations the provisioning of the army. In 1673, Louis decreed
of individual conscience over the demands of the that the parlements could no longer vote against his
official church hierarchy, especially when that doc- proposed laws or even speak against them. His
trine had been embraced by some noble support-
ers of the Fronde. Louis preferred teachings that
stressed obedience to authority. Therefore, in 1660 revocation of the Edict of Nantes: French king Louis XIV’s de-
he began enforcing various papal bulls (decrees) cision to eliminate the rights of Calvinists granted in the edict
of 1598; Louis banned all Calvinist public activities and forced
against Jansenism and closed down Jansenist the- those who refused to embrace the state religion to flee.
ological centers. Jansenists were forced under- bureaucracy: A network of state officials carrying out orders ac-
ground for the rest of his reign. cording to a regular and routine line of authority.
490 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

intendants reduced local powers over finances and emies. Although later economists questioned the
insisted on more efficient tax collection. value of this state intervention in the economy,
Louis’s success in consolidating his authority virtually every government in Europe embraced
depended on hard work, an eye for detail, and an mercantilism.
ear to the ground. In his memoirs he described the Colbert’s mercantilist projects extended to
tasks he set for himself: Canada, where in 1663 he took control of the
trading company that had founded New France.
to learn each hour the news concerning every province
and every nation, the secrets of every court, the mood He aimed to regulate all economic activity in the
and weaknesses of each Prince and of every foreign colonies. For example, he forbade colonial busi-
minister; to be well-informed on an infinite number of nesses from manufacturing anything already pro-
matters about which we are supposed to know nothing; duced in mainland France. With the goal of
to elicit from our subjects what they hide from us with establishing permanent settlements like those in
the greatest care; to discover the most remote opinions the British North American colonies, he trans-
of our courtiers and the most hidden interests of those
planted several thousand peasants from western
who come to us with quite contrary professions [claims].
France to the present-day province of Quebec,
To gather all this information, Louis relied on a se- which France had claimed since 1608. He also
ries of talented ministers, usually of modest origins, tried to limit expansion westward, without suc-
who gained fame, fortune, and even noble status cess. Despite initial interruption of French fur-
from serving the king. Most important among them trading convoys by the Iroquois, in 1672 fur
was Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–1683), the son of trader Louis Jolliet and Jesuit missionary Jacques
a wool merchant turned royal official. Colbert had Marquette reached the upper Mississippi River
managed Mazarin’s personal finances and worked and traveled downstream as far as Arkansas. In
his way up under Louis XIV to become head of 1684, French explorer Sieur de La Salle went all
royal finances, public works, and the navy. He the way down to the Gulf of Mexico, claiming a
founded a family dynasty that eventually produced vast territory for Louis XIV and calling it
five ministers of state, an archbishop, two bishops, Louisiana after him. Colbert’s successors em-
and three generals. braced the expansion he had resisted, thinking it
Colbert used the bureaucracy to establish a crucial to competing successfully with the Eng-
new economic doctrine, mercantilism. According lish and the Dutch in the New World.
to mercantilist policy, governments must inter-
vene to increase national wealth by whatever The Army and War. Colonial settlement occupied
means possible. Such government intervention only a small portion of Louis XIV’s attention, how-
inevitably increased the role and eventually the ever, for his main foreign policy goal was to extend
number of bureaucrats needed. Under Colbert, French power in Europe. In pursuing this purpose,
the French government established overseas trad- he inevitably came up against the Spanish and Aus-
ing companies, granted manufacturing monopo- trian Habsburgs, whose lands encircled his. To
lies, and standardized production methods for expand French power, Louis needed the biggest
textiles, paper, and soap. A government inspection possible army. His powerful ministry of war cen-
system regulated the quality of finished goods and tralized the organization of French troops. Bar-
compelled all craftsmen to organize into guilds, racks built in major towns received supplies from
in which masters could supervise the work of the a central distribution system. The state began to
journeymen and apprentices. To protect French provide uniforms for the soldiers and to offer vet-
production, Colbert rescinded many internal cus- erans some hospital care. A militia draft instituted
toms fees but enacted high foreign tariffs, which in 1688 supplemented the army in times of war
cut imports of competing goods. To compete and enrolled a hundred thousand men. Louis’s
more effectively with England and the Dutch Re- wartime army could field a force as large as that
public, Colbert also subsidized shipbuilding, a of all his enemies combined.
policy that dramatically expanded the number of Absolutist governments always tried to in-
seaworthy vessels. Such mercantilist measures crease their territorial holdings, and as Louis ex-
aimed to ensure France’s prominence in world tended his reach, he gained new enemies. In
markets and to provide the resources needed to 1667–1668, in the War of Devolution (so called
fight wars against the increasingly long list of en- because Louis claimed that lands in the Spanish
Netherlands should devolve to him since the Span-
mercantilism: The doctrine that governments must intervene to ish king had failed to pay the dowry of Louis’s
increase national wealth by whatever means possible. Spanish bride), Louis defeated the Spanish armies
1648–1690 Lo u i s X I V: A b s o lu t i s m a n d I t s L i m i t s 491

but had to make peace when England, Sweden, and WARS OF LOUIS XIV
the Dutch Republic joined the war. In the Treaty
of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1668, he gained control of a
few towns on the border of the Spanish Nether- 1667–1668 War of Devolution
lands. Pamphlets sponsored by the Habsburgs ac-
Enemies: Spain, Dutch Republic, England, Sweden
cused Louis of aiming for “universal monarchy,”
or domination of Europe. Ended by Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1668, with
In 1672, Louis XIV opened hostilities against France gaining towns in Spanish Netherlands
the Dutch because they stood in the way of his (Flanders)
acquisition of more territory in the Spanish 1672–1678 Dutch War
Netherlands. He declared war again on Spain in Enemies: Dutch Republic, Spain, Holy Roman
1673. By now the Dutch had allied themselves Empire
with their former Spanish masters to hold off the Ended by Treaty of Nijmegen, 1678–1679, which
French. Louis also marched his troops into terri- gave several towns in Spanish Netherlands and
tories of the Holy Roman Empire, provoking Franche-Comté to France
many of the German princes to join with the em-
1688–1697 War of the League of Augsburg
peror, the Spanish, and the Dutch in an alliance
against Louis, now denounced as a “Christian Enemies: Holy Roman Empire, Sweden, Spain,
England
Turk” for his imperialist ambitions. But the
French armies more than held their own. Faced Ended by Peace of Rijswijk, 1697, with Louis
with bloody but inconclusive results on the bat- returning all his conquests made since 1678
tlefield, the parties agreed to the Treaty of Nij- except Strasbourg
megen of 1678–1679, which ceded several
Flemish towns and the Franche-Comté region to
Louis, linking Alsace to the rest of France. French
government deficits soared, and in 1675 increases the private armies of his noble courtiers, he con-
in taxes touched off the most serious antitax re- stantly promoted his own military prowess in or-
volt of Louis’s reign. der to keep his noble officers under his sway. He
Louis had no intention of standing still. Heart- had miniature battle scenes painted on his high
ened by the Habsburgs’ seeming weakness, he heels and commissioned tapestries showing his
pushed eastward, seizing the city of Strasbourg in military processions into cities, even those he did
1681 and invading the province of Lorraine in not take by force. He seized every occasion to as-
1684. In 1688, he attacked some of the small Ger- sert his supremacy, insisting that other fleets salute
man cities of the Holy Roman Empire. As Louis’s his ships first.
own mental powers diminished with age, he ap- War required money and men, which Louis
parently lost all sense of measure. His armies laid obtained by expanding state control over finances,
waste to German cities such as Mannheim; his gov- conscription, and military supply. Thus, abso-
ernment ordered the local military commander to lutism and warfare fed each other as the bureau-
“kill all those who would still wish to build houses cracy created new ways to raise and maintain an
there.” Between 1689 and 1697, a coalition known army and the army’s success in war justified fur-
as the League of Augsburg — made up of England, ther expansion of state power. But constant war-
Spain, Sweden, the Dutch Republic, the Austrian fare also eroded the state’s resources. Further
emperor, and various German princes — fought administrative and legal reform, the elimination of
Louis XIV to a stalemate. When hostilities ended the buying and selling of offices, and the lowering
in the Peace of Rijswijk in 1697, Louis returned of taxes — all were made impossible by the need
many of his conquests made since 1678 with the for more money.
exception of Strasbourg (Map 16.1). Louis never Ordinary people suffered the most for Louis’s
lost his taste for war, but his allies learned how to ambitions. By the end of the Sun King’s reign, one
set limits on his ambitions. (See Chapter 17 for the in six Frenchmen had served in the military. Louis
end of Louis’s reign.) XIV’s armies swelled to twice the size of the armies
Louis was the last French ruler before France fielded during the Thirty Years’ War. In ad-
Napoleon to accompany his troops to the battle- dition to the higher taxes paid by everyone, those
field. In later generations, as the military became who lived on the routes leading to the battlefields
more professional, French rulers left the fighting had to house and feed soldiers; only nobles were
to their generals. Although Louis had eliminated exempt from this requirement. Fulfilling these
492 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

France in 1667
Acquisitions to 1668 E NG L AND Nor th
Sea

IC
Treaty of Nijmegen, 1678

BL
Treaty of Rijswijk, 1697 Amsterdam

PU
Rijswijk  
RE
Utrecht  CH
DUT 

SPA
0 50 100 miles
Flanders Nijmegen H O LY
nn el
0 50 100 kilometers English Cha

NI
 Cologne

SH
N NEBrussels 

Rhine
TH
W
Rouen ER ROMAN
E  LAN

R
Normandy DS

.
S
Brittany Luxembourg Frankfurt

Se
in
Paris


eR
EMPIRE

.
Mannheim

e
in
r ra
Nantes
 Orléans Alsace

Lo
Lo 
 ir Strasbourg
Tours

eR
AT L A N T I C

.
OCEAN FRANCE 
Basel
Franche-
Comté SWISS
CONFEDERATION
Bordeaux Geneva


Lyon
SAVOY
R. MILAN
ône
Rh

Toulouse


 Marseille
S PA I N
Medite r ranean Sea

MAP 16.1 Louis XIV’s Acquisitions, 1668–1697


Every ruler in Europe hoped to extend his or her territorial control, and war was often the
result. Louis XIV steadily encroached on the Spanish Netherlands to the north and the lands
of the Holy Roman Empire to the east. Although coalitions of European powers reined in
Louis’s grander ambitions, he nonetheless incorporated many neighboring territories into
the French crown.

demands could be difficult, if not impossible, es-


pecially during the months from November to
Absolutism in Central
March when weather made military campaigns and Eastern Europe
difficult. Soldiers had to be fed, even when locals
found themselves living off the food stored from Central and eastern European rulers saw in Louis
the previous fall harvest. When food fell short, sol- XIV a powerful model of absolutist state building,
diers sometimes gave in to the temptation to pil- yet they did not blindly emulate the Sun King, in
lage, extort, or steal from local residents. part because they confronted conditions peculiar
to their regions. The ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia
had to rebuild lands ravaged by the Thirty Years’
Review: How “absolute” was the power of Louis XIV? War and unite far-flung territories. The Austrian
Habsburgs needed to govern a mosaic of ethnic
1648–1690 A b s o lu t i s m i n C e n t r a l a n d E a s t e r n E u ro p e 493

TAKING MEASURE

Ratio of soldiers/ The Seventeenth-Century Army


State Soldiers Population total population The figures in this chart are only ap-
proximate, but they tell an important
France 300,000 20 million 1:66 story. What conclusions can you draw
about the relative weight of the mili-
Russia 220,000 14 million 1:64 tary in the different European states?
Why would England have such a
Austria 100,000 8 million 1:80 smaller army than the others? Is the
absolute or the relative size of the
Sweden 40,000 1 million 1:25 military the most important indicator?
(From André Corvisier, Armées et sociétés en
Brandenburg- 30,000 2 million 1:66 Europe de 1494 à 1789 (Paris: Presses
Prussia Universitaires de France, 1976), 126.)

England 24,000 10 million 1:410

*Figures for the end of the seventeenth century, ranging from 1688 for Prussia to 1710 for France

and religious groups while fighting off the construction, Frederick William was determined to
Ottoman Turks. The Russian tsars wanted to force his territories’ estates (representative assem-
extend their power over an extensive but relatively blies) to grant him a dependable income. The Great
impoverished empire. The great exception to ab- Elector struck a deal with the Junkers (nobles) of
solutism in eastern Europe was Poland-Lithuania, each province: in exchange for allowing him to col-
where a long crisis virtually destroyed central au- lect taxes, he gave them complete control over their
thority and pulled much of eastern Europe into its enserfed peasants and exempted them from taxa-
turbulent wake. tion. The tactic worked. By the end of his reign, the
estates met only on ceremonial occasions.
Supplied with a steady income, Frederick
Brandenburg-Prussia:
William could devote his attention to military and
Militaristic Absolutism bureaucratic consolidation. Over forty years he ex-
Brandenburg-Prussia began as a puny state on the panded his army from eight thousand to thirty
Elbe River, but it had a remarkable future. In the thousand men. (See “Taking Measure,” above.) The
nineteenth century, it would unify the disparate army mirrored the rigid domination of nobles over
German states into modern-day Germany. The peasants that characterized Brandenburg-Prussian
ruler of Brandenburg was an elector, one of society: peasants filled the ranks, and Junkers be-
the seven German princes entitled to select the came officers. Nobles also took positions as bu-
Holy Roman Emperor. Since the sixteenth century reaucratic officials, but military needs always had
the ruler of Brandenburg had also controlled the priority. The elector named special war commis-
duchy of East Prussia; after 1618, the state was sars to take charge not only of military affairs but
called Brandenburg-Prussia. Despite meager re- also of tax collection. To hasten military dis-
sources, Frederick William of Hohenzollern, patches, he also established one of Europe’s first
who was the Great Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia state postal systems.
(r. 1640–1688), succeeded in welding his scattered As a Calvinist ruler, Frederick William avoided
lands into an absolutist state. the ostentation of the French court, even while fol-
Pressured first by the necessities of fighting the lowing the absolutist model of centralizing state
Thirty Years’ War and then by the demands of re- power. He boldly rebuffed Louis XIV by welcom-
ing twenty thousand French Huguenot refugees af-
ter Louis’s revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In
Frederick William of Hohenzollern: The Great Elector of Bran- pursuing foreign and domestic policies that pro-
denburg-Prussia (r. 1640–1688) who brought his nation
through the end of the Thirty Years’ War and then succeeded moted state power and prestige, Frederick William
in welding his scattered lands into an absolutist state. adroitly switched sides in Louis’s wars and would
494 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

stop at almost nothing to crush resistance at home. of Upper and Lower Silesia, count of Tyrol, arch-
In 1701, his son Frederick I (r. 1688–1713) per- duke of Upper and Lower Austria, king of
suaded Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I to grant Bohemia, king of Hungary and Croatia, and ruler
him the title “king in Prussia.” Prussia had arrived of Styria and Moravia (Map 16.2). Some of these
as an important power. territories were provinces in the Holy Roman
Empire; others were simply ruled from Vienna as
Habsburg family holdings.
An Uneasy Balance: Austrian
In response to the weakening of the Holy Ro-
Habsburgs and Ottoman Turks man Empire by the ravages of the Thirty Years’
Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I (r. 1658–1705) War, the emperor and his closest officials took con-
ruled over a variety of territories of different eth- trol over recruiting, provisioning, and strategic
nicities, languages, and religions, yet in ways sim- planning and worked to replace the mercenaries
ilar to his French and Prussian counterparts, he hired during the war with a permanent standing
gradually consolidated his power. In addition to army that promoted professional discipline. To pay
holding Louis XIV in check on his western fron- for the army and staff his growing bureaucracy,
tiers, Leopold confronted the ever-present chal- Leopold gained the support of local aristocrats and
lenge of the Ottoman Turks to the east. chipped away at provincial institutions’ powers.
Intent on replacing Bohemian nobles who had
The Austrian Version of Absolutism. Like all the supported the 1618 revolt against Austrian author-
Holy Roman Emperors since 1438, Leopold was an ity, the Habsburgs promoted a new nobility made
Austrian Habsburg. He was simultaneously duke up of Czechs, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and

a
Se Brandenburg-Prussian territory in 1640
c
North lti Brandenburg-Prussian territory acquired to 1688
Sea Ba Königsberg
Eastern  Austrian Habsburg territory in 1648
Pomerania Lands taken from Turks by Austrian Habsburgs,
Elb 1683–1699
DUTCH e R.
REPUBLIC Ravensburg
Cleve 
Berlin
BRANDENBURG-
 Mark PRUSSIA POLAND- RUSSIA
SPANISH Cologne Magdeburg Saxony LITHUANIA
NETHERLANDS Silesia
R hi

HOLY
ne R

ROMAN
.

EMPIRE Bohemia Moravia


N
AUSTRIA
Da E
nuVienna
be R 
W
.
S
Styria Buda Pest Transylvania

FRANCE SWISS
Tyrol
Carinthia
CONFEDERATION HUNGARY
Carniola
a
a ti
ro

Karlowitz
C 

B la ck Se a
A
dr

OTTOMAN EMPIRE
ia
ti
c
Se

BA LK A N S 0 200 400 miles


a

Mediterranean Sea
0 200 400 kilometers

MAP 16.2 State Building in Central and Eastern Europe, 1648–1699


The Austrian Habsburgs had long contested the Ottoman Turks for dominance of eastern Europe, and
by 1699 they had pushed the Turks out of Hungary. In central Europe, the Austrian Habsburgs
confronted the growing power of Brandenburg-Prussia, which had emerged from relative obscurity
after the Thirty Years’ War to begin an aggressive program of expanding its military and its territorial
base. As emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the Austrian Habsburg ruler governed a huge expanse
of territory, but the emperor’s control was in fact only partial because of guarantees of local autonomy.
1648–1690 A b s o lu t i s m i n C e n t r a l a n d E a s t e r n E u ro p e 495

even Irish who used German as their common


tongue, professed Catholicism, and loyally served
the Austrian dynasty. Bohemia became a virtual
Austrian colony. “Woe to you,” lamented a Czech
Jesuit in 1670, addressing Leopold, “the nobles you
have oppressed, great cities made small. Of smil-
ing towns you have made straggling villages.” Aus-
trian censors prohibited publication of this protest
for over a century.

Battle for Hungary. Austria had fought the Turks


for control of Hungary for more than 150 years.
In 1682, when war broke out again, Leopold I’s
Austria controlled the northwest section of
Hungary; the Turks occupied the center; and in the
east, the Turks demanded tribute from the Hun-
garian princes who ruled Transylvania. In 1683, the
Turks pushed all the way to the gates of Vienna
and laid siege to the Austrian capital. With the help
of Polish cavalry, the Austrians finally broke the
siege and turned the tide in a major counteroffen-
sive (see illustration at right). By the Treaty of Kar-
lowitz of 1699, the Ottoman Turks surrendered
almost all of Hungary to the Austrians, marking
the beginning of the decline of Ottoman power.
Hungary’s “liberation” from the Turks came at
a high price. The fighting laid waste vast stretches
of Hungary’s central plain, and the population
may have declined by as much as 65 percent in the
The Siege of Vienna, 1683
seventeenth century. Once the Turks had been
This detail from a painting by Franz Geffels shows the camp of the
beaten back, Austrian rule over Hungary tight- Ottoman Turks. The Turkish armies had surrounded Vienna since July
ened. In 1687, the Habsburg dynasty’s hereditary 14, 1683. Jan Sobieski led an army of Poles who joined with Austrians
right to the Hungarian crown was acknowledged and Germans to beat back the Turks on September 12, 1683.
by the Hungarian diet, a parliament revived by (© The Art Archive/ Corbis.)
Leopold in 1681 to gain the cooperation of Hun-
garian nobles. The diet was dominated by a core
of pro-Habsburg Hungarian aristocrats who verted to Islam, administration passed gradually
would support the dynasty until it fell in 1918; into their hands. The Ottoman state would last
Austrians and Hungarians looked down on the longer than the French absolutist monarchy.
other ethnic groups, such as Croats and Romani- Nevertheless, the seventeenth century marked a
ans, who had enjoyed considerable autonomy un- period of cultural decline in the eyes of the Turks
der the Ottoman Turks. To root out remaining themselves.
Turkish influence and assert Austrian superiority, The Ottoman rulers, the sultans, were often
Leopold systematically destroyed Turkish build- challenged by mutinous army officers, but they
ings and rebuilt Catholic churches, monasteries, rarely faced peasant revolts. Rather than resisting
roadside shrines, and monuments in the flamboy- state authorities, Ottoman peasants periodically
ant Austrian baroque style. worked for the state as mercenaries. The sultans
played elites off each other, absorbing some into
Ottoman State Authority. The Ottoman Turks the state bureaucracy and pitting one level of au-
also pursued state consolidation, but in a very dif- thority against another. Despite frequent palace
ferent fashion from Leopold I and other European coups and assassinations of sultans, the Ottoman
rulers. The Ottoman state extended its authority state survived. This constantly shifting social and
through a combination of settlement and military political system explains how the Ottoman state
control. Hundreds of thousands of Turkish fami- could appear weak in Western eyes and still pose
lies moved with Turkish soldiers into the Balkan a massive military threat on Europe’s southeastern
peninsula in the 1400s and 1500s. As locals con- borders.
496 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

Russia: Setting the Foundations soil and to their noble masters. To prevent tax eva-
of Bureaucratic Absolutism sion, the code also forbade townspeople to move
from the community where they resided. Nobles
Seventeenth-century Russia seemed a world apart owed absolute obedience to the tsar and were re-
from the Europe of Leopold I and Louis XIV. quired to serve in the army, but in return no other
Straddling Europe and Asia, the Russian lands group could own estates worked by serfs. Serfs be-
stretched across Siberia to the Pacific Ocean. West- came the chattel of their lord, who could sell them
ern visitors either sneered or shuddered at the like horses or land. Their lives differed little from
“barbarism” of Russian life, and Russians recipro- those of the slaves on the plantations in the
cated by nursing deep suspicions of everything for- Americas.
eign. But under the surface, Russia was evolving as Some peasants resisted enserfment. In 1667,
an absolutist state; the tsars wanted to claim un- Stenka Razin, the head of a powerful band of pi-
limited autocratic power, but like their European rates and outlaws in southern Russia, led a rebel-
counterparts they had to surmount internal disor- lion that promised liberation from “the traitors
der and come to an accommodation with noble and bloodsuckers of the peasant communes” —
landlords. the great noble landowners, local governors, and
Moscow courtiers. Captured four years later by the
Serfdom and the Code of 1649. When Tsar tsar’s army, Razin was taken to Moscow, where he
Alexei (r. 1645–1676) tried to extend state author- was dismembered in front of the public and his
ity by imposing new administrative structures and body thrown to the dogs (see illustration at left).
taxes in 1648, Moscow and other cities erupted in Thousands of his followers also suffered grisly
bloody rioting. The government immediately deaths, but his memory lived on in folk songs and
doused the fire. In 1649, Alexei convened the As- legends. Landlords successfully petitioned for the
sembly of the Land (consisting of noble delegates abolition of the statute of limitations on runaway
from the provinces) to consult on a sweeping law serfs, the use of state agents in searching for run-
code to organize Russian society in a strict social aways, and harsh penalties against those who har-
hierarchy that would last for nearly two centuries. bored runaways. The increase in Russian state
The code of 1649 assigned all subjects to a hered- authority went hand in hand with the enforcement
itary class according to their current occupation or of serfdom.
state needs. Slaves and free peasants were merged
into a serf class. As serfs, they could not change oc- The Tsar’s Absolute Powers. To extend his power
cupations or move; they were tightly tied to the and emulate his western rivals, Tsar Alexei wanted a
bigger army, exclusive control over state policy,
and a greater say in religious matters. The size of
Stenka Razin in Captivity
After leading a revolt of thousands of serfs, peasants, and members of
the army increased dramatically from 35,000 in
non-Russian tribes of the middle and lower Volga region, Stenka Razin the 1630s to 220,000 by the end of the century. The
was captured by Russian forces and led off to Moscow, as shown here, Assembly of the Land, once an important source
where he was executed in 1671. He has been the subject of songs, of noble consultation, never met again after 1653.
legends, and poems ever since. (RIA Novosti.) Alexei also imposed firm control over the Russian
Orthodox church. In 1666, a church council reaf-
firmed the tsar’s role as God’s direct representative
on earth. The state-dominated church took action
against a religious group called the Old Believers,
who rejected church efforts to bring Russian wor-
ship in line with Byzantine tradition. Whole com-
munities of Old Believers starved or burned
themselves to death rather than submit. Religious
schism opened a gulf between the Russian people
and the crown.

Stenka Razin: The head of a powerful band of pirates and out-


laws in southern Russia, who in 1667 led a rebellion that prom-
ised peasants liberation from noble landowners and officials;
Razin was captured by the tsar’s army in 1671 and publicly ex-
ecuted in Moscow.
1648–1690 C o n s t i tu t i o n a l i s m i n E n g l a n d 497

Nevertheless, modernizing trends prevailed. shtetls (Jewish villages), where


Territory lost
As the state bureaucracy expanded, adding more they took up petty trading, to Russia, 1667 Volga R.
officials and establishing regulations and routines, moneylending, tax gathering, SWEDEN
the government intervened more and more in and tavern leasing — activities RUSSIA
daily life. Decrees regulated tobacco smoking, card that fanned peasant anti-Semi-
POLAND-
playing, and alcohol consumption and even dic- tism. Desperate for protection LITHUANIA Kiev
BRANDENBURG- UKRAINE
tated how people should leash and fence their pet amid the war, most Polish PRUSSIA
dogs. Tsar Alexei set up the first Western-style Protestants backed the vio- AUSTRIA Transylvania
theater in the Kremlin, and his daughter Sophia lently anti-Catholic Swedes, HUNGARY Black Sea
D a nube R.
translated French plays. The most adventurous and the victorious Catholic OT TOM
AN E
nobles began to wear German-style clothing. Some majority branded them as trai- 0 250 500 miles MPI
RE
even argued that service and not just birth should tors. Some Protestant refugees 0 250 500 kilometers
determine rank. Russia’s long struggle over Western fled to the Dutch Republic and Poland-Lithuania in the
influences had begun. England. In Poland-Lithuania Seventeenth Century
it came to be assumed that a
good Pole was a Catholic. The commonwealth had
Poland-Lithuania Overwhelmed ceased to be an outpost of toleration.
Unlike Russia and the other eastern European The commonwealth revived briefly when a
powers, Poland-Lithuania did not follow the abso- man of ability and ambition, Jan Sobieski
lutist model. Decades of war weakened the monar- (r. 1674–1696), was elected king. He gained a rep-
chy and made the great nobles into virtually utation throughout Europe when he led twenty-
autonomous warlords. The great nobles domi- five thousand Polish cavalrymen into battle in the
nated the Sejm (parliament), and to maintain an siege of Vienna in 1683. His cavalry helped rout
equilibrium among themselves, they each wielded the Turks and turned the tide against the
an absolute veto power. This “free veto” constitu- Ottomans. Married to a politically shrewd French
tional system deadlocked parliamentary govern- princess, Sobieski openly admired Louis XIV’s
ment. The monarchy lost its room to maneuver, France. Despite his efforts to rebuild the monarchy,
and with it much of its remaining power. he could not halt Poland-Lithuania’s decline into
In 1648, Ukrainian Cossack warriors revolted powerlessness. The Polish version of constitution-
against the king of Poland-Lithuania, inaugurat- alism fatally weakened the state and made it prey
ing two decades of tumult known as the Deluge. to neighboring powers.
Cossack was the name given to runaway serfs and
poor nobles who formed outlaw bands in the
Review: Why did absolutism flourish everywhere in
no-man’s-land of southern Russia and Ukraine
eastern Europe except Poland-Lithuania?
(Stenka Razin was a Cossack). The Polish nobles
who claimed this potentially rich land scorned the
Cossacks as troublemakers, but to the Ukrainian
peasant population they were liberators. In 1654,
the Cossacks offered Ukraine to Russian rule, pro- Constitutionalism
voking a Russo-Polish war that ended in 1667 in England
when the tsar annexed eastern Ukraine and Kiev.
Neighboring powers tried to profit from the chaos In the second half of the seventeenth century, west-
in Poland-Lithuania; Sweden, Brandenburg-Prussia, ern and eastern European states began to move in
and Transylvania sent armies to seize territory. different directions. In eastern Europe, nobles
Many towns were destroyed in the fighting, lorded over their serfs but owed almost slavish
and as much as a third of the Polish population obedience in turn to their rulers. In western
perished. The once prosperous Jewish and Protes- Europe, even in absolutist France, serfdom had al-
tant minorities suffered greatly: some fifty-six most entirely disappeared and nobles and rulers
thousand Jews were killed by either the Cossacks, the alike faced greater challenges to their control. The
Polish peasants, or the Russian troops, and thou- greatest challenges of all would come in England.
sands more had to flee or convert to Christianity. This outcome might seem surprising, for the
One rabbi wrote, “We were slaughtered each day, English monarchs enjoyed many advantages com-
in a more agonizing way than cattle: they are pared with their continental rivals: they needed
butchered quickly, while we were being executed less money for their armies because they had
slowly.” Surviving Jews moved from towns to stayed out of the Thirty Years’ War, and their
498 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

island kingdom’s population was only one-fourth agitated for the removal of any vestiges of Catholi-
the size of France’s and of relatively homogeneous cism, but Charles, married to a French Catholic,
ethnicity, making it, in theory at least, easier to moved Anglicanism in the opposite direction in
rule. Yet the English rulers failed in their efforts to the 1630s. With Charles’s encouragement, the arch-
install absolutist policies. The English revolutions bishop of Canterbury, William Laud (1573–1645),
of 1642–1660 and 1688–1689 overturned two imposed increasingly elaborate ceremonies on the
kings, confirmed the constitutional powers of an Anglican church. Angered by these moves toward
elected parliament, and laid the foundation for the “popery,” the Puritans poured forth reproving
idea that government must guarantee certain pamphlets and sermons. In response, Laud hauled
rights to the people under the law. them before the feared Court of Star Chamber,
which the king personally controlled. The court
ordered harsh sentences for Laud’s Puritan critics;
England Turned Upside
they were whipped, pilloried, branded, and even
Down, 1642–1660 had their ears cut off and their noses split. When
Disputes about the right to levy taxes and the na- Laud tried to apply his policies to Scotland, how-
ture of authority in the Church of England had ever, they backfired completely: the stubborn Pres-
long troubled the relationship between the English byterian Scots rioted against the imposition of the
crown and Parliament. For more than a hundred Anglican prayer book — the Book of Common
years, wealthy English landowners had been accus- Prayer — and in 1640 they invaded the north of
tomed to participating in government through England. To raise money to fight the war, Charles
Parliament and expected to be consulted on royal called Parliament into session and unwittingly
policy. Although England had no single constitu- opened the door to a constitutional and religious
tional document, a variety of laws, judicial deci- crisis.
sions, charters and petitions granted by the king, The Parliament of 1640 did not intend revo-
and customary procedures all regulated relations lution, but reformers in the House of Commons
between king and Parliament. When Charles I (the lower house of Parliament) wanted to undo
tried to assert his authority over Parliament, a civil what they saw as the royal tyranny of the 1630s.
war broke out. It set in motion an unpredictable Parliament removed Laud from office, ordered the
chain of events, which included an extraordinary execution of an unpopular royal commander,
ferment of religious and political ideas. Some his- abolished the Court of Star Chamber, repealed re-
torians view the English civil war of 1642–1646 as cently levied taxes, and provided for a parliamen-
the last great war of religion because it pitted Pu- tary assembly at least once every three years, thus
ritans against those trying to push the Anglican establishing a constitutional check on royal au-
church toward Catholicism; others see in it the first thority. Moderate reformers expected to stop there
modern revolution because it gave birth to dem- and resisted Puritan pressure to abolish bishops
ocratic political and religious movements. and eliminate the Anglican prayer book. But their
hand was forced in January 1642, when Charles
Charles I versus Parliament. When Charles I and his soldiers invaded Parliament and tried un-
(r. 1625–1649) succeeded his father, James I, he successfully to arrest those leaders who had moved
faced an increasingly aggressive Parliament that to curb his power. Faced with mounting opposition
resisted new taxes and resented the king’s efforts within London, Charles quickly withdrew from the
to extend his personal control. In 1628, Parliament city and organized an army.
forced Charles to agree to the Petition of Right, by
which he promised not to levy taxes without its Civil War and the Challenge to All Authorities.
consent. Charles hoped to avoid further interfer- The ensuing civil war between king and Parliament
ence with his plans by simply refusing to call Par- lasted four years (1642–1646) and divided the
liament into session between 1629 and 1640. country. The king’s army of royalists, known as
Without it, the king’s ministers had to find every Cavaliers, enjoyed the most support in northern
loophole possible to raise revenues. They tried to and western England. The parliamentary forces,
turn “ship money,” a levy on seaports in times of called Roundheads because they cut their hair
emergency, into an annual tax collected every- short, had their stronghold in the southeast, in-
where in the country. The crown won the ensuing cluding London. Although Puritans dominated on
court case, but many subjects still refused to pay the parliamentary side, they were divided among
what they considered to be an illegal tax. themselves about the proper form of church gov-
Religious tensions brought conflicts over the ernment: the Presbyterians wanted a Calvinist
king’s authority to a head. The Puritans had long church with some central authority, whereas the
1648–1690 C o n s t i tu t i o n a l i s m i n E n g l a n d 499

Independents favored entirely 0 50 100 miles before God and greater participa-
autonomous congregations free SCOTLAND 0 50 100 kilometers tion in church governance ap-
from other church government 
Edinburgh pealed to the middle and lower
North
(hence the term congregational- Sea classes. The Baptists, for example,
ism, often associated with the In- Ulster insisted on adult baptism because
dependents). The Puritans put they believed that Christians
aside their differences for the sake should choose their own church
IRELAND ENGLAND
of military unity and united Cambridge
and that every child should not
Naseby  
under an obscure member of the (1645) automatically become a member
House of Commons, the country Oxford
 London

of the Church of England. The
gentleman Oliver Cromwell Quakers demonstrated their be-
(1599–1658), who sympathized a n n el liefs in equality and the inner
h Ch
with the Independents. After E n g lis light by refusing to doff their hats
Cromwell skillfully reorganized Area supporting Parliament to men in authority. Manifesting
in 1643
the parliamentary troops, his Area supporting Royalists
their religious experience by
New Model Army defeated the in December 1643 trembling, or “quaking,” the
Cavaliers at the battle of Naseby  Battle Quakers believed that anyone —
in 1645. Charles surrendered in man or woman — inspired by a
England during the Civil War
1646. direct experience of God could
Although the civil war be- preach.
tween king and Parliament had ended in victory Parliamentary leaders feared that the new sects
for Parliament, divisions within the Puritan ranks would overturn the whole social hierarchy. Ru-
now came to the fore: the Presbyterians dominated mors abounded, for example, of naked Quakers
Parliament, but the Independents controlled the
army. The disputes between the leaders drew
lower-class groups into the debate. (See “Contrast- The World Turned Upside Down
ing Views,” page 500.) When Parliament tried to The print from 1647 conveys the anxieties many people felt
disband the New Model Army in 1647, disgrun- in the midst of religious and political upheaval. Nothing is
tled soldiers protested. Called Levellers because of as it should be: the feet are where the hands should be,
their insistence on leveling social differences, the the cart comes before the horse, a fish flies, and the wheel-
soldiers took on their officers in a series of debates barrow pushes the person. (By permission of the British Library.)
about the nature of political authority. The Lev-
ellers demanded that Parliament meet annually,
that members be paid so as to allow common
people to participate, and that all male heads of house-
holds be allowed to vote. Their ideal of political
participation excluded servants, the propertyless,
and women but offered access to artisans, shop-
keepers, and modest farmers. Cromwell and other
army leaders rejected the Levellers’ demands as
threatening to property owners. Cromwell in-
sisted, “You have no other way to deal with these
men but to break them in pieces. . . . If you do not
break them they will break you.”
Just as political differences between Presbyte-
rians and Independents helped spark new politi-
cal movements, so too their conflicts over church
organization fostered the emergence of new reli-
gious doctrines. The new sects had in common
only their emphasis on the “inner light” of indi-
vidual religious inspiration and a disdain for hier-
archical authority. Their emphasis on equality

Levellers: Disgruntled soldiers in Cromwell’s New Model Army


who wanted to “level” social differences and extend political
participation to all male property owners.
500 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

CONTRASTING VIEWS

The English Civil War

The civil war between Charles I and Parliament (1642–1646) ex- England, being at this day very unequally distributed by Coun-
cited furious debates about the proper forms of political authority, de- ties, Cities, and Borough for the election of their deputies in Par-
bates that influenced political thought for two centuries or more. The liament, ought to be more indifferently [equally] proportioned
Levellers, who served in the parliamentary army, wanted Parliament according to the number of the inhabitants. . . . That the power
to be more accountable to ordinary men like themselves (Document 1). of this, and all future Representatives of this Nation, is inferior
After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Lucy Hutchinson wrote only to theirs who choose them, and doth extend, without the
a memoir in which she complained that Puritan had become a term consent or concurrence of any other person or persons [the
of political slander. Her memoir shows how religious terms had been king], to the enacting, altering, and repealing of laws, to the erect-
politicized by the upheaval (Document 2). Thomas Hobbes, in his ing and abolishing of offices and courts, to the appointing, re-
famous political treatise Leviathan (1651), develops the consequences moving, and calling to account magistrates and officers of all
of the civil war for political theory (Document 3).
degrees, to the making of war and peace, to the treating with for-
eign States [in other words, Parliament is the supreme power, not
1. The Levellers, “The Agreement of the People, the king]. . . . These things we declare to be our native rights, and
as Presented to the Council of the Army” therefore are agreed and resolved to maintain them with our ut-
(October 28, 1647) most possibilities against all opposition whatsoever.
Note especially two things about this document: (1) it focuses on Source: Samuel Rawson Gardiner, ed., The Constitutional Documents of the
Parliament as the chief instrument of reform, and (2) it claims that Puritan Revolution, 1625–1660 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906), 333–35.
government depends on the consent of the people.

Since, therefore, our former oppressions and scarce-yet-ended 2. Lucy Hutchinson, Memoirs of the
troubles have been occasioned, either by want of frequent na- Life of Colonel Hutchinson (1664–1671)
tional meetings in Council [Parliament], or by rendering those Lucy Hutchinson wrote her memoir to defend her Puritan husband,
meetings ineffectual, we are fully agreed and resolved to provide who had been imprisoned upon the restoration of the monarchy.
that hereafter our representatives be neither left to an uncertainty
for the time nor made useless to the ends for which they are in- If any were grieved at the dishonour of the kingdom, or the grip-
tended. In order whereunto we declare: — That the people of ing of the poor, or the unjust oppressions of the subject by a

running through the streets waiting for “a sign.” nently in street demonstrations, distributed tracts,
Some sects did advocate sweeping change. The and occasionally even dressed as men, wearing
Diggers promoted rural communism — collective swords and joining armies. The duchess of
ownership of all property. Seekers and Ranters Newcastle complained in 1650 that women were
questioned just about everything. One notorious “affecting a Masculinacy . . . practicing the behav-
Ranter, John Robins, even claimed to be God. A iour . . . of men.” The outspoken women in new
few men advocated free love. These developments sects like the Quakers underscored the threat of a
convinced the political elite that tolerating the new social order turning upside down.
sects would lead to skepticism, anarchism, and
debauchery. Oliver Cromwell. At the heart of the continuing
In keeping with their notions of equality and political struggle was the question of what to do
individual inspiration, many of the new sects pro- with the king, who tried to negotiate with the Pres-
vided opportunities for women to become preach- byterians in Parliament. In late 1648, Independents
ers and prophets. The Quakers thought women in the army purged the Presbyterians from Parlia-
especially capable of prophecy. One such prophet, ment, leaving a “rump” of about seventy members.
Anna Trapnel, explained her vocation: “For in all This Rump Parliament then created a high court
that was said by me, I was nothing, the Lord put to try Charles I. The court found him guilty of at-
all in my mouth, and told me what I should say.” tempting to establish “an unlimited and tyranni-
Women presented petitions, participated promi- cal power” and pronounced a death sentence. On
1648–1690 C o n s t i tu t i o n a l i s m i n E n g l a n d 501

thousand ways invented to maintain the riots of the courtiers removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of
and the swarms of needy Scots the king had brought in to de- the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters;
vour like locusts the plenty of this land, he was a puritan; if any no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and dan-
showed favour to any godly, honest person, kept them company, ger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty,
relieved them in want, or protected them against violent and un- brutish, and short. The only way to erect such a Common Power,
just oppression, he was a puritan. . . . In short, all that crossed as may be able to defend them from the invasion of Forraigners,
the views of the needy courtiers, the proud encroaching priests, and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in
the thievish projectors [speculators], the lewd nobility and such sort, as that by their owne industrie, and by the Fruites of
gentry . . . all these were puritans; and if puritans, then enemies the Earth, they may nourish themselves and live contentedly; is,
to the king and his government, seditious, factious hypocrites, to conferre all their power and strength upon one Man, or upon
ambitious disturbers of the public peace, and finally the pest of one Assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills, by plural-
the kingdom. ity of voices, unto one Will. . . . This is more than Consent, or
Concord; it is a reall Unitie of them all, in one and the same Per-
Source: Christopher Hill and Edmund Dell, eds., The Good Old Cause: The son, made by Covenant of every man with every man. . . . This
English Revolution of 1640–1660, Its Causes, Course and Consequences
done, the Multitude so united in one Person, is called a
(London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1949), 179–80.
COMMON-WEALTH, in latine CIVITAS. This is the Generation
of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speake more reverently)
of that Mortall God, to which wee owe under the Immortall God,
3. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651) our peace and defence.
In this excerpt, Hobbes depicts the anarchy of a society without a
Source: Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Richard E. Flathman and David
strong central authority, but he leaves open the question of whether Johnston (New York: Norton, 1997), 70, 95.
that authority should be vested in “one Man” or “one Assembly of
men,” that is, a king or a parliament.
Questions to Consider
During the time men live without a common Power to keep them
1. Why would both the king and the parliamentary leaders find
all in awe, they are in that condition which is called Warre; and
the Levellers’ views disturbing?
such a warre, as is of every man, against every man. . . . In such
2. Why did Hobbes’s arguments about political authority upset
condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof
supporters of both monarchy and Parliament?
is uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Nav-
igation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by
Sea; no commodious Building; no Instrument of moving, and

January 30, 1649, Charles was beheaded before an


enormous crowd, which reportedly groaned as one
when the axe fell. Although many had objected to
Charles’s autocratic rule, few had wanted him
killed. For royalists, Charles immediately became
a martyr, and reports of miracles, such as the cur-
ing of blindness by the touch of a handkerchief
soaked in his blood, soon circulated.
The Rump Parliament abolished the monar-
chy and the House of Lords (the upper house of

Execution of Charles I
This print of the execution of English king
Charles I appeared on the first page of the
fictitious confessions of his executioner, Richard
Brandon, who supposedly claimed to feel pains
in his own neck from the moment he cut off
Charles’s head. (© British Library, London, UK/ The
Bridgeman Art Library.)
502 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

The new regime aimed to extend state power


just as Charles I had before. Cromwell laid the
foundation for a Great Britain made up of
England, Ireland, and Scotland by reconquering
Scotland and subduing Ireland. Anti-English reb-
els in Ireland had seized the occasion of troubles
between king and Parliament to revolt in 1641.
When his position was secured in 1649, Cromwell
went to Ireland with a large force and easily de-
feated the rebels, massacring whole garrisons and
their priests. He encouraged expropriating the
lands of the Irish “barbarous wretches,” and Scot-
tish immigrants resettled the northern county of
Ulster. This seventeenth-century English conquest
left a legacy of bitterness that the Irish even today
call “the curse of Cromwell.” In 1651, Parliament
turned its attention overseas, putting mercantilist
ideas into practice in the first Navigation Act,
which allowed imports only if they were carried
on English ships or came directly from the pro-
ducers of goods. The Navigation Act was aimed at
the Dutch, who dominated world trade; Cromwell
tried to carry the policy further by waging naval
Oliver Cromwell war on the Dutch from 1652 to 1654.
In this painting of 1649, Robert Walker deliberately At home, however, Cromwell faced growing
evokes previous portraits of English kings. Cromwell is
resistance. His wars required a budget twice the
shown preparing for battle in Ireland (note the shore
and sea on Cromwell’s right); he holds the baton of
size of Charles I’s, and his increases in property
military command, and a young page is tying on a taxes and customs duties alienated landowners
sash, symbol of his rank. Cromwell lived an austere and merchants. The conflict reached a crisis in
life; he is depicted here without any sign of luxury. 1653: Parliament considered disbanding the army,
When he died, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, whereupon Cromwell abolished the Rump Parlia-
but in 1661 his body was exhumed and hanged in its ment in a military coup and made himself Lord
shroud. His head was cut off and displayed outside Protector. He now silenced his critics by banning
Westminster Hall for nearly twenty years. (National newspapers and using networks of spies to read
Portrait Gallery, London.) mail and keep tabs on his enemies. When
Cromwell died in 1658, the diarist John Evelyn
claimed, “There were none that cried but dogs.”
Parliament) and set up a Puritan republic with Cromwell intended that his son should succeed
Oliver Cromwell (see illustration above) as chair- him, but his death only revived the prospect of
man of the Council of State. Cromwell did not tol- civil war and political chaos. In 1660, a newly
erate dissent from his policies. He saw the hand of elected, staunchly Anglican Parliament invited
God in events and himself as God’s agent. Pam- Charles II, the son of the executed king, to return
phleteers and songwriters ridiculed his red nose from exile.
and accused him of wanting to be king, but few
challenged his leadership. When his agents discov-
ered plans for mutiny within the army, they exe- The Glorious Revolution of 1688
cuted the perpetrators; new decrees silenced the The traditional monarchical form of government
Levellers. Although Cromwell allowed the various was reinstated in 1660, restoring Charles II
Puritan sects to worship rather freely and permit- (r. 1660–1685) to full partnership with Parliament.
ted Jews with needed skills to return to England He promised “a liberty to tender consciences” in
for the first time since the thirteenth century, an attempt to extend religious toleration, espe-
Catholics could not worship publicly, nor could cially to Catholics, with whom he sympathized.
Anglicans use the Book of Common Prayer. The His successor James II (r. 1685–1688) pursued
elites — many of them were still Anglican — were even more aggressive pro-Catholic policies, bring-
troubled by Cromwell’s religious policies but ing dissent once more to a boil. In response, Par-
pleased to see some social order reestablished. liament deposed James and installed his Protestant
1648–1690 C o n s t i tu t i o n a l i s m i n E n g l a n d 503

daughter, Mary, and her Dutch husband, William, tion of Indulgence (1673) he did suspend all laws
as joint monarchs. This Glorious Revolution against Catholics and Protestant dissenters. Par-
marked the final triumph of constitutionalism liament refused to continue funding the Dutch
over absolutism in England. war unless Charles rescinded his Declaration of In-
dulgence. Asserting its authority further, Parlia-
The Restored Monarchy. Charles II moved ment passed the Test Act in 1673, requiring all
quickly to reestablish royal authority. More than a government officials to profess allegiance to the
thousand Puritan ministers lost their positions, Church of England and in effect disavow Catholic
and attending a service other than one conform- doctrine. Then in 1678, Parliament precipitated
ing with the Anglican prayer book was illegal af- the so-called Exclusion Crisis by explicitly denying
ter 1664. Natural disasters also marred the early the throne to a Roman Catholic. This action was
years of his reign. The plague stalked London’s rat- aimed at the king’s brother and heir, James, an
infested streets in May 1665 and claimed more open convert to Catholicism. Charles refused to al-
than thirty thousand victims by September. Then low it to become law.
in 1666, the Great Fire (see illustration on this page) The dynastic crisis over the succession of a
swept the city. Some in Parliament feared, not Catholic gave rise to two distinct factions in Par-
without cause, that the English government would liament: the Tories, who supported a strong,
come to resemble French absolutism. In 1670, hereditary monarchy and the restored ceremony
Charles II made a secret agreement, soon leaked, of the Anglican church, and the Whigs, who advo-
with Louis XIV in which he promised to announce cated parliamentary supremacy and toleration of
his conversion to Catholicism in exchange for Protestant dissenters such as Presbyterians. Both
money for a war against the Dutch. Charles never labels were originally derogatory: Tory meant an
proclaimed himself a Catholic, but in his Declara- Irish Catholic bandit; Whig was the Irish Catholic

Great Fire of London, 1666


This view of London shows the three-day fire at its height. The writer John Evelyn described the
scene in his diary: “All the sky was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, and the light
seen above 40 miles round about for many nights. God grant mine eyes may never behold the
like, who now saw above 10,000 houses all in one flame; the noise and cracking and thunder of
people, the fall of towers, houses, and churches, was like an hideous storm.” Everyone in London
at the time felt overwhelmed by the catastrophe, and many attributed it to God’s punishment for
the upheavals of the 1640s and 1650s. (Museum of London.)
504 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

designation for a Presbyterian Scot. The Tories fa- left alone to worship privately. When the Catholics
vored James’s succession despite his Catholicism, in Ireland rose to defend James II, William and
whereas the Whigs opposed a Catholic monarch. Mary’s troops brutally suppressed them. With the
The loose moral atmosphere of Charles’s court Whigs in power and the Tories in opposition,
also offended some Whigs, who complained wealthy landowners now controlled political life
tongue in cheek that Charles was father of his throughout the realm. The factions’ differences,
country in much too literal a fashion (he had fa- however, were minor; essentially, the Tories had less
thered more than one child by his mistresses but access to the king’s patronage. A contemporary re-
produced no legitimate heir). ported that King William had said “that if he had
good places [honors and land] enough to bestow,
Parliament’s Revolt against James II. When he he should soon unite the two parties.”
succeeded his brother, James seemed determined
to force Catholicism on his subjects. Tories and
Social Contract Theory:
Whigs joined together when a male heir — who
would take precedence over James’s two adult Hobbes and Locke
Protestant daughters — was born to James’s sec- Out of the turmoil of the English revolutions came
ond wife, an Italian Catholic, in 1688. They invited a major rethinking of the foundations of all polit-
the Dutch ruler William, prince of Orange, and ical authority. Although Thomas Hobbes and John
his wife, James’s older daughter, Mary, to invade Locke wrote in response to the upheavals of their
England. Mary was brought up as a Protestant and times, they offered opposing arguments that were
was willing to act with her husband against her fa- applicable to any place and any time, not just
ther’s pro-Catholic policies. James fled to France, England of the seventeenth century. Hobbes justi-
and hardly any blood was shed. Parliament offered fied absolute authority; Locke provided the ration-
the throne jointly to William (r. 1689–1702) and ale for constitutionalism. Yet both argued that all
Mary (r. 1689–1694) on the condition that they authority came not from divine right but from a
accept a bill of rights guaranteeing Parliament’s social contract among citizens.
full partnership in a constitutional government.
In the Bill of Rights (1689), William and Mary Hobbes. Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) was a
agreed not to raise a standing army or to levy taxes royalist who sat out the English civil war of the
without Parliament’s consent. They also agreed to 1640s in France, where he tutored the future king
call meetings of Parliament at least every three Charles II. Returning to England in 1651, he pub-
years, to guarantee free elections to parliamentary lished his masterpiece, Leviathan (1651), in which
seats, and to abide by Parliament’s decisions and he argued for unlimited authority in a ruler. Ab-
not suspend duly passed laws. The agreement gave solute authority could be vested in either a king or
England’s constitutional government a written, a parliament; it had to be absolute, Hobbes insisted,
legal basis by formally recognizing Parliament as a in order to overcome the defects of human nature.
self-contained, independent body that shared Believing that people are essentially self-centered
power with the rulers. Victorious supporters of the and driven by the “right to self-preservation,”
coup declared it the Glorious Revolution because Hobbes made his case by referring to science, not
it was achieved with so little bloodshed (at least in religion. To Hobbes, human life in a state of
England). nature — that is, any situation without firm
The propertied classes who controlled Parlia- authority — was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and
ment prevented any resurgence of the popular tur- short.” He believed that the desire for power and
moil of the 1640s. The Toleration Act of 1689 natural greed would inevitably lead to unfettered
granted all Protestants freedom of worship, though competition. Only the assurance of social order
non-Anglicans were still excluded from the univer- could make people secure enough to act accord-
sities; Catholics got no rights but were more often ing to law; consequently, giving up personal lib-
erty, he maintained, was the price of collective
security. Rulers derived their power, he concluded,
William, prince of Orange: Dutch ruler who, with his Protestant
wife, Mary (daughter of James II), ruled England after the Glo- from a contract in which absolute authority pro-
rious Revolution of 1688. tects people’s rights.
Glorious Revolution: The events of 1688 when Tories and Whigs
replaced England’s monarch James II with his Protestant daugh-
ter, Mary, and her husband, Dutch ruler William of Orange; social contract: The doctrine that all political authority derives
William and Mary agreed to a Bill of Rights that guaranteed not from divine right but from an implicit contract between cit-
rights to Parliament. izens and their rulers.
1648–1690 O u t p o s t s o f C o n s t i tu t i o n a l i s m 505

Hobbes’s notion of rule by an absolute author- tabula rasa (blank slate). Not surprisingly, Locke
ity left no room for political dissent or nonconfor- devoted considerable energy to rethinking educa-
mity, and it infuriated both royalists and tional practices; he believed that education crucially
supporters of Parliament. He enraged royalists by shaped the human personality by channeling all
arguing that authority came not from divine right sensory experience. Everything humans know, he
but from the social contract. Parliamentary sup- claimed, comes from sensory experience, not from
porters resisted Hobbes’s claim that rulers must anything inherent in human nature. Locke’s views
possess absolute authority to prevent the greater promoted the belief that “all men are created
evil of anarchy; they believed that a constitution equal,” a belief that challenged absolutist forms of
should guarantee shared power between king and rule and ultimately raised questions about women’s
Parliament, and protect individual rights under roles as well. Although Locke himself owned shares
the law. Like Machiavelli before him, Hobbes be- in the Royal African Company and justified slav-
came associated with a cynical, pessimistic view of ery, his writings were later used by abolitionists in
human nature, and future political theorists often their campaign against slavery.
began their arguments by refuting Hobbes.

Locke. Rejecting both Hobbes and the more tra- Review: What differences over religion and politics
caused the conflict between king and Parliament in
ditional royalist defenses of absolute authority,
England?
John Locke (1632–1704) used the notion of a
social contract to provide a foundation for consti-
tutionalism. Locke experienced political life first-
hand as physician, secretary, and intellectual
companion to the earl of Shaftesbury, a leading Outposts of
English Whig. In 1683, during the Exclusion Cri- Constitutionalism
sis, Locke fled with Shaftesbury to the Dutch
Republic. There he continued work on his Two When William and Mary came to the throne in
Treatises of Government, which, when published England in 1689, the Dutch and the English put
in 1690, served to justify the Glorious Revolution aside the rivalries that had brought them to war
of 1688. Locke’s position was thoroughly anti- against each other in 1652–1654, 1665–1667, and
absolutist. He denied the divine right of kings and 1672–1674. Under William, the Dutch and the
ridiculed the common royalist idea that political English together led the coalition that blocked
power in the state mirrored the father’s authority Louis XIV’s efforts to dominate continental
in the family. Like Hobbes, he posited a state of Europe. The English and Dutch had much in com-
nature that applied to all people. Unlike Hobbes, mon: oriented toward commerce, especially over-
however, he thought people were reasonable and seas, they were the successful exceptions to
the state of nature peaceful. absolutism in Europe. Also among the few out-
Locke insisted that government’s only purpose posts of constitutionalism in the seventeenth cen-
was to protect life, liberty, and property, a notion tury were the British North American colonies,
that linked economic and political freedom. Ulti- which developed representative government while
mate authority rested in the will of a majority of the English were preoccupied with their revolu-
men who owned property, and government should tions at home. Constitutionalism was not the only
be limited to its basic purpose of protection. A factor shaping this Atlantic world; as constitution-
ruler who failed to uphold his part of the social alism developed in the colonies, so too did the
contract between the ruler and the populace could enslavement of black Africans as a new labor force.
be justifiably resisted, an idea that would become
crucial for the leaders of the American Revolution
a century later. For England’s seventeenth-century The Dutch Republic
landowners, however, Locke helped validate a rev- When the Dutch Republic gained formal inde-
olution that consolidated their interests and en- pendence from Spain in 1648, it had already estab-
sured their privileges in the social hierarchy. lished a decentralized, constitutional state. Rich
Locke defended his optimistic view of human merchants called regents effectively controlled the
nature in the immensely influential Essay Concern- internal affairs of each province and through the
ing Human Understanding (1690). He denied the Estates General named the stadholder, the execu-
existence of any innate ideas and asserted instead tive officer responsible for defense and for repre-
that each human is born with a mind that is a senting the state at all ceremonial occasions. They
506 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

North N
Iron
Sea Timber Copper
Tar
Pitch Fur W E
Herring
Wheat
ATLANTIC Wool
Rye S

NORTH OCEAN  Danzig
DUTCH Amsterdam ASIA
AMERICA REPUBLIC EUROPE
NEW Wine
NETHERLANDS
AZORES Wool CHINA
Tobacco JAPAN
Canton 
Chinsura Tea Nagasaki
Silk Amoy Silk
WEST INDIES
Calcutta  Porcelain 
  Port
Luxury goods
Tobacco Bombay  INDIA
 Macao Zeelandia PACIFIC
Curaçao  St. Martin  Gorée AFRICA Goa  
Madras
Cloth  Manila OCEAN
 CAPE VERDE  Negapatam PHILIPPINES
IS. Slaves Accra Cochin Colombo
GUIANA    Malacca Camphor, Pepper,
Stabroek  Sugar
Ceylon  Borneo Sandalwood
(Georgetown) DUTCH Axim Mombasa Cloves MOLUCCAS
 Cinnamon Pepper  Spices New
BRAZIL Zanzibar Sunda  Macassar Guinea
Sugar  Mauritsstad Batavia
Mauritius Strait Timor
SOUTH Java
Mozambique  Tea
AMERICA Teak
Madagascar NEW HOLLAND
Cape Town INDIAN (Unknown except for
Provisioning West Coast)
 Station OCEAN

Dutch trade routes


Areas under Dutch control
 Ports under Dutch control 0 1,500 3,000 miles
 Other major ports 0 1,500 3,000 kilometers
Spices Goods shipped to the Dutch Republic

MAP 16.3 Dutch Commerce in the Seventeenth Century


Even before gaining formal independence from the Spanish in 1648, the Dutch had begun to
compete with the Spanish and Portuguese all over the world. In 1602, a group of merchants
established the Dutch East India Company, which soon offered investors an annual rate of
return of 35 percent on the trade in spices with countries located on the Indian Ocean.
Global commerce gave the Dutch the highest standard of living in Europe and soon attracted
the envy of the French and the English.

almost always chose one of the princes of the house grain from eastern Europe. A widely reprinted his-
of Orange, but the stadholder resembled a presi- tory of Amsterdam that appeared in 1662 de-
dent more than a king. scribed the city as “risen through the hand of God
The decentralized state encouraged and pro- to the peak of prosperity and greatness. . . . The
tected trade, and the Dutch Republic soon became whole world stands amazed at its riches and from
Europe’s financial capital. The Bank of Amsterdam east and west, north and south they come to be-
offered borrowers lower interest rates than those hold it.”
available in England and France. Praised for their The Dutch rapidly became the most prosper-
industriousness, thrift, and cleanliness — and ma- ous and best-educated people in Europe. Middle-
ligned as greedy, dull “butter-boxes” — the Dutch class people supported the visual arts, especially
dominated overseas commerce with their shipping painting, to an unprecedented degree. Artists and
(Map 16.3). They imported products from all over engravers produced thousands of works, and
the world: spices, tea, and silk from Asia; sugar and Dutch artists were among the first to sell to a mass
tobacco from the Americas; wool from England market. Whereas in other countries kings, nobles,
and Spain; timber and furs from Scandinavia; and churches bought art, Dutch buyers were mer-
1648–1690 O u t p o s t s o f C o n s t i tu t i o n a l i s m 507

A Typical Dutch Scene from Daily Life


Jan Steen painted The Baker Arent Oostward and
His Wife in 1658. Steen ran a brewery and tavern
in addition to painting, and he was known for his
interest in the details of daily life. Dutch artists
popularized this kind of “genre” painting, which
showed ordinary people at work and play.
(Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.)

■ For more help analyzing this image, see the


visual activity for this chapter in the Online Study
Guide at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.

chants, artisans, and shopkeepers. Engravings, philosopher and biblical scholar who was expelled
illustrated histories, and oil paintings were all by his synagogue for alleged atheism but left alone
relatively inexpensive. One foreigner commented by the Dutch authorities. Spinoza strove to recon-
that “pictures are very common here, there being cile religion with science and mathematics, but his
scarce an ordinary tradesman whose house is not work scandalized many Christians and Jews be-
decorated with them.” Dutch artists focused on fa- cause he seemed to equate God and nature. Like
miliar daily details because for them ordinary nature, Spinoza’s God followed unchangeable laws
people had religious as well as political significance; and could not be influenced by human actions,
even children at play could be infused with radi- prayers, or faith.
ant beauty. The family household, not the royal Dutch learning, painting, and commerce all
court, determined the moral character of this in- enjoyed wide renown in the seventeenth century,
tensely commercial society. Relative prosperity de- but this luster proved hard to maintain. The Dutch
creased the need for married women to work, so lived in a world of international rivalries in which
Dutch society developed the clear contrast be- strong central authority gave their enemies an ad-
tween middle-class male and female roles that vantage. Though inconclusive, the naval wars with
would become prevalent elsewhere in Europe and England between 1652 and 1674 drained the state’s
in America more than a century later. As one con- revenues. Even more dangerous were the land wars
temporary Dutch writer explained, “The husband with France, which continued into the eighteenth
must be on the street to practice his trade; the wife century. The Dutch survived these challenges but
must stay at home to be in the kitchen.” increasingly depended on alliances with other
Extraordinarily high levels of urbanization powers, especially England after the Glorious Rev-
and literacy created a large reading public. Dutch olution. At the end of the seventeenth century, the
presses printed books censored elsewhere (print- Dutch elites became more exclusive, more preoc-
ers or authors censored in one province simply cupied with ostentation, and less tolerant of devi-
shifted operations to another), and the University ations from strict Calvinism. Rather than
of Leiden attracted students and professors from encouraging native Dutch styles, they became
all over Europe. Dutch tolerance extended to the more concerned with imitating French ones. The
works of Benedict Spinoza (1633–1677), a Jewish Dutch “golden age” was over.
508 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

Freedom and Slavery in the New World from Africa to the New World every year; by 1700,
this number had increased nearly fourfold to
The Dutch also lost ground to the French and Eng- 36,000 annually. Historians advance several differ-
lish in the New World colonies. While the Dutch ent ideas about which factors increased the slave
concentrated on shipping, including the slave trade: some claim that improvements in muskets
trade, the seventeenth-century French and English made European slavers more effective; others cite
established settler colonies that would eventually the rising price for slaves, which made their sale
provide fabulous revenues to the home countries. more attractive for Africans; still others focus on
Many European governments encouraged private factors internal to Africa such as the increasing size
companies to vie for their share of the slave trade, of African armies and their use of muskets in fight-
and slavery began to take clear institutional form ing and capturing other Africans for sale as slaves.
in the New World in this period. While whites The way had been prepared for the development
found in the colonies greater political and religious of an Atlantic economy based on slavery.
freedom than in Europe, they subjected black
Africans to the most degrading forms of bondage. Constitutional Freedoms in the English Colonies.
Virtually left to themselves during the upheavals
The Rise of the Slave Trade. After the Spanish in England, the fledgling English colonies in North
and Portuguese had shown that African slaves America developed representative government on
could be transported and forced to labor in South their own. Almost every colony had a governor and
and Central America, the English and French en- a two-house legislature. The colonial legislatures
deavored to set up similar labor systems in their constantly sought to increase their power and re-
new Caribbean island colonies. White planters sisted the efforts of Charles II and James II to reaf-
with large tracts of land bought African slaves to firm royal control. William and Mary reluctantly
work fields of sugarcane; and as they gradually allowed emerging colonial elites more control over
built up their holdings, the planters displaced most local affairs. The social and political elite among
of the original white settlers, who moved to main- the settlers hoped to impose an English social hi-
land North American colonies. After 1661, when erarchy dominated by rich landowners. Ordinary
Barbados instituted a slave code that stripped all immigrants to the colonies, however, took advan-
Africans of rights under English law, slavery be- tage of plentiful land to carve out their own farms
came codified as an inherited status that applied using white servants and, later, in some colonies,
only to blacks. The result was a society of extremes: African slaves.
the very wealthy whites (about 7 percent of the For native Americans, the expanding Euro-
population in Barbados) and the enslaved, power- pean presence meant something else altogether.
less black majority. The English brought few of They faced death through disease and warfare and
their religious or constitutional practices to the the accelerating loss of their homelands. Unlike
Caribbean. white settlers, many native Americans believed that
Other Caribbean colonies followed a similar land was a divine gift provided for their collective
pattern of development. Louis XIV promulgated a use and not subject to individual ownership. Eu-
“black code” in 1685 to regulate the legal status of ropeans’ claims that they owned exclusive land
slaves in the French colonies and to prevent non- rights consequently resulted in frequent skir-
Catholics from owning slaves. The code suppos- mishes. In 1675–1676, for instance, three tribes al-
edly set limits on the violence planters could lied under Metacomet (called King Philip by the
exercise and required them to house, feed, and English) threatened the survival of New England
clothe their slaves. But white planters simply ig- settlers, who savagely repulsed the attacks and sold
nored provisions of the code that did not suit their captives as slaves. Whites could portray na-
them, and in any case, because the code defined tive Americans as “noble savages,” but when threat-
slaves as property, slaves could not themselves ened they often depicted them as conspiring
bring suit in court to demand better treatment. villains and sneaky heathens who were akin to
The governments of England, France, Spain, Africans in their savagery. The benefits of consti-
Portugal, the Dutch Republic, and Denmark all en- tutionalism were reserved for Europeans.
couraged private companies to traffic in black
Africans, while the highest church and government Review: Why did constitutionalism thrive in the
authorities in Catholic and Protestant countries Dutch Republic and the British North American col-
alike condoned the gradually expanding slave onies, even as their participation in the slave trade grew?
trade. In 1600, about 9,500 Africans were exported
1648–1690 Th e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r i n E l i t e a n d P o pu l a r C u ltu r e 509

The Search for Order in and authority, but most of them came to more
positive conclusions than Pascal about human
Elite and Popular Culture capacities.

Constitutionalism’s emphasis on a social contract Milton. The English Puritan poet John Milton
fostered the guarantee of individual freedoms, yet (1608–1674) wrestled with the inevitable limita-
the constitutional governments pursued profits in tions on individual liberty. In 1643, in the midst
the burgeoning slave trade just as avidly as the ab- of the civil war between king and Parliament, he
solutist ones. Freedom did not mean liberty for published writings in favor of divorce. When Par-
everyone. One of the great debates of the time — liament enacted a censorship law aimed at such lit-
and thereafter — concerned the meaning of free- erature, Milton responded in 1644 with one of the
dom: for whom, under what conditions, with what first defenses of freedom of the press, Areopagit-
justifiable limitations could freedom be claimed? ica. (See Document, “John Milton, Defense of
Freedom of the press found its first champion in Freedom of the Press,” page 511.) In it, he argued
the English poet John Milton, and freedom to that even controversial books about religion
choose one’s own religion began to attract adher- should be allowed because the state could not
ents too. These freedoms posed their own dilem- command religious belief. Milton favored limited
mas: should publishers be allowed to print
anything they wished and would religious tolera-
tion undermine the state’s authority or even pro-
mote skepticism about religion in general?
Poetry, painting, architecture, and even sci-
ence at this time all reflected in some measure the
attempts to ground authority — to define the re-
lation between freedom and order — in new
ways. Authority concerned not just rulers and
subjects but also the hierarchy of groups in soci-
ety. As European states consolidated their pow-
ers, elites worked to distinguish themselves from
the lower classes. They developed new codes of
correct behavior for themselves and tried to teach
order and discipline to their social inferiors. Their
repeated efforts show, however, that popular cul-
ture had its own dynamics which resisted control
from above.

Freedom and Constraint


in the Arts and Sciences
Most Europeans feared disorder above all else.
The French mathematician Blaise Pascal vividly
captured their worries in his Pensées (Thoughts)
of 1660: “I look on all sides, and I see only dark-
ness everywhere.” Though Pascal made impor-
tant contributions to the mathematical theory of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Ecstasy of St. Teresa of Ávila
probabilities, he was skeptical about the human (c. 1650)
ability to forge order out of chaos: “Nature pres- This ultimate statement of baroque sculpture captures
ents to me nothing which is not a matter of all the drama and even sensationalism of a mystical
religious faith. Bernini based his figures on a vision
doubt and concern. . . . It is incomprehensible
reported by St. Teresa in which she saw an angel:
that God should exist, and incomprehensible “In his hands I saw a great golden spear, and at the
that He should not exist.” Pascal urged his read- iron tip there appeared to be a point of fire. This
ers to accept the wager that God existed. Reason he plunged into my heart several times so that it
could not determine whether God existed or not, penetrated my entrails. When he pulled it out I felt
Pascal concluded. Poets, painters, and architects that he took them with it, and left me utterly con-
all grappled with similar issues of faith, reason, sumed by the great love of God.” (Scala / Art Resource, NY.)
510 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

French Classicism
This painting by Nicolas Poussin, Discovery
of Achilles on Skyros (1649–1650), shows
the French interest in classical themes and
ideals. In the Greek story, Thetis dresses
her son Achilles as a young woman and
hides him on the island of Skyros so he
would not have to fight in the Trojan War.
When a chest of treasures is offered to the
women, Achilles reveals himself (he is the
figure on the far right) because he cannot
resist the sword. In telling the story,
Poussin emphasizes harmony and almost
a sedateness of composition, avoiding the
exuberance and emotionalism of the
baroque style. (Photograph © 2007 Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston.)

religious toleration; that is, he wanted religious the power of the popes and the Catholic religion.
freedom for the many varieties of Protestants, but He also sculpted tombs for the popes and a large
not for Catholics or non-Christians. Milton served statue of Constantine, the first Christian emperor
as secretary to the Council of State during of Rome — perfect examples of the marriage of
Cromwell’s rule and earned the enmity of Charles power and religion.
II by writing a justification for the execution of his Although France was a Catholic country,
father, Charles I. French painters, sculptors, and architects, like their
Forced into retirement after the restoration of patron Louis XIV, preferred the standards of clas-
the monarchy, Milton published his epic poem sicism to those of the baroque. French artists de-
Paradise Lost in 1667. He used the biblical Adam veloped classicism to be a French national style,
and Eve’s fall from grace to meditate on human distinct from the baroque style that was closely as-
freedom and the tragedies of rebellion. Although sociated with France’s enemies, the Austrian and
Milton wanted to “justify the ways of God to man,” Spanish Habsburgs. As its name suggests, classi-
his Satan, the proud angel who challenges God and cism reflected the ideals of the art of antiquity:
is cast out of heaven, is so compelling as to be geometric shapes, order, and harmony of lines
heroic. In the end, Adam and Eve embrace moral took precedence over the sensuous, exuberant, and
responsibility for their actions. Individuals learn emotional forms of the baroque. Rather than be-
the limits to their freedom, yet personal liberty re- ing overshadowed by the sheer power of emotional
mains essential to their humanity. display, in classicism the individual could be found
at the intersection of converging, symmetrical,
The Varieties of Artistic Style. The dominant straight lines (see illustration above). These in-
artistic styles of the time — the baroque and the fluences were apparent in the work of the leading
classical — both submerged the ordinary individ- French painters of the period, Nicolas Poussin
ual in a grander design. The baroque style proved (1594–1665) and Claude Lorrain (1600–1682),
to be especially suitable for public displays of faith both of whom worked in Rome and tried to re-
and power that overawed individual beholders. create classical Roman values in their mythologi-
The combination of religious and political pur- cal scenes and Roman landscapes.
poses in baroque art is best exemplified in the ar- Art could also serve the interests of science.
chitecture and sculpture of Gian Lorenzo Bernini One of the most skilled illustrators of insects and
(1598–1680), the papacy’s official artist. His archi-
tectural masterpiece was the gigantic square fac-
ing St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Bernini’s use of classicism: A style of painting and architecture that reflected
the ideals of the art of antiquity; in classicism, geometric
freestanding colonnades and a huge open space shapes, order, and harmony of lines take precedence over the
was meant to impress the individual observer with sensuous, exuberant, and emotional forms of the baroque.
1648–1690 Th e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r i n E l i t e a n d P o pu l a r C u ltu r e 511

DOCUMENT

John Milton, Defense of Freedom of the Press (1644)


In Areopagitica (1644), the English poet who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, ical as will serve to show what hath been
John Milton rebuked Parliament for passing God’s image; but he who destroys a good done by ancient and famous common-
a bill to restrict freedom of the press by re- book, kills reason itself, kills the image of wealths against this disorder, till the very
quiring licensing of every publication. The God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man time that this project of licensing crept out
title came from Areopagus, the name of a lives a burden to the earth; but a good of the Inquisition, was caught up by our
court in ancient Athens. Milton argued that book is the precious lifeblood of a master prelates, and hath caught some of our
freedom of thought was essential to human spirit, embalmed and treasured up on pur- presbyters. [. . .] As therefore the state of
dignity. pose to a life beyond life. ’Tis true, no age man now is, what wisdom can there be to
can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is choose, what continence to forbear with-
I deny not but that it is of greatest con- no great loss; and revolutions of ages do out the knowledge of evil? He that can ap-
cernment in the church and common- not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, prehend and consider vice with all her
wealth to have a vigilant eye how books for the want of which whole nations fare baits and seeming pleasures, and yet ab-
demean themselves as well as men; and the worse. We should be wary, therefore, stain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer
thereafter to confine, imprison, and do what persecution we raise against the liv- that which is truly better, he is the true
sharpest justice on them as malefactors. ing labors of public men, how we spill that warfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugi-
For books are not absolutely dead things, seasoned life of man preserved and stored tive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and
but do contain a potency of life in them up in books; since we see a kind of homi- unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees
to be as active as that soul was whose prog- cide may be thus committed, sometimes a her adversary, but slinks out of the race
eny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a martyrdom; and if it extend to the whole where that immortal garland is to be run
vial the purest efficacy and extraction of impression, a kind of massacre, whereof for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly
that living intellect that bred them. I know the execution ends not in the slaying of an we bring not innocence into the world, we
they are as lively and as vigorously pro- elemental life, but strikes at that ethereal bring impurity much rather: that which
ductive as those fabulous dragon’s teeth; and fifth essence, the breath of reason it- purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is
and being sown up and down, may chance self, slays an immortality rather than a life. contrary.
to spring up armed men. And yet, on the But lest I should be condemned of intro-
other hand, unless wariness be used, as ducing license, while I oppose licensing, I Source: John Milton, Milton’s Prose Writing (London:
good almost kill a man as kill a good book: refuse not the pains to be so much histor- J. M. Dant, 1961), 149–50, 158.

flowers was Maria Sibylla Merian (1646–1717), a revolution, absolutist rulers quickly saw the poten-
German-born painter-scholar whose engravings tial of the new science for enhancing their prestige
were widely celebrated for their brilliant realism and glory. Frederick William, the Great Elector of
and microscopic clarity. Merian eventually sepa- Brandenburg-Prussia, for example, set up agricul-
rated from her husband and joined a sect called tural experiments in front of his Berlin palace, and
the Labadists (after its French founder, Jean de various German princes supported the work of
Labadie), whose members did not believe in for- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), who
mal marriage ties. After moving with her daugh- claimed that he, and not Isaac Newton, had invented
ters to the Labadists’ community in the northern the calculus. A lawyer, diplomat, mathematician,
Dutch province of Friesland, Merian went with and scholar who wrote about metaphysics, cosmol-
missionaries from the sect to the Dutch colony of ogy, and history, Leibniz also helped establish sci-
Surinam, in South America, and painted watercol- entific societies in the German states.
ors (see illustration, page 512) of the exotic flow- Government involvement in science was
ers, birds, and insects she found in the jungle greatest in France, where science became an arm
around the cocoa and sugarcane plantations. Many of mercantilist policy; in 1666, Colbert founded
women became known for their still lifes, and es- the Royal Academy of Sciences, which supplied
pecially their paintings of flowers, during this time. fifteen scientists with government stipends. It met in
the King’s Library in Paris, where for the first years
Public Interest in Science. Despite the initial reli- the members devoted themselves to alchemical
gious controversies associated with the scientific experiments and the study of mechanical devices.
512 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

watch the exhibition of experiments. Labeled


“mad” by her critics, she attacked the use of tele-
scopes and microscopes because she detected in
the new experimentalism a mechanistic view of the
world that exalted masculine prowess and chal-
lenged the Christian belief in freedom of the will.
Yet she urged the formal education of women,
complaining that “we are kept like birds in cages
to hop up and down in our houses.” “Many of our
Sex may have as much wit, and be capable of
Learning as well as men,” she insisted, “but since
they want Instructions [lack education], it is not
possible they should attain to it.”

Women and Manners


Although excluded from the universities and the
professions, women played important roles not
only in the home but also in more formal spheres
of social interaction, such as the courts of rulers.
Women often took the lead in teaching manners
or social etiquette. Poetry and painting might
imaginatively explore the place of the individual
within a larger whole, but real-life individuals had
to learn to navigate their own social worlds.
European Fascination with Products of the New World
In this painting of a banana plant, Maria Sibylla Women’s importance in refining social relation-
Merian offers a scientific study of one of the many ships quickly became a subject of controversy.
exotic plants and animals found by Europeans who
traveled to the colonies overseas. Merian was fifty-one The Cultivation of Manners. The court had long
when she traveled to the Dutch South American colony been a central arena for the development of man-
of Surinam with her daughter. (Courtesy of Hunt Institute for ners. Under the tutelage of their mothers and
Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.) wives, nobles learned to hide all that was crass and
to maintain a fine sense of social distinction. In
some ways, aristocratic men were expected to act
Constitutional states supported science infor- more like women; just as women had long been
mally but provided an environment that encour- expected to please men, now aristocratic men had
aged its spread. The Royal Society of London, the to please their monarch or patron by displaying
counterpart to the one in Paris, grew out of infor- proper manners and conversing with elegance and
mal meetings of scientists at London and Oxford wit. The art of pleasing included foreign languages
rather than direct government involvement. It re- (especially French), dance, a taste for fine music,
ceived a royal charter in 1662 but maintained com- and attention to dress.
plete independence. The society’s secretary As part of the evolution of new aristocratic
described its business to be “in the first place, to ideals, nobles learned to disdain all that was lowly.
scrutinize the whole of Nature and to investigate The upper classes began to reject popular festi-
its activity and powers by means of observations vals and fairs in favor of private theaters, where
and experiments; and then in course of time to seats were relatively expensive and behavior was
hammer out a more solid philosophy and more formal. Clowns and buffoons now seemed vul-
ample amenities of civilization.” Whether the state gar; the last king of England to keep a court fool
paid for the work or not, thinkers of the day now was Charles I. Chivalric romances that had en-
tied science explicitly to social progress. tranced the nobility since the time of Cervantes’s
Because of their exclusion from most univer- Don Quixote (1605) now passed into popular lit-
sities, women only rarely participated in the new erature.
scientific discoveries. In 1667, nonetheless, the The greatest French playwright of the seven-
Royal Society of London invited Margaret teenth century, Molière (the pen name of Jean-
Cavendish, a writer of poems, essays, letters, and Baptiste Poquelin, 1622–1673), wrote sparkling
philosophical treatises, to attend a meeting to comedies of manners that revealed much about
1648–1690 Th e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r i n E l i t e a n d P o pu l a r C u ltu r e 513

the new aristocratic behavior. His play The Middle- topics of conversation were love, literature, and
Class Gentleman, first performed for Louis XIV philosophy. Hostesses often worked hard to en-
in 1670, revolves around the yearning of a rich, courage the careers of budding authors. Before
middle-class Frenchman, Monsieur Jourdain, to publishing a manuscript, many authors, including
learn to act like a gentilhomme (meaning both court favorites like Corneille and Racine, would
“gentleman” and “nobleman”). Monsieur Jourdain read their compositions to a salon gathering.
buys fancy clothes; hires private instructors in Some women went beyond encouraging male
dancing, music, fencing, and philosophy; and authors and began to write on their own, but they
lends money to a debt-ridden noble in hopes that faced many obstacles. Marie-Madeleine Pioche de
the noble will marry his daughter. Only his sensible La Vergne, known as Madame de Lafayette, wrote
wife and his daughter’s love for a worthier com- several short novels that were published anony-
moner stand in his way. The message for the king’s mously because it was considered inappropriate
courtiers seemed to be a reassuring one: only true for aristocratic women to appear in print. Follow-
nobles by blood can hope to act like nobles. But ing the publication of The Princess of Clèves
the play also showed how the middle classes were in 1678, she denied having written it. Hannah
learning to emulate the nobility; if one could learn Woolley, the English author of many books on
to act nobly through self-discipline, could not any- domestic conduct, published under the name of
one with some education and money pass himself her first husband. Women were known for writing
off as noble? wonderful letters, but the correspondence circu-
As Molière’s play demonstrated, new attention lated only in handwritten form. In the 1650s,
to manners trickled down from the court to the despite these limitations, French women began to
middle class. A French treatise on manners writ- turn out best sellers of a new type of literary form,
ten in 1672 explained proper behavior: the novel. Their success prompted the philosopher
If everyone is eating from the same dish, you should take
Pierre Bayle to remark in 1697 that “our best
care not to put your hand into it before those of higher French novels for a long time have been written by
rank have done so. . . . Formerly one was permitted . . . women.”
to dip one’s bread into the sauce, provided only that one The new importance of women in the world
had not already bitten it. Nowadays that would be a kind of manners and letters did not sit well with every-
of rusticity. Formerly one was allowed to take from one. Although the French writer François Poulain
one’s mouth what one could not eat and drop it on the de la Barre, in a series of works published in the
floor, provided it was done skillfully. Now that would be
very disgusting.
1670s, used the new science to assert the equality
of women’s minds, most men resisted the idea.
The key words rusticity and disgusting reveal the Clergy, lawyers, scholars, and playwrights attacked
association of unacceptable social behavior with women’s growing public influence. Women, they
the peasantry, dirt, and repulsion. Similar rules complained, were corrupting forces and needed
governed spitting and blowing one’s nose in pub- restraint. Only marriage,“this salutary yoke,” could
lic. Once the elite had successfully distinguished it- control their passions and weaknesses. Women
self from the lower classes through manners, were accused of raising “the banner of prostitution
scholars became more interested in studying pop- in the salons, in the promenades, and in the
ular expressions. They avidly collected proverbs, streets.” Molière wrote plays denouncing women’s
folktales, and songs — all of these now curiosities. pretension to judge literary merit. English play-
wrights derided learned women by creating char-
Debates about Women’s Roles. Courtly manners acters with names such as Lady Knowall, Lady
often permeated the upper reaches of society by Meanwell, and Mrs. Lovewit.
means of the salon, an informal gathering held A real-life target of the English playwrights
regularly in private homes and presided over by a was Aphra Behn (1640–1689), one of the first pro-
socially eminent woman. In 1661, one French au- fessional woman authors, who supported herself
thor claimed to have identified 251 Parisian by journalism, wrote plays and poetry, and trans-
women as hostesses of salons. The French govern- lated scientific works. Her short novel Oroonoko
ment occasionally worried that these gatherings (1688) told the story of an African prince mistak-
might challenge its authority, but the three main enly sold into slavery. The story was so successful
that it was adapted by playwrights and performed
repeatedly in England and France for the next hun-
salon: An informal gathering held regularly in private homes dred years.
and presided over by a socially eminent woman; salons spread
from France in the seventeenth century to other countries in Women also played important roles in the new
the eighteenth century. colonies. In order to establish more permanent
514 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

and settled colonies, governments promoted the the new moon, and worshipped at the sources of
emigration of women so that male colonists would streams as in pre-Christian times.
set up orderly Christian white households rather Like its Protestant counterpart, the Catholic
than pursuing sexual relations with native or slave campaign against ignorance and superstition
women. helped extend state power. Clergy, officials, and lo-
cal police worked together to limit carnival cele-
brations, to regulate pilgrimages to shrines, and to
Reforming Popular Culture replace “indecent” images of saints with more re-
Controversies over female influence had little effect strained and decorous ones. In Catholicism, the
on the unschooled peasants who made up most of cult of the Virgin Mary and devotions closely con-
Europe’s population. Their culture had three main nected with Jesus, such as the Holy Sacrament and
elements: their religion, which shaped every aspect the Sacred Heart, took precedence over the cele-
of life and death; the knowledge needed to work at bration of popular saints who seemed to have pa-
farming or in a trade; and popular forms of enter- gan origins or were credited with unverified
tainment such as village fairs and dances. What miracles. Reformers everywhere tried to limit the
changed most noticeably in the seventeenth cen- number of feast days on the grounds that they en-
tury was the social elites’ attitude toward lower- couraged lewd behavior.
class culture. The division between elite and
popular culture widened as elites insisted on their New Attitudes toward Poverty. The campaign for
difference from the lower orders and tried to instill more disciplined religious practices helped gener-
new forms of discipline in their social inferiors. ate a new attitude toward the poor. Poverty previ-
These efforts did not always succeed, however, as ously had been closely linked with charity and
villagers tenaciously clung to their own traditions. virtue in Christianity; it was a Christian duty to
give alms to the poor, and Jesus and many of the
Popular Religion. In the seventeenth century, saints had purposely chosen lives of poverty. In the
Protestant and Catholic churches alike pushed sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the upper
hard to change popular religious practices. Their classes, the church, and the state increasingly re-
campaigns against popular “paganism” began dur- garded the poor as dangerous, deceitful, and lack-
ing the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation ing in character. “Criminal laziness is the source of
and Catholic Counter-Reformation but reached all their vices,” wrote a Jesuit expert on the poor.
much of rural Europe only in the seventeenth cen- The courts had previously expelled beggars from
tury. Puritans in England tried to root out may- cities; now local leaders, both Catholic and Protes-
pole dances, Sunday village fairs, gambling, tant, tried to reform their character. Municipal
taverns, and bawdy ballads because they interfered magistrates collected taxes for poor relief, and lo-
with sober observance of the Sabbath. In Lutheran cal notables organized charities; together they
Norway, pastors denounced a widespread belief in transformed hospitals into houses of confinement
the miracle-working powers of St. Olaf. The word for beggars. In Catholic France, upper-class
superstition previously meant “false religion” women’s religious associations, known as confra-
(Protestantism was a superstition for Catholics, ternities, set up asylums that confined prostitutes
Catholicism for Protestants); in the seventeenth (by arrest if necessary) and rehabilitated them.
century, it took on its modern meaning of irra- Confraternities also founded hospices where or-
tional fears, beliefs, and practices, which anyone phans learned proper behavior and respect for
educated or refined would avoid. their betters. Such groups advocated harsh disci-
The Catholic campaign against superstitious pline as the cure for poverty.
practices found a ready ally in Louis XIV. While As hard times increased the numbers of the
the Sun King reformed the nobles at court through poor and the rates of violent crime as well, atti-
etiquette and manners, Catholic bishops in the tudes toward the poor hardened. The elites tried
French provinces trained parish priests to reform to separate the very poor from society either to
their flocks by using catechisms in local dialects change them or to keep them from contaminating
and insisting that parishioners attend Mass. The others. Hospitals became holding pens for society’s
church faced a formidable challenge. One bishop unwanted members; in them, the poor joined the
in France complained in 1671,“Can you believe that disabled, the incurably diseased, and the insane.
there are in this diocese entire villages where no one The founding of hospitals demonstrates the con-
has even heard of Jesus Christ?” In some places, be- nection between elites’ attitudes and state build-
lievers sacrificed animals to the Virgin, prayed to ing. In 1676, Louis XIV ordered every French city
1648–1690 C o n c lu s i o n 515

to establish a hospital, and his government took


charge of the finances. Other rulers soon followed
the same path.

Popular Resistance to Reform. Even as elites set


themselves apart and reformers from church and
state tried to regulate popular activities, villagers
and townspeople pushed back with reassertions of
their own values. For hundreds of years, peasants
had maintained their own forms of village jus-
tice — called variously “rough music,” “ride on a
donkey,” “skimmington,” “charivari,” or in North
America, “shivaree.” If a young man married a
much older woman for her money, for example,
villagers would serenade the couple by ringing
bells, playing crude flutes, banging pots and pans,
and shooting muskets. If a man was rumored to Corpus Christi Procession in Peru
have been physically assaulted by his wife, a rever- This painting shows a Catholic procession by
sal of the usual sex roles, he (or effigies of him and Incas that took place in the late 1670s in Cuzco,
his wife) might be ridden on a donkey facing back- Peru. The Inca in front is wearing his native dress
ward (to signify the role reversal) and pelted with and he is followed by a float and religious figures
dung before being ducked in a nearby pond or carrying traditional Catholic imagery. (Museo del
river. Anyone who transgressed the local customs Arzobispo, Cuzco, Peru.)

governing family life — adulterers, for example —


might suffer a similar fate. Processions sometimes
included the display of horned animal heads Orleans or Rio de Janeiro, that included compa-
(a symbol of adultery) or obscene drawings, and nies of local men dressed in special costumes and
people made up mocking ryhmes and songs for gigantic stuffed figures, sometimes with animal
various occasions. Some villagers singled out re- skins or heads, or elaborate masks.
bellious women, wife beaters, and fathers deemed
excessively cruel to their children. Others directed
Review: How did elite and popular culture become
their mockery at tax officials, gamekeepers on big
more separate in the seventeenth century?
estates who tried to keep villagers from hunting,
or unpopular preachers.
No matter how much care went into control-
ling religious festivals, such events almost invari- Conclusion
ably opened the door to popular reinterpretation
and sometimes drunken celebration. When the The search for order took place on various levels,
Spanish introduced Corpus Christi processions to from the reform of the disorderly poor to the es-
their colony in Peru in the seventeenth century, tablishment of bureaucratic routines in govern-
elite Incas dressed in royal costumes to carry the ment. The absolutist government of Louis XIV
banners of their parishes. Their clothing and or- served as a model for all those who aimed to in-
naments combined Christian symbols with their crease the power of the central state. Even Louis’s
own indigenous ones. They thus signaled their rivals — such as the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold
conversion to Catholicism but also reasserted their I and Frederick William, the Great Elector of Bran-
own prior identities. The Corpus Christi festival, denburg-Prussia — followed his lead in centralizing
held in late May or early June, conveniently took authority and building up their armies. Whether ab-
place about the same time as Inca festivals from solutist or constitutionalist in form, seventeenth-
the pre-Spanish era. Carnival, the days preceding century states aimed to penetrate more deeply into
Lent on the Christian calendar (Mardi Gras, or Fat the lives of their subjects. They wanted more men
Tuesday, is the last of them), offered the occasion for their armed forces; higher taxes to support their
for public revelry of all sorts. Although Catholic projects; and more control over foreign trade, reli-
clergy worked hard to clamp down on the more gious dissent, and society’s unwanted.
riotous aspects of Carnival, many towns and vil- Some tears had begun to appear, however, in
lages still held parades, like those of modern New the seamless fabric of state power. The civil war
516 C h a pt e r 1 6 ■ Stat e B u i l d i n g a n d t h e S e a rc h fo r O r d e r 1648–1690

MA P P I N G T H E W E ST

Austrian territory by 1699


Brandenburg-Prussian territory by 1688
Spanish Habsburg lands

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(Venice)

Europe at the End of the Seventeenth Century


Size was not necessarily an advantage in the late 1600s. Poland-Lithuania, a large country
on the map, had been fatally weakened by internal conflicts. In the next century it would
disappear entirely. While the Ottoman Empire still controlled an extensive territory, outside
of Anatolia its rule depended on intermediaries. The Austrian Habsburgs had pushed the Turks
out of Hungary and back into the Balkans. The tiny Dutch Republic, meanwhile, had become
very rich through international commerce and was the envy of far larger nations.

between Charles I and Parliament in England in


the 1640s opened the way to new demands for po- For Further Exploration
litical participation. When Parliament overthrew
James II in 1688, it also insisted that the new king ■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
and queen, William and Mary, agree to a Bill of for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
end of the book.
Rights. Left on their own during the turmoil in
England, the English North American colonies de- ■ For additional primary-source material from
veloped distinctive forms of representative govern- this period, see Chapter 16 in Sources of
ment. In the eighteenth century, new levels of THE MAKING OF THE WEST, Third Edition.
economic growth and the appearance of new so-
cial groups would exert pressures on the European ■ For Web sites and documents related to topics
state system. The success of seventeenth-century in this chapter, see Make History at
rulers created the political and economic condi- bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
tions in which their critics would flourish.
1648–1690 C h a pt e r R ev i ew 517

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
Key Terms and People Making Connections
constitutionalism (484) Stenka Razin (496) 1. What accounts for the success of absolutism in some parts
absolutism (484) Levellers (499) of Europe and its failure in others?
Louis XIV (484) William, prince 2. How did religious differences in the late seventeenth cen-
revocation of the Edict of Orange (504) tury still cause political conflict?
of Nantes (489) Glorious Revolution
3. Why was the search for order a major theme in science, pol-
bureaucracy (489) (504)
itics, and the arts during this period?
mercantilism (490) social contract (504)
Frederick William classicism (510)
of Hohenzollern (493) salon (513)
For practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other
study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
Review Questions
1. How “absolute” was the power of Louis XIV?
2. Why did absolutism flourish everywhere in eastern Europe
except Poland-Lithuania?
3. What differences over religion and politics caused the
conflict between king and Parliament in England?
4. Why did constitutionalism thrive in the Dutch Republic
and the British North American colonies, even as their par-
ticipation in the slave trade grew?
5. How did elite and popular culture become more separate
in the seventeenth century?

Important Events

1642–1646 Civil war between King Charles I and Parlia- 1667 Louis XIV begins first of many wars that con-
ment in England tinue throughout his reign
1648 Peace of Westphalia ends Thirty Years’ War; 1678 Madame de Lafayette anonymously publishes
the Fronde revolt challenges royal authority in her novel The Princess of Clèves
France; Ukrainian Cossack warriors rebel 1683 Austrian Habsburgs break the Turkish siege
against the king of Poland-Lithuania; Spain of Vienna
formally recognizes independence of the
Dutch Republic 1685 Louis XIV revokes toleration for French Protes-
tants granted by the Edict of Nantes
1649 Execution of Charles I of England; new Russ-
ian legal code assigns all to hereditary class 1688 Parliament deposes James II and invites his
daughter, Mary, and her husband, William
1651 Thomas Hobbes publishes Leviathan of Orange, to take the throne
1660 Monarchy restored in England 1690 John Locke publishes Two Treatises of
1661 Slave code set up in Barbados Government and Essay Concerning Human
Understanding
The Atlantic System C H A P T E R

and Its Consequences


1690–1740
17
The Atlantic System and the
World Economy 520
• Slavery and the Atlantic System
• World Trade and Settlement
• The Birth of Consumer Society
ohann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), composer of mighty organ

J fugues and church cantatas, was not above amusing his Leipzig au-
diences, many of them university students. In 1732, he produced a
cantata about a young woman in love — with coffee. Her old-fashioned
New Social and Cultural
Patterns 529
• Agricultural Revolution
• Social Life in the Cities
father rages that he won’t find her a husband unless she gives up the • New Tastes in the Arts
• Religious Revivals
fad. She agrees, secretly vowing to admit no suitor who will not prom-
ise in the marriage contract to let her brew coffee whenever she wants. Consolidation of the European
State System 536
Bach offers this conclusion:
• French Ambitions Thwarted
The cat won’t give up its mouse, • British Rise and Dutch Decline
• Russia’s Emergence as a European
Girls stay faithful coffee-sisters
Power
Mother loves her coffee habit, • The Power of Diplomacy and the
Grandma sips it gladly too — Importance of Population
Why then shout at the daughters?
The Birth of the
Bach’s era might well be called the age of coffee. European travelers at Enlightenment 545
the end of the sixteenth century had noticed Middle Eastern people • Popularization of Science and
Challenges to Religion
drinking a “black drink,” kavah, and the Turks took coffee beans with • Travel Literature and the Challenge
them on their military campaigns in eastern Europe. Few Europeans to Custom and Tradition
• Raising the Woman Question
sampled the drink at first, and the Arab monopoly on its production
kept prices high. This changed around 1700 when the Dutch East
India Company introduced coffee plants to Java and other Indonesian
islands. Coffee production then spread to the French Caribbean, where
African slaves provided the plantation labor. In Europe, imported cof-
fee spurred the development of a new kind of meeting place: the first
coffeehouse opened in London in 1652, and the idea spread quickly to
other European cities. Men gathered in coffeehouses to drink, read
newspapers, and talk politics. As a London newspaper commented in
1737, “There’s scarce an Alley in City and Suburbs but has a Coffee-
house in it, which may be called the School of Public Spirit, where every
Man over Daily and Weekly Journals, a Mug, or a Dram . . . devotes
himself to that glorious one, his Country.”

London Coffeehouse
This gouache (a variant on watercolor painting) from about 1725 depicts a scene
from a London coffeehouse located in the courtyard of the Royal Exchange
(merchants’ bank). Middle-class men (wearing wigs) read newspapers, drink coffee,
smoke pipes, and discuss the news of the day. The coffeehouse draws them out of
their homes into a new public space. (© British Museum, London/ The Bridgeman Art Library.)
519
520 C h a pt e r 1 7 ■ Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s 1690–1740

European consumption of coffee, tea, choco- rising power of Russia under Peter the Great. In
late, and other novelties increased dramatically as western Europe, both Spain and the Dutch Repub-
European nations forged worldwide economic lic declined in influence but continued to vie with
links. At the center of this new global economy was Britain and France for colonial spoils in the Atlantic.
the Atlantic system, the web of trade routes that The more evenly matched competition among the
bound together western Europe, Africa, and the great powers encouraged the development of diplo-
Americas. Europeans bought slaves in western matic skills and drew attention to public health as
Africa, transported them to be sold in the colonies a way of encouraging population growth.
in North and South America and the Caribbean, In the aftermath of Louis XIV’s revocation of
bought raw commodities such as coffee and sugar the Edict of Nantes in 1685, a new intellectual
that were produced by the new colonial planta- movement known as the Enlightenment began to
tions, and then sold those commodities in Euro- germinate. An initial impetus came from French
pean ports for refining and reshipment. This Protestant refugees who published works critical
Atlantic system, which first took clear shape in the of absolutism in politics and religion. Increased
early eighteenth century, became the hub of Euro- prosperity, the growth of a middle-class public,
pean expansion throughout the world. and the decline in warfare after Louis XIV’s death
Coffee drinking is just one example of the in 1715 helped fuel this new critical spirit. Fed by
many new social and cultural patterns that took the popularization of science and the growing in-
root between 1690 and 1740. Improvements in terest in travel literature, the Enlightenment en-
agricultural production at home reinforced the couraged greater skepticism about religious and
effects of trade overseas; Europeans now had more state authority. Eventually, the movement would
disposable income for extras, and they spent their question almost every aspect of social and politi-
money not only in the new coffeehouses and cafés cal life in Europe. The Enlightenment began in
that sprang up all over Europe but also on news- western Europe in those countries — Britain,
papers, musical concerts, paintings, and novels. A France, and the Dutch Republic— most affected
new middle-class public began to make its pres- by the new Atlantic system. It too was a product
ence felt in every domain of culture and social life. of the age of coffee.
Although the rise of the Atlantic system gave
Europe new prominence in the global context, Eu-
Focus Question: What were the most important
ropean rulers still focused most of their political,
consequences of the growth of the Atlantic system?
diplomatic, and military energies on their rivalries
within Europe. A coalition of countries succeeded
in containing French aggression, and a more bal-
anced diplomatic system emerged. In eastern
Europe, Prussia and Austria had to contend with the
The Atlantic System
and the World Economy
Atlantic system: The network of trade established in the 1700s Although their ships had been circling the globe
that bound together western Europe, Africa, and the Americas. since the early 1500s, Europeans did not draw most
Europeans sold slaves from western Africa and bought com-
modities that were produced by the new colonial plantations of the world into their economic orbit until the
in North and South America and the Caribbean. 1700s. Western European trading nations sent

■ 1690s Development of Caribbean plantations ■ 1703 Building of St. Petersburg begins; ■ 1713–1714 Peace of Utrecht
first Russian newspaper
■ 1694 Bank of England established; ■ 1714–1727 King George I
Astell, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies of England

1690 1700 1710

■ 1697 Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary ■ 1715 Death


of Louis XIV
■ 1699 Turks forced to recognize Austrian
rule over Hungary, Transylvania
1690–1740 Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d t h e Wo r l d E co n om y 521

ships loaded with goods to buy slaves from local State-chartered private companies from Por-
rulers on the western coast of Africa; the slaves tugal, France, Britain, the Dutch Republic, Prussia,
were then transported to the colonies in North and and even Denmark exploited the 3,500-mile coast-
South America and the Caribbean and sold to the line of West Africa for slaves. Before 1675, most
owners of plantations producing coffee, sugar, cot- blacks taken from Africa had been sent to Brazil,
ton, and tobacco. Money from the slave trade was but by 1700 half of the African slaves were land-
used to buy the raw commodities produced in the ing in the Caribbean (Figure 17.1). Thereafter, the
colonies and ship them back to Europe, where they plantation economy began to expand on the North
were refined or processed and then sold within American mainland. The numbers stagger the
Europe and around the world. The Atlantic system imagination. Before 1650, slave traders trans-
and the growth of international trade thus helped ported about seven thousand Africans each year
create a new consumer society.

Slavery and the FIGURE 17.1 African Slaves Imported into American Territories,
Atlantic System 1701–1810
During the eighteenth century, planters in the newly established
Spain and Portugal dominated Atlantic trade in Caribbean colonies imported millions of African slaves to work the
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but in the new plantations that produced sugar, coffee, indigo, and cotton for the
eighteenth century European trade in the Atlantic European market. The vast majority of African slaves transported to the
rapidly expanded and became more systematically Americas ended up in either the Caribbean or Brazil. Why were so many
interconnected (Map 17.1). By 1630, Portugal had slaves transported to the Caribbean islands, which are relatively small
already sent sixty thousand African slaves to Brazil compared to Spanish or British North America? (Adapted from Philip D. Curtin,
to work on the new plantations (large tracts of The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census [Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969].)
lands that produced staple crops, were farmed by
slave labor, and were owned by colonial settlers 3,233,700
from western Europe), which were producing
some fifteen thousand tons of sugar a year. Real-
izing that plantations producing staples for Euro-
peans could bring fabulous wealth, the European
powers grew less interested in the dwindling trade 1,891,400
in precious metals and more eager to colonize. In
the 1690s, large-scale planters of sugar, tobacco,
and coffee began displacing small farmers who re-
lied on one or two servants. Planters and their
578,600
578,600
plantations won out because cheap slave labor 348,000
allowed them to produce mass quantities of com-
modities at low prices.

plantation: A large tract of land that produced staple crops such British North Spanish
Spanish America Caribbean
America Brazil
as sugar, coffee, and tobacco; was farmed by slave labor; and America and U.S.
was owned by a colonial settler.

■ 1720 Last plague outbreak in western Europe

■ 1721 Treaty of Nystad; ■ 1733 War of the Polish Succession;


Montesquieu, Persian Letters Voltaire, Letters Concerning the English Nation

1720 1730 1740

■ 1719 Defoe, Robinson Crusoe ■ 1741 Handel, Messiah


522
N

C h a pt e r 1 7
W E

AY
RW


-NO

Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s
ICELAND
SWEDEN

A RK
DENM
Hudson RUSSIA
Bay
GREAT
CANADA ATLANTIC BRITAIN
OCEAN DUTCH REPUBLIC

NEW Fu EUROPE ASIA


NORTH FRANCE H
r s,
fis h
ds
FRANCE
AMERICA ORT b e r, f
ish red
goo
N A T im
fa ctu OTTOMAN
H IC Ma
nu SPAIN EMPIRE CHINA
IS ER Toba
cco
JAPAN
AT

M PORTUGAL
I
BR

gar
Sl

ve
a

s Su Calcutta
NEW SPAIN Gold,

r w a i n , s il k
(Br.)
PACIFIC

ic es
(MEXICO) silver WEST INDIES Guangzhou 
INDIA 

r e, s p
Bombay  (Canton) OCEAN

la
AF RIC A (Br.)

la c , p o rce
Pondicherry
er Barbados  (Fr.)
lv PHILIPPINES
Si

qu e
Tea
Slav
es
EAST INDIES

Slaves
G o l d,

INDONESIA

licoes, pearls
PERU

S i l k , c o ff e e, ge ms
BRAZIL
silve

Java

n, gems
r
suga
r

Coffee
SOUTH ANGOLA

S p i c e s, ca
ld,

, c o tto
la v e s

per
Go

AMERICA

P ep

e
s

ffe
S ilk
ice

y, s
British

Co
Sp

on
Eb
Danish
Dutch Cape of
Good Hope
French
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish 0 1,500 3,000 miles
Spices Trade goods
0 1,500 3,000 kilometers

MAP 17.1 European Trade Patterns, c. 1740

1690–1740
By 1740, the European powers had colonized much of North and South America and incorporated their colonies there into a
worldwide system of commerce centered on the slave trade and plantation production of staple crops. Europeans still sought
spices and luxury goods in China and the East Indies, but outside of Java, few Europeans had settled permanently in these areas.
■ How did control over colonies determine dominance in international trade in this period?
1690–1740 Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d t h e Wo r l d E co n om y 523

across the Atlantic; this rate doubled between 1650 from 1730 to 1765 than at any other time in Amer-
and 1675, nearly doubled again in the next twenty- ican history. The imbalance of whites and blacks
five years, and kept increasing until the 1780s was even more extreme in the Caribbean, where
(Figure 17.2, below). In all, more than eleven mil- most indigenous people had already died fight-
lion Africans, not counting those who were cap- ing Europeans or the diseases brought by them.
tured but died before or during the sea voyage, By 1713, the French Caribbean colony of St.
were transported to the Americas before the slave Domingue (on the western part of Hispaniola,
trade began to wind down after 1850. Many indi- present-day Haiti) had four times as many black
vidual traders gained spectacular wealth, but com- slaves as whites; by 1754, slaves there outnumbered
panies did not always make profits. The English whites more than ten to one.
Royal African Company, for example, delivered Enslaved women and men suffered terribly.
100,000 slaves to the Caribbean and imported Most had been sold to European traders by
thirty thousand tons of sugar to Britain yet lost Africans from the west coast who acquired them
money after the few profitable years following its through warfare or kidnapping. The vast majority
founding in 1672. were between fourteen and thirty-five years old.
Before they were crammed onto the ships for the
The Life of the Slaves. The balance of white and three-month trip, their heads were shaved, they
black populations in the New World colonies was were stripped naked, and some were branded with
determined by the staples produced. Because they red-hot irons. Men and women were separated.
did not own plantations, New England merchants Men were shackled with leg irons. Sailors and of-
and farmers bought few slaves. Blacks — both slave ficers raped the women whenever they wished and
and free — made up only 3 percent of the popu- beat those who refused their advances. In the
lation in eighteenth-century New England, com- cramped and appalling conditions of the voyage,
pared with 60 percent in South Carolina. On the as many as one-fourth of the slaves died.
whole, the British North American colonies con- Those who survived the transit were forced
tained a higher proportion of African Americans into degrading and oppressive conditions. Upon

FIGURE 17.2 Annual Imports in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1450–1870


The importation of slaves to the American territories reached its height in the second half of the
eighteenth century and began to decline around 1800. Yet despite the abolition of the slave trade by
the British in 1807, commerce in slaves did not seriously diminish until after the revolutions of 1848.
(Adapted from Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969). Reprinted by
permission of the University of Wisconsin Press.)

100,000
1760
1830
1850
1780 1800
1725 1750 18201840
1700
10,000 1625 1675 1860
Number of Slaves

1650
1870
1525 1600
1575
1550
1,000
1500

100
1500 1600 1700 1800 1870
Years
524 C h a pt e r 1 7 ■ Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s 1690–1740

NEW SOURCES, NEW PERSPECTIVES

Oral History and the Life of Slaves

istorians have found it difficult to runaway slaves. The descendants of the lost. Because the Dutch, unlike most other

H reconstruct slave life from the point


of view of the slaves themselves, in
part because slaves newly imported from
runaway slaves recounted the following
details:

In slavery, there was hardly anything to eat.


Europeans, allowed Jews to own slaves,
Portuguese-speaking Jews from Brazil
owned about one-third of the plantations
Africa to the New World did not speak the and slaves in Suriname. Nassy gave the
language of their captors. Scholars have at- It was at the place called Providence Planta- following account of Suriname’s first slave
tempted to fill in this blank by using a va- tion. They whipped you there till your ass revolt:
was burning. Then they would give you a bit
riety of overlapping sources. The most
of plain rice in a calabash [a bowl made There was in the year 1690 a revolt on a
interesting and controversial of these
from a hard-shelled tropical American plantation situated on the Cassewinica Creek,
sources are oral histories taken from de- behind Jews Savannah, belonging to a Jew
fruit]. . . . And the gods told them that this
scendants of slaves. In some former slave is no way for human beings to live. They named Imanuël Machado, where, having
societies, these descendants still tell stories would help them. Let each person go where killed their master, [the slaves] fled, carrying
about their ancestors’ first days under slav- he could. So they ran. away with them everything that was
ery. The controversy comes from using there. . . . The Jews . . . in an expedition which
present-day memories to shed light on From other sources, historians have learned they undertook against the rebels, killed
eighteenth-century lives. that there was a major slave rebellion at many of them and brought back several who
One of the regions most intensively Providence Plantation in Suriname in1693. were punished by death on the very spot.
studied in this fashion is Suriname (for- By comparing such oral histories to
merly Dutch Guiana), on the northeast written accounts of plantation owners, The oral histories told about the revolt
coast of South America between present- missionaries, and Dutch colonial officials, from the runaway slaves’ perspective:
day Guyana and French Guiana. This re- historians have been able to paint a richly There had been a great council meeting [of
gion is a good source of oral histories detailed picture not only of slavery but runaway slaves] in the forest. . . . They de-
because 10 percent of the African slaves also of runaway slave societies, which were cided to burn a different one of [Machado’s]
transported there between the 1680s and especially numerous in South America. plantations from the place where he had
the 1750s escaped from the plantations At the end of the eighteenth century, a whipped Lanu [one of the runaway slaves]
and fled into the nearby rain forests. There Portuguese-speaking Jew named David de because they would find more tools there.
they set up their own societies and devel- Ishak Cohen Nassy wrote his own history This was the Cassewinica Plantation, which
oped their own language, in which they of plantation life based on records from had many slaves. They knew all about this
carried on the oral traditions of the first the local Jewish community that are now plantation from slavery times. So, they at-

purchase, masters gave slaves new names, often contrast, where sugar was a minor crop, the slave
only first names, and in some colonies branded population increased tenfold by 1863 through nat-
them as personal property. Slaves had no social ural growth.
identities of their own; they were expected to learn Not surprisingly, despite the threat of torture
their master’s language and to do any job assigned. or death on recapture, slaves sometimes ran away.
Slaves worked fifteen- to seventeen-hour days and (See “New Sources, New Perspectives,” above.) In
were fed only enough to keep them on their feet. Brazil, runaways found quilombos (hideouts) in
Brazilian slaves consumed more calories than the the forests or backcountry. When it was discovered
poorest Brazilians do today, but that hardly made and destroyed in 1695, the quilombo of Palmares
them well fed. The death rate among slaves was had thirty thousand fugitives who had formed
high, especially on the sugar plantations, where their own social organization, complete with
slaves had to cut and haul sugarcane to the grinders elected kings and councils of elders. Outright re-
and boilers before it spoiled. During the harvest, volt was uncommon, especially before the nine-
grinding and boiling went on around the clock. teenth century, but other forms of resistance
Because so many slaves died in the sugar-growing included stealing food, breaking tools, and feign-
regions, more and more slaves, especially strong ing illness or stupidity. Slaveholders’ fears about
males, had to be imported. In North America, in conspiracy and revolt lurked beneath the surface
1690–1740 Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d t h e Wo r l d E co n om y 525

Slaves of Suriname the main town of the colony in exchange


in the 1770s for agreeing to return all future runaways.
John Gabriel Stedman The runaways had not destroyed the slave
published an account of system, but they had gained their own in-
his participation in a five- dependence alongside it. From their oral
year expedition against histories it is possible to retrace their ef-
the runaway slaves of forts to build new lives in a strange place,
Suriname that took place in which they combined African practices
in the 1770s. He provided with New World experiences.
drawings such as the one
reproduced here, which Source: Richard Price, Alabi’s World (Baltimore:
shows Africans who have Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 17, 9.
just come off a slave
ship. (The New York Public Questions to Consider
Library/ Art Resource, NY.) 1. What did the runaway slaves mentioned
in these accounts aim to accomplish
when they attacked plantations?
2. Why would runaway slaves make an
agreement with the Dutch colonial of-
ficials to return future runaways?
3. Can oral histories recorded in the twen-
tieth century be considered accurate ver-
sions of events that took place in the
eighteenth century? How can they be
tested?

Further Reading
tacked. It was at night. They killed the head Over the next decades, the runaway Price, Richard. Alabi’s World. 1990.
of the plantation, a white man. They took all slaves fought a constant series of battles Stedman, John Gabriel. Narrative of a Five
the things, everything they needed. with plantation owners and Dutch offi- Years’ Expedition Against the Revolted
The runaway slaves saw the attack as part cials. Finally, in 1762, the Dutch granted Negroes of Surinam. Edited, and with
of their ongoing effort to build a life in the the runaway slaves their freedom in a peace an introduction and notes, by Richard
rain forest, away from the whites. agreement and allowed them to trade in Price and Sally Price. 1988.

of every slave-based society. In 1710, the royal gov- gained influence in local and national politics.
ernor of Virginia reminded the colonial legislature William Beckford, for example, had been sent from
of the need for unceasing vigilance: “We are not to Jamaica to school in England as a young boy. When
Depend on Either Their Stupidity, or that Babel of he inherited sugar plantations and shipping com-
Languages among ’em; freedom Wears a Cap panies from his father and older brother, he moved
which Can Without a Tongue, Call Togather all the headquarters of the family business to London
Those who Long to Shake off the fetters of Slav- in the 1730s to be close to the government and
ery.” Masters defended whipping and other forms financial markets. His holdings formed the single
of physical punishment as essential to maintain- most powerful economic interest in Jamaica, but
ing discipline. Laws called for the castration of a he preferred to live in England, where he could buy
slave who struck a white person. works of art for his many luxurious homes, hold
political office (he was lord mayor of London and
Effects of the Slave Trade on Europe. Plantation a member of Parliament), and even lend money to
owners often left their colonial possessions in the the government.
care of agents and merely collected the revenue so The slave trade permanently altered consump-
that they could live as wealthy landowners back tion patterns for ordinary people. Sugar had been
home, where they built opulent mansions and prescribed as a medicine before the end of the
526 C h a pt e r 1 7 ■ Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s 1690–1740

Caribbean Sugar Mill


This seventeenth-century engraving of a
sugar mill or grinder makes the work seem
much less difficult than it was in practice.
Slaves cut the sugarcane and then hauled
it from the fields to the mill, where it was
crushed. Many slaves lost fingers or hands
in the process. The slaves then collected
the juice (bottom center) and carried it to
the boilers, shown at the bottom left and
right. The sap was poured into molds and
dried. Then the bricks of raw sugar were
exported to Europe for refining.
(The Granger Collection, NY.)

sixteenth century, but the development of planta- doxes of this time was that talk of liberty and self-
tions in Brazil and the Caribbean made it a stan- evident rights, especially prevalent in Britain and
dard food item. By 1700, the British were sending its North American colonies, coexisted with the
home fifty million pounds of sugar a year, a figure belief that some people were meant to be slaves.
that doubled by 1730. During the French Revolu- Although Christians believed in principle in a kind
tion of the 1790s, sugar shortages would become of spiritual equality between blacks and whites, the
a cause for rioting in Paris. Equally pervasive was churches often defended or at least did not oppose
the spread of tobacco; by the 1720s, Britain was the inequities of slavery.
importing two hundred shiploads of tobacco from
Virginia and Maryland annually, and men of every
country and class smoked pipes or took snuff. World Trade and Settlement
The Atlantic system helped extend European trade
The Origins of Modern Racism. The traffic in relations across the globe. The textiles that Atlantic
slaves disturbed many Europeans. As a govern- shippers exchanged for slaves on the west coast of
ment memorandum to the Spanish king explained Africa, for example, were manufactured in India
in 1610: “Modern theologians in published books and exported by the British and French East India
commonly report on, and condemn as unjust, the Companies. As much as one-quarter of the British
acts of enslavement which take place in provinces exports to Africa in the eighteenth century were
of this Royal Empire.” Between 1667 and 1671, the actually re-exports from India. To expand its trade
French Dominican monk Father Du Tertre pub- in the rest of the world, Europeans seized territo-
lished three volumes in which he denounced the ries and tried to establish permanent settlements.
mistreatment of slaves in the French colonies. The eighteenth-century extension of European
In the 1700s, however, slaveholders began to power prepared the way for western global domi-
justify their actions by demeaning the mental and nation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
spiritual qualities of the enslaved Africans. White
Europeans and colonists sometimes described The Americas. In contrast to the sparsely inhab-
black slaves as animal-like, akin to apes. A leading ited trading outposts in Asia and Africa, the
New England Puritan asserted about the slaves: colonies in the Americas bulged with settlers. The
“Indeed their Stupidity is a Discouragement. It may British North American colonies, for example,
seem, unto as little purpose, to Teach, as to wash contained about 1.5 million nonnative (that is,
an Aethiopian [Ethiopian].” One of the great para- white settler and black slave) residents by 1750.
1690–1740 Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d t h e Wo r l d E co n om y 527

While the Spanish competed with the Portuguese The uncertainties of life in the American
for control of South America, the French com- colonies provided new opportunities for European
peted with the British for control of North Amer- women and men willing to live outside the law,
ica. Spanish and British settlers came to blows over however. In the 1500s and 1600s, the English and
the boundary between the British colonies and Dutch governments had routinely authorized pi-
Florida, which was held by Spain. rates to prey on the ships of their rivals, the Span-
Local economies shaped colonial social rela- ish and Portuguese. Then, in the late 1600s,
tions; men in French trapper communities in English, French, and Dutch bands made up of de-
Canada, for example, had little in common with serters and crews from wrecked vessels began to
the men and women of the plantation societies in form their own associations of pirates, especially
Barbados or Brazil. Racial attitudes also differed in the Caribbean. Called buccaneers from their
from place to place. The Spanish and Portuguese custom of curing strips of beef, called boucan by
tolerated intermarriage with the native popula- the native Caribs of the islands, the pirates gov-
tions in both America and Asia. Sexual contact, erned themselves and preyed on everyone’s ship-
both inside and outside marriage, fostered greater ping without regard to national origin. After 1700,
racial variety in the Spanish and Portuguese the colonial governments tried to stamp out
colonies than in the French or the English territo- piracy. As one British judge argued in 1705, “A pi-
ries (though mixed-race people could be found rate is in perpetual war with every individual and
everywhere). By 1800, mestizos, children of Span- every state. . . . They are worse than ravenous
ish men and Indian women, accounted for more beasts.”
than a quarter of the population in the Spanish
colonies, and many of them aspired to join the lo- Africa and Asia. White settlements in Africa and
cal elite. However, greater racial diversity seems not Asia remained small and almost insignificant, ex-
to have improved the treatment of slaves. cept for their long-term potential. Europeans had
Where intermarriage between colonizers and little contact with East Africa and almost none
natives was common, conversion to Christianity with Africa’s vast interior. A handful of Portuguese
proved most successful. Even while maintaining trading posts in Angola and a few Dutch farms on
their native religious beliefs, many Indians in the the Cape of Good Hope provided the only toe-
Spanish colonies had come to consider themselves holds for future expansion. In China, the emper-
devout Catholics by 1700. Indian carpenters and ar- ors had welcomed Catholic missionaries at court
tisans in the villages produced innumerable altars, in the seventeenth century, but the priests’ credi-
retables (painted panels), and sculpted images to bility diminished as they squabbled among them-
adorn their local churches, and individual families selves and associated with European merchants,
put up domestic shrines. Yet the clergy remained whom the Chinese considered pirates. “The
overwhelmingly Spanish: the church hierarchy con- barbarians [Europeans] are like wild beasts,” one
cluded that the Indians’ humility and innocence Chinese official concluded. In 1720, only one thou-
made them unsuitable for the priesthood. sand Europeans resided in Guangzhou (Canton),
In the early years of American colonization, the sole place where foreigners could legally trade
many more men than women emigrated from for spices, tea, and silk (see Map 17.1, page 522).
Europe. Although the sex imbalance began to Europeans exercised more influence in Java
decline at the end of the seventeenth century, it (in what was then called the East Indies) and in
remained substantial; two and a half times more India. Dutch coffee production in Java and nearby
men than women were among the immigrants islands increased phenomenally in the early 1700s,
leaving Liverpool, England, between 1697 and and many Dutch settled there to oversee produc-
1707, for example. Women who emigrated as in- tion and trade. Dutch, English, French, Por-
dentured servants ran great risks: if they did not tuguese, and Danish companies competed in India
die of disease during the voyage, they were likely for spices, cotton, and silk; by the 1740s, the Eng-
to give birth to illegitimate children (the fate of at lish and French had become the leading rivals in
least one in five servant women) or be virtually India, just as they were in North America. Both
sold into marriage. Upper-class women were often countries extended their power as India’s Muslim
kept in seclusion, especially in the Spanish and rulers lost control to local Hindu princes, rebel-
Portuguese colonies. lious Sikhs, invading Persians, and their own

mestizo: A person born to a Spanish father and a native Amer- buccaneers: Pirates of the Caribbean who governed themselves
ican mother. and preyed on international shipping.
528 C h a pt e r 1 7 ■ Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s 1690–1740

India Cottons and Trade with the East


This colored cotton cloth (now faded with age)
was painted and embroidered in Madras in
southern India sometime in the late 1600s.
The male figure with a mustache may be a
European, but the female figures are clearly
Asian. Europeans—especially the British—
discovered that they could make big profits on
the export of Indian cotton cloth to Europe.
They also traded Indian cottons in Africa for
slaves and sold large quantities in the colonies.
(Victoria and Albert Museum, London.)

provincial governors. A few thousand Europeans London’s population more than tripled and Paris’s
lived in India, though many thousand more sol- more than doubled.
diers were stationed there to protect them. The Although contemporaries could not have re-
staple of trade with India in the early 1700s was alized it then, this was the start of the modern pop-
calico — lightweight, brightly colored cotton cloth ulation explosion. It appears that a decline in the
that caught on as a fashion in Europe (see the im- death rate, rather than a rise in the birthrate, ex-
age above). plains the turnaround. Three main factors con-
Europeans who visited India were especially tributed to increased longevity: better weather and
struck by what they viewed as exotic religious prac- hence more bountiful harvests, improved agricul-
tices. In a book published in 1696 of his travels to tural techniques, and the plague’s disappearance
western India, an Anglican minister described the after 1720.
fakirs (religious mendicants, or beggars of alms), By the early eighteenth century, the effects of
“some of whom show their devotion by a shame- economic expansion and population growth
less appearance, walking naked, without the least brought about a consumer revolution. For example,
rag of clothes to cover them.” Such writings in- the British East India Company began to im-
creased European interest in the outside world but port into Britain huge quantities of calico; British
also fed a European sense of superiority that imports of tobacco doubled between 1672 and
helped excuse the more violent forms of colonial 1700; and at Nantes, the center of the French sugar
domination (see The Exotic as Consumer Item, trade, imports quadrupled between 1698 and
page 529). 1733. Tea, chocolate, and coffee became virtual ne-
cessities. In the 1670s, only a trickle of tea reached
London, but by 1720 the East India Company had
The Birth of Consumer Society
sent nine million pounds to England — a figure
As worldwide colonization produced new supplies that rose to thirty-seven million pounds by 1750.
of goods, from coffee to calico, population growth In 1700, England had two thousand coffeehouses;
in Europe fueled demand for them. Beginning first by 1740, every English country town had at least
in Britain, then in France and the Italian states, and two. Paris got its first cafés at the end of the sev-
finally in eastern Europe, population surged, grow- enteenth century; Berlin opened its first coffee-
ing by about 20 percent between 1700 and 1750. house in 1714; and Bach’s Leipzig boasted eight by
The gap between a fast-growing northwest and a 1725.
more stagnant south and central Europe now di-
minished as regions that had lost population dur- consumer revolution: The rapid increase in consumption of new
staples produced in the Atlantic system as well as of other items
ing the seventeenth-century downturn recovered. of daily life that were previously unavailable or beyond the
Cities, in particular, grew. Between 1600 and 1750, reach of ordinary people.
1690–1740 N ew S o c i a l a n d C u ltu r a l Pat t e r n s 529

attacked the new doctrine of consumerism, but


they could not hold back the fast-growing market
for consumption. Change did not occur all at once,
however. The consumer revolution spread from
the cities to the countryside, from England to the
continent, and from western Europe to eastern
Europe only over the long run.

Review: How was consumerism related to slavery in


the early eighteenth century?

New Social and


Cultural Patterns
The rise of consumption was fueled in part by a
revolution in agricultural techniques that made it
possible to produce larger quantities of food with
a smaller agricultural workforce. As population in-
creased, more people moved to the cities, where
The Exotic as Consumer Item they found themselves caught up in innovative ur-
This painting by the Venetian artist Rosalba Carriera ban customs such as attending musical concerts
(1675–1757) is titled Africa. The young black girl and reading novels. Along with a general increase
wearing a turban represents the African continent.
in literacy, these activities helped create a public
Carriera was known for her use of pastels. In 1720,
she journeyed to Paris, where she became an
that responded to new writers and artists. As al-
associate of Antoine Watteau and helped inaugurate ways, people’s experiences varied depending on
the rococo style in painting. Why might the artist have whether they lived in wealth or poverty, in urban
chosen to paint an African girl? (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen or rural areas, or in eastern or western Europe.
Dresden, Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister.)

■ For more help analyzing this image, see the visual


Agricultural Revolution
activity for this chapter in the Online Study Guide at
bedfordstmartins.com/hunt. Although Britain, France, and the Dutch Republic
shared the enthusiasm for consumer goods,
Britain’s domestic market grew most quickly. In
A new economic dynamic steadily took shape Britain, as agricultural output increased 43 percent
that would influence all of subsequent history. over the course of the 1700s, the population in-
More and more people escaped the confines of a creased by 70 percent. The British imported grain
subsistence economy, in which peasants produced to feed the growing population, but they also ben-
barely enough to support themselves from year to efited from the development of techniques that to-
year. As ordinary people gained more disposable gether constituted an agricultural revolution. No
income, demand for nonessential consumer goods new machinery propelled this revolution — just
rose (see Document, “The Social Effects of Grow- increasingly aggressive attitudes toward invest-
ing Consumption,” page 530). These included not ment and management. The Dutch and the Flem-
only the new colonial products such as coffee and ish had pioneered many of these techniques in the
tea but also tables, chairs, sheets, chamber pots, 1600s, but the British took them further.
lamps, mirrors, and for the better off still, coffee- Four major changes occurred in British agri-
and teapots, china, cutlery, chests of drawers, culture that eventually spread to other countries.
desks, clocks, and pictures for the walls. Rising de- First, farmers increased the amount of land under
mand created more jobs and more income and yet cultivation by draining wetlands and by growing
more purchasing power in a mutually reinforcing crops on previously uncultivated common lands
cycle. In the English economic literature of the
1690s, writers reacted to these developments by ex-
agricultural revolution: Increasingly aggressive attitudes
pressing a new view of humans as consuming an- toward investment in and management of land that increased
imals with boundless appetites. Many authors production of food in the 1700s.
530 C h a pt e r 1 7 ■ Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s 1690–1740

DOCUMENT

The Social Effects of Growing Consumption


Daniel Defoe’s adventures in real life are How far the Multitudes of our Peo- I might add here, that it would be
matched only by those of his famous fic- ple are encreased by these very Articles, worth the while for those Gentlemen, who
tional characters Robinson Crusoe and and that to such a Degree as is scarce con- talk so much of their antient Family Merit,
Moll Flanders. Though never shipwrecked ceivable, is worth our Enquiry, were it not and look so little at preserving the Stock,
like Crusoe, Defoe spent time in bank- too tedious for this Place. What populous by encreasing their own: I say, it would be
ruptcy, in exile, and in prison (for writing Towns are rais’d by our Manufactures, worth their while to look into the Roll of
a pamphlet satirizing Anglican treatment from with few Years! How are our Towns our Gentry, and enquire what is become of
of dissenters). He turned his hand to built into Cities, and small Villages (hardly the Estates and those prodigious Numbers
various forms of commerce, in hosiery, known in ancient Times) grown up into of lost and extinct Families, which now
woolens, wine, and political secrets, but populous Towns! . . . even the Heralds themselves can hardly
most of all to mad scribbling on almost any Well might I say, as in the foregoing find; let them tell us if those Estates are not
topic imaginable. He published hundreds Chapter, That it is a Scandal upon the Un- now purchased by Tradesmen and Citizens,
of books and pamphlets. In the 395-page derstanding of the Gentry, to think con- or the Posterity of such; and whether those
book from which this excerpt is taken, he temptibly of the trading part of the Tradesmens Posterity do not now fill up
describes the recent fabulous growth in Nation; seeing however the Gentlemen the Vacancies, the Gaps, and Chasmes in the
the import and export trade of Great may value themselves upon their Birth great Roll or Lift of Families, as well of the
Britain and contrasts the wealth gained by and Blood, the Case begins to turn against Gentry, as of the Nobility themselves; and
the “industrious” classes to the contempt them so evidently, as to Fortune and whether there are many Families left, who
shown them by the aristocracy [Gentry or Estate, that tho’ they say, the Tradesmen have not been either restored as in our first
Gentlemen]. cannot be made Gentlemen; yet the Head, or supply’d, as in the second, by the
Tradesmen are, at this Time, able to buy Succession of Wealth, and new Branches
Our People in general being in good Cir- the Gentlemen almost in every part of the from the growing Greatness of Trade.
cumstances, I mean the middling, trading, Kingdom. . . . Trade, in a word, raises antient Fam-
and industrious People, living tolerably The ancient Families, who having ilies when sunk and decay’d: And plants
well, their well-faring gives Occasion to wasted and exhausted their Estates, and new Families, where the old ones are lost
the vast Consumption of the foreign, as being declin’d and decay’d in Fortune by and extinct.
well as home Produce, the like of which is Luxury and high Living, have restor’d and Source: Daniel Defoe, A Plan of the English
not to be equalled by any Nation in the rais’d themselves again, by mixing Blood Commerce. Being a complete prospect of the trade
World; the Particulars we shall enquire with the despis’d Tradesmen, marrying the of this nation, as well home as foreign. In three parts,
into in their Order. Daughters of such Tradesmen. . . . 2nd ed. (London, 1737), 79–83.

(acreage maintained by the community for graz- crease in fodder to improve the quality and size of
ing). Second, those farmers who could afford it herds. New crops had only a slight impact; pota-
consolidated small, scattered plots into larger, toes, for example, were introduced to Europe from
more efficient units. Third, livestock raising be- South America in the 1500s, but because people
came more closely linked to crop growing, and the feared they might cause leprosy, tuberculosis, or
yields of each increased. (See “Taking Measure,” fevers, they were not grown in quantity until the
page 531.) For centuries, most farmers had rotated late 1700s. By the 1730s and 1740s, agricultural
their fields in and out of production to replenish output had increased dramatically, and prices for
the soil. Now farmers planted carefully chosen fod- food had fallen because of these interconnected
der crops such as clover and turnips that added innovations.
nutrients to the soil, thereby eliminating the need Changes in agricultural practices did not ben-
to leave a field fallow (unplanted) every two or efit all landowners equally. The biggest British
three years. With more fodder available, farmers landowners consolidated their holdings in the “en-
could raise more livestock, which in turn produced closure movement.” They put pressure on small
more manure to fertilize grain fields. Fourth, se- farmers and villagers to sell their land or give up
lective breeding of animals combined with the in- their common lands. The big landlords then
1690–1740 N ew S o c i a l a n d C u ltu r a l Pat t e r n s 531

fenced off (enclosed) their property. Because en- TAKING MEASURE


closure eliminated community grazing rights, it
frequently sparked a struggle between the big land-
lords and villagers, and in Britain it normally re-
quired an act of Parliament. Such acts became A
10
increasingly common in the second half of the
eighteenth century, and by the century’s end six
million acres of common lands had been enclosed
and developed. “Improvers” produced more food
more efficiently than small farmers could and thus
supported a growing population.
Contrary to the fears of contemporaries, small

Yield Ratios
farmers and cottagers (those with little or no prop-
erty) were not forced off the land all at once. But 5 B
most villagers could not afford the litigation in- C
volved in resisting enclosure, and small landhold- D
ers consequently had to sell out to landlords or
farmers with larger plots. Landlords with large
holdings leased their estates to tenant farmers at
constantly increasing rents, and the tenant farm-
ers in turn employed the cottagers as salaried agri-
cultural workers. In this way the English peasantry
largely disappeared, replaced by a more hierarchi- 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800
cal society of big landlords, enterprising tenant Years
farmers, and poor agricultural laborers.
The new agricultural techniques spread slowly Yield Ratios
A = Britain and the Low Countries
from Britain and the Low Countries (the Dutch B = France, Spain, and Italy
Republic and the Austrian Netherlands) to the rest C = Central Europe and Scandinavia
of western Europe. Outside a few pockets in north- D = Eastern Europe
ern France and the western German states, how-
ever, subsistence agriculture (producing just Relationship of Crop Harvested to Seed Used,
enough to get by rather than surpluses for the mar- 1400–1800
ket) continued to dominate farming in western The impact and even the timing of the agricultural
Europe and Scandinavia. In southwestern Germany, revolution can be determined by this figure, based
for example, 80 percent of the peasants produced on yield ratios (the number of grains produced for
no surplus because their plots were too small. each seed planted). Britain, the Dutch Republic,
Unlike the populations of the highly urbanized and the Austrian Netherlands all experienced huge
Low Countries (where half the people lived in increases in crop yields after 1700. Other European
towns and cities), most Europeans, western and regions lagged behind right into the 1800s. Why is
eastern, eked out their existence in the countryside crop yield such an important measure? (From Peter J.
Hugill, World Trade since 1431: Geography, Technology, and Capi-
and could barely participate in the new markets
talism ( Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 56.)
for consumer goods.
In eastern Europe, the condition of peasants
worsened in the areas where landlords tried hard-
est to improve crop yields. To produce more for
the Baltic grain market, aristocratic landholders in serfs. In parts of Poland and Russia, the serfs hardly
Prussia, Poland, and parts of Russia drained wet- differed from slaves in status, and their “masters”
lands, cultivated moors, and built dikes. They also ran their huge estates much like American planta-
forced peasants off lands that the peasants had tions (see the image on page 532).
worked for themselves, increased compulsory la-
bor services (the critical element in serfdom), and
began to manage their estates directly. Some east- Social Life in the Cities
ern landowners grew fabulously wealthy. The Because of emigration from the countryside, cities
Potocki family in the Polish Ukraine, for example, grew in population and consequently exercised
owned three million acres of land and had 130,000 more influence on culture and social life. Between
532 C h a pt e r 1 7 ■ Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s 1690–1740

of the ladder in the big cities were the landed


nobles. Some of them filled their lives only with con-
spicuous consumption of fine food, extravagant
clothing, coaches, books, and opera; others held
key political, administrative, or judicial offices.
However they spent their time, these rich families
employed thousands of artisans, shopkeepers, and
domestic servants. Many English peers (highest-
ranking nobles) had thirty or forty servants at each
of their homes.
The middle classes of officials, merchants,
professionals, and landowners occupied the next
rung down on the social ladder. London’s popula-
tion, for example, included about twenty thousand
middle-class families (constituting, at most, one-
sixth of the city’s population). In this period the
middle classes began to develop distinctive ways of
life that set them apart from both the rich noble
Treatment of Serfs in Russia
landowners and the lower classes. Unlike the rich
Visitors from western Europe often remarked on nobles, the middle classes lived primarily in the
the cruel treatment of serfs in Russia. This drawing cities and towns, even if they owned small coun-
by one such visitor shows the punishment that try estates. They ate more moderately than nobles
could be inflicted by landowners. Serfs could be but much better than peasants or laborers. For
whipped for almost any reason, even for making a breakfast the British middle classes ate toast and
soup too salty or neglecting to bow when the rolls and, after 1700, drank tea. Dinner, served
lord’s family passed by. Their condition worsened midday, consisted of roasted or boiled beef or mut-
in the 1700s, as landowners began to sell serfs ton, poultry or pork, and vegetables. Supper was a
much like slaves. Although life for Russian serfs light meal of bread and cheese with cake or pie.
was more brutal than for peasants elsewhere,
Beer was the main drink in London, and many
upper classes in every country regarded the serfs
as dirty, deceitful, and brutish. (New York Public
families brewed their own. Even children drank
Library/ Art Resource, NY.)
beer because of the lack of fresh water.
Below the middle classes came the artisans and
shopkeepers (most of whom were organized in
professional guilds), then the journeymen, ap-
1650 and 1750, cities with at least ten thousand in- prentices, servants, and laborers. At the bottom of
habitants increased in population by 44 percent. the social scale were the unemployed poor, who
From the eighteenth century onward, urban survived by intermittent work and charity. Women
growth would be continuous. Along with the gen- married to artisans and shopkeepers often kept the
eral growth of cities, an important south-to-north accounts, supervised employees, and ran the
shift occurred in the pattern of urbanization. household as well. Every middle-class and upper-
Around 1500, half of the people in cities of at least class family employed servants; artisans and shop-
ten thousand residents could be found in the Ital- keepers frequently hired them too. Women from
ian states, Spain, or Portugal; by 1700, the urban- poorer families usually worked as domestic ser-
ization of northwestern and southern Europe was vants until they married. Four out of five domes-
roughly equal. Eastern Europe, despite the huge tic servants in the city were female. In large cities
cities of Istanbul and Moscow, was still less urban such as London, the servant population grew faster
than western Europe. London was by far the most than the population of the city as a whole.
populous European city, with 675,000 inhabitants
in 1750; Berlin had 90,000 people, Warsaw only Signs of Social Distinction. Social status in the
23,000. cities was readily visible. Wide, spacious streets
graced rich districts; the houses had gardens, and
Urban Social Classes. Many landowners kept a the air was relatively fresh. In poor districts, the
residence in town, so the separation between ru- streets were narrow, dirty, dark, humid, and smelly,
ral and city life was not as extreme as might be and the houses were damp and crowded. The
imagined, at least not for the very rich. At the top poorest people were homeless, sleeping under
1690–1740 N ew S o c i a l a n d C u ltu r a l Pat t e r n s 533

Vauxhall Gardens, London


This hand-colored print from the mid-eighteenth century shows the newly refurbished gardens near the
Thames River. Prosperous families show off their brightly-colored clothes and listen to a public concert
by the orchestra seated just above them. These activities helped form a more self-conscious public.
(© Bibliothèque des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France/ The Bridgeman Art Library.)

bridges or in abandoned buildings. A Neapolitan The Growth of a Literate Public. The ability to
prince described his homeless neighbors as “lying read and write also reflected social differences.
like filthy animals, with no distinction of age or People in the upper classes were more literate than
sex.” In some districts, rich and poor lived in the those in the lower classes; city people were more
same buildings; the poor clambered up to shabby, literate than peasants. Protestant countries appear
cramped apartments on the top floors. to have been more successful at promoting educa-
Like shelter, clothing was a reliable social in- tion and literacy than Catholic countries, perhaps
dicator. The poorest workingwomen in Paris wore because of the Protestant emphasis on Bible read-
woolen skirts and blouses of dark colors over pet- ing. Widespread literacy among the lower classes
ticoats, a bodice, and a corset. They also donned was first achieved in the Protestant areas of
caps of various sorts, cotton stockings, and shoes Switzerland and in Presbyterian Scotland, and
(probably their only pair). Workingmen dressed rates were also very high in the New England
even more drably. Many occupations could be rec- colonies and the Scandinavian countries. In
ognized by their dress: no one could confuse France, literacy doubled in the eighteenth century
lawyers in their dark robes with masons or butch- thanks to the spread of parish schools, but still only
ers in their special aprons, for example. People one in two men and one in four women could read
higher on the social ladder were more likely to and write. Most peasants remained illiterate. Al-
sport a variety of fabrics, colors, and unusual de- though some Protestant German states encour-
signs in their clothing and to own many different aged primary education, schooling remained
outfits. Social status was not an abstract idea; it woefully inadequate almost everywhere in Europe:
permeated every detail of daily life. few schools existed, teachers received low wages,
534 C h a pt e r 1 7 ■ Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s 1690–1740

and no country had yet established a national sys- provincial newspapers were published in England.
tem of control or supervision. In the London coffeehouses, an edition of a single
Despite the deficiencies of primary education, newspaper might reach ten thousand male read-
a new literate public arose especially among the ers. Women did their reading at home. Except in
middle classes of the cities. More books and peri- the Dutch Republic, newspapers on the continent
odicals were published than ever before, another lagged behind and often consisted mainly of ad-
aspect of the consumer revolution. The trend be- vertising with little critical commentary. France,
gan in the 1690s in Britain and the Dutch Repub- for example, had no daily paper until 1777.
lic and gradually accelerated. In 1695, the British
government allowed the licensing system, through
which it controlled publications, to lapse, and new New Tastes in the Arts
newspapers and magazines appeared almost im- The new literate public did not just read newspa-
mediately. The first London daily newspaper came pers; its members now pursued an interest in
out in 1702, and in 1709 Joseph Addison and painting, attended concerts, and besieged book-
Richard Steele published the first literary maga- sellers in search of popular novels. Because in-
zine, The Spectator. They devoted their magazine creased trade and prosperity put money into the
to the cultural improvement of the increasingly in- hands of the growing middle classes, a new urban
fluential middle class. By the 1720s, twenty-four audience began to compete with the churches,
rulers, and courtiers as chief patrons for new work.
As the public for the arts expanded, printed com-
mentary on them emerged, setting the stage for the
appearance of political and social criticism. New
artistic tastes thus had effects far beyond the realm
of the arts.

Rococo Painting. Developments in painting re-


flected the tastes of the new public, as the rococo
style challenged the hold of the baroque and clas-
sical schools, especially in France. Like the
baroque, the rococo emphasized irregularity and
asymmetry, movement and curvature, but it did
so on a much smaller, subtler scale. Many rococo
paintings depicted scenes of intimate sensuality
rather than the monumental, emotional grandeur
favored by classical and baroque painters. Personal
portraits and pastoral paintings took the place of
heroic landscapes and grand, ceremonial canvases.
Rococo paintings adorned homes as well as palaces
and served as a form of interior decoration rather
than as a statement of piety. Its decorative quality
made rococo art an ideal complement to newly
discovered materials such as stucco and porcelain,
especially the porcelain vases now imported from
China.
Rococo, like baroque, was an invented word
(from the French word rocaille, meaning “shell-
work”) and originally a derogatory label, meaning
“frivolous decoration.” But the great French rococo
painters, such as Antoine Watteau (1684–1721)
Rococo Painting
The rococo emphasis on interiors, on decoration, and on intimacy rather and François Boucher (1703–1770), were much
than monumental grandeur are evident in François Boucher’s painting more than mere decorators. Although both em-
The Luncheon (1739). The painting also draws attention to new
consumer items, from the mirror and the clock to chocolate, children’s
rococo: A style of painting that emphasized irregularity and
toys, a small Buddha statue, and the intricately designed furniture. (The asymmetry, movement and curvature, but on a smaller, more
Art Archive/ Galleria Degli Uffizi/ Dagli Orti (A).) intimate scale than the baroque.
1690–1740 N ew S o c i a l a n d C u ltu r a l Pat t e r n s 535

phasized the erotic in their depictions, Watteau come an integral part of the new middle-class pub-
captured the melancholy side of a passing aristo- lic’s culture.
cratic style of life, and Boucher painted middle-
class people at home during their daily activities. Novels. Nothing captured the imagination of the
Both painters thereby contributed to the emer- new public more than the novel, the literary genre
gence of new sensibilities in art that increasingly whose very name underscored the eighteenth-
attracted a middle-class public. century taste for novelty. More than three hundred
French novels appeared between 1700 and 1730.
Music for the Public. The first public music con- During this unprecedented explosion, the novel
certs were performed in England in the 1670s, be- took on its modern form and became more con-
coming much more regular and frequent in the cerned with individual psychology and social de-
1690s. City concert halls typically seated about two scription than with the adventure tales popular
hundred, but the relatively high price of tickets earlier (such as Miguel de Cervantes’s Don
limited attendance to the better-off. Music clubs Quixote). The novel’s popularity was closely tied
provided entertainment in smaller towns and vil- to the expansion of the reading public, and novels
lages. On the continent, Frankfurt organized the were available in serial form in periodicals or from
first regular public concerts in 1712; Hamburg and the many booksellers who served the new market.
Paris began holding them within a few years. Women figured prominently in novels as
Opera continued to spread in the eighteenth cen- characters, and women writers abounded. The
tury; Venice had sixteen public opera houses by English novel Love in Excess (1719) quickly reached
1700, and the Covent Garden opera house opened a sixth printing, and its author, Eliza Haywood
in London in 1732. (1693?–1756), earned her living turning out a
The growth of a public that appreciated and stream of novels with titles such as Persecuted
supported music had much the same effect as the Virtue, Constancy Rewarded, and The History of
extension of the reading public: like authors, com- Betsy Thoughtless — all showing a concern for the
posers could now begin to liberate themselves proper place of women as models of virtue in a
from court patronage and work for a paying au- changing world. When her husband deserted her
dience. This development took time to solidify, and her two children, Haywood first worked as an
however, and court or church patrons still com- actress but soon turned to writing plays and nov-
missioned much eighteenth-century music. Bach, els. In the 1740s, she began publishing a magazine,
a German Lutheran, wrote his St. Matthew Passion The Female Spectator, which argued in favor of
for Good Friday services in 1729 while he was or- higher education for women.
ganist and choirmaster for the leading church in Haywood’s male counterpart was Daniel
Leipzig. He composed secular works (like the “Cof- Defoe (1660–1731), a merchant’s son who had a
fee Cantata”) for the public and a variety of pri- diverse and colorful career as a manufacturer,
vate patrons. political spy, novelist, and social commentator (see
The composer George Frideric Handel Document, “The Social Effects of Growing Con-
(1685–1759) was among the first to grasp the new sumption,” page 530). Defoe wrote about schemes
directions in music. A German by birth, he wrote for national improvement, the state of English
operas in Italy and then moved in 1710 to Britain, trade, the economic condition of the countryside,
where he wrote music for the court and began the effects of the plague, and the history of pirates;
composing oratorios. The oratorio, a form Handel he is most well known, however, for his novels
introduced in Britain, combined the drama of Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Moll Flanders (1722).
opera with the majesty of religious and ceremo- The story of the adventures of a shipwrecked
nial music and featured the chorus over the sailor, Robinson Crusoe portrayed the new values
soloists. The “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s of the time: to survive, Crusoe had to employ fear-
oratorio Messiah (1741) is perhaps the single best- less entrepreneurial ingenuity. He had to be ready
known piece of Western classical music. It reflected for the unexpected and be able to improvise in
the composer’s personal, deeply felt piety but also every situation. He was, in short, the model for the
his willingness to combine musical materials into new man in an expanding economy. Crusoe’s pa-
a dramatic form that captured the enthusiasm of tronizing attitude toward the black man Friday
the new public. In 1740, a poem about Handel now draws much critical attention, but his discov-
published in the Gentleman’s Magazine exulted: ery of Friday shows how the fate of blacks and
“His art so modulates the sounds in all, / Our pas- whites had become intertwined in the new colo-
sions, as he pleases, rise and fall.” Music had be- nial environment.
536 C h a pt e r 1 7 ■ Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s 1690–1740

Religious Revivals midcentury, Jansenism became even more politi-


cally active as its adherents joined in opposition to
Despite the novel’s growing popularity, religious
the crown’s policies on religion.
books and pamphlets still sold in huge numbers,
and most Europeans remained devout, even as
their religions were changing. In this period, a Review: How were new social trends reflected in
Protestant revivalist movement known as Pietism cultural life in the late 1600s and early 1700s?
rocked the complacency of the established
churches in the German Lutheran states, the Dutch
Republic, and Scandinavia. Pietists believed in a
mystical religion of the heart; they wanted a deeply Consolidation of the
emotional, even ecstatic religion. They urged in-
tense Bible study, which in turn promoted popu- European State System
lar education and contributed to the increase in
The spread of Pietism and Jansenism reflected the
literacy. Many Pietists attended catechism instruc-
emergence of a middle-class public that now par-
tion every day and also went to morning and
ticipated in every new development, including
evening prayer meetings in addition to regular
religion. The middle classes could pursue these
Sunday services. Although Pietism appealed to
interests because the European state system grad-
both Lutherans and Calvinists, it had the greatest
ually stabilized despite the increasing competition
impact in Lutheran Prussia, where it taught the
for wealth in the Atlantic system. Warfare settled
virtues of hard work, obedience, and devotion to
three main issues between 1690 and 1740: a coali-
duty.
tion of powers held Louis XIV’s France in check
Catholicism also had its versions of religious
on the continent, Great Britain emerged from the
revival, especially in France. A Frenchwoman,
wars against Louis as the preeminent maritime
Jeanne Marie Guyon (1648–1717), attracted many
power, and Russia defeated Sweden in the contest
noblewomen and a few leading clergymen to
for supremacy in the Baltic. After Louis XIV’s
her own Catholic brand of Pietism, known as
death in 1715, Europe enjoyed the fruits of a more
Quietism. Claiming miraculous visions and as-
balanced diplomatic system, in which warfare be-
tounding prophecies, she urged a mystical union
came less frequent and less widespread. States
with God through prayer and simple devotion. De-
could then spend their resources establishing and
spite papal condemnation and intense controversy
expanding control over their own populations,
within Catholic circles in France, Guyon had fol-
both at home and in their colonies.
lowers all over Europe.
Even more influential were the Jansenists, who
gained many new adherents to their austere form French Ambitions Thwarted
of Catholicism despite Louis XIV’s harassment
Lying on his deathbed in 1715, the seventy-six-
and repeated condemnation by the papacy. Under
year-old Louis XIV watched helplessly as his ac-
the pressure of religious and political persecution,
complishments began to unravel. Not only had his
Jansenism took a revivalist turn in the 1720s. At
plans for territorial expansion been frustrated, but
the funeral of a Jansenist priest in Paris in 1727,
his incessant wars had exhausted the treasury, de-
the crowd who flocked to the grave claimed to wit-
spite new taxes. In 1689, Louis’s rival, William III,
ness a series of miraculous healings. Within a few
prince of Orange and king of England and Scot-
years, a cult formed around the priest’s tomb and
land (r. 1689–1702), had set out to forge a Euro-
clandestine Jansenist presses were reporting new
pean alliance that eventually included Britain,
miracles to the reading public. When the French
the Dutch Republic, Sweden, Austria, and Spain.
government tried to suppress the cult, one enraged
The allies fought Louis to a stalemate in the War
wit placed a sign at the tomb that read, “By order
of the League of Augsburg, sometimes called the
of the king, God is forbidden to work miracles
Nine Years’ War (1689–1697), and when hostilities
here.” Some believers fell into frenzied convul-
resumed four years later, they finally put an end to
sions, claiming to be inspired by the Holy Spirit
Louis’s expansionist ambitions.
through the intercession of the dead priest. After
The War of the Spanish Succession, 1701–1713.
When the mentally and physically feeble Charles
Pietism: A Protestant revivalist movement of the early eigh-
teenth century that emphasized deeply emotional individual II (r. 1665–1700) of Spain died without a direct
religious experience. heir, all of Europe poised for a fight over the spoils.
1690–1740 C o n s o l i dat i o n o f t h e E u ro p e a n Stat e Sys t e m 537

English and French Claims


after the Peace of Utrecht, 1714
0 200 400 miles
0 200 400 kilometers

Newfoundland

Hudson
Bay

English French

AY
claim claim
S W E D E N

RW
0 500 1000 miles Nova
English Scotia
0 500 1000 kilometers claim

NO
St. Petersburg

RK-
MA
SCOTLAND
Edinburgh

a
DEN
Moscow

Se
North 
IRELAND Sea ti

c
N
Dublin  l
W GREAT DUTCH Ba RUSSIA
POLAND-

A
BRITAIN REPUBLIC

SI
E LITHUANIA
R US
S ENGLAND Hanover R G-P
 N BU
B R A N DE 
London Utrecht Berlin 
Warsaw
Elb
English Channel Austrian  Cologne e
.  Kiev
R
Neth. H OLY
Rh

R.
ine

ATLANTIC ROM AN V is t ul
a

R.

Paris E M PIR E
OCEAN AUSTRIA
.
L o i re R Vienna 
HUNGARY
Pest
SWISS Buda 
FRANCE CONFED.

SAVOY Da
MILAN VENICE n ub
e R.
GENOA
 Black Sea
Marseille TUSCANY PAPAL
PORTUGAL Madrid STATES O
 Corsica T
TO
Lisbon Rome
Constantinople
S PA IN M 
Minorca KINGDOM AN
(Gr. Br.) OF NAPLES EM
BALEARIC IS. Sardinia PIR
E
 Gibraltar
(Gr. Br.)
Sicily
Territories gained after the Peace of Utrecht, 1714
French Bourbon lands To Great Britain
Spanish Bourbon lands To the Austrian Empire
Austrian Habsburg lands The Jacobite rising of 1715 M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a
Prussian lands Main areas of fighting during the
War of the Spanish Succession, 1701–1713
Great Britain
Boundary of the Holy Roman Empire

MAP 17.2 Europe, c. 1715


Although Louis XIV succeeded in putting his grandson Philip on the Spanish throne,
France emerged considerably weakened from the War of Spanish Succession. France ceded
large territories in Canada to Britain, which also gained key Mediterranean outposts from
Spain as well as a monopoly on providing slaves to the Spanish colonies. Spanish losses
were catastrophic. Philip had to renounce any future claim to the French crown and give up
considerable territories in the Netherlands and Italy to the Austrians.
■ How did the competing English and French claims in North America around 1715
create potential conflicts for the future?
538 C h a pt e r 1 7 ■ Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s 1690–1740

The Spanish succession could not help but be a ting the cost of financing the government’s debts.
burning issue. Even though Spanish power had de- The value of the stock rose rapidly in a frenzy of
clined since Spain’s golden age in the sixteenth cen- speculation, only to crash a few months later. With
tury, Spain still had extensive territories in Italy it vanished any hope of establishing a state bank
and the Netherlands as well as colonies overseas. or issuing paper money for nearly a century.
Before Charles died, he named Louis XIV’s second France finally achieved a measure of financial
grandson, Philip, duke of Anjou, as his heir, but stability under the leadership of Cardinal Hercule
the Austrian emperor Leopold I refused to accept de Fleury (1653–1743), the most powerful mem-
Charles’s deathbed will. ber of the government after the death of the re-
In the ensuing war, the French lost several ma- gent. Fleury aimed to avoid adventure abroad and
jor battles and had to accept disadvantageous keep social peace at home; he balanced the budget
terms in the Peace of Utrecht of 1713–1714 (Map and carried out a large project for road and canal
17.2). Although Philip was recognized as king of construction. Colonial trade boomed. Peace and
Spain, he had to renounce any future claim to the the acceptance of limits on territorial expansion
French crown, thus barring unification of the two inaugurated a century of French prosperity.
kingdoms. Spain surrendered its territories in Italy
and the Netherlands to the Austrians and Gibral-
tar to the British; France ceded possessions in British Rise and Dutch Decline
North America (Newfoundland, the Hudson Bay The British and the Dutch had formed a coalition
area, and most of Nova Scotia) to Britain. France against Louis XIV under their joint ruler William
no longer threatened to dominate European power III, who was simultaneously stadholder (elected
politics. head) of the Dutch Republic and, with his English
wife, Mary (d. 1694), ruler of England, Wales, and
The Death of Louis XIV and the Regency. At Scotland. After William’s death in 1702, the British
home, Louis’s policy of absolutism had fomented and Dutch went their separate ways. Over the next
bitter hostility. Nobles fiercely resented his promo- decades, England incorporated Scotland and sub-
tions of commoners to high office. The duke of jugated Ireland, becoming “Great Britain.” At the
Saint-Simon complained that “falseness, servility, same time, Dutch imperial power declined; by
admiring glances, combined with a dependent and 1700, Great Britain dominated the seas and the
cringing attitude, above all, an appearance of be- Dutch, with their small population of less than two
ing nothing without him, were the only ways of million, came to depend on alliances with bigger
pleasing him.” Archbishop Fénelon, who tutored powers.
the king’s grandson, called for reform. An admirer
of Guyon’s Quietism, Fénelon severely criticized From England to Great Britain. English relations
the “steady stream of extravagant adulation, which with Scotland and Ireland were complicated by the
reaches the point of idolatry”; the constant, bloody problem of succession: William and Mary had no
wars; and the misery of the people. children. To ensure a Protestant succession, Parlia-
On his deathbed, Louis XIV offered sound ad- ment ruled that Mary’s sister, Anne, would succeed
vice to his five-year-old great-grandson and suc- William and Mary and that the Protestant House
cessor, Louis XV (r. 1715–1774): “Do not imitate of Hanover in Germany would succeed Anne if she
my love of building nor my liking for war.” After had no surviving heirs. Catholics were excluded.
being named regent, the duke of Orléans When Queen Anne (r. 1702–1714) died leaving no
(1674–1723), nephew of the dead king, revived children, the elector of Hanover, a Protestant
some of the parlements’ powers and tried to give great-grandson of James I, consequently became
leading nobles a greater say in political affairs. To King George I (r. 1714–1727). The House of
raise much-needed funds, in 1719 the regent en- Hanover — renamed the House of Windsor dur-
couraged the Scottish financier John Law to set up ing World War I — still occupies the British throne.
an official trading company for North America Support from the Scots and Irish for this so-
and a state bank that issued paper money and stock lution did not come easily, because many in Scot-
(without them, trade depended on the available land and Ireland supported the claims to the
supply of gold and silver). The bank was supposed throne of the deposed Catholic king, James II, and,
to offer lower interest rates to the state, thus cut- after his death in 1701, his son James Edward. Out
of fear of this Jacobitism (from the Latin Jacobus
Peace of Utrecht: Treaties drawn up in 1713–1714 that ended for “James”), Scottish Protestant leaders agreed to
the War of the Spanish Succession. the Act of Union of 1707, which abolished the
1690–1740 C o n s o l i dat i o n o f t h e E u ro p e a n Stat e Sys t e m 539

Scottish Parliament and affirmed the Scots’ recog- Catholic doctrine. These and a host of other laws
nition of the Protestant Hanoverian succession. reduced Catholic Ireland to the status of a colony;
The Scots agreed to obey the Parliament of Great one English official commented in 1745, “The
Britain, which would include Scottish members in poor people of Ireland are used worse than ne-
the House of Commons and the House of Lords. groes.” Most of the Irish were peasants who lived
A Jacobite rebellion in Scotland in 1715, aiming to in primitive housing and subsisted on a meager
restore the Stuart line, was suppressed. The threat diet that included no meat.
of Jacobitism nonetheless continued into the 1740s The Parliament of Great Britain was soon
(see Map 17.2, page 537). dominated by the Whigs. In Britain’s constitu-
The Irish — 90 percent of whom were tional system, the monarch ruled with Parliament.
Catholic — proved even more difficult to subdue. The crown chose the ministers, directed policy,
When James II had gone to Ireland in 1689 to raise and supervised administration, while Parliament
a Catholic rebellion against the new monarchs of raised revenue, passed laws, and represented the
England, William III responded by taking com- interests of the people to the crown. The powers
mand of the joint English and Dutch forces and of Parliament were reaffirmed by the Triennial Act
defeating James’s Irish supporters. James fled to in 1694, which provided that Parliaments meet at
France, and the Catholics in Ireland faced yet more least once every three years (this was extended to
confiscation and legal restrictions. By 1700, Irish seven years in 1716, after the Whigs had established
Catholics, who in 1640 had owned 60 percent of their ascendancy). Only 200,000 propertied men
the land in Ireland, owned just 14 percent. The could vote, out of a population of more than five
Protestant-controlled Irish Parliament passed a se- million, and, not surprisingly, most members of
ries of laws limiting the rights of the Catholic ma- Parliament came from the landed gentry. In fact,
jority: Catholics could not bear arms, send their a few hundred families controlled all the impor-
children abroad for education, establish Catholic tant political offices.
schools at home, or marry Protestants. Catholics George I and George II (r. 1727–1760) relied
could not sit in Parliament, nor could they vote for on one man, Sir Robert Walpole (1676–1745), to
its members unless they took an oath renouncing help them manage their relations with Parliament.

Sir Robert Walpole at a Cabinet Meeting


Sir Robert Walpole and George II developed the
institution of a cabinet, which brought together
the important heads of departments. Their
cabinet was the ancestor of modern cabinets
in both Great Britain and the United States.
Because of its modest size, its similarities
to modern forms should not be overstated,
however. How would discussions in the new
coffeehouses (shown in the opening illustration
to this chapter) influence the kinds of decisions
made by Walpole and his cabinet? (© The Fotomas
Index, U.K./ The Bridgeman Art Library.)

Robert Walpole: The first, or “prime,” minister of the


House of Commons of Great Britain’s Parliament. Al-
though appointed initially by the king, through his long
period of leadership (1721–1742) he effectively estab-
lished the modern pattern of parliamentary government.
540 C h a pt e r 1 7 ■ Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s 1690–1740

From his position as First Lord of the Treasury, with escalating demands for sugar and tobacco.
Walpole made himself into the first, or “prime,” The Dutch shifted their interest away from great
minister, leading the House of Commons from power rivalries toward those areas of international
1721 to 1742 (see illustration, page 539). Although trade and finance where they could establish an
appointed initially by the king, Walpole established enduring presence.
an enduring pattern of parliamentary government
in which a prime minister from the leading party
Russia’s Emergence
guided legislation through the House of Com-
mons. Walpole also built a vast patronage machine as a European Power
that dispensed government jobs to win support for The commerce and shipbuilding of the Dutch and
the crown’s policies. Walpole’s successors relied British so impressed Russian tsar Peter I (r.
more and more on the patronage system and even- 1689–1725) that he traveled incognito to their
tually alienated not only the Tories but also the shipyards in 1697 to learn their methods firsthand.
middle classes in London and even the North Known to history as Peter the Great, he dragged
American colonies. Russia kicking and screaming all the way to great-
The partisan division between the Whigs, who power status. Although he came to the throne
supported the Hanoverian succession and the while still a minor (on the eve of his tenth birth-
rights of dissenting Protestants, and the Tories, day), grew up under the threat of a palace coup,
who had backed the Stuart line and the Anglican and enjoyed little formal education, his accom-
church, did not hamper Great Britain’s pursuit of plishments soon matched his seven-foot-tall
economic, military, and colonial power. In this pe- stature. Peter transformed public life in Russia and
riod, Great Britain became a great power on the established an absolutist state on the Western
world stage by virtue of its navy and its ability to model. His attempts to create a society patterned
finance major military involvement in the wars after western Europe, known as Westernization,
against Louis XIV. The founding in 1694 of the ignited an enduring controversy: Did Peter set
Bank of England — which, unlike the French bank, Russia on a course of inevitable Westernization re-
endured — enabled the government to raise money quired to compete with the West? Or did he for-
at low interest for foreign wars. By the 1740s, the ever and fatally disrupt Russia’s natural evolution
government could borrow more than four times into a distinctive Slavic society?
what it could in the 1690s.
Westernization. To pursue his goal of Western-
The Dutch Eclipse. When William of Orange izing Russian culture, Peter set up the first green-
(William III of England) died in 1702, he left no houses, laboratories, and technical schools and
heirs, and for forty-five years the Dutch lived with- founded the Russian Academy of Sciences. He or-
out a stadholder. The merchant ruling class of dered translations of Western classics and hired a
some two thousand families dominated the Dutch German theater company to perform the French
Republic more than ever, but they presided over a plays of Molière. He replaced the traditional Russ-
country that counted for less in international ian calendar with the Western one,1 introduced
power politics. In some areas, Dutch decline was Arabic numerals, and brought out the first public
only relative: the Dutch population was not grow- newspaper. He ordered his officials and the nobles
ing as fast as others, for example, and the Dutch to shave their beards (see the illustration on page
share of the Baltic trade decreased from 541) and dress in Western fashion, and he even
50 percent in 1720 to less than 30 percent by the
1770s. After 1720, the Baltic countries — Prussia,
Russia, Denmark, and Sweden — began to ban im- 1 Peter introduced the Julian calendar, then still used in Protes-

tant but not Catholic countries. Later in the eighteenth century,


ports of manufactured goods to protect their own Protestant Europe abandoned the Julian for the Gregorian calen-
industries, and Dutch trade in particular suffered. dar. Not until 1918 was the Gregorian calendar adopted in Rus-
The output of Leiden textiles dropped to one-third sia, at which point Russia’s calendar had fallen thirteen days
behind Europe’s.
of its 1700 level by 1740. Shipbuilding, paper man-
ufacturing, tobacco processing, salt refining, and Peter the Great: Russian tsar Peter I (r. 1689–1725), who un-
pottery production all dwindled as well. The dertook the Westernization of Russia and built a new capital
Dutch East India Company saw its political and city named after himself, St. Petersburg.
military grip loosened in India, Ceylon, and Java. Westernization: The effort, especially in Peter the Great’s Rus-
sia, to make society and social customs resemble counterparts
The biggest exception to the downward trend in western Europe, especially France, Britain, and the Dutch
was trade with the New World, which increased Republic.
1690–1740 C o n s o l i dat i o n o f t h e E u ro p e a n Stat e Sys t e m 541

Peter the Great Modernizes Russia


In this popular print, a barber forces a protesting
noble to conform to western fashions. Peter the
Great ordered all nobles, merchants, and middle-
class professionals to cut off their beards or pay
a huge tax to keep them. An early biographer of
Peter claimed that those who lost their beards
saved them to put in their coffins, in fear that
they would not enter heaven without them. Most
western Europeans applauded these attempts to
modernize Russia, but many Russians deeply
resented the attack on traditional ways. Why was
everyday appearance such a contested issue in
Russia? (The Visual Connection.)

issued precise regulations about the suitable style new social salons of officials, officers, and mer-
of jacket, boots, and cap (generally French or chants for conversation and dancing. A foreigner
German). headed every one of Peter’s new technical and
Peter encouraged foreigners to move to Russia vocational schools, and for its first eight years the
to offer their advice and skills, especially for build- new Academy of Sciences included no Russians.
ing the capital city. Named St. Petersburg after the Every ministry was assigned a foreign adviser.
tsar, the new capital symbolized Russia’s opening Upper-class Russians learned French or German,
to the West. Construction began in 1703 in a Baltic which they spoke even at home. Such changes af-
province that had been recently conquered from fected only the very top of Russian society, how-
Sweden. By the end of 1709, forty thousand recruits ever; the mass of the population had no contact
a year found themselves assigned to the work. with the new ideas and ended up paying for the
Peter ordered skilled workers to move to the new innovations either in ruinous new taxation or by
city and commanded all landowners possessing building St. Petersburg, a project that cost the lives
more than forty serf households to build houses of thousands of workers. Serfs remained tied to the
there. In the 1720s, a German minister described land, completely dominated by their noble lords.
St. Petersburg “as a wonder of the world, consider-
ing its magnificent palaces, . . . and the short time Peter the Great’s Brand of Absolutism. Peter also
that was employed in the building of it.” By 1710, reorganized government and finance on Western
the permanent population of the capital reached models and, like other absolute rulers, strength-
eight thousand. At Peter’s death in 1725, it had forty ened his army. With ruthless recruiting methods,
thousand residents. which included branding a cross on every recruit’s
As a new city far from the Russian heartland left hand to prevent desertion, he forged an army
around Moscow, St. Petersburg represented a de- of 200,000 men and equipped it with modern
cisive break with Russia’s past. Peter widened that weapons. He created schools for artillery, engi-
gap by every means possible. At his new capital he neering, and military medicine and built the first
tried to improve the traditionally denigrated, se- navy in Russian history. Not surprisingly, taxes
cluded status of women by ordering them to dress tripled.
in European styles and appear publicly at his din- The tsar allowed nothing to stand in his way.
ners for diplomatic representatives. Imitating He did not hesitate to use torture, and he executed
French manners, he decreed that women attend his thousands. He allowed a special guard regiment
542 C h a pt e r 1 7 ■ Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s 1690–1740

Peter the Great


In this painting by Gottfried
Danhauer (1680–1733/7), the
Russian tsar appears against the
background of his most famous
battle, Poltava. The angel holds a
laurel wreath, symbol of victory, over
his head. (© Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow,
Russia/ The Bridgeman Art Library.)

unprecedented power to expedite cases against Holy Synod, a bureaucracy of laymen under his
those suspected of rebellion, espionage, preten- supervision. To many Russians, Peter was the devil
sions to the throne, or just “unseemly utterances” incarnate.
against him. Opposition to his policies reached
into his own family: because his only son, Alexei, Changes in the Balance of Power in the East.
had allied himself with Peter’s critics, the tsar Peter the Great’s success in building up state power
threw him into prison, where the young man mys- changed the balance of power in eastern Europe.
teriously died. Overcoming initial military setbacks, Russia even-
To control the often restive nobility, Peter in- tually defeated Sweden and took its place as the
sisted that all noblemen engage in state service. A leading power in the Baltic region. Russia could
Table of Ranks (1722) classified them into mili- then compete with Prussia, Austria, and France in
tary, administrative, and court categories, a codi- the rivalries between great powers.
fication of social and legal relationships in Russia Sweden had dominated the Baltic region since
that would last for nearly two centuries. All social the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), and though the
and material advantages now depended on serv- monarchy lost some of its power under Queen
ing the crown. Because the nobles lacked a secure Christina (r. 1632–1654), the daughter of Gustavus
independent status, Peter could command them to Adolphus, the Swedish kings quickly recovered
a degree that was unimaginable in western Europe. their position. When Peter the Great joined an
State service was not only compulsory but also anti-Swedish coalition in 1700 with Denmark,
permanent. Moreover, the male children of those Saxony, and Poland, Sweden’s Charles XII
in service had to be registered by the age of ten (r. 1697–1718) stood up to the test. Still in his
and begin serving at fifteen. To increase his author- teens at the beginning of the Great Northern War,
ity over the Russian Orthodox church, Peter al- Charles first defeated Denmark, then destroyed the
lowed the office of patriarch (supreme head) to new Russian army, and quickly marched into
remain vacant, and in 1721 he replaced it with the Poland and Saxony. After defeating the Poles and
1690–1740 C o n s o l i dat i o n o f t h e E u ro p e a n Stat e Sys t e m 543

occupying Saxony, Charles invaded Russia. Here nobles in the military (1 in 7 noblemen, as com-
Peter’s rebuilt army finally defeated the Swedish pared with 1 in 33 in France and 1 in 50 in Russia).
king at the battle of Poltava (1709). The army so dominated life in Prussia that the
The Russian victory resounded everywhere. country earned the label “a large army with a small
The Russian ambassador to Vienna reported, “It is state attached.” Frederick William, known as the
commonly said that the tsar will be formidable to “Sergeant King,” was one of the first rulers to wear
all Europe, that he will be a kind of northern Turk.” a military uniform as his everyday dress. He sub-
Prussia and other German states joined the anti- ordinated the entire domestic administration to
Swedish alliance, and when Charles XII died the army’s needs. He also installed a system for re-
in battle in 1718, negotiations finally ended the cruiting soldiers by local district quotas. He
Great Northern War. By the terms of the Treaty of financed the army’s growth by subjecting all the
Nystad (1721), Sweden ceded its eastern Baltic provinces to an excise tax on food, drink, and man-
provinces — Livonia, Estonia, Ingria, and southern ufactured goods and by increasing rents on crown
Karelia — to Russia. Sweden also lost territories on lands. Prussia was now poised to become one of
the north German coast to Prussia and the other the major players on the continent, but it could
allied German states (Map 17.3). An aristocratic not enter into military engagements foolishly
reaction against Charles XII’s incessant demands given the size of its forces and chose to sit on the
for war supplies swept away Sweden’s absolutist sidelines during the next conflict.
regime, essentially removing Sweden from great War broke out in 1733 when the king of
power competition. Poland-Lithuania died. France, Spain, and
Prussia had to make the most of every mili- Sardinia joined in the War of Polish Succession
tary opportunity, as it did in the Great Northern (1733–1735) against Austria and Russia, each side
War, because it was much smaller in size and pop- supporting rival claimants to the Polish throne.
ulation than Russia, Austria, or France. King Although Peter the Great had been followed by a
Frederick William I (r. 1713–1740) doubled the series of weak rulers, Russian forces were still
size of the Prussian army; though still smaller than strong enough to drive the French candidate out
those of his rivals, it was the best-trained and most of Poland-Lithuania, prompting France to accept
up-to-date force in Europe. By 1740, Prussia had the Austrian candidate. In exchange, Austria gave the
Europe’s highest proportion of men at arms (1 of province of Lorraine to the French candidate, the
every 28 people, versus 1 in 157 in France and 1 father-in-law of Louis XV, with the promise that
in 64 in Russia) and the highest proportion of the province would pass to France on his death.

Expansion of Russia under MAP 17.3 Russia and Sweden after


N Peter the Great, 1689–1725 the Great Northern War, 1721
W Swedish losses to Prussia After the Great Northern War, Russia
E after the Treaty of Nystad
supplanted Sweden as the major power in
S SW ED EN Boundary of the Holy Roman Empire the north. Although Russia had a much
FINLAND  Battle larger population from which to draw its
ia
rel

armies, Sweden made the most of its


Ka

Nystad
 St. Petersburg Volga R.
advantages and gave way only after a
Ingria
Estonia
al
R. great military struggle.
Ur

 Moscow
Sea

Livonia
RUSSIA
tic
al

DENMARK B
A
SI

US
PVRi Warsaw Poltava
stu 
HOLY la R POLAND-  Kiev
 1709
LITHUANIA Ca
.

ROMAN sp
ia
EMPIRE n
 S
Vienna
ea

AUSTRIA
Black Sea
D a n u b e R.
0 250 500 miles
0 250 500 kilometers
544 C h a pt e r 1 7 ■ Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s 1690–1740

France and Britain went back to pursuing their By 1685, France had embassies in all the impor-
colonial rivalries. Prussia and Russia concentrated tant capitals. Nobles of ancient families served
on shoring up their influence within Poland- as ambassadors to Rome, Madrid, Vienna, and
Lithuania. London, whereas royal officials were chosen for
Austria did not want to become mired in a Switzerland, the Dutch Republic, and Venice. The
long struggle in Poland-Lithuania because its ambassador selected and paid for his own staff.
armies still faced the Turks on its southeastern This practice could make the journey to a new post
border. Even though the Aus- cumbersome, because the staff might be as large
Habsburg dominions, 1657
trians had forced the Turks to as eighty people, and they brought along all their
Habsburg Hungary, 1657 recognize their rule over all of own furniture, pictures, silverware, and tapestries.
Expansion to 1699 Hungary and Transylvania in It took one French ambassador ten weeks to get
Expansion to 1718 1699 and occupied Belgrade in from Paris to Stockholm.
Regained by Ottoman Empire 1717, the Turks did not stop Despite a new emphasis on honest and in-
 Battle
fighting. In the 1730s, the formed negotiation, rulers still employed secret
POLAND-
Turks retook Belgrade, and agents and often sent covert instructions that
LITHUANIA Russia now claimed a role in negated the official ones sent by their own foreign
the struggle against the Turks. offices. This behind-the-scenes diplomacy had
HUNGARY
Moreover, Hungary, though some advantages because it allowed rulers to break
AUSTRIA  “liberated” from Turkish rule, with past alliances, but it also led to confusion and
Vienna Transylvania
1683
proved less than enthusiastic sometimes scandal, for the rulers often engaged

Ad Belgrade about submitting to Austria. In unreliable adventurers as their confidential agents.
ria 1717
tic
Se OTTOMAN 1703, the wealthiest Hungarian Still, the diplomatic system in the early eighteenth
a EMPIRE noble landlord, Ferenc Rákóczi century proved successful enough to ensure a
0 250 500 miles
(1676–1735), raised an army of continuation of the principles of the Peace of
0 250 500 kilometers
seventy thousand men who Westphalia (1648); in the midst of every crisis and
Austrian Conquest of Hungary, fought for “God, Fatherland, war, the great powers would convene and hammer
1657–1730 and Liberty” until 1711. They out a written agreement detailing the requirements
forced the Austrians to recognize local Hungarian for peace.
institutions, grant amnesty, and restore confiscated
estates in exchange for confirming hereditary Aus- Public Health. Adroit diplomacy could smooth
trian rule. the road toward peace, but success in war still de-
pended on sheer numbers — of men and of mus-
kets. Because each state’s strength depended largely
The Power of Diplomacy and the
on the size of its army, the growth and health of
Importance of Population the population increasingly entered into govern-
No single power emerged from the wars of the first ment calculations. The publication in 1690 of the
half of the eighteenth century clearly superior to Englishman William Petty’s Political Arithmetick
the others, and the Peace of Utrecht explicitly de- quickened the interest of government officials
clared that maintaining a balance of power was everywhere. Petty offered statistical estimates of
crucial to maintaining peace in Europe. In 1720 a human capital — that is, of population and
British pamphleteer wrote, “There is not, I believe, wages — to determine Britain’s national wealth. A
any doctrine in the law of nations, of more certain large, growing population could be as vital to a
truth . . . than this of the balance of power.” Diplo- state’s future as access to silver mines or overseas
macy helped maintain the balance, but in the end trade, so government officials devoted increased
this system of equilibrium often rested on military effort to the statistical estimation of total popula-
force, such as the leagues formed against Louis XIV tion and rates of births, deaths, and marriages. In
or the coalition against Sweden. In the search for 1727, Frederick William I of Prussia founded two
ever larger armies, states could not afford to ignore university chairs to encourage population studies,
the general health of their populations. and textbooks and handbooks advocated state in-
tervention to improve the population’s health and
Diplomatic Services. To meet the new demands welfare.
placed on it, the diplomatic service, like the mili- Physicians used the new population statistics
tary and financial bureaucracies before it, had to to explain the environmental causes of disease, an-
develop regular procedures. The French set a pat- other new preoccupation in this period. Petty de-
tern that the other European states soon imitated. vised a quantitative scale that distinguished
1690–1740 Th e B i rt h o f t h e E n l i g h t e n m e n t 545

healthy from unhealthy places largely on the basis witnessing firsthand the Turkish use of inocula-
of air quality, an early precursor of modern envi- tion. When a new smallpox epidemic threatened
ronmental studies. Cities were the unhealthiest England in 1721, she called on her physician to in-
places because excrement (animal and human) oculate her daughter. Two patients died after in-
and garbage accumulated where people lived oculation in the following months, prompting
densely packed together. Medical geographers clergymen and physicians to attack the practice,
gathered and analyzed data on climate, disease, which remained in dispute for decades. Inocula-
and population, searching for correlations to help tion against smallpox began to spread more widely
direct policy. As a result of these efforts, local gov- after 1796, when the English physician Edward
ernments undertook such measures as draining Jenner developed a serum based on cowpox, a
low-lying areas, burying refuse, and cleaning wells, milder disease. Many other diseases spread quickly
all of which eventually helped lower the death rates in the unsanitary conditions of urban life. Ordi-
from epidemic diseases. nary people washed or changed clothes rarely, lived
Not all changes came from direct government in overcrowded housing with poor ventilation, and
intervention. Hospitals, founded originally as got their water from contaminated sources such as
charities concerned foremost with the moral wor- refuse-filled rivers.
thiness of the poor, gradually evolved into medical Public bathhouses had disappeared from cities
institutions that defined patients by their diseases. in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries because
The process of diagnosis changed as physicians be- they seemed a source of disorderly behavior and
gan to use specialized Latin terms for illnesses. The epidemic illness. In the eighteenth century, even
gap between medical experts and their patients in- private bathing came into disfavor because people
creased, as physicians now also relied on post- feared the effects of contact with water. Fewer than
mortem dissections in the hospital to gain better one in ten newly built private mansions in Paris
knowledge, a practice most patients’ families re- had baths. Bathing was hazardous, physicians in-
sented. Press reports of body snatching and grave sisted, because it opened the body to disease. One
robbing by surgeons and their apprentices out- manners manual of 1736 admonished, “It is cor-
raged the public well into the 1800s. rect to clean the face every morning by using a
Despite the change in hospitals, individual white cloth to cleanse it. It is less good to wash
health care remained something of a free-for-all in with water, because it renders the face susceptible
which physicians competed with bloodletters, to cold in winter and sun in summer.” The upper
itinerant venereal-disease doctors, bonesetters, classes associated cleanliness not with baths but
druggists, midwives, and “cunning women,” who with frequently changed linens, powdered hair,
specialized in home remedies. The medical profes- and perfume, which was thought to strengthen the
sion, with nationwide organizations and licensing, body and refresh the brain by counteracting cor-
had not yet emerged, and no clear line separated rupt and foul air.
trained physicians from quacks. In any case,
trained physicians were few in number and almost
Review: What events and developments led to greater
nonexistent outside cities. Patients were as likely
stability and less warfare in the European state system?
to catch a deadly disease in the hospital as to be
cured there. Antiseptics were virtually unknown.
Because doctors believed most insanity was caused
by disorders in the system of bodily “humors,”
their prescribed treatments included blood trans-
The Birth of the
fusions; ingestion of bitter substances such as cof- Enlightenment
fee, quinine, and even soap; immersion in water;
various forms of exercise; and burning or cauter- Economic expansion, the emergence of a new con-
izing the body to allow black vapors to escape. sumer society, and the stabilization of the Euro-
Hardly any infectious diseases could be cured, pean state system all generated optimism about the
though inoculation against smallpox spread from future. The intellectual corollary was the Enlight-
the Middle East to Europe in the early eighteenth enment, a term used later in the eighteenth cen-
century, thanks largely to the efforts of Lady Mary tury to describe the loosely knit group of writers
Wortley Montagu (1689–1762). In 1716, Montagu
accompanied her husband to Constantinople,
Enlightenment: The eighteenth-century intellectual movement
where he took up a post as British ambassador to whose proponents believed that human beings could apply a
the Ottoman Empire. She returned in 1718, after critical, reasoning spirit to every problem.
546 C h a pt e r 1 7 ■ Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s 1690–1740

and scholars who believed that human beings can, heliocentric view of the universe available to
could apply a critical, reasoning spirit to every the literate public. By 1700, mathematics and sci-
problem they encountered in this world. The new ence had become fashionable pastimes in high so-
secular, scientific, and critical attitude first ciety, and the public flocked to lectures explaining
emerged in the 1690s, scrutinizing everything scientific discoveries. Journals complained that
from the absolutism of Louis XIV to the tradi- scientific learning had become the passport to fe-
tional role of women in society. After 1740, criti- male affection: “There were two young ladies in
cism took a more systematic turn as writers Paris whose heads had been so turned by this
provided new theories for the organization of so- branch of learning that one of them declined to
ciety and politics; but as early as the 1720s, estab- listen to a proposal of marriage unless the candi-
lished authorities realized they faced a new set of date for her hand undertook to learn how to make
challenges. Even while slavery expanded in the telescopes.” Such writings poked fun at women
Atlantic system, Enlightenment writers began to with intellectual interests, but they also demon-
insist on the need for new freedoms in Europe. strated that women now participated in discus-
sions of science.
Popularization of Science The New Skepticism. Interest in science spread
and Challenges to Religion in literate circles because it offered a model for all
The writers of the Enlightenment glorified the ge- forms of knowledge. As the prestige of science in-
niuses of the new science and championed the sci- creased, some developed a skeptical attitude to-
entific method as the solution for all social ward attempts to enforce religious conformity. A
problems. (See “Terms of History,” page 547.) One French Huguenot refugee from Louis XIV’s perse-
of the most influential popularizations was the cutions, Pierre Bayle (1647–1706), launched an
French writer Bernard de Fontenelle’s Conversa- internationally influential campaign against reli-
tions on the Plurality of Worlds (1686). Presented gious intolerance from his safe haven in the Dutch
as a dialogue between an aristocratic woman and Republic. His News from the Republic of Letters
a man of the world, the book made the Coperni- (first published in 1684) bitterly criticized the poli-

A Budding Scientist
In this engraving, Astrologia, by the
Dutch artist Jacob Gole (c. 1660–1723),
an upper-class woman looks through a
telescope to do her own astronomical
investigations. Women with intellectual
interests were often disparaged by
men, and women were not allowed to
attend university classes in any
European country. Yet because many
astronomical observatories were set up
in private homes rather than public
buildings or universities, wives and
daughters of scientists could make
observations and even publish their
own findings. (Bibliothèque nationale de
France.)
1690–1740 Th e B i rt h o f t h e E n l i g h t e n m e n t 547

cies of Louis XIV and was quickly banned in Paris


and condemned in Rome. After attacking Louis
TERMS OF HISTORY
XIV’s anti-Protestant policies, Bayle took a more
general stand in favor of religious toleration. No
state in Europe officially offered complete toler-
Progress
ance, though the Dutch Republic came closest with
its tacit acceptance of Catholics, dissident Protes-
tant groups, and open Jewish communities. In elieving as they did in the possibilities of improvement, many
1697, Bayle published the Historical and Critical
Dictionary, which cited all the errors and delusions
that he could find in past and present writers of
B Enlightenment writers preached a new doctrine about the
meaning of human history. They challenged the traditional
Christian belief that the original sin of Adam and Eve condemned hu-
all religions. Even religion must meet the test of man beings to unhappiness in this world and offered instead an op-
reasonableness: “Any particular dogma, whatever timistic vision: human nature, they claimed, was inherently good, and
it may be, whether it is advanced on the authority progress would be continuous if education developed human capac-
of the Scriptures, or whatever else may be its ori- ities to the utmost. Science and reason could bring happiness in this
gins, is to be regarded as false if it clashes with the world. The idea of novelty or newness itself now seemed positive
clear and definite conclusions of the natural un- rather than threatening. Europeans began to imagine that they could
derstanding [reason].” surpass all those who preceded them in history, and they began to
Although Bayle claimed to be a believer him- think of themselves as more “advanced” than the “backward” cultures
self, his insistence on rational investigation seemed they encountered in other parts of the world.
to challenge the authority of faith. As one critic More than an intellectual concept, the idea of progress included
complained, “It is notorious that the works of M. a new conception of historical time and of Europeans’ place within
Bayle have unsettled a large number of readers, world history. Europeans stopped looking back, whether to a lost Gar-
and cast doubt on some of the most widely ac-
den of Eden or to the writings of Greek and Roman antiquity. Grow-
cepted principles of morality and religion.” Bayle
ing prosperity, European dominance overseas, and the scientific
asserted, for example, that atheists might possess
revolution oriented them toward the future. Europeans began to
moral codes as effective as those of the devout.
apply the word modern to their epoch, to distinguish it from the
Bayle’s Dictionary became a model of critical
thought in the West. Middle Ages (a new term), and they considered their modern period
Other scholars challenged the authority of the superior in achievement. Consequently, Europeans took it as their mis-
Bible by subjecting it to historical criticism. Dis- sion to bring their modern, enlightened ways of progress to the areas
coveries in geology in the early eighteenth century they colonized.
showed that marine fossils dated immensely fur- The economic and ecological catastrophes, destructive wars, and
ther back than the biblical flood. Investigations of genocides of the twentieth century cast much doubt on this rosy vi-
miracles, comets, and oracles, like the growing lit- sion of continuing progress. As the philosopher George Santayana
erature against belief in witchcraft, urged the use (1863–1952) complained, “The cry was for vacant freedom and inde-
of reason to combat superstition and prejudice. terminate progress: Vorwarts! Avanti! Onward! Full Speed Ahead!, with-
Comets, for example, should not be considered evil out asking whether directly before you was a bottomless pit.”
omens just because earlier generations had passed Historians are now chastened in their claims about progress. They
down such a belief. Defenders of church and state would no longer side with the German philosopher Georg W. F. Hegel,
published books warning of the new skepticism’s who proclaimed in 1832, “The history of the world is none other than
dangers. The spokesman for Louis XIV’s abso- the progress of the consciousness of freedom.” They worry about the
lutism, Bishop Bossuet, warned that “reason is the nationalistic claims inherent, for example, in the English historian
guide of their choice, but reason only brings them Thomas Babington Macaulay’s insistence that “the history of England
face to face with vague conjectures and baffling is emphatically the history of progress” (1843). As with many other
perplexities.” Human beings, the traditionalists historical questions, the final word is not yet in: Is there a direction
held, were simply incapable of subjecting every- in human history that can correctly be called progress? Or is history,
thing to reason, especially in the realm of religion. as many in ancient times thought, a set of repeating cycles?
State authorities found religious skepticism
particularly unsettling because it threatened to un-
dermine state power too. The extensive literature
of criticism was not limited to France, but much
of it was published in French, and the French gov-
ernment took the lead in suppressing the more
outspoken works. Forbidden books were then
548 C h a pt e r 1 7 ■ Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s 1690–1740

DOCUMENT

Voltaire, Letters Concerning


the English Nation (1733)
In the 1720s, Voltaire (1694–1778) visited account by our Christian philosophers, Neither Montaigne, Locke, Bayle,
both the Dutch Republic and England. He who know very well that objects of reason Spinoza, Hobbes, Lord Shaftesbury,
learned English and came to admire English and those of faith are of a very different Collins nor Toland lightened up the fire-
political institutions and customs, using nature. Philosophers will never form a re- brand of discord in their countries; this
comparison with them to criticize religious ligious sect, the reason of which is, their has generally been the work of divines,
intolerance and Catholic censorship in writings are not calculated for the vulgar, who, being at first puffed up with the am-
France. In this selection from a letter on and they themselves are free from enthu- bition of becoming chiefs of a sect, soon
Locke, Voltaire develops the argument that siasm. If we divide mankind into twenty grew very desirous of being at the head of
religion should be considered a matter of parts, it will be found that nineteen of a party. But what do I say? All the works
faith and conscience and be separated from these consist of persons employed in man- of the modern philosophers put together
arguments concerning philosophy. He also ual labour, who will never know that such will never make so much noise as even the
shows his disdain for the common people. a man as Mr. Locke existed. In the remain- dispute which arose among the Francis-
ing twentieth part how few are readers? cans [a Catholic religious order] merely
We must not be apprehensive that any And among such as are so, twenty amuse about the fashion of their sleeves and of
philosophical opinion will ever prejudice themselves with romances to one who their cowls.
the religion of a country. Though our studies philosophy. The thinking part of
demonstrations clash directly with our mankind are confined to a very small Source: Peter Gay, ed., The Enlightenment: A
mysteries, that’s nothing to the purpose, number, and these will never disturb the Comprehensive Anthology (New York: Simon &
for the latter are not less revered upon that peace and tranquillity of the world. Schuster, 1973), 166.

often published in the Dutch Republic, Britain, or chapters to Newton and Locke and used the virtues
Switzerland and smuggled back across the border of the British as a way to attack Catholic bigotry
to a public whose appetite was only whetted by and government rigidity in France (see Document,
censorship. “Letters Concerning the English Nation,” on this
page). Impressed by British toleration of religious
The Young Voltaire. The most influential writer dissent (at least among Protestants), Voltaire spent
of the early Enlightenment was a Frenchman born two years in exile in Britain when the French state
into the upper middle class, François-Marie responded to his book with yet another order for
Arouet, known by his pen name, Voltaire his arrest.
(1694–1778). Voltaire took inspiration from Bayle, Voltaire also popularized Newton’s scientific
noting: “He gives facts with such odious fidelity, discoveries in his Elements of the Philosophy
he exposes the arguments for and against with of Newton (1738). The French state and many
such dastardly impartiality, he is so intolerably in- European theologians considered Newtonianism
telligible, that he leads people of only ordinary threatening because it glorified the human mind
common sense to judge and even to doubt.” In his and seemed to reduce God to an abstract, exter-
early years, Voltaire suffered arrest, imprisonment, nal, rationalistic force. So sensational was the suc-
and exile, but he eventually achieved wealth and cess of Voltaire’s book on Newton that a hostile
acclaim. His tangles with church and state began Jesuit reported, “The great Newton, was, it is said,
in the early 1730s, when he published his Letters buried in the abyss, in the shop of the first pub-
Concerning the English Nation (the English version lisher who dared to print him. . . . M. de Voltaire
appeared in 1733), in which he devoted several finally appeared, and at once Newton is under-
stood or is in the process of being understood; all
Voltaire: The pen name of François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778), Paris resounds with Newton, all Paris stammers
who was the most influential writer of the early Enlightenment. Newton, all Paris studies and learns Newton.” The
1690–1740 Th e B i rt h o f t h e E n l i g h t e n m e n t 549

success was international, too. Before long, Voltaire knowledge” and travel to Europe. They visit France
was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in in the last years of Louis XIV’s reign, writing of the
London and in Edinburgh, as well as to twenty king: “He has a minister who is only eighteen years
other scientific academies. Voltaire’s fame contin- old, and a mistress of eighty. . . . Although he
ued to grow, reaching truly astounding propor- avoids the bustle of towns, and is rarely seen in
tions in the 1750s and 1760s (see Chapter 18). company, his one concern, from morning till
night, is to get himself talked about.” Other pas-
sages ridicule the pope. Beneath the satire, how-
Travel Literature and the Challenge
ever, was a serious investigation into the foundation
to Custom and Tradition of good government and morality. Montesquieu
Just as scientific method could be used to question chose Persians for his travelers because they came
religious and even state authority, a more general from what was widely considered the most
skepticism also emerged from the expanding despotic of all governments, in which rulers had
knowledge about the world outside of Europe. life-and-death powers over their subjects. In the
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, book, the Persians constantly compare France to
the number of travel accounts dramatically in- Persia, suggesting that the French monarchy might
creased as travel writers used the contrast between verge on despotism.
their home societies and other cultures to criticize The paradox of a judge publishing an anony-
the customs of European society. mous work attacking the regime that employed
Visitors to the new colonies sought something him demonstrates the complications of the intel-
resembling “the state of nature,” that is, ways of life lectual scene in this period. Montesquieu’s
that preceded sophisticated social and political or- anonymity did not last long, and soon Parisian so-
ganization — although they often misinterpreted ciety lionized him. In the late 1720s, he sold his
different forms of society and politics as having no judgeship and traveled extensively in Europe, stay-
organization at all. Travelers to the Americas found ing eighteen months in Britain. In 1748, he pub-
“noble savages” (native peoples) who appeared to lished a widely influential work on comparative
live in conditions of great freedom and equality; government, The Spirit of Laws. The Vatican soon
they were “naturally good” and “happy” without listed both Persian Letters and The Spirit of Laws
taxes, lawsuits, or much organized government. In on its Index of forbidden books.
China, in contrast, travelers found a people who
enjoyed prosperity and an ancient civilization.
Christian missionaries made little headway in Raising the Woman Question
China, and visitors had to admit that China’s reli- Many of the letters exchanged in Persian Letters fo-
gious systems had flourished for four or five thou- cused on women, marriage, and the family because
sand years with no input from Europe or from Montesquieu considered the position of women a
Christianity. The basic lesson of travel literature in sure indicator of the nature of government and
the 1700s, then, was that customs varied: justice, morality. Although Montesquieu was not a femi-
freedom, property, good government, religion, and nist, his depiction of Roxana, the favorite wife in
morality all were relative to the place. One critic Usbek’s harem, struck a chord with many women.
complained that travel encouraged free thinking Roxana revolts against the authority of Usbek’s eu-
and the destruction of religion: “Some complete nuchs and writes a final letter to her husband an-
their demoralization by extensive travel, and lose nouncing her impending suicide: “I may have lived
whatever shreds of religion remained to them. in servitude, but I have always been free, I have
Every day they see a new religion, new customs, amended your laws according to the laws of na-
new rites.” ture, and my mind has always remained independ-
Travel literature turned explicitly political in ent.” Women writers used the same language of
Montesquieu’s Persian Letters (1721). Charles- tyranny and freedom to argue for concrete changes
Louis de Secondat, baron of Montesquieu in their status. Feminist ideas were not entirely
(1689–1755), the son of an eminent judicial fam- new, but they were presented systematically for the
ily, was a high-ranking judge in a French court. He first time during the Enlightenment and repre-
published Persian Letters anonymously in the sented a fundamental challenge to the ways of tra-
Dutch Republic, and the book went into ten print- ditional societies.
ings in just one year — a best seller for the times. The most systematic of these women writers
Montesquieu tells the story of two Persians, Rica was the English author Mary Astell (1666–1731),
and Usbek, who leave their country “for love of the daughter of a businessman and herself a
550 C h a pt e r 1 7 ■ Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s 1690–1740

supporter of the Tory party and the Anglican reli- Conclusion


gious establishment. In 1694, she published A Seri-
ous Proposal to the Ladies, in which she advocated Europeans crossed a major threshold in the first
founding a private women’s college to remedy half of the eighteenth century. They moved silently
women’s lack of education. Addressing women, but nonetheless momentously from an economy
she asked, “How can you be content to be in the governed by scarcity and the threat of famine to
World like Tulips in a Garden, to make a fine shew one of ever-increasing growth and the prospect of
[show] and be good for nothing?” Astell argued for continuing improvement. Expansion of colonies
intellectual training based on Descartes’s prin- overseas and economic development at home cre-
ciples, in which reason, debate, and careful consid- ated greater wealth, longer life spans, and higher
eration of the issues took priority over custom or expectations for the future. In these better times
tradition. Her book was an immediate success: five for many, a spirit of optimism prevailed. People
printings appeared by 1701. In later works such as could now spend money on newspapers, novels,
Reflections upon Marriage (1706), Astell criticized and travel literature as well as on coffee, tea, and
the relationship between the sexes within mar- cotton cloth. The growing literate public avidly fol-
riage: “If absolute sovereignty be not necessary in lowed the latest trends in religious debates, art, and
a state, how comes it to be so in a family? . . . If all music. Not everyone shared equally in the bene-
men are born free, how is it that all women are born fits, however: slaves toiled in misery for their mas-
slaves?” Her critics accused her of promoting sub- ters in the Americas, eastern European serfs found
versive ideas and of contradicting the Bible. themselves ever more closely bound to their noble
Astell’s work inspired other women to write lords, and rural folk almost everywhere tasted few
in a similar vein. The anonymous Essay in Defence fruits of consumer society.
of the Female Sex (1696) attacked “the Usurpation Politics changed too as population and pro-
of Men; and the Tyranny of Custom,” which pre- duction increased and cities grew. Experts urged
vented women from getting an education. In the government intervention to improve public
introduction to the work of one of the best-known health, and states found it in their interest to set-
female poets, Elizabeth Singer Rowe, a friend of tle many international disputes by diplomacy,
the author complained of the “notorious Violations which itself became more regular and routine. The
on the Liberties of Freeborn English Women” that consolidation of the European state system al-
came from “a plain and an open design to render lowed a tide of criticism and new thinking about
us meer [mere] Slaves, perfect Turkish Wives.” society to swell in Great Britain and France and
Most male writers unequivocally stuck to the begin to spill throughout Europe. Ultimately, the
traditional view of women, which held that combination of the Atlantic system and the En-
women were less capable of reasoning than men lightenment would give rise to a series of Atlantic
and therefore did not need systematic education. revolutions.
Such opinions often rested on biological supposi-
tions. The long-dominant Aristotelian view of re-
production held that only the male seed carried
spirit and individuality. At the beginning of the
eighteenth century, however, scientists began to For Further Exploration
undermine this belief. Physicians and surgeons be- ■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
gan to champion the doctrine of ovism — that the for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
female egg was essential in making new humans. end of the book.
During the decades that followed, male Enlighten-
■ For additional primary-source material from
ment writers would continue to debate women’s
this period, see Chapter 17 in Sources of THE
nature and appropriate social roles.
MAKING OF THE WEST, Third Edition.

■ For Web sites and documents related to topics


Review: What were the major issues in the early in this chapter, see Make History at
decades of the Enlightenment? bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
1690–1740 C o n c lu s i o n 551

MA P P I N G T H E W E ST

S W E D E N

Y
0 200 400 miles

O R WA
0 200 400 kilometers FINLAND


Vol g a R.

ARK-N
St. Petersburg
Stockholm

SCOTLAND

a
DENM
Riga


Se
N N o rth 
Moscow
GREAT Sea ti

c
W IRELAND
BRITAIN DUTCH B al
RUSSIA

SIA
E
REPUBLIC POLAND-

S
LITHUANIA

RU
S ENGLAND

-P
Berlin RG
BristolLondon
  BU

Warsaw
Au EN
ND
Ne stria
Rh B RA
th n HOLY R.
Dn
iepe
.
in e
ula r R.
ATLANTIC  . V ist
R
Paris
ROMANAUSTRIA
OCEAN Lorraine Vienna

EMPIRE Pest
FRANCE SWITZ. Buda
HUNGARY

SAVOY
Venice
A R.
B l a c k Se a
TUSCANY dr SERBIA D anu
be
PORTUGAL GENOA i
PAPAL ati
Madrid Corsica STATES cS
 e a BALKANS

Lisbon Rome KINGDOM  Constantinople
S PA I N O T
OF NAPLES
TO
Sardinia MA
N E
M P I R
 Gibraltar
E
M e d i t e r
(Gr. Br.) r a Sicily
n
e
a
n Cyprus
NORTH AFRICA S e a Crete

Austrian Habsburg territory


Prussian territory
Boundary of the Holy Roman Empire

Europe in 1740
By 1740, Europe had achieved a kind of diplomatic equilibrium in which no one power
predominated. But the relative balance should not deflect attention from important underlying
changes: Spain, the Dutch Republic, Poland-Lithuania, and Sweden had all declined in power
and influence while Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria had solidified their positions,
each in a different way. France’s ambitions had been thwarted, but its combination of a big
army and rich overseas possessions made it a major player for a long time to come.
552 C h a pt e r 1 7 ■ Th e At l a n t i c Sys t e m a n d I t s C o n s e qu e n c e s 1690–1740

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
Key Terms and People Making Connections
Atlantic system (520) Pietism (536) 1. How did the rise of slavery and the plantation system
plantation (521) Peace of Utrecht (538) change European politics and society?
mestizo (527) Robert Walpole (539) 2. Why was the Enlightenment born just at the moment
buccaneers (527) Peter the Great (540) that the Atlantic system took shape?
consumer revolution Westernization (540) 3. What were the major differences between the wars of the
(528) Enlightenment (545) first half of the eighteenth century and those of the seven-
agricultural revolution Voltaire (548) teenth century? (Refer to Chapters 15 and 16.)
(529)
rococo (534)
For practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other
study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
Review Questions bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
1. How was consumerism related to slavery in the early
eighteenth century?
2. How were new social trends reflected in cultural life in the
late 1600s and early 1700s?
3. What events and developments led to greater stability and
less warfare in the European state system?
4. What were the major issues in the early decades of the
Enlightenment?

Important Events

1690s Beginning of rapid development of 1713–1714 Peace of Utrecht


plantations in Caribbean 1714 Elector of Hanover becomes King George I of
1694 Bank of England established; Mary England
Astell’s A Serious Proposal to the Ladies 1715 Death of Louis XIV
argues for the founding of a private
women’s college 1719 Daniel Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe

1697 Pierre Bayle publishes Historical and 1720 Last outbreak of bubonic plague in western Europe
Critical Dictionary, detailing errors of 1721 Treaty of Nystad; Montesquieu publishes Persian
religious writers Letters anonymously in the Dutch Republic
1699 Turks forced to recognize Habsburg rule 1733 War of the Polish Succession; Voltaire’s Letters
over Hungary and Transylvania Concerning the English Nation attacks French
1703 Peter the Great begins construction of intolerance and narrow-mindedness
St. Petersburg, founds first Russian 1741 George Frideric Handel composes Messiah
newspaper
This page intentionally left blank
The Promise of C H A P T E R

Enlightenment
1740—1789
18
The Enlightenment at Its
Height 556
• Men and Women of the Republic
of Letters
• Conflicts with Church and State
• The Individual and Society
• Spreading the Enlightenment
n the summer of 1766, Empress Catherine II (“the Great”) of • The Limits of Reason: Roots of

I Russia wrote to Voltaire, one of the leaders of the Enlightenment:


It is a way of immortalizing oneself to be the advocate of humanity, the
defender of oppressed innocence. . . . You have entered into combat
Romanticism and Religious Revival

Society and Culture in an Age


of Enlightenment 567
against the enemies of mankind: superstition, fanaticism, ignorance, • The Nobility’s Reassertion of
quibbling, evil judges, and the powers that rest in their hands. Great Privilege
• The Middle Class and the Making
virtues and qualities are needed to surmount these obstacles. You have of a New Elite
shown that you have them: you have triumphed. • Life on the Margins

Over a fifteen-year period, Catherine corresponded regularly with State Power in an Era
Voltaire, a writer who, at home in France, found himself in constant of Reform 573
• War and Diplomacy
conflict with authorities of church and state. Her admiring letter shows • State-Sponsored Reform
how influential Enlightenment ideals had become by the middle of the • Limits of Reform

eighteenth century. Even an absolutist ruler such as Catherine endorsed Rebellions against State
many aspects of the Enlightenment call for reform; she too wanted to Power 578
be an “advocate of humanity.” • Food Riots and Peasant Uprisings
• Public Opinion and Political
Catherine’s letter aptly summed up Enlightenment ideals: progress Opposition
• Revolution in North America
for humanity could be achieved only by rooting out the wrongs left by
superstition, religious fanaticism, ignorance, and outmoded forms of
justice. Enlightenment writers used every means at their disposal — from
encyclopedias to novels to personal interaction with rulers — to argue
for reform. Everything had to be examined in the cold light of reason,
and anything that did not promote the improvement of humanity was
to be jettisoned. As a result, Enlightenment writers attacked the legal use
of torture to extract confessions, supported religious toleration, favored
the spread of education to eliminate ignorance, and criticized censor-
ship by state or church. The book trade and new places for urban

Catherine the Great


In this portrait by the Danish painter Vigilius Eriksen, the Russian empress Catherine
the Great is shown on horseback (c. 1752), much like any male ruler of the time. Born
Sophia Augusta Frederika of Anhalt-Zerbst in 1729, Catherine was the daughter of a
minor German prince. When she married the future tsar Peter III in 1745, she
promptly learned Russian and adopted Russian Orthodoxy. Peter, physically and
mentally frail, proved no match for her; in 1762 she staged a coup against him and
took his place when he was killed. (Erich Lessing/ Art Resource, NY.)
555
556 C h a pt e r 1 8 ■ Th e Prom i s e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 1740–1789

socializing, such as coffeehouses and learned so- The Enlightenment


cieties, spread these ideas within a new elite of
middle- and upper-class men and women. at Its Height
The lower classes had little contact with En-
lightenment ideas. Their lives were shaped more The Enlightenment emerged as an intellectual
profoundly by an increasing population, rising movement before 1740 but reached its peak in the
food prices, and ongoing wars among the great second half of the eighteenth century. (See “Terms
powers. States had to balance conflicting social of History,” page 565.) The writers of the Enlight-
pressures: rulers pursued Enlightenment reforms enment called themselves philosophes (French for
that they believed might enhance state power, but “philosophers”), but that term is somewhat mis-
they feared changes that might unleash popular leading. Whereas philosophers concern themselves
discontent. For example, Catherine aimed to bring with abstract theories, the philosophes were pub-
Western ideas, culture, and reforms to Russia, but lic intellectuals dedicated to solving the real prob-
when faced with a massive uprising of the serfs, lems of the world. They wrote on subjects ranging
she not only suppressed the revolt but also in- from current affairs to art criticism, and they wrote
creased the powers of the nobles over their serfs. in every conceivable format. The Swiss philosophe
All reform-minded rulers faced similar potential Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for example, wrote a po-
challenges to their authority. litical tract, a treatise on education, a constitution
Even if the movement for reform had its lim- for Poland, an analysis of the effects of the theater
its, governments now needed to respond to a new on public morals, a best-selling novel, an opera,
force: “public opinion.” Rulers wanted to portray and a notorious autobiography. The philosophes
themselves as modern, open to change, and re- wrote for a broad educated public of readers who
sponsive to the segment of the public that was snatched up every Enlightenment book they could
reading newspapers and closely following politi- find at their local booksellers, even when rulers or
cal developments. Enlightenment writers ap- churches tried to forbid such works. Between 1740
pealed to public opinion, but they still looked to and 1789, the Enlightenment acquired its name and,
rulers to effect reform. Writers such as Voltaire despite heated conflicts between the philosophes
expressed little interest in the future of peasants and state and religious authorities, gained support
or the lower classes; they favored neither revolu- in the highest reaches of government.
tion nor political upheaval. Yet their ideas paved
the way for something much more radical and Men and Women of the
unexpected. The American Declaration of Inde- Republic of Letters
pendence in 1776 showed how Enlightenment
ideals could be translated into democratic polit- Although philosophe is a French word, the Enlight-
ical practice. After 1789, democracy would come enment was distinctly cosmopolitan; philosophes
to Europe as well. could be found from Philadelphia to St. Petersburg.

Focus Question: How did the Enlightenment influ- philosophes (fee luh SAWF): Public intellectuals of the Enlight-
ence Western politics, culture, and society? enment who wrote on subjects ranging from current affairs to
art criticism with the goal of furthering reform in society. (The
word in French means “philosophers.”)

■ 1740–1748 War of the Austrian Succession

■ 1756–1763 Seven Years’ War

1740 1750 1760


■ 1751–1772 Enlightenment writers ■ 1762 Rousseau, The
publish Encyclopedia Social Contract, Émile
1740–1789 Th e E n l i g h t e n m e n t at I t s H e i g h t 557

The philosophes considered themselves


part of a grand “republic of letters” that
transcended national political bound-
aries. They were not republicans in the
usual sense, that is, people who supported
representative government and opposed
monarchy. What united them were the
ideals of reason, reform, and freedom. In
1784, the German philosopher Immanuel
Kant summed up the program of the En-
lightenment in two Latin words: sapere
aude, “dare to know” — have the courage
to think for yourself.
The philosophes used reason to at-
tack superstition, bigotry, and religious
fanaticism, which they considered the
chief obstacles to free thought and social
reform. Voltaire took religious fanaticism Bookbinding
as his chief target: “Once fanaticism has In this plate from the Encyclopedia, the various stages in bookbinding are laid
corrupted a mind, the malady is almost out from left to right. Binding was not included in the sale of books; owners had
incurable. . . . The only remedy for this to order leather bindings from a special shop. The man at (a) is pounding the pages
epidemic malady is the philosophical to be bound on a marble block. The woman at (b) is stitching the pages with a
special frame. The worker at (c) cuts the pages, and the one at (d) presses the
spirit.” Enlightenment writers did not
volumes to prevent warping. In what ways is this illustration representative of the
necessarily oppose organized religion, aims of the Encyclopedia?
but they strenuously objected to reli-
gious intolerance. They believed that the
systematic application of reason could
do what religious belief could not: improve the hu- The philosophes believed that the spread of
man condition by pointing to needed reforms. knowledge would encourage reform in every as-
Reason meant critical, informed, scientific think- pect of life, from the grain trade to the penal sys-
ing about social issues and problems. Many En- tem. Chief among their desired reforms was
lightenment writers collaborated on a new intellectual freedom — the freedom to use one’s
multivolume Encyclopedia (published 1751–1772) own reason and to publish the results. The
that aimed to gather together knowledge about sci- philosophes wanted freedom of the press and free-
ence, religion, industry, and society (see illustra- dom of religion, which they considered “natural
tion at right). The chief editor of the Encyclopedia, rights” guaranteed by “natural law.” In their view,
Denis Diderot (1713–1784), explained the goal: progress depended on these freedoms.
“All things must be examined, debated, investi- Most philosophes, like Voltaire, came from the
gated without exception and without regard for upper classes, yet Rousseau’s father was a modest
anyone’s feelings.” (See Document, “Denis Diderot, watchmaker in Geneva, and Diderot was the son
‘Encyclopedia,’” page 559.) of a cutlery maker. Although it was a rare

■ 1776 American Declaration of Independence;


■ 1787 U.S. Constitution
Smith, Wealth of Nations

■ 1771 Louis XV attempts major court reform ■ 1785 Charter of the Nobility

1770 1780 1790


■ 1764 Voltaire, ■ 1772 First Partition of Poland ■ 1780 Joseph II’s reforms
Philosophical Dictionary
■ 1773 Pugachev rebellion ■ 1781 Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
558 C h a pt e r 1 8 ■ Th e Prom i s e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 1740–1789

Madame Geoffrin’s Salon in 1755


This 1812 painting by Anicet Charles Lemonnier claims to depict the best-known Parisian salon of the
1750s. Lemonnier was only twelve years old in 1755 and so could not have based his rendition on
firsthand knowledge. Madame Geoffrin is the figure in blue on the right facing the viewer. The bust is
of Voltaire. Rousseau is the fifth person to the left of the bust (facing right) and behind him (facing
left) is Raynal. (Bridgeman–Giraudon/ Art Resource, NY.)

phenomenon, some women were philosophes, such Europe, including Catherine the Great. One Italian
as the French noblewoman Émilie du Châtelet visitor commented, “There is no way to make
(1706–1749), who wrote extensively about the Naples resemble Paris unless we find a woman to
mathematics and physics of Gottfried Wilhelm guide us, organize us, Geoffrinize us.”
Leibniz and Isaac Newton. (Her lover Voltaire Women’s salons provoked criticism from men
learned much of his science from her.) Few of the who resented their power. (See “Contrasting
leading writers held university positions, except Views,” page 562.) Nevertheless, the gatherings
those who were German or Scottish. Universities helped galvanize intellectual life and reform move-
in France were dominated by the Catholic clergy ments all over Europe. Wealthy Jewish women cre-
and unreceptive to Enlightenment ideals. ated nine of the fourteen salons in Berlin at the
Enlightenment ideas developed instead through end of the eighteenth century, and Princess Zofia
printed books and pamphlets; through letters that Czartoryska gathered around her in Warsaw the
were hand-copied, circulated, and sometimes pub- reform leaders of Poland-Lithuania. Some of the
lished; and through informal readings of manu- aristocratic women in Madrid who held salons had
scripts. Salons — informal gatherings, usually lived in France, and they combined an interest in
sponsored by middle-class or aristocratic women — French culture and ideas with their efforts to pro-
gave intellectual life an anchor outside the royal mote the new ideas in Spain. Middle-class women
court and the church-controlled universities. in London used their salons to raise money to pub-
Seventeenth-century salons had been tame affairs. lish women’s writings. Salons could be tied closely
In the Parisian salons of the eighteenth century, in to the circles of power: in France, for example,
contrast, the philosophes could discuss ideas they Louis XV’s mistress, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson,
might hesitate to put into print, testing public first made her reputation as hostess of a salon fre-
opinion and even pushing it in new directions. Best quented by Voltaire and Montesquieu. When she
known was the Parisian salon of Madame Marie- became Louis XV’s mistress in 1745, she gained the
Thérèse Geoffrin (1699–1777), a wealthy middle- title Marquise de Pompadour and turned her at-
class widow who had been raised by her tention to influencing artistic styles by patroniz-
grandmother and married off at fourteen to a ing architects and painters.
much older man (see Madame Geoffrin’s Salon,
above). She brought together the most exciting
thinkers and artists of the time and provided a fo- Conflicts with Church and State
rum for new ideas and an opportunity to establish Madame Geoffrin did not approve of discussions
new intellectual contacts. Madame Geoffrin corre- that attacked the Catholic church, but elsewhere
sponded extensively with influential people across voices against organized religion could be heard.
1740–1789 Th e E n l i g h t e n m e n t at I t s H e i g h t 559

DOCUMENT

Denis Diderot, “Encyclopedia” (1755)


Denis Diderot (1713–1784) led the multi- instruction, science, knowledge. In truth, I have said that it could only belong
national team that produced the Encyclo- the aim of an encyclopedia is to collect all to a philosophical age to attempt an ency-
pedia, a work much more radical in its aims the knowledge scattered over the face of clopedia; and I have said this because such
than its bland name suggests. Seventeen vol- the earth, to present its general outlines a work constantly demands more intellec-
umes of text and eleven volumes of illustra- and structure to the men with whom we tual daring than is commonly found in
tive plates were published between 1751 and live, and transmit this to those who will ages of pusillanimous [timid] taste. All
1772, despite the efforts of French authori- come after us, so that the work of the past things must be examined, debated, inves-
ties to censor it. The volumes covered every centuries may be useful to the following tigated without exception and without re-
branch of human knowledge from the tools centuries, that our children, by becoming gard for anyone’s feelings. . . . We must
of artisans to the finest points of theology. more educated, may at the same time be- ride roughshod over all these ancient
Diderot and his collaborators used the occa- come more virtuous and happier, and that puerilities, overturn the barriers that rea-
sion to lay out the principles of the Enlight- we may not die without having deserved son never erected, give back to the arts and
enment as an intellectual movement and to well of the human race. . . . sciences the liberty that is so precious to
challenge the authority, in particular, of the We have seen that our Encyclopedia them. . . . We have for quite some time
Catholic church. The article “Encyclopedia” could only have been the endeavor of a needed a reasoning age when men would
summarized the goals of the project. philosophical century; that this age has no longer seek the rules in classical au-
dawned, and that fame, while raising to thors but in nature.
ENCYCLOPEDIA (Philosophy). This word immortality the names of those who will
means the interrelation of all knowledge; it perfect man’s knowledge in the future, will Source: Margaret C. Jacob, The Enlightenment: A
is made up of the Greek prefix en, in, and perhaps not disdain to remember our own Brief History with Documents (Boston: Bedford/
the nouns kyklos, circle, and paideia, names. . . . St. Martin’s, 2001), 157–158.

Criticisms of religion required daring because the Deists continued to believe in a benevolent,
church, whatever its denomination, wielded enor- all-knowing God who had designed the universe
mous power in society, and most influential and set it in motion. But they usually rejected the
people considered religion an essential foundation idea that God directly intercedes in the function-
of good society and government. Defying such ing of the universe, and they often criticized the
opinion, the Scottish philosopher David Hume churches for their dogmatic intolerance of dis-
(1711–1776) boldly argued in The Natural History senters. Voltaire was a deist, and in his influential
of Religion (1755) that belief in God rested on su- Philosophical Dictionary (1764) he attacked most
perstition and fear rather than on reason. Hume of the claims of organized Christianity, both
soon met kindred spirits while visiting Paris; he at- Catholic and Protestant. Christianity, he argued,
tended a dinner party consisting of “fifteen athe- had been the prime source of fanaticism and bru-
ists, and three who had not quite made up their tality among humans. Throughout his life,
minds.” Voltaire’s motto was Écrasez l’infâme — “Crush the
In the eighteenth century, most Europeans be- infamous thing” (the “thing” being bigotry and in-
lieved in God. After Newton, however, and despite tolerance). French authorities publicly burned his
Newton’s own deep religiosity, people could Philosophical Dictionary.
conceive of the universe as an eternally existing, Criticism of religious intolerance involved
self-perpetuating machine, in which God’s inter- more than simply attacking the churches. Critics
vention was unnecessary. In short, such people also had to confront the states to which churches
could become either atheists, people who do not were closely tied. In 1762, a judicial case in
believe in God, or deists, people who believe in God
but give him no active role in earthly affairs. For
the first time, writers claimed the label atheist and deists: Those who believe in God but give him no active role in
human affairs. Deists of the Enlightenment believed that God
disputed the common view that atheism led in- had designed the universe and set it in motion but no longer
evitably to immorality. intervened in its functioning.
560 C h a pt e r 1 8 ■ Th e Prom i s e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 1740–1789

Toulouse provoked an outcry throughout France lition of slavery encouraged freed slaves to write
that Voltaire soon joined. When the son of a local the story of their enslavement. One such freed
Calvinist was found hanged (he had probably slave, Olaudah Equiano, wrote of his kidnapping
committed suicide), magistrates accused the fa- and enslavement in Africa and his long effort to
ther, Jean Calas, of murdering him to prevent his free himself. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of
conversion to Catholicism. (Since Louis XIV’s rev- Olaudah Equiano, published in 1788, became an
ocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, it had been international best seller; it had appeared in Eng-
illegal to practice Calvinism publicly in France.) lish, Dutch, Russian, and French by the time
The all-Catholic parlement of Toulouse tried to ex- Equiano died in 1797. Armed with such firsthand
tract the names of accomplices through torture — accounts of slavery, abolitionists began to petition
using a rope to pull up Calas’s arm while weighing their governments for the abolition of the slave
down his feet and then pouring water down his trade and then of slavery itself.
throat — and then executed him by breaking every Enlightenment critics of church and state usu-
bone in his body with an iron rod. Calas refused ally advocated reform, not revolution. For ex-
to confess. Voltaire launched a successful crusade ample, though he resided near the French-Swiss
to rehabilitate Calas’s good name and to restore border in case he had to flee, Voltaire made a for-
the family’s properties, which had been confiscated tune in financial speculations and ended up being
after his death. Voltaire’s efforts eventually helped celebrated in his last years as a national hero even
bring about the extension of civil rights to French by many former foes. Other philosophes also be-
Protestants and encouraged campaigns to abolish lieved that published criticism, rather than violent
the judicial use of torture. action, would bring about necessary reforms. As
Critics also assailed state and church support Diderot said, “We will speak against senseless laws
for European colonization and slavery. One of the until they are reformed; and, while we wait, we will
most popular books of the time was the Philosoph- abide by them.” The philosophes generally re-
ical and Political History of European Colonies and garded the lower classes — “the people” — as igno-
Commerce in the Two Indies, published in 1770 by rant, violent, and prone to superstition; as a result,
Abbé Guillaume Raynal (1713–1796), a French they pinned their hopes on educated elites and en-
Catholic clergyman. Raynal and his collaborators lightened rulers.
described in excruciating detail the destruction of Despite the philosophes’ preference for re-
native populations by Europeans and denounced form, in the long run their books often had a rev-
the slave trade. Despite the criticism, the slave olutionary impact. For example, Montesquieu’s
trade continued. So did European exploration. widely reprinted Spirit of the Laws (1748) warned
British explorer James Cook (1728–1779) charted against the dangers of despotism, opposed the di-
the coasts of New Zealand and Australia, discov- vine right of kings, and favored constitutional gov-
ered New Caledonia, and visited the ice fields of ernment. His analysis of British constitutionalism
Antarctica. inspired French critics of absolutism and would
Cook’s adventures captivated European read- greatly influence the American revolutionaries.
ers. When he arrived on the Kona coast of Hawaii
in 1779, Cook thought that the natives considered
him godlike, but in a confrontation he fired and The Individual and Society
killed a man, provoking an attack that led to his The controversy created by the conflicts between the
death and those of some of his men. Like Cook, philosophes and the various churches and states
many Enlightenment writers held conflicting of Europe drew attention away from a subtle
views of natives: to some, they were innocent be- but profound transformation in worldviews. In
cause primitive, but to others they seemed untrust- previous centuries, questions of theological doc-
worthy because savage. Views of Africans could be trine and church organization had been the main
especially negative. David Hume, for example, focus of intellectual and even political interest. The
judged blacks to be “naturally inferior to the Enlightenment writers shifted attention away from
whites,” concluding, “There never was a civilized religious questions and toward the secular study
nation of any other complexion than white.” of society and the individual’s role in it. Religion
Nevertheless, the Enlightenment belief in nat- did not drop out of sight, but the philosophes
ural rights helped fuel the antislavery movement, tended to make religion a private affair of individ-
which began to organize political campaigns
against slavery in Britain, France, and the new abolitionists: Advocates of the abolition of the slave trade and
United States in the 1780s. Advocates of the abo- of slavery.
1740–1789 Th e E n l i g h t e n m e n t at I t s H e i g h t 561

ual conscience, even while rulers and churches still for society and well-being for the individual. In his
considered religion very much a public concern. much-cited example of the manufacture of pins,
The Enlightenment interest in secular society Smith showed that when the manufacturing process
produced two major results: it advanced the secu- was broken down into separate operations — one
larization of European political life that had begun man to draw out the wire, another to straighten it,
after the Wars of Religion of the sixteenth and sev- a third to cut it, a fourth to point it, and so on —
enteenth centuries, and it laid the foundations for workers who could make only one pin a day on
the social sciences of the modern era. Not surpris- their own could make thousands by pooling their
ingly, then, many historians and philosophers con- labor.
sider the Enlightenment to be the origin of To maximize the effects of market forces and
modernity, which they define as the belief that hu- the division of labor, Smith endorsed a concept
man reason, rather than theological doctrine, called laissez-faire (that is, “to leave alone”) to free
should set the patterns of social and political life. the economy from government intervention and
This belief in reason as the sole foundation for sec- control. He insisted that governments eliminate all
ular authority has often been contested, but it has restrictions on the sale of land, remove restraints
also proved to be a powerful force for change. on the grain trade, and abandon duties on imports.
Although most of the philosophes believed Free international trade, he argued, would stimu-
that human reason could understand and even re- late production everywhere and thus ensure the
make society and politics, they disagreed about growth of national wealth: “The natural effort of
what reason revealed. Among the many different every individual to better his own condition, when
approaches were two that proved enduringly in- suffered to exert itself with freedom and security,
fluential, those of the Scottish philosopher Adam is so powerful a principle that it is alone, and with-
Smith and the Swiss writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau. out any assistance, not only capable of carrying the
Smith provided a theory of modern capitalist so- society to wealth and prosperity, but of surmount-
ciety and devoted much of his energy to defend- ing a hundred impertinent obstructions with
ing free markets as the best way to make the most which the folly of human laws too often encum-
of individual efforts. The modern discipline of bers its operations.” Governments should restrict
economics took shape around the questions raised themselves to providing “security,” that is, national
by Smith. Rousseau, by contrast, emphasized the defense, internal order, and public works. Smith
needs of the community over those of the individ- recognized that government had an important role
ual. His work, which led both toward democracy in providing a secure framework for market activ-
and toward communism, continues to inspire ity, but he placed most emphasis on freeing indi-
heated debate in political science and sociology. vidual endeavor from what he saw as excessive
government interference.
Adam Smith. Adam Smith (1723–1790) opti-
mistically believed that individual interests natu- Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Much more pessimistic
rally harmonized with those of the whole society. about the relation between individual self-interest
To explain how this natural harmonization and the good of society was Jean-Jacques
worked, he published An Inquiry into the Nature Rousseau (1712–1778). In Rousseau’s view, soci-
and Causes of the Wealth of Nations in 1776. Smith ety itself threatened natural rights or freedoms:
insisted that individual self-interest, even greed, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”
was quite compatible with society’s best interest: Rousseau first gained fame by writing a prize-
the laws of supply and demand served as an “in- winning essay in 1749 in which he argued that the
visible hand” ensuring that individual interests revival of science and the arts had corrupted
would be synchronized with those of the whole so- social morals, not improved them. This startling
ciety. Market forces — “the propensity to truck, conclusion seemed to oppose some of the En-
barter, and exchange one thing for another” — lightenment’s most cherished beliefs. Rather than
naturally brought individual and social interests in
line.
laissez-faire (LEH say FEHR): An economic doctrine devel-
Smith rejected the prevailing mercantilist oped by Adam Smith that advocated freeing the economy from
views that the general welfare would be served by government intervention and control. (The term is French for
accumulating national wealth through agriculture “to leave alone.”)
or the hoarding of gold and silver. Instead, he ar- Jean-Jacques Rousseau (zhahn zhahk roo SOH): One of the
most important philosophes (1712–1778); he argued that only
gued that the division of labor in manufacturing a government based on a social contract among the citizens
increased productivity and generated more wealth could make people truly moral and free.
562 C h a pt e r 1 8 ■ Th e Prom i s e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 1740–1789

CONTRASTING VIEWS

Women and the Enlightenment

During the Enlightenment, women’s roles in society became the sub- because he did not think he could support them properly; if their
ject of heated debates. Some men resented what they saw as the fate was like that of most abandoned children of the day, they met
growing power of women, especially in the salons. Rousseau railed an early death.
against their corrupting influence: “Every woman at Paris gathers
in her apartment a harem of men more womanish than she.” There is no parity between man and woman as to the impor-
Rousseau’s Émile (Document 1) offered his own influential answer tance of sex. The male is only a male at certain moments; the fe-
to the question of how women should be educated. The Encyclo- male all her life, or at least throughout her youth, is incessantly
pedia ignored the contributions of salon women and praised women reminded of her sex and in order to carry out its functions she
who stayed at home; in the words of one typical contributor, women needs a corresponding constitution. She needs to be careful dur-
“constitute the principal ornament of the world. . . . May they, ing pregnancy; she needs rest after childbirth; she needs a quiet
through submissive discretion and through simple, adroit, artless and sedentary life while she nurses her children; she needs pa-
cleverness, spur us [men] on to virtue.” Many women objected to tience and gentleness in order to raise them; a zeal and affection
these characterizations. The editor of a prominent newspaper for that nothing can discourage. . . .
women, Madame de Beaumer, wrote editorials blasting the mascu- On the good constitution of mothers depends primarily that
line sense of superiority (Document 2). Many prominent women of the children; on the care of women depends the early educa-
writers specifically targeted Rousseau’s book because it proved to be tion of men; and on women, again, depend their morals, their
the most influential educational treatise of the time (Document 3). passions, their tastes, their pleasures, and even their happiness.
Their ideas formed the core of nineteenth-century feminism. Thus the whole education of women ought to be relative to men.
To please them, to be useful to them, to make themselves loved
and honored by them, to educate them when young, to care for
1. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile (1762) them when grown, to counsel them, to console them, and to make
Rousseau used the character of Émile’s wife-to-be, Sophie, to dis- life agreeable and sweet to them — these are the duties of women
cuss his ideas about women’s education. Sophie is educated for a at all times, and should be taught them from their infancy.
domestic role as wife and mother, and she is taught to be obedient, Source: Susan Groag Bell and Karen M. Offen, Women, the Family, and
always helpful to her husband and family, and removed from any Freedom: The Debate in Documents, vol. 1, 1750–1880 (Stanford: Stanford
participation in the public world. Despite his insistence on the dif- University Press, 1983), 46–49.
ferences between men’s and women’s roles, many women enthusi-
astically embraced Rousseau’s ideas, for he placed great emphasis 2. Madame de Beaumer, Editorial in
on maternal affections, breast-feeding, and child rearing. Rousseau’s Le Journal des Dames (1762)
own children, however, suffered the contradictions that character-
ized his life. By his own admission, he abandoned to a foundling Madame de Beaumer (d. 1766) was the first of three women edi-
hospital all the children he had by his lower-class common-law wife tors of Le Journal des Dames (The Ladies’ Journal). She ran it for

improving society, he claimed, science and art raised political theory (The Social Contract, 1762). He
artificial barriers between people and their natu- wrote Émile in the form of a novel in order to make
ral state. Rousseau’s works extolled the simplicity his educational theories easily comprehensible.
of rural life over urban society. Although he par- Free from the supervision of the clergy, who con-
ticipated in the salons, Rousseau always felt ill at trolled most schools, the boy Émile works alone
ease in high society, and he periodically withdrew with his tutor to develop practical skills and inde-
to live in solitude far from Paris. Paradoxically, his pendent ways of thinking. After developing his in-
solitude was often paid for by wealthy upper-class dividuality, Émile joins society through marriage
patrons who lodged him on their estates, even as to Sophie, who received the education Rousseau
his writings decried the upper-class privilege that thought appropriate for women. (See “Contrast-
made his efforts possible. ing Views,” above.)
Rousseau explored the tension between the in- Whereas earlier Rousseau had argued that so-
dividual and society in a best-selling novel (The ciety corrupted the individual by taking him out
New Heloise, 1761); in an influential work on of nature, in The Social Contract he aimed to show
education (Émile, 1762); and in a treatise on that the right kind of political order could make
1740–1789 Th e E n l i g h t e n m e n t at I t s H e i g h t 563

two years and published many editorials defending women against female mind. You will soon perceive, that the prejudice which I
their male critics. mean, is that degrading difference in the culture of the under-
standing, which has prevailed for several centuries in all Euro-
The success of the Journal des Dames allows us to triumph over pean societies. . . .
those frivolous persons who have regarded this periodical as a Among the most strenuous asserters of a sexual difference
petty work containing only a few bagatelles suited to help them in character, Rousseau is the most conspicuous, both on account
kill time. In truth, Gentlemen, you do us much honor to think of that warmth of sentiment which distinguishes all his writing,
that we could not provide things that unite the useful to the and the eloquence of his compositions: but never did enthusi-
agreeable. To rid you of your error, we have made our Journal asm and the love of paradox, those enemies of philosophical dis-
historical, with a view to putting before the eyes of youth strik- quisition, appear in more strong opposition to plain sense than
ing images that will guide them toward virtue. . . . An historical in Rousseau’s definition of this difference. He sets out with a sup-
Journal des Dames! these Gentlemen reasoners reply. How ridicu- position, that Nature intended the subjection of the one sex to
lous! How out of character with the nature of this work, which the other; that consequently there must be an inferiority of in-
calls only for little pieces to amuse [ladies] during their toi- tellect in the subjected party; but as man is a very imperfect be-
lette. . . . Please, Gentlemen beaux esprits [wits], mind your own ing, and apt to play the capricious tyrant, Nature, to bring things
business and let us write in a manner worthy of our sex; I love nearer to an equality, bestowed on the woman such attractive
this sex, I am jealous to uphold its honor and its rights. If we graces, and such an insinuating address, as to turn the balance
have not been raised up in the sciences as you have, it is you who on the other scale. . . .
are the guilty ones. The situation and education of women . . . is precisely that
which must necessarily tend to corrupt and debilitate both the
Source: Bell and Offen, 27–28. powers of mind and body. From a false notion of beauty and del-
icacy, their system of nerves is depraved before they come out of
the nursery; and this kind of depravity has more influence over
3. Catharine Macaulay, the mind, and consequently over morals, than is commonly ap-
Letters on Education (1787) prehended.
Catharine Sawbridge Macaulay-Graham (1731–1791) was one of
Source: Bell and Offen, 54–55.
the best-known English writers of the 1700s. She wrote immensely
popular histories of England and also joined in the debate provoked
by Rousseau’s Émile. Questions to Consider
1. Why would women in the eighteenth century read Rousseau
There is another prejudice . . . which affects yet more deeply with such interest and even enthusiasm?
female happiness, and female importance; a prejudice, which 2. Why does Madame de Beaumer address herself to male read-
ought ever to have been confined to the regions of the east, be- ers if the Journal des Dames is intended for women?
cause [of the] state of slavery to which female nature in that part 3. Why would Macaulay focus so much of her analysis on
of the world has been ever subjected, and can only suit with the Rousseau? Why does she not just ignore him?
notion of a positive inferiority in the intellectual powers of the 4. Was the Enlightenment intended only for men?

people truly moral and free. Individual moral free- democracy, and his abstract model included no
dom could be achieved only by learning to subject reference to differences in social status. He roundly
one’s individual interests to “the general will,” that condemned slavery: “To decide that the son of a
is, the good of the community. Individuals did this slave is born a slave is to decide that he is not born
by entering into a social contract not with their a man.” Not surprisingly, authorities in both
rulers, but with one another. If everyone followed Geneva and Paris banned The Social Contract for
the general will, then all would be equally free and undermining political authority. Rousseau’s works
equally moral because they lived under a law to would become a kind of political bible for the
which they had all consented. French revolutionaries of 1789, and his attacks on
These arguments threatened the legitimacy of private property inspired the communists of the
eighteenth-century governments. Rousseau de- nineteenth century such as Karl Marx. Rousseau’s
rived his social contract from human nature, not rather mystical concept of the general will remains
from history, tradition, or the Bible. He implied controversial. The “greatest good of all,” according
that people would be most free and moral under to Rousseau, was liberty combined with equality,
a republican form of government with direct but he also insisted that the individual could be
564 C h a pt e r 1 8 ■ Th e Prom i s e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 1740–1789

Jean-Jacques Rousseau the Decline and Fall of the Ro-


This eighteenth-century engraving of man Empire (1776–1788), in
Rousseau shows him in his favorite which he portrayed Chris-
place, outside in nature, where he tianity in a negative light, but
walks, reads, and in this case collects
when he served as a Member
plants. Rousseau claimed that he
of Parliament he never even
came to his most important insights
while taking long walks, and in Émile gave a speech. At the other
he underlines the importance of extreme, in places with small
physical activity for children. (© Private middle classes, such as Spain
Collection/ The Bridgeman Art Library.) and Russia, Enlightenment
ideas did not get much trac-
tion because governments
successfully suppressed writ-
ings they did not like. France
was the Enlightenment hot
spot because the French
monarchy alternated be-
tween encouraging ideas for
reform and harshly censur-
ing criticisms it found too
threatening.

The French Enlightenment.


French writers published the
most daring critiques of
church and state and often
suffered harassment and perse-
cution as a result. Voltaire,
Diderot, and Rousseau all
faced arrest, exile, or even
“forced to be free” by the terms of the social con- imprisonment. The Catholic church and royal au-
tract. He provided no legal protections for indi- thorities routinely forbade the publication of their
vidual rights. In other words, Rousseau’s version books, and the police arrested booksellers who ig-
of democracy did not preserve the individual free- nored the warnings. Yet the French monarchy was
doms so important to Adam Smith. far from the most autocratic in Europe, and
Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau all ended their
lives as cultural heroes. France seems to have been
Spreading the Enlightenment curiously caught in the middle during the Enlight-
The Enlightenment flourished in places where an enment: with fewer constitutional guarantees of
educated middle class provided an eager audience individual freedom than Great Britain, it still en-
for ideas of constitutionalism and reform. It there- joyed much higher levels of prosperity and cultural
fore found its epicenter in the triangle formed by development than most other European countries.
London, Amsterdam, and Paris and diffused out- In short, French elites had reason to complain, the
ward to eastern and southern Europe and North means to make their complaints known, and a gov-
America. Where constitutionalism and the guar- ernment torn between the desires to censor dissi-
antee of individual freedoms were most advanced, dent ideas and to appear open to modernity and
as in Great Britain and the Dutch Republic, the progress. The French government controlled pub-
movement had less of an edge because there was, lishing — all books had to get official permis-
in a sense, less need for it. John Locke had already sions — but not as tightly as in Spain, where the
written extensively about constitutionalism in the Catholic Inquisition made up its own list of
1690s. As a result, Scottish and English writers con- banned books, or in Russia, where Catherine the
centrated on economics, philosophy, and history Great allowed no opposition.
rather than on politics or social relations. The By the 1760s, the French government regularly
English historian Edward Gibbon, for example, ignored the publication of many works once
published an immensely influential History of thought offensive or subversive. In addition, a
1740–1789 Th e E n l i g h t e n m e n t at I t s H e i g h t 565

growing flood of works printed abroad poured


into France and circulated underground. Private
TERMS OF HISTORY
companies in Dutch and Swiss cities made for-
tunes smuggling illegal books into France over
mountain passes and back roads. Foreign printers
Enlightenment
provided secret catalogs of their offerings and sold
their products through booksellers who were will-
ing to market forbidden books for a high price — n 1784, in an essay titled “What Is Enlightenment?” the German
among them not only philosophical treatises of the
Enlightenment but also pornographic books and
pamphlets (some by Diderot) lampooning the
I philosopher Immanuel Kant gave widespread currency to a term
that had been in the making for several decades. The term enlight-
ened century had become common in the 1760s. The Enlightenment
Catholic clergy and leading members of the royal thus gave itself its own name, and the name clearly had propaganda
value. The philosophes associated Enlightenment with philosophy,
court. In the 1770s and 1780s, lurid descriptions
reason, and humanity; religious tolerance; natural rights; and criti-
of sexual promiscuity at the French court helped
cism of outmoded customs and prejudices. They tied Enlightenment
undermine the popularity of the throne.
to “progress” and to the “modern,” and it came into question, just as
these other terms did, when events cast doubt on the benefits of
The German Enlightenment. Whereas the French progress and the virtues of modernity. Although some opposed the
philosophes often took a violently anticlerical and Enlightenment from the very beginning as antireligious, undermin-
combative tone, their German counterparts ing of authority, and even atheistic and immoral, the French Revolu-
avoided direct political confrontations with au- tion of 1789 galvanized the critics of Enlightenment who blamed every
thorities. Gotthold Lessing (1729–1781) com- excess of revolution on Enlightenment principles.
plained in 1769 that Prussia was still “the most For most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, condemna-
slavish society in Europe” in its lack of freedom to tion of the Enlightenment came from right-wing sources. Some of the
criticize government policies. As a playwright, lit- more extreme of these critics denounced a supposed “Jewish-Masonic
erary critic, and philosopher, Lessing promoted re- conspiracy,” believing that Jews and Freemasons benefited most from
ligious toleration for the Jews and spiritual the spread of Enlightenment principles and worked in secret to jointly
emancipation of Germans from foreign, especially undermine Christianity and established monarchical authorities.
French, models of culture, which still dominated. Adolf Hitler and his followers shared these suspicions, and during
Lessing also introduced the German Jewish writer World War II the Germans confiscated the records of Masonic lodges
Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) into Berlin salon in every country they occupied. They sent the documents back to
society. Mendelssohn labored to build bridges be- Berlin so that a special office could trace the links of this supposed
tween German and Jewish culture by arguing that conspiracy. They found nothing.
Judaism was a rational and undogmatic religion. After the catastrophes of World War II, the Enlightenment came
He believed that persecution and discrimination under attack from left-wing critics. They denounced the Enlighten-
against the Jews would end as reason triumphed. ment as “self-destructive” and even “totalitarian” because its belief in
reason led not to freedom but to greater bureaucratic control. They
Reason was also the chief focus of the most
asked why mankind was sinking into “a new kind of barbarism,” and
influential German thinker of the Enlightenment,
they answered, “Because we have trusted too much in the Enlighten-
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). A university profes- ment and its belief in reason and science.” Reason provided the tech-
sor who lectured on everything from economics nology to transport millions of Jews to their deaths in scientifically
to astronomy, Kant wrote one of the most impor- sound gas chambers. Reason invented the atomic bomb and gave us
tant works in the history of Western philosophy, the factories that pollute the atmosphere. These criticisms of the En-
The Critique of Pure Reason (1781). Kant admired lightenment show how central the Enlightenment remains to the very
Adam Smith and especially Rousseau, whose por- definition of modern history.
trait he displayed proudly in his lodgings. Just as
Smith founded modern economics and Rousseau
modern political theory, Kant in The Critique of
Pure Reason set the foundations for modern phi-
losophy. In this complex book, Kant established categories such as space and time. In Kant’s phi-
the doctrine of idealism, the belief that true un- losophy, these “categories of understanding” were
derstanding can come only from examining the neither sensory nor supernatural; they were
ways in which ideas are formed in the mind. Ideas entirely ideal and abstract and located in the
are shaped, Kant argued, not just by sensory infor- human mind. For Kant, the supreme philosophi-
mation (a position central to empiricism, a phi- cal questions — Does God exist? Is personal im-
losophy based on John Locke’s writings) but also mortality possible? Do humans have free will? —
by the operation on that information of mental were unanswerable by reason alone. But like
566 C h a pt e r 1 8 ■ Th e Prom i s e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 1740–1789

MAJOR WORKS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT


broidery, and medallions, there was even a per-
fume called Eau de Werther. The young Napoleon
1748 Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron of Montesquieu, Spirit of Bonaparte, who was to build an empire for France,
Laws claimed to have read Goethe’s novel seven times.
Religious revivals underlined the limits of rea-
1751 Beginning of publication of the French Encyclopedia
son in a different way. Much of the Protestant
1755 David Hume, The Natural History of Religion world experienced an “awakening” in the 1740s. In
1762 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Émile the German states, Pietist groups founded new
1764 Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary communities; and in the British North American
colonies, revivalist Protestant preachers drew
1770 Abbé Guillaume Raynal, Philosophical and Political History of
European Colonies and Commerce in the Two Indies
thousands of fervent believers in a movement
called the Great Awakening. In North America, bit-
1776 Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the ter conflicts between revivalists and their oppo-
Wealth of Nations
nents in the established churches prompted the
1781 Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason leaders on both sides to set up new colleges to sup-
port their beliefs. These included Princeton,
Columbia, Brown, and Dartmouth, all founded
between 1746 and 1769.
Rousseau, Kant insisted that true moral freedom Revivalism also stirred eastern European Jews
could be achieved only by living in society and at about the same time. Israel ben Eliezer
obeying its laws. (1698–1760) laid the foundation for Hasidism in
the 1740s and 1750s. He traveled the Polish coun-
tryside offering miraculous cures and became
The Limits of Reason: Roots of known as the Ba’al Shem Tov (meaning “Master of
Romanticism and Religious Revival the Good Name”) because he used divine names
As Kant showed, reason had its limits: it could not to effect healing and bring believers into closer
answer all of life’s pressing questions. In reaction personal contact with God. He emphasized mysti-
to what some saw as the Enlightenment’s excessive cal contemplation of the divine, rather than study
reliance on the authority of human reason, a new of Jewish law, and his followers, the Hasidim
artistic movement called romanticism took root. (Hebrew for “most pious” Jews), often expressed
Although it would not fully flower until the early their devotion through music, dance, and fervent
nineteenth century, romanticism traced its empha- prayer. Their practices soon spread all over Poland-
sis on individual genius, deep emotion, and the Lithuania.
joys of nature to thinkers like Rousseau who had Most of the waves of Protestant revivalism
scolded the philosophes for ignoring those aspects ebbed after the 1750s, but in Great Britain one
of life that escaped and even conflicted with the movement continued to grow through the end
power of reason. Rousseau’s autobiographical of the century. John Wesley (1703–1791), the
Confessions, published posthumously in 1782, Oxford-educated son of an Anglican cleric,
caused an immediate sensation because it revealed founded Methodism, a term evoked by Wesley’s
so much about his inner emotional life, including insistence on strict self-discipline and a methodi-
his sexual longings and his almost paranoid dis- cal approach to religious study and observance. In
trust of other Enlightenment figures. 1738, Wesley began preaching a new brand of
A novel by the young German writer Johann Protestantism that emphasized an intense per-
Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) captured the sonal experience of salvation and a life of thrift,
early romantic spirit with its glorification of emo- abstinence, and hard work. Traveling all over the
tion. The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) told of British Isles, Wesley would mount a table or a box
a young man who loves nature and rural life and to speak to the ordinary people of the village or
is unhappy in love. When the woman he loves mar- town. He slept in his followers’ homes, ate their
ries someone else, he falls into deep melancholy food, and treated their illnesses with various
and eventually kills himself. Reason cannot save remedies, including small electric shocks for nerv-
him. The book spurred a veritable Werther craze: ous diseases (Wesley eagerly followed Benjamin
in addition to Werther costumes, engravings, em-
Methodism: A religious movement founded by John Wesley
romanticism: An artistic movement of the late eighteenth and (1703–1791) that broke with the Anglican church in Great
early nineteenth centuries that glorified nature, emotion, Britain and insisted on strict self-discipline and a “methodical”
genius, and imagination. approach to religious study and observance.
1740–1789 S o c i et y a n d C u ltu r e i n a n A g e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 567

George Whitefield
One of the most prominent preachers of the Great
Awakening in the British North American colonies
was the English Methodist George Whitefield,
painted here by John Wollaston in 1742. Whitefield
visited the North American colonies seven times,
sometimes for long periods, and drew tens of
thousands of people to his dramatic and emotional
open-air sermons, which moved many listeners to
tears of repentance. Whitefield was a celebrity in his
time and is considered by many to be the founder of
the Evangelical movement. (National Portrait Gallery,
London.)

Franklin’s experiments with electricity). In fifty ted the influence of the Enlightenment, but an im-
years, Wesley preached forty thousand sermons, portant minority embraced change and actively
an average of fifteen a week. Not surprisingly, his participated in reform efforts. The expanding mid-
preaching disturbed the Anglican authorities, who dle classes saw in the Enlightenment a chance to
refused to let him preach in the churches. In re- make their claim for joining society’s governing
sponse, Wesley began to ordain his own clergy. elite. They bought Enlightenment books, joined
While radical in religious views, the Methodist Masonic lodges, and patronized new styles in art,
leadership remained politically conservative dur- music, and literature. The lower classes were more
ing Wesley’s lifetime; Wesley himself wrote many affected by economic growth than by ideas. Trade
pamphlets urging order, loyalty, and submission boomed and the population grew, but people did
to higher authorities. not benefit equally. The ranks of the poor swelled,
too, and with greater mobility, births to unmar-
ried mothers also increased.
Review: What were the major differences between
the Enlightenment in France, Great Britain, and the
German states? The Nobility’s Reassertion of Privilege
Nobles made up about 3 percent of the European
population, but their numbers and ways of life var-
ied greatly from country to country. At least 10
Society and Culture in an percent of the population in Poland and 7 to 8 per-
Age of Enlightenment cent in Spain was noble, in contrast to only 2 per-
cent in Russia and between 1 and 2 percent in the
Religious revivals and the first stirrings of roman- rest of western Europe. Many Polish and Spanish
ticism show that not all intellectual currents of the nobles lived in poverty; titles did not guarantee
eighteenth century were flowing in the same chan- wealth. Still, the wealthiest European nobles luxu-
nel. Some social and cultural developments, too, riated in almost unimaginable opulence. Many of
manifested the influence of Enlightenment ideas, the English peers, for example, owned more than
but others did not. The traditional leaders of ten thousand acres of land; invested widely in gov-
European societies — the nobles — responded to ernment bonds and trading companies; kept sev-
Enlightenment ideals in contradictory fashion: eral country residences with scores of servants as
many simply reasserted their privileges and resis- well as houses in London; and occasionally even
568 C h a pt e r 1 8 ■ Th e Prom i s e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 1740–1789

had their own private orchestras to complement they did not read the books of the philosophes and
libraries of expensive books, greenhouses for feared reforms that might challenge their domi-
exotic plants, kennels of pedigreed dogs, and nance of rural society.
collections of antiques, firearms, and scientific In France, Britain, and the western German
instruments. states, however, the nobility proved more open to
To support an increasingly expensive lifestyle the new ideas. Among those who personally cor-
in a period of inflation, European aristocrats responded with Rousseau, for example, half were
sought to cash in on their remaining legal rights nobles, as were 20 percent of the 160 contributors
(called seigneurial dues, from the French seigneur, to the Encyclopedia. It had not escaped their no-
for “lord”). Peasants felt the squeeze as a result. tice that Rousseau had denounced inequality. In
French landlords required their peasants to pay his view, it was “manifestly contrary to the law of
dues to grind grain at the lord’s mill, bake bread nature . . . that a handful of people should gorge
in his oven, press grapes at his winepress, or even themselves with superfluities while the hungry
pass on their own land as inheritance. In addition, multitude goes in want of necessities.” The nobles
peasants had to work without compensation for a of western Europe sometimes married into middle-
specified number of days every year on the public class families and formed with them a new mixed
roads. They also paid taxes to the government on elite, united by common interests in reform and
salt, an essential preservative, and on the value of new cultural tastes.
their land; customs duties if they sold produce or
wine in town; and the tithe on their grain (one-
The Middle Class and the
tenth of the crop) to the church.
In Britain, the landed gentry could not claim Making of a New Elite
these same onerous dues from their tenants, but The Enlightenment offered middle-class people
they tenaciously defended their exclusive right to an intellectual and cultural route to social im-
hunt game. The game laws kept the poor from eat- provement. The term middle class referred to the
ing meat and helped protect the social status of the middle position on the social ladder; middle-class
rich. The gentry enforced the game laws them- families did not have legal titles like the nobility
selves by hiring gamekeepers who hunted down above them, but neither did they work with their
poachers and even set traps for them in the forests. hands like the peasants, artisans, or workers below
According to the law, anyone who poached deer or them. Most middle-class people lived in towns or
rabbits while armed or disguised could be sen- cities and earned their living in the professions —
tenced to death. After 1760, the number of arrests as doctors, lawyers, or lower-level officials — or
for breaking the game laws increased dramatically. through investment in land, trade, or manufactur-
In most other countries, too, hunting was the spe- ing. In the eighteenth century, the ranks of the
cial right of the nobility, a cause of deep popular middle class — also known as the bourgeoisie af-
resentment. ter bourgeois, the French word for “city dweller” —
Even though Enlightenment writers sharply grew steadily in western Europe as a result of
criticized nobles’ insistence on special privileges, economic expansion. In France, for example, the
most aristocrats maintained their marks of dis- overall population grew by about one-third in the
tinction. The male court nobility continued to 1700s, but the bourgeoisie nearly tripled in size.
sport swords, plumed hats, makeup, and elaborate Although middle-class people had many reasons
wigs, while middle-class men wore simpler and to resent the nobles, they also aspired to be like
more somber clothing. Aristocrats had their own them.
seats in church and their own quarters in the
universities. Frederick II (“the Great”) of Prussia Lodges and Learned Societies. Nobles and
(r. 1740–1786) made sure that nobles dominated middle-class professionals mingled in Enlighten-
both the army officer corps and the civil bureau- ment salons and joined the new Masonic lodges
cracy. Catherine II of Russia (r. 1762–1796) and local learned societies. The Masonic lodges
granted the nobility vast tracts of land, the exclu- began as social clubs organized around elaborate
sive right to own serfs, and exemption from per- secret rituals of stonemasons’ guilds. They called
sonal taxes and corporal punishment. Her Charter their members Freemasons because that was the
of the Nobility of 1785 codified these privileges in term given to apprentice masons when they were
exchange for the nobles’ political subservience to
the state. In Austria, Spain, the Italian states,
Freemasons: Members of Masonic lodges, where nobles and
Poland-Lithuania, and Russia, most nobles conse- middle-class professionals (and even some artisans) shared
quently cared little about Enlightenment ideas; interest in the Enlightenment and reform.
1740–1789 S o c i et y a n d C u ltu r e i n a n A g e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 569

deemed “free” to practice as masters of their guild. societies, sometimes called academies, brought the
Although not explicitly political in aim, the lodges Enlightenment down from the realm of books and
encouraged equality among members, and both ideas to the level of concrete reforms. They spon-
aristocrats and middle-class men could join. Mem- sored essay contests, such as the one won by
bers wrote constitutions for their lodges and Rousseau in 1749, or the one set by the society in
elected their own officers, thus promoting a direct Metz in 1785 on the question “Are there means for
experience of constitutional government. making the Jews happier and more useful in
Freemasonry arose in Great Britain and spread France?” The Metz society approved essays that ar-
eastward: the first French and Italian lodges gued for granting civil rights to Jews.
opened in 1726; Frederick II of Prussia founded a
lodge in 1740; and after 1750, Freemasonry spread New Cultural Styles. Shared tastes in travel, ar-
in Poland, Russia, and British North America. In chitecture, the arts, and even reading helped
France, women set up their own Masonic lodges. strengthen the links between nobles and members
Despite the papacy’s condemnation of Freema- of the middle class. “Grand tours” of Europe often
sonry in 1738 as subversive of religious and civil led upper-class youths to recently discovered
authority, lodges continued to multiply through- Greek and Roman ruins at Pompeii, Herculaneum,
out the eighteenth century because they offered a and Paestum in Italy. These excavations aroused
place for socializing outside of the traditional enthusiasm for the neoclassical style in architec-
channels and a way of declaring one’s interest in ture and painting, which began pushing aside the
the Enlightenment and reform. In short, Freema- rococo and the long dominant baroque. Urban res-
sonry offered a kind of secular religion. After 1789 idences, government buildings, furniture, fabrics,
and the outbreak of the French Revolution, con- wallpaper, and even pottery soon reflected the neo-
servatives would blame the lodges for every kind classical emphasis on purity and clarity of forms.
of political upheaval, but in the 1700s many high- As one German writer noted, with considerable ex-
ranking nobles became active members and saw aggeration, “Everything in Paris is in the Greek
no conflict with their privileged status. style.” Employing neoclassical motifs, the English
Nobles and middle-class professionals also potter Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795) almost
met in local learned societies, which greatly in- single-handedly created a mass market for domes-
creased in number in this period. They gathered tic crockery and appealed to middle-class desires
to discuss such practical issues as new scientific in- to emulate the rich and royal. His designs of spe-
novations or methods to eliminate poverty. The cial tea sets for the British queen, for Catherine the

Neoclassical Style
In this Georgian interior of Syon
House on the outskirts of London,
various neoclassical motifs are readily
apparent: Greek columns, Greek-style
statuary on top of the columns, and
Roman-style mosaics in the floor. The
Scottish architect Robert Adam
created this room for the duke of
Northumberland in the 1760s. Adam
had spent four years in Italy and
returned in 1758 to London to
decorate homes in the “Adam style,”
meaning the neoclassical manner.
(© The Fotomas Index, U.K. / The Bridgeman Art
Library.)
570 C h a pt e r 1 8 ■ Th e Prom i s e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 1740–1789

Although wealthy nobles


still patronized Europe’s leading
musicians, music, too, began to
reflect the broadening of the elite
and the spread of Enlightenment
ideals as classical forms replaced
the baroque style. Complex
polyphony gave way to melody,
which made the music more ac-
cessible to ordinary listeners.
Large sections of string instru-
ments became the backbone of
professional orchestras, which
now played to large audiences of
well-to-do listeners in sizable
concert halls. The public concert
gradually displaced the private
recital, and a new attitude to-
ward “the classics” developed:
for the first time in the 1770s and
1780s, concert groups began to
play older music rather than
simply playing the latest com-
missioned works.
Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Broken Eggs (1756)
This laid the foundation for
Greuze made his reputation as a painter of moralistic family scenes. In this one, an old
woman (perhaps the mother) confronts the lover of a young girl and points to the eggs that what we still call classical music
have fallen out of a basket, a symbol of lost virginity. Diderot praised Greuze’s work as today — that is, a repertory of
“morality in paint,” but the paintings often had an erotic subtext. (© Francis G. Mayer/ Corbis.) the greatest music of the eigh-
■ For more help analyzing this image, see the visual activity for this chapter in the
teenth and early nineteenth cen-
Online Study Guide at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt. turies. Because composers now
created works that would be per-
formed over and over again as
Great of Russia, and for leading aristocrats allowed part of a classical repertory, rather than occasional
him to advertise his wares as fashionable. By 1767, pieces for the court or noble patrons, they delib-
he claimed that his Queensware pottery had erately attempted to write lasting works. As a re-
“spread over the whole Globe,” and indeed by then sult, the major composers began to produce fewer
his pottery was being marketed in France, Russia, symphonies: the Austrian composer Franz Joseph
Venice, the Ottoman Empire, and British North Haydn (1732–1809) wrote more than one hun-
America. dred symphonies, but his successor Ludwig van
This period also supported artistic styles other Beethoven (1770–1827) would create only nine.
than neoclassicism. Frederick II of Prussia built The two supreme masters of the new musical
himself a palace outside of Berlin in the earlier style of the eighteenth century show that the tran-
rococo style, gave it the French name of Sanssouci sition from noble patronage to classical concerts
(“worry-free”), and filled it with the works of was far from complete. Haydn and his fellow
French masters of the rococo. A growing taste for Austrian Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
moralistic family scenes in painting reflected the both wrote for noble patrons, but by the early
same middle-class preoccupation with the emo- 1800s their compositions had been incorporated
tions of ordinary private life that could be seen in into the canon of concert classics all over Europe.
novels. The middle-class public now attended the Incredibly prolific, both excelled in combining
official painting exhibitions in France that were lightness, clarity, and profound emotion. Both also
held regularly every other year after 1737. Court wrote numerous Italian operas, a genre whose
painting nonetheless remained much in demand. popularity continued to grow: in the 1780s, the
Marie-Louise-Élizabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1755–1842), Papal States alone boasted forty opera houses.
who painted portraits at the French court, re- Haydn spent most of his career working for a
ported that in the 1780s “it was difficult to get a Hungarian noble family, the Eszterházys. Asked
place on my waiting list. . . . I was the fashion.” once why he had written no string quintets (at
1740–1789 S o c i et y a n d C u ltu r e i n a n A g e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 571

which Mozart excelled), he responded simply: “No TAKING MEASURE


one has ordered any.”
Interest in reading, like attending public con-
certs, took hold of the middle classes and fed a
frenzied increase in publication. By the end of the 900 World
850
eighteenth century, six times as many books were
800
being published in the German states, for instance, 750
as at the beginning. One Parisian author com- 700

Population (in millions, rounded)


mented that “people are certainly reading ten times 650
as much in Paris as they did a hundred years ago.” 600 Asia
Provincial towns in western Europe published 550
their own newspapers; by 1780, thirty-seven 500
English towns had local newspapers. Lending 450
400
libraries and book clubs multiplied. Despite the
350
limitations of women’s education, which empha- 300
sized domestic skills, women benefited as much as 250
men from the spread of print. As one Englishman 200
observed, “By far the greatest part of ladies now Europe
150
have a taste for books.” Women also wrote them. 100 Africa
Catherine Macaulay (1731–1791) published best- 50
Americas
selling histories of Britain, and in France Stéphanie 0
1700 1750 1800
de Genlis (1746–1830) wrote children’s books — a Year
genre that was growing in importance as middle-
class parents became more interested in education.
World Population Growth, 1700–1800
The universities had little impact on these new
This graph gives a very crude comparison of regional
tastes. An Austrian reformer complained about the
population growth in the 1700s. Precise statistical data
universities in his country: “Critical history, natu- are impossible to develop for this period on a world-
ral sciences — which are supposed to make en- wide scale. Asia had many more people than Europe,
lightenment general and combat prejudice — were and both Asia and Europe were growing much more
neglected or wholly unknown.” rapidly in the 1700s than Africa or the Americas. The
population stagnation in Africa has been the subject of
much scholarly controversy; it seems likely that it was
Life on the Margins the result of the slave trade, which transported millions
Booming foreign trade fueled a dramatic eco- across the ocean to the Americas. The native popula-
nomic expansion — French colonial trade in- tion in the Americas died because of disease and was
only partially replaced by the import of African slaves.
creased tenfold in the 1700s — but the results did
What are the advantages of a growing population?
not necessarily trickle all the way down the social
What are the disadvantages? (Adapted from Andre Gundar
scale. The population of Europe grew by nearly 30 Frank, Reorient: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Berkeley: University
percent, with especially striking gains in England, of California Press), 1998.)
Ireland, Prussia, and Hungary. (See “Taking Mea-
sure” on this page.) Even though food production
increased, shortages and crises still occurred
periodically. Prices went up in many countries af- homes every year in search of seasonal employ-
ter the 1730s and continued to rise gradually un- ment elsewhere. At least 10 percent of Europe’s ur-
til the early nineteenth century; wages in many ban population depended on some form of
trades rose as well, but less quickly than prices. charity.
Some people prospered — for example, peasants The growing numbers of poor overwhelmed
who produced surpluses to sell in local markets local governments. In some countries, beggars and
and shopkeepers and artisans who could increase vagabonds had been locked up in workhouses
their sales to meet growing demand. But those at since the mid-1600s. The expenses for running
the bottom of the social ladder — day laborers these overcrowded institutions increased by 60
in the cities and peasants with small holdings — percent in England between 1760 and 1785. After
lived on the edge of dire poverty, and when they 1740, most German towns created workhouses
lost their land or work, they either migrated to the that were part workshop, part hospital, and part
cities or wandered the roads in search of food and prison. Such institutions also appeared for the first
work. In France alone, 200,000 workers left their time in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. To
572 C h a pt e r 1 8 ■ Th e Prom i s e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 1740–1789

supplement the inadequate system of religious teenth. Historians have disagreed about the causes
charity, offices for the poor, public workshops, and and meanings of this change. Some detect in this
workhouse hospitals, the French government cre- pattern a sign of sexual liberation and the begin-
ated dépôts de mendicité, or beggar houses, in 1767. nings of a modern sexual revolution: as women
The government sent people to these new work- moved out of the control of their families, they be-
houses to labor in manufacturing, but most were gan to seek their own sexual fulfillment. Others
too weak or sick to work, and 20 percent of them view this change more bleakly, as a story of seduc-
died within a few months of incarceration. The tion and betrayal: family and community pressure
ballooning number of poor people created fears had once forced a man to marry a woman preg-
about rising crime. To officials, beggars seemed nant with his child, but now a man could aban-
more aggressive than ever. The handful of police don a pregnant lover by simply moving away.
assigned to keep order in each town or district Increased mobility brought freedom for some
found themselves confronted with increasing inci- women, but it also aggravated the vulnerability of
dents of rural banditry and crimes against property. those newly arrived in cities from the countryside.
Desperation, not reason, often ruled their choices.
The Persistence of Popular Culture. Those who Women who came to the city as domestic servants
were able to work or keep their land fared better: had little recourse against masters or fellow ser-
an increase in literacy, especially in the cities, vants who seduced or raped them. The result was
allowed some lower-class people to participate in a startling rise in abandoned babies. Most European
new tastes and ideas. One French observer insisted, cities established foundling hospitals in the 1700s,
“These days, you see a waiting-maid in her back- but infant and child mortality was 50 percent
room, a lackey in an ante-room reading pam- higher in such institutions than for children
phlets. People can read in almost all classes of brought up at home. Some women tried herbs, lax-
society.” In France, only 50 percent of men and 27 atives, or crude surgical means of abortion; a few,
percent of women could read and write in the usually servants who would lose their jobs if their
1780s, but that was twice the rate of a century ear- employers discovered they had borne a child, re-
lier. Literacy rates were higher in England and the sorted to infanticide.
Dutch Republic, much lower in eastern Europe. European states had long tried to regulate sex-
About one in four Parisians owned books, but the ual behavior; every country had laws against pros-
lower classes overwhelmingly read religious books, titution, adultery, fornication, sodomy, and
as they had in the past. infanticide. Reformers criticized the harshness of
Whereas the new elite might attend salons, laws against infanticide, but they showed no mercy
concerts, or art exhibitions, peasants enjoyed their for “sodomites” (as male homosexuals were
traditional forms of popular entertainment, such called), who in some places, in particular the
as fairs and festivals, and the urban lower classes Dutch Republic, were systematically persecuted
relaxed in cabarets and taverns. Sometimes pleas- and imprisoned or even executed. Male homosex-
ures were cruel. In Britain, bullbaiting, bearbait- uals attracted the attention of authorities because
ing, dogfighting, and cockfighting were all they had begun to develop networks and special
common forms of entertainment that provided meeting places. The stereotype of the effeminate,
opportunities for organized gambling. “Gentle” exclusively homosexual male seems to have ap-
sports frequented by the upper classes had their peared for the first time in the eighteenth century,
violent side too, showing that the upper classes perhaps as part of a growing emphasis on separate
had not become as different as they sometimes roles for men and women.
thought. Cricket matches, whose rules were first The Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason, self-
laid down in 1744, were often accompanied by control, and childhood innocence made parents in-
brawls among fans (not unlike soccer matches creasingly anxious about their children’s sexuality.
today, though on a much smaller scale). Many Moralists and physicians wrote books about the
Englishmen enjoyed what one observer called a evils of masturbation, “proving” that it led to phys-
“battle royal with sticks, pebbles and hog’s dung.” ical and mental degeneration and even madness.
While the Enlightenment thus encouraged ex-
Changes in Sexual Behavior. As population in- cessive concern about children being left to their
creased and villagers began to move to cities to bet- own devices, it nevertheless taught the middle and
ter their prospects, sexual behavior changed too. upper classes to value their children and to expect
The rates of births out of wedlock soared, from their improvement through education. Writers
less than 5 percent of all births in the seventeenth such as de Genlis and Rousseau drew attention to
century to nearly 20 percent at the end of the eigh- children, who were no longer viewed only as little
1740–1789 Stat e P ow e r i n a n E r a o f R e fo r m 573

sinners in need of harsh discipline. Paintings now sulted in two major wars, a diplomatic reversal of
showed individual children playing at their fa- alliances, and the partition of Poland-Lithuania
vorite activities rather than formally posed with among Russia, Austria, and Prussia.
their families. Books about and for children be-
came popular. The Newtonian System of the Uni- War of the Austrian Succession, 1740–1748.
verse Digested for Young Minds, by “Tom The difficulties over the succession to the Austrian
Telescope,” was published in Britain in 1761 and throne typified the dynastic complications that re-
reprinted many times. Toys, jigsaw puzzles, and peatedly threatened the European balance of
clothing designed for children all appeared for the power. In 1740, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI
first time in the 1700s. Children were no longer died without a male heir. Most European rulers
considered miniature adults. recognized the emperor’s chosen heiress, his
daughter Maria Theresa, because Charles’s Prag-
matic Sanction of 1713 had given a woman the
Review: What were the major differences in the
right to inherit the Habsburg crown lands. The
impact of the Enlightenment on nobles, middle classes,
and lower classes? new king of Prussia, Frederick II, who had just suc-
ceeded his father a few months earlier in 1740, saw
his chance to grab territory and immediately in-
vaded the rich Austrian province of Silesia. France
State Power in an joined Prussia in an attempt to further humiliate
its traditional enemy Austria, and Great Britain
Era of Reform
Rulers turned to Enlightenment-inspired reforms
Maria Theresa and Her Family
to improve life for their subjects and to gain com- In this portrait by Martin van Meytens (1695–1770), Austrian empress
mercial or military advantage over rival states. His- Maria Theresa is shown with her husband, Francis I, and twelve of their
torians label many of the sovereigns of this time sixteen children. Their eldest son eventually succeeded to the Austrian
enlightened despots or enlightened absolutists, throne as Joseph II, and their youngest daughter, Maria Antonia, or
for they aimed to promote Enlightenment reforms Marie-Antoinette, became the queen of France. (Bridgeman–Giraudon/ Art
without giving up their absolutist powers. Cather- Resource, NY.)
ine the Great’s admiring relationship with Voltaire
showed how even the most absolutist rulers cham-
pioned reform when it suited their own goals.
Foremost among those goals was the expansion of
a ruler’s territory.

War and Diplomacy


Europeans no longer fought devastating wars
over religion that killed hundreds of thousands of
civilians; instead, professional armies and navies
battled for control of overseas empires and for
dominance on the European continent. Rulers
continued to expand their armies: the Prussian
army, for example, nearly tripled in size between
1740 and 1789. Widespread use of flintlock mus-
kets required deployment in long lines, usually
three men deep, with each line in turn loading and
firing on command. Military strategy became cau-
tious and calculating, but this did not prevent the
outbreak of hostilities. Between 1740 and 1775, the
instability of the European balance of power re-

enlightened despots: Rulers—such as Catherine the Great


of Russia, Frederick the Great of Prussia, and Joseph II of
Austria—who tried to promote reform without giving up their
own supreme political power; also called enlightened abso-
lutists.
574 C h a pt e r 1 8 ■ Th e Prom i s e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 1740–1789

MAP 18.1 War of the Austrian Succession,

a
1740–1748 North Se N
Sea t ic
The accession of a twenty-three-year-old Bal
PRUSSIA E
woman, Maria Theresa, to the Austrian GREAT W
Elb
throne gave the new king of Prussia, BRITAIN e R. S
DUTCH
Frederick II, an opportunity to invade the REPUBLIC PRUSSIA
province of Silesia. France joined on POLAND-
Brussels 
Prussia’s side, Great Britain on Austria’s. In Aix-la-Chapelle
LITHUANIA
1745, the French defeated the British in the Silesia
Austrian Netherlands and helped instigate AUSTRIAN
 Frankfurt
Bohemia
an uprising in Scotland. The rebellion failed NETHERLANDS

R.
Moravia

ine
and British attacks on French overseas Strasbourg 

Rh
shipping forced the French to negotiate. L o i re R
. Bavaria
Vienna 
The peace treaties guaranteed Frederick’s SWISS
FRANCE HUNGARY
conquest of Silesia, which soon became the CANTONS AUSTRIA
wealthiest province of Prussia. France came Savoy
to terms with Great Britain to protect its Turin 
REPUBLIC
overseas possessions; Austria had to Parma 
OF VENICE
accept the peace settlement after a formal Danube R.
public protest. PAPAL Adr
STATES ia
tic
Se
a
Austria and allies Rome KINGDOM
Prussia and allies OF NAPLES
Seized from Austria Naples
Main areas of fighting
Boundary of the 0 200 400 miles
Holy Roman Empire
0 200 400 kilometers

allied with Austria to prevent the French from tak- and Sweden soon joined the Franco-Austrian
ing the Austrian Netherlands (Map 18.1). The War alliance. When Frederick II invaded Saxony,
of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) soon an ally of Austria, with his bigger and better dis-
expanded to the overseas colonies of Great Britain ciplined army, the long-simmering hostilities be-
and France. French and British colonials in North tween Great Britain and France over colonial
America fought each other all along their bound- boundaries flared into a general war that became
aries, enlisting native American auxiliaries. Britain known as the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763).
tried but failed to isolate the French Caribbean Fighting soon raged around the world (Map
colonies during the war, and hostilities broke out 18.2). The French and British battled on land and
in India, too. sea in North America (where the conflict was called
Maria Theresa (r. 1740–1780) survived only the French and Indian War), the West Indies, and
by conceding Silesia to Prussia in order to split the India. The two coalitions also fought each other in
Prussians off from France. The Peace of Aix-la- central Europe. At first, in 1757, Frederick the Great
Chapelle of 1748 recognized Maria Theresa as the surprised Europe with a spectacular victory at
heiress to the Austrian lands, and her husband, Rossbach in Saxony over a much larger Franco-
Francis I, became Holy Roman Emperor, thus re- Austrian army. But in time, Russian and Austrian
asserting the integrity of the Austrian Empire. The armies encircled his troops. Frederick despaired: “I
peace of 1748 failed to resolve the colonial con- believe all is lost. I will not survive the ruin of my
flicts between Britain and France, however, and country.” A fluke of history saved him. Empress
fighting for domination continued unofficially. Elizabeth of Russia (r. 1741–1762) died and was
succeeded by the mentally unstable Peter III, a
Seven Years’ War, 1756–1763. In 1756, a major fanatical admirer of Frederick and things Prussian.
reversal of alliances — what historians call the Dip- Peter withdrew Russia from the war. (This was
lomatic Revolution — reshaped relations among the
great powers. Prussia and Great Britain signed a de-
Seven Years’ War: A worldwide series of battles (1756–1763)
fensive alliance, prompting Austria to overlook two between Austria, France, Russia, and Sweden on one side and
centuries of hostility and ally with France. Russia Prussia and Great Britain on the other.
1740–1789 Stat e P ow e r i n a n E r a o f R e fo r m 575

British, 1755
British, 1763 N
French, 1763 W SWEDEN
Spanish, 1763 E
S
0 500 1,000 miles
0 500 1,000 kilometers
CANADA
Quebec

Montreal


ea
North S RUSSIA
ic
New York
Sea B alt Danzig
GREAT 
BRITAIN PRUSSIA
PRUSSIA
 Berlin
ATLANTIC POLAND-
OCEAN 
Saxony LITHUANIA
ATLANTIC Rossbach Silesia
OCEAN  Paris 1757
WEST Prague

Havana
INDIES

FRANCE AUSTRIA
HUNGARY

Caribbean Sea
Ad Black
ria D anube R. Sea
PORTUGAL tic
Se
SPAIN a
.
sR
du

In g
Gan es R.

INDIA Calcutta
 Main areas of fighting
Allies: Austria, France, Russia,
Arabian Sweden, Saxony, Spain Mediterranean Sea
Sea Bay of
Madras Bengal Allies: Great Britain,
 Prussia, Portugal
0 250 500 miles 0 200 400 miles
 Battle
0 250 500 kilometers 0 200 400 kilometers

MAP 18.2 The Seven Years’ War, 1756–1763


In what might justly be called the first worldwide war, the French and British fought each other
in Europe, the West Indies, North America, and India. Skirmishing in North America helped
precipitate the war, which became more general when Austria, France, and Russia allied to check
Prussian influence in central Europe. The treaty between Austria and Prussia simply restored the
status quo in Europe, but the changes overseas were much more dramatic. Britain gained control
over Canada and India but gave back to France the West Indian islands of Guadeloupe and
Martinique. Britain was now the dominant power of the seas.

practically his only accomplishment as tsar. He was Prussia’s Rise and the First Partition of Poland.
soon mysteriously murdered, probably at the Although Prussia suffered great losses in the Seven
instigation of his wife, Catherine the Great.) In a Years’ War — some 160,000 Prussian soldiers died
separate peace treaty Frederick kept all his terri- either in action or of disease — the army helped
tory, including Silesia. vault Prussia to the rank of leading powers. In
The Anglo-French overseas conflicts ended 1733, Frederick II’s father, Frederick William I, had
more decisively than the continental land wars. instituted the “canton system,” which enrolled
British naval superiority, fully achieved only in the peasant youths in each canton (or district) in the
1750s, enabled Great Britain to rout the French in army, gave them two or three months of training
North America, India, and the West Indies. In the annually, and allowed them to return to their fam-
Treaty of Paris of 1763, France ceded Canada to ily farms the rest of the year. They remained “can-
Great Britain and agreed to remove its armies from tonists” (reservists) as long as they were able-
India, in exchange for keeping its rich West Indian bodied. In this fashion, the Prussian military stead-
islands. Eagerness to avenge this defeat would ily grew in size; by 1740, Prussia had the third or
motivate France to support the British North fourth largest army in Europe even though it was
American colonists in their War of Independence tenth in population and thirteenth in land area.
just fifteen years later. Under Frederick II, Prussia’s military expenditures
576 C h a pt e r 1 8 ■ Th e Prom i s e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 1740–1789

would spread “a stain over my whole reign,” she


agreed to the first partition of Poland, splitting
one-third of Poland-Lithuania’s territory and half
of its people among the three powers. Austria
feared growing Russian influence in Poland and
in the Balkans, where Russia had been successfully
battling the Ottoman Empire. Conflicts between
Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox Christians
in Poland were used to justify this cynical move.
Russia took over most of Lithuania, effectively
ending the large but weak Polish-Lithuanian com-
monwealth.

State-Sponsored Reform
In the aftermath of the Seven Years’ War, all the
belligerents faced pressing needs for more money
to fund their growing armies, to organize navies
to wage overseas conflicts, and to counter the
impact of inflation. To make tax increases more
palatable to public opinion, rulers appointed
reform-minded ministers and gave them a man-
date to modernize government. As one adviser to
the Austrian ruler Joseph II put it, “A properly con-
stituted state must be exactly analogous to a
Dividing Poland, 1772 machine . . . and the ruler must be the foreman,
In this contemporary depiction, Catherine the Great, Joseph II, and the mainspring . . . which sets everything else in
Frederick II point on the map to the portion of Poland-Lithuania each motion.” Such reforms always threatened the in-
plans to take. The artist makes it clear that Poland’s fate rested in the terests of traditional groups, however, and the
hands of neighboring rulers, not its own people. Can you infer the
spread of Enlightenment ideas aroused sometimes
sentiments of the artist from the content of this engraving? (Mansell / Time
Life Pictures / Getty Images.)
unpredictable desires for more change.

Administrative and Legal Reforms. Reforming


rose to two-thirds of the state’s revenue. Virtually monarchs did not invent government bureaucracy,
every nobleman served in the army, paying for his but they did insist on greater attention to merit,
own support as officer and buying a position as hard work, and professionalism, which made bu-
company commander. Once retired, the officers reaucrats more like modern civil servants. In this
returned to their estates, coordinated the canton view, the ruler should be a benevolent, enlightened
system, and served as local officials. In this way, administrator who worked for the general well-
the military permeated every aspect of rural soci- being of his or her people. Frederick II of Prussia,
ety, fusing army and agrarian organization. The who drove himself as hard as he drove his officials,
army gave the state great power, but the militariza- boasted, “I am the first servant of the state.”
tion of Prussian society also had a A freemason and supporter of
profoundly conservative effect: it 0 200 400 miles religious toleration, Frederick
kept the peasants enserfed to their 0 200 400 kilometers
To Russia abolished torture, reorganized
a

lords and blocked the middle taxation, and hosted leading


Se

c
classes from access to estates or a lti RUSSIA French philosophes at his court.
B
high government positions. PRUSSIA The Prussian king also composed
Prussia’s power grew so dra- POLAND-
LITHUANIA
more than a hundred original
matically that in 1772 Frederick To Prussia pieces of music.
the Great proposed that large Legal reform, both of the ju-
chunks of Polish-Lithuanian ter- To Austria dicial system and of the often
ritory be divided among Austria, AUSTRIA
Prussia, and Russia. Despite the HUNGARY
partition of Poland: Division of one-third
protests of the Austrian empress The First Partition of Poland, of Poland-Lithuania’s territory between
Maria Theresa that the partition 1772 Prussia, Russia, and Austria in 1772.
1740–1789 Stat e P ow e r i n a n E r a o f R e fo r m 577

disorganized and irregular law codes, was central Joseph II launched the most ambitious edu-
to the work of many reform-minded monarchs. cational reforms of the period. In 1774, once the
Like Frederick II, Joseph II of Austria (r. Jesuits had been disbanded, a General School
1780–1790) ordered the compilation of a unified Ordinance in Austria ordered state subsidies for
law code, a project that required many years for local schools, which the state would regulate. By
completion. Catherine II of Russia began such an 1789, one quarter of the school-age children at-
undertaking even more ambitiously. In 1767, she tended school. In Prussia, the school code of 1763
called together a legislative commission of 564 required all children between the ages of five and
deputies and asked them to consider a long doc- thirteen to attend school. Although not enforced
ument called the Instruction, which represented uniformly, the Prussian law demonstrated Frederick
her hopes for legal reform based on the ideas of II’s belief that modernization depended on educa-
Montesquieu and the Italian jurist Cesare Becca- tion. Catherine II of Russia also tried to expand
ria. Montesquieu had insisted that punishment elementary education — and the education of
should fit the crime; he criticized the use of tor- women in particular — and founded engineering
ture and brutal corporal punishment. In his in- schools.
fluential book On Crimes and Punishments (1764), No ruler pushed the principle of religious tol-
Beccaria argued that justice should be adminis- eration as far as Joseph II of Austria, who in 1781
tered in public, that judicial torture should be granted freedom of religious worship to Protes-
abolished as inhumane, and that the accused tants, Orthodox Christians, and Jews. For the first
should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. time, these groups were allowed to own property,
He also advocated eliminating the death penalty. build schools, enter the professions, and hold po-
Despite much discussion and hundreds of peti- litical and military offices. The efforts of other
tions and documents about local problems, little rulers to extend religious toleration proved more
came of Catherine’s commission because the limited. Louis XVI signed an edict in 1787 restor-
monarch herself — despite her regard for Voltaire ing French Protestants’ civil rights — but still,
and his fellow philosophes — proved ultimately Protestants could not hold political office. Great
unwilling to see through far-reaching legal re- Britain continued to deny Catholics freedom of
form. open worship and the right to sit in Parliament.
Most European states limited the rights and op-
The Church, Education, and Religious Toleration. portunities available to Jews. In Russia, only
Rulers everywhere wanted more control over wealthy Jews could hold municipal office, and in
church affairs, and they used Enlightenment crit- the Papal States, the pope encouraged forced bap-
icisms of the organized churches to get their way. tism. Even in Austria, where Joseph encouraged
In Catholic countries, many government officials toleration, the laws forced Jews to take German-
resented the influence of the Jesuits, the major sounding names. The leading philosophes op-
Catholic teaching order. The Jesuits trained the posed persecution of the Jews in theory but often
Catholic intellectual elite, ran a worldwide mis- treated them with undisguised contempt. Di-
sionary network, enjoyed close ties to the papacy, derot’s comment was all too typical: the Jews, he
and amassed great wealth. Critics mounted cam- said, bore “all the defects peculiar to an ignorant
paigns against the Jesuits in many countries, and and superstitious nation.”
by the early 1770s the Society of Jesus had been
dissolved in Portugal, France, and Spain. In 1773,
Pope Clement XIV (r. 1769–1774) agreed under Limits of Reform
pressure to disband the order, an edict that held When enlightened absolutist leaders introduced
until a reinvigorated papacy restored the society reforms, they often ran into resistance from groups
in 1814. Joseph II of Austria not only applauded threatened by the proposed changes. The most
the suppression of the Jesuits but also required contentious area of reform was agricultural policy.
Austrian bishops to swear fidelity and submission Whereas Catherine II reinforced the authority of
to him. Joseph had become Holy Roman Emperor nobles over their serfs, Joseph II tried to remove
and co-regent with his mother, Maria Theresa, in the burdens of serfdom in the Habsburg lands. In
1765. After her death in 1780, he initiated a wide- 1781, he abolished the personal aspects of serf-
ranging program of reform. Under him, the dom: serfs could now move freely, enter trades, or
Austrian state supervised Catholic seminaries, marry without their lords’ permission. Joseph
abolished contemplative monastic orders, and abolished the tithe to the church, shifted more of
confiscated monastic property to pay for educa- the tax burden to the nobility, and converted peas-
tion and poor relief. ants’ labor services into cash payments.
578 C h a pt e r 1 8 ■ Th e Prom i s e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 1740–1789

The Austrian nobility furiously resisted these troduce a system of elected local assemblies, which
far-reaching reforms. When Joseph died in 1790, would have made government much more repre-
his brother Leopold II had to revoke most reforms sentative. Faced with broad-based resistance led by
to appease the nobles. Prussia’s Frederick II, like the parlements and his own courtiers, as well as
Joseph, encouraged such agricultural innovations with riots against rising grain prices, Louis XVI
as planting potatoes and turnips (new crops that dismissed Turgot, and one of the last possibilities
could help feed a growing population), experi- to overhaul France’s government collapsed.
menting with cattle breeding, draining swamp- The failure of reform in France paradoxically
lands, and clearing forests. But Prussia’s noble reflected the power of Enlightenment thinkers;
landlords, the Junkers, continued to expand their everyone now endorsed Enlightenment ideas but
estates at the expense of poorer peasants and used them for different ends. The nobles in the
thwarted Frederick’s attempts to improve the sta- parlements blocked the French monarchy’s reform
tus of serfs. efforts using the very same Enlightenment lan-
Reforming ministers also tried to stimulate guage spoken by the crown’s ministers. France’s
agricultural improvement in France. Unlike most large and growing middle-class public felt increas-
other western European countries, France still had ingly frustrated by the failure to institute social
about a hundred thousand serfs; though their bur- change, a failure that ultimately helped undermine
dens weighed less heavily than those in eastern the monarchy itself. Where Frederick II, Catherine
Europe, serfdom did not entirely disappear until II, and even Joseph II used reform to bolster
1789. A group of economists called the physiocrats the efficiency of absolutist government, attempts
urged the French government to deregulate the at change in France backfired. French kings found
grain trade and make the tax system more equi- that their ambitious programs for reform suc-
table to encourage agricultural productivity. In the ceeded only in arousing unrealistic hopes.
interest of establishing a free market, they also in-
sisted that urban guilds be abolished because the
Review: What prompted enlightened absolutists to
guilds prevented free entry into the trades. Their
undertake reforms in the second half of the eighteenth
proposed reforms applied the Enlightenment em- century?
phasis on individual liberties to the economy;
Adam Smith took up many of the physiocrats’
ideas in his writing in favor of free markets. The
French government heeded some of this advice Rebellions against
and gave up its system of price controls on grain
in 1763, but it had to reverse the decision in 1770
State Power
when grain shortages caused a famine. Although traditional forms of popular discontent
A conflict with the parlements, the thirteen had not disappeared, Enlightenment ideals and re-
high courts of law, prompted Louis XV to go even forms changed the rules of the game in politics.
further in 1771. He replaced the parlements with Governments had become accountable for their
courts in which the judges no longer owned their actions to a much wider range of people than ever
offices and thus could not sell them or pass them before. In Britain and France, ordinary people ri-
on as an inheritance. Justice would then presum- oted when they perceived government as failing to
ably be more impartial. The displaced judges of the protect them against food shortages. The growth
parlements succeeded in arousing widespread of informed public opinion had its most dramatic
opposition to what they portrayed as tyrannical consequences in the North American colonies,
royal policy. The furor calmed down only when where a struggle over the British Parliament’s right
Louis XV died in 1774 and his successor, Louis XVI to tax turned into a full-scale war for independ-
(r. 1774–1792), yielded to aristocratic demands ence. The American War of Independence showed
and restored the old parlements. that once put into practice, Enlightenment ideals
Louis XVI tried to carry out part of the pro- could have revolutionary implications.
gram suggested by the physiocrats, and he chose
one of their disciples, Jacques Turgot (1727–1781),
as his chief minister. A contributor to the Encyclo- Food Riots and Peasant Uprisings
pedia, Turgot pushed through several edicts that Population growth, inflation, and the extension of
again freed the grain trade, suppressed guilds, con- the market system put added pressure on the
verted the peasants’ forced labor on roads into a already beleaguered poor. Seventeenth-century
money tax payable by all landowners, and reduced peasants and townspeople had rioted to protest
court expenses. He also began making plans to in- new taxes. In the last half of the eighteenth cen-
1740–1789 R e b e l l i o n s ag a i n s t Stat e P ow e r 579

tury, the food supply became the deserter from the southeast fron-
Area of rebellion
focus of political and social con- tier region, Emelian Pugachev
Pugachev’s route
flict. Poor people in the villages 0 150 300 miles
(1742–1775) claimed to be Tsar
and the towns believed that it was 0 150 300 kilometers
Peter III, the dead husband of
the government’s responsibility Catherine II. Pugachev’s appear-
to ensure they had enough food, 
Moscow ance seemed to confirm peasant
and many governments did RUSSIA hopes for a “redeemer tsar” who
stockpile grain to make up for the would save the people from op-

R.
lg a
occasional bad harvest. At the pression. He rallied around him

Vo
Do
same time, in keeping with Adam R. Cossacks like himself who re-

n
Smith’s and the French phys- sented the loss of their old tribal
iocrats’ free-market proposals, independence. Now increasingly
governments wanted to allow Aral enserfed or forced to pay taxes
grain prices to rise with market Black Caspian Sea and endure army service, these
Sea Sea
demand, because higher profits nomadic bands joined with other
would motivate producers to in- The Pugachev Rebellion, 1773 serfs, rebellious mine workers,
crease the overall supply of food. and Muslim minorities. Cather-
Free trade in grain meant selling to the high- ine dispatched a large army to squelch the upris-
est bidder even if that bidder was a foreign mer- ing, but Pugachev eluded them and the fighting
chant. In the short run, in times of scarcity, big spread. Nearly three million people eventually par-
landowners and farmers could make huge profits ticipated, making this the largest single rebellion
by selling grain outside their hometowns or vil- in the history of tsarist Russia. When Pugachev
lages. This practice enraged poor farmers, agricul-
tural workers, and city wage workers, who could
not afford the higher prices. Lacking the political A Cossack
means to affect policy, they could enforce their de- Pugachev and many of his followers were Cossacks, Ukrainians
sire for old-fashioned price regulation only by ri- who set up nomadic communities of horsemen to resist outside
control, whether from Turks, Poles, or Russians. This eighteenth-
oting. Most did not pillage or steal grain but rather
century painting captures the common view of Cossacks as
forced the sale of grain or flour at a “just” price horsemen always ready for battle but with a fondness for music
and blocked the shipment of grain out of their vil- too. (© The Bridgeman Art Library.)
lages to other markets. Women often led these
“popular price fixings,” as they were called in
France, in desperate attempts to protect the food
supply for their children.
Such food riots occurred regularly in Britain
and France in the last half of the eighteenth cen-
tury. One of the most turbulent was the so-called
Flour War in France in 1775. Turgot’s deregulation
of the grain trade in 1774 caused prices to rise in
several provincial cities. Rioting spread from there
to the Paris region, where villagers attacked grain
convoys heading to the capital city. Local officials
often ordered merchants and bakers to sell at the
price the rioters demanded, only to find them-
selves arrested by the central government for over-
riding free trade. The government brought in
troops to restore order and introduced the death
penalty for rioting.
Frustrations with serfdom and hopes for a
miraculous transformation provoked the Pugachev
rebellion in Russia beginning in 1773. An army

Pugachev (poo guh CHAWF) rebellion: A massive revolt of Rus-


sian Cossacks and serfs in 1773 against local nobles and the
armies of Catherine the Great; its leader, Emelian Pugachev,
was eventually captured and executed.
580 C h a pt e r 1 8 ■ Th e Prom i s e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 1740–1789

urged the peasants to attack the nobility and seize handbills, and cheap editions of Wilkes’s collected
their estates, hundreds of noble families perished. works all helped promote his cause. Those who
Foreign newspapers called it “the revolution in could not vote demonstrated for Wilkes. In one in-
southern Russia” and offered fantastic stories cident eleven people died when soldiers broke up
about Pugachev’s life history. Finally, the army cap- a huge gathering of his supporters. The slogan
tured the rebel leader and brought him in an iron “Wilkes and Liberty” appeared on walls all over
cage to Moscow, where he was tortured and exe- London. Middle-class voters formed a Society of
cuted. In the aftermath, Catherine tightened the Supporters of the Bill of Rights, which circulated
nobles’ control over their serfs with the Charter of petitions for Wilkes; they gained the support of
the Nobility and harshly punished those who about one-fourth of all the voters. The more de-
dared to criticize serfdom. termined Wilkesites proposed sweeping reforms of
Parliament, including more frequent elections,
more representation for the counties, elimination
Public Opinion and
of “rotten boroughs” (election districts so small
Political Opposition that they could be controlled by one big patron),
Peasant uprisings might briefly shake even a pow- and restrictions of pensions used by the crown to
erful monarchy, but the rise of public opinion as gain support. These demands would be at the heart
a force independent of court society caused more of agitation for parliamentary reform in Britain for
enduring changes in European politics. Across decades to come.
much of Europe and in the North American Popular demonstrations did not always sup-
colonies, demands for broader political participa- port reforms. In 1780, the Gordon riots devastated
tion reflected Enlightenment notions about indi- London. They were named after the fanatical anti-
vidual rights. Aristocratic bodies such as the Catholic crusader Lord George Gordon, who
French parlements, which had no legislative role helped organize huge marches and petition cam-
like that of the British Parliament, insisted that the paigns against a bill the House of Commons
monarch consult them on the nation’s affairs, and passed to grant limited toleration to Catholics. The
the new educated elite wanted more influence too. demonstrations culminated in a seven-day riot
Newspapers began to cover daily political affairs, that left fifty buildings destroyed and three hun-
and the public learned the basics of political life, dred people dead. Despite the continuing limita-
despite the strict limits on political participation tion on voting rights in Great Britain, British
in most countries. Monarchs turned to public politicians were learning that they could ignore
opinion to seek support against aristocratic groups public opinion only at their peril.
that opposed reform. Gustavus III of Sweden Political opposition also took artistic forms,
(r. 1771–1792) called himself “the first citizen of a particularly in countries where governments re-
free people” and promised to deliver the country stricted organized political activity. A striking ex-
from “insufferable aristocratic despotism.” Shortly ample of a play with a political message was The
after coming to the throne, Gustavus proclaimed Marriage of Figaro (1784) by Pierre-Augustin
a new constitution that divided power between the Caron de Beaumarchais (1732–1799), who at one
king and the legislature, abolished the use of tor- time or another worked as a watchmaker, a judge,
ture in the judicial process, and assured some free- a gunrunner in the American War of Independ-
dom of the press. ence, and a French spy in Britain. The Marriage
The Wilkes affair in Great Britain showed that of Figaro was first a hit at court, when Queen
public opinion could be mobilized to challenge a Marie-Antoinette had it read for her friends. But
government. In 1763, during the reign of George when her husband, Louis XVI, read it, he forbade
III (r. 1760–1820), John Wilkes, a member of Par- its production on the grounds that “this man
liament, attacked the government in his newspa- mocks at everything that should be respected in
per, North Briton, and sued the crown when he was government.”When finally performed publicly, the
arrested. He won his release as well as damages. play caused a sensation. The chief character,
When he was reelected, Parliament denied him his Figaro, is a clever servant who gets the better of his
seat, not once but three times. noble employer. When speaking of the count, he
The Wilkes episode soon escalated into a ma- cries, “What have you done to deserve so many re-
jor campaign against the corruption and social ex- wards? You went to the trouble of being born, and
clusiveness of Parliament, complaints the Levellers nothing more.” Two years later, Mozart based an
had first raised during the English Revolution of equally famous but somewhat tamer opera on
the late 1640s. Newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, Beaumarchais’s story.
1740–1789 R e b e l l i o n s ag a i n s t Stat e P ow e r 581

Revolution in leaders became convinced that the British govern-


North America ment was growing increasingly corrupt and
despotic. British radicals wanted to reform Parlia-
Oppositional forms of public opinion came to a ment so that the voices of a broader, more repre-
head in Great Britain’s North American colonies, sentative segment of the population would be
where the result was American independence and heard. The colonies had no representatives in Par-
the establishment of a republican constitution that liament, and colonists claimed that “no taxation
stood in stark contrast to most European regimes. without representation” should be allowed. In-
Many Europeans saw the American War of Inde- deed, they denied that Parliament had any juris-
pendence, or the American Revolution, as a tri- diction over the colonies, insisting that the king
umph for Enlightenment ideas. As one German govern them through colonial legislatures and rec-
writer exclaimed in 1777, American victory would ognize their traditional British liberties. The fail-
give “greater scope to the Enlightenment, new ure of the “Wilkes and Liberty” campaign to
keenness to the thinking of peoples and new life produce concrete results convinced many Ameri-
to the spirit of liberty.” cans that Parliament was hopelessly tainted and
The American revolutionary leaders had been that they would have to stand up for their rights
influenced by a common Atlantic civilization; they as British subjects.
participated in the Enlightenment and shared po- The British colonies remained loyal to the
litical ideas with the opposition Whigs in Britain. crown until Parliament’s encroachment on their
Supporters demonstrated for Wilkes in South autonomy and the elimination of the French threat
Carolina and Boston, and the South Carolina at the end of the Seven Years’ War transformed
legislature donated a substantial sum to the Society colonial attitudes. Unconsciously, perhaps, the
of Supporters of the Bill of Rights. In the 1760s colonies had begun to form a separate nation; their
and 1770s, both British and American opposition economies generally flourished in the eighteenth

Overthrowing British Authority


The uncompromising attitude of the British government went a long way toward dissolving
long-standing loyalties to the home country. During the American War of Independence, residents
of New York City pulled down the statue of the hated George III. (Lafayette College Art Collection,
Easton, PA.)
582 C h a pt e r 1 8 ■ Th e Prom i s e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 1740–1789

DOCUMENT

Thomas Jefferson,
Declaration of Independence ( July 4, 1776)
Although others helped revise the Declara- We hold these truths to be self- while evils are sufferable, than to right
tion of Independence of the thirteen North evident, that all men are created equal, themselves by abolishing the forms to
American colonies from Great Britain, that they are endowed by their Creator which they are accustomed. But when a
Jefferson wrote the original draft himself. with certain unalienable Rights, that long train of abuses and usurpations,
A Virginia planter and lawyer, Jefferson among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuing invariably the same Object
went on to become governor of Virginia, pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure evinces a design to reduce them under
minister to France, secretary of state, vice these rights, Governments are instituted absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is
president and president of the United States among Men, deriving their just powers their duty, to throw off such Govern-
(1801–1809). The Declaration begins with from the consent of the governed, — ment, and to provide new Guards for
a stirring expression of the belief in natural That whenever any Form of Government their future security. — Such has been the
or human rights. becomes destructive of these ends, it is patient sufferance of these Colonies; and
the Right of the People to alter or to abol- such is now the necessity which con-
When in the Course of human events, it ish it, and to institute new Government, strains them to alter their former Systems
becomes necessary for one people to dis- laying its foundation on such principles of Government. The history of the pres-
solve the political bands which have con- and organizing its powers in such form, ent King of Great Britain is a history of
nected them with another, and to assume as to them shall seem most likely to ef- repeated injuries and usurpations, all
among the powers of the earth, the sepa- fect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, having in direct object the establishment
rate and equal station to which the Laws of indeed, will dictate that Governments of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a long established should not be changed
decent respect to the opinions of mankind for light and transient causes; and ac-
requires that they should declare the causes cordingly all experience hath shewn, that Source: U.S. National Archives and Records
which impel them to the separation. mankind are more disposed to suffer, Administration, Washington, D.C.

century, and between 1750 and 1776 their popu- the Declaration of Independence. An eloquent
lation almost doubled. With the British clamoring statement of the American cause written by
for lower taxes and the colonists paying only a frac- Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independ-
tion of the tax rate paid by the Britons at home, ence was couched in the language of universal
Parliament passed new taxes, including the Stamp human rights, which enlightened Europeans could
Act in 1765, which required a special tax stamp on be expected to understand. (See Document, “Dec-
all legal documents and publications. After violent laration of Independence,” above.) George III de-
rioting in the colonies, the tax was repealed, but in nounced the American “traitors and rebels.” But
1773 a new Tea Act revived colonial resistance, European newspapers enthusiastically reported on
which culminated in the so-called Boston Tea every American response to “the cruel acts of op-
Party of 1773. Colonists dressed as Indians pression they have been made to suffer.” In 1778,
boarded British ships and dumped the imported France boosted the American cause by entering on
tea (by this time an enormously popular beverage) the colonists’ side. Spain, too, saw an opportunity
into Boston’s harbor. to check the growing power of Britain, though
Political opposition in the American colonies without actually endorsing American independ-
turned belligerent when Britain threatened to use ence out of fear of the response of its Latin Amer-
force to maintain control. In 1774, the First Con- ican colonies. Spain declared war on Britain in
tinental Congress convened, composed of delegates 1779; in 1780, Great Britain declared war on the
from the colonies, and unsuccessfully petitioned Dutch Republic in retaliation for Dutch support
the crown for redress. The next year the Second of the rebels. The worldwide conflict that resulted
Continental Congress organized an army with was more than Britain could handle. The Ameri-
George Washington in command. After actual can colonies achieved their independence in the
fighting had begun, in 1776, the congress issued peace treaty of 1783.
1740–1789 C o n c lu s i o n 583

The newly independent states still faced the rights helped fuel the movement for its abolition
challenge of republican self-government. The Ar- in both Britain and the United States.
ticles of Confederation, drawn up in 1777 as a pro- Interest in the new republic was greatest in
visional constitution, proved weak because they France. The U.S. Constitution and various state
gave the central government few powers. In 1787, constitutions were published in French with com-
a constitutional convention met in Philadelphia to mentary by leading thinkers. Even more important
draft a new constitution. It established a two-house in the long run were the effects of the American
legislature, an indirectly elected president, and an war. Dutch losses to Great Britain aroused a wide-
independent judiciary. The U.S. Constitution’s spread movement for political reform in the Dutch
preamble insisted explicitly, for the first time in Republic, and debts incurred by France in sup-
history, that government derived its power solely porting the American colonies would soon force
from the people and did not depend on divine the French monarchy to the edge of bankruptcy
right or on the tradition of royalty or aristocracy. and then to revolution. Ultimately, the entire Eu-
The new educated elite of the eighteenth century ropean system of royal rule would be challenged.
had now created government based on a “social
contract” among male, property-owning, white
Review: Why did public opinion become a new factor
citizens. It was by no means a complete democ- in politics in the second half of the eighteenth century?
racy (women and slaves were excluded from polit-
ical participation), but the new government
represented a radical departure from European
models. In 1791, the Bill of Rights was appended Conclusion
to the Constitution outlining the essential rights
(such as freedom of speech) that the government When Thomas Jefferson looked back many years
could never overturn. Although slavery continued later on the Declaration of Independence, he said
in the American republic, the new emphasis on he hoped it would be “the signal of arousing men

MA P P I N G T H E W E ST
0 1,000 2,000 miles N
0 1,000 2,000 kilometers
W E

DENMARK
SWEDEN
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BRITAIN
PRUSSIA RUSSIA
POLAND-
CANADA DUTCH LITHUANIA
REP. AUSTRIA
AUSTRIAN NETH. HUNGARY
L OUI

FRANCE
O
TT
ES

T ITALY
PORTUGAL SPAIN OM
SI A N

A
ST AN
E
ED ATLANTIC MPI
RE
A

IT
UN OCEAN PERSIA
EGYPT

WEST INDIES
British possessions
NE

French possessions
W

SP
AI Spanish possessions
N

Europe and the World, c. 1780


Although Great Britain lost control over part of its North American colonies, which became the new
United States, European influence on the rest of the world grew dramatically in the eighteenth
century. The slave trade linked European ports to African slave-trading outposts and to plantations in
the Caribbean, South America, and North America. The European countries on the Atlantic Ocean
benefited most from this trade. Yet almost all of Africa, China, Japan, and large parts of India still
resisted European incursion, and the Ottoman Empire, with its massive territories, still presented
Europe with a formidable military challenge.
584 C h a pt e r 1 8 ■ Th e Prom i s e o f E n l i g h t e n m e n t 1740–1789

to burst the chains under which monkish igno- reform contributed to the ferment in Europe after
rance and superstition had persuaded them to 1770. Peasant rebellions in eastern Europe, the
bind themselves.” What began as a cosmopolitan “Wilkes and Liberty” campaign in Great Britain,
movement of a few intellectuals in the first half of the struggle over reform in France, and the revo-
the eighteenth century had reached a relatively lution in America all occurred around the same
wide audience among the educated elite of men time, and their conjunction convinced many Eu-
and women by the 1770s and 1780s. The spirit of ropeans that change was brewing. Just how much
Enlightenment swept from the salons, coffee- could change, and whether change made life bet-
houses, and Masonic lodges into the halls of gov- ter or worse, would come into question in the next
ernment from Philadelphia to Vienna. Scientific ten years.
inquiry into the causes of social misery and laws
defending individual rights and freedoms gained
adherents even among the rulers and ministers re- For Further Exploration
sponsible for censoring Enlightenment works.
For most Europeans, however, the promise of ■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
the Enlightenment did not become a reality. Rulers for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
end of the book.
such as Catherine the Great had every intention of
retaining their full, often unchecked, powers, even ■ For additional primary-source material from
as they corresponded with leading philosophes this period, see Chapter 18 in Sources of THE
and entertained them at their courts. Moreover, MAKING OF THE WEST, Third Edition.
would-be reformers often found themselves
blocked by the resistance of nobles, by the priori- ■ For Web sites and documents related to topics
ties rulers gave to waging wars, or by popular re- in this chapter, see Make History at
sistance to deregulation of trade that increased the bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
uncertainties of the market. Yet even the failure of
1740–1789 C h a pt e r R ev i ew 585

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
Key Terms and People Making Connections
philosophes (556) Methodism (566) 1. Why would rulers feel ambivalent about the Enlighten-
deists (559) Freemasons (568) ment, supporting reform on the one hand, while clamp-
abolitionists (560) enlightened despots (573) ing down on political dissidents on the other hand?
laissez-faire (561) Seven Years’ War (574) 2. Which major developments in this period ran counter to
Jean-Jacques Rousseau partition of Poland (576) the influence of the Enlightenment?
(561) Pugachev rebellion (579) 3. In what ways had politics changed, and in what ways did
romanticism (566) they remain the same during the Enlightenment?

Review Questions
For practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other
1. What were the major differences between the Enlighten- study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
ment in France, Great Britain, and the German states? bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
2. What were the major differences in the impact of the En-
lightenment on nobles, middle classes, and lower classes?
3. What prompted enlightened absolutists to undertake
reforms in the second half of the eighteenth century?
4. Why did public opinion become a new factor in politics in
the second half of the eighteenth century?

Important Events

1740–1748 War of the Austrian Succession: France, 1773 Pugachev rebellion of Russian peasants
Spain, and Prussia versus Austria and 1776 American Declaration of Independence from Great
Great Britain Britain; Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
1751–1772 Encyclopedia published in France 1780 Joseph II of Austria undertakes a wide-reaching
1756–1763 Seven Years’ War fought in Europe, India, reform program
and the American colonies 1781 Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
1762 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social 1785 Catherine the Great’s Charter of the Nobility grants
Contract and Émile nobles exclusive control over their serfs
1764 Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary in exchange for subservience to the state
1771 Louis XV of France fails to break the 1787 Delegates from the states draft the U.S.
power of the French law courts Constitution
1772 First partition of Poland
The Cataclysm C H A P T E R

of Revolution
1789–1799
19
The Revolutionary Wave,
1787–1789 588
• Protesters in the Low Countries
and Poland
• Origins of the French Revolution,
n October 5, 1789, a crowd of several thousand women 1787–1789

O marched in a drenching rain twelve miles from the center of


Paris to Versailles. They demanded the king’s help in securing
more grain for the hungry and his reassurance that he did not intend
From Monarchy to Republic,
1789–1793 594
• The Revolution of Rights and Reason
to resist the emerging revolutionary movement. Joined the next morn- • The End of Monarchy

ing by thousands of men who came from Paris to reinforce them, they Terror and Resistance 600
broke into the royal family’s private apartments, killing two of the royal • Robespierre and the Committee
of Public Safety
bodyguards. To prevent further bloodshed, the king agreed to move his • The Republic of Virtue, 1793–1794
family and his government to Paris. A dramatic procession of the royal • Resisting the Revolution
• The Fall of Robespierre and the
family guarded by throngs of ordinary men and women made its slow End of the Terror
way back to the capital. The people’s proud display of cannons and
Revolution on the March 607
pikes underlined the fundamental transformation that was occurring. • Arms and Conquests
Ordinary people had forced the king of France to respond to their griev- • European Reactions to
Revolutionary Change
ances. The French monarchy was in danger, and if such a powerful and • Poland Extinguished, 1793–1795
• Revolution in the Colonies
long-lasting institution could come under fire, then could any monarch
of Europe rest easy?
Although even the keenest political observer did not predict its
eruption in 1789, the French Revolution had its immediate origins in
a constitutional crisis provoked by a growing government deficit, trace-
able to French involvement in the American War of Independence. The
constitutional crisis came to a head on July 14, 1789, when armed
Parisians captured the Bastille, a royal fortress and symbol of monar-
chical authority in the center of the capital. The fall of the Bastille, like
the women’s march to Versailles three months later, showed the deter-
mination of the common people to put their mark on events.
The French Revolution first grabbed the attention of the entire
world because it seemed to promise universal human rights, constitu-
tional government, and broad-based political participation. Its most

Women’s March to Versailles


Thousands of prints broadcast the events of the French Revolution to the public in
France and elsewhere. They varied from fine-art engravings signed by the artist to
anonymous simple woodcuts. This colored engraving shows a crowd of armed
women marching to Versailles on October 5, 1789, to confront the king. The sight of
armed women frightened many observers and demonstrated that the Revolution was
not only a men’s affair. (The Granger Collection, New York.)
587
588 C h a pt e r 1 9 ■ Th e C atac lys m o f R evo lu t i o n 1789–1799

famous slogan pledged “Liberty, Equality, and Fra- relationship between rapid political change and
ternity” for all. An enthusiastic German wrote, violence. Do all revolutions inevitably degenerate
“One of the greatest nations in the world, the into terror or wars of conquest? Is a regime dem-
greatest in general culture, has at last thrown off ocratic if it does not allow poor men, women, or
the yoke of tyranny.” The revolutionaries used a blacks to vote? The French Revolution raised these
blueprint based on the Enlightenment idea of rea- questions and many more. The questions res-
son to remake all of society and politics: they ex- onated in many countries because the French Rev-
ecuted the king and queen, established a republic olution seemed to be only the most extreme
for the first time in French history, abolished no- example of a much broader political and social
bility, and gave the vote to all adult men. movement at the end of the eighteenth century.
Even as the Revolution promised democracy,
however, it also inaugurated a cycle of violence
Focus Question: What was so revolutionary about
and intimidation. When the revolutionaries en-
the French Revolution?
countered resistance to their programs, they set
up a government of terror to compel obedience.
Some historians therefore see in the French Rev-
olution the origins of modern totalitarianism —
that is, governments that try to control every The Revolutionary Wave,
aspect of life, including daily activities, while lim- 1787–1789
iting all forms of political dissent. As events un-
folded after 1789, the French Revolution became Between 1787 and 1789, revolts in the name of
the model of modern revolution; republicanism, liberty broke out in the Dutch Republic, the
democracy, terrorism, nationalism, and military Austrian Netherlands (present-day Belgium and
dictatorship all took their modern forms during Luxembourg), and Poland, as well as in France.
the French Revolution. At the same time, the newly independent United
The Revolution might have remained a strictly States of America prepared a new federal consti-
French affair if war had not involved the rest of tution. Historians have sometimes referred to
Europe. After 1792, huge French republican these revolts as the Atlantic revolutions because
armies, fueled by patriotic nationalism, marched so many protest movements arose in countries on
across Europe, promising liberation from traditional both shores of the North Atlantic. These revolu-
monarchies but often delivering old-fashioned tions were the product of long-term prosperity
conquest and annexation. French victories spread and high expectations, created in part by the
revolutionary ideas far and wide, from Poland to spread of the Enlightenment. Europeans in gen-
the colonies in the Caribbean, where the first eral were wealthier, healthier, more numerous,
successful slave revolt established the republic of and better educated than they had ever been be-
Haiti. fore; and the Dutch, Belgian, and French societies
The breathtaking succession of regimes in were among the wealthiest and best educated
France between 1789 and 1799 and the failure of within Europe. The French Revolution nonethe-
the republican experiment after ten years of less differed greatly from the others. Not only was
upheaval raised disturbing questions about the France the richest, most powerful, and most

■ 1787 Dutch Patriot revolt stifled


■ 1792 France and rest
of Europe at war; second
■ 1788–1790 Austrian Netherlands’ resistance revolution of August 10

1787 1789 1791


■ 1789 French Revolution begins ■ 1791 St. Domingue slave revolt
1789–1799 Th e R evo lu t i o n a ry Wave , 1 7 8 7 – 1 7 8 9 589

populous state in western Europe, but its revolu- connections. Before long, the
tion was also more violent, more long-lasting, and Free Corps took on the troops
ultimately more influential. (See “Terms of History,” of the prince of Orange and got

IC
BL
Amsterdam

page 590.) the upper hand. In response,

PU
Utrecht 

RE
Frederick William II of Prussia,

H
TC GERMAN
whose sister had married the DU S TATE S
Protesters in the Low Countries Brussels

stadholder, intervened in 1787 AUSTRIAN
and Poland with tacit British support. NETHERLANDS

Political protests in the Dutch Republic attracted Thousands of Prussian troops FRANCE
European attention because Dutch banks still con- soon occupied Utrecht and 0 100 200 miles
trolled a hefty portion of the world’s capital at the Amsterdam, and the house of 0 100 200 kilometers
end of the eighteenth century, even though the Orange regained its former po-
Dutch Republic’s role in international politics had sition. The Low Countries in 1787
diminished. Revolts also broke out in the neigh- Social divisions among the
boring Austrian Netherlands and Poland. Al- rebels paved the way for the success of this outside
though none of these movements ultimately intervention. Many of the Patriots from the rich-
succeeded, they showed how quickly political dis- est merchant families feared the growing power of
content could boil over in this era of rising eco- the Free Corps. The Free Corps wanted a more
nomic and political expectations. democratic form of government, and to get it they
encouraged the publication of pamphlets and car-
The Dutch Patriot Revolt, 1787. The Dutch Pa- toons attacking the prince and his wife, promoted
triots, as they chose to call themselves, wanted to the rapid spread of clubs and societies made up of
reduce the powers of the prince of Orange, the common people, and organized crowd-pleasing
kinglike stadholder who favored close ties with public ceremonies, such as parades and bonfires,
Great Britain. Government-sponsored Dutch banks that sometimes turned into riots. In the aftermath
owned 40 percent of the British national debt, and of the Prussian invasion in September 1787, the
by 1796 they held the entire foreign debt of the Orangists got their revenge: lower-class mobs pil-
United States. Relations with the British deterio- laged the houses of prosperous Patriot leaders,
rated during the American War of Independence, forcing many to flee to the United States, France,
however, and by the middle of the 1780s, agitation or the Austrian Netherlands. Those Patriots who
in favor of the Americans had boiled over into an remained nursed their grievances until the French
attack on the stadholder. republican armies invaded in 1795.
Building on support among middle-class
bankers and merchants, the Patriots soon gained The Belgian Independence Movement. If Aus-
a more popular audience by demanding political trian emperor Joseph II had not tried to introduce
reforms and organizing armed citizen militias of Enlightenment-inspired reforms, the Belgians of
men, called Free Corps. Town by town the Patri- the ten provinces of the Austrian Netherlands
ots forced local officials to set up new elections to might have remained tranquil. Just as he had done
replace councils that had been packed with previously in his own crown lands (see Chapter
Orangist supporters through patronage or family 18), Joseph abolished torture, decreed toleration

■ 1793 Second partition of Poland; ■ 1795 Third partition of Poland;


Louis XVI executed France annexes Austrian Netherlands

1793 1795 1797


■ 1794 French abolish slavery; ■ 1797–1798 “Sister”
Robespierre falls republics established in
Italian states and Switzerland
590 C h a pt e r 1 9 ■ Th e C atac lys m o f R evo lu t i o n 1789–1799

ernment and organized clubs to give voice to their


TERMS OF HISTORY demands. At the end of 1788, a secret society formed
armed companies to prepare an uprising. By late
1789, each province had separately declared its in-
Revolution dependence, and the Austrian administration had
collapsed. Delegates from the various provinces de-
clared themselves the United States of Belgium, a
evolution had previously meant cyclical change that brought life clear reference to the American precedent.
R back to a starting point, as a planet makes a revolution around
the sun. Revolutions could come and go, by this definition, and
change nothing fundamental in the structure of society. After 1789,
Once again, however, social divisions doomed
the rebels. When the democrats began to challenge
noble authority, aristocratic leaders drew to their
revolution came to mean a self-conscious attempt to leap into the fu- side the Catholic clergy and peasants, who had
ture by reshaping society and politics and even the human personal-
little sympathy for the democrats of the cities. Every
ity. A revolutionary official analyzed the meaning of the word in 1793:
Sunday in May and June 1790, thousands of peas-
“A revolution is never made by halves; it must either be total or it will
ant men and women, led by their priests, streamed
abort. . . . Revolutionary means outside of all forms and all rules.” In
short, revolution soon had an all-or-nothing meaning; you were either
into Brussels carrying crucifixes, nooses, and pitch-
for the revolution or against it. There could be no in between. forks to intimidate the democrats and defend the
Revolution still has the same meaning given it by the French rev- church. Faced with the choice between the Austrian
olutionaries, but it is now an even more contested term because of its emperor and “our current tyrants,” the democrats
association with communist theory. In the nineteenth century, Karl chose to support the return of the Austrians under
Marx incorporated the French Revolution into his new doctrine of Emperor Leopold II (r. 1790–1792), who had suc-
communism. In his view, the middle-class French revolutionaries had ceeded his brother.
overthrown the monarchy and the “feudal” aristocracy to pave the way
for capitalist development. In the future, the proletariat (industrial Polish Patriots. A reform party calling itself the
workers) would overthrow the capitalist middle class to install a com- Patriots also emerged in Poland, which had been
munist government that would abolish private property. Since Marx- shocked by the loss of a third of its territory in the
ists claimed the French Revolution as the forerunner of the communist first partition of 1772. The Patriots sought to over-
revolution in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it was perhaps haul the weak commonwealth along modern west-
inevitable that those who opposed communism would also criticize ern European lines and looked to King Stanislaw
the French Revolution. August Poniatowski (r. 1764–1795) to lead them.
The most influential example of this view is that of the French A nobleman who owed his crown solely to the du-
scholar François Furet. An ex-communist, Furet argued that the bious honor of being Catherine the Great’s discarded
French Revolution can be seen as the origin of totalitarianism because lover but who was also a favorite correspondent of
it incarnated what Furet calls “the illusion of politics,” that is, the be- the Parisian salon hostess Madame Geoffrin, Poni-
lief that people can transform social and economic relationships atowski saw in moderate reform the only chance
through political revolution. The French revolutionaries became to-
for his country to escape the consequences of a
talitarian, in Furet’s view, because they wanted to establish a kind of
century’s misgovernment and cultural decline.
political and social utopia (a perfect society), in which reason alone
determined the shape of political and social life. Because this dream
Ranged against the Patriots stood most of the aris-
is impossible given human resistance to rapid change, the revolution- tocrats and the formidable Catherine the Great,
aries had to use force to achieve their goals. In other words, revolu- determined to uphold imperial Russian influence.
tion itself was a problematic idea, according to Furet. Revolution as a Pleased to see Russian influence waning in
term remains as contested as the events that gave rise to it. Poland, Austria and Prussia allowed the reform
movement to proceed. In 1788, the Patriots got their
golden chance. Bogged down in war with the
Ottoman Turks, Catherine could not block the sum-
for Jews and Protestants (in this resolutely Catholic moning of a reform-minded parliament, which
area), and suppressed monasteries. His reorgani- eventually enacted the constitution of May 3, 1791.
zation of the administrative and judicial systems It established a hereditary monarchy with some-
eliminated many offices that belonged to nobles what strengthened authority, ended the veto power
and lawyers, sparking resistance among the upper that each aristocrat had over legislation, granted
classes in 1788. townspeople limited political rights, and vaguely
Upper-class protesters intended only to defend promised future Jewish emancipation. Abolishing
historic local liberties against an overbearing gov- serfdom was hardly mentioned. Within a year, how-
ernment. Nonetheless, their resistance galvanized ever, Catherine II had turned her attention to
democrats, who wanted a more representative gov- Poland and engineered the downfall of the Patriots.
1789–1799 Th e R evo lu t i o n a ry Wave , 1 7 8 7 – 1 7 8 9 591

Origins of the French Revolution, extravagant taste in clothes, elaborate hairdos, and
1787–1789 supposed indifference to popular misery. When
confronted by the inability of the poor to buy
Many French enthusiastically greeted the Ameri- bread, she was reported to have replied, “Let them
can experiment in republican government and eat cake.” “The Austrian bitch,” as underground
supported the Dutch, Belgian, and Polish patriots. writers called her, had been the target of an increas-
But they did not expect the United States and the ingly nasty pamphlet campaign in the 1780s. By
Dutch Republic to provide them a model. Mon- 1789, the queen had become an object of popular
tesquieu and Rousseau, the leading political theo- hatred. The king’s ineffectiveness and the queen’s
rists of the Enlightenment, taught that republics growing unpopularity helped undermine the
suited only small countries, not big ones like monarchy as an institution.
France. After suffering humiliation at the hands of Faced with a mounting deficit, in 1787 Louis
the British in the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), submitted a package of reforms to the Assembly
the French had regained international prestige by of Notables, a group of handpicked nobles, cler-
supporting the victorious Americans, and the gymen, and officials. When this group refused to
monarchy had shown its eagerness to promote re-
forms. In 1787, for example, the French crown
granted civil rights to Protestants. Yet by the late
1780s, the French monarchy faced a serious fiscal Queen Marie-Antoinette (detail)
Marie-Louise-Élizabeth Vigée-Lebrun painted this portrait of the
crisis caused by a mounting deficit. It soon pro-
French queen Marie-Antoinette and her children in 1788. The
voked a constitutional crisis of epic proportions. eldest son, Louis (not shown in this detail), died in 1789. When
he died, her second son (on her lap here), also called Louis,
Fiscal Crisis. France’s fiscal problems stemmed became heir to the throne. Known to supporters of the monarch
from its support of the Americans against the as Louis XVII, he died in prison in 1795 and never ruled. Vigée-
British in the American War of Independence. Lebrun fled France in 1789 and returned only in 1805. (© Chateau
About half of the French national budget went to de Versailles, France/ The Bridgeman Art Library.)
paying interest on the debt that had accumulated.
In contrast to Great Britain, which had a national
bank to help raise loans for the government, the
French government lived off relatively short-term,
high-interest loans from private sources including
Swiss banks, government annuities, and advances
from tax collectors.
For years the French government had been
trying unsuccessfully to modernize the tax system
to make it more equitable. The peasants bore the
greatest burden of taxes, whereas the nobles and
clergy were largely exempt from them. Tax collec-
tion was also far from systematic: private contrac-
tors collected many taxes and pocketed a large
share of the proceeds. With the growing support
of public opinion, the bond and annuity holders
from the middle and upper classes now demanded
a clearer system of fiscal accountability.
In a monarchy, the ruler’s character is al-
ways crucial. Many complained that Louis XVI
(r. 1774–1792) showed more interest in hunting
or in his hobby of making locks than in the prob-
lems of government. His wife, Marie-Antoinette,
was blond, beautiful, and much criticized for her

Louis XVI: French King (r. 1774–1792) who was tried and found
guilty of treason; he was executed on January 21, 1793.
Marie-Antoinette: Wife of Louis XVI and queen of France who
was tried and executed in October 1793.
592 C h a pt e r 1 9 ■ Th e C atac lys m o f R evo lu t i o n 1789–1799

endorse his program, the king presented his pro- and townspeople alike held meetings to elect
posals for a more uniform land tax to his old deputies and write down their grievances. The ef-
rival the parlement of Paris. When it too refused, fect was immediate. Although educated men dom-
he ordered the parlement judges into exile in inated the meetings at the regional level, the
the provinces. Overnight, the judges (members of humblest peasants voted in their villages and burst
the nobility because of the offices they held) be- forth with complaints, especially about taxes. As
came popular heroes for resisting the king’s one villager lamented, “The last crust of bread has
“tyranny”; in reality, however, the judges, like the been taken from us.” The long series of meetings
notables, wanted reform only on their own terms. raised expectations that the Estates General would
Louis finally gave in to demands that he call a help the king solve all the nation’s ills.
meeting of the Estates General, which had last met These new hopes soared just at the moment
175 years before. France experienced an increasingly rare but always
dangerous food shortage. Bad weather had dam-
The Estates General. The calling of the Estates aged the harvest of 1788, causing bread prices to
General electrified public opinion. Who would de- soar in many places in the spring and summer of
termine the fate of the nation? The Estates Gen- 1789 and threatening starvation for the poorest
eral was a body of deputies from the three estates, people. In addition, a serious slump in textile pro-
or orders, of France. The deputies in the First Es- duction had been causing massive unemployment
tate represented some 100,000 clergy of the since 1786. Hundreds of thousands of textile work-
Catholic church, which owned about 10 percent of ers were out of work and hungry, adding another
the land and collected a 10 percent tax (the tithe) volatile element to an already tense situation.
on peasants. The deputies of the Second Estate rep- When some twelve hundred deputies jour-
resented the nobility, about 400,000 men and neyed to the king’s palace of Versailles for the
women who owned about 25 percent of the land, opening of the Estates General in May 1789, many
enjoyed many tax exemptions, and collected readers avidly followed the developments in news-
seigneurial dues and rents from their peasant ten- papers that sprouted overnight. Although most
ants. The deputies of the Third Estate represented nobles insisted on voting by order, the deputies of
everyone else, at least 95 percent of the nation. In the Third Estate refused to proceed on that basis.
1614, at the last meeting of the Estates General, After six weeks of stalemate, on June 17, 1789, the
each order had deliberated and voted separately. deputies of the Third Estate took unilateral action
Before the elections to the Estates General in 1789, and declared themselves and whoever would join
the king agreed to double the number of deputies them the National Assembly, in which each deputy
for the Third Estate (making them equal in num- would vote as an individual. Two days later, the
ber to the other two combined), but he refused to clergy voted by a narrow margin to join them. Sud-
mandate voting by individual head rather than by denly denied access to their meeting hall on June
order. Voting by order (each order would have one 20, the deputies met on a nearby tennis court and
vote) would conserve the traditional powers of the swore an oath not to disband until they had given
clergy and nobility; voting by head (each deputy France a constitution that reflected their newly de-
would have one vote) would give the Third Estate clared authority. This “tennis court oath” ex-
an advantage since many clergymen and even pressed the determination of the Third Estate to
some nobles sympathized with the Third Estate. carry through a constitutional revolution. A few
As the state’s censorship apparatus broke days later, the nobles had no choice but to join too.
down, pamphleteers by the hundreds denounced
the traditional privileges of the nobility and clergy July 14, 1789: The Fall of the Bastille. At first,
and called for voting by head rather than by or- Louis appeared to agree to the new National
der. In the most vitriolic of all the pamphlets, What Assembly, but he also ordered thousands of sol-
Is the Third Estate?, the middle-class clergyman diers to march to Paris. The deputies who sup-
Abbé (Abbot) Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès charged ported the Assembly feared a plot by the king and
that the nobility contributed nothing at all to the high-ranking nobles to arrest them and disperse
nation’s well-being; they were “a malignant disease the Assembly. “Everyone is convinced that the ap-
which preys upon and tortures the body of a sick proach of the troops covers some violent design,”
man.” In the winter and spring of 1789, villagers one deputy wrote home. Their fears were con-
firmed when, on July 11, the king fired Jacques
Necker, the Swiss Protestant finance minister and
Estates General: A body of deputies from the three estates, or
orders, of France: the clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second the one high official regarded as sympathetic to the
Estate), and everyone else (Third Estate). deputies’ cause.
1789–1799 Th e R evo lu t i o n a ry Wave , 1 7 8 7 – 1 7 8 9 593

Fall of the Bastille


The Bastille prison is shown here
in all its imposing grandeur.
When the fortress’s governor
Bernard René de Launay sur-
rendered on July 14, 1789, he
was marched off to city hall. The
gathering crowd taunted and
spat at him, and after he lashed
out at one of the men nearest
him, he was stabbed, shot, and
then beheaded. The head was
displayed as a trophy on a pike
held high above the crowd. Royal
authority had been successfully
challenged and even humiliated.
(The Granger Collection, New York.)

The popular reaction in Paris to Necker’s dis-


missal and the threat of military force changed the
course of the French Revolution. When the news
spread, the common people in Paris began to arm
themselves and attack places where either grain or
arms were thought to be stored (Map 19.1). A
deputy in Versailles reported home: “Today all of
the evils overwhelm France, and we are between
despotism, carnage, and famine.” On July 14, 1789,
an armed crowd marched on the Bastille, a forti-
fied prison that symbolized royal authority. After
a chaotic battle in which a hundred armed citizens
died, the prison officials surrendered.
The fall of the Bastille (an event now com-
memorated as the French national holiday) set an
important precedent. The common people showed
themselves willing to intervene violently at a cru-
cial political moment (see The Third Estate Awak-
ens, at right). All over France, food riots turned
into local revolts. The officials in one city wrote of
their plight: “Yesterday afternoon [July 19] more
than seven or eight thousand people, men and The Third Estate Awakens
women, assembled in front of the two gates to the This print, produced after the fall of the Bastille (note the heads on
city hall. . . . We were forced to negotiate with pikes outside the prison), shows a clergyman (First Estate) and a noble
them and to promise to give them wheat . . . and (Second Estate) alarmed by the awakening of the commoners (Third
to reduce the price of bread.” Local governments Estate). The Third Estate breaks the chains of oppression and arms
itself. In what ways does this print draw attention to the social conflicts
were forced out of power and replaced by commit-
that lay behind the political struggles in the Estates General? (Réunion des
tees of “patriots” loyal to the revolutionary cause. Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY.)
The king’s government began to crumble. To re-
■ For more help analyzing this image, see the visual activity for this
store order, the patriots relied on newly formed
chapter in the Online Study Guide at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
National Guard units composed of civilians. In
594 C h a pt e r 1 9 ■ Th e C atac lys m o f R evo lu t i o n 1789–1799

0 2,500 5,000 feet N

0 500 1,000 meters


W E

Wall of the
IENS Farmers General
ITAL

U
DES

ELIE
.
BLVD

R UE
RU Jacobin
ES

ICH
T. Club

ENIS
MO N
HO
NO

ER
Place de la

TIN

T. D

E
T
Révolution The Temple

ED

M AR

PL
MA
Pont de

T EM
ES
RU
la Concorde Palais

RTR
Seine R.

T.
RU
Royal

ES
Tuileries

E
Palace DU

RU
Hôtel des

E
Louvre

RU
Invalides Pont
RU
Royal
Ch

E ST
. AN
am

Pont TO
IN E
ps

Neuf Île
la C de Notre Dame
de

St. Germain Pont au


Change ité Cathedral
M

des Prés
ar

Île

PE
St.
s

Lou Bastille

R
is

HA
St.
ES Sulpice

LA
R Sorbonne
ÈV

DE
DE S
D
RUE AR Luxembourg Ste. Geneviève

RUE
École RIG
Militaire VA U Place (Pantheon)
E
RU ED
S

ein
e
ES
R
FE

R.
QU
EN
JAC
D’
E

T.
RU

ES

Wall of the
Farmers General
RU

MAP 19.1 Revolutionary Paris, 1789


The French Revolution began with the fall of the Bastille prison on July 14, 1789. The huge fortified
prison was located on the eastern side of the city in a neighborhood of working people. Before
attacking the Bastille, crowds had torn down many of the customs booths located in the wall of the
Farmers General (the private company in charge of tax collection), and taken the arms stored in the
Hôtel des Invalides, a veterans’ hospital on the western side of the city where the upper classes lived.
During the Revolution, executions took place on the square or Place de la Révolution, now called
Place de la Concorde.

Paris, the Marquis de Lafayette, a hero of the Amer- come to a quick end. The French revolutionaries
ican War of Independence and a noble deputy in first tried to establish a constitutional monarchy
the National Assembly, became commander of the based on the Enlightenment principles of human
new National Guard. One of Louis XVI’s brothers rights and rational government. This effort failed
and many other leading aristocrats fled into exile. when the king attempted to raise a counterrevolu-
The Revolution thus had its first heroes, its first tionary army. When war broke out in 1792, new
victims, and its first enemies. tensions culminated in a second revolution on
August 10, 1792, that deposed the king and estab-
lished a republic in which all power rested in an
Review: How did the beginning of the French Revolu-
tion resemble the other revolutions of 1787–1789? elected legislature.

The Revolution of Rights and Reason


Before drafting a constitution, the deputies of the
From Monarchy to Republic, National Assembly had to confront growing vio-
1789–1793 lence in the countryside. Peasants made up 80 per-
cent of the French population but owned only
Until July 1789, the French Revolution followed a about 50 percent of the land. Most could barely
course much like that of the protest movements in make ends meet but still had to pay taxes to the
the Low Countries. Unlike the Dutch and Belgian state, the tithe to the Catholic church, and a host
uprisings, however, the French Revolution did not of seigneurial dues to their lords, whether for us-
1789–1799 From M o n a rc hy to R e pu b l i c , 1 7 8 9 – 1 7 9 3 595

ing the lords’ mills to grind wheat remain free and equal in rights.”
or to ensure their ability to give English Channel AUSTRIAN The Declaration granted freedom
NETHERLANDS
their land as inheritance to their of religion, freedom of the press,


children. Peasants greeted the Sein
eR
equality of taxation, and equality
.
news of events in 1789 with a L o ir e R before the law. It established the

.
mixture of hope and anxiety. As ATLANTIC OCEAN FRANCE
SWISS
CONFED. principle of national sovereignty:
food shortages spread, they feared since “all sovereignty rests essen-

.
Rhône R
that the beggars and vagrants tially in the nation,” it said, the
crowding the roads might be part king derived his authority hence-
of an aristocratic plot to starve SPAI N forth from the nation rather than
the people by burning crops or 0 200 400 miles from tradition or divine right.
barns. In many places, the Great 0 200 400 kilometers By pronouncing all men free
Fear (the term used by historians Area of Great Fear revolts and equal, the Declaration imme-
to describe this rural panic) diately created new dilemmas.
turned into peasant attacks on The Great Fear, 1789 Did women have equal rights
aristocrats or on the records of with men? What about free blacks
peasants’ dues kept in the lord’s château. Peasants in the colonies? How could slavery be justified if
now refused to pay dues to their lords, and the per- all men were born free? Did religious toleration of
sistence of peasant violence raised alarms about Protestants and Jews include equal political rights?
the potential for a general peasant insurrection. Women never received the right to vote during the
French Revolution, though Protestant and Jewish
The End of Feudalism. Alarmed by peasant un- men did. Women were theoretically citizens under
rest, the National Assembly decided to make civil law but without the right to full political par-
sweeping changes. On the night of August 4, 1789, ticipation. (See Document, “The Rights of Minori-
noble deputies announced their willingness to give ties,” page 597.)
up their tax exemptions and seigneurial dues. By Some women did not accept their exclusion,
the end of the night, amid wild enthusiasm, dozens viewing it as a betrayal of the promised new or-
of deputies had come to the podium to relinquish der. In addition to joining demonstrations, such as
the tax exemptions of their own professional the march to Versailles in October 1789, women
groups, towns, or provinces. The National Assem- wrote petitions, published tracts, and organized
bly decreed the abolition of what it called “the feu- political clubs to demand more participation (see
dal regime” — that is, it freed the remaining serfs A Women’s Club, below). In her Declaration of the
and eliminated all special privileges in matters of
taxation, including all seigneurial dues on land. (A
few days later the deputies insisted on financial
A Women’s Club
compensation for some of these dues, but most In this gouache by the Lesueur brothers, The Patriotic Women’s Club,
peasants refused to pay.) Peasants had achieved the club president urges the members to contribute funds for poor
their goals. The Assembly also mandated equality patriot families. Women’s clubs focused on philanthropic work but also
of opportunity in access to government positions. discussed revolutionary legislation. The colorful but sober dress indi-
Talent, rather than birth, was to be the key to suc- cates that the women are middle class. (Bridgeman-Giraudon/ Art Resource, NY.)
cess. Enlightenment principles were beginning to
become law.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.
Three weeks later, the deputies drew up the Dec-
laration of the Rights of Man and Citizen as the
preamble to a new constitution. In words reminis-
cent of the American Declaration of Indepen-
dence, whose author, Thomas Jefferson, was in
Paris at the time, it proclaimed, “Men are born and

Great Fear: The term used by historians to describe the French


rural panic of 1789, which led to peasant attacks on aristocrats
or on seigneurial records of peasants’ dues.
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen: The preamble to
the French constitution drafted in August 1789; it established
the sovereignty of the nation and equal rights for citizens.
596 C h a pt e r 1 9 ■ Th e C atac lys m o f R evo lu t i o n 1789–1799

GREAT GREAT
BRITAIN BRITAIN
AUSTRIAN AUSTRIAN
N NETHERLANDS N
NETHERLANDS
W Boulonnais W
Pas-de-
E Artois E Calais
Flanders & HOLY Nord HOLY
S Hainault Verdun & ROMAN S Seine-Inf Somme ROMAN
Sein Picardy Metz Sein
e EMPIRE Manche e EMPIRE
Aisne
R.

R.
Calvados Oise
Normandy Île-de-France Finistère Côtes-du- Eure Ardennes
Nord Seine-et-
Brittany
 Paris
Champagne Ille-et- Mayenne
Orne Oise  Paris Marne
Moselle
& Brie Morbihan Vilaine Eure-et- Seine-et- Meuse
Maine Marne Basrhin
Alsace Sarthe Loir Meurthe
Anjou Toul Lorraine & Loire- Maine-et- Loiret Aube
Orléanais Hte-
Loir e R . Barrois Inférieure Loire L o i r e R . Loir-et- Yonne Marne Vosges
Touraine Indre-et- Cher Hte- Hautrhin
Loire
Berry Nivernais
Vendée Deux- Cher Nièvre Côte-d’Or Saône
Poitou Sèvres Indre
Franche- Doubs
Vienne
Bourbonnais Burgundy Comté SWISS Charente- Saône-et- Jura SWISS
Allier
Saintonge & Marche CONFED. Inf Charente Hte- Creuse Loire CONFED.
Angoumois Vienne Puy-de- Ain
Limousin Lyonnaise Correze Dôme Rhône
Auvergne Gironde Dordogne Loire
Garonne R. Cantal
Ga

Hte-Loire Isère
n n Guyenne & KINGDOM
ro

e R Gascony KINGDOM Lot-et- Lot Ardèche


Dauphiné OF
.

Landes Garonne
Rhône R

. OF AveyronLozere

Rhône R.
Drôme Htes-
SARDINIA Gers
Garonne Alpes SARDINIA
Basses- Gard
Béarn Hte- Tarn Basses-
Pyrénées
P Languedoc P Hte- Garonne Hérault Bouche-de-Alpes
Y R Provence Y Pyrénées Rhône
R Ariège Aude Var
É N Foix É N Pyrénées-
É ERoussillon É E Orientales
S S
SPAIN SPA I N
0 100 200 miles 0 100 200 miles Golo
Corsica
0 100 200 kilometers 0 100 200 kilometers
Liamone
French Provinces, 1789 French Departments, 1791

MAP 19.2 Redrawing the Map of France, 1789–1791


Before 1789, France had been divided into provinces named after the territories owned by dukes and counts
in the Middle Ages. Many provinces had their own law codes and separate systems of taxation. As it began its
deliberations, the new National Assembly determined to install uniform administrations and laws for the entire
country. Discussion of the administrative reforms began in October 1789 and became law on February 15, 1790,
when the Assembly voted to divide the provinces into eighty-three departments, with names based on their
geographical characteristics: Basses-Pyrénées for the Pyrénées mountains, Haute-Marne for the Marne River,
and so on. ■ How did this redrawing of the administrative map reflect the deputies’ emphasis on reason
over history?

Rights of Women of 1791, Olympe de Gouges these limitations, France became a constitutional
(1748–1793) played on the language of the official monarchy in which the king served as the leading
Declaration to make the point that women should state functionary. A one-house legislature was re-
also be included. She announced in Article I, sponsible for making laws. The king could post-
“Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her pone enactment of laws but not veto them. The
rights.” She also insisted that since “woman has the deputies abolished all the old administrative divi-
right to mount the scaffold,” she must “equally sions of the provinces and replaced them with a
have the right to mount the rostrum.” De Gouges national system of eighty-three departments with
linked her complaints to a program of social re- identical administrative and legal structures (Map
form in which women would have equal rights to 19.2). All officials were elected; no offices could be
property and public office and equal responsibili- bought or sold. The deputies also abolished the old
ties in taxes and criminal punishment. taxes and replaced them with new ones that were
supposed to be uniformly levied. The National As-
The Constitution and the Church. Unresponsive sembly had difficulty collecting taxes, however, be-
to calls for women’s equality, the National Assem- cause many people had expected a substantial cut
bly turned to preparing France’s first written con- in the tax rate. The new administrative system sur-
stitution. The deputies gave voting rights only to vived, nonetheless, and the departments are still
white men who passed a test of wealth. Despite the basic units of the French state today.
1789–1799 From M o n a rc hy to R e pu b l i c , 1 7 8 9 – 1 7 9 3 597

DOCUMENT

The Rights of Minorities


When the National Assembly passed the non-Catholics of some provinces still expe- commanded by their laws; loans at inter-
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen rience harassment based on former laws, est are forbidden between them and per-
on August 26, 1789, it opened the way to and seeing them excluded from the elec- mitted with foreigners. . . .
discussion of the rights of various groups, tions and public posts, another honorable But, they say to me, the Jews have their
from actors (considered ineligible for voting member has protested against the effect of own judges and laws. I respond that is your
under the monarchy because they imperson- prejudice that persecutes some professions. fault and you should not allow it. We must
ated other people as part of their profession) This prejudice, these laws, force you to refuse everything to the Jews as a nation
to women, free blacks, mulattoes, and slaves. make your position clear. I have the honor and accord everything to Jews as individ-
A nobleman, Count Stanislas de Clermont to present you with the draft of a decree, uals. We must withdraw recognition from
Tonnerre, gave a speech on December 23, and it is this draft that I defend here. I es- their judges; they should only have our
1789, in which he advocated ending exclu- tablish in it the principle that professions judges. We must refuse legal protection to
sions based on profession or religion, though and religious creed can never become rea- the maintenance of the so-called laws of
not gender or race. sons for ineligibility. . . . their Judaic organization; they should not
Every creed has only one test to pass be allowed to form in the state either a po-
Sirs, in the declaration that you believed in regard to the social body: it has only litical body or an order. They must be cit-
you should put at the head of the French one examination to which it must submit, izens individually. But, some will say to me,
constitution you have established, conse- that of its morals. It is here that the adver- they do not want to be citizens. Well then!
crated, the rights of man and citizen. In the saries of the Jewish people attack me. This If they do not want to be citizens, they
constitutional work that you have decreed people, they say, is not sociable. They are should say so, and then, we should banish
relative to the organization of the munici- commanded to loan at usurious rates; they them. It is repugnant to have in the state
palities, a work accepted by the King, you cannot be joined with us either in mar- an association of non-citizens, and a na-
have fixed the conditions of eligibility that riage or by the bonds of social interchange; tion within the nation. . . . In short, Sirs,
can be required of citizens. It would seem, our food is forbidden to them; our tables the presumed status of every man resident
Sirs, that there is nothing else left to do and prohibited; our armies will never have Jews in a country is to be a citizen.
that prejudices should be silent in the face serving in the defense of the fatherland.
of the language of the law; but an honor- The worst of these reproaches is unjust; the Source: Archives parlementaires, 10 (Paris, 1878):
able member has explained to us that the others are only specious. Usury is not 754–57. Translation by Lynn Hunt.

When the deputies turned to reforming the sales increased the landholdings of wealthy city
Catholic church, they created enduring conflicts. dwellers and prosperous peasants but cut the value
Convinced that monastic life encouraged idleness of the paper money.
and a decline in the nation’s population, the Faced with resistance to these changes, in
deputies outlawed any future monastic vows and November 1790, the National Assembly required
encouraged monks and nuns to return to private all clergy to swear an oath of loyalty to the Civil
life by offering state pensions. Motivated partly by Constitution of the Clergy. Pope Pius VI in Rome
the ongoing financial crisis, the National Assem- condemned the constitution, and half of the
bly confiscated all the church’s property and prom- French clergy refused to take the oath. The oath of
ised to pay clerical salaries in return. The Civil allegiance permanently divided the Catholic pop-
Constitution of the Clergy, passed in July 1790, set ulation, which had to choose between loyalty to
pay scales for the clergy and provided that the vot- the old church and commitment to the Revolution
ers elect their own parish priests and bishops just with its “constitutional” church. The revolutionary
as they elected other officials. The impounded government lost many supporters by passing laws
property served as a guarantee for the new paper against the clergy who refused the oath and by
money, called assignats, issued by the government. forcing them into exile, deporting them forcibly,
The assignats soon became subject to inflation be- or executing them as traitors. Riots and demon-
cause the government began to sell the church strations led by women greeted many of the oath-
lands to the highest bidders in state auctions. The taking priests who replaced those who refused.
598 C h a pt e r 1 9 ■ Th e C atac lys m o f R evo lu t i o n 1789–1799

The End of Monarchy king’s downfall. On April 21, 1792, Louis declared
The reorganization of the Catholic church of- war on Austria. Prussia immediately entered on the
fended Louis XVI, who was reluctant to recognize Austrian side. Thousands of French aristocrats, in-
the new limits on his powers. On June 20, 1791, cluding two-thirds of the army officer corps, had
the royal family escaped in disguise from Paris and already emigrated, including both the king’s broth-
fled to the eastern border of France, where they ers, and they were gathering along France’s eastern
hoped to gather support from Austrian emperor border in expectation of joining a counterrevolu-
Leopold II, the brother of Marie-Antoinette. The tionary army.
plans went awry when a postmaster recognized the When fighting broke out in 1792, all the pow-
king from his portrait on the new French money, ers expected a brief and relatively contained war.
and the royal family was arrested at Varennes, forty Instead, it would continue despite brief interrup-
miles from the Austrian Netherlands border. The tions for the next twenty-three years. War had an
National Assembly tried to depict the departure as immediate radicalizing effect on French politics.
a kidnapping, but the “flight to Varennes” touched When the French armies proved woefully unpre-
off demonstrations in Paris against the royal fam- pared for battle, the authority of the Legislative As-
ily, whom some now regarded as traitors. Cartoons sembly came under fire. In June 1792, an angry
circulated depicting the royal family as animals be- crowd invaded the hall of the Assembly in Paris
ing returned “to the stable.” and threatened the royal family. The Prussian com-
mander, the duke of Brunswick, issued a manifesto
War with Austria and Prussia. The constitution, announcing that Paris would be totally destroyed
finally completed in 1791, provided for the imme- if the royal family suffered any violence.
diate election of the new Legislative Assembly. In
a rare act of self-denial, the deputies of the Na- The Second Revolution of August 10, 1792. The
tional Assembly declared themselves ineligible for ordinary people of Paris did not passively await
the new Assembly. Those who had experienced the their fate. Known as sans-culottes (literally, “with-
Revolution firsthand now departed from the scene, out breeches”) — because men who worked with
opening the door to men with little previous ex- their hands wore long trousers rather than the
perience in national politics. The status of the king knee breeches of the upper classes — they had fol-
might have remained uncertain if war had not in- lowed every twist and turn in revolutionary for-
tervened, but by early 1792 everyone seemed intent tunes. Faced with the threat of military retaliation
on war with Austria. Louis and Marie-Antoinette and frustrated with the inaction of the Legislative
hoped that such a war would lead to the defeat of Assembly, on August 10, 1792, the sans-culottes or-
the Revolution, whereas the deputies who favored ganized an insurrection and attacked the Tuileries
a republic believed that war would lead to the palace, the residence of the king. The king and his

The King as a Farmyard Animal


This simple print makes a powerful
point: King Louis XVI has lost not
only his authority but also the
respect of his subjects. Engravings
and etchings like this one appeared
in reaction to the attempted flight of
the king and queen in June 1791.
(The Granger Collection, New York.)
1789–1799 From M o n a rc hy to R e pu b l i c , 1 7 8 9 – 1 7 9 3 599

The Execution of King Louis XVI


Louis XVI was executed by order of the National Convention on January 21, 1793. In this print,
the executioner shows the severed head to the national guards standing in orderly silence
around the scaffold. (Mary Evans Picture Library.)

family had to seek refuge in the meeting room of hundred inmates were killed, including many ordi-
the Legislative Assembly, where the frightened nary and completely innocent people. The princess
deputies ordered elections for a new legislature. By of Lamballe, one of the queen’s favorites, was hacked
abolishing the property qualifications for voting, to pieces and her mutilated body displayed beneath
the deputies instituted universal male suffrage for the windows where the royal family was kept under
the first time. guard. These “September massacres” showed the
When it met, the National Convention abol- dark side of popular revolution, in which the com-
ished the monarchy and on September 22, 1792, mon people demanded instant revenge on sup-
established the first republic in French history. The posed enemies and conspirators.
republic would answer only to the people, not to
any royal authority. Many of the deputies in the The Execution of the King. The National Con-
Convention belonged to the devotedly republican vention faced a dire situation. It needed to write a
Jacobin Club, named after the former monastery new constitution for the republic while fighting a
in Paris where the club first met. The Jacobin Club war with external enemies and confronting in-
in Paris headed a national political network of clubs creasing resistance at home. Many thought the
that linked all the major towns and cities. Lafayette Revolution had gone too far when it confiscated
and other liberal aristocrats who had supported the the properties of the church, eliminated titles of
constitutional monarchy fled into exile. nobility, and deposed the king. The French people
Violence soon exploded again when early in had never known any government other than
September 1792 the Prussians approached Paris. monarchy. Only half the population could read
Hastily gathered mobs stormed the overflowing and write at even a basic level. In this situation,
prisons to seek out traitors who might help the en- symbolic actions became very important. Any
emy. In an atmosphere of near hysteria, eleven public sign of monarchy was at risk, and revolu-
tionaries soon pulled down statues of kings and
Jacobin Club: A French political club formed in 1789 that in-
burned reminders of the former regime.
spired the formation of a national network whose members The fate of Louis XVI and the future direction
dominated the revolutionary government during the Terror. of the republic divided the deputies elected to the
600 C h a pt e r 1 9 ■ Th e C atac lys m o f R evo lu t i o n 1789–1799

National Convention. Most of the deputies were cal reeducation. Thus began the Terror, in which
middle-class lawyers and professionals who had the guillotine became the most terrifying instru-
developed their ardent republican beliefs in the ment of a government that suppressed almost
network of Jacobin Clubs. After the fall of the every form of dissent (see The Guillotine, page
monarchy in August 1792, however, the Jacobins 601). These policies only increased divisions,
divided into two factions. The Girondins (named which ultimately led to Robespierre’s fall from
after a department in southwestern France, the power and to a dismantling of government by
Gironde, which provided some of its leading ora- terror.
tors) met regularly at the salon of Jeanne Roland,
the wife of a minister. They resented the growing
power of Parisian militants and tried to appeal to Robespierre and the
the departments outside of Paris. The Mountain Committee of Public Safety
(so called because its deputies sat in the highest The conflict between the more moderate Girondins
seats of the National Convention), in contrast, was and the more radical Mountain came to a head in
closely allied with the Paris militants. spring 1793. Militants in Paris agitated for the re-
The first showdown between the Girondins moval of the deputies who had proposed a refer-
and the Mountain occurred during the trial of the endum on the king, and in retaliation the
king in December 1792. Although the Girondins Girondins engineered the arrest of Jean-Paul
agreed that the king was guilty of treason, many Marat, a deputy allied with the Mountain who in
of them argued for clemency, exile, or a popular his newspaper had been calling for more and more
referendum on his fate. After a long and difficult executions. Marat was acquitted, and Parisian mil-
debate, the National Convention supported the itants marched into the National Convention on
Mountain and voted by a very narrow majority to June 2, 1793, forcing the deputies to decree the
execute the king. Louis XVI went to the guillotine arrest of their twenty-nine Girondin colleagues.
on January 21, 1793, sharing the fate of Charles I The Convention consented to the establishment of
of England in 1649. “We have just convinced our- paramilitary bands called “revolutionary armies”
selves that a king is only a man,” wrote one news- to hunt down political suspects and hoarders of
paper, “and that no man is above the law.” grain. The deputies also agreed to speed up the
operation of special revolutionary courts.
Review: Why did the French Revolution turn in an in-
Setting the course for government and the war
creasingly radical direction after 1789? increasingly fell to the twelve-member Committee
of Public Safety, set up by the National Conven-
tion on April 6, 1793. When Robespierre was
elected to the committee three months later, he be-
Terror and Resistance came in effect its guiding spirit and the chief
spokesman of the Revolution. A lawyer from north-
The execution of the king did not solve the new ern France known as “the incorruptible” for his
regime’s problems. The continuing war required stern honesty and fierce dedication to democratic
even more men and money, and the introduction ideals, Robespierre remains one of the most con-
of a national draft provoked massive resistance in troversial figures in world history because of his
some parts of France. In response to growing association with the Terror. Although he originally
pressures, the National Convention named the opposed the death penalty and the war, he was
Committee of Public Safety to supervise food dis- convinced that the emergency situation of 1793
tribution, direct the war effort, and root out coun- required severe measures, including death for
terrevolutionaries. The leader of the committee, those, such as the Girondins, who opposed the
Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794), wanted to committee’s policies.
go beyond these stopgap measures and create a Like many other educated eighteenth-century
“republic of virtue,” in which the government men, Robespierre had read the classics of republi-
would teach, or force, citizens to become virtuous canism from the ancient Roman writers Tacitus
republicans through a massive program of politi- and Plutarch to the Enlightenment thinkers Mon-

Maximilien Robespierre (roh behs PYEHR): A lawyer from Terror: The policy established under the direction of the Com-
northern France who laid out the principles of a republic of mittee of Public Safety during the French Revolution to arrest
virtue and of the Terror; his arrest and execution in July 1794 dissidents and execute opponents in order to protect the re-
brought an end to the Terror. public from its enemies.
1789–1799 Te r ro r a n d R e s i s ta n c e 601

The Guillotine
Before 1789, only nobles were decapitated if condemned to
death; commoners were usually hanged. Equalization of the death
penalty was first proposed by J. I. Guillotin, a professor of anatomy
and a deputy in the National Assembly. He also suggested that a
mechanical device be constructed for decapitation, leading to the
instrument’s association with his name. The Assembly decreed
decapitation as the death penalty in June 1791 and another
physician, A. Louis, actually invented the guillotine. The exe-
cutioner pulled up the blade by a cord and then released it.
Use of the guillotine began in April 1792 and did not end until
1981, when the French government abolished the death penalty.
The guillotine fascinated as much as it repelled. Reproduced in
miniature, painted onto snuffboxes and china, worn as jewelry,
and even serving as a toy, the guillotine became a part of popular
culture. How could the guillotine be simultaneously celebrated as
the people’s avenger by supporters of the Revolution and vilified
as the preeminent symbol of the Terror by opponents? (Réunion des
Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY.)

tesquieu and Rousseau. But he took them a step


further. He defined “the theory of revolutionary
government” as “the war of liberty against its en-
emies.” He defended the people’s right to demo-
cratic government, while in practice he supported
many emergency measures that restricted their
liberties. He personally favored a free-market
economy, as did almost all middle-class
deputies, but in this time of crisis he was will-
ing to enact price controls and requisitioning.
In an effort to stabilize prices, the National
Convention established the General Maximum
on September 29, 1793, which set limits on the
prices of thirty-nine essential commodities and
on wages. In a speech to the Convention, Robes-
pierre explained the necessity of government by The new republic won its greatest success on
terror: “The first maxim of your policies must be the battlefield. As of April 1793, France faced war
to lead the people by reason and the people’s ene- with Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, Spain, Sar-
mies by terror. . . . Without virtue, terror is deadly; dinia, and the Dutch Republic — all fearful of the
without terror, virtue is impotent.” Terror was not impact of revolutionary ideals on their own pop-
an idle term; it seemed to imply that the goal of ulations. The execution of Louis XVI, in particu-
democracy justified what we now call totalitarian lar, galvanized European governments; according
means, that is, the suppression of all dissent. to William Pitt, the British prime minister, it was
Through a series of desperate measures, the “the foulest and most atrocious act the world has
Committee of Public Safety set the machinery of ever seen.” To face this daunting coalition of forces,
the Terror in motion. It sent deputies out “on mis- the French republic ordered the first universal
sion” to purge unreliable officials and organize the draft of men in history. Every unmarried man and
war effort. Revolutionary tribunals set up in Paris childless widower between the ages of eighteen and
and provincial centers tried political suspects. In twenty-five was declared eligible for conscription.
October 1793, the Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris The government also tapped a new and potent
convicted Marie-Antoinette of treason and sent source of power — nationalist pride — in decrees
her to the guillotine. The Girondin leaders and mobilizing young and old alike:
Madame Roland were also guillotined, as was The young men will go to battle; married men will
Olympe de Gouges. The government confiscated forge arms and transport provisions; women will make
all the property of convicted traitors. tents and clothing and serve in hospitals; children will
602 C h a pt e r 1 9 ■ Th e C atac lys m o f R evo lu t i o n 1789–1799

make bandages; old men will get themselves carried to for a new program of elementary education, the
public places to arouse the courage of warriors and republic set about politicizing aspects of daily life,
preach hatred of kings and unity of the republic. including even the measurement of space and time.
Forges were set up in the parks and gardens of
Paris to produce thousands of guns, and citizens Republican Culture. Refusing to tolerate opposi-
everywhere helped collect saltpeter to make gun- tion, the republic left no stone unturned in its en-
powder. By the end of 1793, the French nation in deavor to get its message across. Songs — especially
arms had stopped the advance of the allied pow- the new national anthem, “La Marseillaise” — and
ers, and in the summer of 1794 it invaded the Aus- placards, posters, pamphlets, books, engravings,
trian Netherlands and crossed the Rhine River. The paintings, sculpture, even everyday crockery,
army was ready to carry the gospel of revolution chamberpots, and playing cards conveyed revolu-
and republicanism to the rest of Europe. tionary slogans and symbols. Foremost among
them was the figure of Liberty, which appeared on
coins and bills, on letterheads and seals, and as
The Republic of Virtue, statues in festivals. Hundreds of new plays were
1793–1794 produced and old classics revised. To encourage
The program of the Terror went beyond pragmatic the production of patriotic and republican works,
measures to fight the war and internal enemies to the government sponsored state competitions for
include efforts to “republicanize everything” — in artists. Works of art were supposed to “awaken the
other words, to effect a cultural revolution. While public spirit and make clear how atrocious and
censoring writings deemed counterrevolutionary, ridiculous were the enemies of liberty and of the
the government encouraged republican art, set Republic.”
up civic festivals, and in some places directly at- At the center of this elaborate cultural cam-
tacked the churches in a campaign known as de- paign were the revolutionary festivals modeled on
Christianization. In addition to drawing up plans Rousseau’s plans for a civic religion. The festivals

Representing Liberty
Liberty was represented by a female figure
because in French the noun is feminine (la
liberté). This painting from 1793–1794, by
Jeanne-Louise Vallain, captures the usual
attributes of Liberty: she is soberly seated,
wearing a Roman-style toga and holding
a pike with a Roman liberty cap on top.
Her Roman appearance signals that she
represents an abstract quality. The fact that
she holds an instrument of battle suggests
that women might be active participants.
The Statue of Liberty in New York harbor,
given by the French to the United States, is
a late-nineteenth-century version of the
same figure, but without any suggestion of
battle. (Musée de la Révolution française, Vizille;
1857#44.)
1789–1799 Te r ro r a n d R e s i s ta n c e 603

first emerged in 1789 with the spontaneous plant- ment to overturning the old order and all its tra-
ing of liberty trees in villages and towns. The Fes- ditional institutions.
tival of Federation on July 14, 1790, marked the
first anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. Under Politicizing Daily Life. In principle, the best way
the National Convention, the well-known painter to ensure the future of the republic was through
Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825), who was a the education of the young. The deputy Georges-
deputy and an associate of Robespierre, took over Jacques Danton (1759–1794), Robespierre’s main
festival planning. David aimed to destroy the mys- competitor as theorist of the Revolution, main-
tique of monarchy and to make the republic sa- tained that “after bread, the first need of the peo-
cred. His Festival of Unity on August 10, 1793, for ple is education.” The National Convention voted
example, celebrated the first anniversary of the to make primary schooling free and compulsory
overthrow of the monarchy. In front of the statue for both boys and girls. It took control of educa-
of Liberty built for the occasion, a bonfire con- tion away from the Catholic church and tried to
sumed crowns and scepters symbolizing royalty set up a system of state schools at both the pri-
while a cloud of three thousand white doves rose mary and secondary levels, but it lacked trained
into the sky. This was all part of preaching the teachers to replace those the Catholic religious or-
“moral order of the Republic . . . that will make us ders had provided. As a result, opportunities for
a people of brothers, a people of philosophers.” learning how to read and write may have dimin-
ished. In 1799, only one-fifth as many boys en-
De-Christianization. Some revolutionaries hoped rolled in the state secondary schools as had studied
the festival system would replace the Catholic in church schools ten years earlier.
church altogether. They initiated a campaign of Although many of the ambitious republican
de-Christianization that included closing programs failed, colors, clothing, and daily speech
churches (Protestant as well as Catholic), selling were all politicized. The tricolor — the combina-
many church buildings to the highest bidder, and tion of red, white, and blue that was to become the
trying to force even those clergy who had taken flag of France — was devised in July 1789, and by
the oath of loyalty to abandon their clerical voca- 1793 everyone had to wear a cockade (a badge
tions and marry. Great churches became store- made of ribbons) with the colors. Using the for-
houses for arms or grain, or their stones were sold mal forms of speech — vous for “you” — or the
off to contractors. The medieval statues of kings title monsieur or madame might identify someone
on the facade of Notre Dame cathedral were be- as an aristocrat; true patriots used the informal tu
headed. Church bells were dismantled and church and citoyen or citoyenne (“citizen”) instead. Some
treasures melted down for government use. people changed their names or gave their children
In the ultimate step in de-Christianization, ex- new kinds of names. Biblical and saints’ names
tremists tried to establish what they called the Cult such as John, Peter, Joseph, and Mary gave way to
of Reason to supplant Christianity. In Paris in the names recalling heroes of the ancient Roman re-
fall of 1793, a goddess of Liberty, played by an ac- public (Brutus, Gracchus, Cornelia), revolutionary
tress, presided over the Festival of Reason in Notre heroes, or flowers and plants. Such changes sym-
Dame cathedral. Local militants in other cities bolized adherence to the republic and to Enlight-
staged similar festivals, which alarmed deputies in enment ideals rather than to Catholicism.
the National Convention, who were wary of turn- Even the measures of time and space were rev-
ing rural, devout populations against the republic. olutionized. In October 1793, the National Con-
Robespierre objected to the de-Christianization vention introduced a new calendar to replace the
campaign’s atheism; he favored a Rousseau-inspired Christian one. Its bases were reason and republi-
deistic religion without the supposedly supersti- can principles. Year I dated from the beginning
tious trappings of Catholicism. The Committee of of the republic on September 22, 1792. Twelve
Public Safety halted the de-Christianization cam- months of exactly thirty days each received new
paign, and Robespierre, with David’s help, tried to names derived from nature — for example, Pluviôse
institute an alternative, the Cult of the Supreme (roughly equivalent to February) recalled the rain
Being, in June 1794. Neither the Cult of Reason (la pluie) of late winter. Instead of seven-day
nor the Cult of the Supreme Being attracted many weeks, ten-day décades provided only one day of
followers, but both show the depth of the commit- rest every ten days and pointedly eliminated the
Sunday of the Christian calendar. The five days left
at the end of the calendar year were devoted to
de-Christianization: During the French Revolution, the cam-
paign of extremist republicans against organized churches and special festivals called sans-culottides. The calendar
in favor of a belief system based on reason. remained in force for twelve years despite contin-
604 C h a pt e r 1 9 ■ Th e C atac lys m o f R evo lu t i o n 1789–1799

uing resistance to it. More enduring was the new or food shortages. Women also organized their fel-
metric system based on units of ten that was in- low parishioners to refuse to hear Mass offered by
vented to replace the hundreds of local variations the “constitutional” priests, and they protected the
in weights and measures. Other countries in Europe priests who would not sign the oath of loyalty.
and throughout the world eventually adopted the Other forms of resistance were more individ-
metric system. ual. One young woman, Charlotte Corday, assas-
Revolutionary laws also changed the rules of sinated the outspoken deputy Jean-Paul Marat in
family life. The state took responsibility for all fam- July 1793. Corday fervently supported the
ily matters away from the Catholic church: people Girondins, and she considered it her patriotic duty
now registered births, deaths, and marriages at city to kill the deputy who, in the columns of his pa-
hall, not the parish church. Marriage became a civil per, had constantly demanded more heads and
contract and as such could be broken and thereby more blood. Marat was immediately eulogized as
nullified. The new divorce law of September 1792 a great martyr, and Corday went to the guillotine
was the most far-reaching in Europe: a couple vilified as a monster but confident that she had
could divorce by mutual consent or for reasons “avenged many innocent victims.”
such as insanity, abandonment, battering, or crim-
inal conviction. Thousands of men and women Rebellion and Civil War. Organized resistance
took advantage of the law to dissolve unhappy broke out in many parts of France. The arrest of
marriages, even though the pope had condemned the Girondin deputies in June 1793 sparked insur-
the measure. (In 1816, the government revoked the rections in several departments. After the govern-
right to divorce, and not until the 1970s did French ment retook the city of Lyon, one of the centers of
divorce laws return to the principles of the 1792 the revolt, the deputy on mission ordered sixteen
legislation.) In one of its most influential actions, hundred houses demolished and the name of the
the National Convention passed a series of laws city changed to Liberated City. Special courts sen-
that created equal inheritance among all children tenced almost two thousand people to death.
in the family, including girls. The father’s right to In the Vendée region of western France, re-
favor one child, especially the oldest male, was con- sistance turned into a bloody and prolonged civil
sidered aristocratic and hence antirepublican. war. Between March and December 1793, peas-
ants, artisans, and weavers joined under noble
leadership to form a “Catholic and Royal Army.”
Resisting the Revolution One rebel group explained its motives: “They [the
By intruding into religion, culture, and daily life, republicans] have killed our king, chased away
the republic inevitably provoked resistance. Shout- our priests, sold the goods of our church, eaten
ing curses against the republic, uprooting liberty everything we have and now they want to take
trees, carrying statues of the Virgin Mary in pro- our bodies [in the draft].” The uprising took two
cession, hiding a priest who would not take the different forms: in the Vendée itself, a counter-
oath, singing a royalist song — all these expressed revolutionary army organized to fight the repub-
dissent with the new symbols, rituals, and policies. lic; in nearby Brittany, resistance took the form
Resistance also took more violent forms, from ri- of guerrilla bands, which united to attack a tar-
ots over food shortages or reli- get and then quickly melted into
gious policies to assassination the countryside. Great Britain
and full-scale civil war. provided money and under-
Brittany 
Paris ground contacts for these at-
Women’s Resistance. Many tacks, which were almost always
women, in particular, suffered  Machecoul
aimed at towns. In many ways
from the hard conditions of life FRANCE this was a civil war between town
that persisted in this time of war, Lyon
 and country, for the towns-
and they had their own ways of people were the ones who sup-
voicing discontent. Long bread ported the Revolution and bought
lines in the cities exhausted the 0 200 400 miles
church lands for themselves. The
patience of women, and police 0 200 400 kilometers
peasants had gained most of
spies reported their constant The Vendée Rebellion
what they wanted in 1789 with
grumbling, which occasionally Areas of insurrection the abolition of seigneurial dues,
turned into spontaneous demon- and they resented the govern-
strations or riots over high prices The Vendée Rebellion, 1793 ment’s demands for money and
1789–1799 Te r ro r a n d R e s i s ta n c e 605

manpower and actions taken against their local The Revolution Devours Its Own. In the fall of
clergy. 1793, the National Convention cracked down on
For several months in 1793, the Vendée rebels popular clubs and societies. First to be suppressed
stormed the largest towns in the region. Both sides were women’s political clubs. Founded in early
committed horrible atrocities. At the small town 1793, the Society of Revolutionary Republican
of Machecoul, for example, the rebels massacred Women played a very active part in sans-culottes
five hundred republicans, including administra- politics. The society urged harsher measures
tors and National Guard members; many were against the republic’s enemies and insisted that
tied together, shoved into freshly dug graves, and women have a voice in politics even if they did not
shot. By the fall, however, republican soldiers had have the vote. Women had set up their own clubs
turned back the rebels. A republican general wrote in many provincial towns and also attended the
to the Committee of Public Safety claiming, meetings of local men’s organizations. Using tra-
“There is no more Vendée, citizens, it has perished ditional arguments about women’s inherent un-
under our free sword along with its women and suitability for politics, the deputies abolished
children. . . . Following the orders that you gave women’s political clubs. The closing of women’s
me I have crushed children under the feet of clubs marked an important turning point in the
horses, massacred women who at least . . . will en- Revolution. From then on, the sans-culottes and
gender no more brigands.” His claims of complete their political organizations came increasingly
victory turned hollow soon afterward, as fighting under the thumb of the Jacobin deputies in the
continued. National Convention.
“Infernal columns” of republican troops In the spring of 1794, the Committee of Pub-
marched through the region to restore control, lic Safety moved against its critics among leaders
military courts ordered thousands executed, and in Paris and deputies in the National Convention
republican soldiers massacred thousands of others. itself. First, a handful of “ultrarevolutionaries” —
In one especially gruesome incident, the deputy a collection of local Parisian politicians — were ar-
Jean-Baptiste Carrier supervised the drowning of rested and executed. Next came the other side, the
some two thousand Vendée rebels, including a “indulgents,” so called because they favored a
number of priests. Barges loaded with prisoners moderation of the Terror. Included among them
were floated into the Loire River near Nantes and was the deputy Danton, himself once a member of
then sunk. Controversy still rages about the rebel- the Committee of Public Safety and a friend of
lion’s death toll because no accurate count could Robespierre. Danton was the Revolution’s most
be taken. Estimates of rebel deaths alone range flamboyant orator and, unlike Robespierre, a high-
from about 20,000 to 250,000 and higher. Many living, high-spending, excitable politician. At every
thousands of republican soldiers and civilians also critical turning point in national politics, his
lost their lives in fighting that continued on and booming voice had swayed opinion in the National
off for years. Even the low estimates reveal the car- Convention. Now, under pressure from the Com-
nage of this catastrophic confrontation between mittee of Public Safety, the Revolutionary Tribunal
the republic and its opponents. convicted him and his friends of treason and sen-
tenced them to death.
“The Revolution,” as one of the Girondin vic-
The Fall of Robespierre
tims of 1793 had remarked, “was devouring its own
and the End of the Terror children.” Even after the major threats to the Com-
In an atmosphere of fear of conspiracy that these mittee of Public Safety’s power had been eliminated,
outbreaks fueled, Robespierre tried simultaneously the Terror continued and even worsened. A law
to exert the National Convention’s control over passed in June 1794 denied the accused the right of
popular political activities and to weed out opposi- legal counsel, reduced the number of jurors neces-
tion among the deputies. As a result, the Terror in- sary for conviction, and allowed only two judg-
tensified until July 1794, when a group of deputies ments: acquittal or death. The category of political
joined within the Convention to order the arrest crimes expanded to include “slandering patriotism”
and execution of Robespierre and his followers. The and “seeking to inspire discouragement.” Ordinary
Convention then ordered elections and drew up a people risked the guillotine if they expressed any
new republican constitution that gave executive discontent. The rate of executions in Paris rose from
power to five directors. This “Directory govern- five a day in the spring of 1794 to twenty-six a day
ment” maintained power during four years of see- in the summer. The political atmosphere darkened
saw battles between royalists and former Jacobins. even though the military situation improved. At the
606 C h a pt e r 1 9 ■ Th e C atac lys m o f R evo lu t i o n 1789–1799

end of June, the French armies decisively defeated made so many enemies that they could not afford
the main Austrian army and advanced through the to loosen the grip of the Terror.
Austrian Netherlands to Brussels and Antwerp. The The Terror hardly touched many parts of
emergency measures for fighting the war were France, but overall the experience was undeniably
working, yet Robespierre and his inner circle had traumatic. Across the country, the official Terror
cost the lives of at least 40,000 French people,
most of them living in the regions of major
insurrections or near the borders with foreign en-
MA JOR EVENTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION emies, where suspicion of collaboration ran high.
As many as 300,000 people — one out of every fifty
May 5, 1789 The Estates General opens at Versailles
French people — went to prison as suspects be-
June 17, 1789 The Third Estate decides to call itself the tween March 1793 and August 1794. The toll for
National Assembly the aristocracy and the clergy was especially high.
June 20, 1789 “Tennis court oath” shows determination of Many leading nobles perished under the guillotine,
deputies to carry out a constitutional revolution and thousands emigrated. Thirty thousand to forty
July 14, 1789 Fall of the Bastille thousand clergy who refused the oath left the coun-
August 4, 1789 National Assembly abolishes “feudalism”
try, at least two thousand (including many nuns)
were executed, and thousands were imprisoned.
August 26, 1789 National Assembly passes Declaration of the The clergy were singled out in particular in the civil
Rights of Man and Citizen
war zones: 135 priests were massacred at Lyon in
October 5–6, 1789 Women march to Versailles and are joined by November 1793, and 83 were shot in one day dur-
men in bringing the royal family back to Paris ing the Vendée revolt. Yet many victims of the Ter-
July 12, 1790 Civil Constitution of the Clergy ror were peasants or ordinary working people.
The final crisis of the Terror came in July 1794.
June 20, 1791 Louis and Marie-Antoinette attempt to flee in Conflicts within the Committee of Public Safety
disguise and are captured at Varennes and the National Convention left Robespierre
April 20, 1792 Declaration of war on Austria
isolated. On July 27, 1794 (the ninth of Thermidor,
Year II, according to the revolutionary calendar),
August 10, 1792 Insurrection in Paris and attack on Tuileries Robespierre appeared before the Convention with
palace lead to removal of king’s authority
yet another list of deputies to be arrested. Many
September 2–6, Murder of prisoners in “September massacres” feared they would be named, and they shouted him
1792 in Paris down and ordered him arrested along with his fol-
September 22, 1792 Establishment of the republic lowers on the committee, the president of the
Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris, and the com-
January 21, 1793 Execution of Louis XVI
mander of the Parisian National Guard. An armed
March 11, 1793 Beginning of uprising in the Vendée uprising led by the Paris city government failed to
May 31–June 2, 1793 Insurrection leading to arrest of the Girondins save Robespierre when most of the National Guard
July 27, 1793 Robespierre named to the Committee of Public took the side of the Convention. Robespierre tried
Safety to kill himself with a pistol but only broke his jaw.
The next day he and scores of followers went to
September 29, 1793 Convention establishes General Maximum on
prices and wages
the guillotine.
October 16, 1793 Execution of Marie-Antoinette The Thermidorian Reaction and the Directory,
February 4, 1794 Slavery abolished in the French colonies 1794–1799. The men who led the attack on
Robespierre in Thermidor (July 1794) did not in-
March 13–24, 1794 Arrest, trial, and executions of so-called ultra-
revolutionaries
tend to reverse all his policies, but that happened
nonetheless because of a violent backlash known as
March 30–April 5, Arrest, trial, and executions of Danton and his the Thermidorian Reaction. As most of the instru-
1794 followers
ments of terror were dismantled, newspapers at-
July 27, 1794 Arrest of Robespierre and his supporters (exe- tacked the Robespierrists as “tigers thirsting for
cuted July 28–29); beginning of end of the Terror human blood.” The new government released hun-
October 26, 1795 Directory government takes office dreds of suspects and arranged a temporary truce

April 1796– Succession of Italian victories by Bonaparte


Thermidorian Reaction: The violent backlash against the rule
October 1797, 1795
of Robespierre that dismantled the Terror and punished
Jacobins and their supporters.
1789–1799 R evo lu t i o n o n t h e M a rc h 607

in the Vendée. It purged Jacobins from local bodies ponent than the France of Louis XIV. New means
and replaced them with their opponents. It arrested of mobilizing and organizing soldiers enabled the
some of the most notorious “terrorists” in the Na- French to dominate Europe for a generation. The
tional Convention, such as Carrier, and put them to influence of the Revolution as a political model
death. Within the year, the new leaders abolished and the threat of French military conquest com-
the Revolutionary Tribunal and closed the Jacobin bined to challenge the traditional order in Europe.
Club in Paris. Popular demonstrations met severe
repression. In southeastern France, in particular, the
“White Terror” replaced the Jacobins’ “Red Terror.” Arms and Conquests
Former officials and local Jacobin leaders were ha- The powers allied against France squandered their
rassed, beaten, and often murdered by paramilitary best chance to triumph in early 1793, when the
bands who had tacit support from the new author- French armies verged on chaos because of the em-
ities. Those who remained in the National Conven- igration of noble army officers and the problems
tion prepared yet another constitution in 1795, of integrating new draftees. By the end of 1793,
setting up a two-house legislature and an executive the French had a huge and powerful fighting force
body — the Directory, headed by five directors. of 700,000 men. But the army still faced many
The Directory regime tenuously held on to problems in the field. As many as a third of the re-
power for four years, all the while trying to fend off cent draftees deserted before or during battle. At
challenges from the remaining Jacobins and the times the soldiers were fed only moldy bread, and
resurgent royalists. The puritanical atmosphere of if their pay was late, they sometimes resorted to
the Terror gave way to the pursuit of pleasure — pillaging and looting. Generals might pay with
low-cut dresses of transparent materials, the reap- their lives if they lost a key battle and their loyalty
pearance of prostitutes in the streets, fancy dinner to the Revolution came under suspicion.
parties, and “victims’ balls” where guests wore red France nevertheless had one overwhelming
ribbons around their necks as reminders of the advantage: those soldiers who agreed to serve
guillotine. Bands of young men dressed in knee fought for a revolution that they and their broth-
breeches and rich fabrics picked fights with known ers and sisters had helped make. The republic was
Jacobins and disrupted theater performances with their government, and the army was in large meas-
loud antirevolutionary songs. All over France, ure theirs too; many officers had risen through the
people petitioned to reopen churches closed during ranks by skill and talent rather than by inheriting
the Terror. If necessary, they broke into a church to or purchasing their positions. One young peasant
hold services with a priest who had been in hiding boy wrote to his parents, “Either you will see me
or a lay schoolteacher who was willing to say Mass. return bathed in glory, or you will have a son who
Although the Terror had ended, the revolution is a worthy citizen of France who knows how to
had not. In 1794, the most democratic and most die for the defense of his country.”
repressive phases of the Revolution both ended at When the French armies invaded the Austrian
once. Between 1795 and 1799, the republic en- Netherlands and crossed the Rhine in the summer
dured in France, but it directed a war effort abroad of 1794, they proclaimed a war of liberation.
that would ultimately bring to power the man who Middle-class people near the northern and eastern
would dismantle the republic itself. borders of France reacted most positively to the
French invasion (Map 19.3). In the Austrian
Netherlands, Mainz, Savoy, and Nice, French offi-
Review: What factors can explain the Terror? To what
extent was it simply a response to a national emergency cers organized Jacobin Clubs that attracted locals.
or a reflection of deeper problems within the French The clubs petitioned for annexation to France, and
Revolution? French legislation was then introduced, including
the abolition of seigneurial dues. As the French an-
nexed more and more territory, however, “liber-
ated” people in many places began to view them
Revolution on the March as an army of occupation. Despite resistance, es-
pecially in the Austrian Netherlands, these areas
War raged almost constantly from 1792 to 1815. remained part of France until 1815, and the legal
At one time or another, and sometimes all at once, changes were permanent.
France faced every principal power in Europe. The The Directory government that came to power
French republic — and later the French Empire un- in 1795 launched an even more aggressive policy
der its supreme commander, Emperor Napoleon of creating semi-independent “sister republics”
Bonaparte — proved an even more formidable op- wherever the armies succeeded. When Prussia
608 C h a pt e r 1 9 ■ Th e C atac lys m o f R evo lu t i o n 1789–1799

MAP 19.3 French Expansion, 1791–1799


The influence of the French Revolution on N o r th
neighboring territories is dramatically Sea
GREAT Batavian
evident in this map. The French directly BRITAIN Republic PRUSSIA
annexed the papal territories in southern 1795
France in 1791, Nice and Savoy in 1792,
and the Austrian Netherlands in 1795. They Austrian Netherlands GERMAN
set up a series of sister republics in the (Belgium) 1795 STATES
former Dutch Republic and in various Se
in  Paris
 Mainz

Italian states. Local people did not always

eR
.
welcome these changes. For example, the

.
eR
French made the Dutch pay a huge war

Rhin
Da
n ub
e R.
indemnity, support a French occupying
FRENCH AUSTRIAN
army of 25,000 soldiers, and give up some Helvetic Republic EMPIRE
R E P U BL I C
southern territories. The sister republics Savoy 1798
faced a future of subordination to French 1792 A L P S Venice

R.
1797

Ga

Rhône
national interests. nn Po R. 

ro
eR Papal Piedmont Cisalpine Venice
. Territories ParmaRepublic
PY 1791 Nice 1797
RÉ 1792
NÉ Marseille Siena
Ligurian  Ad
ES Republic Tuscany Roman ria
N 1797 Republic tic
S PA I N Se
Corsica 1798 a
W
E Rome
Neapolitan
S Republic
1799
Sardinia
M e d i te r r a n e a n S e a

Areas annexed by France


Areas occupied by France
States established by revolutionary France
0 200 400 miles
Venetian lands given to Austria by France
0 200 400 kilometers

declared neutrality in 1795, the French armies commerce and especially disrupted French over-
swarmed into the Dutch Republic, abolished the seas shipping. Times were now hard almost every-
stadholderate, and — with the revolutionary pen- where, because the dislocations of internal and
chant for renaming — created the new Batavian external commerce provoked constant shortages.
Republic, a satellite of France. The brilliant young
general Napoleon Bonaparte gained a reputation
European Reactions to
by defeating the Austrian armies in northern Italy
in 1797 and then created the Cisalpine Republic. Revolutionary Change
Next he overwhelmed Venice and then handed it The French Revolution profoundly transformed
over to the Austrians in exchange for a peace agree- European politics and social relations. (See “Con-
ment that lasted less than two years. After the trasting Views,” page 610.) Many had greeted the
French attacked the Swiss cantons in 1798, they set events of 1789 with unabashed enthusiasm. The
up the Helvetic Republic and curtailed many of the English Unitarian minister Richard Price had ex-
Catholic church’s privileges. They conquered the ulted,“Behold, the light . . . after setting AMERICA
Papal States in 1798 and installed a Roman Repub- free, reflected to FRANCE, and there kindled into
lic, forcing the pope to flee to Siena. a blaze that lays despotism in ashes, and warms
The revolutionary wars had an immediate im- and illuminates EUROPE.” Democrats and re-
pact on European life at all levels of society. Thou- formers from many countries flooded to Paris to
sands of men died in every country involved, with witness events firsthand. Supporters of the French
perhaps as many as 200,000 casualties in the French Revolution in Great Britain joined constitutional
armies alone in 1794 and 1795. More soldiers died and reform societies that sprang up in many cities.
in hospitals as a result of their wounds than on the The most important of these societies, the London
battlefields. Constant warfare hampered world Corresponding Society, founded in 1792, corre-
1789–1799 R evo lu t i o n o n t h e M a rc h 609

The English Rebuttal


In this caricature, James Gillray satirizes the French version of liberty. Gillray produced
thousands of political caricatures. How would you interpret the message of this print?
(© Copyright The Trustees of the British Museum.)

sponded with the Paris Jacobin Club and served as ernment suppressed all news from France, fearing
a center for reform agitation in England. Pro-French that it might ignite the spirit of revolt.
feeling ran even stronger in Ireland. Catholics and Elites sometimes found allies in opposing the
Presbyterians, both excluded from the vote, came French. Peasants in the German and Italian states
together in 1791 in the Society of United Irish- fiercely resisted French occupation, often in the
men, which eventually pressed for secession from form of banditry. Because the French offered the
England. Jews religious toleration and civil and political
European elites became alarmed when the rights wherever they conquered, anti-French
French abolished monarchy and nobility and en- groups sometimes attacked Jews. One German
couraged popular participation in politics. The traveler reported, “It is characteristic of the re-
British government, for example, quickly sup- gion in which the bandits are based that these two
pressed the corresponding societies and harassed nations [the French and the Jews] are hated. So
their leaders, charging that their ideas and their crimes against them are motivated not just by a
contacts with the French were seditious (see the wish to rob them but also by a variety of fanati-
cartoon above for a negative English view). When cism which is partly political and partly reli-
the Society of United Irishmen timed a rebellion gious.”
to coincide with an attempted French invasion in Many leading intellectuals in the German
1798, the British mercilessly repressed them, states, including the philosopher Immanuel Kant,
killing thirty thousand rebels. Twice as many reg- initially supported the revolutionary cause, but af-
ular British troops (seventy thousand) as fought ter 1793 most of them turned against the popular
in any of the major continental battles were re- violence and military aggressiveness of the Revo-
quired to put down the rebellion. Spain’s royal gov- lution. One of the greatest writers of the age,
610 C h a pt e r 1 9 ■ Th e C atac lys m o f R evo lu t i o n 1789–1799

CONTRASTING VIEWS

Perspectives on the French Revolution

Contemporaries instantly grasped the cataclysmic significance of the Government is not made in virtue of natural rights, which
French Revolution and began to argue about its lessons for their own may and do exist in total independence of it; and exist in much
countries. A member of the British Parliament, Edmund Burke, greater clearness, and in a much greater degree of abstract per-
ignited a firestorm of controversy with his Reflections on the Rev- fection: but their abstract perfection is their practical defect. By
olution in France (Document 1). He condemned the French revo- having a right to every thing they want every thing. . . . The
lutionaries for attempting to build a government on abstract science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or
reasoning rather than taking historical traditions and customs into reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be
account; his book provided a foundation for the doctrine known as taught a priori [based on theory rather than on experience].
conservatism, which argued for “conserving” the traditional foun- Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practi-
dations of society and avoiding the pitfalls of radical or revolution- cal science; because the real effects of moral causes are not al-
ary change. Burke’s views provoked a strong response from the ways immediate; but that which in the first instance is
English political agitator Thomas Paine. Paine’s pamphlet Common prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation; and its
Sense (1776) had helped inspire the British North American colonies excellence may arise even from the ill effects it produces in the
to demand independence from Great Britain. In The Rights of Man beginning. . . .
(Document 2), written fifteen years later, Paine attacked the tradi- In the groves of their academy, at the end of every visto
tional order as fundamentally unjust and defended the idea of a rev- [vista], you see nothing but the gallows. Nothing is left which
olution to uphold rights. Joseph de Maistre, an aristocratic opponent engages the affections on the part of the commonwealth. . . . To
of both the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, put the make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
conservative attack on the French Revolution into a deeply religious
Source: Two Classics of the French Revolution: Reflections on the Revolution
and absolutist framework (Document 3). In contrast, Anne-Louise-
in France (Edmund Burke) and The Rights of Man (Thomas Paine) (New
Germaine de Staël, an opponent of Napoleon and one of the most York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1973), 19, 71–74, 90–91.
influential intellectuals of the early nineteenth century, took the view
that the violence of the Revolution had been the product of genera-
tions of superstition and arbitrary rule, that is, rule by an absolutist
2. Thomas Paine,
Catholic church and monarchical government (Document 4).
The Rights of Man (1791)

1. Edmund Burke, Reflections on the In his reply to Burke, The Rights of Man, which sold 200,000 copies
Revolution in France (1790) in two years, Thomas Paine (1737–1809) defended the idea of re-
form based on reason, advocated a concept of universal human rights,
An Irish-born supporter of the American colonists in their opposi- and attacked the excesses of privilege and tradition in Great Britain.
tion to the British Parliament, Edmund Burke (1729–1797) op- Elected as a deputy to the French National Convention in 1793 in
posed the French Revolution. He argued the case for tradition, recognition of his writings in favor of the French Revolution, Paine
continuity, and gradual reform based on practical experience— narrowly escaped condemnation as an associate of the Girondins.
what he called “a sure principle of conservation.”
Before anything can be reasoned upon to a conclusion, certain
Can I now congratulate the same nation [France] upon its free- facts, principles, or data, to reason from, must be established, ad-
dom? Is it because liberty in the abstract may be classed amongst mitted, or denied. Mr. Burke, with his usual outrage, abuses the
the blessings of mankind, that I am seriously to felicitate a mad- Declaration of the Rights of Man, published by the National As-
man, who has escaped from the protecting restraint and whole- sembly of France, as the basis on which the Constitution of
some darkness of his cell, on his restoration to the enjoyment of France is built. This he calls “paltry and blurred sheets of paper
light and liberty? Am I to congratulate an highwayman and mur- about the rights of man.”
derer, who has broke prison, upon the recovery of his natural Does Mr. Burke mean to deny that man has any rights? If
rights? . . . he does, then he must mean that there are no such things as rights
1789–1799 R evo lu t i o n o n t h e M a rc h 611

any where, and that he has none himself; for who is there in the sought to outdo Paris. All this goes beyond the ordinary circle of
world but man? . . . crime and seems to belong to another world.
Hitherto we have spoken only (and that but in part) of the
natural rights of man. We have now to consider the civil rights Source: Joseph de Maistre, Considerations on France, trans. Richard A. Lebrun
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 21, 41.
of man, and to show how the one originates from the other. Man
did not enter into society to become worse than he was before,
nor to have fewer rights than he had before, but to have those 4. Anne-Louise-Germaine de Staël,
rights better secured. His natural rights are the foundation of all Considerations on the Main Events
his civil rights. . . . of the French Revolution (1818)
A constitution is not a thing in name only, but in fact. It has
De Staël published her views long after the Revolution was over,
not an ideal, but a real existence; and wherever it cannot be pro-
but she had lived through the events herself. She was the daugh-
duced in a visible form, there is none. A constitution is a thing
ter of Jacques Necker, Louis XVI’s Swiss Protestant finance minis-
antecedent to a government, and a government is only the crea-
ter. Necker’s dismissal in July 1789 had sparked the attack on the
ture of a constitution. The constitution of a country is not the act
Bastille. De Staël published novels, literary tracts, and memoirs
of its government, but of the people constituting a government. . . .
and became one of the best-known writers of the nineteenth cen-
Can then Mr. Burke produce the English Constitution? If he
tury. In her writings she defended the Enlightenment; though she
cannot, we may fairly conclude, that though it has been so much
opposed the violence unleashed by the Revolution, she traced it
talked about, no such thing as a constitution exists, or ever did
back to the excesses of monarchical government. (See her portrait
exist, and consequently that the people have yet a constitution
on page 627.)
to form.

Source: Two Classics of the French Revolution: Reflections on the Revolution Once the people were freed from their harness there is no doubt
in France (Edmund Burke) and The Rights of Man (Thomas Paine) (New that they were in a position to commit any kind of crime. But
York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1973), 302, 305–306, 309. how can we explain their depravity? The government we are
now supposed to miss so sorely [the former monarchy] had had
plenty of time to form this guilty nation. The priests whose
3. Joseph De Maistre, teaching, example, and wealth were supposed to be so good for
Considerations on France (1797) us had supervised the childhood of the generation that broke
An aristocrat born in Savoy, Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821) be- out against them. The class that revolted in 1789 must have
lieved in reform but he passionately opposed both the Enlighten- been accustomed to the privileges of feudal nobility which, as
ment and the French Revolution as destructive to good order. He we are also assured, are so peculiarly agreeable to those on
believed that Protestants, Jews, lawyers, journalists, and scientists whom they weigh [the peasants]. How does it happen, then,
all threatened the social order because they questioned the need for that the seed of so many vices was sown under the ancient in-
absolute obedience to authority in matters both religious and po- stitutions? . . . What can we conclude from this, then? — That
litical. De Maistre set the foundations for reactionary conservatism, no people had been as unhappy for the preceding century as
a conservatism that defended throne and altar. the French. If the Negroes of Saint-Domingue have committed
even greater atrocities, it is because they had been even more
This consideration especially makes me think that the French greatly oppressed.
Revolution is a great epoch and that its consequences, in all kinds Source: Vivian Folkenflik, ed., An Extraordinary Woman: Selected Writings of
of ways, will be felt far beyond the time of its explosion and the Germaine de Staël (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 365–66.
limits of its birthplace. . . .
There is a satanic quality to the French Revolution that dis- Questions to Consider
tinguishes it from everything we have ever seen or anything we 1. Which aspect of the French Revolution most disturbed these
are ever likely to see in the future. Recall the great assemblies, commentators?
Robespierre’s speech against the priesthood, the solemn apostasy 2. How would you align each of these writers on a spectrum run-
[renunciation of vows] of the clergy, the desecration of objects ning from extreme right to extreme left in politics?
of worship, the installation of the goddess of reason, and that 3. How would each of these writers judge the Enlightenment that
multitude of extraordinary actions by which the provinces preceded the French Revolution?
612 C h a pt e r 1 9 ■ Th e C atac lys m o f R evo lu t i o n 1789–1799

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), typified the turn population. Fearing French influence, Prussia
in sentiment against revolutionary politics: joined Russia in dividing up generous new slices
of Polish territory in the second partition of 1793
Freedom is only in the realm of dreams
And the beautiful blooms only in song. (Map 19.4). As might be expected, Poland’s reform
movement became even more pro-French. Some
The German states, still run by many separate leaders fled abroad, including Tadeusz Kościuszko
rulers, experienced a profound artistic and intel- (1746–1817), an officer who had been a foreign
lectual revival, which eventually connected with volunteer in the War of American Independence
anti-French nationalism. This renaissance included and who now escaped to Paris. In the spring of
a resurgence of intellectual life in the universities, 1794, Kościuszko returned from France to lead a
a thriving press (1225 journals were launched nationalist revolt.
in the 1780s alone), and the multiplication of Cracow, Warsaw, and the old Lithuanian cap-
Masonic lodges and literary clubs. ital, Vilnius, responded with uprisings. Kościuszko
Even far from France, echoes of revolutionary faced an immediate, insoluble dilemma. He could
upheaval could be heard. In the United States, for win only if the peasants joined the struggle —
example, opinion fiercely divided on the virtues of highly unlikely unless villagers could be convinced
the French Revolution. In Sweden, King Gustavus III that serfdom would end. But such a drastic step
(r. 1771–1792) was assassinated by a nobleman who risked alienating the nobles who had started the
claimed that “the king has violated his oath . . . and revolt. So Kościuszko compromised. He promised
declared himself an enemy of the realm.” The the serfs a reduction of their obligations, but not
king’s son Gustavus IV (r. 1792–1809) was con- freedom itself. A few peasant bands joined the in-
vinced that the French Jacobins had sanctioned his surrection, but most let their lords fight it out
father’s assassination, and he insisted on avoiding alone. Urban workers displayed more enthusiasm;
“licentious liberty.” Despite government controls at Warsaw, for example, a mob hanged several
on news, 278 outbreaks of peasant unrest occurred Russian collaborators, including an archbishop in
in Russia between 1796 and 1798. One Russian land- his full regalia.
lord complained, “This is the self-same . . . spirit of The uprising failed. Kościuszko won a few vic-
insubordination and independence, which has tories, but when the Russian empress Catherine
spread through all Europe.” the Great’s forces regrouped, they routed the Poles
and Lithuanians. Kościuszko and other Polish
Patriot leaders languished for years in Russian and
Poland Extinguished, 1793–1795 Austrian prisons. Taking no further chances, Russia,
The spirit of independence made the Poles and Prussia, and Austria wiped Poland completely
Lithuanians especially discontent, for they had from the map in the third partition of 1795. “The
already suffered a significant loss of territory and Polish question” would plague international rela-

MAP 19.4 The Second and Third Partitions of Boundary of Poland in 1772 To Russia
Poland, 1793 and 1795 To Austria 1793 Year territory seized

In 1793, Prussia took over territory that included To Prussia  Revolt


1.1 million Poles while Russia gained 3 million new N 
Riga
RUSSIA
inhabitants. Austria gave up any claims to Poland in W e
a

exchange for help from Russia and Prussia in acquiring E cS


lti
Bavaria. In the final division of 1795, Prussia absorbed S Ba
Königsberg

an additional 900,000 Polish subjects, including those Vilnius
Dnei p e r R .

Danzig

in Warsaw; Austria incorporated 1 million Poles and PRUSSIA 1795
1795
the city of Cracow; Russia gained another 2 million 
Berlin Vi
stu KINGDOM OF
la R Warsaw POLAND
Poles. The three powers determined never to use the Od 1793
. 
Bu

er
term Kingdom of Poland again. ■ How had Poland R. 1795 1793
gR

Kiev
become such a prey to the other powers? 
.

Cracow


Dneiste
rR
.
Danube R.
AUSTRIAN 0 200 400 miles
EMPIRE
0 200 400 kilometers
1789–1799 R evo lu t i o n o n t h e M a rc h 613

DOCUMENT

Address on Abolishing the Slave Trade


(February 5, 1790)
Founded in 1788, the Society of the Friends the dignity of man; we are not even ask- cruit blacks in Africa to sustain the popu-
of Blacks agitated for the abolition of the ing for their liberty. No; slander, bought lation of the colonies at the same level, it
slave trade. Among its members were many no doubt with the greed of the shipown- is because they wear out the blacks with
who became leaders of the French Revolu- ers, ascribes that scheme to us and spreads work, whippings, and starvation; that, if
tion. In a pamphlet, titled Address to the it everywhere; they want to stir up every- they treated them with kindness and as
National Assembly in Favor of the Abo- one against us, provoke the planters and good fathers of families, these blacks
lition of the Slave Trade, the Friends of their numerous creditors, who take alarm would multiply and that this population,
Blacks denied that they wanted to abolish even at gradual emancipation. They want always growing, would increase cultiva-
slavery altogether and argued only for the to alarm all the French, to whom they de- tion and prosperity. . . .
abolition of the slave trade. The pamphlet pict the prosperity of the colonies as in- If some motive might on the contrary
raised the prospect of a slave revolt, which separable from the slave trade and the push them [the blacks] to insurrection,
in fact broke out in St. Domingue in 1791. perpetuity of slavery. might it not be the indifference of the Na-
As a consequence, many planters and their . . . The immediate emancipation of tional Assembly about their lot? Might it
allies accused the society of fomenting the the blacks would not only be a fatal oper- not be the insistence on weighing them
revolt. ation for the colonies; it would even be a down with chains, when one consecrates
deadly gift for the blacks, in the state of everywhere this eternal axiom: that all
You have declared them, these rights; you abjection and incompetence to which cu- men are born free and equal in rights. So
have engraved on an immortal monu- pidity has reduced them. It would be to then therefore there would only be fetters
ment that all men are born and remain abandon to themselves and without assis- and gallows for the blacks while good for-
free and equal in rights; you have re- tance children in the cradle or mutilated tune glimmers only for the whites? Have
stored to the French people these rights and impotent beings. no doubt, our happy revolution must re-
that despotism had for so long de- It is therefore not yet time to demand electrify the blacks whom vengeance and
spoiled; . . . you have broken the chains that liberty; we ask only that one cease resentment have electrified for so long,
of feudalism that still degraded a good butchering thousands of blacks regularly and it is not with punishments that the ef-
number of our fellow citizens; you have every year in order to take hundreds of fect of this upheaval will be repressed.
announced the destruction of all the captives; we ask that henceforth cease the From one insurrection badly pacified will
stigmatizing distinctions that religious prostitution, the profaning of the French twenty others be born, of which one alone
or political prejudices introduced into name, used to authorize these thefts, these can ruin the colonists forever.
the great family of humankind. . . . atrocious murders; we demand in a word
Source: Adresse à l’Assemblée Nationale, pour
We are not asking you to restore to the abolition of the slave trade. . . . l’abolition de la traite des noirs. Par la Société des
French blacks those political rights which In regard to the colonists, we will Amis des Noirs de Paris (Paris, February 1790),
alone, nevertheless, attest to and maintain demonstrate to you that if they need to re- 1–4, 10–11, 17, 19–22. Translation by Lynn Hunt.

tions for more than a century as Polish rebels crucial to the French economy. Twice the size in
flocked to any international upheaval that might land area of the neighboring British colonies,
undo the partitions. Beyond all this maneuvering they also produced nearly twice as much revenue
lay the unsolved problem of Polish serfdom, which in exports. The slave population had doubled in
isolated the nation’s gentry and townspeople from the French colonies in the twenty years before
the rural masses. 1789. St. Domingue (present-day Haiti) was the
most important French colony. Occupying the
western half of the island of Hispaniola, it was
Revolution in the Colonies inhabited by 465,000 slaves, 30,000 whites, and
The revolution that produced so much upheaval 28,000 free people of color, whose primary job
in continental Europe had repercussions in was to apprehend runaway slaves and ensure
France’s Caribbean colonies. These colonies were plantation security.
614 C h a pt e r 1 9 ■ Th e C atac lys m o f R evo lu t i o n 1789–1799

Despite the efforts of a Paris blacks. This action infuriated


Cuba
club called the Friends of Blacks, Puerto white planters and merchants,
most French revolutionaries did Port-au-Prince
Santo Rico who in 1793 signed an agreement
 Domingo
not consider slavery a pressing Jamaica
with Great Britain, now France’s
problem. As one deputy ex- St. Domingue Colonial enemy in war, declaring British
(Haiti, 1804) possessions
plained, “This regime [in the sovereignty over St. Domingue.
Caribbean Sea British
colonies] is oppressive, but it French
To complicate matters further,
gives a livelihood to several mil- 0 100 200 miles
Spanish
Spain, which controlled the rest
lion Frenchmen. This regime is 0 100 200 kilometers
of the island and had entered on
barbarous but a still greater bar- St. Domingue on the Eve of the Great Britain’s side in the war
barity will result if you interfere Revolt, 1791 with France, offered freedom to
with it without the necessary individual slave rebels who
knowledge.” (See Document, “Address on Abolish- joined the Spanish armies as long as they agreed
ing the Slave Trade,” page 613.) to maintain the slave regime for the other blacks.
In August 1791, however, the slaves in north- The few thousand French republican troops
ern St. Domingue, inspired by the slogan “Listen on St. Domingue were outnumbered, and to pre-
to the voice of Liberty which speaks in the hearts vent complete military disaster, the French com-
of all,” organized a large-scale revolt. To restore au- missioner freed all the slaves in his jurisdiction in
thority over the slaves, the Legislative Assembly in August 1793 without permission from the govern-
Paris granted civil and political rights to the free ment in Paris. In February 1794, the National Con-

Toussaint L’Ouverture
The leader of the St. Domingue slave
uprising appears in his general’s uniform,
sword in hand. This portrait appeared in one
of the earliest histories of the revolt, Marcus
Rainsford’s Historical Account of the Black
Empire of Hayti (London, 1805). Toussaint,
a former slave who educated himself,
fascinated many of his contemporaries in
Europe as well as the New World by turning
a chaotic slave rebellion into an organized
and ultimately successful independence
movement. (North Wind Picture Archives.)
1789–1799 C o n c lu s i o n 615

vention formally abolished slavery and granted full 1789 and 1799, monarchy as a form of government
rights to all black men in the colonies. These actions had given way in France to a republic whose lead-
had the desired effect. One of the ablest black gen- ers were elected. Aristocracy based on rank and
erals allied with the Spanish, the ex-slave François birth had been undermined in favor of civil equal-
Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743–1803), ity and the promotion of merit. The people who
changed sides and committed his troops to the marched in demonstrations, met in clubs, and, in
French (see the illustration on page 614). The the case of men, voted in national elections for the
French eventually appointed Toussaint governor of first time had insisted that government respond to
St. Domingue as a reward for his efforts. them. Thousands of men had held elective office.
The vicious fighting and the flight of whites A revolutionary government had tried to teach
left St. Domingue’s economy in ruins. In 1800, the new values with a refashioned calendar, state fes-
plantations produced one-fifth of what they had tivals, and a civic religion. Its example inspired
in 1789. In the zones Toussaint controlled, army would-be revolutionaries everywhere, including in
officers or government officials took over the great France’s own colonies.
estates and kept all those working in agriculture But the French Revolution also had its darker
under military discipline. The former slaves were side. The divisions created by the Revolution within
bound to their estates like serfs and forced to work France endured in many cases until after World
the plantations in exchange for an autonomous War II. Even now, French public-opinion surveys
family life and the right to maintain personal gar- ask if it was right to execute the king in 1793 (most
den plots. believe Louis XVI was guilty of treason but should
Toussaint remained in charge until 1802, not have been executed). The revolutionaries pro-
when Napoleon sent French armies to regain con- claimed human rights and democratic government
trol of the island. They arrested Toussaint and as a universal goal, but they also explicitly excluded
transported him to France, where he died in women, even though they admitted Protestant,
prison. His arrest prompted the English poet Jewish, and eventually black men. They used the
William Wordsworth to write of him: new spirit of national pride to inspire armies and
There’s not a breathing of the common wind
then used them to conquer other peoples. Their
That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; ideals of universal education, religious toleration,
Thy friends are exultations, agonies, and democratic participation could not prevent the
And love, and man’s unconquerable mind. institution of new forms of government terror to
persecute, imprison, and kill dissidents. These
Toussaint became a hero to abolitionists every-
paradoxes created an opening for Napoleon Bona-
where, a potent symbol of black struggles to win
parte, who rushed in with his remarkable military
freedom. Napoleon attempted to restore slavery, as
and political skills to push France — and with it all
he had in the other French Caribbean colonies of
of Europe — in new directions.
Guadeloupe and Martinique, but the remaining
black generals defeated his armies and in 1804 pro-
claimed the Republic of Haiti. For Further Exploration
■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
Review: Why did some groups outside of France em- for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
brace the French Revolution while others resisted it? end of the book.

■ For additional primary-source material from


this period, see Chapter 19 in Sources of THE
Conclusion MAKING OF THE WEST, Third Edition.

Growing out of aspirations for freedom that also ■ For Web sites and documents related to topics
inspired the Dutch, Belgians, and Poles, the revo- in this chapter, see Make History at
lution that shook France permanently altered the bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
political landscape of the Western world. Between
616 C h a pt e r 1 9 ■ Th e C atac lys m o f R evo lu t i o n 1789–1799

MA P P I N G T H E W E ST

RWAY
States established by revolutionary France
SWEDEN
Boundary of the Holy Roman Empire

ND NO
DENMARK A
N SCOTLAND
W

a
E Moscow

Se
North 
S
ti

c
IRELAND Sea l
GREAT Ba
BRITAIN Batavian RUSSIA
Republic
ENGLAND
Amsterdam Berlin PRUSSIA
 
London  Utrecht  
Warsaw

Brussels

Mainz
HOLY
Paris 

ATLANTIC Versailles ROMAN
Se

R.
ine
OCEAN

ne
Rhi
R.
EMPIRE
FRENCH
Helvetic
REPUBLIC Lyon Republic AUSTRIAN EMPIRE
 Savoy
Venice
Piedmont 
Toulouse ParmaCisalpine
 Republic Venice
R.
Nice D a n u be Black
Siena Ad Sea
Ligurian Tuscany Roman ria O
PORTUGAL tic
Republic Republic T
Corsica Se T
a O Constantinople
S PA IN Rome Neapolitan M 
Republic AN
 EM
Naples
PI
Sardinia R E

Mediterranean Sea

NORTH AFRICA 0 200 400 miles


0 200 400 kilometers

Europe in 1799
France’s expansion during the revolutionary wars threatened to upset the balance of power in
Europe. A century earlier, the English and Dutch had allied and formed a Europe-wide coalition to
check the territorial ambitions of Louis XIV. Thwarting French ambitions after 1799 would prove
to be even more of a challenge to the other European powers. The Dutch had been reduced to
satellite status, as had most of the Italian states. Even Austria and Prussia would suffer
devastating losses to the French on the battlefield. Only a new coalition of European powers
could stop France in the future.
1789–1799 C h a pt e r R ev i ew 617

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
Key Terms and People Making Connections
Louis XVI (591) Jacobin Club (599) 1. Should the French Revolution be viewed as the origin of
Marie-Antoinette (591) Maximilien Robespierre democracy or the origin of totalitarianism (a government
Estates General (592) (600) in which no dissent is allowed)? Explain.
Great Fear (595) Terror (600) 2. Why did other European rulers find the French Revolution
Declaration of the Rights de-Christianization (603) so threatening?
of Man and Citizen Thermidorian Reaction
(595) (606)
For practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other
study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
Review Questions bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
1. How did the beginning of the French Revolution re-
semble the other revolutions of 1787–1789?
2. Why did the French Revolution turn in an increasingly rad-
ical direction after 1789?
3. What factors can explain the Terror? To what extent was it
simply a response to a national emergency or a reflection
of deeper problems within the French Revolution?
4. Why did some groups outside of France embrace the
French Revolution while others resisted it?

Important Events

1787 Dutch Patriot revolt is stifled by Prussian 1792 Beginning of war between France and the
invasion rest of Europe; second revolution of August 10
1788 Beginning of resistance of Austrian overthrows monarchy
Netherlands against reforms of Joseph II; 1793 Second partition of Poland by Austria and Russia;
opening of reform parliament in Poland Louis XVI of France executed for treason
1789 French Revolution begins 1794 Abolition of slavery in French colonies; Robes-
1790 Internal divisions lead to collapse of pierre’s government by terror falls
resistance in Austrian Netherlands 1795 Third (final) partition of Poland; France annexes
1791 Beginning of slave revolt in St. Domingue the Austrian Netherlands
(Haiti) 1797–1798 Creation of “sister republics” in Italian states
and Switzerland
Napoleon and the C H A P T E R

Revolutionary Legacy
1800–1830
20
The Rise of Napoleon
Bonaparte 620
• A General Takes Over
• From Republic to Empire
• The New Paternalism:
n her novel Frankenstein (1818), the prototype for modern thrillers, The Civil Code

I Mary Shelley tells the story of a Swiss technological genius who cre-
ates a humanlike monster in his pursuit of scientific knowledge. The
monster, “so scaring and unearthly in his ugliness,” terrifies all who en-
• Patronage of Science and
Intellectual Life

“Europe Was at My Feet”:


Napoleon’s Conquests 628
counter him and ends by destroying Dr. Frankenstein’s own loved ones. • The Grand Army and Its Victories,
1800–1807
Despite desperate chases across deserts and frozen landscapes, Franken- • The Impact of French Victories
stein never manages to trap the monster, who is last seen hunched over • From Russian Winter to Final
Defeat, 1812–1815
his creator’s deathbed.
Frankenstein’s monster can be taken as a particularly horrifying in- The “Restoration” of Europe 636
• The Congress of Vienna, 1814–1815
carnation of the fears of the postrevolutionary era, but which fears did • The Emergence of Conservatism
Shelley have in mind? Did the monster represent the French Revolu- • The Revival of Religion

tion, which had devoured its own children in the Terror? Shelley was Challenges to the Conservative
the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, an English feminist who had de- Order 640
fended the French Revolution and died in childbirth when Mary was • Romanticism
• Political Revolts in the 1820s
born. Mary Shelley was also the wife of the romantic poet Percy Bysshe • Revolution and Reform, 1830–1832
Shelley, who often wrote against the ugliness of contemporary life and
in opposition to the conservative politics that had triumphed in Great
Britain after Napoleon’s fall. Whatever the meaning — and Mary Shelley
may well have intended more than one — Frankenstein makes the
forceful point that humans cannot always control their own creations.
The Enlightenment and the French Revolution had celebrated the
virtues of human creativity, but Shelley shows that innovation often
has a dark and uncontrollable side.
Those who witnessed Napoleon Bonaparte’s stunning rise to
European dominance might have cast him as either Frankenstein or his
monster. Like the scientist Frankenstein, Bonaparte created something

Napoleon as Military Hero


In this painting from 1800–1801, Napoleon Crossing the Alps at St. Bernard, Jacques-
Louis David reminds the French of Napoleon’s heroic military exploits. Napoleon is a
picture of calm and composure while his horse shows the fright and energy of the
moment. David painted this propagandistic image shortly after one of his former
students went to the guillotine on a trumped-up charge of plotting to assassinate the
new French leader. The former organizer of republican festivals during the Terror had
become a kind of court painter for the new regime. (Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art
Resource, NY.)

619
620 C h a pt e r 2 0 ■ N a p o l e o n a n d t h e R evo lu t i o n a ry Le g ac y 1800–1830

dramatically new: the French Empire with himself


as emperor. Like the former kings of France, he Focus Question: How did Napoleon Bonaparte’s
actions force other European rulers to change their
ruled under his first name. This Corsican artillery
policies?
officer who spoke French with an Italian accent
ended the French Revolution even while maintain-
ing some of its most important innovations. Bona-
parte transformed France from a republic with
democratically elected leaders to an empire with a
The Rise of
new aristocracy based on military service. But he Napoleon Bonaparte
kept the revolutionary administration and most of
the laws that ensured equal treatment of citizens. In 1799, a charismatic young general took over the
Although he tolerated no opposition at home, he French republic and set France on a new course.
prided himself on bringing French-style changes Within a year, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821)
to peoples elsewhere. had effectively ended the French Revolution and
Bonaparte continued his revolutionary policy steered France toward an authoritarian state. As
of conquest and annexation until it reached emperor after 1804, he dreamed of European in-
grotesque dimensions. His foreign policies made tegration in the tradition of Augustus and Charle-
many see him as a monster hungry for dominion; magne, but he also mastered the details of practical
he turned the sister republics of the revolutionary administration. To achieve his goals, he compro-
era into kingdoms personally ruled by his relatives, mised with the Catholic church and with exiled
and he exacted tribute wherever he triumphed. aristocrats willing to return to France. His most
Eventually, resistance to the French armies and the enduring accomplishment, the new Civil Code,
ever-mounting costs of military glory toppled tempered the principles of the Enlightenment and
Napoleon. The powers allied against him met and the Revolution with an insistence on the powers
agreed to restore the monarchical governments of fathers over children, husbands over wives, and
that had been overthrown by the French, shrink employers over workers. His influence spread into
France back to its prerevolutionary boundaries, many spheres as he personally patronized scien-
and maintain this settlement against future de- tific inquiry and encouraged artistic styles in line
mands for change. with his vision of imperial greatness.
Although the people of Europe longed for
peace and stability in the aftermath of the A General Takes Over
Napoleonic whirlwind, they lived in a deeply un-
settled world. Profoundly affected by French mil- It would have seemed astonishing in 1795 that the
itary occupation, many groups of people organized twenty-six-year-old son of a noble family from the
to demand ethnic and cultural autonomy, first from island of Corsica off the Italian coast would within
Napoleon and then from the restored governments four years become the supreme ruler of France and
after 1815. In 1830, a new round of revolutions
broke out in France, Belgium, Poland, and some
Napoleon Bonaparte: The French general who became First
of the Italian states. The revolutionary legacy was Consul in 1799 and emperor in 1804; after losing the battle of
far from exhausted. Waterloo in 1815, he was exiled to the island of St. Helena.

■ 1799 Coup against Directory; ■ 1805 Battle of Trafalgar; ■ 1812 Napoleon invades Russia
Napoleon named First Consul battle of Austerlitz
■ 1814–1815
■ 1801 Napoleon signs concordat with pope Congress of Vienna

1800 1805 1810 1815

■ 1804 Napoleon crowned emperor; ■ 1815 Napoleon


issues Civil Code defeated at Waterloo,
exiled to St. Helena
1800–1830 Th e R i s e o f N a p o l e o n B o n a pa rt e 621

one of the greatest military leaders in world his- law, eliminated religious taxes, and proclaimed re-
tory. That year, Bonaparte was a penniless artillery ligious toleration.
officer, only recently released from prison as a pre- Even the failures of the Egyptian campaign did
sumed Robespierrist. Thanks to some early mili- not dull Bonaparte’s luster. Bonaparte had taken
tary successes and links to Parisian politicians, France’s leading scientists with him on the expe-
however, he was named commander of the French dition, and his soldiers had discovered a slab of
army in Italy in 1796. black basalt dating from 196 B.C.E. written in both
Bonaparte’s astounding success in the Italian hieroglyphic and Greek. Called the Rosetta stone
campaigns of 1796–1797 launched his meteoric after a nearby town, it enabled scholars to finally
career. With an army of fewer than fifty thousand decipher the hieroglyphs used by the ancient
men, he defeated the Piedmontese and the Austrians. Egyptians. With his army pinned down by Nelson’s
In quick order, he established client republics victory at sea, Bonaparte slipped out of Egypt and
dependent on his own authority, negotiated with made his way secretly to southern France.
the Austrians himself, and molded the army into In October 1799, Bonaparte arrived home at
his personal force by paying the soldiers in cash just the right moment. The war in Europe was go-
taken as tribute from the newly conquered terri- ing badly. The territories of the former Austrian
tories. He mollified the Directory government by Netherlands had revolted against French conscrip-
sending home wagonloads of Italian masterpieces tion laws, and deserters swelled the ranks of rebels
of art, which were added to Parisian museum col- in western France. Amid increasing political insta-
lections (most are still there) after being paraded bility, generals in the field had become virtually
in victory festivals. independent, and the troops felt more loyal to
In 1798, the Directory set aside its plans to in- their units and generals than to the republic.
vade England, gave Bonaparte command of the Disillusioned members of the government saw in
army raised for that purpose, and sent him across Bonaparte’s return an occasion to overturn the
the Mediterranean Sea to Egypt. The Directory constitution of 1795.
government hoped that French occupation of On November 9, 1799, the conspirators per-
Egypt would strike a blow at British trade by cut- suaded the legislature to move out of Paris to avoid
ting the route to India. Although the French im- an imaginary Jacobin plot. But when Bonaparte
mediately defeated a much larger Egyptian army, stomped into the new meeting hall the next day
the British admiral Lord Horatio Nelson destroyed and demanded immediate changes in the consti-
the French fleet while it was anchored in Aboukir tution, he was greeted by cries of “Down with the
Bay, cutting the French off from home. In the face dictator!” His quick-thinking brother Lucien, pres-
of determined resistance and an outbreak of the ident of the Council of Five Hundred (the lower
bubonic plague, Bonaparte’s armies retreated from house), saved Bonaparte’s coup by summoning
a further expedition in Syria. But the French oc- troops guarding the hall and claiming that some
cupation of Egypt lasted long enough for that deputies had tried to assassinate the popular
largely Muslim country to experience the same general. The soldiers ejected those who opposed
kinds of Enlightenment-inspired legal reforms Bonaparte and left the remaining ones to vote to
that had been introduced in Europe: the French abolish the Directory and establish a new three-
abolished torture, introduced equality before the man executive called the consulate.

■ 1820 Revolt against Spanish crown ■ 1830 Greece gains independence;


Charles X overthrown; Louis-Phillipe
■ 1824 Beethoven, Ninth Symphony installed; Polish revolt fails

1820 1825 1830 1835

■ 1818 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein ■ 1825 Decembrist Revolt in Russia ■ 1832 English Reform Bill;
Goethe, Faust
622 C h a pt e r 2 0 ■ N a p o l e o n a n d t h e R evo lu t i o n a ry Le g ac y 1800–1830

From Republic to Empire


Napoleon had no long-range plans to estab-
lish himself as emperor and conquer most of
Europe. The deputies of the legislature who
engineered the coup d’état of November
1799 picked him as one of three provisional
consuls only because he was a famous gen-
eral. Napoleon immediately asserted his
leadership over the other two consuls in the
process of drafting another constitution —
the fourth since 1789. He then set about put-
ting his stamp on every aspect of French life,
building monuments and institutions that in
some cases have endured to the present day.

The End of the Republic. The constitution


of 1799 made Napoleon the First Consul
with the right to pick the Council of State,
which drew up all laws. He exerted control
by choosing men loyal to him. Government
was no longer representative in any real
sense: the new constitution eliminated direct
elections for deputies and granted no inde-
pendent powers to the three houses of the
legislature. Napoleon and his advisers chose
the legislature’s members out of a small pool
of “notables.” Almost all men over twenty-
one could vote in the plebiscite (referendum)
Francisco de Goya, The Colossus (1808–1812)
to approve the constitution, but their only
The Spanish painter Goya might be imagined as portraying Frankenstein’s
option was to choose yes or no.
monster or Napoleon himself as the new giant overwhelming much of Europe.
Goya painted for the Spanish court before Napoleon invaded and occupied Napoleon’s most urgent task was to rec-
Spain; after an illness left him deaf, he turned toward darkly imaginative oncile to his regime Catholics who had been
works such as this one. (All rights reserved © Museo Nacional del Prado–Madrid.) alienated by revolutionary policies. Although
nominally Catholic, Napoleon held no deep
religious convictions. “How can there be or-
Bonaparte became First Consul, a title revived der in the state without religion?” he asked cyni-
from the ancient Roman republic. He promised to cally. “When a man is dying of hunger beside
be a man above party and to restore order to the another who is stuffing himself, he cannot accept
republic. A new constitution was submitted to this difference if there is not an authority who tells
the voters. Millions abstained from voting, and him: ‘God wishes it so.’ ” In 1801, a concordat with
the government falsified the results to give an Pope Pius VII (r. 1800–1823) ended a decade of
appearance of even greater support to the new church-state conflict in France. The pope validated
regime. Inside France, political apathy had over- all sales of church lands, and the government
taken the original enthusiasm for revolutionary agreed to pay the salaries of bishops and priests
ideals. Altogether it was an unpromising begin- who would swear loyalty to the state. Catholicism
ning; yet within five years, Bonaparte would crown was officially recognized as the religion of “the
himself Napoleon I, emperor of the French. The great majority of French citizens.” (The state also
French armies would recover from their reverses paid Protestant pastors’ salaries.) Thus, the pope
of 1799 to push the frontiers of French influence brought the huge French Catholic population back
even farther eastward. into the fold and Napoleon gained the pope’s sup-
port for his regime.
Napoleon continued the centralization of
First Consul: The most important of the three consuls estab-
lished by the French Constitution of 1800; the title, given to state power that had begun under the absolutist
Napoleon Bonaparte, was taken from ancient Rome. monarchy of Louis XIV and resumed under the
1800–1830 Th e R i s e o f N a p o l e o n B o n a pa rt e 623

Terror. As First Consul, he appointed prefects adorned coins, engravings, histories, paintings,
who directly supervised local affairs in every de- and public monuments. His favorite painters em-
partment in the country. He created the Bank of bellished his legend by depicting him as a warrior-
France to facilitate government borrowing and hero of mythic proportions even though he was
relied on gold and silver coinage rather than pa- short and physically unimpressive in person. Be-
per money. He made good use of budgets and im- lieving that “what is big is always beautiful,”
proved tax collection, but he also frequently made Napoleon embarked on ostentatious building
ends meet by exacting tribute from the territories projects that would outshine even those of Louis
he conquered. XIV. Government-commissioned architects built
Napoleon promised order and an end to the the Arc de Triomphe, the Stock Exchange, foun-
upheavals of ten years of revolutionary turmoil, tains, and even slaughterhouses. Most of his new
but his regime severely limited political expression. construction reflected his neoclassical taste for
He never relied on mass executions to achieve con- monumental buildings set in vast empty spaces.
trol, but he refused to allow those who opposed Napoleon worked hard at establishing his rep-
him to meet in clubs, influence elections, or pub- utation as an efficient administrator with broad
lish newspapers. A decree reduced the number of intellectual interests: he met frequently with scien-
newspapers in Paris from seventy-three to thirteen tists, jurists, and artists, and stories abounded of
(and then finally to four), and the newspapers that his unflagging energy. When not on military cam-
remained became government organs. Govern- paigns, he worked on state affairs, usually until
ment censors had to approve all operas and plays, 10:00 p.m., taking only a few minutes for each
and they banned “offensive” artistic works even meal. “Authority,” declared his adviser Abbé
more frequently than their royal predecessors had. Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, “must come from above
The minister of police, Joseph Fouché, once a lead- and confidence from below.” To establish his au-
ing figure in the Terror of 1793–1794, could im- thority, Napoleon relied on men who had served
pose house arrest, arbitrary imprisonment, and with him in the army. His chief of staff Alexandre
surveillance of political dissidents. Political contest Berthier, for example, became minister of war, and
and debate shriveled to almost nothing. When a the chemist Claude Berthollet, who had organized
bomb attack on Napoleon’s carriage failed in 1800, the scientific part of the expedition to Egypt,
Fouché suppressed the evidence of a royalist plot became vice president of the Senate in 1804.
and instead arrested hundreds of former Jacobins. Napoleon’s bureaucracy was based on a patron-
More than one hundred of them were deported client relationship, with Napoleon as the ultimate
and seven hundred imprisoned. patron. Some of Napoleon’s closest associates mar-
When it suited him, Napoleon also struck ried into his family.
against royalist conspirators. In 1804, he ordered Combining aristocratic and revolutionary val-
his police to kidnap from his residence in Germany ues in a new social hierarchy that rewarded merit
Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon-Condé, duc and talent, Napoleon personally chose as senators
d’Enghien. Napoleon had intelligence, which the nation’s most illustrious generals, ministers,
proved to be false, that d’Enghien had joined a plot prefects, scientists, rich men, and former nobles.
in Paris against him. Even when he learned the Intending to replace both the old nobility of birth
truth, he insisted that a military tribunal try and the republic’s strict emphasis on equality, in
d’Enghien, a close relative of the dead king Louis 1802 he took the first step toward creating a new
XVI. D’Enghien was shot on the spot after a sum- nobility by founding the Legion of Honor. (Mem-
mary trial. By then, Napoleon’s political intentions bers of the legion received lifetime pensions along
had become clear. He had named himself First with their titles.) Napoleon usually equated honor
Consul for life in 1802, and in 1804, with the pope’s with military success. By 1814, the legion had
blessing, he crowned himself emperor. Once again, thirty-two thousand members, only 5 percent of
plebiscites approved his decisions, but no alterna- them civilians.
tives were offered. The democratic political aims In 1808, Napoleon introduced a complete hi-
of the French Revolution had been trampled, but erarchy of noble titles, ranging from princes down
some aspects of daily life continued to be affected to barons and chevaliers. All Napoleonic nobles
by those egalitarian ideals (see “Seeing History,” had served the state. Titles could be inherited but
page 624). had to be supported by wealth — a man could not
be a duke without a fortune of 200,000 francs or
Imperial Rule. Napoleon’s outsized personality a chevalier without 3,000 francs. To go along with
dominated the new regime. His face and name their new titles, Napoleon gave his favorite gener-
624 C h a pt e r 2 0 ■ N a p o l e o n a n d t h e R evo lu t i o n a ry Le g ac y 1800–1830

SEEING HISTORY

The Clothing Revolution: The Social Meaning


of Changes in Postrevolutionary Fashion

ome revolutions take place in the Napoleon himself wore close-fitting pan- tions after the Revolution. In the nineteenth

S realm of social life and culture


rather than politics. One of the most
striking of these social and cultural revo-
taloons (from which the word pants is de-
rived) until he became too fat and reverted
back to knee breeches. The colored en-
century, middle- and upper-class women
continued to wear dresses with such long
and full skirts that they could not possibly
lutions was the wearing of trousers. Before graving of a middle-class couple in 1830 be imagined working. Working women
the French Revolution of 1789, men of shows how long pants had become the wore simpler blouses and skirts that al-
the middle classes and nobility wore knee fashion for men. In line with political lowed the movements necessary to labor at
breeches, stockings, and buckled shoes, as changes that installed equality under the home or in manufacturing. Compare the
can be seen in the colored engraving from law and careers open to merit rather than pre-Revolution fashion shown with that of
1778. Trousers (long pants) were worn birth, men began to dress more alike; all the woman in the 1830 engraving. Does
only by working-class men, who needed men wore trousers. Taking a closer look at one outfit look more comfortable than the
them to protect themselves on the job and the men in both pictures, do you see any other? Why or why not? What other differ-
from the mud in the streets. other changes in style and accessories that ences (or similarities) do you notice? Why
From Napoleon onward, a shift to- might reflect a less class-conscious society? do you think women’s fashion failed to be-
ward trousers took place across Europe, Women’s dress, in contrast, main- come more uniform the way men’s did in
not all at once but slowly and surely. tained and even underlined social distinc- the decades following the Revolution?

Gentleman Proposing to a Lady, 1778. (© Private Fashion for Men and Women, 1830. (© Musée de la Ville de
Collection/ The Stapleton Collection/ The Bridgeman Art Library.) Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Paris, France/ Lauros/ Giraudon/ The Bridgeman
Art Library.)
1800–1830 Th e R i s e o f N a p o l e o n B o n a pa rt e 625

Napoleon’s Coronation as Emperor


In this detail from The Coronation of Napoleon and Josephine (1805–1807), Jacques-Louis David
shows Napoleon crowning his wife at the ceremony of 1804. Napoleon orchestrated the entire event
and took the only active role in it: Pope Pius VII gave his blessing to the ceremony (he can be seen
seated behind Napoleon), but Napoleon crowned himself. What is the significance of Napoleon
crowning himself? (Erich Lessing/ Art Resource, NY.)
■ For more help analyzing this image, see the visual activity for this chapter in the Online Study
Guide at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.

als huge fortunes, often in the form of estates in The New Paternalism: The Civil Code
the conquered territories.
As part of his restoration of order, Napoleon
Napoleon’s own family reaped the greatest
brought a paternalist model of power to his state.
benefits. He made his older brother, Joseph, ruler
Previous governments had tried to unify and stan-
of the newly established kingdom of Naples in
dardize France’s multiple legal codes, but only
1806, the same year he installed his younger
Napoleon successfully established a new one,
brother Louis as king of Holland. He proclaimed
partly because he personally presided over the
his twenty-three-year-old stepson, Eugène de
commission that drafted the new Civil Code, com-
Beauharnais, viceroy of Italy in 1805 and estab-
pleted in 1804. Called the Napoleonic Code as a
lished his sister Caroline and brother-in-law Gen-
way of further exalting his image, it reasserted the
eral Joachim Murat as king and queen of Naples
Old Regime’s patriarchal system of male domina-
in 1808 when he moved Joseph to the throne of
tion over women and insisted on a father’s control
Spain. Napoleon wanted to establish an imperial
over his children, which revolutionary legislation
succession, but he lacked an heir. In thirteen years
had limited. For example, if children under age six-
of marriage, his wife Josephine had borne no chil-
teen refused to follow their fathers’ commands,
dren, so in 1809 he divorced her and in 1810 mar-
ried the eighteen-year-old princess Marie-Louise
of Austria. The next year she gave birth to a son, Civil Code: The French legal code formulated by Napoleon in
1804; it ensured equal treatment under the law to all men and
to whom Napoleon immediately gave the title king guaranteed religious liberty, but it curtailed many rights of
of Rome. women.
626 C h a pt e r 2 0 ■ N a p o l e o n a n d t h e R evo lu t i o n a ry Le g ac y 1800–1830

Although the code maintained the equal divi-


sion of family property between all children, both
male and female, it sharply curtailed women’s
rights in other respects. Napoleon wanted to re-
strict women to the private sphere of the home.
One of his leading jurists remarked, “Women need
protection because they are weaker; men are free
because they are stronger.” The law obligated a
husband to support his wife, but the husband
alone controlled any property held in common; a
wife could not sue in court, sell or mortgage her
own property, or contract a debt without her hus-
band’s consent. Divorce was severely restricted. A
wife could petition for divorce only if her husband
brought his mistress to live in the family home. In
contrast, a wife convicted of adultery could be im-
prisoned for up to two years. The code’s framers
saw these discrepancies as a way to reinforce the
family and make women responsible for private
virtue, while leaving public decisions to men.
The French code was imitated in many European
and Latin American countries and in the French
colony of Louisiana, where it had a similar nega-
tive effect on women’s rights. Not until 1965 did
French wives gain legal status equal to that of their
husbands.
Napoleon took little interest in girls’ educa-
tion, believing that girls should spend most of their
time at home learning religion, manners, and such
“female occupations” as sewing and music. For
boys, by contrast, the government set up a new sys-
tem of lycées, state-run secondary schools in which
Emperor Napoleon in His Study students wore military uniforms and drumrolls
In this portrait painted by Jacques-Louis David in 1812, signaled the beginning and end of classes. The
Napoleon is shown in his general’s uniform, sword by his side. lycées offered wider access to education and thus
He stands by his desk covered with papers to show how hard helped achieve Napoleon’s goal of opening careers
he works for the country. (Erich Lessing/ Art Resource, NY.) to those with talent, regardless of their social ori-
gins. (Without the military trappings, the lycées
are now coeducational and still the heart of the
they could be sent to prison for up to a month French educational system.)
with no hearing of any sort. Yet the code also re- The new paternalism extended to relations be-
quired fathers to provide for their children’s wel- tween employers and employees. The state re-
fare. Moreover, the Civil Code protected many of quired all workers to carry a work card attesting
the gains of the French Revolution by defining and to their good conduct, and it prohibited all work-
assuring property rights, guaranteeing religious ers’ organizations. The police considered workers
liberty, and establishing a uniform system of law without cards as vagrants or criminals and could
that provided equal treatment for all adult males send them to workhouses or prison. After 1806,
and affirmed the right of men to choose their pro- arbitration boards settled labor disputes, but they
fessions. Napoleon wanted to discourage abortion took employers at their word while treating work-
and infanticide, not uncommon among the poor- ers as minors, demanding that foremen and shop
est classes in the fast-growing urban areas, so he superintendents represent them. Occasionally
helped set up private charities to help indigent strikes broke out, led by secret, illegal journey-
mothers and made it easier for women to aban- men’s associations, yet many employers laid off
don their children anonymously to a government employees when times were hard, deducted fines
foundling hospital. from their wages, and dismissed them without
1800–1830 Th e R i s e o f N a p o l e o n B o n a pa rt e 627

appeal for being absent or making errors. These dangerous, “good for nothing under any govern-
limitations on workers’ rights won Napoleon the ment.” Some of the most talented French writers
support of French business. of the time had to live in exile. The best-known
expatriate was Anne-Louise-Germaine de Staël
(1766–1817), the daughter of Louis XVI’s chief
Patronage of Science minister Jacques Necker. When explaining his de-
and Intellectual Life sire to banish her, Napoleon exclaimed, “She is a
machine in motion who stirs up the salons.” While
Napoleon did everything possible to promote exiled in the German states, de Staël wrote a novel,
French scientific inquiry, especially that which Corinne (1807), whose heroine is a brilliant
could serve practical ends. He closely monitored woman thwarted by a patriarchal system, and On
the research institutes established during the Germany (1810), an account of the important new
Revolution, sometimes intervening personally to literary currents east of the Rhine. Her books were
achieve political conformity. An impressive out- banned in France.
pouring of new theoretical and practical scientific Although Napoleon restored the strong au-
work rewarded the state’s efforts. Experiments thority of state and religion in France, many
with balloons led to the discovery of laws about royalists and Catholics still criticized him as an im-
the expansion of gases, and research on fossil shells pious usurper. (See “Contrasting Views,” page 634.)
prepared the way for new theories of evolutionary François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) ad-
change later in the nineteenth century. The sur- mired Napoleon as “the strong man who has saved
geon Dominique-Jean Larrey developed new tech- us from the abyss,” but he preferred monarchy. In
niques of battlefield amputation and medical care his view, Napoleon had not properly understood
during Napoleon’s wars, winning an appointment the need to defend Christian values against the
as an officer in the Legion of Honor and becom- Enlightenment’s excessive reliance on reason.
ing a baron with a pension. Chateaubriand wrote his Genius of Christianity
Napoleon aimed to modernize French society (1802) to draw attention to the power and mys-
through science, but he could not tolerate criti- tery of faith. He warned, “It is to the vanity of
cism. Napoleon considered most writers useless or knowledge that we owe almost all our misfor-

Germaine de Staël
One of the most fascinating intellectuals of her time,
Anne-Louise-Germaine de Staël seemed to irritate
Napoleon more than any other person did. Daughter
of Louis XVI’s Swiss Protestant finance minister,
Jacques Necker, and wife of a Swedish diplomat,
Madame de Staël frequently criticized Napoleon’s
regime. She published best-selling novels and
influential literary criticism, and whenever allowed
to reside in Paris she encouraged the intellectual
and political dissidents from Napoleon’s regime.
(Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY.)
628 C h a pt e r 2 0 ■ N a p o l e o n a n d t h e R evo lu t i o n a ry Le g ac y 1800–1830

tunes. . . . The learned ages have always been fol- European empire more extensive than any since an-
lowed by ages of destruction.” cient Rome (Map 20.1). Yet that empire had already
begun to crumble, and with it went Napoleon’s
power at home. Napoleon’s empire failed because it
Review: In what ways did Napoleon continue the
was based on a contradiction: Napoleon tried to re-
French Revolution, and in what ways did he break
with it? duce virtually all of Europe to the status of colonial
dependents when Europe had long consisted of in-
dependent states. The result, inevitably, was a great
upsurge in nationalist feeling that has dominated
European politics to the present.
“Europe Was at My Feet”:
Napoleon’s Conquests The Grand Army and Its Victories,
Building on innovations introduced by the repub- 1800–1807
lican governments before him, Napoleon revolu- Napoleon attributed his military success “three-
tionized the art of war with tactics and strategy quarters to morale” and the rest to leadership and
based on a highly mobile army. By 1812, he ruled a superiority of numbers at the point of attack. Con-

0 200 400 miles


French satellites
0 200 400 kilometers
French allies
French enemies
 Battle 
KINGDOM OF St. Petersburg
KINGDOM OF SWEDEN
SCOTLAND
NORWAY AND Moscow


a
Invasion of Borodino
N

Se
Russia, 1812 1812
N o r th 
W ic
S e a DENMARK
lt
E IRELAND GREAT Ba
S Tilsit
BRITAIN Danzig 
 
Friedland
ENGLAND Hamburg 1807
 PRUSSIA
Amsterdam
 Holland RUSSIA
Berlin DUCHY
London Westphalia 
OF
El

Auerstädt WARSAW
1806  Jena
be

.
Rh

ATLANTIC
R

 Amiens 1806
i ne

Dn
OCEAN
Se

Paris CONFED. OF i e pe
R.

 Austerlitz r R.
in

THE RHINE
eR

. 1805
Ulm 
1805 Bavaria Vienna
Loire R.  
FRANCE SWISS Hohenlinden
Corunna CONFED. 1800 AUSTRIAN EMPIRE
1809
 Milan KINGDOM
 OF ITALY

Marengo . B lac k Se a
Salamanca
1800 D a n ube R
KINGDOM OF 1812 Saragossa Ad
PORTUGAL  Madrid 1809 ria
Barcelona O

1808 Corsica tic TT
Lisbon 1809 Rome  Se
1809 Badajos a OM  Constantinople
1812 Valencia AN
Naples  KINGDOM
KINGDOM 1808 Sardinia EM
OF NAPLES
OF SPAIN PI
R E
  Gibraltar
Trafalgar
1805 Sicily

Mediterranean Sea

MAP 20.1 Napoleon’s Empire at Its Height, 1812


In 1812, Napoleon had at least nominal control of almost all of western Europe. Even before he made
his fatal mistake of invading Russia, however, his authority had been undermined in Spain and
seriously weakened in the Italian and German states. His efforts to extend French power sparked
resistance almost everywhere: as Napoleon insisted on French domination, local people began to
think of themselves as Italian, German, or Dutch. Thus, Napoleon inadvertently laid the foundations
for the nineteenth-century spread of nationalism.
1800–1830 “ E u ro p e Wa s at My Fe et ” : N a p o l e o n’s C o n qu e s t s 629

scription provided the large numbers: 1.3 million and Italy, which served as a buffer against the big
men ages twenty to twenty-four were drafted powers to the east, Austria, Prussia, and Russia.
between 1800 and 1812, another million in By maneuvering diplomatically and militarily,
1813–1814. Many willingly served because the re- Napoleon could usually take these on one by one.
public had taught them to identify the army with After reorganizing the French armies in 1799, for
the nation. Military service was both a patriotic example, Napoleon won striking victories against
duty and a means of social mobility. The men who the Austrians at Marengo and Hohenlinden in
rose through the ranks to become officers were 1800, forcing them to agree to peace terms. Once
young, ambitious, and accustomed to the new the Austrians had withdrawn, Britain agreed to the
ways of war. Consequently, the French army had Treaty of Amiens in 1802, effectively ending hos-
higher morale than the armies of other powers, tilities on the continent. Napoleon considered the
most of which rejected conscription as too demo- peace with Great Britain merely a truce, however,
cratic and continued to restrict their officer corps and it lasted only until 1803.
to the nobility. Only in 1813–1814, when the mil- Napoleon used the breathing space not only
itary tide turned against Napoleon, did French to consolidate his position before taking up arms
morale plummet. again but also to send an expeditionary force to
When Napoleon came to power in 1799, de- the Caribbean colony of St. Domingue to regain
sertion was rampant, and the generals competed control of the island. Continuing resistance among
with one another for predominance. Napoleon the black population and an
ended this squabbling by uniting all the armies epidemic of yellow fever forced Missou French lands sold
into one Grand Army under his personal com- Napoleon to withdraw his or forfeited

ri R
LO

.
mand. By 1812, he commanded 700,000 troops; troops from St. Domingue and

UI 1
St.

SI 8 0
while 250,000 soldiers fought in Spain, others re- abandon his plans to extend his

AN 3
Louis
 UNITED

A
mained garrisoned in France. In any given battle, empire to the Western Hemi- ER

T
STATES
R.

SPA
Mississippi
ST. DOMINGUE
between 70,000 and 180,000 men, not all of them sphere. As part of his retreat, he R.
1803

NI
New (Haiti after 1804)
French, fought for France. Life on campaign was sold the Louisiana Territory to

SH
Orleans

TE
no picnic — ordinary soldiers slept in the rain, the United States in 1803. R.

R
mud, and snow and often had to forage for food — When war resumed in Eu-
but Napoleon nonetheless inspired almost fanati- rope, the British navy once France’s Retreat from America
cal loyalty. He fought alongside his soldiers in more proved its superiority by
some sixty battles and had nineteen horses blocking an attempted French invasion and by de-
shot from under him. One opponent said that feating the French and their Spanish allies in a
Napoleon’s presence alone was worth 50,000 men. huge naval battle at Trafalgar in 1805. France lost
A brilliant strategist who carefully studied the many ships; the British lost no vessels, but their
demands of war, Napoleon outmaneuvered virtu- renowned admiral Lord Horatio Nelson died in
ally all his opponents. He had a pragmatic and di- the battle. On land, Napoleon remained invinci-
rect approach to strategy: he went for the main ble. In 1805, Austria took up arms again when
body of the opposing army and tried to crush it Napoleon demanded that it declare neutrality in
in a lightning campaign. He gathered the largest the conflict with Britain. Napoleon promptly cap-
possible army for one great and decisive battle and tured twenty-five thousand Austrian soldiers at
then followed with a relentless pursuit to break en- Ulm, in Bavaria, in 1805. After marching on to Vi-
emy morale altogether. His military command, like enna, he again trounced the Austrians, who had
his rule within France, was personal and highly been joined by their new ally, Russia. The battle of
centralized. He essentially served as his own oper- Austerlitz, often considered Napoleon’s greatest
ations officer: “I alone know what I have to do,” he victory, was fought on December 2, 1805, the first
insisted. This style worked as long as Napoleon anniversary of his coronation.
could be on the battlefield, but he failed to train After maintaining neutrality for a decade,
independent subordinates to take over in his ab- Prussia now declared war on France. In 1806,
sence. He also faced constant difficulties in sup- the French routed the Prussian army at Jena and
plying a rapidly moving army, which, because of Auerstädt. In 1807, Napoleon defeated the
its size, could not always live off the land. Russians at Friedland. Personal negotiations be-
One of Napoleon’s greatest advantages was the tween Napoleon and the young tsar Alexander I
lack of coordination among his enemies. Britain (r. 1801–1825) resulted in a humiliating settlement
dominated the seas but did not want to field huge imposed on Prussia, which paid the price for tem-
land armies. On the continent, the French repub- porary reconciliation between France and Russia;
lic had already set up satellites in the Netherlands the Treaties of Tilsit turned Prussian lands west of
630 C h a pt e r 2 0 ■ N a p o l e o n a n d t h e R evo lu t i o n a ry Le g ac y 1800–1830

Napoleon Visiting
the Battlefield
Antoine-Jean Gros painted this
scene of the battle of Eylau
(now in northwestern Russia,
then in East Prussia) shortly
after Napoleon’s victory
against the Russian army in
1807. The painter aims to
show the compassion of
Napoleon for his men, but he
also draws attention to the
sheer carnage of war. Each
side lost 25,000 men, killed or
wounded, in this battle. What
would you conclude from the
way the ordinary soldiers are
depicted here? (© Archivo
Iconografico, S.A. / Corbis.)

the Elbe River into the kingdom of Westphalia un- to larger units. In July 1806, he established the
der Napoleon’s brother Jerome, and Prussia’s Pol- Confederation of the Rhine, which soon included
ish provinces became the duchy of Warsaw. almost all the German states except Austria and
Napoleon once again had turned the divisions Prussia. The Holy Roman Emperor gave up his
among his enemies in his favor. title, held since the thirteenth century, and be-
came simply the emperor of Austria. Napoleon
established three units in Italy:
The Impact of 0 200 400 miles
the territories directly annexed to
French Victories 0 200 400 kilometers
France and the satellite kingdoms
Wherever the Grand Army con- PRUSSIA of Italy and Naples. Italy had not
quered, Napoleon’s influence fol-  DUCHY OF
been so unified since the Roman
lowed soon after. By annexing some WARSAW Empire.
Od

territories and setting up others as rR Napoleon forced French-


Rhi

CONFEDERATION .
ne

satellite kingdoms with much- OF THE style reforms on both the an-
R.

reduced autonomy, Napoleon at- nexed territories, which were


CE

RHINE
AU
AN

ST

tempted to colonize large parts of D anub


e R. ruled directly from France, and
FR

RI


Europe (see Map 20.1, page 628). the satellite kingdoms, which
A
N

SWITZ.
EM

But even where he did not rule di- PI were usually ruled by one or an-
RE
rectly or through his relatives, his KINGDOM other of Napoleon’s relatives but
startling string of victories forced OF ITALY ILLYRIA with a certain autonomy. French-

the other powers to reconsider their style reforms included abolishing
own methods of rule. serfdom, eliminating seigneurial
Corsica
dues, introducing the Napol-
Rule in the Colonized Territories.  eonic Code, suppressing monas-
Napoleon brought the disparate teries, and subordinating church
 KINGDOM
German and Italian states to- Sardinia
OF NAPLES to state, as well as extending civil
gether to rule them more effec- rights to Jews and other religious
tively and to exploit their Napoleon’s additions minorities. Napoleon’s chosen
to France by 1812
resources for his own ends. In rulers often made real improve-
Areas of consolidation
1803, he consolidated the tiny ments in roads, public works, law
German states by abolishing Consolidation of German and codes, and education. The re-
some of them and attaching them Italian States, 1812 moval of internal tariffs fostered
1800–1830 “ E u ro p e Wa s at My Fe et ” : N a p o l e o n’s C o n qu e s t s 631

economic growth by opening up the domestic universities; reform commissions studied abuses;
market for goods, especially textiles. By 1814, nobles were encouraged voluntarily to free their
Bologna had five hundred factories and Modena serfs (a few actually did so); and there was even
four hundred. Yet almost everyone had some cause talk of drafting a constitution. But none of these
for complaint. Republicans regretted Napoleon’s efforts reached beneath the surface of Russian life,
conversion of the sister republics into kingdoms. and by the second decade of his reign Alexander
Tax increases and ever-rising conscription quotas began to reject the Enlightenment spirit that his
fomented discontent as well. The annexed territo- grandmother Catherine the Great had instilled
ries and satellite kingdoms paid half the cost of in him.
Napoleon’s wars.
Almost everywhere, conflicts arose between The Continental System. The one power always
Napoleon’s desire for a standardized, centralized standing between Napoleon and total dominance
government and local insistence on maintaining of Europe was Great Britain. The British ruled
customs and traditions. Sometimes his own the seas and financed anyone who would oppose
relatives sided with the countries they ruled. Napoleon. In an effort to bankrupt this “nation of
Napoleon’s brother Louis, for instance, would not shopkeepers” by choking its trade, Napoleon inau-
allow conscription in the Netherlands because the gurated the Continental System in 1806. It pro-
Dutch had never had compulsory military service. hibited all commerce between Great Britain and
When Napoleon tried to introduce an economic France or France’s dependent states and allies. At
policy banning trade with Great Britain, Louis’s lax first, the system worked: British exports dropped
enforcement prompted the frustrated emperor to by 20 percent in 1807–1808, and manufacturing
complain that “Holland is an English province.” In declined by 10 percent; unemployment and a
1810, Napoleon annexed the satellite kingdom be- strike of sixty thousand workers in northern
cause his brother had become too sympathetic to England resulted. The British retaliated by confis-
Dutch interests. cating merchandise on ships, even those of pow-
ers neutral in the wars, that sailed into or out of
Pressure for Reform in Prussia and Russia. ports from which the British were excluded by the
Napoleon’s victories forced defeated rulers to Continental System.
rethink their political and cultural assumptions. In the midst of continuing wars, moreover, the
After the crushing defeat of Prussia in 1806 left his system proved impossible to enforce, and wide-
country greatly reduced in territory, Frederick spread smuggling brought British goods into the
William III (r. 1797–1840) appointed a reform European market. British growth continued, de-
commission, and on its recommendation he abol- spite some setbacks; calico-printing works, for ex-
ished serfdom and allowed non-nobles to buy and ample, quadrupled their production, and imports
enclose land. Peasants gained their personal inde- of raw cotton increased by 40 percent. At the same
pendence from their noble landlords, who could time, French and other continental industries ben-
no longer sell them to pay gambling debts, for ex- efited from the temporary protection from British
ample, or refuse them permission to marry. Yet the competition.
lives of the former serfs remained bleak; they were
left without land, and their landlords no longer Resistance to French Rule, 1807–1812. Smug-
had to care for them in hard times. The king’s ad- gling British goods was only one way of opposing
visers also overhauled the army to make the high the French. Almost everywhere in Europe, resist-
command more efficient and to open the way to ance began as local opposition to French demands
the appointment of middle-class officers. Prussia for money or draftees, but it eventually prompted
instituted these reforms to try to compete with the a more nationalistic patriotic defense. In southern
French, not to promote democracy. As one re- Italy, gangs of bandits harassed the French army
former wrote to Frederick William, “We must do and local officials; thirty-three thousand Italian
from above what the French have done from bandits were arrested in 1809 alone. But resistance
below.” continued via a network of secret societies, called
Reform received lip service in Russia. Tsar the carbonari (“charcoal burners”), which got
Alexander I had gained his throne after an aristo- its name from the practice of marking each
cratic coup deposed and killed his autocratic and new member’s forehead with a charcoal mark.
capricious father, Paul (r. 1796–1801), and in the
early years of his reign the remorseful young ruler
Continental System: The boycott of British goods in France and
created Western-style ministries, lifted restrictions its satellites ordered by Napoleon in 1806; it had success but
on importing foreign books, and founded six new was later undermined by smuggling.
632 C h a pt e r 2 0 ■ N a p o l e o n a n d t h e R evo lu t i o n a ry Le g ac y 1800–1830

Throughout the nineteenth century, the carbonari than any European ruler had since Roman times.
played a leading role in Italian nationalism. In the Only two major European states remained fully in-
German states, intellectuals wrote passionate de- dependent — Great Britain and Russia — but once
fenses of the virtues of the German nation and of allied they would successfully challenge his domin-
the superiority of German literature. ion and draw many other states to their side.
No nations bucked under Napoleon’s reins Britain sent aid to the Portuguese and Spanish
more than Spain and Portugal. In 1807, Napoleon rebels, while Russia once again prepared for war.
sent 100,000 troops through Spain to invade Tsar Alexander I made peace with Turkey and al-
Portugal, Great Britain’s ally. The royal family fled lied himself with Great Britain and Sweden. In
to the Portuguese colony of 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia with 250,000
0 100 200 miles
Brazil, but fighting continued, horses and 600,000 men, including contingents of
0 100 200 kilometers
aided by a British army. When Italians, Poles, Swiss, Dutch, and Germans. This
Corunna FRANCE Napoleon got his brother daring move proved to be his undoing.
1809 Vitoria Joseph named king of Spain in
08

1813

Invasion of Russia, 1812.
18

PORTUGAL 1812
Salamanca b place of the senile Charles IV Napoleon followed his
E

r
1807  (r. 1788–1808), the Spanish usual strategy of trying to strike quickly, but the
oR

Barcelona
.

Tagu SPAIN  1809



s R.  Saragossa
1809
clergy and nobles raised bands Russian generals avoided confrontation and re-
 Madrid
Lisbon 
1809 Badajos
1808
Valencia of peasants to fight the French treated eastward, destroying anything that might
1812 1808
occupiers. Even Napoleon’s be useful to the invaders. In September, on the road
Seville
taking personal command of to Moscow, Napoleon finally engaged the main
 Gibraltar Mediterranean Sea
(Br.)
the French forces failed to quell Russian force in the gigantic battle of Borodino
Campaigns of the Spanish, who for six years (see Map 20.1, page 628). French casualties num-
Napoleon’s army fought a war of national inde- bered 30,000 men, including 47 generals; the
 Battle
pendence that pinned down Russians lost 45,000. The French soldiers had
thousands of French soldiers. nothing to celebrate around their campfires: as one
The Spanish War for
Germaine de Staël commented soldier wrote, “Everyone . . . wept for some dead
Independence, 1807–1813
that Napoleon “never under- friend.” Once again the Russians retreated, leaving
stood that a war might be a crusade. . . . He never Moscow undefended. Napoleon entered the de-
reckoned with the one power that no arms could serted city, but the victory turned hollow because
overcome — the enthusiasm of a whole people.” the departing Russians had set the wooden city on
More than a new feeling of nationalism was fire. Within a week, three-fourths of it had burned
aroused in Spain. Peasants hated French requisi- to the ground. Still Alexander refused to negotiate,
tioning of their food supplies and sought to de- and French morale plunged with worsening prob-
fend their priests against French anticlericalism. lems of supply. Weeks of constant marching in the
Spanish nobles feared revolutionary reforms and dirt and heat had worn down the foot soldiers,
were willing to defend the old monarchy in the who were dying of disease or deserting in large
person of the young Ferdinand VII, heir to Charles numbers (see Document, “An Ordinary Soldier on
IV, even while Ferdinand himself was congratu- Campaign with Napoleon,” page 633).
lating Napoleon on his victories. The Spanish In October, Napoleon began his retreat; in
Catholic church spread anti-French propaganda November came the cold. A German soldier in the
that equated Napoleon with heresy. As the former Grand Army described trying to cook fistfuls of
archbishop of Seville wrote to the archbishop of raw bran with snow to make something like bread.
Granada in 1808, “You realize that we must not For him, the retreat was “the indescribable horror
recognize as king a freemason, heretic, Lutheran, of all possible plagues.” Within a week the Grand
as are all the Bonapartes and the French nation.” Army lost 30,000 horses and had to abandon most
In this tense atmosphere, the Spanish peasant of its artillery and food supplies. Russian forces ha-
rebels, assisted by the British, countered every rassed the retreating army, now more pathetic
French massacre with atrocities of their own. They than grand. By December only 100,000 troops re-
tortured their French prisoners (boiling one gen- mained, one-sixth the original number, and the
eral alive) and lynched collaborators. retreat had turned into a rout: the Russians had
captured 200,000 soldiers, including 48 generals
and 3,000 other officers.
From Russian Winter to
Napoleon had made a classic military mistake
Final Defeat, 1812–1815 that would be repeated by Adolf Hitler in World
Despite opposition, Napoleon ruled over an exten- War II: fighting a war on two distant fronts simul-
sive empire by 1812. He controlled more territory taneously. The Spanish war tied down 250,000
1800–1830 “ E u ro p e Wa s at My Fe et ” : N a p o l e o n’s C o n qu e s t s 633

DOCUMENT

An Ordinary Soldier on Campaign with Napoleon


Jakob Walter (1788–1864) recorded his ex- Moshaisk the war displayed its horrible brought everyone close to death; and eye
perience as a soldier in the Napoleonic work of destruction: all the roads, fields, pains, fatigue, thirst, and hunger tor-
armies marching to Moscow in 1812. He and woods lay as though sown with mented everybody. God! How often I re-
wrote his account sometime after the events people, horses, wagons, burned villages membered the bread and beer which I had
took place, though exactly when is not and cities; everything looked like the com- enjoyed at home with such an indifferent
known. Walter was a German conscripted plete ruin of all that lived. In particular, we pleasure! Now, however, I must struggle,
into military service from one of the many saw ten dead Russians to one of our men, half wild, with the dead and living. How
west German states controlled by Napoleon. although every day our numbers fell off gladly would I renounce for my whole life
The selection here describes the Napoleonic considerably. In order to pass through the warm food so common at home if I
armies still on the offensive moving toward woods, swamps, and narrow trails, trees only did not lack good bread and beer
Moscow. But the seeds of future problems which formed barriers in the woods had now! I would not wish for more all my life.
are already germinating. to be removed, and wagon barricades of But these were empty, helpless thoughts.
the enemy had to be cleared away. . . . The Yes, the thought of my brothers and sis-
On August 19, the entire army moved for- march up to there, as far as it was a march, ters so far away added to my pain! Wher-
ward, and pursued the Russians with all is indescribable and inconceivable for ever I looked, I saw the soldiers with dead,
speed. Four or five hours’ farther up the people who have not seen anything of it. half-desperate faces.
river another battle started, but the enemy The very great heat, the dust which was
did not hold out long, and the march now like a thick fog, the closed line of march Source: Marc Raeff, ed., Jakob Walter: The Diary of
led to Moshaisk [near Borodino], the so- in columns, and the putrid water from a Napoleonic Foot Soldier (New York: Doubleday,
called “Holy Valley.” From Smolensk to holes filled with dead people and cattle 1991), 52–53.

French troops and forced Napoleon to bully Prussia who abdicated when his remaining generals
and Austria into supplying soldiers of dubious loy- refused to fight. Napoleon went into exile on the
alty for the Moscow campaign. They deserted at island of Elba off the Italian coast. His wife, Marie-
the first opportunity. The fighting in Spain and Louise, refused to accompany him. The allies
Portugal also exacerbated the already substantial restored to the throne Louis XVIII (r. 1814–1824),
logistical and communications problems involved the brother of Louis XVI, beheaded during the
in marching to Moscow. Revolution. (Louis XVI’s son was known as Louis
XVII even though he died in prison in 1795 with-
The End of Napoleon’s Empire. Napoleon’s hu- out ever ruling.)
miliation might have been temporary if the British Napoleon had one last chance to regain
and Russians had not successfully organized a power because Louis XVIII lacked a solid base of
coalition to complete the job. Napoleon still had support. The new king tried to steer a middle
resources at his command; by the spring of 1813, course through a charter that established a
he had replenished his army with another 250,000 British-style monarchy with a two-house legisla-
men. With British financial support, Russian, ture and guaranteed civil rights. But he was
Austrian, Prussian, and Swedish armies met the caught between nobles returning from exile who
French outside Leipzig in October 1813 and defeated demanded a complete restoration of their lands
Napoleon in the Battle of the Nations. One by one, and powers, and the vast majority of ordinary
Napoleon’s German allies deserted him to join the people who had supported either the republic or
German nationalist “war of liberation.” The Con- Napoleon during the previous twenty-five years.
federation of the Rhine dissolved, and the Dutch Sensing an opportunity, Napoleon escaped from
revolted and restored the prince of Orange. Joseph Elba in early 1815 and, landing in southern
Bonaparte fled Spain, and a combined Spanish- France, made swift and unimpeded progress to
Portuguese army under British command invaded Paris. Although he had left in ignominy, now
France. In only a few months, the allied powers crowds cheered him and former soldiers volun-
crossed the Rhine and marched toward Paris. In teered to serve him. The period eventually known
March 1814, the French Senate deposed Napoleon, as the Hundred Days (the length of time between
634 C h a pt e r 2 0 ■ N a p o l e o n a n d t h e R evo lu t i o n a ry Le g ac y 1800–1830

CONTRASTING VIEWS

Napoleon: For and Against

After his final exile, Napoleon presented himself as a martyr to the ouverte aux talents [“careers open to talent”] without distinction
cause of liberty whose goal was to create a European “federation of birth or fortune, and this system of equality is the reason that
of free people.” Few were convinced by this “gospel according to your oligarchy hates me so much.
St. Helena” (Document 1). Followers such as Emmanuel de Las
Source: R. M. Johnston, The Corsican: A Diary of Napoleon’s Life in His Own
Cases burnished the Napoleonic legend, but detractors such as Words (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1921), 492.
Benjamin Constant viewed him as a tyrant (Document 2). For all
his defects, Napoleon fascinated even those who were too young to
understand his rise and fall. The French romantic poet Victor Hugo
2. Benjamin Constant, Spokesman for
celebrated both the glory and the tragedy of Napoleonic ambitions
the Liberal Opposition to Napoleon
(Document 3).
Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) came from an old French Calvin-
ist family that had fled to Switzerland to escape persecution. Con-
1. Napoleon’s Own View from Exile
stant spent the early years of the French Revolution in a minor post
As might be expected, Napoleon put the most positive possible con- at a minor German court. He moved to Paris in 1795 and became
struction on his plans for France. In exile he wrote letters and talked active in French politics during the Directory. Under Napoleon
at length to Emmanuel de Las Cases (1766–1842), an aristocratic he went into exile, where he published a romantic novel, Adolphe
officer in the royal navy who rallied to Napoleon in 1802, served in (1806), and pamphlets like this one attacking Napoleon. He recon-
the Council of State, and later accompanied him to St. Helena. ciled to Napoleon during the Hundred Days and then opposed the
Much of what we know about Napoleon’s views comes from a book restored Bourbon monarchy. In this selection, written during his ex-
published by Las Cases in 1821. ile, he expresses his hostility to Napoleon as a usurper dependent
on war to maintain himself in power.
March 3, 1817:
In spite of all the libels, I have no fear whatever about my Surely, Bonaparte is a thousand times more guilty than those bar-
fame. Posterity will do me justice. The truth will be known; and barous conquerors who, ruling over barbarians, were by no
the good I have done will be compared with the faults I have means at odds with their age. Unlike them, he has chosen bar-
committed. I am not uneasy as to the result. Had I succeeded, I barism; he has preferred it. In the midst of enlightenment, he has
would have died with the reputation of the greatest man that sought to bring back the night. He has chosen to transform into
ever existed. As it is, although I have failed, I shall be considered greedy and bloodthirsty nomads a mild and polite people: his
as an extraordinary man: my elevation was unparalleled, because crime lies in this premeditated intention, in his obstinate effort
unaccompanied by crime. I have fought fifty pitched battles, to rob us of the heritage of all the enlightened generations who
almost all of which I have won. I have framed and carried into have preceded us on this earth. But why have we given him the
effect a code of laws that will bear my name to the most distant right to conceive such a project?
posterity. I raised myself from nothing to be the most powerful When he first arrived here, alone, out of poverty and ob-
monarch in the world. Europe was at my feet. I have always been scurity, and until he was twenty-four, his greedy gaze wandering
of the opinion that the sovereignty lay in the people. In fact, the over the country around him, why did we show him a country
imperial government was a kind of republic. Called to the head in which any religious idea was the object of irony? [Constant
of it by the voice of the nation, my maxim was, la carrière est refers here to de-Christianization during the French Revolution.]

Napoleon’s escape and his final defeat) had be- British troops led by British general Sir Arthur
gun. Louis XVIII fled across the border, waiting Wellesley (1769–1852), duke of Wellington. The
for help from France’s enemies. decisive battle took place on June 18, 1815, at
Napoleon quickly moved his reconstituted Waterloo, less than ten miles from Brussels.
army of 74,000 men into present-day Belgium. At Napoleon’s forces attacked Wellington’s men first
first, it seemed that he might succeed in separately with infantry and then with cavalry, but the French
fighting the two armies arrayed against him — a failed to dislodge their opponents. Late in the af-
Prussian army of some 60,000 men and a joint ternoon, the Prussians arrived and the rout was
force of 68,000 Belgian, Dutch, German, and complete. Napoleon had no choice but to abdicate
1800–1830 “ E u ro p e Wa s at My Fe et ” : N a p o l e o n’s C o n qu e s t s 635

When he listened to what was professed in our circles, why did These Isles, where Ocean’s shattered spray
serious thinkers tell him that man had no other motivation than Upon the ruthless rocks is cast,
his own interest? . . . Seem like two treacherous ships of prey,
Because immediate usurpation was easy, he believed it could Made by eternal anchors fast.
be durable, and once he became a usurper, he did all that usurpa- The hand that settled bleak and black
tion condemns a usurper to do in our century. Those shores on their unpeopled rack,
It was necessary to stifle inside the country all intellectual life: And clad in fear and mystery,
he banished discussion and proscribed the freedom of the press. Perchance thus made them tempest-torn,
The nation might have been stunned by that silence: he pro- That Bonaparte might there be born,
vided, extorted or paid for acclamation which sounded like the And that Napoleon there might die. . . .
national voice. . . . War flung onto distant shores that part of the He his imperial nest hath built so far and high,
French nation that still had some real energy. It prompted the He seems to us to dwell within that tranquil sky,
police harassment of the timid, whom it could not force abroad. Where you shall never see the angry tempest break.
It struck terror into men’s hearts, and left there a certain hope ’Tis but beneath his feet the growling storms are sped,
that chance would take responsibility for their deliverance: a hope And thunders to assault his head
agreeable to fear and convenient to inertia. How many times have Must to their highest source go back.
I heard men who were pressed to resist tyranny postponing this, The bolt flew upwards: from his eyrie [nest] riven,
during wartime till the coming of peace, and in peacetime until Blazing he falls beneath the stroke of heaven;
war commences! Then kings their tyrant foe reward —
I am right therefore in claiming that a usurper’s sole re- They chain him, living, on that lonely shore;
source is uninterrupted war. Some object: what if Bonaparte had And earth captive giant handed o’er
been pacific? Had he been pacific, he would never have lasted for To ocean’s more resistless guard. . . .
twelve years. Peace would have re-established communication Shame, hate, misfortune, vengeance, curses sore,
among the different countries of Europe. These communications On him let heaven and earth together pour:
would have restored to thought its means of expression. Works Now, see we dashed the vast Colossus low.
published abroad would have been smuggled into the country. May he forever rue, alive and dead,
The French would have seen that they did not enjoy the approval All tears he caused mankind to shed,
of the majority of Europe. And all the blood he caused to flow.
Source: Benjamin Constant, “Further Reflections on Usurpation,” in Political Source: Henry Carrington, Translations from the Poems of Victor Hugo
Writings, trans. Biancamaria Fontana (Cambridge: Cambridge University (London: Walter Scott, 1885), 34–41.
Press, 1988), 161–63.

3. Victor Hugo, “The Two Islands” (1825)


Questions to Consider
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) was France’s greatest romantic poet and 1. Which of these views of Napoleon has the most lasting value
novelist, author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Mis- as opposed to immediate dramatic effect?
érables. His father was a Napoleonic general, but his mother was 2. According to these selections, what was Napoleon’s greatest ac-
an equally ardent royalist. In this early poem, Hugo compares complishment? His greatest failure?
Napoleon to one of Napoleon’s favorite icons, the eagle, symbol of 3. Victor Hugo called Napoleon “the vast Colossus.” Why did he
empire. The two islands of the title are Corsica, Napoleon’s birth- pick this larger-than-life metaphor even when writing lines
place, and St. Helena, his place of final exile and death. critical of Napoleon’s legacy of tears and bloodshed?

again. This time the victorious allies banished him for a united Europe, his insistence on spreading
permanently to the remote island of St. Helena, far the legal reforms of the French Revolution, his so-
off the coast of West Africa, where he died in 1821 cial welfare programs, and even his inadvertent
at the age of fifty-two. awakening of national sentiment set the agenda for
The cost of Napoleon’s rule was high: 750,000 European history in the modern era.
French soldiers and 400,000 others from annexed
and satellite states died between 1800 and 1815. Review: Why was Napoleon able to gain control over
Yet his impact on world history was undeniable. so much of Europe’s territory?
(See “Contrasting Views,” above.) Napoleon’s plans
636 C h a pt e r 2 0 ■ N a p o l e o n a n d t h e R evo lu t i o n a ry Le g ac y 1800–1830

The “Restoration” the congress had to decide the fate of Napoleon’s


duchy of Warsaw, the German province of Saxony,
of Europe the Netherlands, the states once part of the Con-
federation of the Rhine, and various Italian terri-
Even while Napoleon was making his last desper- tories. All had either changed hands or been
ate bid for power, his enemies were meeting in the created during the wars. These issues were resolved
Congress of Vienna (1814–1815) to decide the fate by face-to-face negotiations among representatives
of postrevolutionary, post-Napoleonic Europe. Al- of the five major powers: Austria, Russia, Prussia,
though interrupted by the Hundred Days, the Britain, and France. With its aim to establish a
Congress of Vienna settled the boundaries of long-lasting, negotiated peace endorsed by all
European states, determined who would rule each parties, both winners and losers, the Congress of
nation, and established a new framework for in- Vienna provided a model for the twentieth-century
ternational relations based on periodic meetings, League of Nations and United Nations. The con-
or congresses, between the major powers. The gress system, or “concert of Europe,” helped pre-
doctrine of conservatism bolstered this post- vent another major war until the 1850s, and no
Napoleonic order and in some places went hand conflict comparable to the Napoleonic wars would
in hand with a revival of religion. occur again until 1914.
Austria’s chief negotiator, Prince Klemens von
Metternich (1773–1859), took the lead in devis-
The Congress of Vienna, 1814–1815 ing the settlement and shaping the post-
The Vienna settlement established a new equilib- Napoleonic order. A well-educated nobleman who
rium that relied on cooperation among the major spoke five languages, Metternich served as a min-
powers while guaranteeing the status of smaller ister in the Austrian cabinet from 1809 to 1848. Al-
states. The revolutionary and Napoleonic wars had though his penchant for womanizing made him a
produced a host of potentially divisive issues. In security risk in the eyes of the British Foreign Of-
addition to determining the boundaries of France, fice (he even had an affair with Napoleon’s younger

Congress of Vienna: Face-to-face negotiations (1814–1815) be- Klemens von Metternich (KLAY mehnts fawn MEH tur nihk):
tween the great powers to settle the boundaries of European An Austrian prince (1773–1859) who took the lead in devising
states and determine who would rule each nation after the de- the settlement arranged by the Congress of Vienna.
feat of Napoleon.

Congress of Vienna
An unknown French engraver caricatured the efforts of the diplomats at the Congress of
Vienna, complaining that they used the occasion to divide the spoils of European territory.
What elements in this engraving make it a caricature? (Copyright Wien Museum.)
1800–1830 Th e “ R e s to r at i o n ” o f E u ro p e 637

A=Parma FINLAND
Prussia
B=Modena SWEDEN AND NORWAY
Austrian Empire St. Petersburg
France C=Lucca
Piedmont-Sardinia D=Tuscany
Russia E=San Marino

a
German States Moscow

Se
N or t h 
Boundary of S ea ti

c
German Confederation DENMARK
B al
GREAT
N BRITAIN DS  Hamburg PRUSSIA RUSSIA
Amsterdam

AN
W 
London Berlin 

RL
Warsaw
E 

HE
KINGDOM OF

NET
S English Channel
Saxony POLAND

ATLANTIC Paris GERMAN


 CONFEDERATION
OCEAN
Bavaria Vienna 

FRANCE SWITZ. AU S T R I A N E M P I R E
Savoy
Lombardy etia
Genoa A B Ven D
 E
Nice al
m Black Sea
C PAPAL at
D ia
PORTUGAL STATES O
T

Madrid
Corsica T
O
 Rome M Constantinople
Lisbon SPA IN PIEDMONT- AN 
SARDINIA EM
Naples
PI
KINGDOM RE
OF THE
Mediterranean Sea TWO SICILIES
0 200 400 miles
0 200 400 kilometers

MAP 20.2 Europe after the Congress of Vienna, 1815


The Congress of Vienna forced France to return to its 1789 borders. The Austrian Netherlands and the
Dutch Republic were united in a new kingdom of the Netherlands, the German states were joined in a
German Confederation that built on Napoleon’s Confederation of the Rhine, and Napoleon’s duchy of
Warsaw became the kingdom of Poland with the tsar of Russia as king. To compensate for its losses
in Poland, Prussia gained territory in Saxony and on the left bank of the Rhine. Austria reclaimed the
Italian provinces of Lombardy and Venetia and the Dalmatian coast.

sister), he worked with the British prime minister The task of ensuring France’s status at the con-
Robert Castlereagh (1769–1822) to ensure a mod- gress fell to Prince Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
erate agreement that would check French aggres- (1754–1838), an aristocrat and former bishop who
sion yet maintain France’s great-power status. had embraced the French Revolution, served as
Metternich and Castlereagh believed that French Napoleon’s foreign minister, and ended as foreign
aggression must be contained because it had minister to Louis XVIII after helping to arrange
threatened the European peace since the days of the emperor’s overthrow. Informed of Talleyrand’s
Louis XIV but at the same time that France must betrayal, Napoleon called him “excrement in silk
remain a major player to prevent any one European stockings.” When the French army failed to oppose
power from dominating the others. In this way, Napoleon’s return to power in the Hundred Days,
France could help Austria and Britain counter the the allies took away all territory conquered since
ambitions of Prussia and Russia. Castlereagh 1790 and required France to pay an indemnity and
hoped to make Britain the arbiter of European support an army of occupation until it had paid.
affairs, but he knew this could be accomplished The goal of the Congress of Vienna was to
only through adroit diplomacy because the British achieve postwar stability by establishing secure
constitutional monarchy had little in common states with guaranteed borders (Map 20.2). Be-
with most of its more absolutist continental coun- cause the congress aimed to “restore” as many
terparts. regimes as possible to their former rulers, this
638 C h a pt e r 2 0 ■ N a p o l e o n a n d t h e R evo lu t i o n a ry Le g ac y 1800–1830

epoch is sometimes labeled the restoration. But longer “natural” and “timeless.” It had been ousted
simple restoration was not always feasible, and in once and therefore might fall again. People insisted
those cases the congress rearranged territory to on having reasons to believe in their “restored”
balance the competing interests of the great pow- governments. The political doctrine that justified
ers. Thus, the congress turned the duchy of Warsaw the restoration was conservatism.
into a new Polish kingdom but made the tsar of Conservatives benefited from the disillusion-
Russia its king. (Poland would not regain its inde- ment that permeated Europe after 1815. In the eyes
pendence until 1918.) The former Dutch Repub- of most Europeans, Napoleon had become a tyrant
lic and the Austrian Netherlands, both annexed to who ruled in his own interests. Conservatives saw
France, now united as the new kingdom of the a logical progression in recent history: the Enlight-
Netherlands under the restored stadholder. Austria enment, based on reason, led to the French Revo-
took charge of the German Confederation, which lution, with its bloody guillotine and horrifying
replaced the defunct Holy Roman Empire and also Terror, which in turn spawned the authoritarian
included Prussia. and militaristic Napoleon. Therefore, those who
The lesser powers were not forgotten. The espoused conservatism rejected both the Enlight-
kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia took Genoa, Nice, enment and the French Revolution. They favored
and part of Savoy. Sweden obtained Norway from monarchies over republics, tradition over revolu-
Denmark but had to accept Russia’s conquest of tion, and established religion over Enlightenment
Finland. Finally, various international trade issues skepticism.
were also resolved. At the urging of Great Britain, The original British critic of the French Rev-
the congress agreed to condemn in principle the olution, Edmund Burke (1729–1799), inspired
slave trade, abolished by Great Britain in 1807. In many of the conservatives that followed. He had
reality, however, the slave trade continued in many argued that the revolutionaries erred in thinking
places until the 1840s. they could construct an entirely new government
To impart spiritual substance to this very cal- based on reason. Government, Burke said, had to
culated settlement of political affairs, Tsar Alexan- be rooted in long experience, which evolved over
der proposed a Holy Alliance calling upon divine generations. All change must be gradual and must
assistance in upholding religion, peace, and justice. respect national and historical traditions. Like
Prussia and Austria signed the agreement, but Burke, later conservatives believed that religious
Great Britain refused to accede to what Castlereagh and other major traditions were an essential foun-
called “a piece of sublime mysticism and non- dation for any society. Most of them took their re-
sense.” Despite the reassertion of traditional reli- sistance to change even further, however, and tried
gious principle, the congress had in fact given birth to restore the pre-1789 social order.
to a new diplomatic order: in the future, the legit- Conservatives blamed the French Revolution’s
imacy of states depended on the treaty system, not attack on religion on the skepticism and anticler-
on divine right. icalism of such Enlightenment thinkers as Voltaire,
and they defended both hereditary monarchy and
the authority of the church, whether Catholic or
The Emergence of Conservatism Protestant. Louis de Bonald, an official under the
The French Revolution and Napoleonic domina- restored French monarchy, insisted that “the rev-
tion of Europe had shown contemporaries that olution began with the declaration of the rights
government could be changed overnight, that the of man and will only finish when the rights of
old hierarchies could be overthrown in the name God are declared.” The declaration of rights, he
of reason, and that even Christianity could be writ- asserted, represented the evil influence of Enlight-
ten off or at least profoundly altered with the enment philosophy and with it atheism, Protes-
stroke of a pen. The potential for rapid change tantism, and freemasonry, which he lumped
raised many questions about the proper sources of together. An enduring social order could only be
authority. Kings and churches could be restored constructed, in this view, on the foundations pro-
and former revolutionaries locked up or silenced, vided by the church, the state, and the patriarchal
but the old order no longer commanded automatic family. Faith, sentiment, history, and tradition
obedience. The old order was now merely old, no
conservatism: A political doctrine that emerged after 1789
and rejected much of the Enlightenment and the French Rev-
restoration: The epoch after the fall of Napoleon, in which the olution, preferring monarchies over republics, tradition over
Congress of Vienna aimed to “restore” as many regimes as pos- revolution, and established religion over Enlightenment
sible to their former rulers. skepticism.
1800–1830 Th e “ R e s to r at i o n ” o f E u ro p e 639

must fill the vacuum left by the failures of reason The English Methodists followed John Wesley
and excessive belief in individual rights. Across (1703–1791), who had preached an emotional,
Europe, these views were taken up and elaborated morally austere, and very personal “method” of
by government advisers, professors, and writers. gaining salvation. The Methodists, or Wesleyans,
Not surprisingly, they had their strongest appeal gradually separated from the Church of England
in ruling circles and guided the politics of men and in the early decades of the nineteenth century
such as Metternich in Austria, Alexander I in attracted thousands of members in huge revival
Russia, and the restored Bourbons in France. meetings that lasted for days.
The restored French monarchy provided a Shopkeepers, artisans, agricultural laborers,
major test for conservatism because the returning miners, and workers in cottage industry, both male
Bourbons had to confront the legacy of twenty- and female, flocked to the new denomination, even
five years of upheaval. Louis XVIII tried to ensure though at first Methodism seemed to emphasize
a measure of continuity by maintaining Napoleon’s conservative political views: Methodist statutes of
Civil Code. He also guaranteed the rights of 1792 had insisted that “none of us shall either in
ownership to church lands sold during the revo- writing or in conversation speak lightly or irrever-
lutionary period and created a parliament com-
posed of a Chamber of Peers nominated by the
king and a Chamber of Deputies elected by very
restricted suffrage (fewer than 100,000 voters in a A Protestant Missionary in India
population of 30 million). In making these con- This colored engraving shows the English Baptist
cessions, the king tried to follow a moderate course missionary William Carey (1761–1834) baptizing his first
of compromise, but the Ultras (ultraroyalists) Hindu convert. Carey went to India in 1793 and spent forty
years there as a teacher and a preacher. He led efforts to
pushed for complete repudiation of the revolu-
get the British governor general to outlaw the Hindu rite of
tionary past. When Louis returned to power after sati, the burning of widows with their husbands. He
Napoleon’s final defeat, armed royalist bands at- became professor of Indian languages at Fort William
tacked and murdered hundreds of Bonapartists College, established in Calcutta for training British officials
and former revolutionaries. In 1816, the Ultras in- and supervised the translation of the Bible into more than
sisted on abolishing divorce and set up special forty local languages. (The Granger Collection, New York.)
courts to punish opponents of the regime.
When an assassin killed Louis XVIII’s nephew in
1820, the Ultras demanded even more extreme
measures.

The Revival of Religion


The experience of revolutionary upheaval and
nearly constant warfare prompted many to renew
their religious faith once peace returned. In France,
the Catholic church sent missionaries to hold
open-air “ceremonies of reparation” to express re-
pentance for the outrages of revolution. In Rome,
the papacy reestablished the Jesuit order, which
had been disbanded during the Enlightenment. In
the Italian states and Spain, governments used re-
ligious societies of laypeople to combat the influ-
ence of reformers and nationalists such as the
Italian carbonari.
Revivalist movements, especially in Protestant
countries, could on occasion challenge the status
quo rather than supporting it. In parts of Protes-
tant Germany and Britain, religious revival had be-
gun in the eighteenth century with the rise of
Pietism and Methodism, movements that stressed
individual religious experience rather than reason
as the true path to moral and social reform.
640 C h a pt e r 2 0 ■ N a p o l e o n a n d t h e R evo lu t i o n a ry Le g ac y 1800–1830

ently of the government.” In their hostility to rigid Vienna settlement. Isolated revolts threatened the
doctrine and elaborate ritual and their encourage- hold of some conservative governments in the
ment of popular preaching, however, the 1820s, but most of these rebellions were quickly
Methodists fostered a sense of democratic com- bottled up. Then in 1830, successive uprisings
munity and even a rudimentary sexual equality. briefly overwhelmed the established order. Across
From the beginning, women preachers traveled on Europe, angry protesters sought constitutional
horseback to preach in barns, town halls, and tex- guarantees of individual liberties and national
tile dye houses. The Methodist Sunday schools that unity and autonomy. The revolutionary legacy
taught thousands of poor children to read and came back to life again.
write eventually helped create greater demands for
working-class political participation.
Romanticism
The religious revival was not limited to
Europe. In the United States, the second Great An artistic movement that encompassed poetry,
Awakening began around 1790 with huge camp music, painting, history, and literature, romanti-
meetings that brought together thousands of wor- cism glorified nature, emotion, genius, and imag-
shippers and scores of evangelical preachers, many ination. (See Chapter 18 for the origins of
of them Methodist. (The original Great Awaken- romanticism.) It proclaimed these as antidotes to
ing took place in the 1730s and 1740s, sparked by the Enlightenment and to classicism in the arts,
the preaching of George Whitefield, a young En- challenging the reliance on reason, symmetry, and
glish evangelist and follower of John Wesley.) Men cool geometric spaces. Classicism idealized mod-
and women danced to exhaustion, fell into trances, els from Roman history; romanticism turned to
and spoke in tongues. During this period, Protes- folklore and medieval legends. Classicism cele-
tant sects began systematic missionary activity in brated orderly, crisp lines; romantics sought out
other parts of the world, with British and American all that was wild, fevered, and disorderly. Chief
missionary societies taking the lead in the 1790s among the arts of romanticism were poetry, mu-
and early 1800s. In the British colony of India, for sic, and painting, which captured the deep-seated
example, Protestant missionaries argued for the re- emotion characteristic of romantic expression.
form of Hindu customs. Sati — the burning of Romantics might take any political position, but
widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands — they exerted the most political influence when they
was abolished by the British administration of In- expressed nationalist feelings.
dia in 1829. Missionary activity by Protestants and
Catholics would become one of the arms of Euro- Romantic Poetry. Romantic poetry celebrated
pean imperialism and cultural influence in the overwhelming emotion and creative imagination.
nineteenth century. George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824), ex-
plained his aims in writing poetry:
Review: To what extent was the old order restored by For what is Poesy but to create
the Congress of Vienna? From overfeeling, Good and Ill, and aim
At an external life beyond our fate,
And be the new Prometheus of new man.

Prometheus was the mythological figure who


Challenges to the brought fire from the Greek gods to human be-
Conservative Order ings. Byron did not seek the new Prometheus
among political leaders or manufacturers of new
Conservatives hoped to clamp a lid on European wealth; he sought him within his own “overfeel-
affairs, but the lid kept threatening to fly off. ing,” his own intense emotions. Byron became a
Drawing on the turmoil in society and politics was romantic hero himself when he rushed off to act
romanticism, the burgeoning international move- on his emotions by fighting and dying in the Greek
ment in the arts and literature that dominated war for independence from the Turks. An English
artistic expression in the first half of the nineteenth aristocrat, Byron nonetheless claimed, “I have sim-
century. Although romantics shared with conser- plified my politics into a detestation of all existing
vatives a distrust of the Enlightenment’s emphasis governments.”
on reason, romanticism did not translate into a Romantic poetry elevated the wonders of na-
unified political position. It did, however, heighten ture almost to the supernatural. In a poem that be-
the general discontent with the conservative came one of the most beloved exemplars of
1800–1830 C h a ll e n g e s to t h e C o n s e rvat i ve O r d e r 641

Lord Byron
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824), lived a
short, tumultuous life; wrote enduring romantic
poetry; loved both women and young men; and died
struggling for Greek independence. During the
Napoleonic wars, he took a two-year trip through
southern Europe. He visited Greece and Albania and
collected souvenir costumes, such as the one he is
wearing in this portrait by Thomas Philips (1813). As a
result of this trip, he became passionately involved in
things Greek; when the Greek rebellion broke out, he
promptly joined the British Committee, which gathered
aid for the Greeks. He died of a fever in Greece, where
he had gone to distribute funds. How would viewers
have reacted to the costume Byron is wearing? (National
Portrait Gallery, London.)

romanticism, “Tintern Abbey” (1798), the English to the heights of power — in his effort to reshape
poet William Wordsworth (1770–1850) compared nature for humanity’s benefit. Faust’s striving,
himself to a deer even while making nature seem like Frankenstein’s, leaves a wake of suffering and
filled with human emotions (see Document, destruction.
“Wordsworth’s Poetry,” page 642). Like many po-
ets of his time, Wordsworth greeted the French Romantic Painting and Music. Romanticism in
Revolution with joy; in his poem “French Revolu- painting similarly idealized nature and the indi-
tion” (1809), he remembered his early enthusiasm: vidual of deep feelings. The German romantic
“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.” But gradu- painter Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) de-
ally he became disenchanted with the revolution- picted scenes — often far away in the mountains —
ary experiment and celebrated British nationalism that captured the romantic fascination with the
instead; in 1816, he published a poem to com- sublime power of nature (see page 643). His
memorate the “intrepid sons of Albion [England]” melancholy individual figures looked lost in the
who died at the battle of Waterloo. vastness of an overpowering nature. Friedrich
Their emphasis on authentic self-expression at hated the modern world. His landscapes often had
times drew romantics to exotic, mystical, or even religious meaning as well, as in his controversial
reckless experiences. Such transports drove one painting The Cross in the Mountains (1808), which
leading German poet to the madhouse and an- showed a Christian cross standing alone in a
other to suicide. Some romantics depicted the mountain scene. It symbolized the steadfastness of
artist as possessed by demons and obsessed with faith but seemed to separate religion from the
hallucinations. This more nightmarish side was churches and attach it to mystical experience.
captured, and perhaps criticized, by Mary Shelley Many other artists developed similar themes.
in Frankenstein. The aged German poet Johann The English painter Joseph M. W. Turner
Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) likewise de- (1775–1851) depicted his vision of nature in mys-
nounced the extremes of romanticism, calling it terious, misty seascapes, anticipating later artists
“everything that is sick.” In his epic poem Faust by blurring the outlines of objects. The French
(1832), he seemed to warn of the same dangers painter Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) chose con-
Shelley portrayed in her novel. In Goethe’s temporary as well as medieval scenes of great tur-
retelling of a sixteenth-century legend, Faust of- bulence to emphasize light and color and break
fers his soul to the devil in return for a chance to away from what he saw as “the servile copies re-
taste all human experience — from passionate love peated ad nauseum in academies of art.” Critics
642 C h a pt e r 2 0 ■ N a p o l e o n a n d t h e R evo lu t i o n a ry Le g ac y 1800–1830

DOCUMENT

Wordsworth’s Poetry
The son of a lawyer, William Wordsworth And somewhat of a sad perplexity, And their glad animal movements all gone
(1770–1850) studied at Cambridge Uni- The picture of the mind revives again: by)
versity and then traveled to France during While here I stand, not only with the sense To me was all in all. — I cannot paint
the early years of the French Revolution. He Of present pleasure, but with pleasing What then I was. The sounding cataract
returned to England and began publishing thoughts Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
the poetry that for many scholars marks the That in this moment there is life and food The mountain, and the deep and gloomy
beginning of romanticism with its empha- For future years. And so I dare to hope, wood,
sis on the sublime beauties of nature. This Though changed, no doubt, from what I Their colours and their forms, were then
excerpt from “Lines Composed a Few Miles was when first to me
above Tintern Abbey” (1798) shows the I came among these hills; when like a roe An appetite; a feeling and a love,
influence of his extensive walking tours I bounded o’er the mountains, by the That had no need of a remoter charm,
through the English countryside. But the sides By thought supplied, nor any interest
passage also captures the melancholy and Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Unborrowed from the eye. — That time is
nostalgia that characterized much of ro- Wherever nature led: more like a man past.
mantic poetry. Flying from something that he dreads,
than one Source: Paul Davis, ed., Bedford Anthology of
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished Who sought the thing he loved. For nature World Literature. Book 5: The Nineteenth Century,
thought, then 1800–1900 (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003),
With many recognitions dim and faint, (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days, 246–47.

denounced his techniques as “painting with a gious works to symphonies, sonatas, and concer-
drunken broom.” To broaden his experience of tos — showed remarkable diversity. Some of his
light and color, Delacroix traveled in the 1830s to work was explicitly political; his Ninth Symphony
North Africa and painted many exotic scenes in (1824) employed a chorus to sing the German poet
Morocco and Algeria. Friedrich Schiller’s verses in praise of universal hu-
The towering presence of the German com- man solidarity. Beethoven had been an admirer of
poser Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) in Napoleon and even dedicated his Third Sym-
early-nineteenth-century music helped establish phony, the Eroica (1804), to him, but when he
the direction for musical romanticism. His music, learned of Napoleon’s decision to name himself
according to one leading German romantic, “sets emperor, he tore up the dedication in disgust.
in motion the lever of fear, of awe, of horror, of
suffering, and awakens just that infinite longing Romantic Nationalism. If romantics had any
which is the essence of Romanticism.” Beethoven common political thread, it was the support of na-
transformed the symphony into a connected work tionalist aspirations, especially through the search
with recurring and evolving musical themes. Ro- for the historical origins of national identity. In
mantic symphonies conveyed the impression of the German states, the Austrian Empire, Russia
growth, a metaphor for the organic process with and other Slavic lands, and Scandinavia, roman-
an emphasis on the natural that was dear to the tic poets and writers collected old legends and
romantics. For example, Beethoven’s Sixth Sym- folktales that expressed a shared cultural and lin-
phony, the Pastoral (1808), used a variety of in- guistic heritage stretching back to the Middle
struments to represent sounds heard in the Ages. These collections showed that Germany, for
country. Beethoven’s work — ranging from reli- example, had always existed even if it did not cur-
rently take the form of a single unified state. Ro-
mantic nationalism permeated The Betrothed
Ludwig van Beethoven: The German composer (1770–1827) (1825–1827), a novel by Alessandro Manzoni
who helped set the direction of musical romanticism; his music
used recurring and evolving themes to convey the impression (1785–1873) that constituted a kind of bible for
of natural growth. Italian nationalists. Manzoni, the grandson of the
1800–1830 C h a ll e n g e s to t h e C o n s e rvat i ve O r d e r 643

William Blake, The Circle of the Lustful


(1824)
An English romantic poet, painter, engraver,
and printmaker, Blake always sought his
own way. Self-taught, he began writing
poetry at age twelve and apprenticed
himself to an engraver at fourteen. His
works incorporate many otherworldly
attributes; they are quite literally
visionary—imagining other worlds. In this
engraving of hell, the twisting, turning
figures are caught up in a kind of spiritual
ether. Can you find elements in this
engraving that reflect a criticism of
Enlightenment ideals? (Birmingham Museums and
Art Gallery.)

Italian Enlightenment hero Cesare Beccaria, set Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818)
Friedrich, a German romantic painter, captured many of the themes most
his novel in the seventeenth century, when Spain
dear to romanticism: melancholy, isolation, and individual communion
controlled Italy’s destiny, but his readers under- with nature. He painted trees reaching for the sky and mountains
stood that he intended to attack the Austrians who stretching into the distance. Nature to him seemed awesome, powerful,
controlled northern Italy in his own day. By writ- and overshadowing of human perspectives. The French sculptor David
ing this book (the first historical novel in Italian d’Angers said of Friedrich, “Here is a man who has discovered the
literature) in the Tuscan dialect, Manzoni tragedy of landscape.” (© Hamburg Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany / The Bridgeman Art
achieved two aims: he helped create a standard na- Library.)
tional language and popularized Italian history for
a people long divided by different dialects and
competing rulers.
Manzoni had been inspired to write his novel
by the most influential of all historical novelists,
Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832). While working as a
lawyer and then judge in Scotland, Scott first col-
lected and published traditional Scottish ballads
that he heard as a child. After achieving immedi-
ate success with his own poetry, especially The
Lady of the Lake (1810), he switched to historical
novels. His novels are almost all renditions of his-
torical events, from Rob Roy (1817), with its ac-
count of Scottish resistance to the English in the
early eighteenth century, to Ivanhoe (1819), with
its tales of medieval England. One contemporary
critic claimed that Ivanhoe was more historically
true than any scholarly work: “There is more his-
tory in the novels of Walter Scott than in half of
the historians.”

Sir Walter Scott: A prolific author (1771–1832) of popular his-


torical novels; he also collected and published traditional
Scottish ballads and wrote poetry.
644 C h a pt e r 2 0 ■ N a p o l e o n a n d t h e R evo lu t i o n a ry Le g ac y 1800–1830

Political Revolts that Ferdinand proclaim his adherence to the con-


in the 1820s stitution of 1812, which he had abolished in 1814.
When the revolt spread, Ferdinand convened the
The restoration of regimes after Napoleon’s fall cortes (parliament), which could agree on virtually
disappointed those who dreamed of constitutional nothing. Ferdinand bided his time, and in 1823 a
freedoms and national independence. Member- French army invaded and restored him to absolute
ship grew in secret societies such as the carbonari, power. The French acted with the consent of the
attracting tens of thousands of members, includ- other great powers. The restored Spanish govern-
ing physicians, lawyers, officers, and students. Re- ment tortured and executed hundreds of rebels;
volts broke out in the 1820s in Spain, Italy, Russia, thousands were imprisoned or forced into exile.
and Greece (Map 20.3), as well as across the Hearing of the Spanish uprising, rebellious
Atlantic in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of soldiers in the kingdom of Naples joined forces
Latin America. Most revolts failed, but those in with the carbonari and demanded a constitution.
Greece and Latin America succeeded, largely be- When a new parliament met, it too broke down
cause they did not threaten the conservative order over internal disagreements. The promise of re-
in Europe. form sparked rebellion in the northern Italian
kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, where rebels
Uprisings in Spain and Italy. When Ferdinand VII urged Charles Albert, the young heir to the Pied-
regained the Spanish crown in 1814, he quickly re- mont throne, to fight the Austrians for Italian uni-
stored the prerevolutionary nobility, church, and fication. He vacillated; but in 1821, after the rulers
monarchy. He had foreign books and newspapers of Austria, Prussia, and Russia met and agreed
confiscated at the frontier and allowed the publi- on intervention, the Austrians defeated the rebels
cation of only two newspapers. Not surprisingly, in Naples and Piedmont. Liberals were arrested in
such repressive policies disturbed the middle class, many Italian states, and the pope condemned the
especially the army officers who had encountered secret societies as “devouring wolves.” Despite
French ideas. Many responded by joining secret so- the opposition of Great Britain, which condemned
cieties. In 1820, disgruntled soldiers demanded the indiscriminate suppression of revolutionary

MAP 20.3 Revolutionary Movements of Territories with revolts


the 1820s Boundary of
German Confederation
The revolts of the 1820s took place on the
 Revolt
periphery of Europe, in Spain, Italy, Greece, 
1825 Date of revolution St. Petersburg
Russia, and in the Spanish and Portuguese 1825
colonies of Latin America. Rebels in Spain
a

N
and Russia wanted constitutional reforms.
Se

W North
ic

Although the Italian revolts failed, as did the E GREAT


Sea
Ba
lt
uprisings in Spain and Russia, the Greek and S
BRITAIN
RUSSIA
Latin American independence movements
PRUSSIA
eventually succeeded.

ATLANTIC
OCEAN
Vienna
FRANCE AU S T R I A N E M P I R E

Turin

Black Sea
PORTUGAL
O
Madrid Barcelona
T
 1821 TO
 Lisbon
S PA I N M
 AN
1820–1821 Naples EM
PIEDMONT- PIR
E
 SARDINIA GREECE
Cadiz
KINGDOM 
Morea
OF THE 1821
TWO SICILIES
0 200 400 miles
Mediterranean Sea
0 200 400 kilometers
1800–1830 C h a ll e n g e s to t h e C o n s e rvat i ve O r d e r 645

movements, Metternich convinced the other pow- (1799–1837) wrote:


ers to agree to his muffling of the Italian opposi-
The heavy-hanging chains will fall,
tion to Austrian rule. The walls will crumble at a word,
Metternich never let discontent closer to home And Freedom greet you in the light,
turn into revolt. The only sign of resistance within And brothers give you back the sword.
the new German Confederation came from uni-
versity students, who formed nationalist student Pushkin would not live to see this freedom. For the
societies, or Burschenschaften. In 1817, they held a next thirty years, Nicholas I (r. 1825–1855) used a
mass rally at which they burned books they did new political police, the Third Section, to spy on
not like, including Napoleon’s Civil Code. Their potential opponents and stamp out rebelliousness.
leader was Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, who hoped to
created a nationally unified Germany through ed- Greek Independence from the Turks. The Ot-
ucation. He advocated gymnastics (he invented the toman Turks faced growing nationalist challenges
parallel bars, the balance beam, gymnastics rings, in the Balkans, but the European powers feared
the vaulting horse, and the horizontal bar) and that supporting such opposi-
study of all things German in order to create tion would encourage a rebel- 0 200 400 miles
0 200 400 kilometers
a stronger German “breed.” Jahn favored the for- lious spirit at home. The Serbs
mation of a huge, racially pure German nation revolted against Turkish rule
encompassing Switzerland, the Low Countries, and won virtual independence AU S T R I A N E M P I R E
Denmark, Prussia, and Austria. He also spouted by 1817. A Greek general in the DANUBIAN
PRINCIPALITIES
such xenophobic (antiforeign) slogans as “If you Russian army, Prince Alexan- BOSNIA SERBIA 1829 . Black
der Ypsilanti, tried to lead a re- 1817 D a nu b e R Sea
let your daughter learn French, you might just as
MONTENEGRO
well train her to become a whore.” Metternich did volt against the Turks in 1820 
Adrianople
BALKANS
not mind the anti-French slant, but he was con- but failed when the tsar, urged OT Constantinople
TO
vinced — incorrectly — that the Burschenschaften on by Metternich, disavowed MAN
EMPIRE
in the German states and the carbonari in Italy him. Metternich feared rebel-
GREECE
were linked in an international conspiracy. In lion even by Christians against 1830
1819, when a student assassinated the playwright their Turkish rulers. A second 
Navarino Bay
August Kotzebue because he had ridiculed the stu- revolt, this time by Greek peas- 1827

dent movement, Metternich convinced the leaders ants, sparked a wave of atroci-
ties in 1821 and 1822. The 1830 Dates of autonomy
of the biggest German states to pass the Karlsbad or independence
Decrees dissolving the student societies and more Greeks killed every Turk who  Battle
strictly censoring the press. did not escape; in retaliation,
the Turks hanged the Greek pa- Nationalistic Movements in the
The Decembrist Revolt in Russia. Aspirations for triarch of Constantinople, and Balkans, 1815–1830
constitutional government surfaced in Russia in the areas they still controlled
when Alexander I died suddenly in 1825. On a day they pillaged churches, massacred thousands of
in December when the troops assembled in St. men, and sold the women into slavery.
Petersburg to take an oath of loyalty to Alexander’s Western opinion turned against the Turks;
brother Nicholas as the new tsar, rebel officers in- Greece, after all, was the birthplace of Western civ-
sisted that the crown belonged to another brother, ilization. While the great powers negotiated,
Constantine, whom they hoped would be more Greeks and pro-Greece committees around the
favorable to constitutional reform. Constantine, world sent food and military supplies; like the Eng-
though next in the line of succession after lish poet Byron, a few enthusiastic European and
Alexander, had refused the crown. The soldiers American volunteers joined the Greeks. The
nonetheless raised the cry “Long live Constantine, Greeks held on until the great powers were willing
long live the Constitution!” (Some troops appar- to intervene. In 1827, a combined force of British,
ently thought that “the Constitution” was Con- French, and Russian ships destroyed the Turkish
stantine’s wife.) Soldiers loyal to Nicholas easily fleet at Navarino Bay; and in 1828, Russia declared
suppressed the Decembrists (so called after the war on Turkey and advanced close to Constanti-
month of their uprising), who were so outnum- nople. The Treaty of Adrianople of 1829 gave Russia
bered that they had no realistic chance to succeed. a protectorate over the Danubian principalities in
The subsequent trial, however, made the rebels the Balkans and provided for a conference among
into legendary heroes. Of their imprisonment at representatives of Britain, Russia, and France, all
hard labor, the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin of whom had broken with Austria in support of
646 C h a pt e r 2 0 ■ N a p o l e o n a n d t h e R evo lu t i o n a ry Le g ac y 1800–1830

Greek Independence
From 1836 to 1839, the Greek painter Panagiotis Zographos worked with his two sons on a series
of scenes from the Greek struggle for independence from the Turks. Response was so favorable
that one Greek general ordered lithographic reproductions for popular distribution. Nationalistic
feeling could be thus encouraged even among those who were not directly touched by the struggle.
Here Turkish sultan Mehmet the Conqueror, exulting over the fall of Constantinople in 1453, views
a row of Greeks under the yoke, a sign of submission. (The Visual Connection.)

the Greeks. In 1830, Greece was declared an inde- in Bolivia, which is named after him. At the same
pendent kingdom under the guarantee of the three time, Brazil (then still a monarchy) separated from
powers; in 1833, the son of King Ludwig of Bavaria Portugal (Map 20.4). The United States recognized
became Otto I of Greece. Nationalism, with the the new states, and in 1823 President James
support of European public opinion, had made its Monroe announced his Monroe Doctrine, closing
first breach in Metternich’s system. the Americas to European intervention — a prohi-
bition that depended on British naval power and
Wars of Independence in Latin America. Across British willingness to declare neutrality. Great
the Atlantic, national revolts also succeeded after Britain dominated the Latin American economies,
a series of bloody wars of independence. Taking which had suffered great losses during the wars for
advantage of the upheavals in Spain and Portugal independence.
that began under Napoleon, restive colonists from
Mexico to Argentina rebelled. One leader who
Revolution and Reform,
stood out was Simon Bolívar (1783–1830), the
son of a slave owner educated in Europe on the 1830–1832
works of Voltaire and Rousseau. Although Bolívar In 1830, a new wave of liberal and nationalist re-
fancied himself a Latin American Napoleon, he volts broke against the bulwark of conservatism.
had to acquiesce to the formation of a series of in- The revolts of the 1820s had served as warning
dependent republics between 1821 and 1823, even shots but had been largely confined to the periph-
eries of Europe. Now revolution once again threat-
ened the established order in western Europe.
Simon Bolívar (1783–1830): The European-educated son of a
slave owner who became one of the leaders of the Latin Amer-
ican independence movement in the 1820s. Bolivia is named The French Revolution of 1830. Louis XVIII’s
after him. younger brother and successor, Charles X
1800–1830 C h a ll e n g e s to t h e C o n s e rvat i ve O r d e r 647

Simon Bolívar
Known as “the Liberator,” Simon Bolívar (1783–1830)
is shown riding a white horse in this lithograph near
the end of his life. Bolívar led the armies that gained
independence from Spain in Venezuela, Colombia,
Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. He had dreamed of
creating a United States of Latin America but died of
tuberculosis as factional fighting kept the various
states separate from each other. (akg-images.)

0 500 1,000 miles


0 500 1,000 kilometers
UNITED STATES
ATLANTIC OCEAN
MEXICO Haiti Santo Domingo
1821 1804 1821

Mexico
Cuba Puerto Rico
 City

(r. 1824–1830), brought about his own downfall BRITISH BRITISH GUIANA
HONDURAS Caracas
 SURINAME
by steering the monarchy in an increasingly repres- UNITED PROVINCES VENEZUELA
FRENCH
OF CENTRAL AMERICA 1830
sive direction. In 1825, a Law of Indemnity com- 1823
Bogotá
 GUIANA
COLOMBIA
pensated nobles who had emigrated during the 1819
PACIFIC Quito

French Revolution for the loss of their estates, and ECUADOR
OCEAN N
a Law of Sacrilege in the same year imposed the 1822 PERU
BRAZIL
W 1824
death penalty for such offenses as stealing religious E 
1822
Lima
objects from churches. Charles enraged liberals BOLIVIA
S
1825
when he dissolved the legislature, removed many PARAGUAY Rio de
Janeiro
1811 
wealthy and powerful voters from the rolls, and Independent countries 
São Paulo
CHILE Asunción
imposed strict censorship. Spontaneous demon- Spanish  URUGUAY
1818 ARGENTINA
British 1828
strations in Paris led to fighting on July 26, 1830. 
Santiago
1816
Montevideo
After three days of street battles in which 500 cit- Dutch 
Buenos
French Aires
izens and 150 soldiers died, a group of moderate
Portuguese
liberal leaders, fearing the reestablishment of a re- Date of independence
1821
public, agreed to give the crown to Charles X’s (color indicates colonial
power prior to independence)
cousin Louis-Philippe, duke of Orléans.
Charles X went into exile in England, and the
new king extended political liberties and voting MAP 20.4 Latin American Independence, 1804–1830
rights. Although the number of voting men nearly Napoleon’s occupation of Spain and Portugal seriously
doubled, it remained minuscule — approximately weakened those countries’ hold on their Latin American
170,000 in a country of 30 million. Such reforms colonies. Despite the restoration of the Spanish and Por-
tuguese rulers in 1814, most of their colonies successfully
did little for the poor and working classes, who
broke away in a wave of rebellions between 1811 and 1830.
had manned the barricades in July. Dissatisfaction
648 C h a pt e r 2 0 ■ N a p o l e o n a n d t h e R evo lu t i o n a ry Le g ac y 1800–1830

with the 1830 settlement boiled over in Lyon in or France and was defeated by the Russian army.
1831, when a silk-workers’ strike over wages In reprisal, Tsar Nicholas abolished the Polish
turned into a rebellion that died down only when constitution that his brother Alexander had
the army arrived. Revolution had broken the hold granted and ordered thousands of Poles executed
of those who wanted to restore the pre-1789 or banished.
monarchy and nobility, but it had gone no further
this time than installing a more liberal, constitu- The British Reform Bill of 1832. The British had
tional monarchy. long been preoccupied with two subjects: the royal
family and elections for control of Parliament. In
Belgian Independence from the Dutch. News of 1820, the domestic quarrels between the new king,
the July revolution in Paris ignited the Belgians, George IV (r. 1820–1830), and his German wife,
whose country had been annexed to the kingdom Caroline, seemed to threaten the future of the
of the Netherlands in 1815. Differences in tradi- monarchy. When George IV came to the throne,
tions, language, and religion separated the largely he tried to divorce Caroline, and he refused to have
Catholic Belgians from the Dutch. An opera about her crowned queen. He hoped to use rumors of her
a seventeenth-century insurrection in Naples pro- love affairs on the continent to win his case, but the
vided the spark, and students in Brussels rioted, divorce trial provoked massive demonstrations in
shouting “Down with the Dutch!” support of Caroline. Women’s groups gathered
The riot turned into revolt. King William of thousands of signatures on petitions supporting
the Netherlands appealed to the great powers to her, and popular songs and satires portrayed
intervene; after all, the Congress of Vienna had George as a fat, drunken libertine. Caroline’s death
established his kingdom. But Great Britain and a few months after George’s coronation ended the
France opposed intervention and invited Russia, Queen Caroline Affair. The monarchy survived, but
Austria, and Prussia to a conference that guaran- with a tarnished reputation.
teed Belgium independence in exchange for its The demonstrations in the Queen Caroline
neutrality in international affairs. Belgian neutral- Affair followed on the heels of a huge political rally
ity would remain a cornerstone of European diplo- held just the year before. In August 1819, sixty
macy for a century. After much maneuvering, the thousand people attended an illegal political meet-
crown of the new kingdom of Belgium was offered ing held in St. Peter’s Fields in Manchester. They
to a German prince, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, in wanted reform of Parliamentary elections, which
1831. Belgium, like France and Britain, now had a had long been controlled by aristocratic landown-
constitutional monarchy. ers. When the local authorities sent the cavalry to
arrest the speaker, panic resulted; eleven people
Revolts in Italy and Poland. The Austrian em- were killed and many hundreds injured. Punsters
peror and the Russian tsar would have supported called it the battle of Peterloo or the Peterloo mas-
intervention in Belgium had they not been preoc- sacre. An alarmed government passed the Six Acts,
cupied with their own revolts. Anti-Austrian up- which forbade large political meetings and re-
risings erupted in a handful of Italian states, but stricted press criticism.
they fizzled without the hoped-for French aid. The In the 1820s, however, new men came into
Polish revolt was more serious. When set up in government. Sir Robert Peel (1788–1850), the sec-
1815, the “congress kingdom” (so called because retary for home affairs, revised the criminal code
the Congress of Vienna had created it) was given to reduce the number of crimes punishable by
a constitution that provided for an elected parlia- death and introduced a municipal police force in
ment, a national army, and guarantees of free London, called the Bobbies after him. In 1824, the
speech and a free press. But by 1818, its ruler, the laws prohibiting labor unions were repealed, and
Russian tsar Alexander I, had begun retracting though restrictions on strikes remained, workers
these concessions. Polish students and military of- could now organize themselves legally to confront
ficers responded by forming secret nationalist so- their employers collectively. In 1828, the appoint-
cieties to plot for change by illegal means. The ment of the duke of Wellington, the hero of
government then cracked down, arresting student Waterloo, as prime minister kept the Tories in
leaders and dismissing professors who promoted power, and his government pushed through a bill
reforms. In 1830, in response to news of revolu- in 1829 allowing Catholics to sit in Parliament and
tion in France, students raised the banner of re- hold most public offices.
bellion. Polish aristocrats formed a provisional When in 1830, and again in 1831, the Whigs
government, but it got no support from Britain in Parliament proposed an extension of the right
1800–1830 C o n c lu s i o n 649

to vote, Tory diehards, principally in the House of Conclusion


Lords, dug in their heels and predicted that even
the most modest proposals would doom civiliza- The agitations and uprisings of the 1820s and early
tion itself. Even though the proposed law would 1830s showed that the revolutionary legacy still
not grant universal male suffrage, mass demon- smoldered and might erupt into flames again at
strations in favor of it took place in many cities. any moment. Napoleon Bonaparte had kept the
One supporter of reform described the scene: legacy alive by insisting on fundamental reforms
“Meetings of almost every description of persons wherever his armies triumphed. His imperial rule
were held in cities, towns, and parishes; by jour- galvanized supporters and opponents alike; no one
neymen tradesmen in their clubs, and by common could be indifferent to his impact on European and
workmen who had no trade clubs or associations even world affairs. He reshaped French institutions
of any kind.” In this “state of diseased and fever- and left a lasting imprint in many European coun-
ish excitement” (according to its opponents), the tries. Moreover, like Frankenstein’s monster, he
Reform Bill of 1832 passed, after the king threat- seemed to bounce back from every reversal; be-
ened to create enough new peers to obtain its pas- tween the French retreat from Moscow in 1812 and
sage in the House of Lords. his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815, Napoleon lost
Although the Reform Bill altered Britain’s po- many battles and yet managed to raise an army
litical structure in significant ways, the gains were again and again.
not revolutionary. One of the bill’s foremost back- The French emperor’s attempt to colonize
ers, historian and member of Parliament Thomas much of Europe ultimately failed. Germans, Ital-
Macaulay, explained, “I am opposed to Universal ians, Russians, and Spaniards all resisted and in the
Suffrage, because I think that it would produce a process discovered new national feelings that
destructive revolution. I support this plan, because would have an impact throughout modern times.
I am sure that it is our best security against a rev- Unlike Frankenstein’s monster, Napoleon could
olution.” Although the number of male voters not hide from his enemies and was forced into ex-
increased by about 50 percent, only one in five ile until his death. The powers who eventually de-
Britons could now vote, and voting still depended feated Napoleon tried to maintain the European
on holding property. Nevertheless, the bill gave peace by shoring up monarchical governments
representation to new cities in the north for the and damping down aspirations for constitutional
first time and set a precedent for further widening freedoms and national autonomy. They sometimes
suffrage. Exclusive aristocratic politics now gave fell short. Belgium separated from the Nether-
way to a mixed middle-class and aristocratic struc- lands, Greece achieved independence from the
ture that would prove more responsive to the prob- Turks, Latin American countries shook off the rule
lems of a fast-growing society. Those disappointed of Spain and Portugal, and the French installed a
with the outcome would organize with renewed more liberal monarchy than the one envisioned by
vigor in the 1830s and 1840s. the Congress of Vienna. Yet Metternich’s vision of
a conservative Europe still held, and most efforts
Review: Why were Austria and Russia able to thwart at revolt failed. In the next two decades, however,
independence movements in Italy and Poland but not dramatic social changes would raise the stakes of
in Greece, Belgium, and Latin America? political contests and prompt a new and much
more deadly round of revolutions.

For Further Exploration


■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
end of the book.

■ For additional primary-source material from


this period, see Chapter 20 in Sources of THE
MAKING OF THE WEST, Third Edition.

■ For Web sites and documents related to topics


Reform Bill of 1832: A measure passed by the British Parlia-
ment to increase the number of male voters by about 50 per- in this chapter, see Make History at
cent and give representation to new cities in the north; it set a bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
precedent for widening suffrage.
650 C h a pt e r 2 0 ■ N a p o l e o n a n d t h e R evo lu t i o n a ry Le g ac y 1800–1830

MA P P I N G T H E W E ST

FINLAND
SWEDEN AND NORWAY 
 Revolt sites St. Petersburg

SCOTLAND

a
Moscow

Se
North 
GREAT Se a i

c
IRELAND
DENMARK lt
BRITAIN Ba
Liverpool Manchester

N ENGLAND NETH.  Hamburg PRUSSIA RUSSIA
Amsterdam
W 
London Berlin  Warsaw
E BELGIUM 
S 1831 Kingdom of
English Channel Poland
Brussels  Saxony
ATLANTIC Paris GERMAN
 CONFEDERATION
OCEAN
Bavaria Vienna 

FRANCE SWITZ. AU S T R I A N E M P I R E

Lyon HUNGARY Transylvania
Lombardy Venetia
DANUBIAN
PRINCIPALITIES
SERBIA Black Sea
PAPAL 1817
PORTUGAL STATES O
T

Madrid T
PIEDMONT- O Constantinople
 Lisbon
SARDINIA Rome M
AN 
SPA IN
Naples EM
PI
KINGDOM RE
OF THE
M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a TWO SICILIES GREECE
1830
0 200 400 miles
0 200 400 kilometers

Europe in 1830
By 1830, the fragilities of the Congress of Vienna settlement had become apparent. Rebellion in
Poland failed, but Belgium won its independence from the kingdom of the Netherlands, and a
French revolution in July chased out the Bourbon ruler and installed Louis-Philippe, who promised
constitutional reform. Most European rulers held on to their positions in this period of ferment, but
they had to accommodate new desires for constitutional guarantees of rights and growing
nationalist sentiment.
1800–1830 C h a pt e r R ev i ew 651

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
Key Terms and People Making Connections
Napoleon Bonaparte restoration (638) 1. What was the long-term significance of Napoleon for
(620) conservatism (638) Europe?
First Consul (622) Ludwig van Beethoven 2. In what ways did Metternich succeed in holding back the
Civil Code (625) (642) revolutionary legacy? In what ways did he fail?
Continental System (631) Sir Walter Scott (643)
Congress of Vienna (636) Simon Bolívar (646)
Klemens von Metternich Reform Bill of 1832 For practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other
(636) (649) study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.

Review Questions
1. In what ways did Napoleon continue the French
Revolution, and in what ways did he break with it?
2. Why was Napoleon able to gain control over so much of
Europe’s territory?
3. To what extent was the old order restored by the Congress
of Vienna?
4. Why were Austria and Russia able to thwart independence
movements in Italy and Poland but not in Greece, Belgium,
and Latin America?

Important Events

1799 Coup against Directory government in 1818 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein


France; Napoleon Bonaparte named First 1820 Revolt of liberal army officers against the
Consul Spanish crown
1801 Napoleon signs a concordat with the pope 1824 Ludwig van Beethoven, Ninth Symphony
1804 Napoleon crowned as emperor of France; 1825 Russian army officers demand constitutional
issues new Civil Code reform in the Decembrist Revolt
1805 British naval forces defeat the French at 1830 Greece gains its independence from Ottoman
the battle of Trafalgar; Napoleon wins his Turks; rebels overthrow Charles X of France
greatest victory at the battle of Austerlitz and install Louis-Philippe; rebellion in Poland
1812 Napoleon invades Russia against Russia fails
1814–1815 Congress of Vienna 1832 English Parliament passes Reform Bill;
1815 Napoleon defeated at Waterloo and exiled Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust
to island of St. Helena, where he dies in
1821
Industrialization C H A P T E R

and Social Ferment


1830–1850
21
The Industrial Revolution 654
• Roots of Industrialization
• Engines of Change
• Urbanization and Its Consequences
• Agricultural Perils and Prosperity
n 1830, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Line opened to the
Reforming the Social Order 664

I cheers of crowds and the congratulations of government officials,


including the duke of Wellington, the hero of Waterloo and now
the British prime minister. In the excitement, some of the dignitaries
• Cultural Responses to the Social
Question
• The Varieties of Social Reform
• Abuses and Reforms Overseas
gathered on a parallel track. Another engine, George Stephenson’s
Ideologies and Political
Rocket, approached at high speed — the engine could go as fast as Movements 671
twenty-seven miles per hour. Most of the gentlemen scattered to • The Spell of Nationalism
• Liberalism in Economics and Politics
safety, but former cabinet minister William Huskisson fell and was • Socialism and the Early Labor
hit. A few hours later he died, the first official casualty of the new- Movement

fangled railroad. The Revolutions of 1848 678


Dramatic and expensive, railroads were the most striking symbol • The Hungry Forties
• Another French Revolution
of the new industrial age. Industrialization and its by-product of rapid • Nationalist Revolution in Italy
• Revolt and Reaction in Central Europe
urban growth fundamentally changed political conflicts, social rela-
• Aftermath to 1848
tions, cultural concerns, and even the landscape. So great were the
changes that they are collectively labeled the Industrial Revolution.
Although this revolution did not take place in a single decade like the
French Revolution, the introduction of steam-driven machinery, large
factories, and a new working class transformed life in the Western
world. Peasants and workers streamed into the cities. The population
of London grew by 130,000 people in the 1830s alone. Berlin more than
doubled between 1819 and 1849, and Paris expanded by 120,000 just
between 1841 and 1846. To many observers, overcrowding, disease,
prostitution, crime, and alcohol consumption all seemed to be on the
increase as a result.
The shock of industrial and urban growth generated an outpour-
ing of commentary on the need for social reforms. Painters, poets, and
especially novelists joined in the chorus warning about rising tensions.

The New Railroad


This engraving by H. Pyall from 1831 shows the entrance of the Liverpool and
Manchester Railway line at Edge Hill in Liverpool. The engines seem quaint to us now,
but at the time they impressed everyone with their size and speed. Railroads
immediately became the symbol as well as the driving force of the industrial age. The
engraving shows that even upper-class men and women flocked to see the new
engines in operation. (Getty Images.)
653
654 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

Many who wrote on social issues expected middle-


Focus Question: How did the Industrial Revolution
class women to organize their homes as a domes-
create new social and political conflicts?
tic haven from the heartless process of upheaval.
Yet despite the emphasis on domesticity, middle-
class women participated in public issues too: they
set up reform societies that fought prostitution and The Industrial Revolution
helped poor mothers, and they agitated for tem-
perance (abstention from alcohol), and joined the French and English writers of the 1820s invented
campaigns to abolish slavery. Middle-class men and the term Industrial Revolution to capture the
women frequently denounced the lower classes’ ap- drama of contemporary change and to draw a
petites for drink, tobacco, and cockfighting, but parallel with the French Revolution. The chief
they remained largely silent when British traders components of the Industrial Revolution, industri-
received government support in forcing the Chi- alization and urbanization, are long-term processes
nese to accept imports of opium, an addictive drug. that have continued to the present; unlike the
Social ferment set the ideological pots to a French upheaval, they do not have precise begin-
boil. A word coined during the French Revolution, ning and ending dates. The Industrial Revolution
ideology refers to a coherent set of beliefs about began in England in the 1770s and 1780s in tex-
the way the social and political order should be or- tile manufacturing and spread from there across
ganized. The dual revolution of the French Revo- the continent. In the 1830s and 1840s, industrial-
lution and the Industrial Revolution prompted the ization and urbanization both accelerated quite
development of a whole spectrum of ideologies to suddenly, as governments across Europe encour-
explain the meaning of the changes taking place. aged railroad construction and the mechanization
Nationalists, liberals, socialists, and communists of manufacturing. States exercised little control
offered competing visions of the social order they over the consequences of industrial and urban
desired: they all agreed that change was necessary, growth, however, and many officials, preachers,
but they disagreed about both the means and the and intellectuals worried that unchecked growth
ends of change. Their contest came to a head in would destroy traditional social relationships and
1848 when the rapid transformation of European create disorder. Some held out the constancy of ru-
society led to a new set of revolutionary outbreaks, ral life as an antidote to the ravages of industrial-
more consuming than any since 1789. As in 1789, ization and urbanization, but population growth
food shortages and constitutional crises fueled re- produced new tensions in the countryside too.
bellions, but now class tensions and nationalist im-
pulses fanned the flames in capitals across Europe,
not only in Paris. Because of internal quarrels and Roots of Industrialization
conflicts, however, the revolutionaries of 1848 British inventors had been steadily perfecting
eventually went down to defeat. steam engines for five decades before George

ideology: A word coined during the French Revolution to refer Industrial Revolution: The transformation of life in the Western
to a coherent set of beliefs about the way the social and polit- world over several decades in the late eighteenth and early
ical order should be organized. nineteenth centuries as a result of the introduction of steam-
driven machinery, large factories, and a new working class.

■ 1830–1832 Cholera epidemic ■ 1835 Belgium opens first continental railway

■ 1830 France invades Algeria

■ 1831 British and Foreign Temperance Society established

1830 1835 1840


■ 1832 George Sand, Indiana ■ 1839 Opium War begins;
invention of photography
■ 1833 British Factory Act; abolition of slavery

■ 1834 Zollverein established ■ 1841 Dickens,


The Old Curiosity Shop
1830–1850 Th e I n d u s t r i a l R evo lu t i o n 655

Stephenson built his Rocket. A key breakthrough for social mobility and relative political stability
took place in 1776 when James Watt developed an in the eighteenth century provided an environ-
efficient steam engine that could be used to pump ment that fostered the pragmatism of the English
water from coal mines or drive machinery in tex- and Scottish inventors who designed the machin-
tile factories. Since coal fired the steam engines ery. These early industrialists shared a culture of
which drove new textile machinery, innovations informal scientific education through learned so-
tended to reinforce each other. This kind of syn- cieties and popular lectures (one of the prominent
ergy built on previous changes in the textile indus- forms of the Enlightenment in Britain). Manufac-
try. In 1733, the Englishman John Kay had turers proved eager to introduce steam-driven
patented the flying shuttle, which enabled weavers machinery to increase output and gradually es-
to “throw” yarn across the loom rather than draw tablished factories to house the new machines and
it back and forth by hand. When the flying shuttle concentrate the labor of their workers. The agri-
came into widespread use in the 1760s, weavers cultural revolution of the eighteenth century had
began producing cloth more quickly than spinners enabled England to produce food more efficiently,
could produce the thread. The resulting shortage freeing some agricultural workers to move to the
of spun thread propelled the invention of the spin- new sites of manufacturing. Cotton textile pro-
ning jenny and the water frame, a power-driven duction skyrocketed.
spinning machine. In the following decades, water Elsewhere in Europe, textile manufacturing —
frames replaced thousands of women spinners long a linchpin in the European economy — ex-
working at home by hand. Using the engines pro- panded even without the introduction of new
duced by James Watt and his partner Matthew machines and factories because of the spread of
Boulton, Edmund Cartwright designed a mecha- the “putting-out,” or “domestic,” system. Under the
nized loom in the 1780s that, when perfected, putting-out system, manufacturers supplied the
could be run by a small boy and yet yield fifteen raw materials, such as woolen or cotton fibers, to
times the output of a skilled adult working a hand- families working at home. The mother and her
loom. By the end of the century, new power ma- children washed, carded, and combed the fibers.
chinery was being assembled in large factories that Then the mother and oldest daughters spun them
hired semiskilled men, women, and children to re- into thread. The father, assisted by the children,
place skilled weavers. wove the cloth. The cloth was then finished
Several factors interacted to make England (bleached, dyed, smoothed, and so on) under the
the first site of the Industrial Revolution. Because supervision of the manufacturer in a large work-
population increased by more than 50 percent in shop, located either in town or in the countryside.
England in the second half of the eighteenth cen- This system had existed in the textile industry for
tury, manufacturers had an incentive to produce hundreds of years, but in the eighteenth century it
more and cheaper cotton cloth. England had a grew dramatically, and the manufacture of other
good supply of private investment capital from products, such as glassware, baskets, nails, and
overseas trade and commercial profits, ready ac- guns, followed suit. The spread of the domestic
cess to raw cotton from the plantations of its system of manufacturing is sometimes called proto-
Caribbean colonies and the southern United industrialization to signify that the process helped
States, and the necessary natural resources at pave the way for the full-scale Industrial Revolu-
home such as coal and iron. Good opportunities tion. Because of the increase in textile production,

■ 1848 Last Chartist demonstrations;


Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto;
revolutions throughout Europe;
French abolish slavery in remaining colonies;
end of serfdom in Austrian Empire

1845 1850 1855


■ 1846 Famine in Ireland; ■ 1851 Crystal Palace exhibition
Corn Laws repealed;
insurrection in Galicia
656 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

ordinary people began to wear underclothes and George Stephenson perfected an engine to pull
nightclothes, both rare in the past. White, red, blue, wagons along rail tracks. In the 1830s and 1840s,
yellow, green, and even pastel shades of cotton now every major country in Europe hurried to set up
replaced the black, gray, or brown of traditional a railroad system, pushing industrialization from
woolen dress. west to east across Europe (see “Taking Measure,”
Workers in the textile industry, whether in the below). Although the new industries employed
putting-out system or in factories, enjoyed few only a small percentage of workers, the working
protections against fluctuations in the market. class that took shape in them immediately at-
Whenever demand for cloth declined, manufac- tracted the attention of social commentators and
turers simply did not buy from the families pro- government officials. Rulers could not afford to
ducing it. Hundreds of thousands of families ignore the social problems that came from indus-
might be reduced to bankruptcy in periods of food trialization.
shortage or overproduction. Handloom weavers
sometimes violently resisted the establishment of The Rise of the Railroad. The idea of a railroad
factory power looms that would force them out of was not new: iron tracks had been used since the
work. In England in 1811 and 1812, for example, seventeenth century to haul coal from mines in
bands of handloom weavers wrecked factory ma- wagons pulled by horses. A railroad system as a
chinery and burned mills in the Midlands, York- mode of transport, however, developed only after
shire, and Lancashire. To restore order and protect Stephenson’s invention of a steam-powered loco-
industry, the government sent in an army of motive. Placed on the new tracks, steam-driven
twelve thousand regular soldiers and made ma- carriages could transport people and goods to the
chine wrecking punishable by death. The rioters cities and link coal and iron deposits to the new
were called Luddites after the fictitious figure Ned factories. In the 1840s alone, railroad track
Ludd, whose signature appeared on their mani- mileage more than doubled in Great Britain, and
festos. (The term is still used to describe those who British investment in railways jumped tenfold.
resist new technology.) The British also began to build railroads in India.
Canal building waned in the 1840s: the railroad
had won out. Britain’s success with rail trans-
Engines of Change portation led other countries to develop their own
Steam-driven engines took on a dramatic new projects. Railroads grew spectacularly in the
form in the 1820s when the English engineer United States in the 1830s and 1840s, reaching

TAKING MEASURE

0
Austria-Hungary Railroad Lines, 1830–1850
1,357
Great Britain quickly extended its
31 lead in the building of railroads.
France
2,915 The extension of commerce and,
before long, the ability to wage
0 war would depend on the devel-
Germany*
5,856 opment of effective railroad net-
works. These statistics might be
0
Italy taken as predicting a realignment
620 of power within Europe after 1850.
0 What do the numbers say about
Russia the relative positions of Germany
501
(the German states, including
157 Prussia but excluding Austria), the
Great Britain
9,787 Austrian Empire, and France? (From
*German states that formed a unified Germany in 1871. B. R. Mitchell, European Historical Statistics
1750–1970 (New York: Columbia University
Railroad Lines (in kilometers) Press, 1975), F1.)
1830–1850 Th e I n d u s t r i a l R evo lu t i o n 657

SWEDEN AND NORWAY


Major industrial areas 

St. Petersburg
No peasant emancipation   
before 1848  

Railroad development
by 1850 Glasgow
 
 
 Iron ore fields  Nort h


a
GREAT   Se a

Se
 Coalfields 

c
BRITAIN 
Liverpool    Manchester DENMARK lti
    Ba
  
N Birmingham   
      PRUSSIA RUSSIA
  
W Amsterdam 
 
E  London 
   Berlin Warsaw
Brussels GERMAN Poland 

S
 
Breslau 
   CONFEDERATION
 

  

Rh

BELGIUM  Frankfurt
 Saxony     Cracow
 

in

    

eR
    
   

.
ATLANTIC 
     
 Bohemia 
OCEAN 
Vienna

 FRANCE  Munich 
  
  BudaPest
  
  Lyon AU S T R I A N E M P I R E
 
   
       Milan
    
      
 
   


     Florence D a nu b e R .
 Marseille 
PORTUGAL OTTOMAN EMPIRE
Madrid 
Barcelona

Lisbon SPAIN Rome

Naples

Mediterranean Sea

0 200 400 miles

0 200 400 kilometers

MAP 21.1 Industrialization in Europe, c. 1850


Industrialization (mainly mechanized textile production) first spread in a band across northern
Europe that included Great Britain, northern France, Belgium, the northern German states, the
region around Milan in northern Italy, and Bohemia. Although railroads were not the only factor in
promoting industrialization, the map makes clear the interrelationship between railroad building
and the development of new industrial sites of coal mining and textile production.

9,000 miles of track by midcentury. Belgium, 21.1). Similarly, Austrian output of iron doubled
newly independent in 1830, opened the first con- between the 1820s and the 1840s. One-third of all
tinental European railroad with state bonds investment in the German states in the 1840s went
backed by British capital in 1835. In all, the world into railroads.
had 23,500 miles of track by 1850, most of it in Steam-powered engines made Britain the world
western Europe. leader in manufacturing. By midcentury, more than
Railroad building spurred both industrial de- half of Britain’s national income came from manu-
velopment and state power (Map 21.1). Govern- facturing and trade. The number of steamboats in
ments everywhere participated in the construction Great Britain rose from two in 1812 to six hundred
of railroads, which depended on private and state in 1840. Between 1840 and 1850, steam-engine
funds to pay for the massive amounts of iron, coal, power doubled in Great Britain and increased even
heavy machinery, and human labor required to more rapidly elsewhere in Europe, as those adopt-
build and run them. Demand for iron products ac- ing British inventions strove to catch up. The power
celerated industrial development. Until the 1840s, applied in German manufacturing, for example,
cotton had led industrial production; between grew sixfold during the 1840s but still amounted to
1816 and 1840, cotton output more than quad- only a little more than a quarter of the British fig-
rupled in Great Britain. But from 1830 to 1850, ure. German coal and iron outputs were only 6 or
Britain’s output of iron and coal doubled (Table 7 percent of the British outputs.
658 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

TABLE 21.1 Coal Output, 1830–1850*


Like the numbers for railroad mileage, these figures for coal production show the economic dominance
of Great Britain throughout the period 1830–1850. As long as coal remained the essential fuel of
industrialization, Britain enjoyed a clear advantage.

German States
Austria Belgium France (including Prussia) Great Britain

1830 214 ** 1,863 1,800 22,800


1835 251 2,639 2,506 2,100 28,100
1840 473 3,930 3,003 3,200 34,200
1845 689 4,919 4,202 4,400 46,600
1850 877 5,821 4,434 5,100 50,200

*In thousands of metric tons.


**Data not available.
Source: B. R. Mitchell, European Historical Statistics, 1750–1970 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), D2.

Industrialization Moves Eastward. Although Great Factories and Workers. Despite the spread of in-
Britain consciously strove to protect its in- dustrialization, factory workers remained a minor-
dustrial supremacy, thousands of British engineers ity everywhere. In the 1840s, factories in England
defied laws against the export of machinery or the employed only 5 percent of the workers; in France,
emigration of artisans. Only slowly, thanks to the 3 percent; in Prussia, 2 percent. The putting-out
pirating of British methods and to new technical system remained strong, employing two-thirds of
schools, did most continental countries begin clos- the manufacturing workers in Prussia and Saxony,
ing the gap. Belgium became the fastest-growing for example, in the 1840s. Many peasants kept
industrial power on the continent: between 1830 their options open by combining factory work or
and 1844, the number of steam engines in Belgium putting-out work with agricultural labor. From
quadrupled, and Belgians exported seven times as Switzerland to Russia, people worked in agricul-
many steam engines as they imported. ture during the spring and summer and in manu-
Industrialization spread slowly east from key facturing in the fall and winter. Unstable industrial
areas in Prussia (near Berlin), Saxony, and Bo- wages made such arrangements essential. In addi-
hemia. Cotton production in the Austrian Empire tion, some new industries idled periodically: for
tripled between 1831 and 1845, and coal produc- example, iron forges stopped for several months
tion increased fourfold from 1827 to 1847. Both when the water level in streams dropped, and blast
activities were centered in Bohemia, which was furnaces shut down for repairs several weeks every
more productive than Prussia or Saxony. Even so, year.
by 1850, continental Europe still lagged almost Even though factories employed only a small
twenty years behind Great Britain in industrial de- percentage of the population, they attracted much
velopment. attention. Already by 1830, more than a million
The advance of industrialization in eastern people in Britain depended on the cotton indus-
Europe was slow, in large part because serfdom still try for employment, and cotton cloth constituted
survived there, hindering labor mobility and tying 50 percent of the country’s exports. Factories sprang
up investment capital: as long as peasants were up in urban areas, where the growing population
legally tied to the land as serfs, they could not mi- provided a ready source of labor. The rapid expan-
grate to the new factory towns and landlords felt sion of the British textile industry had a colonial
little incentive to invest their income in manufac- corollary: the destruction of the hand manufac-
turing. The problem was worst in Russia, where ture of textiles in India. The British put high
industrialization would not take off until the end import duties on Indian cloth entering Britain and
of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, even in kept such duties very low for British cloth enter-
Russia signs of industrialization could be detected: ing India. The figures are dramatic: in 1813, the
raw cotton imports (a sign of a growing textile in- Indian city of Calcutta exported to England
dustry) increased sevenfold between 1831 and £2,000,000 of cotton cloth; by 1830, Calcutta was
1848, and the number of factories doubled along importing from England £2,000,000 of cotton
with the size of the industrial workforce. cloth. When Britain abolished slavery in its
1830–1850 Th e I n d u s t r i a l R evo lu t i o n 659

Factory Work
This 1836 depiction of mechanized spinning of cotton in England captures the dangers of child labor.
The child is sweeping even while the machine works. The print does not portray the churning noise
and swirling dust of the workplace, but it does show how machines could produce thread much more
efficiently than individuals working on their own. Do you think the artist aimed to provide a positive
or negative picture of factory work? (Mary Evans Picture Library.)

Caribbean colonies in 1833, British manufacturers with a distinctive culture and traditions. The term
began to buy raw cotton in the southern United working class, like middle class, came into use for
States, where slavery still flourished. the first time in the early nineteenth century. It re-
Factories drew workers from the urban pop- ferred to the laborers in the new factories. In the
ulation surge, which had begun in the eighteenth past, urban workers had labored in isolated trades:
century and now accelerated. The number of agri- water and wood carrying, gardening, laundry, and
cultural laborers also increased during industri- building. In contrast, factories brought working
alization in Britain, suggesting that a growing people together with machines, under close super-
birthrate created a larger population and fed work- vision by their employers. They soon developed a
ers into the new factory system. The new workers sense of common interests and organized societies
came from several sources: families of farmers who for mutual help and political reform. From these
could not provide land for all their children, arti- would come the first labor unions.
sans displaced by the new machinery, and children Factories produced wealth without regard to
of the earliest workers who had moved to the fac- the pollution they caused or the exhausted state of
tory towns. Factory employment resembled fam- their workers; industry created unheard-of riches
ily labor on farms or in the putting-out system: and new forms of poverty all at once. “From this
entire families came to toil for a single wage, al- foul drain the greatest stream of human industry
though family members performed different tasks. flows out to fertilize the whole world,” wrote the
Workdays of twelve to seventeen hours were typi- French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville after visit-
cal, even for children, and the work was grueling. ing the new English industrial city of Manchester
As urban factories grew, their workers gradu- in the 1830s. “From this filthy sewer pure gold
ally came to constitute a new socioeconomic class flows. Here humanity attains its most complete
660 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

NEW SOURCES, NEW PERSPECTIVES

Statistics and the Standard of Living


of the Working Class

rom the very beginning of industri- with a fine bill of indictment. At the bar to the history of the 1830s and 1840s for

F alization, experts argued about


whether industrialization improved
or worsened the standard of living of the
of world opinion I charge the English
middle classes with mass murder, wholesale
robbery and all the other crimes in the cal-
lessons about the likely impact of indus-
trialization on their countries in the 1950s
and beyond. The scholarly debates there-
working class. For every claim, there was endar.” The stakes of the argument were fore attracted worldwide attention, and all
a counterclaim, and most often these not small. sides called on statistics to make their
claims came in the form of statistics. Some The controversy about the benefits competing cases.
experts argued that factories offered and costs of industrialization has contin- Unfortunately, the statistics can be in-
higher-paying jobs to workers; others ued right down to the present, in part terpreted in many different ways. Did it
countered that factories took work away because it is an argument directly inspired matter more that wages for factory work-
from artisans such as handloom weavers by the ideologies — liberalism, socialism, ers went up or that life expectancy went
and left them on the verge of starvation. communism — that emerged as explana- down? If an increase in sugar consump-
Supporters of industrialization main- tions of and blueprints for economic and tion in Great Britain from 207,000 tons in
tained that factories gave women paying social change. In the 1830s and 1840s, lib- 1844 to 290,000 tons in 1847 meant an
work; opponents insisted that factories de- erals insisted that industrialization would overall increase in the standard of living,
stroyed the family by taking women away promote greater prosperity for everyone, how does that square with the hundreds
from the home. Through mass produc- whereas conservatives complained that it of thousands of deaths in Ireland at the
tion, industrialization made goods cheaper destroyed traditional ways of life and so- same time or the increasing disparity
and therefore more available; by polluting cialists warned that it exaggerated in- throughout Great Britain between rich
the air, it destroyed health, lowered life ex- equality and class division. In the 1950s and poor? Some convergence of opinion
pectancy, and ruined the environment. and 1960s, defenders of capitalist free en- has taken place, however. Most now agree
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels would terprise still advanced the argument that by sometime between 1820 and 1845
give the debate even more of an edge by about prosperity, but now they were op- (the exact date depending on the scholar),
tying it to the ideology of communism. In posed by communists who argued that conditions in Great Britain had become
1844, Engels described to Marx his aim in state control of production could sidestep better than before the Industrial Revolu-
writing The Condition of the Working Class the horrors of early capitalist exploita- tion. And there is no doubt that the de-
in England: “I shall present the English tion. Newly developing countries looked bate itself has had one major positive

development and its most brutish, here civilization As factory production expanded, local and na-
works its miracles and civilized man is turned al- tional governments collected information about
most into a savage.” Studies by physicians set the the workers. Investigators detailed their pitiful
life expectancy of workers in Manchester at just condition. A French physician in the eastern
seventeen years (partly because of high rates of town of Mulhouse described the “pale, emaciated
infant mortality), whereas the average life ex- women who walk barefooted through the dirt” to
pectancy in England was forty years in 1840. (See reach the factory. The young children who worked
“New Sources, New Perspectives,” above.) One in the factory appeared “clothed in rags which are
American visitor in Britain in the late 1840s de- greasy with the oil from the looms and frames.” A
scribed how “in the manufacturing town, the fine report to the city government in Lille, France, in
soot or blacks darken the day, give white sheep the 1832 described “dark cellars” where the cotton
color of black sheep, discolor the human saliva, workers lived: “the air is never renewed, it is in-
contaminate the air, poison many plants, and cor- fected; the walls are plastered with garbage.”
rode monuments and buildings.” In some parts of Government inquiries often focused on women
Europe, city leaders banned factories, hoping to in- and children. In Great Britain, the Factory Act of
sulate their towns from the effects of industrial 1833 outlawed the employment of children under
growth. the age of nine in textile mills (except in the lace
1830–1850 Th e I n d u s t r i a l R evo lu t i o n 661

effect: since making one’s point depends time in the 1820s and continued to do so Questions to Consider
on having statistics to prove it, the debate afterward, Williamson does not conclude 1. What is a good measure of the standard
itself has encouraged a staggering amount that factory workers were better off than of living in the first half of the nine-
of research into quantitative measures of farmers; instead, he argues that the gap teenth century? How would you meas-
just about everything imaginable, from indicates that farm people did not mi- ure the standard of living today?
measures of wages and prices to rates of grate quickly enough to the city to satisfy 2. How do you explain the initial decline
mortality and even average heights (height urban labor demands. In short, he seems in nonfarm wages relative to farm wages
being correlated, it is thought, to eco- to consider the gap between farm and and the subsequent rise?
nomic well-being). British soldiers in the nonfarm wages to be a problem of “la- 3. What are the virtues of using statistical
nineteenth century were taller on average bor-market disequilibrium.” The lesson measures to determine the standard of
than those in any other country except the to be learned is that all historians’ con- living? What are the defects?
United States, and people who believe that clusions depend on the questions they
Further Reading
industrialization improved the standard ask and the sources they use — and few
Thompson, Noel W. The Real Rights of
of living are happy to seize on this as evi- other sources are as open to different in-
Man: Political Economies for the Work-
dence for their case. terpretations as statistics.
ing Class, 1775–1850. 1998.
One example of a recently developed
Williams, Chris., ed. Companion to Nine-
statistic shows both how powerful and
teenth-Century Britain. 2004.
how debatable such sources can be. The
table shown at right, adapted from a re-
Trends in the British Nominal-Wage Gap,
cent study by Jeffrey G. Williamson, pro- 1797–1851
vides a simple measure — based on
complex calculations — of the gap in Year Index Year Index The gap is calculated as the difference
wages between British farm and nonfarm between the weighted average of non-
laborers for the period 1797 to 1851. The
1797 100.0 1827 132.4 farm unskilled earnings (common labor-
1805 86.6 1835 134.7
index measures the attractiveness of non- ers, porters, police, guards, watchmen,
1810 96.7 1851 148.3
farm (basically city, mining, and factory) coal miners, and so on) and the farm-
1815 105.1
work. It shows that nonfarm wages rose earnings rate, divided by the farm-
faster than farm wages, but only after Source: Jeffrey G. Williamson, “Leaving the Farm to earnings rate. Thus, it is the percentage
Go to the City: Did They Leave Quickly Enough?” in differential by which nonfarm unskilled
1820 or so. By 1851, nonfarm wages had
John A. James and Mark Thomas, Capitalism in Con-
far outstripped those on the farm. What wages exceeded farm wages: below 100
text: Essays on Economic Development and Cultural
can we conclude? Although these data Change in Honor of R. M. Hartwell (Chicago: Univer-
⫽ farm earnings exceed those of nonfarm
seem to support the view that the stan- sity of Chicago Press, 1994), 159–83; table on earnings, whereas above 100 ⫽ nonfarm
dard of living of workers improved some- page 182. earnings exceed those of farm earnings.

and silk industries); it also limited the workdays in 1842 prohibiting the employment of women
for those aged nine to thirteen to nine hours a day, and girls underground. In 1847, the Central Short
and those aged thirteen to eighteen to twelve Time Committee, one of Britain’s many social re-
hours. Adults worked even longer hours. Investi- form organizations, successfully pressured Parlia-
gating commissions showed that women and ment to limit the workday of women and children
young children, sometimes under age six, hauled to ten hours. The continental countries followed
coal trucks through low, cramped passageways in the British lead, but since most did not insist on
coal mines. One nine-year-old girl, Margaret government inspection, enforcement was lax.
Gomley, described her typical day in the mines as
beginning at 7:00 a.m. and ending at 6:00 p.m.: “I
get my dinner at 12 o’clock, which is a dry muf- Urbanization and Its Consequences
fin, and sometimes butter on, but have no time al- Industrial development spurred urban growth, yet
lowed to stop to eat it, I eat it while I am thrusting even cities with little industry grew as well. Here,
the load. . . . They flog us down in the pit, some- too, Great Britain led the way: half the population
times with their hand upon my bottom, which of England and Wales was living in towns by 1850,
hurts me very much.” In response to the investi- while in France and the German states only about
gations, the British Parliament passed a Mines Act a quarter of the total population was urban. Both
662 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

old and new cities teemed with rising numbers in EUROPE


the 1830s and 1840s; the population of Vienna bal- NORTH
1831/1849

looned by 125,000 between 1827 and 1847, and the AMERICA


1832/1849 ASIA
new industrial city of Manchester grew by 70,000 1844
just in the 1830s. Mecca 1841
Massive rural emigration, rather than births 1831/1846
1840
to women already living in cities, accounted for AFRICA
1836
this remarkable increase. Agricultural improve- 1855
SOUTH
ments had increased the food supply and hence AMERICA

the rural population, but the land could no longer Historical base of Indian cholera
support the people living on it. City life and new 1849 Date of first occurrence
factories beckoned those faced with hunger and 0 1,500 3,000 miles
1826–1836 pandemic
poverty, including emigrants from other lands: 0 3,000 kilometers
1840–1855 pandemic
thousands of Irish emigrated to English cities, Ital-
ians went to French cities, and Poles flocked to MAP 21.2 The Spread of Cholera, 1826–1855
German cities. Settlements sprang up outside the Contemporaries did not understand the causes of the
old city limits but gradually became part of the ur- cholera epidemics in the 1830s and the 1840s in
ban area. Cities incorporated parks, cemeteries, Europe. Western Europeans knew only that the
zoos, and greenways — all imitations of the coun- disease marched progressively from east to west
tryside, which itself was being industrialized by across Europe. Nothing seemed able to stop it. It
railroads and factories. “One can’t even go to one’s appeared and died out for reasons that could not be
grasped at the time. Nevertheless, the cholera
land for the slightest bit of gardening,” grumbled
epidemics prompted authorities in most European
a French citizen, annoyed by new factories in town, countries to set up public health agencies to
“without being covered with a black powder that coordinate the response and study sanitation
spoils every plant that it touches.” conditions in the cities.

Overcrowding and Disease. The rapid influx of


people caused serious overcrowding in the cities
because the housing stock expanded much more rivers that supplied drinking water. The horses that
slowly than population growth. In Paris, thirty provided transportation inside the cities left drop-
thousand workers lived in lodging houses, eight or pings everywhere, and city dwellers often kept
nine to a room, with no separation of the sexes. In chickens, ducks, goats, pigs, geese, and even cattle,
1847 in St. Giles, the Irish quarter of London, 461 as well as dogs and cats, in their houses. The re-
people lived in just twelve houses. Men, women, sult was a “universal atmosphere of filth and stink,”
and children huddled together on piles of filthy as one observer recounted.
rotting straw or potato peels because they had no Such conditions made cities prime breeding
money for fuel to keep warm. grounds for disease. In 1830–1832 and again in
Severe crowding worsened already dire sani- 1847–1851, devastating outbreaks of cholera swept
tation conditions. Residents dumped refuse into across Asia and Europe, touching the United States
streets or courtyards, and human excrement as well in 1849–1850 (Map 21.2). Today we know
collected in cesspools under apartment houses. that a waterborne bacterium causes cholera, but at
At midcentury, London’s approximately 250,000 the time no one understood the disease and every-
cesspools were emptied only once or twice a year. one feared it. The usually fatal illness induced
Water was scarce and had to be fetched daily from violent vomiting and diarrhea and left the skin
nearby fountains. Despite the diversion of water blue, eyes sunken and dull, and hands and feet
from provincial rivers to Paris and a tripling of the ice cold. While cholera particularly ravaged the
number of public fountains, Parisians had enough crowded, filthy neighborhoods of rapidly growing
water for only two baths annually per person (the cities, it also claimed many rural and some well-
upper classes enjoyed more baths, of course; the to-do victims. In Paris, 18,000 people died in the
lower classes, fewer). In London, private compa- 1832 epidemic and 20,000 in that of 1849; in
nies that supplied water turned on pumps in the
poorer sections for only a few hours three days a
week. In rapidly growing British industrial cities cholera: An epidemic, usually fatal disease caused by a water-
borne bacterium that induces violent vomiting and diarrhea;
such as Manchester, one-third of the houses con- devastating outbreaks swept across Europe in 1830–1832 and
tained no latrines. Human waste ended up in the 1847–1851.
1830–1850 Th e I n d u s t r i a l R evo lu t i o n 663

London, 7,000 died in each epidemic; and in ted the urban landscape. By the 1830s, Hungary’s
Russia, the epidemic was catastrophic, claiming twin cities of Buda and Pest had eight hundred
250,000 victims in 1831–1832 and 1 million in beer and wine houses for the working classes. One
1847–1851. London street boasted twenty-three pubs in three
Rumors and panic followed in the wake of hundred yards. Police officials estimated that
each cholera epidemic. Everywhere the downtrod- London had seventy thousand thieves and eighty
den imagined conspiracies: in Paris in April 1832, thousand prostitutes. In many cities, nearly half
a crowd of workers attacked a central hospital, be- the population lived at the level of bare subsis-
lieving the doctors were poisoning the poor but tence, and increasing numbers depended on public
using cholera as a hoax to cover up the conspir- welfare, charity, or criminality to make ends meet.
acy. Eastern European peasants burned estates and Everywhere reformers warned of a widening
killed physicians and officials. Although devastat- separation between rich and poor and a growing
ing, cholera did not kill as many people as tuber- sense of hostility between the classes. The French
culosis, Europe’s number-one deadly disease. But poet Amédée Pommier wrote of “These leagues of
tuberculosis took its victims gradually, one by one, laborers who have no work, / These far too many
and therefore had less impact on social relations. arms, these starving mobs.” Clergy joined the
chorus of physicians and humanitarians in mak-
Middle-Class Fears. Epidemics revealed the so- ing dire predictions. A Swiss pastor noted: “A new
cial tensions lying just beneath the surface of ur- spirit has arisen among the workers. Their hearts
ban life. The middle and upper classes lived in seethe with hatred of the well-to-do; their eyes lust
large, well-appointed apartments or houses with for a share of the wealth about them; their mouths
more light, more air, and more water than in speak unblushingly of a coming day of retribu-
lower-class dwellings. But the lower classes lived tion.” In 1848, it would seem that that day of
nearby, sometimes in the cramped upper floors of retribution had arrived.
the same apartment houses. Middle-class reform-
ers often considered the poor to be morally degen-
erate because of the circumstances of urban life. Agricultural Perils and Prosperity
In their view, overcrowding led to sexual promis- Rising population created increased demand for
cuity and illegitimacy. They depicted the lower food and spurred changes in the countryside too.
classes as dangerously lacking in sexual self- Peasants and farmers planted fallow land, chopped
control. A physician visiting Lille, France, in 1835 down forests, and drained marshes to increase
wrote of “individuals of both sexes and of very dif- their farming capacity. Still, Europe’s ability to feed
ferent ages lying together, most of them without its expanding population remained questionable:
nightshirts and repulsively dirty. . . . The reader although agricultural yields increased by 30 to 50
will complete the picture. . . . His imagination percent in the first half of the nineteenth century,
must not recoil before any of the disgusting mys- population grew by nearly 100 percent. Railroads
teries performed on these impure beds, in the and canals improved food distribution, but much
midst of obscurity and drunkenness.” of Europe — particularly in the east — remained
Officials collected statistics on illegitimacy isolated from markets and vulnerable to famines.
that seemed to bear out these fears: one-quarter to Most people still lived on the land, and the up-
one-half of the babies born in the big European per classes still dominated rural society. Successful
cities in the 1830s and 1840s were illegitimate, and businessmen bought land avidly, seeing it not only
alarmed medical men wrote about thousands of as the ticket to respectability but also as a hedge
infanticides. Between 1815 and the mid-1830s in against hard times. Hardworking, crafty, or lucky
France, thirty-three thousand babies were aban- commoners sometimes saved enough to purchase
doned at foundling hospitals every year; 27 per- holdings that they had formerly rented or slowly
cent of births in Paris in 1850 were illegitimate, acquired slivers of land from less fortunate neigh-
compared with only 4 percent of rural births. By bors. In France at midcentury, almost two million
collecting such statistics, physicians and adminis- economically independent peasants tended their
trators in the new public health movement hoped own small properties. But in England, southern
to promote legislation to better the living condi- Italy, Prussia, and eastern Europe, large landown-
tions for workers, but at the same time they helped ers, usually noblemen, consolidated and expanded
stereotype workers as immoral and out of control. their estates by buying up the land of less success-
Sexual disorder seemed to go hand in hand ful nobles or peasants. As agricultural prices rose,
with drinking and crime. Beer halls and pubs dot- the big landowners pushed for legislation to allow
664 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

them to continue converting common land to pri- Reforming the


vate property.
Wringing a living from the soil under such Social Order
conditions put pressure on traditional family life.
For example, men often migrated seasonally to In the 1830s and 1840s, Europeans organized to
earn cash in factories or as village artisans, while reform the social evils created by industrialization
their wives, sisters, and daughters did the tradi- and urbanization. They acted in response to the
tional “men’s work” of tending crops. In France, outpouring of government reports, medical ac-
Napoleon’s Civil Code provided for an equal dis- counts, and literary and artistic depictions of new
tribution of inheritance among all heirs; as a re- social problems. Middle-class women often took
sult, land was divided over generations into such the lead in establishing new charitable organiza-
small parcels that less than 25 percent of all French tions that tried to bring religious faith, educational
landowners could support themselves. In the past, uplift, and the reform of manners to the lower
population growth had been contained by post- classes. Middle-class men, and middle-class women
poning marriage (leaving fewer years for child- too, expected women to soften the rigors of a
bearing) and by high rates of death in childbirth rapidly changing society, but this expectation led
as well as infant mortality. Now, as child mor- to some confusion about women’s proper role:
tality declined outside the industrial cities and should they devote themselves to social reform in
people without property began marrying earlier, the world or to their own domestic spaces? Many
Europeans became more aware of birth control hoped to apply the same zeal for reform to the
methods. Contraceptive techniques improved; for colonial peoples living in places administered by
example, the vulcanization of rubber in the 1840s Europeans.
improved the reliability of condoms. When such
methods failed and population increase left no op-
Cultural Responses
tions open at home, people emigrated, often to the
United States. Some 800,000 Germans had moved to the Social Question
out of central Europe by 1850, while in the 1840s The social question, an expression reflecting the
famine drove hundreds of thousands of Irish widely shared concern about social changes aris-
abroad. Between 1816 and 1850, five million Eu- ing from industrialization and urbanization, per-
ropeans left their home countries for new lives vaded all forms of art and literature. The dominant
overseas. When France colonized Algeria in the artistic movement of the time, romanticism, gen-
1830s and 1840s, officials tried to attract settlers erally took a dim view of industrialization. The
by emphasizing the fertility of the land; they of- English-born painter Thomas Cole (1801–1848)
fered the prospect of agricultural prosperity in the complained in 1836: “In this age . . . a meager util-
colony as an alternative to the rigors of industri- itarianism seems ready to absorb every feeling and
alization and urbanization at home. sentiment, and what is sometimes called improve-
Despite all the challenges to established ways ment in its march makes us fear that the bright
of life, rural political power remained in the and tender flowers of the imagination shall all be
hands of traditional elites. The biggest property crushed beneath its iron tramp.” Yet culture itself
owners dominated their tenants and sharecrop- underwent important changes as the growing cap-
pers, often demanding a greater yield without itals of Europe attracted flocks of aspiring painters
making improvements that would enhance pro- and playwrights; the 1830s and 1840s witnessed an
ductivity. They controlled the political assemblies explosion in culture as the number of would-be
as well and often personally selected local offi- artists increased dramatically and new technolo-
cials. Such power provoked resentment. One Italian gies such as photography and lithography (see
critic wrote,“Great landowner is often the synonym illustration, page 666) brought art to the masses.
for great ignoramus.” Nowhere did the old rural so- Many of these new intellectuals would support the
cial order seem more impregnable than in Russia. revolutions of 1848.
Most Russian serfs remained tied to the land, and
troops easily suppressed serfs’ uprisings in 1831 and Romantic Concerns about Industrial Life. Be-
1842. By midcentury, peasant emancipation re- cause romanticism tended to glorify nature and
mained Russia’s great unresolved problem. reject industrial and urban growth, romantics of-
ten gave vivid expression to the problems created
Review: What dangers did the Industrial Revolution by rapid economic and social transformation. The
pose to both urban and rural life? English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, best
known for her love poems, denounced child labor
1830–1850 R e fo r m i n g t h e S o c i a l O r d e r 665

in “The Cry of the Children” (1843). Architects of (1775–1851), portrayed the struggle between the
the period sometimes sought to recapture a prein- forces of nature and the means of economic
dustrial world. When the British Houses of Parlia- growth. Turner was fascinated by steamboats: in
ment were rebuilt after they burned down in 1834, The Fighting “Téméraire” Tugged to Her Last Berth
the architect Sir Charles Barry constructed them in to Be Broken Up (1838; see illustration below),
a Gothic style reminiscent of the Middle Ages. This he featured the victory of steam power over more
medievalism was taken even further by A. W. N. conventional sailing ships. An admirer described
Pugin, who contributed some of the designs for the it as an “almost prophetic idea of smoke, soot, iron,
Houses of Parliament. In his polemical book Con- and steam, coming to the front in all naval matters.”
trasts (1836), Pugin denounced modern conditions
and compared them unfavorably with those in the The Depiction of Social Conditions in Novels. In-
1400s. To underline his view, Pugin wore medieval creased literacy, the spread of reading rooms and
clothes at home. lending libraries, and serialization in newspapers
Romantic painters specialized in landscape as and journals gave novels a large reading public.
a way of calling attention to the sublime wonders Unlike the fiction of the eighteenth century, which
of nature, but sometimes even landscapes showed had focused on individual personalities, the great
the power of new technologies. In Rain, Steam, and novels of the 1830s and 1840s specialized in the
Speed: The Great Western Railway (1844), the lead- portrayal of social life in all its varieties. Manufac-
ing English romantic painter, Joseph M. W. Turner turers, financiers, starving students, workers, bu-

Joseph M. W. Turner, The Fighting “Téméraire” Tugged to Her Last Berth to Be Broken Up (1838)
In this painting a steamer belching smoke tows a wooden sailing ship to its last berth, where it will
be destroyed. Turner muses about the passing of old ways but also displays his mastery of color in
the final blaze of sunset, itself another sign of the passing of time. Turner was an avid reader of the
romantic poets, especially Byron. British opinion polls have rated this painting the best of all British
paintings. How does the painting capture the clash of old and new? (© The National Gallery, London.)
■ For more help in analyzing this image, see the visual activity for this chapter in the Online Study
Guide at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
666 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

reaucrats, prostitutes, underworld figures, thieves, came the lover of the Polish pianist and composer
and aristocratic men and women filled the pages Frédéric Chopin, among others, and threw herself
of works by popular writers. Hoping to get out into socialist politics — made the term George-
of debt, the French writer Honoré de Balzac Sandism a common expression of disdain for inde-
(1799–1850) pushed himself to exhaustion and a pendent women.
premature death by cranking out ninety-five nov-
els and many short stories. He aimed to catalog the The Explosion of Culture. As artists became more
social types that could be found in French society. interested in society and social relations, ordinary
Many of his characters, like himself, were driven citizens crowded cultural events. Museums opened
by the desire to climb higher in the social order. to the public across Europe, and the middle classes
The English fiction writer Charles Dickens began collecting art. Popular theaters in big cities
(1812–1870) worked with a similar frenetic energy drew thousands from the lower and middle classes
and for much the same reason. When his father every night; in London, for example, some twenty-
was imprisoned for debt in 1824, the young Dick- four thousand people attended eighty “penny the-
ens took a job in a shoe-polish factory. In 1836, he aters” nightly. The audience for print culture also
published a series of literary sketches of daily life multiplied. In the German states, for example, the
in London to accompany a volume of caricatures production of new literary works doubled between
by the artist George Cruikshank. Dickens then 1830 and 1843, as did the number of periodicals
produced a series of novels that appeared in and newspapers and the number of booksellers.
monthly installments and attracted thousands of Thirty or forty private lending libraries offered
readers. In them, he paid close attention to the books in Berlin in the 1830s, and reading rooms
distressing effects of industrialization and urban-
ization. In The Old Curiosity Shop (1841), for
example, he depicts the Black Country, the man-
ufacturing region west and northwest of Birming-
ham, as a “cheerless region,” a “mournful place,” in
which tall chimneys “made foul the melancholy
air.” In addition to publishing such enduring
favorites as Oliver Twist (1838) and A Christmas
Carol (1843), he ran charitable organizations and
pressed for social reforms. For Dickens, the abil-
ity to portray the problems of the poor went
hand in hand with a personal commitment to
reform.
Novels by women often revealed the
bleaker side of women’s situations. Charlotte
Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) describes the difficult
life of an orphaned girl who becomes a gov-
erness, the only occupation open to most single
middle-class women. The French novelist George
Sand (Amandine-Aurore Dupin, 1804–1876) took
her social criticism a step further. She announced
her independence in the 1830s by dressing like a
man and smoking cigars. Like many other women
writers of the time, she published her work under
a male pseudonym while creating female charac- George Sand
ters who prevail in difficult circumstances through In this lithograph by Alcide Lorentz of 1842, George
romantic love and moral idealism. Sand’s novel In- Sand is shown in one of her notorious male costumes.
Sand published numerous works, including novels,
diana (1832), about an unhappily married woman,
plays, essays, travel writing, and an autobiography.
was read all over Europe. Her notoriety — she be- She actively participated in the revolution of 1848 in
France, writing pamphlets in support of the new
George Sand: The pen name of French novelist Amandine- republic. Disillusioned by the rise to power of Louis-
Aurore Dupin (1804–1876), who showed her independence in
Napoleon Bonaparte, she withdrew to her country
the 1830s by dressing like a man and smoking cigars. The term
George-Sandism became an expression of disdain for inde- estate and devoted herself exclusively to her writing.
pendent women. (The Granger Collection, New York.)
1830–1850 R e fo r m i n g t h e S o c i a l O r d e r 667

in pastry shops stocked political newspapers and The Varieties of


satirical journals. Young children and ragpickers Social Reform
sold cheap prints and books door-to-door or in
taverns. Lithographs, novels, and even joke booklets helped
The advent of photography in 1839 provided drive home the need for social reform, but reli-
an amazing new medium for artists. The da- gious conviction also inspired efforts to help the
guerreotype, named after its inventor, French poor. Moral reform societies, Bible groups, Sun-
painter Jacques Daguerre (1787–1851), prompted day schools, and temperance groups aimed to turn
one artist to claim that “from today, painting is the poor into respectable people. In 1844, for ex-
dead.” Although this prediction was highly exag- ample, 450 different relief organizations operated
gerated, photography did open up new ways of in London alone. States supported these efforts by
portraying reality. Visual images, whether in paint- encouraging education and enforcing laws against
ing, on the stage, or in photography, heightened the vagrant poor.
the public’s awareness of the effects of industrial-
ization and urbanization. The Religious Impulse for Social Reform. Reli-
The number of artists and writers swelled. Es- giously motivated reformers first had to overcome
timates suggest that the number of painters and the perceived indifference of the working classes.
sculptors in France, the undisputed center of Eu- Protestant and Catholic clergy complained that
ropean art at the time, grew sixfold between 1789 workers had no interest in religion; less than 10
and 1838. Not everyone could succeed in this hot- percent of the workers in the cities attended reli-
house atmosphere, in which writers and artists fu- gious services. In a report on the state of religion
riously competed for public attention. Their own in England and Wales in 1851, the head of the cen-
troubles made some of them more keenly aware of sus, Horace Mann, commented that “the masses of
the hardships faced by the poor. A satirical article our working population . . . are unconscious secu-
in one of the many bitingly critical journals and larists. . . . These are never, or but seldom seen in
booklets published in Berlin proclaimed: “In Ip- our religious congregations.” To combat such in-
swich in England a mechanical genius has invented difference, British religious groups launched the
a stomach, whose extraordinary efficient construc- Sunday school movement, which reached its ze-
tion is remarkable. This artificial stomach is in- nith in the 1840s. By 1851, more than half of all
tended for factory workers there and is adjusted so working-class children ages five to fifteen were
that it is fully satisfied with three lentils or peas; attending Sunday school, even though very few
one potato is enough for an entire week.” of their parents regularly went to religious services.

The First Daguerreotype


Daguerre experimented
extensively with producing an
image on a metal plate before
he came up with a viable
photographic process in 1837.
He called this first daguerreotype
“Still Life,” a common title for
paintings. In 1839, the French
government bought the rights
and made the process freely
available. (Time & Life Pictures/ Getty
Images.)
668 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

The Sunday schools taught children how to read at Principles of the Established Church and the
a time when few working-class children could go to British and Foreign School Society. Most of these
school during the week. emphasized Bible reading. More secular in intent
Women took a more prominent role than ever were the Mechanics Institutes, which provided ed-
before in charitable work. Catholic religious or- ucation for workers in the big cities.
ders, which by 1850 enrolled many more women In 1833, the French government passed an ed-
than men, ran schools, hospitals, leper colonies, ucation law that required every town to maintain
insane asylums, and old-age homes. The Catholic a primary school, pay a teacher, and provide free
church established new orders, especially for education to poor boys. As the law’s author,
women, and increased missionary activity over- François Guizot, argued, “Ignorance renders the
seas. Protestant women in Great Britain and the masses turbulent and ferocious.” Girls’ schools
United States established Bible, missionary, and were optional, although hundreds of women
female reform societies by the hundreds. Chief taught at the primary level, most of them in pri-
among their concerns was prostitution, and many vate, often religious schools. Despite these efforts,
societies dedicated themselves to reforming “fallen only one out of every thirty children went to
women” and castigating men who visited prosti- school in France, many fewer than in Protestant
tutes. As a pamphlet of the Boston Female Moral states such as Prussia, where 75 percent of children
Reform Society explained, “Our mothers, our sis- were in primary school by 1835. Popular educa-
ters, our daughters are sacrificed by the thousands tion remained woefully undeveloped in most of
every year on the altar of sin, and who are the eastern Europe. Peasants were specifically excluded
agents in this work of destruction: Why, our fa- from the few primary schools in Russia, where Tsar
thers, our brothers, and our sons.” Nicholas I blamed the Decembrist Revolt of 1825
Catholics and Protestants alike promoted on education.
the temperance movement. In Ireland, England, Above all else, the elite sought to impose dis-
the German states, and the United States, temper- cipline and order on working people. Popular
ance societies organized to fight the “pestilence of sports, especially blood sports such as cockfight-
hard liquor.” The first societies had appeared in the ing and bearbaiting, suggested a lack of control,
United States as early as 1813, and by 1835 the and long-standing efforts in Great Britain to elim-
American Temperance Society claimed 1.5 million inate these recreations now gained momentum
members. The London-based British and Foreign through organizations such as the Society for the
Temperance Society, established in 1831, matched Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. By the end of
its American counterpart in its opposition to all the 1830s, bullbaiting had been abandoned in
alcohol. In the northern German states, temper- Great Britain. “This useful animal,” rejoiced one
ance societies drew in the middle and working reformer in 1839, “is no longer tortured amidst the
classes, Catholic as well as Protestant. Temperance exulting yells of those who are a disgrace to our
advocates saw drunkenness as a sign of moral common form and nature.” The other blood sports
weakness and a threat to social order. Industrial- died out more slowly, and efforts in other coun-
ists pointed to the loss of worker productivity, and tries generally lagged behind those of the British.
efforts to promote temperance often reflected When private charities failed to meet the
middle- and upper-class fears of the lower classes’ needs of the poor, governments often intervened.
lack of discipline. One German temperance advo- Great Britain sought to control the costs of pub-
cate insisted, “One need not be a prophet to know lic welfare by passing a new poor law in 1834,
that all efforts to combat the widespread and rap- called by its critics the “Starvation Act.” The law
idly spreading pauperism will be unsuccessful as required that all able-bodied persons receiving re-
long as the common man fails to realize that the lief be housed together in workhouses, with hus-
principal source of his degradation and misery is bands separated from wives and parents from
his fondness of drink.” Yet temperance societies children. Workhouse life was designed to be as un-
also attracted working-class people who shared the pleasant as possible so that poor people would
desire for respectability. move on to regions of higher employment. British
women from all social classes organized anti–poor
Education and Reform of the Poor. Social re- law societies to protest the separation of mothers
formers saw education as one of the main prospects from their children in the workhouses.
for uplifting the poor and the working class. In
addition to setting up Sunday schools, British Domesticity and the Subordination of Women.
churches founded organizations such as the Na- Many women viewed charitable work as the exten-
tional Society for the Education of the Poor in the sion of their domestic roles: they promoted virtu-
1830–1850 R e fo r m i n g t h e S o c i a l O r d e r 669

maintaining proper and distinct roles for men and


women was critically important to maintaining
social order in general.
Most women had little hope of economic in-
dependence. The notion of a separate, domestic
sphere for women prevented them from pursuing
higher education, work in professional careers, or
participation in politics through voting or hold-
ing office — all activities deemed appropriate only
to men. Laws everywhere codified the subordina-
tion of women. Many countries followed the
model of Napoleon’s Civil Code, which classified
married women as legal incompetents along with
children, the insane, and criminals. In Great
Britain, which had no national law code, the
courts upheld the legality of a husband’s complete
control. For example, a court ruled in 1840 that
“there can be no doubt of the general dominion
which the law of England attributes to the hus-
band over the wife.” In some countries, such as
France and Austria, unmarried women enjoyed
some rights over property, but elsewhere laws ex-
The Limits of Charity plicitly defined them as perpetual minors under
In this lithograph from 1844, the French artist Honoré paternal control.
Daumier shows a middle-class philanthropist refusing Distinctions between men and women were
to give aid to a poor mother and her children. The most noticeable in the privileged classes. Whereas
caption below explains his refusal: “I’m sorry, my good boys attended secondary schools, most middle-
woman, I cannot do anything for you. I am a member and upper-class girls still received their education
of the Society of Philanthropists of the Nord [a region
at home or in church schools, where they were
in northern France]. . . . I only give to the poor of
Kamchatka!” (that is, the faraway poor rather than
taught to be religious, obedient, and accomplished
those at home). Daumier spared no one in his satires, in music and languages. As men’s fashions turned
and in the early 1830s, the artist’s political cartoons practical — long trousers and short jackets of
landed him in prison for six months. (Robert D. Farber solid, often dark colors; no makeup (previously
Archives and Special Collections Department, Brandeis University common for aristocratic men), and simply cut
Libraries. Donated by Benjamin A. and Julia M. Trustman, 1959. hair — women continued to dress for decorative
Forms part of the Trustman Daumier Collection.) effect, now with tightly corseted waists that em-
phasized the differences between female and male
bodies. Middle- and upper-class women favored
ous behavior and morality in their efforts to im- long hair that required hours of brushing and pin-
prove society. In one widely read advice book, Eng- ning up, and they wore long, cumbersome skirts.
lishwoman Sarah Lewis suggested in 1839 that Advice books written by women detailed the tasks
“women may be the prime agents in the regener- that such women undertook in the home: main-
ation of mankind.” But women’s social reform ac- taining household accounts, supervising servants,
tivities concealed a paradox. According to the and organizing social events.
ideology that historians call domesticity, women Scientists reinforced stereotypes. Once con-
were to live their lives entirely within the domes- sidered sexually insatiable, women were now
tic sphere, devoting themselves to their families described as incapacitated by menstruation and
and the home. The English poet Alfred, Lord largely uninterested in sex, an attitude that many
Tennyson, captured this view in a popular poem equated with moral superiority. Thus was born the
published in 1847: “Man for the field and woman “Victorian” woman (the epoch gets its name from
for the hearth; / Man for the sword and for the England’s Queen Victoria — see page 684), a fig-
needle she. . . . All else confusion.”Many believed that ment of the largely male medical imagination.
Physicians and scholars considered women men-
tally inferior. In 1839, Auguste Comte, an influen-
domesticity: An ideology prevailing in the nineteenth century
that women should devote themselves to their families and the tial early French sociologist, wrote, “As for any
home. functions of government, the radical inaptitude of
670 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

the female sex is there yet more marked . . . and matter in these terms: “[God] has given to us an
limited to the guidance of the mere family.” unexampled portion of civil liberty; and we in re-
Some women denounced the ideology of do- turn drag his rational creatures into a most severe
mesticity; according to the English writer Ann and perpetual bondage.” Agitation by such groups
Lamb, for example, “the duty of a wife means the as the London Society for Effecting the Abolition
obedience of a Turkish slave.” Middle-class women of the Slave Trade succeeded in gaining a first vic-
who did not marry, however, had few options for tory in 1807 when the British House of Lords voted
earning a living; they often worked as governesses to abolish the slave trade. The new Latin Ameri-
or ladies’ companions for the well-to-do. Most can republics abolished slavery in the 1820s and
lower-class women worked because of financial 1830s after they defeated the Spanish with armies
necessity; as the wives of peasants, laborers, or that included many slaves. British missionary and
shopkeepers, they had to supplement the family’s evangelical groups continued to condemn the con-
meager income by working on the farm, in a fac- quest, enslavement, and exploitation of native
tory, or in a shop. Domesticity might have been an African populations and successfully blocked
ideal for them, but rarely was it a reality. Families British annexations in central and southern Africa
crammed into small spaces had no time or energy in the 1830s.
for separate spheres. British reformers finally obtained the aboli-
tion of slavery in the British Empire in 1833. An-
tislavery petitions to Parliament bore 1.5 million
Abuses and Reforms
signatures, including those of 350,000 women on
Overseas one petition alone. In France, the new government
Like the ideal of domesticity, the ideal of colonial- of Louis-Philippe took strong measures against
ism often conflicted with the reality of economic in- clandestine slave traffic, virtually ending French
terests. In the first half of the nineteenth century, participation during the 1830s. Slavery was abol-
those economic interests changed as European colo- ished in the remaining French Caribbean colonies
nialism underwent a subtle but momentous trans- in 1848.
formation. Colonialism became imperialism — a Slavery did not disappear immediately just be-
word coined only in the mid-nineteenth century — cause the major European powers had given it up.
as Europeans turned their interest away from the The transatlantic trade in slaves actually reached
plantation colonies of the Caribbean and toward its peak in the early 1840s. Human bondage con-
new colonies in Asia and Africa. Whereas colonial- tinued unabated in Brazil, Cuba (still a Spanish
ism most often led to the establishment of settler colony), and the United States. Some American re-
colonies, direct rule by Europeans, the introduction formers supported abolition, but they remained a
of slave labor from Africa, and the wholesale de- minority. Like serfdom in Russia, slavery in the
struction of indigenous peoples, imperialism usu- Americas involved a quagmire of economic, polit-
ally meant more indirect forms of economic ical, and moral problems that worsened as the
exploitation and political rule. Europeans still prof- nineteenth century wore on.
ited from their colonies, but now they also aimed
to re-form colonial peoples in their own image — Economic and Political Imperialism. Despite the
when it did not conflict too much with their eco- abolition of slavery, Britain and France had not lost
nomic interests to do so. interest in overseas colonies. Using the pretext of
an insult to its envoy, France invaded Algeria in
Abolition of Slavery. Colonialism — as opposed 1830 and, after a long military campaign, estab-
to imperialism — rose and fell with the enslave- lished political control over most of the country
ment of black Africans. British religious groups, in the next two decades. By 1848, more than
especially the Quakers, had taken the lead in form- seventy thousand French, Italian, and Maltese
ing antislavery societies. The contradiction be- colonists had settled there with government en-
tween calling for more liberty at home and couragement, often confiscating the lands of na-
maintaining slavery in the West Indies seemed in- tive peoples. In that year, the French government
tolerable to them. One English abolitionist put the officially incorporated Algeria as part of France.
Eventually, the French embarked on a policy of as-
imperialism: European dominance of the non-West through similating the native population into French cul-
economic exploitation and political rule; the word (as distinct ture, but their efforts proved less than completely
from colonialism, which usually implied establishment of
settler colonies, often with slavery) was coined in the mid- successful. France also imposed a protectorate gov-
nineteenth century. ernment over the South Pacific island of Tahiti.
1830–1850 I d e o lo g i e s a n d P o l i t i c a l M ove m e n t s 671

Although the British granted Canada greater venture outside the southern
Ports opened after the
self-determination in 1839, they extended their city of Guangzhou (Canton) 
Treaty of Nanking, 1842
dominion elsewhere by annexing Singapore and banned the import of British attacks
(1819), an island off the Malay peninsula, and New opium, but these measures 0 250 500 miles
KOREA
Zealand (1840). They also increased their control failed. Through smuggling In- 0 250 500 kilometers
in India through the administration of the East In- dian opium into China and
dia Company, a private group of merchants char- bribing local officials, British Shanghai
C H I N A Ningbo
tered by the British crown. The British educated a traders built up a flourishing  East
China
native elite to take over much of the day-to-day market, and by the mid-1830s Sea
Fuzhou
business of administering the country, and they they were pressuring the Brit- 
Amoy
used native soldiers to augment their military con- ish government to force an Guangzhou 
(Canton) Taiwan
trol. By 1850, only one in six soldiers serving expanded opium trade on the   Hong Kong
(British 1842)
Britain in India was European. Chinese. When the Chinese au-
South China
The East India Company also tried to estab- thorities expelled British mer- Sea
lish a regular trade with China in opium, a drug chants from southern China
The Opium War, 1839–1842
long known for its medicinal uses but increasingly in 1839, Britain retaliated by
bought in China as a recreational drug. The Chi- bombarding Chinese coastal
nese government forbade Western merchants to cities. The Opium War ended in 1842, when
Britain dictated to a defeated China the Treaty of
Nanking, by which four more Chinese ports were
opened to Europeans and the British took sover-
Opium Den in London (c. 1870)
eignty over the island of Hong Kong, received a
This woodcut by Gustave Doré shows that opium
smoking persisted in Britain at least to the 1870s.
substantial war indemnity, and were assured of a
Doré was a French book illustrator who came to continuation of the opium trade. In this case, re-
London in 1869–1871 and produced illustrations of form took a backseat to economic interest, despite
the poorer neighborhoods in the city. His taste for the the complaints of religious groups in Britain.
grotesque is apparent in the figures watching the
smokers. (The New York Public Library/ Art Resource, NY.)
Review: How did reformers try to address the social
problems created by industrialization and urbanization?
In which areas did they succeed, and in which did they
fail?

Ideologies and
Political Movements
Although reform organizations grew rapidly in the
1830s and 1840s, many Europeans found them in-
sufficient to answer the questions raised by indus-
trialization and urbanization. How did the new
social order differ from the earlier one, which was
less urban and less driven by commercial con-
cerns? Who should control this new order? Should
governments try to moderate or accelerate the pace
of change? New ideologies such as liberalism and
socialism offered competing answers to these
questions and provided the platform for new po-
litical movements. Established governments faced
challenges not only from liberals and socialists but

Opium War: War between China and Great Britain (1839–1842)


that resulted in the opening of four Chinese ports to Europeans
and British sovereignty over Hong Kong.
672 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

also from the most potent of the new doctrines, ened by Mazzini’s charismatic leadership and
nationalism. Nationalists looked past social prob- conspiratorial scheming, but he lacked both Euro-
lems to concentrate on achieving political auton- pean allies against Austria and widespread support
omy and self-determination for groups identified among the Italian masses.
by ethnicity rather than by class. Since so many different ethnic groups lived
within the borders of the Austrian Empire, neither
the emperor nor Metternich favored aspirations for
The Spell of Nationalism German unification. Economic unification in the
According to the doctrine of nationalism, all peo- German states nonetheless took a step forward with
ples derive their identities from their nations, the foundation in 1834, under Prussian leadership,
which are defined by common language, shared of the Zollverein, or “customs union.” Austria was
cultural traditions, and sometimes religion. When not part of the Zollverein. German nationalists
such nations do not coincide with state bound- sought a government uniting German-speaking
aries, nationalism can produce violence and war- peoples, but they could not agree on its boundaries:
fare as different national groups compete for Would the unified German state include both Prus-
control over territory (Map 21.3). sia and the Austrian Empire? If it included Austria,
Nationalist aspirations were especially explo- what about the non-German territories of the Aus-
sive for the Austrian Empire, which included a va- trian Empire? And could the powerful, conserva-
riety of peoples united only by their enforced tive kingdom of Prussia coexist in a unified
allegiance to the Habsburg emperor. The empire German state with other, more liberal but smaller
included three main national groups: the Ger- states? These questions would vex German history
mans, who made up one-fourth of the population; for decades to come.
the Magyars of Hungary (which included Transyl- Polish nationalism became more self-conscious
vania and Croatia); and the Slavs, who together after the collapse of the revolt in 1830 against Russ-
formed the largest group in the population but ian domination. Ten thousand Poles, mostly noble
were divided into different ethnic groups such as army officers and intellectuals, fled Poland in 1830
Poles, Czechs, Croats, and Serbs. The Austrian and 1831. Most of them took up residence in west-
Empire also included Italians in Lombardy and ern European capitals, especially Paris, where they
Venetia, and Romanians in Transylvania. Efforts to mounted a successful public relations campaign
govern such diverse peoples preoccupied Prince for worldwide support. Their intellectual hero was
Klemens von Metternich, chief minister to the the poet Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855), whose
weak Habsburg emperor Francis I (r. 1792–1835). mystical writings portrayed the Polish exiles as
Metternich’s domestic policy aimed to restrain na- martyrs of a crucified nation with an international
tionalist impulses, and it largely succeeded until Christian mission: “Your endeavors are for all men,
the 1840s. He set up a secret police organization not only for yourselves. You will achieve a new
on the Napoleonic model that opened letters of Christian civilization.”
even the highest officials. Censorship in the Ital- Mickiewicz formed the Polish Legion to fight
ian provinces was so strict that even the works of for national restoration, but rivalries and divisions
Dante were expurgated. Metternich announced among the Polish nationalists prevented united ac-
that “the Lombards must forget that they are tion until 1846, when Polish exiles in Paris tried to
Italians.” launch a coordinated insurrection for Polish inde-
Metternich’s policies forced the leading Italian pendence. Plans for an uprising in the Polish
nationalist, Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872), into province of Galicia in the Austrian Empire col-
exile in France in 1831. There Mazzini founded lapsed when peasants instead revolted against their
Young Italy, a secret society that attracted thou- noble Polish masters. Slaughtering some two
sands with its message that Italy would touch off thousand aristocrats, a desperate rural population
a European-wide revolutionary movement. The served the Austrian government’s end by defusing
conservative order throughout Europe felt threat- the nationalist challenge. Class interests and na-
tional identity were not always the same.
nationalism: An ideology that arose in the nineteenth century In Russia, nationalism took the form of oppo-
and that holds that all peoples derive their identities from their sition to Western ideas. Russian nationalists, or
nations, which are defined by common language, shared cul- Slavophiles (lovers of the Slavs), opposed the West-
tural traditions, and sometimes religion.
ernizers, who wanted Russia to follow Western
Giuseppe Mazzini: An Italian nationalist (1805–1872) who
founded Young Italy, a secret society to promote Italian unity. models of industrial development and constitu-
He believed that a popular uprising would create a unified Italy. tional government. The Slavophiles favored main-
1830–1850 I d e o lo g i e s a n d P o l i t i c a l M ove m e n t s 673

Language Group
N
Romance Finno-Ugrian
French Finnish W
Italian Estonian
E
Spanish Magyar
Catalan Baltic S
FINNISH
Portuguese Latvian SWEDISH
Corsican Lithuanian
Romanian Basque NORWEGIAN
Walloon Basque
Germanic Thraco-Illyrian
English Albanian GREAT
Dutch RUSSIAN
German Hellenic ESTONIAN
Greek GAELIC
Flemish
Danish Turkish-Tataric
Norwegian Turkish LATVIAN

a
North

Se
Swedish Mixed use Sea i c
IRISH DANISH lt LITHUANIAN
Slavonic of languages Ba
Great Russian WHITE
Ukrainian RUSSIAN
WELSH ENGLISH
White Russian
Polish DUTCH
Serbian CORNISH
Croatian GERMAN POLISH
Slovak UKRAINIAN
Czech BRETON FLEMISH
Bulgarian ATLANTIC CZECH
Macedonian WALLOON SLOVAK
Slovenian OCEAN
Celtic
Irish FRENCH SLOVENIAN MAGYAR
Gaelic BASQUE
Welsh
Breton ROMANIAN
Cornish B lack Sea
SERBIAN
CROATIAN BULGARIAN
CATALAN CORSICAN
PORTUGUESE SPANISH ITALIAN
ALBANIAN

MACEDONIAN
TURKISH
Mediterranean Sea GREEK

0 200 400 miles

0 200 400 kilometers

MAP 21.3 Languages of Nineteenth-Century Europe


Even this detailed map of linguistic diversity understates the number of different languages and
dialects spoken in Europe. In Italy, for example, few people spoke Italian as their first language.
Instead, they spoke local dialects such as Piedmontese or Ligurian, and some might speak better
French than Italian if they came from the regions bordering France. ■ How does the map underline
the inherent contradictions of nationalism in Europe? What were consequences of linguistic diversity
within national borders? Keep in mind that even in Spain, France, and Great Britain, linguistic diversity
continued right up to the beginning of the 1900s.

taining rural traditions infused by the values of the organizations only in the 1840s. In 1842, a group
Russian Orthodox church. Only a return to Rus- of writers founded the Young Ireland movement,
sia’s basic historical principles, they argued, could which aimed to recover Irish traditions and pre-
protect the country against the corrosion of ra- serve the Gaelic language (spoken by at least
tionalism and materialism. Slavophiles sometimes one-third of the peasantry). Daniel O’Connell
criticized the regime, however, because they be- (1775–1847), a Catholic lawyer and landowner
lieved the state exerted too much power over the who sat in the British House of Commons, hoped
church. The conflict between Slavophiles and to force the British Parliament to repeal the Act of
Westernizers has continued to shape Russian cul- Union of 1801, which had made Ireland part of
tural and intellectual life to the present day. Great Britain. In 1843, London newspapers re-
The most significant nationalist movement in ported “monster meetings” that drew crowds of as
western Europe could be found in Ireland. The many as 300,000 people in support of repeal of the
Irish had struggled for centuries against English union. In response, the British government ar-
occupation, but Irish nationalists developed strong rested O’Connell and convicted him of conspiracy.
674 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

Although his sentence was overturned, O’Connell forcing contracts, and financing major enterprises
withdrew from politics, partly because of a ter- like the military and the railroads. As historian
minal brain disease. More radical leaders, who and member of Parliament Thomas Macaulay
preached insurrection against the English, replaced (1800–1859) explained in 1830:
him. Our rulers will best promote the improvement of the
nation by strictly confining themselves to their own
Liberalism in Economics and Politics legitimate duties, by leaving capital to find its most
lucrative course, commodities their fair price, industry
As an ideology, liberalism traced its origins to the and intelligence their natural reward, idleness and folly
writings of John Locke in the seventeenth century their natural punishment, by maintaining peace, by
and the Enlightenment philosophy in the eigh- defending property, by diminishing the price of law, and
teenth. The adherents of liberalism defined them- by observing strict economy in every department of the
State.
selves in opposition to conservatives on one end
of the political spectrum and revolutionaries on British liberals sought to lower or eliminate
the other. Unlike conservatives, liberals supported British tariffs, especially through repeal of the
the Enlightenment ideals of constitutional guaran- Corn Laws, which benefited landowners by pre-
tees of personal liberty and free trade in econom- venting the import of cheap foreign grain. When
ics, believing that greater liberty in politics and landholders in the House of Commons thwarted
economic matters would promote social improve- efforts to lower grain tariffs, two Manchester cot-
ment and economic growth. For that reason, they ton manufacturers set up the Anti–Corn Law
also generally applauded the social and economic League. The league appealed to the middle class
changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, against the landlords, who were labeled “a bread-
while opposing the violence and excessive state taxing oligarchy” and “blood-sucking vampires,”
power promoted by the French Revolution. The and attracted working-class backing by promising
leaders of the rapidly expanding middle class com- lower food prices. League members established lo-
posed of manufacturers, merchants, and profes- cal branches, published newspapers and the jour-
sionals favored liberalism. nal The Economist (founded in 1843 and now one
of the world’s most influential periodicals), and
British Liberalism. The rapid industrialization campaigned in elections. They eventually won the
and urbanization of Great Britain created a recep- support of the Tory prime minister Sir Robert Peel,
tive environment for liberalism. Its foremost whose government repealed the Corn Laws in
proponent in the early nineteenth century was 1846.
the philosopher and jurist Jeremy Bentham
(1748–1832). He called his brand of liberalism Liberalism on the Continent. Free trade had less
utilitarianism because he held that the best policy appeal in continental Europe than in England be-
is the one that produces “the greatest good for the cause continental industries needed protection
greatest number” and is thus the most useful, or against British industrial dominance. As a conse-
utilitarian. Bentham’s criticisms spared no institu- quence, liberals on the continent focused on con-
tion; he railed against the injustices of the British stitutional reform. French liberals, for example,
parliamentary process, the abuses of the prisons agitated for greater press freedoms and a broaden-
and the penal code, and the educational system. In ing of the vote. Louis-Philippe’s government bru-
his zeal for social engineering, Bentham proposed tally repressed working-class and republican
elaborate schemes for managing the poor and insurrections in Lyon and Paris in the early 1830s
model prisons that would emphasize rehabilita- and forced the republican opposition under-
tion through close supervision rather than cor- ground. The French king’s increasingly restrictive
poral punishment. British liberals like Bentham governments also thwarted liberals’ hopes for re-
wanted government involvement, including dereg- forms by suppressing many political organizations
ulation of trade, but they shied away from any as- and reestablishing censorship.
sociation with revolutionary violence. Repression muted criticism in most other Eu-
British liberals wanted government to limit its ropean states as well. Nevertheless, liberal reform
economic role to maintaining the currency, en- movements grew up in pockets of industrializa-

liberalism: An economic and political ideology that emphasized Corn Laws: Tariffs on grain in Great Britain that benefited
free trade and the constitutional guarantees of individual rights landowners by preventing the import of cheap foreign grain;
such as freedom of speech and religion. they were repealed by the British government in 1846.
1830–1850 I d e o lo g i e s a n d P o l i t i c a l M ove m e n t s 675

tion in Prussia, the smaller German states, and the class — the owners of factories and businesses —
Austrian Empire. Some state bureaucrats, espe- not the workers. They sought to reorganize soci-
cially university-trained middle-class officials, ety totally rather than to reform it piecemeal
favored economic liberalism. Hungarian count through political measures. They envisioned a fu-
Stephen Széchenyi (1791–1860) personally cam- ture society in which workers would share a har-
paigned for the introduction of British-style monious, cooperative, and prosperous life.
changes. He introduced British agricultural tech- Building on the theoretical and practical ideas laid
niques on his own lands, helped start up steam- out in the early nineteenth century by thinkers and
boat traffic on the Danube, encouraged the reformers such as Count Henri de Saint-Simon,
importation of machinery and technicians for Charles Fourier, and Robert Owen, the socialists
steam-driven textile factories, and pushed the con- of the 1830s and 1840s hoped that economic plan-
struction of Hungary’s first railway line, from ning and working-class organization would solve
Budapest to Vienna. the problems caused by industrial growth, includ-
In the 1840s, however, Széchenyi’s efforts ing the threat of increasingly mechanical, unfeel-
paled before those of the flamboyant Magyar na- ing social relations.
tionalist Lajos Kossuth (1802–1894). After spend-
ing four years in prison for sedition, Kossuth Origins of Socialism. Early socialists criticized
grabbed every opportunity to publicize American the emerging Industrial Revolution for dividing
democracy and British political liberalism, all in a society into two classes: the new middle class, or
fervent nationalist spirit. In 1844, he founded the capitalists (who owned the wealth), and the work-
Protective Association, whose members bought ing class, their downtrodden and impoverished
only Hungarian products; to Kossuth, boycotting employees. As their name suggests, the socialists
Austrian goods was crucial to ending “colonial de- aimed to restore harmony and cooperation
pendence” on Austria. Born of a lesser landown- through social reorganization. Robert Owen
ing family without a noble title, Kossuth did not (1771–1858), a successful Welsh-born manufac-
hesitate to attack “the cowardly selfishness of the turer, founded British socialism. In 1800, he
landowner class.” bought a cotton mill in New Lanark, Scotland, and
Even in Russia, signs of liberal opposition ap- began to set up a model factory town, where work-
peared in the 1830s and 1840s. Small circles of ers labored only ten hours a day (instead of sev-
young noblemen serving in the army or bureau- enteen, as was common) and children between the
cracy met in cities, especially Moscow, to discuss ages of five and ten attended school rather than
the latest Western ideas and to criticize the Rus- working. To put his principles once more into ac-
sian state: “The world is undergoing a transforma- tion, Owen moved to the United States in the 1820s
tion, while we vegetate in our hovels of wood and founded a community named New Harmony
and clay,” wrote one. Out of these groups came in Indiana. The experiment collapsed after three
such future revolutionaries as Alexander Herzen years, a victim of internal squabbling. But out of
(1812–1870), described by the police as “a daring Owen’s experiments and writings, such as The
free-thinker, extremely dangerous to society.” Tsar Book of the New Moral World (1820), would come
Nicholas I (r. 1825–1855) banned Western liberal the movement for producer cooperatives (busi-
writings as well as all books about the United nesses owned and controlled by their workers),
States. He sent nearly ten thousand people a year consumers’ cooperatives (stores in which con-
into exile in Siberia as punishment for their polit- sumers owned shares), and a national trade union.
ical activities. Claude Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825)
and Charles Fourier (1772–1837) were Owen’s
counterparts in France. Saint-Simon was a noble
Socialism and the Early
who had served as an officer in the War of Amer-
Labor Movement ican Independence and lost a fortune speculating
The newest ideology, socialism, took up where lib- in national property during the French Revolu-
eralism left off: socialists believed that the liberties tion. Fourier traveled as a salesman for a Lyon
advocated by liberals benefited only the middle cloth merchant. Both shared Owen’s alarm about
the effects of industrialization on social relations.
Saint-Simon — who coined the terms industrial-
socialism: A social and political ideology that advocated the re- ism and industrialist to define the new economic
organization of society to overcome the new tensions created
by industrialization and restore social harmony through com- order and its chief animators — believed that work
munities based on cooperation. was the central element in the new society and that
676 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

it should be controlled not by politicians but by workers could control the work process and elim-
scientists, engineers, artists, and industrialists inate profits made by capitalists. His 1840 book
themselves. To correct the abuses of the new in- What Is Property? argues that property is theft: la-
dustrial order, Fourier urged the establishment of bor alone is productive, and rent, interest, and
communities that were part garden city and part profit unjust.
agricultural commune; all jobs would be rotated After 1840, some socialists began to call them-
to maximize happiness. Fourier hoped that a net- selves communists, emphasizing their desire to re-
work of small, decentralized communities would place private property by communal, collective
replace the state. ownership. The Frenchman Étienne Cabet
(1788–1856) was the first to use the word commu-
Socialism and Women. The emancipation of nist. In 1840, he published Travels in Icaria, a novel
women was essential to Fourier’s vision of a har- describing a communist utopia in which a popu-
monious community: “The extension of the priv- larly elected dictatorship efficiently organized
ileges of women is the fundamental cause of all work, reduced the workday to seven hours, and
social progress.” After Saint-Simon’s death in 1825, made work tasks “short, easy, and attractive.”
some of his followers established a quasi-religious Out of the churning of socialist ideas of the
cult with elaborate rituals and a “he-pope” and 1840s emerged two men whose collaboration
“she-pope,” or ruling father and mother. Saint- would change the definition of socialism and re-
Simonians lived and worked together in cooperative make it into an ideology that would shake the
arrangements and scandalized some by advocating world for the next 150 years. Karl Marx
free love. They set up branches in the United States (1818–1883) had studied philosophy at the Uni-
and Egypt. In 1832, some Saint-Simonian women versity of Berlin, edited a liberal newspaper until
founded a feminist newspaper, The Free Woman, the Prussian government suppressed it, and then
asserting that “with the emancipation of woman left for Paris, where he met Friedrich Engels
will come the emancipation of the worker.” (1820–1895). While working in the offices of his
In Great Britain, many women joined the wealthy family’s cotton manufacturing interests in
Owenites and helped form cooperative societies Manchester, England, Engels had been shocked
and unions. They defended women’s working-class into writing The Condition of the Working Class in
organizations against the complaints of men in the England in 1844 (1845), a sympathetic depiction
new societies and trade unions. As one woman of industrial workers’ dismal lives. In Paris, where
wrote, “Do not say the unions are only for German and eastern European intellectuals could
men. . . . ’Tis a wrong impression, forced on our pursue their political interests more freely than at
minds to keep us slaves!” As women became more home, Marx and Engels organized the Commu-
active, Owenites agitated for women’s rights, mar- nist League, in whose name they published The
riage reform, and popular education. The French Communist Manifesto in 1848 (see Document,
activist Flora Tristan (1801–1844) devoted herself “Marx and Engels,” page 677). It eventually be-
to reconciling the interests of male and female came the touchstone of Marxist and communist
workers. She had seen the “frightful reality” of revolution all over the world. Communists, the
London’s poverty and made a reputation report- Manifesto declared, must aim for “the downfall of
ing on British working conditions. Tristan pub- the bourgeoisie [capitalist class] and the ascen-
lished a stream of books and pamphlets urging dancy of the proletariat [working class], the abo-
male workers to address women’s unequal status, lition of the old society based on class conflicts
arguing that “the emancipation of male workers is and the foundation of a new society without
impossible so long as women remain in a degraded classes and without private property.” Marx and
state.” Engels embraced industrialization because they
believed it would eventually bring on the prole-
Collectivists and Communists. Even though tarian revolution and thus lead inevitably to the
most male socialists ignored Tristan’s plea for abolition of exploitation, private property, and
women’s participation, they did strive to create class society.
working-class associations. The French socialist
Louis Blanc (1811–1882) explained the impor- Working-Class Organization. Socialism accom-
tance of working-class associations in his book panied, and in some places incited, an upsurge in
Organization of Labor (1840), which deeply influ-
enced the French labor movement. Similarly,
communists: Those socialists who after 1840 (when the word
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) urged was first used) advocated the abolition of private property in
workers to form producers’ associations so that the favor of communal, collective ownership.
1830–1850 I d e o lo g i e s a n d P o l i t i c a l M ove m e n t s 677

DOCUMENT

Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto


Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Friedrich En- one another, carried on an uninterrupted, men who are to wield those weapons —
gels (1820–1895) were both sons of prosper- now hidden, now open fight, a fight that the modern working class — the proletar-
ous German-Jewish families that had each time ended, either in a revolutionary ians. . . .
converted to Christianity. In the manifesto reconstitution of society at large, or in the The essential condition for the exis-
for the Communist League, they laid out common ruin of the contending classes. . . . tence, and for the sway of the bourgeois
many of the central principles that would The modern bourgeois society that class, is the formation and augmentation
guide Marxist revolution in the future: they has sprouted from the ruins of feudal so- of capital; the condition for capital is
insisted that all history is shaped by class ciety has not done away with class antag- wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclu-
struggle and that in future revolutions the onisms. It has but established new classes, sively on competition between labourers.
working class would overthrow the bour- new conditions of oppression, new forms The advance of industry, whose involun-
geoisie, or middle class, and replace capital- of struggle in place of the old ones. tary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces
ism and private property with a communist Our epoch, the epoch of the bour- the isolation of the labourers, due to com-
state in which all property is collectively geoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive petition, by their revolutionary combina-
rather than individually owned. As this se- feature: It has simplified the class antago- tion, due to association. The development
lection shows, Marx and Engels always nisms: Society as a whole is more and of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from
placed more emphasis on class struggle than more splitting up into two great hostile under its feet the very foundation on
on the state that would result from the en- camps, into two great classes directly fac- which the bourgeoisie produces and ap-
suing revolution. ing each other: Bourgeoisie [middle class] propriates products. What the bour-
and Proletariat [working class]. . . . geoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its
The history of all hitherto existing society The weapons with which the bour- own gravediggers. Its fall and the victory
is the history of class struggles. geoisie felled feudalism to the ground are of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
Freeman and slave, patrician and now turned against the bourgeoisie itself.
plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and But not only has the bourgeoisie Source: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The
journeyman, in a word, oppressor and forged the weapons that bring death to it- Communist Manifesto. Translated by Samuel Moore
oppressed, stood in constant opposition to self; it has also called into existence the (New York: Penguin, 1985), 79–80, 87, 93–94.

working-class organization in western Europe. people in social slavery and political degradation.”
British workers founded cooperative societies, lo- Many women took part by founding female polit-
cal trade unions, and so-called friendly societies ical unions, setting up Chartist Sunday schools, or-
for mutual aid — all of which frightened the ganizing boycotts of unsympathetic shopkeepers,
middle classes. A newspaper exclaimed in 1834,“The and joining Chartist temperance associations.
trade unions are, we have no doubt, the most dan- Nevertheless, the People’s Charter refrained from
gerous institutions that were ever permitted to take calling for woman suffrage because the move-
root.” ment’s leaders feared that doing so would alienate
Many British workers joined in Chartism, potential supporters.
which aimed to transform Britain into a democ- The Chartists organized a massive campaign
racy. In 1838, political radicals drew up the during 1838 and 1839, with large public meetings,
People’s Charter, which demanded universal man- fiery speeches, and torchlight parades. Presented
hood suffrage, vote by secret ballot, equal electoral with petitions for the People’s Charter signed by
districts, annual elections, and the elimination of more than a million people, the House of Com-
property qualifications for and the payment of mons refused to act. In response to this rebuff from
stipends to members of Parliament. Chartists de- middle-class liberals, the Chartists allied them-
nounced their opponents as seeking “to keep the selves in the 1840s with working-class strike move-
ments in the manufacturing districts and
associated with various European revolutionary
Chartism: The British movement of supporters of the People’s movements. But at the same time they — like their
Charter (1838), which demanded universal manhood suffrage,
vote by secret ballot, equal electoral districts, and other re-
British and continental allies — distanced them-
forms. selves from women workers.
678 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

Continental workers were less well organized


because trade unions and strikes were illegal every-
where except Great Britain. Nevertheless, artisans
and skilled workers in France formed mutual aid
societies that provided insurance, death benefits,
and education. Workers in new factories rarely or-
ganized, but artisans in the old trades, such as the
silk workers of Lyon, France, created societies to
resist mechanization and wage cuts. In eastern and
central Europe socialism and labor organiza-
tion — like liberalism — had less impact than in
western Europe. Cooperative societies and work-
ers’ newspapers did not appear in the German
states until 1848.

Review: Why did ideologies have such a powerful ap-


peal in the 1830s and 1840s?

The Revolutions of 1848


The Irish Famine
Food shortages, overpopulation, and unemploy- Contemporary depictions such as this one from 1847
ment helped turn ideological turmoil into revolu- drew attention to the plight of the Irish peasants when
tion. In 1848, demonstrations and uprisings a blight infected potato plants, destroying the single
toppled governments, forced rulers and ministers most important staple crop. In this illustration, a girl
to flee, and offered revolutionaries an opportunity turns up the ground looking for potatoes while a
to put liberal, socialist, and nationalist ideals into starving boy looks dazed. The artist reported seeing
practice (Map 21.4). In the end, however, all the six dead bodies nearby. (The Granger Collection, New York.)
revolutions failed because the various ideological
movements quarreled, leaving an opening for
rulers and their armies to return to power. Throughout Europe, famine jeopardized so-
cial peace. In age-old fashion, rumors circulated
about large farmers hoarding grain to drive up
The Hungry Forties prices. Believing that governments should ensure
Beginning in 1845, crop failures across Europe fair prices, crowds took to the streets to protest, of-
caused food prices to shoot skyward. In the best of ten attacking markets or bakeries. They threatened
times, urban workers paid 50 to 80 percent of their officials with retribution. “If the grain merchants
income for a diet consisting largely of bread; now do not cease to take away grains . . . we will go to
even bread was beyond their means. Overpopu- your homes and cut your throats and those of the
lation hastened famine in some places, especially three bakers . . . and burn the whole place down.”
Ireland, where blight destroyed the staple crop, So went one threat from French villagers in the
potatoes, first in 1846 and again in 1848 and 1851. hungry winter of 1847. Although harvests im-
Irish peasants had planted potatoes because a fam- proved in 1848, by then many people had lost their
ily of four might live off one acre of potatoes but land or become hopelessly indebted.
would require at least two acres of grain. The Irish High food prices also drove down the demand
often sought security in large families, trusting that for manufactured goods, resulting in increased un-
their children might help work the land and care employment. Industrial workers’ wages had been
for them in old age. By the 1840s, Ireland was es- rising — in the German states, for example, wages
pecially vulnerable to the potato blight. Out of a rose an average of 5.5 percent in the 1830s and 10.5
population of eight million, as many as one mil- percent in the 1840s — but the cost of living rose
lion people died of starvation or disease. Corpses about 16 percent each decade, canceling out wage
lay unburied on the sides of roads, and whole fam- increases. Seasonal work and regular unemploy-
ilies were found dead in their cottages, half-eaten ment were already the norm when the crisis of the
by dogs. Hundreds of thousands emigrated to Eng- late 1840s exacerbated the uncertainties of urban
land, the United States, and Canada. life. “The most miserable class that ever sneaked
1830–1850 Th e R evo lu t i o n s o f 1 8 4 8 679

its way into history” is how Friedrich


Engels described underemployed and
starving workers in 1847. N
W

a
E
N or t h

Se
Another French Revolution S Sea i

c
lt
Ba
The specter of hunger amplified the
voices criticizing established rulers. A SI
A
Berlin U S
Parisian demonstration in favor of re- P R 
Warsaw
form turned violent on February 23, BELGIUM
Frankfurt  Cracow
1848, when panicky soldiers opened    
Paris Prague
fire on the crowd, killing forty or fifty ATLANTIC Munich Vienna 
 AU S T R I A N
demonstrators. The next day, faced OCEAN   EMPIRE 

FRANCE 
with fifteen hundred barricades and a 
Buda  Pest 
furious populace, King Louis-Philippe HUNGARY 
 
Milan 
abdicated and fled to England. A Venice
O
Bucharest

hastily formed provisional government PAPAL
T
TO
STATES M
declared France a republic once again. AN

EM
The new republican government Rome
PIR
E
issued liberal reforms — an end to the
death penalty for political crimes, the KINGDOM
OF THE
abolition of slavery in the colonies, and M e d it e r r a n e a n S e a TWO SICILIES

freedom of the press — and agreed to Palermo
Territories with revolts
introduce universal adult male suffrage
 Revolts and centers of revolutionary activity
despite misgivings about political par- 0 200 400 miles
Boundary of German Confederation
ticipation by peasants and unemployed 0 200 400 kilometers
workers. The government allowed
Paris officials to organize a system of MAP 21.4 The Revolutions of 1848
“national workshops” to provide the The attempts of rulers to hold back the forces of change collapsed suddenly in 1848
when once again the French staged a revolution that inspired many others in Europe.
unemployed with construction work.
This time, cities all over central and eastern Europe joined in as the spirit of revolt
When women protested their exclu-
inflamed one capital after another. Although all of these revolutions eventually failed
sion, the city set up a few workshops because of social and political divisions, the sheer scale of rebellion forced rulers to
for women workers, albeit with wages reconsider their policies.
lower than men’s. To meet a mounting
deficit, the provisional government
then levied a 45 percent surtax on property taxes, of the monarchy or a moderate republic. The As-
alienating peasants and landowners. sembly immediately appointed a five-man execu-
While peasants grumbled, scores of newspa- tive committee to run the government and
pers and political clubs inspired grassroots demo- pointedly excluded known supporters of workers’
cratic fervor in Paris and other cities; meeting in rights. Suspicious of all demands for rapid change,
concert halls, theaters, and government auditori- the deputies dismissed a petition to restore divorce
ums, clubs became a regular evening attraction for and voted down women’s suffrage, 899 to 1. When
the citizenry. Women also formed clubs, published the numbers enrolled in the national workshops
women’s newspapers, and demanded representa- in Paris rocketed from a predicted 10,000 to
tion in national politics. 110,000, the government ordered the workshops
This street-corner activism alarmed middle- closed to new workers, and on June 21 it directed
class liberals and conservatives. To ensure its con- that those already enrolled move to the provinces
trol, the republican government paid some or join the army.
unemployed youths to join a mobile guard with its The workers exploded in anger. In the June
own uniforms and barracks. Tension between the Days, as the following week came to be called, the
government and the workers in the national work- government summoned the army, the National
shops rose. Faced with rising radicalism in Paris Guard, and the newly recruited mobile guard to
and other big cities, the voters elected a largely con- fight the workers. Alexis de Tocqueville (see Doc-
servative National Assembly in April 1848; most of ument, “Alexis de Tocqueville Describes the June
the deputies chosen were middle-class profession- Days in Paris (1848),” page 681) breathed a sigh of
als or landowners, who favored either a restoration relief: “The Red Republic [red being associated
680 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

million cast. He had lived most of his life outside


of France, and the leaders of the republic expected
him to follow their tune. In uncertain times, the
Bonaparte name promised something to everyone.
Even many workers supported him because he had
no connection with the blood-drenched June
Days.
In reality, Bonaparte’s election spelled the end
of the Second Republic, just as his uncle had dis-
mantled the first one established in 1792. In 1852,
on the forty-eighth anniversary of Napoleon I’s
coronation as emperor, Louis-Napoleon declared
himself Emperor Napoleon III, thus inaugurating
the Second Empire. (Napoleon I’s son died and
never became Napoleon II, but Napoleon III
wanted to create a sense of legitimacy and so used
the Roman numeral III.) Political division and
class conflict had proved fatal to the Second Re-
public. Although the revolution of 1848 never had
a period of terror like that in 1793–1794, it
The Vésuviennes, 1848 nonetheless ended in similar fashion, with an au-
This lithograph satirizes women’s political ambitions, thoritarian government that tried to play monar-
referring to a women’s club named the Vésuviennes. chists and republicans off against each other.
The artist implies that women have left their children
at home in the care of their hapless husbands so that
they can actively participate in politics. Meetings of Nationalist Revolution in Italy
feminist clubs were often disrupted by men hostile to In January 1848, a revolt broke out in Palermo,
their aims. Can you compare the depiction of women Sicily, against the Bourbon ruler. Then came the
in this lithograph to earlier depictions of women in the
electrifying news of the February revolution in
French Revolution of 1789 in Chapter 19? (Bibliothèque
nationale de France.)
Paris. In Milan, a huge nationalist demonstration
quickly degenerated into battles between Aus-
trian forces and armed demonstrators. In Venice,
an uprising drove out the Austrians. Peasants in
with demands for socialism] is lost forever; all the south occupied large landowners’ estates.
France has joined against it. The National Guard, Across central Italy, revolts mobilized the poor
citizens, and peasants from the remotest parts of and unemployed against local rulers. Peasants de-
the country have come pouring manded more land, and artisans
in.” The government forces and workers called for higher
Under Austrian
crushed the workers; more than control wages, restrictions on the use of
10,000, most of them workers, a
machinery, and unemployment
Lombardy eti
were killed or injured, 12,000 relief.
n
Ve

Piedmont
were arrested, and 4,000 eventu- But class divisions and re-
ally were convicted and deported. PAPAL
STATES
gional differences stood in the
After the National Assembly Corsica way of national unity. Property
(Fr.)
adopted a new constitution call- PIEDMONT- Rome owners, businessmen, and pro-
SARDINIA Naples
ing for a presidential election fessionals wanted liberal reforms
Sardinia
in which all adult men could and national unification under
KINGDOM OF
vote, the electorate chose Louis- THE TWO SICILIES a conservative regime; intellec-
Napoleon Bonaparte (1808– 0 100 200 miles
Sicily tuals, workers, and artisans
1873), nephew of the dead em- 0 100 200 kilometers
dreamed of democracy and social
peror. Bonaparte got more than reforms. Some nationalists fa-
The Divisions of Italy, 1848
5.5 million votes out of some 7.4 vored a loose federation; others
wanted a monarchy under
Charles Albert of Piedmont-Sardinia; still others
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (1808–1873): Nephew of Napoleon
I; he was elected president of France in 1848, declared him- urged rule by the pope; a few shared Mazzini’s vi-
self Emperor Napoleon III in 1852, and ruled until 1870. sion of a republic with a strong central govern-
1830–1850 Th e R evo lu t i o n s o f 1 8 4 8 681

DOCUMENT

Alexis de Tocqueville Describes


the June Days in Paris (1848)
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) was a ciety. In truth it was not a political strug- One should note, too, that this ter-
noble landowner, well-known writer, and gle (in the sense in which we have used the rible insurrection was not the work of a cer-
deputy in the National Assembly elected word “political” up to now), but a class tain number of conspirators, but was the
in April 1848. As a political liberal, he sup- struggle, a sort of “Servile War.” It stood revolt of one whole section of the popu-
ported the new republican government in the same relation to the facts of the Feb- lation against another. The women took as
against the uprising of workers in the Na- ruary Revolution as the theory of social- much part in it as the men. While the men
tional Workshops. His description of the ism stood to its ideas; or rather it sprang fought, the women got the ammunition
June Days comes from a memoir he wrote naturally from those ideas, as a son from ready and brought it up. And when in the
in 1850 about the events of the 1848 revo- his mother; and one should not see it only end they had to surrender, the women
lution. Although a fierce opponent of social- as a brutal and blind, but as a powerful ef- were the last to yield. . . .
ism, Tocqueville detected class struggle in fort of the workers to escape from the ne- Down all the roads not held by the
the insurrection. cessities of their condition, which had insurgents, thousands of men were pour-
been depicted to them as an illegitimate ing in from all parts of France to aid us.
Now at last I have come to that insurrec- depression, and by the sword to open up Thanks to the railways, those from fifty
tion in June which was the greatest and the a road towards that imaginary well-being leagues [150 miles] off were already arriv-
strangest that had ever taken place in our that had been shown to them in the dis- ing, although the fighting had begun only
history, or perhaps in that of any other na- tance as a right. It was this mixture of in the evening of the previous day. The
tion: the greatest because for four days greedy desires and false theories that en- next day and the days following, they were
more than a hundred thousand men took gendered the insurrection and made it so to arrive from one and two hundred
part in it, and there were five generals killed; formidable. These poor people had been leagues [300–600 miles] away. These men
the strangest, because the insurgents were assured that the goods of the wealthy were were drawn without distinction from all
fighting without a battle cry, leaders, or flag, in some way the result of a theft commit- classes of society; among them there were
and yet they showed wonderful powers of ted against themselves. They had been as- great numbers of peasants, bourgeois,
co-ordination and a military expertise that sured that inequalities of fortune were as large landowners and nobles, all jumbled
astonished the most experienced officers. much opposed to morality and the inter- up together in the same ranks.
Another point that distinguished it ests of society, as to nature. This obscure
from all other events of the same type dur- and mistaken conception of right, com-
Source: Alexis de Tocqueville, Recollections, ed.
ing the last sixty years was that its object bined with brute force, imparted to it an J. P. Mayer and A. P. Kerr, trans. George Lawrence
was not to change the form of the govern- energy, tenacity and strength it would (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), 136–137,
ment, but to alter the organization of so- never have had on its own. 152.

ment. Many leaders of national unification spoke (1807–1882), congregated in Rome to organize the
standard Italian only as a second language; most new republic. These efforts eventually faltered
Italians spoke regional dialects. when foreign powers intervened. The new presi-
As king of the most powerful Italian state, dent of republican France, Louis-Napoleon Bona-
Charles Albert (r. 1831–1849) inevitably played a parte, sent an expeditionary force to secure the
central role. After some hesitation caused by fears papal throne for Pius IX. Mazzini and Garibaldi
of French intervention, he led a military campaign fled. Although revolution had been defeated in
against Austria. It soon failed, partly because of Italy, the memory of the Roman republic and the
dissension over goals and tactics among the na- commitment to unification remained, and they
tionalists. Although Austrian troops defeated would soon emerge again with new force.
Charles Albert in the north in the summer of 1848,
democratic and nationalist forces prevailed at first
in the south. In the fall, the Romans drove the pope Revolt and Reaction in Central Europe
from the city and declared Rome a republic. For News of the revolution in Paris also provoked pop-
the next few months, republican leaders, such as ular demonstrations in central and eastern Europe.
Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi When the Prussian army tried to push back a
682 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

Uprising in Milan, 1848


In this painting by an unknown
artist, Fighting at the Tosa Gate, the
Milanese are setting up barricades
to oppose their Austrian rulers.
Whole families are involved. The flag
of green, white, and red is the flag
of the Cisalpine Republic of the
Napoleonic period, whose capital
was Milan. The three colors would
be incorporated into the national
flag of Italy after unification. (Scala/ Art
Resource, NY.)

crowd gathered in front of Berlin’s royal palace on Czechs, Poles, and Danes within its proposed Ger-
March 18, 1848, their actions provoked panic and man borders — the Prussian king Frederick
street fighting. The next day the crowd paraded William IV (r. 1840–1860) recovered his confi-
wagons loaded with dead bodies under King Fred- dence. First, his army crushed the revolution in
erick William IV’s window, forcing him to salute Berlin in the fall of 1848. Prussian troops then in-
the victims killed by his own army. In a state of tervened to help other local rulers put down the
near collapse, the king promised to call an assem- last wave of democratic and nationalist insurrec-
bly to draft a constitution and adopted the Ger- tions in the spring of 1849. When the Frankfurt
man nationalist flag of black, red, and gold. parliament finally concluded its work, offering the
The goal of German unification soon took emperorship of a constitutional, federal Germany
precedence over social reform or constitutional to the king of Prussia, Frederick William contemp-
changes within the separate states. In March and tuously refused this “crown from the gutter.”
April, most of the German states agreed to elect Events followed a similar course in the Aus-
delegates to a federal parliament at Frankfurt that trian Empire. Just as Italians were driving the Aus-
would attempt to unite Germany. Local princes and trians out of their lands in northern Italy and
even the more powerful kings of Prussia and Magyar nationalists were demanding political au-
Bavaria seemed to totter. Yet the revolutionaries’ tonomy for Hungary, on March 13, 1848, in Vi-
weaknesses soon became apparent. The eight hun- enna, a student-led demonstration for political
dred delegates to the Frankfurt parliament had reform turned into rioting, looting, and machine
little practical political experience and no access breaking. Metternich resigned, escaping to Eng-
to an army. Unemployed artisans and workers land in disguise. Emperor Ferdinand promised a
smashed machines; peasants burned landlords’ constitution, an elected parliament, and the end of
records and occasionally attacked Jewish money- censorship. The beleaguered authorities in Vienna
lenders; women set up clubs and newspapers to de- could not refuse Magyar demands for home rule,
mand their emancipation from “perfumed slavery.” and Széchenyi and Kossuth both became ministers
The advantage lay with the princes, who bided in the new Hungarian government. The Magyars
their time. While the Frankfurt parliament labori- were the largest ethnic group in Hungary but still
ously prepared a liberal constitution for a united did not make up 50 percent of the population,
Germany — one that denied self-determination to which included Croats, Romanians, Slovaks, and
1830–1850 Th e R evo lu t i o n s o f 1 8 4 8 683

Revolution of 1848 in Eastern Europe


This painting by an unknown artist
shows Ana Ipatescu leading a group of
Romanian revolutionaries in Transylvania
in opposition to Russian rule. In April
1848, local landowners began to
organize meetings. Paris-educated
nationalists spearheaded the movement,
which demanded the end of Russian
control and various legal and political
reforms. By August, the movement had
split between those who wanted
independence only and those who
pushed for the end of serfdom and
for universal manhood suffrage. In
response, the Russians invaded
Moldavia and the Turks moved into
Walachia. By October, the uprising was
over. Russia and Turkey agreed to
control the provinces jointly. (The Art
Archive.)

Slovenes who preferred Austrian rule to domina- eighteen-year-old Francis Joseph (r. 1848–1916),
tion by local Magyars. unencumbered by promises extracted by the rev-
The ethnic divisions in Hungary foreshad- olutionaries from his now feeble uncle Ferdinand,
owed the many political and social divisions that assumed the imperial crown after intervention by
would doom the revolutionaries. Fears of peasant leading court officials. In the spring of 1849, Gen-
insurrection prompted the Magyar nationalists eral Count Joseph Radetzky defeated the last Ital-
around Kossuth to abolish serfdom. This measure
alienated the largest noble landowners. The new
government alienated the other nationalities when
it imposed the Magyar language on them. In REVOLUTIONS OF 1848
Prague, Czech nationalists convened a Slav con-
gress as a counter to the Germans’ Frankfurt par- 1848
January Uprising in Palermo, Sicily
liament and called for a reorganization of the
Austrian Empire that would recognize the rights February Revolution in Paris; proclamation of republic
of ethnic minorities. Such assertiveness by non- March Insurrections in Vienna, German cities, Milan, and Venice;
German peoples provoked German nationalists to autonomy movement in Hungary; Charles Albert of
protest on behalf of German-speaking people in Piedmont-Sardinia declares war on Austrian Empire
areas with a Czech or Magyar majority. May Frankfurt parliament opens
The Austrian government took advantage of June Austrian army crushes revolutionary movement in Prague;
these divisions. To quell peasant discontent and June Days end in defeat of workers in Paris
appease liberal reformers, it abolished all remain-
July Austrians defeat Charles Albert and Italian forces
ing peasant obligations to the nobility in March
1848. Rejoicing country folk soon lost interest in November Insurrection in Rome
the revolution. Military force finally broke up the December Francis Joseph becomes Austrian emperor; Louis-Napoleon
revolutionary movements. The first blow fell in elected president in France
Prague in June 1848; General Prince Alfred von 1849
Windischgrätz, the military governor, bombarded February Rome declared a republic
the city into submission when a demonstration led April Frederick William of Prussia rejects crown of united Ger-
to violence (including the shooting death of his many offered by Frankfurt parliament
wife, watching from a window). After another up-
July Roman republic overthrown by French intervention
rising in Vienna a few months later, Windischgrätz
marched seventy thousand soldiers into the capi- August Russian and Austrian armies combine to defeat Hungarian
tal and set up direct military rule. In December, forces
the Austrian monarchy came back to life when the
684 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

ian challenges to Austrian power in northern Italy, surveillance and censorship. The Russian schools,
and his army moved east, joining with Croats and limited to the upper classes, taught Nicholas’s three
Serbs to take on the Hungarian rebels. The Aus- most cherished principles: autocracy (the unlim-
trian army teamed up with Tsar Nicholas I, who ited power of the tsar), orthodoxy (obedience to
marched into Hungary with more than 300,000 the church in religion and morality), and nation-
Russian troops. Hungary was put under brutal ality (devotion to Russian traditions). These pro-
martial law. Széchenyi went mad, and Kossuth vided no space for political dissent. Social
found refuge in the United States. Social conflicts conditions also fostered political passivity: serfdom
and ethnic divisions weakened the revolutionary continued in force and the sluggish rate of indus-
movements from the inside and gave the Austrian trial and urban growth created little discontent.
government the opening it needed to restore its Although much had changed, the aristocracy
position. remained the dominant power almost everywhere.
As army officers, aristocrats put down revolution-
ary forces. As landlords, they continued to domi-
Aftermath to 1848 nate the rural scene and control parliamentary
Although the revolutionaries of 1848 failed to bodies. They also held many official positions in
achieve most of their goals, their efforts left a pro- the state bureaucracies. One Italian princess ex-
found mark on the political and social landscape. plained, “There are doubtless men capable of lead-
Between 1848 and 1851, the French served a kind ing the nation . . . but their names are unknown to
of republican apprenticeship that prepared the the people, whereas those of noble families . . . are
population for another, more lasting republic af- in every memory.” Aristocrats kept their authority
ter 1870. In Italy, the failure of unification did not by adapting to change: they entered the bureau-
stop the spread of nationalist ideas and the root- cracy and professions, turned their estates into
ing of demands for democratic participation. In moneymaking enterprises, and learned how to in-
the German states, the revolutionaries of 1848 vest shrewdly.
turned nationalism from an idea of professors and The reassertion of conservative rule hardened
writers into a popular enthusiasm and even a prac- gender definitions. Women everywhere had par-
tical reality. The initiation of artisans, workers, and ticipated in the revolutions, especially in the Ital-
journeymen into democratic clubs increased po- ian states, where they joined armies in the tens of
litical awareness in the lower classes and helped thousands and applied household skills toward
prepare them for broader political participation. making bandages, clothing, and food. As conser-
Almost all the German states had a constitution vatives returned to power, all signs of women’s po-
and a parliament after 1850. The spectacular fail- litical activism disappeared. The French feminist
ures of 1848 thus hid some important underlying movement, the most advanced in Europe, fell apart
successes. after the June Days when the increasingly conser-
The absence of revolution in 1848 was just as vative republican government forbade women to
significant as its presence. No revolution occurred form political clubs and arrested and imprisoned
in Great Britain, the Netherlands, or Belgium, the two of the most outspoken women leaders for their
three places where industrialization and urbaniza- socialist activities.
tion had developed most rapidly. In Great Britain, In May 1851, Europe’s most important female
the prospects for revolution actually seemed quite monarch presided over a midcentury celebration
good: the Chartist movement took inspiration of peace and industrial growth that helped
from the European revolutions in 1848 and dampen the still-smoldering fires of revolutionary
mounted several gigantic demonstrations to force passion. Queen Victoria (r. 1837–1901), who her-
Parliament into granting all adult males the vote. self promoted the notion of domesticity as women’s
But Parliament refused and no uprising occurred, sphere, opened the international Exhibition of the
in part because the government had already Works of Industry of All Nations in London on
proved its responsiveness. The middle classes in May 1. A huge iron-and-glass building housed the
Britain had been co-opted into the established or- display. Soon people referred to it as the Crystal
der by the Reform Bill of 1832, and the working Palace; its nine hundred tons of glass created an
classes had won parliamentary regulation of chil- aura of fantasy, and the abundant goods from all
dren’s and women’s work. nations inspired satisfaction and pride. One Ger-
The other notable exception to revolution man visitor described it as “this miracle which has
among the great powers was Russia, where Tsar so suddenly appeared to dazzle the inhabitants of
Nicholas I maintained a tight grip through police our globe.” In the place of revolutionary fervor, the
1830–1850 C o n c lu s i o n 685

Crystal Palace offered a government-sponsored The Crystal Palace, 1851


spectacle of what industry, hard work, and tech- George Baxter’s lithograph (above) shows the exterior of the main
nological imagination could produce. building for the Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in
London. It was designed by Sir Joseph Paxton to gigantic dimensions:
1,848 feet long by 456 feet wide; 135 feet high; 772,784 square feet
Review: Why did the revolutions of 1848 fail? of ground floor area covering no less than 18 acres. The view below,
a lithograph by Peter Mabuse, offers a view of one of the colonial
displays at the exhibition. The tented room and carved ivory throne are
meant to recall India, Britain’s premier colony. (Top: © Maidstone Museum and
Conclusion Art Gallery, Kent, UK/ The Bridgeman Art Library. Below: © Private Collection/ The Stapleton
Collection/ The Bridgeman Art Library.)

Many of the six million people who visited the


Crystal Palace display came on the new railroads,
foremost symbol of this age of industrial transfor-
mation. The application of steam engines to tex-
tile manufacturing and the railroads set in motion
a host of economic and social changes with cul-
tural and political consequences: cities burgeoned
with rapidly growing populations; factories con-
centrated laborers who formed a new working
class; manufacturers now challenged landed elites
for political leadership; and social problems galva-
nized reform organizations and governments
alike. The Crystal Palace presented the rosy view
of modern, industrial, urban life, but the housing
shortages, inadequacy of water supplies, and re-
current epidemic diseases had not disappeared.
Although the revolutions of 1848 brought to
the surface the profound tensions within a Euro-
pean society in transition toward industrialization
and urbanization, they did not resolve those ten-
sions. The Industrial Revolution continued, work-
ers developed more extensive organizations, and
686 C h a pt e r 2 1 ■ I n d u s t r i a l i z at i o n a n d S o c i a l Fe r m e n t 1830–1850

MA P P I N G T H E W E ST
0 200 400 miles
 St. Petersburg
0 200 400 kilometers
SWEDEN AND NORWAY

SCOTLAND
Glasgow
 Moscow

North

a
GREAT

Se
Sea c
IRELAND

Leeds DENMARK lti
N Ba
 Manchester
W BRITAIN Hamburg
E 
A RUSSIA
S NETH. SI
 London Berlin  S
P RU
POLAND
BELGIUM

Ga
Frankfurt Prague
  Cracow

lic

 Paris

ia
ATLANTIC
OCEAN Munich

AU S T R I A N
Vienna  EMPIRE
FRANCE SWITZ. AUSTRIA Buda   Pest
HUNGARY

Milan 
Venice

PAPAL Black Sea


PORTUGAL O
STATES T
T
Lisbon 
Madrid O
 PIEDMONT- M
Rome AN 
Constantinople
SPAIN SARDINIA
EM
Naples PI
KINGDOM R E
OF THE
TWO SICILIES
Growth of European Population,  GREECE
Palermo
percent increase,
c. 1800–1850
Over 80
60–79
40–59
20–39 M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a
Under 20
Little or no population data available
 Cities of more than 1 million
Boundary of German Confederation

Europe in 1850
This map of population growth between 1800 and 1850 reveals important trends that would not
otherwise be evident. Although population growth correlated for the most part with industrialization,
population also grew in more agricultural regions such as East Prussia, Poland, and Ireland. Ireland’s
rapid population growth does not appear on this map because the famine of 1846–1851 killed more
than 10 percent of the population and forced many others to emigrate. ■ Compare this map to Map
21.1: Which areas experienced both industrialization and population increase?

liberals and socialists fought over the pace of re- For Further Exploration
form. Confronted with the menace of revolution,
elites now sought alternatives that would be less ■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
threatening to the established order and still per- for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
end of the book.
mit some change. This search for alternatives be-
came immediately evident in the question of ■ For additional primary-source material from
national unification in Germany and Italy. Na- this period, see Chapter 21 in Sources of THE
tional unification would hereafter depend not on MAKING OF THE WEST, Third Edition.
speeches and parliamentary resolutions, but rather
on what the Prussian leader Otto von Bismarck ■ For Web sites and documents related to topics
would call “iron and blood.” in this chapter, see Make History at
bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
1830–1850 C h a pt e r R ev i ew 687

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
Key Terms and People Making Connections
ideology (654) Giuseppe Mazzini (672) 1. Which of the ideologies of this period had the greatest im-
Industrial Revolution liberalism (674) pact on political events? How can you explain this?
(654) Corn Laws (674) 2. In what ways might industrialization be considered a force
cholera (662) socialism (675) for peaceful change rather than a revolution? (Hint: Think
George Sand (666) communists (676) about the situation in Great Britain.)
domesticity (669) Chartism (677)
imperialism (670) Louis-Napoleon
Opium War (671) Bonaparte (680) For practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other
study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
nationalism (672)
bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.

Review Questions
1. What dangers did the Industrial Revolution pose to both
urban and rural life?
2. How did reformers try to address the social problems cre-
ated by industrialization and urbanization? In which areas
did they succeed, and in which did they fail?
3. Why did ideologies have such a powerful appeal in the
1830s and 1840s?
4. Why did the revolutions of 1848 fail?

Important Events

1830–1832 Cholera epidemic sweeps across Europe 1839 Beginning of Opium War between Britain and
1830 France invades and begins conquest of China; invention of photography
Algeria 1841 Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop
1831 British and Foreign Temperance Society 1846 Famine strikes Ireland; Corn Laws repealed in
established England; peasant insurrection in Austrian
1832 George Sand, Indiana province of Galicia

1833 Factory Act regulates work of children in 1848 Revolutions of 1848 throughout Europe;
Great Britain; abolition of slavery in the last great wave of Chartist demonstrations in
British Empire Britain; Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The
Communist Manifesto; abolition of slavery in
1834 German Zollverein (“customs union”) French colonies; end of serfdom in Austrian
established under Prussian leadership Empire
1835 Belgium opens first continental railway 1851 Crystal Palace exhibition in London
built with state funds
Politics and Culture C H A P T E R

of the Nation-State
1850–1870
22
The End of the Concert of
Europe 690
• Napoleon III and the Quest for
French Glory
• The Crimean War, 1853–1856: Turning
n 1859, the name VERDI suddenly appeared scrawled on walls across Point in European Affairs

I the disunited cities of the Italian peninsula. The graffiti seemed to


celebrate the composer Giuseppe Verdi, whose operas made him a
special hero among Italians. His stories of downtrodden groups strug-
• Reform in Russia

War and Nation Building 696


• Cavour, Garibaldi, and the Process
of Italian Unification
gling against tyrannical government seemed to refer specifically to • Bismarck and the Realpolitik of
them. As his operatic choruses thundered out calls to rebellion in the German Unification
• Francis Joseph and the Creation
name of the nation, Italian audiences were sure that Verdi was telling of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy
them to throw off Austrian and papal rule and unite in a nation — the • Political Stability through
Gradual Reform in Great Britain
ancient Roman Empire reborn. The graffiti had a second political mes- • Nation Building in the
United States and Canada
sage: VERDI, an acronym for Vittorio Emmanuele Re d’Italia (Victor
Emmanuel, King of Italy), summoned Italians to join together under Establishing Social Order 705
Victor Emmanuel II, king of Sardinia and Piedmont — the one Italian • Bringing Order to the Cities
• Expanding the Reach of Government
leader with a nationalist, modernizing profile. The graffiti did its work, • Schooling and Professionalizing
Society
and the very next year a united Italy emerged, formed by warfare, pop- • Spreading Western Order beyond
ular uprisings, and hard bargaining by realist politicians. the West
• Confronting the Nation-State’s
In the wake of the failed revolutions of 1848, European statesmen Order at Home
and the politically conscious public increasingly abandoned the politics
The Culture of Social Order 715
of idealism in favor of Realpolitik — a politics of tough-minded real- • The Arts Confront Social Reality
ism aimed at strengthening the state and tightening social order. Re- • Religion and National Order
• From the Natural Sciences to
alpolitikers rejected the romanticism and high-minded ideologies of the Social Science
revolutionaries. Instead, they believed in power politics and even the use
of violence to attain their goals. Two particularly skilled practitioners of
Realpolitik, the Italian Camillo di Cavour and the Prussian Otto von
Bismarck, succeeded in unifying Italy and Germany, respectively, not by
romantic rhetoric but by war and diplomacy. Most leading figures of
the decades 1850–1870, enmeshed like Verdi’s operatic heroes in violent

Aïda Poster
Aïda (1871), Giuseppe Verdi’s opera of human passion and state power among
people of different nations, became a staple of Western culture, bringing people
across Europe into a common cultural orbit. Written to celebrate the opening of the
Suez Canal, Aïda also celebrated the improvement of Europe’s access to Asian
resources provided by the new waterway. The opera was a prime example of the
surge of interest in Egyptian styles and objects that followed the opening of the
canal. (Madeline Grimoldi.)

689
690 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

political maneuverings, advanced state power by roring Realpolitik but encouraging it. Western
harnessing the forces of nationalism and liberal- politicians sent armies to distant areas to stamp out
ism that had led to earlier romantic revolts. Their resistance to global expansion. At home, Realpoli-
achievements changed the face of Europe. tikers destroyed people’s neighborhoods to con-
Nation building was the order of the day, but struct public buildings, roads, and parks. The
unifying people or territory was not just about win- process of nation building was thus often brutal,
ning wars. Economic development was crucial, as bringing arrests, protests, and outright civil war —
was using government policy and culture to create all of these the centerpieces of Verdi’s operas as well.
a sense of national identity and common purpose. In response to the pressures of nation building, an
As productivity and wealth increased, governments uprising of Parisians in 1871 challenged the central
took vigorous steps to improve the urban environ- government’s violent intrusion into everyday life
ment, monitor public health, and promote national and its failure to count the costs. Thus, for the most
sentiment. State support for cultural developments part, the powerful Western nation-state did not
ranging from public schools to public health pro- take shape automatically. Instead, national policy-
grams made the citizenry as a whole better off, makers used warfare, the creation of new institu-
established a common fund of knowledge, and tions, and often brutal uprooting of people around
produced shared political beliefs and loyalties. the world to create the modern nation-state. The
Authoritarian leaders such as Bismarck and the Realpolitik approach to nation building also cre-
new French emperor Napoleon III believed that a ated a general climate of modern opinion that val-
better quality of life would not only calm revolu- ued realism, hard facts, and tough-minded deeds.
tionary impulses and build state power but also
silence liberal reformers.
Focus Question: How did the creation and
Shared culture helped build shared identity.
strengthening of nation-states change European politics,
Reading novels, viewing art exhibitions, keeping society, and culture in the mid-nineteenth century?
up-to-date at the newly fashionable world’s fairs,
and attending theater and opera performances
gave ordinary people a stronger sense of being
French or German or British. Also, the public
consumed cultural works that increasingly re-
The End of the
jected romanticism and portrayed harsher, more Concert of Europe
realistic aspects of everyday life. Artists painted
nudes in shockingly blunt ways, eliminating ro- The revolutions of 1848 had weakened the concert
mantic hues and poses. The Russian author Leo of Europe, forcing its architect, Austrian foreign
Tolstoy depicted the bleak life of soldiers in the minister Klemens von Metternich, to resign and
Crimean War, which erupted in 1853 between the flee to England and allowing the forces of nation-
Russian and Ottoman empires, while his coun-
tryman Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote of ordinary
people turning to crime in urban neighbor- Realpolitik (ray AHL poh lih teek): Policies developed after the
hoods. revolutions of 1848 and initially associated with nation build-
ing; they were based on realism rather than on the romantic
Alongside the tough-minded nation-building notions of earlier nationalists. The term has come to mean any
policies there arose tough-minded art, not just mir- policy based on considerations of power alone.

■ 1850s–1860s Positivism,
Darwinism become influential ■ 1861 Italian unification;
abolition of serfdom in Russia
■ 1850s–1870s Realism emerges in the arts

1850 1855 1860


■ 1853–1856 Crimean War ■ 1857 British-led forces ■ 1861–1865 U.S. Civil War
suppress Indian Rebellion
1850–1870 Th e E n d o f t h e C o n c e rt o f E u ro p e 691

Napoleon III and Eugénie


Receive the Siamese
Ambassadors, 1864
At a splendid gathering of
their court, the emperor
Napoleon III, his consort
Eugénie, and their son and
heir greet ambassadors from
Siam, whose exoticism and
servility before the imperial
family are the centerpiece of
this depiction by Jean-Léon
Gerome. How might a
middle-class French citizen
react to this scene? (Bridgeman-
Giraudon/ Art Resource, NY.)

alism to flourish. Clashing national ambitions man of destiny,” he called himself. Napoleon III
made it more difficult for countries to act together. acted as Europe’s schoolmaster, showing its leaders
In addition, the revival of Bonapartism in the per- how to combine economic liberalism and support
son of Napoleon III destabilized international pol- from the people with authoritarian rule. To the
itics as France’s Second Empire sought to reassert public, he claimed to represent “your families, your
itself. One of Napoleon’s targets was Russia, for- property — rich and poor alike,” but cafés where
merly a mainstay of the concert of Europe. Taking men might discuss politics were closed, and a
advantage of Russia’s continuing drive to expand, rubber-stamp legislature (the Corps législatif) muffled
France helped engineer the Crimean War. The war the actual voices of the people. Imperial style re-
took a huge toll in human life and weakened Rus- placed republican rituals (see the illustration on
sia and Austria. Russia’s defeat not only led to sub- this page). Napoleon’s opulent court dazzled the
stantial reforms in the country but also changed public, and the emperor (like his namesake) culti-
the distribution of European power. vated a masculine image of strength and majesty
by wearing military uniforms and by conspicuously
maintaining mistresses. Napoleon’s wife, Empress
Napoleon III and the Eugénie, however, followed middle-class conven-
Quest for French Glory tions, playing up her domestic role as devoted
Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon III) encour- mother to her only son and as volunteer worker in
aged the cult of his famous uncle and the revival many charities. The authoritarian, apparently old-
of French grandeur as part of nation building. “A fashioned order imposed by Napoleon satisfied the

■ 1867 Second Reform Bill in England; ■ 1871 German Empire proclaimed;


Austro-Hungarian monarchy Paris Commune

1865 1870 1875


■ 1868 Meiji Restoration begins in Japan

■ 1869–1871 Women’s colleges founded at Cambridge University

■ 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War


692 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

many peasants who feared a flare-up of the urban but ended as a war with long-lasting consequences
radicalism of 1848. for much of Europe. While professing to uphold
Napoleon III was nonetheless a modernizer. the status quo, Russia had been expanding into
He promoted a strong economy, public works pro- Asia and the Middle East. In particular, Tsar
grams, and jobs, luring the middle and working Nicholas I wanted to absorb much of the Ottoman
classes away from radical politics with the prom- Empire, fast becoming known as “the sick man of
ise of employment. International trade fairs, artis- Europe” because of its disintegrating authority.
tic expositions, and the magnificent rebuilding of Napoleon III encouraged Nicholas to be even more
Paris helped make France prosper as Europe re- aggressive in his expansionism — a maneuver that
covered from the hard times of the late 1840s. Em- provoked war in October 1853 between the two
press Eugénie wore lavish gowns, encouraging eastern empires (Map 22.1). The war disrupted the
French silk production and keeping Paris at the united Austrian and Russian front that kept
center of the lucrative fashion trade. The Second France — and Napoleon III — in check.
Empire also reached a free-trade agreement with The war drew in other states and upset Eu-
Britain and backed the establishment of innova- rope’s balance of power. To block Russia and
tive investment banks. Such new institutions led thereby protect its Mediterranean routes to East
the way in financing railroad expansion, and rail- Asia, Britain prodded the Ottomans to stand up to
way mileage increased fivefold during Napoleon Russia. With the Austrian government still resent-
III’s reign. During the economic downturn of the ing its dependence on Russia in putting down
late 1850s, he changed course by allowing work- Hungarian revolutionaries in 1849 and feeling
ing-class organizations to form and introducing threatened by continuing Russian expansion into
democratic features into his governing methods. the Balkans, Napoleon III managed to gain Aus-
Although some historians have judged Napoleon tria’s promise of neutrality during the war. Austrian
III to be enigmatic and shifty because of these neutrality split the conservative Russian-Austrian
abrupt changes, his maneuvers were hardheaded coalition that had blocked French ambitions for
responses to the fluid conditions. greater influence since 1815. In the fall of 1853, the
On the international scene, Napoleon III’s Russians blasted the wooden Turkish ships to bits
main goals were to overcome the containment of
France imposed by the Congress of Vienna and
acquire international glory like a true Bonaparte. To
0 100 200 miles
fracture the concert of Europe, Napoleon pitted
RUSSIA 0 100 200 kilometers
France first against Russia in the Crimean War,
Mo

then against Austria in the War of Italian Unifica-


lda

AUSTRIAN
via

tion, and finally against Prussia in the Franco- EMPIRE Sevastopol Crimea
1854–55  Balaklava
Prussian War of 1870. Beyond Europe, Napoleon 1854
encouraged the construction of the Suez Canal to Wallachia Ceded to Moldavia
by Russia, 1856 Black Sea
connect the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, while D a nu b e R.
.
TS 
his army continued to enforce French rule in Al- AN
M Sinope
B AL K 1853
geria and Southeast Asia. His attempt to install MONTENEGRO  Constantinople
N
Maximilian, the brother of Habsburg emperor O
T T Straits of
E
Francis Joseph, as emperor of Mexico and ulti- O M
A N
Dardanelles
W
mately of all Central America brought on rebel- E M P I R E
S
lion in Mexico and ended with Maximilian’s GREECE
execution in 1867. Despite this glaring failure,
Napoleon’s foreign policy succeeded in breaking Russian attack
down the international system of peaceful diplo- Mediterranean Sea
Allied attack
macy established at the Congress of Vienna. The
consequences were the Crimean War, the end of MAP 22.1 The Crimean War, 1853–1856
serfdom in Russia, and the birth of new nations. The most destructive war in Europe between the
Napoleonic Wars and World War I, the Crimean War
drew attention to the conflicting ambitions around
The Crimean War, 1853–1856: territories of the declining Ottoman Empire.
Turning Point in European Affairs Importantly for state building in these decades, the
Napoleon first flexed his diplomatic muscle in the war fractured the alliance of conservative forces from
the Congress of Vienna, allowing Italy and Germany to
Crimean War (1853–1856), which began as a con-
come into being as unified states.
flict between the Russian and Ottoman empires
1850–1870 Th e E n d o f t h e C o n c e rt o f E u ro p e 693

The Mission of Mercy


Florence Nightingale organized
British health care services dur-
ing the Crimean War, inspiring
a committed cadre of women
to volunteer at the battlefront.
The new sanitary measures
Nightingale introduced into the
care of the wounded and sick
dramatically reduced the death
rate of ailing soldiers. Jerry
Barrett’s romantic portrayal of
her greeting the wounded at
Scutari hardly captures the
strenuous and tough-minded
efforts involved in her work.
Why would the artist portray
Nightingale as a romantic,
ladylike heroine? (National Portrait
Gallery, London.)

at the Ottoman port of Sinope on the Black Sea; in the Straits of Dardanelles and the Black Sea,
in 1854, France and Great Britain, enemies in war which were declared neutral waters. Moldavia and
for more than a century, declared war on Russia Walachia (which soon merged to form Romania)
to defend the Ottoman Empire’s sovereignty and became autonomous Turkish provinces under vic-
territories. tors’ protection, drastically reducing Russian influ-
Faced with attacking the massive Russian Em- ence in that region too.
pire, the British and French allies settled for limited Some historians have called the Crimean War
military goals focused on capturing the Russian one of the most senseless conflicts in modern his-
naval base at Sevastopol, on the Crimea, a penin- tory because competing claims in southeastern Eu-
sula jutting into the Black Sea. Even so, the Crimean rope could have been settled by diplomacy had it
War was spectacularly bloody. British and French not been for Napoleon III’s driving ambition to
troops landed in the Crimea in September 1854, but disrupt the peace. Yet the war was full of conse-
it took a year of savage and costly combat before quence. New technologies were introduced into
the fortified Sevastopol finally fell. Generals on warfare: the railroad, shell-firing cannon, breech-
both sides demonstrated their incompetence, and loading rifles, and steam-powered ships. The rela-
governments failed to provide combatants with tionship of the home front to the battlefront was
even minimal supplies, sanitation, or medical care. beginning to change with the use of the telegraph
Hospitals had no beds, no dishes, and no water. As and increased press coverage. Home audiences re-
a result, the war claimed a massive toll. Of the three- ceived news from the Crimean front lines more
quarters of a million deaths, more than two-thirds rapidly and in more detail than ever before. Re-
were from disease and starvation. ports of incompetence, poor sanitation, and the
In the midst of this unfolding catastrophe, huge death toll outraged the public, inspiring a few
Alexander II (r. 1855–1881) ascended the Russian to go to the front to help. The English nurse Flo-
throne following the death of Nicholas I, his father. rence Nightingale became the best known of these
With casualties mounting, the new tsar asked for sojourners: she seized the moment to escape the
peace. As a result of the Peace of Paris, signed in confines of middle-class domesticity by organiz-
March 1856, Russia lost the right to base its navy ing a battlefield nursing service to care for the
British sick and wounded. Through her tough-
Alexander II: Russian tsar (r. 1855–1881) who initiated the age minded organization of nursing units, she not only
of Great Reforms and emancipated the serfs in 1861. improved the sanitary conditions of the troops
694 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

DOCUMENT

Mrs. Seacole: The Other Florence Nightingale


Another highly skilled medical worker be- which the heads of the medical staff fort, we never think of feeling any special
sides Florence Nightingale made an impact would sometimes find it difficult to pro- gratitude for the sick-room delicacies
on the battlefields in Crimea. Mary Seacole cure. These reasons, with the additional which we accept as a consequence of our
(1805–1881), daughter of a free black Ja- one that I was very familiar with the dis- illness; but the poor officer lying ill and
maican woman and a Scottish army officer, eases which they suffered most from and weary in his crazy hut, dependent for the
had learned about medicine from her successful in their treatment (I say this in merest necessaries of existence upon a
mother and from doctors who passed no spirit of vanity), were quite sufficient clumsy, ignorant soldier-cook, who would
through Kingston, staying at the family’s to account for the numbers who came almost prefer eating his meat raw to hav-
boardinghouse. In addition to a gift for heal- daily to the British Hotel for medical ing the troubles of cooking it (our En-
ing, Mrs. Seacole (as she was always called) treatment. glish soldiers are bad campaigners), often
had a passion for travel — to Europe, the That the officers were glad of me as finds his greatest troubles in the want of
United States, and Panama — which she a doctress and nurse may be easily under- those little delicacies with which a weak
supported by tending other travelers. When stood. When a poor fellow lay sickening stomach must be humoured into retain-
the Crimean War broke out, she chafed — in his cheerless hut and sent down to me, ing nourishment.
like Nightingale herself — to be at the bat- he knew very well that I should not ride
tlefront. Arriving in Crimea in 1855, Mrs. up in answer to his message empty-
Seacole saved many desperately ill soldiers handed. And although I did not hesitate
who lacked all medical care. to charge him with the value of the nec-
essaries I took him, still he was thankful Source: Mary Grant Seacole, Wonderful Adventures
[Sick soldiers] could and did get at my enough to be able to purchase them. When of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (New York: Oxford
store sick-comforts and nourishing food, we lie ill at home surrounded with com- University Press, 1988), 125–26.

both during and after the war but also pioneered violence. Although economic development spread
nursing as a profession. (See Document,“Mrs. Sea- in parts of eastern Europe, the Russian economy
cole: The Other Florence Nightingale,” above.) stagnated compared with that of western Europe.
More immediately, the war accomplished Old-fashioned farming techniques depleted soil
Napoleon III’s goal of severing the alliance be- and led to food shortages, and the nobility was of-
tween Austria and Russia, the two conservative ten contemptuous of the suffering malnutrition
powers on which the Congress of Vienna peace set- and hard labor caused. Artists made their own call
tlement had rested since 1815. It thus ended Aus- for reform with their sympathetic portrayals of
tria’s and Russia’s grip on European affairs and serfs and condemnation of brutal masters, as in
undermined their ability to contain the forces of the collection A Hunter’s Sketches (1852) by nov-
liberalism and nationalism. Russia’s catastrophic elist Ivan Turgenev. A Russian translation of Har-
defeat forced it to embark on some long-overdue riet Beecher Stowe’s U.S. antislavery novel Uncle
reforms. Tom’s Cabin (1852) was also a “must-read” for re-
formers. When Russia lost the Crimean War, the
educated public, including some government of-
Reform in Russia ficials, found the poor performance of serf-con-
Defeat in the Crimean War not only thwarted Rus- scripted armies a disgrace and the system of serf
sia’s territorial ambition but also made clear the labor a glaring liability.
need for meaningful reform. Hundreds of peas-
ant insurrections had erupted during the decade Emancipation of the Serfs. Confronted with the
before the Crimean War. Serf defiance ranged need for change, Tsar Alexander II acted. Well ed-
from malingering at forced labor to boycotting ucated and more widely traveled than his father,
vodka to protest its heavy taxation. “Our own and Alexander ushered in what came to be known as
neighboring households were gripped with fear,” the age of Great Reforms, granting Russians new
one aristocrat reported, because of potential serf rights from above as a way of ensuring that vio-
1850–1870 Th e E n d o f t h e C o n c e rt o f E u ro p e 695

lent action from below would not


force change. The most dramatic
reform was the emancipation of
almost fifty million serfs begin-
ning in 1861. By the terms of
emancipation, communities of
newly freed serfs, headed by male
village elders, received grants of
land. The community itself, tra-
ditionally called a mir, had full
power to allocate this land among
individuals and to direct their
economic activity. Although
emancipation partially laid the
groundwork for a modern labor
force in Russia, communal
landowning and decision making
meant that individual peasants
could not simply sell their parcel
of land and leave their rural com- Emancipation of the Russian Serfs
munities to work in factories as This trading card was used as a marketing gimmick to promote canned meat. Cards like
laborers had been doing in west- these were given away by the thousands and traded just as baseball cards are today.
Historical scenes were popular subjects for the cards—this one shows the emancipation
ern Europe.
of the serfs in Russia. Note that the caption is in French, the language of the European
The condition attached to
upper classes, including those in Russia, who would have consumed this product. The
the so-called land grants in Rus- emancipation is presented as a wholly beneficial act with no strings attached. (Mary Evans
sia was that peasants were not Picture Library.)
given land along with their per-
sonal freedom: they were forced
to “redeem” the land they farmed by paying off became a new political force with the potential for
long-term loans from the government, with which challenging the authoritarian central government.
the government in turn compensated the original Some aristocrats took advantage of newly relaxed
landowners. The best land remained in the hands rules on travel to see how the rest of Europe was
of the nobility, and most peasants ended up own- governed. Their vision broadened as they observed
ing less land than they had farmed as serfs. These new ways of solving social and economic prob-
conditions, especially the huge burden of debt and lems. Judicial reform gave all Russians, even for-
communal regulations, blunted Russian agricul- mer serfs, access to modern civil courts, rather
tural development for decades. But idealistic re- than leaving them at the mercy of a landowner’s
formers believed that the emancipation of the version of justice. The principle of equality of all
serfs, once treated by the nobility virtually as live- persons before the law, regardless of social rank,
stock, had produced miraculous results. As one of was introduced in Russia for the first time. Mili-
them put it, “The people are without any exagger- tary reform followed in 1874 when the government
ation transfigured from head to foot. . . . The look, reduced the twenty-five-year term of conscription
the walk, the speech, everything is changed.” to a six-year term and began paying attention to
The state also reformed local administration, education, efficiency, and humane treatment of re-
the judiciary, and the military. The government cruits. These changes improved the fitness of Rus-
compensated the nobility for loss of peasant serv- sian soldiers, bringing them closer to the level of
ices and set up zemstvos — regional councils soldiers in western Europe.
through which aristocrats could control local af-
fairs such as education, public health, and welfare. From Reform to Rebellion. Alexander’s reforms
Aristocratic control assured that the zemstvos benefited modern, market-oriented landowners in
would remain a conservative structure, but they Russia just as enclosures had done much earlier for
landowners in western Europe. At the same time,
the changes weakened personal authority of the
mir (mihr): A Russian farm community that provided for hold-
ing land in common and regulating the movements of any indi- nobility and sparked intergenerational rebellion.
vidual by the group. “An epidemic seemed to seize upon [noble] chil-
696 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

dren . . . an epidemic of fleeing from the parental War and Nation Building
roof,” one observer noted. Rejecting aristocratic
leisure, youthful rebels from the upper class val- Politicians in the German and Italian states seized
ued practical activity and sometimes identified the opportunity provided by the weakened con-
with peasants and workers. Some formed com- cert of Europe to unify their fragmented regions
munes where they hoped to do humble manual la- through warfare. Following a bloody civil war, the
bor, whereas others turned to higher education, United States solidified its institutions for further
especially the sciences. Rebellious daughters of the national expansion. The rise of powerful nation-
nobility opposed their parents by cutting their hair states such as Italy, Germany, and the United States
short, wearing black, and escaping from home was accompanied by a sense of pride in national
through phony marriages so they could study in identity — or nationalism — among their peoples
European universities. This repudiation of tradi- (see “Terms of History, page 697). This was not an
tional society led these young people to be labeled inevitable or universal trend in the West, however.
as nihilists (from the Latin for “nothing”), those Millions of individuals in the Austrian Empire, Ire-
who do not believe in any values whatsoever. A de- land, and elsewhere maintained a regional, local,
fiant spirit was percolating not just at the bottom or separate ethnic identity despite the trend toward
but also at the top of Russian society, and it would identifying with growing nation-states.
soon bring about a wave of violence.
Russian-dominated ethnic groups were in-
spired by the atmosphere of change, and in 1863 Cavour, Garibaldi, and the Process of
aristocratic and upper-class nationalist Poles rose Italian Unification
up against the weakened Russian monarchy, de- Even after the failure of the revolutions of 1848 in
manding full national independence for their the Italian states, the call for Risorgimento (a term
country. By 1864, however, Alexander II’s army meaning “rebirth,” associated with the rebirth of
had regained control of the Russian section of a united Italy) remained loud, aided by the dis-
Poland, using the promise of reform to win peas- integration of diplomatic stability across Europe.
ant support for defeating the rebels. Elsewhere Leading the way toward Risorgimento was the
among Russia’s minorities, Alexander repressed kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, in the economi-
nationalist unrest and intensified Russification — cally modernizing north of Italy. Italians thrilled to
a tactic meant to reduce the threat of future rebel- the operas of Verdi, but it was railroads, a modern
lion by forcing the more than one hundred army, and the military support of France against
national minorities within the empire to adopt the Austrian Empire, which still dominated the
Russian language and culture. Despite these meas- peninsula, that made political unification possible.
ures, the tsarist regime in this era of the Great Re-
forms only partially succeeded in developing the Cavour, Architect of the New Italy. The pragmatic
administrative, economic, and civic institutions Camillo di Cavour (1810–1861), prime minister
that made the nation-state strong elsewhere in Eu- of the kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia from 1852
rope. The tsar and his inner circle tightly held the until his death, had a Realpolitiker’s vision of how
reins of government, allowing few to share in to unify the Italian states. A rebel in his youth,
power. Deliberate government policies in other Cavour as he matured organized steamship com-
European countries helped develop the sense of panies, played the stock market, and inhaled the
common citizenship, but in imperial Russia at- heady air of modernization during his travels to
tempts to build a shared national loyalty were less Paris and London. He promoted economic devel-
successful. opment rather than idealistic uprisings as the means
to achieve a united Italy. As skilled prime minister
Review: What were the main results of the Crimean to a less capable king, Victor Emmanuel II (r. Italy
War? 1861–1878), Cavour helped achieve a strong Pied-
montese economy, a modern army, and a liberal
political climate as the foundation for Piedmont’s
control of the unification process (Map 22.2).

Russification: A program for the integration of Russia’s many


nationality groups that involved the forced learning of the Russ- nation-state: A sovereign political entity of modern times based
ian language and the practice of Russian Orthodox religion as on representing a united people.
well as the settlement of ethnic Russians among other nation- Camillo di Cavour (1810–1861): Prime minister of the kingdom
ality groups. of Piedmont-Sardinia and architect of a united Italy.
1850–1870 Wa r a n d N at i o n B u i l d i n g 697

To unify Italy, however, Piedmont would have


to confront Austria, which governed the provinces
TERMS OF HISTORY
of Lombardy and Venetia and exerted strong in-
fluence over most of the peninsula. Cavour turned
for help to Napoleon III, who at a meeting in the
Nationalism
summer of 1858 promised French assistance in ex-
change for the city of Nice and the region of Savoy.
Napoleon III expected that France rather than he word nationalism is associated with a sense of a common
Austria would influence the peninsula thereafter.
Sure of French help, Cavour provoked the Austri-
ans to invade northern Italy in April 1859. The
T identity among people within geographically defined nation-
states. What is more important about nationalism is that it pro-
motes the nation-state around which that common entity develops. A
cause of Piedmont now became the cause of na- phenomenon of the past two to three centuries, it became increasingly
tionalist Italians everywhere, even those who had important to politics from the nineteenth century on. Strongly held
supported romantic republicanism in 1848, and feelings of a common national identity grew in the years after 1750,
they rose up on the side of Piedmont. Using the and this sense of national identification increasingly competed in
newly built Piedmontese railroad to move troops, people’s minds with religious, regional, and local loyalties.
the French and Piedmontese armies achieved rapid In an early version of nationalism, the eighteenth-century British
victories. Suddenly fearing the growth of Pied- took pride in the fact that as Protestants they had defeated the Catholic
mont as a potential competing force, Napoleon in- French king in the global trade wars in Asia and the New World. At
dependently signed a peace treaty with Habsburg about the same time, the German author Johann Gottfried Herder
emperor Francis Joseph that seemed to end the concluded from his studies that a common language — along with its
war. Its terms gave Lombardy but not Venetia to folktales, history, and laws — also served as the basis for a shared na-
Piedmont, and left the rest of Italy disunited. Na- tional identity. In 1789, French revolutionary politicians set out in the
tionalist ambitions were not yet realized. Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen that all men were
citizens — not subjects — and that as citizens they had rights. This
Garibaldi, Emblem of Italian Freedom. Napoleon’s Declaration thus proclaimed that common identity could be based on
plan to keep Italy disunited was soon derailed. the rule of law. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, some of
Support for Piedmont continued to swell among the major components of nationalism had developed: pride in mili-
Italians, while a financially strapped Austria stood tary conquest and in a common culture developed over centuries, along
by, unable to keep control of events on the penin- with citizenship and its guarantee of civil rights and other freedoms.
sula. Ousting their rulers, citizens of the rest of the In the nineteenth century, nationalism became a force in domes-
northern and central Italian states (except Rome, tic and international politics. From the 1820s on, nationalistic politi-
which French troops had occupied) elected to join cians took to the battlefield, as in the fight for Greek independence or
Piedmont. In May 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi in the wars of Italian and German unification. Some Italian national-
(1807–1882), a committed republican, dedicated ists expected that unification would strengthen national identity by
guerrilla fighter, and veteran of the revolutions of providing the kind of common citizenship and freedom that the
1848, set sail from Genoa with a thousand red- Americans and French had won through their revolutions.
shirted volunteers (many of them teenage boys) to After 1848, realists like Bismarck and Cavour promoted nation-
liberate Sicily, where peasants were rebelling alism as the work of “iron and blood” — national strength backed by
against their landlords and the corrupt govern- military might. Nationalism became a matter of pride in a people’s
ment in anticipation of the Risorgimento. In the toughness and realism in a competitive world. After their wars of uni-
autumn of 1860, Victor Emmanuel II’s victorious fication, both Germany and Italy continued to promote the vision of
forces descending from the north and Garibaldi’s the nation triumphant in battle. This differed from the French revo-
moving up from the south met in Naples. Al- lutionary ideal of being triumphant in battle in order to bring rights
though some of his followers still clamored for a and constitutions to oppressed peoples. By the end of the nineteenth
republic, Garibaldi threw his support to the king. century, the basis of nationalism had shifted from pride in democratic
In 1861, the kingdom of Italy was proclaimed with institutions to pride in a nation’s military power. Today, the word na-
Victor Emmanuel at its head. tionalism usually combines a wide array of ingredients, prompting
Exhausted by a decade of overwork, Cavour politicians to appeal to common religion, laws, customs, language, eth-
died within months of leading the unification, nicity, race, and history to build national pride.
leaving lesser men to organize the new Italy. The
task ahead was enormous and complex: 90 percent
of the peninsula’s inhabitants did not even speak
a common language but rather local dialects.
There were political difficulties too: consensus
698 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

MAP 22.2 Unification of Italy,


0 100 200 miles
1859–1870
The many states of the Italian peninsula 0 100 200 kilometers

had different languages, ways of life, and SWITZERLAND


AUSTRIAN EMPIRE
economic interests. The northern kingdom
Savoy
of Sardinia, which included the commer-
cially advanced state of Piedmont, had FRANCE Lombardy Venetia
much to gain from a unified market and Magenta
  Milan

Venice

Solferino
a more extensive pool of labor. Although Ceded to France 1859 1859
in 1860 Parma
the armies of King Victor Emmanuel and Genoa

Giuseppe Garibaldi brought these states Modena
Nice
together as a single country, it would take 
OTTOMAN
Nice EMPIRE
decades to construct a culturally, socially, Florence 

ate s
and economically unified nation. Tuscany A
dr

al St
ia
ti

P ap
c
Se
Corsica a
(Fr.) 
Rome

PIEDMONT-
SARDINIA

Naples
Tyrrhenian
Sea

KINGDOM
OF THE
TWO SICILIES
Piedmont-Sardinia before 1859
to Piedmont-Sardinia, 1859 N
to Piedmont-Sardinia, 1860
W E
to kingdom of Italy, 1866 Sicily
to kingdom of Italy, 1870 S
Boundary of kingdom of Italy
after unification
Route of Garibaldi’s Thousand, 1860 Mediterranean Sea
 Battle

among Italy’s elected political leaders was often


difficult to reach once the war was over, and ad-
mirers of Cavour, such as Verdi (who had been
made senator), quit the quarrelsome political
stage. Politicians from the wealthy commercial
north and the impoverished agricultural south re-
mained at odds over issues such as taxation and
development, as they do even today. Finally, Ital-
ian borders did not yet seem complete because
Venetia and Rome remained outside them, under
Austrian and French control, respectively. Helping
to overcome these difficulties and holding the new
nation together was the romanticized retelling of
the Italian struggle for freedom from foreign and
Seamstresses of the Red Shirts
domestic tyrants, under the daring leadership of
Sewing uniforms and making battle flags, European women like Garibaldi and his Red Shirts. The legend of
these Italian volunteers saw themselves as contributors to the Garibaldi papered over Cavour’s economic and
nation. Many nineteenth-century women participated in nation military Realpolitik, which had made unification
building as “republican mothers” by donating their domestic possible; but this story became the centerpiece of
skills and raising the next generation of citizens to be patriotic. a new and unifying national pride.
1850–1870 Wa r a n d N at i o n B u i l d i n g 699

Bismarck and the Realpolitik


of German Unification
The most momentous act of nation
building for Europe and the world was
the creation of a united Germany in
1871. This too was the product of Re-
alpolitik, undertaken once the concert
of Europe was smashed and the cham-
pions of the status quo defeated. Em-
ploying the old military caste to wage
war, yet enjoying support from indus-
trialists, merchants, and financiers who
saw profits in a single national market,
the Prussian state brought a vast array
of cities and kingdoms under its con-
trol within a single decade. From then
on, Germany prospered, continuing to
consolidate its economic and political
might. By the end of the nineteenth
century, it would be the foremost con-
tinental power.

Bismarck’s Rise to Power. The archi-


tect of the unified Germany was Otto Emperor William I of Germany, 1871
von Bismarck (1815–1898). Bismarck The defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 ended with the
came from a traditional Junker (Pruss- proclamation of the king of Prussia as emperor of a unified Germany. Otto von
ian landed nobility) family on his Bismarck, who had orchestrated the wars of unification, appropriately appears in
father’s side; his mother’s family in- Anton von Werner’s rendering as the central figure attired in heroic white.
(akg-images.)
cluded high-ranking bureaucrats and
literati of the middle class. At univer-
sity, the young Bismarck had gambled
and womanized. After failing in the civil service, pansion. Indeed, the liberals’ wealth was crucial to
he worked to modernize operations on his land- the Prussian state’s ability to augment its power,
holdings while leading an otherwise decadent life. but liberals wanted Prussia to be like western
His marriage to a pious Lutheran woman worked Europe with political rights for citizens and in-
a transformation and gave him new purpose. In creased civilian control of the military. William I,
the 1850s, his diplomatic service to the Prussian along with members of the traditional Prussian
state made him increasingly angry at the Habsburg elite such as Bismarck, rejected the western
grip on the affairs of all the German states and the European model. Acting on his conservative be-
roadblock it created to the full flowering of Prus- liefs, Bismarck rammed through programs to build
sia. Bismarck determined to establish Prussia as a the army and prevent civilian control. “Germany
dominant power. looks not to Prussia’s liberalism, but to its power,”
In 1862, William I (king of Prussia, r. he preached. “The great questions of the day will
1861–1888; German emperor, r. 1871–1888; see not be settled by speeches and majority deci-
the illustration at right) appointed Bismarck prime sions — that was the great mistake of 1848 and
minister in hopes that he would quash the grow- 1849 — but by iron and blood.”
ing power of the liberals in the Prussian parlia-
ment. The liberals, representing the prosperous Prussia’s Wars of Unification. After his triumph
professional and business classes, had gained par- over the parliament, Bismarck led Prussia into a
liamentary strength at the expense of conservative series of wars, against Denmark in 1864, against
landowners during the decades of industrial ex- Austria in 1866, and, finally, against France in
1870. Using war as a political tactic, he kept the
disunited German states from choosing Austrian
Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898): Leading Prussian politician
and German prime minister who waged war in order to create leadership and instead united them around Prus-
a united German Empire, which was established in 1871. sia. Bismarck drew Austria into a joint war along-
700 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

0 100 200 miles


SWEDEN N
0 100 200 kilometers
D ENM A RK E
B a lt i c S e a W

S
Schleswig Danzig
No rt h 
Sea  Kiel
Lübeck
Holstein 
Hamburg Mecklenburg
  Elb
Bremen eR
.
Oldenburg A Warsaw
Hanover 
Berlin

V is

Amsterdam Hanover  I

tul
 S

aR
NETHERLANDS S

.
U RU S S IA
P R POLAND
Ruh Ode
rR Leipzig
 . 
r R.
Antwerp
Cologne Dresden
 Weimar 

E
BELGIUM  Silesia
KINGDOM OF

R
Hesse SAXONY

I
Ems


P



M
Frankfurt
Prague

E
Luxembourg

R.

Prussia in 1862
Rhine

KINGDOM OF
BAVARIA Conquered by Prussia in
Lorraine Austro-Prussian War, 1866
Württemberg Da
nub United with Prussia as North
e R. German Confederation, 1867
Vienna
ace

Munich
 N United with Prussia to form
Als

FRANCE Baden Lake A German Empire, 1871


Constance I
R
R Annexed after Franco-
T
.

n Prussian War, 1871


In S
U German Confederation boundary,
A 1815–1866
SWITZERLAND
Bismarck’s German Empire, 1871

MAP 22.3 Unification of Germany, 1862–1871


In a complex series of diplomatic maneuvers, Prussian leader Otto von Bismarck welded disunited
kingdoms and small states into a major continental power independent of the other dominant German
dynasty, the Habsburg monarchy. Almost immediately that unity unleashed the new nation’s economic
and industrial potential, but an aristocratic and agrarian elite remained firmly in power.

side Prussia against Denmark in 1864 over its pro- war on Prussia itself. In the summer of 1866, Aus-
posed incorporation of the provinces of Schleswig tria went to war with the support of most small
and Holstein, with their partially German popula- states in the German Confederation. Within seven
tion. The Prussian-Austrian victory resulted in an weeks, the modernized Prussian army, using rail-
agreement that Prussia would administer roads and breech-loading rifles against the out-
Schleswig, and Austria, Holstein. Such an arrange- dated Austrian military, had won decisively. The
ment stretched Austria’s geographic interests far masterful victory allowed Bismarck to drive Aus-
from its central European base: “We were very tria from the German Confederation and create a
honorable, but very dumb,” Emperor Francis North German Confederation led by Prussia (Map
Joseph later said of being drawn into the 22.3).
Schleswig-Holstein debacle. To bring the remaining German states into the
Lagging in economic development and beset rapidly developing nation, Bismarck next moved
by the restlessness of its many national minorities, to goad France into a war with Prussia. The atmos-
Austria proved weaker than Prussia. Bismarck, phere between France and Austria became charged
however, encouraged Austria’s pretensions to when Spain proposed a Prussian prince to fill its
grandeur and influence. He fomented disputes vacant royal throne. This candidacy at once threat-
over the administration of Schleswig and Holstein, ened France with Prussian rulers on two of its bor-
goading an overly confident Austria into declaring ders and inflated Prussian pride at the possibility
1850–1870 Wa r a n d N at i o n B u i l d i n g 701

DOCUMENT

Bismarck Tricks the Public to Get His War


By 1870 Otto von Bismarck had gained the in the presence of my two guests [General was not the result of stronger words, but
allegiance of most of the German states (ex- Moltke and General Roon] I reduced the of the form, which made this announce-
cluding Austria) by waging two successful telegram by striking out words, but with- ment appear decisive, while [the original]
wars and thus showing the military muscle out adding or altering anything, to the fol- version would only have been regarded as
of Prussia. Defeating France, he believed, lowing form: a fragment of a negotiation still pending
would pull in the remaining independent “After the news of the renunciation of and to be continued at Berlin.
German states — most notably Bavaria — the hereditary prince of Hohenzollern had After I had read out the concentrated
and unite Germany. To this end he doctored been officially communicated to the im- edition to my two guests, Moltke re-
a document sent by the Prussian king to the perial government of France by the royal marked: “Now it has a different ring; in its
French ambassador over the contested issue government of Spain, the French ambas- original form it sounded like a parley; now
of succession to the Spanish throne and re- sador at Ems made the further demand of it is like a flourish of trumpets in answer
leased the edited version to the press. He his Majesty the king that he should au- to a challenge.” I went on to explain: “If,
knew that its newly contrived imperious thorize him to telegraph to Paris that his in execution of his Majesty’s order, I at
tone would offend the French parliament. Majesty the king bound himself for all fu- once communicate this text, . . . not only
Realpolitik, then as now, involved manipu- ture time never again to give his consent to the newspapers, but also by telegraph
lating the press. Here Bismarck describes his if the Hohenzollerns should renew their to all our embassies, it will be known in
actions. candidature. His Majesty the king there- Paris before midnight, and not only on ac-
upon decided not to receive the French count of its contents, but also on account
All considerations, conscious and uncon- ambassador again, and sent to tell him, of the manner of its distribution, will have
scious, strengthened my opinion that war through the aid-de-camp on duty, that his the effect of a red rag upon the Gallic bull.”
could only be avoided at the cost of the Majesty had nothing further to commu-
honor of Prussia and of the national con- nicate to the ambassador.” Source: Otto von Bismarck, Memoirs in James
fidence in her. Under this conviction I The difference in the effect of the ab- Harvey Robinson and Charles Beard, eds.,
made use of the royal authorization . . . to breviated text of the Ems telegram as com- Readings in Modern European History (Boston:
publish the contents of the telegram; and pared with that produced by the original Ginn, 1909), 2:158–59.

of its princely lines ruling grand states. Bismarck imperial Germany. The terms of the peace signed
used the occasion to get nationalist sentiments in May of that year ending the Franco-Prussian
onto the news pages in both countries by editing War required France to cede the rich industrial
a diplomatic communication (the so-called Ems provinces of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany and
telegram, named after the spa town in which it was to pay a multibillion-franc indemnity. Without
issued) to make it look as if the king of Prussia had French protection for the papacy, Rome became
insulted France over the issue of the vacant throne. part of Italy. Germany was now poised to domi-
Release of the revised version to journalists in- nate continental politics.
flamed the French public into demanding war Prussian military might served as the founda-
(see Document, “Bismarck Tricks the Public to Get tion for German nation building, and a complex
His War,” above). The parliament gladly declared constitution for the new German Empire ensured
it on July 19, 1870, setting in motion the alliances the continued political dominance of the aristoc-
Prussia had created with the other German states racy and monarchy — despite the growing wealth
and launching the Franco-Prussian War. The Prus- and influence of the liberal business classes. The
sians captured Napoleon III with his army on Sep- kaiser, who remained Prussia’s king, controlled the
tember 2, 1870, and France’s Second Empire fell military and appointed Bismarck to the powerful
two days later. position of chancellor for the Reich (empire). In-
dividual German states were represented in the
Birth of the German Empire. Prussian forces were Bundesrat, while the Reichstag was an assembly
still besieging Paris when, in January 1871 in the elected by universal male suffrage. The Reichstag
Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, King William of Prus- ratified all budgets but had little power to initiate
sia was proclaimed the kaiser, or emperor, of a new, programs. In framing this political settlement,
702 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

Bismarck accorded rights such as suffrage in the other measures that would strengthen the state.
belief that the masses would uphold conservatism They resented the police informers who swarmed
and the monarchy out of their fear of moderniz- around them, the Catholic church’s control of ed-
ing businessmen, whom Bismarck opposed as “lib- ucation and civil institutions such as marriage, and
eral power.” Taking no chances, he balanced this their own lack of representation in such important
move with an electoral system in Prussia in which policy matters as taxation and finance. Thus, lib-
the votes from the upper classes counted more erals blocked funds for modernizing the military
than those from the lower. He had little to fear for fear of strengthening the reactionary govern-
from liberals, who, dizzy with German military ment. Unlike in Prussia, there was no one to over-
success, came to support the blend of economic ride them to bring about change.
progress, constitutional government, and mili- After Prussia’s 1866 victory over Austria, a vast,
taristic nationalism that Bismarck represented. wealthy part of the empire, Hungary, became the
key to the Habsburg Empire’s existence. The lead-
ers of the Hungarian agrarian elites forced the
Francis Joseph and the Creation
Austrian emperor to accept a dual monarchy —
of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy that is, one in which the Magyars had home rule
The Austrian monarchy took a different approach over the Hungarian kingdom. This agreement re-
to nation building, demonstrating that there was stored the Hungarian parliament and gave it con-
no one blueprint for the modern nation-state. Just trol of internal policy (including the right to
as the Crimean War left Russia searching for solu- decide how to treat Hungary’s national minori-
tions to its social and political ties). Although the Habsburg
problems, so the confrontations GERMAN emperor Francis Joseph was
RUSSIA
with Cavour and Bismarck left STATES crowned king of Hungary and
the Habsburg Empire struggling AUSTRIA Austro-Hungarian foreign policy
to keep its standing in a rapidly Vienna  was coordinated from Vienna,
Pest
Buda 
changing Europe. The Habsburg HUNGARY the Hungarians mostly ruled
Empire had emerged from the ITALY
themselves after 1867 and ham-
R.
revolutions of 1848 renewed by 0 100 200 miles
D a n ube mered out common policies such
the ascension of the young mon- 0 100 200 kilometers
OTTOMAN as tariffs with the government in
EMPIRE
arch Francis Joseph (r. 1848– Vienna. These negotiations were
1916), who favored absolutist The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, usually bitter, weakening the
rule. A tireless worker, Francis 1867 process of nation building in the
Joseph enhanced his authority empire.
through stiff court ceremonies, playing to the pop- A second weakness in the compromise that
ular fascination with celebrity and power. Though created the dual monarchy was that, although de-
the emperor stubbornly resisted reform, official signed specifically to address the Hungarian de-
standards of honesty and efficiency improved, and mands, it led to claims by Czechs, Slovaks, and
the government promoted local education. The other national groups in the Habsburg Empire for
German language was used by the administration a similar kind of self-rule. Czechs who had helped
and taught by the schools, but the government re- the empire advance industrially, for example,
spected the rights of national minorities — Czechs wanted Hungarian-style liberties. More of a men-
and Poles, for instance — to receive education and ace, other leaders of dissatisfied ethnic groups
communicate with officials in their native tongue. turned to Pan-Slavism — that is, the transnational
Above all, the government abolished most inter- loyalty of all ethnic Slavs whose common heritage,
nal customs barriers, fostered a boom in private they believed, transcended current national
railway construction, and attracted foreign capital. boundaries. Instead of looking toward Vienna,
The capital city of Vienna underwent extensive re- they turned to the largest Slavic country —
building, and people found jobs as industrializa- Russia — as key to achieving the future unity of all
tion progressed, if unevenly. Slavs outside the Habsburg Empire. With so many
In the fast-moving age of the mid-nineteenth
century, the absolutist emperor could not match
Bismarck’s pace in creating a modern nation-state. dual monarchy: A shared power arrangement between the Habs-
burg Empire and Hungary after the Prussian defeat of the Aus-
Too much of the old regime remained as a road- trian Empire in 1866–1867.
block, while prosperous liberals wanting truly rep- Pan-Slavism: A movement in the nineteenth century for the
resentative government and free speech prevented unity of all Slavs across national and regional boundaries.
1850–1870 Wa r a n d N at i o n B u i l d i n g 703

Muslim Quarter and Bazaar


Nineteenth-century Europeans were a
diverse people, composed of many
religions, ethnicities, and ways of life.
In the Balkans, many were Muslims, as
this marketplace in Sarajevo, Bosnia,
illustrates. The goal of finding a
common cultural ground eluded the
peoples of the Balkans. The Habsburg
monarchy, which annexed Bosnia-
Herzegovina in 1908, exerted its
influence in the area to keep peoples
divided and to play one against the
other. (Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Wien.)

competing ethnicities, the Austro-Hungarian racy — the Stupid Party, as some called the To-
monarchy remained a dynastic state in which ries/Conservatives. In 1867, the Conservatives, led
people could show loyalty to the Habsburg dy- by Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881), passed the Sec-
nasty but had increasing difficulty relating to one ond Reform Bill, which extended voting rights to
another as members of a single nation. a million more men. Disraeli proposed, like Bis-
marck somewhat later, that the working classes
would choose “the most conservative interests in
Political Stability through
the country” — not the radical ones. Thus more
Gradual Reform in Great Britain men voting and deferring to their aristocratic bet-
In contrast to the nations in turmoil on the con- ters would build his party, not the Liberals.
tinent, Britain appeared the epitome of liberal Both political parties supported an array of re-
progress. By the 1850s, the monarchy symbolized forms because pressure groups now influenced the
domestic tranquillity and propriety. Unlike their party system. Women’s groups advocated the Mat-
predecessors, Queen Victoria (r. 1837–1901) and rimonial Causes Act of 1857, which facilitated di-
her husband, Prince Albert, portrayed themselves vorce, and the Married Women’s Property Act of
as models of morality, British stability, and 1870, which allowed married women to own prop-
middle-class virtues (see “Seeing History,”page 704). erty and keep the wages they earned. The Reform
Britain’s parliamentary system steadily brought League, another pressure organization, had held
more men into the political process. Economic mass demonstrations in London to bring about
prosperity supported peaceful political reform, ex- passage of the Second Reform Bill. Plush royal cer-
cept that politicians did little to relieve Ireland’s emonies masked political conflict and united not
continued suffering. A flexible party system helped only critics and activists but also, and more im-
smooth governmental decision making: the Tory portant, different social classes.
Party evolved into the Conservatives, who favored Whereas previous monarchs’ sexual infideli-
a more status-oriented politics but still went along ties had incited mobs to riot, the monarchy of
with the emerging liberal consensus around eco- Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, with its newly
nomic development and representative govern- devised celebrations of royal marriages, anniver-
ment. The Whigs became the Liberals, so named saries, and births, drew respectful crowds. Promot-
for their commitment to the same values on which ing the monarchy in this way was so successful that
the term liberal had taken shape in the first place: the term Victorian came to symbolize almost the
progress and free, expansive trade, and substitut- entire century and could refer to anything from
ing active industrialists for the entrenched aristoc- manners to political institutions. The aristocracy,
704 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

SEEING HISTORY

Photographing the Nation: Domesticity and War

ostering a common national identity an ordinary middle-class couple. Posing seventh regiment. How might this image

F among their citizens was important


to many nineteenth-century Euro-
pean leaders, especially those, like Britain’s
for many such photos, Victoria and Albert
helped develop modern celebrity culture
but also a national culture that tran-
have affected viewers? What could they
learn from it about life on the front? How
did it bring the war closer to home?
Queen Victoria, who sought to build unity scended local identities. Why do you think Both war photography and photog-
and loyalty among their subjects. The new they chose not to appear in royal regalia? raphy of national leaders, including U.S.
technology of photography, developed in What else is interesting about this image? president Abraham Lincoln with his wife,
1839, served this goal admirably by en- What impression might viewers have Mary Todd Lincoln, or France’s Napoleon
abling a more immediate connection be- formed about the royal couple based on it? III and Eugénie, were major ingredients of
tween the public and its leaders and their The Crimean War was another shared nation building. The new technology
policies. For example, with the new experience for Britons, many of whom made lofty leaders and the faraway wars
medium, carefully staged photos of royal avidly collected photos from the front, for they prosecuted accessible — indeed, a
families became available for the first time, the conflict was one of the first ever to be part of everyday life — to individuals
circulating in a small format like today’s photographed. Crowds flocked to exhibi- across the West and beyond. As millions
baseball cards among citizens who eagerly tions in major cities to view battle scenes of eyes gazed on these images, the nation’s
collected them. In the photo below, Queen (usually staged) and portraits of soldiers, people — wherever they lived — became
Victoria and her husband Albert appear as like the one below of officers of the Fifty- one.

Roger Fenton, Officers of the 57th Regiment, 1855. (Library of


Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. LC-USZC4-9132.)

Portrait of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at Buckingham


Palace, May 15, 1860. (Getty Images.)
1850–1870 E s ta b l i s h i n g S o c i a l O r d e r 705

maintaining power despite the rising wealth of lib- bondage. After the summer of 1863, the North’s
eral businessmen, built gigantic country houses in superior industrial strength and military might
traditional English architectural styles such as overpowered and physically destroyed much of the
Queen Anne and Georgian, thus using the monar- South. By April 1865, the North had prevailed,
chical heritage to anchor the modern age. Yet even though a Confederate sympathizer assassi-
politicians in Britain were as devoted to Realpoli- nated Lincoln. Distancing the United States still
tik as those in Germany, Italy, or France; their poli- further from the colonial plantation model, con-
cies included the use of violence to expand their stitutional amendments ended slavery and prom-
overseas empire and increasingly to control Ire- ised full political rights to free African American
land, where reform stopped short. This violence men.
occurred beyond the view of most British people, Northerners hailed their victory as the tri-
however, allowing them to imagine their nation as umph of American values, but racism remained
peaceful, advanced, and united. entrenched throughout the Union. By 1871, north-
ern interest in promoting African American polit-
ical rights was waning, and whites began regaining
Nation Building in the
control of state politics in the South, often by or-
United States and Canada ganized violence and intimidation. The end of
Nation building in the midcentury United States northern occupation of the South in 1877 put on
involved unprecedented and destructive upheaval. hold the promise of rights for blacks. Nonetheless,
The young nation had a more democratic politi- in ending slavery, the Union victory opened the
cal culture than that of Europe, and nationalism way to stronger national government and to eco-
was on the rise. Virtually universal white male suf- nomic advancement no longer tied to the old At-
frage, a rambunctiously independent press, and lantic system.
mass political parties reflected a common belief The North’s triumph had profound effects
that sovereignty derived from the people. From the elsewhere in North America. It allowed the re-
beginning, a combative public politics shaped united United States to contribute to Napoleon
America. III’s defeat in Mexico in 1867. The United States
The United States continued to expand to the also demanded the annexation of Canada in ret-
west (Map 22.4). In 1848, victory in its war with ribution for Britain’s partiality to the Confederacy
Mexico almost doubled the size of the country: because of its dependence on cotton. To block this
Texas was officially annexed, and large portions of possibility, the British government allowed Cana-
California and the Southwest extended U.S. bor- dians to form a united dominion — that is, a self-
ders into formerly Mexican land. Politicians and governing unit of the empire — in 1867. Canadian
citizens alike favored banning the native Indian activists had already appealed for home rule, and
peoples from these western lands and confirming dominion status weakened domestic and increas-
them to reservations. Complicating matters, how- ingly powerful U.S. opposition to Britain’s control
ever, was the question of whether slavery would be of Canada.
allowed in the new western territories. The issue
polarized the country. In the North, politicians in
Review: What role did warfare play in the various
the new Republican Party ran on a platform of
nineteenth-century nation-building efforts?
“free soil, free labor, free men,” although few Re-
publicans endorsed the abolitionists’ demand to
end slavery.
After Republican Abraham Lincoln was
elected president in 1860, most of the slavehold- Establishing Social Order
ing states seceded to form the Confederate States
of America. Civil war broke out in 1861 when, un- Nineteenth-century nation building disrupted
der Lincoln’s leadership, the North fought to pre- everyday life, bringing chaos to cities, death to sol-
serve the Union. The future of nation building in diers, and sometimes dramatic public protest.
the United States hung in the balance. Lincoln did Government officials sought to offset these distur-
not initially aim to abolish slavery, but his Eman- bances with new social policies intended to build
cipation Proclamation of January 1863, issued as national unity. Confronted with growing popula-
a wartime measure, officially freed all slaves in the tions and crowded cities, governments throughout
Confederate states and turned the war into a fight Europe turned their attention to public health and
not only for union but also for an end to human safety. Many liberal theorists advocated a laissez-
706 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

N
C A N A D A
E
WASHINGTON W Maine
TERRITORY M S

iss
Vt.

our
N.H.

i R.
Mass.
Oregon Minn. N.Y.
NEBRASKA Wis.
TERRITORY Mich. R.I.
Pa. Conn.
Iowa N.J.
Ohio Md.
Illinois Ind. Del.
UTAH W.
TERRITORY Va. Va.

.
oR
ad
r KANSAS TERRITORY Missouri
lo Ky.
California Co
N.C.

i R.
Tenn.

sipp
Ark.

s s is
NEW MEXICO Oklahoma S.C.

Mi
TERRITORY
Ala. Ga. ATLANTIC
Miss.
OCEAN
PACIFIC La.
Texas
OCEAN Ri
Florida

Indian lands ceded before 1850


oG

Gulf of
ran

Indian lands ceded 1850–1870


d

M E XI CO Mexico
e

Lands still held by Indians 1870 0 250 500 miles


1860 boundaries
0 250 500 kilometers

MAP 22.4 U.S. Expansion, 1850–1870


Like Russia, the United States expanded into adjacent regions to create a continental nation-state.
In taking over territories, however, the United States differed from Russia by herding native peoples
into small confined spaces called reservations so that settlers could acquire thousands of square
miles for farming and other enterprises. The U.S. government granted full citizenship for all native
Americans only in 1925.

faire government that left social and economic life tration on page 707). Opera houses and ministries
largely to private enterprise. In contrast, bureau- tangibly represented national wealth and power,
crats and reformers paid more attention to citi- and the broad boulevards allowed crowds to ob-
zens’ lives and, along with missionaries and serve royal pageantry. The wide roads were also
explorers, worked more actively to establish social easier for troops to navigate than the twisted, nar-
order and to spread European influence to the far- row medieval streets that in 1848 had concealed
thest reaches of the globe. These policies did not insurrectionists in cities like Paris and Vienna —
always prevent protest, as evidenced by the devel- an advantage that convinced some otherwise re-
opment of Marxist socialism and a dramatic up- luctant officials to approve the expense. Impressive
rising of Parisian working people. parks and public gardens exemplified the state’s
control of nature while also helping to order
people’s leisure time. Revamped European cities
Bringing Order to the Cities inspired awe among the citizens of the various
European cities became the backdrop for displays nation-states and throughout their empires.
of state power and accomplishment. Governments One effect of refurbishing cities was to high-
focused on improving their capital cities, although light class differences. Construction first required
many noncapital cities also acquired handsome destruction, and officials chose to eliminate poor
parks, widened their streets, and erected stately neighborhoods, dislocating tens of thousands of
museums and massive city halls. In 1857, Austrian city dwellers. The new boulevards often served as
emperor Francis Joseph ordered the old Viennese boundaries marking rich and poor sections of the
city walls to be replaced with concentric boule- city. In Paris, the process of urban change was
vards lined with major public buildings such as the called Haussmannization, named for the city’s pre-
opera house and government offices (see the illus- fect, Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who imple-
1850–1870 E s ta b l i s h i n g S o c i a l O r d e r 707

mented a grand design that included eighty-five and disorder that governments made sanitation a
miles of new streets, many lined with showy top priority.
dwellings for the wealthy. In London, many be- Scientific research, increasingly undertaken in
lieved that improved architectural design, includ- publicly financed universities and hospitals, pro-
ing Victorian ornamentation, would blot out the vided the means to promote public health and
ugliness of commerce and industry. The size and control disease. France’s Louis Pasteur, whose three
spaciousness of the numerous new banks and in- young daughters had also died of typhus, advanced
surance companies built there “help[ed] the im- the germ theory of disease. Seeking a method to
pression of stability,” as an architect put it. Urban prevent wine from spoiling, Pasteur found that the
renewal would also foster civic pride and make re- growth of living organisms caused fermentation in
bellion distasteful. wine, and he suggested that certain organisms —
Refurbishing did not address all urban prob- bacteria and parasites — might be responsible for
lems. Repeated epidemics of diseases such as human and animal diseases. Pasteur demonstrated
cholera killed alarming numbers of city dwellers that heating foods such as wine and milk to a cer-
and gave the strong impression of social decay — tain temperature, a process that soon became
not national power. Unregulated urban slaugh- known as pasteurization, killed these organisms
terhouses and tanneries; heaps of animal and made food safe. English surgeon Joseph Lis-
excrement in chicken coops, pigsties, and stables; ter applied Pasteur’s germ theory of disease to in-
and piles of human waste alongside buildings fection and developed antiseptics for treating
were breeding grounds for disease. Typhoid bac- wounds and preventing puerperal fever, a condi-
teria also spread through sewage and into water tion that was caused by the dirty hands of physi-
supplies, infecting rich and poor alike. In 1861, cians and midwives and that killed innumerable
Britain’s Prince Albert — the beloved husband of women after childbirth.
Queen Victoria — reputedly died of typhus, com- Governments undertook projects to modern-
monly known as a “filth disease.” Stench and dis- ize sewer and other sanitary systems — urban
ease in cities indicated such a degree of danger improvements prized by citizens, who often

Museums and Nation Building


The Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Fine Arts) in Vienna was part of a huge rebuilding
project that adorned the city with wide boulevards and grand public buildings. Art museums
such as the one above represented the cultural wealth of the state and allowed citizens to
take pride in this wealth while they routinely gathered collectively
to view it. (ullstein — imagebroker.net.)
708 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

attributed them to national superiority. In Paris, Expanding the Reach


huge underground collectors provided a water- of Government
tight terminus for accumulated sewage (see the
illustration of Paris sewers). In addition, Hauss- To build an orderly national community, govern-
mann piped in water from uncontaminated ment regulations reached far into the realm of
sources in the countryside to provide each house- everyday life. The regular censuses that Britain,
hold with a secure supply. Widespread imitation France, and the United States had conducted since
followed: the Russian Empire’s port city Riga the early nineteenth century became routine in
(now in Latvia), for example, organized its first most other countries. Censuses provided the state
water company in 1863. Improved sanitation tes- with such personal details of its citizens’ lives as
tified to the activist state’s ability to bring about age, occupation, marital status, residential pat-
progress. Citizens responded sympathetically to terns, and fertility. Governments then used these
government initiatives: when sanitary public toi- data for a variety of endeavors, ranging from set-
lets for men became a feature of modern cities, ting quotas for military conscription to predicting
women petitioned governments for similar facil- the need for new prisons. Reformers like Florence
ities. One Russian city dweller complained to a Nightingale, who gathered medical and other sta-
Moscow newspaper of “an enormous cloud of tistics to support sanitary reform, believed that
white dust constantly over the city” that injured such quantitative information made government
the eyes and lungs. More aware of dirt, disease, less susceptible to corruption and inefficiency. De-
and smells, the middle classes bathed more regu- cisions would be based on facts rather than on in-
larly, sometimes even once a week. Individual con- fluence peddling or ill-informed hunches. In 1860,
cerns for refinement and health mirrored the Sweden became the first country to introduce in-
government’s quest for order. come taxes, which opened an area of private life —

Touring a National Treasure: The Sewers of Paris


The enlargement of sewage systems was so grand an undertaking in urban capitals that they attracted
visitors. Many had a curiosity about what technology could achieve and flocked to the new sewers to
enjoy tours—a pastime that continues to this day in cities like Paris. (© Leonard de Selva / Corbis.)
1850–1870 E s ta b l i s h i n g S o c i a l O r d e r 709

one’s earnings from work or investment — to gov- announced. “Now we have to make Italians.” Edu-
ernment scrutiny. cation was one way of bringing citizens to think
To bring about their vision of social order, alike. Bureaucrats and professionals called for rad-
most governments, including those of Britain, ical changes in the scope, curriculum, and faculty
Italy, Austria, and France, also expanded their in- of schools — from kindergarten to university — to
vestigation and regulation of prostitution. Vene- make the general population more unified, fit for
real disease, especially syphilis, infected individuals citizenship, and useful in furthering economic
and whole families, and officials blamed prosti- progress. Expansion of the electorate and lower-
tutes, not their clients, for its spread. The police class activism prompted one British aristocrat to
picked up any suspect woman on the street, passed say of the common people, whom he feared were
her to public health doctors who examined her for gaining influence, “We must now educate our
syphilis, and confined her for mandatory treat- masters!” Governments introduced compulsory
ment if she was infected. As states began monitor- schooling to reduce illiteracy rates, which were
ing prostitution and other social matters like more than 65 percent in Italy and Spain in the
public health and housing, they had to add new 1870s and even higher in eastern Europe. As ordi-
departments and agencies. In 1867, Hungary’s bu- nary people were allowed to participate in govern-
reaucracy handled fewer than 250,000 public wel- ment, books taught them about the responsibilities
fare cases; twenty years later, it dealt with more of citizenship, along with practical knowledge nec-
than a million. essary for an industrial society.
Educational reform was not always easy. At
midcentury, religious authorities supervised
Schooling and
schools and charged tuition, making primary ed-
Professionalizing Society ucation an option only for prosperous or religious
Emphasis on empirical knowledge and objective parents. After the 1850s, national politicians felt
standards of evaluation increased and enhanced that their states could not afford masses of igno-
the status of the professions. Growing numbers of rant peasants, whose backwardness one French of-
middle-class doctors, lawyers, managers, profes- ficial blamed on parish priests, specifically “their
sors, and journalists gained prestige for employing lack of intelligence, the narrowness of their views,
science, information, and standards in their work. and the vulgarity of their manners.” His statement
The middle classes argued that civil service jobs was extreme, but more measured opinion also
should be awarded according to talent and skill questioned the relevance of religion in the curric-
rather than automatically go to those of aristocratic ula of modern schools. In 1861, an English com-
birth or political connections. In Britain, a civil mission on education concluded that instead of
service law passed in 1870 required competitive ex- knowledge of the Bible, “the knowledge most im-
aminations to assure competency in government portant to a labouring man is that of the causes
posts — a system long used in China. Governments which regulate the amount of his wages, the hours
began to allow professional people to influence of his work, the regularity of his employment, and
state policy and to determine rules for who would the prices of what he consumes.” As citizens of a na-
and would not be admitted to their fields. Such tion, the young had to learn its language, literature,
legislation had both positive and negative effects: and history. Replacing religion was a challenge
groups could set high standards, but otherwise for the secular and increasingly knowledge-based
qualified people were sometimes prohibited from state.
working because they lacked the established cre- Enforcing school attendance was another
dentials or connections. The medical profession, challenge. Though the Netherlands, Sweden, and
for example, gained the authority to license physi- Switzerland had functioning primary-school sys-
cians, but it prevented experienced midwives from tems before midcentury, rural parents in these and
attending childbirths. Science became the province other countries did not automatically make use of
of the trained specialist rather than the experi- the opportunity. They depended on their children
enced amateur. Newly employed at government- to perform farm chores and often believed that
financed institutions, professors of science often young people would gain the knowledge they
viewed their work as part of a national struggle for needed for life from working in the fields or the
prestige and excellence. household. Urban homemakers from the lower
Nation building required major improve- classes depended on their children to help with do-
ments in the education of all citizens, professional mestic tasks such as fetching water, disposing of
or not. “We have made Italy,” one Italian official waste, tending younger children, and scavenging
710 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

for household necessities such as stale bread from kindergarten movement was as controversial as
bakers or soup from local missions. Yet even the other educational reforms.
working poor developed a craze for learning,
which made traveling lecturers, public forums,
Spreading Western Order
reading groups, and debating societies popular
among the middle and working classes. beyond the West
Secondary education also expanded through In an age of nation building, colonies took on new
the creation of more lycées (high schools) and importance because they seemed to add to the
technical schools, yet it remained a luxury for the political power of the state and not merely to eco-
privileged few. In authoritarian countries such as nomic prosperity. After midcentury, the govern-
Russia, advanced knowledge was suspect because ments of Great Britain and Russia began to rule
it empowered the young with information and colonies directly instead of through trading com-
taught them to think objectively. Secondary panies. Sometimes they offered social and cultural
schooling also expanded with the drive to allow services, such as schools. For instance, in the 1850s
young women access to high school courses in and 1860s provincial governors and local officials
subjects such as history and science. The ration- promoted the extension of Russian borders to gain
ale was that modern knowledge would make them control over nomadic tribes in central and eastern
more interesting wives and better mothers. In Asia. Russian officials then instituted common ed-
Britain, the founders of two women’s colleges — ucational and religious policies, such as instruc-
Girton (1869) and Newnham (1871) — at Cam- tion in the Russian language and in the principles
bridge University believed, and were later proved of the Russian Orthodox church as a means to so-
right, that exacting standards and a modern cur- cial order.
riculum in women’s higher education would in-
spire improvements in the men’s colleges of British Rule in India. Great Britain, the era’s
Cambridge and Oxford. The need for highly com- mightiest colonial power, made a dramatic change
petent leaders at all levels of society challenged the of course toward direct political rule of India dur-
traditional idea that education merely served to ing these decades. Before the 1850s, British liber-
indicate high social status rather than provide als desired commercial gain from colonies, but,
knowledge. Nonetheless, higher education for believing in laissez-faire, they kept political in-
women remained a hotly contested issue as the volvement in colonial affairs to a minimum. In In-
vast majority of people felt that knowledge of re- dia, the East India Company directed Britain’s
ligion, sewing, and deportment was adequate for interests, and many regional princes awarded the
women. company commercial and other rights, such as the
Education also opened professional doors to collection of taxes. Since the eighteenth century,
women, who came to attend universities — in par- the East India Company had gained control over
ticular, medical schools — in Zurich and Paris in various kingdoms on the Indian subcontinent and
the 1860s. Despite the complaint that their prac- then began building railroads throughout the
ticing medicine would weaken the system of sep- countryside to make commerce and revenue col-
arate spheres, women doctors thought that they lecting more efficient. As commerce with Britain
could bring feminine values such as gentleness and grew, many enterprising Indian merchants and
understanding to health care. The growing need financiers built fortunes by trading with the com-
for educated citizens also offered the opportunity pany and serving as its tax collectors. Local men
for large numbers of women to enter teaching, a served in the British-run Indian civil service and
field once dominated by men. They founded nurs- the colonial army, which became one of the largest
ery schools and kindergartens based on the En- standing armies in the world.
lightenment idea that developmental processes British rule met with resistance, however. In
start at an early age. In Italy, these efforts coincided 1857, a contingent of Indian troops, both Muslim
with the founding of a unified nation, and women and Hindu, violently rebelled against the British
there opened schools as a way to expand knowl- presence. Ignoring the Hindu ban on beef and the
edge and teach civics lessons, thus providing a Muslim prohibition of pork, the British had forced
service to the fledgling state. Yet many men op- Indian soldiers to use cartridges greased with cow
posed the idea of women teaching. “I shudder at and pig fat. This was not the local soldiers’ main
philosophic women,” wrote one critic of female grievance, however. More generally angered at
kindergarten teachers. Seen as radical because it tightening British control, they overran the old
enticed middle-class women out of the home, the Moghul capital at Delhi and declared the inde-
1850–1870 E s ta b l i s h i n g S o c i a l O r d e r 711

An English View of the Indian Rebellion


Drawings such as this of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 show noble English families under savage
attack by rebels. Artists emphasized the innocence of English victims and thus provided a
rationale for the rule of superior Europeans over depraved non-Westerners. These drawings also
united citizens around the expansion of the nation-state. (The Granger Collection, New York.)

pendence of the Indian nation — an uprising that 1876, the British Parliament declared Queen Vic-
became known as the Indian Rebellion. toria the empress of India. Nonetheless, in reaction
Simultaneously, local rulers against foreign control and in-
0 300 600 miles
and their followers also rebelled, spired by the revolts, Indian na-
0 300 600 kilometers
condemning “the tyranny and op- tionalism was born.
pression of the infidel and treach- Punjab
CH INA A system of rule took shape
erous English.” The rani, or queen, TIBET in which close to half a million
 NE
Lakshmibai, widow of the ruler of Rajputana Delhi PAL South Asians, supervised by a
Sind Assam
the state of Jhansi in central India, 
Jhansi
few thousand British men,
Bengal
led one of these revolts when the governed a region of once-
Berar
East India Company tried to take independent states now called
Arabian Hyderabad
over her lands after her husband Sea
Bay of
India. Local people also collected
Madras

died — an example of the sup- GOA


(Port.) Mysore
Bengal taxes and distributed patronage.
posed oppression sparking the Colonial rule meant both bla-
uprisings. In the end, the British tant domination and subtle in-
Ceylon
crushed the Jhansi and other re- tervention in everyday life. For
volts, thus suppressing the Indian Territory under example, the British aimed to
British rule, 1856
Rebellion of 1857. Great Britain Main area affected by
divert the colonized Indian pop-
then issued the Government of In- Indian Rebellion of 1857 ulation away from its tradi-
dia Act of 1858, which established tional, sophisticated production
direct British control of India. In Indian Resistance, 1857 of textiles, which far surpassed
712 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

the cheap British cottons and were much in The rest of the Mediterranean and the Ot-
demand. To cut the competition, the British colo- toman Empire felt the heightened presence of the
nial government closed down Indian manufac- European powers. The French army occupied all
turing and forced Indians to farm raw materials of Algeria by 1870, and the number of European
such as wheat, cotton, and jute to supply British immigrants to the region reached one-quarter mil-
industry and feed its workers. Nevertheless, up- lion. French rule in Algeria was aided by the at-
per-class Indians came to admire British knowl- traction of local people to European goods and
edge of medicine and science, and, following the technology and the opportunity to make money.
British attack on their cultural practices, some re- Merchants and local leaders cooperated in build-
jected customs such as child marriage and sati — ing railroads, sought trade with the French, and
a widow’s self-immolation on her husband’s sent their children to European-style schools.
funeral pyre. British rule brought additional Other local peoples, however, resisted the inva-
unity to what were once individual princedoms sions by continuing to attack soldiers and settlers.
with separate allegiances. In so doing, it paradox- European-spread diseases killed many others, and
ically promoted nationalism that would soon be by 1872, the native population in Algeria had
used against Britain. declined by more than 20 percent from five years
earlier.
French Overseas Expansion. French political ex-
pansion was similarly complex. The French gov- European Inroads in China. Its vastness allowed
ernment pushed to establish its dominion over China to escape complete takeover, but the Qing
Cochin China (modern southern Vietnam) in the Empire was rapidly losing its position as the
1860s. Missionaries in the area, ambitious French world’s most prosperous economy. Traders and
naval officers, and even some local peoples — Christian missionaries from European countries
much like Indian merchants and financiers — made inroads for the Western powers. Defeat in
urged the French government to bring the region the Opium War, economic pressures from Euro-
under greater control. Like the British, the French pean trade, and interactions with western mission-
made improvements: the Mekong Delta project in- aries helped generate the mass movement known
creased both the amount of cultivated land and as the Taiping (“Heavenly Kingdom”). Its millions
the available food supply. Sanitation and public of adherents wanted an end to the ruling Qing dy-
health programs proved a mixed blessing, because nasty, the expulsion of foreigners, more equal
they led to population growth that strained other treatment of women, and land reform. By the mid-
local resources. Furthermore, landowners and 1850s, the Taiping controlled half of China. The
French imperialists siphoned off most of the prof- Qing regime enlisted British and French military
its from economic improvement. The French also aid to help save the dynasty in exchange for greater
undertook a cultural mission to transform cities influence. The result was a bloody civil war begin-
like Saigon with signs of Western urban life such ning in the 1840s and lasting until 1864 that killed
as tree-lined boulevards similar to those of Paris. some 20 million Chinese (compared with 600,000
French literature, theater, and art were popular not dead in the U.S. Civil War). When peace finally
only with colonial officials but also with upper- came, Western governments controlled much of
class local people. the Chinese customs service and had virtually un-
Strategic commercial and military advantages limited access to the country.
motivated European overseas ventures in this age
of Realpolitik. The Crimean War had shown the The Meiji Restoration in Japan. Japan alone in
great powers the importance of the Mediter- East Asia escaped European domination. Dutch
ranean basin. Napoleon III, remembering his un- traders at Nagasaki had acquainted the Japanese
cle’s campaign in Egypt, took an interest in with European industrial, military, and commer-
building the Suez Canal, which would connect the cial innovations. By 1854, when a treaty opened
Mediterranean with the Red Sea and the Indian Japan to trade with America, contacts with Europe
Ocean and thus dramatically shorten the route had already given the Japanese a healthy appetite for
from Europe to Asia. Upon completion of the Western goods, especially the superior weaponry.
work in 1869, a mania erupted for all things Trade agreements with Western governments fol-
Egyptian and associated with the canal. Verdi’s lowed, leading to concerted effort for reform. In
opera Aïda was set in ancient Egypt, and Euro- 1867, Japanese reformers overthrew a government
peans applied Egyptian designs to textiles, furni- that resisted change and in 1868 enacted the Meiji
ture, architecture, and art. Restoration — a change in regime aimed at estab-
1850–1870 E s ta b l i s h i n g S o c i a l O r d e r 713

lishing Japan as a modern, technologically power- of men (but not women, who, he believed, should
ful state free from Western control. The reformers work in seclusion at home for their husbands’ com-
used the restoration of the emperor, who had been fort) in artisans’ workshops. These workshops and
marginalized under the earlier system, to make a central bank crediting each worker for his labor
their other changes more acceptable. The word would replace government and would lead to a
Meiji, the name given this new regime, meant “en- “mutualist” social organization.
lightened rule.” Its goal was to combine “Western As the nation-state expanded its power, work-
science and Eastern values” as a way of “making ers were also drawn to anarchism, which main-
new” — hence, a combination of restoration and tained that the existence of the state was the root of
innovation. social injustice. According to Russian nobleman and
anarchist leader Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876), the
slightest infringement on freedom, especially by the
Confronting the Nation-State’s
central state and its laws, was unacceptable.
Order at Home Anarchism thus advocated the destruction of all
Europeans did not simply sit by as the growing state power. Its appeal grew alongside the growth of
nation-state disrupted their lives. A better-informed government in the second half of the nineteenth
urban working class protested the upheavals in century.
everyday life caused when cities were ripped apart Political theorist and labor organizer Karl
for improvements and when the growth of facto- Marx (1818–1883) opposed both mutualism and
ries destroyed artisans’ livelihoods. Political theo- anarchism. These doctrines, he insisted, were emo-
rists such as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Karl tional and wrongheaded, lacking the sound, scien-
Marx analyzed what was wrong with society, and tific basis of his own theory, subsequently called
their ideas spread among disgruntled citizens. Marxism. Marx’s analysis, expounded most no-
Unions sprang up, calling for strikes and other ac- tably in Das Kapital (“Capital”), adopted the lib-
tions against both employers and the government. eral idea, dating back to John Locke in the
In the spring of 1871, the people of Paris, blaming seventeenth century, that human existence was de-
the centralized state for the French surrender to fined by the necessity to work to fulfill basic needs
the Prussians, declared Paris a commune — a such as food, clothing, and shelter. Published be-
community of equals without bureaucrats and tween 1867 and 1894, Das Kapital was based on
politicians. Marx’s accounts of the Paris Com- mathematical calculations of production and
mune, the expansion of government, and the rise profit that would justify Realpolitik for the work-
of big business, popular among ordinary people, ing classes. Marx held that the fundamental organ-
spread fear among the middle classes and politi- ization of any society, including its politics and
cians for the stability of the social order as they culture, derived from the relationships arising
built the nation-state. from work or production. This idea, known as ma-
terialism, meant that the foundation of a society
The Rise of Marxism. New theories arose to ex- rested on class relationships — such as those be-
plain the growing power of the nation-state and the tween serf and medieval lord, slave and master, or
spread of industry on which the state depended. worker and capitalist. Marx called the class rela-
Increasingly well-educated by public schools, ur- tionships that developed around work the mode of
ban workers frequented cafés and pubs to hear production — for instance, feudalism, slavery, or
news and discuss economic and political changes. capitalism. He rejected the liberal focus on indi-
Unions gradually started to take shape after the vidual rights and emphasized instead the unequal
post-1848 repression of worker organizations, class relations caused by those who had taken from
sometimes in secret because of continuing opposi- workers control of the means of production —
tion from the government. Many of the most out- that is, the capital, land, tools, or factories that al-
spoken labor activists were artisans, struggling to lowed basic human needs to be met.
survive in the new industrializing climate and at-
tracted at first by the ideas of former printer Pierre-
Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865). In the 1840s, anarchism: The belief that people should not have government;
Proudhon proclaimed, “Property is theft,” suggest- it was popular among some peasants and workers in the last
ing that ownership robbed propertyless people of half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twen-
tieth.
their rightful share of the earth’s benefits. He op-
Marxism: A body of thought about the organization of produc-
posed the centralized state and proposed that soci- tion, social inequality, and the processes of revolutionary
ety be organized instead around natural groupings change as devised by the philosopher and economist Karl Marx.
714 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

Marx, like the politicians around him, took a R.


ne
tough-minded and realistic look at the economy, dis-

i
Se
MONTMARTRE
carding the romantic views of the Utopian socialists.
Unlike them, he saw struggle, not warmhearted Right Bank BELLEVILLE

cooperation, as the means for bringing about change. Bois de


Tuileries Pére Lachaise
  Palais Royale Cemetery
Workers’ awareness of their oppression would pro- Boulogne
 
duce class consciousness among those in the same Hôtel de Ville
Left Bank
predicament and ultimately lead them to revolt Palais de Justice

against their exploiters. Capitalism would be over- MONTPARNASSE

thrown by these workers — the proletariat — who Point


du Jour
would then form a socialist society. Marx rejected
the liberal Enlightenment view that society was ba-

Se
in
0 1.5 3 miles eR
.
sically harmonious, maintaining instead that social 0 1.5 3 kilometers
progress could occur only through conflict. Route of the national army
Communard barricades
The Paris Commune versus the French State. As Areas of fighting
the Franco-Prussian War ended, revolution and  Buildings burned by Communards

civil war erupted not only in Paris but also in other Parks and cemeteries

French cities — catching the attention of Marx as


a sign that his predictions were coming true. One MAP 22.5 The Paris Commune, 1871
issue was the nation-state’s takeover of city life in The war between the French government and the Paris
Commune took place on the streets of Paris and
the Haussmannization of Paris. Urban renovation
resulted in widespread destruction of major buildings,
had displaced tens of thousands of workers from
most notably the Tuileries Palace adjacent to the
their homes in the heart of the city; homelessness Louvre. Combatants destroyed many government
and general chaos embittered many Parisians records in what some saw as a civil war; bitterness,
against the state. As the Prussians laid siege to Paris like destruction of property, was great on both sides.
in the winter of 1870–1871, causing death from
starvation and bitter cold, Parisians rose up against
the state that did not protect them. They de-
manded new republican liberties, new systems of feminism, international socialism, and anarchism
work, and a more balanced distribution of power were but a few of the proposed avenues to social
between the central government and localities. To justice.
counter what they saw as the uncaring despotism In the meantime, the provisional government
of the centralized government, on March 28, 1871, that succeeded the defeated Napoleon III struck
they declared themselves a self-governing com- back to reinstitute national order. It quickly
mune (Map 22.5). Other French municipalities did stamped out similar uprisings in other French
the same in an attempt to form a decentralized cities. On May 21, the army entered Paris. In a week
state of independent, confederated units run by of fighting, both Communards and the army set
local citizens. the city ablaze (the Communards did so to slow
In the Paris Commune’s two months of exis- the progress of government troops). Both sides ex-
tence, its forty-member council, its National ecuted hostages, but the well-supplied national
Guard, and its many other improvised offices army won. In the wake of victory, the army shot
found themselves at cross-purposes. Trying to tens of thousands of citizens on the streets. One
maintain “communal” instead of “national” values, official commented that Parisian insurgents “de-
Parisians quickly developed a wide array of polit- served no better judge than a soldier’s bullet.” In
ical clubs, local ceremonies, and self-managed co- an age of growing national power, the Commu-
operative workshops. Women workers, for nards had fatally promoted a kind of antistate.
example, banded together to make National Guard Soon a different interpretation of the Commune
uniforms on a cooperative rather than a profit- emerged: it was the work of the pétroleuse, or
making basis. Beyond liberal political equality, the “woman incendiary” — a case of frenzied women
Commune proposed to liberate the worker and en- running amok through the streets. Within a year,
sure “the absolute equality of women laborers.” writers were blaming the burning of Paris on
Thus, a commune in contrast to a republic was women — “shameless slatterns, half-naked
meant to bring about social revolution. But Com- women, who kindled courage and breathed life
munards often disagreed on what specific route to into arson.” Revolutionary men often became he-
take to change society: mutualism, anticlericalism, roes in the history books, but women in political
1850–1870 Th e C u ltu r e o f S o c i a l O r d e r 715

The Commune
A sympathetic artist chose a
ferocious woman to represent the
Paris Commune. He shows her
defending the people of France by
driving off politicians who had
negotiated the disastrous peace
treaty with Germany and who wanted
to bring back kings and emperors.
The artist depicts those selling out
the nation as wasps. (© Bibliothèque
nationale, Paris, France/ The Bridgeman Art
Library.)

situations were characterized as “sinister females,


sweating, their clothing undone, [who] passed
The Culture of Social Order
from man to man.” Artists and writers of the mid-nineteenth century
Defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, the Com- had complex reactions to the state’s expanding
mune, and the civil war were all horrendous blows reach and the economic growth that sustained it.
to the French state. Key to restoring order in France After 1848, many artists and writers expressed pro-
after 1870 were instilling family virtues, fortifying found grievances about the resulting political
religion, and claiming that the Commune had re- repression as well as — paradoxically — the exten-
sulted from the collapsed boundaries between the sion of the right to vote to working-class men.
male political sphere and the female domestic They saw daily life as tawdry, infused with com-
sphere. Karl Marx disagreed: he analyzed the Com- mercial values and organized by mindless officials.
mune as a class struggle of workers attacking the Ordinary people were no longer deemed heroic as
propertied capitalists. The centralized state grew they had been during the revolutionary years.
larger, in his mind, to protect the interests of those “How tired I am of the ignoble workman, the in-
wealthy citizens alone. In the struggle against the ept bourgeois, the stupid peasant, and the odious
Commune, the nation-state once again showed its priest,” wrote the French novelist Gustave Flaubert,
strengthening muscle. Executions and deporta- who nonetheless described ordinary people in a
tions by the thousands followed, and fear of work- new style called realism that reflected his disen-
ers smoldered across Europe. chantment with romanticism. Intellectuals of the
time proposed scientific theories that took a cold,
Review: How did Europe’s expanding nation-states at-
tempt to impose social order within and beyond Europe
and what resistance did they face? realism: An artistic style that arose in the mid-nineteenth cen-
tury and was dedicated to depicting society realistically with-
out romantic or idealistic overtones.
716 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

hard look at human life in society and used their heartlessness of businessmen. The novelist George
new insights to challenge fervent religious belief. Eliot (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans) exam-
Cultural styles and intellectual ideas shared a claim ined contemporary moral values and deeply
to see society with a detached eye. The starkness probed private, real-life dilemmas in The Mill on
of cultural realism was similar to that which states- the Floss (1860), Middlemarch (1871–1872), and
men applied to politics. other works. Describing rural society — high and
low — Eliot allowed Britons to see one another’s
predicaments, wherever they lived. Eliot knew the
The Arts Confront Social Reality
pain of ordinary life from her own experience: she
The quest for national power enlisted culture in was a social outcast because she lived with a mar-
its cause. A hungry reading public devoured bi- ried man. Despite her fame, she was not received
ographies of political leaders, past and present, in polite society. Popular novels like hers showed
and credited daring heroes with creating the tri- readers a hard reality and thus helped form a
umphant nation-state. As the development of shared culture among people in distant parts of a
schooling spread literacy, all classes of readers re- nation much as common state institutions like
sponded to the mid-nineteenth-century novel schools did.
and to an increasing number of artistic, scien- French writers also scorned utopian dreams of
tific, and natural history exhibitions sponsored perfect societies and transcendent beauty. Gustave
by the nation-state. While exalting hardheaded Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary (1857) tells the
heroes of war and peace, citizens came to be story of a bored doctor’s wife whose life is filled
schooled in the realism common to all the arts with romantic fantasies and longings for distrac-
and, more generally, to embrace their shared na- tion. She has one love affair after another and be-
tional heritage. comes so hopelessly indebted buying gifts for her
lovers that she commits suicide. Madame Bovary
The Realist Novel. A well-financed press and scandalized French society with its frank picture
commercially minded publishers produced an age of women’s sexuality, but the scandal brought it a
of best sellers out of the craving for realism. The nationwide readership. The poet Charles-Pierre
novels of Charles Dickens appeared in serial form Baudelaire, called satanic by his critics, wrote ex-
in magazines and periodicals, and each installment plicitly about sex; in Les Fleurs du mal (Flowers of
attracted buyers eager for the latest plot twist. Evil, 1857), he expressed sexual passion, described
Dickens’s characters, from contemporary English drug- and alcohol-induced fantasies, and spun out
society, include starving orphans, grasping visions that critics condemned as perverse. Some
lawyers, heartless bankers, and ruthless oppor- of his verse explicitly describes the brown body of
tunists. Hard Times (1854) depicts the grinding his mistress of African descent, using sexual terms
poverty and ill health of workers alongside the that mirror colonizers’ attitudes. French authori-
ties brought charges of obscenity against both
Flaubert and Baudelaire. At issue was social and
artistic order: “Art without rules is no longer art,”
AGE OF GREAT BOOKS the prosecutor maintained, as both were found
guilty.
1851 Auguste Comte, System of Positive Politics During the era of the Great Reforms, Russian
writers produced novels that debated the nature of
1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin
both Russian culture and Russianness. Adopting
1854 Charles Dickens, Hard Times one viewpoint, Ivan Turgenev created a powerful
1857 Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary; Charles Baudelaire, novel of Russian life, Fathers and Sons (1862), a
Les Fleurs du mal story of nihilistic children rejecting not only
1859 Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species; John Stuart
parental authority but also their parents’ spiritual
Mill, On Liberty values in favor of science and facts. Expressing an-
other point of view, Fyodor Dostoevsky, in The
1866 Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Possessed (1871–1872) and other works, showed
1867 Karl Marx, Das Kapital the dark, ridiculous, neurotic side of nihilists, thus
1869 John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women
1871–1872 George Eliot, Middlemarch George Eliot: The pen name of English novelist Mary Ann Evans
(1819–1880), who described the harsh reality of many ordinary
people’s lives in her works.
1850–1870 Th e C u ltu r e o f S o c i a l O r d e r 717

holding up Turgenev as a soft-headed romantic.


Dostoevsky’s highly intelligent characters in Crime
and Punishment (1866) are personally tormented
and condemned to lead absurd, even criminal
lives. He used these antiheroes to emphasize spir-
ituality and traditional Russian values but added a
“realistic” spin by planting such values in ordinary
people. Just as people were drawn together by the
innovations of the nation-state, the Russian pub-
lic was drawn together in discussing these novels
and the issues they raised about Russian identity.

Painting. Visual artists had a different relation-


ship to their governments than did writers, yet
many still depicted society in harsh terms. Unlike
novelists, painters depended on government pa-
tronage rather than sales to thousands of readers.
Leaders such as Prince Albert of England actively
patronized the arts and purchased works for offi-
cial collections and for themselves. Another way
for artists to earn a living was having their artwork
displayed at government-sponsored exhibitions
(called salons in Paris, the center of the art world).
Officially appointed juries selected works of art to Gustave Courbet, Wrestlers (1850)
appear in the salon and then chose prize winners Courbet painted his dirty, grunting wrestlers in the realist
from among them. Hundreds of thousands from style, which rejected the hazy romanticism of revolution-
ary Europe. These muscular men embodied the resort to
all social classes attended, though few could afford
physical struggle during the nation-building decades and
to buy the art. conveyed the art world’s recognition that Realpolitik had
Despite being dependent for their living on triumphed in the governance of society. How does the
this patronage, after the revolutions of 1848 artists depiction of people in this painting differ from the earlier
began rejecting the romantic idealizing of ordinary nineteenth-century image on page 643? (© Museum of Fine Arts,
folk or grand historic events that government pur- Budapest / The Bridgeman Art Library.)
chasers continued to favor. Instead, painters like
Gustave Courbet portrayed groaning laborers at
backbreaking work because he believed an artist
should “never permit sentiment to overthrow Opera. Unlike most of the visual arts, opera was
logic.” The renovated city, artists found, had be- commercially profitable, accessible to most classes
come a visual spectacle, a setting whose wide new of society, and thus an effective means of reaching
boulevards served as a stage on which urban resi- the nineteenth-century public. Verdi used musical
dents performed. Universal Exhibition (1867) by theater to contrast noble ideals with the corrosive
Édouard Manet used the world’s fair of 1867 as its effects of power, love of country with the inevitable
background; figures from all social classes prome- call for sacrifice and death, and the lure of passion
naded in the foreground, gazing at the Paris scene with the need for social order. The German
and observing one another to learn correct mod- Richard Wagner, the most musically innovative
ern behavior. Manet also broke with romantic con- composer of the era, hoped to revolutionize opera
ventions of the nude. His Olympia (1865) depicted by fusing music and drama to arouse the audi-
a white courtesan lying on her bed, attended by a ence’s fear, awe, and engagement with his produc-
black woman (see page 718). This disregard for the tions. A gigantic cycle of four operas, The Ring of
classical tradition of showing women in mythical the Nibelungen reshaped ancient German myths
or idealized settings was too much for the critics. into a modern, nightmarish story of a world
“A sort of female gorilla,” one wrote of Olympia, doomed by its obsessive pursuit of money and
as debate raged. Although shocking at first, the power and saved only through unselfish love. His
graphic, realistic portrayals that shattered roman- opera The Mastersingers of Nuremberg (Die Meis-
tic illusions became a feature of modern art and tersinger, 1862–1867) was a tribute to German cul-
the subject of discussion among a broad public. ture. The piece was said to be implicitly anti-
718 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

A Realist View of the Nude


Manet’s Olympia (1865) was one of the most shocking works of art of its day. The central woman is
not glamorously dressed or posed erotically; rather, she stares candidly and boldly at the viewer.
The black maid offers the woman—obviously a courtesan—flowers from an admirer. This scene of
modern life was far too modern in its style and subject matter for most critics. (© Musée d’Orsay, Paris,
France / The Bridgeman Art Library.)

Semitic because of its rejection of influences other many politicians supported religious institutions
than German ones in the arts. Wagner’s flair for and attended public church rituals because they
publicity and musical innovation made him a ma- were another source of order. Simultaneously,
jor force in philosophy, politics, and the arts across some nation builders, intellectuals, and economic
Europe. To his fellow citizens, however, he stood liberals came to reject the religious worldview of
for German opera and thus for Germany. established churches, particularly Roman Catholi-
All of the arts, no matter how controversial, cism, as wrongheaded and even harmful to the
shaped the cultural attitudes of the decades nation because unrealistic. Bismarck was one of
1850–1870. Employing the realist values of the na- those who believed that religious loyalties also
tion builders, the arts provided visions that helped slowed the growth of nationalist sentiment.
unite isolated individuals into a public with a Bismarck mounted a full-blown Kulturkampf
shared, if debated, cultural experience. Artists both (“culture war”) against religion. The German gov-
implicitly (like George Eliot) and more explicitly ernment expelled the Jesuits from Germany in
(like Richard Wagner) promoted nation building 1872, increased state power over the clergy in Prus-
even as they experimented with new forms. sia in 1873, and introduced obligatory civil mar-
riage in 1875. Bismarck had bragged, “I am the
master of Germany in all but name,” but he mis-
Religion and National Order calculated his ability to manipulate politics. The
The expansion of state power set the stage for pope fought back, sending a public letter to bish-
clashes over the role of organized religion in the
nation-state. Should religion have the same hold
Kulturkampf: Literally, “culture war”; in the 1870s, German
on government and public life as in the past, thus chancellor Otto von Bismarck used the term to describe his fight
competing with loyalty to the nation? In the 1850s, to weaken the power of the Catholic church.
1850–1870 Th e C u ltu r e o f S o c i a l O r d e r 719

ops to resist Bismarck’s attack: “One must obey sions, Mary told Bernadette to drink from the
God more than men,” he ordered. German ground, at which point a spring appeared. Crowds
Catholics rebelled against policies of religious comprised mostly of women flocked to Lourdes,
repression as part of nation building, and even believing that its waters could cure their ailments.
conservative Protestants thought Bismarck wrong- In 1867, less than ten years later, a new railroad
headed in attacking religion. Competition between line to Lourdes enabled millions of pilgrims to visit
church and state for power and influence heated the shrine on church-organized trips. The Catholic
up in the age of Realpolitik. church thus showed that it too could use such
modern means as railroads and medical verifica-
Catholic Reaction. The Catholic church felt as- tions of miraculous cures to make holy places like
saulted across Europe by the growing acceptance Lourdes into thriving commercial and religious
of rationalism and science. It saw nation building centers. Traditional institutions like churches be-
in Italy and Germany as competition for people’s gan taking new steps to build cultural unity simi-
traditional loyalty to Catholicism. In addition, na- lar to that of the nation-state.
tion builders had extended liberal rights to Jews,
whom Christians often considered enemies. At- The Challenge from Natural Science. At about
tacking reform, Pope Pius IX issued The Syllabus the time of Soubirous’s vision, the English natu-
of Errors (1864), which found fault “with progress, ralist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) published On
with liberalism, and with modern civilization.” In the Origin of Species (1859) — yet another chal-
1870, the First Vatican Council approved the lenge to the Judeo-Christian dogma that human-
dogma of papal infallibility. This teaching pro- ity was a unique creation of God. In this book and
claimed that the pope, under certain circum- in later writings, Darwin argued that life had taken
stances, must be regarded by Catholics as speaking shape over countless millions of years before hu-
divinely revealed truth on issues of morality and mans existed and that human life was but the re-
faith. In 1878, a new pontiff, Leo XIII, began mod- sult of this slow development, called evolution.
ernizing the church by encouraging up-to-date Instead of God miraculously bringing the universe
scholarship in Catholic institutes and universities and all life into being in six days as described in
and by accepting aspects of representative democ- the Bible, Darwin held that life developed from
racy. Leo’s ideas marked a dramatic turn, ending lower forms through a primal battle for survival
the Kulturkampf between church and state and and through the sexual selection of mates —
making it easier for the faithful to be both Catholic processes called natural selection. A respectable
and patriotic. Victorian gentleman, Darwin shockingly an-
Religion continued to have powerful popular nounced that the Bible gave a “manifestly false his-
appeal, but the place of organized religion in so- tory of the world.” Darwin’s theories also
ciety at large was changing. On the one hand, undermined certain liberal, secular beliefs. En-
church attendance declined among workers and lightenment principles, for example, had glorified
artisans; on the other, many in the upper and nature as tranquil and noble and had viewed hu-
middle classes and most of the peasantry remained man beings as essentially rational. The theory of
faithful. There was a religious gender gap too. natural selection, in which the fittest survive, sug-
Women’s spiritual beliefs became more intense, gested a different kind of human society, one com-
with both Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox posed of warlike individuals and groups constantly
women’s religious orders increasing in size and fighting one another to triumph over hostile sur-
number; men, by contrast, were falling away from roundings.
religious devotion. Many urban Jews assimilated Darwin’s findings and other innovative biolog-
to secular, national cultures, abandoning religious ical research placed religious views of reproduction
practice. The social composition of those faithful under attack. Working with pea plants in his
to religion had come to take a distinctly different monastery garden in the 1860s, Gregor Mendel
shape from the days when it included everyone. (1822–1884) discovered the principles of heredity,
In 1854, the pope’s announcement of the doc- from which the science of genetics later developed.
trine of the Immaculate Conception (stating that Investigation into the female reproductive cycle led
Mary, alone among all humans, had been born German scientists to discover the principle of spon-
without original sin) was followed by an outburst taneous ovulation — the automatic release of the
of popular religious fervor, especially among
women. In 1858, a young peasant girl, Bernadette
Charles Darwin (1809–1882): English naturalist who popular-
Soubirous, began having visions of the Virgin ized the theory of evolution and thereby challenged the bibli-
Mary at Lourdes in southern France. In these vi- cal story of creation.
720 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

thus challenging the biblical teaching that the poor


were valued. On these grounds Spencer opposed
public education, social reform, and any other at-
tempt to soften the harshness of the struggle for
existence. Darwin continued this line of argument
when he claimed that white European men in the
nineteenth century were wealthier and better be-
cause more highly evolved than white women or
people of color. Despite recognizing a common
ancestor for all humans, Darwin held that people
of color, or “lower races,” were far behind whites
in intelligence and civilization. As for women, one
could observe that they were in a lower state be-
cause any individual man achieved “a higher em-
inence in whatever he takes up.” A school of
thought known as Social Darwinism grew out of
Darwin’s and Spencer’s ideas. In the years to come,
Social Darwinists used their own version of evo-
lutionary theory to lobby against traditional
Christian charity and fairness and instead to pro-
mote racist, sexist, and other discriminatory poli-
cies as a way of strengthening the nation-state.

From the Natural Sciences


to Social Science
In an age influenced by Realpolitik and by Darwin’s
revolutionary ideas, theorists devised scientific ex-
planations of how society functioned to replace tra-
ditional ideas that the social order was created by
Darwin Ridiculed, c. 1860
God. French social philosopher Auguste Comte
Charles Darwin’s theories claimed that humans (1798–1857) developed positivism — a theory
evolved from animal species and rejected the claiming that careful study of facts would generate
biblical explanation of a divine human origin. accurate and useful, or “positive,” laws of society.
His scientific ideas so diverged from people’s Comte’s System of Positive Politics, or Treatise on
beliefs that cartoonists lampooned Darwin and Sociology (1851) proposed that social scientists
his theory. What message might this cartoon construct knowledge of the political order as they
have conveyed to a nineteenth-century viewer? would an understanding of the natural world —
(Hulton Archive/ Getty Images.) that is, through observation and objective study.
■ For more help analyzing this image, see the This idea inspired people to believe they could solve
visual activity for this chapter in the Online the problems spawned by economic and social
Study Guide at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt. changes. To accomplish this goal, tough-minded re-
formers founded study groups and scientifically
oriented associations to dig up social facts such as
egg by the ovary independent of sexual intercourse. statistics on poverty or the conditions of working-
This discovery caused theorists to conclude that class life. Comte encouraged women’s participation
men had aggressive and strong sexual drives be- in reform because he deemed “womanly” compas-
cause reproduction depended on their sexual sion and love as fundamental to social harmony as
arousal. In contrast, the spontaneous and cyclical scientific public policy was. Positivism led not only
release of the egg independent of arousal indicated to women’s increased public activism but also to
that women were passive and lacked sexual feeling. the development of the social sciences in this pe-
Darwin also tried to use biological findings to
explain the way society worked. Even before Dar-
win, the influential writer Herbert Spencer positivism: A theory developed in the mid-nineteenth century
that the study of facts would generate accurate, or “positive,”
(1820–1903) had written that the “unfit” should laws of society and that these laws could, in turn, help in the
be allowed to perish in the name of progress — formulation of policies and legislation.
1850–1870 C o n c lu s i o n 721

riod. Sociology was primary among the influential states. Nation building was most dramatic in Ger-
new disciplines that brought science and a new re- many and Italy, where states were unified through
alism to the study of human society. military force and where people of opposing po-
The celebrated English philosopher John Stu- litical opinions ultimately agreed that national
art Mill (1806–1873) used Comte’s theories to ad- unity should be a primary goal. Compelled by mil-
vocate widespread reform and mass education. In itary defeat to shake off centuries of tradition, the
his political treatise On Liberty (1859), Mill argued Austrian and Russian monarchs instituted reforms
for the improvement of society generally, but he as a way of keeping their systems viable, with
also expressed concern that superior people not be widely different results. The Habsburg Empire
brought down by the will of the masses. Influenced became a dual monarchy, an arrangement that
not only by Comte but also by his wife, Harriet Tay- gave the Hungarians virtual home rule and thus
lor Mill, he advocated the extension of rights to raised the level of disunity. Reforms in Russia left
women and introduced a woman suffrage bill into the authoritarian monarchy intact and only par-
the House of Commons after her death. The bill’s tially transformed the social order.
defeat led Mill to publish The Subjection of Women After decades of romantic fervor, hardheaded
(1869), a work summarizing his studies with his realism in politics — Realpolitik — became a
wife. Translated into many languages and influen- much touted norm in other areas. Proponents of
tial in eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and the Amer- realism such as Darwin and Marx developed the-
icas, The Subjection of Women showed the family as ories disturbing to those who maintained an En-
a despotic institution, lacking modern values such lightenment faith in social and political harmony.
as rights and freedom. Mill exposed women’s Realist novels and artworks jarred polite society,
cheerful obedience in marriage as a sham. To make and, like the operas of Verdi, portrayed dilemmas
a woman appear “not a forced slave, but a willing of the times. The policies of the growing state ap-
one,” he said, she was trained from childhood not paratus that were meant to bring order often
to value her own talent and independence but to brought disorder, such as the destruction of entire
embrace “submission” and “the control of others.” neighborhoods and violence toward people in far-
The Subjection of Women became an internation- off lands. Schooling, however, taught the lower
ally celebrated guide for a growing movement com- classes to be orderly citizens, and urban renewal
mitted to obtaining basic rights for women. ultimately improved cities and public health to
The progressive side of Mill’s social thought complement nation building. Yet when the ordi-
was soon lost in a flood of social Darwinist theo- nary people of the Paris Commune rose up to
ries and became one among several visions of so- protest the loss of French power and prestige, they
cial order — all of them believed to be scientific also aimed to defy the trend toward nation build-
and thus true. The theories of Mill, Comte, ing. Their actions raised difficult questions. How
Darwin, and others influenced later national de- far should the power of the state extend in both
bates over policy in the West. Inspired by the so- domestic and international affairs? Would nation-
cial sciences, policymaking came to rely on alism be a force for war or for peace? As these is-
statistics and fact-gathering to produce realistic, sues ripened, the next decades saw extraordinary
hardheaded appraisals for the purpose of building economic advances and an unprecedented surge in
strong, unified nations. Europe’s global power — much of it the result of
successes in nation building.
Review: How did cultural expression and scientific
and social thought help produce the hardheaded and
realistic values of the times? For Further Exploration
■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
end of the book.
Conclusion
■ For additional primary-source material from
Throughout modern history, the development of this period, see Chapter 22 in Sources of THE
nation-states has been neither inevitable nor uni- MAKING OF THE WEST, Third Edition.
form nor peaceful. This was especially true in the
nineteenth century, when ambitious politicians, ■ For Web sites and documents related to topics
shrewd monarchs, and determined bureaucrats in this chapter, see Make History at
used a variety of methods and policies to trans- bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
form very different countries into centralized
722 C h a pt e r 2 2 ■ P o l i t i c s a n d C u ltu r e o f t h e N at i o n - Stat e 1850–1870

MA P P I N G T H E W E ST
0 200 400 miles

0 200 400 kilometers FINLAND


SWEDEN AND
NORWAY
Kristiania St. Petersburg
 Volga R.
N  Stockholm
W SCOTLAND
E
Moscow
Riga 

a
S N o rt h

Se
GREAT Se a DENMARK
Copenhagen i

c
IRELAND
lt
BRITAIN
NETHERLANDS Ba
RUSSIA
ENGLAND Elb
Voronezh 
eR
.
 London

Od
Berlin 
rR 
Warsaw

e
GERMANY .
BELGIUM

Rhi
Dresden POLAND
Brussels  Kiev

n


eR
Prague


.
Paris
ATLANTIC  LUXEMBOURG
AUSTRIA
OCEAN Munich
 AU S T R I A-
Vienna HUNGARY
FRANCE Zurich Odessa
 
SWITZERLAND Budapest
Bordeaux CRIMEA
 CROATIA- HUNGARY
 SLOVENIA

IA
Genoa Venice AN
 BOSNIA RO M .
 Lourdes SERBIA D a n ub e
R Black Sea
 HERZEGOVINA
Marseille
PORTUGAL ITALY 
Sinope
BULGARIA
Madrid
Lisbon  Corsica MONTENEGRO

SPAIN Rome NIA 
Constantinople
CEDO
 ALBANIA MA
Sardinia Naples

OTTOMAN EMPIRE
GREECE
  Athens
Tangier  Tunis Sicily
Algiers 

Crete
Cyprus SYRIA
MOROCCO
TUNISIA M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a
ALGERIA
(Fr.)

TRIPOLI EGYPT

Europe and the Mediterranean, 1871


European nation-states consolidated their power by building unified state structures and by
developing the means for the diverse peoples within their borders to become socially and
culturally integrated. Nation-states were also rapidly expanding outside their boundaries,
extending their economic and political reach. North Africa and the Middle East—parts of the
declining Ottoman Empire—particularly appealed to European governments because of their
resources and their potential for further European settlement. They offered a gateway to the
rest of the world. ■ Compare this map of Europe with that from two decades earlier (page 686)
to explain the progress of nation building. What aspects of nation building do not appear on
this map?
1850–1870 C h a pt e r R ev i ew 723

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
K ey Te r m s a n d P eo pl e Making Connections
Realpolitik (690) pan-Slavism (702) 1. How did realism in social thought break with Enlighten-
Alexander II (693) anarchism (713) ment values?
mir (695) Marxism (713) 2. Why did some nation-states tend toward secularism while
Russification (696) realism (715) the kingdoms that preceded them were based on religion?
nation-state (696) George Eliot (716) 3. How was the Paris Commune related to earlier revolutions
Camillo di Cavour (696) Kulturkampf (718) in France? How did it differ from them? How was it related
Otto von Bismarck (699) Charles Darwin (719) to nation building?
dual monarchy (702) positivism (720)

For practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other


Review Questions study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
1. What were the main results of the Crimean War? bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.

2. What role did warfare play in the various nineteenth-


century nation-building efforts?
3. How did Europe’s expanding nation-states attempt to im-
pose social order within and beyond Europe and what re-
sistance did they face?
4. How did cultural expression and scientific and social
thought help produce the hardheaded and realistic values
of the times?

Important Events

1850s –1860s Positivism, Darwinism become 1861–1865 U.S. Civil War


influential 1867 Second Reform Bill in England; Austro-
1850s–1870s Realism in the arts Hungarian monarchy
1853–1856 Crimean War 1868 Meiji Restoration begins in Japan
1857 British-led forces suppress Indian 1869–1871 Women’s colleges founded at Cambridge
Rebellion University
1861 Victor Emmanuel declared king of a 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War
unified Italy; abolition of serfdom in 1871 German Empire proclaimed at Versailles;
Russia self-governing Paris Commune established.
Industry, Empire, C H A P T E R

and Everyday Life


1870–1890
23
The Advance of Industry
in an Age of Empire 727
• Industrial Innovation
• Facing Economic Crisis
• Revolution in Business Practices
etween 1870 and 1890, Marianne North, an unmarried English-

B woman, traveled the globe several times. North was a botanical


illustrator and “plant hunter,” one of those energetic Europeans
who on their own or under government sponsorship searched the world
The New Imperialism




Taming the Mediterranean
Scramble for Africa
Acquiring Territory in Asia
Japan’s Imperial Agenda
733

over for plants to classify, grow, and put to commercial use. She ven- • The Paradoxes of Imperialism

tured to India, North and South America, Java, Borneo, South Africa, Imperial Society and Culture 740
and many other distant points, setting up her easel and making scien- • The “Best Circles” and the
Expanding Middle Class
tific drawings of plants. She discovered at least five new species (offi- • Professional Sports and
cially named after her) and a new type of tree, and she collected Organized Leisure
• Working People’s Strategies
thousands of plants to send back to botanical gardens in England. When • Reform Efforts for Working-Class
North became too frail to travel, she organized a permanent museum People
• Artistic Responses to Empire
in London to display her botanical drawings to the public (see the il- and Industry
lustration, on page 726). Her goal was to promote ordinary people’s
The Birth of Mass Politics 750
knowledge of the British Empire: “I want them to know,” she an- • Workers, Politics, and Protest
• Expanding Political Participation
nounced, “that cocoa doesn’t come from the coconut.”
in Western Europe
North was just one of the millions of people who traveled vast dis- • Power Politics in Central and
Eastern Europe
tances in the nineteenth century — a time of greatly increased mobil-
ity and migration, much of which was made possible by an expansion
of industry and colonization. Some, like North, who took advantage of
the greater speed of travel, journeyed in pursuit of knowledge. Others
migrated temporarily to the colonies to serve in colonial governments,
for instance, or to find business opportunities. Still others relocated
permanently within Europe or other places abroad in North and South
America or Australia in search of work and a better life for themselves.
Such migration changed the everyday life of both Europeans and non-
Europeans: it uprooted tens of millions of people, it disrupted social

Thomas Roberts, Coming South (1886)


Most European migration occurred for political and economic reasons, with
beleaguered segments of the population likely to cross thousands of miles by ship to
find opportunity and political freedom. Other Western migration was temporary, like
that of scientists, writers, soldiers, and missionaries. The Australian painter Thomas
Roberts, who had himself migrated from London in 1869 at the age of thirteen,
depicted these voyages on ship as so calm and boring as to test one’s sanity, an
atmosphere described similarly in migrants’ diaries and letters. (© National Gallery of
Victoria, Melbourne, Australia / The Bridgeman Art Library.)

725
726 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

and family networks, and often inflicted terrible The Western powers were rapidly expanding their
violence on native peoples dislocated by European empires through the “new imperialism” — one
colonizers. name for the accelerated race for empire around
Like individual Europeans, Western nations the world and the seizure of political rather than
looked beyond home borders from 1870 to 1890. just economic power. Europeans had been acquir-
ing global territory since the late fifteenth century;
the new imperialism was actually the final gulp in
this process. In their rush for empire, Europeans
explored and took political control of the interior
of Africa and fought to dominate even more Asian
lands until, by the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury, they claimed to control more than 80 percent
of the world’s surface. Influence and control went
beyond political domination: with varying degrees
of success, Europeans tried to stamp other conti-
nents with European-style place names, architec-
ture, clothing, languages, and domestic customs.
They used culture to create empires just as they
used it to forge the nation-state.
The decades from 1870 to 1890 were an era of
expanding industry in the West as well. Empire and
industry fed on each other as raw materials from
imperial conquest supplied Western industries. In-
dustrial output soared in the West as industrial-
ization spread from Britain to central and eastern
Europe and brought a continuous new supply of
products to the market. A growing appetite for
these goods, many of them for household con-
sumption, changed the fabric of everyday life for
Europeans. New industry attracted people to cities,
where common experiences of neighborhood and
work life drew them closer together. They became
Marianne North, Pitcher Plant more educated, both through formal schooling
Wealthy Europeans increasingly traveled overseas in and through informal educators like Marianne
the quest for knowledge and adventure. As the West
North who helped them make connections be-
prospered, travel and world tourism did too. An
amateur artist, Marianne North initially gained an
tween empire and their own lives. Citizens took
audience for her scientific drawings, reports, and pride in their nations’ conquests and enjoyed a
specimens only because she traveled in the “best mushrooming array of new colonial goods. News-
circles.” Later her drawings, like this one of a pitcher papers covering political affairs expanded their
plant, were prized by scientists. (Trustees of the Royal sales to growing urban populations, and workers
Botanic Gardens, Kew.) began demanding greater participation in the po-

■ 1860s–1890s Impressionism flourishes;


increased Asian influence in art
■ 1876 Victoria declared
■ 1870s–1890s Vast emigration; empress of India;
new imperialism invention of the telephone

1865 1870 1875

■ 1871 Franco-Prussian War ends

■ 1873 Recession begins with global impact


1870–1890 Th e A dva n c e o f I n d u s t ry i n a n A g e o f E m p i r e 727

litical process. Proud of their imperial conquests In 1885, the German engineer Karl Benz devised
and industrial growth, Europeans brimmed with a workable gasoline engine; six years later, France’s
confidence and hope, while the grimmer aspects Armand Peugeot constructed a car and tested it by
of empire and industrialization played themselves chasing a bicycle race. Electricity became more
out in distant colonies, urban slums, and declin- widely used after 1880, providing power to light
ing standards of living in rural areas. everything from private drawing rooms to govern-
ment office buildings. The Eiffel Tower, con-
structed in Paris for the Universal Exposition of
Focus Question: How were industrial expansion
1889, stood as a monument to the age’s engineer-
and imperial conquest related, and how did they affect
Western society, culture, and politics in the late nine-
ing wizardry; visitors rode to its summit in elec-
teenth century? tric elevators. To fuel the West’s explosive
industrial growth, the leading industrial nations
mined and produced massive quantities of coal,
iron, and steel. Production of iron increased from
11 million to 23 million tons annually, and steel
The Advance of Industry from 500,000 to 11 million tons annually in the
in an Age of Empire 1870s and 1880s. Manufacturers used the metal to
build the more than 100,000 locomotives that
The 1870s opened with a burst of prosperity as the pulled trains — trains that transported two billion
Franco-Prussian War drew to a close. Fed by raw people a year.
materials from around the world, industry turned Historians used to contrast a “second” Indus-
out a cornucopia of new products, and many trial Revolution, with a concentration on heavy in-
workers’ wages increased. Beginning in 1873, how- dustrial products like iron and steel, to the “first”
ever, a series of downturns in business threatened one of the eighteenth and early nineteenth cen-
both entrepreneurs and the working class. Busi- turies, in which innovations in the manufacture of
nesspeople sought remedies in new technology, textiles and the use of steam energy predominated.
managerial techniques, and a revolutionary mar- Now, however, historians recognize that in most
keting institution — the department store. Gov- countries except Britain, where industrialization
ernments played their part by changing business did rise in two stages, the development of textile,
law and supporting the drive for global profits. The iron, and steel industries occurred at the same time
steady advance of industry and the development and were a part of a single process of industrial-
of a consumer economy gave rise to the service ization. For instance, numerous textile mills were
sector, laying the foundation for further changes installed on the continent at the same time as blast
in work life. furnaces. Although industrialization led to the
decline of traditional crafts like weaving, home
Industrial Innovation industry — or outwork, the process of having
some aspects of industrial work done outside fac-
In the last third of the nineteenth century, West- tories in individual homes (similar to the putting-
ern industries turned out hundreds of new prod-
ucts ranging from the bicycle, the typewriter, and outwork: The process of having some aspects of industrial work
the telephone to the internal combustion engine. done outside factories in individual homes.

■ 1882 Triple Alliance formed; Britain invades Egypt

■ 1882–1884 Bismarck sponsors social welfare legislation


■ 1889 Japan adopts constitution;
■ 1881 Tsar Alexander II assassinated Second International established

1880 1885 1890

■ 1879 Dual Alliance formed ■ 1884 Reform Act doubles British male electorate ■ 1891 Construction of
Trans-Siberian Railroad
■ 1884–1885 Berlin conference on African imperialism begins

■ 1885 Invention of workable gasoline engine


728 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

The Invention of Electric Lighting


By the 1890s, many new inventions could be seen in a single walk down the wide boulevards of
major European cities. In this illustration of Piccadilly in London, electric lighting illuminates the
way for modern bicycles and automobiles as well as horse-drawn carriages. By the turn of the
century, streets had also become crowded with electric trams. (Mary Evans Picture Library.)

out system) — persisted in garment making, met- Challenge to British Dominance. Britain’s rate of
alwork, and porcelain painting. Industrial produc- industrial growth slowed as its entrepreneurs re-
tion occurring simultaneously in homes, small mained wedded to older technologies. Although
workshops, and factories has continued through Great Britain maintained its high output of indus-
the entire history of modern manufacturing down trial goods and profited from a multitude of
to the present day. worldwide investments, Germany and the United
Industrial innovations transformed agricul- States began surpassing it in research, technical ed-
ture. Chemical fertilizers boosted crop yields, and ucation, and innovation — and ultimately in over-
reapers and threshers mechanized harvesting. In all rates of economic growth.
the 1870s, Sweden produced a cream separator, a Following the Franco-Prussian War, Germany
first step toward mechanizing dairy farming. Wire annexed Alsace and Lorraine, territories with both
fencing and barbed wire replaced wooden fencing textile industries and rich iron deposits. Investing
and stone walls, both of which required intensive heavily in research, German businesses devised
labor to construct. Refrigeration allowed fruits, new industrial processes and began to mass-
vegetables, and meat to be transported without produce goods. Germany also spent as much
spoiling, thus diversifying and increasing the urban money on education as on its military in the 1870s
food supply. Tin from colonial trade facilitated and 1880s. This investment resulted in highly
large-scale commercial canning, which made many skilled engineers and technical workers who sent
foods available year-round to people in the cities. German industrial productivity soaring.
1870–1890 Th e A dva n c e o f I n d u s t ry i n a n A g e o f E m p i r e 729

The United States began in-


tensive exploitation of its vast nat-
ural resources, including coal,
metal ores, gold, and oil. The value
of U.S. industrial goods jumped
from $5 billion in 1880 to $13 bil-
lion by 1900. Whereas German
productivity rested more on state
promotion of industrial efforts,
U.S. growth often involved innova-
tive entrepreneurs, such as Andrew
Carnegie in iron and steel and John
D. Rockefeller in oil. The three-way
industrial rivalry among Germany,
the United States, and Great
Britain would soon have political
and diplomatic repercussions.

Areas of Slower Industrialization.


With the exception of Belgium,
which had been the first continen-
tal country to industrialize, other
countries trailed the three indus-
trial leaders. Although France had Sukharev Market, Moscow (c. 1890)
some huge mining, textile, and For all their modernization, cities also offered their products in dozens of centuries-old
metallurgical establishments, U.S. food and flea markets such as this one in Russia. Rural farmers brought fresh produce
and German businesses soon sur- to the cities, while urban market women sold clothing and household items.
passed French businesses in size. (© Austrian Archives / Corbis.)
In Spain, Austria-Hungary, and
Italy, industrial development was
primarily concentrated in a few regions of each Moscow, St. Petersburg, and a few other cities had
country. Austria-Hungary had densely industrial- substantial working-class populations. The Russian
ized areas around Vienna and in Styria and Bo- minister of finance Sergei Witte attracted foreign
hemia, but the rest of the country remained tied capital, entrepreneurs, and engineers and used
to traditional, nonmechanized agriculture. Italy them to construct railroads, including the Trans-
industrialized in the north while remaining rural Siberian Railroad (1891–1916), which upon com-
and agricultural in the south. The Italian govern- pletion stretched 5,787 miles from Moscow to
ment spent more on building Rome into a grand Vladivostok. Russia’s industrial and military power
capital than it invested in economic growth. A increased, but its peasants bore the main burden of
mere 1.4 percent of Italy’s 1872 budget went to paying for the state’s financing of industry, mostly
education and science, compared with 10.8 per- in the form of higher taxes on vodka. Russia
cent in Germany. Sweden and Norway, which were offered a prime example of the uneven benefits of
poor in coal and ore, became leaders in the use of industrialization: neither Russian peasants nor un-
hydroelectric power and the development of elec- derpaid urban workers could afford to buy the
trical products. Despite these innovations, Scan- goods their country produced.
dinavia retained its mostly rural character well
into the twentieth century.
Russia’s road to industrialization was tortuous, Facing Economic Crisis
slowed partly by its relatively small urban labor Economic conditions were far from rosy through-
force. The terms of serf emancipation bound many out the 1870s and 1880s despite industrial innova-
Russian peasants, who may have wished to find op- tion. In 1873, prosperity abruptly gave way to a
portunities in factory work, to the mir, or landed severe economic depression, followed by almost
community. Some villages sent men and women to three decades of economic fluctuations, featuring
cities, but on the condition that they return for sharp downturns whose severity varied from coun-
plowing and harvesting. Nevertheless, by the 1890s, try to country. People of all classes lost their jobs
730 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

or businesses and faced consequences ranging from vestors were personally responsible for the debts
long stretches of unemployment to bankruptcy. of a bankrupt business. In one case in England, a
Because economic ties bound industrialized west- former partner who had failed to have his name
ern Europe to international markets, the down- removed from a legal document after leaving the
turns affected the economies of such diverse business remained responsible to creditors when
regions as Australia, South Africa, California, New- the company went bankrupt. He lost everything he
foundland, and the West Indies. owned except a watch and the equivalent of one
The dramatic fluctuations of the late nine- hundred dollars. By reducing personal risk, lim-
teenth century differed from the economic cycles ited liability made investors more confident about
that were the rule before 1850, in which agricul- financing business ventures.
tural failure led to higher food prices and then to Investing in stocks and bonds expanded with
manufacturing decline. Agriculture was no longer the need for more capital. Stock markets had ex-
so dominant that its fate determined the welfare isted prior to the changes in liability laws, but in-
of other parts of the economy. By the 1870s, in- vestors could trade only in government bonds and
dustrial and financial setbacks were sending busi- in shares of government-sponsored enterprises
nesses into long-term tailspins. Innovation created such as railroads. By the end of the century, stock
new or modernized industries on an unprece- market investors were trading heavily in stocks that
dented scale, but economic uncertainty accompa- financed a wide range of businesses and thus raised
nied the forward march of Western industrial money from a larger pool of private capital than
development. before. At the center of an international economy
Industrial progress was expensive and busi- linked by telegraph, telephone, railways, and
nesspeople faced real problems. First, the start-up steamships, the London Stock Exchange in 1882
costs of new enterprises skyrocketed. The early tex- traded industrial shares worth £54 million, a value
tile mills had required relatively small amounts of that surged to £443 million by 1900.
capital in comparison to the new factories produc- Another way in which businesses tried to re-
ing steel and iron. Capital-intensive industry, solve their financial difficulties was to band together
which required huge financial investment for the in cartels and trusts to control prices and competi-
purchase of expensive machinery, replaced labor- tion. Cartels (groups of industries organized into a
intensive production, which relied on the hiring of monopoly for fixing prices) flourished particularly
more workers. Second, the distribution and con- in German chemical, iron, coal, and electric indus-
sumption of goods failed to keep pace with indus- tries. For example, the Rhenish-Westphalian Coal
trial growth. Increased productivity in both Syndicate, founded in 1893, eventually dominated
agriculture and industry led to rapidly declining more than 95 percent of coal production in
prices. Wheat, for example, dropped to one-third Germany and could thus restrict output and set
its 1870 price by the 1890s. Consumers, however, prices. Trusts appeared first in the United States. In
did not always benefit from this deflation: wages 1882, John D. Rockefeller created the Standard Oil
were slashed and unemployment rose during the Trust by acquiring stock from many different oil
economic downturns, preventing the purchase of companies and placing it under the direction of
the new industrial goods. Industrialists had made trustees. The trustees then controlled so much of
their fortunes by emphasizing production, not con- the companies’ stock that they could set prices for the
sumption. The series of slumps refocused entrepre- entire industry and even dictate to the railroads the
neurial policy on finding ways to enhance sales and rates for transporting the oil.
distribution and to control markets and prices. While expressing their belief in free trade, the
Governments took steps to address the eco- owners of cartels and trusts were actually restrict-
nomic crisis. New laws spurred the development ing the free market. Governments did likewise by
of the limited liability corporation, which pro- beginning to impose tariffs in the belief that doing
tected investors from personal responsibility for a so would help protect domestic industries. Much
firm’s debt. Before limited liability, owners or in- of Europe had adopted free trade after midcentury,
but during the 1870s, huge trade deficits — caused
capital-intensive industry: A mid- to late-nineteenth-century when imports exceed exports — soured many Eu-
development in industry that required great investments of ropeans on the concept. A country with a trade
money for machinery and infrastructure to make a profit. deficit had less capital available to invest internally;
limited liability corporation: A legal entity, developed in the thus, business owners created fewer jobs and the
second half of the nineteenth century, in which the amount that
owners of a factory or other enterprise owed creditors was re- chances of social unrest increased. Farmers in many
stricted (limited) in case of financial failure. European countries suffered when improvements
1870–1890 Th e A dva n c e o f I n d u s t ry i n a n A g e o f E m p i r e 731

in transportation made it possible to import per- mary schools emerged as part of the development
ishable food, such as cheap grain from the United of management. Businesses employed secretaries,
States and Ukraine. The French and German gov- file clerks, and typists to guide the flow of business
ernments were but two that approved tariffs to information. Banks that accepted savings from the
make foreign goods more expensive. Farmers, cap- general public and that invested those funds heav-
italists, and even many workers backed taxes on im- ily in business needed tellers and clerks; railroads,
ports to prevent competition from outside. By the insurance companies, and government-run tele-
early 1890s, all but Belgium, Britain, and the graph and telephone companies all needed armies
Netherlands had ended free trade. of office workers.
Women, responding to the availability of clean,
respectable work, formed the bulk of service em-
Revolution in Business Practices ployees. At the beginning of the nineteenth century,
Industrialists tried to minimize the damage of eco- middle-class women still tended businesses with
nomic downturns by revolutionizing the everyday their husbands. In the next few decades, however,
conduct of their businesses. A generation earlier, the new ideology of domesticity became so strong
factory owners had been directly involved in every that male employers were unwilling to hire women,
aspect of their businesses and often learned to run and women in the lower-middle and middle classes
their firms through trial and error. In the late were themselves ashamed to work outside the
1800s, industrialists began to hire managers to run home. By the late nineteenth century, the costs of
their increasingly complex day-to-day operations. middle-class family life had increased, especially
Managers who specialized in a particular aspect of because children, who were now forced by law to
a business such as sales and distribution, finance, get an education, were no longer working and con-
or the purchase of raw materials made decisions, tributing to family resources. Instead, the family
assisted by workers in the new “service sector.” needed more money to support them. Whether to
help pay family expenses or to support themselves,
The White-Collar Sector. A “white-collar” service both unmarried and married women of the re-
sector composed of workers with mathematical spectable middle class increasingly took jobs de-
skills and literacy acquired in the new public pri- spite the ideal of domesticity. Employers found, as

Copenhagen’s Central Telephone Exchange (c. 1884)


European governments established telephone and telegraph services for individual customers
late in the nineteenth century. These services were part of the rapid advance in transport and
communications that characterized the modern West. Middle-class women, like these in
Copenhagen’s Telephone Exchange, staffed many white-collar positions that made up the new
service sector and expanded job opportunities. (Mary Evans Picture Library.)
732 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

Interior of Au Coin de la Rue


(c. 1870)
This Parisian department
store, not the grandest or
first of its kind, shows the
typical cascade of goods
displayed on railings and
balconies. The abundance of
textiles and carpets sparked
the shopper’s imagination,
inciting her to let go of thrift
and wander wherever her
fancy took her among the
many counters and displays
until she had overspent.
(© Stefano Bianchetti/ Corbis.)

one put it, a “quickness of eye and ear, and the del- ten small, somber shops, miniature by comparison
icacy of touch” in the new women workers. with the modern shopping palaces built of marble
By hiring women for newly created clerical and filled with lights and mirrors. In the depart-
jobs, business and government contributed to a ment store, luxurious silks, delicate laces, and
dual labor market in which certain categories of richly embellished tapestries spilled over railings
jobs were predominantly male and others were and counters, not in neat order reflecting rational,
overwhelmingly female. Since society had come to middle-class ideas, but in glorious disarray to
believe that women were not meant to work and stimulate consumer desires. Shoppers no longer
even not fit to work, businesses made greater prof- restricted their purchases to what they needed but
its by paying women in the service sector chroni- rather reacted to sales, a new marketing technique
cally low wages — much less than they would have that could incite a buying frenzy. Because most
had to pay men for doing the same tasks. men lacked the time for shopping, department
stores became the domain of women, who came
The Department Store. The drive to boost con- out of their domestic sphere into a new public role.
sumption led to a new development in merchan- Store owners hired attractive salesgirls, another va-
dising — the emergence of the department store. riety of service workers, to inspire customers to
Founded after midcentury in the largest cities, de- buy. Department store shopping also took place
partment stores gathered an impressive variety of outside of cities: enticing mail-order catalogs from
goods in one place in imitation of the Middle East- the Bon Marché or Sears, Roebuck arrived regu-
ern bazaar. Created by daring entrepreneurs such larly in rural areas, replete with all the luxuries and
as Aristide and Marguerite Boucicaut of the Bon household items contained in the exotic, faraway
Marché in Paris and John Wanamaker of Wana- dream world of the city.
maker’s in Philadelphia, department stores even- Consumerism was shaped by empire and in-
tually replaced stores selling single items such as dustry. Wealthy travelers like Marianne North jour-
dishware or fabrics. neyed on well-appointed ocean liners, carrying
Single-item stores that people entered know- quinine, antiseptics, and other medicines as well
ing clearly what they wanted to purchase were of- as cameras, revolvers, and the latest in rubber goods
1870–1890 Th e N ew I m p e r i a l i s m 733

and apparel. Consumption of colonial products commercial and manufacturing enterprises. Egyp-
such as coffee, tea, sugar, tobacco, cocoa, and cola tians also increased the production of raw materi-
became more widespread for the stimulation they als for its industry, such as cotton for its textile
offered hardworking Westerners. Tons of palm oil mills. Europeans invested heavily in the region,
from Africa were turned into both margarine and first in ventures such as building the Suez Canal
fine soap, allowing even ordinary people in the in the 1860s, then in laying thousands of miles of
West to see themselves as cleaner and more civi- railroad track, improving harbors, creating tele-
lized than those in other parts of the world. Em- graph systems, and finally and most important,
pire and industry jointly shaped everyday life by loaning money at exorbitant rates of interest.
exciting the desire to own things— whether indus- In 1879, the British and the French took over
trial goods or products from the colonies. the Egyptian treasury, allegedly to guarantee prof-
its from their investments and
the repayment of loans. In
Review: What were the major economic changes in in- 0 100 200 miles
1882, they invaded the country
dustry and business by the end of the nineteenth century? 0 100 200 kilometers
with the excuse of squashing

O T TO M A N E MPI R E
Mediterranean Sea
Egyptian nationalists who Alexandria
protested the takeover of the 1882

Suez
The New Imperialism treasury. The British next
seized control of the govern- 
Cairo
Canal
Bitter
Lakes

Imperialism surged in the last third of the nine- ment as a whole and forcibly
Gulf of
teenth century. Industrial demand for raw materi- reshaped the Egyptian econ- Suez

als and heated business rivalry for new markets omy from a system based on EGYPT
Ni
fueled competition for territory in Africa and Asia. multiple crops that maintained l

Re
eR
.
the country’s self-sufficiency

dS
The imperialism of these decades is called “new”

ea
British occupied, 1882
because European nations, the United States, and to one that emphasized the
Japan now aimed to rule vast regions of the world production of a few crops —
directly; they were no longer content with simply mainly cotton, raw silk, wheat, The Suez Canal and British
Invasion of Egypt, 1882
trading with them. The British government de- and rice — that cheaply fed
clared itself an empire in 1876 after taking control both European manufacturing
of India from the East India Company trading and the European working classes. Businessmen
house, and other governments followed the British from the colonial powers, Egyptian landowners,
model. Champions of nation building connected and local merchants profited from these agricul-
industrial prosperity and imperial expansion with tural changes, while the bulk of the rural popula-
national identity. “Nations are not great except for tion barely eked out an existence.
the activities they undertake,” declared a French To protect its colony of Algeria, France occu-
advocate of imperialism in 1885. Conquering for- pied neighboring Tunisia in 1881. Farther to the
eign territory and developing wealth through in- east, businessmen from Britain, France, and
dustry appeared to heap glory on the nation-state. Germany flooded Asia Minor and the Levant (the
Although some missionaries and reformers in- portion of Asia at the eastern end of the Mediter-
volved in the new imperialism aimed to spread ranean) with cheap goods, driving artisans from
Western religions and culture as a benefit to colo- their trades and into low-paid work building rail-
nized peoples, the expansion of the West increased roads or processing tobacco. Instead of basing wage
their subjugation, inflicted violence on them, and rates on gender (as they did at home), Europeans
radically altered their lives. used ethnicity and religion, paying Muslims less
than Christians, and Arabs less than other ethnic
groups. Such practices planted the seeds for anti-
Taming the Mediterranean colonial movements and long-lasting hatred.
European countries had always viewed the African
and Asian shores of the Mediterranean as areas
where they could profit through trade and invest- Scramble for Africa
ment. In the late nineteenth century, they began to After the British takeover of the Egyptian govern-
take political control of the region as well. Egypt, ment, Europeans turned their attention to sub-
a convenient and profitable stop on the way to Saharan Africa. In the past, contact between the
Asia, was an early target. Modernizing rulers had two continents had principally involved the trade
made Cairo into a bustling metropolis with lively of African slaves for manufactured goods from
734 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

The Violence of Colonization


King Leopold, ruler of the Belgian Congo, was
so greedy and ruthless that his agents
squeezed the last drop of rubber and other
resources from local peoples. Missionaries
reported and photographed such atrocities as
the killing of workers whose quotas were even
slightly short or the amputation of hands for
the same offense. Belgian agents collected
amputated hands and sent them to gov-
ernment officials to show Leopold that they
were enforcing his kind of discipline. (Anti-
Slavery International.)

around the world. The European slave trade had bargaining chips, established German control over
virtually ended by this time, and Europeans’ prin- Cameroon and a section of East Africa. Faced with
cipal objective was obtaining Africa’s raw materi- competition, the British poured millions of pounds
als, such as palm oil, cotton, metals, diamonds, into conquering the continent “from Cairo to Cape
cocoa, and rubber. Additionally, Britain wanted the Town,” as the slogan went, and the French ce-
southern and eastern coasts of Africa for stopover mented their hold on large portions of western
ports on the route to Asia and its empire in India. Africa.
Except for the French conquest of Algeria, Eu- The scramble for Africa escalated tensions in
ropeans had rarely connected commerce with direct Europe and prompted Bismarck to call a confer-
political control in Africa. Yet in the 1880s, European ence of European nations at Berlin. The fourteen
military forces conquered one African territory nations at the conference, held in a series of meet-
after another (Map 23.1). The British, French, Bel- ings in 1884 and 1885, decided that control of set-
gians, Portuguese, Italians, and Germans jockeyed to tlements along the African coast guaranteed rights
dominate peoples, land, and resources — “the mag- to internal territory. This agreement led to the
nificent cake of Africa,” as King Leopold II of Bel- strictly linear dissection of the continent; geogra-
gium (r. 1865–1909) put it. Driven by insatiable phers and diplomats cut across indigenous bound-
greed, Leopold claimed the Congo region of cen- aries of African culture and ethnic life. The Berlin
tral Africa, initiating competition with France for conference also banned the sale of alcohol and
that territory and inflicting on its peoples unpar- controlled the sale of arms to native peoples. In
alleled acts of cruelty. German chancellor Otto von theory, the meeting was supposed to reduce blood-
Bismarck, who saw colonies mostly as political shed and temper ambitions in Africa; in reality,
European leaders awarded themselves the right to
push even harder for control. Savagely greedy in-
Leopold II: King of Belgium (r. 1865–1909) who sponsored the
takeover of the Congo in Africa, which he ran with great vio- dividuals like King Leopold continued to plunder
lence against native peoples. the continent and terrorize its people (as shown in
1870–1890 Th e N ew I m p e r i a l i s m 735

W E

OTTOMAN
EMPIRE

TUNISIA
MADEIRA IS. (Port.)
ALGERIA Mediterranean Sea
Suez
MOROCCO Canal


CANARY IS. (Sp.) 4 Cairo
TRIPOLI
2
O

Ni
OR

le
R.
DE

S A H A R A EGYPT ARABIA
IO

R T IB
ES

Red
TI

Sea
SENEGAL
TUKULOR
Ni

2 MAHDIST
ge

EMPIRE BORNU

B lu e
rR

WADAI

e N il e R .
L. Chad STATE
GAMBIA
.

SOKOTO

Nil
den
SULTANATE Gulf of A

eR
DAHOMEY .

h it
RABIH BR.
SAMORI’S W ETHIOPIA
GUINEA EMPIRE SOMALIA
ASANTE YORUBA
SIERRA 3
LEONE CAMEROON U b an gi R .
TOGO
LIBERIA
GOLD
o R. EQUATORIA
COAST Cong
São Tomé BUGANDA
(Port.)
CONGO INDIAN
FREE L. Victoria
GABON
TIPPU
OCEAN
STATE
CABINDA TIB’S
DOMAIN L.Tanganyika SULTANATE OF
ZANZIBAR
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
CHOKWE
ANGOLA DOMAIN MSIRI’S
KINGDOM L. Nyasa
Za m

b ez
British Routes of Colonial Expansion i R.
Madagascar
GERMAN PORTUGUESE
French 1 Route of Rhodes’s British
S. African Company, 1890 SOUTH-WEST EAST AFRICA
German AFRICA 1 (MOZAMBIQUE)
SOUTH
MERINA (HOVA)
Italian 2 French expansion into
West Africa, 1883-1896 WALVIS BAY
AFRICAN
REPUBLIC KINGDOM
Portuguese KALAHARI (TRANSVAAL)
British expansion into DESERT
Spanish
3 Nigeria, 1880-1902 R.
BRIT. po
British invasion and BECHUANALAND mpo
Ottoman 4 occupation of Egypt, 1882 i
L ORANGE
O r a n ge R . FREE ZULULAND
Nominally Ottoman; STATE
British controlled
CAPE COLONY NATAL
Non-European regimes
(including Boer republics) BASUTOLAND
 0 500 1,000 miles
Boundary of the Cape Town
Congo Free State 0 500 1,000 kilometers

MAP 23.1 Africa, c. 1890


The “scramble for Africa” entailed a change in European trading practices, which generally had
been limited to the coastline. Trying to penetrate economically and rule the interior ultimately
resulted in a map of the continent that made sense only to the imperial powers, for it divided
ethnic groups and made territorial unities that had nothing to do with Africans’ sense of
geography or patterns of settlement. This map shows the unfolding of that process and the
political and ethnic groupings to be conquered.
736 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

breech-loading rifle and the development of the


DOCUMENT machine gun, or “repeater,” between 1862 and
the 1880s dramatically increased firepower. Euro-
peans carried on a brisk trade selling inferior guns
Imperialism’s Popularity to Africans on the coast, while peoples of the in-
among the People terior still used bows and arrows. Muslim slave
traders and European Christians alike crushed
African resistance with blazing gunfire: “The
Henry Stanley (1841–1904) was an unscrupulous English adventurer
whites did not seize their enemy as we do by the
in Africa, who regularly killed and abused indigenous peoples to gain body, but thundered from afar,” claimed one local
their land and wealth on behalf of such clients as Leopold of Belgium. African resister. “Death raged everywhere — like
Yet the press boosted sales by recounting his adventures as those of a the death vomited forth from the tempest.”
brave and rugged soldier — an ambassador of civilized values. The cel- Nowhere did this destructive capacity have
ebratory tone infiltrated popular culture, as in the song below. Recount- greater effect than in southern Africa, where farm-
ing Stanley’s search for an important African leader, Emin Pasha, it ers of European descent and immigrant prospec-
brought London music-hall audiences to their feet in an orgy of thun- tors, rather than military personnel, battled the
derous applause for their hero. Xhosa, Zulu, and other African peoples for control
of their land. The Dutch had moved into the area
Oh, I went to find Emin Pasha, and started away for fun, in the seventeenth century, but by 1815 the British
With a box of weeds and a bag of beads, and some tracts and a Maxim had gained control. Thereafter, descendants of the
gun . . . Dutch, called Boers (Dutch for “farmers”), and
I went to find Emin, I did, I looked for him far and wide; British immigrants joined together in their fight
I found him right, I found him tight, and a lot of folks beside, to wrest farmland and mineral resources from na-
Away through Darkest Africa, though it cost me lots of tin, tive peoples. British businessman and politician
For without a doubt I’d rind him out, when I went to find Emin! Cecil Rhodes, sent to South Africa for his health
just as diamonds were being discovered in 1870,
Source: Ernest Short, Fifty Years of Vaudeville (New York: Eyre and Spotteswoode, cornered the diamond market and claimed a huge
1946), 43.
amount of African territory hundreds of miles into
the interior with the help of the British govern-
ment. His ambition for Britain and for himself was
boundless: “I contend that we are the finest race
the photo on page 734). Newspaper accounts of in the world,” he explained, “and that the more of
vast chunks of land trading hands whetted the the world we inhabit the better it is.” Although no-
popular appetite for more imperialist ventures tions of European racial superiority had been ad-
(See Document, “Imperialism’s Popularity among vanced before, Social Darwinism reshaped racism
the People,” above). to justify converting trade with Africans into con-
Industrial technology provided the powerful quest of their lands. Within just a few decades,
guns, railroads, steamships, and medicines that ac- Darwinism had evolved from a contribution to sci-
celerated Western penetration of all the conti- ence to a racist justification for imperialism.
nents. The gunboats that forced the Chinese to Wherever necessary to ensure profit and dom-
open their borders to opium in the 1830s contin- ination, Europeans either destroyed African eco-
ued to play a crucial role in European expansion, nomic and political systems or transformed them
only this time forcing African ethnic groups to give into instruments of their rule. A British governor
up their independence. Quinine was also crucial. of the Gold Coast put the matter succinctly in
Before the development of medicinal quinine in 1886: the British would “rule the country as if there
the 1840s and 1850s, the deadly tropical disease were no inhabitants.” Indeed, most Europeans
malaria decimated many a European party em- considered Africans barely civilized, despite the
barking on exploration or military conquest, giv- wealth local rulers and merchants accumulated in
ing Africa the nickname “White Man’s Grave.” The their international trade in raw materials and
use of quinine, extracted from cinchona bark from slaves, and despite individual Africans’ accom-
the Andes, to treat malaria radically cut death rates plishments in fabric dyeing, road building, and
among soldiers, missionaries, adventurers, traders, architecture. Westerners claimed that Africans —
and bureaucrats. unlike the Chinese and Indians, whom Europeans
While quinine saved white lives, technology to credited with a scientific and artistic heritage —
take lives was also advancing. Improvements to the were capable only of manual labor. Using this as
1870–1890 Th e N ew I m p e r i a l i s m 737

Malian Young Men’s House


Europeans claimed that sub-Saharan Africans
had no culture and especially no technical
knowledge. Yet among Africans there were
skilled road builders, textile designers, and
manufacturers of weapons. Africans had
also constructed intricate mosques, private
dwellings, and communal buildings (such as
this one for young men in Mali) long before
the arrival of Europeans in the African interior.
European painters, architects, and sculptors
soon adapted features from African styles and
even wholly modeled their designs on those
of artists beyond the West. (Photo: Carollee Pelos/
Jean-Louis Bourgeois.)

an excuse, they confiscated Africans’ land and then and rubber as well as its access 0 150 300 miles
BHUTAN
forced native peoples to work for them in order to to the numerous interior trade 0 150 300 kilometers
pay the taxes they imposed. Agriculture to support routes of China. British troops

MA
CHINA

R
families, often performed by women and slaves, guaranteed the order necessary

R BU
declined in favor of mining and farming cash to expand railroads for more INDIA

UPPE

S TA
SHATES
crops. Men were made to leave their homes to work efficient export of raw materi-

N
in mines or to build railroads. Family and com- als and the development of LAOS
munity networks, though upset by the new Western systems of communi- LOWER
BURMA
arrangements, helped support Africans during this cation. The British also built

M ek
Rangoon
upheaval in everyday life. factories and hoped to use

on
SIAM

gR
its base to expand industrially

.
Bangkok  CAMBODIA
into China.
Acquiring Territory
The British added to their Gulf of
in Asia holdings in Asia partly to
Siam

Britain justified its invasion of African countries counter Russian and French
as strategically necessary to acquire stopover ports annexations. Since 1865, Russia
MALAY
for resupplying ships bound for Asia and thus help had been absorbing the small STATES

to preserve its control over India’s quarter of a bil- Muslim states of central Asia, Annexed by British, 1826–52
lion people. But in reality from the 1870s on, the including provinces of Afghan- Annexed by British, 1885–86
expansion of imperial power was occurring istan (Map 23.2, page 738). Annexed by British, 1890
around the world. Much of Asia, with India as the Besides extending into the
centerpiece, was integrated into Western empires. Ottoman Empire, Russian ten- British Colonialism in the Malay
At the same time, resistance to outside domination tacles reached Persia, India, Peninsula and Burma, 1826–1890
was also growing. Discriminated against but edu- and China, often encountering
cated, the Indian elite in 1885 founded the Indian British competition. The Trans-Siberian Railroad
National Congress. Some of its members accepted allowed Russia to begin integrating Siberia —
British liberalism in economic and social policy, considered a distant colony in the eighteenth and
welcoming opportunities for trade, education, and early nineteenth centuries. Hundreds of thousands
social advancement. Others, however, challenged of hungry peasants moved to the region, and trade
Britain’s right to rule. In the next century, the Con- routes to cities in the west expanded. France mean-
gress would develop into a mass movement. while used the threat of military action to negoti-
To the east, British military forces took con- ate favorable treaties with Indochinese rulers,
trol of the Malay peninsula in 1874 and of the in- creating the Union of Indochina from the ancient
terior of Burma in 1885. In both areas, political states of Cambodia, Tonkin, Annam, and Cochin
instability often threatened secure trade. The China in 1887 (the latter three now constitute
British depended on the region’s tin, oil, rice, teak, Vietnam). Laos was added to Indochina in 1893.
738 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

MAP 23.2 Expansion of Russia in Asia,


N
1865–1895 Russian expansion 1856–1876
W
NORWAY AND ARCTIC OCEAN
Russian administrators and military men SWEDEN
E
Russian expansion 1877–1900

continued enlarging Russia, bringing in S


Vassal khanates
a
Asians of many different ethnicities, ways B a ltic S e Railroads (only main

Y
Russian European lines shown)

AN
of life, and religions. Land-hungry peasants 

GERM
St. Petersburg
in western Russia followed the path of
 Warsaw
expansion into Siberia and Muslim  Moscow
Siberia
territories to the south. In some cases they 
Kiev

drove native peoples from their lands, but  Odessa R. RUSSIA


ga
in others they settled unpopulated fron- Bl Vol
TR A
a
tier areas. As in all cases of imperial NS-SIBERIA
N RAILROA

ck
D
expansion, local peoples resisted any

Sea

Caspian Sea
expropriation of their livelihood, while the 
Vladivostok
OTTOMAN
central government tried various policies EMPIRE
for integration. Turkestan
Port Arthur 
(leased from China, 1898)
CHINA
PERSIA 0 500 1,000 miles
AFGHANISTAN
INDIA 0 500 1,000 kilometers

0 150 300 miles To those who opposed this boats might have been rendered centuries earlier,
0 150 300 kilometers expansion as “spending our but the steaming locomotive symbolizes change.
CHINA money on distant adventures,” The Japanese embraced foreign trade and indus-
French advocates of imperial- try. “All classes high and low shall unite in vigor-
BURMA TONKIN
ism pointed out, as did other ously promoting the economy and welfare of the
(Br.)  Hanoi Europeans, that whites had nation,” ran one of the first pronouncements of
LAOS
a “civilizing mission.” The the Meiji regime that had come to power in 1868.
French thus taught some of The Japanese government directed the country’s
M ek

their colonial subjects to speak turn toward modern industry, and state support
on

SIAM
gR

French and learn French liter- led daring innovators like Iwasaki Yataro, founder
.

Bangkok  ANNAM ature and history. The empha- of the Mitsubishi firm, to develop heavy industries
CAMBODIA
sis was always on European, such as mining and shipping. The Japanese had
 Saigon
COCHIN not local people’s, culture. In long acquired knowledge from other countries and
CHINA
Africa, an exam for students in now sent students, entrepreneurs, and government
Under French control a school run by German mis- officials to the West to bring back as much new
Added in 1893 sionaries asked them to write knowledge as they could. Unlike China, Japan en-
on “Germany’s most impor- dorsed Western-style modernization in prepara-
The Union of Indochina, 1893
tant mountains” and “the reign tion for gaining its own empire.
of William I and the wars he Change was the order of the day in Japan.
waged.” The deeds of Africa’s great rulers and the Japanese legal scholars, following German models,
accomplishments of its kingdoms disappeared helped draft a constitution in 1889 that empha-
from the curriculum. While Europeans believed in sized state power rather than individual rights.
instructing colonial subjects, they did not believe Western dress became the rule at the imperial
that Africans and Asians were as capable as Euro- court, and when fire destroyed Tokyo in 1872, a
peans of achieving great things. European planner directed the rebuilding in West-
ern architectural style. The Japanese adapted
samurai traditions such as spiritual discipline for
Japan’s Imperial Agenda a large, technologically modern military, filled by
Japan escaped European rule by its rapid transfor- universal conscription. In the 1870s, Japan ordered
mation into a modern industrial nation with its naval ships from Britain and began conquering
own imperial agenda. A Japanese print of the late adjacent islands, including Okinawa. In the 1880s,
nineteenth century illustrates both traditional it used its new naval strength to begin imposing
ways and the Western influence behind Japan’s favorable trade treaties on Korea, preliminary to a
burgeoning power (opposite). The picture’s small more complete takeover on the horizon.
1870–1890 Th e N ew I m p e r i a l i s m 739

Modernization in Japan
Like the West, Japan bustled with commerce and
industry thanks to improved and expanding
transportation. Railroads, ships, and a range of
new inventions such as the rickshaw speeded
goods and individuals within cities, across the
country, and ultimately to new, foreign
destinations. The Japanese traveled widely to
learn about ongoing technological innovation.
(Rue des Archives / The Granger Collection, New York.)

The Paradoxes of Imperialism France’s exports of soap and 41 percent of its met-
allurgical exports. Imperialism provided huge
Imperialism ignited constant, sometimes heated numbers of jobs to people in European port cities,
debate because of its many paradoxes. Although it but taxpayers in all parts of a nation — whether
was meant to make European nations more eco- they benefited or not — paid for colonial armies,
nomically secure, imperialism intensified distrust increasingly costly weaponry, and administrators.
in international politics and thus threatened every- Even the final goals of imperialism were in
one. Countries vied with one another for a share conflict. French advocates argued that their nation
of world influence. In securing India’s borders, for “must keep its role as the soldier of civilization.”
example, the British faced Russian expansion in But it was unclear whether imperialism should
Afghanistan and along the borders of China. Im- emphasize soldiering — that is, conflict, conquest,
perial competition even made areas of Europe and murder of local peoples — or the exporting of
more volatile than ever: Austria-Hungary, Russia, culture and religion. The French tried both in In-
and rival ethnic groups disputed control of the dochina, building a legacy of resistance that con-
Balkans as the Ottoman Empire’s grip weakened tinued unabated until the mid-twentieth century.
in the region. There was also the belief that through imperialist
Politicians claimed that empire would bring ventures “a country exhibits before the world its
great riches, but the costs of empire were great. strength or weakness as a nation,” as one French
Opponents claimed that empire was more costly politician announced. Some in government, how-
than profitable to societies as a whole. Britain, for ever, worried that imperialism — because of its ex-
example, spent enormous amounts of tax revenue pense and the constant possibility of war — might
to maintain its empire even as its industrial lead weaken rather than strengthen the nation-state.
began to slip. Yet for certain businesses, colonies The paradoxes of imperialism extended to the
provided crucial markets and great profits: late in study of other cultures. Western scholars and trav-
the century, French colonies bought 65 percent of elers had long studied Asian and African lan-
740 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

An ABC for Baby Patriots (1899)


Pride in empire began at an early age, when learning the alphabet from this kind of book helped
develop an imperial sensibility. The subject of geography became important in schools during the
decades between 1870 and 1890 and helped young people know what possessions they could
claim as citizens. In British schools, the young celebrated the holiday Empire Day with ceremonies
and festivities emphasizing imperial power. (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Mary F. Ames, shelfmark 2523 c. 24.)

guages, art, and literature, or, like Marianne North, because they were unspoiled by civilization. “At last
had sought botanical and other scientific knowl- some local color,” enthused one colonial officer,
edge. Yet even the best scholars’ study of foreign fresh from industrial cities of Europe, on seeing
cultures was tinged with bias, misinterpretation, Constantinople. This romantic vision of an ancient
and error. European scholars of Islam character- center of culture, similar to eighteenth-century
ized Muhammad as an inferior imitation of Jesus, condescension toward the “noble savage,” had little
for example. Confident in their cultural superior- to do with the reality of conquered peoples’ lives.
ity, many Europeans considered Asians and The paradoxes of imperialism are clear in hind-
Africans as low types, variously characterizing sight, but at the time European self-confidence hid
them as lying, lazy, self-indulgent, or irrational. many of them. The most glaring paradox of all was
One English official pontificated that “accuracy is that Western peoples who believed in nation-
abhorrent to the Oriental mind.” At the height of building and national independence invaded the
imperialism, such beliefs offered still another territory of others thousands of miles away and
justification for conquest: that inferior colonized claimed the right to rule them.
peoples would ultimately be grateful for what Eu-
rope had brought them.
Review: What were the goals of the new imperialism,
Hoping to spread their superior religion, Eu-
and how did Europeans accomplish those goals?
ropean missionaries ventured to newly secured ar-
eas of Africa and Asia with attitudes that were full
of contradictions. A woman missionary working
among the Tibetans reflected a common view
when she remarked that the native peoples were Imperial Society
“going down, down into hell, and there is no one and Culture
but me . . . to witness for Jesus amongst them.”
Christianizing colonized peoples often proved im- The spread of empire not only made the world an
possible, however. When that happened, “civiliz- interconnected marketplace but also transformed
ers” such as missionaries often supported brutal everyday culture and society. Success in manufac-
military measures, willing to see native people turing and foreign ventures created millionaires,
slaughtered in the name of imparting Christian and the expansion of a professional middle class
values. and development of a service sector meant that
Yet other Europeans — from novelists to mili- more people were affluent enough to own prop-
tary men — held quite opposite views of conquered erty, see some of the world, and give their children
peoples, considering them better than Europeans a quality education. Many Europeans grew health-
1870–1890 I m p e r i a l S o c i e t y a n d C u ltu r e 741

ier, partly because of improved diet and partly be- exotic specimens back to Europe for zoological ex-
cause of government-sponsored programs aimed hibits, natural history museums, and traveling dis-
at promoting the fitness necessary for citizens of plays, all of which flourished during this period.
imperial powers. At the same time, the uncertain- Wealthy Europeans brought empire into their
ties of life in a rapidly changing society drove mil- homes with displays of stags’ heads, elephant tusks,
lions of poor Europeans to migrate in search of and animal skins.
opportunities around the world — even in the People in the best circles saw themselves as an
colonies — while artists found exciting new sub- imperial elite, and upper-class women devoted
ject matter in those same industrial and imperial themselves to maintaining its standards of social
changes around them. conduct, bearing its children, and directing staffs
of servants. They took their role seriously, keeping
detailed accounts of their expenditures and mon-
The “Best Circles” and the
Expanding Middle Class
The profits from empire and industry added new
members to the upper class, or “best circles,” so Tiger Hunting in the Punjab
called at the time because of their members’ Big-game hunting became the imperial sport of choice, as this
wealth, education, and social status. People in the Indian work of art shows. European and American hunters took
the sport over from local Asians and Africans who had previously
best circles often came from the aristocracy, which
depended on the hunt for their livelihood. Western manliness was
remained powerful and was still widely seen as a
coming to depend on such seemingly heroic feats as big-game
model of style. Increasingly, however, aristocrats hunting, and imperialists scorned those who continued the old
had to share their social position with new mil- aristocratic fox hunt as effeminate. Though not apparent in this
lionaires from the ranks of the upper middle class, illustration, some Western women enjoyed hunting too. (Victoria &
or bourgeoisie. In fact, the very distinction be- Albert Museum, London/ Art Resource, NY.)
tween aristocrat and bourgeois became blurred, as
monarchs gratefully endowed millionaire indus-
trialists and businesspeople with aristocratic titles
for their contributions to national wealth. More-
over, financially strapped aristocrats approved
marriages between their children and those of the
newly rich. Such arrangements brought a much-
needed infusion of money to old, established fam-
ilies and the prestige of an aristocratic title to
newly wealthy families. Thus, Jeanette Jerome,
daughter of a wealthy New York financier, married
England’s Lord Randolph Churchill (their son
Winston later became England’s prime minister).
Millionaires discarded the thrifty ways of a cen-
tury earlier to build palatial country homes and
villas, engage in conspicuous displays of wealth,
and wall themselves off from the poor in segre-
gated neighborhoods. To justify their success, the
wealthy often cited the Social Darwinist principle
that their ability to accumulate money demon-
strated the natural superiority of the rich over the
poor.
Empire reshaped the way people in the best
circles spent their leisure time. Under the influence
of empire, big-game hunting in Asia and Africa be-
came the rage, replacing age-old traditions of fox
and bird hunting. European hunters forced native
Africans, who had depended on hunting for in-
come or food and for group unity, to work as
guides, porters, and domestics for European
hunters instead. Collectors on the hunts brought
742 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

itoring their children’s religious and intellectual Below the best circles, or “upper crust,” the
development. They decorated their homes with “solid” middle class of businesspeople and profes-
imperial objects such as Persian-inspired textiles, sionals such as lawyers was expanding, most no-
Oriental carpets, wicker furniture, and Chinese tably in western and central Europe. In eastern
porcelains. Although upper-class men chose plain Europe, this expansion did not happen naturally,
garments, upper-class women wore elaborate cos- and the Russian government often sought out for-
tumes — featuring constricting corsets, volumi- eigners to build its professional and business
nous skirts, bustles, and low-cut necklines for classes. Although middle-ranked businessmen and
evening wear — that made them symbols of elite professionals could sometimes mingle with those
leisure. Women offset the grim side of imperial and at the apex of society, their lives remained more
industrial society with the rigorous practice of art modest. They did, however, employ at least
and music. One Hungarian observer wrote, “The one servant, to give the appearance of leisure to
piano mania has become almost an epidemic in the middle-class woman in the home. Professional
Budapest as well as Vienna.” Its keys made of ivory men working at home did so from the best-
from Africa, the piano symbolized the imperial appointed, if not lavish, room. Middle-class domes-
elite’s accomplishments and superiority. ticity substituted cleanliness and polish for the
Members of the upper class expected their imperial grandeur of upper-class life.
families to be imperial leaders and hoped to per-
petuate social and political dominance by control-
Professional Sports
ling their children’s social lives. Parents of
marriageable women watched them closely to pre- and Organized Leisure
serve their chastity and to keep them from social- As nations competed for territory and economic
izing with lower-class men. Upper-class men markets, male athletes banded together to organ-
regularly seduced lower-class women — part of the ize team sports that eventually replaced village
double standard that saw promiscuity as normal games. Large audiences now backed a particular
for men and as immoral for women — but few team, as soccer, rugby, and cricket drew mass fol-
thought of marrying them. Parents arranged many lowings that welded the lower and higher classes
marriages directly or arranged courtships that into a common, competitive culture. The reading
were initiated during visiting days, on which oc- public devoured newspaper accounts of competi-
casions prominent hostesses held an open house tion, whether among nations for colonies or
under formal conditions. This kind of monitored among participants in cross-country bicycle races
social scene could also be the setting for matrimo- sponsored by tire makers who wanted to prove the
nial decisions. superiority of their product. These races evolved

Anglo-Indian Polo Team


Team sports underwent rapid
development during the imperial years
as spectators rooted for the success of
their football team in the same spirit
they rooted for their armies abroad.
Some educators believed that team
sports molded the male character so
that men could be more effective
soldiers against peoples of other
races. In the instance of polo, as
illustrated by the team photo here, the
English learned what would soon be
seen as a typically English sport from
the Indians. (Hulton Archive/ Getty Images.)
1870–1890 I m p e r i a l S o c i e t y a n d C u ltu r e 743

into an international competition in the Tour de trade, while new colonies provided land, jobs for
France, first held in 1903. Competitive sports were soldiers and administrators, and the possibility of
seen as valuable to national strength and spirit. unheard-of wealth in diamonds, gold, and other
“The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing natural resources.
fields of Eton,” ran the wisdom of the day, suggest-
ing that the games played in school could mold the Migration. Europeans who left their native lands
strength of an army — an army that, as the nine- moved for a variety of reasons (see “Contrasting
teenth century drew to a close, competed with Views,” page 744). In parts of Europe, the land
those of other nations in pursuit of empire. simply could not produce enough to support a
Team sports — like civilian military service — rapidly expanding population. For example,
helped differentiate male and female spheres and Greek shipbuilding in ancient times had stripped
thus promoted a social order based on distinction the vast forests of Sicily, leaving the soil eroded
between the sexes. Some women’s teams emerged and nearly worthless. By the end of the nineteenth
in sports such as soccer, field hockey, and rowing, century, hundreds of thousands of Sicilians were
but in general women interested in athletics were leaving, often temporarily, to find work in the in-
encouraged to engage in individual sports. “Rid- dustrial cities of North and South America. One-
ing improves the temper, the spirits and the ap- third of all European immigrants came from the
petite,” wrote one sportswoman. Rejecting the idea British Isles, especially Ireland between 1840 and
of women’s natural frailty, reformers introduced 1920, first because of the potato famine and then
exercise and gymnastics into schools for girls, of- because English landlords drove them from their
ten with the idea that these would strengthen them farms to get higher rents from newcomers. Be-
for motherhood and thus help build the nation- tween 1886 and 1900, half a million Swedes out
state. As knowledge of the world developed, some of a population of 4.75 million quit their country
women began to practice yoga. (Figure 23.1, page 746). Millions of rural Jews, es-
The middle classes believed their leisure pur- pecially from eastern Europe, left their villages for
suits should strengthen the mind and fortify the economic reasons, but Russian Jews also fled in
body. Thus, mountain climbing became a popular the face of vicious anti-Semitism. Russian mobs
middle-class hobby. As the editor of a Swedish brutally attacked Jewish communities, destroying
publication of 1889 explained, “The passion for homes and businesses and even murdering some
mountain-climbing can only be understood by Jews. These ritualized attacks, called pogroms,
those who realize that it is the step-by-step were scenes of horror. “People who saw such
achievement of a goal which is the real pleasure of things never smiled anymore, no matter how long
the world.” Working-class people adopted middle- they lived,” recalled one Russian Jewish woman
class habits by joining clubs for such pursuits as who migrated to the United States in the early
bicycling, touring, and hiking. Clubs that spon- 1890s.
sored trips often had names like the Patriots or the Commercial and imperial success determined
Nationals, again associating physical fitness with destinations. Most migrants who left Europe went
national strength. The emphasis on healthy recre- to North and South America, Australia, and New
ation gave people a greater sense of individual Zealand, as news of opportunity reached Europe.
might and thereby contributed to a developing The railroad and steamship made journeys across
sense of imperial citizenship based less on consti- and out of Europe more affordable and faster,
tutions and rights than on an individual nation’s though most workers traveled in steerage with few
exercise of raw power. A farmer’s son in the 1890s comforts. Once established elsewhere, migrants
boasted that with a bicycle, “I was king of the road, frequently sent money back home; the funds could
since I was faster than a horse.” be used to pay for education or set up family mem-
bers in small businesses, thus improving their con-
dition. European farm families often received a
Working People’s Strategies good deal of their income from husbands or grown
For centuries, working people had migrated from sons and daughters who had left. Cash-starved
countryside to city and from country to country peasants in eastern and central Europe welcomed
to make a living. After the middle of the nineteenth the arrival of “magic dollars” from their kin. Mi-
century, empire and industry were powerful fac- grants themselves appreciated the chance to begin
tors in migration. Older European cities like Riga, anew without the harsh conditions of the Old
Marseille, and Hamburg offered secure new indus- World. One settler in the United States was relieved
trial jobs and opportunities for work in global to escape the meager peasant fare of rye bread and
744 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

CONTRASTING VIEWS

Experiences of Migration

In the nineteenth century, millions of migrants moved thousands 2. Those Left Behind
of miles from their homelands. The vast distances traveled and the
permanent relocation of these migrants were among the issues gen- Teofila Borkowska, from Warsaw, Poland, reacted to her hus-
erating a wide range of responses. Among both migrants and those band’s resettlement in the United States in two letters from 1893
left behind, reactions varied from acceptance and enthusiasm to and 1894. Stripped of a family group, Teofila had a difficult time
opposition and anger. The conflicting reactions appeared in offi- surviving, and her husband, Wladyslaw Borkowski, never did
cial reports, local newspapers, poems, and very personal letters. return.
While officials pointed with relief to the economic benefits of em-
1893. Dear Husband: Up to the present I live with the Rybickis.
igration (Document 1), people left behind were often heartbroken
I am not very well satisfied, perhaps because I was accustomed
and destitute (Document 2). Migrants themselves had vastly dif-
to live for so many years quietly, with you alone. And today you
fering experiences, adding to debate over migration (Documents
are at one end of the world and I at the other, so when I look at
3 and 4).
strange corners [surroundings], I don’t know what to do from
longing and regret. I comfort myself only that you won’t forget
1. The Government View me, that you will remain noble as you have been. . . . I have only
the sort of friends who think that I own thousands and from
The preamble to the Hungarian census for 1890 was blunt and time to time someone comes to me, asking me to lend her a dozen
unambiguous on the subject. It saw emigration exclusively in finan- roubles.
cial terms.
1894. Up to the present I thought and rejoiced that you would
Emigration has proved to be a veritable boom. The impover- still come back to Warsaw, but since you write that you won’t
ished populace has been drawn off to where it has found lucra- come I comply with the will of God and with your will. I shall
tive employment; the position of those left behind, their work now count the days and weeks [until you take me to Amer-
opportunities and standard of living, have undoubtedly im- ica]. . . . Such a sad life! I go almost to nobody, for as long as you
proved thanks to the rise in wages, and thanks to the substan- were in Warsaw everything was different. Formerly we had
tial financial aid coming into the country: sums of from 300,000 friends, and everybody was glad to see us, while now, if I go to
to 1,500,000 florints. anybody, they are afraid I need something from them and they
show me beforehand a different face.
Source: Quoted in Julianna Puskas, “Consequences of Overseas Migration
for the Country of Origin: The Case of Hungary,” in Dirk Hoerder and Source: Letter from Teofila Borkowska to Wladyslaw Borkowski, in
Inge Blank, eds., Roots of the Transplanted: Late 19th Century East Central William Thomas and Florian Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and
and Southeastern Europe (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1994), America (New York: Dover, 1958), July 21, 1893, April 12, 1894, II:
I:397. 874–75.

herring: “God save us from . . . all that is Swedish,” More common than international migration
he wrote home sourly. was internal migration from rural areas to Euro-
Migration out of Europe often meant an end pean cities, accelerating the urbanization of
to the old way of life. Workers immediately had to Europe. The most urbanized countries were Great
learn new languages and compete for jobs in grow- Britain and Belgium, followed by Germany, France,
ing cities where they formed the cheapest pool of and the Netherlands. In Russia, only 7 percent of
labor, often in factories or sweatshops. Emigrant the population lived in cities of ten thousand or
women who worked as homemakers, however, more; in Portugal the figure was 12 percent. Many
tended to keep to themselves, preserving traditional who moved to the cities were seasonal migrants. In
ways. More insulated, they might never learn the the cities, they worked as masons, cabdrivers, or
new language or put their peasant dresses away. factory hands to supplement declining income
Their children and husbands more often cast aside from agriculture; when they returned to the coun-
their past as they were forced to build a life in tryside, they provided hands for the harvest. In vil-
schools and factories of the New World. lages across Europe, independent artisans such as
1870–1890 I m p e r i a l S o c i e t y a n d C u ltu r e 745

3. Migration Defended In toil we hover before their thrones,


While they take to slumber, like lazy drones.
In some cases, emigrants were said to be unpatriotic and cowardly Drunk with our nectar they’ve set us afright,
for leaving their homeland just to avoid hard economic times. To But opportunity has knocked, and we’ll take our flight.
charges against Swedish emigrants, journalist Isador Kjelberg re-
Source: Quoted in ibid., 137.
sponded with the following defense.

Patriotism? Let us not misuse so fine a word! Does patriotism con- 4. The Perils of Migration
sist of withholding the truth from the workingman by claiming
that “things are bad in America”? I want nothing to do with such A contrasting view of emigration to the United States appeared in
patriotism! If patriotism consists of seeking, through lies, to per- the following Slovak song.
suade the poorest classes to remain under the yoke, like mindless My fellow countryman, Rendek from Senica, the son of poor
beasts, so that we others should be so much better off, then I am parents
lacking in patriotism. I love my country, as such, but even more I Went out into the wide world. In Pittsburgh he began to toil.
love and sympathize with the human being, the worker. . . . Among From early morning till late at night he filled the furnaces with coal.
those who most sternly condemn emigration are those who least Faster, faster, roared the foreman, every day. . . .
value the human and civic value of the workingman. . . . They de- Rendek toiled harder
mand that he remain here. What are they prepared to give him to So as to see his wife.
compensate the deprivations this requires? . . . It is only cowardly, But alas! He was careless
unmanly, heartless, to let oneself become a slave under deplorable And on Saturday evening late
circumstances which one can overcome. He received his injuries. At home his widow waited
Source: Quoted in H. Arnold Barton, A Folk Divided: Homeland Swedes and For the card which would never come.
Swedish Americans, 1840–1940 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University I, his friend, write this song
Press, 1994), 72–73. To let you know
This anonymous Swedish poem combined a political defense of mi- What a hard life we have here.
gration with an economic one. Source: Quoted in Frantisek Bielik, Horst Hogh, and Anna Stvrtecka, “Slovak
Images of the New World: ‘We Could Pay Off Our Debts’ ” in Dirk Hoerder
I’m bound for young America, and Inge Blank, eds., Roots of the Transplanted: Late 19th Century East Central
Farewell old Scandinavia. and Southeastern Europe (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1994), I:388.
I’ve had my fill of cold and toil,
All for the love of mother soil. Questions TO Consider
You poets with your rocks and rills 1. Did the vast nineteenth-century migration ultimately enrich
Can stay and starve — on words, no frills. or diminish European culture and society?
There, out west, a man breathes free, 2. How would you characterize the experience of migration for
While here one slaves, a tired bee, families and individuals?
Gathering honey to fill the hive 3. How did migration affect the national identity of both receiv-
Of wise old rulers, on us they thrive. ing countries and European countries of origin?

handloom weavers often supported their unprof- but workers received no additional pay for their
itable livelihoods by sending their wives and extra efforts. Workers also grumbled about the
daughters to work in industrial cities. proliferation of managers; many believed that
foremen, engineers, and other supervisors inter-
Adaptation to Industrial Change. Changes in fered with their work. For women, supervision
technology and management practices eliminated sometimes brought on-the-job harassment, as
outmoded jobs and often made factory work more in the case of female workers in a German food-
difficult. Workers complained that new machinery canning plant who kept their jobs only in return
sped up the pace of work to an unrealistic level. for granting sexual favors to the male manager.
For example, employers at a foundry in suburban Many in the urban and rural labor force con-
Paris required workers using new furnaces to turn tinued to do outwork at home. In Russia, workers
out 50 percent more metal per day than they had made bricks, sieves, shawls, lace, and locks during
produced using the old furnaces. Stepped-up pro- the slow winter season. Every branch of industry,
ductivity demanded much more physical exertion, from metallurgy to toy manufacturing to food
746 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

Country of Origin Destinations


Sweden, Norway, Italy
Finland, Denmark 10%
7% Asiatic Russia
6%
France, Belgium,
Netherlands, New Zealand
Switzerland 2%
2%
Australia
5%
British Isles United States
47% British West Indies 63%
Germany
18% 1%

Uruguay
2%
Brazil
Austria 6%
2% Spain Argentina
5% Portugal Russia 10% Canada
2% 7% 5%

FIGURE 23.1 European Emigration, 1870–1890


The suffering caused by economic change and by political persecution motivated people from almost
every European country to leave their homes for greater security elsewhere. North America attracted
more than two-thirds of these migrants, many of whom followed reports of vast quantities of available
land in both Canada and the United States. Both countries were known for following the rule of law
and for economic opportunity in urban as well as rural areas. (Theodore Hamerow, The Birth of New Europe: State
and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983), 169.)

processing, also employed urban women at heaval of migration. To address these problems
home — and their work was essential to the fam- and thereby strengthen their nations, middle- and
ily economy. They painted tin soldiers, wrapped upper-class reformers founded charities and other
chocolate, made cheese boxes, and polished metal. organizations for social improvement. Settlement
Factory owners liked the system because low piece houses, clinics, and maternal and child health cen-
rates made outworkers desperate for income un- ters became a common sight. Young men and
der any conditions and thus willing to work ex- women, often from universities, staffed these new
tremely long days. A German seamstress at her new organizations, especially the settlement houses,
sewing machine reported that she “pedaled at a where the reformers took up residence in poor
stretch from six o’clock in the morning until mid- neighborhoods to study and help the people. Be-
night. . . . At four o’clock I got up and did the lieving in the scientific approach, they thought that
housework and prepared meals.” Owners could lay study would uncover the causes of social problems
off women at home during slack times and rehire and point the way to solutions. One group devoted
them whenever needed with little fear of organ- to this enterprise was the Fabian Society in
ized protest. London, a small organization established in 1884.
Economic change and the periodic recurrence It was committed to a kind of socialism based on
of hard times had uneven consequences for peo- study, state planning, and reform rather than rev-
ple’s everyday lives. In the late nineteenth century, olution. In 1893, the Fabians helped found the
joblessness and destitution threatened. Some city Labour Party as a way of making social improve-
workers prospered by comparison to those in ru- ment a political cause. Still other reformers were
ral areas, though a growing number lost the steadi- motivated by a strong religious impulse. “There
ness of traditional artisanal work. By and large, is Christ’s own work to be done,” wrote one
however, urban workers were better informed and woman who volunteered to inspect workhouse
more connected to the progress of industry and conditions.
empire than their rural counterparts were. Philanthropists and government officials in-
fluenced by Social Darwinism feared that ordinary
Europeans would lack the fitness to survive in a
Reform Efforts for Working-Class People competitive world. The poor, as one reformer put
Many in the urban working class suffered under it, “were permanently stranded on lower levels of
the uneven effects of industrial growth and the up- evolution.” Reformers began to intervene more in
1870–1890 I m p e r i a l S o c i e t y a n d C u ltu r e 747

the lives of working-class families as a way to Artistic Responses to Empire


“quicken evolution.” They sponsored health clin- and Industry
ics and milk centers to provide good medical care
and food for children and instructed mothers in In the 1870s and 1880s, the arts explored the con-
child-care techniques, including breast-feeding to sequences of global expansion and economic inno-
promote infant health. Some schools distributed vation, often in the same gloomy Darwinistic terms
free lunches, medicine, and clothing and inspected that made reformers anxious. Darwin’s theory held
the health and appearance of their students. out the possibility that strong civilizations, if they
Government officials or individual reformers failed to adapt to changing conditions, could
pressured poor, overworked mothers to conform weaken, decay, and collapse. French writer Émile
to new standards for their children — such as find- Zola, influenced by fears of social decay, produced
ing them respectable shoes — that they could ill af- a series of novels set in industrializing France about
ford. Reformers, considering themselves the a family plagued by alcoholism and madness. Zola’s
creators of “wise social legislation,” believed they characters, who led violent strikes and in one case
had the right to enter working-class apartments even castrated an oppressive grocer, raised ques-
whenever they chose to inspect them. tions about the future of civilization. Zola had a
A few professionals began to make available dark vision of how industrial society affected indi-
birth-control information in the belief that smaller viduals: his novel Women’s Paradise (1883) depicts
families could better survive the challenges of ur- the upper-class shopper who abandons rational,
ban life. In the 1880s, Aletta Jacobs (1851–1929), appropriate behavior for the frenzy of the new de-
a Dutch physician, opened the first birth-control partment stores. Other heroines were equally up-
clinic, which specialized in promoting the new, setting because they violated other long-standing
German-invented diaphragm. Jacobs wanted to rules. The character Nora in the drama A Doll’s
help women in Amsterdam slums who were worn House (1879) by Norwegian playwright Henrik
out by numerous pregnancies and whose lives, she Ibsen threatens civilized values and the health of so-
believed, would be greatly improved by limiting ciety as a whole by leaving an oppressive marriage
their fertility. Working-class women used these (see Document, “From A Doll’s House,” page 748).
clinics, and knowledge of birth-control techniques Writers envisioned a widespread deterioration
spread by word of mouth among workers. The of behavior pervading urban and rural life. The
churches adamantly opposed this trend, and even stories of Emilia Pardo Bazán are tales of incest
reformers wondered whether birth control would and murder at work among wealthy landowning
increase the sexual vulnerability of women if the families in rural Spain. The heroine of Olive
threat of pregnancy and its responsibilities were Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm (1889) re-
removed. jects the role of submissive wife in rural Africa, de-
Another government reform effort targeted at scribing the British Empire as a “dirty little world,
reproduction consisted of measures said to “pro- full of confusion.” Schreiner became celebrated
tect” women from certain kinds of work. Legisla- among opponents of empire for her grim portray-
tion across Europe barred women from night work als. Novelists addressed the burning issues of their
and from such “dangerous” trades as pottery mak- times, but Social Darwinism made their realism
ing and bartending — allegedly for health reasons, even bleaker.
even though medical statistics demonstrated that Decorative arts of this period featured a coun-
women became sick on the job less often than men. tertrend away from stark realism. Country people
But lawmakers and workingmen claimed that used mass-produced textiles to create traditional-
women’s work in pottery making and other trades looking costumes and developed ceremonies based
endangered reproduction. The fear was not that on a mythical past. Such invented customs, roman-
families were too large but that women were not ticized as old and authentic, attracted city dwellers
producing healthy enough children and were steal- and brought tourist business to villages. So-called
ing jobs from men. Women who had worked in folk motifs caught the eye of modern urban archi-
trades newly defined as “dangerous” were forced tects and industrial designers, who copied rustic
to find other, lower-paying jobs or remain at home. styles when creating household goods and decora-
The new laws did not prevent women from hold- tive objects. The influence of empire is apparent
ing jobs, but they made earning a living harder. in the traditional Persian and Indian motifs used
Social Darwinists promoted such efforts in the by English designers William Morris (1834–1896)
name of producing a population most fit for the and his daughter May Morris (1862–1938) in their
struggle to survive. designs of fabrics, wallpaper, and household items
748 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

based on such natural imagery as the silhouettes competition from a popular industrial invention —
of plants. They wanted to replace “dead” and “or- the camera. Photographers could produce cheap
nate” styles of the early industrial years with the copies of paintings and create more realistic por-
simple crafts of the past. Their work gave birth to traits than painters could, at affordable prices. In
the “arts and crafts” style, which paradoxically at- response, painters altered their style, at times try-
tracted consumers of the industrial age. ing to make their work look as different from pho-
Industrial developments also influenced the tographs as possible. Using thousands of dots and
work of painters, who by the 1870s felt intense dabs, French painter Georges Seurat depicted the

DOCUMENT

Henrik Ibsen, From A Doll’s House


Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen helped create the global mar- Nora: Yes. You were perfectly right. I’m not fitted to educate them.
ketplace of ideas with such plays as A Doll’s House, an 1879 work There’s something else I must do first. I must educate myself. And
critical of traditional gender roles, as this selection reveals. With you can’t help me with that. It’s something I must do by myself.
women like Marianne North traveling the globe, Ibsen increasingly That’s why I’m leaving you.
believed that the middle-class housewife did not develop as a full Helmer ( jumps up): What did you say?
human being. His plays were performed in many countries — not
Nora: I must stand on my own feet if I am to find out the truth about
only in Europe but also in Egypt, the United States, and as far away
myself and about life. So I can’t go on living here with you any
as Japan — and always sparking fierce debate. If European artists
longer.
and writers borrowed from other cultures, Europe’s cultural influ-
ence also spread beyond its borders. Helmer: Nora, Nora!
Nora: I’m leaving you now, at once. Christine will put me up for
Helmer: Nora, how can you be so unreasonable and ungrateful?
tonight—
Haven’t you been happy here?
Helmer: You’re out of your mind! You can’t do this! I forbid you!
Nora: No; never. I used to think I was; but I haven’t ever been
happy. Nora: It’s no use your trying to forbid me any more. I shall take with
me nothing but what is mine. I don’t want anything from you,
Helmer: Not — not happy?
now or ever.
Nora: No. I’ve just had fun. You’ve always been very kind to me. But
Helmer: What kind of madness is this?
our home has never been anything but a playroom. I’ve been your
doll-wife, just as I used to be Papa’s doll-child. And the children Nora: Tomorrow I shall go home — I mean, to where I was born. It’ll
have been my dolls. I used to think it was fun when you came in be easiest for me to find some kind of a job there.
and played with me, just as they think it’s fun when I go in and Helmer: But you’re blind! You’ve no experience of the world —
play games with them. That’s all our marriage has been, Torvald. Nora: I must try to get some, Torvald.
Helmer: There may be a little truth in what you say, though you ex- Helmer: But to leave your home, your husband, your children! Have
aggerate and romanticize. But from now on it’ll be different. Play- you thought what people will say?
time is over. Now the time has come for education.
Nora: I can’t help that. I only know that I must do this.
Nora: Whose education? Mine or the children’s?
Helmer: But this is monstrous! Can you neglect your most sacred du-
Helmer: Both yours and the children’s, my dearest Nora. ties?
Nora: Oh, Torvald, you’re not the man to educate me into being the Nora: What do you call my most sacred duties?
right wife for you.
Helmer: Do I have to tell you? Your duties towards your husband,
Helmer: How can you say that? and your children.
Nora: And what about me? Am I fit to educate the children? Nora: I have another duty which is equally sacred.
Helmer: Nora! Helmer: You have not. What on earth could that be?
Nora: Didn’t you say yourself a few minutes ago that you dare not Nora: My duty towards myself.
leave them in my charge?
Helmer: In a moment of excitement. Surely you don’t think I meant
it seriously? Source: Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House (New York: Anchor, 1966), 96–97.
1870–1890 I m p e r i a l S o c i e t y a n d C u ltu r e 749

Parisian suburbs’ newly created parks with their alism, but a few enthusiastically greeted impres-
Sunday bicyclists and white-collar workers in their sionism’s luminous quality. Industry contributed
store-bought clothing, carrying books or newspa- to the new style, as factories produced a range of
pers and parading like the well-to-do. Seurat and pigments that allowed artists to use a wider and
other painters used new and varying techniques to more intense spectrum of colors than ever before.
distinguish their art from the photographic realism Both new industrial products such as the camera
of the camera. and industrial breakthroughs such as chemically
This daring style of art came to be called im- based paints gave birth to the impressionist rebel-
pressionism. It emphasizes the artist’s attempt to lion in the arts.
capture a single moment by focusing on the ever- An increasingly global vision also influenced
changing light and color found in ordinary scenes. painting in the age of empire. In both composi-
Using splotches and dots, impressionists moved tion and style, impressionists borrowed heavily
away from the precise realism of earlier painters from Asian art and architecture. The impression-
and challenged artistic norms. Claude Monet, for ist goal of portraying the fleetingness of light or
example, was fascinated by the way light trans- human situations came from an ancient Japanese
formed an object, and he often portrayed the same concept — mono no aware (sensitivity to the fleet-
place — a bridge or a railroad station — at differ- ingness of life). The color, line, and delicacy of
ent times of day. Vincent Van Gogh used vibrant Japanese art (which many impressionists col-
colors in great swirls to capture sunflowers, lected) is evident, for example, in Monet’s later
haystacks, and the starry evening sky. Such distor- paintings of water lilies, his studies of wisteria, and
tions of reality made the impressionists’ visual even his re-creation of a Japanese garden at his
style seem outrageous to those accustomed to re- home in France as the subject for artistic study.
Similarly, the American expatriate Mary Cassatt
used the two-dimensionality of Japanese art in The
impressionism: A mid- to late-nineteenth-century artistic style
that captured the sensation of light in images, derived from
Letter (1890–1891) and other paintings. Van Gogh
Japanese influences and in opposition to the realism of photo- filled the background of portraits with copies of
graphs. intensely colored Japanese prints, even imitating

Mary Cassatt, The Letter (c. 1890)


Mary Cassatt, an American artist who spent much
of her time in Europe, was one of the many West-
ern artists smitten by Japanese prints. Like many
other Western artists of her day, she learned
Japanese techniques for printmaking, but she
also reshaped her painting style to follow Japan-
ese conventions in composition, perspective, and
the use of color. Cassatt is known for her many
depictions of Western mothers and children and
of individual women. In this painting, the woman
herself even looks Japanese. (Mary Cassatt, The Letter,
1890/91. Drypoint and aquatint, 34.5 x 21.1 cm, Mr. and Mrs. M. A.
Ryerson Collection, 1932. 1282, The Art Institute of Chicago
Photography © The Art Institute of Chicago.)

■ For more help analyzing this image, see the


visual activity for this chapter in the Online Study
Guide at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
750 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

classic Japanese woodcuts. The graphic arts ad- such as clubs and reading societies and in interna-
vanced the West’s ongoing borrowing from around tional organizations across their individual nation-
the globe, while responding to the changes brought state’s boundaries. The Second International,
about by industry. founded in 1889, aimed to combat the growing na-
tionalism and imperial competition that separated
workers rather than binding them in a common
Review: How did empire and industry influence art
cause.
and everyday life?

Unions and Strikes. As the nineteenth century


entered its final decades, workers organized formal
unions, which attracted the allegiance of millions.
The Birth of Mass Politics Unions demanded a say in working conditions and
aimed, as one union’s rule book put it, “to ensure
Amid the expansion of empire and the develop- that wages never suffer illegitimate reductions and
ment of industry, ordinary people struggled for that they always follow the rises in the price of ba-
political voice, especially through the vote. By sic commodities.” Businessmen and governments
bringing more people into closer contact with one viewed striking workers as insubordinate, threat-
another, industrial growth and urban develop- ening political unrest and destructive violence.
ment strengthened networks of political commu- Even so, strong unions appealed to some industri-
nication and furthered the growth of national alists because a union could make strikes more
consciousness. The railroad, for example, took predictable (or even prevent them) and present
high-ranking officials such as prime minister worker demands coherently instead of piecemeal
William Gladstone on campaigns to win votes by groups of angry workers.
before national audiences, which thus spurred po- From the 1880s on, the pace of collective ac-
litical involvement. As national consciousness grew tion for better pay, lower prices, and better work-
among workers, they became politically aware and ing conditions accelerated. In 1888, for example,
active, leading western European governments to hundreds of young women who made matches, the
allow more men to vote. Although only men prof- so-called London matchgirls, struck to end the fin-
ited from electoral reform, the era’s expanding ing system, under which they could be penalized
franchise marked the beginning of mass politics — an entire day’s wage for being a minute or two late
a hallmark of the twentieth-century West. Women to work. This system, the matchgirls maintained,
could not vote, but they participated in public life helped companies reap profits of more than 20
by forming auxiliary groups to support political percent. Newspapers and philanthropists picked
parties. Among the authoritarian monarchies, up the strikers’ story, condemning “respectable”
Germany had male suffrage, but in more auto- owners “who suck wealth out of the starvation of
cratic states to the east — for instance, Russia — helpless girls.” In 1890, sixty thousand workers
violence and ethnic conflict shaped political took to the streets of Budapest to agitate for safer
systems. In such places, the harsh rule from above working conditions and the vote; the next year, day
often resembled the control imposed on colonized laborers on Hungarian farms struck too. Across
peoples rather than participation of voting citizens. Europe between 1888 and 1890, the number of
strikes and major demonstrations rose by more
than 50 percent, from 188 to 289.
Workers, Politics, and Protest Housewives, who often acted in support of
Workers in the 1870s–1890s joined together polit- strikers, carried out their own protests against high
ically to exert pressure on governments and busi- food prices. They confiscated merchants’ goods
nesses. Strikes and worker activism were reactions and sold them at what they considered a fair price.
to workplace hardships, but they depended on “There should no longer be either rich or poor,”
community bonds forged in neighborhoods. With argued Italian peasant women. “All should have
the backing of their neighbors and fellow laborers, bread for themselves and for their children. We
workers formed effective unions and powerful po- should all be equal.” They took other kinds of ac-
litical parties — many of them based on a Marxist tion too: housewives often hid neighbors’ truant
platform. Unions served to protect workers from children from school officials so that the children
the often brutal pace of industrial change and to could continue to help with work at home. When
guarantee that they received a fair wage. Workers landlords evicted tenants, women gathered in the
banded together both in grassroots organizations streets to replace household goods as fast as they
1870–1890 Th e B i rt h o f M a s s P o l i t i c s 751

were removed from the rooms of ousted families. Marxist revolutionary program, but it also advo-
Meeting on doorsteps or at fountains, laundries, cated suffrage where it still did not exist and bet-
and markets, women initiated rural newcomers ter working conditions in the immediate future.
into urban ways. In doing so, they helped cement Members of the Second International deter-
the working-class unity created by workers in the mined to rid the organization of anarchists, who
factory. flourished in the less industrial parts of Europe —
Governments increasingly responded to strikes Russia, Italy, and Spain. In these countries, anar-
by calling out troops or armed police, even though chism got heavy support from peasants, small
most strikes were about working conditions and property owners, and agricultural day laborers, for
not about political revolution. Even in the face of whom Marxist theories of worker-controlled fac-
government force, unions did not back down or tories had less appeal. In an age of crop failures
lose their commitment to solidarity. Craft-based and stiff international competition in agriculture,
unions of skilled artisans, such as carpenters and many rural people sought a life free from the dom-
printers, were the most active and cohesive, but ination of large landowners and governments that
from the mid-1880s on, a movement known as new backed the landowners’ interests. Many advocated
unionism attracted transport workers, miners, extreme tactics, including physical violence and
matchgirls, and dockworkers. These new unions even murder. “We want to overthrow the govern-
were nationwide groups with salaried managers ment . . . with violence since it is by the use of vi-
who could plan a widespread general strike across olence that they force us to obey,” wrote one Italian
the trades, focusing on such common goals as the anarchist. In the 1880s, anarchists bombed stock
eight-hour workday and also paralyzing an entire exchanges, parliaments, and businesses. Members
nation through work stoppages. Although small, of the Second International felt that such random
local workers’ associations remained important, violence was counterproductive.
the large unions of the industrialized countries of Workingwomen joined unions and workers’
western Europe had more potential for challeng- political parties, but in much smaller numbers than
ing large industries, cartels, and trusts. men. Unable to vote in national elections and usu-
ally responsible for housework in addition to their
Political Parties. Workers joined new political paying jobs, women had little time for party meet-
parties that addressed working-class issues. Work- ings. Furthermore, their low wages hardly allowed
ingmen helped create the Labour Party in England, them to survive, much less pay party or union dues.
the Socialist Party in France, and the Social Demo- Many workingmen opposed their presence, fearing
cratic Parties of Sweden, Hungary, Austria, and women would dilute the union’s masculine cama-
Germany — most of them inspired by Marxist the- raderie. Contact with women would mean “suffo-
ories. Germany was home to the largest socialist cation,” one Russian workingman believed, and end
party in Europe after 1890. Socialist parties held male union members’ sense of being “comrades in
out hope that newly enfranchised male working- the revolutionary cause.” Unions glorified the
class voters who could become a collective force in heroic struggles of a male proletariat against capi-
national elections, even triumphing because of talism. Marxist leaders maintained that capitalism
their numbers over the power of the upper class. alone caused injustice to women and thus that the
Those who accepted Marx’s assertion that creation of a socialist society would automatically
“workingmen have no country” went further, end gender inequality. As a result, although the new
founding an international movement to address political organizations encouraged women’s sup-
workers’ common interests across national bound- port, most saw women’s concerns about lower
aries. In 1889, some four hundred socialists from wages and sexual coercion in the workplace as ba-
across Europe met to form the Second Interna- sically unimportant.
tional, a federation of working-class organizations Popular community activities that inter-
and political parties that replaced the First Inter- twined politics with everyday life also built worker
national, founded by Marx before the Paris Com- solidarity. The gymnastics and choral societies that
mune. The Second International adopted a had once united Europeans in nationalistic fervor
now served working-class goals. Songs emphasized
worker freedom, progress, and eventual victory.
new unionism: A nineteenth-century development in labor or- “Out of the dark past, the light of the future shines
ganizing that replaced local craft-based unions with those that
extended membership to all kinds of workers. forth brightly,” went one Russian workers’ song.
Second International: A transnational organization of workers Socialist gymnastics, bicycling, and marching so-
established in 1889, mostly committed to Marxian socialism. cieties rejected competition and prizes as middle-
752 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

class preoccupations, but they valued physical fit- Journalism created a national community of
ness because it could help workers in the “struggle up-to-date citizens, whether or not they could
for existence” — a reflection of the spread of vote. Unlike the book, the newspaper was meant
Darwinian thinking to all levels of society. Work- not for quiet reflection at home or in the upper-
ers also held festivals and cheerful parades, most class club but for quick reading of attention-
notably on May 1 — a centuries-old holiday that grabbing stories on mass transportation and on
the Second International now claimed should the streets. Elites complained that the sensational-
honor working people. Like religious processions ist press was a sign of social decay, but for up-and-
of an earlier time, parades were rituals that fos- coming people from the working and middle
tered unity. European governments frequently classes, journalism provided an avenue to success.
prohibited such public gatherings, fearing them as As London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and St. Petersburg
tools for agitators. became centers not only of politics but also of
news, a number of European politicians got their
start working for daily newspapers. In western
Expanding Political Participation
Europe, increasing political literacy opened the po-
in Western Europe litical process to wider participation.
Ordinary people everywhere in the West were be-
coming aware of politics through newspapers, British Political Reforms. A change in political
which, combined with industrial and imperial campaigning was one example of this widening par-
progress, were important in developing their sense ticipation. In the fall of 1879, William Gladstone
of citizenship in a nation. Western European coun- (1809–1898), leader of the British Liberals, whose
tries moved toward mass politics more rapidly party was then out of power, took a train trip across
than did countries to the east. In western Europe, Britain to campaign for a seat in the House of Com-
people’s access to newspapers and their political mons. During his campaign, Gladstone addressed
participation meant that the will of the people was thousands of workers, arguing for the people of
increasingly important and the power of small India and Africa to have more rights and summon-
cliques relatively less so in determining election ing his audiences to “honest, manful, humble
outcomes. In eastern Europe, in contrast, conser- effort” in the middle-class tradition of “hard
vative elites opposed the integration of citizens as work.” Newspapers around the country reported
active participants in a national community that on his trip and these accounts, along with mass
was the trend in western Europe. meetings, fueled public interest in politics. Queen
Victoria, angered by Gladstone’s novel tactic of
Mass Journalism. The rise of mass journalism af- speaking to ordinary people and by his attacks on
ter 1880 was the product of imperial and industrial her empire, vowed that he would never again serve
development. The invention of automatic typeset- as prime minister. Gladstone’s campaign was suc-
ting and the production of newsprint from wood cessful, however; his Liberal Party won, and he did
pulp lowered the costs of printing; the telephone become prime minister.
allowed reporters to communicate news to their Other changes fostered the growth of mass
papers almost instantly. Once literary in content, politics in Britain. The Ballot Act of 1872 made vot-
many daily newspapers now emphasized sensa- ing secret, a reform that reduced the ability of land-
tional news, using banner headlines, dramatic pic- lords and employers to control how their workers
tures, and gruesome or lurid details — particularly voted. The Reform Act of 1884 doubled the elec-
about murders and sexual scandals — to sell pa- torate to around 4.5 million men, enfranchising
pers. In the hustle and bustle of industrial society, many urban workers and artisans and thus further
one editor wrote,“you must strike your reader right diminishing traditional aristocratic influence in the
between the eyes.” A series of articles in 1885 in countryside. To win the votes of the newly enfran-
London’s Pall Mall Gazette on the “white slave chised, Liberal and Conservative parties alike es-
trade” warned the innocent not to read further. The tablished national political clubs to build party
author then proceeded to describe how young loyalty. These clubs competed with the cliques of
women were “snared, trapped,” and otherwise
forced into prostitution in distant lands through
sexual violation and drugs. Stories of imperial ad- William Gladstone (1809–1898): Liberal politician and prime
minister of Great Britain who innovated in popular campaign-
venturers and exaggerated accounts of wasted ing and who criticized British imperialism.
women workers and their unborn babies similarly Reform Act of 1884: British legislation that granted the right to
drew ordinary people to the mass press. vote to a mass male citizenry.
1870–1890 Th e B i rt h o f M a s s P o l i t i c s 753

parliamentary elites who had controlled party pol- Charles Stewart Parnell,
itics. Broadly based interest groups such as unions Irish Hero
and national political clubs began to open up pol- Charles Stewart Parnell
itics by appealing to many more voters. gained the support of both
the moderates and the
British political reforms immediately affected
radicals working for Irish
Irish politics by arming disaffected tenant farmers
home rule. Many saw Ireland
with the secret ballot. The political climate in as the first of England’s
Ireland was explosive mainly because of the repres- colonial conquests—a land
sive tactics of absentee landlords, many of them that was both ruled and
English and Protestant, who drove tenants from exploited economically like a
their land in order to charge higher rents to new- colony. Son of a landowning
comers. In 1879, opponents of these landlords’ at- Protestant and a skilled
tacks on Irish well-being formed the Irish National parliamentary politician,
Land League and launched fiery protests. Irish ten- Parnell threw himself into the
ants elected a solid bloc of nationalist representa- Irish cause by paralyzing the
British Parliament’s conduct
tives to the British Parliament.
of business. In retaliation, the
The Irish members of Parliament began vot-
government used forgeries
ing as a group, which gave them sufficient strength and other unsavory means
to defeat legislation proposed by either the Con- to destroy Parnell; but in the
servatives or the Liberals. Irish leader Charles end, scandal in his personal
Stewart Parnell (1846–1891) demanded British life lost him the vital support
support for home rule — a system giving Ireland of the public. (Mary Evans Picture
its own parliament — in return for Irish votes (see Library.)
Parnell’s portrait on this page). Gladstone, who
served four nonconsecutive terms as prime min-
ister between 1868 and 1894, accommodated
Parnell with bills on home rule and tenant secu-
rity. But Conservatives called home rule “a con-
spiracy against the honor of Britain,” and when
they were in power (1885–1886 and 1886–1892),
they cracked down on Irish activism. Scandals re-
ported in the press, some of them totally invented,
weakened Parnell’s influence. In 1890, the news
broke of his affair with a married woman, and he
died in disgrace soon after. Parnell’s leadership was
sorely missed, and Irish home rule remained a
heated political issue in the British Parliament as
well as a fervent goal in Ireland.
of government, which French supporters had been
France’s Third Republic. Prussia’s defeat of Na- trying to solidify for almost a century, survived
poleon III in 1871 led to the creation of the when the monarchists’ compromise candidate for
Third Republic to replace the Second Empire. The king, the comte de Chambord, stubbornly refused
republic was shaky at the start because the monar- to accept the tricolored flag devised in the French
chist political factions — Bonapartist, Orléanist, Revolution. Associating the tricolor with regicide,
and Bourbon — all struggled to restore their re- he would accept only the white flag adorned with
spective families to power. But the republican form the fleur-de-lis of the Bourbons. He thus lost the
chance to revive the monarchy, and in 1875, a new
constitution created a ceremonial presidency and
Charles Stewart Parnell: Irish politician (1846–1891) whose ad-
vocacy of home rule was a thorn in the side of the British es- a premiership dependent on support from an
tablishment. elected Chamber of Deputies. An alliance of busi-
home rule: The right to an independent parliament demanded nessmen, shopkeepers, professionals, and rural
by the Irish and resisted by the British from the second half of property owners hoped the new system would pre-
the nineteenth century on.
vent the kind of strongman politics that had seen
Third Republic: The government that succeeded Napoleon III’s
Second Empire after its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of previous republics give way to the rule of emper-
1870–1871. It lasted until France’s defeat by Germany in 1940. ors and the return of monarchs.
754 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

Fragile at birth, the Third Republic would re- tivism in the industrial centers of Barcelona and
main so until World War II. Economic downturns, Bilbao. Denmark and Sweden continued to limit
widespread corruption, and growing anti-Semitism, political participation, and reform in the Nether-
fueled by a highly partisan press, kept the Third Re- lands increased manhood suffrage to only 14 per-
public on shaky ground. Newspaper stories about cent by the mid-1890s. An 1887 law in Italy gave
members of the Chamber of Deputies selling their the vote to all men who had a primary school ed-
votes to business interests and about the alleged ucation, something attained by only 14 percent of
trickery of Jewish businessmen manipulating the Italian men.
economy added to the instability. As a result, the In Italy, the process of unification left a tower-
public blamed Jews for the failures of republican ing debt and huge pockets of discontented people,
government and the economy. Confidence in re- including Catholic supporters of the pope and
publican politics sank even further in 1887 when impoverished citizens in the south. Without receiv-
the president’s son-in-law was discovered to have ing the benefits of nation building — education,
sold public honors. With the support of those urban improvements, industrial progress, and the
disgusted by the messiness of parliamentary poli- vote — the average Italian in the south felt less a
tics, Georges Boulanger, a dashing and highly pop- loyalty to the new nation than a fear of the devas-
ular general, began a coup to take over the tating effects of national taxes and the draft on the
government. He soon lost his nerve, however, sav- family economy. Italians’ growing unhappiness
ing the French from rule by another strongman. with constitutional government would have dra-
Nevertheless, Boulanger’s popularity showed that matic implications in the twentieth century.
in hard economic times, liberal politics — based
on constitutions, elections, and the rights of
Power Politics in Central and
citizens — could be called into question by some-
one promising easy solutions. Eastern Europe
Republican leaders attempted to strengthen Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia diverged
citizen loyalty by instituting compulsory and free from the political paths taken by western European
public education in the 1880s. In public schools, countries in the deacdes 1870–1890. These coun-
secular teachers who supported republicanism tries industrialized at varying rates — Germany
replaced the Catholic clergy, who usually favored rapidly and Russia far more slowly. Literacy and
a restored monarchy. A centralized curricu- the development of a civic, urban culture were
lum — identical in every schoolhouse in the more advanced in Germany and Austria-Hungary
country — featured patriotic reading books and than in Russia (see “Taking Measure,” page 755).
courses in French geography, literature, and his- Even Russia, however, saw the development of a
tory. To perpetuate republican ideals, the govern- modern press, although with a far smaller reader-
ment established secular public high schools for ship than elsewhere. In all three countries, conser-
young women, seen as the educators of future vative large landowners remained powerful, often
citizens. Mandatory military service for men in blocking improvements in transport, sanitation,
the republic’s army inculcated national pride in and tariff policy that would support a growing ur-
place of regional and rural loyalties that were of- ban population.
ten centered on the Catholic church. In short,
schools and the army both turned peasants into Bismarck’s Germany. Bismarck had upset the
Frenchmen. European balance of power, first by humiliating
France in the Franco-Prussian War and then by
Political Liberalism Rejected. Although many creating a powerful, unified Germany, exemplified
western European leaders believed in economic in the explosive economic growth and rapid de-
liberalism, constitutionalism, and efficient govern- velopment of every aspect of the nation-state, from
ment, these ideals did not always translate into transport to the thriving capital city of Berlin
universal male suffrage, citizens’ rights, and other (Map 23.3). His goals achieved, Bismarck now de-
forms of political liberalism in the less powerful sired stability and a respite from war and so turned
western European countries. Spain and Belgium to diplomacy instead of war. Fearing that France
abruptly awarded suffrage to all men in 1890 and would soon seek revenge against the new Reich
1893, respectively, but both governments remained and needing peace to consolidate the nation, he
monarchies. An alliance of conservative landown- pronounced Germany “satisfied,” meaning that it
ers and the Catholic church dominated Spain, sought no new territory. To ensure Germany’s
although there was increasingly lively urban ac- long-term security in Europe, in 1873 Bismarck
1870–1890 Th e B i rt h o f M a s s P o l i t i c s 755

TAKING MEASURE

80 The Decline of Illiteracy


Spain The development of mass politics and the
(entire population) consolidation of the nation-state depended
70
on building a cohesive group of citizens, in-
formed about the progress of the nation. In-
60 Spain creasing literacy was thus a national
(above age 10)
undertaking but one with varying rates of
Russia
50 Italy success in different nations, ranging from
low levels of illiteracy in Prussia to high lev-
Percentage

40 els in Austria-Hungary and Russia. Even in


regions of high illiteracy, however, govern-
ments successfully encouraged people to
30
read. In what ways does the decline of illiter-
Austria- acy reflect other developments in the coun-
Hungary
20 tries represented above? (Theodore Hamerow, The
Birth of New Europe: State and Society in the Nineteenth
10 Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
France 1983), 85.)
British men
British women
0 Prussia
1860 1870 1880 1890 1900

forged an alliance with Austria-Hungary and 0 1.5 3 miles


Russia, called the Three Emperors’ League. The 0 1.5 3 kilometers
three conservative powers shared a commitment ing
dd
to maintaining the political status quo. We

At home, Bismarck, who owned land and in- Moabit


vested heavily in industry, joined with the liberals
to create a variety of financial institutions, includ- Charlottenburg
ing a central bank to further German commerce Spr
ee
and industry. Religious leaders mustered their R.

political influence and defeated his Kulturkampf Schöneberg


against religious institutions. Bismarck then
stopped persecuting Catholics and turned to at- Wilmersdorf
tacking socialists and liberals as enemies of the Walled city of 1738
regime. He used unsuccessful assassination at- City and suburbs c. 1870
tempts on Emperor William I as a pretext to out- City and suburbs c. 1914
Railways 1914
law the workers’ Social Democratic Party in 1878.
Canals
Hoping to lure the working class away from so-
cialism, between 1882 and 1884 Bismarck spon-
sored an accident and disability insurance MAP 23.3 Expansion of Berlin to 1914
program — the first of its kind in Europe and an “A capital city is essential for the state to act as a
important step in broadening the role of govern- pivot for its culture,” the German historian Heinrich
ment to encompass social welfare. In 1879, he as- von Treitschke asserted. No other capital city grew as
sembled a conservative Reichstag coalition that dramatically as Berlin after German unification in
put through tariffs protecting German agriculture 1871. Industrialists and bankers set themselves up in
the new capital, while workers migrated there for jobs,
and industry from foreign competition but also
swelling the population. The city was newly dotted
raising the prices of consumer goods. This in- with military monuments and with museums to show
creased cost of basic necessities like food cut in- off its culture.
dustrial profits because owners had to pay their
workers more. Ending his support for laissez-faire
756 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

economics, Bismarck severed his working rela- The Treaty of San Stefano sparked an inter-
tionship with political liberals while simultane- national uproar that almost resulted in a general
ously increasing the power of the agrarian European war. Austria-Hungary and Britain
conservatives by attacking the interests of Ger- feared that an enlarged Bulgaria would become a
many’s industrial sector. Russian satellite that would enable the tsar to
dominate the Balkans. Austrian officials worried
Authoritarian Austria-Hungary. Like Germany, about an uprising of their own restless Slavs.
Austria-Hungary frequently employed liberal eco- British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli moved
nomic policies and practices. From the 1860s, lib- warships into position against Russia in order to
eral businessmen succeeded in industrializing parts halt the advance of Russian influence in the east-
of the empire, and the prosperous middle classes ern Mediterranean, so close to Britain’s routes
erected conspicuously large homes, giving them- through the Suez Canal. The public was drawn
selves a prominence in urban life that rivaled the into foreign policy: the music halls and newspa-
aristocracy’s. They persuaded the government to pers of England echoed a new jingoism, or polit-
enact free-trade provisions in the 1870s and to ical sloganeering, that throbbed with sentiments
search out foreign investment to build up infra- of war: “We don’t want to fight, / but by Jingo if
structure, such as railroads. we do, / We’ve got the ships, / we’ve got the men,
Despite these measures, Austria-Hungary / we’ve got the money too!”
remained resolutely monarchist and authoritarian. The other great powers, however, did not want
Liberals in Austria — most of them ethnic a Europe-wide war, and in 1878 they attempted to
Germans — saw their influence weaken under the revive the concert of Europe by meeting at Berlin
leadership of Count Edouard von Taaffe, Austrian under the auspices of Bismarck, who was a calm-
prime minister from 1879 to 1893. Building a ing presence on the diplomatic scene. The Con-
coalition of clergy, conservatives, and Slavic par- gress of Berlin rolled back the Russian victory by
ties, Taaffe used its power to weaken the liberals. partitioning the large Bulgarian state that Russia
In Bohemia, for example, he designated Czech as had carved out of Ottoman territory and denying
an official language of the bureaucracy and school any part of Bulgaria full independence from the
system, thus breaking the German speakers’ mo- Ottomans (Map 23.4). Austria occupied (but did
nopoly on officeholding. Reforms outraged indi- not annex) Bosnia and Herzegovina as a way of
viduals at whose expense other ethnic groups gaining clout in the Balkans; Serbia and Montene-
received benefits, and those who won concessions, gro became fully independent. Nonetheless, the
such as the Czechs, clamored for even greater au- Balkans remained a site of political unrest, teem-
tonomy. By playing nationalities off one another, ing ambition for independence, and great-power
the government ensured the monarchy’s central rivalries.
role in holding together competing interest groups Following the Congress of Berlin, the Euro-
in an era of rapid change. Emperor Francis Joseph pean powers attempted to guarantee stability
and his ministers still feared the influence of the through a complex series of alliances and treaties.
most powerful Slavic nation — Russia — on the Anxious about Balkan instability and Russian ag-
ethnic minorities living within Austria-Hungary. gression, Austria-Hungary forged a defensive al-
Nationalists in the Balkans demanded inde- liance with Germany in 1879. The Dual Alliance,
pendence from the declining Ottoman Empire, as it was called, offered protection against Russia,
raising Austro-Hungarian fears and ambitions. In and its potential for inciting Slav rebellions. In
1876, Slavs in Bulgaria and Bosnia-Herzegovina 1882, Italy joined this partnership (henceforth
revolted against Turkish rule, killing Ottoman of- called the Triple Alliance), largely because of Italy’s
ficials. As the Ottomans slaughtered thousands of imperial rivalries with France. Tensions between
Bulgarians in turn, two other small Balkan states, Russia and Austria-Hungary remained high, so
Serbia and Montenegro, rebelled against the sul- Bismarck replaced the Three Emperors League
tan. Russian Pan-Slavic organizations sent aid to with the Reinsurance Treaty (1887) with Russia to
the Balkan rebels and so pressured the tsar’s gov- keep the Habsburgs from recklessly starting a war
ernment that Russia declared war on Turkey in over Pan-Slavism.
1877 in the name of protecting Orthodox Chris-
tians. With help from Romania and Greece, Rus-
sia defeated the Ottomans and by the Treaty of Dual Alliance: A defensive alliance between Germany and
Austria-Hungary in 1879 as part of Bismarck’s system of alliances
San Stefano (1878) created a large, pro-Russian to prevent or limit war. It was joined by Italy in 1882 as a third
Bulgaria. partner and then called the Triple Alliance.
1870–1890 Th e B i rt h o f M a s s P o l i t i c s 757

N 0 200 400 miles


0 200 400 kilometers
E
W

S
RUSSIA
AU S T R I A- H U N G A RY

Belgrade ROMANIA
BOSNIA-  Bucharest

HERZEGOVINA SERBIA Black Sea
 D a n u be R .
Sarajevo
BULGARIA
Sofia
Ad 
ria East Rumelia
tic MONTENEGRO Adrianople
Se 
a O Constantinople

T 
Macedonia San Stefano
T
ITALY Salonika O
 M
A N
Aegean E M
P I R
Sea E
GREECE Athens


Ottoman Empire before 1878


Ottoman Empire after 1878
Cyprus
Occupied by Austria-Hungary Crete (Br.)
Independent or autonomous
Autonomous Ottoman province Mediterranean Sea

MAP 23.4 The Balkans, c. 1878


After midcentury, the map of the Balkans was almost constantly redrawn. This
resulted in part from the weakness of the dominant Ottoman Empire, but also from
the ambitions of inhabitants themselves and from great power rivalry. In tune with
the growing sense of national identities based on shared culture, history, and
ethnicity, various Balkan peoples sought to emphasize local, small-group identities
rather than merging around a single dominant group such as the Serbs. Yet there
was also a move by some intellectuals to transcend borders and create a southern
Slav culture.

Unrest in Russia. Besides its expansionist moves the chief of the St. Petersburg police, the people of
and setbacks, Russia was beset by domestic prob- the capital city applauded her act and acquittal, so
lems in the 1870s and 1880s. It remained almost great was their horror at government treatment of
the only European country without a constitu- young radicals from respectable families.
tional government, and young Russians were turn- Writers added to the debate over Russia’s fu-
ing to revolutionary groups for solutions to ture, often by specifically discussing these political
political and social problems. One such group, the issues and mobilizing public opinion. Novelists
Populists, wanted to rouse debt-ridden peasants to Leo Tolstoy, author of the epic War and Peace
revolt. Other people formed tightly coordinated (1869), and Fyodor Dostoevsky, a former radical
terrorist bands with the goal of forcing change by who changed position, believed that Russia above
assassinating public officials. The secret police, re- all required spiritual regeneration — not revolu-
lying on informers, rounded up hundreds of mem- tion. Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina (1877) tells
bers of one of the largest groups, Land and Liberty, the story of an impassioned, adulterous love af-
and subjected them to brutal torture, show trials, fair, but it also weaves in the spiritual quest of
and imprisonment. When in 1877 a young radical, Levin, a former “progressive” landowner who, like
Vera Zasulich, tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Tolstoy, idealizes the peasantry’s tradition of stoic
758 C h a pt e r 2 3 ■ I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e 1870–1890

The Assassination of Alexander II


The assassination of Tsar Alexander II in St. Petersburg in 1881 was a shocking event, given that
the tsar had escaped unharmed from some half dozen previous attempts on his life. Even though
Alexander had emancipated the serfs and instituted a wave of reform, the young assassins
were mistakenly convinced that their deed would bring about a great serf uprising.
(The Granger Collection, New York.)

endurance. Dostoevsky satirized Russia’s radicals others as horrifying, uncivilized, or utterly ridic-
in The Possessed (1871), a novel in which a group ulous — and thus a menace to Russian culture.
of revolutionaries murders one of its own mem- The five million Russian Jews, confined to the
bers. In Dostoevsky’s view, the radicals were sim- eighteenth-century Pale of Settlement (the name
ply destructive, offering no solutions whatsoever for the restricted territory in which they were per-
to Russia’s ills. mitted to live), endured particularly severe oppres-
Despite the influential critiques published by sion. Local officials instigated pogroms against Jews,
Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, violent action rather than whose distinctive language, dress, and isolation in
spiritual uplift remained at the ghettos made them easy targets.
heart of radicalism. In 1881, the 0 100 200 miles
Boundary of the Government administrators en-
0 200 kilometers Pale of Settlement
People’s Will, a splinter group of couraged people to blame Jews for

Land and Liberty impatient with St. Petersburg escalating living costs — though
its failure to mobilize the peas- the true cause was the high taxes
ea

antry, killed Tsar Alexander II in a levied on peasants to pay for indus-


cS
lt i

bomb attack. His death, however, Ba LITHUANIA trialization.


failed to provoke the general up- RU SSI A As the tsar inflicted even
NY
MA

WHITE
rising the terrorists expected. RUSSIA greater repression across Russia,
GER

POLAND
Alexander III (r. 1881–1894), re- Bismarck’s delicate system of al-
jecting further liberal reforms, un- UKRAINE liances of the three conservative
leashed a new wave of oppression AUSTRIA- powers was coming apart. A brash
HUNGARY
against religious and ethnic mi- but deeply insecure young kaiser,
norities and gave the police virtu- Black Sea William II (r. 1888–1918), came
ally unchecked power. Popular to the German throne in 1888.
books and drawings depicted Russia: The Pale of Settlement William resented Bismarck’s
Tatars, Poles, Ukrainians, and in the Nineteenth Century power, and his advisers flattered
1870–1890 C o n c lu s i o n 759

the young man into thinking that his own talent conditions and to find new opportunities. Politi-
made Bismarck an unnecessary rival. William dis- cal reform, especially the expansion of suffrage,
missed Bismarck in 1890 and, because he ardently helped members of the working class gain a polit-
supported Pan-German nationalism, let the Rein- ical voice. Workers formed unions and political
surance Treaty with Russia lapse in favor of a strong parties to protect their interests, but governments
relationship with the supposedly kindred Austria- often responded to workers’ activism with repres-
Hungary. He thus destabilized the diplomatic scene sive tactics.
just as imperial rivalries were intensifying antago- As workers struck for improved wages and
nisms among the European nation-states and em- conditions and the impoverished migrated to find
pires. a better life, Western society showed that troubles
existed in the new imperial and industrial age.
Newspapers informed people about national and
Review: What were the major changes in political life
international events, and they also raised ques-
from the 1870s to the 1890s, and which areas of Europe
did they most affect? tions about poverty and social unrest. By the
1890s, the advance of empire and industry was
bringing unprecedented tensions to national pol-
itics, the international scene, and everyday life.
Racism, anti-Semitism, and ethnic chauvinism
Conclusion were spreading, and many were questioning the
costs of empire both to their own nation and con-
The period from the 1870s to the 1890s has been quered peoples. Politics in the authoritarian coun-
called the age of empire and industry because tries of central and eastern Europe was taking a
Western society pursued both these ends in a way more conservative turn, resisting participation
that rapidly transformed Europe and the world. and reform while democratization advanced to
Much of Europe thrived due to industrial inno- the west. The rising tensions of modern life would
vation, becoming more populous and more ur- soon have grave consequences for the West as a
banized. The great powers undertook a new whole.
imperialism, carving up territory and establishing
direct rule over foreign peoples. As they tightened
connections with the rest of the globe, Europeans For Further Exploration
proudly spread their supposedly superior culture ■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
throughout the world, and like Marianne North, for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
sought out whatever other peoples and places end of the book.
could offer in knowledge, experience, and wealth.
Imperial expansion and industrial change af- ■ For additional primary-source material from
fected all social classes. The upper class attempted this period, see Chapter 23 in Sources of THE
to maintain its position of social and political MAKING OF THE WEST, Third Edition.
dominance while an expanding middle class was
gaining new power and influence. Working-class ■ For Web sites and documents related to topics
people often suffered from the effects of rapid in- in this chapter, see Make History at
dustrial change when their labor was replaced by bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
machinery. Millions relocated to escape these poor
760
MA P P I N G T H E W E ST

C h a pt e r 2 3
N ARCTIC OCEAN


GREENLAND W E

I n d u s t ry, E m p i r e , a n d Eve ryday L i f e


S

DE ND
SWE AY A
Alaska

N
ICELAND

W
NETHERLANDS

NOR
BELGIUM RUSSIA
CANADA
ATLANTIC
OCEAN GREAT DEN. Russians
, BRITAIN Y
sh AN
riti RM
,B GE
mans ians AUSTRIA-
er ss FRANCE HUNGARY
s, G Ru PORT.
i a n n s,
n a v a li a

IT
LY
n d i i s h , It

French

A
S c a I r SPAIN
UNITED STATES OTTOMAN

N
CHINA KOREA JAPAN

TA
EMPIRE
ALG. TUN. IS
PERSIA AN
H
FG

Ita rma sh,


TRIPOLI A

AR
ns ,
EGYPT

lia ns
RIO DE
PACIFIC

AB
INDIA

Ge pan
ORO
Hong Kong (Br.)

IA

AN
MEXICO BURMA
PACIFIC

S
CUBA SENEGAL
OCEAN

M
GAMBIA

O
SIAM FR.
OCEAN BR. HON.
GUINEA
SOKOTO
MAHDIST
STATE ETHIOPIA INDO-
VENEZUELA SIERRA SULTANATE CHINA PHILIPPINES
LEONE BR.
FR. TOGO
COLOMBIA SOMALIA
GUIANA LIBERIA GOLD CAMEROON EQUATORIA
BR. COAST
ECUADOR GUIANA DUTCH WITU DUTCH EAST INDIES
GABON
GUIANA CABINDA SULTANATE OF
GERMAN ZANZIBAR
PERU ANGOLA SOUTH-WEST
BRAZIL
BOLIVIA WALVIS AFRICA INDIAN
BAY Fiji
MADAGASCAR OCEAN New (Br.)
PORTUGUESE
AUSTRALIA Caledonia
(Fr.)
CAPE EAST AFRICA
IN A

(MOZAMBIQUE)
CHILE

COLONY
Colonial Empires c. 1890
ENT

ATLANTIC ORANGE SOUTH NEW


British United States AFRICAN
AR G

FREE ZEALAND
OCEAN STATE REPUBLIC
French Danish Britis
h

Portuguese Belgian FALKLAND IS.


(Br.)
Italian Japanese
German Ottoman
Spanish Other countries
Dutch European migrations, 0 1,500 3,000 miles
c. 1820–1910
Russian 0 1,500 3,000 kilometers

The West and the World, c. 1890


In the late nineteenth century, European trade and political reach spanned the globe. Needing markets for the vast quantities of

1870–1890
goods that poured from European factories and access to raw materials to produce the goods, governments asserted that the
Western way of life should be spread to the rest of the world and that resources would be best used by Europeans. Explorations
and scientific discoveries continued both to build the knowledge base of Western nations and to enhance their ability for
greater conquest. Simultaneously, millions of Europeans left their homes to find a better life elsewhere.
1870–1890 C h a pt e r R ev i ew 761

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
Key Terms and People Making Connections
outwork (727) William Gladstone (752) 1. Compare the political and social goals of the newly enfran-
capital-intensive industry Reform Act of 1884 chised male electorate with those of people from the “best
(730) (752) circles.”
limited liability Charles Stewart Parnell 2. Describe the effects of imperialism on European politics
corporation (730) (753) and society as a whole.
Leopold II (734) home rule (753)
impressionism (749) Third Republic (753)
new unionism (751) Dual Alliance (756)
Second International For practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other
(751) study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.

Review Questions
1. What were the major changes in Western industry and
business in the last third of the nineteenth century?
2. What were the goals of the new imperialism, and how did
Europeans accomplish those goals?
3. How did empire and industry influence art and everyday
life?
4. What were the major changes in political life from the 1870s
to the 1890s, and which areas of Europe did they most
affect?

Important Events

1860s–1890s Impressionism flourishes in the arts; 1882 Triple Alliance formed between Germany,
absorption of Asian influences Austria-Hungary, and Italy; Britain invades Egypt
1870s–1890s Vast emigration from Europe contin- 1882–1884 Bismarck sponsors social welfare legislation
ues; the new imperialism 1884 British Parliament passes the Reform Act,
1871 Franco-Prussian War ends doubling the size of the male electorate
1873 Extended economic recession begins 1884–1885 European nations carve up Africa at the
with global impact Berlin conference
1876 British Parliament declares Victoria 1885 Invention of workable gasoline engine
empress; invention of the telephone 1889 Japan adopts constitution based on European
1879 Dual Alliance formed between Ger- models; Socialists meet in Paris and establish
many and Austria-Hungary the Second International
1881 Tsar Alexander II assassinated 1891 Construction of Trans-Siberian Railroad begins
Modernity and C H A P T E R

the Road to War


1890–1914
24
Public Debate over
Private Life 764
• Population Pressure
• Reforming Marriage
• New Women, New Men, and the
n the first decade of the twentieth century, a wealthy young Rus- Politics of Sexual Identity

I sian man traveled from one country to another to find relief from
a common malady of the time called neurasthenia. Its symptoms
included fatigue, lack of interest in life, depression, and sometimes
• Sciences of the Modern Self

Modernity and the Revolt


in Ideas 771
physical illness. In 1910, the young man consulted Sigmund Freud, • The Opposition to Positivism
• Revolutionizing Science
a Viennese physician whose unconventional treatment—eventually • Modern Art
• The Revolt in Music and Dance
called psychoanalysis — took the form of a conversation about the pa-
tient’s dreams, sexual experiences, and everyday life. Over the course Growing Tensions in Mass
of four years, Freud uncovered his patient’s deeply hidden fear of cas- Politics 776
• Labor’s Expanding Power
tration, which was disguised as a fear of wolves — thus the name Wolf- • Rights for Women and the
Man by which he comes down to us. Freud worked his cure, as the Battle for Suffrage
• Liberalism Tested
Wolf-Man himself put it, “by bringing repressed ideas into conscious- • Anti-Semitism, Nationalism,
and Zionism in Mass Politics
ness” through extensive talking.
In many ways, the Wolf-Man was representative of his age. Born European Imperialism
into a family that owned vast estates, he enjoyed Europe’s growing pros- Challenged 783
• The Trials of Empire
perity, although on a grander scale than most. Despite being well-off, • The Russian Empire Threatened
countless individuals like the Wolf-Man seemed anguished and men- • Growing Resistance to Colonial
Domination
tally disturbed, and suicides abounded — the Wolf-Man’s sister and
father died from intentional drug overdoses. As the twentieth century Roads to War 790
• Competing Alliances and Clashing
opened, Europeans raised questions about family, gender relationships, Ambitions
empire, religion, and the consequences of technology. Every sign of im- • The Race to Arms
• 1914: War Erupts
perial wealth brought on an apparently irrational sense of Europe’s de-
cline. British writer H. G. Wells saw in this era “humanity upon the
wane . . . the sunset of mankind.” Gloom filled the pages of many a
book and seeped into the lives of individuals like the Wolf-Man.
Conflict reigned throughout Europe and the world, especially over
empire. The nations of Europe had lurched from one diplomatic crisis

Edvard Munch, The Scream (1893)


In some of his paintings, Norwegian artist Edvard Munch captured a certain spirit of
the turn of the century, depicting in soft pastel colors the newly leisured life of people
strolling in the countryside. But modern life also had a tortured side, which Munch
was equally capable of portraying. The Scream is taken as emblematic of the
torments of modernity as the individual turns inward, beset by neuroses, self-
destructive impulses, and even madness. It can also be suggested that the screamer,
like Europe, travels the road to World War I. (Scala/ Art Resource, NY/ © 2008 The Munch
Museum/ The Munch-Ellingsen Group/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.)
763
764 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

to another over access to global resources and con- several decades. The resulting disastrous war,
trol of territory — both within Europe and out- World War I, like the insights of Freud, would
side it. As the great powers fought to dominate transform modern life.
people around the world, the competition for em-
pire fueled an arms race that threatened to turn
Focus Question: How did developments in social
Europe — the most civilized region of the world,
life, art, intellectual life and politics at the turn of the
according to its leaders — into a savage battle- century produce instability and set the backdrop for war?
ground. Militant nationalism fueled ethnic ha-
treds and anti-Semitism in public life grew
intense, even leading to physical violence. Woman
suffragists along with politically disadvantaged Public Debate over
groups such as the Slavs and Irish demanded full
rights, but tolerance for liberal values and claims Private Life
weakened amid a wave of political assassinations
At the beginning of the twentieth century, an in-
and public brutality.
creasing number of people could aspire to a com-
These were just some of the conflicts associ-
fortable family life because of Europe’s improved
ated with modernity — a term often used to de-
standard of living. Yet as the twentieth century
scribe the faster pace of life, the rise of mass
opened, traditional social norms such as hetero-
politics, and the decline of a rural social order that
sexual marriage and woman’s domestic role as wife
were so visible in the West from the late nineteenth
and mother came under attack by what were seen
century on (see “Terms of History,” page 766). The
as the forces of modernity. The falling birthrate,
word modernity also refers to the celebrated “mod-
rising divorce rate, and growing activism for mar-
ern” art, music, science, and philosophy of this pe-
riage reform provoked heated accusations that
riod. Although many people today admire the
changes in private life were endangering national
brilliant, innovative qualities of modern art, mu-
health. Discussions about sexual identity led some
sic, and dance, people of the time were offended,
elites to acknowledge homosexuality as a way of
even outraged, by the new styles and sounds.
life, while others made it a political issue. Middle-
Freud’s theory that sexual drives exist in even the
class women took jobs and became active in pub-
youngest children shocked people. Every advance
lic to such an extent that some feared the
in science and the arts simultaneously had under-
disappearance of distinct gender roles. Women’s
mined middle-class faith in the stability of West-
visibility in public life prompted one British song-
ern civilization.
ster in the late 1890s to write:
That faith was further tested when the heir to
the Austro-Hungarian throne was assassinated in Rock-a-bye baby, for father is near
June 1914. Few gave much thought to the global Mother is “biking” she never is here!
significance of the event, least of all the Wolf-Man, Out in the park she’s scorching all day
Or at some meeting is talking away!
whose treatment with Freud was just ending. He
viewed the fateful day of June 28 simply as the day Discussions of gender roles and private life con-
he “could now leave Vienna a healthy man.” Yet the tributed to rising social tensions because they chal-
assassination put the spark to the powder keg of lenged so many traditional ideals. Freud and other
international discord that had been building for scientists tried to study such phenomena — sexu-

■ 1901 Irish National


Theater established;
■ 1894–1895 Sino-Japanese War Queen Victoria dies

1890 1895 1900


■ 1894–1899 Dreyfus Affair ■ 1899–1902 South African War

■ 1900 Freud,
The Interpretation of Dreams
1890–1914 P u b l i c D e b at e ove r Pr i vat e L i f e 765

ality, for example —dispassionately and


formulated new approaches to treating
“modern” ailments such as those afflicting
the Wolf-Man. Public discussions of private
life — especially when they became inter-
twined with politics — demonstrated the
close connection of private and public con-
cerns.

Population Pressure
Urgent concerns over trends in population,
marriage, and sexuality clogged the agen-
das of politicians and reformers from the
1890s on, and they continue to do so today.
The staggering population increases of the
eighteenth century persisted through the
nineteenth, and rural people and migrants
flooded into cities. Alarmed by the urban
masses, often crowded into tenements and
shacks, Social Darwinists became louder in
their warnings about racial decay. Reform- Large Czech Family
ers, politicians, and critics of public life saw This photograph of a rural family in Czechoslovakia shows the differences that
both the quantity and quality of population were coming to distinguish urban from rural people. Although even a farm
as looming national crises. family, especially in eastern Europe, might proudly display technology such as
a new phonograph, it might not practice family limitation, which was gradually
Soaring Population. The European pop- reducing the size of urban households. In eastern Europe, several generations
ulation continued to grow as the twentieth lived together more commonly in rural areas than in cities. How many
century opened. Germany increased in size generations do you see in this image? (© Scheufler Collection/ Corbis.)
from 41 million people in 1871 to 64 mil-
lion in 1910, and tiny Denmark grew from
1.7 million people in 1870 to 2.7 million in 1911. population grew to over 4 million. Rebuilding to
Improvements in sanitation and public health that absorb population growth was not confined to
extended the human life span and reduced infant capitals of the most powerful states: tree-lined
mortality contributed to the increase. To cope with boulevards, new public buildings, and improved
their burgeoning populations, Berlin, Budapest, sanitation facilities graced the Balkan capitals of
and Moscow were torn apart and rebuilt, follow- Sofia, Belgrade, and Bucharest. As the number of
ing the earlier lead of Vienna and Paris. The Ger- urban residents surpassed that of the rural popu-
man government pulled down eighteenth-century lation in many countries, some ruling elites from
Berlin and reconstructed the city with new road- the countryside protested the independence and
ways and mass-transport systems as the capital’s unruliness of urban dwellers.

■ 1905 Revolution erupts in


Russia; Duma established; ■ 1914 Austrian archduke
Einstein’s special theory of relativity Francis Ferdinand and his
wife assassinated,
■ 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War ■ 1908 Young Turks revolt precipitating World War I

1905 1910 1915


■ 1903 Women’s Social and ■ 1911–1912 Qing dynasty overthrown;
Political Union founded China declared a republic
■ 1906 Women receive the vote in Finland

■ 1907 Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon


766 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

per thousand people in 1859 to twenty-four per


TERMS OF HISTORY thousand in 1911; even populous Germany went
from forty births per thousand in 1875 to twenty-
seven per thousand in 1913.
Modern Industrialization and urbanization helped to
bring about this change. Farm families needed
fewer hands because industry was turning out
he word modernus was introduced into Latin in the sixth cen- more efficient agricultural machinery. In cities, in-
T tury; after that, the claim to being modern occurred in many
centuries and cultures. Shakespeare, for example, referred to
“modern ideas” in his plays, and historians have long debated where
dividual couples were free to make their own de-
cisions about limiting family size, learning about
new birth-control practices, including coitus inter-
“modern” history begins: with Abraham? with Charlemagne? or with ruptus — the withdrawal method of preventing
the Renaissance?
pregnancy — from neighbors or, for those with
Despite the claims of many ages to being modern, the term has
enough money and education, from pamphlets
fastened itself most firmly on the period from the end of the nine-
and advice books. Industrial technology played a
teenth century through the first half of the twentieth. Its most spe-
cific historical use has been to describe the art, music, and dance that
further role in curtailing reproduction: condoms,
flourished at that time. When used in this sense, modern indicates a improved after the vulcanization of rubber in the
sharp break with lyrical, romantic music and dance and with the tra- 1840s, proved fairly reliable in preventing concep-
dition of realism in the arts. The blurred images of the impressionists tion, as did the German-invented diaphragm.
and the jarring music of Arnold Schoenberg are part of modern art Abortions were also common.
because they break with accepted forms. The sexual rawness of Gus- The wider use of birth control stirred contro-
tave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (see Chapter 22) or of Sigmund versy. Critics accused middle-class women, whose
Freud’s analysis of the Wolf-Man’s dreams added to the multifaceted fertility was falling most rapidly, of holding a
meanings of the word modern. Sometimes this intellectual break with “birth strike.” Anglican bishops, meeting early in
the cultural past is referred to as modernism. the twentieth century, condemned family limita-
At the end of the nineteenth century, the word modern also re- tion as “demoralizing to character and hostile to
ferred to social phenomena. Women who went to work or entered uni- national welfare.” Politicians claimed that the drop
versities or began careers were called modern women. They believed in the birthrate signaled a crisis in masculinity and
that, by showing themselves capable and rational, they could end re- that military strength was at risk. But U.S. presi-
strictions placed on them. They lived different lives from those women dent Theodore Roosevelt blamed middle-class
who confined themselves to the domestic sphere. This departure from women’s selfishness for the population decline,
tradition also made them appear modern. calling family limitation “one of the most unpleas-
In seeking an education, these women were invoking a meaning ant and unwholesome features of modern life.”
of the word modern dating back to the Enlightenment. Rational The “quality” of those being born worried activists
thought and science have also been taken as the bedrock of the mod-
and politicians: If the “best” classes had fewer chil-
ern. Modernization — another derivative of the word modern — refers
dren, they asked, what would society look like if
to the kind of scientific and technological progress that rational ob-
only the “worst” classes grew in number?
servation produced. Industry and its products — indoor plumbing,
electricity, telephones, and automobile — were signs of modernity.
Racism and nationalism shaped the debate
The paradoxical meanings of the word modern make it a multi- over population. The decline in fertility, one Ger-
purpose term. While associated with the triumph of industry and sci- man nationalist warned, would fill the country
ence at the turn of the century, some artistic modernism glorified the with “alien peoples, above all Slavs and probably
so-called primitive and non-Western, whether in representational art, East European Jews as well.” Nationalist groups
music, literature, or philosophy. Complex, paradoxical, and dense with promoting large, “racially fit” families sprang up
meaning, modern may not always be precise. But its very breadth ex- in France, Germany, Britain, and elsewhere, and
plains why modern remains a crucial — and debated — term of history. they inflamed the political climate with racial ha-
treds. Instead of building consensus to create an
integrated political community, politicians won
votes by raising fears of ethnic minorities, the poor,
Alarm over the Falling Birthrate. While the ab- and women who limited family size.
solute size of the population was rising in much
of the West, the birthrate (measured in births per
thousand people) was falling. The birthrate had Reforming Marriage
been decreasing in France since the eighteenth Reformers thought that improving both the qual-
century; other European countries began experi- ity of children born and the conditions within
encing the decline late in the nineteenth century. marriage would solve the population problem.
The Swedish rate dropped from thirty-five births Many believed in eugenics — a set of ideas about
1890–1914 P u b l i c D e b at e ove r Pr i vat e L i f e 767

the importance of producing “superior” people of women in their early forties had been pregnant
through selective breeding and of preventing the more than ten times. Yet reform of everyday cus-
disabled and others deemed inferior from pollut- toms did occur. For instance, in some Balkan vil-
ing one’s nation or “race.” As a famed Italian crim- lages, there still existed a traditional family system
inologist put it, lower types of people were not called the zadruga, in which all individual families
humans but “orangutans.” Eugenicists favored in- within an extended family shared a common great
creased childbearing for “the fittest” and limita- house. By the late nineteenth century, however, in-
tions on the fertility of “degenerates,” including dividual couples gained privacy by building small
sterilization. Women of the “better” classes, re- sleeping dwellings surrounding the great house.
formers also believed, would be more inclined to Among the middle and upper classes of eastern
reproduce if the traditional system of marriage Europe, many grown children were coming to be-
were made more equal. Laws generally decreed lieve that they had a right to select a marriage part-
that a married woman’s wages and her other prop- ner instead of accepting the spouse their parents
erty belonged to her husband. Women had no le- chose for them.
gal rights to their own children and no financial
support in the event of an abusive marriage. Given
New Women, New Men, and the
their lack of resources, women’s reluctance to have
more than one or two children was understand- Politics of Sexual Identity
able, reformers suggested. Rapid social change set the stage for even bolder
Reformers worked to improve marriage laws behaviors among some middle-class women. Ad-
in order to boost the birthrate, while feminists venturous women traveled the globe on their own
sought to improve the lot of mothers and their to promote Christianity, make money, or learn
children. Sweden made men’s and women’s con- about cultures. Educated European women gained
trol over property equal in marriage and allowed independence as they took on white-collar jobs.
married women to work without their husband’s The so-called new woman dressed more practi-
permission. Other countries, among them France cally, with fewer petticoats and looser corsets,
(1884), legalized divorce and made it less compli- biked and hiked through city streets and down
cated, and thus less costly, to obtain. Reformers country lanes, lived apart from her family in
reasoned that divorce would allow unhappy cou- women’s clubs or apartments, and supported her-
ples to separate and undertake new, more loving, self (see The New Woman poster, below). Italian
and thus more fertile marriages. By the early twen-
tieth century, several countries had passed legis- new woman: A woman who, from the 1880s on, dressed prac-
lation that provided government subsidies for tically, moved about freely, and often supported herself.
medical care and child support in or-
der to improve motherhood among the Sydney Grundy, The New
lower classes. Concerns regarding pop- Woman (1900)
ulation partially laid the foundations By the opening of the
for the welfare state — that is, a nation- twentieth century, the “new
state whose policies addressed not just woman” had become a much-
military defense, foreign policy, and discussed phenomenon.
political processes but also the social Artists painted portraits of
and economic well-being of its people. this independent creature,
while novelists and play-
The extent of changes in women’s
wrights like Henrik Ibsen
lives varied throughout Europe. For ex-
depicted her ambition to
ample, a greater number of legal re- throw off the wifely role—
forms occurred in western Europe or at least to shape that role
than in eastern Europe but even so, more to her own personality.
women could get university degrees in In this lithograph, she also
Austria-Hungary long before they smokes. (© Private Collection/ The
could at Oxford or Cambridge. In Stapleton Collection/ The Bridgeman
much of rural eastern Europe, the fa- Art Library.)
ther’s power over the family remained
almost dictatorial. According to a sur-
vey of family life in eastern Europe in
the early 1900s, fathers married off
their children so young that 25 percent
768 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

educator Maria Montessori (1870–1952), the first studied sex scientifically, was Sexual Inversion
woman in Italy to earn a medical degree and the (1894) by Havelock Ellis. Ellis, a British medical
founder of an educational system that still bears doctor, claimed that there was a new personality
her name, gave birth to an illegitimate child al- type — the homosexual — identifiable by such
though she felt compelled to keep the child’s exis- traits as effeminate behavior and attraction to the
tence a secret. Other new women lived openly with arts in males and physical affection for members
their lovers. The growing number of women freely of their own sex in both males and females. Ho-
moving in public, even across the globe, challenged mosexuals joined the discussion, calling for recog-
accepted views of women’s dependence and seclu- nition that they composed a natural “third” or
sion in the home. Not surprisingly, there was loud “intermediate” sex and were not just people be-
criticism: the new woman, German philosopher having sinfully. Some believed that members of the
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, had led to the “uglifi- intermediate sex, possessing both male and female
cation of Europe.” traits, represented “a higher order” on the scale of
Not just women’s behavior but also men’s and human evolution, most often serving as society’s
women’s sexual identity fueled discussion. A pop- “helpers and guides” because they were so highly
ular book in the new field of “sexology,” which evolved. The discussion of homosexuality started
the trend toward considering sexuality in general
a basic part of human identity.
The press condemned homosexuality as out-
Oscar Wilde rageous and perverse. In the spring of 1895, Irish
The Irish-born writer Oscar Wilde symbolized the playwright Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was convicted
persecution experienced by homosexuals in the late of indecency — a charge that referred to his sexual
nineteenth century. Convicted of indecency for having
affairs with young men (see the illustration on this
sexual relations with another man, Wilde served time
in prison—a humiliation for a husband, father,
page) — and sentenced to two years in prison. Af-
acclaimed author, and witty playwright. (Library of ter Wilde’s conviction one newspaper rejoiced,
Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. LC-USZ62 914833.) “Open the windows! Let in the fresh air!” Between
1907 and 1909, German newspapers publicized the
scandal around the military men in Kaiser William
II’s closest circle who were condemned for homo-
sexuality and transvestitism. Amid growing con-
cern over population and family values, the
government assured the public that William’s own
family life was “a fine model” for the German na-
tion. Heterosexuality thus took on patriotic over-
tones: the accused homosexual elite in Germany
was said by journalists to be out to “emasculate our
courageous master race.” These cases paved the way
for growing sexual openness in the next genera-
tions; they also showed that sexual issues were be-
coming regular weapons in politics.

Sciences of the Modern Self


Scientists and Social Darwinists found cause for
alarm not only in the poor condition of the work-
ing class but also in modern society’s host of men-
tal complaints such as those of the Wolf-Man.
Most of these illnesses originated in the “nerves,”
medical people decided, which were troubled by
the hectic pace of urban living. New sciences of the
mind such as psychology and psychoanalysis
aimed to treat everyone, not just the insane.

New Approaches to Mental Ailments. A number


of books in the 1890s presented arguments on
causes and cures for modern nervous ailments. De-
1890–1914 P u b l i c D e b at e ove r Pr i vat e L i f e 769

Freud’s Office
Sigmund Freud’s therapy room,
where his patients experienced
the “talking cure,” was filled
with imperial trophies such as
Oriental rugs and African art
objects. Freud himself was
fascinated by cures brought
about through shamanism,
trances, and other practices of
non-Western medicine. In 1938,
Freud fled to England to escape
the Nazis. This photo shows his
office re-created in London.
(Mary Evans Picture Library/ Sigmund
Freud copyrights.)

generation (1892–1893), by Hungarian-born physi- che is far from rational but is powerfully influ-
cian Max Nordau, blamed overstimulation for both enced by unconscious forces. Dreams, he explained
individual and national deterioration. According to in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), reveal a re-
Nordau, male and female nervous complaints and pressed or hidden part of personality — the “un-
the increasingly bizarre art world reflected a gen- conscious”— where all sorts of desires are more or
eral downturn in the human species. As a cure for less buried. Freud also believed that the human
mental and national decline, Social Darwinists rec- psyche is made up of three competing parts: the
ommended imperial adventure for men and the ego, the part that is most in touch with the need
nation-state alike. Increased childbearing would to work and survive — that is, external reality; the
cure mental disorders in both sexes, they con- id (or libido), the part that contains instinctive
tended, because it would restore men’s virility and drives and sexual energies; and the superego, the part
women’s femininity. that serves as the conscience. Freud’s theory of
Investigations into the working of the mind human mental processes and his method for treat-
led to new fields of study. The field of criminol- ing their malfunctioning came to be called psycho-
ogy emerged as medical scientists attempted to analysis. Freud’s ideas challenged accepted liberal
identify and classify the “criminal mind.” Other belief in a unified, rational self that acted in its own
scientists developed intelligence tests that they said interest. Instead, as in Darwin’s natural world,
could measure the capacity of the human mind where species competed for survival, in Freud’s
more accurately than a schoolteacher could. In view the different parts of an individual — ego, id,
Russia, physiologist Ivan Pavlov proposed that be- superego — warred with one another for control
havior could be controlled by conditioning men- of an individual’s personality.
tal reflexes. Pavlov’s experiments in behavior Freud demanded that sexual life should be re-
modification, especially his success in getting a dog garded objectively, free from religious or moral
to salivate upon hearing a bell, became part of the judgments. His views on sex, however, shocked
toolkit of modern psychology. many of his contemporaries. He insisted, for ex-
ample, that sexual drives exist from the moment
Freud and Psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud of birth. An individual, he said, has to repress many
(1856–1939) devised an approach to understand- of these desires — such as impulses toward in-
ing and treating modern anxieties and mental cest — in order to reach maturity and allow soci-
problems in which he argued that the human psy- ety to remain civilized. Freud claimed that adult
gender identity does not result from anatomy
alone but rather develops over the course of a per-
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939): Viennese medical doctor and
founder of psychoanalysis, a theory of mental processes and son’s life experiences. Although gender is more
problems and a method of treating them. complicated than biology alone would suggest,
770 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

NEW SOURCES, NEW PERSPECTIVES

Psychohistory and Its Lessons

n the last fifty years, historians have death wish. He subjected both individuals Identity crises stemming from his rela-

I radically changed the way they write


history. In the nineteenth century, his-
tory books mostly recounted the deeds of
and entire societies to psychoanalytic
probing. Few historians followed Freud’s
lead.
tionship with his father caused Luther to
search for and reject father figures, includ-
ing the pope. Erikson’s book caused a
kings and emperors, discussed royal ge- In 1957, William Langer, president of stir among historians, changing the way
nealogy, and listed wars and peace treaties. the American Historical Association, people understood Luther and starting an
Determined to be factual, historians laid charged his fellow scholars with being entirely new school of historical thought.
out the fine points of laws, charters, and foolishly backward in their methods. Un- Not surprisingly, some of the most
treaties and they checked their sources in like scientists, he claimed, historians did compelling examples of psychohistory
archives. not try new systems or techniques such as have focused on the lives of individuals and
Much has changed since then, partly psychoanalysis that might advance their the development of political movements.
because of the rise of psychology and psy- understanding of the past. Others joined Historians interested in psychoanalysis
choanalysis as the twentieth century the debate, finding that traditional history have examined Kaiser William II’s child-
opened. Confronted with strikes, mass sometimes attributed actions to traits such hood for explanations of his rejection of
demonstrations, anarchist deeds, anti- as ambition, greed, hate, and great intelli- Bismarck, his turn to an aggressive foreign
Semitism, and other forms of political vi- gence. But what was the “scientific” depth policy, and his participation in World War
olence, some observers tried to explain a in such characterizations? Another criti- I. Analyses of Adolf Hitler’s and Benito
phenomenon they called crowd psychol- cism of history by those interested in psy- Mussolini’s followers have attributed the
ogy. According to this view, psychic states chology and psychoanalysis was that, if blind worship of these dictators to mass
are important factors in shaping some it did take human agency into account, psychic needs and traumas. The intense
public events. history usually saw people as acting ra- nationalism that most people in the mod-
Not surprisingly, Sigmund Freud tionally in their self-interest. Trauma, ern world have increasingly felt for their
studied great historic figures like Leonardo irrational or uncontrollable drives, and countries has also become a phenomenon
da Vinci from a psychoanalytic perspec- unconscious motivations played no role in that psychohistorians investigate.
tive, exploring the connection between re- understanding historical figures. Psychohistory remains controversial
pressed childhood fantasies and later Psychohistory was born of these dis- to this day. While its practitioners expand
towering accomplishments. Freud also ex- cussions. Psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, in the field of historical explanation, its crit-
plained the outbreak of World War I as Young Man Luther (1958), announced that ics find that fitting the behavior of histor-
more of a psychic than a diplomatic event. the Protestant Reformation originated in ical characters into Freud’s schema can be
He saw the war as a form of collective the childhood traumas of Martin Luther. a formulaic process. Other critics find that

certain aspects of gender roles — such as mother- by “penis envy,” an idea that led members of the
hood — are normal. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory new profession of social work to believe that most
maintained that girls and women have powerful instances of such abuse had not actually occurred.
sexual feelings, an idea that broke sharply with A meticulous scientist, Freud closely observed
existing beliefs in women’s passionlessness. symptoms and paid attention to the most minute
The influence of psychoanalysis became per- evidence from everyday life. Like Darwin, he re-
vasive in the twentieth century (see “New Sources, jected optimistic scientific views of the world,
New Perspectives,” above). For example, Freud’s claiming that humans were motivated by irra-
“talking cure,” as his method of treatment was tional drives toward death and destruction. These
quickly labeled, gave rise to a general acceptance urges, he believed, shaped society’s collective ac-
of talking out one’s problems. As psychoanalysis tions.
gained respect as a means of restoring mental
health, terms such as neurotic and unconscious Review: How did ideas about the self and about
came into widespread use. By way of paradox, personal life change at the beginning of the twentieth
Freud attributed girls’ complaints about un- century?
wanted sexual advances or abuse to fantasy caused
1890–1914 M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e R evo lt i n I d e a s 771

psychohistory is too imprecise and specu-


lative because it is not based on the same
kinds of hard, documentary evidence that
historians have been trained to use.
Nonetheless, psychohistorians have made
a good case that if we are going to look at
personalities, character, and relationships,
we should do so in the most informed way
possible. Their rationale makes psychohis-
tory appear to be a necessity.

Questions to Consider
1. What are the advantages and disadvan-
tages of psychohistory?
2. How would you set out to investigate
the psychological reasons for the ac-
tions of William II, Emmeline
Pankhurst, Marie Curie, or Gavrilo
Princip? Would you look at their char-
acter, their childhood, their social back-
ground, or other parts of their lives?
3. Can we write history without talking
about the emotions, mental habits, and
human relationships of major figures?
Should we avoid psychologizing when
Kaiser William and Edward VII’s Family thinking about the past?
Psychotherapy aimed to cure the individual in good part by discussing family
relationships and the fantasies built around them. Psychohistory often draws its Further Reading
analyses from these same relationships. The royal families of Europe are ripe for Binion, Rudolph. Frau Lou: Nietzsche’s
such analysis because, as the photo shows, German and British monarchs Wayward Disciple. 1968.
(Edward VII, right; and William, second from right) were closely related; so too Erikson, Erik. Young Man Luther: A Study
were the Russians, Germans, and British. Psychohistorians may therefore view the in Psychoanalysis and History. 1958.
outbreak of World War I as the work of complex family dynamics. (Hulton Archive/ Kohut, Thomas A. Wilhelm II and the
Getty Images.) Germans: A Study in Leadership. 1991.

ing revolution in ideas and creative expression that


Modernity and the we now identify collectively as modernism.
Revolt in Ideas
Toward the beginning of the twentieth century, in- The Opposition to Positivism
tellectuals and artists so completely rejected long- Late in the nineteenth century, many philosophers
standing beliefs and established artistic forms that and social thinkers rejected the century-old faith
they ushered in a new era. In science, the theories in using scientific methods to discover enduring
of Albert Einstein and other researchers estab- social laws. This belief, called positivism, had em-
lished new truths in physics. Art and music became phasized the permanent nature of fundamental
unrecognizable. Artists and musicians who pro- laws and had motivated reformers’ attempts to
duced deliberately shocking works were, like perfect legislation based on studies of society.
Freud, heavily influenced by advances in science
and the progress of empire. Their blending of the
modernism: Artistic styles around the turn of the twentieth cen-
scientific and the irrational, and of forms from the tury that featured a break with realism in art and literature and
West and non-West, helped launch the disorient- with lyricism in music.
772 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

Challenging positivism, some critics declared that thought they were hearing another Socrates. Niet-
because human experience is ever changing, there zsche contracted syphilis and was insane in the last
are no constant or enduring social laws. German eleven years of his life, cared for by his sister. She
political theorist Max Weber (1864–1920) main- edited his attacks on middle-class values into at-
tained that the sheer number of facts involved in tacks on Jews, and after his death, she revised his
policymaking would often make decisive action by complicated concepts of the will to power and of
bureaucrats impossible. In times of crisis, a charis- superman to appeal to nationalists and anti-Semites.
matic leader might usurp power because of his Nietzsche’s legacy was thus mixed: he influenced
ability to act simply on intuition. These turn-of- not only the works of avant-garde artists and
the-century thinkers, called relativists and prag- thinkers but also the ideas of militarist and racist
matists, posed a challenge to entrenched ideas right-wing political parties.
about policymaking, reform, and the conduct of
government.
Revolutionizing Science
The most radical among the scholars was
the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche While Nietzsche and other philosophers ques-
(1844–1900), who called himself neither a rela- tioned the ability of traditional science to provide
tivist nor a pragmatist but a nihilist. In his theory timeless truths, scientific inquiry itself flourished
of human nature, he distinguished between the and the scientific method gained authority. Tech-
“Apollonian,” or rational, side of human existence nological breakthroughs and improvements in
and the “Dionysian” side, with its expression of public hygiene earned science prestige in the pop-
more primal urges. Nietzsche believed that people ulation at large even as discoveries by pioneering
generally prefer the rational, Apollonian explana- researchers shook the foundations of scientific cer-
tions of life because the powerful Dionysian sense tainty. In 1896, French physicist Antoine Becquerel
of death and love such as that found in Greek discovered radioactivity. He also suggested the
tragedy is too disturbing. mutability of elements by the rearrangement of
Much of Nietzsche’s writing consisted of their atoms. French chemist Marie Curie and her
aphorisms — short, disconnected statements of husband, Pierre Curie, isolated the elements polo-
truth or opinion — rather than the long, sustained nium and radium, which are more radioactive
argument common to traditional Western philos- than the uranium Becquerel used. From these and
ophy. Nietzsche used aphorisms to convey the im- other discoveries, scientists concluded that atoms
pression that his ideas were a single individual’s are not solid, as had long been believed, but are
unique perspective, not universal truths that composed of subatomic particles moving about a
thinkers since the Enlightenment had claimed core. In a paper published in 1900, German physi-
were attainable. Nietzsche was convinced that late- cist Max Planck announced his quantum theory,
nineteenth-century Europe was witnessing the de- stating that energy does not flow in a steady stream
cline of absolute truths such as those found in but rather is delivered in discrete packets that he
religion. Thus, he announced, “God is dead, we later called quanta.
have killed him.” Far from arousing dread, how- It was in this atmosphere of discovery that
ever, the death of God, according to Nietzsche, physicist Albert Einstein (1879–1955) proclaimed
would give birth to a joyful quest for new “poet- his special theory of relativity in 1905. According
ries of life” to replace worn-out religious and to this theory, space and time are not absolute cat-
middle-class rules. Nietzsche believed that an egories but instead vary according to the vantage
uninhibited, dynamic “superman,” free from tra- point of the observer. Only the speed of light is
ditional religious and moral values, would replace constant. That same year, Einstein suggested that
the rule-bound middle-class person. the solution to problems in Planck’s theory lay in
Nietzsche thought that each individual had considering light both as little packets and as
within a vital life energy that he called “the will to waves. Einstein later proposed yet another blurring
power.” The idea inspired many at the time, even of two distinct physical properties, mass and en-
his students. As a teacher, Nietzsche was so vi- ergy. He expressed this equivalence in the equation
brant — like his superman — that his first students E ⫽ mc 2, or energy equals mass times the square
of the speed of light. In 1916, Einstein published
his general theory of relativity, which connected
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900): German philosopher who
called for a new morality in the face of the death of God at the
hands of science and whose theories were reworked by his sis- Albert Einstein (1879–1955): Scientist whose theory of relativ-
ter to emphasize militarism and anti-Semitism. ity revolutionized modern physics and other fields of thought.
1890–1914 M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e R evo lt i n I d e a s 773

Marie Curie and Her Daughter


Recipient of two Nobel Prizes,
Marie Curie came from Poland to
western Europe to study science.
Curie’s extraordinary career made
her the epitome of new woman-
hood; her daughter, Irene Joliot-
Curie, followed her mother into the
field and also won a Nobel Prize.
Both women died of leukemia
caused by their exposure to radio-
active materials. (ACJC—Archives Curie
et Joliot-Curie.)

the force, or gravity, of an object with its mass modern artists defied the historic and realistic
and postulated a fourth mathematical dimension scenes still favored, for example, by the powerful
to the universe. Much more lay ahead once Ein- German monarchy and by buyers for public mu-
stein’s theories of energy were applied to technol- seums. Modernism in the arts not only challenged
ogy: television, nuclear power, and, within forty time-honored standards but also led to the prolif-
years, nuclear bombs. eration of competing artistic styles that continues
The findings of Planck, Einstein, and others today.
were not readily accepted, largely because long-
standing scientific truths were at stake. Einstein, A Variety of Styles. Some artists addressed city
like Planck, struggled against mainstream science people caught up in the rush of modern life. Aban-
and its professional institutions. Other factors were doning the soft colors of impressionism as too sub-
at work: Marie Curie faced such resistance from tle for a dynamic industrial society, a group of
the scientific establishment that even after she be- Parisian artists exhibiting in 1905 combined blues,
came the first person ever to receive a second No- greens, reds, and oranges so intensely that they
bel Prize (1911), the prestigious French Academy were called fauves, or “wild beasts.” A leader of the
of Science turned down her candidacy for mem- short-lived fauvism, Henri Matisse soon struck out
bership. They claimed that as a woman she could in a new direction, targeting the expanding class
not have done such outstanding work. More wide- of white-collar workers. Matisse saw his art as
spread acceptance gradually came, however, as Max meant “for every mental worker, be he business-
Planck Institutes were established in German cities, man or writer, like an appeasing influence, like a
streets across Europe were named after Marie mental soother, something like a good armchair in
Curie, and Einstein’s name became synonymous which to rest from physical fatigue.” His colorful
with genius. These scientists achieved what histo- depictions of domestic interiors, North African
rians call a paradigm shift — that is, in the face of scenes, and family life departed from strict real-
considerable resistance, they transformed the foun- ism, yet they continue to appeal to modern view-
dations of science as their findings and theories ers in part because of their calming qualities.
came to replace those of earlier pioneers. French artist Paul Cézanne initiated one of the
most powerful and enduring trends in modern art
by emphasizing structure in painting. Cézanne
Modern Art used rectangular daubs of paint to create geomet-
Conflicts between traditional values and new ideas ric visions of dishes, fruit, drapery, and the human
also raged in the arts as artists distanced themselves body. Cézanne’s art accentuated the lines and
still further from classical Western styles. Some planes found in nature instead of presenting
774 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

changes in their work. “Show the people how


hideous is their actual life,”challenged the anarchists.
Picasso, who had spent his youth in working-class
Barcelona, a hotbed of anarchist thought, aimed
to present the plain truth about industrial society.
In 1912, Picasso and French painter Georges
Braque devised a new kind of collage that incor-
porated bits of newspaper stories, string, and var-
ious useless objects. The effect was a work of art
that appeared to be made of trash. The newspa-
per clippings Picasso included described battles
and murders, suggesting that Western civilization
was not as refined as it claimed to be. In eastern
and central Europe, artists criticized the growing
nationalism that determined official purchases of
sculpture and painting: “The whole empire is lit-
tered with monuments to soldiers and monu-
ments to Kaiser William of the same conventional
type,” one German artist complained. Groups of
avant garde artists in Vienna and Berlin produced
other types of art, much of it critical of boastful
nationalism.
Scandinavian and eastern European artists
produced works expressing the torment many felt
at the time. Like the ideas of Freud, their style of
Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) portraying inner feelings — called expression-
Impressionists had borrowed heavily from Asian art, but many artists ism — broke with middle-class optimism. Nor-
in Pablo Picasso’s generation leaned on Africa for inspiration. In Les wegian painter Edvard Munch aimed “to make
Demoiselles d’Avignon, Picasso used the elongated, angular limbs the emotional mood ring out again as happens
found in African carvings, while the faces resemble African masks. He on a gramophone.” His painting The Scream
borrowed these forms even as Europeans were extolling the superiority (1893) used twisting lines and a tortured skeletal
of their civilization to that of Africa. (Digital Image © The Museum of Modern human form to convey the horror of modern life
Art/ Licensed by Scala/ Art Resource, NY. © 2008 Estate of Pablo Picasso/ Artists Rights that many artists perceived. The “Blue Rider”
Society (ARS), NY.)
group of artists, led by German painter Gabriele
Münter and Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky
used geometric forms and striking colors to ex-
nature as people saw it in everyday life. Following press an inner, spiritual truth. Kandinsky is often
in Cézanne’s footsteps, Spanish artist Pablo Picasso credited with producing the first fully abstract
(1881–1973) developed a style called cubism. Its paintings around 1909; shapes in these paintings
radical emphasis on planes and surfaces converted no longer bear any resemblance to physical ob-
people into bizarre, inhuman, almost unrecogniz- jects or reality but are meant to express deep feel-
able forms. Picasso’s painting Les Demoiselles d’Av- ings. The expressionism of Oskar Kokoschka,
ignon (1907), for example, showed the bodies of who worked in Vienna, was even more intense,
the demoiselles, or “young ladies” (prostitutes in displaying ecstasy, horror, and hallucinations. As
this case), as angular, with their heads modeled on a result, his work — like that of other expression-
African masks. Picasso’s work showed the pro- ists and cubists before World War I — was a com-
found influences of African, Asian, and South mercial failure in an increasingly complex
American arts, but his use of these features was less marketplace run by museum curators, profes-
decorative and more brutal than Matisse’s, for ex- sional dealers, and art “experts.” Trade in art be-
ample. Some critics say that his jarring style cap- came professionalized, as had medicine and
tured in art the uncertain, at times brutal, government work before it, even as modern
atmosphere of society and politics. artists rebelled against traditional norms.

Art as Political Criticism. Across Europe, artists Art Nouveau. Only one innovative style of this
mixed political criticism with the radical stylistic period was an immediate commercial success:
1890–1914 M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e R evo lt i n I d e a s 775

art nouveau (“new art”) won approval from gov-


ernment, critics, and the masses. Creating every-
thing from dishes, calendars, and advertising
posters to streetlamps and even entire buildings in
this new style, designers manufactured beautiful
objects for the general public. As one French offi-
cial said about the first art nouveau coins issued
in 1895, “Soon even the most humble among us
will be able to have a masterpiece in his pocket.”
Art nouveau, adapting elements from Asian de-
sign, attempted to offset the harshness of indus-
trial work and office routine with images depicting
the unified forms of nature. The impersonality of
machines was replaced by intertwined vines and
flowers and the softly curving bodies of female
nudes intended to soothe the individual viewer.
This idea directly contrasted with Picasso’s artistic
vision. Art nouveau was the notable exception to
the public outcries over innovations in the visual
arts.

The Revolt in Music and Dance


“Astonish me!” was the motto of modern dance
and music, both of which shocked audiences in the
concert halls of Europe. American dancer Isadora
Duncan took Europe by storm at the turn of the
century when, draped in a flowing garment, she
danced barefoot in one of the first performances
of modern dance. Her sophisticated style was
called primitive and scandalous because it no
longer followed the steps of classical ballet. Exper- Léon Bakst, Nijinsky in L’Après-Midi d’un Faune
imentation with forms of bodily expression ani- (The Afternoon of a Faun, 1912)
mated the Russian Ballet’s 1913 performance of Léon Bakst, a Russian painter and set designer, used the art
The Rite of Spring, by Igor Stravinsky, the tale of nouveau style to depict the graceful human form of ballet star
an orgiastic dance to the death performed to en- and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky. Yet on the eve of World War
sure a plentiful harvest. The dance troupe struck I, Nijinsky was part of a revolution in ballet that introduced
jerky, awkward, pounding movements to indicate the primal
awkward poses and danced to rhythms intended
nature of dance. (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT. The
to sound primitive. At the work’s premiere in Paris, Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund.)
one journalist reported that “the audience began
shouting its indignation. . . . Fighting actually
broke out among some of the spectators.” Such formed his style to reflect non-European musical
controversy made The Rite of Spring a box-office patterns and wrote articles in praise of Asian har-
hit, although critics called its choreographer a “lu- monies. Italian composer Giacomo Puccini used
natic” and the music itself “the most discordant non-Western subject matter for his opera Madame
composition ever written.” Butterfly, which debuted in 1904. Listeners were
Composers had been rebelling against musi- jarred when they also heard non-Western tonali-
cal standards for several decades, producing mu- ties. Austrian composer Richard Strauss added to
sic that was disturbing rather than pretty. Having the revolution in music by using several musical
heard Asian musicians at international exposi- keys simultaneously in his compositions. Like the
tions, French composer Claude Debussy trans- bizarre representation of reality in cubism, several
tonalities at once distorted familiar harmonic pat-
terns. Strauss’s operas Salome (1905) and Elektra
art nouveau: An early-twentieth-century artistic style in graph-
ics, fashion, and household design that featured flowing, sinu- (1909) reflected a modern fascination with vio-
ous lines, borrowed in large part from Asian art. lence and obsessive passion. A newspaper critic
776 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

claimed that Strauss’s dissonant works “spit and works by Shakespeare and took literally his calls
scratch and claw each other like enraged panthers.” for political action in the cause of justice that rang
The early orchestral work of Austrian com- out in plays such as Julius Caesar. Unions gained
poser Arnold Schoenberg, who also wrote cabaret members among factory workers, while the labor
music to earn a living, shocked even Strauss. In and socialist parties won seats in parliaments as
Theory of Harmony (1911), Schoenberg proposed men in the lower classes received the vote. In Ger-
eliminating tonality altogether; a decade later, he many, Kaiser William II had allowed antisocialist
devised a new twelve-tone scale. “I am aware of laws to lapse after dismissing Bismarck as chancel-
having broken through all the barriers of a dated lor in 1890. Through grassroots organizing at the
aesthetic ideal,” Schoenberg wrote of his music. local level, the Social Democratic Party, founded
But new aesthetic models distanced artists like by German socialists in 1875, became the largest
Schoenberg from their audiences, who found this parliamentary group in the Reichstag by 1912.
music unpleasant and incomprehensible. The Other socialist parties across Europe helped elect
artistic elite and the social elite parted ranks. “An- workers’ representatives into parliaments, where
archist! Nihilist!” shouted Schoenberg’s audiences, they focused on passing legislation that benefited
expressing their distaste for modernism and join- workers and their families.
ing conflicts in the arts with politics. Growing strength, especially winning elec-
tions, actually raised problems among socialists.
Some felt uncomfortable sitting in parliaments
Review: How did modernism transform the arts and
alongside the upper classes — in Marxism, the en-
the world of ideas?
emies of working people. Others worried that ac-
cepting high public offices such as heads of
governmental ministries would compromise their
ultimate goal of revolution. These issues divided
Growing Tensions socialists from one another. Between 1900 and
in Mass Politics 1904, the Second International wrestled with the
question of revisionism — that is, whether social-
Alongside modernist disturbances in intellectual ists should serve in governments and work from
life, the political atmosphere grew charged. On the within to improve the daily lives of laborers or
one hand, liberal opinions led to growing toler- push for a violent revolution to overthrow
ance and political representation for workingmen. governments. Powerful German Marxists argued
Networks of communication, especially the devel- that settling for reform rather than revolution
opment of journalism, created a common fund of would only buttress capitalism. The wealthy would
political knowledge that made mass politics pos- continue to rule unchallenged while throwing
sible. On the other hand, even as working-class small crumbs to a few working-class politicians.
men got the vote, political activists were no longer Stormy discussions divided these German purists,
satisfied with the liberal rights sought by reform- who as a group were consistently blocked from
ers a century earlier, and some strenuously op- holding high positions by conservatives in the mil-
posed them. Militant nationalists, anti-Semites, itary and aristocracy, from the socialist delegates
socialists, suffragists, and others demanded of France, England, and Belgium who had gained
changes that challenged the liberal status quo. Tra- influential government posts.
ditional elites, resentful of the rising middle classes Police persecution forced some working-class
and urban peoples, aimed to overturn constitu- parties to operate in exile. The Russian govern-
tional processes and crush city life. Politics soon ment, for instance, outlawed political parties, im-
threatened national unity, especially in central and prisoned activists, and gave the vote to only a
eastern Europe, where governments often an- limited number of men when it finally introduced
swered reformers’ demands with repression. a parliament in 1905. Thus, Russian activist V. I.
Lenin (1870–1924), who would take power during
the Russian Revolution of 1917, moved to western
Labor’s Expanding Power Europe after his release from exile in Siberia in
European leaders worried about the rise of working- 1900 and earned a reputation among Marxists for
class political power late in the nineteenth century. hard-hitting journalism and political intrigue.
Laboring people’s growing confidence came in Lenin advanced the theory that a highly disci-
part from expanding educational opportunities. plined socialist elite — rather than the working
Workers in England, for example, avidly read class as a whole — would lead a lightly industrial-
1890–1914 G row i n g Te n s i o n s i n M a s s P o l i t i c s 777

ized Russia immediately into socialism. At a 1903 women monitored the regulation of prostitution.
party meeting of Russian Marxists, he maneuvered Their goal was to prevent prostitutes from being
his opponents into walking out of the proceedings imprisoned on suspicion of having syphilis when
so that his supporters gained control of the party. men with syphilis faced no such incarceration.
Thereafter, his faction was known as the Bolshe- Other women took up the cause of pacifism. Many
viks, so named after the Russian word for “major- of them were inspired by Bertha von Suttner’s pop-
ity” (which they had temporarily formed), and ular book Lay Down Your Arms (1889), which em-
they made it their goal to suppress the Mensheviks phasized how war inflicted terror on women and
(“minority”), who had been the dominant voice in families. (Later, von Suttner would influence
Russian Marxism until Lenin outmaneuvered Alfred Nobel to institute a peace prize and then
them. Neither of these factions, however, had as win the prize herself in 1903.)
large a constituency within Russia as the Socialist By the 1890s, many activists decided to focus
Revolutionaries, whose objective was to politicize their efforts on a single issue — the right to vote —
peasants, rather than industrial workers, as the as the most effective way to correct the many prob-
foundation of a populist revolution. All of these lems caused by male privilege. Thereafter,
groups prepared for the revolutionary moment suffragists created major organizations involving
through study, propaganda efforts, and organizing — millions of activists, paid officials, and permanent
not through the electoral politics successfully em- offices out of the earlier reform groups and
ployed elsewhere in Europe. women’s clubs. British suffrage leader Millicent
During this same period, anarchists, along Garrett Fawcett (1847–1929) pressured members
with some trade union members known as syndi- of Parliament for women’s right to vote and par-
calists, kept Europe in a panic with their terrorist ticipated in national and international congresses
acts. In the 1880s, anarchists had bombed stock ex- on behalf of suffrage. Across the Atlantic, Ameri-
changes, parliaments, and businesses; by the 1890s, can Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) traveled the
they were assassinating heads of state: the Spanish country to speak at mass suffrage rallies, edited a
premier in 1897, the empress of Austria-Hungary suffragist newspaper, and founded the Interna-
in 1898, the king of Italy in 1900, and the presi- tional Woman Suffrage Alliance in 1904. Its lead-
dent of the United States in 1901, to name a few ership argued that despite men’s promises to
famous victims. Syndicalists advocated the use of protect women in exchange for their inequality, the
direct action, such as general strikes and sabotage, system of male chivalry had led to exploitation and
to paralyze the economy and give labor unions abuse. “So long as the subjection of women en-
more power. Not unexpectedly, the upper and dures, and is confirmed by law and custom, . . .
middle classes watched these developments with women will be victimized,” a leading British suf-
alarm, while politicians from the old landowning fragist claimed. Other activists believed that
and military elites of eastern and central Europe women had attributes needed to balance mascu-
tried to figure out how to reverse the trend toward line qualities that dominated society. The charac-
constitutionalism and mass political participation. teristics associated with mothering were as
necessary in shaping a country’s destiny as were
qualities that stemmed from industry and com-
Rights for Women and
merce, they asserted.
the Battle for Suffrage Women’s rights activists were predominantly,
Women continued to agitate for the benefits of lib- though not exclusively, from the middle class. Free
eralism such as the right to own their wages and from the need to earn a living, they simply had
to be represented in parliaments. In most coun- more time to be activists and to read the works of
tries, women could not vote or own property if feminist theorists such as Harriet Taylor and John
married; in some, they could not exercise free Stuart Mill. They attended theater productions of
speech. Laws in France, Austria, and Germany even Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s jarring plays
made women’s attendance at political meetings a about rebellious middle-class heroines and partly
crime. There were many battlefields besides the saw feminism in terms of their experience of
one for legal rights. German women focused on middle-class life. But working-class women also
widening opportunities for female education. participated in the suffrage movement, though
Their activism aimed to achieve the German cul- many distrusted the middle class and believed suf-
tural ideal of Bildung — the belief that education frage to be less crucial than women’s pressing eco-
can build character and that individual develop- nomic concerns. Textile workers of Manchester,
ment has public importance. In several countries, England, for example, put together a vigorous
778 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

carried little hammers in their hand-


warming muffs to smash the plate-glass
windows of department stores and
shops. Parades and demonstrations
made suffrage a public spectacle, and
outraged men responded by attacking
the marchers. Arrested for disturbing
the peace, the marchers went on hunger
strikes in prison. Like striking workers,
these women were willing to use con-
frontational tactics to obtain rights, and
like anarchists they were not afraid to
damage property. The struggle for and
against women’s right to vote added to
the tensions of urban life.

Liberalism Tested
Governments in western Europe, where
liberal institutions were seemingly well
entrenched, sought to control the turn-
of-the-century conflicts of the late
nineteenth century with pragmatic
Woman Suffrage in Finland policies that often struck at liberalism’s
In 1906, Finnish women became the first in Europe to receive the very foundations. Beyond ending the
vote in national elections when the socialist party there—usually policy of free trade at the heart of eco-
opposed to feminism as a middle-class rather than a working- nomic liberalism, politicians decided
class project—supported woman suffrage. The Finnish vote that government needed to expand so-
encouraged activists in the West, now linked together by many cial welfare programs — another break
international organizations and ties, because it showed that more with the liberal idea that societies
than a century of lobbying for reform could lead to gains. (Mary should develop freely without govern-
Evans Picture Library.)
ment interference. Although the pro-
grams were few and addressed urban
needs only in part, they added to the
movement for the vote, seeing it as essential to im- growing apparatus of the welfare state in which
proved working conditions. governments actively promoted social well-being.
In 1906 in Finland, suffragists achieved their
first major victory when the Finnish parliament Revising Liberalism in Britain. Political parties
granted women the vote. But the failure of parlia- in Britain discovered that the recently enfran-
ments elsewhere in Europe to enact similar legisla- chised voter wanted solid benefits in exchange for
tion provoked some suffragists to violence. British his support. In 1905, the British Liberal Party won
suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928) and a majority in the House of Commons and pushed
her daughters founded the Women’s Social and Po- for social legislation aimed at the working class.
litical Union (WSPU) in 1903 in the belief that “We are keenly in sympathy with the representa-
women would accomplish nothing unless they tives of Labour,” one Liberal politician an-
threatened men’s property. Starting in 1907, mem- nounced. “We have too few of them in the House
bers of the WSPU held parades in English cities, of Commons.” The National Insurance Act of
and in 1909 they began a campaign of violence, 1911 instituted a program of unemployment as-
blowing up railroad stations, slashing works of art, sistance funded by new taxes on the wealthy.
and chaining themselves to the gates of Parliament. When Conservatives in the House of Lords resis-
Disguising themselves as ordinary shoppers, they ted the higher taxation, the Liberal government
threatened to add to the number of lords and thus
dilute the power of the nobility. The newcomers,
Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928): Organizer of a militant
branch of the British suffrage movement, working actively for unlike the defiant Conservatives, would be sure to
women’s right to vote. vote for reform. Under this threat, the lords ap-
1890–1914 G row i n g Te n s i o n s i n M a s s P o l i t i c s 779

proved the Parliament Bill of 1911, which elimi- Underworld” and accused him of preferring to buy
nated their veto power. the votes of local bosses rather than spend money
The Irish question further tested Britain’s com- to develop the Italian economy. In a wave of
mitment to such liberal values as autonomy, op- protest, urban workers in the industrial cities of
portunity, and individual rights. In the 1890s, new Turin and Milan and rural laborers in the de-
groups formed to foster Irish culture as a way of pressed agrarian south demanded change, espe-
heightening the political challenge to what they saw cially of the suffrage laws that allowed only three
as Britain’s continuing colonization of the country. million of more than eight million adult men to
In 1901, the circle around poet William Butler Yeats vote. Giolitti appeased the protesters by instituting
and actress Maud Gonne founded the Irish Na- social welfare programs and, in 1912, virtually
tional Theater to present Irish rather than English complete manhood suffrage. These reforms, how-
plays. Gonne took Irish politics into everyday life ever, did not signal a full commitment either to a
by opposing British efforts to gain the loyalty of the liberal constitutional system or to economic devel-
young. Every time an English monarch visited Ire- opment across the nation.
land, he or she held special receptions for children.
Gonne and other Irish volunteers sponsored com-
Anti-Semitism, Nationalism,
peting events, handing out candies and other treats
for patriotic youngsters. “Dublin never witnessed and Zionism in Mass Politics
anything so marvelous,” enthused one home rule The real crisis for liberal political values of equal
supporter, “as the procession . . . of thirty thousand citizenship and tolerance came in the two decades
school children who refused to be bribed into leading up to World War I when politicians used
parading before the Queen of England.” anti-Semitism and militant nationalism to win
Promoters of an “Irish way of life” encouraged elections. They told voters that Jews were respon-
speaking Gaelic instead of English, singing Gaelic sible for the difficulties of everyday life and that
songs, and rallying in support of Catholicism in- anti-Semitism and increased patriotism would fix
stead of the Anglican church. This cultural agenda all problems. Voters from all levels of society re-
gained political force with the founding in 1905 of sponded enthusiastically, agreeing that Jews were
Sinn Fein (“We Ourselves”), a group that strove villains and the nation-state was the hero in the
for complete Irish independence. In 1913, Parlia- armed struggle to survive. In both republics and
ment approved home rule for Ireland, but the out- monarchies, anti-Semitism and militant national-
break of World War I prevented the legislation ism played key roles in mass politics by providing
from taking effect though it hardly killed dreams those on the radical right with a platform to gain
of independence. working-class votes and thus combat the radical
left of social democracy. This new radical right
Unrest in Italy. Italian nation builders, left with shattered the older notion of nationalism based on
a towering debt from unification and with wide- liberal ideas of the rule of law and the equality of
spread pockets of discontent, drifted rapidly from all citizens. Liberals had hoped that voting by the
liberalism’s moorings in solid industrial develop- masses would make politics more harmonious as
ment and the rule of law. Corruption plagued parliamentary debate and compromise smoothed
Italy’s constitutional monarchy, which had not yet out class differences. The new politics as shaped by
developed either the secure parliamentary system right-wing leaders — usually representatives of the
of England or the authoritarian monarchy of Ger- agrarian nobility, aristocrats who controlled the
many to guide its growth. To forge a national con- military, and highly placed clergy — dashed those
sensus in the 1890s, prime ministers used patriotic hopes by making politics loud, emotional, and
rhetoric and imperial adventure, culminating in a hateful.
second unsuccessful attempt to conquer Ethiopia
in 1896. Riots and strikes, followed by armed gov- Authoritarianism in Russia. A strong tradition of
ernment repression, erupted, until Giovanni Gi- anti-Semitism existed in Russian politics. Russian
olitti, who served as prime minister for three terms tsar Nicholas II (r. 1894–1917) believed firmly in
between 1903 and 1914, adopted a policy known Russian orthodox religion, autocratic politics, and
as trasformismo (from the word for “transform”). anti-Semitic social values. Taught as a child to hate
Following this policy, he used bribes, public works Jews, Nicholas blamed them for any failure in
programs, and other benefits to localities to gain
support from their deputies in parliament. Politi- Nicholas II: Tsar of Russia (r. 1894–1917) who promoted anti-
cal opponents called Giolitti the “Minister of the Semitism and resisted reform in the empire.
780 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

Russian policy. Many high officials eagerly en- eral alliance of businessmen, shopkeepers, profes-
dorsed anti-Semitism to gain the tsar’s favor. sionals, and rural property owners who backed re-
Pogroms became a regular threat to Russian Jews, publican government opposed by powerful forces
especially as Nicholas was adamant that he would in the aristocracy, military, and Catholic church
never order soldiers to “fire on Christians to pro- who hoped that it, like earlier republics, could be
tect Jews.” Nicholas increasingly limited where brought down. Economic downturns, widespread
Jews could live and how they could earn a living. corruption, and attempted coups made the repub-
This tradition of anti-Semitism was integral to lic even more vulnerable, and the press attributed
Russian autocracy and religion, but it was not yet failures of almost any kind to Jews, who, it said,
a tool in modern party politics. controlled all businesses and even the republic it-
self. Despite an excellent system of primary educa-
The Dreyfus Affair in France. Principles of equal tion promoting literacy and rational thinking, the
citizenship and tolerance were sorely tested in public tended to agree, while the clergy and monar-
France, where the most notorious instance of anti- chists kept hammering the message that the repub-
Semitism in mass politics occurred in the Dreyfus lic was nothing but a conspiracy of Jews.
Affair. The Third Republic was fragile, with the lib- Amid rising anti-Semitism, a Jewish captain in
the French army, Alfred Dreyfus, was charged with
spying for Germany in 1894. From a well-
respected family, Dreyfus had worked his way
The Humiliation of Alfred Dreyfus through the military, whose upper echelons were
French captain Alfred Dreyfus was sent to a harsh exile after being traditionally aristocratic, Catholic, and monar-
convicted of spying for Germany. Before he was taken to Devil’s chist. The military produced “evidence” — later
Island, he was subjected to the extreme humiliation of having his proved to be false — to gain Dreyfus’s conviction
officer’s insignia and ribbons stripped from his uniform and his and exile to the harsh fortress on Devil’s Island.
sword broken before hundreds of troops and a mob of screaming Even though the espionage continued, the repub-
anti-Semites. We imagine what this meant to a man in his mid- lican government adamantly upheld Dreyfus’s
thirties, who despite being Jewish had worked his way through
guilt. Then several newspapers received proof that
an elite military school and up the ranks of the army. What do you
see in his bearing? (The Granger Collection, New York)
the army had used perjured testimony and fabri-
cated documents to convict Dreyfus. In 1898, the
celebrated French novelist Émile Zola published an
article titled “J’accuse” (I accuse) on the front page
of a Paris daily. Zola cited a list of military lies and
government cover-ups that had created the im-
pression of Dreyfus’s guilt.
The article named the truly guilty parties and
called for a return to government based on hon-
esty, tolerance, and the rule of law. “I have but one
passion, that of Enlightenment,” wrote Zola. His
piece led to public riots, quarrels among families
and friends, and denunciations of the army, erod-
ing public confidence in the republic and in French
institutions. The government finally pardoned
Dreyfus in 1899, dismissed the aristocratic and
Catholic officers held responsible, and ended reli-
gious teaching orders to ensure a secular public
school system that promoted tolerance and hon-
ored the rule of law. In the final analysis, however,
the Dreyfus Affair made anti-Semitism a standard
tool of politics by showing the effectiveness of
hate-filled slogans in shaping public opinion.

Nationalist and Anti-Semitic Politics in Germany.


The ruling elites in Germany also used anti-Semitism
to win support from those caught up in the con-
fusion of Germany’s sudden industrialization. The
1890–1914 G row i n g Te n s i o n s i n M a s s P o l i t i c s 781

agrarian elites still controlled the highest reaches rupted the Hungarian parlia- GERMANY RUSSIA
of government and influenced the kaiser’s policy, ment so regularly that it weak- 
Prague
but the basis of their power was rapidly eroding. ened the orderly functioning of
Vienna

Agriculture, from which they drew their fortunes, the government. Budapest

declined as a percentage of gross national product Although capable of caus- AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
from 37 percent in the 1880s to only 25 percent ing trouble for the empire,
early in the 1900s. New opportunities drew rural Hungarian nationalists, who ROMANIA
SERBIA
workers to the cities, where they would be free mostly represented agrarian ITALY
BULGARIA
from the landowner’s grip. As industrialists grew wealth, were themselves vulner- 0 100 200 miles
0 100 200 kilometers
wealthier, the agrarian elites came to loathe indus- able. Exploited ethnic groups —
try for challenging their traditional authority. As a Slovaks, Romanians, and Ru- Germans Poles

Berlin newspaper noted, “The agrarians’ hate for thenians — formed their own Italians Magyars
(Hungarians)
Czechs
cities . . . blinds them to the simplest needs and the political alliances to resist Mag- Slovaks
Slovenes
most natural demands of the urban population.” yarization. Industrial workers Ruthenians
Croats
In contrast to Bismarck’s astute wooing of the struck to protest horrendous la- and Serbs Romanians
masses through social programs, William II’s aris- bor conditions, and in the fall of
tocracy often encouraged anti-Semitism, both in 1905, 100,000 activists gathered Principal Ethnic Groups in
the corridors of power and in the streets. in front of the Hungarian par- Austria-Hungary, c. 1900
Conservatives and a growing radical right liament to demonstrate for the
claimed that Jews, who made up less than 1 per- vote. In response, Hungarians intensified Mag-
cent of the German population, were responsible yarization, even decreeing that all tombstones be
for destroying traditional society. In the 1890s, na- engraved in Magyar. Emperor Francis Joseph tem-
tionalist and anti-Semitic political pressure groups porarily quieted the Hungarian nationalists by
flourished, hurling diatribes against Jews, “new threatening to introduce universal manhood suf-
women,” and Social Democrats, whom they frage, which would allow both the Magyars’ lower-
branded as internationalist and unpatriotic. In the class and non-Magyar opponents to vote. Although
1890s, agrarian conservatives played to the fears of numerous ethnic groups and many Jews assimilated
small farmers by accusing Jews of causing agricul- Magyar ways, the chauvinist nature of Hungarian
tural booms and busts. Political campaigns came policies toward both the other ethnic groups and
to feature hate-filled speeches against an array of the imperial government in Vienna made for insta-
groups rather than rational programs to meet the bility throughout Austria-Hungary.
problems of economic change. The politics of this Hungarian nationalism roused other nation-
new right invented a modern politics that rejected alities to intensify their demands for rights. Croats,
the liberal value of parliamentary consensus, rely- Serbs, and other Slavic groups in the south called
ing instead on mouthing slogans and inventing en- for equality with the Hungarians. The central gov-
emies within what was supposed to be a unified ernment allowed the Czechs a greater number of
nation-state. Czech officials in the government because of the
growing industrial prosperity of their region. But
Ethnic Politics in Austria-Hungary. Politicians in every step favoring the Czechs provoked outrage
the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary also used from the traditionally dominant ethnic Germans.
militant nationalism and anti-Semitism to win When Austria-Hungary decreed in 1897 that gov-
votes, but here the presence of many ethnic groups ernment officials in the Czech region of the em-
meant competing nationalisms and thus greater pire would have to speak Czech as well as German,
complexity in the politics of hate. Foremost among the Germans rioted — further straining the stabil-
the nationalists were the Hungarians, who wanted ity and unity in the empire.
autonomy for themselves while forcibly imposing Tensions mounted as German politicians in
Hungarian language and culture on all other, sup- Vienna linked the growing power of Hungarians
posedly inferior, ethnic groups in Hungary. Na- and Czechs to Jews. Karl Lueger, whose newly
tionalist claims for greater Hungarian influence formed Christian Social Party attracted members
(or Magyarization, from Magyars, the principal from among the aristocracy, Catholics, artisans,
ethnic group) rested on two pieces of evidence: shopkeepers, and white-collar workers, had great
Budapest was a thriving industrial city, and the success with this new brand of politics. In hate-
export of Hungarian grain from the vast estates filled speeches that hurled abuse at Jews and other
of the Magyar nobility saved the monarchy’s fi- non-German groups, Lueger appealed to those
nances. The nationalist Independence Party dis- groups for whom modern life meant a loss of priv-
782 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

ilege and security — and was elected mayor of Vi- pire because it seemed more rational and liberal
enna in 1895. Lueger’s ethnic nationalism and than the ritualistic Catholicism of Austria-Hungary.
anti-Semitism threatened the multinationalism on Still, many accomplished and prosperous Jews, like
which Austria-Hungary was based. His attacks the pioneer of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud,
were so effective at getting votes, however, that a flourished amid the cosmopolitan urban culture
widening group of politicians made anti-Semitism of Vienna or Budapest despite escalating anti-
an integral part of their election campaigns, call- Semitism. By contrast, less educated and less pros-
ing Jews the “sucking vampire” of modernity and perous Jews, such as those in Russia and Romania,
blaming them for the tumult of migration, the were increasingly singled out for persecution,
economy, and just about anything else people legally disadvantaged, and forced to live in ghet-
found disturbing. Politics became a thing not of tos. Jews from these countries might seek refuge in
debate in parliaments but of violent racism in the the nearby cities of central and eastern Europe
streets. where they could eke out a living as day laborers
or artisans. Jewish migration to the United States
The Jewish Response to Anti-Liberal Politics. and other countries also swelled (Map 24.1). By
Like Christians and people of other religions, Jews 1900, many Jews were prominent in cultural and
often differed from one another, separated by so- economic affairs in cities across the continent even
cial class and education. Jews in western Europe as far more were discriminated against and victim-
had responded to increased legal tolerance in the ized elsewhere.
nineteenth century by moving out of Jewish neigh- Amid vast migration and continued persecu-
borhoods, intermarrying with Christians, and in tion, a spirit of Jewish nationalism arose. “Why
some cases converting to Christianity — practices should we be any less worthy than any
known as assimilation. Many well-educated Jews other . . . people,” one Jewish leader asked. “What
favored the classical culture of the German Em- about our nation, our language, our land?” Jews

MAP 24.1 Jewish Migrations in the The Pale of Settlement


Late Nineteenth Century Other areas of large Jewish population
Pogroms in eastern Europe, increasingly violent  Cities with large Jewish population
anti-Semitism across the continent, and the General routes of Jewish exodus
search for opportunity motivated Jews to
migrate to many parts of the world. Between 0 200 400 miles

1890 and 1914, some five million Jews left 0 200 400 kilometers
NORWAY
Russia alone. They moved to European cities; St. Petersburg
SWEDEN
to North and South America; and, as Zionism W
N
Expelled
progressed, to Palestine. GREAT North 1881
ea

E BRITAIN Sea  Riga 


Moscow
cS

S
DENMARK
lt i

 Leeds Ba Vilna
Expelled
Danzig 1881
Manchester  
 Hamburg  Minsk RUSSIA
NETH.
London
Warsaw
Berlin  
To U.S. Lodz 
BELG. GERMANY Kiev

 Prague  
ATLANTIC  Paris Frankfurt  Cracow Lemberg
OCEAN
Odessa
FRANCE SWITZ. Vienna  Budapest 

AUSTRIA-
A

Trieste 
NI

HUNGARY A
RO M Black Sea
L

SERBIA
GA

ITALY BULGARIA
RTU

SPAIN
Rome OT  Constantinople
TOM
PO

AN E
MPIRE
To U.S. and South Amer GREECE
ica

To
CYPRUS
Pa (Br.)
MOROCCO les
(Fr.) TUNISIA M e dite r r ane an S e a tin
e
(Fr.)

ALGERIA
(Fr.) LIBYA
(It.) EGYPT
1890–1914 E u ro p e a n I m p e r i a l i s m C h a l l e n g e d 783

DOCUMENT

Leon Pinsker Calls for a Jewish State


In 1882, the Ukrainian physician Leon minated in Judeophobia. Judeophobia is a for our poor brothers, which shall remain
Pinsker published a pamphlet called Auto- psychic aberration. As a psychic aberra- our property and from which no foreign
Emancipation in which he analyzed the sit- tion it is hereditary, and as a disease trans- power can expel us. There we shall take
uation of the Jews in Europe. This pamphlet mitted for two thousand years it is with us the most sacred possessions which
convinced some in Europe — most notably incurable. . . . we have saved from the shipwreck of our
Theodor Herzl — that Jews could never be The Jews are aliens who can have no former country, the God-idea and the
assimilated to European culture no matter representatives, because they have no Bible. It is these alone which have made
how many dropped their religion in favor of country. Because they have none, because our old fatherland the Holy Land, and not
Christian ways. This pamphlet ultimately their home has no boundaries within Jerusalem or the Jordan. Perhaps the Holy
led some Jews to migrate to Palestine, de- which they can be entrenched, their mis- Land will again become ours. If so, all the
spite Pinsker’s own conviction that the ery too is boundless. . . . better, but first of all, we must deter-
Middle East was not necessarily the right . . . If we would have a secure home, mine — and this is the crucial point —
place for creating a Jewish nation. give up our endless life of wandering and what country is accessible to us, and at the
rise to the dignity of a nation in our own same time adapted to offer the Jews of all
This is the kernel of the problem, as we see eyes and in the eyes of the world, we must, lands who must leave their homes a se-
it: the Jews comprise a distinctive element above all, not dream of restoring ancient cure and indisputed refuge, capable of
among the nations under which they dwell, Judaea. We must not attach ourselves to productivization.
and as such can neither assimilate nor be the place where our political life was once
readily digested by any nation. . . . violently interrupted and destroyed. The Source: Robert Chazan and Marc Lee Raphael,
A fear of the Jewish ghost has passed goal of our present endeavors must be not eds., Modern Jewish History: A Source Reader (New
down the generations and the centuries. the “Holy Land,” but a land of our own. York: Schocken Books, 1974), 161, 163, 165–66,
First a breeder of prejudice, later . . . it cul- We need nothing but a large tract of land 169–71, 171–74.

began organizing resistance to pogroms and ganized the first International Zionist Congress
anti-Semitic politics, and intellectuals drew on (1897). By 1914, some eighty-five thousand Jews
Jewish folklore, language, customs, and history had moved into Palestine.
to establish a national identity parallel to that of
other Europeans. In the 1880s, the Ukrainian
Review: What were the points of tension in European
physician Leon Pinsker, seeing the Jews’ lack of
political life at the beginning of the twentieth century?
national territory as fundamental to the perse-
cution heaped on them, advocated the migration
of Jews to Palestine. (See Document, “Leon
Pinsker Calls for a Jewish State,” above.) In 1896,
Theodor Herzl, strongly influenced by Pinsker,
European Imperialism
published The Jewish State, which called not sim- Challenged
ply for migration but for the creation of a Jew-
ish nation-state, the goal of a movement known Anti-Semitism was only one sign that the condi-
as Zionism. A Hungarian-born Jew, Herzl expe- tions of modern life were deeply troubling and that
rienced anti-Semitism firsthand as a Viennese the rule of law and other liberal values like toler-
journalist and a writer in Paris during the Drey- ance were now threatened. Militant nationalism
fus Affair. He scoured Europe for financial back- across the West made it difficult for nations to calm
ing, but many prosperous Jews who had domestic politics and ease the tensions caused by
assimilated thought his ideas mad. However, rapid industrial and social change. The political at-
backed by poorer eastern European Jews, he or- mosphere heated up, as imperialism made relations
among the European powers alarmingly worse and
Zionism: A movement that began in the late nineteenth century as colonized peoples challenged European control.
among European Jews to found a Jewish state. Japan’s growth as an Asian power also threatened:
784 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

in 1904–1905, Japanese expansionism came close and Germany now fought for a place at the impe-
to toppling the mighty Russian Empire. rial table, and the tense atmosphere among nations
raised questions about the future. “Where thirty
years ago there existed one sensitive spot in our re-
The Trials of Empire lations with France, or Germany, or Russia,” the
After centuries of global expansion, imperial ad- British economist J. A. Hobson wrote in 1902,
venture soured for Britain and France at the be- “there are a dozen now; diplomatic strains are of
ginning of the twentieth century. Newcomers Italy almost monthly occurrence between the Powers.”

SPANISH E
W
MOROCCO
TUNISIA S
MOROCCO Me dit e rrane an S e a

Suez Canal
IFNI LIBYA
ALGERIA (TRIPOLI)

N
RIO DE EGYPT

i le
ORO

R.

Re
dS
ea
MAURITANIA
R.
ger FRENCH
Ni
WEST AFRICA ANGLO-EGYPTIAN ERITREA FRENCH
SENEGAL SUDAN
GAMBIA 1906, insurrection SOMALILAND
in Sokoto
PORTUGUESE
CA

GUINEA BRITISH
GOLD NIGERIA Fashoda  SOMALILAND
AFRI

COAST ABYSSINIA
SIERRA CAMEROON
LEONE (KAMERUN) (ETHIOPIA)
IAL

LIBERIA 1904–1905, Germans


TOGO ITALIAN
OR

suppress insurrection
1900, uprising; British SOMALILAND
go R.
AT

suppress Ushantis 1904, insurrection in Con UGANDA BRITISH


southern Nigeria
U

EQ EAST AFRICA
SPANISH GUINEA H
(RIO MUNI) NC
FREFrench
(KENYA) 1899–1900, Mohammed
BELGIAN ben Abdullah
Congo clashes with British,
CONGO GERMAN Italians, Ethiopians
1905, uprising EAST AFRICA ZANZIBAR
A TL A NTI C 1905, insurrection
OC EA N CABINDA
NYASALAND
ANGOLA
1902, uprising suppressed by Portuguese
1907, uprising (inspired by Herero uprising NORTHERN
UE

in German S.W. Africa) RHODESIA


Q
BI
AM

GERMAN SOUTHERN
SOUTHWEST RHODESIA
OZ

AFRICA MADAGASCAR
M

BECHUANALAND
1904–1908, uprising
British (Herero tribe plus Hottentots)
French
German SWAZILAND
1903, Hottentot uprising BASUTOLAND
I N D I AN
Italian UNION OF O C EA N
Portuguese SOUTH AFRICA
1899–1902, South African War
Independent African states
Belgian 1914, Boer uprising 0 250 500 miles
Spanish
0 250 500 kilometers

MAP 24.2 Africa in 1914


Uprisings intensified in Africa in the early twentieth century as Europeans tried both to consolidate
their rule and to extract more wealth from the Africans. As Europeans were putting down rebellions
against their rule, a pan-African movement arose, attempting to unite Africans as one people.
1890–1914 E u ro p e a n I m p e r i a l i s m C h a l l e n g e d 785

Mounting tensions exploded violently when Japan vigorous efforts to free themselves from Spanish
and Russia went to war in 1904. rule before the war. Urged on by the expansionist-
minded Theodore Roosevelt (then assistant secre-
The South African War. The imperial tide turned tary of the navy) and the inflammatory daily press,
for Britain in the South African War (or Boer War) the United States went to war, claiming it was do-
of 1899–1902. In 1896, Cecil Rhodes, then prime ing so to help the independence movements. In-
minister of the Cape Colony in southern Africa, stead of allowing the independence that victory
directed a raid into the neighboring territory of promised, however, the U. S. government annexed
the Transvaal in hopes of stirring up trouble be- Puerto Rico and Guam and bought the Philippines
tween the Boers, descendants of early Dutch set- from Spain. Cuba was theoretically independent,
tlers, and the more recent immigrants from Britain but the United States monitored its activities.
who had come to southern Africa in search of gold Both Spain and the United States found the
and other riches. In Rhodes’s scheme, the turmoil fortunes of imperialism unpredictable. Spain lost
caused by the raid would justify a British takeover its territories, and the triumphant United States
of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, which next had to wage a bloody war against the Fil-
the Boers independently controlled. The Boers, ipinos, who wanted independence, not another
however, easily routed the raiders, dealing Britain imperial ruler. British poet Rudyard Kipling had
a bloody defeat and forcing Rhodes to resign in encouraged the United States to “take up the white
disgrace. man’s burden” by bringing the benefits of Western
The stunned British government did not ac- civilization to those liberated from Spain. How-
cept defeat easily, especially when other Europeans ever, reports of American brutality in the Philip-
gloated over the British loss. Kaiser William II pines, where some 200,000 local people were
telegraphed his congratulations to the Transvaal slaughtered, further disillusioned the Western
president for “maintaining the independence of the public, who liked to imagine native peoples joy-
country against attacks from without.” In 1899, ously welcoming the bearers of civilization.
Britain began full-scale operations against the Despite these setbacks, newly powerful coun-
Boers. Foreign correspondents covering the South tries had an emotional stake in gaining colonies. In
African War reported on appalling bloodshed, the early twentieth century, Ital-
heavy casualties, and the unfit condition of the av- ian public figures bragged about 0 250 500 miles

Re
d
erage British soldier. Most alarmingly to those who Italians becoming Nietzschean 0 250 500 kilometers

Se
a
liked to think of Britain as the most civilized coun- supermen by conquering Africa Blue
ERITREA
Nile
try in the world, news arrived back in London of and restoring Italy to its ancient 
Adowa
R

rampant disease and inhumane treatment of South position of world domination. 1896
.

Africans herded into an unfamiliar institution — After a disastrous war against BRITISH
SOMALILAND
the concentration camp, which became the grave- Ethiopia in 1896, Italy won a ABYSSINIA
(ETHIOPIA)
yard of tens of thousands. Britain finally annexed costly victory over the Ottoman
the area after defeating the Boers in 1902, but the Empire in Libya. These wars
cost of war in money, destruction, demoralization, stirred the military spirit in Ital- ITALIAN
and loss of life was enormous (Map 24.2, page 784). ians, and hopes rose for imperial SOMALILAND
BRITISH
Prominent citizens began to call imperialism not grandeur in the future. EAST AFRICA
the work of civilization but an act of barbarism. Germany likewise joined
Italian territory
the imperial contest, demand- British territory
Newcomers Face Setbacks. Nearly simultane- ing an end to British-French French territory
ously with the South African War, the United States domination as colonial powers. Independent
defeated Spain in the Spanish-American War in Under Bismarck, Germany had
1898 and took Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philip- begun its imperial expansion, The Struggle for Ethiopia, 1896
pines as its trophies. Not a novice to imperialism, and German bankers and busi-
the United States had successfully crushed native nessmen were ensconced throughout Asia, the
Americans, killing many and confining survivors Middle East, and Latin America. By the turn of the
to reservations. Its imperial reach had generally century, Germany had colonies in Southwest
been continental until its annexation of Hawaii in Africa, the Cameroons, Togoland, and East Africa
1898. Both Cuba and the Philippines had begun and sent linguists, ethnographers, and museum
curators to study other cultures and obtain their
treasures. Despite these successes, there was no
South African War: The war between Britain and the Boer (orig-
inally Dutch) inhabitants of South Africa for control of the re- easy road to colonial might. Germany, too, met hu-
gion (1899–1902); also called the Boer War. miliation and faced constant problems, especially
786 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

R U S S I A Sea of
IAN RAI
BER LR Okhotsk
S-SI OA
T RAN

Irt y
A D
mu N
rR

sh
R. Sakhalin
MONGOLIA E

.
(1905) W
Autonomous 1912;
Aral under Russian influence
Sea MANCHURIA Sea of S
Ca

Japan
s pi

Independent following the Port Arthur 1904


an

Chinese Revolution of 1911–1912 (Rus. 1898, Jap. 1905) JAPANESE



Sea

KOREA
C H I N A (1910)  
EMPIRE
AFGHANISTAN Tsushima Tokyo
Boxer Uprising
s R.
Straits
PERSIA Indu TIBET of 1900
 (1904)
Shanghai East
eR

.
NEPAL tz
China RYUKYU IS.
Y ang Sea (Japan)
Ga
ng
es BHUTAN
R. Formosa
INDIA 
Hong
(1895) PACIFIC
BURMA
Tonkin
Kong OCEAN
South
Arabian China
Sea Bay of SIAM
Bengal FRENCH Sea  Manila
PHILIPPINES
INDOCHINA

Saigon
Ceylon BRITISH
NORTH
MALAY BORNEO
STATES SARAWAK
Territories held by: Singapore
Borneo
Great Britain Celebes
INDIAN OCEAN Sumatra
Netherlands NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES New Guinea
France
Java
United States Timor
Japan
0 500 1,000 miles
 Battle
0 500 1,000 kilometers AUSTRALIA

MAP 24.3 Imperialism in Asia, 1894–1914


The established imperialists came to blows in East Asia as they struggled for influence in China and
as they met a formidable new rival—Japan. Simultaneously, liberation groups like the Boxers were
taking shape, committed to throwing off restraints imposed by foreign powers and eliminating these
interlopers altogether. In 1911, revolutionary Sun Yat-Sen overthrew the Qing dynasty, which had left
China unprepared to resist foreign takeover, and started the country on a different course.

in its dealings with Britain and France and with eastern Asia, the Russians had built the Trans-
local peoples in Africa and elsewhere who resisted Siberian Railroad through Manchuria, sent mil-
the German takeover of their lands. As Italy and lions of Russian settlers eastward, and sponsored
Germany joined the aggressive pursuit of new ter- anti-Japanese groups in Korea, making the Korean
ritory, the rules set for imperialism at the Congress peninsula appear, as a Japanese military leader put
of Berlin a generation earlier gave way to increas- it, like “a dagger thrust at the heart of Japan.” An-
ingly heated rivalry and nationalist passion. gered by the continuing presence of Russian troops
in Manchuria, the Japanese attacked the tsar’s
Japan Victorious. Japan’s rise as an imperial forces at Port Arthur in 1904 (Map 24.3).
power further ate into Europeans’ confident ap- The conservative Russian military proved in-
proach to imperialism. Continuing its expansion ept in the ensuing Russo-Japanese War, even
in the region, in 1894, Japan defeated China in the though it often had better equipment or strategic
Sino-Japanese War, which ended China’s domina- advantage. Russia’s Baltic Fleet sailed halfway
tion of Korea. The European powers, alarmed at around the globe only to be completely destroyed
Japan’s victory, forced it to relinquish most gains, by Japan in the battle of Tsushima Straits (1905).
a move that outraged and affronted the Japanese. Opening an era of Japanese domination in East
Japan’s insecurity had risen with Russian expan- Asian politics, the victory was the first by a non-
sion to the east and south in Asia. Pushing into European nation over a European great power in
1890–1914 E u ro p e a n I m p e r i a l i s m C h a l l e n g e d 787

the modern age, and it gave the West reason to fear in the government. Delegates
Peasant unrest
the future. As one English general observed of the from revolutionary parties and land seizures
Russian defeat: “I have today seen the most stu- such as the Social Democrats  Workers’ soviets
pendous spectacle it is possible for the mortal and the Socialist Revolutionar-  Army mutinies
brain to conceive — Asia advancing, Europe falling ies encouraged more direct  Naval mutinies
back.” Japan annexed Korea in 1910 and began to blows against the central gov- Major strikes and
armed workers’ uprisings
target other areas for colonization. ernment, but workers rejected St. Petersburg
Revel 
their leadership and organized   
their own councils, called sovi-
The Russian Empire 
Moscow
ets. In February, the uncle of 
Threatened the tsar was assassinated; in June, R U S S I A
Warsaw
Following the humiliating loss to Japan, revolution sailors on the battleship Potem- 
Kiev

erupted in Russia in 1905, and the empire tottered kin mutinied; in October, a mas- 
on the brink of chaos. A mighty empire that had sive railroad strike ground
Sevastopol
expanded southward in Asia and settled much of rail transportation to a halt; 

Ca Sea
sp i
0 150 300 miles Black Sea
Siberia during the nineteenth century, Russia con- and in November, uprisings

an
Baku
cealed its weaknesses well. State-sponsored indus- broke out in Moscow. The 0 300 kilometers  
trialization in the 1890s had made the country tsar’s forces kept killing protest- Russian Revolution of 1905
appear modern to outside observers, and the Rus- ers, but their deaths only pro-
sification policy imitated Western-style state build- duced more protest.
ing by attempting to impose a unified, national Anger at Nicholas II’s absolute rule brought
culture on Russia’s diverse population. Burdened together an opposition of artisans and industrial
by heavy taxes to pay for industrialization and by workers, peasants, professionals, and upper-class
debts owed for the land they acquired during reformers. Women joined the fray, many demand-
emancipation, peasants revolted in isolated upris- ing an end to discriminatory laws such as those fir-
ings at the turn of the century. Unrest occurred in ing women teachers who married. Using the unrest
the cities, too, as Marxist and union activists in- to press their goals, liberals from the zemstvos (lo-
cited workers to demand better conditions. In cal councils) and the intelligentsia (a Russian word
1903, skilled workers led strikes in Baku; the united for well-educated elites) demanded political re-
demonstration of Armenians and Tatars there form, in particular the creation of a constitutional
showed how urbanization and Russification made monarchy and representative legislature. They be-
unified political action possible among the lower lieved that the reliance on censorship and the se-
classes. These and other worker protests chal- cret police, characteristic of Romanov rule,
lenged the autocratic regime, which was weakened relegated Russia to the ranks of the most backward
further by Japan’s victory. states. Nicholas’s halfhearted responses triggered
more street fighting. In the words of one protester,
The Revolution of 1905. On a Sunday in January the tsar’s attitude turned “yesterday’s benighted
1905, a crowd gathered outside the tsar’s Winter slaves into decisive warriors.”
Palace in St. Petersburg to march in a demonstra-
tion to make Nicholas II aware of the brutal work- Attempts at Political Reform. The tsar finally
ing conditions they suffered. Nicholas had often yielded to the violence by creating a representative
traveled the empire, displaying himself as the di- body called the Duma. Although very few Russians
vinely ordained “father” of his people, and thus ap- could vote for representatives to the Duma, its
pealing to him seemed natural to his “children.” mere existence, along with the new right of open
Leading the demonstration was a priest who, un- public debate, liberalized government and allowed
known to the crowd, was a police informant and people to present their grievances to a responsive
agitator. Instead of allowing the marchers to pass, body. Political parties committed to parliamentary
troops guarding the palace shot into the trusting rather than revolutionary programs also took
crowd, killing hundreds and wounding thousands. shape during this time. When these newly formed
Thus began the Revolution of 1905, and news of constitutional parties threw their support to the
“Bloody Sunday” moved outraged workers else- reorganized government, revolutionary activity
where to rebel. finally stopped.
In almost a year of turmoil across Russia, ur-
ban workers struck over wages, hours, and factory Duma: The Russian parliament set up in the aftermath of the
conditions and demanded political representation outbreak of the Revolution of 1905.
788 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

People soon wondered, however, if anything into secret societies to expel the foreigners and re-
had really changed. From 1907 to 1917, the Duma store Chinese autonomy. One organization was the
convened, but twice when the tsar disliked its rec- Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists (or
ommendations he simply sent the delegates home Boxers), whose members maintained that ritual
and forced new elections. Nicholas did have an able boxing would protect them from a variety of evils,
administrator in Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin including bullets. Encouraged by the Qing ruler,
(1863–1911), who was determined to eliminate the Dowager Empress Tz’u-hsi (Cixi; 1835–1908), the
sources of discontent. He ended the mir system of Boxers rebelled in 1900, massacring the mission-
communal farming and taxation, and canceled the aries and Chinese Christians to whom they attrib-
land redemption payments that had burdened the uted China’s troubles. Seven of the colonial powers
peasants since their emancipation in 1861. He also united to put down the Boxer Uprising and en-
made government loans available to peasants, who couraged their troops to ravage the areas in which
were then able to purchase land and thus to own the Boxers operated. Defeated once more, the Chi-
farms outright. Although these reforms did not nese were compelled to pay a huge indemnity for
eradicate rural poverty, they did allow people to damages done to foreign property and to allow
move to the cities in search of jobs and created a even greater foreign military occupation.
larger group of independent peasants. The Boxer Uprising thoroughly discredited
Stolypin succeeded only partially in his other the Qing dynasty, leading a group of revolution-
goal of restoring law and order. He clamped down aries to overthrow the dynasty in 1911 and to de-
on revolutionary organizations, executing their clare China a republic the next year. Their leader,
members by hanging them with “Stolypin neck- Sun Yat-Sen (1866–1925), who had been educated
ties.” The government urged more pogroms and in Hawaii and Japan, combined Western ideas and
stifled ethnic unrest by stepping up Russification. Chinese values in his “Three Principles of the
But rebels continued to assassinate government of- People”: “nationalism, democracy, and socialism.”
ficials — four thousand were killed or wounded in For example, Sun Yat-Sen’s socialism included the
1906–1907. Stolypin himself was assassinated in Chinese belief that all people should have enough
1911. Stolypin’s reforms had promoted peasant food. Sun Yat-Sen’s Nationalist Party called for re-
well-being, which encouraged what one historian vival of the Chinese tradition of correctness in be-
has called a “new peasant assertiveness.” The in- havior between governors and the governed,
dustrial workforce also grew, and another round modern economic reform, and an end to Western
of strikes broke out, culminating in a general strike domination of trade. Sun’s stirring leadership and
in St. Petersburg in 1914. The imperial government the changes brought about by the 1911 revolution
and the conservative nobility still had no solution helped weaken Western imperialism.
to the ongoing turmoil, and their refusal to share
power and produce true political reform left the Nationalists in India. In India, the Japanese vic-
way open to an even greater upheaval in 1917. tory over Russia and the Revolution of 1905 stim-
ulated politicians to take a more radical course
than that offered by the Indian National Congress.
Growing Resistance
The anti-British Hindu leader B. G. Tilak, less
to Colonial Domination moderate than Congress reformers, urged nonco-
Japanese military victories over the Qing in China operation: “We shall not give them assistance to
and the Romanovs in Russia upset the status quo collect revenue and keep peace. We shall not assist
in both countries. In addition, colonized peoples them in fighting beyond the frontiers or outside
gained confidence from the Japanese victory to act India with Indian blood and money.” Tilak pro-
more forcefully against imperialism. Moreover, the moted Hindu customs, asserted the distinctiveness
ability of Russian revolutionaries to force a great of Hindu values from British ways, and inspired
European power to reform, however slightly, en- violent rebellion against the British. This brand of
couraged nationalist protests throughout the nationalism broke with that based on assimilating
globe, further challenging Western imperialists. to British culture and promoting gradual change.
Trying to repress Tilak, the British sponsored a
Revolution in China. Uprisings began in China rival nationalist group, the Muslim League, in a
after its 1895 loss to Japan forced the ruling Qing blatant attempt to divide Muslim nationalists from
dynasty to grant more economic concessions to Hindus in the Congress.
Western powers. Humiliated by these events and Faced with political activism on many fronts,
driven to despair by famine, peasants organized however, Britain conceded to Indians representa-
1890–1914 E u ro p e a n I m p e r i a l i s m C h a l l e n g e d 789

The Foreign Pig Is Put to Death


The Boxers used brightly colored placards to
spread information about their movement in
order to build wide support among the Chinese
population. They felt that the presence of
foreigners had caused a series of disasters,
including the defection of the Chinese from
traditional religion, the flow of wealth from the
country, and a string of natural disasters such
as famine. This depiction shows the harsh
judgment of the Boxers toward foreigners and
their Chinese allies—they are pigs to be killed.
(© The Bridgeman Art Library.)

■ For more help analyzing this image, see the


visual activity for this chapter in the Online
Study Guide at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.

tion in ruling councils and the right to vote based The Japanese defeat of Russia in 1904–1905 elec-
on property ownership. Because the independence trified these nationalists with the vision of a mod-
movement had not fully reached the masses, these ern Turkey becoming “the Japan of the Middle
small concessions to the elites temporarily main- East,” as they called it. In 1908, a group of nation-
tained British power by appeasing the best- alists called the Young Turks took control of the
educated and most influential people in the upper government in Constantinople, which had been
and middle classes. But the British hold on India fatally weakened by nationalist agitation and by
was weakening. the empire’s economic dependence on Western
financiers and businessmen.
Young Turks in the Ottoman Empire. Revolution- The Young Turks’ triumph motivated other
ary nationalism was simultaneously weakening the ethnic groups in the Middle East and the Balkans
Ottoman Empire, which for centuries had con- to demand self-rule, thus ending Ottoman domi-
trolled much of the Mediterranean. Rebellions nation in their regions. These nationalists adopted
plagued Ottoman rule, and this resistance, along Western values and platforms, and some, such as
with Ottoman deterioration as an effective state, the Egyptians, had strong contingents of feminist-
allowed European influence to grow. Just as the nationalists who mobilized women to work for in-
Habsburgs used the transnational appeal of dependence. But the Young Turks, often aided by
Catholicism to quash nationalist aspirations, Sul- European powers with financial and political in-
tan Abdul Hamid II (r. 1876–1909) tried to revi- terests in the region, brutally tried to repress na-
talize the multiethnic empire by using Islam to tionalist uprisings in Egypt, Syria, and the Balkans
counteract the rising nationalism of the Serbs, Bul- that their own success had encouraged.
garians, and Macedonians. Instead, he uninten- The rebellions became part of the tumult
tionally provoked Turkish nationalism in shaping international relations in the decade be-
Constantinople itself. Turkish nationalists rejected fore World War I. Empires, whether old or young,
the sultan’s pan-Islamic solution and built their were the scene of growing opposition in the wake
movement on the uniqueness of their culture, his- of Japanese, Russian, and Turkish events. In Ger-
tory, and language, as many European ethnic man East Africa, colonial forces responded to na-
groups were doing. Using the findings of Western tive resistance in 1905 with a scorched-earth policy
scholarship, they first traced the history and cul- of destroying homes, livestock, food, and other re-
ture of the group they called Turks to change the sources, eventually killing more than 100,000
word Turk from one of derision to one of pride. Africans there. To maintain their grip on In-
790 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

dochina, the French closed the University of ments, the first of which (1904) recognized British
Hanoi, executed Indochinese intellectuals, and de- claims in Egypt and French claims in Morocco.
ported thousands of suspected nationalists. A This agreement marked the beginning of the
French general stationed there summed up the British-French alliance called the Entente Cor-
fears of many colonial rulers: “The gravest fact of diale. Despite the alliance, Britain’s response to a
our actual political situation in Indochina is not European war remained in question; even French
the recent trouble in Tonkin [or] the plots under- statesmen feared that, should war break out, their
taken against us but in the muted but growing ha- ally might decide to remain neutral.
tred that our subjects show toward us.” At home
and abroad, Western political ambitions had given Germany’s Imperial Demands. Kaiser William II
birth to political violence. inflamed the diplomatic atmosphere just as France
and Britain were reaching these diplomatic under-
Review: How and why did events in overseas empires
standings. After victory in the Franco-Prussian
from the 1890s on challenge Western faith in imperialism? War, Bismarck had proclaimed Germany a “satis-
fied” nation and worked to balance great-power
interests, generally avoiding imperial battles.
William II, in contrast, was emboldened by Ger-
Roads to War many’s growing industrial might and announced
in 1901 that Germany needed world power
International developments intensified competi- achieved by “friendly conquests.” But his actions
tion among the great powers and drove Western were far from friendly. Convinced of British hos-
nationalism to become more aggressive. In the tility toward France, William II used the opportu-
spring of 1914, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson nity presented by the defeat of France’s ally Russia
(1856–1924) sent his trusted adviser Colonel in 1904–1905 to contest French claims in Morocco.
Edward House to Europe to assess the rising ten- A boastful, blustery man who was easily prodded
sions there. “It is militarism run stark mad,” House to rash actions by his advisers, William landed in
reported, adding that he foresaw an “awful cata- Morocco in 1905, challenging French claims there.
clysm” ahead. Government spending on what peo- To resolve what became known as the First Mo-
ple called the arms race had stimulated European roccan Crisis, an international conference met in
economies; but while stockpiles of arms temporar- Spain in 1906. Germany confidently expected to
ily promoted economic growth, they menaced the gain concessions and new territories, but instead
future. As early as the mid-1890s, one socialist had the powers, now including the United States, de-
called the situation a “cold war” because the hos- cided to uphold the French claims. France and
tile atmosphere made physical combat seem im- Britain, seeing German aggression in Morocco,
minent. By 1914, the air was even more charged, drew closer together.
with militant nationalism in the Balkan states and Germany found itself weak internationally
conflicts in domestic politics propelling Europeans and strong economically, a situation that made its
toward mass destruction. leaders more determined to compete for territory
abroad. When the French took over Morocco com-
pletely in 1911, Germany triggered the Second Mo-
Competing Alliances roccan Crisis by sending a gunboat to the port of
and Clashing Ambitions Agadir and demanding concessions from the
As the twentieth century opened, the Triple Al- French. This time no power — not even Austria-
liance that Bismarck had negotiated among Ger- Hungary — backed the German move. No one ac-
many, Austria-Hungary, and Italy confronted an knowledged this dominant country’s might, nor
opposing alliance between France and Russia, cre- did its insistence on recognition encourage anyone
ated in the 1890s. The wild card in the diplomatic to do so. The British and French now made bind-
scenario was Great Britain, traditional enemy of ing military provisions for the deployment of their
France, especially in the contest for global power. forces in case of war, thus strengthening the En-
Constant rivals in Africa, Britain and France edged tente Cordiale. Smarting from its setbacks on the
to the brink of war in 1898 over competing claims world stage, Germany refocused its sights on its
to Fashoda, a town in the Sudan. France withdrew, continental role and on its own alliances.
however, and both nations were frightened into
getting along for mutual self-interest. To prevent Entente Cordiale: An alliance between Britain and France that
another Fashoda, they entered into secret agree- began with an agreement in 1904 to honor colonial holdings.
1890–1914 Roa d s to Wa r 791

Crises in the Balkans. Germany’s bold territorial power, especially since Japan had crushed Russian
claims, along with public uncertainty about the hopes for expansion to the east. Austria’s swift an-
binding force of alliances, unsettled Europe, par- nexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Young
ticularly the Balkans. German statesmen began en- Turk revolt in 1908 enraged not only the Russians
visioning the creation of a Mitteleuropa — a term but the Serbs as well, who wanted Bosnia as part
that literally meant “central Europe” but that in of an enlarged Serbia. The Balkans thus whetted
their minds also included the Balkans and Turkey. many appetites (Map 24.4).
The Habsburgs, now firmly backed by Germany, Even without the greedy eyes cast on the
judged that expansion into the Balkans and the re- Balkans, the situation would have been extremely
sulting addition of even more ethnic groups would volatile. The nineteenth century had seen the rise
weaken the claims of any single ethnic minority in of nationalism and ethnicity as the basis for the
the Dual Monarchy. Russia, however, saw itself as unity of the nation-state, and by late in the cen-
the protector of Slavs in the region and wanted to tury, ethnic loyalty challenged dynastic power in
replace the Ottomans as the dominant Balkan the Balkans. Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania,
and Montenegro emerged as autonomous states,
almost all of them composed of several ethnicities
Mitteleuropa (miht el oy ROH pah): Literally, “central Europe,” as well as Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics,
but used by military leaders in Germany before World War I to
refer to land in both central and eastern Europe that they hoped and Muslims. All these states sought more Ot-
to acquire. toman and Habsburg territory that included their

0 200 400 miles N


MAP 24.4 The Balkans, 1908–1914
0 200 400 kilometers
Balkan peoples—mixed in religion,
W
E ethnicity, and political views—were
successful in asserting their desire for
 Vienna RUSSIA S
independence, especially in the First Balkan
War, which claimed territory from the
AU S T R I A- H U N G A RY Ottoman Empire. Their increased autonomy
sparked rivalries among them and
continued to attract attention from the
great powers. Three empires in particular—
Danub
eR the Russian, Ottoman, and Austro-
ROMANIA
Hungarian—simultaneously wanted
.

BOSNIA-
HERZEGOVINA Black influence for themselves in the region,
Sarajevo 
Sea which became a powder keg of competing
SERBIA ambitions.
Annexed by Ceded to Romania
Austria-Hungary, 1908 from Bulgaria, 1913
BULGARIA
Ad
r iat
ic
Se
a OTTOMAN Constantinople

MONTENEGRO EMPIRE
ALBANIA ia
ITALY on
c ed
a To Greece, 1913
M
Aegean
OTTOMAN
Sea EMPIRE
GREECE

To Italy, 1912

Ottoman Empire in 1912


792 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

own ethnic group — a complicated desire given ever-growing stockpiles of howitzers, Mauser
the intermingling of ethnicities throughout the re- rifles, and Hotchkiss machine guns. Used in the
gion. War for territory was on these nationalists’ Russo-Japanese and South African wars, these new
agenda. weapons had shown that military offensives were
In the First Balkan War, in 1912, Serbia, Bul- more difficult to win than in the past because nei-
garia, Greece, and Montenegro joined forces to ther side could overcome such accurate firepower.
gain Macedonia and Albania from the Ottomans. Military leaders devised new strategies to protect
The victors divided up their booty, with Bulgaria their armies from the heavy firepower and deadly
gaining the most territory, but in a Second Balkan accuracy of the new weapons: in the Russo-Japanese
War in 1913, Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro con- War, trenches and barbed wire blanketed the front
tested Bulgarian gains. The quick victory of these around Port Arthur.
allies increased Austria’s dismay at Serbia’s rising Naval construction figured in both the arms
power. Grievances between the Habsburgs and the race and the rising nationalism in politics. To de-
Serbs now seemed irreconcilable as each aimed for fend against the new powerful, accurate weaponry,
greater influence in the Balkans. The region had ships built after the mid-nineteenth century were
become perilous as both Austria-Hungary (as ruler made of metal rather than wood. Launched in
of many Slavs) and Russia (as their protector) sta- 1905, the H.M.S. Dreadnought, a warship with un-
tioned increasing numbers of troops along the precedented firepower, was the centerpiece of the
borders. The situation tempted strategists to think British navy’s plan to construct at least seven bat-
hopefully that a quick war there — something like tleships per year. Germany also built up its navy
Bismarck’s wars — could resolve tension and un- and made itself a great land and sea power. The
certainty. German military encouraged William II to view
the navy as the essential ingredient in making Ger-
many a world power and directed him to the writ-
The Race to Arms ings of the American naval theorist Alfred Thayer
In the nineteenth century, global rivalries and as- Mahan. Mahan’s argument that command of the
pirations for national greatness made constant seas determined international power encouraged
readiness for war seem increasingly necessary. On Germany to plan for naval bases as far away as the
the seas and in foreign lands, the colonial powers Pacific. The German drive to build battleships
battled to establish control, and they developed strengthened Britain’s alliance with France in the
railroad, telegraph, and telephone networks every- Entente Cordiale, as all the powers dramatically
where to link their conquests and to move troops raised their annual naval spending (Figure 24.1).
as well as commercial goods. Governments began The Germans described their fleet buildup as “a
to draft ordinary citizens for periods of two to six peaceful policy,” but, like British naval expansion,
years into large standing armies, in contrast to it led only to a hostile international climate and
smaller eighteenth-century forces that had served intense competition in weapons manufacture.
the more limited military goals of the time. By Public relations campaigns encouraged mili-
1914, escalating tensions in Europe boosted the tary buildup (see Document, “A Historian Pro-
annual intake of draftees: Germany, France, and motes Militant Nationalism,” page 795). When
Russia called up 250,000 or more troops each year. critics of the arms race suggested a temporary
The per capita expenditure on the military rose in “naval holiday” to stop British and German build-
all the major powers between 1890 and 1914; the ing, British officials sent out news releases warn-
proportion of national budgets devoted to defense ing that such a cutback “would throw innumerable
in 1910 was lowest in Austria-Hungary at 10 per- men on the pavement.” Advocates of imperial ex-
cent, and highest in Germany at 45 percent. pansion and nationalist groups lobbied for mili-
The modernization of weaponry also trans- tary spending, while enthusiasts in government
formed warfare. Swedish arms manufacturer Al- promoted large navies as beneficial to interna-
fred Nobel patented dynamite and developed a tional trade, domestic industry, and national pride.
kind of gunpowder that improved the accuracy of When Germany’s Social Democrats questioned the
guns and produced a less clouded battlefield envi- use of taxes and their heavy burden on workers,
ronment by reducing firearm smoke. Break- the press criticized the party for lack of patriot-
throughs in the chemical industry led to ism. The Conservative Party in Great Britain, ea-
improvements in long-range artillery, which by ger for more battleships, made popular the slogan
1914 could fire on targets as far as six miles away. “We want eight and we won’t wait.” Public enthu-
Munitions factories across Europe manufactured siasm for arms buildup and militant nationalism
1890–1914 Roa d s to Wa r 793

120

Army Navy
Germany
100 Austria-Hungary
Italy
Expenditures in millions of pounds

Great Britain
Russia
80
France
Spending is measured in British pounds.

60

40

20

0
1890 1900 1910 1914

FIGURE 24.1 The Growth in Armaments, 1890–1914


At the beginning of the twentieth century, the European powers engaged in a massive arms race.
Several comparisons offer themselves, particularly the resources newly devoted to navies and the
soaring defense spending of the Germans. Historians often ask whether better diplomacy could
have prevented the outbreak of world war in 1914. The enormous military buildup, however, made
some people living in the early twentieth century, as well as some later historians, see war as
inevitable. (The Hammond Atlas of the Twentieth Century (London: Times Books, 1996), 29.)

amid growing international competition set the homeland of Bosnia-Herzegovina with Serbia and
stage for the outbreak of war. The remarks of a smuggling weapons with him to accomplish his
French military leader typified the sentiments of end. The unprotected and unsuspecting Austrian
the time, even among the public at large. When couple became Princip’s victims, as he shot both
asked in 1912 about his predictions for war and dead.
peace, he responded enthusiastically, “We shall Some in the Habsburg government saw the as-
have war. I will make it. I will win it.” sassination as an opportunity to put down the Ser-
bians once and for all. Evidence showed that
Princip had received arms and information from
1914: War Erupts Serbian officials, who directed a terrorist organi-
June 28, 1914, began as an ordinary, even happy zation from within the government. Endorsing a
day not only for Freud’s patient the Wolf-Man but quick defeat of Serbia, German statesmen and mil-
also for the Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand itary leaders urged the Austrians to be unyielding
and his wife, Sophie, as they ended a state visit to and promised support in case of war. The Austri-
Sarajevo in Bosnia. The archduke, in full military ans sent an ultimatum to the Serbian government,
regalia, was riding in a motorcade to bid farewell demanding public disavowals of terrorism, sup-
to various officials when a group of young Serb pression of terrorist groups, and the participation
nationalists threw bombs in an unsuccessful assas- of Austrian officials in an investigation of the
sination attempt. The danger did not register; af- crime. “You are setting Europe ablaze,” the Russ-
ter a stop, the archduke and his wife set out again. ian foreign minister remarked of the Austrians’ hu-
In the crowd was another nationalist, Gavrilo Prin- miliating demands made on a sovereign state. Yet
cip, who had traveled in secret for several weeks to the Serbs were conciliatory, accepting all the terms
reach this destination, dreaming of reuniting his except the presence of Austrian officials in the in-
794 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

Arrest of the Assassin


Gavrilo Princip belonged to the Young Bosnians, a group devoted to killing Habsburgs in revenge for
the Austro-Hungarian monarchy’s having sent workers to colonize their homeland. In June 1914, at
the age of nineteen, Princip lived out his dream, killing the heir to the Habsburg throne and his wife.
Here Princip is shown being apprehended. He spent the rest of his life in prison and was appalled at
the carnage of World War I. (© Bettmann/ Corbis.)

vestigation. Kaiser William was pleased: “A great ganizations, even as many governments were torn
moral success for Vienna! All reason for war is over what to do. Military leaders, especially in Ger-
gone.” His relief proved unfounded. Austria- many and Austria-Hungary, promoted mobiliza-
Hungary, confident of German backing, used the tion rather than diplomacy in the last days of July.
Serbs’ resistance to one demand as the pretext for The Austrians declared war and then ordered mo-
declaring war against Serbia on July 28. bilization on July 31 without fear of a Russian at-
Some statesmen tried desperately to avoid war. tack. They did so in full confidence of German
The tsar and the kaiser sent pleading letters to one military aid, because as early as 1909 Germany
another not to start a European war. The British had promised to defend Austria-Hungary, even if
foreign secretary proposed an all-European con- that country took the offensive. The thought was
ference, but without success. Germany displayed that Russia would not dare to intervene against
firm support for Austria in hopes of convincing an Austria-Hungary backed by Germany military
the French and British to shy away from the war. power, but Nicholas II ordered the mobilization
The failure of either to fight, German officials be- in defense of the Serbs — Russia’s Slavic allies.
lieved, would keep Russia from mobilizing. Addi- Encouraging the Austrians to attack Serbia, the
tionally, German military leaders had become German general staff mobilized on August 1.
fixed on fighting a short, preemptive war that France declared war by virtue of its agreement to
would provide territorial gains leading toward the aid its ally Russia, and when Germany violated
goal of a Mitteleuropa. As conservatives, they Belgian neutrality on its way to invade France,
planned to impose martial law as part of such a Britain entered the war on the side of France and
war, using it as a pretext for arresting the leader- Russia.
ship of the German Social Democratic Party,
which threatened their rule. Review: What were the major factors leading to the
The European press caught the war fever of outbreak of World War I?
expansionist, imperialist, and other pro-war or-
1890–1914 C o n c lu s i o n 795

DOCUMENT

A Historian Promotes Militant Nationalism


As the nineteenth century came to an end, The next essential function of the State is Even as it is impossible to conceive of
competitive nationalism in preparation for the conduct of war. The long oblivion into a tribunal above the State, which we have
war was everywhere, even in classrooms. which this principle had fallen is a proof of recognized as sovereign in its very essence,
History had developed into a “science” by how effeminate the science of government so it is likewise impossible to banish the
this time, and historians were supposed to had become in civilian hands. . . . idea of war from the world. It is a
be neutral, basing their conclusions on Without war no State could be. All favourite fashion of our time to instance
solid, documentary evidence and erasing those we know of arose through war, and England as particularly ready for peace.
all trace of religious or national bias from the protection of their members by armed But England is perpetually at war; there
their work. In the climate of military force remains their primary and essential is hardly an instant in her recent history
buildup, competition for empire, and a task. War, therefore, will endure to the end in which she has not been obliged to be
pro-war spirit, the goal of dispassionate ob- of history, as long as there is multiplicity fighting somewhere. The great strides
jectivity weakened. Supporting his nation of States. The laws of human thought and which civilization makes against bar-
was a driving force in the writing and of human nature forbid any alternative, barism and unreason are only made ac-
teaching, of, among others, Heinrich von neither is one to be wished for. The blind tual by the sword.
Treitschke of the University of Berlin, who worshipper of an eternal peace falls into
delivered his lectures glorifying Germany’s the error of isolating the State, or dreams Source: Heinrich Treitschke, Politics, Hans Kohn,
wars to throngs of cheering students and of one which is universal, which we have ed., Blanche Duddale and Torben de Bille, trans.
army officers. already seen to be at variance with reason. (New York: Harcourt, 1965), 37–38.

ritualistic attraction of death. Facing continuing


Conclusion violence in politics, chaos in the arts, and prob-
Rulers soon forgot their last-minute hesitations lems in the industrial order, many Europeans had
when in some capitals celebration erupted with the come to believe that war would save them from
declaration of war. “A mighty wonder has taken the modern perils they faced. The pessimism that
place,” wrote a Viennese actor after watching the characterized the years before 1914 would end.
troops march off amid public enthusiasm. “We “Like men longing for a thunderstorm to relieve
have become young.” Both sides exulted, certain of them of the summer’s sultriness,” wrote an Aus-
victory — a triumph of the militant nationalism trian official, “so the generation of 1914 believed
that led many Europeans to favor war over peace. in the relief that war might bring.” Tragically, any
There were other advantages. Disturbances in pri- hope of relief soon faded. Instead of bringing the
vate life and challenges to established certainties in refreshment of summer rain, war opened an era of
ideas would disappear, it was believed, in the cru- political turmoil, widespread suffering, massive
cible of war. A short conflict, people maintained, human slaughter, and even greater doses of
would resolve tensions ranging from the rise of the modernity.
working class to political problems caused by
global imperial competition. German military For Further Exploration
men saw war as an opportune moment to round
■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
up social democrats and reestablish the traditional
for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
deference of an agrarian society. Liberal govern-
end of the book.
ment based on rights and constitutions, some be-
lieved, had simply gone too far in allowing new ■ For additional primary-source material from
groups full citizenship and political influence. this period, see Chapter 24 in Sources of THE
Modernity helped blaze the path to war. New MAKING OF THE WEST, Third Edition.
technology, mass armies, and new techniques of
persuasion supported the military buildup. The ■ For Web sites and documents related to topics
Rite of Spring, the ballet that opened in Paris on in this chapter, see Make History at
bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
the eve of war in 1913, had taken as its theme the
796 C h a pt e r 2 4 ■ M o d e r n i t y a n d t h e Roa d to Wa r 1890–1914

MA P P I N G T H E W E ST

0 200 400 miles


Triple Alliance, 1882–1915 0 200 400 kilometers
Triple Entente, 1907–1917
NORWAY FINLAND

St. Petersburg

SCOTLAND SWEDEN

N North Sea 
Moscow
W IRELAND Se

a
GREAT DENMARK
E ti c
BRITAIN B al
S
NETHERLANDS
ENGLAND RUSSIA
London   Berlin
 Amsterdam
Brussels

GERMANY POLAND
BELGIUM
ATLANTIC 
 Paris Prague
OCEAN
Vienna

FRANCE Bern 
Budapest

SWITZERLAND AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
MONTE-
NEGRO Belgrade
ROMANIA
  Bucharest
Sarajevo
 Black Sea
Ad ria SERBIA
AL

ITALY tic 
Sofia
UG

Corsica Se BULGARIA
Lisbon  Madrid a Constantinople
RT

 SPAIN Rome 
ALBANIA
PO

Sardinia
BALEARIC IS. Aegean OTTOMAN
GREECE Sea EMPIRE
 Athens
Sicily

Crete

MOROCCO
(Fr.) TUNISIA M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a
ALGERIA (Fr.)
(Fr.)
LIBYA
(It.)

Europe at the Outbreak of World War I, August 1914


All the powers expected a great, swift victory when war broke out. Many saw war as a chance to
increase their territories; as rivals for trade and empire, almost all believed that war would bring
them many advantages. But if European nations appeared well prepared and invincible at the start
of the war, relatively few would survive the conflict intact.
1890–1914 C h a pt e r R ev i ew 797

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
Key Terms and People Making Connections
new woman (767) Nicholas II (779) 1. How did changes in society at the turn of the century
Sigmund Freud (769) Zionism (783) affect the development of mass politics?
modernism (771) South African War (785) 2. How was culture connected to the world of politics in the
Friedrich Nietzsche (772) Duma (787) years 1890–1914?
Albert Einstein (772) Entente Cordiale (790) 3. How had nationalism changed since the French
art nouveau (775) Mitteleuropa (791) Revolution?
Emmeline Pankhurst
(778)

For practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other


study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
Review Questions bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
1. How did ideas about the self and about personal life
change at the beginning of the twentieth century?
2. How did modernism transform the arts and the world of
ideas?
3. What were the points of tension in European political life
at the beginning of the twentieth century?
4. How and why did events in overseas empires from the
1890s on challenge Western faith in imperialism?
5. What were the major factors leading to the outbreak of
World War I?

Important Events

1894–1895 Japan defeats China in the Sino-Japanese 1905 Revolution erupts in Russia; violence forces
War Nicholas II to establish an elected body, the
1894–1899 Dreyfus Affair exposes anti-Semitism in Duma; Albert Einstein publishes his special
France theory of relativity

1899–1902 South African War fought between Dutch 1906 Women receive the vote in Finland
descendants and the British in South 1907 Pablo Picasso launches cubist painting with
African states Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
1900 Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpreta- 1908 Young Turks revolt against rule by the sultan
tion of Dreams in the Ottoman Empire
1901 Irish National Theater established by Maud 1911–1912 Revolutionaries overthrow the Qing dynasty
Gonne and William Butler Yeats; death of and declare China a republic
Queen Victoria 1914 Assassination of the Austrian archduke
1903 Emmeline Pankhurst founds the Women’s Francis Ferdinand and his wife by a Serbian
Social and Political Union to fight for nationalist precipitates World War I
women’s suffrage in Great Britain
1904–1905 Japan defeats Russia in the Russo-
Japanese War
World War I C H A P T E R

and Its Aftermath


1914–1929
25
The Great War, 1914–1918 800
• Blueprints for War
• The Battlefronts
• The Home Front

ules Amar found his true vocation in World War I. A French ex-

J pert on improving the efficiency of industrial work, Amar switched


his focus after 1914. As hundreds of thousands of men returned
from the battlefront missing body parts, plastic surgery and the con-
Protest, Revolution, and
War’s End, 1917–1918
• War Protest
• Revolution in Russia
• Ending the War, 1918
810

struction of masks and other devices to hide deformities developed


The Search for Peace in an
rapidly. Amar devised artificial limbs and appendages to “make up for Era of Revolution 815
a function lost, or greatly reduced” that would allow the wounded sol- • Europe in Turmoil
• The Paris Peace Conference,
dier to return to normal life. The arms he designed featured hooks, 1919–1920
magnets, and other mechanisms with which the veteran could hold a • Economic and Diplomatic
Consequences of the Peace
cigarette, play a violin, and, most important, work with tools such as
typewriters. Mangled by the weapons of modern technological warfare, The Aftermath of War:
Europe in the 1920s 821
the survivors of World War I would be made whole, it was thought, by • Changes in the Political Landscape
technology such as Amar’s. • Reconstructing the Economy
• Restoring Society
Amar dealt with the human tragedy of the Great War, so named by
contemporaries because of its staggering human toll — forty million Mass Culture and the Rise of
wounded or killed in battle. The Great War did not settle problems or Modern Dictators 827
• Culture for the Masses
restore social order as the European powers hoped it would. Instead, • Cultural Debates over the Future
• The Communist Utopia
the war produced political chaos, overturning the Russian, German, • Fascism on the March in Italy
Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian empires. The crushing burden of war
on the European powers accelerated the rise of the United States, while
service in the war intensified the demands of colonized peoples for in-
dependence. Many soldiers remained actively fighting long into what
was supposed to be peacetime, while others had been so militarized
that they longed for a life that was more like wartime.
World War I transformed society too, sometimes building on trends
under way before the war started. A prewar feeling of doom and decline
gave way to a more pervasive postwar cynicism. Many Westerners turned

Grieving Parents
Before World War I, the German artist Käthe Kollwitz gained her artistic reputation
with woodcuts of handloom weavers whose livelihoods were threatened by
industrialization. From 1914 on, she depicted the suffering and death that swirled
around her and never with more sober force than in these two monuments to her son
Peter, who died on the western front in the first months of battle. Today one can still
travel to his burial place in Vladslo, Belgium, to see this father and mother mourning
their loss, like millions across Europe in those heartbreaking days. (© John Parker Picture
Library. © 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.)
799
800 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

their backs on politics and attacked life with fren- flict similar to Prussia’s rapid victories in the 1860s
zied gaiety in the Roaring Twenties, shopping for and 1870 and Japan’s swift defeat of Russia in
new consumer goods, drinking in entertainment 1904–1905. In fact, the unexpected happened: this
provided by films and radio, and enjoying once for- war lasted for more than four long years. It was also
bidden personal freedoms. Others found reason for what historians call a total war, meaning one built
hope in the new political systems the war made pos- on the full mobilization of entire societies —
sible: Soviet communism and Italian fascism. Mod- soldiers and civilians — and the complete techno-
ern communication technologies such as radio gave logical capacities of the nations involved. It was the
politicians the means to promote a utopian mass war’s unexpected and unprecedented horror that
politics that, paradoxically, was antidemocratic, mil- made World War I “great.”
itaristic, and violent — like the war itself. Total war
further weakened the gentlemanly political tone of
Blueprints for War
British prime minister William Gladstone’s day and
perhaps even totally devastated it. World War I pitted two sets of opponents formed
A war that was long anticipated and even wel- roughly out of the alliances developed during the
comed in some quarters as a solution to the con- previous fifty years. On one side stood the Central
flicts of modernity destabilized Europe and the Powers (Austria-Hungary and Germany), which
world long after the fighting ended. From states- had evolved from Bismarck’s Triple Alliance. On
men to ordinary citizens, many Europeans, like the other side were the Allies (France, Great
Jules Amar, would spend the next decade dealing Britain, and Russia), which had emerged as a bloc
with the aftermath of war. While some tried to from the Entente Cordiale between France and
make war-ravaged society function normally, oth- Great Britain and the 1890s treaties between
ers were planning to tap into the forces of mili- France and Russia. In 1915, Italy, originally part of
tarism that the war had so glorified. It became clear the Triple Alliance, switched sides and joined the
that the prewar normality was gone forever and Allies in hopes of postwar gain. The war became
that the war and its values were shaping the 1920s. worldwide almost from the start: in late August
1914, Japan, eager to extend its empire into China,
went over to the Allies, while in the fall the Ot-
Focus Question: What political, social, and eco- toman Empire united with the Central Powers
nomic impact did World War I have during the conflict, against its traditional enemy, Russia (Map 25.1).
immediately after it, and through the 1920s?
The antagonists fought with the same fero-
cious hunger for power, prestige, and prosperity
that had inspired imperialism. Of the Central Pow-
ers, Germany wanted a bigger empire, to be gained
The Great War, 1914–1918 by annexing Russian territory and incorporating
When war erupted in August 1914, there already parts of Belgium, France, and Luxembourg. Some
existed long-standing alliances, well-defined strate- German leaders wanted to annex Austria-Hungary
gies, and built-up military technologies such as
total war: A war built on the full mobilization of soldiers, civil-
heavy artillery, machine guns, and airplanes. Most ians, and technology of the nations involved. The term also
people felt that this would be a short, decisive con- refers to a highly destructive war of ideologies.

■ 1914 August World War I begins ■ 1918 November World War I armistice

■ 1917 March Russian Revolution


April United States enters World War I
November Bolshevik Revolution

1912 1915 1918


■ 1913–1915 Suffrage for women expands in Europe ■ 1918–1922 Civil war in Russia

■ 1916 Easter Uprising in Ireland ■ 1919 Weimar Republic begins


■ 1919–1920 Paris
Peace Conference
1914–1929 Th e G r e at Wa r, 1 9 1 4 – 1 9 1 8 801

A French Regiment Leaves for the Front, August 1914


Bands played, crowds cheered, and bicyclists led the way as bayonet-equipped soldiers marched
eagerly to war. But some viewed the outbreak of war more soberly, and this mood became more
common as machine guns and poison chemicals brought the bravest men down. People in cities,
working to provide munitions and supplies, soon felt the pinch of inflation; later, many lacked food.
Countless men returned physically disabled or mentally deranged from their experience. (Roger
Viollet / Getty Images.)

as well. Austria-Hungary hoped to keep its great- British wanted to cement their hold on Egypt and
power status despite the competing nationalisms the Suez Canal and keep the rest of their world
of ethnic groups within its borders. Among the Al- empire secure. By the Treaty of London (1915),
lies, Russia wanted to reassert its status as a great France and Britain promised Italy territory in
power and as the protector of the Slavs by adding Africa, Asia Minor, the Balkans, and elsewhere in
a reunified Poland to the Russian Empire and by return for joining the Allies.
taking formal leadership of other Slavic peoples. The war involved more than the major Euro-
The French, too, craved territory, especially the re- pean nations and Japan; their colonies participated
turn of Alsace and Lorraine, ceded to Germany af- too, providing massive assistance and serving as
ter the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. The battlegrounds. Some one million Africans, one

■ 1924 Lenin dies; Stalin and


Trotsky contend for power ■ 1929 October U.S.
stock market crash
■ 1924–1929 Economic prosperity and stability

1921 1924 1927 1930


■ 1922 Ireland gains independence;
Fascists march on Rome;
Eliot, “The Waste Land”;
Joyce, Ulysses
802 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

0 200 400 miles


0 200 400 kilometers

N FINLAND
h naval
W Britis NORWAY
a de
bl ck
o 
E SWEDEN Petrograd
(St. Petersburg)
S
SCOTLAND Vo
lg a R .

a
Jutland

Se
1916  Moscow
 Dv

tic
GREAT l i n a R.
IRELAND North Sea DENMARK Ba Tannenberg Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,
BRITAIN Masurian Lakes 1914 March 1918
NETHERLANDS 1914  Vilnius

ENGLAND E lb East  Grodno
 eR Prussia R U S S I A
.
Lusitania London  Berlin Brest-
sunk  Eastern front, Warsaw Armistice line,
1915  Litovsk
Rhin
1915 May 1915 December, 1917 D on R .
Somme O
BELGIUM GERMANY de POLAND
Marne 1916 Verdun
eR
D n ie

rR
Cracow
.
1914
1916 LUX.  per R

.
.
Paris Stabilized western front CAR Galicia
P AT
Lor

Bu
Se

in HIA Dnie gR
eR ste
NS
rain

Alsace

.
Vienna
.

rR
ATLANTIC Marne R.

.
e

OCEAN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
FRANCE SWITZERLAND
Caporetto
1917 MONTE-
NEGRO ROMANIA
Italian front, D an  Bucharest Black Sea
March 1918 ube R .
SERBIA
ITALY Sofia
SPAIN BULGARIA
Constantinople

ALBANIA

Gallipoli OTTOMAN EMPIRE
GREECE 1915–16

Balkan front,
1917–18

Allied Powers Major Allied offensives Me dite r r ane an Se a


Central Powers Major Central Powers offensives
Neutral nations Farthest advance by Allied Powers
(east 1914, west 1918)
Land occupied by Central
Powers at their height Farthest advance by Central Powers
(west 1914, east 1918)
German submarine war zone
 Major battle

MAP 25.1 The Fronts of World War I, 1914–1918


Because the western front remained relatively stationary, devastation of land and resources was
intense. All fronts, however, destroyed segments of Europe’s hard-won industrial and agricultural
capacity, while the immobile trenches increased military casualties whenever heavy artillery fire
pounded them. Men engaged in trench warfare for so long developed an intense camaraderie based
on their mutual suffering and deprivation.

million Indians, and more than a million mem- and sub-Saharan Africa. Using Arab, African, and
bers of the British commonwealth countries Indian troops, the British waged successful war in
fought in the battles. The imperial powers also the Ottoman lands of the Middle East. When the
conscripted still uncounted numbers of colonists Russian Revolution broke out in 1917, the war
as forced laborers both at home and on the battle- moved beyond the Black Sea into the Caucasus in
front: a million Kenyans and Tanzanians alone are a fight for the rich Baku oilfields. In sub-Saharan
estimated to have been conscripted for menial la- Africa, the vicious campaign for East Africa cost
bor in the battle for East Africa. Colonial troops many lives, not only among the African troops
played a major role in the fighting across north used against one another on behalf of the impe-
1914–1929 Th e G r e at Wa r, 1 9 1 4 – 1 9 1 8 803

rialist powers but also among the civilian popu- the east. The attack on France was to proceed
lation whose resources were confiscated and through Belgium, whose neutrality was guaran-
whose villages were burned. The Japanese seized teed by the European powers. Once France had
German-controlled territories in China to enlarge fallen, Germany’s western armies would be de-
their influence on the mainland. ployed against Russia, which, it was believed,
Unprecedented use of machinery also deter- would mobilize far more slowly. The great powers
mined the course of war. In August 1914, machine were not prepared for the unexpected, especially
guns and rifles, airplanes, battleships, submarines, the prolonged massacre of their nations’ youth
and motorized transport — cars and trains — were with no hint of a victory in sight.
at the disposal of armies; other technologies like
chlorine gas, tanks, and bombs developed between Indecisive Offensives: 1914–1915. When Ger-
1914 and 1918. Countries differed, however, in man troops reached Belgium and Luxembourg at
their experience with and quantities of weapons. the beginning of August 1914, the Belgian govern-
British generals who had fought in the South ment rejected an ultimatum to allow the uncon-
African War (1899–1902) knew the destructive ca- tested passage of the German army through the
pacity of these weapons, while the Germans were country. Instead, the Belgians put up spirited re-
far more advanced in strategy and weaponry than sistance. Meanwhile, the main body of French
either the Russians or the Austrians. The war itself troops, tricked by German diversionary tactics, at-
became a lethal testing ground as both new and tacked the Germans in Alsace and Lorraine instead
old weapons were used, often ineffectively. of meeting the main invasion from the north. Bel-
Nonetheless, officers on both sides believed in a gian resistance slowed the German advance, allow-
cult of the offensive, which called for continuous ing British and French troops to reach the
attacks against the enemy and sustained high troop northern front. In September, the British and
morale. Despite the availability of newer, more French armies engaged the Germans along the
powerful war technology, an old-fashioned vision Marne River in France. Neither side could defeat
of war made many officers unwilling to abandon the other, and casualties were shocking: in the first
the more familiar sabers, lances, and bayonets. In three months of war, more than 1.5 million men
the face of massive firepower, the cult of the offen- fell on the western front alone. Guns like the 75-
sive would cost millions of lives. millimeter howitzer, accurate at long range, turned
what was supposed to be an offensive war of move-
ment into a stationary standoff along a line that
The Battlefronts stretched from the North Sea through Belgium and
The first months of the war northern France to Switzerland
crushed hope of quick victory. All Neutral (Map 25.2). Deep within oppos-
the major armies mobilized rap- nations NETHERLANDS ing lines of trenches dug along
idly. The Germans were guided by GERMANY
this front, millions of soldiers
the Schlieffen Plan, named after Brussels
 lived in nightmarish homes.
Rhin

its author, Alfred von Schlieffen, BELGIUM On the eastern front, the
R.e

a former chief of the general staff. “Russian steam-roller” — named


The plan essentially outlined a Reims LUX. thus because of the number of
way to combat enemies on two Paris  men mobilized, some twelve mil-
  Metz
M

ar
fronts by concentrating on one lion in all — drove far more
Se

ne
ne R.
i

R.
foe at a time. It called for a rapid quickly than expected into East
and concentrated blow to the FRANCE Prussia on August 17. The Rus-
west against France, which would sians believed that no army could
lead to that nation’s defeat in six 0 50 100 miles SWITZERLAND stand up to their massive num-
0 50 100 kilometers
weeks, accompanied by a light bers, regardless of how badly
holding action against Russia to The Schlieffen Plan equipped and poorly trained they
were. Their success was short-
cult of the offensive: A military strategy of constantly attacking lived. The Germans crushed the tsar’s army in East
the enemy that was believed to be the key to winning World Prussia and then turned south to Galicia. Victory
War I but that brought great loss of life while failing to bring made heroes of the military leaders Paul von Hin-
decisive victory.
denburg (1847–1934) and Erich Ludendorff
Schlieffen Plan: The Germans’ strategy in World War I that
called for attacks on two fronts—concentrating first on France (1865–1937), who demanded more troops for the
to the west and then turning east to attack Russia. eastern front. Despite victories, German triumphs
804 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

0 25 50 miles tained a policy of neutrality; Germany,


0 25 50 kilometers
N unwilling to provoke Wilson further,
NETHERLANDS W E called off unrestricted submarine war-
North Sea
fare. In May 1916, the navies of Ger-
S
many and Britain finally clashed in the
North Sea at Jutland. This inconclu-
Ypres
sive battle demonstrated that the Ger-
1915 BELGIUM man fleet could not master British

D e c. 1 9 1 7 Aug. 191
4 seapower.
Liège 
Ideas of a negotiated peace were

Rh
i
ois

discarded: “No peace before England is

ne
R.
Art

defeated and destroyed,” William II


Somme Loos
railed against his cousin King George
4
191

1916

4
So

91
1915


.1
mm V. “Only amidst the ruins of London
t.

g
e R.
Sep

Au
will I forgive Georgy.” French leaders
July 1916
LUXEMBOURG called for a “war to the death.” General
staffs on both sides continued to pre-
GERMANY
e R. pare fierce attacks several times a year.
Ai s n
Lor

Argonne
 1918 Indecisive campaigns opened with
rai
17
19

heavy artillery pounding enemy


ne


ay

Marne
M

1914
Verdun
1916
trenches and gun emplacements.

Troops then responded to the order to
Paris
go “over the top” by scrambling out of
Ma

FRANCE
rn

their trenches and into battle, usually


eR

.
e R.
Sein to be mowed down by machine-gun
Allied Powers Farthest German advance, 1914 fire from defenders secure in their
Central Powers Farthest German advance, 1918 own trenches. On the western front
Neutral nations Central Powers offensives throughout 1915, the French assaulted
Land occupied by Central Allied offensives the Germans in the north to drive
Powers at their height
 Battle them from industrial regions; they ac-
Stabilized front e
 Battle costing over 250,000 lives A lsac complished little, however, and casual-
Armistice line
ties of 100,000 and more for a single
campaign became commonplace. On
MAP 25.2 The Western Front the eastern front, Russian armies cap-
The western front occupied some of the richest parts of France, with long-lasting tured parts of Galicia in the spring of
consequences. Destruction of French villages, roads, bridges, livestock, and property 1915 and lumbered toward Hungary.
was the worst in Europe, while the trauma of the French people endured for genera-
The Central Powers struck back in
tions. The effects of horrendous casualties, ever-present artillery fire, provisioning
and hospital needs, and the demands of military and medical personnel changed
Poland later that year, bringing the
everyone’s way of life. front closer to Petrograd (formerly St.
Petersburg), the Russian capital. The
Austro-Hungarian armies routed the
in the east had failed to knock out the Russians by Serbs and then engaged the newly mobilized Ital-
year’s end and had also misdirected the Schlieffen ian army.
Plan by removing forces from the west before the
western front had been won. Mounting Catastrophe: 1916. The next year’s
War at sea proved equally indecisive. Confi- battles were even more disastrous and futile. To
dent in Britain’s superior naval power, the Allies cripple French morale, the Germans launched
blockaded ports to prevent supplies from reaching massive assaults on the fortress at Verdun, firing
Germany and Austria-Hungary. Kaiser William II as many as a million shells in a single day. Com-
and his advisers planned a massive submarine bined French and German losses totaled close to a
campaign against Allied and neutral shipping million men. Nonetheless, the French held. Hop-
around Britain and France. In May 1915, a Ger- ing to relieve their allies, the British unleashed an
man U-boat (Unterseeboot, “underwater boat”) artillery pounding of German trenches in the
sank the British passenger ship Lusitania and killed Somme region in June 1916. In several months of
1,198 people, including 124 Americans. Despite battle at the Somme, 1.25 million men were killed
U.S. outrage, President Woodrow Wilson main- or wounded, but the final result was a draw. By the
1914–1929 Th e G r e at Wa r, 1 9 1 4 – 1 9 1 8 805

end of 1916, the French had ab- War in the Skies (1914)
sorbed more than 3.5 million ca- As the war started, aviators
sualties. To help the Allies engaged and the machines they
at Verdun and the Somme, the piloted became symbols
Russians struck again, driving once of the human potential to
more into the Carpathian Moun- transcend time and space.
tains, recouping territory, and The Great War, however,
featured the airplane as the
menacing Austria-Hungary until
new weapon in what British
stopped by the German army. writer H. G. Wells called the
Amid huge losses, the Austrian “headlong sweep to death.”
army recruited men in their mid- Daring pilots, or “aces,” took
fifties, and the German general the planes on reconnaissance
staff decided it would take over flights and guided them in
Austrian military operations. The the totally new practice of
war was sapping Europe’s strength aerial combat, as shown in
and individual sovereignty. this engraving from an Italian
newspaper of a French
The Soldiers’ War. Had the mili- airplane shooting down a
German one. (The Art Archive/
tary leaders thoroughly dominated
Domenica del Corriere/ Dagli Orti.)
the scene, historians judge, all
armies would have been utterly de-
molished by the end of 1915. Yet
ordinary soldiers in this war were
not automatons in the face of what
seemed to them suicidal orders. In-
formal agreements among troops
to avoid battles allowed some bat-
talions to go for long stretches with hardly a casu-
alty. Enemies facing each other across the trenches
frequently ate their meals in peace, even though
the trenches were within hand-grenade reach.
Throughout the war, soldiers on both fronts frat-
ernized with one another. They played an occa-
sional game of soccer, shouted across the trenches,
and made gestures of agreement not to fight. A
British veteran of the trenches explained to a new
recruit that the Germans “don’t want to fight any
more than we do, so there’s a kind of understand-
ing between us. Don’t fire at us and we’ll not fire
at you.” Burying enemy dead in common graves
with their own fallen comrades, many ordinary
soldiers came to feel more warmly toward enemies
who shared the trench experience than toward
civilians back home.
Newly forged bonds of male camaraderie al-
leviated some of the misery of trench life and aided
survival. Sharing the danger of death and the dep-
rivations of frontline experience weakened tradi-

War in the Trenches


Men at the front developed close friendships while
they lived with daily discomfort, death, and the
horrors of modern technological warfare. Some of the
complexities of trench warfare appear in this image
showing soldiers rescuing their fallen comrades after
fighting at Bagatelle in northern France. (Getty Images.)
806 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

tional class distinctions. In some cases, upper-class ment control would have outraged many liberals
officers and working-class recruits became friends before the war but was now accepted as a neces-
in that “wholly masculine way of life uncompli- sary condition for victory.
cated by women,” as another British soldier put it.
Soldiers picked lice from one another’s bodies and Politics Suspended. Initially, all political parties
clothes, revered section leaders who tended their on both sides put aside their differences. Many so-
blistered feet, and came to love one another, some- cialists and working-class people who had for-
times even passionately. Positive memories of this merly criticized the military buildup announced
frontline community survived the war and influ- their support for the war. For decades, socialist
enced postwar politics. parties had preached that “the worker has no coun-
Troops of colonized soldiers from Asia and try” and that nationalism was mere ideology
Africa had different experiences. Often these sol- meant to keep workers disunited and subjected to
diers were put in the very front ranks, where the the will of their employers. In August 1914, how-
risks were greatest. They suffered particularly from ever, most socialists became as patriotic as the rest
the rigors of an unfamiliar climate and strange of society. Feminists divided over whether to
food as well as from the devastation inflicted by maintain their traditional pacifism or to support
Western war technology. Yet, as with class divi- the war. Although many feminists actively opposed
sions, racial barriers sometimes fell, for instance, the conflict, the British suffrage leader Emmeline
whenever a European understood enough to alle- Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel were
viate the distress caused by severe cold. Colonial among the many activists who became militant na-
troops’ perspectives changed, too, as they saw their tionalists, even changing the name of their suffrage
“masters” completely undone and “uncivilized.” paper to Britannia. Parties representing the
For when fighting did break out, trenches became middle classes shelved their distrust of the socialists
a veritable hell of shelling and sniping, flying body and working classes. In the name of victory, na-
parts, rotting cadavers, and blinding gas. Some sol- tional leaders wanted to end political division of
diers became hysterical or succumbed to shell all kinds: “I no longer recognize [political] parties,”
shock through the sheer stress and violence of William II declared on August 4, 1914. “I recog-
battle. Alienation and cynicism rose: “It might be nize only Germans.” Ordinary people, even those
me tomorrow,” a young British soldier wrote his who had been at the receiving end of discrimina-
mother in 1916. “Who cares?” Many had gone to tion, came to believe that a new day of unity was
war to escape ordinary life in industrial society; dawning. One rabbi proudly echoed the kaiser: “In
however, they learned, as one German put it, “that the German fatherland there are no longer any
in the modern war . . . the triumph of the machine Christians and Jews, any believers and disbeliev-
over the individual is carried to its most extreme ers, there are only Germans.”
form.” They took this hard-won knowledge into
battle, pulling their comrades back when an offen- Governments Mobilize the People. Governments
sive seemed lost or too costly. mobilized the home front with varying degrees of
success. All countries were caught without ready
replacements for their heavy losses of weapons
The Home Front and military equipment and soon felt the short-
World War I took place off the battlefield too. To- age of food and labor. War ministries set up
tal war meant the indispensable involvement of boards to allocate labor on both the home front
civilians in the war industry: manufacturing the and the battlefront and to give industrialists fi-
shells and machine guns, the poisonous gases, the nancial incentives to encourage productivity. But
bombs and airplanes, and eventually the tanks that the Russian bureaucracy only reluctantly and in-
were the backbone of technological warfare. In- effectively cooperated with industrialists and
creased production of coffins, canes, wheelchairs, other groups that could aid the war effort. In sev-
and artificial limbs (devised by the likes of Jules eral countries, emergency measures allowed the
Amar) was also a wartime necessity. Because sol- drafting of both men and women for military or
diers would have utterly failed without them, civil- industrial service. Desperate for factory workers,
ians had to work overtime, believe in, and sacrifice the Germans forced Belgian citizens to move to
for victory. To keep the war machine operating Germany, housing them in prison camps. In the
smoothly, governments oversaw factories, trans- face of rationing, municipal governments set up
portation systems, and resources ranging from canteens and day-care centers. Rural Russia,
food to coal to textiles. Such dictatorial govern- Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Serbia, where youths,
1914–1929 Th e G r e at Wa r, 1 9 1 4 – 1 9 1 8 807

women, and old men struggled to sustain farms, “We can no longer endure . . . brute force as the
had no such relief programs. only solution of international disputes,” declared
Governments throughout Europe passed sedi- Dutch physician Aletta Jacobs. The women had no
tion laws that made it a crime to criticize official success, however, in bringing about negotiations.
policies. To ensure civilian acceptance of longer In Austria-Hungary, nationalist groups agitating
working hours and shortages of consumer goods, for ethnic self-determination hampered the em-
governments created propaganda agencies to tout pire’s war effort. The Czechs undertook a vigorous
the war as a patriotic mission to resist villainous anti-Habsburg campaign at home, while in the
enemies (see the propaganda posters in “Seeing Balkans, Croats, Slovenes, and Serbs formed a
History,”page 808). British propagandists fabricated committee to plan a South Slav state independent
atrocities that the Germans, whom they called of Austria-Hungary or any other power. The Allies
“Huns,” supposedly committed against Belgians, encouraged such independence movements as part
and German propagandists warned that French of their strategy to defeat Austria-Hungary.
African troops would rape German women if Ger-
many were defeated. In Russia, Tsar Nicholas II The Civilians’ War. The war upset the social or-
changed the German-sounding name of St. Peters- der as well as the political one. In the war’s early
burg to the Russian Petrograd in 1914. Efforts were days, many women lost their jobs when luxury
often clumsy: though civilians found it riveting, shops, textile factories, and other nonessential
the British film The Battle of the Somme (1916) was businesses closed. With men at the front, many
so obviously sanitized of the war’s horrors that sol- women headed households with little support and
diers in the audience roared with laughter. few opportunities to work. But governments and
Despite widespread popular support for the businesses soon recognized the amount of labor it
war, some individuals and groups worked to end would take to wage technological war. As more and
the fighting and urged a negotiated peace. In 1915, more men left for the trenches, women who had
activists in the international women’s movement lost their jobs in nonessential businesses as well as
met in The Hague to call for an end to the war. many low-paid domestic workers took over

A New Workforce in Wartime


With men at the front, women moved into factory work at jobs from which they had been
unofficially barred before the war, as shown in this French photograph. In addition, tens of
thousands of forced laborers from the colonies were moved to Europe also to replace men sent to
the front. The European experience of forced labor and service at the front politicized colonial
subjects, fortifying independence movements in the postwar period. (Roger Viollet / Getty Images.)
808 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

SEEING HISTORY

Demonizing the Enemy: Italian


Propaganda Posters from World War I

ropaganda was a major ingredient pensation by the Allies, Italian propa- cording to the Italian caption — to depict

P of World War I, crucial in mobiliz-


ing civilian populations to work
overtime and to sacrifice willingly food,
ganda demonized the enemy just as force-
fully as that of the early combatant
powers. To inspire Italians to buy bonds
the enemy. Part of the boxed text reads,
“‘We do not threaten small nations’ de-
clared the German Chancellor on Decem-
health, and even the lives of their men. that financed the war effort, the classic- ber 10th 1915.” What is happening in this
Propaganda specialists who had promoted ally dressed woman in the poster shown image? What feelings do these grasping
arms buildup before the war now joined below represents Italy holding back the tentacled creatures call up in your mind?
with graphic artists to produce emotion- savage “Hun,” who symbolizes the collec- How might Italians have responded at the
ally compelling images of the dangers tive Germanic enemy. What elements in time? How do you account for the differ-
posed by the enemy. the poster create the impression of Ger- ent expressions of the two beasts? This par-
Although Italy joined the war only in man wartime savagery? By contrast, what ticular image was printed in several
1915, after being promised postwar com- messages about Italy and the Allies does versions, including both English and Ital-
the woman portray? ian. Why might interchangeable propa-
Why do you think ganda work just as well as nation-specific
the opposition of posters, as in the first image?
male and female Propaganda posters from World
figures was a partic- War I ranged from showing actual peo-
ularly powerful one? ple in danger to depictions of the enemy
The second image, as various forms of animals, including
(see below right) reptiles and octopuses. Why do you think
employs creatures — that both kinds of representations were
two giant squids, ac- effective?

“Subscribe to the Bond Program,” 1915–1918. (Imperial War “The Prussian Squid or ‘Sea Demon,’” 1916. (Imperial War
Museum.) Museum.)
1914–1929 Th e G r e at Wa r, 1 9 1 4 – 1 9 1 8 809

350
Berlin

300

Paris
250
Cost of living

London

200

150

100
July–Sept. Jan.–Mar. July–Sept. Jan.–Mar. July–Sept. Jan.–Mar. July–Sept. Jan.–Mar. July–Sept. Jan.–Mar. July–Sept.
1914 1915 1915 1916 1916 1917 1917 1918 1918 1919 1919

FIGURE 25.1 The Rising Cost of Living During World War I


The diversion of resources to the military resulted in a soaring cost of living for civilians. As men went to
the front and as some remaining agricultural workers could find higher pay in factories, a decline in
agricultural output led to scarcity and thus rising prices for food. Finally, housing came to be in short
supply as resources were directed to the war effort rather than used to construct needed buildings. Even
after the war, prices rose in Germany because the Allies maintained their blockade to keep the pressure
on the peacemaking process. (Jay Winter and Jean-Louis Robert, Capital Cities at War: Paris, London, Berlin, 1914–1919
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 259.)

higher-paying jobs in munitions and metallurgi- upper classes bought fancy food and fashionable
cal industries. In Warsaw they drove trucks, and in clothing on the black market (outside the official
London they conducted streetcars. Some young system of rationing). Governments allowed many
women drove ambulances and nursed the businesses high rates of profit, a policy that made
wounded near the front lines. the cost of living surge and thus contributed to so-
The press praised women’s patriotism in cial tensions (see Figure 25.1). Shortages of staples
adapting to the wartime emergency, but women’s like bread, sugar, and meat occurred across Europe;
assumption of men’s jobs looked to many like a the Germans, in fact, called the brutal winter of
sign of social disorder. In the words of one metal- 1916–1917 the turnip winter, after what was often
worker, women were “sending men to the slaugh- their only available food. A German roof workers’
ter.” Men feared that women would remain in the association pleaded for relief: “We can no longer go
workforce after the war, robbing men of the bread- on. Our children are starving.” Dredging up prewar
winner role. Many people, even some women, ob- hatred, some blamed Jews for the shortages. Civil-
jected to women’s loss of femininity. “The ians in the colonies suffered severely. Both sides sim-
feminine in me decreased more and more, and I ply deported or conscripted able-bodied people in
did not know whether to be sad or glad about this,” territories they occupied. The French forcibly trans-
wrote one Russian nurse about adopting rough ported some 100,000 Vietnamese to work in France
male clothing near the battlefield. But others crit- for the war effort. Africans also faced grueling forced
icized young female munitions workers for squan- labor along with skyrocketing taxes and prices.
dering their pay on ribbons and jewelry. The Their suffering during wartime laid the ground-
heated prewar debates over gender roles returned. work for ordinary people, whether in the colonies
Whereas soldiers from different backgrounds or at home in Europe, to take political action.
often felt bonds of solidarity in the trenches, diffi-
cult wartime conditions increasingly pitted civilians
against one another on the home front. Workers Review: In what ways was World War I a total war?
toiled long hours with less to eat, while many in the
810 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

Protest, Revolution, and Woodrow Wilson issued his Fourteen Points, a


blueprint for a nonvindictive peace settlement
War’s End, 1917–1918 held out to the war-weary citizens of the Central
Powers. The Allies faced dissent too. In the spring
By 1917, the situation was becoming desperate for of 1917, French soldiers mutinied against further
everyone — politicians, the military, and civilians. bloody and useless offensives. In Russia, however,
Discontent on the home front started shaping the protest turned into outright revolution.
course of the war. Neither patriotic slogans before
the war nor propaganda during it had prepared
people for wartime suffering. In cities across Revolution in Russia
Europe, civilians revolted; soldiers mutinied, and Of all the warring nations, Russia sustained the
nationalist struggles continued to plague Britain greatest number of casualties — 7.5 million by
and Austria-Hungary. Soon revolution was sweep- 1917. Slaughter on the eastern front drove hun-
ing Europe, toppling the Russian dynasty, and dreds of thousands of peasants into the Russian
threatening the entire continent not just with war interior, spreading hunger, homelessness, and dis-
but with civil war as well. ease. In March 1917,1 crowds of workingwomen
swarmed the streets of Petrograd demanding re-
lief. As these women were turned away from stores,
War Protest they fell in with other protesters commemorating
On February 1, 1917, the German government, International Women’s Day and began looting
hard-pressed by the public clamor over mounting shops for food. Factory workers and other civil-
casualties and by the military’s growing power, re- ians joined them. Russia’s comparative economic
sumed full-scale submarine warfare. The military underdevelopment overwhelmed the govern-
promised that this campaign would end the war ment’s ability to provide basic necessities on the
in six months by cutting off supplies to Britain and home front. Many in the army, instead of remain-
thus forcing the island nation to surrender before ing loyal to the tsar, were embittered by the mas-
the United States could come to its rescue. The sive casualties caused by their inferior weapons
British responded by mining its harbors and the and their leaders’ foolhardy tactics.
surrounding seas, and by developing the convoy Government incompetence and Nicholas II’s
system of shipping, in which a hundred or more stubborn resistance to change had made the war
warships and freighters traveling the seas together even worse in Russia than elsewhere. Unlike other
could drive off the submarines. The Germans’ sub- heads of state, Nicholas failed to unite the bureau-
marine gamble not only failed to defeat the British cracy and his people in a single-minded wartime
but also brought the United States into the war in effort. Grigori Rasputin, a combination of holy
April 1917, after German U-boats had sunk sev- man and charlatan, manipulated Nicholas and his
eral American ships. wife, Alexandra, by claiming to control the hemo-
Political opposition increased in Europe: Irish philia of their son and heir. Rasputin’s disastrous
republicans attacked government buildings in influence on state matters led influential leaders to
Dublin on Easter Monday 1916 in an effort to question rather than support the government. “Is
wrest Ireland’s independence from Britain. Ill pre- this stupidity or treason?” one member of the
pared, the Irish were easily defeated, and many of Duma asked of the corrupt wartime administra-
them were executed. Civilians in other countries tion. When the riots erupted in March 1917,
revolted against food shortages and high prices. Nicholas finally realized the situation was hope-
“We are living on a volcano,” warned an Italian less. He abdicated, bringing the three-hundred-
politician in the spring of 1917. In the cities of year-old Romanov dynasty to a sudden end.
Italy, Russia, Germany, and Austria, women rioted
to get food for their families. As inflation mounted, The Provisional Government. Politicians from
tenants conducted rent strikes, and factory hands the moderate aristocracy and the middle classes
and white-collar workers alike walked off the job.
Amid these protests, Austria-Hungary secretly 1Until
February 1918, Russia observed the Julian calendar, which
asked the Allies for a negotiated peace to avoid a was thirteen days behind the Gregorian calendar used by the rest
total collapse of the empire. In the summer of of Europe. Hence, the first phase of the revolution occurred in
1917, the German Reichstag made overtures for a March according to the Gregorian calendar (but February in the
Julian calendar), the later phase in November on the Gregorian
“peace of understanding and permanent reconcil- calendar (October according to the Julian). All dates used in this
iation of peoples.” In January 1918, President book follow the Gregorian calendar.
1914–1929 Prot e s t , R evo lu t i o n , a n d Wa r ’s E n d , 1 9 1 7 – 1 9 1 8 811

in the old Duma formed a new administration REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA


called the Provisional Government. At first, hopes
were high that under the Provisional Government, 1917 March 8 International Women’s Day, strikes and
as one revolutionary poet put it, “our false, filthy, demonstrations
boring, hideous life should become a just, pure,
March 12 Establishment of Provisional Government
merry, and beautiful life.” To survive, the Provi-
sional Government had to pursue the war success- March 15 Nicholas II abdicates
fully, manage internal affairs better, and set the April Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders return to
government on a firm constitutional footing to es- Russia
tablish its credibility. However, it did not rule May Turmoil in the Provisional Government
alone, because other political forces had also Late June– Russian offensive against Germany fails
strengthened during the revolution. Among them, early July
the soviets — councils elected from workers and
Mid-July Attempted popular uprising fails; Kerensky is
soldiers — competed with the government for po-
prime minister
litical support. Born during the Revolution of
1905, the soviets in 1917 campaigned to end the September Military coup fails
deference usually given to the wealthy and to mil- November 6–7 Bolsheviks seize power on behalf of soviets
itary officers, urged respect for workers and the November 25 Constituent assembly elections held
poor, and temporarily gave an air of celebration
1918 January Constituent assembly closed down by Bolsheviks
and carnival to this political cataclysm. The peas-
antry, also competing for power, began to confis- March 2 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
cate gentry estates and withheld produce from the 1918–1922 Civil war
market because there were no consumer goods for 1923 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics established
which to exchange food. Increasing urban food
1924 Death of Lenin
shortages opened the Provisional Government to
further opposition. 1928–1929 Stalin takes full power
In hopes of adding to the turmoil in Russia,
the Germans in April 1917 provided safe rail trans-
portation through German territory for V. I. Lenin
(1870–1924) and other prominent Bolsheviks to ical skills needed to create an effective wartime
return to their homeland from exile. Lenin had de- government. In Petrograd, groups of workers, sol-
voted himself to bringing about socialism through diers, and sailors — many of them Bolsheviks —
the force of his small band of Bolsheviks. Upon his agitated for the soviets to replace the Provisional
return to Petrograd, he issued the April Theses, a Government. Unable to clamp down on the pro-
document that called for Russia to withdraw from testers, the Provisional Government had to call on
the war, for the soviets to seize power on behalf of the people to put down a military coup. Depend-
workers and poor peasants, and for all private land ing on its sworn enemies, the Provisional Govern-
to be nationalized. Announcing their platform ment had shown itself to be helpless — unable to
with such slogans as “All power to the soviets” and enact reforms, summon a constituent assembly to
“Peace, land, and bread,” the Bolsheviks aimed to plan a new permanent government, or win the war.
oust the Provisional Government. The army had become, as one critic put it, “a huge
Time was running out for the Provisional crowd of tired, poorly clad, poorly fed, embittered
Government, which saw a battlefield victory as the men” — eager for radical change.
only way to ensure its position. On July 1, the Rus-
sian army attacked the Austrians in Galicia but was The Bolshevik Takeover. The Bolshevik leader-
defeated once again. The new prime minister, ship, urged on by Lenin, attacked and overthrew
Aleksandr Kerensky, used his commanding ora- the weakened Provisional Government in Novem-
tory to arouse patriotism, but he lacked the polit- ber 1917, an event called the Bolshevik Revolution.
In January 1918, elections for a constituent assem-
bly failed to give the Bolsheviks a plurality, so the
soviets: Councils of workers and soldiers first formed in Russia party used troops to take over the new government
in the Revolution of 1905; they were revived to represent the
people in the early days of the 1917 Russian Revolution.
V. I. Lenin (1870–1924): Bolshevik leader who executed the Bolshevik Revolution: The overthrow of Russia’s Provisional
Bolshevik Revolution in the fall of 1917, took Russia out of Government in the fall of 1917 by V. I. Lenin and his Bolshevik
World War I, and imposed communism in Russia. forces.
812 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

Lenin Addressing the Second All-


Russian Congress of Soviets
In the spring of 1917, the German
government craftily let Lenin and
other Bolsheviks travel from their
exile in Switzerland back to the
scene of the unfolding revolution
in Russia. A committed revolution-
ary instead of a political reformer,
Lenin used his oratory and skilled
maneuvering to convince many in
the soviets to follow him in over-
throwing the Provisional Govern-
ment, taking Russia out of the
war, and implementing his brand
of communism. (RIA Novosti.)

completely. The Bolsheviks also seized town and Civil War in Russia. A full-fledged civil war now
city administrations, and in the winter of broke out with the pro-Bolsheviks (the “Reds”)
1918–1919, their new government, observing pitted against an array of forces (the “Whites”)
Marxist doctrine, abolished private property and who wanted to turn back the revolution (Map
nationalized factories in order to rebuild produc- 25.3). Among the Whites, the tsarist military lead-
tion (see Document,“Outbreak of the Russian Rev- ership, composed mainly of landlords and sup-
olution,” page 813). The Provisional Government porters of aristocratic rule, took to the field
had allowed both men and women to vote in 1917, whatever troops it could muster. Businessmen
making Russia the first great power to legalize uni- whose property had been nationalized and the lib-
versal suffrage. The vote soon became a hollow eral educated classes soon lent their support. Many
privilege when the Bolsheviks limited the candi- non-Russian nationality groups who had been in-
dates to chosen members of the Communist Party. corporated into the empire through force and Rus-
The Bolsheviks asked Germany for peace and sification fought the Bolsheviks because they saw
agreed to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March their chance for independence. Before World War
1918), which placed vast regions of the old Rus- I ended, Russia’s former allies — notably the
sian Empire under German occupation. Because United States, Britain, France, and Japan — also
the loss of millions of square miles to the Germans landed troops in the country both to block the
put Petrograd at risk, the Bolsheviks relocated the Germans and to fight the Bolsheviks. The coun-
capital to Moscow and formally adopted the name terrevolutionary groups lacked a strong leader and
Communists (taken from Karl Marx’s writings) to unified goals, however. Instead, the groups com-
distinguish themselves from the socialists/social peted with one another: the pro-tsarist forces, for
democrats who had voted for the disastrous war example, alienated groups seeking independence,
in the first place. Lenin agreed to the catastrophic such as the Ukrainians, Estonians, and Lithuani-
terms of the treaty not only because he had prom- ans, by stressing the goal of restoring Russian im-
ised to bring peace to Russia but also because he perial power. Without a common purpose or an
believed that the rest of Europe would soon rebel effective, unified command, the opponents of rev-
against the war and overthrow the capitalist order. olution were doomed.
1914–1929 Prot e s t , R evo lu t i o n , a n d Wa r ’s E n d , 1 9 1 7 – 1 9 1 8 813

DOCUMENT

Outbreak of the Russian Revolution

It is clear only in retrospect when a full- crowded that it was quite impossible to get The majority of the crowd consisted
fledged and sustainable revolution has bro- to one side or the other. We continued to of people who that morning had been
ken out. Here an eighteen-year-old student hold hands, as though we might get lost. praying for the good health of the impe-
describes what happened when news of the Slowly, barely perceptibly, the human rial family. Now they were shouting,
St. Petersburg revolt reached Moscow in the stream moved toward the Red Gates, “Down with the Tsar!” and not disguis-
late winter of 1917. Crowds had already where I knew there was another barracks. ing their joyful contempt. My companion
formed when the young man decided to see It was the same scene there, except that the was a good example. She showered me
what was happening in the streets. soldiers were shouting loudly, waving and with questions: Where are we going? Why
greeting us. We couldn’t make out what are we marching? Why is there a revolu-
In the crowd were many students who ex- they said. Near Pokrovka we ran into a tion? How will we manage without a tsar?
plained that a revolution had begun in St. group of police officers, but instead of It seemed like a mere holiday to her —
Petersburg. The news swept through them greeting them with good-natured jokes, Sunday’s carnival procession, complete
like a breeze and created an extraordinary thousands of voices yelled fierce, threaten- with mass participation. Tomorrow —
atmosphere. People began to embrace and ing cries: “Pharaohs! Your time is up! Get Monday — humdrum working life would
kiss; strangers became close friends; some away for your own good!” begin again, just as usual. Without asking
wept for joy. In five to ten minutes people . . . We moved slowly and could see a question, as though talking to herself,
seemed reborn. A pretty girl came up to neither the front nor the back of the she suddenly said: “How good it would
me and took me by the hand, as though crowd, for the street was blocked solid. For be if there was another revolution tomor-
we had known each other for ages. Then the first time in my life I sensed that at- row!” What could I say? Tomorrow?
hand-in-hand, in a warm embrace, and mosphere of joy, when everyone you meet Probably tomorrow the police would ar-
without asking each other’s name, we seems close to you, your flesh and blood, rest us. But today there was a festival on
proceeded toward the Krutitskie bar- when people look at one another with eyes the streets.
racks. . . . full of love. To call it mass hypnosis is not
The crowd grew bigger and bigger, quite right, but the mood of the crowd was Source: Eduard Dune, Notes of a Red Guard, trans.
and somewhere in the distance one could transmitted from one to another like con- and ed. Dianne Koenker and S. A. Smith
hear the well-known refrain of a revolu- duction, like a spontaneous burst of (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1993),
tionary song. By this time it was so laughter, joy, or anger. 32, 34.

The civil war shaped Russian communism. The Bolsheviks clamped down on their oppo-
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940), Bolshevik commissar nents during the bloody civil war, and they organ-
of war, built a highly disciplined army by ending ized their supporters to foster revolutionary
democratic procedures, such as the election of of- Marxism across Europe. In March 1919, they
ficers, that had originally attracted soldiers to Bol- founded the Third International, also known as the
shevism. Lenin and Trotsky introduced the policy Comintern (Communist International), for the
of war communism, whereby urban workers and explicit purpose of replacing the Second Interna-
troops moved through the countryside, seizing tional with a centrally run organization dedicated
grain from the peasantry to feed the civil war army to preaching communism. By mid-1921, the Red
and workforce. The Cheka (secret police) impris- Army had defeated the Whites in the Crimea, the
oned political opponents and black marketers and Caucasus, and the Muslim borderlands in central
often shot them without trial. The bureaucracy, the Asia. The Japanese withdrew from Siberia in 1922,
Cheka, and the Red Army all grew in size and ending the civil war in central and east Asia. The
strength. The result was a more authoritarian Bolsheviks were now in charge of a state as com-
government — a development that broke with plex and multinational as the old Russian Empire
Marx’s promise that revolution would bring a had been. But although the revolution had turned
“withering away” of the state. out the inept Romanovs and the privileged aris-
814 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929


Murmansk
In the spring of 1918, however, a simi-
Russian territorial losses after
the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 1918 lar offensive on the western front
Controlled by Bolsheviks, 1919 ground to a bloody halt within weeks.
Archangel Occupied by Allied troops, 1919 By then, the British and French had

Attacks by White forces
AY

started making limited but effective use


RW

Attacks by non-Russian
anti-Bolshevik forces of tanks supported by airplanes. The
NO

FINLAND Boundary of Bolshevik Russian first tanks were cumbersome, but their
territory, March 1921
ability to withstand machine-gun fire
Helsinki
  Petrograd D
made offensive attacks possible. In the
SWEDEN BOLSHEVIK RUSSIA ROA
ESTONIA IAN
R AIL summer of 1918, the Allies, now forti-
ER
S- SIB fied by the Americans, pushed back the
Riga AN
  Moscow Germans all along the western front
ea

TR
LATVIA Samara
cS

l t i LITHUANIA N
and headed toward Germany. The Ger-
Ba

a R.
E
Minsk man armies, suffering more than two

o lg
 Orel
 V W
S million casualties between spring and
Warsaw
GERMANY  Tsaritsyn summer, rapidly disintegrated.
POLAND (Stalingrad)

Kiev  Kharkov  By October 1918, the German
C ZE
C H O S LO Ukraine Rostov Astrakhan 
command recognized defeat and
VAKIA 
helped create a civilian government to
Odessa Ca
sp
take over rule of the home front. As
 ia
HUNGARY
ROMANIA
Crimea n these inexperienced politicians took
Sevastopol C A Tbilisi
MONTE- U Se
Baku
 power, they were also taking blame for
CAS a
YU

R. Black Sea Batum


NEGRO D a n u be  US the defeat. The generals, knowing vic-
MT
GO

S.
tory was hopeless, still proclaimed
SLA

BULGARIA
Constantinople themselves fully capable of winning the
VIA

ITALY ALBANIA  0 200 400 miles


TURKEY 0 200 400 kilometers war. Weak-willed civilians, they an-
GREECE
nounced, had dealt the military a “stab
MAP 25.3 The Russian Civil War, 1917–1922 in the back” by forcing a surrender.
Nationalists, aristocrats, middle-class citizens, and property-owning peasants tried Amid this blatant lying, naval officers
to combine their interests to defeat the Bolsheviks, but they failed to create an called for a final sea battle. Having
effective political consensus. As fighting covered the countryside, ordinary people spent years watching high-ranking of-
suffered, especially when their grain was confiscated by armies on both sides. The ficers enjoy champagne-filled meals
Western powers and Japan also sent in troops to put down this threatening while they themselves survived on
revolution. turnips and thin soup, sailors rebelled
against what they saw as a suicide mis-
sion. The sailors’ revolt spread to the
tocracy, the civil war and the resulting hunger and workers, who demonstrated in Berlin, Munich,
disease took millions of lives. Meanwhile, the Bol- and other major cities. The situation was no bet-
sheviks had made brutality their political style, one ter in Austria-Hungary, where combat units had to
at odds with socialist promises for a humane and be pulled from the front to maintain order at
flourishing society. home. The uprisings provoked Social Democratic
politicians to declare a German republic in an ef-
fort to prevent revolution, while Czechs and Slo-
Ending the War, 1918 vaks joined to declare themselves an independent
With Russia out of World War I, Europe’s leaders state. On November 9, 1918, Kaiser William II fled
faced a new balance of forces. Added to war protest as the Central Powers collapsed on all fronts.
was the new fear that communism might lie in Finally, on the morning of November 11,
their future. Desperate for victory before revolu- 1918, delegates from the two sides signed an
tion took over, the Central Powers made one final armistice. The guns fell silent on the western front
attempt to smash through the Allied lines using a six hours later. In the course of four years, Euro-
new offensive strategy. It consisted of concentrated pean civilization had been sorely tested, if not shat-
forces piercing single points of the enemy’s defense tered. Conservative figures put the battlefield toll
lines and then wreaking havoc from the rear. Us- at a minimum of ten million dead and thirty mil-
ing these tactics, the Central Powers overwhelmed lion wounded, incapacitated, or doomed eventu-
the Italian army at Caporetto in the fall of 1917. ally to die of their wounds. In every European
1914–1929 Th e S e a rc h fo r Pe ac e i n a n E r a o f R evo lu t i o n 815

combatant country, industrial and agricultural Europe in Turmoil


production had plummeted, and much of the re-
Urban citizens and returning soldiers ignited the
duced output had been sent to the military. Asia,
protests that swept Europe in 1918 and 1919. In
Africa, and the Americas, which depended on Eu-
January 1919, the red flag of socialist revolution
ropean trade, also felt the painful impact of Eu-
flew from the city hall in Glasgow, Scotland, while
rope’s declining production. From 1918 to 1919,
in cities of the collapsing Austro-Hungarian
the weakened global population suffered an in-
monarchy, workers set up councils to take over
fluenza epidemic that left as many as one hundred
factory production and direct politics. Many sol-
million more dead worldwide.
diers did not disband at the armistice but formed
Besides illness, hunger, and death, the war also
volunteer armies, preventing the return to peace-
provoked tremendous moral questioning. Soldiers
time politics. Germany was especially unstable,
returning home in 1918 and 1919 flooded the
partly because of the shock of defeat. Independent
book market with their memoirs, trying to give
socialist groups and workers’ councils fought for
meaning to their experiences. Some twenty-five
control of the government, and workers and vet-
hundred war poets published in Britain alone.
erans took to the streets to demand food and back
Whereas many had begun by emphasizing hero-
pay. Whereas the revolutionaries of 1848 had
ism and glory, others were cynical and bitter by
marched to city hall or the king’s residence, these
war’s end. They insisted that the fighting had been
protesters took over newspapers and telegraph of-
absolutely meaningless. Total war had drained so-
fices to control the flow of information. One of the
ciety of resources and population and had sown
most radical socialist factions was the Spartacists,
the seeds of further catastrophe.
led by cofounders Karl Liebknecht (1871–1919)
and Rosa Luxemburg (1870–1919). Unlike Lenin,
Review: Why did people rebel during World War I, the two Spartacist leaders favored uprisings that
and what turned rebellion into outright revolution in would give workers political experience instead of
Russia? simply following an all-knowing party leadership
as in Russia.
German conservatives had believed that the
war would put an end to Social Democratic influ-
The Search for Peace ence. Instead it brought German socialists to
power. Social Democratic leader Friedrich Ebert,
in an Era of Revolution who headed the new German government, backed
World War I, like many other wars in the past, had the creation of a parliamentary republic to replace
unforeseen and dramatic consequences. Even be- the kaiser’s rule. He appeared to support the idea
fore the war ended, revolutionary fervor swept the of settling political differences with violence by
continent, especially in the former empires of Ger- calling on the German army and the Freikorps —
many and Austria-Hungary. In Moscow, Lenin a roving paramilitary band of students, demobi-
welcomed the emperors’ downfall as part of a lized soldiers, and others — to suppress the
larger world revolution that would bring the tri- workers’ councils and demonstrators. “The enthu-
umph of working-class internationalism. Until siasm is marvelous,” wrote one young soldier. “No
1921, socialist victory seemed plausible; many of mercy’s shown. We shoot even the wounded. . . .
the newly independent peoples of eastern and cen- We were much more humane against the French
tral Europe fervently supported socialist prin- in the field.” Members of the Freikorps hunted
ciples. The revolutionary mood captured workers down Luxemburg and Liebknecht, among others,
and peasants in Germany too. In contrast, many and murdered them.
liberal and right-wing opponents hoped for a po- Violence continued even as an assembly meet-
litical order based on military authority of the kind ing in the city of Weimar in February 1919 ap-
they had relied on during the war. Faced with up- proved a constitution and founded a parliamentary
risings by radicals from both right and left, diplo- republic called the Weimar Republic. This time the
mats from around the world arrived in Paris in right rebelled, for the military leadership dreamed
January 1919 to negotiate the terms of peace, of a restored monarchy: “As I love Germany, so I
though without fully recognizing that the war hate the Republic,” wrote one officer. To defeat a
was still going on not only in city streets, where
soldiers were bringing the war home, but also in Weimar Republic: The parliamentary republic established in
people’s hearts. 1919 in Germany to replace the monarchy.
816 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

military coup by Freikorps officers, Ebert called for The Fourteen Points did not represent the
a general strike. This action cut short a takeover of mood of all the victors (see “Contrasting Views,”
the new republic by showing the clear lack of pop- page 818). Allied propaganda had made the Ger-
ular support for a military regime. But in so doing, mans seem like inhuman monsters, and many cit-
the Weimar Republic had set a dangerous prece- izens demanded a harsh peace. Some military
dent: it had relied on street violence, paramilitary experts feared that Germany was using the
groups, and protests rather than parliaments to armistice only to regroup for more warfare. In-
solve political problems. deed, Germans widely refused to admit that their
Revolutionary activism surged and was army had lost the war. Eager for army support,
smashed in many parts of Europe. In the late win- Ebert had given returning soldiers a rousing wel-
ter of 1919, leftists proclaimed soviet republics — come: “As you return unconquered from the field
governments led by workers’ councils — in Bavaria of battle, I salute you.” Wilson’s former allies thus
and Hungary. Volunteer armies and troops soon campaigned to make him look naive and unreal-
put the soviets down. The Bolsheviks tried to es- istic. “Wilson bores me with his Fourteen Points,”
tablish a Marxist regime in Poland in the belief that Clemenceau complained. “Why, the good Lord
its people wanted a workers’ revolution. Instead, himself has only ten.”
the Poles resisted and drove the Red Army back in Nevertheless, Wilson’s Fourteen Points per-
1920, while the Allied powers rushed supplies and suaded Germans that the settlement would not be
advisers to Warsaw. Though this and other revolts vindictive. His commitment to settlement as op-
failed, they provided further proof that total war posed to surrender wisely recognized that Germany
had let loose the forces of political chaos. was still the strongest state on the continent. Wil-
son pushed for a treaty that balanced the strengths
and interests of various European powers. Econo-
The Paris Peace Conference,
mists and other specialists accompanying Wilson
1919–1920 to Paris agreed that, harshly dealt with and humil-
As political turmoil engulfed peoples from Berlin iated, Germany might soon become vengeful and
to Moscow, a peace conference opened in Paris in chaotic — a combination that might be more
January 1919. Visions of communism spreading lethal than the war just ended.
westward haunted it, but the assembled statesmen
were focused on the reconstruction of a secure The Peace of Paris Treaties. After six months, the
Europe and the status of Germany. Leaders such statesmen and their teams of experts produced the
as French premier Georges Clemenceau had to sat- Peace of Paris (1919–1920), composed of a clus-
isfy their angry citizens’ demands for revenge or, ter of individual treaties. These treaties shocked
at the very least, money to rebuild. France had lost the countries that had to accept them: the treaties
1.3 million people — almost an entire generation separated Austria from Hungary, reduced Hungary
of young men — and more than a million build- by almost two-thirds of its inhabitants and three-
ings, six thousand bridges, and thousands of miles quarters of its territory, broke up the Ottoman
of railroad lines and roads. Great Britain’s repre- Empire, and treated Germany severely. They re-
sentative, Prime Minister David Lloyd George, placed the Habsburg Empire with a group of small,
caught the mood of the British public by cam- internally divided states: Czechoslovakia, Poland,
paigning in 1918 with such slogans as “Hang the and the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and
kaiser.” Italians arrived on the scene demanding Slovenes, soon renamed Yugoslavia. After a cen-
the territory promised to them in the 1915 Treaty tury and a half of partition, Poland was recon-
of London. Meanwhile, U.S. president Woodrow structed from parts of Russia, Germany, and
Wilson (1856–1924), head of the new world power Austria-Hungary, with one-third of its population
that had helped achieve the Allied victory, had his ethnically non-Polish. The statesmen in Paris also
own agenda. His Fourteen Points, on which the created a Polish Corridor that connected Poland
truce had been based, were steeped in the language to the Baltic Sea and separated East Prussia from
of freedom and called for open diplomacy, arms the rest of Germany (Map 25.4). Austria and Hun-
reduction, an “open-minded” settlement of colo- gary were both left reeling at their drastic loss of
nial issues, and the self-determination of peoples. territory and resources. In general, the new states
were economically and politically weak.
Fourteen Points: U.S. president Woodrow Wilson’s World War I
peace proposal; based on settlement rather than on conquest, Peace of Paris: The series of peace treaties that provided the
it encouraged the surrender of the Central Powers. settlement of World War I.
1914–1929 Th e S e a rc h fo r Pe ac e i n a n E r a o f R evo lu t i o n 817

N
Ceded by Germany
W FINLAND
NORWAY Ceded by Austria-Hungary
E
Ceded by Bulgaria
S Oslo Helsinki
 SWEDEN   Ceded by Russia
Petrograd
Stockholm (St. Petersburg) British mandates

ESTONIA
French mandates

ea
North

cS
LATVIA 
Moscow Demilitarized zone
GREAT Sea

lti
DENMARK Boundaries of German, Russian, and
BRITAIN  Ba
Memel  LITHUANIA Austro-Hungarian empires in 1914
Copenhagen
NETHERLANDS East
Danzig  Prussia
E lb
eR
. USSR
London
 Amsterdam Warsaw
GERMANY 
Brussels Ruhr Weimar
 
POLAND Kiev Vo
BELGIUM Frankfurt  l ga
Prague R.
LUX. Saar  
L
Versailles  Paris orraine Rhine R. C Z E CH Galicia
OSLOVAK Be
Strasbourg Vienna
IA s
Lo i e R. 

sa
r Alsace Ca

rab
FRANCE Budapest sp
ia

ia
SWITZ. S. AUSTRIA 
Geneva  HUNGARY n
Locarno Tyrol ROMANIA

Se
.

P o R.
R hône R

a
Genoa Venice Bucharest
 CROATIA  Belgrade  R.
Rapallo D a n u be Black Sea
YUGOSLAVIA
ITALY SERBIA BULGARIA
SPAIN Sofia
Constantinople
Rome 
ALBANIA
TURKEY
PERSIA
GREECE
Athens

SYRIA
IRAQ
Beirut  Damascus Baghdad 
TUNISIA Mediterranean Sea
(Fr.) PALESTINE
Jerusalem
TRANS-
JORDAN KUWAIT
ALGERIA Cairo (Gr. Br.)
(Fr.)
LIBYA
0 200 400 miles (It.) EGYPT SAUDI ARABIA
(independent 1922)
0 200 400 kilometers N O R T H A F R I C A

MAP 25.4 Europe and the Middle East after the Peace Settlements of 1919–1920
The political landscape of central, east, and east-central Europe changed dramatically as a result
of the Russian Revolution and the Peace of Paris. The Ottoman, German, Russian, and Austro-
Hungarian empires were either broken up altogether into multiple small states or territorially
reduced. The settlement left resentments among Germans and Hungarians and created a group
of weak, struggling nations in the heartland of Europe. The victorious powers took over much of
the oil-rich Middle East. ■ Why is it significant that the postwar geopolitical changes were so
concentrated in one section of Europe?

The Treaty of Versailles with Germany was duce its army, almost eliminate its navy, stop
the centerpiece of the Peace of Paris. France re- manufacturing offensive weapons, and deliver a
covered Alsace and Lorraine, and the victors large amount of free coal each year to Belgium
would temporarily occupy the left, or western, and France. Furthermore, it was forbidden to
bank of the Rhine and the coal-bearing Saar have an air force and had to give up its colonies.
basin. Wilson accepted his allies’ expectations The average German saw in these terms an un-
that Germany would pay substantial reparations merited humiliation that was compounded by
for civilian damage during the war. The specific Article 231 of the treaty, which described Ger-
amount was set in 1921 at the crushing sum of many’s “responsibility” for damage caused “by
132 billion gold marks. Germany also had to re- the aggression of Germany and her allies.”
818 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

CONTRASTING VIEWS

Arguing with the Victors

The end of World War I aroused hopes around the world. The con- powers at the Conference not to attach undue importance to su-
quered expected a fair-minded treaty based on Wilson’s Fourteen perficial differences of condition among us and not to consider
Points, while a variety of other peoples saw in that same document them only from the low ground of existing European material
the promise of self-determination. In particular, men living under interests and supposed spheres of influence. They expect the
colonial domination, such as many in Africa and the Arab states, powers to think of them as one potential people, jealous of their
had taken part in the conflict because the Allies had promised new language and liberty, and they ask that no step be taken incon-
rights in return for fighting this bloody and destructive war. The sistent with the prospect of an eventual union of these areas un-
emir Faisal had led troops to bring about freedom and Arab unity der one sovereign government.
(Document 1). Like some representatives at the Pan-African Con-
Source: Stephen Bonsal, Suitors and Suppliants: The Little Nations at Versailles
gress, even those Africans who had not fought saw peacemaking as
(Port Washington: Kennikat Press, 1969), 32–33.
a process that should forge a better future. Many wanted full polit-
ical rights and parliamentary representation if not outright inde-
pendence (Document 2). 2. The Voice of Pan-Africanists
In Paris in 1919, representatives of the victorious powers were African and African American leaders believed it would be oppor-
besieged by outsiders to Western government, each making a claim tune for them to meet in a Pan-African Congress while the Paris
for special attention to their needs or for concrete action to realize Peace Conference was going on. For some time an idea of a single
the noble rhetoric of the Fourteen Points. Feminist-pacifists wanted African people had been forming among leading black intellectu-
to ensure the pacifist cause (Document 3), while a Polish represen- als, and Pan-African meetings had taken place from the late nine-
tative articulated a concern that Jews had taken too many good jobs teenth century on. The demands were legion, but above all the
in the new Poland (Document 4). The proposals to the peacemak- congress, by mid-February 1919, had resolved to seek better treat-
ers produced few results. ment from the colonial powers.

Resolved
1. Claiming Independence That the Allied and Associated Powers establish a code of
for the Middle East law for the international protection of the natives of Africa. . . .
The Negroes of the world demand that hereafter the natives
Arabs had hotly debated whether to join with the Allied colonizers
of Africa and the peoples of African descent be governed accord-
in World War I, but promises of independence won them over. Some
ing to the following principles:
Arabs argued for independence of individual areas in the Middle
East and for resolutions to competing claims of the Arabs and of 1. The land: the land and its natural resources shall be held in
new Jewish settlers in the region. Emir Faisal, who had commanded trust for the natives and at all times they shall have effective
Arab forces in the war, presented the pan-Arab ideal. ownership of as much land as they can profitably develop. . . .
3. Labor: slavery and corporal punishment shall be abolished and
The aim of the Arab nationalist movement is to unite the Arabs forced labor except in punishment for crime. . . .
eventually into one nation. . . . I came to Europe on behalf of my 5. The state: the natives of Africa must have the right to partic-
father and the Arabs of Asia to say that they are expecting the ipate in the government as fast as their development permits,

Outraged Germans interpreted this as a war The League of Nations. Besides redrawing the
guilt clause, which blamed Germany for the war map of Europe, the Peace of Paris set up an organ-
and allowed the victors to collect reparations ization called the League of Nations, whose mem-
from economically developed Germany rather bers had a joint responsibility for maintaining
than from ruined Austria. War guilt made Ger- peace — a principle called collective security. It was
mans feel like outcasts in the community of supposed to replace the divisive secrecy of prewar
nations. power politics. As part of Wilson’s vision, the league

war guilt clause: The part of the Treaty of Versailles that as- League of Nations: The international organization set up fol-
signed blame for World War I to Germany. lowing World War I to maintain peace by arbitrating disputes
and promoting collective security.
1914–1929 Th e S e a rc h fo r Pe ac e i n a n E r a o f R evo lu t i o n 819

in conformity with the principle that the government exists 4. Anti-Semitism at the Peace Table
for the natives, and not the natives for the government.
Some of the new nations of eastern Europe were using anti-
Source: Quoted in W. E. B. Du Bois, The World and Africa (New York: Semitism to focus their unity and independence. A Polish leader
International Publishers, 1946), 11–12. lobbied the Allies to exercise a police power in the newly independ-
ent Poland, where a major problem after the war came to be rural
crowding. Nonetheless, Poles had the idea that Jews controlled the
3. Pacifists’ Goals for the Peace Process
professions and commercial wealth and needed to be knocked down
Pacifist women were angered that the peace conference would be a peg or two.
held in Paris instead of in a noncombatant or neutral country. Sit-
uating it where wartime hatred was at a fevered pitch, they argued, We have too many Jews, and those who will be allowed to re-
would not allow the conquered to receive a fair hearing. The con- main with us must change their habits. I recognize that this will
tinuing blockade of the Central Powers after the armistice was in- be difficult and will take time. The Jew must produce and not
creasing suffering and causing deaths. Themselves meeting in remain devoted exclusively to what we regard as parasitical pur-
neutral Switzerland, pacifist women speeded the dispatch of their suits. Unless restrictions are imposed upon them soon, all our
resolutions to Paris when the Treaty of Versailles was announced. lawyers, doctors, and small merchants will be Jews. They must
turn to agriculture, and they must at least share small business
The International Congress of Women regards the famine, pesti- and retail stores with their Polish neighbors. I readily admit
lence, and unemployment extending throughout great tracts of that there is some basis in the Jewish contention that in days
central and eastern Europe and into Asia as a disgrace to civi- past it was difficult for them to own land or even to work the
lization. fields of others as tenants; that they were often compelled by
It therefore urges the Governments of all the Powers as- circumstances beyond their control to gain their livelihood in
sembled at the Peace Conference immediately to develop the ways which are hurtful to Polish economy. Under our new con-
inter-allied organizations formed for purposes of war into an stitution all this will be changed, and for their own good I hope
international organization for purposes of peace, so that the re- the Jews will avail themselves of their new opportunities. I say
sources of the world — food, raw materials, finance, transport — this in their own interest as well as in the interest of restored
shall be made available for the relief of the peoples of all countries Poland.
from famine and pestilence.
Source: Bonsal, Suitors and Suppliants, 124.
To this end it urges that immediate action be taken . . . to
raise the blockade.
The terms of the peace tacitly sanction secret diplomacy, Questions to Consider
deny the principles of self-determination, recognize the rights of 1. Describe the various contending claims beyond those of the
victors to the spoils of war, and create all over Europe discords official combatant powers. Did the victorious powers heed
and animosities, which can only lead to future war. . . . By the fi- these voices when forging the peace?
nancial and economic proposals a hundred million people of this 2. How were the various demands at the peace conference related
generation in the heart of Europe are condemned to poverty, dis- to the politics and conditions of World War I?
ease, and despair, which must result in the spread of hatred and 3. Do any of the demands seem more justifiable in addressing
anarchy within each nation. the peacetime needs of Europe and the world?
Source: James Weber Linn, Jane Addams: A Biography (New York: Greenwood,
1968), 342–43.

would guide the world toward disarmament and many and the Ottoman Empire through a system
arbitrate its members’ disputes. The U.S. Senate, in of mandates. The victorious powers exercised po-
a humiliating defeat for the president, failed to rat- litical control over mandated territory, but local
ify the peace settlement and refused to join the leaders retained limited authority. The league
league. Both Germany and Russia initially were ex- covenant justified the mandate system as provid-
cluded from the league and were thus discouraged ing governance by “advanced nations” over territo-
from cooperating with other nations. The absence ries “not yet able to stand by themselves under the
of these three important powers weakened the
league as a global peacekeeper from the outset.
mandate system: The political control over the former colonies
The League of Nations also organized the ad- and territories of the German and Ottoman empires granted to
ministration of the colonies and territories of Ger- the victors of World War I by the League of Nations.
820 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

strenuous conditions of the modern world.” How- to the United States, estimated that Germany owed
ever, colonized people, who had served and fallen it at least $200 billion. Britain, by contrast, had not
on the battlefield, began to challenge the claims of been physically devastated; its concern was restor-
their European masters. They had seen how savage ing trade with Germany, not exacting huge repa-
were these people who claimed to be racially supe- rations. Nevertheless, both France and Britain
rior and politically advanced. “Never again will the depended on some monetary reparations to pay
darker people of the world occupy just the place their war debts to the United States because Eu-
they had before,” the African American leader rope’s income from world trade had plunged dur-
W. E. B. Du Bois predicted in 1918. The mandate sys- ing the war. Germany claimed that the demand for
tem continued the practice of apportioning the reparations strained its government, already beset
globe among European powers at a time when by political upheaval. But Germany’s economic
those powers were bankrupt and weak. Like the problems had begun when the kaiser refused to
Peace of Paris, it aroused anger and resistance. raise taxes, especially on the rich, to pay for the
war, thus leaving the new republic with a stagger-
ing war debt. As an experiment in democracy, the
Economic and Diplomatic
Weimar Republic needed to woo the citizenry, not
Consequences of the Peace alienate it by hiking taxes. In 1921, when Germans
Just as wartime conditions — including outright refused to present a realistic plan for paying repa-
military action — continued long after the ar- rations, the French occupied several cities in the
mistice, so the Peace of Paris generated problems Ruhr until a settlement was reached.
into the 1920s and beyond. Western leaders faced Embroiled with powers to the west, the Ger-
two intertwined issues in the aftermath of the war. man government mended its economic and diplo-
The first was economic recovery and its relation- matic fences in eastern Europe. It reached an
ship to war debts and German reparation pay- agreement to foster economic ties with Russia,
ments. The second was ensuring that peace which was desperate for Western trade, in the Treaty
actually came about and lasted. of Rapallo (1922). Germany’s relations with pow-
ers to the west, however, continued to deteriorate.
Economic Dilemmas. France, hardest hit by In 1923, after Germany defaulted on coal deliveries,
wartime destruction and billions of dollars in debt the French and the Belgians sent troops into the

Inflation in Germany (1923)


The German government resisted paying
reparations by slowing down the shipments of
manufactured goods that were a condition of the
reparations program. French troops were sent into
the Ruhr manufacturing region to take goods by
force, but angry workers refused to work for the
occupiers. To pay the workers and service its debt,
the government printed money so rapidly that
inflation brought the value of the German mark
from 4.2 marks to the dollar to 4.2 trillion marks to
the dollar, which destroyed savings and increased
resentment in Germany. As children played with
worthless marks, shown in this picture, a new
administration came to power in the summer and
resolved the issue. (akg-images.)
■ For more help in analyzing this image, see the
visual activity for this chapter in the Online Study
Guide at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
1914–1929 Th e A f t e r m at h o f Wa r : E u ro p e i n t h e 1 9 2 0 s 821

Ruhr basin, planning to seize its resources to pay for the major European powers, Japan, and the United
wartime expenditures. Urged on by the govern- States, also signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928),
ment, Ruhr citizens shut down industry by staying which formally rejected international violence.
home from work. The German government printed Lacking any measures to enforce its provisions,
trillions of marks to support the workers and to pay however, this idealistic agreement was powerless to
its own war debts with practically worthless cur- prevent the outbreak of war.
rency. Soon Germany was in the midst of a stagger- The public international agreements of the
ing inflation that gravely threatened the in- 1920s sharply contrasted with old-style diplomacy,
ternational economy: at one point, a single U.S. dol- which had been conducted in secret and subject to
lar cost 4.42 trillion marks, and wheelbarrows of little public scrutiny. The development of a system
money were required to buy a turnip. Negotiations of open, collective security suggested a diplomatic
to resolve this economic chaos resulted in the Dawes revolution that would promote peace in interna-
Plan (1924) and the Young Plan (1929), which re- tional relations. Yet openness allowed diplomats of
duced reparations to more realistic levels and re- the era to feed the press information calculated to
stored the value of German currency. Nonetheless, arouse the masses. For example, the press and op-
the inflation had wiped out people’s savings and ru- position parties whipped the German populace
ined those living on fixed incomes. The experience into a nationalist frenzy whenever Germany’s
of losing everything continued the Germans’ diplomats, who were successfully working to re-
wartime trauma and turned many more people duce reparation payments, seemed to compro-
against democratic government. mise. Although international meetings such as the
one at Locarno aimed to promote peace, they also
Ensuring Peace. In addition to economic recov- exposed the diplomatic process to rabble-rousers
ery, a second pressing issue involved ensuring that who wanted to inflame political passions rather
peace would take hold and last. Statesmen recog- than contribute to rational public discussion.
nized that peace demanded disarmament, a return
of Germany to the fold, and security for the new
Review: What were the major outcomes of the
countries of eastern Europe. Diplomatic negotia-
postwar peacemaking process?
tions produced two plans in Germany’s favor. At
the Washington Conference in 1921, the United
States, Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy
agreed to reduce their number of battleships and
to stop constructing new ones for ten years. Four The Aftermath of War:
years later, in 1925, the League of Nations spon- Europe in the 1920s
sored a meeting of the great powers, including
Germany, at Locarno, Switzerland. The Treaty of The armistice brought an end to the war’s fight-
Locarno provided Germany with a seat in the ing, and treaties established the terms of peace, but
league as of 1926. In return, Germany agreed not the wartime spirit endured. Words and phrases
to violate the borders of France from the battlefield punctuated
and Belgium and to keep the 0 100 200 miles
everyday speech. Before the war
nearby Rhineland demilita- 0 100 200 kilometers the word lousy had meant “lice-
GERMANY
rized — that is, unfortified by POLAND infested,” but English-speaking
troops. C ZE USSR soldiers returning from the
C H O S LO
VAKIA
To the east, statesmen feared trenches now applied it to any-
a German attempt to regain terri- AUSTRIA HUNGARY thing bad. Raincoats became
tory lost to Poland, to form a ROMANIA
trenchcoats, and terms like bom-
merger with Austria, or to attack barded and rank and file entered
the states spun off from Austria- YUGOSLAVIA peacetime usage. Maimed, disfig-
Hungary. To meet the threat, BULGARIA ured veterans were present every-
Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and where, and while some gained
ALBANIA
Romania formed the Little En- prostheses designed by Jules
tente in 1920–1921, a collective The Little Entente Amar, others without limbs were
security agreement intended to sometimes carried in baskets —
protect them from Germany and Russia. Between hence the expression basket case.
1924 and 1927, France allied itself with the Little Total war had generally strengthened the
Entente and with Poland. Sixty nations, including military spirit and authoritarian government.
822 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

WOMEN GAIN SUFFRAGE IN THE WEST they had also made extraordinary gains in the
workplace. French men pointedly denied women
1906 Finland the vote, however, threatening that women voters
would bring back the rule of kings and priests.
1913 Norway
(Only at the end of World War II would France
1915 Denmark, Iceland and Italy extend suffrage to women.) Governments
1917 Netherlands, Russia continued building the welfare state by expanding
1918 Czechoslovakia, Great Britain (limited suffrage) payments to veterans, families with children, and
workers who were unemployed or injured. New
1919 Germany
government benefits demonstrated a belief that
1920 Austria, United States more evenly distributed wealth — sometimes re-
1921 Poland ferred to as economic democracy — was impor-
1925 Hungary (limited suffrage) tant to social stability in a climate where revolution
threatened.
1945 Italy, France
The slow trend toward economic democracy
1971 Switzerland was not easy to maintain, however, because the
cycles of boom and bust that had characterized the
late nineteenth century reemerged. A short postwar
economic boom prompted by reconstruction and
consumer spending was followed by an economic
Although four autocratic governments had col- downturn that was most severe between 1920 and
lapsed as a result of the war, whether they would 1922. By the mid-1920s, many of the economic op-
become workable democracies remained a burn- portunities for women had disappeared and women
ing question. During the war, the European econ- made up a smaller percentage of the workforce than
omy lost many of its international markets to in 1913. Skyrocketing unemployment produced
India, Canada, Australia, Japan, and the United more discontent with governments.
States. Now worldwide economic competition
with these new players also threatened European Eastern Europe. The new republics of eastern
recovery. Returning veterans crowded hospitals Europe were unprepared for the hard economic
and mental institutions, and family life centered times and ill equipped to compete in the world
on their care. Although contemporaries referred to market. None but Czechoslovakia had a mature in-
the 1920s as the Roaring Twenties or the Jazz Age, dustrial sector, and agricultural techniques were
the sense of cultural release masked the serious often primitive. But more pressing problems ham-
problem of restoring stability. The real challenge pered them: vast migrations occurred as some one
of the 1920s was coming to terms million people escaped the civil
with the political, economic, and war in Russia; as 800,000 sol-
0 75 150 miles
social legacy of the war. 0 75 150 kilometers
LITHUANIA diers from the defeated Whites
Danzig searched for safety; and as two

EAST million more fled Turkey, Greece,
Changes in the PRUSSIA
USSR and Bulgaria because the post-
Political Landscape war settlement called for the new
Some Europeans saw the collapse G nations to be built along eth-
ER POLAND
of autocratic governments and M
AN
nic lines — “a great unmixing
the extension of suffrage to Y of populations” one statesman
women, widely granted at the C ZE called the settlement. Hundreds
C H OS
war’s end, as opportunities for a LOVAKIA of thousands thus landed in new
rebirth of democracy. Woman nations with a population most
suffrage resulted in part from Polish German closely representing their own
decades of activism, but many Czech Latvian ethnic group: Hungary, for exam-
governments claimed that suf- Slovak Lithuanian ple, had to receive 300,000 people
frage was a “reward” for women’s Belorussian Magyar
(Hungarian)
of Magyar ethnicity who were no
war efforts. In the first postwar Ukrainian longer welcome in Romania,
Romanian
elections, women in some coun- Czechoslovakia, or Yugoslavia.
tries were voted into parliaments, National Minorities in Postwar Most refugees lacked land or jobs.
and the impression grew that Poland They had nothing to do “but loaf
1914–1929 Th e A f t e r m at h o f Wa r : E u ro p e i n t h e 1 9 2 0 s 823

and starve,” an English reporter observed of middle classes hurt by inflation. Bands of disaf-
refugees in Bulgaria. The influx of people brought fected youth and veterans multiplied, among them
more conflict in various parts of eastern Europe. a group called the Brown Shirts, led by ex-soldier
Romania, Czechoslovakia, and the Kingdom of the and political newcomer Adolf Hitler (1889–1945).
Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes invaded Hungary, for A riveting speaker, Hitler gradually became a fa-
instance, to gain more land. vorite of antigovernment political groups that col-
Poland provides an example of how postwar lected donations from the enthusiastic crowds he
chaos destroyed the new nation’s parliamentary drew. In the wake of the Ruhr occupation of 1923,
democracy. One-third of the reunified Poland con- Hitler and German military hero Erich Ludendorff
sisted of Ukrainians, Belorussians, Germans, and launched a coup d’état — or putsch in German —
other ethnic minorities — many of whom had from a beer hall in Munich. Government troops
grievances against the dominant Poles. There were suppressed the Beer Hall Putsch and arrested its
also varying religious, dynastic, and cultural tradi- leaders, but Ludendorff was acquitted and Hitler
tions dividing the new nation, which for 150 years spent less than a year in jail. For conservative
had been split among Austria, Germany, and Rus- judges, former aristocrats, and most of the prewar
sia. Polish independence and reunification oc- bureaucrats who still staffed government offices,
curred without a common currency, political such men were national heroes.
structure, or language — even the railroad tracks
were not a standard size. Western Europe. In France and Britain, where
The Polish constitution professed equal rights parliamentary institutions were better established
for all ethnicities and religions, and the Sejm (par- and the upper classes were not plotting to restore
liament) tried to legislate the redistribution of an authoritarian monarchy, parties of the right had
large estates to the peasantry. However, declining less effect. In France, politicians from the conser-
crop prices and overpopulation (two-thirds of the vative right and moderate left successively formed
population lived by subsistence farming) made life coalitions and rallied general support to rebuild
in the countryside difficult. Urban workers were war-torn regions and to force Germany to pay for
better off than the peasantry but worse off than la- the reconstruction. Hoping to stimulate popu-
borers across Europe. The economic downturn lation growth after the devastating loss of life,
brought strikes and violence in 1922–1923, and members of the French parliament made the
the inability of the government to bring about eco- distribution of birth-control information illegal
nomic prosperity led to a coup in 1926 by strong- and abortion a severely punished crime.
man and former military leader Jozef Pilsudski. In Britain encountered postwar boom and
postwar east-central Europe, military solutions to bust, and strife continued in Ireland. Ramsay
economic hardship became common, demonstrat- MacDonald (1866–1937), elected the first Labour
ing the influence of war long after the peace had prime minister in 1924, represented the political
officially begun. strength of workers. Like other postwar British
leaders, he had to face the unpleasant truth that
Central Europe. Germany was a different case, although Britain had the largest world empire,
though it too felt the flood of refugees from the many of its industries were obsolete or in poor
east. Although the German economy picked up and condition. A showdown came in the ailing coal in-
Germany became a center of experimentation in dustry, where prices fell and wages plunged once
the arts, political life remained unstable because so the Ruhr mines again offered tough postwar com-
many people felt nostalgia for imperial glory and petition to British mines. On May 3, 1926, work-
associated defeat with the new Weimar Republic. ers launched a nine-day general strike against wage
Extremist politicians heaped daily abuse on cuts and dangerous conditions in the mines. The
Weimar’s parliamentary political system. A wealthy strike provoked unprecedented middle-class re-
newspaper and film magnate deemed anyone who sistance. University students, homemakers, and
cooperated with the parliamentary system “a moral businessmen shut down the strike by driving
cripple.” Right-wing parties favored violence rather trains, working on docks, and replacing workers in
than consensus building, and nationalist thugs other jobs. Thus, citizens from many walks of life
murdered democratic leaders and Jews. revived the wartime spirit to defeat those who ap-
Support for the far right came from wealthy peared to attack the weakening national economy.
landowners and businessmen, white-collar work- In Ireland, the continuing failure to imple-
ers whose standard of living had dropped during ment home rule provoked bloody confrontations.
the war, and members of the lower-middle and In January 1919, republican leaders announced
824 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

0 50 100 miles Ireland’s independence from for instance, heated homes and fueled the grow-
0 50 100 kilometers Britain and created a separate ing number of automobiles, airplanes, trucks,
SCOTLAND
parliament. The British gov- ships, and buses. Products like chocolate and trop-
Ulster
ernment refused to recognize ical fruit became regular items in the diet, and by
the parliament and sent in the extracting them from the colonies, some Western-
Black and Tans, a volunteer ers built fortunes.
army of demobilized soldiers The balance of power among the imperial na-
Dublin GREAT
 named after the color of their tions was shifting, however. The most important
IRISH BRITAIN
FREE STATE
uniforms. Terror reigned in change was Japan’s surging competition for mar-
ENGLAND Ireland, as both the pro- kets, resources, and influence. During the war,
independence forces and the Japanese output of industrial goods such as metal
Black and Tans waged guerrilla and ships grew dramatically because the Western
warfare, taking hostages, blow- powers outsourced their wartime needs for such
ing up buildings, and even products. As Japan took business from Britain and
The Irish Free State and Ulster, shooting into crowds at soccer France, its prosperity skyrocketed, allowing the
1921 matches. By 1921, public out- country to edge out Britain as the dominant power
rage forced the British to nego- in China. The Japanese government touted its suc-
tiate a treaty. It reversed the Irish declaration of cess as a sign of hope for non-Westerners. Japan’s
independence and made the Irish Free State a self- prosperity, the country’s politicians claimed, would
governing dominion owing allegiance to the end oppression by the West. Ardently nationalist,
British crown. Northern Ireland, a group of six the Japanese government was not yet strong
northern counties containing a majority of Protes- enough to challenge the Western powers militarily.
tants, gained a separate status: it was self-govern- Thus, although outraged that the Western powers
ing but still had representation in the British at Paris had refused a nondiscrimination clause in
Parliament. This settlement left bitter discontent, the charter of the League of Nations, Japan coop-
especially over the rights of religious minorities; erated in the Anglo-American–dominated peace. It
violence soon erupted again. agreed to the settlement at the naval conference in
Washington that set the ratio of English, American,
The Colonies. War changed everything in the and Japanese shipbuilding at 5:5:3. “Rolls Royce,
colonies too. Colonized peoples who had fought Rolls Royce, Ford,” a Japanese official commented
in the war expected more rights and even inde- bitterly.
pendence. Indeed, European politicians and mili-
tary recruiters had actually promised the vote and
Reconstructing
many other reforms in exchange for support. But
colonists’ political activism, now enhanced by in- the Economy
creasing education, trade, and experience with the The war had so weakened the traditional Euro-
West, mostly met a brutal response. Fearful of los- pean powers that newcomers and rivals — Japan,
ing India, British forces massacred protesters at India, the United States, Australia, and Canada —
Amritsar in 1919 and put down revolts against the flourished in their place. At the same time, the war
mandate system in Egypt and Iran in the early had forced many European manufacturers to be-
1920s. The Dutch jailed political leaders in Indone- come more efficient and had expanded the de-
sia; the French punished Indochinese nationalists. mand for automotive and air transport, electrical
For many Western governments, maintaining em- products, and synthetic goods. The prewar pat-
pires abroad was crucial to ensuring democracy at tern of mergers and cartels continued after 1918,
home, as agitators railed at any hint of declining giving rise to gigantic food-processing firms such
national prestige. as Nestlé in Switzerland and petroleum enter-
Despite resistance, the 1920s marked the high prises such as Royal Dutch Shell. Owners of these
tide of imperialism. Britain and France, enjoying large manufacturing conglomerates wielded more
new access to Germany’s colonies in Africa and to financial and political power than entire small
territories of the fallen Ottoman Empire in the countries. By the late 1920s, Europe had overcome
Middle East, were at the height of their global the wild economic swings of the immediate post-
power. No matter how battered by the war, all the war years and was enjoying renewed economic
imperial powers took advantage of the growing prosperity.
profitability that enterprises around the world European businesspeople acknowledged that
could bring. Middle Eastern and Indonesian oil, the United States had become the trendsetter in
1914–1929 Th e A f t e r m at h o f Wa r : E u ro p e i n t h e 1 9 2 0 s 825

economic modernization, and they made pilgrim- Restoring Society


ages to the Ford Motor Company’s Detroit assem-
bly line, which by 1929 produced a Ford Postwar society met the returning millions of bru-
automobile every ten seconds. Increased produc- talized, incapacitated, and shell-shocked veterans
tivity, founder Henry Ford pointed out, resulted in with combined joy and apprehension. Civilian
a lower cost of living and thus increased workers’ anxieties were often valid. Tens of thousands of
purchasing power. American workers could afford German, central European, and Italian soldiers re-
such expensive goods as cars: whereas French, Ger- fused to disband; a few British veterans even van-
man, and British citizens in total had fewer than dalized university classrooms and assaulted
two million cars, some seventeen million cars were women streetcar conductors and factory workers.
on U.S. streets in 1925. For their part, many veterans were angry that civil-
Scientific management also aimed to raise ians had rebelled against wartime conditions in-
productivity. American efficiency expert Frederick stead of patriotically enduring them. The world to
Taylor (1856–1915) developed methods to stream- which the veterans returned differed from the
line workers’ tasks and motions for maximum pro- home they had left: the war had blurred class dis-
ductivity. European industrialists adopted Taylor’s tinctions, giving rise to expectations that life would
methods during the war and after, but they were be fairer afterward. The massive casualties had fos-
also influenced by European psychologists who tered social mobility by allowing commoners to
emphasized the mental aspects of productivity and move up to the ranks of officers, positions often
the need to balance of work and leisure activities, monopolized by the prewar aristocracy. His son
for both workers and managers. In theory, in- killed on the battlefield, author Rudyard Kipling
creased productivity not only produced prosper- was among those who influenced the decision that
ity for all but also aimed to bind workers and all memorials to individual soldiers would be the
management together, avoiding Russian-style same for rich and poor, just as the experience of
worker revolution. Streamlining helped reduce the trenches had been. Wealth, he maintained,
working hours in many industries, causing union should not allow some to “proclaim their grief
leaders to embrace modernization and the “cult of above other people’s grief ” when rich and poor
efficiency.” For many workers, however, the em- had died for the same cause. The identical, evenly
phasis on efficiency seemed inhuman, with restric- spaced crosses of military cemeteries kept all the
tions so severe that often they were allowed to use dead equal, as did the mass “brothers’ graves” at
the bathroom only on a fixed schedule. “When I the battlefront where all ranks lay side by side in
left the factory, it followed me,” wrote one worker. a single burial pit.
“In my dreams I was a machine.” In contrast to expectations, veterans often had
The managerial sector in industry had ex- few or no jobs open to them; and some soldiers
panded during the war and continued to do so found that their wives and sweethearts had aban-
thereafter. Workers’ initiative became devalued, doned them — a wrenching betrayal for most of
with managers alone seen as creative and innova- them. Veterans faced other changes as well:
tive. Managers reorganized work procedures and middle-class women did their own housework be-
classified workers’ skills. They categorized “female” cause former servants could earn more money in
jobs as those requiring less skill and therefore de- factories; middle-class daughters began to work
serving of lower wages, thus adapting the old seg- outside the home, too. Women of all classes cut
mentation of the labor market to the new working their hair short, wore sleeker clothes, smoked, and
conditions. With male workers’ jobs increasingly had money of their own. In the United States, this
threatened by labor-saving machinery, unions postwar version of the “new woman” was called
usually agreed that women should receive lower the flapper. Patriotic when the war erupted, civil-
wages to keep them from competing with men for ians, especially women, sometimes felt estranged
scarce high-paying jobs. Like the managerial sec- from these returning warriors who had inflicted so
tor, a complex union bureaucracy had ballooned much death and who had lived daily with filth,
during World War I to help monitor labor’s part rats, and decaying human flesh. Women who had
in the war. Playing a key role in everyday political served on the front could empathize with the
life, unions could mobilize masses of people for soldiers’ woes. But many suffragists in England, for
displays of worker power such as stopping the instance, who had fought for an end to separate
coups against the Weimar government in the 1920s spheres before the war, now embraced gender
and organizing the 1926 general strike in Great segregation, so fearful were they of returning
Britain. veterans.
826 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

New Housing in Vienna


Politicians saw to the
building of “homes for
heroes” across postwar
Europe, and Vienna was
one leader in constructing
modern housing for the
working class. With many
veterans enraged by the war
experience and with socialist
revolution a looming threat,
new housing, it was hoped,
would help return men to
peaceful civilian life. (©
Bettmann/ Corbis.)

Governments tried to make civilian life as body-hugging clothing emphasized women’s sex-
comfortable as possible to reintegrate men into so- uality, seeming to invite men and women to join
ciety and reduce the appeal of communism. Politi- together and replenish the postwar population.
cians believed in the stabilizing power of The context for sexuality, however, remained mar-
traditional family values and supported social pro- riage. British scientist Marie Stopes published the
grams such as pensions, unemployment benefits, best seller Married Love in 1918, and the wildly
and housing for veterans. The new housing — successful Ideal Marriage: Its Physiology and Tech-
“homes for heroes,” as politicians called the nique by Dutch author Theodor van de Velde ap-
program — was a considerable improvement over peared in 1927. Both described sex in glowing
nineteenth-century working-class tenements. In terms and offered precise information about birth
Vienna, Frankfurt, Berlin, and Stockholm, modern control and sexual physiology. Changing ideas
housing projects provided collective laundries, about sex were not limited to the middle and up-
day-care centers, and rooms for group socializing; per classes; one Viennese reformer described
they featured gardens, terraces, and balconies to working-class marriage as “an erotic-comradely
provide a soothing, country ambience that offset relationship of equals” rather than the economic
the hectic nature of industrial life. Inside, they partnership of past centuries. Meanwhile, such
boasted modern kitchens, indoor plumbing, cen- writers as the Briton D. H. Lawrence and the Amer-
tral heating, and electricity. ican Ernest Hemingway glorified men’s sexual
Despite government efforts to restore tradi- vigor in, respectively, Women in Love (1920) and
tional family values, war had dissolved many The Sun Also Rises (1926). Mass culture’s focus on
middle-class conventions, among them attempts heterosexuality encouraged the return to normal-
to keep unmarried young men and women apart. ity after the gender disorder that had troubled the
Freer relationships and more open discussions of prewar and war years.
sex characterized the 1920s. Middle-class youth of As images of men and women changed, peo-
both sexes visited jazz clubs and attended movies ple paid more attention to bodily improvement.
together. Revealing bathing suits, short skirts, and The increasing use of toothbrushes and toothpaste,
1914–1929 M a s s C u ltu r e a n d t h e R i s e o f M o d e r n D i c tato r s 827

The Flapper
This modern workingwoman
smoking her cigarette stood for all
that had changed—or was said to
have changed—in the postwar
world. Women had worked and had
money of their own, they were out
in public and could vote in many
countries, and they were liberated
from old constraints on their sexual
and other behavior. (Getty Images.)

safety and electric razors, and deodorants reflected also brought changes in the public world of mass
new standards for personal hygiene and grooming. culture and mass politics.
For Western women, a multibillion-dollar cosmet-
ics industry sprang up almost overnight. Women
Review: What were the major political, economic, and
went to beauty parlors regularly to have their short
social problems facing postwar Europe, and how did
hair cut, set, dyed, conditioned, straightened, or governments attempt to address them?
curled. They also tweezed their eyebrows, applied
makeup, and even submitted to cosmetic surgery.
Ordinary women painted their faces as formerly
only prostitutes had done and competed in beauty
contests that judged physical appearance. Instead Mass Culture and the Rise
of wanting to look plump and prosperous, people of Modern Dictators
aimed to become thin and tan, often through ex-
ercise and playing sports. Consumers’ new focus on Wartime propaganda had aimed to unite all classes
personal health coincided with industry’s need for against a common enemy. In the 1920s, new tech-
a physically fit workforce. nology made the process of integrating diverse
As prosperity returned in the mid-1920s, peo- groups into a single Western or mass culture eas-
ple could afford to buy more consumer goods. ier and more thorough. The instruments of mass
Middle- and upper-class families snapped up sleek culture — primarily radio, film, and newspapers —
modern furniture, washing machines, and vacuum expanded their influence in the 1920s. Whereas
cleaners. Other modern conveniences such as elec- some intellectuals urged elites to form an experi-
tric irons and gas stoves appeared in better-off mental avant-garde that refused to cater to “the
working-class households. Installment buying, drab mass of society,” others wanted to use mod-
popularized from the 1920s on, helped people fi- ern media and art to reach and even control the
nance these purchases. Housework became more masses. The media had the potential for creating
mechanized, and family intimacy increasingly de- an informed citizenry and thus strengthening
pended on machines of mass communication like democracy. At the same time, it had the potential
radios, phonographs, and even automobiles. These for allowing dictators to use it as a tool to keep war
new products not only transformed private life but and revolution foremost in people’s minds. Benito
828 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, and ultimately Adolf fluential hit The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1919)
Hitler used mass media to control citizens far depicted events in an insane asylum as horrifying
beyond the hopes of wartime military leaders. symbols of state power. Popular detective and cow-
boy films portrayed heroes who could restore
wholeness to the disordered world of murder,
Culture for the Masses crime, and injustice. The plight of gangsters ap-
The media had received a big boost from the war. pealed to war veterans, who had been exposed to
Bulletins from the battlefront had whetted the the cheap value of life in the modern world. Eng-
public’s craving for news and real-life stories, and lish comedian, actor, and producer Charlie Chaplin
sales of nonfiction books soared. After years of (1889–1977) created the character of the Little
deprivation, people were driven to achieve mate- Tramp, who won international popularity as the
rial success, and they devoured books that advised down-and-out hero, the anonymous soldier who
how to gain it. A biography of Henry Ford, telling struggled to keep his dignity in a postwar society.
his story of upward mobility and technological ac- All of these films played in theaters internationally,
complishment, became a best seller in Germany. reflecting the restoration of global culture. Many
With postwar readers avidly pursuing practical featured a global cast of characters and were often
knowledge, institutes and night schools became set in North Africa or the Middle East, whose deserts
popular, and school systems promoted the study became a common backdrop. Sporting events like
of geography, science, and history. Phonographs, cricket and boxing became internationalized in the
radio programs, and movies also widened the 1920s and 1930s, and clips from these matches were
scope of national culture. shown worldwide in newsreels before feature films.
The war years, when the U.S. film industry be- Like film, radio evolved from an experimental
gan to outstrip the European, gave rise to special- medium to an instrument of mass culture during
ization: directors, producers, marketers, film the 1920s. Developed from the wireless technology
editors, and many others subdivided the process. of Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi, which had
Then, during the 1920s, film evolved from an ex- been introduced at the turn of the century, radio
perimental medium to a thriving international broadcasts in the first half of the 1920s were heard
business in which large corporations set up the- by mass audiences in public halls (much like movie
ater chains and marketed movies worldwide. A houses) and featured orchestra performances and
“star” system, promoted by professional publicity, songs followed by audience discussion. The radio
turned film personalities into celebrities. Films of quickly became a relatively inexpensive consumer
literary classics and political events developed item, allowing the public concert or lecture to pen-
people’s sense of a common heritage and were often etrate the individual’s private living space. Special-
sponsored by governments. Bolshevik leaders ac- ized programming for men (such as sports
tively supported filmmaking. In particular, two reporting) and for women (such as advice on home
films by innovative director Sergei Eisenstein, management) soon followed. By the 1930s, radio
Potemkin (1925) and Ten Days That Shook the was available for politicians to reach the masses
World (1927–1928), presented a Bolshevik view of wherever they might be — even alone at home (see
history to Russian and international audiences. “Taking Measure,” page 829).
Films incorporated familiar elements from
everyday life. The piano accompaniment of silent
Cultural Debates
films derived from music halls; comic characters,
farcical plots, and slapstick humor were borrowed over the Future
from street or burlesque shows and from trends in Cultural leaders in the 1920s either were haunted
postwar living. The popular comedies of the 1920s by the horrendous experience of war or held high
made the flapper more visible to the masses and hopes for creating a fresh, utopian future that
satirized men and women inept at marriage and would have little relation to the past. German
emotional intimacy. Lavish cinema houses at- artists, especially, produced bleak or violent vi-
tracted some hundred million weekly viewers, the sions. The sculpture and woodcuts of German
majority of them women. As popular films and artist Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945), whose son died
books crossed national borders, a global culture in the war, portrayed bereaved parents, starving
for an international audience flourished. children, and other heart-wrenching antiwar im-
Films also played to postwar fantasies and fears. ages (see page 798). Others thought that Euro-
In Germany, where filmmakers used expressionist peans needed to search for answers in far-off
sets and costumes to make films frightening, the in- cultures. Seeing Europe as decadent, some turned
1914–1929 M a s s C u ltu r e a n d t h e R i s e o f M o d e r n D i c tato r s 829

TAKING MEASURE

2,838,000 The Growth of Radio, 1924–1929


2,730,000 The spread of radio technology, like
the earlier development of printing,
advanced the cultural and political
unity of citizens in a nation-state. The
most industrially and commercially de-
veloped societies witnessed the most
rapid diffusion of radios, which were
both programmed and taxed by gov-
ernments. Because of this centralized
control, historians can compare the
country-by-country use of radio in Eu-
748,000 rope and in much of the rest of the
world. Of the five countries repre-
428,000 sented here, which experienced the
268,000 most rapid spread of radio technology?
40,000 84,000 Can you suggest reasons for their lead
2,000 9,000 17,000
in accepting radio?
Czechoslovakia Germany Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom
Radio Licenses (in thousands) 1924 1929

to the spiritual richness of Asian philosophies and


religions, fixing on the pacifist leader for Indian
independence Mohandas Gandhi. An “Asiatic
fever” seemed to grip intellectuals, including the
writer Virginia Woolf, who drew on ideas of rein-
carnation in her novel Orlando (1928), and the
filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, who modeled the new
techniques of juxtaposing shots (montage) on
Japanese ideograms.
Other artists employed satire, irony, and flip-
pancy to express postwar rage and revulsion at
civilization’s apparent failure. George Grosz
(1893–1959), stunned by the war’s carnage, joined
Dada, an artistic and literary movement that had

George Grosz, “Twilight” from the Series


Ecce Homo, 1922
George Grosz’s series of postwar art was named after
a book by Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo (Behold
the Man). The “man” to behold was the veteran,
opportunistically called a “hero” by postwar politicians
to get their votes but in fact living a grim reality, as
Grosz saw it. Surrounded by prosperous businessmen,
fashionable women, and strutting military officers, the
veteran was pushed to the background, gray and
lonely amid the colorful peacetime society. (Bildarchiv
Preussischer Kulturbesitz / Art Resource, NY/ © Estate of George
Grosz/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.)
830 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

DOCUMENT

Battlefield Tourism
World War I left deep wounds in the sur- which I have no one, now, to share the re- Venice I had bought some rosebuds and a
vivors, including the families of those who membrance, the bright fields at Upping- small asparagus fern in a pot; the shop-
had died. Like the English writer Vera Brit- ham, the restless months in Buxton, the keeper had told me that it would last a
tain, many relatives roamed the battlefields hopes and ambitions of Oxford, the losses long time, and I planted it in the rough
of Europe, in hopes of understanding what and long-drawn agonies of the War— grass beside the grave.
had happened to their loved ones — and to should be buried in this grave on the top “How trivial my life has been since
Western civilization as a whole. During the of a mountain, in the lofty silence, the the War!” I thought, as I smoothed the
war, Brittain had served as a nurse while singing unearthly stillness, of these remote earth over the fern. “How mean they are,
suffering the loss of her brother, fiancé, and forests! At every turn of every future road these little strivings, these petty ambitions
friends. There was no organized tour of Ital- I shall want to ask him questions, to recall of us who are left, now that all of you are
ian battlefields in 1921 as there was of those to him memories, and he will not be there. gone! How can the future achieve, through
in northwestern Europe, so Brittain went on Who could have dreamed that the little us, the sombre majesty of the past? Oh,
her own to find her brother’s grave high up boy born in such uneventful security to an Edward, you’re so lonely up here; why
in the remote mountains. She later re- ordinary provincial family would end his can’t I stay for ever and keep your grave
counted this visit in a memoir of her early brief days in a battle among the high pine- company, far from the world and its vain
life. woods of an unknown Italian plateau?” endeavours to rebuild civilisation, on this
Close to the wall, in the midst of a Plateau where alone there is dignity and
“How strange, how strange it is,” I re- group of privates from the Sherwood peace?”
flected, as I looked, with an indefinable Foresters who had all died on June 15th, I
pain stabbing my chest, for Edward’s name found his name: “Captain E. H. Brittain,
among those neat rows of oblong stones, M.C., 11th Notts. And Derby Regt. Killed Source: Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth (London:
“that all my past years — the childhood of in action June 15th, 1918. Aged 22.” In Virago, 1978 [1933]), 525–27.

emerged during the war. With a meaningless Remarque’s novel was part of a flood of popular,
name, Dada produced works marked by nonsense and often bitter, literature appearing on the tenth
and shrieks of alienation. Grosz’s paintings and anniversary of the war’s end. It coincided with
cartoons of maimed soldiers and brutally mur- new interest in visiting battlefields and other
dered women reflected his wartime trauma and his “Great War tourism.” (See Document, “Battlefield
self-proclaimed desire “to bellow back.” In the Tourism,” above.)
postwar years, the modernist tradition of shock- Poets reflected on postwar conditions in more
ing audiences became more savage and often more general terms, using styles that rejected the com-
contemptuous of ordinary people. Portrayals of forting rhymes or accessible metaphors of earlier
seedy everyday life flourished in cabarets and the- verse. T. S. Eliot, an American-born poet who for
aters in the 1920s and reinforced veterans’ beliefs a time worked as a banker in Britain, portrayed
in civilian decadence. postwar life as petty and futile in “The Waste Land”
The art world itself became a battlefield, es- (1922) and “The Hollow Men” (1925). The Irish
pecially in defeated Germany, where it paralleled poet William Butler Yeats joined Eliot in mourn-
the Weimar Republic’s contentious politics. Pop- ing the end of traditional society and moral val-
ular writers such as Ernst Jünger glorified life in ues and the rise of a new, superficial generation
the trenches and called for the militarization of gaily dancing to jazz and engaging in promiscuous
society to restore order. In contrast, Erich Maria sex. Both poets had an uneasy relationship with
Remarque cried out for an end to war in All Quiet the modern world and at times advocated author-
on the Western Front (1928). This international itarianism rather than democracy.
best seller depicted the life shared by enemies on The postwar arts produced many a utopian
the battlefield, thus aiming to overcome the fantasy turned upside down; dystopias of life in a
national hatred aroused by wartime propaganda. war-traumatized Europe multiplied. In the bizarre
1914–1929 M a s s C u ltu r e a n d t h e R i s e o f M o d e r n D i c tato r s 831

expressionist stories of Franz Kafka, an employee loved films and stories about the Wild West or the
of a large insurance company in Prague, the world carefree “modern American girl.” They were espe-
is a vast, impersonal machine. His novels The Trial cially attracted to jazz, the improvisational music
(1925) and The Castle (1926) evoked the hopeless that emanated from New York’s Harlem. Perform-
condition of individuals caught between the cogs ers like Josephine Baker (1906–1976) and Louis
of society’s relentlessly turning gears. His themes Armstrong (1900–1971) became international
seemed to capture for civilian life the helplessness sensations when they toured Europe’s capital
that soldiers had felt at the front. As an old social cities. Like jazz, the New York skyscraper pointed
order collapsed in the face of political and techno- to the future, not to the grim wartime past.
logical innovation, other writers depicted the com-
plex, sometimes nightmarish inner life of
The Communist Utopia
individuals.
Irish writer James Joyce and British writer Vir- Communism also promised a shining future and a
ginia Woolf portrayed this interior self built on modern, technological culture. But as the Bolshe-
memories and sensations, many of them from the viks met powerful resistance, they became ever
war. Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) and Woolf ’s Mrs. Dal- more ruthless and authoritarian. In the early 1920s,
loway (1925) illuminated the fast-moving inner peasant bands called Green Armies revolted against
lives of their characters in the course of a single the policy of war communism that confiscated their
day. In one of the most celebrated passages in crops. Industrial production stood at only 13 per-
Ulysses, a long interior monologue traces a
woman’s lifetime of erotic and emotional sensa-
tions. The technique of using a character’s
thoughts to propel a story was called stream of
consciousness. For Woolf, the war had dissolved
the solid society from which absorbing stories and
fascinating characters were once fashioned. Her
characters experience fragmented conversations
and incomplete relationships. Woolf ’s novel Or-
lando also reflected the current interest in Eastern
ideas of reincarnation and the postwar attention
to women. In the novel, the hero Orlando lives
hundreds of years and in the course of his long life
is eventually transformed into a woman.
There was another side to the postwar story,
one based not on the interior life of a traumatized
society but on the promise of technology. Avant-
garde artists before the war had celebrated the new,
the futuristic, the utopian. Like Jules Amar craft-
ing prostheses for shattered limbs, they were opti-
mistic that technology could make an entire
society whole after the slaughter. The aim of art,
observed one of them, “is not to decorate our life
but to organize it.” The group of German artists The New Man
called the Bauhaus (after the idea of a craft asso- There was a sense in the postwar world that people
ciation, or Bauhütte) created streamlined office were entering a new age after the horrors of war.
buildings and designed functional furniture and Nowhere was this feeling stronger than among
utensils, many of them inspired by forms from Communists in Russia, where it was also believed that
communism would also create “The New Man,” the
“untainted” East Asia and Africa. Russian artists,
subtitle of this work by Eli Lissitsky (“Victory over the
temporarily entranced by communism, wrote nov-
Sun: The New Man,” 1923). Note the energy in the
els about cement factories and ballets about steel. figure, as it stretches its reach in all directions. The
Artists fascinated by technology and machin- use of pure lines and geometric forms symbolized the
ery were drawn to the most modern of all coun- higher reality that the new man would reach once the
tries — the United States. Hollywood films, glossy messiness and corruption of ordinary reality had been
advertisements, and the bustling metropolis of eliminated. (Tate, London / Art Resource, NY/ © 2008 Artists Rights
New York tempted careworn Europeans. They Society (ARS), NY.)
832 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

cent of its prewar output, shortages of housing af- worded novels about love and work in the new so-
fected the entire population, and millions of cialist state for ordinary readers.
refugees clogged the cities and roamed the country- The bureaucracy swelled to bring modern
side. In the early spring of 1921, workers in Petro- ways to every corner of life, and hygiene and effi-
grad and sailors at the nearby naval base at ciency became watchwords, as they were in the rest
Kronstadt revolted, protesting their short rations of Europe. Such agencies as the Zhenotdel
and the privileged standard of living that Bolshevik (Women’s Bureau) taught women about their
supervisors enjoyed. They called for “soviets with- rights under communism and about sanitary
out Communists” — that is, a return to the early housekeeping. Efficiency experts aimed to replace
promises of a worker state without elite leaders. tsarist backwardness with technological moder-
The Bolsheviks had many of the rebels shot, nity based on the techniques of Americans Henry
but the Kronstadt revolt pushed Lenin to institute Ford and Frederick Taylor. The short-lived govern-
reform. His New Economic Policy (NEP) returned ment agency Proletkult tried to develop proletar-
parts of the economy to the free market, a tempo- ian culture through such undertakings as workers’
rary retreat to capitalist methods that allowed universities, a workers’ theater, and workers’ pub-
peasants to sell their grain and others to trade con- lishing. Russian artists experimented with blend-
sumer goods freely. Although the state still con- ing high art and technology in mass culture: poet
trolled large industries and banking, the NEP Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote verse praising his
encouraged people to produce, sell, and even, in Communist passport and essays promoting tooth-
the spirited slogan of one official, “get rich.” As a brushing, and composers punctuated their music
result, consumer goods and more food to eat soon with the sound of train or factory whistles. The
became available. Although many remained im- early days of Bolshevik rule saw interesting exper-
poverished, some peasants and merchants pros- iments in all of the arts and in mass culture.
pered. The rise of these wealthy “NEPmen,” who As with war communism, many resisted at-
bought and furnished splendid homes, again broke tempts to change everyday life and culture. As
the Bolshevik promise of a classless utopia. Zhenotdel workers moved into the countryside,
Further protest erupted within Communist for example, they attempted to teach women to be-
ranks. At the 1921 party congress, a group called have as men’s equals. Peasant families, still strongly
the Worker Opposition objected to the party’s patriarchal, often resisted. In Islamic regions of
usurpation of economic control from worker or- central Asia, incorporated from the old Russian
ganizations and pointed out that the NEP was an Empire into the new Communist one, Bolsheviks
agrarian program, not a proletarian one for work- urged Muslim women to remove their veils, but
ers. In response, Lenin suppressed the Worker Op- fervent Muslims often attacked both Zhenotdel
position and set up procedures for purging workers and women who followed their advice.
opponents — a policy that would become a deadly Lenin suffered a debilitating stroke in the
feature of Communist rule. Bolshevik leaders also spring of 1922, and amid ongoing cultural exper-
worked to make the Communist revolution a cul- imentation and factional fighting, the architect of
tural reality in people’s lives and thinking. Party the Bolshevik Revolution died in January 1924.
leaders set up classes in a variety of political and The party congress declared the day of his death a
social subjects throughout the countryside, and permanent holiday, changed the name of Petro-
volunteers struggled to improve the rate of grad to Leningrad, and elevated the deceased
literacy — which was only 40 percent on the eve of leader into a secular god. After Lenin’s death, no
World War I. To facilitate social equality between one was allowed to criticize anything associated
the sexes, which had been part of the Marxist with his name, a situation that paved the way for
vision of the future, the state made birth control, future abuses of power by Communist leaders.
abortion, and divorce readily available. As com- Joseph Stalin (1879–1953), who served in the
missar for public welfare, Aleksandra Kollontai powerful post of general secretary of the Commu-
(1872–1952) promoted birth-control education nist Party, was the chief mourner at Lenin’s fu-
for adults and day care for children of working par- neral. Stalin organized the Lenin cult, which
ents. To encourage literacy, she wrote simply included the public display of Lenin’s embalmed
corpse — still on view today. He dealt with thou-
sands of local party officials, which gave him enor-
Aleksandra Kollontai (1872–1952): Russian activist and minis- mous national patronage, and in 1923 welded both
ter of public welfare in the Bolshevik government; she pro-
moted social programs such as birth control and day care for Russian and non-Russian regions into the Union
children of working parents. of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Wary of
1914–1929 M a s s C u ltu r e a n d t h e R i s e o f M o d e r n D i c tato r s 833

Stalin’s growing influence and ruthlessness, Lenin Mussolini consolidated his power by making
in his last will and testament had asked that “the criticism of the state a criminal offense and by vi-
comrades find a way to remove Stalin.” Stalin, how- olently wiping out parliamentary opposition. His
ever, prevented Lenin’s will from being publicized Fascist bands demolished socialist newspaper of-
and discredited his chief rival, Trotsky, as an un- fices, attacked striking workers, used their favorite
patriotic internationalist who was unwilling to tactic of forcing castor oil (which caused diarrhea)
concentrate on the tough job of modernizing the down the throats of socialists, and even murdered
Soviet Union. With the blessing of Trotsky’s other certain powerful opponents. Yet this brutality and
rivals, Stalin had him exiled. Bringing in several the sight of the Black Shirts marching through the
hundred thousand new party members who owed streets like disciplined soldiers signaled to many
their positions in government and industry to him, Italians that their country was orderly and mod-
Stalin built a loyal base of supporters. By ern. Large landowners and businessmen approved
1928–1929, he had achieved virtually complete Fascist attacks on strikers, and they supported
control of the USSR. the movement financially. Their generous funding
allowed Mussolini to build a large staff by hiring
Fascism on the March in Italy the unemployed, creating the illusion that Fas-
cists could rescue the economy when no one else
In Italy, the war remained alive in the rise to power could.
of Benito Mussolini (1883–1945), who, like the Like a wartime leader, Mussolini used mass
Bolsheviks, promised an efficient military utopia. propaganda to build support for a kind of military
Italian anger boiled over when the Allies at Paris campaign to remake Italy by uniting rich and poor,
refused to honor the territorial promises of the peasant and worker. Peasant men huddled around
Treaty of London. Domestic unrest swelled when radios to hear him call for a “battle of wheat” to
peasants and workers protested their economic enhance farm productivity. Peasant women, re-
plight during the slump of the early 1920s. Since sponding to his praise for maternal duty, idolized
the late nineteenth century, many Europeans had him for appearing to value womanhood. In the
come to blame parliaments and constitutions for cities the government launched avant-garde archi-
their problems, so Italians approved when Mus- tectural projects and used public relations promot-
solini, a socialist journalist who turned to the rad- ers to advertise its achievements. The modern city
ical right, built a personal army (the Black Shirts) became a stage set for Fascist spectacle: old resi-
of veterans and the unemployed to overturn par- dential neighborhoods fell to the wrecking ma-
liamentary government. In 1922, his supporters, chines, allowing roadbuilders to put in broad
known as Fascists, started a march on Rome, forc- avenues for Fascist parades, captured by newsreel
ing King Victor Emmanuel III (r. 1900–1946) to cameras and broadcast by radio. Mussolini
make Mussolini prime minister. claimed that he made the trains run on time, and
The Fascist movement flourished in the soil of this additional triumph of modern technology
poverty, social unrest, and wounded national fanned people’s hopes that he could restore order
pride. It attracted to its bands of Black Shirts many even if it were a warlike kind of order.
young men who felt cheated of wartime glory by Mussolini added a strong dose of traditional
the Allies and veterans who missed the vigor of values and prejudices to his modern order. Al-
military life. The fasces, an ancient Roman symbol though an atheist, he recognized the importance
depicting a bundle of sticks wrapped around an ax of Catholicism to most Italians. In 1929, the Lat-
with the blade exposed, served as the movement’s eran Agreement between the Italian government
emblem; it represented both unity and force to and the church made the Vatican an independent
Mussolini’s supporters. Unlike Marxism, Fascism state under papal sovereignty. The government
had no coherent ideology: “Fascism is not a recognized the church’s right to determine mar-
church,” Mussolini announced upon taking power riage and family policy and supported its role in
in 1922. “It is more like a training ground.” education. In return, the church ended its criticism
Fascism was thus defined by its promotion of of Fascist tactics. Mussolini also introduced a “cor-
male violence and its opposition to parliamentary porate” state that denied individual political rights
rule and the antinationalist socialist movement. in favor of duty to the state, as in wartime. Cor-
poratist decrees in 1926 outlawed independent la-
Benito Mussolini (1883–1945): Leader of Italian fascist move-
ment and, after the March on Rome in 1922, dictator of Italy. bor unions and peasant groups, replacing them
fascism: A doctrine that emphasized violence and glorified the with organized groups or corporations of employ-
state over the people and their individual or civil rights. ers, workers, and professionals to settle grievances
834 C h a pt e r 2 5 ■ Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 1914–1929

and determine conditions of work. Mussolini drew anti-Semitism and a political psychology for ma-
more praise from business leaders when he an- nipulating the masses. Hitler was fascinated by the
nounced cuts in women’s wages; and then in the specifics of Mussolini’s success: the dramatic Fascist
late 1920s he won the approval of civil servants, march on Rome, Mussolini’s legal accession to
lawyers, and professors by banning women from power, and the triumph over socialist and trade
those professions. Mussolini did not want women unionist opposition. But the poor economic condi-
out of the workforce altogether but aimed to con- tions that had allowed Mussolini to rise to power in
fine them to low-paying jobs as part of his scheme 1922 no longer existed in Germany. Although Hitler
for reinvigorating men. was welding the Nazi Party into a strong political
Mussolini’s admirers were numerous across the instrument, the Weimar parliamentary government
West and included Adolf Hitler, who throughout was actually working as the decade wore on.
the 1920s had been building a paramilitary group
of storm troopers and a political organization called
the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Review: How did the postwar atmosphere influence
Nazis. During his brief stint in jail for the Beer Hall cultural expression and encourage the trend toward
Putsch in 1923, Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (My dictatorship?
Struggle, 1925), which articulated both a vicious

Mussolini and the Black Shirts


For movements like Mussolini’s Fascism, the best society was one controlled by militarized
politics that killed its critics and political opponents. Fascism saw parliamentary democracies as
effeminate and doomed in the modern world, which would need dictators and obedient warriors to
make it strong, efficient, and machinelike. Thus, in the name of promoting state power, Mussolini
gained adherents both within and outside of Italy. (Farabolafoto.)
1914–1929 C o n c lu s i o n 835

Conclusion By the end of the 1920s, the legacy of war had


been to so militarize politics that strongmen had
The year 1929 was to prove just as fateful as 1914 come to power in several countries, including the
had been. In 1914, World War I began an orgy of Soviet Union and Italy, with Adolf Hitler waiting
death, causing tens of millions of casualties, the in the wings in Germany. These strongmen kept
destruction of major dynasties, and the collapse of alive the wartime commitment to violence. Many
aristocratic classes. For four years war promoted Westerners were impressed by their tough, mod-
military technology, virulent nationalism, and the ern efficiency. Fascists and Communists especially
control of everyday life by bureaucracy. While dy- worked to make parliaments and citizen rule seem
nasties fell, the centralization of power increased out-of-date, even effeminate. When the U.S. stock
the scope of the nation-state. The Peace of Paris market crashed in 1929 and economic disaster
treaties of 1919–1920 left Germans bitterly resent- circled the globe, authoritarian solutions and mili-
ful, while in eastern and central Europe the intense tarism continued to look appealing. What followed
intermingling of ethnicities, religions, and lan- was a series of catastrophes even more devastating
guages in the new states created by the treaties than World War I.
failed to guarantee a peaceful future. Massive mi-
grations provoked additional chaos, as some new
nations expelled minority groups. For Further Exploration
War furthered the development of mass soci-
ety. It leveled social classes on the battlefield and ■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
in the graveyard, standardized political thinking
end of the book.
through wartime propaganda, and extended many
political rights to women for their war effort.
■ For additional primary-source material from
Production techniques, improved during wartime, this period, see Chapter 25 in Sources of THE
turned in peacetime toward churning out con- MAKING OF THE WEST, Third Edition.
sumer goods and technological innovations like
the prostheses built by Jules Amar, air transport, ■ For Web sites and documents related to topics
cinema, and radio transmission for greater num- in this chapter, see Make History at
bers of people. Modernity in the arts intensified bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
after the war, as artists and writers probed the
nightmarish cataclysm that continued to haunt the
population.
836
MA P P I N G T H E W E ST

C h a pt e r 2 5
FINLAND
GREENLAND SWEDEN 1920 N
NORWAY
W E
ICELAND NETH. 4
UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS
CANADA GREAT DEN. 5 S
BRITAIN


POL. 6
8
BEL. CZECH. 7

Wo r l d Wa r I a n d I t s A f t e r m at h
FRANCE 2 ROM. MONGOLIA
SWITZ. YUGO. 3
PORTUGAL SPAIN ITALY
UNITED STATES GR. TURKEY KOREA JAPAN
TUNISIA 1 SYR. CHINA
MOROCCO (Fr.) PALESTINE IRAQ IRAN AFG. TIBET
(Fr.)
ALGERIA LIBYA TRANS-
HAITI (Fr.) EGYPT JORDAN
DOM. REP.
(It.)
INDIA PACIFIC OCEAN
SAUDI
MEXICO CUBA 1924 ARABIA OMAN
FRENCH BR. SUDAN SIAM
HONDURAS WEST AFRICA CAMEROON
GUATEMALA NICARAGUA FR.
EL SALVADOR 1924 NIGERIA FR. INDOCHINA PACIFIC IS.
ABYSSINIA
COSTA RICA 1920–25 VENEZUELA CAMEROON
PANAMA
COLOMBIA LIBERIA FR.
ECUADOR TOGO BISMARCK ARCH.
RUANDA-
BR. TOGO URUNDI DUTCH EAST INDIES
TANGANYIKA INDIAN
BRAZIL
PACIFIC OCEAN PERU 1920–26 ANGOLA OCEAN
SAMOA
BOLIVIA
PARAGUAY ATLANTIC MADAGASCAR
S.W.
OCEAN AFRICA
AUSTRALIA
SOUTH
CHILE URUGUAY AFRICA
ARGENTINA

NEW
League of Nations 1 Albania, 1920 ZEALAND
Original members 2 Austria, 1920
Subsequent members, 3 Bulgaria, 1920
with date of membership 4 Estonia, 1921
Possessions of member states 5 Latvia, 1920
Non-member states 6 Lithuania, 1921
Mandated territories 7 Hungary, 1922–37
8 Germany, 1926–33
0 1,000 2,000 miles
0 1,000 2,000 kilometers

Europe and the World in 1929


The map reflects the partitions and nations that came into being as a result of war and revolution, while it obscures the
increasing movement toward throwing off colonial rule. This was the true high point of empire: the drive for empire would
diminish after 1929 except for Italy, which still craved colonies, and Japan, which continued searching for more land and
resources to fuel its rapid growth. ■ Observe the League of Nations membership as depicted in the map. What common

1914–1929
bonds, if any, united these member nations?
1914–1929 C h a pt e r R ev i ew 837

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
Key Terms and People Making Connections
total war (800) Fourteen Points (816) 1. How did the experience of war shape postwar mass
cult of the offensive Peace of Paris (816) politics?
(803) war guilt clause (818) 2. What social changes from the war carried over into the
Schlieffen Plan (803) League of Nations (818) postwar years and why?
soviets (811) mandate system (819)
V. I. Lenin (811) Aleksandra Kollontai
Bolshevik Revolution (832) For practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other
(811) Benito Mussolini (833) study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
Weimar Republic (815) fascism (833) bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.

Review Questions
1. In what ways was World War I a total war?
2. Why did people rebel during World War I, and what
turned rebellion into outright revolution in Russia?
3. What were the major outcomes of the postwar
peacemaking process?
4. What were the major political, social, and economic prob-
lems facing postwar Europe, and how did governments
attempt to address them?
5. How did the postwar atmosphere influence cultural expres-
sion and encourage the trend toward dictatorship?

Important Events

1913–1925 Suffrage for women expands in much 1919 The Weimar Republic established
of Europe 1919–1920 Paris Peace Conference redraws the map
1914 August World War I begins of Europe
1916 Irish nationalists stage Easter Uprising 1922 Ireland is split in two: the independent Ir-
against British rule ish Free State in the south and British-
1917 March Revolution in Russia overturns tsarist affiliated Ulster in the north; Fascists march
autocracy on Rome; Mussolini becomes Italy’s prime
minister; T. S. Eliot publishes “The Waste
April The United States enters World War I Land”; James Joyce publishes Ulysses
November Bolshevik Revolution in Russia 1924 Lenin dies; Stalin and Trotsky contend for
1918 November Armistice ends fighting of World War I; power
revolutionary turmoil throughout 1924–1929 Period of general economic prosperity and
Germany; the kaiser abdicates stability
1918–1922 Civil war in Russia 1929 October Stock market crash in United States
The Great Depression C H A P T E R

and World War II


1929–1945
26
The Great Depression 840
• Economic Disaster Strikes
• Social Effects of the Depression
• The Great Depression beyond the West

hen Etty Hillesum moved to Amsterdam from the Dutch Totalitarian Triumph 844

W provinces in 1932 to attend law school, an economic de-


pression gripped the world. A resourceful young woman,
Hillesum pieced together a living as a housekeeper and part-time lan-




The Rise of Stalinism
Hitler’s Rise to Power
The Nazification of German Politics
Nazi Racism

guage teacher so that she could continue her studies. Absorbed by the Democracies on the
pressures and pleasures of her life as a bookworm, she took little note Defensive 852
of Adolf Hitler’s spectacular rise to power in Germany, even when he • Confronting the Economic Crisis
• Cultural Visions in Hard Times
demonized her fellow Jews as responsible for the economic slump and
for virtually every other problem Germany faced. In 1939, the outbreak The Road to Global War 856
• A Surge in Global Imperialism
of World War II awakened her to the reality of what was happening. • The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939
• Hitler’s Conquest of Central Europe,
The German conquest of the Netherlands in 1940 led to the persecu-
1938 –1939
tion of Dutch Jews, bringing Hillesum to a shattering realization, noted
World War II, 1939–1945 862
in her diary: “What they are after is our total destruction.” The Nazis
• The German Onslaught
started relocating Jews to camps in Germany and Poland. Hillesum • War Expands: The Pacific and Beyond
• The War against Civilians
went to work for Amsterdam’s Jewish Council, which was forced to or- • Societies at War
ganize the transport of Jews to the death camps in eastern Europe. • From Resistance to Allied Victory
• An Uneasy Postwar Settlement
Changing from self-absorbed student to heroine, she did what she
could to help other Jews and began meticulously recording the depor-
tations. When she and her family were captured and deported in turn,
she smuggled out letters from the transit camps along the route to
Poland, bearing witness to the inhumane conditions and brutal treat-
ment of the Jews. “I wish I could live for a long time so that one day I
may know how to explain it,” she wrote. Etty Hillesum never got her
wish: she died at Auschwitz in November 1943.
The economic recovery of the late 1920s came to a crashing halt
with the collapse of the U.S. stock market in 1929. Financial collapse in

Nazis on Parade
By the time Hitler came to power in 1933, Germany was mired in the Great Depression.
Hated by Communists, Nazis, and conservatives alike, the Weimar Republic had few
supporters. Hitler took his cue from Mussolini by promising an end to democracy and
tolerance and by using the visual power of Nazi soldiers marching through the streets
during the depression to win support for overthrowing the government. (Time & Life
Pictures/ Getty Images.)

■ For more help analyzing this image, see the visual activity for this chapter in the
Online Study Guide at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
839
840 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

the United States soon became a worldwide Great The Great Depression
Depression. Economic distress intensified social
grievances. In Europe, many people turned to The U.S. stock market crash of 1929 and economic
military-style strongmen for solutions to their developments around the world triggered the
problems. Chief among these dictators, Adolf Hitler Great Depression of the 1930s. Rural and urban
roused the masses to restore the German glory that folk alike suffered as tens of millions lost their jobs
had been tarnished by defeat in 1918. He urged Ger- and livelihoods. The whole world felt the depres-
mans to scorn democratic rights and ideas of equal sion’s impact: commerce and investment in indus-
citizenship by joining him in rooting out what he try fell off, social life and gender roles were upset,
considered to be inferior people: Jews, Slavs, and and the birthrate plummeted. From peasants in
Gypsies, among others. Authoritarian and militaris- Asia to industrial workers in Germany and the
tic regimes spread to Spain, Poland, Hungary, Japan, United States, the Great Depression shattered the
and elsewhere, tramping on representative institu- lives of millions.
tions. In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin justified the
killing of millions of citizens as necessary for the
USSR’s industrialization and the survival of com- Economic Disaster Strikes
munism. For millions of hard-pressed people in the In the 1920s, U.S. corporations and banks as well as
difficult 1930s, dictatorship had great appeal. millions of individual Americans had not only in-
Elected leaders in the democracies reacted vested all their money but also borrowed money to
cautiously to both economic depression and the invest in the stock market, which seemed to deliver
new dictators’ aggressive actions and policies. Fear- endless profits. Confident that stock prices would
ful of conflict and following democratic proce- continue to rise, they used easy credit to buy shares
dures, these leaders appeared weak while dictators in popular companies based on electric, automo-
sporting uniforms looked bold and decisive. Only tive, and other new technologies. By the end of the
the German invasion of Poland in 1939 finally decade, the Federal Reserve Bank — the nation’s
pushed the democracies to strong action, as World central bank, which controlled financial policy —
War II erupted in Europe. By 1941, the war had tried to slow speculation by tightening available
spread across the globe with the United States, credit. To meet the new restrictions, brokers had to
Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and many other demand that their clients immediately pay back
nations united in combat against Germany, Italy, the money they had borrowed to buy stock. As
Japan, and their allies. Tens of millions would stocks were sold to cover the borrowed funds, the
perish in this war because both technology and ide- market collapsed. Between early October and mid-
ology had become more deadly than they had been November 1929, the value of businesses listed on
just two decades earlier. More than half the dead the U.S. stock market dropped from $87 billion to
were civilians, among them Etty Hillesum, whose $30 billion. For individuals and for the economy
only crime was being a Jew. as a whole, it was the beginning of catastrophe.
The crash helped bring on a global depression
Focus Question: What were the main economic, so- because the United States, a leading international
cial, and political challenges of the years 1929–1945, and creditor, had financed the economic growth of the
how did governments and individuals respond to them? previous five years. Suddenly strapped for credit,
U.S. banks cut back on loans and called in debts,

■ 1929 U.S. stock market crashes; ■ 1935 Nuremburg Laws;


global depression begins; Italy invades Ethiopia
Soviet war against kulaks
■ 1936 Purges and
■ 1933 Hitler comes to power show trials in USSR begin

1930 1935

■ 1931 Japan invades Manchuria; ■ 1936–1939 Spanish Civil war


Spanish republicans overthrow monarchy
■ 1937 Japan
attacks China
1929–1945 Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n 841

undermining businesses at home and abroad. The


recent U.S. lead in industrial production and the
rise of Japanese manufacturing made the collapse in
Europe even worse. From the aging industries of
Britain to the fledgling factories of eastern Europe,
a decline in investment and consumer buying fur-
ther wore down the European economy.
The Great Depression left no sector of the
world economy unscathed, but government actions
made the depression worse. Governments instituted
budget cuts and high tariffs against foreign goods
to spur their economies, but these policies further
discouraged spending and international trade. By
1933, almost six million German workers, or about
one-third of the workforce, were unemployed, and
many others were underemployed. Even in France,
which had a more self-sufficient economy based on
small businesses, firms began to fail, and by the mid-
1930s more than 800,000 French people had lost
their jobs. Great Britain — with its textile, steel, and
coal industries near ruin because of out-of-date
techniques and foreign competition — had close to
three million unemployed in 1932.
Agricultural prices had been declining for sev-
eral years because of technological advances and
abundant harvests around the world. Now credi-
tors confiscated farms and equipment. With their
incomes slashed, millions of small farmers had no
money to buy the chemical fertilizers and motor-
ized machinery they needed to remain competitive,
and they too went under. Eastern and southern
European peasants, who had pressed for the redis-
tribution of land after World War I, could not
Unemployed in Germany (1932)
afford to operate their newly acquired farms. In
“I’m looking for work of any kind,” this respectably
Poland, many of the 700,000 new landowners fell dressed unemployed man announces on his sign.
into debt trying to upgrade their farms — a situa- Germans were among those hardest hit by the Great
tion that was widespread across eastern Europe. Depression, and when demogogues pointed to such
Eastern European governments often ignored the sights as evidence that democracy didn’t work,
farmers’ plight as they poured available funds into it helped pull down the rule of constitutions,
industrialization — a policy that increased ten- representative government, and guaranteed rights.
sions in rural society. (ullstein bild / The Granger Collection, New York.)

■ 1941 Germany invades USSR;


Japan attacks Pearl Harbor; United States enters war

■ 1939 Germany invades Poland;


World War II begins ■ 1942–1943 Siege of Stalingrad

1940 1945

■ 1938 Kristallnacht; ■ 1940 France falls to the German army ■ 1944 Allied forces land at Normandy
Germany annexes Austria
■ 1940–1941 Battle of Britain ■ 1945 Fall of Berlin;
United States drops atomic bombs
■ 1941–1945 The Holocaust on Japan; World War II ends
842 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

DOCUMENT

A Family Copes with Unemployment


Austria and Germany were incredibly hard roofing felt. The children were sitting to- explained: “He always has a cold. He ought
hit by the depression and the trauma was gether motionless on a box, in stockinged to have his tonsils and adenoids out, but
made worse because of the catastrophic de- feet, waiting for their shoes to be finished. we can’t afford the trip to the hospital. . . . ”
feat, reparations, and dismemberment of The father explained with embarrassment, The father told us that things had been go-
both the Austrian and German empires. In “. . . On Sundays I have to patch the shoes ing terribly badly these last few days. All
1931, sociologists visited a small industrial up a bit so that the children can go to they had been able to buy was bread, and
town called Marienthal, an hour outside of school again on Monday.” He held up the not enough of that. The children kept
Vienna, to report on the psychological and completely dilapidated shoes of the eldest coming into the kitchen asking for an-
physical condition of the hundreds of fam- boy. “I just don’t know what I can do with other piece; they were always hungry. His
ilies left penniless by the closing of the tex- these. On holidays he can’t go out of the wife sat in the kitchen crying.
tile mills. house any more. . . .”
The youngest child caught our atten- Source: Marie Jahoda et al., eds., Marienthal: The
The father was sitting on a low stool with tion. His face was feverish and puffy and Sociography of an Unemployed Village, trans. John
a pile of worn-out children’s shoes in front swollen around the nose. He breathed Reginall and Thomas Elsaesser (Chicago: Aldine-
of him that he was trying to mend with heavily with his mouth open. The mother Atherton, 1971 [1933]), 87–88.

Social Effects of the Depression quate food, clothing, or housing. In a 1932 school
assignment, a German youth wrote: “My father has
The picture of society during the Great Depres- been out of work for two and a half years. He
sion was more complex than utter ruin, however. thinks that I’ll never find a job.” Despite the pros-
First, the situation was not uniformly bleak. perity of many people, the Great Depression
Despite the slump, modernization proceeded. Bor- spread fear beyond the unemployed. (See Docu-
dering English slums, one traveler in the mid- ment, “A Family Copes with Unemployment,”
1930s noticed, were “filling stations and factories above.)
that look like exhibition buildings, giant cinemas Economic catastrophe upset gender relations
and dance halls and cafés, bungalows with tiny and weakened social ties. Women could often find
garages, cocktail bars, Woolworth’s [and] swim- low-paying jobs doing laundry and cleaning house
ming pools.” Municipal and national governments for others, while unemployed men sometimes
continued road construction and sanitation proj- stayed home all day and took over housekeeping
ects. Running water, electricity, and sewage pipes chores. Some, however, felt that this “women’s
were installed in many homes for the first time. work”demeaned their masculinity. As many women
New factories manufactured synthetic fabrics, became breadwinners, albeit for low wages, men
electrical products such as stoves, and automo- could be seen standing on street corners begging —
biles — all of them in demand. With government a change in gender expectations that fed discontent.
assistance, eastern European industry developed: Young men in cities faced severe unemployment;
Romanian industrial production, for example, in- with nothing to do but loiter in parks, they became
creased by 55 percent between 1929 and 1939. ripe for movements like Nazism. As the number of
Second, the majority of Europeans and farmworkers in western Europe decreased, rural
Americans had jobs throughout the 1930s, and men also faced a decline in male authority, once
people with steady employment benefited from central to the organization of labor and to deci-
a drastic drop in prices. Service workers, managers, sions about distributing property to children.
and business magnates often enjoyed considerable Demagogues everywhere railed against democ-
prosperity. On the other hand, in towns with heavy racy’s failure to stop the collapse of traditional life.
industry, sometimes more than half the popula- Their complaints helped clear the way for Nazi and
tion was out of work. In England in the mid-1930s, Fascist politicians who promised to create jobs and
close to 20 percent of the population lacked ade- thus restore male dignity.
1929–1945 Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n 843

After a brief postwar upturn, the birthrate had the economic picture in the colonies was uneven.
been steadily declining. The reason for the decline For instance, established Indian industries such as
was clear: in difficult economic times, which had the textile business gained strength, with India
plagued the West on and off since the war, people achieving virtual independence from British cloth.
chose to have fewer children. In addition, manda- Economic distress fueled anger, and anger led
tory education and more years of required school- to action. Colonial farmers withheld produce like
ing, enforced more strictly after World War I, cocoa from imperial trade, and colonial workers
reduced the income once earned by children. went on strike to protest the wage cuts imposed by
Working-class children were no longer wage earn- imperial landlords. Discontent ran deep. Millions
ers; they now cost their families money while they of African and Asian colonial troops had fought
went to school. Family-planning centers opened, for Britain and France in World War I, but the im-
receiving a warm reception, and knowledge of perialist countries had given little back to their
birth control spread across the working and lower- colonial populations. In fact, the League of Nations
middle classes. charter had pointedly omitted any reference to the
Politicians of all stripes jumped on the declin- principle of racial equality demanded by people of
ing birthrate, claiming that it, along with a de- color at the Paris peace conference. Fortified by
pressed economy, would lead to national collapse. these wrongs, by the model of Japan’s power, and
Many politicians also used the population “crisis” by their own industrial development, more colo-
to gain votes by igniting racism: “superior” peoples nial peoples than ever before resolved to win
were selfishly failing to breed, politicians independence.
charged, while “inferior” peoples were just waiting In India, anger toward colonialism boiled
to take their place. This sort of racism was partic- over. Millions of working people, including hun-
ularly heated in eastern Europe, where the rural dreds of thousands of veterans, joined with the
population rose because of increased life ex- upper-class Indians, who had organized to gain
pectancy despite the declining birthrate, adding to rights from Britain in the late nineteenth
financial hardships. Throughout eastern Europe, century. Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948; called
peasant political parties blamed Jewish bankers for Mahatma, or “great-souled”) emerged as the
farm foreclosures and Jewish civil servants (of charismatic leader for Indian independence.
whom there were actually very few) for inadequate Trained in England as a Western-style lawyer,
relief programs. Thus, population issues along Gandhi preached Hindu self-denial and rejected
with economic misery produced divisiveness, elaborate British ceremonies and manners. He
especially in the form of anti-Semitism, once again wore simple clothing made of thread he had spun
opening the way for dictators who promised that and advocated civil disobedience — deliberately
eliminating such undesirables as Jews would re- but peacefully breaking the law — a tactic he
store prosperity. claimed to have taken from the British suffragists
and from the teachings of spiritual leaders like
Jesus and Buddha. Boycotting British-made goods
The Great Depression
and disobeying British laws, Gandhi aimed to end
beyond the West Indian deference to the British. The British jailed
The effects of the depression extended beyond the Gandhi repeatedly and tried to split the independ-
West, spreading discontent in European empires. ence movement by promoting Hindu-Muslim an-
World War I and postwar investment had pro- tagonism. Instead, commitment to independence
duced economic growth, a rising population, and grew.
explosive urbanization in Asia, Africa, and Latin The end of the Ottoman Empire following
America. Japan in particular had become a formi- World War I led to efforts to build new independ-
dable industrial rival. The depression, however, cut ent nations in the Middle East. Mustafa Kemal
the demand for copper, tin, and other raw mate- (1881–1938), who later took the name Atatürk
rials and for the finished products made in urban (“first among Turks”), led the Turks to found an
factories worldwide. Rising agricultural productiv- independent republic in 1923 and to craft a capi-
ity drove down the price of foodstuffs like rice talist economy. In an effort to Westernize Turkish
and coffee, a disastrous consequence for colonial
peoples who had been forced to grow a single cash
crop. One French official in Algeria said that the civil disobedience: The act of deliberately but peacefully break-
ing the law, a tactic used by Mohandas Gandhi in India and ear-
crash in agricultural prices there “endangers the lier by British suffragists to protest oppression and obtain
entire colonial project.” Just as in Europe, however, political change.
844 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

ing the depression depended increasingly on the


profits it could take from its colonies. Thus,
France’s trade with its colonies increased as that
with Europe lagged. France also depended on the
colonies for sheer numbers of people, and the ris-
ing colonial population bolstered French opti-
mism. One official estimated what colonial
numbers could mean for national security: “One
hundred and ten million strong, France can stand
up to Germany.” Ho Chi Minh, founder of the
Indochinese Communist Party, rallied his people to
protest French imperialism, but in 1930 the French
government brutally crushed the peasant uprising
he led. Needing their empires, Britain and France
increased the number of their troops stationed
around the world. As a result, totalitarianism spread
largely unchecked throughout Europe during the
1930s.

Review: How did the Great Depression affect society


and politics?

Totalitarian Triumph
Representative government collapsed in many
countries under the sheer weight of social and eco-
Gandhi Leading the Salt March (1930) nomic crisis. After 1929, Mussolini in Italy, Stalin
Mohandas Gandhi appealed to the masses, not just to the middle-
in the USSR, and Hitler in Germany were able to
and upper-class constituency of the Indian National Congress, which
mobilize vast support for their regimes. Many
had emphasized gaining rights under British rule. Instead, Gandhi
addressed the entire colonial system that prevented ordinary Indian admired Mussolini and Hitler for the discipline
people from using their own national resources such as salt. Violat- they brought to social and economic life. Desper-
ing British laws, which prohibited Indians from gathering this natural ate for economic relief, many citizens supported
product, Gandhi led the people in an act of civil disobedience—his political violence as key to restoring well-being and
march to the sea to harvest the salt. (© Bettmann / Corbis.) guaranteeing the future. The common use of vio-
lence has led scholars to apply the term totalitari-
anism to the Fascist, Nazi, and Communist regimes
culture and the new Turkish state, Kemal moved of the 1930s (see “Terms of History,” page 845). The
the capital from Constantinople to Ankara in 1923, term refers to highly centralized systems of govern-
officially changed the name Constantinople to the ment that attempt to control society and ensure
Turkish name Istanbul in 1930, mandated West- obedience through a single party and police terror.
ern dress for men and women, introduced the Born during World War I and gaining support in
Latin alphabet, and abolished polygamy. In 1936, its aftermath, totalitarian governments broke with
women received the vote and were made eligible liberal principles of freedom and natural rights and
to serve in the parliament. Persia, which changed came to wage war on their own citizens.
its name to Iran in 1935, similarly loosened the
European grip on its economy by updating its
government and by forcing the negotiation of oil The Rise of Stalinism
contracts that kept Western countries from taking In the 1930s, Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) led the
the oil virtually free. In 1936, Britain agreed to end transformation of the USSR from a rural society
its military occupation of Egypt (though not yet into a formidable industrial power. Stalin ended
the Suez Canal), moving toward fulfilling the
promise of Egyptian self-rule it had made in 1922.
Joseph Stalin (1879–1953): Leader of the USSR who, with con-
The French made fewer concessions in their siderable backing, formed a brutal dictatorship and forcefully
colonies. Like all imperial countries, France dur- converted the country into an industrial power.
1929–1945 Tota l i ta r i a n Tr i u m p h 845

Lenin’s New Economic Policy, which had allowed


free private trade and agriculture, and in 1929
TERMS OF HISTORY
laid out the first of several ambitious five-year
plans for industrializing the country. Coercion and
violence were crucial components of this gigantic
Totalitarianism
undertaking.

Transforming the Economy. Stalin’s five-year hen the word totalitarianism was first introduced in Italy,
plans outlined a program for huge increases in the
output of coal, iron ore, steel, and industrial goods
over successive five-year periods. Without an end
W Mussolini’s government adopted it as a mark of pride. In
1923, Mussolini proposed a law by which the political party
that had the most votes would gain 75 percent of the seats in Italy’s
to economic backwardness, Stalin warned,“the ad- parliament. One journalist protested, claiming that this proposal
vanced countries . . . will crush us.” He thus estab- would eliminate both majority rule and minority coalitions in favor
lished central economic planning — a policy used of a “totalitarian” system. He was beaten to death by Mussolini’s thugs.
on both sides in World War I and increasingly fa- The Fascists then embraced the term, proclaiming the superiority of
vored by bureaucrats around the world. Between a “total state” especially needed when conditions of “total war” de-
1928 and 1940, the number of Soviet workers in manded efficient military rule that would stamp out effeminate prin-
industry, construction, and transport grew from ciples of rights and freedom. The Nazis also adopted the term, hailing
4.6 million to 12.6 million and factory output the effective totalitarian party that could make workers and soldiers
soared. Stalin’s first five-year plan helped make the like steel in body and in spirit.
USSR a leading industrial nation. During the 1930s, critics of totalitarian regimes turned the mean-
A new elite of bureaucrats implemented the ing to a negative one. They saw totalitarianism as originating in the
plans, and the number of managers — mostly party scientific revolution and the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and
officials and technical experts — in heavy industry eighteenth centuries, both of which aimed to dominate nature. Indus-
grew by almost 500 percent between 1929 and trialization likewise aimed at domination of the economy and re-
1935. Despite limited rights to change jobs or even sources. By this negative view, Stalin’s Soviet Union was as totalitarian
move from place to place, skilled workers benefited as Mussolini’s Fascists and Hitler’s Nazis. But as the cold war took
from the privileges that went along with their new shape in 1945, people who defended the USSR and hailed its role in
industrial role. Compared with people working the defeating Hitler and Mussolini in World War II turned against the
land, both managers and industrial workers had term as a common definition for all three dictatorships. During the
better housing and wages. Communist officials cold war, however, the United States wanted to view the Soviet system
received additional rewards such as country homes, as identical to Nazism, while the USSR’s defenders now regarded the
better food, and luxurious vacations. word totalitarianism as cold war propaganda and rejected its use.
New or unskilled workers enjoyed no such Now that the cold war is over, some scholars believe that the term
benefits. Newcomers from the countryside were merits rethinking. A totalitarian state, as its definition evolved late in
herded into barrack-style dwellings or tents and the twentieth century, was one that intensified government’s concern
subjected to dangerous factory conditions. Despite with private life and individual thought, leaving no realm of existence
the hardships, many took pride in their new skills. outside the state’s will. Besides censorship, suppression of parliamen-
“We mastered this profession — completely new to tary government, and one-party rule, laws regulating reproduction
us — with great pleasure,” a female lathe operator and family life were also central to totalitarianism. Hitler, Mussolini,
recalled. More often, however, workers fresh from Stalin, and later Mao Zedong of China all made state control of re-
the countryside lacked the technical skills neces- production pivotal to their regimes. Totalitarian regimes also relied on
sary to accomplish goals of the five-year plans. violence of various kinds and control of mass communications to de-
Because meeting these goals had top priority as a fine proper ways of thinking and to eliminate enemies, including those
measure of progress toward a Communist utopia, who simply had different ideas.
official lying about productivity became part of the Nonetheless, it is important to note the vast differences among
economic system. The attempt to turn an illiterate totalitarian states: the socialist economy of the Soviet Union differed
peasant society into an advanced industrial econ- from the economies of both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Nation-
omy in a single decade brought intense suffering, alism was key in the rise of fascism and Nazism, whereas communism
but hardship was tolerated because, as one worker began as an international workers’ movement and forced people of
put it, Soviet workers believed in the need for “con- many ethnicities to live together. Anti-Semitism also infected totali-
tarian societies in varying degrees: German Nazism had the elimina-
tion of the Jews as central to its mission, whereas Italian fascism and
five-year plans: Centralized programs for economic develop- Soviet communism did not.
ment first used by Joseph Stalin and copied by Adolf Hitler;
these plans set production priorities and gave production tar-
gets for individual industries and agriculture.
846 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

stant struggle, struggle, and struggle” to achieve a confess in court. Most of those found guilty were
Communist society. shot. Some of the top leaders accepted their fate,
In country and city alike, politics influenced seeing the purges as good for the future of social-
work. Stalin demanded more output from indus- ism. Just before his execution, one Bolshevik loy-
try and more grain from peasants both to feed alist and former editor of the party newspaper
the urban workforce and to provide exports Pravda wrote to Stalin praising the “great and bold
whose sale abroad would finance industrializa- political idea behind the general purge” that was
tion. Some peasants resisted government de- clearly part of achieving communist democracy.
mands by withholding produce from the market, While there was resistance to Stalin, there were also
prompting Stalin to demand a “liquidation of the sincere believers who sought to please their cruel
kulaks.” The word kulak, which literally means master and serve his noble work.
“fist,” was a negative term for prosperous peasants, The spirit of purge swept through society,
but in practice it applied to anyone who opposed eventually reaching the Soviet power structure.
Stalin’s plans to end independent farming. Party One woman poet described the scene in towns and
workers began searching villages, seizing grain, cities: “Great concert and lecture halls were turned
and forcing villagers to identify the kulaks among into public confessionals. . . . People did penance
them. Propagandists followed to stir up hatred. for [everything]. . . . Beating their breasts, the
One Russian remembered believing the kulaks ‘guilty’ would lament that they had ‘shown politi-
were “bloodsuckers, cattle, swine, loathsome, re- cal short-sightedness’ and ‘lack of vigilance’ . . .
pulsive: they had no souls; they stank.” Denounced and were full of ‘rotten liberalism.’ ” In 1937 and
as “enemies of the state,” whole families were 1938, military leaders were arrested and executed
robbed of their possessions, left to starve, or even without public trials; some ranks were entirely
murdered outright. Confiscated kulak land wiped out. Although the massacre of military lead-
formed the basis for the new collective farms, or ers appeared suicidal at a time when Hitler threat-
kolkhoz, where the remaining peasants were forced ened war, thousands of high military posts became
to share facilities and modern machinery. Tradi- open to new talent. Stalin would not have to worry
tional peasant life was brought to a violent end. about an officer corps wedded to old ideas, as had
happened in World War I. Simultaneously, the gov-
Transforming Society. Once the state had defined ernment expanded the system of prison camps,
work life as central to communism, economic fail- founded under Lenin, into an extensive network
ure took on political meaning. Such failure was stretching several thousand miles from Moscow to
common because factory workers, farmers, and Siberia. Called the Gulag — an acronym for the
party officials alike were too inexperienced with government department that ran the camps — the
advanced industrialization to meet quotas. The ex- system held millions of prisoners under lethal con-
periment with collectivization, combined with the ditions. Prisoners aided the economy by doing
murder of farmers, resulted in a drop in the grain every kind of work from digging canals to build-
harvest from 83 million tons in 1930 to 67 million ing apartment buildings. Some one million died
in 1934. Soviet citizens starved. Blaming failure annually as a result of the harsh conditions, which
on “wreckers” deliberately plotting against com- included insufficient food, inadequate housing,
munism, Stalin instituted purges — that is, state and twelve- to sixteen-hour days of crushing phys-
violence in the form of widespread arrests, impris- ical labor. Regular beatings and murders of pris-
onments in labor camps, and executions — to rid oners rounded out Gulag life, as it too became
society of these “villains.” The purges touched all another aspect of totalitarian violence.
segments of society, beginning with engineers who The 1930s marked an end to toleration in
were condemned for causing low productivity. Soviet social life, as social and sexual freedom be-
Beginning in 1936, the government charged gan to disappear. As in the rest of Europe, the
prominent Bolshevik leaders with conspiring to birthrate in the USSR declined rapidly in the 1930s.
overthrow Soviet rule. In a series of “show The Soviet Union also needed to replace the mil-
trials” — trials based on trumped-up charges, fab- lions of people lost since 1914. To meet this need,
ricated evidence, and coerced confessions — Stalin restricted access to birth-control information
Bolshevik leaders were tortured and forced to and abortion. More lavish wedding ceremonies
came back into fashion, divorces became difficult to
obtain, and the state made homosexuality a crime.
purges: The series of attacks on citizens of the USSR accused
of being “wreckers,” or saboteurs of communism, in the 1930s Whereas Bolsheviks had once attacked the family as
and later. a capitalist institution, propaganda now referred to
1929–1945 Tota l i ta r i a n Tr i u m p h 847

the family as a “school for socialism.” At the same and for the loss of German pride after World War
time, women in rural areas made gains in literacy I. Nazi supporters took to the streets, attacking
and received improved health care. Positions in the young Communist groups who agitated just as
lower ranks of the party opened to women as the loudly on behalf of the new Soviet experiment.
purges continued, and more women were accepted Hugenberg’s press always reported such incidents
into the professions. However, women in the in- as the work of Communist thugs who had as-
dustrial workforce faced new and increased stress. saulted blameless Nazis, thus building sympathy
After long hours in factories, workingwomen stood for the Nazis among the middle classes.
in lines for scarce consumer goods and still per- Parliamentary government ground to a halt
formed all household and child-care tasks. during the depression, adding to the social disor-
Avant-garde experimentation in the arts der. The Reichstag, or German assembly, failed to
ended under Stalin. He called artists and writers approve emergency plans to improve the econ-
“engineers of the soul” and, thus recognizing their omy, first because its members disagreed over
influence, controlled their output through the policies and second because Nazi and Communist
Union of Soviet Writers. The union not only as- deputies disrupted its sessions. The failure to act
signed housing, office space, equipment, and sec- discredited democracy among the German
retarial help but also determined the types of people. Hitler’s followers made parliamentary
books authors could write. In return, the “comrade government look even worse — incapable of pro-
artist” adhered to the official style of “socialist re- viding basic law and order — by rampaging
alism,” derived from the 1920s focus on the com- unchecked through the streets and attacking Jews,
mon worker as a social hero. Although some Communists, and Social Democrats. By targeting
writers and artists went underground, secretly cre- all these as a single, monolithic group of “Bolshe-
ating works that are still coming to light, many vik” enemies, the Nazis won wide approval. Hitler
others found ways to adjust their talents to the was seen as fearlessly confronting those responsi-
state’s demands. The composer Sergei Prokofiev, ble for the depression. Many thought it was time
for example, composed scores both for the delight- to replace democratic government with a bold
ful Peter and the Wolf and for Sergei Eisenstein’s new leader who would take on these enemies mil-
1938 film Alexander Nevsky, a work that flatter- itarily, without concern for constitutions, laws, or
ingly compared Stalin to the medieval rulers of the individual rights.
Russian people. Aided by adaptable artists, work- Every age group and class of people supported
ers, and bureaucrats, Stalin stood triumphant as Hitler, though like Stalin, he especially attracted
the 1930s drew to a close. He was, as two different young people. In 1930, 70 percent of Nazi Party
workers put it, “our beloved Leader” and “a god on members were under forty. Full of idealism, the
earth.” young had faith that a better world was possible if
Hitler took control. The largest number of sup-
porters came from the industrial working class, but
Hitler’s Rise to Power
many white-collar workers and members of the
A different but ultimately no less violent system lower-middle class also joined the party in per-
emerged when Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) put an centages out of proportion with their numbers in
end to democracy in Germany. Since the early the population. The inflation that had wiped out
1920s, he had harangued the German masses to savings left them especially bitter and open to
destroy the Weimar Republic and drummed at a Hitler’s rhetoric. In the deepening economic cri-
message of anti-Semitism and the rebirth of the sis, the Nazi Party, which had received little more
German “race.” When the Great Depression struck than 2 percent of the vote in 1928, won almost 20
Germany in 1929, his Nazi Party began to outstrip percent in the Reichstag elections of 1930 and
its rivals in elections, thanks in part to financial more than twice that in 1932.
support from big business. Other influential busi- Hitler used modern propaganda techniques to
nesspeople, such as film and press tycoon Alfred build up his following. Nazi Party members passed
Hugenberg, boosted Hitler in other ways. Hugen- out thousands of recordings of Hitler’s speeches
berg’s press relentlessly slammed the Weimar gov- and other Nazi mementos to German citizens.
ernment, blaming it for the disastrous economy Teenagers painted their fingernails with swastikas,
and soldiers flashed metal match covers with Nazi
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945): Chancellor of Germany who, with insignia. Nazi rallies were carefully planned dis-
considerable backing, overturned democratic government, cre-
ated the Third Reich, persecuted millions, and ultimately led plays in which Hitler captivated the crowds, who
Germany and the world into World War II. saw him as their strong, vastly superior Führer, or
848 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

Toys Depicting Nazis


As a totalitarian ideology, Nazism
was part of everyday life. Nazi
insignia decorated clothing,
dishes, cigarette lighters, and
even fingernails. People sent
young people to Nazi clubs and
organizations and bought Nazi
toys like these for their children’s
playtime. Nazi songs, Nazi parades
and festivals, and Nazi radio
programs filled leisure hours.
(Imperial War Museum, London.)

“leader.” Frenzied and inspirational, he seemed Terror in the Nazi State. Within a month of
neither a calculating politician nor a wooden bu- Hitler’s taking power, the Nazi state was in place.
reaucrat but a “creative element,” as one poet put When the Reichstag building was gutted by fire in
it. In actuality, however, Hitler regarded the masses February 1933, Nazis used the fire as the excuse for
with contempt, and in Mein Kampf he discussed suspending civil rights, censoring the press, and
how to deal with them: prohibiting meetings of other political parties.
The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their Hitler had always claimed to hate democracy and
intelligence is small. In consequence of these facts, all ef- diverse political opinions. “Our opponents com-
fective propaganda must be limited to a very few points plain that we National Socialists, and I in particu-
and must harp on those in slogans until the last mem- lar, are intolerant,” he declared. “They are right, we
ber of the public understands what you want him to un- are intolerant! I have set myself one task, namely
derstand. to sweep those parties out of Germany.”
Hitler’s media techniques were to endure, influ- The SA’s political violence became a way of
encing today’s political style — some believe — of life, silencing many democratic politicians. At the
sound bites and simple, often hate-filled and end of March, intimidated Reichstag delegates let
threatening, messages. pass the Enabling Act, which suspended the con-
In the 1932 Reichstag elections, both Nazis and stitution for four years and allowed Nazi laws to
Communists did very well, making the leader of take effect without parliamentary approval. Solid
one of these two parties the logical choice as chan- middle-class Germans approved the Enabling Act
cellor. Influential conservative politicians loathed as a way to advance the creation of a Volksgemein-
the Communists for their opposition to private schaft (“people’s community”) of like-minded,
property and favored Hitler as someone they could racially pure Germans — Aryans in Nazi termin-
easily control. When he was invited to become ology. Heinrich Himmler headed the elite
chancellor in January 1933, Hitler accepted. Schutzstaffel (SS), an organization that protected
Hitler, and he commanded the Reich’s political po-
lice system. The Gestapo, the political police force
The Nazification of German Politics run by Hermann Goering, also enforced complete
Millions celebrated Hitler’s ascent to power. “My obedience to Nazism. These organizations had vast
father went down to the cellar and brought up our powers to arrest people and either execute them or
best bottles of wine. . . . And my mother wept for imprison them in concentration camps, the first
joy,” one German recalled. “Now everything will of which opened at Dachau, near Munich, in
be all right,” she said. Tens of thousands of Hitler’s March 1933. The Nazis filled it and later camps
paramilitary supporters, called storm troopers with political enemies like socialists, and then with
(SA or Stürmabteilung), paraded through the Jews, homosexuals, and others said to interfere
streets with blazing torches. Instead of being easy
to control, Hitler took command brutally, quickly Enabling Act: The legislation passed in 1933 suspending con-
closing down representative government with an stitutional government for four years in order to meet the cri-
ugly show of force. sis in the German economy.
1929–1945 Tota l i ta r i a n Tr i u m p h 849

with the Volksgemeinschaft. As one Nazi leader The Nazi government set policies to control
proclaimed: everyday life, including gender roles. In June 1933,
[National socialism] does not believe that one soul
a bill took effect that encouraged Aryans (those
is equal to another, one man equal to another. It does people defined as racially German) to marry and
not believe in rights as such. It aims to create the Ger- have children. The bill provided for loans to Aryan
man man of strength, its task is to protect the German newlyweds, but only to couples in which the wife
people, and all . . . must be subordinate to this goal. left the workforce. The loans were forgiven on the
Hitler deliberately blurred authority in the birth of the pair’s fourth child. The ideal woman
government and party to encourage confusion and gave up her job, gave birth to many children, and
competition. He then settled disputes, often with completely surrendered her will to that of men, al-
violence. When Ernst Roehm, leader of the SA and lowing her husband to feel powerful despite mili-
Hitler’s longtime collaborator, called for a “second tary defeat and economic depression. A good wife
revolution” to end the business and military elites’ “joyfully sacrifices and fulfills her fate,” as one Nazi
continuing influence on top Nazis, Hitler ordered leader explained.
Roehm’s assassination. The bloody Night of the The government also controlled culture, de-
Long Knives (June 30, 1934), during which hun- stroying the rich creativity of the Weimar years. Al-
dreds of SA leaders and innocent civilians were though 70 percent of households had radios by
killed, enhanced Hitler’s support among conserva- 1938, programs were severely censored. Books like
tives. They saw that he would deal ruthlessly with Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western
those favoring a leveling-out of social privilege. Front were banned, and in May 1933 a huge book-
Nazism’s terrorist politics served as the foundation burning ceremony rid libraries of works by Jews,
of Hitler’s Third Reich, which succeeded the First socialists, homosexuals, and modernist writers.
Reich of Charlemagne and the Second Reich of Modern art in museums and private collections
Bismarck and William II. was either destroyed or confiscated. In the Hitler
Youth, a mandatory organization for boys and girls
Nazi Economic and Social Programs. Like vio- over age ten, children learned to report those
lence, new economic programs, especially those adults they suspected of disloyalty to the regime,
putting people back to work, were crucial to the even their own parents. People boasted that they
survival of Hitler’s regime. Economic revival built could leave their bicycles out at night without fear
popular support, strengthened military industries, of robbery, but their world was also filled with in-
and provided the basis for German expansion. The formers — some 100,000 of them on the Nazi pay-
Nazi government pursued pump priming — that roll. In general, the improved economy led many
is, stimulating the economy through public works to believe that Hitler was working an economic
programs such as building the Autobahn, or high- miracle while restoring pride in Germany and the
way system, and military spending on the produc- harmonious community of an imaginary past. For
tion of tanks and airplanes. Unemployment hundreds of thousands if not millions of Germans,
declined from a peak of almost 6 million in 1932 however, Nazi rule in the 1930s brought anything
to 1.6 million by 1936. As labor shortages began to but harmony and community.
appear in certain areas, the government drafted
single women into forced service as farmworkers Nazi Racism
and domestics. The Nazi Party closed down labor
unions, and government managers determined The Nazis defined Jews as an inferior “race” dan-
work procedures and set pay levels, rating women’s gerous to the superior Aryan or Germanic “race”
jobs lower than men’s regardless of the level of ex- and responsible for most of Germany’s problems,
pertise required. Imitating Stalin, Hitler announced including defeat in World War I and the economic
a four-year plan in 1936 with the secret aim of depression. Hitler’s reasons for targeting Jews
preparing Germany for war by 1940. His programs were, he insisted, scientific. “National Socialism
produced large budget deficits, but he was already is a cool and highly reasoned approach to reality
planning to conquer and loot neighboring coun- based on the greatest of scientific knowledge,” he
tries in order to fill the German treasury. declared in a 1938 speech. Hitler attacked many
ethnic and social groups, but he took anti-
Semitism to new and frightening heights. In the
rhetoric of Nazism, Jews were “vermin,” “ab-
pump priming: An economic policy used by governments to
stimulate the economy through public works programs and scesses,” “parasites,” and “Bolsheviks,” whom the
other infusions to public funds. Germans would have to eliminate to become
850 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

CONTRASTING VIEWS

Stalin and Hitler: For and Against


Today Hitler and Stalin are widely regarded as dictators who per- When I wrote a year ago and saw only a glimmer of hope, I could
petrated great harm on their societies, especially by causing the not possibly have believed . . . my plea would be so richly
deaths of tens of millions of people. In the 1930s, however, there was fulfilled. . . . The vast majority of the Volk joyfully summoned
a division of opinion about these two men even as they rose to be the national regime, with its drive to purify public life, to com-
dictators in their countries and beyond. bat unemployment, hunger, and need. . . . We prayed and the
answer arrived. May God grant our rulers wisdom. May the
“steel-hardened man” for whom we cried out a year ago . . .
1. A German against Hitler retain his power.
Victor Klemperer was a professor of literature and a Protestant, Source: Quoted in Claudia Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the
though his father had been a Jewish rabbi. Once Hitler came to Family, and Nazi Politics (New York: St. Martin’s, 1987), 234.
power, Klemperer, a veteran of World War I who was married to
an “Aryan” woman, found himself unable to publish his writings 3. Hitler in Prayers
and dismissed from his teaching position. During the Third Reich,
he kept a journal tracking not only his own mounting difficulties Children in Germany recited the following bedtime prayer, ad-
but also the emigration, dismissals, poverty, and suicides of his fam- dressed not to God but to Hitler. It expressed a clear view of who
ily and friends. He had clear opinions about Hitler, whom he lis- Hitler was and what he meant to Germany:
tened to on the radio, and firm beliefs about the Nazis and
Communists. Führer, my Führer, sent to me from God, protect and maintain
me throughout my life. Thou who has saved Germany from
November 11, 1933 . . . more than forty minutes of Hitler. A Deepest need, I thank thee today for my daily bread. Remain at
mostly hoarse, strained, agitated voice, long passages in the my side and never leave me, Führer, my Führer. My Faith. My
whining tone of the sectarian preachers. . . . “Jews!” want to set light. Heil, mein Führer!
nations of millions at one another’s throat. I want only peace, I
Source: Quoted in Claudia Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the
have risen from the common people. I want nothing for my- Family, and Nazi Politics (New York: St. Martin’s, 1987), 287.
self. . . . Etc. in no proper order, impassioned; every sentence
mendacious, but I almost believe unconsciously mendacious.
4. Poetry Denouncing the Stalinist Regime
The man is a blinkered fanatic. November 14, 1933 . . . All Ger-
many prefers Hitler to the Communists. And I see no difference Some artists, such as the poet Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966), re-
between either of the two movements; both are materialistic and fused to accept the Stalinist system, including its direction of writ-
lead to slavery. ing, music, and painting. While waiting in line in the mid-1930s
to visit her son, whom the government had imprisoned, she began
Source: Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, composing “Requiem,” a poem that is now one of the classics of
1933–1941, trans. Martin Chalmers (New York: Random House, 1998), 41–42.
Russian literature.

2. Praise for Hitler INTRODUCTION


This happened when only the dead wore smiles —
A year after Hitler came to power, Paula Müller-Otfried, a former They rejoiced at being safe from harm.
deputy to the Reichstag who had opposed both communism and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
liberalism, sent out this New Year’s card. Stars of death stood overhead,

a true Volksgemeinschaft. By branding the Jews In 1935, the government enacted the Nuremberg
both as evil businessmen and as working-class Laws, legislation that deprived Jews of citizenship
Bolsheviks, Hitler created an enemy that many and prohibited marriage between Jews and other
segments of the population could hate passion- Germans. Abortions and birth-control informa-
ately. tion were readily available to outcast groups,
Nazis insisted that terms such as Aryan and
Jewish (a religious category) were scientific racial
Nuremberg Laws: Legislation enacted by the Nazis in 1935 that
classifications that could be determined by physi- deprived Jewish Germans of their citizenship and imposed
cal characteristics such as the shape of the nose. many other hardships on them.
1929–1945 Tota l i ta r i a n Tr i u m p h 851

And guiltless Russia, that pariah, Questions for Analysis


Writhed under boots, all blood-bespattered, 1. What are the positive qualities that supporters attribute to
And the wheels of many a black maria.1 Hitler and Stalin?
2. What are the major criticisms of Hitler’s and Stalin’s opponents?
Source: “Requiem,” in Anna Akhmatova, Poems, ed. and trans. Lyn Coffin 3. To what do you attribute the different opinions about these
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1983).
dictators?

5. Defense of the Purges


Playwright Alexander Afinogenov’s work interested Stalin, who of-
ten wrote comments on the manuscripts of Afinogenov’s plays. Dur-
ing the era of the purges, both the Communist Party and the writers’
union ousted Afinogenov for seeming to deviate from correct Com-
munist thinking. He was eventually reinstated. Afinogenov kept a
diary in these years; in this entry from 1937, he remarks on the
value of the purges.

Oh what a gigantic turn: genuine History is upon us, and we are


granted the joy of witnessing these turns, when Stalin mercilessly
chops off all and everything, all the unfit and weakened, the de-
caying and empty. . . . — Life has now taken a turn onto the new,
the real: in this way and no other will we march forward to gen-
uine Communism. Whoever says otherwise is lying.

Source: Quoted in Jochen Hellbeck, Revolution on My Mind: Writing a Diary


under Stalin (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 304.

6. Stalin as Beneficent Creator


One worker wrote this poem to Stalin and sent it to the Commu-
nist Party Congress in 1939.

Heroes grow all over our land.


And if you suddenly ask each one:
N. J. Altman, Anna Akhmatova
“Tell me, who inspired your exploits?” This modernist painting portrays the poet Anna Akhmatova in
With a happy smile, he will joyfully reply: 1914, when she was a centerpiece of literary salon life in
“He who is the creator of all that is wonderful, Russia and the subject of several avant-garde portraits. In
The masterful architect, our friend and father the 1930s and 1940s, Akhmatova gave poetic voice to Soviet
Comrade Stalin. We are Stalin’s children.” suffering, recording in her verse ordinary people’s endurance
of purges, deprivation, and warfare. As she encouraged
Source: Lewis Siegelbaum and Andrei Sokolov, eds., Stalinism as a Way of
people to resist the Nazis during World War II, Stalin allowed
Life: A Narrative in Documents (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 207.
her to revive Russian patriotism instead of socialist
internationalism. (State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg/ The Bridgeman
1Police wagon. Art Library. © Estate of N. J. Altman/ RAO, Moscow/ VAGA, New York, NY.)

including Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and mentally or endangered the Aryans. These murders prepared
physically disabled people, but were forbidden to the way for even larger mass exterminations in the
women classified as Aryan. In the name of improv- future.
ing the Aryan race, doctors helped organize the T4 Jews were forced into slave labor, evicted from
project, which used carbon monoxide poisoning their apartments, and prevented from buying most
and other means to kill large numbers of people — clothing and food. In 1938, a Jewish teenager, re-
200,000 handicapped and elderly — late in the acting to such harassment of his parents, killed a
1930s. The murder of the disabled aimed to elim- German official. In retaliation, Nazis attacked
inate those whose disability or “racial inferiority” some two hundred synagogues, smashed windows
852 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

of Jewish-owned stores, ransacked apartments of that parliamentary government and the rule of law
known or suspected Jews, and threw more than often gave way to dictatorship and worse.
twenty thousand Jews into prisons and camps. The
night of November 9–10 became known as The United States. In the early days of the slump,
Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass. Faced U.S. president Herbert Hoover opposed direct help
with this relentless persecution, more than half of to the unemployed and even ordered the army to
Germany’s 500,000 Jews had emigrated by the out- drive away jobless veterans who had marched
break of World War II in 1939. Their enormous on Washington, D.C. With unemployment close
emigration fees helped finance Germany’s eco- to fifteen million, Franklin Delano Roosevelt
nomic revival, while neighbors and individual (1882–1945), the wealthy, patrician governor of
Nazis redoubled their anti-Semitism because they New York, defeated Hoover in the presidential
got emigrants’ jobs and personal property. Identi- election of 1932 on the promise of relief and re-
fying a group as a permanent and menacing foe covery. Roosevelt, or FDR as he became known,
had been an ideological tactic used to bring unity pushed through a torrent of legislation: relief for
in wartime, but it now became a political and eco- businesses, price supports for hard-pressed farm-
nomic tactic in peacetime to build support for ers, and public works programs for unemployed
Nazism. youth. The Social Security Act of 1935 set up a
fund to which employers and employees con-
tributed. It provided retirement benefits for work-
Review: What role did violence play in the Soviet and
ers, unemployment insurance, and payments to
Nazi regimes?
dependent mothers, their children, and people
with disabling physical conditions.
These programs advanced the trend toward
the welfare state — that is, a government that guar-
Democracies on the antees a certain level of economic well-being for
Defensive individuals and businesses — that was taking
shape not only in the United States but elsewhere
Nazism, communism, and fascism offered bold across the West. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” angered
new approaches to modern politics. These ideolo- businesspeople and the wealthy, who saw it as
gies maintained that democracy was effeminate socialist. But even though the depression remained
and that it wasted precious time in building con- severe, Roosevelt maintained widespread support.
sensus among all citizens. Totalitarian leaders’ Like other successful politicians of the 1930s, he
military style of mobilizing the masses made rep- was an expert at using the new mass media, espe-
resentative government and the democratic values cially in his series of “fireside chats” broadcast by
of the United States, France, and Great Britain ap- radio to the American people. In sharp contrast to
pear feeble — a sign that these societies were on the Mussolini and Hitler, however, Roosevelt’s public
decline. The appeal of totalitarianism to citizens of statements promoted rather than attacked faith in
Britain, the United States, France and elsewhere put democratic rights and popular government. The
democracies on the defensive as they aimed to re- participation of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt
store the well-being of citizens while still uphold- sharply contrasted with the antiwoman stance
ing individual rights and the rule of law. of the fascists, and the Roosevelts as a political
team insisted that justice and human rights for all
must not be surrendered in difficult times. “We
Confronting the Economic Crisis Americans of today . . . are characters in the living
As the depression wore on through the 1930s, book of democracy,” Roosevelt told a group of
some governments experimented with ways to teenagers in 1939. “But we are also its author.”
solve social and economic crises in a democratic Lynchings and other racial violence continued to
fashion. The United States and Sweden were cause great suffering in the United States during
among the most successful in facing the double- the Roosevelt administration, and the economy
barreled assault of economic depression and fas- did not fully recover. But the president’s new pro-
cism. Other countries, such as France, had less grams and media success kept most Americans
consistently good results, but its short-lived Pop- committed to democracy.
ular Front government made antifascism and the
preservation of democracy its special cause. In the Sweden. Sweden also developed a coherent pro-
new nations of eastern Europe, however, the eco- gram for solving economic and population prob-
nomic crisis took such a toll on individual lives lems, assigning the government a central role in
1929–1945 D e m o c r ac i e s o n t h e D e f e n s i ve 853

A Fireside Chat with FDR


President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
was a master of words, inspiring
Americans during the depression and
World War II. Aware of growing media
power in making politicians look
dynamic, the press never showed
that Roosevelt was actually confined
to a wheelchair (after being
paralyzed by polio). Instead, FDR
became a symbol of U.S. resolve and
might. Here he addresses the nation
on August 23, 1938, over a radio
hookup while Eleanor Roosevelt and
the president’s mother, Sarah,
observe—a far different image from
that of Hitler and Mussolini. (Hulton
Archive/ Getty Images.)

promoting social welfare and economic democ- modern state, which became increasingly respon-
racy. Sweden instituted central planning in the sible for citizen welfare in hard times. Because all
1930s and devalued the currency to make Swedish families — rural and urban, poor or prosperous —
exports more attractive on the international mar- received these social benefits, there was widespread
ket. Thanks to pump-priming programs, Swedish approval for developing a welfare state.
productivity rose by 20 percent between 1929 and
1935, a time when other democracies were still ex- Britain and France. The most powerful democ-
periencing decline. racy, the United States, had withdrawn from world
Sweden addressed the population problem leadership by refusing to participate in the League
with government programs, but without the of Nations, leaving Britain and France with greater
racism and coercion of totalitarianism. Alva responsibility for international peace and well-
Myrdal, a leading member of parliament, believed being than their postwar resources could sustain.
that boosting childbirth depended on both the When the Great Depression hit, British prime
economy and individual well-being. It was un- minister Ramsay MacDonald faced a drop in gov-
democratic, she maintained, that “the bearing of a ernment income. Though leader of the Labour
child should mean economic distress” to parents. Party, he reduced payments to the unemployed,
Acting on Myrdal’s advice to promote “voluntary and Parliament denied unemployment insurance
parenthood,” the government introduced prenatal to women even though they had contributed to
care, free childbirth in a hospital, a food relief pro- the unemployment fund. To protect jobs, the gov-
gram, and subsidized housing for large families. By ernment imposed huge tariffs on imported goods,
the end of the decade, almost 50 percent of all but these only discouraged a revival of interna-
mothers in Sweden received government aid, most tional trade and did not relieve British misery.
importantly in the form of a family allowance to Finally, in 1933, with the economy continuing to
help cover the costs of raising children. Long a con- worsen, the government began to take effective
cern of feminists and other social reformers, sup- steps with massive programs of slum clearance,
port of families became one of the tasks of the new housing construction, and health insurance
for the needy. British leaders saw pump-priming
methods of stimulating the economy as untested
family allowance: Government funds given to families with chil-
dren to boost the birthrate in totalitarian and democratic coun- and thus resorted to them only when all else had
tries alike. failed.
854 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

Depression struck later in France, but the To express their opposition to fascism, citizens cel-
country endured a decade of public strife in the ebrated democratic holidays like Bastille Day with
1930s due to severe postwar demoralization and new enthusiasm. But not everyone liked the Pop-
stagnant population growth. Deputies with oppos- ular Front, and despite the support from workers,
ing solutions to the economic crisis frequently Léon Blum’s government was politically weak.
came to blows in the Chamber of Deputies, and ad- Fearing for their investments, bankers and indus-
ministrations were voted in and out with dizzying trialists sent their money out of the country, leav-
speed. Parisians took to the streets to protest the ing France financially strapped. “Better Hitler than
government’s budget cuts, and Nazi-style paramil- Blum” was the slogan of the upper classes. Blum’s
itary groups flourished, attracting the unemployed, government fell when it lost crucial support for re-
students, and veterans to the cause of ending rep- fusing to aid the fight against fascism in Spain.
resentative government. In February 1934, the Because of antiwar sentiment, France, like Britain,
paramilitary groups joined Communists and other kept military budgets small and refused any form
outraged citizens in riots around the parliament of military confrontation, even to help the cause of
building. “Let’s string up the deputies,” chanted the republican government in Spain. The collapse of
crowd. “And if we can’t string them up, let’s beat in the antifascist Popular Front showed the difficul-
their faces, let’s reduce them to a pulp.” Hundreds ties that democratic societies had facing economic
of demonstrators were wounded and killed, but the crisis and the revival of militarism.
antirepublican right, despite its promises that end-
ing democracy would restore prosperity, lacked Central and Eastern Europe. Fledgling democra-
both substantial support outside Paris and a charis- cies in central Europe, hit hard by the depression,
matic leader like Hitler or Mussolini. also fought the twin struggle for economic survival
Shocked into action by fascist violence, and representative government, but with little suc-
French liberals, socialists, and Communists estab- cess. In 1932, Engelbert Dollfuss came to power in
lished an antifascist coalition known as the Austria, dismissing the parliament and ruling
Popular Front. Until that time, such a merging of briefly as a dictator. Despite his authoritarian
groups had been impossible because Stalin di- stance, Dollfuss would not submit to the Nazis,
rected Communist parties in European democra- who stormed his office and assassinated him in
cies not to cooperate with liberals and socialists, 1934 in an unsuccessful coup attempt. In Hungary,
who opposed Communist-style revolution. As fas- where outrage over the Peace of Paris remained in-
cism spread throughout Europe, however, Stalin tense, a crippled economy allowed right-wing gen-
reversed himself and allowed Communists to join eral Gyula Gömbös to take over in 1932. Gömbös
efforts to protect democracy. For just over a year reoriented his country’s foreign policy toward
in 1936–1937 and again briefly in 1938, the Mussolini and Hitler. He stirred up anti-Semitism
French Popular Front led the government, with and ethnic hatreds and left considerable pro-Nazi
the socialist leader Léon Blum as premier. Like the feeling after his death in 1936. In democratic
American New Dealers and the Swedish reform- Czechoslovakia, the Slovaks, who were both poorer
ers, the Popular Front instituted social-welfare and less educated than the urbanized Czechs, built
programs, including family subsidies. Blum ap- a strong Slovak Fascist Party. In many of the new
pointed women to his government (though states created by the Peace of Paris, ethnic tensions
women still were not allowed to vote). In June simmered and the appeal of fascism grew during
1936, the government guaranteed workers two- the Great Depression.
week paid vacations, a forty-hour workweek, and
the right to collective bargaining. Working people
Cultural Visions in Hard Times
would long remember Blum as the man who im-
proved their living standards and provided them Responding to the crisis of hard times and politi-
with the right to vacations. cal menace, cultural leaders produced art that cap-
During its brief life, the Popular Front offered tured the spirit of everyday struggle. Some
the masses a youthful but democratic political cul- empathized with the situations of factory workers,
ture. “In 1936 everyone was twenty years old,” one homemakers, and shopgirls straining to support
man recalled, evoking the atmosphere of idealism. themselves and their families; others looked to in-
terpret the lives of an ever-growing number of un-
employed and destitute. Artists portrayed the
Popular Front: An alliance of political parties (initially led by
Léon Blum in France) in the 1930s to resist fascism despite
inhuman, regimented side of modern life. In 1931,
philosophical differences. French director René Clair’s film Give Us Liberty
1929–1945 D e m o c r ac i e s o n t h e D e f e n s i ve 855

related the routine of prison to


work on a factory assembly line.
In the film Modern Times (1936),
the Little Tramp character cre-
ated by Charlie Chaplin is a fac-
tory worker so molded by his
monotonous job that he assumes
anything he can see, even a
coworker’s body, needs mechan-
ical adjustment.
Media sympathy poured out
to victims of the economic cri-
sis, with women portrayed alter-
nately as the cause and as the
cure for society’s problems. The
Blue Angel (1930), a German
film starring Marlene Dietrich,
contrasted a powerfully seduc-
tive woman with an impractical,
bumbling professor, showing
how mixed-up gender roles
could destroy men — and civi-
lization. Such films worked to
strengthen fascist claims. In
comedies and musicals, by com-
parison, heroines behaved bravely,
pulling their men out of the Gracie Fields Keeps Smiling
depths of despair and setting Like Roosevelt and many cultural leaders during the Great Depression, British star Gracie
things right again. In such films Fields in the hit film Shipyard Sally (1939) urged viewers to be courageous and maintain
as Keep Smiling (1938), the their respect as workers and citizens despite hard times. This was in stark contrast to
British comedienne Gracie Fields fascist advocacy of conquest, war, and violence toward neighbors at home and abroad. (20th
portrayed spunky working- Century Fox / The Kobal Collection.)
class women who remained
cheerful despite the challenges of
living in hard times. Two years later, Chaplin the struggle between humane values and bar-
mocked Hitler in his classic satire The Great Dic- barism. The fourth volume, Joseph the Provider
tator (1940), which sympathetically took a belea- (1944), praised Joseph’s welfare state, in which the
guered Jewish woman as its heroine. granaries were full and the rich paid taxes so that
To drive home their antifascist, pacifist, or the poor might live decent lives. In Three Guineas
pro-worker beliefs, writers created realistic studies (1938), one of her last works, English writer
of human misery and the threat of war that Virginia Woolf attacked militarism, poverty, and
haunted life in the 1930s. The British writer the oppression of women, claiming they were in-
George Orwell described his experiences among terconnected parts of a single, devastating ethos
the poor of Paris and London, wrote investigative undermining Europe in the 1930s.
pieces about the unemployed in the north of While writers rekindled moral concerns, scien-
England, and published an account of atrocities tists in research institutes and universities pointed
committed by both sides during the Spanish Civil out limits to human understanding — limits that
War (1936–1939). German writer Thomas Mann seemed at odds with the megalomaniacal pro-
was so outraged at Hitler’s ascent to power that he nouncements of dictators. Astronomer Edwin
went into voluntary exile. Mann’s series of novels Hubble in California determined in the early 1930s
based on the Old Testament hero Joseph convey that the universe was an expanding entity and thus
an unpredictably changing one. Czech mathemati-
cian Kurt Gödel maintained that all mathematical
Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977): Major entertainment leader,
whose satires of Hitler and sympathetic portrayals of the com- systems contain some propositions that are unde-
mon man helped preserve democratic values. cidable. The German physicist Werner Heisenberg
856 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

developed the uncertainty, or indeterminacy, prin- The Road to Global War


ciple in physics. Scientific observation of atomic
behavior, according to this theory, itself disturbs The economic crash intensified competition
the atom and thereby makes precise formulations among the major powers and made external
impossible. Even scientists, Heisenberg asserted, colonies more important than ever. Governments
had to settle for statistical probability. Approxima- did not let up on the collection of taxes and other
tion, probability, and limits to understanding were charges in the colonies and in some cases increased
not concepts that military dictators welcomed, and them to make up for shortfalls at home. As Britain,
even people in democracies had a difficult time rec- France, and other imperial powers struggled to
onciling these new ideas with science’s reputation protect their holdings, Hitler, Mussolini, and
for certainty. Japan’s military leaders believed that their nations
Religious leaders helped foster a spirit of re- deserved to rule a far larger territory as part of
sistance to dictatorship among the faithful. Some their special destiny. At first, statesmen in Britain
prominent clergymen hoped for a re-Christian- and France hoped that sanctions imposed by the
ization of ordinary people so that they might League of Nations would stop these aggressors.
choose religious values rather than fascist ones. Other people, still traumatized by memories of the
The Swiss theologian Karl Barth encouraged op- past war, turned a blind eye both to Japanese, Ital-
position to the Nazis, teaching that religious people ian, and German expansionism and to the fascist
had to take seriously biblical calls for resistance attack on the Spanish republic. The unchecked
to oppression. In his 1931 address to the world on brutality of these states in the 1930s would lead to
social issues, Pope Pius XI (r. 1922–1939) con- another, more deadly global war.
demned the failure of modern societies to provide
their citizens with a decent, moral life. To critics,
the proclamation seemed an endorsement of the A Surge in Global Imperialism
heavy-handed intervention of the fascists. In Ger- The global imperialism of the 1930s ultimately
many, nonetheless, German Catholics opposed produced a thoroughly global war. While the
Hitler, and religious commitment inspired many French, Dutch, British, and Belgians increased
other individuals to oppose the rising tide of their control over their colonies, in Palestine
fascism. European Jews continued to arrive and claim the
area from local peoples. The numbers of immi-
grants escalated sharply as Hitler enacted his harsh
Review: How did the democracies’ responses to the
twin challenges of economic depression and the rise of anti-Jewish policies in 1933 and as people across
fascism differ from those of totalitarian regimes? Europe and Asia felt the impact of the economic
slump. To prevent the arrival of Jews in their own
countries, the major European states encouraged
emigration to Palestine. Local politicians in the re-
gion regarded the soaring number of immigrants
THE ROAD TO WORLD WAR II
as a major threat. Hard-pressed like the colonial
powers for resources, Japan, Germany, and Italy es-
1929 Global depression begins with U.S. stock market crash calated the competition for land and wealth —
1931 Japan invades Manchuria
both close at hand and far away.

1933 Hitler comes to power in Germany Japan’s Expansionism. Japan, which had once
1935 Italy invades Ethiopia borrowed from European institutions to become
modern and powerful, now decided to chase
1936 Civil war breaks out in Spain; Hitler remilitarizes the Europeans from Asia. Japan’s military and business
Rhineland
leaders longed to control more of Asia and saw
1937 Japan invades China China, Russia, the United States, and other West-
1938 Germany annexes Austria; European leaders meet in Munich
ern powers as obstacles to the empire’s prosperity
to negotiate with Hitler and the fulfillment of its destiny. Japan suffered
from a weak monarchy in the person of Hirohito,
1939 Germany seizes Czechoslovakia; Hitler and Stalin sign just twenty-five years old when he became em-
nonaggression pact; Germany invades Poland; Britain and peror in 1926, leading military and other groups
France declare war on Germany
to seek control of the government. Nationalists en-
couraged these leaders to pursue military success
for Japan as the basis of a new world order. They
1929–1945 Th e Roa d to G lo b a l Wa r 857

viewed an expanded empire as key to


pulling agriculture and small business Expansion to 1933 N
E Sakhalin
from the depths of economic depression. Expansion to 1941
Japan’s claims to racial superiority and to Under Japanese influence W
S

R.
the right to take the lands of inferior peo- Japanese attacks on China

ur
Am
ples linked it with Germany and Italy in
U SSR
the 1930s. The groundwork was being
laid for a powerful global alliance.
The army swung into action in order
to make these claims a reality: in Septem- 
Vladivostok
MANCHURIA
ber 1931, Japanese officers blew up a rail- (MANCHUKUO)
Sea of
road train in the Chinese province of Japan
Tokyo
Manchuria, where Japanese businesses Mukden

 193
had invested heavily. Making the explo- 1

sion look to be a Chinese plot, the army KOREA JAPAN


then used the explosion as an excuse to Peking

take over the territory totally and, from
there, push farther into China (Map Yellow
26.1). The Japanese public agreed with w
R.
Sea
lo
journalistic calls for aggressive expan- Ye l 1
32
19

93
sion, and from 1931 on, Japan continued

8
to attack China, angering the United Nanjing  
Shanghai
States, on which Japan depended for nat- CHINA
ural resources and markets. Ideologically,
the Japanese military leadership saw it- .
eR
self as fully justified in its expansionism Yan
gtz PACIFIC
because of unfair Western domination in OCEAN
East Asia. “Unequal distribution of land Taiwan
and resources causes war,” an adviser to (Formosa)
Hirohito announced to an enthusiastic 
Canton
Japanese public. Advocating Asian con- 
Hong Kong
quest as part of Japan’s “divine mission,”
the military extended its influence in the  Hanoi
government. By 1936–1937, Japan was Hainan
spending 47 percent of its budget on PHILIPPINE IS.
Manila
 (U.S.)
arms. South
China
The situation in East Asia affected in- THAILAND Sea
ternational politics. Japanese military
success added to the threat Japan posed Bangkok
FRENCH
 INDOCHINA
to the West, because the conquest of new
0 250 500 miles
regions gave Japanese goods bigger mar-  Saigon
0 250 500 kilometers
kets in Asia. The League of Nations con-
demned the invasion of Manchuria, but
it imposed no economic sanctions to back MAP 26.1 The Expansion of Japan, 1931–1941
Japanese expansion in the twentieth century approximated that of Russia and
up its condemnation. Meanwhile, the
the United States in the nineteenth century: that is, it incorporated neighboring
public condemnation outraged Japanese regions of Korea, Taiwan, and Manchuria with the vast area of China an inviting
citizens and goaded the government to target. Japan’s ambition upset the United States’s own Pacific goals and made
ally with Hitler and Mussolini. In 1937, these two powers suddenly become deadly rivals.
Japan undertook another major attack on
China, justifying its offensive as a first
step toward liberating the region from Western im- nounced an embargo on U.S. export of airplane
perialism. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese were parts to Japan and later drastically cut the flow of
massacred in the “Rape of Nanjing” — an atrocity the crucial raw materials that supplied Japanese in-
so named because of the brutality toward girls and dustry. Nonetheless, the Western powers, includ-
women and other acts of torture perpetrated by ing the Soviet Union, did not effectively resist
the Japanese. President Roosevelt immediately an- Japan’s territorial expansion in Asia and the Pacific
858 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

DOCUMENT

The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere


During the 1930s, Japan entered a new of Eastern Siberia, China, Indo-China, the present Sino-Japanese and the Southern
phase of imperial expansion in the Pacific, South Seas, Australia, and India. . . . It is problems if the situation renders this un-
after having already taken over Korea and intended that the unification of Japan, avoidable. Next the independence of
Formosa before World War I. To keep pace Manchoukuo, and China in neighborly Australia, India, etc. shall gradually be
with its rapidly developing industrial and friendship be realized by the settlement of brought about. For this purpose, a recur-
military capacities, Japan needed access to the Sino-Japanese problems through the rence of war with Britain and her allies is
raw materials and markets blocked by the crushing of hostile influences in the Chi- expected. . . . Occidental individualism
U.S. and European powers. Japan justified nese interior, and through the construc- and materialism shall be rejected and a
its expansion in China and other Pacific na- tion of a new China in tune with the rapid moral world view, the basic principle of
tions as a move to liberate Asians from West- construction of the Inner Sphere. Aggres- whose morality shall be the Imperial Way,
ern imperialism and form an independent sive American and British influences in shall be established. The ultimate object to
“Co-Prosperity Sphere” for the region. This East Asia shall be driven out of the area of be achieved is not exploitation but co-
secret 1942 government planning paper out- Indo-China and the South Seas, and this prosperity and mutual help, not compet-
lines Japan’s expansionist goals. area shall be brought into our defense itive conflict but mutual assistance and
sphere. The war with Britain and America mild peace, not a formal view of equality
The states, their citizens, and resources, shall be prosecuted for that purpose. but a view of order based on righteous
comprised in those areas pertaining to the The Russian aggressive influence in classification, not an idea of rights but an
Pacific, Central Asia, and the Indian Oceans East Asia will be driven out. Eastern idea of service, and not several world views
formed into one general union are to be es- Siberia shall be cut off from the Soviet but one unified world view.
tablished as an autonomous zone of peace- regime and included in our defense
ful living and common prosperity on behalf sphere. For this purpose, a war with the Source: Ryusaku Tsunoda, William Theodore de
of the peoples of the nations of East Asia. . . . Soviets is expected. It is considered possi- Bary, and Donald Keene, Sources of Japanese
The above purpose presupposes the ble that this Northern problem may break Tradition (New York: Columbia University Press,
inevitable emancipation or independence out before the general settlement of the 1958) 802–3, 805.

(see Document, “The Greater East Asia Co- manity. Their anticommunism appealed to states-
Prosperity Sphere,” above). men across the West, and Hitler’s anti-Semitism
also had widespread support. Some thus favored
Germany and Italy Contest the Status Quo. Like giving in to these two dictators’ demands to take
Japanese leaders, Mussolini and Hitler called their land at the expense of others.
countries “have-nots” and demanded land and re- Both leaders moved to plunder other coun-
sources more in line with the other imperial pow- tries openly and audaciously. In the autumn of
ers. Mussolini threatened “permanent conflict” to 1933, Hitler announced Germany’s withdrawal
expand Italy’s borders. Hitler’s agenda included from the League of Nations. In 1935, Hitler loudly
disregarding the Versailles treaty’s restrictions and rejected the clauses of the Treaty of Versailles that
gaining more Lebensraum, or living space, in limited German military strength and openly
which “superior” Aryans could thrive, and sup- started rearming. (Germany had been rearming in
planting the “inferior” Slavic peoples and Bolshe- secret for years.) Mussolini also chose 1935 to in-
viks, who would be moved to Siberia or would vade Ethiopia, one of the few African states not
serve as slaves. Both dictators portrayed themselves overwhelmed by European imperialism. He
as peace-loving men who resorted to extreme wanted to demonstrate his regime’s youth and
measures only to benefit their country and hu- vigor and to raise Italy’s standing in the world.
“The Roman legionnaires are again on the
march,” one soldier exulted. The poorly equipped
Lebensraum: Literally, “living space”; the land that Hitler pro-
posed to conquer so that true Aryans might have sufficient Ethiopians resisted, but their capital, Addis Ababa,
space to live their noble lives. fell in the spring of 1936. Although the League of
1929–1945 Th e Roa d to G lo b a l Wa r 859

Nations voted to impose sanctions 0 250 500 miles time putting in place a political
against Italy, Britain and France SUDAN 0 250 500 kilometers program that would gain it wide-
opposed an embargo with teeth in ERITREA spread support in the country-
it — one on oil — and thus kept FRENCH side. Instead of building popular
SOMALILAND
the sanctions from being effective loyalty and reducing the strength
BRITISH
while also suggesting a lack of re- Addis
Ababa SOMALILAND of the right wing by enacting

solve to fight aggression. The fall ETHIOPIA land reform, the various anti-
of Ethiopia and Italy’s boastful as- monarchist factions struggled
sertions of African racial inferior- among themselves to dominate
ITALIAN
ity strengthened the resolve of SOMALILAND the new government. Although
African nationalists. they wanted political and eco-
KENYA INDIAN
Profiting from the world’s fo- OCEAN nomic modernization, they
cus on Italy’s Ethiopian campaign, Italian campaigns, 1935–36
failed to mount a unified effort
in March 1936 Hitler defiantly against their reactionary oppo-
sent his troops into what was sup- nents. The republicans resorted
The Ethiopian War, 1935–1936
posed to be a permanently demil- instead to symbolic acts such as
itarized zone in the Rhineland releasing political prisoners and
bordering France. The inhabitants greeted the doling out coveted municipal jobs to the urban un-
Germans with wild enthusiasm, and the French, employed. In 1936, pro-republican forces tem-
whose security was most endangered by this ac- porarily banded together in a Popular Front
tion, protested to the League of Nations instead of coalition to win elections and prevent the repub-
occupying the region, as they had done in the Ruhr lic from collapsing altogether in the face of grow-
in 1923. The British simply accepted the German ing monarchist opposition.
military move, and the two dictators thus appeared In response to the Popular Front victory, the
as powerful heroes forging, in Mussolini’s muscu- forces of the right drew closer together, using their
lar phrase, a “Rome–Berlin Axis.” Next to them, considerable wealth to undermine the govern-
the politicians of France and Great Britain looked ment. In 1936, a group of army officers led by Gen-
timid and defeatable. eral Francisco Franco (1892–1975) staged an
uprising against the republican government in
Madrid. The rebels, who included monarchists,
The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 landowners, the clergy, and the fascist Falange
Spain seemed to be headed toward democracy Party, soon had the help of fascists in other parts
early in the 1930s. In 1931, Spanish republicans of Europe. Citizens — male and female — took up
overthrew the monarchy and the dictatorship that arms in turn on behalf of the republic and formed
ruled in its name. For centuries, the Spanish state volunteer fighting units to meet the grave military
had backed the domination of large landowners challenge. In their minds, citizen armies symbol-
and the Catholic clergy over the countryside. With ized republicanism, while professional troops
some cities, like Barcelona and Bilbao, industrial- followed the aristocratic rebels. As civil war
izing, these ruling elites kept an impoverished gripped the country, the republicans generally held
peasantry in their grip, making Spain a country of Madrid, Barcelona, and other commercial and in-
economic extremes. Urban groups reacted enthu- dustrial areas. The right-wing rebels took the agri-
siastically to the end of the dictatorship and began cultural west and south (Map 26.2).
debating the course of change, with Communists, Spain became a training ground for World
socialists, anarchists, constitutionalists, and other War II. Hitler and Mussolini sent military person-
splinter groups all disagreeing on how to create a nel in support of Franco, gaining the opportunity
democratic nation. For republicans, the air was to test new weapons and to practice the terror
electric with promise. As public debate developed, bombing of civilians. In 1937, German planes at-
one woman recalled, people sat for hours dream- tacked the town of Guernica, mowing down civil-
ing dreams: “We saw a backward country suddenly ians in the streets. This useless slaughter inspired
blossoming out into a modern state. We saw peas- Pablo Picasso’s memorial mural to the dead, Guer-
ants living like decent human beings. We saw men nica (1937), in which the intense suffering is
allowed freedom of conscience. We saw life, instead
of death, in Spain.”
Francisco Franco (1892–1975): Right-wing military leader who
Democratic groups so battled one another to successfully overthrew the democratic republic in Spain and in-
get their way, however, that the republic had a hard stituted a repressive dictatorship.
860 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

MAP 26.2 The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 0 100 200 miles Germans bomb
Republican and antirepublican forces bitterly fought one 0 100 200 kilometers
civilians, 1937

another to determine whether Spain would be a democracy FRANCE


Guernica

or an authoritarian state. Germany and Italy sent military N

assistance to the rebels, notably airplanes to experiment W

with bombing civilians, while volunteers from around the E

AL
world arrived to fight for the republic. Defeating the ill- S

TUG

organized republican groups, General Francisco Franco  Madrid Barcelona

POR
instituted a pro-fascist government that sent many to jail SPAIN
and into exile.

Surrendered
March 28, 1939
ATLANTIC
OCEAN Mediterranean Sea

SPANISH
MOROCCO
ALGERIA

Nationalist, July 1936 Republican, February 1939


Nationalist, October 1937 Main Nationalist attacks
Nationalist, July 1938 Main Republican attacks
Nationalist, February 1939

starkly displayed in monochromatic grays and


whites. The Spanish republican government ap-
pealed everywhere for assistance, but only the So-
viet Union answered. Stalin withdrew his troops
and tanks in 1938 as the republican ranks floun-
dered, however. Britain and France refused to pro-
vide aid despite the outpouring of popular support
for the cause of democracy. Instead, a few thou-
sand volunteers from a variety of countries —
including many students, journalists, and
artists — fought for the republic. With Hitler and
Mussolini on a rampage in Europe, “Spain was the
place to stop fascism,” these volunteers believed.
The conflict was bitter and bloody, with wide-
spread atrocities committed on both sides. But the
splinter groups and random armies with which the
Republic defended itself could not hold, while the
aid Franco received ultimately proved decisive. His
troops defeated the republicans in 1939, strength-
ening the cause of military authoritarianism in
Europe. Tens of thousands fled Franco’s brutal re-
venge; remaining critics found themselves jailed
and worse.

The Spanish Republic Appeals for Aid Hitler’s Conquest of Central Europe,
The government of the Spanish Republic sent out 1938–1939
modernist advertising to attract support from the
remaining democracies—especially Great Britain and
The next step toward World War II was Germany’s
France. Antiwar sentiment remained high among the annexation of Austria in 1938. Many Austrians had
British and French, however. Thus, despite the horrifying actually wished for a German-Austrian merger, or
and deliberate bombing of civilians by Franco’s German Anschluss, after the Paris peace settlement stripped
allies, aid for the republic failed to arrive. (Imperial War them of their empire. So Hitler’s troops simply en-
Museum, London.) tered Austria, and the elation of Nazi sympathiz-
1929–1945 Th e Roa d to G lo b a l Wa r 861

ers among the Austrians made the Anschluss ap- and Italy prompted Chamberlain to announce that
pear an example of the Wilsonian idea of self-de- he had secured “peace in our time.” Having por-
termination. The annexation began the so-called trayed himself as a man of peace, Hitler waited un-
unification of Aryan peoples into one greater Ger- til March 1939 to invade the rest of Czechoslovakia
man nation, and Hitler’s seizure of Austria’s gold (Map 26.3). Britain and France responded by
supplies marked the next step in taking over the promising military support to Poland, Romania,
resources of central and eastern Europe. Austria Greece, and Turkey in case of Nazi invasion. In
was declared a German province, and Nazi thugs May 1939, Hitler and Mussolini countered this
ruled once-cosmopolitan Vienna. An observer agreement by signing a pledge of mutual support
later commented on the scene: called the Pact of Steel.
University professors were obliged to scrub the streets
Some historians have sharply criticized the
with their naked hands, pious white-bearded Jews were Munich Pact because it bought Hitler time to build
dragged into the synagogue by hooting youths and his army and seemed to give him the green light
forced to do knee-exercises and to shout “Heil Hitler” for further aggression. They believe that a con-
in chorus. frontation might have stopped Hitler and that even
Nazis gained additional support in Austria by solv- if war had resulted, the democracies would have
ing the stubborn problem of unemployment — triumphed at less cost than they later did. Accord-
especially among the young and out-of-work ing to this view, each military move by Germany,
rural migrants to the cities. Factories sprang up Italy, and Japan should have been met with stiff
overnight, mostly to foster rearmament, and new opposition, and the Soviet Union should have been
“Hitler housing” was made available to workers. made a partner to this resistance. Others counter
“We were given work!” Austrians continued to say that appeasement provided France and Britain
long afterward, defending their enthusiasm for the precious time to beef up their own armies, which
Third Reich. German policies eliminated some of the Munich Pact caused them to begin doing.
the pain Austrians had suffered when their empire Stalin, excluded from the Munich delibera-
had been reduced to a small country after World tions, saw that the democracies were not going to
War I. fight to protect eastern Europe. He took action. To
Flush with success, Hitler next targeted Czecho- the astonishment of public opinion in the West,
slovakia and its rich resources. Conquering this on August 23, 1939, Germany and the USSR signed
democracy looked more difficult, however, because a nonaggression agreement. The Nazi-Soviet Pact
Czechoslovakia had a large army, strong border provided that if one country became embroiled in
defenses, and efficient armament factories — and war, the other country would remain neutral.
most Czech citizens were prepared to fight for their Moreover, the two dictators secretly agreed to
country. The Nazi propaganda machine swung into divide Poland and the Baltic States — Latvia,
action, accusing Czechoslovakia of persecuting its Estonia, and Lithuania — at some future date. The
German minority. By October 1, 1938, Hitler Nazi-Soviet Pact ensured that, should war come,
warned, Czechoslovakia would have to grant auton- the democracies would be fighting a Germany that
omy (amounting to Nazi rule) to the German- feared no attack on its eastern borders. The pact
populated border region, the Sudetenland, or face also benefited the USSR. Despite Hitler’s threats to
German invasion. wipe Bolshevism off the face of the earth, the pact
Hitler gambled correctly that the other West- allowed Stalin extra time to reconstitute his offi-
ern powers would not interfere, for as the October cer corps destroyed in the purges. In the belief that
deadline approached, British prime minister Great Britain and perhaps even France would con-
Neville Chamberlain, French premier Edouard tinue not to resist him, Hitler now moved to en-
Daladier, and Mussolini met with Hitler at Munich large his empire further and aimed his forces at
and agreed not to oppose Germany’s claim to the Poland. The contest for territory and resources was
Sudetenland. The strategy of preventing a war by set to become another world war.
making concessions for grievances (in this case, the
supposed insult to Germans in the Peace of Paris) Review: How did the aggression of Japan, Germany,
was called appeasement. At the time, these con- and Italy create the conditions for global war?
cessions were widely seen as positive, and the Mu-
nich Pact among Germany, Great Britain, France,
Nazi-Soviet Pact: The agreement reached in 1939 by Germany
appeasement: The strategy of preventing a war by making con- and the Soviet Union in which both agreed not to attack the
cessions for legitimate grievances. other in case of war and to divide any conquered territories.
862 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

Germany in 1933 Annexed, September 1939


Plebiscite joins Germany in 1935 Occupied by Germany, September 1939
Remilitarized in 1936 Annexed by Soviet Union, September 1939 ESTONIA
Annexed, 1938–1939 Annexed by Hungary, March 1939
Satellite states, March 1939 International boundaries, 1936 U SSR

a
Se
Riga
 LATVIA
SWEDEN

ic
lt
North DENMARK 
Memel

a
N B
Sea LITHUANIA
W  Vilnius
E

S 
Danzig East Minsk
NETHERLANDS Prussia 
Hamburg White Russia
 Elb
 Bremen eR
.
Vi
st u
la R . Warsaw Pinsk
Ruhr  
 Brest-Litovsk
Dunkirk  GERMANY
W e se r

Cologne POLAND
BELGIUM Od GOVERNMENT
R hi

er
R.

R GENERAL
ne

land OF POLAND
R

.
ten
.

1939
Rhineland de 
Su
PragueC
LUXEMBOURG Bohemia ZEC
HO
Saar Moravia SLO V AKIA Dnie
ster
Slovakia R.
Da
n u b e R.
Ruthenia
Munich  Vienna 

FRANCE Budapest
AUSTRIA 
SWITZERLAND (the Ostmark) HUNGARY

ROMANIA

ITALY
Ad

at
ri

0 100 200 miles ic


Se YUGOSLAVIA
0 100 200 kilometers a

MAP 26.3 The Growth of Nazi Germany, 1933–1939


German expansion was rapid and surprising, as Hitler’s forces and Nazi diplomacy achieved the
annexation of several new states of central and eastern Europe. Although committed to defending the
independence of these states through the League of Nations, French and British diplomats were more
concerned with satisfying Hitler in the mistaken belief that doing so would prevent his claiming more
of Europe. In the process, Hitler acquired the human and material resources of adjacent countries to
support his Third Reich. ■ What is the relationship between Germany’s expansion during the 1930s
and the terms of the Treaty of Versailles after World War I?

World War II, 1939–1945 leled atrocities, including technological genocide,


had killed six million Jews and six million Slavs,
Gypsies, homosexuals, and other civilian enemies
World War II opened when Hitler launched an all- of fascism.
out attack on Poland on September 1, 1939. In
contrast to 1914, no jubilation in Berlin accompa- The German Onslaught
nied the invasion; when Britain and France de-
German ground forces quickly defeated the ill-
clared war two days later, the mood in those
equipped Polish troops by launching an overpow-
nations was similarly grim. Although Japan, Italy,
ering Blitzkrieg (“lightning war”), in which they
and the United States did not join the battle im-
mediately, their eventual participation spread the
fighting and mobilized civilians around the world. Blitzkrieg: Literally, “lightning war”; a strategy for the conduct
of war in which motorized firepower quickly and overwhelm-
By the time World War II ended in 1945, millions ingly attacks the enemy, leaving it unable to resist psycholog-
were starving; countries lay in ruins; and unparal- ically or militarily.
1929–1945 Wo r l d Wa r I I , 1 9 3 9 – 1 9 4 5 863

concentrated airplanes, tanks, and motorized in- weapons depots, and industry. Using the wealth
fantry to encircle Polish defenders and capture the of its colonies, Britain poured resources into an-
capital, Warsaw, with blinding speed. Allowing the tiaircraft weapons, its highly successful code-
army to conserve supplies, Blitzkrieg assured Ger- detecting group called Ultra, and development of
mans at home that the human costs of gaining its advantage in radar. At year’s end, the British
Lebensraum would be low. On September 17, air industry was outproducing that of the Ger-
1939, the Soviets invaded Poland from the east. By mans by 50 percent.
the end of the month, the Polish army was in By the fall of 1940, German air losses forced
shambles and the victors had divided the country Hitler to abandon his plan for a naval invasion of
according to the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Within the Britain. Forcing Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria
Reich, Hitler sold the war as one of self-defense, to ally with him, Hitler gained access to their
especially from what German propagandists called food, oil, and other resources. He then made his
the “warlike menace” of world Jewry. fatal decision to attack the Soviet Union — the
Hitler ordered an attack on France for Novem- “center of judeobolshevism,” he called it. In June
ber 1939, but his generals, who feared that 1941, the German army crossed the Soviet bor-
Germany was ill prepared for total war, convinced der, breaking the Nazi-Soviet Pact while Hitler
him to postpone the offensive until the spring of boasted of “razing Moscow and Leningrad to the
1940. In April 1940, the Blitzkrieg crushed Den- ground.” Three million German and other troops
mark and Norway; the battles of Belgium, the quickly penetrated Soviet lines along a two-thou-
Netherlands, and France followed in May and sand-mile front, and by July, the German army
June. On June 5, Mussolini, eyeing future spoils for had rolled to within two hundred miles of
Italy, invaded France from the southeast. The Moscow. Using a strategy of rapid encirclement,
French defense and its British allies could not German troops killed, captured, or wounded
withstand the German onslaught. Trapped on the more than half the 4.5 million Soviet soldiers de-
beaches of Dunkirk in northern France, 370,000 fending the borders.
British and French soldiers were rescued in a Amid success, Hitler blundered. Considering
heroic effort by an improvised fleet of naval ships, himself a military genius and the Slavic people
fishing boats, and pleasure craft. inferior, he proposed attacking
A dejected French government 0 100 200 miles
Dunkirk
Leningrad, the Baltic States,
surrendered on June 22, 1940, and the Ukraine simultaneously,
R h in

BELGIUM
0 100 200 kilometers
eR

leaving Germany to rule the whereas his generals wanted to


.

Sei Paris
ne
LUX.
northern half of the country, in- R.
Lorraine concentrate on Moscow. Hitler’s
R.
cluding Paris. In the south, L o ir e grandiose strategy wasted pre-
ce
sa
Al

named Vichy France after the spa Bay of FRANCE SWITZ. cious time without achieving a
town where the government sat, Biscay
Vichy

Lyon
decisive victory, and driven by
the reactionary and aged World VICHY ITALY Stalin and local party members,
Ga

Rhône R.

FRANCE
ro

War I hero Henri Philippe Pétain ne


the Soviet people fought back.
n

R.

was allowed to govern. Stalin used


Marseille The onset of winter turned Nazi
the diversion in western Europe SPAIN soldiers to frostbitten wretches
to annex the Baltic States of Esto- German-occupied territory because Hitler had feared that
nia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Annexed by Germany, 1940 equipping his army for Russian
Britain now stood alone. Italian invasion, 1940 conditions would suggest to
Blaming Germany’s rapid victo- civilians that a long campaign
ries on Chamberlain’s policy of The Division of France, 1940 lay in store, as in fact it did. Yet
appeasement, the British swept Hitler remained so convinced of
him out of office and installed as prime minister imminent victory in the USSR that he switched
Winston Churchill (1874–1965), an early advo- German production from making tanks and ar-
cate of resistance to Hitler. After Hitler ordered tillery to making battleships and airplanes for war
the bombardment of Britain in the summer of beyond the Soviet Union. Consequently, Ger-
1940, Churchill rallied the nation by radio — now many’s poorly supplied armies succumbed not
in millions of British homes — to protect the only to the weather but also to a shortage of
ideals of liberty with their “blood, toil, tears, and equipment. As the war became worldwide, Ger-
sweat.” In the battle of Britain — or Blitz, as the many had an inflated view of its power and a
British called it — the German Luftwaffe (air poorly calculated understanding of wartime
force) bombed monuments, public buildings, reality.
864 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

War Expands: Allied leaders worked hard to wage effective war


The Pacific and Beyond against the Axis powers, whose rulers were fanat-
ically committed to global conquest at any price.
With the outbreak of war in Europe, Japan took
territories of the British Empire, bullied the Dutch
in Indonesia, and invaded French Indochina to The War against Civilians
procure raw materials for its industrial and mili- Far more civilians than soldiers died in World War
tary expansion. The militarist Japanese govern- II. The Axis powers and Allies alike bombed cities
ment then decided that it should settle matters to destroy civilian will to resist — a tactic that
with the United States, which was blocking Japan’s seemed to backfire by inspiring defiance rather
access to technology and resources in an attempt than surrender. Allied firebombing of Dresden and
to stop its expansionism, and launched an all-out Tokyo were but two instances that killed tens of
attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor in thousands of civilians, but Axis attacks far out-
Hawaii on December 7, 1941. After bombing Pearl weighed these. The British people, not British sol-
Harbor, Japanese planes then decimated a fleet of diers, were the target of the battle of Britain, and
airplanes in the Philippines. Roosevelt summoned as the German army swept through eastern
the U.S. Congress to declare war on Japan. By the Europe, it slaughtered Jews, Communists, Slavs,
spring of 1942, the Japanese had conquered Guam, and others Nazi ideology deemed “racial inferiors”
the Philippines, Malaya, Burma, Indonesia, Singa- and enemies. In Poland, the SS murdered hun-
pore, and much of the southwestern Pacific. Like dreds of thousands of Polish citizens or relocated
Hitler’s early conquests, the Japanese victories them in forced-labor camps. Confiscated Polish
strengthened the military’s confidence: “The era of land and homes were given to “racially pure”
democracy is finished,” the foreign minister an- Aryans from Germany and other central European
nounced. Officials marketed Emperor Hirohito to countries. Literate people in conquered areas were
the region as the pan-Asian monarch who would the most vulnerable, because Hitler, like Stalin, saw
liberate Asians everywhere. them as leading members of the civil society that
Germany quickly joined its Japanese ally and he wanted to destroy. A ploy of the Nazis was to
declared war on the United States — an enemy, test captured people’s reading skills, suggesting
Hitler proclaimed, that was “half Judaized and the that those who could read would be given clerical
other half Negrified.” Mussolini followed suit. The jobs while those who could not would be relegated
United States was not prepared for a prolonged to hard labor. Those who could read, however,
struggle at the time, partly because isolationist were lined up and shot. Because many in the Ger-
sentiment remained strong: its armed forces man army initially rebelled at this inhuman mis-
numbered only 1.6 million, and no plan existed sion, special Gestapo forces took up the charge of
for producing the necessary guns, tanks, and air- herding their victims into woods, to ravines, or
planes. Also, the United States and the Soviet even against town walls where they would be shot
Union mistrusted each other. Yet despite these ob- en masse. The Japanese did the same in China,
stacles to cooperation, Hitler’s four enemies came southeast Asia, and on the islands in the Pacific.
together in the Grand Alliance of Great Britain, the The number of casualties in China alone has been
Free French (an exile government in London led estimated at thirty million, with untold millions
by General Charles de Gaulle), the Soviet Union, murdered elsewhere.
and the United States.
The Grand Alliance and the larger coalition The Holocaust. On the eve of war in 1939, Hitler
with twenty other countries — known collectively had predicted “the destruction of the Jewish race
as the Allies — had to overcome animosity and in Europe.” The Nazis’ initial plan for reducing the
competing interests in their struggle against the Jewish population included herding Jews into
Axis powers — Germany, Italy, and Japan. Yet in urban ghettos, stripping them of their possessions,
the long run, the Allies had real advantages. Their and making people live on minimal rations until
manpower and resources were greater than those they died of starvation or disease. There was also
of the Axis powers, and the extensive terrain the direct murder. Around Soviet towns, Jews were
Allies controlled gave them access to more goods usually shot in pits, some of which they had been
from around the world. The globalization of the forced to dig themselves. After making people shed
war brought into play Britain’s traditional naval their clothes, which were put in ordered piles for
strength and its leaders’ and troops’ experience in later use, the Nazis killed ten thousand or more at
combat on many continents. Meeting frequently, a time, often with the help of local anti-Semitic
1929–1945 Wo r l d Wa r I I , 1 9 3 9 – 1 9 4 5 865

people. In Jedwabne, Poland, and surrounding DENMARK


0 100 200 miles N
LITHUANIA
towns in 1941, some eight hundred citizens on 0 100 200 kilometers
East W E
their own initiative beat and burned their Jewish Hamburg
17 Prussia
 13
neighbors to death and took their property — NETH. 14 S
3 15
 Warsaw
evidence that the Holocaust was not simply a Nazi 11  GERMANY
Berlin
5
 19 POLAND USSR
16
initiative. However, the “Final Solution” — the 4
8 9
BELGIUM 2 Babi Yar
Nazis’ diabolical plan to murder all of Europe’s 18   Prague 1  Cracow (Kiev)
7 CZ
Jews systematically — was not yet fully under way. LUX. 12
EC H
O S L O V A K IA
Ukraine

A more organized, technological system for Munich 


6 10
rounding up Jews and transporting them to exter- SWITZ. AUSTRIA 
Budapest
HUNGARY
mination sites had taken shape by the fall of 1941. ROMANIA
Although no clear order written by Hitler exists, ITALY
his responsibility for it is clear: he discussed the YUGOSLAVIA
Final Solution’s progress, issued oral directives for Under Axis control, 1 Auschwitz-Birkenau 11 Mittelbau
1942 2 Belzec 12 Natzweiler
it, and made violent anti-Semitism a basis for Nazism Axis allies 3 Bergen-Belsen 13 Neuengamme
from the beginning. Efficient scientists, doctors, Neutral
4 Buchenwald 14 Ravensbrück
5 Chelmno 15 Sachsenhausen
lawyers, and government workers also made the Mass murder site 6 Dachau 16 Sobibor
7 Flossenbürg 17 Stutthof
Holocaust work. Six camps in Poland were devel- Principal German 8 Gross Rosen 18 Theresienstadt
oped specifically for the purposes of mass murder,  concentration and 9 Majdanek 19 Treblinka
extermination camp 10 Mauthausen
though some, like Auschwitz-Birkenau, served as
both extermination and labor camps (Map 26.4). MAP 26.4 Concentration Camps and Extermination
Using techniques developed in the T4 project, Sites in Europe
which killed disabled and elderly people, the camp This map shows the major extermination sites and
at Chelmno first gassed Christian Poles and Soviet concentration camps in Europe, but the entire
prisoners of war. Specially designed crematoria for continent was dotted with thousands of lesser camps
the mass burning of corpses started functioning to which the victims of Nazism were transported.
in 1943. By then, Auschwitz had the capacity to Some of these lesser camps were merely way stations
on the path to ultimate extermination. In focusing on
burn 1.7 million bodies per year. About 60 percent
the major camps, historians often lose sight of the
of new arrivals — particularly children, women,
ways in which evidence of deportation and exter-
and old people — were selected for immediate mination blanketed Europe.
murder in the gas chambers; the other 40 percent
labored until, utterly used up, they too were gassed.

Death and Life in the Camps. Victims from all against winter cold and rain. So began life in “a liv-
over Europe were sent to extermination camps. In ing hell,” as one survivor wrote.
the ghettos of various European cities, councils of The camps were scenes of struggle for life in
Jewish leaders, such as the one in Amsterdam the face of torture and death. Instead of the min-
where Etty Hillesum worked, were ordered to de- imum two thousand calories needed to keep an
termine those to be “resettled in the east” — a adult alive, overworked inmates usually received
phrase used to mask the Nazis’ true plans. For less than five hundred calories per day, leaving
weakened, poorly armed ghetto inhabitants, open them vulnerable to the diseases that swept through
resistance meant certain death. When Jews rose up the camps. Prisoners sometimes went mad, as did
against their Nazi captors in Warsaw in 1943, they many of the guards. In the name of advancing
were mercilessly butchered. The Nazis also took “racial science,” doctors performed unbelievably
pains to cloak the purpose of the extermination cruel medical experiments with no anesthesia on
camps. Bands played to greet incoming trainloads pregnant women, twins, and other innocent
of victims; some new arrivals were given postcards people. Despite the harsh conditions, however, some
with reassuring messages to mail home. Survivors people maintained their spirit: prisoners forged
later noted that the purpose of the camps was so new friendships, and women in particular observed
unthinkable that potential victims could not be- religious holidays and celebrated birthdays — all of
gin to imagine that they were to be killed en masse. which helped the struggle for survival. Thanks to
Those not chosen for immediate murder had their those sharing a bread ration, wrote the Auschwitz
heads shaved, were showered and disinfected, and survivor Primo Levi, “I managed not to forget that
were then given prison garments — many of them I myself was a man.” In the end, six million Jews,
used and so thin that they offered no protection the vast majority from eastern Europe, along with
866 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

an estimated five to six million Gypsies, homosex- inferior helped, but both Japan’s and Germany’s
uals, and Slavs, and countless others were mur- belief in their racial superiority worked against
dered in the Nazi genocidal fury. The planned, them by preventing them from accurately assess-
bureaucratic organization of this vast and un- ing the capabilities of an enemy they held in
speakable crime perpetrated by apparently civi- contempt.
lized people still shocks and outrages. (See “New Allied governments were overwhelmingly suc-
Sources, New Perspectives,” page 867.) cessful in mobilizing civilians, especially women.
In Germany and Italy, where government policy
particularly exalted motherhood and kept women
Societies at War from good jobs, officials began to realize that
Even more than World War I, World War II de- women were desperately needed in the workforce.
pended on industrial productivity aimed totally Nazis changed their propaganda to emphasize the
toward war and mass killings. The Axis countries need for everyone to take a job, but they could not
remained at a disadvantage throughout the war convince women to take the low-paid work offered
despite their initial conquests, for the Allies sim- them. In contrast, Soviet women constituted more
ply outproduced them (Figure 26.1). Even while than half the workforce by war’s end, and 800,000
Germany occupied the Soviet industrial heartland volunteered for the military, even serving as pilots.
and besieged many of its cities, the USSR increased As the Germans invaded, Soviet citizens moved en-
its production of weapons. Both Japan and tire factories eastward. In a dramatic about-face,
Germany made the most of their lower output, es- the government encouraged devotion to the Russ-
pecially in the use of Blitzkrieg, but they faced ian Orthodox church as a way of boosting morale
other problems: Hitler had to avoid imposing and patriotism.
wartime austerity because he had come to power Even more than in World War I, civilians faced
promising to end economic suffering, not increase huge amounts of propaganda when they listened
it. The use of millions of slave laborers said to be to the radio or went to the movies. People were

Life in the Warsaw Ghetto


The occupying Nazis resettled Warsaw’s Jews into a minuscule area of the city in order, the
Germans explained, to bring moral purification and to keep Germans from being infected by these
“carriers of the bacteria of epidemics.” Living with bare amounts of food, Warsaw’s Jews died daily
on the streets. Corpses were a regular sight for the average citizen—young or old. (ullstein bild/ The
Granger Collection, New York.)
1929–1945 Wo r l d Wa r I I , 1 9 3 9 – 1 9 4 5 867

NEW SOURCES, NEW PERSPECTIVES

Museums and Memory

istorical monuments and muse- ten visited because it is on the

H ums that house historical artifacts


are testimonials to historical
events because they provide records of
tourist route, close to a beautiful
city. Indeed, one of the plaques in
this on-site museum invites visi-
those events and show that people were tors to tour other cultural institu-
deeply moved by them. But is the im- tions and scenery of the area while
pression conveyed by a tragic photo or another asks them to remember
the memory of an event the same as its that vast numbers of those in-
history? For the most part, historians re- terned at Dachau were Polish and
gard photographs and oral testimony as Catholic. All of these factors in the
legitimate kinds of evidence. However, politics of memories — official
many judge such institutions as Holo- and unofficial, competing and
caust museums as only partially about contested — need to be taken into
the history of the Holocaust. Instead, a account by historians.
Holocaust museum tells a great deal In the case of Holocaust mu-
about the nation or group that builds it. seums, official memories can clash
It tells about the “memory” that the na- with memories of actual survivors
tion or group wants people to have of the who, for instance, may not like Jewish Museum Berlin
Holocaust. what is often the most aesthetic or Among the latest of the museums dedicated to
The complicated development of avant-grade in terms of art and ar- the Holocaust was this one, which opened in 2001
Holocaust memorials is instructive to his- chitecture. Survivors generally re- in Berlin—the heart of Nazi Germany. Architect
torians. Some Holocaust memory sites ject abstract art, feeling that a Daniel Libeskind, a Polish Jew who lost many fam-
sprang up spontaneously in concentration more realistic depiction of their ily members in the Holocaust, hoped the museum
camps as memorials constructed by suffering is more authentic. The would serve not only as a memorial to Jewish
survivors themselves. Stones, writings, architectural design of the Amer- deaths but also as a celebration of Jewish life and
plaques, flowers and plants, and other ob- ican Holocaust Museum was re- culture. What features on the museum’s exterior
done so that it would not look stand out? (© Jewish Museum Berlin. Photo Jens Ziehe.)
jects were used to testify to what had hap-
pened in the camp. In many cases, these grimly out of place but would in-
initial memorials were replaced when lo- stead fit in with the tranquil style of the Questions to Consider
cal and national governments stepped in central museum mall in Washington, D.C., 1. What is the difference between a histori-
to take over the site, sometimes waiting and thus be another nice tourist attrac- cal textbook and a historical monument?
years between destroying the spontaneous tion. Historians question the way certain 2. Do you trust a history book more than
memorials and replacing them with an of- objects like shoes or eyeglasses are dis- you trust a museum? How do people
ficial one. The concentration camp at played to create a certain memory effect. compare and evaluate the presentation
Dachau, near Munich, fell into disrepair They note that costume designers puff up of the past in either one?
until a group of survivors, including many prison uniforms to make them look more 3. Why do museums and public exhibi-
Catholic clergy, demanded that the camp lifelike and to stir people emotionally. tions of art and artifacts arouse more
be made into a permanent museum and Holocaust museums offer a powerful, debate than do history books?
memorial, with the crematorium and other vivid, and emotionally charged experience
grisly features preserved. Although towns- of history. In contrast, historians pride Further Reading
people and local government resisted, themselves on eliminating emotions and Marcuse, Harold. Legacies of Dachau: The
Dachau and its crematorium became one biases in ascertaining facts, calculating Uses and Abuses of a Concentration
of the most visited camps and indeed came cause and effect, and reaching historical Camp, 1933–2001. 2001.
to symbolize the Holocaust in all its hor- judgments. Though each provides an im- Sherman, Daniel J., and Irit Rogoff, eds.
ror. Yet Dachau was not primarily an ex- portant representation of the past, the re- Museum Culture: Histories, Discourses,
termination site for Jews, Slavs, and lationship between memory and history Spectacles. 1994.
Gypsies but rather a grim concentration remains fraught with questions — and Young, James Edward. At Memory’s Edge:
camp where Hitler put political prisoners, never more so than in the case of the After-Images of the Holocaust in Con-
many of them Catholic clergy. It is so of- Holocaust. temporary Art and Architecture. 2000.
868 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

FIGURE 26.1 Weapons Production of


1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945
the Major Powers, 1939–1945
World War II devoured people and Aircraft
weapons, necessitating dramatic changes Great Britain 7,940 15,049 20,094 23,672 26,263 26,461 12,070
in the workforce and everyday life. United States 5,856 12,804 26,277 47,826 85,998 96,318 49,761
Because agricultural production was often
USSR 10,382 10,565 15,735 25,436 34,900 40,300 20,900
hit hard by invading forces, people lived
on reduced rations. Raw materials were Germany 8,295 10,247 11,776 15,409 24,807 39,807 7,540
channeled into the manufacture of Japan 4,467 4,768 5,088 8,861 16,693 28,180 11,066
weapons, and it was the real difference
Major Vessels
in productivity that spelled victory for
the Allies: Germany and Japan were Great Britain 57 148 236 239 224 188 64
outproduced in almost every category. United States 544 1,854 2,654 2,247 1,513
(From The Hammond Atlas of the Twentieth Century USSR 33 62 19 13 23 11
(London: Times Books, 1996), 103.)
Germany 15 40 196 244 270 189 0
(U-boats only)
Japan 21 30 49 68 122 248 51
Tanks
Great Britain 969 1,399 4,841 8,611 7,476 5,000 2,100
United States c. 400 4,052 24,997 29,497 17,565 11,968
USSR 2,950 2,794 6,590 24,446 24,089 28,963 15,400
Germany c. 1,300 2,200 5,200 9,200 17,300 22,100 4,400
Japan c. 200 1,023 1,024 1,191 790 401 142

glued to their radios for war news, but much of it food, clothing, and entertainment, World War II
was tightly controlled. The totalitarian powers of- furthered the development of mass society in
ten withheld news of military defeats and large ca- which people lived and thought in identical ways.
sualty numbers in order to keep civilian support. On both sides, propaganda and government
Wartime films focused on aviation heroes and policies promoted racial thinking. Since the early
infantrymen as well as on the self-sacrificing work- 1930s, the German government had published
ingwomen and wives on the home front. Filmmak- ugly caricatures of Jews, Slavs, and Gypsies. Simi-
ers were subject to censorship by government larly, Allied propaganda during the war depicted
agencies that allocated supplies only to films whose Germans as perverts and the “Japs” as insectlike fa-
scripts they liked. natics. The U.S. government forced citizens of
Between 1939 and 1945, governments organ- Japanese origin into internment camps, while
ized many aspects of everyday life, a necessity be- Muslims and minority ethnic groups in the Soviet
cause resources such as food had to be shifted away Union were uprooted and relocated away from the
from civilians toward soldiers and military pro- front lines as potential Nazi collaborators. Both
duction. In most countries, it was simply taken for sides drew colonized peoples into the war through
granted that civilians would not receive what they forced labor and conscription into the armies.
needed to survive in good health. Soviet children Some two million Indian men served the Allied
and old people were at the greatest risk of being cause, as did several hundred thousand Africans.
among the one million residents who starved to As the Japanese swept through the Pacific and
death during the siege of Leningrad. Statisticians parts of East Asia, they too conscripted local men
and other specialists regulated the production and into their army.
distribution of food, clothing, and household
products, all of which were rationed and generally
of lower quality than before the war. They gave From Resistance to Allied Victory
hints for meals without meat, sugar, and fat, and Resistance to fascism began early in the war. Hav-
urged women and children to embrace depriva- ing escaped from France to London in 1940, Gen-
tion so that their fighting men would have more. eral Charles de Gaulle directed from a distance the
With governments standardizing such items as Free French government and its forces — a mixed
1929–1945 Wo r l d Wa r I I , 1 9 3 9 – 1 9 4 5 869

0 200 400 miles


Axis powers and their allies
0 200 400 kilometers
Axis-held, early November 1942
Allied powers and their allies
Neutral nations FINLAND N
NORWAY
Greater Germany, 1942
E
Axis offensives Leningrad W


SWEDEN Besieged U S S R
Allied offensives Sept. 1941–Jan. 1944 S
ESTONIA

A p r il
Vo

ea
 Major battle lg a R.

cS
1940
N. LATVIA 4
North 94 Moscow

lti
IRELAND t. 1

Ba
GREAT Sea DENMARK Sep Germans repulsed
IRELAND LITHUANIA Dec. 1941
BRITAIN Danzig
 East 41
Surrendered 19
Battle of Britain, May 8, 1945 Prussia ne
1940
NETH. El 43 Ju Besieged
0 be . 19 Aug. 21, 1942–Jan. 31, 1943
Normandy invasion,  94 R.

Berlin
J uly 1944 A ug 
D-Day June 6, 1944 London a y 1 Potsdam Warsaw Kursk Do
n R.
 M Stalingrad

O
5 er POLAND July 1943
4 

d
Dunkirk BELG. April 1 9 R
 June 1941
Rh

Battle of the Bulge




.
Dec. 16, 1944– GERMANY Mar. 1944
ine

Jan. 31, 1945 Paris


LUX.
R.

Slovakia Ukraine
ATLANTIC
Liberated BukovinaBessarabia
OCEAN 44

Ca
Aug. 25, 1944
FRANCE HUNGARY
19

944
SWITZ.

sp
D
Aug.

ec

ia
g. 1
Ap

n
0
VICHY 94 Yalta

Se
r il

e1

Au
n 19 ROMANIA

a
FRANCE
19

Ju 44 be R
.
41

anu Black Sea


Ad

YUGOSLAVIA D
AL

ria

ITALY
UG

BULGARIA
tic

April 1941

Corsica Se
SPAIN Rome a
RT

 ALBANIA Teheran

PO

Monte  (It.)
Sardinia Cassino Salerno TURKEY Meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin,
Nov.–Dec. 1943
May 1944 Sept. 1943
No Liberated GREECE
v. 1 June 4, 1944 IRAN
942
Ma

SP. MOROCCO Sicily


Tunis SYRIA
y1

Rhodes (Fr.)
94

July 1943 1 Cyprus


 Crete (It.) (Br.) IRAQ
Kasserine Pass (Gr.) LEBANON
MOROCCO Feb. 1943
(Fr.) TUNISIA Mediterranean Sea
(Fr.) PALESTINE
(Br.) TRANS-
ALGERIA Alexandria
El Alamein  JORDAN
(Fr.) Oct.–Nov. 1942
Nov. 1942  (Br.)
FRENCH NORTH AFRICA SAUDI
Under Vichy government 1940–42
Joined Allies Nov. 1942 LIBYA EGYPT ARABIA
(It.) (Br.)

MAP 26.5 World War II in Europe and Africa


World War II inflicted massive loss of life and destruction of property on civilians, armies, and all the
infrastructure—including factories, equipment, and agriculture—needed to wage total war. Thus, the
war swept the European continent as well as areas in Africa colonized by or allied with the major powers.
Ultimately the Allies crushed the Axis by moving from east, west, and south to inflict a total defeat.

organization of troops of colonized Asians and crushing the Japanese in the Pacific, brought the
Africans, soldiers who had escaped via Dunkirk, war to an end in 1945.
and volunteers from other occupied countries.
Then Allied forces started tightening a noose Civilian Resistance. Less well-known than the
around the Axis powers in mid-1942 (Map 26.5), Free French, resisters in occupied Europe fought
and Allied victory began to look certain by 1943. in Communist-dominated groups, some of which
At the same time, civilian resistance in the Nazi- gathered information to aid the Allied invasion of
occupied areas further pressured the Axis. Still Hitler the continent. Rural groups called partisans, or the
and his minions continued to promote an unreal- maquis, not only planned assassinations of traitors
istic expectation of German victory, announcing, and German officers but also bombed bridges, rail
for example, that the United States was “a big lines, and military facilities. Although the Catholic
bluff.” But bluster could not win the war, and the church supported Mussolini in Italy and endorsed
Allies, squeezing Germany from east and west and the Croatian puppet government’s slaughter of a
870 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

Hidden Revolver tion attempt came too late in the war to count
Resistance to Nazism took many forms, from as resistance. However, some five million
the uprising in Warsaw to small acts of Germans alone, and millions more of other
protest to assassinations of nationalities, lost their lives in the last
Nazi officers and collabora-
nine months of the war. Had Hitler
tors. In a militarized state
died even as late as the summer of
with informers everywhere,
retaliation against Nazis 1944, the relief to humanity would
sparked human ingenuity, have been considerable.
whether in obtaining enough
food or killing the enemy. The Axis Crushed in Europe.
Weapons were hidden in baby Beginning with the battle of
carriages, under clothing, or in Stalingrad in 1942–1943, the Allies
books—as in this example from turned the frontline war against the Axis powers.
the Dutch resistance. (Erich Less- In August 1942, the German army began a siege of
ing / Art Resource, NY.)
this city, whose capture would give Germany access
to Soviet oil. Months of ferocious house-to-house
fighting ended when the Soviet army captured the
ninety thousand German survivors in February
million Serbs, Catholic and Protestant clergy and 1943. Meanwhile, the British army in North Africa
their parishioners were among those who set up re- held against German troops under Erwin Rommel,
sistance networks, often hiding Jews and fugitives. an adept practitioner of the new kind of mobile
The Polish resistance worked tirelessly against the warfare. Although Rommel let his tanks improvise
Nazis, as did renowned individuals such as Swedish creatively, moving hundreds of miles from supply
diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, whose dealings with lines, the Allies’ access to secret German commu-
Nazi officials saved thousands of Hungarian Jews. nication codes ultimately helped them capture
People also fought back through everyday ac- Morocco and Algeria in the fall of 1942. After driv-
tivities. Homemakers circulated newsletters urging ing Rommel out of Africa, the Allies landed in
demonstrations at prisons where civilians were de- Sicily in July 1943, provoking a German invasion
tained. In central Europe, hikers smuggled Jews during which they took over the war effort from
and others over dangerous mountain passes. Dan- the Italians. A slow, bitter fight for the Italian
ish villagers created vast escape networks, and peninsula followed, lasting until April 1945, when
countless thousands across Europe volunteered to Allied forces finally triumphed. After Italy’s liber-
be part of local escape routes. Women resisters ation, partisans shot Mussolini and his mistress
used stereotypes to good advantage, often carry- and hung their dead bodies for public display.
ing weapons to assassination sites in the correct The victory at Stalingrad marked the begin-
belief that Nazis would rarely suspect or search ning of the Soviet drive westward, during which
them. They also seduced and murdered enemy of- the Soviets bore the brunt of the Nazi war ma-
ficers. “Naturally the Germans didn’t think that a chine. From the air, Britain and the United States
woman could have carried a bomb,” explained one bombed German cities, aiming to demoralize or-
Italian resister, “so this became the woman’s task.” dinary Germans and destroy war industries. But it
Resistance kept alive the liberal ideal of individual was an invasion from the west that Stalin wanted
political action in the face of tyranny. from his allies. Finally, on June 6, 1944, known as
Both invisible and dramatically visible resist- D-Day, the combined Allied forces, under the com-
ance took place in the fascist countries. Couples in mand of U.S. general Dwight Eisenhower, attacked
Germany and Italy limited family size in defiance the heavily fortified French beaches of Normandy
of pro-birth policies. German teenagers danced the and then fought their way through the German-
forbidden American jitterbug, thus disobeying the held territory of western France. In late July, Allied
Nazis and forcing the police to monitor their forces broke through German defenses and a
groups. More spectacularly, in July 1944, a group month later helped liberate Paris. The Soviets
of German military officers, fearing their country’s meanwhile captured the Baltic States and entered
military humiliation, tried and failed to assassinate Poland, pausing for desperately needed supplies.
Hitler — one of several such attempts. Wounded The Germans took advantage of the pause to put
but shaken, Hitler mercilessly tortured and killed down an uprising of the Polish resistance in
hundreds of conspirators, innocent friends, and August 1944. German elimination of the Polish
family members. Some ask whether the assassina- resistance allowed the Soviets a freer hand in east-
1929–1945 Wo r l d Wa r I I , 1 9 3 9 – 1 9 4 5 871

The Battle of Stalingrad


These soldiers fight in what was left of Stalingrad after almost nine months of bitter struggle ( June
1942–February 1943) between the German and Soviet armies. Hitler allowed no surrender, leading to
greater losses than necessary. The Russian military was so angry at the continuing bloodshed,
despite the German defeat, that many units simply shot the final German survivors when they
surrendered. Stalingrad is seen as the true turning point in World War II. (Getty Images.)

ern Europe after the war. Facing more than twice mained committed to the Third Reich, Germany
as many troops as on the western front, the Soviet finally surrendered on May 8, 1945.
army took Bulgaria and entered Romania at the
end of August, then faced fierce German fighting The Atomic Bomb and the Defeat of Japan. The
in Hungary during the winter of 1944–1945. Allies had followed a “Europe first” strategy for
British, Canadian, U.S., and other Allied forces conducting the war. They had nonetheless pursued
were simultaneously fighting their way eastward to the Japanese in the Pacific without pause. In 1940
join the Soviets in squeezing the Third Reich to its and 1941, Japan had ousted the Europeans from
final defeat. many colonial holdings in Asia, but the Allies
As the Allies advanced, Hitler decided that turned the tide in 1942 by destroying some of
Germans were proving themselves unworthy of his Japan’s formidable navy in battles at Midway Is-
greatness and deserved to perish in a total and land and Guadalcanal (Map 26.6). Japan had far
bloody downfall. He thus refused to surrender and less industrial capacity and manpower than the
thereby spare Germans further death and destruc- United States alone, while the Allies as a group had
tion from the relentless bombing. As the Soviet not only their own productive power but also ac-
army took Berlin, Hitler committed suicide with cess to matériel from Australia, India, and else-
his wife, Eva Braun. Although many soldiers re- where around the world. The Allies stormed one
872 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

Alaska
(U.S.)

B e r i n g Se a
U S S R
Kamchatka
Kiska I. .S.)
S. (U
Attu I. ALE U TI A N I
Sakhalin I.
M a y 1 94 3

45
19
S.
MONGOLIA Au MANCHURIA I LI
g. (MANCHUKUO) K UR N
19

45
45

19 W E

JAPAN S
KOREA Hiroshima
Aug. 6, 1945

Tokyo
PACIFIC OCEAN
C H I N A

194
Nanjing


5
Nagasaki
TIBET Aug. 9, 1945
Okinawa
Apr. 1– Midway I.
194

INDIA June 21, 1945 June 3– 6, 1942


Iwo Jima
5

(Br.) Midway I.
 Feb. 19– Mar. 16, 1945 (U.S.)

Formosa Wake I.
BURMA Hong (Taiwan) A
pr (U.S.)
HAWAIIAN IS.
(Br.) .1 MARIANA (U.S.)
Kong
(Br.) 94 IS. 3
5 . 194 
PHILIPPINE IS. Nov
 Pearl Harbor
THAILAND
1 945

Saipan 3
94 Dec. 7, 1941
FRENCH Leyte Gulf
1 9 4 4  1944 v .1
INDOCHINA Oct. 23–26, 1944 Guam Eniwetok No
(Vichy)  July 21– Feb. 17, 1944 
Aug. 10, 1944
MARSHALL
CAROLINE IS. IS.
MALAYA
94
1

4 Tarawa
 Singapore
Nov. 29, 1943  GILBERT IS.
Su
m

Borneo Apr. 1942 (Br.)


atr

Celebes
a

Rabaul

N E T HE RLA N D S E A ST I N D I E S New Lae SOLOMON IS.
 ELLICE IS.
Java Guinea  (Br.)


Coral Sea Guadalcanal


May 7– 8, 1942 Aug. 7, 1942– Feb. 9, 1943

INDIAN OCEAN FIJI IS.


NEW HEBRIDES (Br.)
1943

(Fr.-Br.)
Au

g.
1 94
New Caledonia 2
(Fr.)
A U S T R A L I A

Japanese Empire, 1936 Allied advances and bombing raids


Japanese-controlled areas, Japanese advances and bombing raids
August 1942
 Major battles
0 500 1,000 miles
Allied powers
Atomic bombs
0 500 1,000 kilometers

MAP 26.6 World War II in the Pacific


As in Europe, the early days of World War II gave the advantage to the Axis power Japan as it took the
offensive in conquering islands in the Pacific and territories in Asia—many of them colonies of European
states. Britain countered by mobilizing a vast Indian army, while the United States, after the disastrous losses
at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines, gradually gained the upper hand by costly assaults, island by island.
The Japanese strategy of fighting to the last person instead of surrendering when a loss was in sight was one
factor in President Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb in August 1945.
1929–1945 Wo r l d Wa r I I , 1 9 3 9 – 1 9 4 5 873

Pacific island after another, gaining more bases on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, killing
from which to cut off the import of supplies and 140,000 people instantly; tens of thousands later
to launch bombers toward Japan itself. Short of died from burns, wounds, and other afflictions.
men and weapons, the Japanese military resorted Although hardliners in the Japanese military
to kamikaze tactics, in which pilots deliberately wanted to continue the war, on August 14, 1945,
crashed their planes into Allied ships, killing them- Japan surrendered.
selves in the process. In response, the Allies stepped
up their bombing of major cities, killing more than
100,000 civilians in their spring 1945 firebombing
An Uneasy Postwar
of Tokyo. The Japanese leadership still ruled out Settlement
surrender. Throughout the war, Allied leaders had met not
Meanwhile a U.S.-based international team of only to plan strategy but also to resolve postwar
more than 100,000 workers, including scientists issues. Unlike World War I, however, there would
and technicians, had been working on the Man- be neither a celebrated peace conference nor a for-
hattan Project, the code name for a secret project mal agreement among all the Allies about the
to develop an atomic bomb. The Japanese practice final terms for peace. Yet peace and recovery were
of dying almost to the man rather than surrender- more important than ever: Europe lay in ruins, and
ing caused Allied military leaders to calculate that tens of millions were starving, many of them wan-
defeating Japan might cost the lives of hundreds dering the continent in search of food, shelter, and
of thousands of Allied soldiers (and even more personal safety. Because the victorious Allies dis-
Japanese). On August 6 and 9, 1945, the U.S. gov- trusted one another in varying degrees, with the
ernment thus unleashed its new atomic weapons United States and the Soviet Union moving to

Hiroshima
This photo captures the few remains of the city of Hiroshima after the United States dropped an
atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. Without the bomb, the U.S. military foresaw a long and costly
struggle to defeat Japan, given its overall strategy of fighting to the last person and in the process
inflicting as many casualties on the enemy as possible. Some claim that the bomb was dropped to
menace the Soviet Union, with which the United States was embarking on the cold war. ( © Corbis.)
874 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

the brink of another war, the future for most the Sakhalin and Kurile Islands. The last meeting
Europeans looked grim. of the Allied leaders, with President Harry S.
Truman replacing Roosevelt, who had died in
Wartime Agreements about the Peace. Wartime April, took place at Potsdam, Germany, in the
agreements among members of the Grand Al- summer of 1945, where they agreed to give the
liance about the future reflected their differences Soviets control of eastern Poland, to cede a large
and would be the subject of intense postwar de- stretch of eastern Germany to Poland, and to
bate. In 1941, Roosevelt and Churchill crafted the adopt a temporary four-way occupation of
Atlantic Charter, which condemned aggression Germany that included France as one of the su-
and endorsed collective security and the right of pervising powers.
all people to choose their governments. Not only
did the Allies come to support these ideals, but so The War’s Grim Legacy. The Great Depression
did colonized peoples to whom, Churchill said, had inflicted global suffering, while the Second
the charter was not meant to apply. In October World War left an estimated 100 million dead,
1944, Churchill and Stalin agreed on the postwar more than 50 million refugees without homes, and
distribution of territories. The Soviet Union one of the most abominable moral legacies in hu-
would control Romania and Bulgaria, Britain man history. Forced into armies or into labor
would control Greece, and they would jointly camps for war production, colonial peoples were
oversee Hungary and Yugoslavia. These agree- in full rebellion or close to it. For a second time in
ments went against Roosevelt’s faith in collective three decades, they had seen their imperial masters
security, self-determination, and open doors in killing one another, slaughtered by the very tech-
trade. In February 1945, the “Big Three” — nology that was supposed to make European civi-
Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin — met in the lization superior. Deference to Europe was virtually
Crimean town of Yalta. Roosevelt advocated the finished, with independence a matter of time.
institution of an organization to be called the The war weakened and even destroyed stan-
United Nations to replace the League of Nations dards of decency and truth. Democratic Europe
as a global peace mechanism, and he supported had succumbed to economic hardship and wartime
future Soviet influence in Korea, Manchuria, and values, and it was this Europe that George Orwell

Alberto Giacometti, The Square II, 1948–1949


Swiss Artist Alberto Giacometti began making sculptures featuring thin, elongated figures in the
1940s. They appear to be moving forward, striving and active, but at the same time their spare-
ness evokes the skeletal shape of concentration camp survivors. What kind of statement do you
see Giacometti making about the times? (Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz / Art Resource, NY/ Artists Rights
Society (ARS), NY.)
1929–1945 C o n c lu s i o n 875

captured in his novel 1984 (1949). Orwell had ern domination in Asia and taking control of more
worked for the wartime Ministry of Information of Asia for itself. The coalition of Allies that finally
(called the Ministry of Truth in the novel) and formed to stop the Axis powers of Germany, Italy,
made up phony news for wartime audiences. Truth and Japan, was an uneasy alliance among Britain,
hardly mattered, and words changed meaning dur- Free France, the Soviet Union, and the United
ing the war to sound better: battle fatigue substi- States. World War II ended European dominance.
tuted for insanity, and liberating a country could Its economies were shattered, its colonies were on
mean invading it and slaughtering its civilians. the verge of independence, and its peoples were
Poor food, ragged clothing, and careworn people starving and homeless.
walking grimy streets — all characterized both The costs of a bloody war — one waged
wartime London and Orwell’s fictional state of against civilians as much as armies — taught the
Oceania. Millions cheered the demise of Nazi evil victorious powers different lessons. The United
in 1945, but Orwell saw the war as ending pros- States, Britain, and France were convinced that a
perity, deadening creativity, and bringing big minimum of citizen well-being was necessary to
government into everyday life. For Orwell, bureau- prevent a recurrence of fascism. The devastation
cratic domination depended on continuing con- of the USSR’s population and resources made
flict, and fresh conflict was indeed brewing even Stalin increasingly obsessed with national security
before the war ended. As Allied powers competed and compensation for the damage inflicted by the
for territory, a new struggle called the cold war was Nazis. Britain and France faced the end of their
taking root. imperial might, underscoring Orwell’s insight that
the war had utterly transformed society. The mil-
itarization of society and the deliberate murder of
Review: How and where was World War II fought and
millions of innocent citizens like Etty Hillesum
won, and what were its major consequences?
were tragedies that permanently injured the West’s
claims to being an advanced civilization. Nonethe-
less, backed by vast supplies of sophisticated
weaponry, the United States and the Soviet Union
Conclusion used their opposing views on a postwar settlement
The Great Depression, which brought fear, hunger, to justify threatening one another — and the
and joblessness to millions, created a setting in world — with another horrific war.
which dictators thrived because they promised to
restore economic prosperity by destroying democ-
racy and representative government. Desperate For Further Exploration
people believed the promises of these dynamic new ■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
leaders — Mussolini, Stalin, and Hitler — often for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
forgiving the brutality of their regimes. In the end of the book.
USSR, Stalin’s program of rapid industrialization
cost the lives of millions as he inspired Commu- ■ For additional primary-source material from
nist believers to purge enemies — real and imag- this period, see Chapter 26 in Sources of THE
ined. With the democracies preoccupied with MAKING OF THE WEST, Third Edition.
economic recovery while preserving the rule of law
and still haunted by memories of World War I, ■ For Web sites and documents related to topics
Hitler and Mussolini went on to menace Europe in this chapter, see Make History at
unchallenged. At the same time, Japan embarked bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
on a program of conquest aimed at ending West-
876 C h a pt e r 2 6 ■ Th e G r e at D e p r e s s i o n a n d Wo r l d Wa r I I 1929–1945

MA P P I N G T H E W E ST

Percent of population killed


Over 10%  Military dead
5–10% Civilian dead (does not include
1–5%
12 million death camp victims) FINLAND
 City substantially damaged  79,047
Under 1%

N NORWAY 
 4,780 Leningrad
W SWEDEN
E
ESTONIA
S

ea
c S
LATVIA
North

ti
GREAT DENMARK

al
Sea
IRELAND BRITAIN  4,339 B LITHUANIA
 271,311 Königsberg
60,595 

Coventry
NETH. 
Hamburg
USSR
  13,700 
 14,500,000
Bremen
Rotterdam
236,300
London
  Hanover Berlin Warsaw

Over 7,000,000
 
Düsseldorf  Dortmund
POLAND
BELG.  GERMANY  850,000
 9,561 Cologne  2,850,000 Dresden (169,822 as Allies) 
Kiev
Caen 
 75,000 2,300,000 5,778,000
 C
Würzburg ZEC
Frankfurt  HO
SL O V
A KIA
 6,683

Munich 310,000
FRANCE AUSTRIA
SWITZ.  380,000 HUNGARY
 210,671 145,000
173,260  750,000
ROMANIA

Milan  519,822
465,000  Ploesti
Genoa

Bologna
 YUGOSLAVIA Black Sea
 1,700,000
SPAIN ITALY BULGARIA
 4,500 (For Axis)  279,820  18,500
7,500 (For Allies) Corsica 17,400 (as Allies) 1,500
 10,000
(in concentration camps)

Sardinia
0 200 400 miles GREECE
 16,357
0 200 400 kilometers 155,300

Europe at War’s End, 1945


The damage of World War II left scars that would last for decades. Major German cities were
bombed to bits, while the Soviet Union suffered an unimaginable toll of perhaps as many as forty-
five million deaths due to the war alone. In addition to the vast civilian and military losses shown
on this map, historians estimate that no less than twelve million people were murdered in the Nazi
death camps. Everything from politics to family life needed rebuilding, adding to the chaos. (From
The Hammond Atlas of the Twentieth Century (London: Times Books, 1996), 102.)
1929–1945 C h a pt e r R ev i ew 877

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
Key Terms and People Making Connections
civil disobedience (843) family allowance (853) 1. Compare fascist ideas of the individual with the idea of in-
Joseph Stalin (844) Popular Front (854) dividual rights that inspired the American and French
five-year plans (845) Charlie Chaplin (855) revolutions.
purges (846) Lebensraum (858) 2. What are the major differences between World War I and
Adolf Hitler (847) Francisco Franco (859) World War II?
Enabling Act (848) appeasement (861)
pump priming (849) Nazi-Soviet Pact (861)
Nuremberg Laws (850) Blitzkrieg (862) For practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other
study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.

Review Questions
1. How did the Great Depression affect society and politics?
2. What role did violence play in the Soviet and Nazi regimes?
3. How did the democracies’ responses to the twin chal-
lenges of economic depression and the rise of fascism
differ from those of totalitarian regimes?
4. How did the aggression of Japan, Germany, and Italy
create the conditions for global war?
5. How and where was World War II fought and won, and
what were its major consequences?

Important Events

1929 The U.S. stock market crashes; global 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact; Germany invades Poland; World
depression begins; Soviet leadership initiates War II begins; the Spanish Civil War ends
war against prosperous farmers, the kulaks; 1940 France falls to the German army
Stalin’s first five-year plan officially begins
1940–1941 The British air force fends off German attacks
1931 Japan invades Manchuria; Spanish in the battle of Britain
republicans overthrow monarchy
1941 Germany invades the Soviet Union; Japan
1933 Hitler comes to power in Germany attacks Pearl Harbor; the United States enters
1935 German government enacts Nuremberg the war
Laws; Italy invades Ethiopia 1941–1945 The Holocaust
1936 Show trials begin in the USSR; Stalin purges 1942–1943 Siege of Stalingrad
top Communist Party officials and military
leaders; the Spanish Civil War begins 1944 Allied forces land at Normandy, France
1937 Japan attacks China 1945 The fall of Berlin; United States drops atomic
bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; World War
1938 Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) in II ends
Germany; Germany annexes Austria
The Cold War and the C H A P T E R

Remaking of Europe
1945–1960s
27
World Politics Transformed 880
• Chaos in Europe
• New Superpowers: The United States
and the Soviet Union
ate in 1945, with the USSR still reeling from the devastation • Origins of the Cold War
• The Division of Germany

L of World War II, Soviet poet Boris Pasternak set out on a new
project — Doctor Zhivago, a novel about a contemplative medical
man caught up in the whirlwind of the Russian Revolution. Like most
Political and Economic
Recovery in Europe 888
• Dealing with Nazism
others in the USSR, Pasternak expected the postwar era to usher in, as • Rebirth of the West
• The Welfare State:
he put it, “a great renewal of Russian life,” ending the violence, terror, Common Ground East and West
and famine of the past three decades, and so he struggled on with his • Recovery in the East

complex epic even as the cold war tensions between the United States Decolonization in a Cold War
and the USSR began. In 1953, Stalin’s sudden death raised Pasternak’s Climate 897
hopes that a more tolerant political climate would allow his master- • The End of Empire in Asia
• The Struggle for Identity in the
piece to receive a warm reception; those hopes were dashed, however, Middle East
• New Nations in Africa
when the Soviets forbade the book’s publication. A determined Paster- • Newcomers Arrive in Europe
nak bypassed the Soviet authorities and allowed Doctor Zhivago to come
Daily Life and Culture in
out first in 1957 in Italy — now an anti-Soviet ally of the United States
the Shadow of Nuclear War 902
in the cold war. The book became a best seller, showing its readers that • Restoring “Western” Values
the Russian Revolution was far from perfect and so angering the So- • Consumerism and Shifting
Gender Norms
viet establishment that Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev, forced • The Culture of Cold War
• The Atomic Brink
Pasternak to decline the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded him in
1958. But if the Soviets tried to suppress Doctor Zhivago so that the
U.S. bloc could not use it to create cold war propaganda, it was the cold
war that allowed Doctor Zhivago to live on. Soon after the novel ap-
peared, the famed Hollywood studio MGM bought the rights to the
book and turned it into a blockbuster film (1965), seen by tens of mil-
lions. By that time, however, Pasternak was dead — a broken victim of
cold war persecutions that haunted the world long after the calamitous
years of war and genocide had ended.
As the cold war opened, Europe and Japan were prostrate, their
people were starving and homeless; evidence of genocide and other

Doctor Zhivago
As soon as Boris Pasternak’s forbidden novel Doctor Zhivago was published in Italy in
1957, Hollywood’s MGM studio went after the rights for the film. Finally completed in
1965, it was a cold war blockbuster—an epic of life and love in postrevolutionary
Russia. The opening scene, invented for the movie, was a grim Soviet factory, while
the story itself was more or less symbolized in this advertising poster of two
incredibly attractive people who fall in love and are torn apart by the crushing
Bolshevik system. (MGM / The Kobal Collection.)
879
880 C h a pt e r 2 7 ■ Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e 1945–1960s

inhumanity came to the fore; the menace of nu- cultural offshoots such as the United States and of
clear annihilation loomed. The old international an East comprising Asian countries like India,
order was gone, replaced by the rivalry of the China, and Japan. During the cold war, the word
United States and the Soviet Union for control of West came to stand for the United States and its
Europe, whose political, social, and economic or- dependent allies in western Europe, while East
der was shattered. The nuclear arsenals of these meant the Soviet Union and its tightly controlled
two superpowers — a term coined in 1947 — grew bloc in eastern Europe. Still another set of terms
massively in the 1950s, but they were enemies who arose in the 1950s, one that divided the globe into
did not fight outright. Thus, their terrifying rivalry the first world, or capitalist bloc of countries; the
was called the cold war. The cold war divided the second world, or socialist bloc; and the third
West and led to political persecution in many ar- world, or countries emerging from imperial dom-
eas, even in the wealthy and secure United States. ination — a characterization that initially was
At the same time, the defeat of Nazism in- meant to refer to the Third Estate of the French
spired optimism and a revival of thoughtful reflec- Revolution but that is now considered an insult-
tion like Pasternak’s. Heroic effort had defeated ing term. As the world’s people redefined them-
fascism, and that defeat raised hopes that a new selves, the superpowers took the world to the brink
age would begin. Atomic science promised ad- of nuclear disaster when the United States discov-
vances in medicine, and nuclear energy was trum- ered Soviet missile sites on the island of Cuba.
peted as a replacement for coal and oil. The From the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan
creation of the United Nations in 1945 heralded in 1945 to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, fear
an era of international cooperation. Around the and personal anguish like that suffered by Paster-
globe, colonial peoples won independence from nak gripped much of the world, albeit in the midst
European masters, while in the United States the of prosperity and Europe’s rebirth.
civil rights movement gained new momentum.
The welfare state expanded, and by the end of the
Focus Question: How did the cold war shape the
1950s, economic rebirth had made much of
politics, economy, social life, and culture of post–World
Europe more prosperous than ever before. An War II Europe?
“economic miracle” had occurred; just a decade af-
ter the war, many Europeans and Americans were
beginning to enjoy the highest standard of living
they had ever known, which included the ability World Politics Transformed
to buy quantities of consumer goods and to enjoy
simple pleasures such as films like Doctor Zhivago. World War II ended Europe’s global leadership.
The postwar period was one of open redefin- Many countries lay in ruins in the summer of 1945,
ition, as the experience of total war transformed and conditions would deteriorate before they got
both society and the international order. Gone was better. Though victorious, bombed and bankrupt
the definition of a West comprising Europe and its Britain could not feed its people, and continuing
turmoil destroyed the lives of millions in central
and eastern Europe. In contrast, the United States,
cold war: The rivalry between the United States and the Soviet
Union following World War II that led to massive growth in nu- whose territory was virtually untouched in the
clear weapons on both sides. war, emerged as the world’s sole economic giant,

■ 1945 Cold war begins

■ 1947 India, Pakistan win independence from Britain ■ 1953 Stalin dies

■ 1948 State of Israel established

1945 1950

■ 1949 Communist revolution in China;


Beauvoir, The Second Sex

■ 1950–1953 Korean War


1945–1960s Wo r l d P o l i t i c s Tr a n s fo r m e d 881

while the Soviet Union, despite suffering immense The tens of millions of refugees suffered the
devastation, retained formidable military might. most, as they wandered a continent where resources
Occupying Europe as part of the victorious al- were slim and the dangers of assault and robbery
liance against Nazism and fascism, the two super- great. An estimated thirty million Europeans, many
powers used Germany — at the heart of the of German ethnicity, were forcibly expelled from
continent and its politics — to divide Europe in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. Many
two. By the late 1940s, the USSR had imposed Com- refugees fled to western Europe, but others ulti-
munist rule throughout most of Eastern Europe, mately found homes in countries that experienced
and Western Europeans found themselves at least little or no war damage, such as Denmark, Sweden,
partially controlled by the very U.S. economic Canada, and Australia. Following the exodus of
power that helped them rebuild, especially because refugees from the east, western Europe became one
the United States maintained air bases and nuclear of the world’s most densely populated regions
weapons sites on their soil. The new age of bipo- (Map 27.1). The USSR lobbied hard for the return
lar world politics made Europe its testing ground. of several million Soviet prisoners of war and
forced laborers, and the Allies transported millions
of Soviet refugees home. The Allies slowed the
Chaos in Europe process when they discovered that Soviet leaders
In contrast to the often stationary trench warfare had ordered the execution of many of the returnees
of World War I, armies in World War II had fought for being “contaminated” by Western ideas. Hun-
a war of movement on the ground and in the air. dreds of thousands of Soviets thus joined the ocean
Massive bombing had leveled thousands of square of disoriented refugees in western Europe.
miles of territory, whole cities were clogged with Survivors of the concentration camps discov-
rubble, and homeless survivors wandered the ered that their suffering had not ended with
streets. In Sicily and on the Rhine River, almost no Germany’s defeat. Many returned diseased and dis-
bridge remained standing; in the Soviet Union, oriented, while others had no home to return to, as
seventy thousand villages and more than a thou- property had been confiscated. Anti-Semitism —
sand cities lay in shambles. Everywhere people official policy under the Nazis — lingered in pop-
were suffering. In the Netherlands, the severity of ular attitudes, and people used it to justify their
Nazi occupation left the Dutch population close to claim to Jewish property and to jobs vacated
death, relieved only by a U.S. airlift of food. In by Jews. The use of violence as a way to maintain
Britain, many died in the bitterly cold winter of the upward mobility gained from fascism was
1946–1947 because of a shortage of fuel. To con- common throughout eastern Europe. In the sum-
trol scarce supplies, Italian bakers sold bread by the mer of 1946, a vicious crowd in Kielce, Poland, as-
slice. Allied troops in Germany were almost the saulted some 250 Jewish survivors, killing at least
sole source of food: “To see the children fighting 40. Meanwhile, some officials across Europe even
for food,” remarked one British soldier handing denied that unprecedented atrocities had been
out supplies, “was like watching animals being fed committed and wanted to refuse Jews any help.
in a zoo.” There was social disarray, even chaos, at Survivors thus fled to the port cities of Italy and
the war’s end but no mass uprisings as after World other Mediterranean countries, eventually leaving
War I. Until the late 1940s, people were too ab- Europe for Palestine, where Zionists had been set-
sorbed by the struggle for bare survival. tling for half a century. Unwilling or unable to help

■ 1954 Brown v. Board of Education; ■ 1958 Fifth Republic begins in France


French defeat at Dien Bien Phu

■ 1956 Suez Canal nationalized;


Hungarian uprising

1955 1960 1965

■ 1957 Sputnik launched;


EEC established;
Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago ■ 1962 Cuban missile crisis
882
0 200 400 miles From Finland, Lost by Germany to Poland, 1945
1940–56
0 200 400 kilometers Territory gained by Soviet Union
FINLAND

C h a pt e r 2 7
Allied occupation of
Germany and Austria, 1945–55
NORWAY 410,000 Lost by Italy to Yugoslavia, 1945
N Lost by Romania to Bulgaria, 1940–47
SWEDEN 40,000
W Zones of occupation


E
Estonia American

Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e
S 0 0 To USSR, 1940
60,0 British

a
French

e
Latvia

c S
To USSR, 1940
100,000 Soviet
North

ti
Jointly occupied cities

0
00
Sea

al
DENMARK Lithuania 80,000

0,
UNITED B 9
,000 To USSR, 1940
50 Refugee movements and
IRELAND KINGDOM 1,950,000 repatriated armed forces
Germans
1,900,000 2,300,000 Finns
NETH. Baltic peoples
Berlin
 Russians
Warsaw 
1,850,000 From Poland,
POLAND 1940–47 Poles
BELG. EAST3,25
0,000 Kielce  3,000,000
Brussels Czechs

Rh
GERMANY

i ne
1,500,000
1,000,000 People settled by the

R.
WEST 2,900,000 1,950,000
5,500,000 International Refugee Organization
Paris  GERMANY CZ From Czechoslovakia,
LUX. ECH O 1940–47 Ukraine
SLOVAKIA U S S R

Vienna Be
ATLANTIC

ssa
2 00
OCEAN FRANCE ,00 
Budapest

rab
AUSTRIA 0 From Romania, 
Odessa
SWITZ. HUNGARY 1940–47

ia
50
,00

25
0
ROMANIA

0,
Yalta

00


0
Black Sea
Ad YUGOSLAVIA
ITALY ria
tic BULGARIA
Se
SPAIN a
Rome 
Istanbul

ALBANIA

TURKEY
GREECE
M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a

1945–1960s
Sicily
1945–1960s Wo r l d P o l i t i c s Tr a n s fo r m e d 883

MAP 27.1 The Impact of World War II on Europe bring improvement in their everyday conditions
European governments, many of them struggling and a continuation of the war’s relatively relaxed
to provide food and other necessities for their politics. Rumors spread among the peasants that
populations, found themselves responsible for the collective farms would be divided and returned
hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of new
to them as individual property now that the war
refugees. Simultaneously, millions of prisoners of
had been won and agriculture modernized. “Life
war, servicemen, and slave laborers were returned
to the Soviet Union, many of them by force. This will become pleasant,” one writer prophesied.
situation unfolded amid political instability and “There will be much coming and going, and a lot
even violence. ■ What does the movement of of contacts with the West.” The Stalinist goals of
peoples shown on the map suggest about social industrialization and defense against Nazism had
conditions in post–World War II Europe? been won, and thus many Soviets, among them
Boris Pasternak, expected an end to decades of
hardship and repression.
Stalin took a different view and, despite his
Hitler’s victims, many European countries had personal exhaustion, moved ruthlessly to reassert
simply lost their moral bearings. control. In 1946, his new five-year plan set in-
creased production goals and mandated more
stringent collectivization of agriculture. For him,
New Superpowers: The United States
rapid recovery meant more work, not less, and
and the Soviet Union more order, not greater freedom. Stalin cut back
Only two powerful countries were left in 1945: the the army by two-thirds to beef up the labor force
United States and the Soviet Union. The United and also turned his attention to the low birthrate,
States was now the richest nation in the world. Its a result of wartime male casualties and women’s
industrial output had increased by a remarkable long, arduous working days, which discouraged
15 percent annually between 1940 and 1944. By them from adding child care to their already heavy
1947, the United States controlled almost two- responsibilities. He introduced an intense propa-
thirds of the world’s gold bullion and launched ganda campaign emphasizing that women should
more than half of the world’s commercial ship- hold down jobs and also fulfill their “true nature”
ping. Continued spending on industrial and mili- by producing many children. A crackdown on free-
tary research added to postwar prosperity, building dom took place, and a new round of purges began
still further the victorious mood that now swept in which people were told that enemies among
the United States. In contrast to the post–World them were threatening the state. Jews were espe-
War I policy of isolationism, Americans embraced cially targeted, and in 1953 the government an-
global leadership. Many had learned about the nounced that doctors — most of them Jews — had
world while tracking the war’s progress; hundreds long been assassinating Soviet leaders, murdering
of thousands of soldiers, government officials, and newborns and patients in hospitals, and plotting
relief workers had direct experience of Europe, to poison water supplies. Hysteria gripped the na-
Africa, and Asia. Despite the fear of nuclear anni- tion, as people feared for their lives. “I am a
hilation that troubled many, a wave of suburban simple worker and not an anti-Semite,” one Moscow
housing development and consumer spending resident wrote, “but I say . . . it’s time to clean these
kept the economy buoyant. Temporarily reversing people out.” With this rebirth of Stalinism, an at-
the trend toward lower birthrates, a baby boom ex- mosphere of fear returned to feed the cold war.
ploded from the late 1940s through the early 1960s
in response to prosperity.
The Soviets also emerged from the war with a Origins of the Cold War
well-justified sense of accomplishment. Despite hor- The cold war between the United States and the
rendous losses, they had resisted the most massive Soviet Union, which began immediately after
onslaught ever launched against a nation. Instead of World War II, would afflict the world for more
being shunned as they had been after World War I, than four decades. No peace treaty officially ended
Soviet officials expected respect and influence on the conflict with Germany as a written record of
the world stage, and indeed many Europeans and contest and compromise or of things gone wrong,
Americans gratefully acknowledged the Soviet as in the Peace of Paris of 1919–1920. As a result,
contribution to Hitler’s defeat. Ordinary Soviet the origins of the cold war remain a matter of de-
citizens believed that a victory that had cost the bate, with historians faulting both sides for start-
USSR as many as forty-five million lives would ing the fearsome rivalry (see “New Sources, New
884 C h a pt e r 2 7 ■ Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e 1945–1960s

Perspectives,” page 885). Some point to consistent off aid to the USSR almost the instant the last gun
U.S., British, and French hostility to the Soviets was fired, fueling Stalin’s belief that the United
that began as far back as the Bolshevik Revolution States was aiming for the Soviet Union’s utter col-
of 1917 and continued through the Depression lapse. Seeing a threat from the West, especially
and World War II. These powers opposed the from a revived Germany, Stalin concluded that a
Communists’ abolition of private property and temporary military occupation would not be a suf-
Russia’s withdrawal from World War I. Others ficient safeguard for his own exhausted country;
stress the Soviets’ aggressive policies, notably the what the USSR needed was a permanent “buffer
1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact and Stalin’s quick claims on zone” of European states loyal to the Soviet Union.
the Baltic States and Polish territory when World Across the Atlantic, Truman viewed the Soviet oc-
War II broke out. In this view, other countries nat- cupation of eastern Europe as opening an era of
urally feared Soviet expansionism. Communist takeovers around the world. Members
Suspicion ran deep among the Allied leader- of the U.S. State Department fueled U.S. fears by
ship during World War II, and the alliance was al- depicting Stalin as another in a long line of neu-
ways a troubled one. Stalin believed that Churchill rotic Asian tyrants thirsting for world domination.
and Roosevelt were deliberately letting the USSR The cold war thus became a series of moves
bear the brunt of Hitler’s onslaught on the conti- and countermoves in the shared occupation of a
nent as part of their anti-Communist policy. He rich European heartland that had fallen into chaos.
rightly viewed Churchill in particular as interested In line with the view of its geopolitical needs, the
primarily in preserving Britain’s imperial power, USSR repressed democratic coalition governments
no matter what the cost in lives of Soviet citizens. of liberals, socialists, Communists, and peasant
At the time, some Americans believed that drop- parties in central and eastern Europe between 1945
ping the atomic bomb on Japan would also and 1949. It imposed Communist rule almost im-
frighten the Soviets from land grabs, and the new mediately in Bulgaria and Romania. In Romania,
U.S. president, Harry Truman, was far tougher Stalin cited citizen violence in 1945 as the excuse
than Roosevelt with regard to Soviet needs. He cut to demand an ouster of all non-Communists from
the civil service and cabinet. In Poland, the Com-
munists fixed the election results of 1945 and 1946
to create the illusion of approval for communism.
THE COLD WAR Nevertheless, the Communists had to share power
between 1945 and 1947 with the popular Peasant
1945–1949 USSR establishes satellite states in eastern Europe
Party, which had a large constituency of rural
1947 Truman Doctrine announces American commitment to workers and peasant landowners. The Allies
contain communism; U.S. Marshall Plan provides protested many of these moves by the Commu-
massive aid to rebuild Europe
nists as the cold war advanced.
1948–1949 Soviet troops blockade Berlin; United States airlifts The United States put its new interventionist
provisions to Berliners spirit to work, promoting American influence. It
1949 West Germany and East Germany formed; Western nations acknowledged Soviet authority in USSR-occupied
form North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); Soviet areas of central and eastern Europe but worried
bloc establishes Council for Mutual Economic Assistance that Communist power would spread to western
(COMECON); USSR tests its first nuclear weapon Europe. The Communists’ promises of better con-
1950–1953 Korean War ditions appealed to hungry workers, while mem-
1950–1954 U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy leads hunt for American ories of Communist leadership in the resistance to
Communists fascism made the party additionally attractive. In
Greece, Communist insurgents had enough of a
1953 Stalin dies
following to threaten the right-wing monarchy
1955 USSR and Eastern bloc countries form military alliance, the British had installed in 1944. In March 1947,
the Warsaw Pact
Truman reacted to the Communist threat in
1956 Khrushchev denounces Stalin in “secret speech” to Greece by announcing what quickly became
Communist Party Congress; Hungarians revolt unsuc- known as the Truman Doctrine, the countering of
cessfully against Soviet domination political crises with economic and military aid.
1959 Fidel Castro comes to power in Cuba The president requested $400 million in military
1961 Berlin Wall erected
1962 Cuban missile crisis Truman Doctrine: The United States’s policy to limit commu-
nism after World War II by countering political crises with eco-
nomic and military aid.
1945–1960s Wo r l d P o l i t i c s Tr a n s fo r m e d 885

NEW SOURCES, NEW PERSPECTIVES

Government Archives and the


Truth about the Cold War

s the modern nation-state grew in that it was not merely a mat-

A the nineteenth century, historians


came increasingly to rely on official
government archives to answer questions
ter of ending the war with
Japan in the most expedi-
tious way. Instead, bran-
arising from ideological disputes. The cold dishing atomic weapons
war was one such battle of charges and served the United States’s
countercharges. Government archives have desire to scare the Soviets.
thrown light on the accusations of both Tapes released from John F.
sides. Participants and eyewitnesses, it is be- Kennedy’s administration
lieved, are not reliable because of their bias. have shown the president
Instead, trained scholars, ridding them- differing from his generals,
selves of bias, carefully examine government most of whom wanted a nu-
records, preserved in official repositories clear war during the Cuban missile crisis. Russian Secret Archives
where tampering cannot take place. Kennedy, far from being the consistent The opening of archives across the
The opening of the Soviet Union’s cold warrior he sought to portray, pulled former Soviet bloc had many conse-
archives in the late 1980s and 1990s after back from the brink. quences. In the former East Germany, for
the fall of Soviet communism gave an- For all that new archival evidence can instance, names of secret police inform-
swers to many cold war questions. In 1956, reveal, reliance on this material has many ers were made public and many people
in the midst of superpower rivalry, Nikita pitfalls. First, one train of thought leads had their reputations utterly tarnished.
Khrushchev first threw official light on the to the mistaken belief that if an archive The opening of the archives also
slaughter connected with Stalin’s regime. contains no written evidence of an event, exposed the cases of those convicted
In Khrushchev’s partial revelation of the event is open to question. For in- with trumped-up evidence (some pic-
stance, if there is no written order from tured here), most of them sent to camps
truths, V. I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin were
and to their deaths long since. The prob-
presented as distinctly different political Adolf Hitler to start the Holocaust, some
able existence of such secret archives
beings, with Lenin an ideologue and bene- have argued, it means that he did not
around the world has made historians
factor, and Stalin a creature of excess. The know about the event or even that it did
and the families of victims fight for ac-
Soviet archives, however, revealed a more not occur. Second, archives are suscepti- cess. Simultaneously, politicians in the
vicious Lenin, one who demanded from ble to evidence tampering, including for- democracies are struggling to keep their
the start of the Bolshevik regime the kind gery and document planting, as has archives closed, especially to scholars
of brutality that Khrushchev had pinned happened with some Russian documents trained to assess them. (Sovfoto/ Eastfoto.)
on Stalin alone. Lenin and his contempo- of the 1990s. Finally, excessive faith in
raries started the reliance on wholesale archival documents, some critics say,
massacre of the upper classes, peasants, skews history by suggesting that the most 2. What are the most reliable sources for
dissenters, and even ordinary citizens. At important kind of history comes from of- discovering historical truth? Make a list
the same time, the archives discredited the ficial government sources. Important his- and provide reasons for your counting
U.S. claim that the Soviet Union in the torical evidence lies as well in sources these sources as reliable.
1950s was out to conquer the world. In- ranging from newspapers, family account
stead, scholars found both Stalin and books, diaries, and personal letters to Further Reading
Khrushchev fearful of a U.S. nuclear at- novels, paintings, and architecture, espe- Andrew, Christopher, and Vasili Mitrokhin.
tack and eager to come to terms. cially when many kinds of sources are The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in
Much official U.S. archival material used to verify one another. Europe and the West. 1999.
still remains closed to scholars, but the Courtois, Stephane, et al. The Black Book
Freedom of Information Act (1966, Questions to Consider of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repres-
amended 1974) allows historians to press 1. Are archives overseen by government sion, trans. Jonathan Murphy and Mark
for access and at times to obtain it. Offi- officials more or less likely to be biased Kramer. 1999.
cial U.S. documents have opened up de- than other sources? How can we know Zubok, Vladislav, and Constantine Ple-
bate about the dropping of the atomic the extent to which archives contain the shakov. Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War:
bomb, with some scholars concluding truth? From Stalin to Khrushchev. 1996.
886 C h a pt e r 2 7 ■ Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e 1945–1960s

aid for Greece and Turkey, where the Communists The only exception to the Soviet sweep in east-
were also exerting pressure. Fearing that Americans ern Europe came in Yugoslavia, under the Com-
would balk at backing Greece, the U.S. Congress munist ruler known as Tito (Josip Broz,
said it would agree to the program only if, as one 1892–1980). During the war, Tito had led the pow-
congressman put it, Truman would “scare the hell erful anti-Nazi Yugoslav “partisans.” After the war,
out of the country.” Truman thus publicized an ex- he drew on support from Serbs, Croats, and
pensive aid program as a necessary first step to pre- Muslims to mount a Communist revolution. His
vent Soviet conquest of the world. The show of revolution, however, was explicitly meant to avoid
American support made the Communists back off, Soviet influence. Eager for Yugoslavia to develop
and in 1949 the Greek rebels declared a cease-fire. industrially rather than simply serve Soviet needs,
In 1947, the United States also devised the Tito remarked, “We study and take as an example
Marshall Plan — a program of massive economic the Soviet system, but we are developing socialism
aid to Europe — to relieve ordi- in our country in somewhat dif-
nary people of the hardships that ferent forms.” Stalin was furious;
AUSTRIA HUNGARY
were making communism attrac- in his eyes, commitment to com-
Slovenia
tive. “The seeds of totalitarian Croatia
ROMANIA munism meant obedience to him.
Vojvodina
regimes are nurtured by misery 
Nonetheless, Yugoslavia emerged
and want,” the president warned Bosnia and
Herzegovina
Belgrade
from its Communist revolution
in the same speech that intro- Serbia
as a culturally diverse federation
duced the Truman Doctrine. Montenegro BULG.
of six republics and two inde-
Kosovo
Named after Secretary of State pendent provinces within Serbia.
Macedonia
George C. Marshall, who pro- ITALY Tito’s break with Stalin further
ALBANIA
posed the plan, the program’s di- Yugoslavia GREECE fueled the purges in the USSR be-
rect aid would immediately cause the Soviet government
improve everyday life, while Yugoslavia after the Revolution could point to Tito as a vivid ex-
loans and financial credits would ample of the treachery suppos-
restart international trade. The government edly at work even in the heart of the Communist
claimed that the Marshall Plan, also known as the world. Holding diverse groups of southern Slavs
European Recovery Program, was not directed together until his death in 1980, Tito used his
“against any country or doctrine but against forceful personality and strong organization to
hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos.” By the also hold the Soviets at bay.
early 1950s, the United States had sent Europe
more than $12 billion in food, equipment, and
services, reducing communism’s appeal in the The Division of Germany
countries of western Europe that received the aid. The superpower struggle for control of Germany
Stalin saw the Marshall Plan as a U.S. politi- took the cold war to a highly menacing level. The
cal ploy because the devastated USSR had little aid agreements reached at the February 1945 confer-
to offer client countries in eastern and central Eu- ence at Yalta provided for Germany’s division into
rope. He thus clamped down still harder on east- four zones, each of which was controlled by one
ern European governments, preventing them from of the four principal victors in World War II —
responding to the U.S. offer of assistance and elim- the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and
inating the last remnants of democracy in Hungary France — and occupied by troops from those na-
and Poland. In the autumn of 1947, a purge of tions. However, the superpowers disagreed on
non-Communist officials began in Czechoslova- fundamental matters in German history. Many in
kia; by June 1948, Czechoslovakia’s socialist presi-
^
the United States had come to believe that there
dent, Edvard Benes, had resigned and been was something inherently wrong with the charac-
replaced by a Communist figurehead. The popu- ter of Germans — a fatal, evil flaw responsible for
lace accepted the change so passively that Com- two world wars and the Holocaust. After the war,
munist leaders said the takeover was “like cutting the U.S. occupation forces undertook a repro-
butter with a knife.” gramming of German cultural attitudes by con-
trolling the press and censoring all media in the
U.S. zone to ensure that they did not express fas-
Marshall Plan: A post–World War II program funded by the cist values. In contrast, Stalin believed that
United States to get Europe back on its feet economically and
thereby reduce the appeal of communism. It played an impor- Nazism was merely an extreme form of capital-
tant role in the rebirth of European prosperity in the 1950s. ism. His solution was to confiscate and redistrib-
1945–1960s Wo r l d P o l i t i c s Tr a n s fo r m e d 887

ute the estates of wealthy Germans to ordinary N


West Germany
people and supporters. W East Germany
A second disagreement, concerning eco- E
Air corridor
nomic potential, led to Germany’s partition. Ac- S
Hamburg 0 50 100 miles
cording to the American plan for coordinating 
0 50 100 kilometers
the various segments of the German economy,
surplus crops from the Soviet-occupied areas NETH. Hanover

Berlin
British zone 
would feed urban populations in the western POLAND
zones; in turn, industrial goods would be sent to Soviet zone
the USSR. The Soviets upset this plan. Following BELG.

the Allied agreement that the USSR would receive 


French Frankfurt
reparations from German resources, the Soviets zone
LUX. CZECHOSLOVAKIA
dismantled industries and seized German equip- American zone
ment, shipping it all to the Soviet Union. They FRANCE
transported skilled workers, engineers, and scien- French

tists to the USSR to work virtually as slave labor- British Soviet


B E R L IN
ers. The Soviets also manipulated the currency in SWITZERLAND AUSTRIA American

their zone, enabling the USSR to buy German


goods at low prices.
The struggle between the superpowers esca- MAP 27.2 Divided Germany and the Berlin Airlift,
lated when the western Allies agreed to merge 1946–1949
their zones into a West German state. Instead of Berlin—controlled by the United States, Great Britain,
limiting German power, as wartime agreements France, and the Soviet Union—was deep in the Soviet
called for, the United States began an economic zone of occupation and became a major point of
buildup under the Marshall Plan to make the contention among the former allies. When the USSR
western zone of Germany a strong buffer against blockaded the western half of the city, the United
the Soviets. By 1948, notions of a permanently States responded with a massive airlift. To stop
weakened Germany had ended, and the United movement between the two zones, the USSR built a
wall in 1961 and used troops to patrol it.
States enlisted many former Nazi officials as spies
and bureaucrats to jump-start the economy and
pursue the cold war. On July 24, 1948, Stalin re-
taliated by using Soviet troops to blockade The formation of competing institutions, mil-
Germany’s capital, Berlin. Like Germany as a itary alliances, and entirely new countries added
whole, the city had been divided into four occu- to cold war tensions (Map 27.3). In response to the
pation zones, even though it was located more creation of a West German state by the Western al-
than one hundred miles deep into the Soviet zone lies in 1948, the USSR established an East German
and was thus cut off from western territory. Ex- state a few months later. In 1949, the United States,
pecting the United States and its allies to capitu- Canada, and their allies in western Europe and
late, the Soviets declared that Berlin was now part Scandinavia formed the North Atlantic Treaty Or-
of their zone of occupation and refused to allow ganization (NATO). NATO provided a unified
western vehicles to travel through the Soviet zone military force for its member countries. In 1955,
to reach the city. The United States responded after the United States forced France and Britain
decisively, flying in millions of tons of provisions. to invite West Germany to join NATO, the Soviet
During the winter of 1948–1949, the Berlin Union retaliated by establishing with its satellite
airlift — Operation Vittles, as U.S. pilots called countries the military organization commonly
it — even funneled in coal to warm some two mil- called the Warsaw Pact. By that time, both the
lion isolated Berliners (Map 27.2). Given the im- United States and the USSR had accelerated their
mense quantities of fuel and food needed and the arms buildups: the Soviets had exploded their own
limited number of transport planes, pilots kept the
plane engines on to achieve a rapid turnaround that
would ensure the necessary number of flights each North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): The security al-
day. The Soviets ended their blockade in May 1949, liance formed in 1949 to provide a unified military force for the
United States, Canada, and their allies in western Europe and
but cold war rhetoric made the divided city of Scandinavia.
Berlin an enduring symbol of the capitalist- Warsaw Pact: A security alliance of the Soviet Union and its
communist divide — of good versus evil. allies formed in 1955 when NATO admitted West Germany.
888 C h a pt e r 2 7 ■ Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e 1945–1960s

MAP 27.3 European N took increasing responsibility for the


NATO Members and the NATO
W health and well-being of citizens,
Warsaw Pact in the 1950s Warsaw Pact E making the cold war era also the age
The two superpowers 0 250 500 miles S
of the welfare state.
intensified their rivalry by 0 250 500 kilometers FINLAND
creating large military NORWAY
alliances: NATO, formed in SWEDEN Dealing with Nazism
1949, and the Warsaw

a
North

Se
In May 1945, Europeans lived under a
Pact, formed in 1955 after Sea DENMARK

ic
IRELAND lt
UNITED Ba
NATO invited West German KINGDOM USSR
confusing system in which local resist-
NETH. EAST
membership. International ATLANTIC BELG.
GERMANY POLAND ance leaders, Allied armies of occupa-
politics revolved around OCEAN WEST C Z
LUX. GERMANY ECHOS
tion, international relief workers, and
LOVA
these two alliances, which KIA the remnants of bureaucracies —
FRANCE SWITZ. AUSTRIA
faced off in the heart of HUNGARY
ROMANIA
among them Nazi sympathizers —
Europe. War games for the vied for authority. The goals of feeding
AL

YUGOSLAVIA Black
UG

two sides often assumed a SPAIN ITALY BULGARIA Sea


civilians, dealing with millions of
RT

(joined NATO 1975)


massive war concentrated
PO

ALBANIA
(until 1961) refugees, purging Nazis, and setting up
in central Europe over Medite r ranean Sea GREECE TURKEY
new governments all needed atten-
control of Germany.
tion. Governments-in-exile returned
to reclaim power, but they often ran
up against occupying armies that were
a law unto themselves. The Soviets
atomic bomb in 1949, and each nation had tested were especially feared for inflicting rape and rob-
highly destructive hydrogen bombs and then in- bery on Germans — abuses they justified by point-
creasingly powerful nuclear weapons. These two ing to the tens of millions of worse atrocities
massive regional alliances, armed to the teeth, committed by the Nazis. Adding to the sense of
backed cold war politics with military muscle, disorder was the lively trade in food for sex among
definitively outstripping the individual might of well-supplied soldiers in all armies and starving
other European powers. civilians. The desire for revenge against Nazis
hardened with the discovery of the death camps’
skeletal survivors and the remains of the millions
Review: What were the major events in the develop-
murdered there. Employing swift vigilante justice,
ment of the cold war?
civilians released pent-up rage and punished col-
laborators for their complicity in genocide and oc-
cupation crimes. In France, villagers often shaved
the heads of women suspected of associating with
Political and Economic Germans and made some of them parade naked
Recovery in Europe through the local streets. Members of the resist-
ance executed tens of thousands of Nazi officers
The clash between the United States and the Soviet and collaborators on the spot and without trial.
Union served as a background to the remarkable Allied representatives undertook what they
recovery that took place in Europe. The first two claimed to be a more systematic “denazification”
items on the political agenda were the eradication that ranged from forcing German civilians to view
of the Nazi past and the inauguration of peacetime the death camps to investigating and bringing to
governments. While western Europe revived its trial suspected local collaborators. The trials con-
democratic political structures, its individualistic ducted at Nuremberg, Germany, by the victorious
culture, and its productive capabilities, eastern Allies in the fall of 1945 used the Nazis’ own doc-
Europe was far less prosperous and far more uments to reveal a horrifying panorama of crimes
repressive under the Stalinism of the immediate by Nazi leaders. Although international law lacked
postwar period. Even to the east, however, the con- a precedent for defining genocide as a crime, the
ditions of everyday life improved as peasant soci- judges at Nuremberg found sufficient cause to im-
eties were forced to modernize and some pose death sentences on half of the twenty-four
consumer goods industries and basic health ser- defendants, among them Hitler’s closest associates,
vices were restored. By 1960, people across the con- and to give prison terms to the remainder. The
tinent were enjoying a higher standard of living Nuremberg trials introduced today’s notion of
than ever before in their history. Governments prosecution for crimes against humanity.
1945–1960s P o l i t i c a l a n d E co n om i c R e cove ry i n E u ro p e 889

Polish Refugees
These refugees, a handful among
millions, are waiting for a train
that might carry them to a safer
destination. The refugee situation
was appalling, as ethnic Poles,
Germans, Hungarians, Croats,
Czechs, and others were driven from
areas where in some cases their
families had lived for centuries. The
goal of many postwar governments
was to “ethnically cleanse” regions
along the line of thought that grew
up with Wilson’s Fourteen Points:
that national ethnicities should
determine the kind of society and
government they would have.
(Getty Images.)

Allied prosecution of the Axis leadership was bold projects for economic cooperation — like the
hardly thorough, however; some of those most re- European Common Market and the conversion of
sponsible for war crimes disappeared and were not wartime technology to peacetime use — produced
pursued, leaving many Germans skeptical about a brisk trade in consumer goods and services in
Allied intentions. As women in Germany faced vi- western Europe by the late 1950s. Memories of the
olence at the hands of occupying troops, endured war remained vivid, but prosperity restored con-
starvation, and were forced to do the rough man- fidence and hope for a better future.
ual labor of clearing rubble, Germans came to be-
lieve that they themselves were the main victims Democratic Politics Restored. Resistance leaders
of the war. German civilians also interpreted the made the first claims on political office in postwar
trials of Nazis as simple payback by victors rather western Europe. In France, the leader of the Free
than a just punishment of the guilty. Distrust French, General Charles de Gaulle, governed briefly
mounted when Allied officials, eager to restore as chief of state, and the French approved a consti-
government services and make western Europe tution in 1946 that established the Fourth Repub-
more efficient than Soviet-controlled eastern Europe, lic and finally granted the vote to French women.
began to hire former high-ranking Fascists and De Gaulle wanted a more conservative political sys-
Nazis. Soon the new West German government tem with a strong executive and, failing to get that,
proclaimed that the war’s real casualties were the soon resigned in favor of centrist and left-wing
German prisoners of war held in Soviet camps. parties. Meanwhile, Italy replaced its constitutional
monarchy with a republic that also allowed
women the vote for the first time. As in France, a
Rebirth of the West
resistance-based government initially took control.
Following the immediate postwar chaos, Europe’s Then, late in 1945, the socialist and labor politi-
revival accelerated in the 1950s. In western Europe, cians were replaced by a coalition headed by the
reform-minded civilian governments reflected the conservative Christian Democrats, descended
broad coalitions of the resistance movements and from the traditional Catholic centrist parties of the
other opposition to the Axis. They conspicuously prewar period. Other countries likewise saw the
emphasized democratic values to show their rejec-
tion of the totalitarian regimes that had earlier at-
Christian Democrats: Powerful center to center-right political
tracted so many Europeans. Rebuilding devastated parties that evolved in the late 1940s from former Catholic par-
towns and cities spurred industrial recovery, while ties of the pre–World War II period.
890 C h a pt e r 2 7 ■ Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e 1945–1960s

growing influence of Christian politicians because people would have enough confidence in its sound-
of their participation in the resistance. ness to resume normal trade, manufacturing, and
Many voters in western Europe also favored other economic activity crucial to society’s revival.
the Communist Party. Symbol of the common cit- Successfully guiding Germany away from both fas-
izen, the Soviet soldier was a hero to many west- cism and communism, the economist and the
ern Europeans outside occupied Germany. So were politician restored the representative government
the resistance leaders, who were themselves often that Hitler had overthrown.
Communist until more establishment politicians Paradoxically, given its leadership in the fight
decided late in the war to join what looked to be against fascism, the United States was a country in
a certain resistance victory. People still remem- which individual freedom and democracy were
bered the hardships of the depression of the 1930s. imperiled after the war. Two events in 1949 — the
Thus, in Britain, despite the wartime successes of Soviet Union’s successful test of an atomic bomb
Winston Churchill’s Conservative Party leader- and the Communist revolution in China —
ship, the Labour government of Clement Attlee — brought to the fore Joseph McCarthy, a U.S. sena-
though not Communist — appeared more likely to tor foreseeing a reelection struggle. To strengthen
fulfill promises to share prosperity equitably his following and win the election, McCarthy
among the classes through expanded social welfare warned of a great conspiracy to overthrow the
programs. The extreme difficulties of the immedi- United States. As during the Soviet purges, people
ate postwar years provided further support for of all occupations, including government workers,
governments that would represent the millions of film stars, and union leaders, were called before
ordinary citizens who had suffered, fought, and congressional panels to confess, testify against
worked incredibly hard during the war. friends, and to admit whether they had ever had
In West Germany, however, with the Commu- Communist sympathies. The atmosphere was elec-
nist takeovers going on directly to the east, com- tric with confusion, for only five years before the
munism and the left in general had little appeal. In mass media had run glowing stories about Stalin and
1949, centrist politicians helped create a new state, the Soviet system. During the war, the American
the German Federal Republic, whose constitution public was told to think of Stalin as a friendly
aimed to prevent the emergence of a dictator and “Uncle Joe.” By 1952, however, more than six mil-
to guarantee individual rights. West Germany’s first lion Americans had been investigated, imprisoned,
chancellor was the seventy-three-year-old Catholic or fired from their jobs. McCarthy had books like
anti-Communist Konrad Adenauer, who allied Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, written in the
himself with the economist Ludwig Erhard. Erhard eighteenth century to support the American Rev-
stabilized the postwar German currency so that olution, removed from U.S. agency shelves at home

Women Clearing Berlin


The amount of destruction caused
by World War II was staggering,
requiring the mobilization of the
civilian population in Berlin, where
women were conscripted to sort the
rubble and clear it away. Scenes
like this were ultimately used as
propaganda in the cold war to make
it seem as if the Germans were the
victims rather than the perpetrators
of the war. That German soldiers held
in Soviet camps were only slowly
repatriated added to the image of
Soviet rather than German aggression
in World War II. (akg-images.)
■ For more help analyzing this
image, see the visual activity for this
chapter in the Online Study Guide at
bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
1945–1960s P o l i t i c a l a n d E co n om i c R e cove ry i n E u ro p e 891

and abroad, and he personally oversaw book burn- 80


ings. Although the Senate finally voted to censure United Kingdom United
McCarthy in the winter of 1954, the assault on France States
70
freedom had been devastating and anticommu- West Germany USSR
nism had come to dominate political life. Italy
60 Japan
An Economic Surge. Given the wartime destruc-

Billions (U.S. dollars)


tion, the economic rebirth of western Europe was 50
even more surprising than the revival of democ-
racy. In the first weeks and months after the war, 40
the job of rebuilding often involved menial phys-
ical labor that mobilized entire populations for 30
such jobs as clearing massive urban rubble by
hand. Initially, governments diverted labor and China
capital into rebuilding infrastructure — trans- 20

portation, communications, industrial capacity —


and away from producing consumer goods. 10
However, the scarcity of household goods sparked
unrest; communism held some attraction because 0
1950 ’52 ’54 ’56 ’58 ’60 ’62 ’64 ’66 ’68 ’70
it seemed less interested in the revival of big
business and more concerned with ensuring ordi-
nary people a decent standard of living. In the FIGURE 27.1 Military Spending and the Cold War
midst of this growing discontent, the Marshall Arms Race, 1950–1970
Plan suddenly boosted recovery with American As soon as the war ended, the United States and the
Soviet Union started a massive arms buildup that
dollars; food and consumer goods became more
would continue into the 1980s. Because it had not
plentiful; and demand for automobiles, washing suffered destruction during the war, the United States
machines, and vacuum cleaners accelerated eco- could afford to spend hundreds of billions of dollars
nomic growth. Increased productivity wiped out on weapons. The Soviet Union could not, so its
most unemployment. military expenditures deprived Soviet citizens of
The postwar recovery also featured the adap- consumer goods. By the end of the twentieth century,
tation of wartime technology to consumer indus- the United States and Russia held vast arsenals of
try and the continuation of military spending. nuclear and other weapons and, along with France, led
Civilian travel expanded as nations organized their the way in selling arms that fueled war and genocide
own airline industries based on improved airplane around the world.
technology. Developed to relieve wartime short-
ages, synthetic goods such as nylon now became
part of peacetime civilian life. Factories churned
out a vast assortment of plastic products, ranging attaining an annual rate of growth per capita of
from pipes to household goods to rainwear. In the 3.8 percent. Among the larger powers, West
climate of cold war, however, military needs re- Germany surprisingly became the economic
mained high: governments ordered bombs, fighter leader, achieving by the 1960s a stunning revival
planes, tanks, and missiles (Figure 27.1) and spon- called the “economic miracle.” The smaller Scan-
sored military research. The outbreak of the Korean dinavian countries also achieved a notable recov-
War in 1950 increased U.S. orders for manufac- ery: Sweden succeeded in the development of
tured goods to wage that war, further sustaining automobile, truck, and shipbuilding industries.
economic growth in Europe. Ultimately, the cold Finland modernized its industry in order to pay
war prevented a repeat of the 1920s, when reduced the reparations demanded by the Soviet Union for
military spending threw people out of jobs and fed resisting its invasion; it also modernized its agri-
the growth of fascism. culture, which in turn forced the surplus farm
Large and small states alike developed mod- population to seek factory work. Scandinavian
ern economies in short order. In the twelve prin- women joined the workforce in record numbers,
cipal countries of western Europe, the annual rate which also boosted economic growth and ex-
of economic growth had been 1.3 percent per in- panded prosperity. The thirty years after World
habitant between 1870 and 1913. Those countries War II were a golden age of European economic
almost tripled that rate between 1950 and 1973, growth. (See “Taking Measure,” page 892.)
892 C h a pt e r 2 7 ■ Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e 1945–1960s

TAKING MEASURE The success of the ECSC led to


the next momentous step: In 1957,
the six ECSC members signed the
200 Treaty of Rome, which provided
for a more general trading partner-
ship called the European Economic
Community (EEC), known popu-
150 larly as the Common Market. The
EEC reduced tariffs among the six
partners and developed common
trade policies. It brought under one
100 cooperative economic umbrella
more than two hundred million
consumers and would eventually
add several hundred million more.
50 According to one of its founders, the
EEC aimed to “prevent the race of
nationalism, which is the true curse
of the modern world.” Increased co-
0 operation produced great economic
1950 ’51 ’52 ’53 ’54 ’55 ’56 ’57 ’58 ’59 ’60 ’61 ’62 ’63 ’64 ’65 ’66 ’67 ’68 ’69 ’70
1963=100 rewards for the six members, whose
rates of economic growth soared.
World Manufacturing Output, 1950–1970 Britain pointedly refused to join the
During the long boom from the 1950s to the early 1970s, the world experi- partnership at first, since member-
enced increased industrial output, better agricultural production, and rising ship would have required surrender-
consumer spending. This era of prosperity resulted not only from the de- ing certain imperial trading rights
mand generated by the need to rebuild Europe and other areas affected by among its Commonwealth partners
the war but also from the adaptation of war technology to peacetime uses.
such as Australia, New Zealand, and
A General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) was also implemented af-
ter the war, lowering tariffs and thus advancing trade. (From Hammond Atlas of
Canada. Since 1945, British politi-
the Twentieth Century (London: Times Books, 1987 ), 127.)
cians had shunned the developing
continental trading bloc because, as
one of them put it, participation
would make Britain “just another
European country.” Even without
Birth of the Common Market. The creation of the Britain, the rising prosperity of a new western Eu-
Common Market, which evolved over time to be- rope joined in the Common Market was striking.
come the European Union, was a final ingredient in Economic planning and coordination by spe-
the postwar recovery. The Marshall Plan demanded cialists (as developed during wartime) shaped the
as a condition for assistance that recipient nations Common Market. Called technocrats, specialists
undertake far-reaching economic cooperation. In working for the Common Market were to base de-
1951, Italy, France, West Germany, Belgium, Lux- cisions on expertise rather than on personal inter-
embourg, and the Netherlands took a major step est and on the goals of the Common Market as a
toward cooperation when they formed the European whole rather than on the demands of any one na-
Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) — an organiza- tion. The aim was to reduce the potential for irra-
tion to manage the joint production of basic re- tionality and violence in politics, both domestic
sources. Importantly, it arranged for West and international. Administered by a commission
Germany’s abundant output of coal and steel to of technocrats in Brussels, Belgium, the Common
benefit all of western Europe. According to the Market transcended the borders of the nation-
ECSC’s principal architect, Robert Schuman, the co- state and thus exceeded the power of elected politi-
operation created by the organization would make cians. Some critics insisted (and some still insist
another war “materially impossible.” Simply put, the
bonds of common productivity and trade would European Economic Community (EEC or Common Market): A
keep France and Germany from another cata- consortium of six European countries established to promote
free trade and economic cooperation among its members. Since
clysmic war. (See Document, “The Schuman Plan its founding in 1957, its membership and activities have ex-
on European Unity, 1950,” page 893.) panded.
1945–1960s P o l i t i c a l a n d E co n om i c R e cove ry i n E u ro p e 893

DOCUMENT

The Schuman Plan on European Unity (1950)


One method of reviving European produc- The gathering of the European nations re- The common production thus estab-
tivity and well-being after the devastation quires the elimination of the age-old oppo- lished will make it plain that any war be-
of World War II was for countries to pool sition of France and Germany. The action tween France and Germany becomes not
natural resources such as coal and steel. to be taken must first of all concern these only unthinkable, but materially impos-
Robert Schuman, French foreign minister two countries. sible. The establishment of this powerful
from 1948 to 1953, was an architect of the With this aim in view, the French entity, open to all countries willing to take
European Coal and Steel Community, in- Government proposes to take immediate part, and eventually capable of making
stituted after the war to share resources action on one limited but decisive point. available on equal terms the fundamental
among France, West Germany, and other The French Government proposes that elements of industrial production, will
nations. Schuman, however, foresaw more Franco-German production of coal and give a real foundation to their economic
long-term benefits, including lasting peace steel be placed under a common high au- unification. . . .
and the unification of all of Europe. The thority within an organisation open to By pooling basic production and by
Schuman Plan, excerpted here, is widely the participation of the other European creating a new high authority whose deci-
viewed as a blueprint for today’s European nations. sions will be binding on France, Germany
Union. The pooling of coal and steel produc- and the other countries that may subse-
tion will immediately ensure the establish- quently join, these proposals will lay the
World peace can only be safeguarded if ment of common bases for economic first concrete foundation for a European
constructive efforts are made proportionate development as a first step in the federa- Federation which is so indispensable to
to the dangers which threaten it. . . . Eu- tion of Europe, and will change the des- the preservation of peace.
rope will not be made all at once, nor ac- tinies of those regions which have long Source: U.S. Department of State Bulletin, June
cording to a single, general plan. It will be been devoted to the manufacture of arms, 12, 1959, 936–37. Reprinted in Documents on
formed by taking measures which work to which they themselves were the con- European Union, eds., A. G. Harryvan and J. van
primarily to bring about real solidarity. stant victims. der Harst (New York: St. Martin’s, 1997), 61–62.

today) that expert planning would diminish had sacrificed in wartime. Because the European
democracy by putting massive control in the hands population had declined during the war, almost all
of a bureaucracy instead of legislatures. Defenders countries now desperately wanted to boost the
were just as insistent that planning and coopera- birthrate and thus gave couples direct financial aid
tion would be the surest tools of prosperity and for having children. Imitating the social security
lasting peace. programs initiated under Bismarck and the more
sweeping Swedish programs of the 1930s, nations
expanded or created family allowances, health care
The Welfare State:
and medical benefits, and programs for pregnant
Common Ground East and West women and new mothers. The French gave larger
On both sides of the cold war divide, governments family allowances for each birth after the first; for
channeled new resources into state-financed pro- many French families, this allowance provided as
grams such as pensions, disability insurance, and much as a third of the household income.
national health care. These social programs taken Some welfare-state policies had a strong gen-
as a whole became known as the welfare state, in- der bias against women. Britain’s maternity bene-
dicating that states were no longer interested solely fits and child allowances favored women who did
in maintaining order and augmenting their power. not work outside the home by providing little cov-
Veterans’ pensions and programs were primary, erage for workingwomen. The West German gov-
but the welfare state extended beyond those who ernment passed strict legislation that forced
employers to give women maternity leave, thus
welfare state: A system comprising government-sponsored discouraging them from hiring women. It also cut
programs aimed to bring economic democracy by providing
health care, family allowances, and pensions for veterans and back or eliminated pensions and benefits to mar-
retired workers. ried women. In fact, West Germans bragged about
894 C h a pt e r 2 7 ■ Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e 1945–1960s

programs, family allowances, and maternity ben-


efits were designed to encourage pregnancies by
workingwomen. A national health program pro-
vided medical services, as in most countries to the
west, but the hardships of everyday life under-
mined the drive to increase population. The
scarcity of consumer goods, the housing shortages,
and the lack of household conveniences discour-
aged workingwomen in Communist countries
from having large families no matter what the gov-
ernment wanted. Because women bore the sole
burden of domestic duties under such conditions
on top of their paying jobs, they hardly welcomed
additional children. As a result, birthrates in the
eastern bloc stagnated.
Across Europe, welfare-state programs aimed
to improve people’s health. State-funded health care
systems covered medical needs in most industrial
nations except the United States. The combination
of better material conditions and state provision of
health care dramatically extended life expectancy
and lowered rates of infant mortality. Contributing
to the overall progress, the number of doctors and
dentists more than doubled between the end of
World War I and 1950, and vaccines greatly reduced
the death toll from such diseases as tuberculosis,
diphtheria, measles, and polio. In England, school-
children stood an inch taller, on average, than chil-
dren the same age had a decade earlier.
State initiatives in other areas played a role in
raising the standard of living. A growing network
The Welfare State in Action, 1947
The Danish creche or daycare center here shows the welfare state in
of government-built atomic power plants brought
action. Government programs to maintain the well-being of citizens more thorough electrification of eastern Europe
became almost universally available in Europe, Canada, and (to a and the Soviet Union. Governments legislated
lesser extent) the United States. Children were seen as particularly more leisure time for workers. Beginning in 1955,
important given the loss of the life in the war. So governments Italian workers received twenty-eight paid holidays
encouraged couples to reproduce through up-to-date health care annually; in Sweden, workers received twenty-nine
systems, day-care centers, and generous family allowances to vacation days, a number that grew in the 1960s.
support family growth. (Getty Images.) Housing shortages brought on by three decades of
economic depression and destructive war meant
that postwar Europeans often lived with three gen-
removing women from the workforce, claiming erations sharing one or two rooms. To rebuild,
that doing so distinguished democratic practices governments sponsored a postwar housing boom.
from Communist ones. The refusal to build day- New suburbs and even entire cities formed around
care centers or to allow stores to remain open in the edges of major urban areas in both East and
the evening so that workingwomen could buy food West. Many buildings went up slapdash, and al-
for their families led West Germany to have among though some suburbs ultimately were seen as a
the lowest rate of female employment of any in- blight on the environment, they dramatically im-
dustrial country. Another result of West Germany’s proved living conditions for postwar refugees,
discriminatory policies was a high rate of female workers, and immigrants.
poverty in old age.
By contrast, in eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union, where wartime loss of life had been enor- Recovery in the East
mous, women worked nearly full-time and usually To create a Soviet bloc according to Stalin’s prewar
outnumbered men in the workforce. As in many vision of industrialization, Communists revived
western European countries, however, child-care the crushing methods that had served before to
1945–1960s P o l i t i c a l a n d E co n om i c R e cove ry i n E u ro p e 895

transform peasant economies. In eastern Europe, Science and culture were the building blocks
Stalin enforced collectivized agriculture and badly of Stalinism in the satellite countries as well as in
needed industrialization through the nationaliza- the USSR. State-instituted programs aimed to
tion of private property. In Hungary, for example, build loyalty to the modernizing regime; thus, cit-
Communists seized and reapportioned all estates izens were obliged to attend adult education
over twelve hundred acres. Having gained support classes, women’s groups, and public ceremonies.
of the poorer peasants through this redistribution, An intense program of Russification and de-
Communists later dispossessed many of their Christianization forced students in eastern Europe
prized lands and pushed them into cooperative to read histories of the war that ignored their own
farming, though less thoroughly than in the USSR. country’s resistance and gave the Red Army sole
In Poland, a substantial number of private farms credit for fighting the Nazis. Rigid censorship re-
remained. The process of collectivization was bru- sulted in what even one Communist writer in the
tal, and rural people looked back on the 1950s as USSR characterized as “a dreary torrent of color-
dreadful. But some among those in the country- less, mediocre literature.” Stalin also purged
side felt that ultimately their lives and their chil-
dren’s lives had improved. “Before we peasants
were dirty and poor, we worked like dogs. . . . Was
that a good life? No sir, it wasn’t. . . . I was a mis-
erable sharecropper and my son is an engineer,”
said one Romanian peasant. Despite moderniza-
tion, government investment in agriculture was
never high enough to produce the bumper crops
of western Europe, and even the USSR depended
on produce from the small plots that enterprising
farmers cultivated on the side.

Constructing the Soviet Bloc. Stalin admired


American industrial know-how and prodded the
Communist economies to match U.S. productiv-
ity. The Soviet Union formed regional organiza-
tions like those in the West, instituting the Council
for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) in
1949 to coordinate economic relations among the
satellite countries and Moscow. The terms of the
COMECON relationship worked against the satel-
lite states, for the USSR was allowed to buy goods
from its clients at bargain prices and sell goods to
them at exorbitant ones. Nonetheless, these for-
merly peasant states became oriented toward tech-
nology and bureaucratically directed industrial
economies. Modernization of production created
new technical and bureaucratic careers, and mod-
ernizers in the satellite states touted the virtues of
steel plants and modern transport. Tired of the
struggles on the land, rural people moved to cities,
where they received better education, health care,
and ultimately jobs, albeit at the price of repres- Re-creating Hungarian Youth
sion. The Roman Catholic church, which often People across Europe focused on the well-being of young people
protested the imposition of communism, was after World War II, and in the Soviet sphere this took the form of
education in Communist ways. Youth groups, such as those in
crushed as much as possible or infiltrated by gov-
the early Stalinist USSR, served this end, and vivid posters in
ernment agents. Elites, including professionals, the Soviet realist style carried inspirational messages: “Forward
were discriminated against or imprisoned, some- for the Congress of the Young Fighters of Peace and Socialism,”
times forced into hard labor in uranium and other reads this typical message to Hungarian youth in 1950. Why was
dangerous mines. This policy cleared away oppo- the condition of youth so important a concern after World War II?
sition — real and imagined — to the Communist Why was youth so prominent in popular culture during this
takeover of eastern Europe. period? (Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum, Budapest [Hungarian National Museum].)
896 C h a pt e r 2 7 ■ Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e 1945–1960s

prominent wartime leaders to ensure obedience example and angry at living under communism,
and conformity. Marshal Zhukov, a popular archi- Hungarians rebelled against forced collectivization
tect of the Soviet wartime victory, was shipped to in October 1956 — “the golden October,” they
a distant command, while Anna Akhmatova, the would call their uprising. As in Poland, economic
widely admired poet who championed wartime re- issues, especially announcements of reduced wages,
sistance to the Nazis, was confined to a crowded contributed to the outbreak of violence, but the
hospital room because she refused to glorify Stalin protest soon targeted the entire Communist system.
in her postwar poetry. Tens of thousands of protesters filled the streets of
Budapest and succeeded in returning a popular
The Death of Stalin. In March 1953, amid loom- hero, Imre Nagy, to power. When Nagy announced
ing troubles, Stalin died, and it soon became clear that Hungary might leave the Warsaw Pact, how-
that the old ways would not hold. Political prison- ever, Soviet troops moved in, killing tens of thou-
ers in the labor camps rebelled, leading to the re- sands and causing hundreds of thousands more to
lease of more than a million people from the flee to the West. Nagy was hanged. The crushing of
Gulag. At the other end of the social order, Soviet the Hungarian Revolution thus vividly displayed the
officials, despite enjoying luxury goods and plen- limits to the thaw. Despite a rhetoric of democracy,
tiful food, had come to distrust Stalinism and now the United States refused to intervene in Hungary,
favored change. As protests took place across the choosing not to risk another world war by challeng-
Soviet bloc, governments stepped up the produc- ing the Soviet sphere of influence.
tion of consumer goods — a policy called goulash The failure of eastern European uprisings
communism (after the Hungarian stew) because it overshadowed significant changes since Stalin’s
resulted in more food for ordinary people. The fu- death. While defeating his rivals, Khrushchev
ture after Stalin remained uncertain, however. ended the Stalinist purges and reformed the
In 1955, Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971), an courts, which came to function according to pro-
illiterate coal miner before the Bolshevik Revolu- cedures instead of staging the show trials of the
tion, outmaneuvered other rivals to emerge the past. The gates of the Gulag opened further, and
undisputed leader of the Soviet Union — but he did the secret police lost many of its arbitrary powers.
so without resorting to the Stalinist practice of ex- “It has become more interesting to visit and see
ecuting his opponents. Khrushchev listened to people,” Boris Pasternak said of the changes.“It has
popular complaints in both city and countryside become easier to work.” In 1957, the Soviets suc-
about conditions and then made the surprising cessfully launched the first artificial earth satellite,
move of attacking Stalin. At a party congress in Sputnik, and in 1961 they put the first cosmonaut,
1956, Khrushchev denounced the “cult of person- Yuri Gagarin, in orbit around the earth. The
ality” Stalin had built about himself and an- Soviets’ edge in space technology shocked the West-
nounced that Stalinism did not equal communism. ern bloc and motivated the creation of the U.S.
Khrushchev thus cagily attributed problems with National Aeronautics and Space Administration
communism to a single individual. The “secret (NASA). For Soviets, such successes indicated that
speech” — it was not published in the USSR but be- the USSR had achieved Stalin’s goal of moderniza-
came known fairly quickly — was a bombshell. tion and might inch further toward freedom.
People experienced, in the words of one writer, “a Khrushchev, however, was erratic and crude,
holiday of the soul.” Debates broke out in public, showing himself open to changes in Soviet culture
and books appeared championing the ordinary at one moment and then bullying honest writers
worker against the party bureaucracy. The climate at another. After assaulting Pasternak because his
of relative tolerance for free expression after Stalin’s novel Doctor Zhivago cast doubt on the glory of
death was called the thaw. the Communist revolution and affirmed the value
Protest erupted once more in early summer of the individual, in 1961 he allowed the publica-
1956, when discontented Polish railroad workers tion of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the
struck for better wages. Popular support for their Life of Ivan Denisovitch. This chilling account of
cause ushered in policies providing more resources life in the Gulag was useful, however, in confirm-
for ordinary people’s needs. Inspired by the Polish ing Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin’s crimes
and excesses. Under the thaw, Khrushchev himself
made several trips to the West and was more widely
Nikita Khrushchev (nyih KEE tuh kroosh CHAWF): Leader of seen by the public than Stalin. More confident and
the USSR from c. 1955 until his dismissal in 1964; known for
his speech denouncing Stalin, creation of the “thaw,” and par- more affluent, the Soviets took steps to reduce
ticipation in the Cuban missile crisis. their diplomacy’s paranoid style and to expand
1945–1960s D e co lo n i z at i o n i n a C o l d Wa r C l i m at e 897

communism’s appeal in the emerging nations of


Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Despite the USSR’s
more relaxed posture, however, the cold war ad-
vanced and the superpowers moved the world to
the nuclear brink.

Review: What factors drove recovery in western


Europe? In eastern Europe?

Decolonization in a
Cold War Climate
After World War II, activists in colonized regions
used the postwar chaos in Europe and the uncer-
tainties of the cold war to achieve their long-held
goal of liberation. At war’s end, Britain, France, the
Netherlands, and other colonial powers repressed
nationalist groups and futilely attempted to reim-
pose their control. As in World War I, colonized
peoples had been on the front lines defending the
West; and as before, they had witnessed the full Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India (1952)
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) led his newly independent country of
barbarism of Western warfare. Like African
India from 1947 to 1964, during its first years of freedom from British
American soldiers in the U.S. army, they experi- rule. Both sides in the cold war rivalry competed to make India an ally,
enced discrimination even while saving the West. but U.S. presidents and diplomats hesitated to woo this crucial leader
Excluded from victory parades so that the great in part because of their suspicions about the toughness of a man who
powers could maintain the illusion of white and wore what appeared to them a dress along with a rose pinned to it.
Western supremacy, colonial veterans returning Nehru and his compatriots were thought to be too “feminine” to be
home still did not receive the rights of citizenship reliable in an age of robust cold war heroes like the fictional James
promised them. Moreover, successive wars had al- Bond. Nehru chose to maintain India, though a populous Asian
lowed local industries in the colonies to develop, democracy, as a neutral country. (© Bettmann / Corbis.)
while industry in the imperial homelands fell into
decline. As a result of the war, people in Asia,
Africa, and the Middle East, often led by individ- Muslims as the basis for decolonization — might
uals steeped in Western values and experienced in seem to have been unifying forces. Yet many
war and business, sped toward independence. Muslims were not Arab, not all Arabs were Muslim,
The path to independence — a process called and Islam itself encompassed many competing be-
decolonization — was paved with difficulties. In liefs and sects. Differences among religious beliefs,
Africa, a continent whose peoples spoke more than ethnic groups, and cultural practices — many of
five thousand languages and dialects, the European them invented or promoted by the colonizers to
creation of convenient administrative units such divide and rule — worked against political unity.
as Nigeria and Rhodesia had cut across ethnic lines Despite these complications, various peoples in
and undermined local cultures. Religion played a what was coming to be called the third world suc-
divisive role in independence movements. In ceeded in overthrowing imperialism, while the
India, Hindus and Muslims battled one another United States and the Soviet Union rushed in to
even though they shared the goal of eliminating co-opt them for the cold war.
the British. In the Middle East and North Africa,
pan-Arab and pan-Islamic movements — that is,
those wanting to bring together all Arabs or all The End of Empire in Asia
At the end of World War II, leaders in Asia suc-
ceeded in mobilizing mass discontent to drive out
decolonization: The process—both violent and peaceful—by
which colonies gained their independence from the imperial foreign rulers. Declining from an imperial power
powers after World War II. to a small island nation, Britain was the biggest
898 C h a pt e r 2 7 ■ Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e 1945–1960s

loser. In 1947, it parted with In- cause of the region’s economic


dia, whose independence it had importance and the USSR be-
C H I N A
promised in the 1930s. While cause of its shared borders. The
some two million Indian men victory of the Chinese Commu-
were mobilized to fight in the R . nists spurred both superpowers
lu
Middle East and Asia, local Indian Ya Line of UN to increase their involvement in
advance
industry became an important Nov. 1950 Asian politics, where they faced
supplier of war goods, and Indian NORTH off first in Korea, which had been
KOREA
business leaders bought out Pyongyang  Armistice line, split at the thirty-eighth parallel
June 1953
British entrepreneurs short of 38th Parallel
after World War II. In 1950, the
cash. Now, armed with economic North Koreans, with the support
Communist Seoul
might and an effective military, North Koreans of the Soviet Union, invaded
invade, 1950
Indians began to face off with the U.S.-backed South Korea, whose
SOUTH
British in strikes and other KOREA agents had themselves been stir-
protests. ring up tensions with incursions
Britain quickly faced the in- across the border. The United
evitable, decreeing that two coun- States maneuvered the Security
tries should emerge from the old Council of the United Nations
colony, so great was the mistrust 0 75 150 miles into approving a “police action”
the British had sown between the 0 75 150 kilometers JAPAN against the North, and its forces
Indian National Congress and quickly drove well into North Ko-
Muslim League parties. Thus, in The Korean War, 1950–1953 rean territory, where they were
1947 India was created for Hin- met by the Chinese army. After
dus, and Pakistan — itself later divided into two two and a half years of a horribly destructive stale-
parts — for Muslims. During the independence mate, the opposing sides finally agreed to a settle-
year, political tensions exploded among opposing ment in 1953: Korea would remain split at its
members of the two religions. Hundreds of thou- prewar border, the thirty-eighth parallel. As a re-
sands were massacred in the great shift of popula- sult of the Korean War, the United States increased
tions between India and Pakistan. In 1948, a radical its military spending from $10.9 billion in 1948 to
Hindu assassinated Gandhi, who though a Hindu almost $60 billion in 1953. The expansion of the
himself had continued to champion religious rec- cold war to Asia prompted the creation of an Asian
onciliation. As some half a billion Asians gained counterpart to NATO: the U.S.-backed Southeast
their independence, Britain’s sole notable Asian Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), established in
colony was Hong Kong. 1954. An important effect of the
In 1949, a Communist CHINA Korean War was the rapid rein-
takeover in China brought in a NORTH dustrialization of Japan to pro-
government led by Mao Zedong 
VIETNAM vide the United States with
Dien Bien Phu  Hanoi
(1893–1976) that was no longer 1954
Gulf of
supplies.
the plaything of the traditional LAOS
Tonkin The cold war then spread
colonial powers. Chinese commu- Division at the
to Indochina, where nationalists
nism in the new People’s Repub- 17th Parallel had been struggling against the
lic of China emphasized above all postwar revival of French imperi-
the welfare of the peasantry rather THAILAND alism. Their leader, the European-
than the industrial proletariat and educated Ho Chi Minh (1890–
was thus distinct from Marxism 1969), preached both nationalism
and Stalinism. At the same time, and socialism and built a power-
backed by Stalin, Mao instituted CAMBODIA ful organization, the Viet Minh,
reforms such as civil equality for SOUTH to fight colonial rule. He advo-
VIETNAM
women but also imposed Soviet- cated the redistribution of land
Saigon
style collectivization, rapid indus- held by big landowners, especially
trialization, and brutal repression in the rich agricultural area in
of the privileged classes. 0 150 300 miles
southern Indochina where some
The United States and the So- 0 150 300 kilometers
six thousand owners possessed
viet Union were deeply interested more than 60 percent of the land.
in East Asia, the United States be- Indochina, 1954 Viet Minh peasant guerrillas ulti-
1945–1960s D e co lo n i z at i o n i n a C o l d Wa r C l i m at e 899

mately defeated the technologically superior


UN Partition Plan, 1947 LEBANON
French army, which was receiving aid from the
Proposed Jewish state
United States, in the bloody battle of Dien Bien Phu Acre SYRIA
Proposed Arab state 
in 1954. Later that year, the Geneva Conference Israel after the War
Haifa

Sea of
Galilee
carved out an independent Laos and divided Viet- of Independence, 1948
nam along the seventeenth parallel into North and

Jordan R.
Tulkarm
South, each free from French control. The Com- N
Mediterranean Tel Aviv
Nablus
 
munist-backed Viet Minh, under Ho Chi Minh as W E
Sea Jaffa Jericho 
Jerusalem
president, ruled in the north, while the United
S Gaza Hebron Dead
States supported the repressive regime of Ngo Dinh  
Port Said Sea
Diem (1901–1963) in the south. Superpower inter- 

Beersheba
vention undermined the peace agreement while ISRAEL

Suez Cana l
risking nuclear war at any moment.
JORDAN
NEGEV
The Struggle for Identity EGYPT
in the Middle East
SINAI PENINSULA
Independence struggles in the Middle East high-
0 25 50 miles
lighted the world’s growing need for oil and showed
0 25 50 kilometers
the ability of small countries to maneuver between
the superpowers. As in other regions dominated by MAP 27.4 The Partition of Palestine and the
the West, Middle Eastern peoples resisted attempts Creation of Israel, 1947–1948
to reimpose imperial control after 1945. Weakened The creation of the Jewish state of Israel in 1948
by the war, British oil companies wanted to tighten against a backdrop of ongoing wars among Jews and
their grip on profits, as the value of this energy indigenous Arab peoples made the Middle East a
source soared. But the British leaders arrogantly be- powder keg, a situation that has lasted until the
haved as if they were still dominant. For example, present day. The struggle for resources and for
Winston Churchill, paying a visit to Saudi Arabia securing the borders of viable nation-states was at the
heart of these bitter contests, threatening to pull the
during negotiations over the renewal of Britain’s oil
superpowers into a third world war.
rights in the country, insisted that he be served
drinks and cigars, sneering at the Islamic prohibi-
tions against alcohol and tobacco. Outraged by this
insult, Saudi Arabia turned to the United States, had perished in the Holocaust.” Israel opened its
saying that the superpower could take over the oil gates to immigrants, pitting its expansionist am-
consortium so long as Britain was kept out. By play- bitions against those of its Arab neighbors.
ing the powers against one another, Middle Eastern One of those neighbors, Egypt, gained its in-
leaders gained their independence and built their dependence from Britain at the end of the war.
economic clout. Britain, however, retained its dominance in ship-
The legacy of the Holocaust, however, com- ping to Asia through control of the Suez Canal,
plicated the Middle Eastern political scene. West- which was owned by a British-run company. In
ern commitment to secure a Jewish settlement in 1952, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970)
the Middle East stirred up Arabs’ determination became Egypt’s president on a platform of
not to be pushed out of their ancient homeland. economic modernization and true national inde-
When World War II broke out, six hundred thou- pendence — meaning Egyptian control of the
sand Jewish settlers and twice as many Arabs lived, canal. In July 1956, Nasser nationalized the canal:
in intermittent conflict, in British-controlled “I am speaking in the name of every Egyptian
Palestine. In 1947, an exhausted Britain ceded Arab,” he remarked in his speech explaining the
Palestine to the newly created United Nations, takeover, “and in the name of all free countries and
which voted to partition Palestine into an Arab re- of all those who believe in liberty and are ready to
gion and a Jewish one (Map 27.4). Conflicting defend it.” Nasser became a heroic figure to Arabs
claims, however, led to war, and Jewish military in the region, especially when Britain, supported
forces prevailed. On May 14, 1948, the state of by Israel and France, attacked Egypt, bringing the
Israel came into being. “The dream had come Suez crisis to a head while the Hungarian revolt
true,” Golda Meir, the future prime minister of was in full swing. The British branded Nasser an-
Israel, remembered, but “too late to save those who other Hitler and hoped that the Hungarian revolt
900 C h a pt e r 2 7 ■ Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e 1945–1960s

would distract the superpowers. But the United sistance, finally driving the British to withdraw and
States, fearing that Egypt would turn to the USSR, bringing the state of Ghana into being in 1957.
made the British back down. Nasser’s triumph in- Nigeria, the most populous African region, achieved
spired confidence that colonized peoples around independence in 1960, and many other African
the world could gain their independence. states also became free (see Map 27.5).
Where the population was almost entirely
black, independence came less violently than in
New Nations in Africa mixed-race territory with large settler populations.
In sub-Saharan Africa, nationalist leaders roused The eastern coast and southern and central areas
their people to challenge Europe’s increasing de- of Africa had numerous European settlers, who vi-
mand for resources and labor, which resulted only olently resisted giving up their control. In British
in poverty for African peoples.“The European Mer- East Africa, where white settlers ruled in splendor
chant is my shepherd, and I am in want,” went one and where blacks lacked both land and economic
African version of the Twenty-third Psalm. Many opportunity, fighting erupted in the 1950s. African
Africans flocked to shantytowns in cities during the men formed rebel groups named the Land Free-
war, where they kept themselves alive through do- dom Army but nicknamed Mau Mau. With women
ing menial labor for whites and scavenging. At war’s serving as provisioners, messengers, and weapon
end, veterans returned home and protest mounted. stealers, Mau Mau bands, composed mostly of war
Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972), for example, led veterans from the Kikuyu ethnic group, tried to re-
the inhabitants of the British-controlled West cover land from whites. In 1964, the Land Freedom
African Gold Coast in Gandhian-style passive re- Army’s resistance helped Kenya gain formal inde-

MAP 27.5 The Decolonization of Africa,


1951–1990 TUNISIA N
The liberation of Africa from European rule 1957 Mediterranean Sea
MOROCCO
was an uneven process, sometimes 1956
W E

occurring peacefully and at other times ALGERIA S


demanding armed struggle to drive out WESTERN 1962 LIBYA
1951
EGYPT
1922
European settlers, governments, and SAHARA
1975
armies. The difficult—and costly—process 
of nation building following liberation MAURITANIA
involved setting up state institutions, 1960 MALI
1960 NIGER
including educational and other services. SENEGAL 1960 CHAD 
1960 GAMBIA BURKINA 1960
Creating national unity out of many 1965 FASO
SUDAN
1956
DJIBOUTI
1977
ethnicities also took work, except where GUINEA
1958
1960
DAHOMEY 
ETHIOPIA
the struggle against colonialism had GUINEA
IVORY GHANA 1960 NIGERIA
COAST 1957 1960 CENTRAL AFRICAN 1941

already brought people together. BISSAU
1974
1960 CAMEROON REPUBLIC
1960 1960
SIERRA TOGO  SOMALIA
LEONE LIBERIA 1960 
 UGANDA 1960
1961 1820s EQUATORIAL CONGO 1962
 GUINEA GABON (ZAIRE) KENYA
1968 1960 1960 1963
ATLANTIC RWANDA BURUNDI INDIAN
OCEAN CONGO 1962 1962 
1960 TANZANIA OCEAN
1964
1960 Date of independence
Former Ruler ANGOLA MALAWI 1964
1975 ZAMBIA
Great Britain 75
 1964
19

France
UE


BIQ

Italy ZIMBABWE MALAGASY


1980 REPUBLIC
MOZAM

NAMIBIA 1960
Belgium 1990 BOTSWANA
Portugal From 1966
South Africa
Spain
SWAZILAND
Independent before 1968
World War II SOUTH
AFRICA LESOTHO
Areas of colonial conflict (Republic 1961) 1966
0 500 1,000 miles
 Areas of postcolonial conflict
0 500 1,000 kilometers
1945–1960s D e co lo n i z at i o n i n a C o l d Wa r C l i m at e 901

pendence, but only after the British had put hun- the United Nations (UN), convened for the first
dreds of thousands of Kikuyus in concentration time in 1945. One notable change ensured the UN
camps — called a “living hell” and a “British gulag” a greater chance of success than the League of Na-
by those tortured there. The British slaughtered tions: both the United States and the Soviet Union
tens of thousands more. were active members from the outset. The UN’s
France — although eager to regain its great- charter outlined a collective global authority that
power status after its humiliating defeat and occu- would resolve conflicts and provide military pro-
pation in World War II — followed the British tection if any members were threatened by aggres-
pattern of granting independence with relatively sion. In 1955, the Indonesian president Sukarno,
little bloodshed to territories such as Tunisia, Mo- who had succeeded in wrenching Indonesian in-
rocco, and West Africa, where there were few white dependence from the Dutch, sponsored the Ban-
settlers. In Algeria, however, the French fought bit- dung Convention of nonaligned nations to set a
terly to keep control, not only because the French common policy for achieving modernization and
army took such pride in its conquest of Algeria but facing the superpowers. Newly independent coun-
also because a huge European population pros- tries viewed the future with hope but still had to
pered there. In the final days of World War II, the contend with the high costs of nation building and
French army massacred tens of thousands of problems left from decades of colonial exploita-
Algerian nationalists seeking independence; how- tion. Both UN deliberations and meetings of
ever, the liberation movement resurfaced with emerging nations such as the Bandung Conference
ferocious intensity as the Front for National Libera- began raising major global issues such as human
tion (FNL) in 1954. The French dug in, sending rights and inequities between the countries of the
more than four hundred thousand troops. Neither north, which had prospered through colonial
side fought according to the rules of warfare: the plunder, and those of the south, which had been
French savagely tortured Algerian Arabs; Algerian plundered.
women, shielded by gender stereotypes, planted
bombs in European cafés and carried weapons to
assassination sites. “The loss of Algeria,” warned Newcomers Arrive in Europe
one statesman, defending French savagery, “would Amid the uncertainties of wars of liberation and in-
be an unprecedented national disaster,” while the dependence, people from the former colonies began
FNL, far less powerful and smaller in number, took migrating to Europe — a reversal of the nineteenth-
its case to the court of world opinion. Reports of century trend of migration out of Europe. The first
the French army’s barbarous practices against influx of non-Europeans came from Britain’s
Algeria’s Muslim population prompted protests in Caribbean possessions right after the war. Next, la-
Paris and around the globe. bor shortages in Germany, France, Switzerland, and
France’s Fourth Republic collapsed over Algeria, elsewhere drove governments to negotiate with
and Charles de Gaulle returned to power in 1958. southern European countries for temporary work-
While promising an end to the Algerian quagmire, ers. The German situation was particularly dire; in
he demanded the creation of a new republican gov- 1950, the working-age population (people between
ernment, one with a strong president who chose the ages of fifteen and sixty-four) was composed of
the prime minister and could exercise emergency 15.5 million men and 18 million women. In an
power. As de Gaulle’s plans to decolonize Algeria ideological climate that kept women out of the
unfolded, the French military launched a campaign workforce, the government desperately needed im-
of terrorism within France itself. By 1962, de Gaulle migrants. Germany and France next turned to North
had negotiated independence with the Algerian na- African and then to sub-Saharan countries in the
tionalists, and hundreds of thousands of pieds 1960s. Countries in the Soviet bloc took refugees
noirs — or “black feet,” as the French condescend- from war-torn Southeast Asia. Then, in the late
ingly called Europeans in Algeria — as well as their 1970s, clandestine workers from Africa and Asia be-
Arab supporters fled to France. gan entering countries like Italy that had formerly
Violent resistance to the reimposition of colo- exported labor. Scandinavia received immigrants
nial rule also ended the Dutch and Belgian em- from around the world who flocked there because
pires, and as newly independent nations emerged of reportedly greater opportunity and social pro-
in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, structures
arose to promote international security and world-
United Nations (UN): An organization set up in 1945 for collec-
wide deliberations that included representation tive security and for the resolution of international conflicts
from the new states. Foremost among these was through both deliberation and the use of force.
902 C h a pt e r 2 7 ■ Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e 1945–1960s

Newcomers to Europe
World War II disrupted everyday
life and patterns of trade not only
in Europe but also around the
globe. Some of the first people to
immigrate to Europe in search of
postwar opportunity were from
the Caribbean (like these men
photographed in London in 1956)
and South Asia. An expanding
welfare state hired some of them
to do menial work in hospitals,
clinics, and construction, no
matter what their qualifications.
Governments and businesses in
western Europe needed these
new laborers to rebuild after
World War II, and though some
objected, many of these work-
ers—and their wives and chil-
dren—became not only citizens
but political, economic, and
cultural leaders as well.
( © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/ Corbis.)

grams to integrate newcomers. By the 1980s, some grants were determined to stay. They simply ap-
8 percent of the European population was foreign- preciated having jobs and decent living conditions.
born, compared to 6 percent in the United States. As one Chinese immigrant to Spain put it: “If you
The negotiated agreements stipulated that im- want to be a millionaire, you must go to Singa-
migrant workers would have only temporary res- pore; if you want to be rich, you must go to Ger-
ident status, with a regular process of emigration many; but if you want good weather and an easy
back to their homeland. Turks and Algerians life, go to Spain.” The advantages of living in Eu-
would arrive in Germany or France, for example, rope, especially the higher wages, became so over-
to work for a set period of time, return home tem- whelming that clandestine workers began arriving.
porarily to see their families, then head back to As empires collapsed, European populations be-
Europe for another period as guest workers. Ini- came more diverse in terms of race, religion, eth-
tially, these workers were housed in barracks-like nicity, and social life. As in the United States, many
dormitories and few Europeans paid any attention of these newcomers eventually became citizens
to the quality of their lives. They were welcomed and their children achieved high positions in gov-
because they took few social services, not even ernment, business, education, and the professions.
needing education because they came as adults.
For businesspeople and policymakers alike, tem-
Review: What were the results of decolonization?
porary workers made good economic sense. Vir-
tually none of the welfare-state benefits would
apply to them; often their menial work was off the
books. “As they are young,” one French business
publication explained, “the immigrants often pay Daily Life and Culture in
more in taxes than they receive in allowances.” the Shadow of Nuclear War
Most immigrants did jobs that people in the West
were not likely to want: they collected garbage, Both World War II and the cold war shaped post-
built roads, and cleaned homes. Although men war culture. People engaged in heated debate over
predominated among migrant workers, women the responsibility for Nazism, the matter of ethnic
performed similar chores for even less pay. and racial justice, and the merits of the two super-
Seeing Europe as a land of relatively good gov- powers. During this period of intense self-scrutiny,
ernment, wealth, and opportunity, many immi- Europeans discussed the Americanization that
1945–1960s D a i ly L i f e a n d C u ltu r e i n t h e S h a d ow o f N u c l e a r Wa r 903

seemed to accompany the influx of U.S. dollars, madic tribes, Nazi armies, Communist agents, or
consumer goods, and cultural media. Were they national liberation movements in Asia and Africa.
becoming too materialistic, like the Americans, or Many white Europeans looked back nostalgically
too intolerant like the Soviets? As Europeans ex- on their imperial history and produced exotic
amined their war-filled past and their newfound films and novels about conquest and its pageantry.
prosperity, the cold war menaced hopes for peace University courses in Western civilization flour-
and stability. In 1961, the USSR demanded the ished after the war to reaffirm Western values.
construction of a massive wall that physically di-
vided the city of Berlin in half. In October 1962, Holocaust and Resistance Literature. Readers
the world held its breath while the leaders of the around the world snapped up memoirs of the
Soviet Union and the United States nearly pro- death camps and tales of the resistance. Rescued
voked nuclear conflagration over the issue of from the Third Reich in 1940, Nelly Sachs won the
missiles on the island of Cuba. In hindsight, the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966 for her poetry
existence of extreme nuclear threat in an age of about the Holocaust. Anne Frank’s Diary of a
unprecedented prosperity seems utterly bewil- Young Girl (1947), the poignant record of a
dering, but for those who lived with the threat teenager hidden with her family in the back of an
of global annihilation, the dangers were all too Amsterdam house, showed the survival of Western
real. values in the face of Nazi persecution. Amid the
menacing evils of Nazism, Anne wrote that she
never stopped believing that “people are really
Restoring “Western” Values good at heart.” Governments erected permanent
After the depravity of fascism, cultural currents in plaques at spots where resisters had been killed,
Europe and the United States reemphasized uni- and biographies of resistance leaders filled maga-
versal values and spiritual renewal. Some saw the zines and bookstalls. Although resistance efforts
churches as central to the restoration of values were publicized, discussion of collaboration was
through an active commitment to “re-Christianiz- suppressed because it threatened to open old
ing” both the West and the world without concern wounds. Thus, French filmmakers, for instance,
for national boundaries or imperial interests. avoided the subject for decades after the war. Many
Responding to what he saw as a crisis in faith a politician with a Nazi past returned easily to the
caused by affluence and secularism, Pope John new cultural mainstream even as the stories of re-
XXIII (r. 1958–1963) in 1962 convened the Sec- sistance took on mythical qualities.
ond Vatican Council, known as Vatican II. The
Council modernized the liturgy, democratized Existential Philosophy. By the end of the 1940s,
many church procedures, and at the last session in existentialism became the rage among the cultural
1965 renounced church doctrine that condemned elites and students in universities. This philosophy
the Jewish people as guilty of killing Jesus. Vatican explored the meaning of human existence in a
II promoted ecumenism — that is, mutual coop- world where evil flourished. Two of existentialism’s
eration among the world’s faiths — and outreach leaders, Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, had
to the world different from the old spirit of mis- written for the resistance during the war, and in
sionary crusading on behalf of imperialism. its aftermath they confronted the question of “be-
The trend toward a more secular culture con- ing,” given what they perceived as the absence of
tinued despite reform in the churches. In the early God and the tragic breakdown of morality. Their
postwar years, people in the U.S. bloc emphasized answer was that being, or existing, was not the au-
the triumph of a Western heritage, a Western civ- tomatic process either of God’s creation or of birth
ilization, and Western values over fascism, and into the natural world. One was not born with
they characterized the war as one “to defend civi- spiritual goodness in the image of a creator, but
lization [from] a conspiracy against man.” This instead one created an “authentic” existence
definition of West often emphasized the heritage through action and choice. Camus’s novels, such as
of Greece and Rome and the rise of national gov- The Stranger (1942) and The Plague (1947), pon-
ernments in England, France, and western Europe dered the responsibility of humans living under an
as they encountered “barbaric” forces, be these no- evil and corrupt political order. Sartre’s writings
emphasized political activism and resistance under
Vatican II: A Catholic Council held between 1962 and 1965 to
modernize some aspects of church teachings (such as condem- existentialism: A philosophy prominent after World War II de-
nation of Jews), to update the liturgy, and to promote cooper- veloped primarily by Jean-Paul Sartre to stress the importance
ation among the faiths (i.e., ecumenism). of action in the creation of an authentic self.
904 C h a pt e r 2 7 ■ Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e 1945–1960s

ten it. Both writers were celebrities, for the media


spread the new commitment to humane values just
as it had previously spread support for Nazism or
for other political ideas.

Race and Human Rights. People of color in


Africa and Asia contributed new theories of hu-
manity by exploring the topics of liberation and
racial difference. During the 1950s, Frantz Fanon,
a black psychiatrist from the French colony of
Martinique, began analyzing liberation move-
ments. He wrote that the mental functioning of
the colonized person was “traumatized” by the
brutal imposition of outside values. Ruled by guns,
the colonized person knew only violence and
would thus naturally decolonize by means of vio-
lence. Translated into many languages, Fanon’s
Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched
of the Earth (1961) posed the question of how to
decolonize one’s culture and mind.
Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir Simultaneous with decolonization, the com-
The postwar period saw the rise of glossy, richly illustrated weekly mag-
mitment of such long-standing organizations as
azines featuring news and pop culture. The faces of even the most com-
plex philosophers became well known to the public, while their private
the National Association for the Advancement of
lives intrigued readers. The public story of these two existentialists, Colored People (NAACP, founded 1909) to the
who were seen to promote the revival of human values after the night- cause of civil rights intensified in the 1950s. African
mare of fascism, hid the twisted relationship Sartre and Beauvoir actu- Americans had fought in the war to defeat the Nazi
ally had. Does the photo give any hints as to why Sartre and Beauvoir idea of white racial superiority; as civilians, they
and their circle received such media attention? (Editions Gallimard.) now hoped to advance that ideal in the United
States. With its ruling in Brown v. Board of Educa-
tion (1954), the U.S. Supreme Court declared that
totalitarianism. Even though they had never con- segregated education violated the U.S. Constitu-
fronted the enormous problems of making choices tion. The next step in the civil rights movement
while living under fascism, young people in the came in December 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama,
1950s found existentialism compelling and made it when Rosa Parks, a part-time secretary for the lo-
the most fashionable philosophy of the day. cal branch of the NAACP, boarded a city bus and
In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir, Sartre’s lifetime took the first available seat, in the so-called white
companion, published the twentieth century’s section. By sitting in that section, Parks violated
most important work on the condition of women, discriminatory and often brutal Southern laws to-
The Second Sex. Beauvoir believed that most ward African Americans. When a white man found
women had failed to take the kind of action nec- himself without a seat, the driver screamed at
essary to lead authentic lives. Instead, they lived in Parks, “Nigger, move back.” She refused to move,
the world of biological necessity, devoting them- and her action led to a boycott of public transporta-
selves exclusively to having children. Failing to tion in Montgomery and eventually to widespread
create an authentic self through action and accom- nonviolent civil disobedience among African
plishment, they had become its opposite — an ob- Americans throughout the South.
ject, or “Other.” Moreover, instead of struggling to Civil rights groups boycotted discriminatory
define themselves and assert their freedom, businesses, held sit-ins at segregated facilities, and
women passively accepted their lives as defined by registered black voters disfranchised by local reg-
men. Beauvoir’s classic book was a smash hit, in ulations. Many talented leaders emerged, foremost
large part because people thought Sartre had writ- among them Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968),
a Baptist pastor from Georgia whose speeches
roused activists to nonviolent resistance despite
Simone de Beauvoir (see MAWN duh bohv WAHR): Author brutal white retaliation. Strongly influenced by
of The Second Sex, a globally influential work that created an
interpretation of women’s age-old inferior status from existen- Gandhi’s life and practice of nonviolent resistance,
tialist philosophy. King advocated “soulforce” — Gandhi’s satya-
1945–1960s D a i ly L i f e a n d C u ltu r e i n t h e S h a d ow o f N u c l e a r Wa r 905

DOCUMENT

Consumerism, Youth, and the Birth


of the Generation Gap
Young people were at the cutting edge of were very expensive, and which almost My home was very nice, with a great
consumerism and other aspects of Ameri- everyone bought. We wore long checked deal of love, and because of that my par-
canization and economic revival. The skirts, not made of sheep’s wool but of a ents gave me a lot of freedom although my
generation gap, so much talked about in “mixed” wool that was produced out of mother was always concerned. Above
the 1960s, was taking shape earlier be- rags. Then came a short skirt, just above everything she always worried: “What will
cause of youthful openness on matters of the knee. When I went dancing, however, the neighbors think?”
the body and sexuality. Not so mired in everyone wore tight, fashionable skirts. We only spoke about sex with our
the war as their parents, the young were One really had to get oneself into them schoolmates. Certainly nothing about it
ready for adventure — and adults worried with a shoehorn, and one’s backside stood came from my parents, nothing either
about the consequences. Here an Austrian out. I then sewed a kind of cascade on one from the school. No, one could not ask
working-class woman (born in 1933) who side, and thus attired, I proudly went about such things. . . . Everything was
sewed for a living describes her youth dancing. taboo. And boys and girls were strictly seg-
around 1955. At first one wore hair long. But my regated from one another in the school. I
boss was at me so much about it that I had remember at carnival time a boy came to
I bought myself records, American blues it cut. Then with the new permanents school dressed as a girl and was sent right
and jazz, Benny Goodman and Louis Arm- from America one got a totally new look home.
strong. I was happy dancing the boogie- which was flat in the back with a garland
woogie. . . . of curls around the rest. But fashion Source: Birgit Bolognese-Leuchtenmüller et al.,
In fashion I was always very much in changed fast, at one minute such a hairdo eds., Frauen der ersten Stunde 1945–1955. (Vienna:
opposition to my mother. First, there was was modern, but then one had to put a Medieninhaber Europaverlag, 1985), 20–21.
the craze around nylon stockings, which comb in to push it up higher. Translation by Bonnie G. Smith.

graha, or “holding to truth” — to counter aggres- While Soviet youth admired aviator aces, elsewhere
sion. The postwar culture of nonviolence shaped groups such as the “teddy boys” in England (named
the early years of the civil rights movement until after their Edwardian style of dressing) and the
the influence of Fanon and other third world ac- gamberros (“hooligans”) in Spain took their cues
tivists turned it toward more violent activism in from pop culture in rock-and-roll music and film.
pursuit of rights. (See Document, “Consumerism, Youth, and the
Birth of the Generation Gap,” above.)
The leader of rock-and-roll style was the
Consumerism and Shifting
American singer Elvis Presley. Sporting slicked-
Gender Norms back hair and an aviator-style jacket, Presley bucked
Government spending on Europe’s reconstruction his hips and sang sexual lyrics to screaming and
and welfare helped prevent the kind of upheaval devoted fans. Rock-and-roll concerts and movies
that had followed World War I. A rising birthrate galvanized youth across Europe, including the
and bustling youth culture made for an upsurge in Soviet bloc, where teens demanded the production
consumer spending that contrasted with the ab- of blue jeans and leather jackets. In a German
sence of spending in wartime because of a lack of nightclub late in the 1950s, members of a British
anything to consume. Increased emphasis on con- rock group of Elvis fans called the Quarrymen per-
sumer needs created jobs for veterans. Nonetheless, formed, yelling at and fighting with one another
the war affected men’s roles and sense of them- as part of their show. They would soon become
selves. Young men who had missed World War II known as the Beatles. Rebellious young American
adopted the rough, violent style of soldiers, and film stars like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause
roaming gangs posed as tough military types. (1955) and Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953)
906 C h a pt e r 2 7 ■ Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e 1945–1960s

created the beginnings of a conspicuous postwar


youth culture in which the ideal was to be a bad
boy. The rebellious and rough masculine style ap-
peared also in literature, for example in James
Watson’s autobiography, The Double Helix (1968),
in which he described how he and Francis Crick
had discovered the structure of the DNA mole-
cule by stealing other people’s findings. The Ger-
man novelist Heinrich Böll, who decades later
admitted to having been a Nazi soldier, protested
that West Germany’s postwar goal of respectabil-
ity had allowed the reappearance of those groups
of people who had produced Nazism. In Böll’s
novel The Clown (1963), the young middle-class
hero leaves home and takes up life as a vagabond
clown, amusing audiences with clever pan-
tomimes about the folly of their lives. Not a bread-
winner but a bum, he ends up a model bad boy
begging in a railroad station. American “beat” po-
ets and writers vehemently rejected the traditional
ideals of the upright male breadwinner and fam-
ily man.
Both high and low culture revealed that two
horrendous world wars had weakened the Enlight-
enment view of men as rational, responsible achiev-
Zbigniew Cybulski, the Polish James Dean ers. The 1953 inaugural issue of the American
Zbigniew Cybulski depicted a tortured young resist- magazine Playboy, and the hundreds of magazines
ance fighter in the film Ashes and Diamonds (1958) by that came to imitate it, ushered in a startling de-
Andrzej Wajda. Cybulski’s character is to assassinate a piction of a changed male identity. This new me-
Communist resistance leader on what turns out to be dia presented modern man as sexually aggressive
the last day of World War II, and his human dilemma and independent of dull domestic life — just as he
around the act is set amid the chaos in Poland at war’s had been in the war. Breadwinning for a family de-
end. Like existentialist philosophers and other film
stroyed a man’s freedom and sense of self, this new
directors at the time, Wajda captured the debate over
human values and the interest in young heroes of the
male culture claimed. The notion of men’s citizen-
postwar era. (Photofest.)

Rock and Roll


Rock and roll, born in the 1950s,
swept cities around the world
with unprecedented energy and
speed. Teen women wore the
voluminous skirts that the “new
look” had made fashionable in
the late 1940s, and young men
sported hairdos like those of Elvis
Presley or Zbigniew Cybulski. East
and west, teens thronged and
even rioted to attend rock
concerts and would continue to
do so despite public criticism and
even police action against the
movement. (ullstein bild/ The Granger
Collection, New York.)
1945–1960s D a i ly L i f e a n d C u ltu r e i n t h e S h a d ow o f N u c l e a r Wa r 907

ship had come to include not just political and eco- refrigerators and washing machines raised stan-
nomic rights but also freedom of sexual expres- dards for housekeeping by giving women the
sion outside the restrictions of the family. means to be “perfect” housewives.
In contrast, Western society promoted a post- However, new-look propaganda did not nec-
war model for women that differed from their essarily mesh with reality or even with all social
wartime roles, adopting instead the fascist notion norms. Dressmaking fabric was still being rationed
of women’s inferiority. Rather than being essential in the late 1940s; even in the next decade, women
workers and heads of families in the absence of could not always get enough of it to make volu-
their men, postwar women were to symbolize the minous skirts. In Europe, where people had barely
return to normalcy by leading a domestic and enough to eat, the underwear needed for new-look
submissive life at home. Late in the 1940s, the fash- contours simply did not exist — although the
ion house of Christian Dior launched a clothing semistarved look was, for many, easy enough to
style called the “new look.” It featured a pinched achieve. In Spain, women were said to perform
waist, tightly fitting bodices, and voluminous their role best by being religious and concerned
skirts. This restoration of the nineteenth-century with the spiritual well-being of their families.
female silhouette invited a renewal of clearly de- Spanish advertising, however, emphasized the
fined gender roles. Women’s magazines publicized physical beauty available through cosmetics and
the new look and urged women to give up ambi- clothing; it urged women to buy things that would
tions for themselves. Even in the hard-pressed make their families look better too. European
Soviet Union, domesticity flourished; recipes for women continued to work outside the home after
homemade face creams, for example, passed from the war; indeed, mature women and mothers were
woman to woman, and beauty parlors did a brisk working more than ever before — especially in the
business. In the West, household products such as Soviet bloc (Figure 27.2). The female workforce

FIGURE 27.2 Women in the Workforce, 1950–1960


In contrast to the situation after World War I, women did not leave the workforce in great numbers after
World War II. In fact, Europe faced labor shortages. In Soviet-bloc countries, women vastly outnumbered
men because so many men had died in the war, and the task of rebuilding demanded every available
worker. In western Europe, women’s workforce participation was lower, and countries like West Germany
tried to keep women out of the labor pool to distinguish themselves from the Communist bloc. Note the
increase in women’s service-sector employment in just one decade. (From World Employment 1996–1997: National
Policies in a Global Context (Geneva: International Labour Office, 1996), 7.)

Member Countries Member Countries


of Council of Mutual of European
Economic Assistance1 Economic Community 2
1950 1960 1950 1960

Female as % of total population 54.9 53.9 51.8 51.6

Female labor force as % of


total labor force 48.5 48.7 31.1 31.4

Distribution of female
labor force (%):
Agriculture 63.3 50.0 26.1 16.8
Industry 16.9 22.6 29.3 31.3
Services 19.8 27.4 44.6 51.9

1 Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and USSR
2 Belgium, Denmark, France, West Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and United Kingdom
908 C h a pt e r 2 7 ■ Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e 1945–1960s

was going through a profound revolution as it television become an important consumer item for
gradually became populated by wives and moth- most Europeans. In the 1950s, radio was still king
ers who would hold jobs all their lives despite be- and consumerism a growing mass phenomenon.
ing bombarded with images of nineteenth-century
femininity.
The advertising business presided over the The Culture of Cold War
creation of these cultural messages as well as over Films, books, and other cultural productions
the rise of more widespread consumerism that ac- promoted the cold war even when they conveyed
companied recovery. Guided by marketing ex- an antiwar message. Books like George Orwell’s
perts, western Europeans imitated Americans by 1984 (1949) were claimed by both sides in the
driving some forty million motorized vehicles, in- cold war as supporting their position. Ray Brad-
cluding motorbikes, cars, buses, and trucks. They bury’s popular Fahrenheit 451 (1953), whose
drank Coca-Cola and used American detergents, title refers to the temperature at which books
toothpaste, and soap. The number of radios in would burn, condemned curtailment of intellec-
homes grew steadily and even as radio remained tual freedom on both sides of the cold war di-
the most influential medium, television loomed on vide. In the USSR, official writers churned out
the horizon. In the United States, two-thirds of the spy stories, and espionage novels topped best-
population had TV sets in the early 1950s, while seller lists in the West. Casino Royale (1953), by
in Britain only one-fifth did. Only in the 1960s did the British author Ian Fleming, introduced the

Barbara Hepworth, Single Form


(1961–1964)
Like others in the West, British sculptor
Barbara Hepworth was strangely buoyed
by the war, hoping that it meant the dawn
of a new age. Full of renewed energy,
Hepworth believed that art should follow
pure forms, which some called “primitive,”
as a way of expressing enduring values.
Her twenty-one-foot abstract sculpture
Single Form, shown here as a plaster cast,
was installed at the United Nations build-
ing in New York to commemorate the
life of her friend Dag Hammarskjöld, who
served as secretary-general of the United
Nations from 1953 until his death in 1961.
“[We] depend on the pure courage of the
UN,” Hepworth wrote of the sculpture
created to honor Hammarskjöld’s life and
work. (Photo Morgan-Wells, London / © Bowness,
Hepworth Estate.)
1945–1960s D a i ly L i f e a n d C u ltu r e i n t h e S h a d ow o f N u c l e a r Wa r 909

fictional British intelligence agent James Bond, conditions, neorealist directors conveyed their dis-
who tested his wit and physical prowess against tance both from middle-class prosperity and from
Communist and other political villains. Soviet fascist bombast. “We are in rags? Let’s show every-
pilots would not take off for flights when the one our rags,” said one Italian director. Many of
work of Yulian Simyonov, the Russian counter- these left-leaning directors associated support for
part of Ian Fleming, was playing on radio or tel- the suffering masses with the Communist cause,
evision. Reports of Soviet- and U.S.-bloc while on the pro-American side, the film Doctor
characters — fictional or real — facing one an- Zhivago became a hit celebrating individualism
other down became part of everyday life. and condemning the Communist way of life.
High and low culture alike contributed to the Overtly or covertly, the cold war affected virtually
cold-war climate. Even as Europe’s major cities re- all aspects of cultural life.
built their war-ravaged opera houses and muse-
ums, they could not hold back “Americanization.”
Americans had money to spend, and American The Atomic Brink
businesses produced an array of tempting prod- Radio was also at the center of the cold war, con-
ucts. While many Europeans were proponents of veying messages about the threat of nuclear
American business practices, the Communist annihilation at the hands of the villainous super-
Party in France led a successful campaign to ban power enemy. As superpower rivalry heated up,
Coca-Cola for a time in the 1950s. Soviet maga- radio’s propaganda function remained as strong
zines carried fashion photos praised for their as it had been in wartime. During the late 1940s
“decency,” in contrast to the highly sexualized gar- and early 1950s, the Voice of America, with its
ments for women to the west. Both sides also tried main studio in Washington, D.C., broadcast in
to win the cold war by pouring vast sums of money thirty-eight languages from one hundred trans-
into high culture, though the United States did it mitters and provided an alternative source of
by secretly channeling government money into news for people in eastern Europe. Its Soviet
foundations to award fellowships to artists or pro- counterpart broadcast in Russian around the
mote favorable journalism around the world. As clock but initially spent much of its wattage jam-
leadership of the art world passed to the United ming U.S. programming. Russian programs
States, art became part of the cold war. Abstract stressed a uniform Communist culture and val-
expressionists such as American artist Jackson ues; the United States, by contrast, emphasized
Pollock produced nonrepresentational works by diverse programming and promoted debate
dripping and spattering paint; they also spoke of about current affairs. The contrast was meant to
the importance of the artist’s self-discovery in the show the dictatorial nature of Communist values
process of painting. “If I stretch my arms next to versus the democratic ones of choice and free
the rest of myself and wonder where my fingers speech. The public also heard reports of nuclear
are, that is all the space I need as a painter,” com- buildups and tests of emergency power facilities
mented Dutch-born artist Willem de Kooning on sent them scurrying for cover. Children rehearsed
his relationship with his canvas. Said to exemplify at school for nuclear war, while at home families
Western freedom, such painters were awarded built bomb shelters in their backyards.
commissions at the secret direction of the U.S. It was in this pervasive climate of cold war that
Central Intelligence Agency. John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917–1963) became
The USSR openly promoted an official U.S. president in 1960. Kennedy represented
Communist culture. When a show of abstract art American affluence and youth yet also the nation’s
opened in the Soviet Union, Khrushchev yelled commitment to cold war. Kennedy’s media advis-
that it was “dog shit.” Pro-Soviet critics in western ers and ghostwriters recognized how perfect a
Europe saw U.S.-style abstract art as “an infantile match their articulate, good-looking president was
sickness” and supported socialist realist art with for the power of television. A war hero and an early
“human content,” showing the condition of the fan of the fictional cold war spy James Bond,
workers and the oppressed races in the United Kennedy escalated the cold war. Some of this es-
States. The Italian filmmakers Roberto Rossellini, calation occurred over the nearby island of Cuba,
in Open City (1945), and Vittorio De Sica, in The where in 1959 the Communist leader Fidel Castro
Bicycle Thief (1948), developed the neorealist tech-
nique that challenged Hollywood-style sets and
John Fitzgerald Kennedy: U.S. president, from 1961 to 1963,
costumes by using ordinary characters living in who faced off with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in the Cuban
devastated, impoverished cities. By depicting stark missile crisis.
910 C h a pt e r 2 7 ■ Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e 1945–1960s

Bomb Shelter
Americans expressed their fear of nuclear annihilation by building tens of thousands of
individual bomb shelters. Stocked with several months’ supply of canned food and other
goods, the shelters were to protect a family from the nuclear blast itself and from the
disorder that might follow nuclear war. The government also prepared shelters to shield top
officials and to ensure the continuation of civil society despite vast casualties and massive
destruction. ( © Corbis.)

(1926–) had come to power by overthrowing the defense spending. In October 1962, tensions came
corrupt government of the dictator Fulgencio to a head in the Cuban missile crisis, when the
Batista. After being rebuffed by the United States, CIA reported the installation of silos to house So-
Castro aligned his new government with the So- viet medium-range missiles in Cuba (Map 27.6).
viet Union. In the spring of 1961, Kennedy, as- Kennedy responded forcefully, ordering a naval
sured by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of blockade of ships headed for Cuba and demand-
success, launched an invasion of Cuba at the Bay ing removal of the installations. For several days,
of Pigs intended to overthrow Castro. The inva- the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. Then,
sion failed miserably and humiliated the United between October 25 and 27, Khrushchev and
States. Kennedy negotiated an end to the crisis. Kennedy
Cold war rivalries continued to escalate. In spent the remainder of his short life working to
the summer of 1961, East German workers, su- improve nuclear diplomacy; Khrushchev did the
pervised by police and the army, stacked bales of same. In the summer of 1963, less than a year af-
barbed wire across miles of the city’s east–west ter the shock of the Cuban missile crisis, the
border as the beginning of the Berlin Wall. The United States and the Soviet Union signed a test-
divided city had served as an escape route by
which some three million people, including
Cuban missile crisis: The confrontation in 1962 between the
skilled workers and professionals, had fled to the United States and the USSR over Soviet installation of missile
West. Meanwhile, Kennedy called for increased sites off the U.S. coast in Cuba.
1945–1960s C o n c lu s i o n 911

N
Union and the United States, each controlling

New
York
atomic arsenals, overshadowed European leader-

Washington, D.C.
W E
ship and engaged in a menacing cold war, com-
S plete with the threat of nuclear annihilation. The
UNITED STATES

Atlanta ATLANTIC cold war saturated everyday life, giving birth to
OCEAN bomb shelters, spies, purges, and witch hunts —
 Dallas
New
Houston  Orleans
all of them creating a culture of anxiety that kept

people in constant fear of imminent war. Postwar

Homestead Miami

Gulf of Mexico
 Key West diplomacy divided Europe into an eastern bloc
1,100 miles
 dominated by the Soviets and a freer western bloc
1,100 miles Guantanamo
Havana CUBA

mostly allied with the United States. In this omi-
Mexico Bay of Puerto Rico
City
Pigs
(U.S.) nous atmosphere, starving, homeless, and refugee
MEXICO people joined the task of rebuilding a devastated
Caracas
U.S. blockade zone
 Europe.
Range of Soviet missiles VENEZUELA Despite the chaos at the end of 1945, both
Soviet missile and
halves of Europe recovered almost miraculously
jet bomber bases COLOMBIA in little more than a decade. Eastern Europe,
U.S. air force base 0 250 500 miles
where wartime devastation and ongoing violence
U.S. naval base were greatest, experienced less prosperity, while in
0 250 500 kilometers
western Europe wartime technology served as the
MAP 27.6 The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962 basis for new consumer goods and welfare-state
Just off the coast of the southeastern United States, planning improved health. Spurred on by aid
Cuba posed a threat to North American security once from the United States, western Europe formed
the Soviet Union began stocking the island with silos the successful Common Market, which became
for missiles. The United States reacted vigorously,
the foundation for greater European unity. As a
insisting on the dismantling of the missile sites.
result of the war, Germany recovered as two coun-
Although his generals were prepared for nuclear war
with the Soviet Union, President Kennedy refused tries, not one, and the weakened European pow-
to take this step, and Soviet premier Khrushchev ers shed their colonies. Newly independent
similarly backed down from a military confrontation. nations emerged in Asia and Africa, leaving in
■ Explain the placement of missiles in Cuba and the question whether there would be further redistri-
U.S. reaction to it. bution of global power. Often serving as pawns in
the cold war, these new countries faced the prob-
lems of creating stable political structures and a
sound economic future. As the West as a whole
ban treaty outlawing the explosion of nuclear grew in prosperity, its cultural life focused para-
weapons in the atmosphere and in the seas. Al- doxically on eradicating the evils of Nazism while
lowing the superpowers to back away from the enjoying the new phenomenon of mass con-
brink, the treaty held out hope that the cold war sumerism. But above all, the West — and the rest
and its culture would give way to something of the world — had to survive the atomic rivalry
better. of the superpowers.

Review: How did the cold war affect everyday culture


and social life? For Further Exploration
■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
end of the book.
Conclusion
■ For additional primary-source material from
Nikita Khrushchev was ousted in 1964 for his er- this period, see Chapter 27 in Sources of THE
ratic policies and for the Cuban missile crisis. In MAKING OF THE WEST, Third Edition.
his forced retirement, he expressed regret at his
brutal treatment of Boris Pasternak: “We should- ■ For Web sites and documents related to
n’t have banned [Doctor Zhivago]. There’s noth- topics in this chapter, see Make History
ing anti-Soviet in it.” But the postwar decades at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
were grim times. Two superpowers, the Soviet
912
MA P P I N G T H E W E ST
N

C h a pt e r 2 7
W E
ARCTIC OCEAN
S


NORWAY

Th e C o l d Wa r a n d t h e R e m a k i n g o f E u ro p e
ICELAND
E. U S S R
CANADA
U.K. DEN. GER.
POL. CZECH.
W.
LUX. GER. HUN.
FRANCE ROM. MONGOLIA

ITALY BULG.
SPAIN N. KOREA
UNITED STATES GR. TURKEY 1948 JAPAN
1 CYP. 1960 CHINA S. KOREA
MOROCCO JOR. 1946 1948
1956 IRAN PAKISTAN
ALGERIA LIBYA KUWAIT
1962 1947 LAOS
1951 EGYPT 1961
SAUDI INDIA 1953 PACIFIC OCEAN
MEXICO MAURITANIA MALI ARABIA 1947 BURMA VIETNAM
1960 NIGER 1948 1954
2 1960 1960 CHAD SUDAN
7 1960 CAMBODIA
3 1956
NIGERIA 1953
VENEZUELA 4 1960 SOMALIA
6 13 1960
5 11 SRI LANKA MALAYSIA
COLOMBIA 8 9 10 14 1948 1963
12 CONGO
(ZAIRE) 15 INDONESIA
1960 16 1949
BRAZIL
CONGO INDIAN
1960
PACIFIC OCEAN PERU
ANGOLA OCEAN
BOLIVIA
ATLANTIC MALAGASY
REPUBLIC
OCEAN 1960
AUSTRALIA
SOUTH
CHILE AFRICA
ARGENTINA
Decolonized (with date), 1945–1962
1 Tunisia 9 Togo
NEW
2 Senegal 10 Dahomey ZEALAND
3 Gambia 11 Cameroon
4 Guinea 12 Gabon
5 Sierra Leone 13 Central African Republic
6 Ivory Coast 14 Uganda
7 Burkina Faso 15 Rwanda
8 Ghana 16 Burundi

Warsaw Pact members


0 1,000 2,000 miles
NATO members
0 1,000 2,000 kilometers

1945–1960s
The Cold War World, c. 1960
Superpower rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union resulted in the division of much of the industrial world into cold war
alliances. Simultaneously, the superpowers vied for the allegiance of the newly decolonized countries of Asia and Africa by providing military,
economic, and technological assistance. Wars such as those in Vietnam and Korea were also products of the cold war. ■ How might this map
be said to convey the idea that a first, second, and third world existed? How does this map differ from the map on page 760?
1945–1960s C h a pt e r R ev i ew 913

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
Key Terms and People Making Connections
cold war (880) welfare state (893) 1. What was the political climate after World War II, and how
Truman Doctrine (884) Nikita Khrushchev (896) did it differ from the political climate after World War I?
Marshall Plan (886) decolonization (897) 2. What were the relative strengths of the two European
North Atlantic Treaty United Nations (UN) blocs in the cold war?
Organization (NATO) (901)
3. What were the main developments of postwar cultural life?
(887) Vatican II (903)
Warsaw Pact (887) existentialism (903) 4. Why did decolonization follow the war so immediately?
Christian Democrats Simone de Beauvoir (904)
(889) John Fitzgerald Kennedy
European Economic (909) For practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other
Community (EEC or study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
Cuban missile crisis bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
Common Market) (910)
(892)

Review Questions
1. What were the major events in the development of the cold
war?
2. What factors drove recovery in western Europe? In eastern
Europe?
3. What were the results of decolonization?
4. How did the cold war affect everyday culture and social life?

Important Events

1945 Cold war begins 1956 Egyptian leader General Abdel Nasser nationalizes
1947 India and Pakistan win independence from Britain the Suez Canal; uprising in Hungary against USSR

1948 State of Israel established 1957 Boris Pasternak publishes Doctor Zhivago; USSR
launches Sputnik; Treaty of Rome establishes the
1949 Mao Zedong leads Communist revolution in China; European Economic Community (Common Market)
Simone de Beauvoir publishes The Second Sex
1958 Fifth Republic begins in France
1950 Korean War begins
1962 The United States and USSR face off in the Cuban
1953 Stalin dies; Korean War ends missile crisis
1954 Brown v. Board of Education prohibits segregated
schools in the United States; Vietnamese forces
defeat the French at Dien Bien Phu
Postindustrial Society C H A P T E R

and the End of the


Cold War Order
28
1960s–1989 The Revolution in
Technology 916
• The Information Age:
Television and Computers
• The Space Age
• The Nuclear Age
n January 1969, Jan Palach, a twenty-one-year-old philosophy • Revolutions in Biology and

I student, drove to a main square in Prague, doused his body with


gasoline, and set himself on fire. Before that, he had put aside his
coat with a message in it demanding an end to Communist repression
Reproductive Technology

Postindustrial Society
and Culture 921
• Multinational Corporations
in Czechoslovakia. It promised more such suicides unless the govern- • The New Worker
ment lifted state censorship. The manifesto was signed: “Torch No. 1.” • The Boom in Education and Research
• Changing Family Life and the
Jan Palach’s suicide stunned his nation. Black flags hung from windows, Generation Gap
and close to a million people flocked to Palach’s funeral. In the next • Art, Ideas, and Religion in a
Technocratic Society
months, more Czech youth followed Palach’s grim example, setting
themselves ablaze for freedom. Protesting Cold War
Conditions 927
Before his self-immolation, Jan Palach was an ordinary, well-educated • Cracks in the Cold War Order
citizen of an increasingly technological society. Having recovered from • The Growth of Citizen Activism
• 1968: Year of Crisis
World War II, the West shifted from a manufacturing economy based
on heavy industry to a service economy that depended on technical The Testing of Superpower
knowledge in such fields as engineering, health care, and finance. This Domination and the End
of the Cold War 936
new service economy has been labeled “postindustrial.” To staff it, in- • A Changing Balance of World Power
stitutions of higher education sprang up at a dizzying rate and attracted • The Western Bloc Meets Challenges
with Reform
more students than ever before. Young men like Jan Palach — along • Collapse of Communism in the
Soviet Bloc
with women, minorities, and many other activists in the 1960s and
1970s — far from being satisfied with their rising status, struck out
against war and cold war, inequality and repression, and even against
technology itself. From Czechoslovakia to the United States and around
the world, protesters warned that postindustrial nations in general and
the superpowers in particular were becoming technological and polit-
ical monsters. Before long, countries in both the Soviet and U.S. blocs
were on the verge of political revolution.

Shrine to Jan Palach


Jan Palach was a martyr to the cause of an independent Czechoslovakia. His self-
immolation on behalf of that cause roused the nation. As makeshift shrines sprang
up and multiplied throughout the 1970s and 1980s, they served as common rallying
points that ultimately contributed to the overthrow of Communist rule. Václav
Havel, the future president of a liberated Czechoslovakia, was arrested early in the
momentous year of 1989 for commemorating Palach’s sacrifice at the shrine. In light
of so many other deaths in the Soviet bloc, why did Jan Palach’s death become so
powerful a force? (© Marc Garanger / Corbis.)
915
916 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

The challenges posed by young reformers powered economies. Smaller gadgets — electric
came at a bad time for the superpowers and other popcorn poppers, portable radios and tape play-
leading European states. An agonizing war in Viet- ers, automatic garage door openers — made life
nam weakened the United States, and China con- more pleasant. The increased use of machines led
fronted the Soviet Union on its borders. In a one philosopher to insist that people were no
dramatic turn of events, the oil-producing states longer self-sufficient individuals, but rather
of the Middle East formed a cartel and reduced the cyborgs — that is, humans who needed machines
export of oil to the leading Western nations in the to sustain ordinary life processes.
1970s. The resulting price increases helped bring
on a recession, threatening the ballooning postin-
The Information Age:
dustrial economy. Extremists turned to terrorism
to achieve their goals, while despite their wealth Television and Computers
and military might, the superpowers could not Information technology powered change in the
guarantee that they would emerge victorious in postindustrial period that began in the 1960s just
this age of increasingly global competition. As the as innovations in textile making and the spread of
USSR experienced invisible economic decay, a railroads had in the nineteenth century. This tech-
reform-minded leader — Mikhail Gorbachev — nology’s ability to transmit knowledge, culture,
directed his nation to change course and initiated and political information globally made it even
new policies of economic and political freedom. It more revolutionary. In the first half of the twenti-
was too late: in 1989, the Soviet bloc collapsed, eth century, mass journalism, film, and radio had
helped by countless acts of protest, not least of begun to forge a more uniform society based on
them the individual heroism of Jan Palach and his shared information and images; in the last third of
fellow human torches. the century, television, computers, and telecom-
munications made information even more acces-
sible and, some critics said, made culture more
Focus Question: How did technological, economic,
and social change contribute to increased activism, and standardized. Once-remote villages were linked to
what were the political results of that activism? urban capitals on the other side of the world thanks
to videocassettes, satellite television, and telecom-
munications. Because of technology, protests
became media events worldwide.
The Revolution in Technology
Television. Americans embraced television in
The protests of the 1960s began in the midst of as- the 1950s; following the postwar recovery, it was
tonishing technological advances. These advances Europe’s turn. Between the mid-1950s and the
steadily boosted prosperity and changed daily life mid-1970s, Europeans rapidly adopted television
in the West, where people awoke to instantaneous as a major entertainment and communications
radio and television news, worked with comput- medium. In 1954, just 1 percent of French house-
ers, and used new forms of contraceptives to con- holds had television; by 1974, almost 80 percent
trol reproduction. Satellites orbiting the earth did. With the average viewer tuning in about four
relayed telephone signals and collected military in- and a half hours a day, the audience for newspa-
telligence, while around the world nuclear energy pers and theater declined. “We devote more . . .

■ 1968 Revolution in Czechoslovakia; ■ 1973 North Vietnam and the United


■ 1963 Friedan, widespread student uprisings States sign peace treaty; OPEC oil embargo
The Feminine Mystique
■ 1966 Brandt’s Ostpolitik ■ 1972 SALT I

1965 1970 1975


■ 1967 First successful ■ 1973–1976 Solzhenitsyn,
human heart transplant The Gulag Archipelago

■ 1969 U.S. moon landing


1960s–1989 Th e R evo lu t i o n i n Te c h n o lo g y 917

hours per year to television than [to] any other which became household decorations. Heads of
single artifact,” one sociologist commented in state could usually bump regular programming. In
1969. As with radio, European governments funded the 1960s, French president Charles de Gaulle
television broadcasting with tax dollars and con- appeared frequently on television, using the
trolled TV programming to avoid what they per- grandiose gestures of an imperial ruler to stir pa-
ceived as the substandard fare offered by American triotism. As electoral success in western Europe in-
commercial TV; instead they featured drama, bal- creasingly depended on cultivating a successful
let, concerts, variety shows, and news. The welfare media image, political staffs needed media experts
state, in Europe at least, thereby gained more as much as they did policy experts.
power to shape daily life.
The emergence of communications satellites Computers. Just as revolutionary as television,
and video recorders in the 1960s brought compe- the computer reshaped work in science, defense,
tition to state-sponsored television. Worldwide and ultimately industry. Computers had evolved
audiences enjoyed broadcasts from throughout dramatically since the first electronic ones, like the
the West as satellite technology allowed for the Colossus used by the British in 1943 to decode
global transmission of sports broadcasts and Nazi military and diplomatic messages. Several
other programming. What statesmen and intellec- countries had devised these machines for process-
tuals considered the junk programming of the ing information, all of them primitive by later
United States — soap operas, game shows, standards in being gigantic, slow, noisy, and able
sitcoms — arrived dubbed in the native language. only to decode. With growing use in civilian in-
Feature films on videotape became readily avail- dustry and business after the war, computing ma-
able to television stations (although not yet to in- chines shrank from the size of a gymnasium in the
dividuals) and competed with made-for-television 1940s to that of an attaché case in the mid-1980s.
movies and other programs. The competition in- They also became both far less expensive and
creased in 1969 when the Sony Corporation intro- fantastically more powerful, thanks to the devel-
duced the first affordable color videocassette opment of increasingly sophisticated digital elec-
recorder to the consumer market. Critics com- tronic circuitry implanted on tiny silicon chips,
plained that, although TV provided more infor- which replaced the clumsy radio tubes used in
mation than had ever been available before, the 1940s and 1950s computers. Within a few decades,
resulting shared culture represented the lowest the computer could perform hundreds of millions
common denominator. of operations per second and the price of the in-
East and west, television exercised a powerful tegrated circuit at the heart of computer technol-
political and cultural influence. Even in a rural area ogy would fall to less than a dollar.
of the Soviet Union, more than 70 percent of the Computers changed the pace and patterns of
inhabitants watched television regularly in the late work not only by speeding up and easing tasks but
1970s. Educational programming united the far- also by performing many operations that workers
flung population of the USSR by broadcasting had once done themselves. In garment making, for
shows designed to advance Soviet culture. At the example, experienced workers no longer painstak-
same time, with travel impossible or forbidden to ingly figured out how to arrange patterns on cloth
many, shows about foreign lands were among the for maximum economy. Instead, a computer spec-
most popular — as were postcards from these lands, ified instructions for the best positioning of pat-

■ 1981 Reagan becomes U.S. president ■ 1989 Revolt in China’s


Tiananmen Square;
■ 1979–1980 U.S. hostage crisis in Iran ■ 1985 Gorbachev becomes Communist regimes
Soviet premier ousted in Eastern Europe;
■ 1978–1979 Islamic revolution in Iran Berlin Wall demolished

1980 1985 1990


■ 1978 First test-tube baby ■ 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster;
Spain joins the European Community
■ 1980 Solidarity resists Polish communism;
Thatcher begins dismantling Britain’s welfare state
918 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

THE SPACE AGE

1957 Soviet Union launches the first artificial satellite,


Sputnik
1961 Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbits the earth; cap-
sule carrying Alan Shepard Jr. makes first U.S. subor-
bital flight
1965 United States launches first commercial communica-
tions satellite, Intelsat I
1969 U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin walk
on moon’s surface
1970S –present Soviet Union and United States individually and in
collaboration with various countries perform space
station maneuvers, lunar probes, and other scientific
experiments
1971 Soviet Union attempts unsuccessfully to put the space
station Salyut 1 into orbit
1973 United States puts the experimental space station
Skylab into orbit
1976 Viking spacecraft explores Mars
1979–1986 Spacecraft Voyager makes successful flybys of Jupiter,
Valentina Tereshkova, Russian Cosmonaut
Saturn, and Uranus
People sent into space were heroes, representing
modern values of courage, strength, and well-honed
skills. Insofar as the space age was part of the cold
war race for superpower superiority, the USSR held
tern pieces, and trained workers, usually women,
the lead during the first decade. The Soviets trained
followed the machine’s directions. Soon, like out- both women and men, and the 1963 flight of
workers of the eighteenth century, people could Valentina Tereshkova—the first woman in space—
work for large industries at home, connected to a supported Soviet claims of gender equality in
central mainframe. In 1981, the French phone contrast to the all-male superstar image of the early
company launched a public Internet server, the U.S. space program. (Hulton Archive / Getty Images.)
Minitel — a forerunner of the World Wide Web —
through which individuals could make reserva-
tions, perform stock transactions, and obtain creasingly complex space flights that tested humans’
information. ability to survive the process of space exploration, in-
Whereas during the Industrial Revolution me- cluding weightlessness. Astronauts walked in space,
chanical power replaced human energy, the com- endured weeks (and later months) in orbit, docked
puter technology of the information revolution with other craft, fixed satellites, and carried out
added to brain power. Many observers believed experiments for the military and private industry. In
that computers would profoundly expand mental addition, a series of unmanned rockets launched
capacity, providing, in the words of one scientist, weather, television, intelligence, and other commu-
“boundless opportunities . . . to resolve the nications satellites into orbit around the earth.
puzzles of cosmology, of life, and of the society of In July 1969, a worldwide television audience
man.” Others countered that computers pro- watched as U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong and Ed-
grammed people, reducing human initiative and win “Buzz” Aldrin walked on the moon’s surface —
the ability to solve problems. As the 1970s closed, the climactic moment in the space race. The space
such predictions were still untested and the infor- race also drove Western cultural developments. As-
mation revolution was just beginning. tronauts and cosmonauts were perhaps the era’s
most admired heroes: Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn,
and Valentina Tereshkova — the first woman in
The Space Age space — topped the list. A whole new fantasy world
The “space race” between the United States and the developed. Children’s toys and games revolved in-
Soviet Union began when the Soviets launched the creasingly around space. Films such as 2001: A
satellite Sputnik in 1957. The competition led to in- Space Odyssey (1968) portrayed space explorers an-
1960s–1989 Th e R evo lu t i o n i n Te c h n o lo g y 919

swering questions about life that were formerly the multiplied a hundredfold — a growth that did not
domain of church leaders. Polish author Stanislaw include the nuclear-powered submarines and air-
Lem’s popular novel Solaris (1961), later made into craft carriers, which also multiplied in this period.
a film, described space-age individuals engaged in Because of the vast costs and complex proce-
personal quests and drew readers and ultimately dures involved in building, supplying, running,
viewers into a futuristic fantasy. and safeguarding nuclear reactors, governments
The space age grew out of cold war concerns, provided substantial aid and even financed nuclear
and advances in rocket technology not only power plants almost entirely. “A state does not
launched vehicles into space but also powered de- count,” announced French president Charles de
structive missiles. At the same time, the space age Gaulle, “if it does not . . . contribute to the techno-
promoted global cooperation. From the 1960s on, logical progress of the world.” The watchword for
U.S. spaceflights often involved the participation all governments building nuclear reactors was tech-
of other countries such as Great Britain and the nological development — a new function for the
Netherlands. In 1965, an international consor- modern state. The USSR sponsored plants
tium headed by the United States launched the throughout the Soviet bloc as part of the drive to
first commercial communications satellite, Intel- modernize, but it was not alone — Western
sat I; by the 1970s, some 150 countries worked nations, too, continued to rely on nuclear power.
together at more than four hundred stations In 2006, France produced some 80 percent of its
worldwide to maintain global satellite communi- energy, and the United States 20 percent, via nu-
cations. Although some 50 percent of satellites clear power plants. More than thirty countries had
were for spying purposes, the rest made interna- substantial nuclear installations in the twenty-first
tional communication possible and transnational century, with more under construction.
collaboration a necessity.
Pure science flourished amid the space race.
Revolutions in Biology
Astronomers used mineral samples from the
moon to calculate the age of the solar system with and Reproductive Technology
unprecedented precision. Unmanned spacecraft A revolution in the life sciences brought about dra-
provided data on cosmic radiation, magnetic matic new health benefits and ultimately changed
fields, and infrared sources. Although the media reproduction itself. In 1952, scientists Francis
depicted the space age as one of warrior astronauts Crick, an Englishman, and James Watson, an
conquering space, breakthroughs in space explo- American, discovered the structure of DNA, the
ration and astronomy depended on the products material in a cell’s chromosomes that carries
of technology, including the radio telescope, which hereditary information. Simultaneously, other sci-
depicted space by receiving, measuring, and calcu- entists were working on “the pill”— an oral con-
lating nonvisible rays. These findings reinforced traceptive for women that capped more than a
the so-called big bang theory of the origin of the century of scientific work in the field of birth con-
universe, first outlined in the 1930s by American trol. Still other breakthroughs lay ahead, including
astronomer Edwin Hubble and given crucial sup- ones that revolutionized conception and made sci-
port in the 1950s by the discovery of a low level of entific duplication of species possible.
radiation permeating the universe in all directions.
The big bang theory proposes that the universe orig- Understanding DNA. Crick and Watson solved
inated from the explosion of superdense, superhot the mystery of biological inheritance when they
matter some ten to twenty billion years ago. demonstrated the structure of DNA. They showed
how the double helix of the DNA molecule splits
in cellular reproduction to form the basis of each
The Nuclear Age new cell. This genetic material, biologists con-
Scientists, government officials, and engineers put cluded, provides a chemical pattern for an individ-
the force of the atom to economic use, especially ual organism’s life. Beginning in the 1960s, genetics
in the form of nuclear power, and the dramatic and the new field of molecular biology progressed
boost in available energy helped continue postwar rapidly. Growing understanding of nucleic acids
economic expansion into the 1960s and beyond. and proteins led to increased knowledge about
The USSR built the first nuclear plant to produce
electricity in Obinsk in 1954, followed by Britain
DNA: The genetic material that forms the basis of each cell; the
and the United States. During the 1960s and 1970s, discovery of its structure in 1952 revolutionized genetics, mo-
nuclear power for industrial and household use lecular biology, and other scientific and medical fields.
920 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

viruses and bacteria and almost completely ended breakthroughs like these occurred, commentators
such diseases as polio, tetanus, syphilis, mumps, began to ask whether the enormous cost of new
and measles in the West through the development medical technology to save a few people would be
of new vaccines. better spent on helping the many who lacked even
Scientists used their understanding of DNA basic medical and health care.
both to alter the makeup of plants and to bypass
natural animal reproduction in a process called Transforming Reproduction. Technology also in-
cloning — obtaining the cells of an organism and fluenced the most intimate areas of human rela-
dividing or reproducing them in an exact copy in tions — sexuality and procreation. Matching family
a laboratory. In 1997, one group of British re- size to agricultural productivity no longer shaped
searchers produced a cloned sheep named Dolly, sexual behavior in the industrialized and urbanized
though the breakthrough was marred by the fact West. With reliable birth-control devices more
that Dolly suffered an array of disabilities and died readily available, young people began sexual rela-
six years later. Questions about whether scientists tions earlier, with less risk of pregnancy. These
should interfere with so basic and essential a trends accelerated in the 1960s when the birth-
process as reproduction became increasingly ur- control pill, first produced in the United States and
gent as cloning progressed. Similarly, the possibil- tested on women in developing areas, came on the
ity of genetically altering species and even creating Western market. By 1970, its use was spreading
new ones (for instance, to control agricultural around the world. Millions also sought out volun-
pests) led to concern about how such actions tary surgical sterilization through tubal ligations
would affect the balance of nature. In 1967, and vasectomies. New techniques brought abor-
Dr. Christiaan Barnard of South Africa performed tion, traditionally performed by amateurs, into the
the first successful heart transplant, and U.S. doc- hands of medical professionals, making it a safe
tors later developed an artificial heart. As major procedure for the first time.

Thalidomide Children
In the last third of the twentieth century, increasingly destructive side effects of powerful medi-
cines became apparent. Women who had taken the drug thalidomide gave birth to children with
severe disabilities, a result of the race to profit from scientific and technological developments.
Children affected by thalidomide, once they became adults, were among those who launched the
disability rights movement. (Deutsche Presse Agentur.)
■ For more help analyzing this image, see the visual activity for this chapter in the Online Study
Guide at bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
1960s–1989 P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i e t y a n d C u ltu r e 921

The First Test-Tube Baby


The birth in Britain in 1978 of Louise
Brown, the first baby conceived by in
vitro fertilization, caused a sensation
worldwide. The new procedure was just
one of the many medical breakthroughs
of the late twentieth century and gave
hope to would-be parents around the
world that science might make infertility
a thing of the past. (Getty Images.)

Childbirth and conception itself were simi- Postindustrial Society


larly transformed. Whereas only a small minority
of Western births took place in hospitals in 1920, and Culture
more than 90 percent did by 1970. Obstetricians
Soaring investments in science and the spread of
now performed much of the work midwives had
technology put Western countries on what has
once done. As pregnancy and birth became a med-
been labeled a postindustrial course. Instead of be-
ical process, innovative new procedures and equip-
ing centered on manufacturing and heavy indus-
ment made it possible to monitor women and
try, a postindustrial economy emphasized the
fetuses throughout pregnancy, labor, and delivery.
distribution of services such as health care and ed-
The number of medical interventions such as
ucation. The dominance of the service sector
cesarean births rose. In 1978, the first “test-tube
meant that intellectual work, not industrial or
baby,” Louise Brown, was born to an English
manufacturing work, was central to creating jobs
couple. She had been conceived when her mother’s
and profits. Moreover, all parts of society and in-
eggs were fertilized with her father’s sperm in a
dustry interlocked, forming a system constantly in
laboratory dish and then implanted in her
need of complex analysis, as in the nuclear indus-
mother’s uterus — a complex process called in
try, leading to new cultural trends. The character-
vitro fertilization. If a woman could not carry a
istics of postindustrial society and culture would
child to term, the laboratory-fertilized embryo
carry over from the 1960s and 1970s into the next
could be implanted in the uterus of a surrogate, or
century.
substitute, mother. Researchers even began work-
ing on an artificial womb to allow for reproduc-
tion entirely outside the body — from storage bank Multinational Corporations
to artificial embryonic environment. In reproduc-
One of the major developments of the postindus-
tive technology, as in other areas, the revolution in
trial era was the growth of the multinational
biology was dramatically changing human life, im-
corporation. Multinationals produced goods and
proving health, and even making new life possible.
services for a global market and conducted busi-
ness worldwide, but unlike older kinds of interna-
Review: What were the technological and scientific ad- tional firms, they established major factories in
vances of the 1960s and 1970s, and how did they change countries other than their home base. For example,
human life and society? of the five hundred largest businesses in the

in vitro fertilization: A process developed in the 1970s by which multinational corporation: A business that operates in many
eggs are fertilized with sperm outside the human body and then foreign countries by sending large segments of its manufactur-
implanted in a woman’s uterus. ing, finance, sales, and other business components abroad.
922 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

MAP 28.1 The Airbus specializing in all phases of con-


Production System struction — a wise move given
The international consortium N the postwar building boom. Eu-
Airbus marked an important ropean firms increased their in-
W UNITED
step in the economic and E
KINGDOM vestment in research and used
industrial integration of S
international cooperation to
Europe and the revitalization 
Chester

of individual national
British Aerospace
Wings Hamburg produce major new products.
Filton   The British-French Concorde
economies. Today, Airbus  Bremen
is a global enterprise with MBB
Fuselages
supersonic aircraft, which, be-
locations offering parts and Aerospatiale ginning with its first flight in
Flight systems & GERMANY
service around the world, fuselage sections 1976, flew from London to New
including the United States, St. Nazaire/ York in under four hours, was
Nantes 
China, and India, but one result. Another venture was
coordinating production in FRANCE
the Airbus, a more practical se-
so many sites has proved ries of passenger jets inaugu-
difficult recently. Airbus industrie
Final assembly
rated in 1972 by a consortium of

Toulouse European firms. Both projects
attested to the strong relation-
Madrid
 ships among government, busi-
SPAIN ness, and science as well as to
CASA
Tailplanes
0 200 400 miles
the international cooperation in
0 200 400 kilometers
manufacturing among members
of the Common Market (Map
28.1). Such relationships al-
United States in 1970, more than one hundred did lowed European businesses to compete success-
over a quarter of their business abroad, with IBM fully with U.S.-based multinational giants.
operating in more than one hundred countries.
Although U.S.-based corporations led the way,
European and Japanese multinationals like Volks- The New Worker
wagen, Shell, Nestlé, and Sony also had a broad In the early years of industry, workers often la-
global reach. bored to exhaustion and lived in such poor con-
Some multinational corporations had bigger ditions that they sometimes resorted to violence
revenues than entire nations. They appeared to to improve their lot. These conditions changed
burst the bounds of the nation-state as they set up fundamentally in postwar Europe with the reduc-
shop in whatever part of the world offered cheap tion of the blue-collar workforce, the growth of
labor. In the first years after World War II, multi- off-shore manufacturing, and increased automa-
nationals preferred European employees, who tion in industrial processes. Work in manufactur-
constituted a highly educated labor pool and had ing was simply cleaner and less dangerous than
well-developed consumer habits. Then, beginning ever before. Within firms, the relationship of
in the 1960s, multinationals moved more of their workers to bosses shifted as management started
operations to the emerging economies of formerly grouping workers into teams that set their own
colonized states to reduce labor costs and avoid production quotas, organized and assigned tasks,
taxes. Although multinational corporations pro- and competed with other teams to see who could
vided jobs in developing areas, profits usually went produce more. As workers took on responsibilities
out of those areas to enrich foreign stockholders. once assigned to managers, union membership
Multinational corporations lacked the interest in declined.
the well-being of localities or nations that earlier In both the U.S. and Soviet blocs, a new work-
industrialists had often shown. Thus, this system ing class of white-collar service personnel emerged.
of business looked to some like imperialism in a Its rise undermined economic distinctions based on
new form. the way a person worked, for those who performed
Firms believed that they could stay competi- service work or had managerial titles were not nec-
tive only by expanding, merging with other com- essarily better paid than blue-collar laborers. The
panies, or partnering with government. In France, ranks of service workers swelled with researchers,
for example, a massive glass conglomerate merged planners, health care and medical staff, and gov-
with a metallurgical company to form a new group ernment functionaries. As emphasis on service
1960s–1989 P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i e t y a n d C u ltu r e 923

TAKING MEASURE

0.3% 1.4%

9.2% 3.7%
14.5%
15.7%
3.5%
28.5%
11.0% 36.7% 34.2%
17.7%
17.3%
3.4%
15.9%
25.5% 23.6%
8.7% 7.8% 21.4%

United States Japan Average of 12 European Countries1


1
Austria, Belgium, West Germany, Denmark,
Spain, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Netherlands,
Norway, Portugal, and Sweden

Postindustrial Occupational Structure, 1984


Striking changes occurred in the composition of the workforce in Professional, technical, and related workers
the postwar period. Agriculture continued to decline as a source of Administrative and managerial workers
jobs; by the 1980s, the percentage of agricultural workers in the
Clerical and related workers
most advanced industrial countries had dropped well below 10 per-
Sales and service workers
cent. The most striking development was the expansion of the serv-
Agricultural workers
ice sector, which came to employ more than half of all workers. In
the United States, the agricultural and industrial sectors (repre- Production and transport workers, laborers

sented by production and transportation workers), which had domi- Other


nated a century earlier, now offered less than a third of all jobs.
What difference does it make to ordinary people that jobs in serv-
ice work predominate? ( Yearbook of Labour Statistics (Geneva: International
Labour Office, 1992), Table 2.7).

grew, entire categories of employees such as flight bloc, however, women’s badly paying jobs included
attendants devoted much of their skill to the psy- street cleaning, garbage collection, heavy labor on
chological well-being of customers. The consumer farms, and medicine (both as doctors and den-
economy provided more jobs in restaurants and tists). Somewhere between 80 and 95 percent of
personal health, fitness and grooming, and hotels women worked in socialist countries, mostly un-
and tourism. By 1969, the percentage of service- der difficult conditions.
sector employees had passed that of manufactur- Farming changed as well, consolidating and
ing workers in several industrial countries: 61.1 becoming more scientific. Small landowners sold
percent versus 33.7 percent in the United States; family plots to farmers engaged in agribusiness —
and 48.8 percent versus 41.1 percent in Sweden that is, vast acreage devoted to commercial rather
(see “Taking Measure,” above). than peasant farming. Governments, farmers’ co-
Postindustrial work life differed somewhat in operatives, and planning agencies shaped the de-
the Soviet bloc. There, the percentage of farmers cision making of the individual farmer; they set
remained higher than in western Europe. A huge production quotas and handled an array of mar-
difference between professional occupations and keting transactions. Genetic research that yielded
those involving physical work also remained in pest-resistant seeds and the skyrocketing use of
socialist countries because of declining invest- pesticides, fertilizers, and machinery contributed
ment in advanced machinery and cleaner work to economic growth. Between 1965 and 1979, the
processes. Men in both blocs generally earned number of tractors in Germany more than tripled
higher pay for better jobs; uniquely in the Soviet from 384,000 to 1,340,000.
924 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

Technicians played a crucial role in transform- dented growth in education, especially in univer-
ing agriculture. For example, in the 1970s, a woman sities, scientific institutes, and other postsecondary
named Fernande Pelletier owned a hundred-acre institutions. The number of university students in
farm in southwestern France. On the advice of a Sweden rose by about 580 percent and in West Ger-
government expert to produce whatever foods many by 250 percent between 1950 and 1969.
might sell competitively in the Common Market, Great Britain established a network of technical
she switched from lamb and veal to foie gras and universities to encourage the practical research
walnuts, and she joined with other farmers in her that traditional elite universities often scorned.
region to buy heavy machinery and to bring prod- France set up schools to train future high-level ex-
ucts to market. Agricultural prosperity required as perts in administration. The scientific establish-
much managerial and technical know-how as did ment in the Soviet Union grew so rapidly that
success in other parts of the economy. Soviet advanced researchers outnumbered those in
the United States by the late 1970s. Meanwhile, in-
stitutions of higher learning, particularly in the
The Boom in Education
United States and western Europe, added courses
and Research in business management, information technology,
Education and research were key to running and systems analysis designed for the new pool of
postindustrial society and were the means by postindustrial workers.
which nations maintained their economic and
military might. In the West, common sense, hard
Changing Family Life
work, and creative intuition had launched the ear-
liest successes of the Industrial Revolution. By the and the Generation Gap
late twentieth century, success in business or gov- Just as education changed to meet the needs
ernment demanded a wide variety of expertise and of postindustrial society, family structures and
ever-growing staffs of researchers — “the accumu- parent–child relationships shifted from what they
lation of knowledge, not of wealth,” as one official had been a century earlier. Households became
put it. more varied, headed by a single parent, by remar-
Investment in research fueled military and ried parents merging two sets of unrelated children,
industrial leadership. The United States funneled by unmarried couples cohabitating, or by tradi-
more than 20 percent of its gross national prod- tionally married couples who had few — or no —
uct into research in the 1960s, attracting many of children. Households of same-sex partners became
Europe’s leading intellectuals and technicians to more common. By the end of the 1970s, the mar-
move to the United States in a so-called brain riage rate in the West had fallen by 30 percent from
drain. Complex systems — for example, nuclear its 1960s level, and after almost two decades of baby
power generation with its many components, boom, the birthrate dropped significantly. On av-
from scientific conceptualization to plant con- erage, Belgian women, for example, bore 2.6 chil-
struction to the publicly supervised disposal of dren in 1960 but only 1.8 by the end of the 1970s.
radioactive waste — required intricate coordina- In the Soviet bloc, the birthrate was even lower. Al-
tion and professional oversight. Scientists and though the birthrate fell, the percentage of children
bureaucrats frequently made more crucial deci- born outside of marriage soared.
sions than did elected politicians in the realm of Daily life within the family also changed. Tech-
space programs, weapons development, and eco- nological consumer items filled the home, with ra-
nomic policy. Here east–west differences are dio and television often forming the basis of the
telling: Soviet-bloc nations proved less adept at household’s common social life. Appliances such
linking their considerable achievements in science as dishwashers, washing machines, and clothes
to real-life applications because of bureaucratic dryers became more affordable and more wide-
red tape. In the 1960s, some 40 percent of scien- spread, raising standards of cleanliness and reduc-
tific findings in the Soviet bloc became obsolete ing (in theory) the time women had to devote to
before the government approved them for appli- household work. More women worked outside the
cation to technology. An invisible backsliding home during these years to pay for the prolonged
from superpower effectiveness and leadership had economic dependence of children, but working
begun in the USSR — much of it due to the lack mothers still did the housework and provided
of systems coordination and cooperation. child care almost entirely themselves.
The centrality of sophisticated knowledge to Whereas earlier the family had organized la-
success in postindustrial society led to unprece- bor, taught craft skills, and monitored reproduc-
1960s–1989 P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i e t y a n d C u ltu r e 925

tive behavior, the modern family seemed to have


a primarily psychological mission, providing emo-
tional nurturance for children who acquired their
intellectual skills in school. Parents turned to psy-
chologists, social workers, and other social service
experts for advice on rearing their children. Tele-
vision and other media also offered much-heeded
advice and models of how people should deal with
life in postindustrial society.
Teenagers’ lives changed dramatically, creating
strong differences between adolescents and adults. A
century earlier, teens had been full-time wage earn-
ers like their parents; now, in the new knowledge-
based society, most were students, financially
dependent on their parents into their twenties. De-
spite teenagers’ prolonged financial childhood, sex-
ual activity began at an ever younger age, and
people talked more openly about sex, prompting
the Western media to announce the arrival of a
“sexual revolution” where young people were con-
cerned. Youth simultaneously gained new roles as
consumers. Seeing baby boomers as a multibillion-
dollar market, advertisers and industrialists wooed
them with consumer items associated with rock
music — records, portable radios, stereos, and so
on. Rock music celebrated youthful rebellion
against adult culture in biting, critical, and often
explicitly sexual lyrics. Sex roles for the young did
not change, however. Despite the popularity of a
few individual women rockers, promoters focused
on men, whom they depicted as heroic, surrounded
The Rolling Stones (1976)
by worshipping female “groupies.” The new mod-
The Rolling Stones were more energetic, sexual, and flamboyant
els for youth such as the Beatles were themselves than the earlier British rock sensation, the Beatles. Astute
the products of advanced technology and savvy marketing experts for big record companies helped such rock
marketing for mass consumption. “What’s your groups target youth successfully. What exactly was the appeal of
message for American teenagers?” the Beatles were the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the other celebrated rock stars
asked. “Buy some more Beatles records,” they re- who followed in their wake? (Getty Images.)
sponded. The mixture of high-tech music, pop-star
marketing, and the sexual openness of fans con-
tributed to a sense that there was a unique youth entists added to their prestige and influence by em-
culture separating the young from their parents — ploying complex statistical and other scientific
a so-called generation gap. methods made possible by increasingly sophisti-
cated and powerful computers.
Art, Ideas, and Religion The Visual Arts. A new trend in the visual arts
in a Technocratic Society was called pop art. It featured images from every-
Artists and scholars of the postindustrial age ad- day life and employed the glossy techniques and
dressed the growing consumerism and the new products of what these artists called admass, or
world of space, electronics, and computers in their mass advertising. Robert Rauschenberg, a leading
art and thought. As colonies threw off the impe- U.S. practitioner, made collages from comic strips,
rialist yoke and became new nations, the influence magazine clippings, and fabric to fulfill his vision
of their culture on the West remained strong. Like
the new multinational corporations, many artists
pop art: A style in the visual arts that mimicked advertising and
and scholars enjoyed increasing international consumerism and that used ordinary objects as a part of paint-
recognition and reached global markets. Social sci- ings and other compositions.
926 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

that “a picture is more like the real world when it’s Attached (1962) and Lipstick Ascending on Cater-
made out of the real world.” The movement had pillar Tractor (1967). Capturing this mocking
become a financial success by the early 1960s, pro- world of art, German artist Sigmar Polke did
pelled by such maverick American artists as Andy cartoon-like drawings of products and of those
Warhol (1928–1987), who parodied modern com- who craved them. Others practicing this “high art”
mercialism. Through images of actress Marilyn picked up “low” objects such as scraps of metal,
Monroe and former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, cigarette butts, dirt, and even excrement. The Swiss
Warhol showed, for example, how depictions of sculptor Jean Tinguely used rusted parts of old
women were used to sell everything mass culture machines — the junk of industrial society — to
had to offer in the 1960s and 1970s. He depicted make fountains that could move. His partner Niki
Campbell’s soup cans as they appeared in adver- de Saint Phalle (1930–2002) then decorated them
tisements and sold these works as elite artistic cre- with huge, gaudy figures — many of them inspired
ations. by the folk traditions of the Caribbean and Africa.
Swedish-born artist Claes Oldenburg (1929–) Their colorful, mobile fountains adorned main
portrayed the grotesque aspects of ordinary con- squares in Stockholm, Paris, and other cities.
sumer products in Giant Hamburger with Pickle
Music. The American composer John Cage
(1912–1992) worked in a similar vein when he
added to his musical scores sounds produced by
Claes Oldenberg, Trowel (1971) such everyday items as combs, pieces of wood, and
Claes Oldenberg captured the playful mood of pop art radio noise. Buddhist influence led Cage to incor-
when he began duplicating ordinary objects such as porate silence in music and to compose by ran-
vacuum cleaners, telephones, and even raisin bread domly tossing coins and then choosing notes by
on a larger-than-life scale. Pop art seemed to make
the corresponding numbers in the ancient Chinese
a mockery of consumerism and everyday life, but
museums and wealthy collectors snapped it up,
I Ching (Book of Changes). These techniques con-
eventually making celebrities of the artists and paying tinued the trend away from classical melody that
tens of millions of dollars for these works. (Nicolas had begun with modernism. Other composers,
Sapieha / Art Resource, NY.) called minimalists, simplified music by featuring
repetition and sustained notes instead of produc-
ing the lush melodies of nineteenth-century sym-
phonies and piano music. Estonian composer
Arvo Pärt wrote minimalist pieces in the 1970s us-
ing only three or four notes in total; he called this
style “starvation” music to emphasize the lack of
both freedom and goods in the Soviet bloc.
German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen in-
troduced electronic music into classical composi-
tion in 1953; Cage also used it soon after. Influenced
by his own travels, Stockhausen continued the mod-
ern style of fully exploring non-Western tonalities
in such 1970s pieces as Ceylon. Even though this
music echoed the familiar technology of everyday
life, many listeners hated what seemed unpleasant
sounds. Yet improved recording technology and
mass marketing brought music of all varieties to a
wider home audience than ever before.

Social Science. The social sciences reached the


peak of their prestige in the postindustrial era, of-
ten because of the increasing use of statistical
models made possible by advanced electronic
computations. Sociologists and psychologists pro-
duced detailed empirical studies that claimed to
demonstrate rules for understanding individual
and group behavior. Anthropology was among the
1960s–1989 Prot e s t i n g C o l d Wa r C o n d i t i o n s 927

most exciting of the social sciences, for it exposed the world increased the strength of non-Christian
the young university student to societies that religions such as Islam and varieties of Hindu
seemed immune to modern technology and indus- faiths. Cities and towns came to house mosques,
try. Fieldwork and colorful ethnographic films re- Buddhist temples, and shrines to other creeds. New
vealed alternative lifestyles and seemingly exotic religious values sometimes mixed tensely with both
practices. While studying people who came to be Western European Judeo-Christianity and the
called “the other,” these young experts had their antireligious culture of the Soviet bloc.
sense of freedom reinforced by the vision of going
back to nature. Whatever their discipline, social
Review: How did Western society and culture change
scientists announced that, like technicians and en-
in the postindustrial age?
gineers, their specialized methods and factual
knowledge were key to managing the complexities
of postindustrial society and developing nations
alike.
Yet at the same time, the social sciences un- Protesting Cold War
dermined Enlightenment beliefs that individuals Conditions
had true freedom. French anthropologist Claude
Lévi-Strauss (1908–) developed a theory called The United States and the Soviet Union reached
structuralism, which insisted that rigid, rule- new heights of power in the 1960s, but trouble was
bound structures — kinship and exchange, for brewing for the superpowers. By 1965, the six na-
example — control the functioning of all societies. tions of the Common Market had replaced the
By challenging existentialism’s claim that humans United States as the leader in worldwide trade and
could create a free existence, structuralism shook the marketing of new technologies, and they often
the social sciences’ faith in rationality. Lévi- acted in their own self-interest, not in the interests
Strauss’s book The Savage Mind (1966) also of the superpowers. In 1973, Britain’s membership
demonstrated that people outside the West, even in the Common Market, followed by Ireland and
though they did not use scientific methods, had Denmark, boosted the market’s exports to almost
their own extremely effective systems of problem three times those of the United States. The USSR
solving. In the 1960s and 1970s, the findings of faced challenges too. Communist China, along
some social scientists echoed concerns that tech- with countries in eastern Europe, contested Soviet
nology was creating a society of automatons and leadership, and many decolonizing regions refused
that bureaucracies were destroying individuality to ally with either of the superpowers. By the mid-
and freedom. 1960s, the United States was enmeshed in a dev-
astating war in Vietnam in order to block the
Religion. Religious leaders and parishioners re- Communist independence movement there. At the
sponded to the changing times in a variety of ways. end of the 1970s, the USSR became embroiled in
Pope Paul VI (1963–1978) opposed artificial birth an equally devastating war in Afghanistan. Rising
control as it became more prevalent, but he also be- citizen discontent, sometimes expressed in dra-
came the first pontiff to carry out the new global matic acts of protest like that of Jan Palach, pre-
vision of Vatican II by visiting Africa, Asia, and sented another serious challenge to the cold war
South America. In some places, religious fervor at order. From the 1960s until 1989, people rose up
the grass roots surged in the face of advancing sci- against technology, the lack of fundamental rights,
ence and the threat of nuclear annihilation. Grow- and the potential for nuclear holocaust.
ing numbers of U.S. Protestants, for example,
joined sects that stressed the literal truth of the
Bible and denied the validity of past scientific dis- Cracks in the Cold War Order
coveries such as the age of the universe and the Across the social and political spectrum came calls
evolution of the species. In western Europe, how- to at least soften the effects of the cold war in this
ever, Christian churchgoing remained at a low ebb. age of unprecedented technological advance. In the
In the 1970s, for example, only 10 percent of the Soviet Union, the new middle class of bureaucrats
British population went to religious services — and managers demanded a better standard of living
about the same number that attended live soccer and a reduction in the cold war animosity that made
matches. Most striking was the changing composi- everyday life so menacing. Voters in western Euro-
tion of the Western religious public. Immigration pean countries elected politicians who promoted
of people from former colonies and other parts of an increasing array of social programs designed to
928 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

ensure the economic democracy of the welfare state tially continued attempts at reform, encouraging
and to promote technological development. A sig- plant managers to turn a profit and allowing the
nificant minority of voters shifted their allegiance production of televisions, household appliances,
from the centrist Christian Democratic coalitions and cheap housing to alleviate the discontent of an
that supported U.S. political goals to Socialist, La- increasingly better-educated and better-informed
bor, and Social Democratic parties that endorsed citizenry. The government also loosened restric-
policies to bridge the cold war divide. tions to allow cultural and scientific meetings with
Westerners, another move that relaxed the cold war
Germany and France. The German and French atmosphere in the mid-1960s. Like the French, the
governments both made solid and highly visible Soviets set up “technopoles” — new cities devoted
changes in policy, which, though different, unsettled to research and technological innovation. The
cold war divisiveness. In Germany, Social Democra- Soviet satellites in eastern Europe seized the eco-
tic politicians had enough influence to shift money nomic opportunity presented by Moscow’s relaxed
from defense spending to domestic programs. Willy posture. For example, Hungarian leader János
Brandt (1913–1992), the Socialist mayor of West Kádár introduced elements of a market system into
Berlin, became foreign minister in 1966 and pursued the national economy by encouraging small busi-
an end to frigid relations with Communist East Ger- nesses and trade to develop outside the Commu-
many in order to open up commerce across borders. nist-controlled state network.
This policy, known as Ostpolitik, gave West German In the arts, Soviet-bloc writers sought to halt
business leaders what they wanted: “the depoliticiza- the slavish praise for the Soviet past and loosen the
tion of Germany’s foreign trade,” as one industrial- hold of socialist realism as the dominant style. Dis-
ist put it, and an opening of consumerism in the sident artists’ paintings subverted the brightly at-
Soviet bloc. West German trade with eastern Europe tired and heroic figures of socialist realism and
grew rapidly; however, it left the relatively poorer depicted Soviet citizens as worn and tired in grays
countries of the Soviet bloc strapped with mount- and other monochromatic color schemes (see “See-
ing debt — some $45 billion annually by 1970. ing History,” page 929). Ukrainian poet Yevgeny
Nonetheless, commerce had built a bridge across the Yevtushenko exposed Soviet complicity in the
U.S.-Soviet cold war divide. Holocaust in Babi Yar (1961), a passionate protest
To break the superpowers’ stranglehold on in- against the slaughter of tens of thousands of Jews
ternational politics, French president Charles de near Kiev during World War II. Challenging the cel-
Gaulle poured huge sums into French nuclear de- ebratory nature of socialist art, East Berlin writer
velopment, withdrew French forces from NATO, Christa Wolf showed a couple tragically divided by
and signed trade treaties with the Soviet bloc. the Berlin Wall in her novel Divided Heaven (1965).
Communist China and France also drew closer Repression of expression returned in the later 1960s
through trade and diplomatic ties. However, de and 1970s, as the Soviet government took to bull-
Gaulle also maintained France’s good relations dozing outdoor art shows, thereby forcing visual
with Germany to prevent further encroachments artists to hold secret exhibitions or public ones an-
from the Soviet bloc. At home, de Gaulle’s govern- nounced at the very last minute by word of mouth.
ment sponsored construction of modern housing For their part, writers relied on samizdat culture,
and mandated the exterior cleaning of all Parisian a form of dissident activity in which uncensored
buildings — a massive project taking years — to publications were reproduced by hand and passed
wipe away more than a century of industrial grime. from reader to reader, thus building a foundation
With his haughty and stubborn pursuit of French for the successful resistance of the 1980s.
grandeur, de Gaulle offered the European public
an alternative to submission to the superpowers. The United States. Other issues challenged U.S.
leadership of the free world during the cold war.
The Soviet Union. Brandt’s Ostpolitik and de The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in
Gaulle’s assertiveness, especially in economic devel- November 1963 shocked the nation and the world,
opment, had their echoes in Soviet-bloc reforms. but only momentarily did it halt the escalating
After Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s ouster in demands for civil rights for African Americans
1964, the new leadership of Leonid Brezhnev and other minorities. White segregationists mur-
(1909–1982) and Alexei Kosygin (1904–1980) ini-
samizdat: A key form of dissident activity across the Soviet
Ostpolitik: A policy initiated by Willy Brandt in the late 1960s bloc; individuals reproduced uncensored publications by hand
in which West Germany sought better economic relations with and passed them from reader to reader, thus building a foun-
the Communist countries of eastern Europe. dation for the successful resistance of the 1980s.
1960s–1989 Prot e s t i n g C o l d Wa r C o n d i t i o n s 929

SEEING HISTORY

Critiquing the Soviet System:


Dissident Art in the 1960s and 1970s

rtists, writers, composers, and per- slyly criticize the system. His painting

A formers in the USSR were sup-


posed to follow Communist Party
directives, creating uplifting works that
Krasikov Street, shown here, refers to
Lenin’s much-repeated motto meant to in-
spire Soviet citizens: “Always forward,
spread Communist ideals, despite the po- never backward.” How does Bulatov use
litical repression and economic hardships motion and color here to comment on both
that plagued the system. Numerous dissi- Soviet society and the Communist estab-
dent artists sought to undermine the lishment? What messages is he conveying?
Communist message and criticize the In his work The General, Boris Orlov
regime through their work, thus helping used sculpture to lampoon one of the
to preparing the ground for a full-scale re- mainstays of Soviet society during the cold
volt against the Soviet system in the late war. As the heroes of World War II and
1980s. The Soviet government persecuted protectors of communism, generals were
these artists and their families and often officially revered, parading on Soviet hol-
destroyed subversive works that were dis- idays and at commemorative events. What
played in public. Yet dissident artists are the general’s main features as por-
bravely forged ahead, displaying their art trayed by Orlov? What adjectives would
and even selling it to foreign dealers to you use to describe this work? How would
smuggle out of the country. you characterize the tone and purpose of
Dissident artists employed a range of Orlov’s depiction? Boris Orlov, The General, 1970. (Collection of
techniques, both subtle and explicit, to cri- As you reflect on these two works of the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, The
tique the Soviet regime. Eric Bulatov often art, what in your opinion would have State University of New Jersey, The Norton and Nancy
made use of the officially approved Soviet made them dangerous to the survival of Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the
style of “socialist realism” in his works to Soviet communism? Soviet Union. Photograph by Jack Abraham. 14194 ©
Boris Orlov/ RAO, Moscow/ VAGA, New York, NY.)

Eric Bulatov, Krasikov Street, 1977.


(Collection of the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art
Museum, Rutgers, The State University of New
Jersey, The Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection
of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union.
Photograph by Jack Abraham. 05125/ © 2008
Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY/ ADAGP, Paris.)
930 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

dered, maimed, and arrested those attempting to American president for the poor and the
integrate lunch counters, register black voters, or Negroes.”
simply march on behalf of freedom. This violent Still, the cold war remained, and the United
racism was a weak link in the American claim to States became increasingly embroiled in Vietnam
moral superiority in the cold war. In response to (Map 28.2). After the Geneva Conference of 1954,
the murders and destruction, Kennedy had intro- which divided Vietnam into North and South, the
duced civil rights legislation and forced the deseg- United States increased its support for the corrupt
regation of schools and universities. Lyndon B. and incompetent leaders of non-Communist South
Johnson (1908–1973), Kennedy’s successor, steered Vietnam. North Vietnam, China, and the Soviet
the Civil Rights Act through Congress in 1964. Union backed the rebel Vietcong, or South Viet-
This legislation forbade segregation in public namese Communists. The strength of the Vietcong
facilities and created the Equal Employment Op- seemed to grow daily, and by 1966, the United States
portunity Commission (EEOC) to fight job dis- had more than half a million soldiers in South Viet-
crimination based on “race, color, national origin, nam. Early in the war, Johnson’s advisers appeared
religion, and sex.” Southern conservatives had on television, predicting imminent victory despite
tacked on the provision outlawing discrimination mounting U.S. casualties and the need to draft
against women in the vain hope that it would young men, many of them unwilling to go. Faced
doom the bill. Modeling himself on his hero with growing antiwar sentiment and increasing
Franklin Roosevelt, Johnson envisioned what he military costs, Johnson announced in March 1968
called a Great Society, in which new government that he would not run for president again.
programs would improve the lot of the forty mil-
lion Americans living in poverty. Johnson’s myr-
iad reform programs included Project Head Start The Growth of Citizen Activism
for educating disadvantaged preschool children In the midst of cold war conflict and technological
and the Job Corps for training youth. Black nov- advance, a new activism emerged. Prosperity and the
elist Ralph Ellison called Johnson “the greatest rising benefits of a postindustrial, service-oriented

N
MAP 28.2 The Vietnam War, 1954–1975
ed C H I N A
R

R. The local peoples of Southeast Asia had long


W E resisted incursions by their neighbors. The
NORTH Vietnamese beat the French colonizers in the
S
BURMA 
VIETNAM battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. But the
Hanoi
Dien Bien Phu  Americans soon became involved, trying to stem
Gulf of what they saw as the tide of Communist influence
Tonkin
behind the Vietnamese liberation movement. The
LAOS ensuing war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s

Vinh spread into neighboring countries, making the
Mek
on Dong Hoi region the scene of vast destruction.
 Demarcation Line of 1954
gR

(17th Parallel)
.

 Hue

Da Nang

THAILAND  Chu Lai

Quang Ngai


Bangkok
 Qui Nhon

SOUTH
CAMBODIA VIETNAM

Gulf of Phnom 
Penh
Thailand 


My Lai  Saigon
Communist nations  South
 Mekong China
Nations allied with
Delta Sea
United States
Neutral nations 
Ho Chi Minh Trail 0 150 300 miles
 Tet offensive, 1968 0 150 300 kilometers
1960s–1989 Prot e s t i n g C o l d Wa r C o n d i t i o n s 931

economy made people ever more eager for peace. own countercultural values. They questioned how
University students did not want their lives to end studying Plato or Dante would help them after grad-
on faraway battlefields. Other activists — among uation. “How to Train Stuffed Geese” was French
them minorities, women, and homosexuals — sim- students’ satirical version of the teaching methods
ply wanted a fair chance at education, jobs, and some inflicted on them. “No professors over forty” and
political voice. Students, blacks and other minori- “Don’t trust anyone over thirty” were powerful slo-
ties, Soviet-bloc citizens, women, environmentalists, gans of the day. Long hair, communal living, scorn
and homosexuals brought their societies to the brink for personal cleanliness, and ridicule for sexual
of revolution during what became increasingly fiery chastity were part of students’ rejection of middle-
protests in the late 1960s. class values. Widespread use of the pill made absti-
nence unnecessary as a method of birth control, and
Civil Rights. The U.S. civil rights movement open promiscuity made the sexual revolution
broadened, as other minorities joined African explicit and public. Marijuana use became common
Americans in demanding fair treatment. In 1965, among students, and amphetamines and barbitu-
César Chávez (1927–1993) led Mexican American rates added to the drug culture, which had its own
migrant workers in the California grape agribusi- rituals, music, and gathering places. Disdained by
ness to strike for better wages and working con- students, big business nonetheless made billions of
ditions. Meanwhile, urban riots erupted across the dollars by selling blue jeans, natural foods, and drugs
United States in 1965 and subsequent summers as as well as by packaging and managing the rock stars
frustrated and angry African Americans turned of the counterculture.
their struggle for equal rights into a militant cel-
ebration of their race under the banner “Black is The Women’s Movement. Women’s activism
beautiful.” The issue they faced was one they felt erupted across the political spectrum (see “Con-
they had in common with decolonizing people: trasting Views,” page 932). Working for reproduc-
how to shape an identity different from that im- tive rights, women in France helped end the
posed on them by white oppressors. Some urged nation’s ban on birth control in 1965. More polit-
a push for “black power” to reclaim rights force- ically conventional middle-class women eagerly re-
fully instead of begging for them nonviolently. sponded to the international best seller The
Separatism, not integration, became the goal of Feminine Mystique (1963) by American journalist
still others; small cadres of militants like the Black Betty Friedan. Pointing to the stagnating talents of
Panthers took up arms, believing that, like decol- many housewives, Friedan helped organize the Na-
onizing people elsewhere, they needed to protect tional Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966
themselves against the violent whites around “to bring women into full participation in the
them. mainstream of American society now.” NOW ad-
vocated equal pay for women and a variety of other
Student Activism. As a result of the new turn in legal and economic reforms. In Sweden, women
black efforts for change, white American university lobbied to make tasks both at home and in the
students who had participated in the early stages of workplace less gender-segregated, and in these
the civil rights movement found themselves same years a few Soviet women began speaking out
excluded from leadership positions. Many of them against their low-paid and unpaid work that kept
soon joined the swelling protest against technologi- the USSR running.
cal change, consumerism, and the Vietnam War. Eu- Those engaged in the civil rights and student
ropean youth were also feverish for reform. In the movements soon realized that many of those
mid-1960s, university students in Rome occupied an protest organizations devalued women just as so-
administration building after right-wing opponents ciety at large did. Male activists adopted the
assassinated one of their number during a protest leather-jacketed machismo style of their film and
against the 200-to-1 student–teacher ratio. In 1966, rock heroes, but women in the movements were
Prague students, chanting “The only good Commu- often judged by the status of their male-protester
nist is a dead one,” held carnival-like processions to lovers. “A woman was to ‘inspire’ her man,” African
commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 1956 American activist Angela Davis complained,
Hungarian uprisings. The “situationists” in France adding that women seeking equality were accused
called on students to wake up from the slumbering of wanting “to rob [male activists] of their man-
pace of mass society by jolting individuals to action hood.” West German women students tossed
with shocking graffiti and street theater. tomatoes at male protest leaders in defiance of
Throughout the 1960s, students criticized the male domination of the movement and of stan-
traditional university curriculum and flaunted their dards for ladylike behavior.
932 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

CONTRASTING VIEWS

Feminist Debates

The feminist movement of the late twentieth century provoked the these liberation movements, as well as experience on the periph-
most pronounced and widespread debate over gender in recorded ery of the white male left, that led to the need to develop a pol-
history. Discussion often reached a heated pitch, as it did in other itics that was antiracist, unlike those of white women, and
reform movements of the day. Hardly the single movement described antisexist, unlike those of Black and white men. . . .
by journalists, feminism had a variety of concerns, often depend- Above all else, our politics initially sprang from the shared
ing on nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and class. Opinion belief that Black women are inherently valuable, that our liber-
on these issues could produce conflict among activists and serious ation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else’s but be-
divisions on goals and policies, as the authors of the Combahee River cause of our need as human persons for autonomy.
Statement demonstrated (Document 1). At times, concerns over is-
sues like equal opportunity in the workplace were directed at gov- Source: “The Combahee River Collective Statement,” in Feminism in Our
Time: The Essential Writings, World War II to the Present, ed. Miriam Schneir
ernment policies, as in the case of the Soviet worker (Document 2).
(New York: Vintage, 1994), 177–79.
Italian feminists saw all the disabilities imposed by government as
characteristic of larger problems (Document 3), while Germans ex-
plicitly connected the cause of feminism to that of environmental-
2. Criticizing Socialism
ism (Document 4).
Official policy in the Soviet Union stated that socialism had brought
women full equality, eliminating the need for feminism. In the 1970s,
1. Criticizing Feminism
however, clusters of Russian women announced their dissatisfaction
In the United States, black women, like several other minority with so-called equality under socialism. Tatyana Mamonova, the
groups, found themselves marginalized in both the feminist and editor of a collection of Russian women’s writings such as this from
civil rights movements. In 1977, some of them issued the Comba- a railroad worker, was ultimately expelled from the USSR.
hee River Statement.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the current equality means
Black, other third world, and working women have been involved only giving women the right to perform heavy labor. . . . [I]n our
in the feminist movement from its start, but both outside reac- day the woman, still not freed from the incredible burden of the
tionary forces and racism and elitism within the movement it- family, strains herself even harder in the service of society. The
self have served to obscure our participation. . . . situation . . . is true not only in large cities but also in villages.
Black feminist politics also have an obvious connection to On collective and state farms, women do the hardest and most
movements for Black liberation, particularly those of the 1960s exhausting work while the men are employed as administrators,
and 1970s. . . . It was our experience and disillusionment within agronomists, accountants, warehouse managers, or high-paid

Women also took to the streets on behalf of


such issues as abortion rights or the decriminal-
ization of gay and lesbian sexuality. Many flouted
social conventions in their attire, language, and

Campaign for Homosexual Equality Rally, London 1974


The reformist spirit of the 1960s and 1970s changed
homosexuals’ activism. Instead of concentrating
mostly on legal protection from criminal prosecution,
gays and lesbians began affirming a special and posi-
tive identity. Critics charged that constitutional rights
were sufficient and that homosexuals and others con-
stituted special-interest groups. Gays, women, and
ethnic or racial minorities countercharged that the
universal values and constitutional rights first put
forth in the Enlightenment seemed to apply only to a
privileged few. (© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/ Corbis.)
1960s–1989 Prot e s t i n g C o l d Wa r C o n d i t i o n s 933

tractor and combine drivers. In other words, men do the work 4. Feminism and Environmentalism
that is more interesting and more profitable and does not dam-
age their health. “Green” feminists took a different approach, such as announced in
this “Manifesto of the ‘Green’ Women.” It was originally a 1975
Source: Tatyana Mamonova, ed., Women and Russia: Feminist Writings from speech made in West Germany in the context of the moon landing
the Soviet Union (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), 8. and other accomplishments in space.

Man has actually landed on the moon — an admirable


3. Policy and Patriarchy feat. . . . We “Green” women . . . believe that men belong to our
In Italy, as in the Soviet Union, feminism had an underground environment. In order to rescue that environment for our chil-
quality involving mimeographed tracts and graffiti on buildings; dren, we want to confront this man, this adventurer and moon
women formed their own bookshops and published small newspa- explorer. A female cosmonaut from a so-called socialist republic
pers. But others lobbied hard to get legislation on divorce and abor- doesn’t justify this energy-wasting enterprise for us at a time
tion changed, while in 1976 the Feminist Movement of Rome issued when three-fourths of the earth’s population is suffering from
this article in its paper. malnutrition.
Our inability to solve immediate problems may tempt us
Patriarchal society is based on authoritarian-exploitative relation- into escape — to the moon, into careerism, escape into ideolo-
ships, and its sexuality is sadomasochistic. The values of power, of gies, into alcohol or other drugs. But one group cannot escape
the domination of man over the other [woman], are reflected in completely: women, society’s potential mothers, who must give
sexuality, where historically woman is given to man for his use. . . . birth to children, willingly or unwillingly, in this polluted world
The idea of woman as man’s property is fundamental to her of ours.
oppression and she is often the only possession that dominant
Source: Delphine Brox-Brochot, “Manifesto of the ‘Green’ Women,” in
men allow exploited men to keep. . . . German Feminism: Readings in Politics and Literature, eds. Edith Hoshino
In other words woman is given to the (exploited) man as Altbach et al. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), 314.
compensation for his lack of possessions. . . .
We denounce as the latest form of woman’s oppression the
idea of a “sexual revolution” where woman is forced to go from
being one man’s object to being everybody’s object, and where Questions to Consider
sadomasochistic pornography in films, in magazines, in all the 1. Was the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s primarily
forms of mass media that brutalize and violate woman, is an offshoot of other reform movements of the day, or did it
bandied about as a triumph of sexual liberty. have a character of its own?
Source: “Male Sexuality — Perversion,” Movimento Femminista Romano 2. In what ways was feminism in these decades a unified move-
(1976), quoted in Italian Feminist Thought: A Reader, eds. Paola Bono and ment, and in what ways was it a set of multiple movements?
Sandra Kemp (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), 68–69. 3. What issues do these activists raise?

attitudes. Renouncing brassieres, high-heeled 1968: Year of Crisis


shoes, cosmetics, and other adornments, they
spoke openly about taboo subjects such as their Calls for reform finally boiled over in 1968. In Jan-
sexual feelings and even announced that they had uary, on the first day of Tet, the Vietnamese New Year,
resorted to illegal abortions. This brand of femi- the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese attacked
nist activism was meant to shock polite society — more than one hundred South Vietnamese towns
and it did. Many women of color, however, broke and American bases, inflicting heavy casualties. The
with feminist solidarity and spoke out against the Tet offensive, as it came to be called, led many to con-
“double jeopardy” of being “black and female.” clude that the war might be unwinnable and gave
Soon there were concrete changes. In Catholic crucial momentum to the antiwar movement
Italy, feminists won the rights to divorce, to gain around the world. Students in Paris, Tokyo, Mexico
access to birth-control information, and to ob- City, and other major capitals took to the streets, of-
tain legal abortions. The demand for equal ten in violent protest. Meanwhile, in Czechoslovakia,
pay, job opportunities, and protection from rape, a quieter movement against Soviet cold war domi-
incest, and battering framed the major legal nation had taken shape, but the atmosphere in that
struggles of thousands of women’s groups into country, as elsewhere, became explosive when the
the 1970s. Soviets invaded to put down reform.
934 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

Violence Erupts. On April 4, 1968, a white racist They were also horrified at seeing the police force
assassinated civil rights leader Martin Luther King beating middle-class students and even passersby
Jr. Riots erupted in more than a hundred cities in who expressed their support.
the United States as African Americans vented French workers joined in the protest: some
their anguish and rage. Rejecting King’s policy of nine million went on strike, occupying factories
nonviolence, black leaders turned from rhetoric to and calling not only for higher wages but also for
violence: “Burn, baby, burn,” chanted rioters as participation in everyday decision making. The
they rampaged through grim inner cities. On cam- combined revolt of youth and workers looked as if
puses, strident confrontation over the intertwined it might spiral into another French revolution, so
issues of war, technology, racism, and sexism unified were the expressions of political alienation.
closed down classes. The normally decisive president Charles de Gaulle
Student dissent escalated, with the most dra- seemed paralyzed at first, but he soon sent tanks
matic protests occurring in France. In January, into Paris. In June, he announced a raise for work-
students at Nanterre, outside of Paris, had gone ers, and businesses offered them a strengthened
on strike, invading administration offices to voice in decision making. Many citizens, having
protest their inferior education and status. They grown tired of the street violence, the destruction
called themselves a proletariat — an exploited of so much private property, and the breakdown of
working class — as labor activists had done for services (for example, the garbage was not collected
more than a century. They did not embrace So- for weeks), began to sympathize with the govern-
viet communism but rather considered them- ment instead of the students. Although demonstra-
selves part of a New Left, not the old Communist tions continued throughout June, the student
or Socialist left. When in the spring students at movement in France at least had been closed down.
the prestigious Sorbonne in Paris took to the The revolutionary moment had passed.
streets in protest, police assaulted them. The
Parisian middle classes reacted with unexpected, The Prague Spring. The 1968 revolt in Prague
if temporary, sympathy to the student uprising be- began within the Czechoslovak Communist Party
cause of their own resentment of bureaucracy. itself. At a party congress in the autumn of 1967,

Invasion Puts Down the Prague Spring


When the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact members cracked down on the Prague Spring, they
met determined citizen resistance. People refused assistance of any kind to the invaders and
personally talked to them about the Czech cause. Despite the repression, protests small and large
continued until the final fall of Communist rule two decades later. (© Bettmann/ Corbis.)
1960s–1989 Prot e s t i n g C o l d Wa r C o n d i t i o n s 935

Alexander Dubček, head of the Slovak branch of the hoped as governments turned to conservative so-
party, had called for more social and political lutions. In November 1968, the Soviets announced
openness. Attacked as an inferior Slovak by the Brezhnev Doctrine, which stated that reform
the Communist leadership, Dubček nonetheless movements, as a “common problem” of all social-
struck a chord among frustrated party officials, ist countries, would face swift repression. In the
technocrats, and intellectuals; Czech citizens be- early 1970s, the hard-liner Brezhnev clamped
gan to dream of creating a new society — one down on critics, crushing the morale of dissidents
based on “socialism with a human face.” Reform- in the USSR. “The shock of our tanks crushing the
minded party delegates elevated Dubček to the top Prague Spring . . . convinced us that the Soviet
position, and he quickly changed the Communist colossus was invincible,” explained one pessimistic
style of government by ending censorship, insti- liberal. Other voices persisted, however. In 1974,
tuting the secret ballot for party elections, and al- Brezhnev expelled author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
lowing competing political groups to form. from the USSR after the publication of the first
“Look!” one little girl in the street remarked as the volume of The Gulag Archipelago (1973–1976) in
new government took power. “Everyone’s smiling the U.S.-led bloc. Composed from biographies,
today.” The Prague Spring had begun — “an orgy firsthand reports, and other sources of informa-
of free expression,” one Czech journalist called it. tion about prison camp life, Solzhenitsyn’s story of
People bought uncensored publications, flocked to the Gulag (the Soviet system of internment and
uncensored theater productions, and engaged in forced-labor camps) documented the brutal con-
nonstop political debate. ditions Soviet prisoners endured under Stalin and
Dubček faced the enormous problem of negoti- his successors. More than any other single work,
ating policies acceptable to the USSR, the entrenched The Gulag Archipelago disillusioned many loyal
party bureaucracy, and reform-minded citizens. Communists around the world.
Reforms were handed down with warnings about The USSR also persecuted many ordinary citi-
maintaining “discipline” and showing “wise behav- zens who did not have Solzhenitsyn’s international
ior.” Fearing change, the Polish, East German, and reputation. Soviet psychologists, complying with the
Soviet regimes threatened the reform government government, certified the “mental illness” of people
daily. When Dubček failed to at- who did not play by the rules; thus,
tend a meeting of Warsaw Pact Warsaw Pact troop dissidents wound up as virtual
leaders, Soviet threats intensified deployments, 1968 prisoners in mental institutions. In
 Mass protests
until finally, in August 1968, So- a revival of tsarist Russia’s anti-
EAST
viet tanks rolled into Prague in a GERMANY Semitism, Jews faced educational
POLAND
massive show of force. Citizens restrictions (especially in univer-
tried to halt the return to Com- Prague
sity admissions), severe job dis-
munist orthodoxy through sabo- CZ
ECH USSR
crimination, and constant assault
tage: they painted graffiti on the OSLO on their religious practice. Soviet
VAKIA
tanks and removed street signs to officials commonly charged that
confuse invading troops. Illegal AUSTRIA Jews were “unreliable, they think
HUNGARY
radio stations broadcast testimo- 0 50 100 miles
only of emigrating. . . . It’s mad-
nials of resistance, and merchants 0 100 kilometers
ness to give them an education, be-
refused to sell food or other com- cause it’s state money wasted.”
modities to Soviet troops. These Prague Spring, 1968 Ironically, even dissidents blamed
actions could not stop the deter- Jews for the Bolshevik Revolution
mined Soviet leadership, which gradually removed and for the terror of Stalinist collectivization. As at-
reformers from power. Jan Palach and other uni- tacks intensified in the 1970s, Soviet Jews sought to
versity students immolated themselves, and emigrate to Israel or the United States, often unsuc-
protests of one type or another continued. cessfully.
Nonetheless, the moment of reform-minded The brain drain of eastern European intellec-
change eventually ended here too. Around the tuals to the West had become significant and con-
world, governments worked to stamp out criticism tinued into the 1970s and beyond. The modernist
of the cold war status quo. composer Gyorgy Ligeti had left Hungary in 1956,
after which his work was celebrated in concert halls
The Superpowers Restore Order. The protests of and in such classic films as 2001: A Space Odyssey.
1968 challenged the political direction of Western From exile in Paris, Czech writer Milan Kundera
societies, but little turned out the way reformers enthralled audiences with The Book of Laughter
936 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

and Forgetting (1979) and The Unbearable Light- The Testing of Superpower
ness of Being (1984). His novels chronicled his own
descent from enthusiasm for communism to a de- Domination and the End
spair characterized by bitter humor. Kundera of the Cold War
claimed the Soviet regime in Czechoslovakia de-
pended on making people forget. The memory of Protesters like Jan Palach left a lasting legacy that
fallen leaders was ruthlessly erased from history continued to motivate those seeking political
books, for instance, and individuals tried to forget change, particularly in the Soviet bloc. As order
grim reality with lots of sexual activity. Like the was restored, some disillusioned reformers in the
migrants from fascist Germany and Italy in the West turned to open terrorism. New forces were
1930s, newcomers — from noted intellectuals to also emerging from beyond the West to challenge
skilled craftspeople and dancers — enriched the superpower dominance. The 1970s brought an
culture of those countries in the West that wel- era of détente — a lessening of tensions — during
comed them. which both superpowers limited the nuclear arms
In the United States, the reaction against ac- race in order to meet crises at home. Despite this
tivists was different, though the impulse to restore relaxation in the cold war, internal corruption,
order prevailed there too. Elected in 1968, Presi- the threat of terrorism, competition from the oil-
dent Richard Nixon (1913–1994) promised to producing states, and attempts to control the
bring peace to Southeast Asia, but in 1970, he or- world beyond their borders threw the superpow-
dered U.S. troops to invade Cambodia, the site of ers and their allies off balance, allowing reform-
North Vietnamese bases. Campuses erupted again minded heads of state to come to the fore. The
in protest, and on May 4 the National Guard killed two most famous innovators were Margaret
four students and wounded eleven others at a Thatcher in Britain and Mikhail Gorbachev in the
demonstration at Kent State University in Ohio. USSR, who introduced drastic new policies in the
Nixon called the victims “bums,” and a growing 1980s to keep their economies moving forward.
reaction against the counterculture led many But in the Soviet bloc, postindustrial prosperity
Americans to agree with him that the guardsmen was simply unattainable under the old system.
“should have fired sooner and longer.” The United Gorbachev’s reforms actually contributed to the
States and North Vietnam agreed to peace in Jan- collapse of the Soviet system and the end of the
uary 1973, but hostilities continued. In 1975, a de- cold war in 1989.
termined North Vietnamese offensive defeated
South Vietnam and its U.S. allies and forcibly re-
unified the country. The United States reeled from A Changing Balance of World Power
the defeat, having suffered loss of young lives, tur- After being tested by protest at home, the super-
bulence at home, vast military costs, and a weak- powers next confronted a changing world. In 1972,
ening of its reputation around the world. Yet a the United States pulled off a foreign policy tri-
strong current of public opinion turned against umph over the USSR when it opened relations
activists, born of the sense that somehow they — with the other Communist giant — China. But it
not the war, government corruption, or a spiral- was hit hard by a Middle Eastern oil embargo that
ing war debt — had brought the United States followed on the heels of that victory. As the situ-
down. Both superpowers were being tested, al- ation in the Middle East grew ever bloodier, mil-
most to the limits, and in a climate of political itants in Iran took U.S. embassy personnel hos-
volatility, the future of postindustrial prosperity tage. The relationship of the United States to the
was uncertain. Middle East began to weaken the U.S. bloc and
overtake the cold war as a major global issue.
Review: What were the main issues for protesters in
the 1960s, and how did governments address them? From Nixon in China to Détente. In the midst of
turmoil at home and the draining war in Vietnam,
Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s secretary of state and a
believer — like Otto von Bismarck — in Realpoli-
tik, decided to take advantage of the ongoing
USSR-Chinese rivalry. After the Communist Rev-
Richard Nixon: U.S. president from 1969 to 1974 who esca-
lated the Vietnam War, worked for accommodation with China,
olution in 1949, Mao Zedong, China’s new leader,
and resigned from the presidency after trying to block free undertook foolish experiments in both manufac-
elections. turing and agriculture that caused famine and
1960s–1989 Th e Te s t i n g o f S u p e r p ow e r D om i n at i o n a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r 937

massive suffering. In the Cultural Revolution of more weak spot in U.S. superpower status in the
the 1960s, Mao encouraged students to attack of- 1960s and 1970s.
ficials, teachers, and other authorities to prevent —
he claimed — the development of a Soviet-style Oil and Stagflation. Amid the instability in the
bureaucracy. As internal problems grew in both United States in the 1960s and 1970s, the Middle
the Soviet Union and China, the two Communist East’s oil-producing nations dealt Western domi-
giants skirmished along their nance still another major blow.
shared borders and in diplomatic Tensions between Israel and the
Israel after
arenas. In 1972, in the midst of independence, 1948 LEBANON Arab world provided the catalyst.
turmoil at home and the draining Israeli conquests, 1967 In 1967, Israeli forces, responding
war in Vietnam, President Nixon SYRIA to Palestinian guerrilla attacks,
visited China, linking, if only ten- Golan quickly seized Gaza and the Sinai
Mediterranean Heights
tatively, two very different great Sea peninsula from Egypt, the Golan
nations both facing disorder at Tel Aviv West Heights from Syria, and the West
 Bank
Jerusalem
home. In China, Nixon’s visit Gaza Bank from Jordan. Israel’s stun-
helped slow the brutality and ex- ning victory in this action, which
ISRAEL
cesses of Mao’s Cultural Revolu- Suez Canal came to be called the Six-Day
JORDAN
tion and advanced the careers of War, was followed in 1973 by a
Chinese pragmatists interested in joint Egyptian and Syrian attack
SINAI PENINSULA
technology, trade, and relations (returned to Egypt 1981) on Israel on Yom Kippur, the
with the West. most holy day in the Jewish cal-
Gu l

The diplomatic success of the endar. Israel, with material assis-


f of
Su

SAUDI
visit also sped up the process of EGYPT tance from the United States,
ez

ARABIA
détente between the United States 0 25 50 miles
stopped the assault.
and the Soviet Union. Fearful of 0 50 kilometers Red Sea Having failed militarily, the
the Chinese diplomatic advantage Arabs turned to economic clout.
and similarly confronted by pop- Israel after the Six-Day War, 1967 They struck at the West’s weak-
ular protest, the Soviets made est point — its dependence on
their own overtures to the U.S.-led bloc. In 1972, Middle Eastern oil for its advanced industries and
the superpowers signed the first Strategic Arms postindustrial lifestyle. Arab nations in the Orga-
Limitation Treaty (SALT I), which set a cap on the nization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
number of antimissile defenses each country could (OPEC), a relatively loose consortium before the
have. In 1975, in the Helsinki accords on human Yom Kippur War, combined to quadruple the price
rights, the Western bloc officially acknowledged of their oil and impose an embargo, cutting off all
Soviet territorial gains in World War II in exchange exports of oil to the United States and its allies be-
for the Soviet bloc’s guarantee of basic human cause they backed Israel. For the first time since
rights. imperialism’s heyday, the producers of raw mate-
Despite these diplomatic successes, rising rials — not the industrial powers — controlled the
purchases for the war in Vietnam left the United flow of commodities and set prices to their own
States billions of dollars in debt to other coun- advantage. The West was now mired in an oil
tries. The international currency system collapsed crisis.
under the weight of the dollars flooding the Throughout the 1970s, oil-dependent West-
global markets. In the face of this global chaos, erners watched in astonishment as OPEC upset the
Common Market countries united to force the balance of economic power and helped provoke a
United States to relinquish its single-handed di- recession in the West (Figure 28.1). The oil em-
rection of Western economic strategy. Another bargo and price hike not only caused unemploy-
blow to U.S. leadership followed when it was re- ment to rise by more than 50 percent in Europe
vealed that Nixon’s office had threatened to un- and the United States but also caused inflation to
dermine free elections by authorizing the soar. By the end of 1973, the inflation rate jumped
burglary and wiretapping of Democratic Party
headquarters at Washington’s Watergate building
during the 1972 presidential campaign. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC): A con-
Watergate scandal forced Nixon to resign in dis- sortium that regulated the supply and export of oil and that
acted with more unanimity after the United States supported
grace in the summer of 1974 — the first U.S. pres- Israel against the Arabs in the wars of the late 1960s and early
ident ever to do so. The Watergate scandal was one 1970s.
938 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

The Middle East and the Politics


of Oil
When Middle Eastern countries took
control of the price and volume of oil
they sold, Western leaders were taken
aback, so thoroughly accustomed
were the United States and its allies
to setting the conditions of trade.
OPEC leaders were lampooned in
cartoons as the global economic crisis
unfolded. Stagflation hit Western
economies hard, while everyone came
to terms with the new force of oil in
international politics. (Rosen/ Albany
Times-Union/ Rothco.)

20 to over 8 percent in West Germany, 12 percent in


Highest price $19.40 France, and 20 percent in Portugal. Eastern-bloc
18 countries, dependent on Soviet oil, fared little bet-
ter because the West could no longer afford their
16
Price per barrel in U.S. dollars (of 1974)

products and the Soviets boosted the price of their


14 own oil. Skyrocketing interest rates discouraged
both industrial investment and consumer buying.
12 With prices, unemployment, and interest rates all
rising — an unusual combination of economic
10 conditions dubbed stagflation — some in the West
8
came to realize that both energy resources and eco-
nomic growth had limits. Western Europe drasti-
6 cally cut back on its oil dependence by undertaking
conservation, enhancing public transportation,
4
Lowest price $1.60 and raising the price of gasoline to encourage the
development of fuel-efficient cars.
2
The U.S. bloc had further to fall. Elected U.S.
0 president in 1976, Jimmy Carter, a wealthy farmer
1955 ’60 ’65 ’70 ’75 ’80 ’85 and former governor of Georgia, was unable to
return the economy to its pre–Vietnam War and
FIGURE 28.1 Fluctuating Oil Prices, 1955–1985
pre–oil embargo prosperity. His administration also
Colonization allowed the Western imperial powers
to obtain raw materials at advantageous prices or
faced an insurmountable crisis in the Middle East.
even without paying at all. OPEC’s oil embargo Late in the 1970s, students, clerics, shopkeepers, and
and price hikes of the 1970s were signs of change, unemployed men in Iran began a religious agitation
which included the exercise of decolonized that brought to power the Islamic religious leader
countries’ control over their own resources. OPEC’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989). Em-
action led to a decade of painful economic down- ploying audiocassettes to spread his message, he
turn, but it also encouraged some European called for a transformation of the country into a truly
governments to improve public transportation, Islamic society, which meant the renunciation of the
encourage the production of fuel-efficient cars,
and make individual consumers cut back their
stagflation: The combination of a stagnant economy and soar-
dependence on oil. ing inflation; a period of stagflation occurred in the West in the
1970s as a result of an OPEC embargo on oil.
1960s–1989 Th e Te s t i n g o f S u p e r p ow e r D om i n at i o n a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r 939

Soldiers and Civilians in Northern


Ireland
Separatist, civil rights, and terrorist
movements increasingly directed
their violence against ordinary
people, following the lead of
soldiers in World War II. In Northern
Ireland, British troops fought to put
down the Irish Republican Army, but
civilians were also their target.
However, this image from Derry in
1969 shows that civilians resisted,
fighting with homemade weapons. It
was only late in the 1990s that both
sides called a halt to the killing and
agreed to negotiate. (Getty Images.)

Western ways advocated by the American-backed Terrorism. The terrorism at the U.S. embassy in
shah, who as a result was deposed. In the autumn of Iran was part of a trend that had actually begun in
1979, revolutionary supporters of Khomeini took the West. In the 1970s, terrorist bands in Europe re-
hostages at the U.S. embassy in Teheran and would sponded to the suppression of activism and the
not release them. The United States was essentially worsening economic conditions with kidnappings,
paralyzed in the face of both Islamic militancy and bank robberies, bombings, and assassinations. Dis-
a downwardly spiraling economy. affected and well-to-do youth, steeped in extreme
theories that claimed Western
society was decaying, often
The Western Bloc Meets 0 50 100 miles
joined these groups. In West 0 50 100 kilometers
Challenges with Reform Germany throughout the 1970s,
FRANCE
Bilbao
As the 1980s opened, the first agenda item for non- the Red Army Faction assassi-  
San Sebastián
Basque
Communist governments in the West was to put nated prominent businessmen,
their economic houses in order. On top of the eco- judges, and other public offi-
ANDORRA
nomic challenge was the growing phenomenon of cials. Practiced in assassinations
SPAIN Catalonia
terrorism — that is, coordinated and targeted polit- of public figures and random Madrid 
 Barcelona
ical violence by opposition groups at home. The un- shootings of pedestrians, Italy’s
precedented mix of terrorism, the energy crisis, Red Brigades kidnapped and
soaring unemployment, and double-digit inflation then murdered the head of the 0 25 50 miles
sparked the election of conservative politicians, who dominant Christian Democrats 0 25 50 kilometers
Derry
 1972
maintained that decades of supporting a welfare in 1978. Advocates of independ- Northern 1972
Belfast

state were at the heart of economic problems. Across ence for the Basque nation in Ireland 
1978

the West, people came to feel that the unemployed northern Spain assassinated 1976 
1979
and new immigrants from around the world were Spanish politicians and police
responsible for the downturn in the postindustrial officers. IRELAND
economy. Nineteenth-century emphases on com- In the 1970s, Catholics in  Dublin
Bloody Sunday,
petitiveness, individualism, and revival of privilege Northern Ireland pitted them- 
January 30, 1972
for the “best circles” replaced the twentieth-century selves against the dominant  Other major incidents
trend toward advancing economic democracy to Protestants to protest job dis-
combat totalitarianism. Postindustrial society crimination and a lack of civil Nationalist Movements of the
changed political course. rights. Demonstrators urged 1970s
940 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

union with the Irish Republic, and with protest es- rorism, and failures in leadership — that the West
calating, the British government sent in troops. On was in trouble.
January 30, 1972, which became known as Bloody
Sunday, British troops fired at demonstrators and Thatcher Reshapes Politics. More than anyone
killed thirteen, setting off a cycle of violence that else, Margaret Thatcher, the leader of Britain’s
left five hundred dead in that single year. Protes- Conservative Party and prime minister from 1979
tants fearful of losing their dominant position to 1990, reshaped the West’s political and eco-
combated a reinvigorated Irish Republican Army nomic ideas to meet the crisis. Coming to power
(IRA), which carried out bombings and assassina- amid continuing economic decline, revolt in
tions to press for the union of the two Irelands and Northern Ireland, and labor unrest, the combative
an end to the oppression of Catholics. prime minister rejected the politics of consensus
Terrorists failed in their goal of overturning building. Believing that only business could revive
the existing democracies, and, battered as it was, the sluggish British economy, Thatcher lashed out
parliamentary government scored a few important at union leaders, Labour Party politicians, and
successes in the 1970s. Spain and Portugal, suffer- people who received welfare-state benefits, calling
ing under dictatorships since the 1930s, regained them enemies of British prosperity. Her anti-
their freedom and set out on a course of greater welfare-state policies struck a revolutionary chord,
prosperity. The death of Spain’s Francisco Franco and she called herself “a nineteenth-century lib-
in 1975 ended more than three decades of dicta- eral” in reference to the economic individualism
torial rule. Franco’s handpicked successor, King of that age. In her view, business leaders were the
Juan Carlos, surprisingly steered his nation to key members of society. Although immigrants of-
Western-style constitutional monarchy, facing ten worked for the lowest wages and contributed
down threatened military coups. Portugal and to profits, she characterized migrants and the un-
Greece also ousted right-wing dictators, thus employed as inferior, saying that neither group
paving the way for their integration into western contributed to national wealth. Even workers
Europe and for substantial economic growth. De- blamed labor leaders or newcomers for Britain’s
spite these democratic advances, a consensus troubles.
emerged — given the economic crisis, political ter- The policies of “Thatcherism” were based on
monetarist, or supply-side, theories of U.S. econ-
omists. According to monetarist theory, inflation
results when government pumps money into the
economy at a rate higher than the nation’s eco-
nomic growth rate. Thus, government should keep
a tight rein on the money supply to prevent prices
from rising rapidly. Supply-side economists main-
tain that the economy as a whole flourishes when
businesses grow and their prosperity “trickles
down” throughout the society. To implement such
theories, the British government cut income taxes
on the wealthy to spur new investment, increasing
sales taxes to compensate for the lost revenue. The
result was a greater burden on working people,
who bore the brunt of the sales tax. Thatcher
also vigorously cut government’s role in the econ-
omy: she sold publicly owned businesses and util-
ities such as British Airways, refused to prop up
“outmoded” industries such as coal mining, and
slashed education and health programs. As their
influence spread through the West and the world,
Margaret Thatcher at Conservative Party Conference (1983)
As British prime minister for more than a decade, Margaret Thatcher
Thatcher’s economic policies came to be known as
profoundly influenced the course of modern government by rolling back
the welfare state. Thatcher was convinced, and convinced others, that
the welfare state did not advance society and its citizens but made Margaret Thatcher: Prime minister of Britain from 1979 to
1990; she set a new tone for British politics by promoting
them lazy when it rewarded useless people with handouts. Her tenure
neoliberal economic policies and criticizing poor people, union
in office encouraged other politicians, from Ronald Reagan to Helmut members, and racial minorities as worthless, even harmful
Kohl, to execute similar cuts in social programs. (© Bettmann/ Corbis.) citizens.
1960s–1989 Th e Te s t i n g o f S u p e r p ow e r D om i n at i o n a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r 941

DOCUMENT

Margaret Thatcher’s Economic Vision


Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s longest-serving and commerce. That is why we warned lo- a nation has spent, spent, spent, and spent
prime minister, changed Western thinking cal authorities that since rates [taxes] are again, ours has. Today that dream is over.
about the welfare state. Many Europeans saw frequently the biggest tax that industry All of that money has got us nowhere, but
the welfare state as a mainstay of democracy, now faces, increases in them can cripple it still has to come from somewhere. Those
which would alleviate the hardships that had local businesses. . . . who urge us to relax the squeeze, to spend
turned workers toward either socialism, from That is why I stress that if those who yet more money indiscriminately in the
Bismarck’s time onward, or toward Mus- work in public authorities take for them- belief that it will help the unemployed and
solini’s and Hitler’s fascism during the diffi- selves large pay increases, they leave less to the small businessman, are not being kind
cult interwar years. Thatcher, however, be spent on equipment and new buildings. or compassionate or caring. They are not
believed that programs to provide health That in turn deprives the private sector of the friends of the unemployed or the small
care, education, and housing coddled the the orders it needs, especially some of business. They are asking us to do again
lazy. She thought the money for such pro- those industries in the hard pressed re- the very things that caused the problems
grams should be invested in private industry, gions. Those in the public sector have a in the first place. . . .
to produce a profit and to encourage more in- duty to those in the private sector not to I am accused of lecturing or preach-
vestment and greater productivity. Here she take out so much in pay that they cause ing about this. I suppose it is a critic’s way
outlines her thoughts on public spending to others’ unemployment. That is why we of saying, “Well, we know it is true, but we
members of the Conservative Party. point out that every time high wage set- have to carp at something.” I do not care
tlements in nationalised monopolies lead about that. But I do care about the future
I and my colleagues say that to add to pub- to higher charges for telephones, electric- of free enterprise, the jobs and exports it
lic spending takes away the very money ity, coal, and water, they can drive compa- provides, and the independence it brings
and resources that industry needs to stay nies out of business and cost other people to our people.
in business, let alone to expand. Higher their jobs.
public spending, far from curing unem- If spending money like water was the Source: Juliet S. Thompson and Wayne C.
ployment, can be the very vehicle that answer to our country’s problems, we Thompson, ed., Margaret Thatcher: Prime Minister
loses jobs and causes bankruptcies in trade would have no problems right now. If ever Indomitable (Boulder: Westview, 1994), 230–31.

neoliberalism (see Document,“Margaret Thatcher’s ing power that burdened the poor and unem-
Economic Vision,” above). ployed. In any case, Thatcher’s program became
In the first three years of Thatcher’s govern- the standard for those facing the challenge of
ment, the British economy did not respond well to stagflation and economic decline. Britain had been
her shock treatment. The quality of universities, one of the pioneers of the welfare state, and now
public transportation, highways, and hospitals de- it pioneered in changing course.
teriorated, and leading scholars and scientists left
the country in a renewal of the brain drain. In ad- In Thatcher’s Footsteps. In the United States,
dition, social unity fragmented as she pitted the Ronald Reagan, who served as president between
lower classes against one another. In 1981, blacks 1981 and 1989, followed a similar road to combat
and Asians rioted in major cities. Thatcher revived the economic crisis. Dividing U.S. citizens into the
her sagging popularity with a nationalist war good and the bad, Reagan vowed to promote the
against Argentina in 1982 over ownership of the values of the “moral majority,” which included
Falkland Islands off the Argentinian coast. Stagfla- commitment to Bible-based religion, dedication to
tion ultimately dissipated, although historians and work, and unquestioned patriotism. He blasted so-
economists debated whether the change resulted called spendthrift and immoral “liberals” when
from Thatcher’s policies or from the lack of spend- introducing “Reaganomics” — a program of whop-
ping income tax cuts for the wealthy combined
neoliberalism: A theory first promoted by British prime minis- with massive reductions in federal spending for
ter Margaret Thatcher, calling for a return to liberal principles student loans, school lunch programs, and mass
of the nineteenth century, including the reduction of welfare-
state programs and the cutting of taxes for the wealthy to pro-
transit. Like Thatcher, Reagan believed that tax
mote economic growth. cuts would lead to investment and a reinvigorated
942 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

economy; federal outlays for social programs, he build its sagging infrastructure such as the south-
felt, only encouraged bad Americans to be lazy. ern cities of Granada and Córdoba. In Ireland, a
In foreign policy, Reagan spent most of his surge of investment in education for high-tech
time in office warning of the Communist threat jobs combined with low wage rates to attract much
from the “evil empire” (USSR) and rolling back new business to the country in the 1990s. Prosper-
détente. He demanded huge military budgets to ity and the increasingly unacceptable death toll led
counter the Soviets and announced the Strategic to a political rapprochement between Ireland and
Defense Initiative (SDI), known popularly as Star Northern Ireland in 1999. Austria prospered too,
Wars, a costly plan to put lasers in space to defend in part by reducing government pensions and aid
the United States against a nuclear attack. The to business. Austrian chancellor Franz Vranitsky
combination of tax cuts and military expansion summed up the changed focus of government in
had pushed the federal budget deficit to $200 bil- the 1980s and 1990s: “In Austria, the shelter that
lion by 1986. the state has given to almost everyone — employee
Other western European leaders also limited as well as entrepreneur — has led . . . a lot of
welfare-state benefits in the face of stagflation, people [to] think not only what they can do to solve
though without Thatcher’s and Reagan’s socially a problem but what the state can do. . . . This
divisive rhetoric. West German leader Helmut needs to change.” The century-long growth of the
Kohl, who took power in 1982, reduced welfare welfare state slowed by the 1990s as new economic
spending, froze government wages, and cut corpo- and political theories took hold.
rate taxes. By 1984, the inflation rate was only 2 Almost alone, Sweden maintained a full array
percent and West Germany had acquired a 10 per- of social programs for everyone. The government
cent share of world trade. Unlike Thatcher, Kohl also offered each immigrant a choice of subsidized
did not fan class and racial hatreds. The politics of housing in neighborhoods inhabited primarily by
divisiveness was particularly unwise in Germany, Swedes or primarily by people from the immi-
where terrorism on the left and on the right con- grant’s native land. Such programs were expensive:
tinued to flourish. Moreover, the legacy of Nazism the tax rate on income over $46,000 was 80 per-
loomed menacingly. When an unemployed cent. Despite a highly productive workforce,
German youth said of immigrant Turkish work- Sweden dropped from fourth to fourteenth place
ers, “Let’s gas ’em,” the revival of Nazi language ap- among nations in per capita income by 1998. Al-
palled many in Germany’s middle class. though the Swedes reduced their costly depend-
By 1981, stagflation had put more than 1.5 ence on foreign oil by cutting consumption in half
million people out of work in France, but the between 1976 and 1986, their welfare state came
French took a different political path to deal with to seem extreme to many citizens. As elsewhere,
the economic crisis. They elected a socialist presi- immigrants were cast as the source of the coun-
dent, François Mitterrand, who nationalized banks try’s problems — past, present, and future: “How
and certain industries and increased wages and so- long will it be before our Swedish children will
cial spending to stimulate the economy — the have to turn their faces toward Mecca?” ran one
opposite of Thatcherism. New public buildings politician’s campaign speech in 1993.
like museums and libraries arose along with new
subway lines and improved public transport.
Collapse of Communism
When conservative Jacques Chirac succeeded Mit-
terrand as president in 1995, he adopted neolib- in the Soviet Bloc
eral policies. The same divisive politics that had Beginning in 1985, reform came to the Soviet Union
unfolded during hard economic times continued as well, but instead of fortifying the economy, it
as the government changed. From the 1980s on, helped bring about the collapse of the Soviet bloc.
the racist National Front Party won 10 percent and Other causes were global communications, interna-
sometimes more of the vote with promises to de- tional trade, and the ongoing protests of workers,
port African and Middle Eastern immigrants. artists, and intellectuals. Moreover, a corrupt sys-
tem of political and economic management pre-
Prosperity in Smaller States. At the same time, vented any kind of cure for the ailing economy.
smaller European states without heavy defense Years of stagnant and then negative growth led to
commitments began to thrive, some of them by a deteriorating standard of living. After working a
slashing away at welfare programs. Spain joined full day, Soviet homemakers stood in long lines to
the Common Market in 1986 and used Common obtain basic commodities; shortages necessitated
Market investment and tourist dollars to help re- the three-generation household, in which grand-
1960s–1989 Th e Te s t i n g o f S u p e r p ow e r D om i n at i o n a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r 943

parents took over tedious homemaking tasks from


their working children and grandchildren. “There
is no special skill to this,” a seventy-three-year-old
grandmother and former garbage collector re-
marked. “You just stand in line and wait.” Even so,
people often went away empty-handed as basic
household supplies like soap disappeared instantly
from stores. One cheap and readily available prod-
uct — vodka — often formed the center of people’s
social lives. Alcoholism reached crisis levels, di-
minishing productivity and tremendously strain-
ing the nation’s morale.

Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet Reformer. In 1985, a


new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, unexpectedly
opened an era of change in hopes of remedying all
these ills. The son of peasants, Gorbachev had
risen through Communist Party ranks as an agri-
cultural specialist and had traveled abroad to ob-
serve life in the West. At home, he saw the
consequences of that economic stagnation: in Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev
much of the USSR ordinary people decided not to Mikhail Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, gave a fresh look to Soviet
politics. They traveled, made friends abroad, and were fashionable and
have children. The Soviet Union was forced to im-
modern. While the Gorbachevs became part of Western celebrity
port massive amounts of grain because 20 to 30
culture, however, average citizens back home in the USSR saw the
percent of the grain that was produced in the USSR Gorbachevs’ privileged lifestyle as simply the continuation of the
rotted before it could be harvested or shipped to Communist government’s disregard for ordinary people. (© Peter
market, so great was the inefficiency of the state- Turnley/ Corbis.)
directed economy. Industrial pollution reached
scandalous proportions because state-run enter-
prises cared only about meeting production quo-
tas. A massive and privileged party bureaucracy aimed to reinvigorate the Soviet economy by im-
feared innovation and failed to achieve socialism’s proving productivity, increasing investment, en-
professed goal of a decent standard of living for couraging the use of up-to-date technology, and
working people. To match U.S. military growth, gradually introducing such market features as
the Soviet Union diverted 15 to 20 percent of its prices and profits. The complement to economic
gross national product (more than double the U.S. change was the policy of glasnost (usually trans-
proportion) to armaments, further crippling the lated as “openness” or “publicity”), which called
economy’s chances of raising living standards. As for disseminating “wide, prompt, and frank infor-
these problems grew, a new cynical generation was mation” and for allowing Soviet citizens new mea-
coming of age that had no memory of World War sures of free speech. When officials complained
II or Stalin’s purges. “They believe in nothing,” a that glasnost threatened their status, Gorbachev
mother said of Soviet youth in 1984. replaced more than a third of the Communist
Gorbachev knew from experience and from Party’s leadership in the first months of his admin-
his travels to western Europe that the Soviet sys- istration. The pressing need for glasnost became
tem was completely inadequate, and he quickly most evident after the Chernobyl catastrophe in
proposed several unusual programs. A crucial 1986, when a nuclear reactor exploded and spewed
economic reform, perestroika (“restructuring”), radioactive dust into the atmosphere. Bureaucratic
cover-ups delayed the spread of information about
Mikhail Gorbachev: Leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the accident, with lethal consequences for people
1991; he instituted reforms such as glasnost and perestroika,
thereby contributing to the collapse of Communist rule in the living near the plant.
Soviet bloc and the USSR.
perestroika: Literally, “restructuring”; an economic policy insti- glasnost: Literally “openness” or “publicity”; a policy instituted
tuted in the 1980s by Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev calling in the 1980s by Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev calling for
for the introduction of market mechanisms and the achieve- greater openness in speech and in thinking, which translated
ment of greater efficiency in manufacturing, agriculture, and to the reduction of censorship in publishing, radio, television,
services. and other media.
944 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

DOCUMENT

Criticizing Gorbachev
Some people — especially in the U.S. bloc — (our analysts now think that it was the ment, after all, required that he, too, be
interpreted Gorbachev’s reforms as noble and military-industrial complex) but his ini- swept from his post and stripped of his
enlightened, opening the way to free markets tial behavior, when you look back on what position, his perquisites, his glory.
and free speech. Others, especially in the So- happened, bears the mixed traits of bold- Perestroika was started largely to pro-
viet Union, saw him as simply another mem- ness and indecision, ignorance and a fine vide a better life for the Party authorities,
ber of the Communist establishment, hoping knowledge of human nature (in its Party but things got out of hand. Instead of feed-
to prop up a rotten system. “A flatterer,” one version), recklessness and cold calcula- ing the Party more fully, perestroika saw
critic called him, “who can live for free in lux- tion. Having grown up under conditions the people moving — awkwardly, looking
urious villas at our expense.” For such critics, of Brezhnev’s stagnation Gorbachev knew nervously over their shoulders, fighting
Gorbachev’s reforms were merely machina- his small world [of the Party] extremely bitterly with one another — toward
tions by a Soviet leader hoping to boost pro- well, and supposed that he knew how to democracy. (Gorbachev liked to speak not
ductivity so that there would be more to change it. But he did not know the larger of democracy but of democratization,
siphon off. Journalist Tatyana Tolstoya ap- world and its problems; and when he de- which prompted the joke that the differ-
praised Gorbachev with a critical eye, propos- stroyed the habitual structures with his ence between democracy and democrati-
ing that her opinions represented those of own hands, he ceased to understand his zation is like the difference between a
Soviet citizens. The first passage here was immediate surroundings and took one canal and canalization — i.e. a sewer sys-
written in response to a book published about false step after another. . . . tem.) When the dangerous question of
Gorbachev in 1990. The second passage was party privileges inevitably arose, Gor-
written in 1991 just after an attempted coup One judges a man by his actions, and bachev tried to avoid it in every way.
against his regime in August 1991. all of Gorbachev’s actions showed that he
desperately tried to stop the reforms in Source: Tatyana Tolstaya, Pushkin’s Children: Writ-
We do not know who proposed Gor- which he did not wish to participate any ings on Russia and Russians, trans. Jamey Gram-
bachev for the top and who supported him longer. The logic of democratic develop- brell (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), 46, 51.

After Chernobyl, even the Communist Party ganize in opposition to crumbling Communist
and Marxism-Leninism were opened to public rule. In the spring of 1989, in a remarkably free
criticism. Party meetings suddenly included com- balloting in Moscow’s local elections, not a single
plaints about the highest leaders and their policies. Communist was chosen.
Television shows adopted the outspoken methods Glasnost and perestroika dramatically
of American investigative reporting; one program changed superpower relations. Recognizing how
exposed the plight of Leningrad’s homeless chil- severely the cold war arms race was draining So-
dren — an admission of communism’s failings. viet resources, Gorbachev almost immediately
Instead of publishing made-up letters praising the began scaling back missile production. His unilat-
great Soviet state, newspapers were flooded with eral actions gradually won over Ronald Reagan. In
real ones complaining of shortages and abuse. One 1985, the two leaders initiated a personal relation-
outraged “mother of two” protested that the cost- ship and began defusing the cold war. “I bet the
cutting policy of reusing syringes in hospitals was hard-liners in both our countries are bleeding
a source of AIDS. “Why should little kids have to when we shake hands,” said the jovial Reagan at
pay for the criminal actions of our Ministry of the conclusion of one meeting. In early 1989, Gor-
Health?” she asked. Debate and factions arose bachev withdrew the last of his country’s forces
across the political spectrum (see Document, from the debilitating war in Afghanistan, and the
“Criticizing Gorbachev,” above). In the fall of 1987, United States started to cut back its own vast mil-
one of Gorbachev’s allies, Boris Yeltsin, quit the itary buildup by the end of the year.
government after denouncing perestroika as insuf-
ficient to produce real reform. Yeltsin’s political Rebellion in Poland. As Gorbachev’s reforms in
daring, which in the past would have consigned the USSR started spiraling out of his control, they
him to oblivion (or Siberia), inspired others to or- did so in an atmosphere of rising dissent across
1960s–1989 Th e Te s t i n g o f S u p e r p ow e r D om i n at i o n a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r 945

the Soviet bloc, most notably in Poland. Already China. Inspired by Gorbachev’s visit to Beijing, in
in the summer of 1980, Poles had gone on strike the spring of 1989 thousands of Chinese students
to protest government-increased food prices. As massed in the city’s Tiananmen Square, the world’s
the protest spread, workers at the Gdańsk ship- largest public square, to demand democracy. They
yards, led by electrician Lech Walesa and crane used telex machines and e-mail to rush their mes-
operator Anna Walentynowicz, created an inde- sages to the international community, and they ef-
pendent labor movement called Solidarity. The fectively conveyed their goals through the cameras
organization soon embraced much of the adult that Western television trained on them. China’s
population, including a million members of the aged Communist leaders, while pushing economic
Communist Party. Both intellectuals and the modernization, refused to consider the introduc-
Catholic church, long in the forefront of opposi- tion of democracy. As workers began joining the
tion to antireligious communism, supported Sol- pro-democracy forces, the government crushed
idarity workers as they occupied factories in the movement and executed as many as a thou-
protest against inflation, the scarcity of food, and sand rebels.
other deteriorating conditions of everyday life. The The protests in Tiananmen Square were gal-
members of Solidarity waved Polish flags and pa- vanizing. In June 1989, the Polish government,
raded giant portraits of the Virgin Mary and Pope weakened by its own bungling of the economy and
John Paul II— a Polish native. lacking Soviet support for further repression, held
Having achieved mass support at home and free parliamentary elections. Solidarity candidates
worldwide sympathy through media coverage, Soli- overwhelmingly defeated the Communists, and in
darity leaders insisted that the government recog- early 1990, Walesa became president, hastening
nize it as an independent union — a radical demand Poland’s rocky transition to a market economy.
under communism. As food became scarce and Gorbachev openly reversed the Brezhnev Doctrine
prices rose, tens of thousands of women marched in in the Polish case, refusing to interfere in the po-
the streets crying, “We’re hungry!” They, too, litical course of another nation. When it became
protested working conditions, but as both workers clear that the Soviet Union would not intervene in
and the only caretakers of home life, it was the Poland, the fall of communism repeated itself
scarcity of food that sent them into the streets. The across the Soviet bloc.
Communist Party teetered on the edge of collapse, Communism collapsed first in Poland and
until the police and the army, with Soviet support, then in Hungary because of those countries’ early
imposed a military government and in the winter of introduction of free-market measures. In Hun-
1981 outlawed Solidarity. Stern and puritanical, gary, which had experimented with “market social-
General Wojciech Jaruzelski took over as the head of ism” since the 1960s, even officials began to realize
Poland’s new regime in 1981, but the general could that political democracy had to accompany eco-
not push repression too far: he needed new loans nomic freedom. Citizens were already protesting
from the U.S.-led bloc to keep the sinking Polish the government, lobbying, for example, against
economy afloat. Using global communications, dis- ecologically unsound projects like the construc-
sidents kept Solidarity alive both inside and outside tion of a new dam. They encouraged boycotts of
of Poland. Workers kept meeting, creating a new Communist holidays, and on March 15, 1989, they
culture outside the official Soviet arts and newscasts. boldly commemorated the anniversary of the
Poets read dissident verse to overflow crowds, and Hungarian uprising. Finally, these popular de-
university professors lectured to Solidarity members mands for liberalization led the Parliament in the
on such forbidden topics as Polish resistance in fall of 1989 to dismiss the Communist Party as the
World War II. Activism in Poland set the stage for official ruling institution; people across the country
communism’s downfall throughout the Soviet bloc. tore down Soviet and Communist symbols.
The most potent symbol of a divided Europe —
The Revolutions of 1989. The year 1989 saw the the Berlin Wall — stood in the midst of a divided
sudden and unexpected disintegration of Com- Germany. East Germans had attempted to escape
munist power in eastern Europe, but first came a over the wall for decades, and since the early 1980s
surprising attack on the Communist state in dissidents had held peace vigils in cities across East
Germany. In the summer of 1989, crowds of East
Germans flooded the borders to escape the crum-
Solidarity: A Polish labor union founded in 1980 by Lech Walesa bling Soviet bloc, and hundreds of thousands of
and Anna Walentynowicz that contested Communist Party pro-
grams and eventually succeeded in ousting the party from the protesters rallied throughout the fall against the
Polish government. regime. Satellite television brought them visions of
946 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

Reunited Berliners Welcome the New Year


On New Year’s Eve, 1989, Berliners—and indeed supporters from around the world—celebrated
the fall of the Berlin Wall and the prospect of a new Germany. The exuberant crowd tore the
Communist seal from the flag and then hoisted it above the Brandenburg Gate as fireworks added
to the intense emotion of the moment. The difficult transition, which included disposing of the
remnants of communism, lay in the future. (ullstein bild–Boening.)

postindustrial prosperity and of free and open pub- Czechoslovak Communist Party leadership, play-
lic debate in West Germany. Crowds of demonstra- wright Václav Havel accused Marxist-Leninist rule
tors greeted Gorbachev, taken as a hero by many, of making people materialistic and indifferent to
when he visited the country in October. On Novem- civic life. In 1977, Havel, along with a group of fel-
ber 9, guards at the Berlin Wall allowed free passage low intellectuals and workers, signed Charter 77,
to the west, turning protest into a festive holiday: a public protest against the regime that resulted in
West Berliners greeted the Easterners with bananas, the arrest of the signers. In the mid-1980s, these
a consumer good that had been in short supply in dissidents watched Gorbachev on television call-
the Eastern zone, and that fruit became the unoffi- ing for free speech, though never mentioning re-
cial symbol of a newfound liberation. As they form in Czechoslovakia. Protesters clamored for
strolled freely in the streets, East Berliners saw first- democracy, but the government turned the police
hand the goods available in a successful postindus- on them, arresting activists in January 1989 for
trial society. Soon thereafter, citizens — east and commemorating the death of Jan Palach. The
west — released years of frustration by assaulting turning point came in November 1989 when, in
the Berlin Wall with sledgehammers. The govern- response to police beatings of students, Alexander
ment finished the wall’s destruction in 1990. Dubček, leader of the Prague Spring of 1968, ad-
In Czechoslovakia, which after 1968 had been dressed the crowds in Prague’s Wenceslas Square
firmly restored to Soviet-style rule, people also with a call to oust the Stalinists from the govern-
watched the progress of glasnost expectantly. ment. Almost immediately, the Communist lead-
Persecuted dissidents had maintained their cri- ership resigned. Capping the country’s “velvet
tique of Communist rule. In an open letter to the revolution,” as it became known for its lack of
1960s–1989 C o n c lu s i o n 947

bloodshed, the formerly Communist-dominated


parliament elevated Havel to the presidency.
The world’s attention next fastened on the un-
folding political drama in Romania. From the mid-
1960s on, Nicolae Ceauşescu had ruled as the
harshest dictator in Communist Europe since
Stalin. In the name of modernization, he destroyed
whole villages; to build up the population, he out-
lawed contraceptives and abortions, a restriction
that led to the abandonment of tens of thousands
of children. He preached the virtues of a very slim
body so that he could cut rations and use the sav-
ings on his pet projects such as buying up private
castles and other property. Most Romanians lived
in utter poverty as Ceauşescu channeled almost all
the country’s resources into building himself an
enormous palace in Bucharest. To this end, he tore
down entire neighborhoods and dozens of histor-
ical buildings and crushed opponents of the gaudy
project to make it appear popular. Yet in early Homeless Romanian Children (1995)
December 1989, an opposition movement rose up: These children were among the many who lived without families
workers demonstrated against the dictatorial gov- around the railroad station in Romania’s capital city, Bucharest. Nicolae
ernment, and the army turned on Ceauşescu loy- Ceauşescu’s regime prohibited birth control and abortion in order to
alists. On Christmas Day, viewers watched on increase the supply of workers while simultaneously cutting back on
television as the dictator and his wife were tried food rations. Children were the victims of this policy, even after
Ceauşescu was overthrown, as families simply abandoned children they
by a military court and then executed. For many,
could not support. In order to survive, the children scavenged, stole,
the death of Ceauşescu meant that the very worst and begged. (© Barry Lewis/ Corbis.)
of communism was over.

Review: How and why did the balance of world power


trial and cold war houses in order. The first two
change during the 1980s?
were successful, while Gorbachev’s policies of glas-
nost and perestroika — aimed at political and eco-
nomic improvements — brought on collapse.
Conclusion Glasnost and perestroika were supposed to
bring about the high levels of postindustrial pros-
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 symbolized the perity enjoyed outside the Soviet bloc. Across the
end of the cold war, even though the USSR still West, including the USSR, an unprecedented set of
stood as a bulwark of communism. Collapse of technological developments had transformed busi-
communism in the Soviet satellites was an utter nesses, space exploration, and the functioning of
surprise, for U.S.-bloc analysts had reported government. Technological advances also had an
throughout the 1980s that the Soviet empire was enormous impact on everyday life. Work changed
in dangerously robust health. But no one should as society reached a stage called postindustrial, in
have been unaware of dissent or economic discon- which the service sector predominated. New pat-
tent. Since the 1960s, rebellious youth, ethnic and terns of family life, new relationships among the
racial minorities, and women had all been con- generations, and revised standards for sexual be-
demning conditions across the West, along with havior also characterized these years. But it was
criticizing the threat posed by the cold war. By the only in the United States and western Europe that
early 1980s, wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan, the consumer benefits of postindustrialization
protests against privations in the Soviet bloc, the reached ordinary people, for the attainment of a
power of oil-producing states, and the growing po- thoroughgoing consumer, service, and high-tech
litical force of Islam had cost the superpowers their society demanded levels of efficiency, coordination,
resources and reputations. Margaret Thatcher in and cooperation unknown in the Soviet bloc.
Britain, Ronald Reagan in the United States, and Many complained, nonetheless, about the dra-
Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union tried with matic changes resulting from postindustrial devel-
varying degrees of success to put their postindus- opment. The protesters of the late 1960s addressed
948 C h a pt e r 2 8 ■ P o s t i n d u s t r i a l S o c i et y a n d t h e E n d o f t h e C o l d Wa r O r d e r 1960s–1989

MA P P I N G T H E W E ST
0 250 500 miles
FINLAND
0 250 500 kilometers Collapse of
NORWAY Communism
Site of popular

Estonia demonstrations

a
SWEDEN

c Se
lti
No r t h 
Latvia

Ba
Sea
DENMARK Nov. 1989
Fall of Berlin Wall Lithuania
N
UNITED USSR 
March 1990  E
KINGDOM Gdańsk
 Belarus W
EAST
NETH.  Berlin June 1989 S
GERMANY Warsaw
 U S S R

  POLAND
BELGIUM  
WEST 
GERMANY  Prague 
C ZEC Cracow Ukraine
LUX. HOSLO
VAKIA
Nov. 1989
FRANCE 
Budapest Moldova
SWITZ. AUSTRIA 
Dec. 1989
HUNGARY
Oct. 1990 ROMANIA
 
 

Bucharest

YUGOSLAVIA Black Sea
Ad

SPAIN ITALY  Sofia Nov. 1989


r
ia

Corsica
BULGARIA
tic
Se
a

ALBANIA
Sardinia

GREECE TURKEY
Medite r ranean Sea

The Collapse of Communism in Europe, 1989–1990


The 1989 overthrow of the Communist party in the USSR satellite countries of Eastern Europe
occurred with surprising rapidity. The transformation began in Poland when Polish voters tossed out
Communist Party leaders in June 1989, and then accelerated in September when thousands of East
Germans fled to Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Between October and December, Communist
regimes were replaced in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania. Within three years,
the Baltic States would declare their independence, the USSR itself would dissolve, and the breakup
of Yugoslavia would lead to war in the Balkans.

postindustrial society’s stubborn problems: con-


centrations of bureaucratic and industrial power, For Further Exploration
social inequality, environmental degradation, and ■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
even uncertainty about humankind’s future. In the for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
Soviet sphere, these protests were continuous but end of the book.
were little heeded until the collapse of Soviet dom-
ination of eastern Europe in 1989. Soon commu- ■ For additional primary-source material from
nism would be overturned in the USSR itself. this period, see Chapter 28 in Sources of THE
However, the triumph of democracy in the former MAKING OF THE WEST, Third Edition.
Soviet empire opened an era of painful adjust- ■ For Web sites and documents related to topics
ment, impoverishment, and even violence for hun- in this chapter, see Make History at
dreds of millions of people. Ending the cold war bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
also accelerated the process of globalization.
1960s–1989 C h a pt e r R ev i ew 949

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
Key Terms and People Making Connections
DNA (919) Organization of 1. What were the differences between industrial society of the
in vitro fertilization Petroleum Exporting late nineteenth century and postindustrial society of the late
(921) Countries (OPEC) (937) twentieth century?
multinational stagflation (938) 2. Why were there so many protests, acts of terrorism, and up-
corporation (921) Margaret Thatcher (940) risings across the West in the decades between 1960 and
pop art (925) neoliberalism (941) 1990?
Ostpolitik (928) Mikhail Gorbachev (943) 3. What have been the long-term consequences of Com-
samizdat (928) perestroika (943) munist rule between 1917 and 1989?
Richard Nixon (936) glasnost (943)
Solidarity (945)
For practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other
study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
Review Questions bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.

1. What were the technological and scientific advances of the


1960s and 1970s, and how did they change human life and
society?
2. How did Western society and culture change in the postin-
dustrial age?
3. What were the main issues for protesters in the 1960s, and
how did governments address them?
4. How and why did the balance of world power change
during the 1980s?

Important Events

1963 Betty Friedan publishes The Feminine Mystique 1973–1976 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn publishes The Gulag
1966 Willy Brandt becomes West German foreign Archipelago
minister and develops Ostpolitik, a policy 1978 The first test-tube baby is born in England
designed to bridge tensions between the two 1978–1979 Islamic revolution in Iran; hostages taken at
Germanies U.S. embassy in Teheran
1967 South Africa’s Dr. Christiaan Barnard performs 1980 The independent trade union Solidarity organizes
first successful human heart transplant resistance to Polish communism; British prime
1968 Revolution in Czechoslovakia against communism; minister Margaret Thatcher begins dismantling
student uprisings throughout Europe and the the welfare state
United States 1981 Ronald Reagan becomes U.S. president
1969 U.S. astronauts walk on the moon’s surface 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev comes to power in the USSR
1972 SALT I between the United States and Soviet 1986 Explosion at Soviet nuclear plant at Chernobyl;
Union Spain joins the Common Market
1973 North Vietnam and the United States sign treaty 1989 Chinese students revolt in Tiananmen Square
ending war in Vietnam; OPEC raises price of oil and government suppresses them; Communist
and imposes oil embargo on the West governments ousted in eastern Europe; Berlin
Wall demolished
A New Globalism C H A P T E R

1989 TO THE PRESENT 29


Collapse of the Soviet Union
and Its Aftermath 953
herese is a Congolese immigrant to Paris who arrived there in • The Breakup of Yugoslavia
• The Soviet Union Comes Apart

T the late 1970s with the help of a brother who worked for an air-
line. Therese had been well-known in Africa as the teenage girl-
friend of pop singer Bozi Boziana, who wrote a hit song about her. But


Toward a Market Economy
International Politics and the
New Russia

The Nation-State in a
Congo’s political instability made her search for safety in Paris. Once
Global Age 961
there, Therese remained famous among African immigrants, for whom • Europe Looks beyond the
she began running nganda, or informal bars. Like Therese, the immi- Nation-State
• Globalizing Cities and
grants who frequent her nganda are often Congolese and other Africans Fragmenting Nations
• Global Organizations
who, because of problems in their home countries, have settled in Paris,
many of them illegally. They flock to her nganda because they like her Challenges from an
stylish dress, the African food she cooks, the African music she plays, Interconnected World 966
• The Problems of Pollution
and the African products she sells. Many of Therese’s small bars and • Population, Health, and Disease
eateries have flourished, only to be closed down by landlords who want • North versus South?
• Islam Meets the West
more of her handsome profits or who object to her running an unli- • World Economies on the Rise
censed café. Despite such obstacles, Therese keeps business going by
Global Culture and Society
moving her faithful clientele around her Paris neighborhood from base- in the Twenty-first Century 974
ment to shop front to spare room. Therese is a new global citizen, work- • Redefining the West: The Impact
of Global Migration
ing networks back home for supplies, constantly on the move because • Global Networks and the Economy
she lives on the margins of legality, and always striving to make a good • A Global Culture?

living for herself and her family.


Therese is just one concrete example of the ease with which
people in the post–cold war world crossed national boundaries while
maintaining crucial ties around the globe. The end of the cold war ri-
valry between the superpowers and their allies paved the way for a more
intimately connected world. In the 1990s, globalization advanced fur-
ther with the dramatic collapse of communism in Yugoslavia and then
of the Soviet Union itself. The world was no longer divided in two, with
all the guarded borders and burdensome restrictions of the cold war

Global Citizens
The world’s migrants at the turn of the millennium sought safety, education, or jobs
in the West’s manufacturing and service occupations. Like these young immigrants
from Senegal who are sharing a meal at a café in Paris, they also appreciated
Western amenities. Children of immigrants were sometimes disillusioned, however,
not wanting the life of extreme sacrifice that their parents had lived. Their frustrations
at not being accepted as full citizens occasionally erupted into protest and even
violence. (© Directphoto.org / Alamy.)
951
952 C h a pt e r 2 9 ■ A N e w G lo b a l i s m 1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t

division. Now, instead of being forced to follow satellites had pulled away from the USSR. New
one superpower or the other, nations around the forces arose to rival those of the West: not only the
world had more opportunity to trade and economic power of Asian, Middle Eastern, and
interact freely. The former Common Market trans- other countries but also the cultural might of Is-
formed itself into the European Union and in 2004 lam created new centers of influence. Some ob-
and 2007 admitted many states from the former servers predicted a huge “clash of civilizations”
Soviet bloc. The telecommunication systems put because of sharp differences between Western
in place in the 1960s contributed to the process of civilization and cultures beyond the West. Others,
globalization, binding peoples and cultures to- however, saw a different clash — one between a
gether in an ever-denser social and economic web. Europe reborn after decades of disastrous wars as
The global age brought the vast national and a peace-seeking group of nations confronting an
international migration of tens of millions of imperial United States that, like Europe in the
people, an expanding global marketplace, and an nineteenth century, was increasingly at war around
accelerated cultural exchange of popular music, the world. Instead of bringing connections and
books, films, and television entertainment. On the understanding, globalization in either of these sce-
negative side, the new globalization also brought narios could bring global warfare.
lethal disasters such as epidemic diseases, environ- For historians, understanding the recent past
mental deterioration, genocide, and terrorism. is a challenge in itself. Every day since 1989 has
Cutting their own welfare state programs, nations been filled with news, and never more so than af-
in the West faced competition from the rising eco- ter September 11, 2001. Global communication
nomic power of Japan, China, India, and Latin technology makes possible the virtually instanta-
America. International business mergers acceler- neous reporting of news. Unlike journalists, histo-
ated from the 1990s on, advancing efficiencies but rians do not choose from this mass the most
often threatening jobs. As millions of workers sensational story of the moment or the one that
found new but sometimes unsatisfying jobs in an will attract the biggest readership. Rather, they are
interlinked economy, they discovered that the interested in judging which items from the unfil-
global age was one of opportunities but also un- tered mass of instant news are actually true and,
precedented dilemmas. of these, which will be important in the long run.
While the end of superpower rivalry made Historians identify social, cultural, and political
global exchange easier, it also resulted in the dom- events that are uniquely important or generally
inance of a single power, the United States, in significant for people’s everyday lives, and they
world affairs. As the United States sought to exer- need time to collect facts from more than one
cise global power through warfare, however, the source. They make the most reliable evaluations
West itself seemed to fragment. European states when events are no longer “news”— that is, after a
started to resist the United States just as the Soviet substantial period of time has shown the events’
lasting influence and importance.
When we wrote the first edition of this book,
globalization: The interconnection of labor, capital, ideas, serv- we held our breath in the face of rapidly changing
ices, and goods around the world. Although globalization has events and judged that the fall of communism and
existed for hundreds of years, the late twentieth and early
twenty-first centuries are seen as more global because of the the increasing interconnectedness of the world’s
speed with which people, goods, and ideas travel the world. peoples and cultures were the challenges not only

■ 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising; ■ 1994 Mandela elected in South Africa;


Berlin Wall falls Russia invades Chechnya;
EU formed
■ 1990–1991 Persian Gulf War
■ 1992 Soviet Union dissolves

1985 1990 1995

■ 1990s Internet revolution ■ 1993 Toni Morrison wins Nobel Prize;


splitting of Czechoslovakia

■ 1991 Civil war in Yugoslavia;


failed coup in the Soviet Union
1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t C o ll a p s e o f t h e S ov i et U n i o n a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 953

of the moment but also of history. In this third failed to build full allegiance. The USSR frag-
edition we have persisted in that judgment even mented quickly. In Yugoslavia, Communist rulers
though the fall of communism and the coming of had also enforced unity among religious and eth-
globalism have brought greater perils than we saw nic groups. From the unstable years of the early
only a few years earlier. Today, more than a decade 1990s on, ambitious politicians seeking to build a
after we made our first selections of important following whipped up ethnic hatred (Map 29.1).
trends, we judge the potential for the unification The collapse of Communist regimes and the use of
of the entire European continent as momentous. ethnic violence as a political tool raised questions
We also see both the rising economic development about what new forms of government would take
around the world and the forces of terrorism as shape and what types of people might come to con-
having historical staying power. As an experiment trol the massive Soviet arsenal of nuclear weapons.
in history, you might note the important events
during the months in which you take this course,
put your list away for several years or more, and The Breakup of Yugoslavia
then see if they — along with the events discussed Ethnic nationalism shaped the post-Communist
in this chapter — stand the test of time. future in Yugoslavia. Tensions erupted there in
1990 when Serb Communist Slobodan Milosevic
won the presidency of Serbia and began to pro-
Focus Question: How has globalization been both a mote Serb control as a replacement for commu-
unifying and a divisive influence on the West in the
nism in the Yugoslav federation as a whole. Other
twenty-first century?
ethnic groups in Yugoslavia resisted Milosevic’s
militant pro-Serb nationalism and called for seces-
sion. “Slovenians . . . have one more reason to say
they are in favor of independence,” warned one of
Collapse of the Soviet Union them in the face of mounting Serb claims to rule
and Its Aftermath the other small republics that comprised Yugoslavia.
Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia, opposed to Milose-
Rejection of communism spread in the 1990s, vic’s desire to maintain a centralized state domi-
turning events in unpredictable, even violent di- nated by Serbia, hoped for a confederation of
rections. Yugoslavia and then the Soviet Union it- independent republics (Map 29.2). In the spring
self fell apart. Like Hungarians and Czechs in the of 1991, Slovenia and Croatia seceded, but Croa-
early-twentieth-century Habsburg Empire, na- tia lost almost a quarter of its territory when the
tionality groups in the USSR began to demand in- Serb-dominated Yugoslav army, eager to enforce
dependence. The Soviet bloc had contained more Serbian supremacy, invaded. A devastating civil
than one hundred ethnic groups, and the five re- war broke out in Bosnia-Herzegovina when the re-
publics of Soviet Central Asia were home to fifty public’s Muslim majority tried to create a multicul-
million Muslims. For more than a century, succes- tural and multiethnic state. With the covert military
sive governments had attempted to instill Russian
and Soviet culture, although some cultural auton-
Slobodan Milosevic: Serb leader of post-Communist Yugoslavia;
omy was allowed. The policy of Russification shak- he was tried for crimes against humanity in the ethnic cleans-
ily held the vast multiethnic empire together but ing that accompanied the dissolution of the Yugoslav state.

■ 1999 Euro introduced;


world population reaches six billion ■ 2004 Ten countries join the European Union

■ 2000 Putin becomes Russian president ■ 2005 Emissions reductions of


Kyoto Protocol go into effect

2000 2005 2010

■ 2001 September 11 terrorist attack; ■ 2007 Bulgaria and Romania admitted


United States launches war against terrorism to the European Union

■ 2003 United States invades Iraq;


the West divides
954 C h a pt e r 2 9 ■ A N e w G lo b a l i s m 1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t

MAP 29.1 Eastern Europe in the 1990s


Riga In the 1990s, the countries of eastern

a
LATVIA

Se
North RUSSIA Europe tried to forge their own destiny free

c
ti
l LITHUANIA
Sea
Ba Vilnius
from the direction of either Russia or the
RUSSIA Minsk
N United States. The transition was far
from easy. States like Czechoslovakia
E
W
BELARUS fragmented, and many state borders
Berlin S
were contested. Turning from Russia, the
Warsaw
leadership of these countries began to
GERMANY
POLAND Kiev
look to western Europe, most of them

Prague eventually opting for membership in the
UKRAINE
CZECH European Union.
REPUBLIC SLOVAKIA
Bratislava MOLDOVA
Budapest Chisinau

HUNGARY
SLOVENIA Ljubljana ROMANIA
Zagreb
CROATIA
BOSNIA- Belgrade Bucharest
Black Sea
Ad HERZEGOVINA
ri Sarajevo
at
ic YUGOSLAVIA BULGARIA
Se Sofia
a
Skopje
Tiranë
MACEDONIA
ALBANIA
Aegean
Sea
Mediterranean Ionian
Sea 0 150 300 miles
Sea
0 150 300 kilometers

support of Milosevic’s government, Bosnian Serb in mass graves, then re-interring them to conceal
men formed a guerrilla army and gained the upper the massacre. “Kill the lot,” the commander of the
hand. A United Nations (UN) arms embargo pre- Serb forces ordered at Srebrenica. Military units
vented the Bosnian Muslims from equipping their on all sides destroyed libraries and museums, ar-
forces adequately to defend themselves even though chitectural treasures like the Mostar Bridge, and
the Serbs at the time were massacring them. cities rich with history such as Dubrovnik. Ethnic
Violence in the Balkans was relentless — cleansing thus entailed eliminating both actual
inflicted on neighbors in the name of creating people and all traces of their complex past. Many
“ethnically pure” states in a region where ethnic in the West explained violence in the Balkans as
mixture, not ethnic purity, was the norm. During part of “age-old” blood feuds typical of a backward,
the 1990s, civilians died by the tens of thousands, as almost “Asian” society. Others saw using genocide
Serbs under Milosevic’s leadership pursued a policy to achieve national power as nothing more than a
they called ethnic cleansing — that is, genocide — modern political practice that had been employed
against the other ethnicities or nationalities. They by other politicians, including Adolf Hitler.
raped women to leave them pregnant with Serb As with German, Italian, and Japanese aggres-
babies as another form of conquest. In 1995, Croa- sion in the 1930s, no one stepped in to impose ef-
tian forces massacred Serbs who had helped seize fective sanctions against such violence. Late in the
land from Croatia; that same year, the Serbs retal- 1990s, Serb forces moved to attack Muslims of Al-
iated by slaughtering eight thousand Muslim boys banian ethnicity living in the Yugoslav province of
and men in the town of Srebrenica, burying them Kosovo. From 1997 to 1999, crowds of Albanian
Kosovars fled their homes as Serb militias and the
Yugoslav army slaughtered the civilian population.
ethnic cleansing: The mass murder—genocide—of people ac- North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) pilots
cording to ethnicity or nationality, beginning with the post– bombed the region in an attempt to drive back the
World War I elimination of minorities in eastern and central
Europe and continuing with the rape and murders that resulted army and Serb militias. UN peacekeeping forces fi-
from the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. nally intervened to enforce an interethnic truce,
1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t C o ll a p s e o f t h e S ov i et U n i o n a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 955

MAP 29.2 The Former Yugoslavia, c. 2000


0 50 100 miles After a decade of destructive civil war, UN
AUSTRIA 0 50 100 kilometers forces and UN-brokered agreements attempted
N to protect the civilians of the former Yugo-
HUNGARY slavia from the brutal consequences of post-
W E
Communist rule. Ambitious politicians, most
SLOVENIA S notably Slobodan Milosevic, used the twentieth-
century Western strategy of fostering ethnic
Ljubljana

Zagreb ROMANIA
and religious hatred as a powerful tool to build
Vojvodina
CROATIA (autonomous support for themselves while making those
province)
favoring peace look softhearted and unfit to
rule. ■ What issues of national identity does
BOSNIA-
Belgrade
the breakup of Yugoslavia indicate?
HERZEGOVINA
SERBIA and
Sarajevo MONTENEGRO

A  Mostar
dr
ia MONTENEGRO  Pec Pristina
ti  BULGARIA
c Dubrovnik  Kosovo
Se (autonomous
a province) Skopje

THE FORMER
ITALY YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC
OF MACEDONIA

ALBANIA
Yugoslavia in 1991
Capital GREECE

but people throughout the world felt that this in-


tervention came far too late and reflected the self-
interest of the great powers rather than a true
commitment to maintaining peace and protecting
human rights. Alongside the decimated independ-
ent republics of Slovenia, Bosnia, and Croatia, a
new regime emerged in Serbia, and Milosevic was
turned over to the International Court of Justice,
or World Court, in the Netherlands to be tried for
crimes against humanity. In 2003, Milosevic loy-
alists, many of them in line to be rounded up for
trial in the World Court, assassinated the new Ser-
bian president. Across both western and eastern
Europe, hateful racial, ethnic, and religious rheto-
ric influenced political agendas, nowhere more
violently than in the former Communist states.

Destruction of the Mostar Bridge in Yugoslavia, 1990


In modern history, the construction of a nation-state
has depended on the growth of institutions such as
armies and bureaucracies and the promotion of a
common national culture. In an effort to dominate
Bosnia and Croatia, Serbs in the 1990s destroyed non-
Serb art, books, and architecture, including such
symbols as the sixteenth-century bridge. (Top and bottom:
© Cardinale Stephane / Corbis Sygma.)
956 C h a pt e r 2 9 ■ A N e w G lo b a l i s m 1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t

The Soviet Union Russian economy entered an ever-deepening cri-


Comes Apart sis. Yeltsin’s political allies bought up national re-
sources, stripped them of their value, and sent
In 1992, amid deteriorating conditions and the billions of dollars out of the country. By 1999,
threat of violence, the Soviet Union itself col- Yeltsin’s own family appeared to be deeply impli-
lapsed. By 1990, perestroika had failed to revital- cated in stealing the wealth once seen as belong-
ize the Soviet economy; people confronted soaring ing to all the people. Managers, military officers,
prices, the specter of unemployment, and even and bureaucrats took whatever goods they could
greater scarcity of goods than they had endured in lay their hands on, including weaponry, and sold
the past. That year, Soviet leader Mikhail Gor- it. Attempting to consolidate support and appeal-
bachev announced that there was “no alternative ing to nationalist anti-ethnic sentiments in Russia,
to the transition to the market [economy],” but his Yeltsin launched a destructive military action
plan was too little, too late and satisfied no one. In against the resource-rich province of Chechnya,
1991, the Russian parliament elected Boris Yeltsin which wanted independence. Social disorder
as president of the Russian Republic over a Com- added to the political upheaval when organized
munist candidate, prompting a group of eight an- criminals interfered in the distribution of goods
tireform hard-liners, including the powerful head and services and assassinated legitimate entrepre-
of the Soviet secret police, or KGB, to attempt to neurs, legislators, and anyone who criticized them.
overthrow the government. Holding Gorbachev As the Russian parliament pursued an investiga-
under house arrest, coup leaders claimed to be res- tion into the business dealings of Yeltsin, his fam-
cuing the Soviet Union from the “mortal danger” ily, and his allies, Yeltsin resigned on December 31,
posed by “extremist forces.” Yeltsin, defiantly 1999. He appointed a new protégé, Vladimir
standing atop a tank outside the Russian Repub- Putin, as interim president.
lic’s parliament building, called for mass resist-
ance. Residents of Moscow and Leningrad filled Vladimir Putin Takes Charge. Putin was a little-
the streets, and units of the army defected to pro- known functionary in Russia’s new security appa-
tect Yeltsin’s headquarters. People used fax ma- ratus, which had evolved from the old KGB. In the
chines and computers to coordinate internal presidential elections of spring 2000, Putin sur-
resistance and send messages to the rest of the prised everyone when the electorate voted him in.
world. The coup collapsed as citizens overwhelm- Though associated with the Yeltsin family corrup-
ingly rejected a return to Communist orthodoxy. tion, he declared himself committed to legality.
“Democracy,” he announced, “is the dictatorship
Yeltsin Defeats the Communists. After the failed of law.” With a solid mandate, Putin proceeded to
coup, the Soviet Union disintegrated. People tore drive from power the biggest figures in regional
down statues of Soviet heroes; Yeltsin outlawed the government, usually the henchmen of the robber
Communist Party newspaper, Pravda, and sealed barons, and he fired their associates who held high
the KGB’s files. At the end of August 1991, the So- positions in the central government. Faced with a
viet parliament suspended operations of the Com- desperate economic situation, Putin claimed to re-
munist Party itself. The Baltic States of Estonia, store “strong government” and end the influence
Latvia, and Lithuania declared their independence of a “handful of billionaires with only egotistical
in September, and one republic after another fol- concerns.” Putin’s popularity rose even higher
lowed their lead. Bloody ethnic conflicts erupted when the government arrested the billionaire head
in the disintegrating Soviet world. In the Soviet of the Yukos Oil Company in 2003. The pillaging
republic of Tajikistan, native Tajiks rioted against of the country — the source of ordinary citizens’
Armenians living there; in the Baltic States, anti- recent suffering — was finally being punished. Ac-
Semitism revived as a political tool. The USSR cording to some insiders, however, Putin was
finally dissolved on January 1, 1992. Twelve of the merely transferring Russia’s natural resources and
fifteen former Soviet republics banded together as other assets to his own cronies, and he also con-
the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), tinued the destructive war in Chechnya to quell
but that hardly ended the disintegration of Russian the independence movement. Casualties, atroci-
power (Map 29.3). ties, disease, and the physical devastation of
Weakened by the coup, Gorbachev abandoned
politics. Yeltsin stepped in and accelerated the
Vladimir Putin: President of Russia elected in 2000; he has
change to a market economy, introducing new worked to reestablish Russia as a world power through control
problems as he did so. Plagued by corruption, the of the country’s resources and military capabilities.
1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t C o ll a p s e o f t h e S ov i et U n i o n a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 957

NORWAY

DENMARK RUSSIAN FEDERATION


SWEDEN

GERMANY

RUSSIA FINLAND
Tallinn
 Riga
ARCTIC OCEAN
 
POLAND  N
Vilnius
 ESTONIA
W
LATVIA E
Minsk LITHUANIA
S
BELARUS

Kiev Moscow 


Chisinau
UKRAINE

MOLDOVA
R U S S I A N F E D E R A T I O N
Bl
a
ck
Se
a

GEORGIA
Chechnya
ARMENIA
 Grozny

TURKEY Tbilisi Aral


Yerevan Sea
ea


an S

Baku KAZAKHSTAN

spi
Ca

UZ

AZERBAIJAN TU
BE

IRAQ R
KIS
KM

MONGOLIA
T AN

KYRGYZSTAN
EN

Ashgabat
IST

Almaty Commonwealth of Independent States


Tashkent   
AN

Bishkek Independent in 1991


Dushanbe Independence declared 1991;
 at war with Russia, 1994 to present
IRAN
 TAJIKISTAN Boundary of the former USSR to 1991
 Capital cities
CHINA
0 250 500 miles AFGHANISTAN Capital of the Commonwealth of Independent States
 Violent ethnic conflicts
0 250 500 kilometers

MAP 29.3 Countries of the Former Soviet Union, c. 2000


Following an agreement of December 1991, twelve of the countries of the former Soviet Union formed the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Dominated by Russia and with Ukraine often disputing this
domination, the CIS worked to bring about common economic and military policies. As nation-states
dissolved rapidly in the late twentieth century, regional alliances and coordination were necessary to meet
the political and economic challenges of the global age.
958 C h a pt e r 2 9 ■ A N e w G lo b a l i s m 1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t

Chechen cities continued to plague Russians and There were, of course, many pluses: people
rebels alike. were able to travel freely for the first time, and the
media were more open than ever before. Some
workers, many of them young and highly edu-
Toward a Market Economy cated, profited from contacts with technology and
Developing a free market and a republican gov- business. However, their frequent emigration to
ernment initially brought misery to Russia and the more prosperous parts of the world further
rest of eastern Europe. The conditions of everyday depleted the human resources of the former
life grew increasingly dire as salaries went unpaid, Communist states. “I knew in my heart that com-
food remained in short supply, and essential serv- munism would collapse,” said one Romanian ex-
ices disintegrated. In 1994, inflation soared at a dissident, commenting sadly on the exodus of
rate of 14 percent a month in Russia, while indus- youth from his country, “but it never crossed my
trial production dropped by 15 percent. People mind that the future would look like this.” At the
took drastic steps to stay alive. Hotel lobbies be- same time, as the different republics that had once
came clogged with prostitutes because women comprised the Soviet Union became independent,
were the first people fired as governments priva- the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians who
tized industry and cut service jobs. Unpaid soldiers had earlier been sent by the state to colonize these
sold their services to the Russian Mafia. Ordinary regions returned to Russia as refugees, putting fur-
citizens lined the sidewalks of major cities selling ther demands on the chaotic Russian economy.
their household possessions. “Anything and every- The dismantling of communism was more com-
thing is for sale,” one critic noted at the time. Si- plicated and painful than anyone had imagined it
multaneously, a pent-up demand was unleashed would be.
for items never before available. An enormous un-
derground economy existed in goods such as au- The Economic Agenda. For many in the former
tomobiles stolen from people in other countries Soviet bloc, the first priority was getting economies
and then driven or shipped to Russia. running again — but on new terms. Replacing a

Aftermath of Communism’s Collapse


The collapse of communism and the Soviet Union created financial disaster, particularly for women,
who represented more than two-thirds of the unemployed. Some of the unemployed resorted to
prostitution; others tried to sell whatever they had, as these Muscovites did in 1992. The streets
of Russian cities filled with destitute citizens, such as the homeless man sleeping in a broken store
window. As crime escalated, calls for more law and order paved the way for tougher political
candidates—not the liberal-minded reformers of the Gorbachev and Yeltsin years. (AFP / Getty Images.)
1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t C o ll a p s e o f t h e S ov i et U n i o n a n d I t s A f t e r m at h 959

Hungarian Meat Packing Plant, 2007


The economy of the former Soviet bloc changed
dramatically after the fall of Communist rule.
Megastores were built at an astonishing pace
and were filled with eager consumers. Western
firms bought up out-of-date factories and
installed modern labor-saving equipment, as
in this meat-packing plant in Hungary, which
processed food for sale across the European
Union. (AFP/ Getty Images.)

state-controlled economy with a market one could administrators would simply operate as criminals.
not happen naturally or automatically but rather In addition to the problem of corruption, the So-
required government planning. Given the spiral- viet practice of removing the economy from global
ing misery, however, many opposed the introduc- developments further hindered the transition to a
tion of new market-oriented measures. In Russia, market economy. Industry had not benefited from
members of collective farms fought to preserve technological change, and plants and personnel
them as a means of security in a rapidly changing were hopelessly out of date, even worthless. The
world. With the farms up for sale, most collective introduction of competition and free trade often
farmers faced landlessness and starvation. The meant closing plants and firing all the workers.
countries that experienced the most success were
those in which administrators had earlier intro- Talent Flees the Region. A final element in post-
duced ingredients of free trade, such as allowing Soviet economic difficulties was a brain drain that
farmers to sell their produce on the open market plagued the region. The economic chaos that fol-
or encouraging independent entrepreneurs or lowed the fall of communism set off a rush of mi-
even government factories to deal in international gration from eastern Europe to western Europe,
trade. Hungary and Poland thus emerged from the often involving those with marketable skills. Mi-
transition with less strain, because both had grants left for several reasons, including the lack
favored market elements early on and had hired of jobs, the upsurge of ethnic hatreds, and the
advisers to speed the transformation of the econ- availability of higher salaries for well-educated
omy. They set up business schools and worked to workers in other countries. Escaping anti-Semi-
attract foreign capital, anchoring these two coun- tism also played a role: post-Communist politi-
tries securely to the world economy. cians used the rallying cry of hatred of Jews to
Elsewhere, however, the transition happened build a following, just as Hitler and many others
differently. The former Soviet Union itself became, had done so effectively in the past. Banditry and
in the words of one critic, a vast “kleptocracy” in violence inflicted by organized crime added to the
the 1990s as the country’s resources — theoreti- disadvantages of remaining in eastern Europe.
cally the property of all the people — were stolen Some migrants from the east, fearful of reprisals
for individual gain. An economist described the from the Russian Mafia and others, sought politi-
new scene as “piratization” rather than privatiza- cal asylum.
tion. In this regard, one Polish adviser noted, The everyday amenities of western Europe in-
democracy and a successful transition went hand cluded safe water, better housing, better roads, and
in hand, for unless the people were institutionally at least a minimal level of social services. Although
powerful enough to prevent it, former leaders and western Europe was now on a firm neoliberal
960 C h a pt e r 2 9 ■ A N e w G lo b a l i s m 1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t

course of cutting the social programs of the wel- ernment of the region from the USSR, moving to-
fare state, most benefits had disappeared entirely ward the same kind of independence sought by the
in former Communist countries. Pensions for vet- Baltic nations and other former Soviet states. In
erans and retired workers were rarely paid, and June 1992, Chechen rebels got control of massive
even when paid were often worthless given the numbers of Russian weapons, including airplanes,
soaring inflation; day-care centers, kindergartens, tanks, and some forty thousand automatic
and homes for the elderly closed their doors; hos- weapons and machine guns. In December 1994,
pitals and health care deteriorated. In these cir- the Russian government sealed the Chechen bor-
cumstances, the benefits of citizenship in western ders and invaded. A high Russian official defended
European countries seemed almost irresistibly the war as crucial to bolstering Yeltsin’s position:
desirable. “We now need a small victorious war. . . . We must
raise the President’s rating.” To counteract the
Russian population’s opposition to the war,
International Politics
Yeltsin, prompted by his advisers, announced the
and the New Russia impossibility of negotiating with the Chechens. As
Although Gorbachev had pulled the Soviet Union the war dragged on, Chechnya’s capital city of
out of its disastrous war with Afghanistan, his suc- Grozny was pounded to bits. Casualties mounted
cessors opened another war to prevent the seces- not only among Chechen civilians but among
sion of oil-rich Chechnya and to provide a Russians too. Protest against continuing the con-
nationalist rallying cry to shore up domestic sup- flict increased. In 2002, Chechen loyalists took
port for the administration. For decades, Chechens hundreds of hostages in a Moscow theater;
had been integrated into the Soviet bureaucracy Chechen suicide bombers blew up airplanes,
and military, but in the fall of 1991, the National buses, and apartment buildings. Putin pursued
Congress of the Chechen People took over the gov- the Chechen war into the twenty-first century,

Chechnya, 1999
Russia justified its war in
Chechnya in the 1990s and
early 2000s as part of a
struggle against Muslim
terrorists. During the war, the
Russian military kidnapped
and murdered Chechen rebels
while pummeling cities with
gunfire and harassing the
population, as this photo of
civilians being checked shows.
In retaliation, Chechens
brought terrorism to Russia,
setting off bombs and blowing
up planes. Even with the new
administration of Vladimir
Putin, the bloodshed
continued. (© Reuters / Corbis.)
1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t Th e N at i o n - Stat e i n a G lo b a l A g e 961

compounding the problem of establishing a cred- Common Market had opened the pathway to uni-
ible post-Communist government. fied supranational policy in economic matters; its
Putin expanded Soviet influence in Ukraine, evolution into the European Union (EU) in the
Belarus, India, and China as well by taking advan- 1990s extended cooperation in political and cul-
tage of the politics of oil. Russia had the commodi- tural matters. Then, in 2004 and 2007, nations
ties — especially oil and gas — needed to sustain from the former Soviet bloc joined the EU, sug-
the fantastic growth of emerging industries gesting that power might shift eastward as some of
around the world, and by 2005 surging commod- these new EU members built thriving economies
ity prices were making Russia once again a real too.
player in global politics — now because of its eco-
nomic strength. Achieving democratic values re- From Common Market to European Union. The
mained a more elusive goal. Putin’s critics were Common Market changed dramatically after the de-
mercilessly assassinated, newspapers and radios mise of European communism. In 1992, the twelve
were closed down, and a general apathy toward countries of the Common Market ended national
politics persisted, especially as wealth from the distinctions in the spheres of business activity, bor-
now healthy economy was used to refurbish cities der controls, and transportation, effectively clos-
and everyday life grew easier. ing down passport controls at most of their shared
borders. Citizens of the member countries carried
a common burgundy-colored passport, and gov-
Review: What were the major issues facing the former
ernments, whether municipal or national, had to
Soviet bloc in the 1990s and early 2000s?
treat all member nations’ firms the same. In 1994,
by the terms of the Maastricht Treaty, the Euro-
pean Community (EC) became the European
Union (EU), and in 1999 a common currency —
The Nation-State the euro — came into being, first for transactions
in a Global Age among financial institutions and then in 2002 for
general use by the public. Common policies gov-
While the end of the Soviet system fractured one erned everything from the number of American
large regional economy, European unification pro- soap operas aired on television to pollution con-
gressed in the rest of Europe. The European Com- trols on automobiles to the health warnings on cig-
munity was economically robust compared to arette packages. The EU parliament convened
former Soviet-bloc countries, many of which ap- regularly in Strasbourg, France, while subgroups
plied for membership to benefit from tying them- met to negotiate further cultural, economic, and
selves to a powerful transnational organization. social policies. With the adoption of a common
The relatively harmonious operation of the Euro- currency, an EU central bank came into being to
pean Community stood in marked contrast to the guide interest rates and economic policy.
wars and civil strife that plagued many other re- The EU was seen as the key to a peaceful Eu-
gions of the world, and its economic success pro- rope. “People with the same money don’t go to war
voked the formation of the North American Free with one another,” said a French nuclear scientist
Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which established a about the introduction of the euro. Greece pushed
free-trade zone of the United States, Canada, and for the admission of its traditional enemy Turkey
Mexico. The nationalist function of cities dimin- in 2002 and 2003 despite the warnings of a former
ished as major urban areas like London and Paris
became packed with people from other countries,
who brought with them new ideas and new cus- Maastricht Treaty: The agreement among the members of the
toms. These trends, however, aroused resistance European Community to have a closer alliance, including the
use of common passports and eventually the development of
from those who wanted to preserve their own tra- a common currency; by the terms of this treaty, the European
ditions and who felt the loss of a secure, face-to- Community became the European Union (EU) in 1994.
face, local way of life. European Union (EU): Formerly the European Economic Com-
munity (EEC, or Common Market), and then the European Com-
munity (EC); formed in 1994 by the terms of the 1992
Europe Looks beyond Maastricht Treaty. Its members have political ties through the
European parliament as well as long-standing common eco-
the Nation-State nomic, legal, and business mechanisms.
The peoples of Europe took immense strides in the euro: The common currency accepted by twelve members of
the European Union. It went into effect gradually, used first in
1990s to strengthen their shared institutions be- business transactions in 1999 and entering public circulation
yond those of the traditional nation-state. The in 2002.
962 C h a pt e r 2 9 ■ A N e w G lo b a l i s m 1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t

Original members of the 0 250 500 miles


European Economic Union 0 250 500 kilometers
The Euro
Became members 1973–1995
These new bills went into circulation on January N

1, 2002. The bills’ designer used architectural Became members 2004–2007 W


E
imagery of windows and bridges to suggest Applying for membership
openness, light, connectedness, and boundary S

crossing. Reflecting the compromise between FINLAND


Europe and individual states, the head sides NORWAY

of euro coins bear a common image, while the


SWEDEN ESTONIA
tail sides contain symbols chosen by individual N. RUSSIAN
F E D E R AT I O N
nations within the euro zone. (Royalty Free / Corbis.) Ireland North

ea
Sea LATVIA

cS
IRELAND DENMARK lti LITHUANIA
UNITED B a RUSSIA
KINGDOM
BELARUS
NETH.

AT L A N T I C BEL. GERMANY POLAND


OCEAN CZECH
LUX. UKRAINE
REP.
LIECH. SLOVAKIA
FRANCE MOLDOVA
SWITZ. AUSTRIA
HUNGARY
SLOVENIA
CROATIA ROMANIA
BOSNIA-
L

Black Sea
GA

HERZEGOVINA
U

ITALY SERBIA BULGARIA


RT

SPAIN
PO

MONTENEGRO MACEDONIA
ALBANIA

TURKEY
GREECE

MOROCCO ALGERIA TUNISIA


MALTA Mediterranean Sea CYPRUS

MAP 29.4 The European Union in 2007


The European Union (EU) appeared to increase the economic health of its
members despite the rocky start of its common currency, the euro. The EU
helped end the traditional competition between its members and facilitated
trade and worker migration by providing common passports and business laws,
and open borders. But many critics feared a loss of cultural distinctiveness
among peoples in an age of mass communications.

president of France that a predominantly Muslim One government might block the acquisition of a
country could never fit in with the Christian tra- company based on its own soil no matter what the
ditions of EU members. Both Greece and Turkey advantages to shareholders, the economy, the
stood to benefit by having their disputes adjudi- workforce, or the consumers of unified Europe.
cated by the larger body of European members, Nonetheless, countries of eastern Europe clamored
principally by being able to cut that part of their to join, working hard to meet not only the EU’s fis-
defense budget used for weaponry against the cal requirements but also those pertaining to hu-
other country. Like the rivalry between Germany man rights and social policy (Map 29.4).
and France, that between Turkey and Greece, it was
hoped, would dissolve if bound by the strong eco- East Joins West. The EU’s attractions became
nomic and political ties of the EU. clear to eastern Europe, as demonstrated in the
Drawbacks to EU membership remained, case of Greece, long considered the poor relative
however. The EU enforced no common regulatory of the other member countries. Greece joined the
practices, and the common economic policies de- European Community in 1981; its per capita gross
manding cooperation among its members were not domestic product was 64 percent of the European
always observed. Individual governments set up average in 1985. However, Greek leaders and the
hurdles and barriers for businesses: for instance, EU made a real effort during the 1990s to bring
obstructing transnational mergers they did not like. the country closer to EU norms. By the early
1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t Th e N at i o n - Stat e i n a G lo b a l A g e 963

DOCUMENT

Václav Havel,
“Czechoslovakia Is Returning to Europe”
Czech playwright and longtime anti- The Communist type of totalitarian threatened by world war, or by the danger
Communist activist Václav Havel became system has left . . . all the nations of the that the absurd mountains of accumulated
the first president of his country after the Soviet Union and the other countries the nuclear weapons might blow up the world,
Communist Party was ousted in 1989. Havel Soviet Union subjugated in its time, a this does not mean that we have defini-
was an idealist who believed that the people legacy of countless dead, an infinite spec- tively won. We are in fact far from the fi-
of eastern Europe had gained important in- trum of human suffering, profound eco- nal victory. . . .
sights from their experience of Soviet domi- nomic decline, and above all enormous In other words, we still don’t know
nation. This speech provides a backdrop to human humiliation. It has brought us how to put morality ahead of politics, sci-
the admission of eastern European countries horrors that fortunately you have not ence and economics. We are still incapable
to the European Union in 2004. Despite fears known. of understanding that the only genuine
among more prosperous EU countries that At the same time, however — unin- backbone of all our actions — if they are
the lower standard of living in eastern Eu- tentionally, of course — it has given us to be moral — is responsibility. Responsi-
rope will drag the EU down, there is also a something positive: a special capacity to bility to something higher than my fam-
strong sense that the EU is incomplete with- look, from time to time, somewhat further ily, my country, my company, my success.
out them. Havel details what eastern Euro- than someone who has not undergone this Responsibility to the order of Being, where
peans have to offer, even to those who have bitter experience. A person who cannot all our actions are indelibly recorded. . . .
long enjoyed greater freedom and prosperity. move and live a somewhat normal life be- I end where I began: history has ac-
cause he is pinned under a boulder has celerated. I believe that once again it will
Czechoslovakia is returning to Eu- more time to think about his hopes than be the human mind that will notice this
rope. . . . We are doing what we can so someone who is not trapped that acceleration, give it a name, and transform
that Europe will be capable of really ac- way. . . . those words into deeds.
cepting us, its wayward children. Which For this reason, the salvation of the
means that it may open itself to us, and human world lies nowhere else than in the Source: From speech delivered to the Joint Session
may begin to transform its structures — human heart, in the human power to re- of Congress, Washington, D.C., on February 21,
which are formally European but de facto flect, in human meekness and in human 1990. Reprinted in Vital Speeches of the Day, March
Western European. . . . responsibility. . . . If we are no longer 15, 1990, 329–30.

twenty-first century, thanks to advice from the EU cially to Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and
and an infusion of funds, Greece had reached 80 Slovenia — the most developed state spun off
percent of the EU per capita gross domestic prod- from Yugoslavia. There were hopes that member-
uct. The benefits of EU membership were clear to ship would encourage further investment and ad-
national leaders. vance modernization. (See Document, “Václav
Hoping for similar gains, the countries to the Havel, ‘Czechoslovakia Is Returning to Europe.’”)
east moved toward EU membership throughout Ten new members — Estonia, Latvia, Lithua-
the 1990s. The collapse of the Soviet system ad- nia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hun-
vanced privatization of eastern European indus- gary, Slovenia, Malta, and Cyprus — joined the
try, as governments sold basic services to the European Union in 2004, and Romania and Bul-
highest bidder. Often, only companies in the garia were admitted in 2007. Just before Poland’s
wealthy western countries of the EU could afford admission to the EU, its standard of living was 39
to purchase eastern European assets. For example, percent of EU standards, up from 33 percent in
the Czech Republic in 2001 sold its major energy 1995. The Czech Republic and Hungary enjoyed
distributor Transgaz and eight other regional dis- 55 and 50 percent, respectively, but in all three
tributors for 4.1 billion euros to a German firm. cases these figures masked the discrepancy be-
Lower wages and costs of doing business in east- tween the ailing countryside and thriving cities.
ern Europe attracted foreign investment, espe- Citizens in eastern Europe were not always happy
964 C h a pt e r 2 9 ■ A N e w G lo b a l i s m 1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t

at the prospect of joining the EU. A retiree fore- lier and developed new characteristics — most no-
saw the cost of beer going up and added, “If I tably the globalization of major cities. These were
wanted to join anything in the West, I would have cities whose institutions, functions, and visions
defected.” Still others felt that having just estab- were overwhelmingly global rather than regional
lished an independent national identity, it was pre- or national. They contained stock markets, legal
mature to join yet another body that would firms, insurance companies, financial service or-
swallow them up. People in older member states ganizations, and other enterprises that operated
were having second thoughts too: in the spring of worldwide, transcending all borders and bound-
2005, a majority of voters in France and the aries and linking to similar enterprises in other
Netherlands rejected a complex draft constitution global cities. Within these cities high-level decision
that would have strengthened EU ties. Commen- makers set global economic policy and enacted
tators attributed the rejection to popular anger at global business. The high-powered and high-
the EU bureaucracy’s failure to consult ordinary priced nature of such global business operatives
people in its decision making. made life in global cities extremely costly, driving
Although still weak by comparison with most middle managers and engineers to lower-priced
of western Europe, the economic life of eastern Eu- living quarters in the suburbs, which nonetheless
rope had in fact picked up considerably by 2000. provided good schools and other amenities for
In contrast to the massive layoffs, soaring inflation, well-educated white-collar earners. However, liv-
and unpaid salaries of the first post-Communist ing in squalid conditions in the global cities were
years, in 2002 residents of Poland, Slovenia, and the very lowest paid of service providers — the
Estonia had purchasing power some 40 percent maintenance, domestic, and other workers whose
higher than in 1989. Outsourcing began to flour- menial labor was essential around the clock to the
ish across the region, increasing opportunities for needs and comfort of those at the top.
those with language and commercial skills. Even Global cities often had the best transport or
in countries with the weakest economies — Latvia, telecommunication facilities and thus became cen-
Bulgaria, and Romania — a greater number of res- ters for migration, of highly skilled as well as more
idents enjoyed such modern conveniences as freez- modest workers. Paris, London, Moscow, and New
ers, computers, and portable telephones. Shopping York were not just cosmopolitan but global, with
malls sprang up mostly around capital cities, tes- direct and constant contact around the world. As a
tifying both to the urban nature of the benefits of result, citizens of other cities who took pride in
the free economy and to the allure of this great maintaining a distinctive national culture or local
new market of 100 million customers. Superstores sense of community denounced them. Global cities
like the furniture giant IKEA or the electronics also drew criticism for their concentrated wealth,
firm Electroworld were a consumer’s paradise to seen to be taken at the expense of poorer people in
those long starved of goods. “When Electroworld southern countries. In other cases, however, glob-
opened in Budapest [April 2002], it provoked a alization produced diasporas of prosperous mi-
riot. Two hundred thousand people crowded to get grants, such as the estimated ninety thousand
in the doors,” reported one amazed observer. Crit- Japanese in England in the mid-1990s who staffed
ics worried that eastern Europeans had fallen prey Japan’s thriving global businesses. Because these
to uncontrolled materialism and frenzied shop- migrants did not aim to become citizens, they made
ping, a Western disease they called “consumania.” no economic or political claims on the adopted
Consumers themselves, however, saw shopping as country and were thus sometimes called invisible
“a social act, indicating that one had joined con- migrants. Global cities were said to produce a “de-
sumer society,” as one eastern European business- territorialization of identities” — meaning that
man put it. Joining the consumer world was a sign many city dwellers lacked both a national and a lo-
of belonging to a global community of those free cal sense of themselves, so much did they travel the
and prosperous enough to consume. They had left world or deal worldwide.
the isolation of communist poverty behind. Ironically, as globalization took hold econom-
ically and culturally, there came to be more nation-
states in Europe in 2000 than there had been in
Globalizing Cities and
1945. Claims of ethnic distinctiveness caused in-
Fragmenting Nations dividual nation-states to fragment and separatist
After the collapse of communism, the West movements to grow. Despite two centuries aimed
changed still further. It both fragmented into more at unification of the Slavs, for example, and the
nation-states than it had had even fifty years ear- trend toward larger nation-states, Slavs separated
1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t Th e N at i o n - Stat e i n a G lo b a l A g e 965

themselves from one another in the 1990s and were called nongovernmental organizations
early twenty-first century. In 1993, Czechoslovakia (NGOs). Because some — the Rockefeller, Ford,
split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia (see and Open Society Foundations, for example —
Map 29.1, page 954). Yugoslavia came apart into controlled so much money, these NGOs often had
several states, and Russia fought to keep Chechnya considerable international power. After the fall of
from becoming independent as had many other the Soviet bloc, NGOs used their resources to
states of the former Soviet Union. shape economic and social policy and the course
Activists launched movements for regional of political reform. Some charitable and activist
autonomy in France, Italy, and Spain. Some Bre- NGOs, like the French-based Doctors Without
tons (residents of the historical French province Borders, gained money through global contribu-
of Brittany) and Corsicans demanded independ- tions and used it to provide medical attention in
ence from France, the Corsicans violently attack- such places as the former Yugoslavia, where
ing national officials. Basque nationalists in people facing war otherwise had no medical help.
northern Spain assassinated tourists, police, and Small, locally based NGOs excelled at inspiring
other public servants in an effort to gain auton- grassroots activism. All of these organizations,
omy, and although in 2005 they publicly re- small and large, were in tune with the globaliza-
nounced terrorism, the violence did not stop tion process. As with the EU, the larger NGOs were
completely. The push for an independent north- often criticized for influencing government poli-
ern Italy began somewhat halfheartedly, but when cies with no regard for democratic processes.
politicians saw its attractiveness to voters, they be- Not everyone supported or was pleased with
came adamant in their demands and the move- the process of globalization. Activists formed local
ment grew. As cities globalized and nations or supranational groups to attack globalization it-
fragmented, new combinations of local, national, self or to influence its course. In 1998, the Associ-
and global identities took shape. Nganda manager ation for the Benefit of Citizens (or ATTAC, after
Therese enjoyed her neighborhood in Paris, her its French name) worked to block the control of
identity as a migrant to France, and continuing globalization by the forces of high finance: “Com-
contact with friends and family in Congo. Basque mercial totalitarianism is not free trade.” ATTAC
separatists divorced themselves emotionally from had as its major policy goal to tax international fi-
Spain, while promoting a common identity with nancial transactions (just as the purchase of
Basques in France and in other parts of the world. household necessities were taxed) and to create
These developments, plus the overall expansion in with the tax a fund for people living in under-
the functioning of the EU, called into question the developed countries. With members from more
future of the nation-state. than forty countries, the organization held well-
attended conferences to find new directions for
countries suffering from global development. A
Global Organizations globally known activist, French farmer José Bové,
Supranational organizations, some of them regu- protested the opening of McDonald’s chains in
lating international finance and trade and others France and destroyed genetically modified seeds:
addressing social issues, had been in place for “The only regret I have now,” Bové claimed at his
decades. By the twenty-first century, the intercon- trial in 2003, “is that I didn’t destroy more of it.”
nectedness of industry, finance, and government Bové went to jail for his protests, but he remained
had made these organizations even more power- a hero to antiglobalism activists, who saw him as
ful and influential. Sponsored by large numbers of a simple champion of, in his own words, “good
individual nations, the World Bank, International food” and an enemy of standardization.
Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization,
for example, dealt with the terms of trade among
Review: What trends suggest that the nation-state was
countries and the economic well-being of individ-
a declining institution at the beginning of the twenty-
ual peoples. The International Monetary Fund first century?
made loans to developing countries on the condi-
tion that they restructure their economies accord-
ing to neoliberal principles. Other supranational nongovernmental organizations (NGOs): Charitable founda-
organizations were charitable foundations, inves- tions and activist groups such as Doctors Without Borders that
tigative think tanks, or service-based organizations work outside of governments, often on political, economic, and
relief issues; also, philanthropic organizations such as the
acting independently of governments, many of Rockefeller, Ford, and Open Society Foundations that shape
them based in Europe and the United States; they economic and social policy and the course of political reform.
966 C h a pt e r 2 9 ■ A N e w G lo b a l i s m 1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t

Challenges from an the late 1980s, scientists determined that the use
of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), chemicals found
Interconnected World in aerosol and refrigeration products, had blown
a hole in the earth’s ozone layer, the part of the
The rising tide of globalization ushered in as many blanket of atmospheric gases that prevents harm-
challenges as opportunities. First, the health of the ful ultraviolet rays from reaching the planet. Si-
world’s peoples and their environment came un- multaneously, automobile and industrial emissions
der a multipronged attack from nuclear disaster, of chemicals were adding to that thermal blanket.
acid rain, and surging population. Second, eco- The buildup of CFCs, carbon dioxide, and other
nomic prosperity and physical safety continued to atmospheric pollutants produced what is known
elude great masses of people, especially in the as a greenhouse effect that results in global warm-
southern half of the globe. Third, as suprastate or- ing, an increase in the temperature of the earth’s
ganizations developed, transnational allegiances lower atmosphere. Climatic extremes and dra-
and religious and ethnic movements also vied for matic weather cycles of drought or drenching rain
power and influence. Growing prosperity in re- indicated that a greenhouse effect might be per-
gions outside the West challenged the traditional manently warming the earth. Already in the 1990s,
economic lead of the United States and Europe. the Arctic pack ice was breaking up, allowing Fin-
This newfound wealth gave leaders in Asia, the land by 2002 to ship oil along a once-iced-over
Middle East, and Latin America confidence to as- route. Scientists predicted dire consequences: the
sert that it was time for the West to surrender some rate of global ice melting, which had more than
of its power. doubled since 1988, would raise sea levels by more
than ten inches by 2100, flooding coastal areas, dis-
turbing fragile ecosystems, and harming the fresh-
The Problems of Pollution water supply.
By the early years of the twenty-first century, many Activism against unbridled industrial growth
people had become aware of the dangers of indus- took decades to develop as an effective political
trial growth — once seen as an unqualified blessing. force. An escapee from Nazi Germany, E. F. “Fritz”
Despite growing ecological awareness, technological Schumacher, produced one of the bibles of the en-
development continued to threaten the environ- vironmental movement, Small Is Beautiful (1973),
ment. In the aftermath of the 1986 nuclear explo- which spelled out how technology and industrial-
sion at Chernobyl, levels of radioactivity rose for ization threatened the earth and its inhabitants.
hundreds of miles in all directions, thirty-one Rachel Carson’s powerful critique, Silent Spring
people died instantly, and some fifteen thousand (1962), advocated the immediate rescue of rivers,
perished more slowly from the effects of radiation. forests, and the soil from the ravages of factories
Moreover, as Russia opened up, it became clear and chemical farming in the United States. In West
that Soviet managers and officials had left thou- Germany, environmentalism united members of
sands of square miles of the Asian continent rife older and younger generations around a political
with toxic waste in major lakes and rivers, had tactic called citizen initiatives, in which groups of
dumped used nuclear fuel in neighboring seas, and people blocked plans for urban growth that men-
had so poisoned the environment of many parts aced forests and farmland. In 1979, the Green
of Asia by nuclear and other testing that entire re- Party was founded in West Germany, and soon af-
gions were unfit for human and other life. ter, the emergence of Green Party candidates
Other environmental problems had devastat- across Europe forced other politicians to voice
ing global effects. Fossil-fuel pollutants such as their concern for the environment. (See Docu-
those from natural gas, coal, and oil mixed with ment, “The European Green Party Becomes
atmospheric moisture to produce acid rain, a poi- Transnational,” page 967.)
sonous brew that destroyed forests in industrial ar- Spurred by successful Green Party campaigns,
eas. In eastern Europe, the unchecked use of fossil Europeans attacked environmental problems on
fuels ravaged forests, leaving their trees brown local and global levels. Some European cities —
skeletons, and inflicted ailments such as chronic Frankfurt, for example — developed car-free zones,
bronchial disease on children. In less industrial ar-
eas, the world’s rain forests were hacked down at global warming: An increase in the temperature of the earth’s
an alarming rate to develop the land for cattle graz- lower atmosphere resulting from a buildup of chemical emis-
sions.
ing or for cultivation of cash crops. Clearing the
Green Party: A political party first formed in West Germany in
forests depleted the global oxygen supply and 1979 to bring about environmentally sound policies. It spread
threatened the biological diversity of the planet. By across Europe and around the world thereafter.
1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t C h a ll e n g e s f rom a n I n t e rco n n e c t e d Wo r l d 967

DOCUMENT

The European Green Party


Becomes Transnational (2006)
In 1993, members of Green parties across responsibility, freedom, justice, diversity real equality between women and men;
Europe formed the European Federation of and non-violence. freedom and human rights movements
Green Parties, which came to include mem- Green political movements emerged fighting against dictatorial and authoritar-
bers from twenty-nine European countries. in Europe while the continent was divided ian regimes; third-world solidarity move-
The federation also made global connections by the Cold War and amidst the energy ments supporting the end of colonization
with parties in Australia, Taiwan, the crises of the mid-seventies. At that time, and more economically balanced relations
United States, and elsewhere in the world. it became clear that the pattern of eco- between the North and the South of our
In 2004, the federation formally became the nomic development was unsustainable planet; activists campaigning against
European Green Party, which in 2006 and was putting the planet and its inhab- poverty and for social justice within our
adopted a charter endorsing not only envi- itants in grave environmental, social and own societies.
ronmental responsibility but a range of economic dangers. Existing political par- From these origins, European Greens
other values as well. Following is the open- ties were incapable of dealing with this have come together to form our own po-
ing statement of the charter. challenge. litical family. We stand for a free, demo-
Our origins lie in many social move- cratic and social Europe in a peaceful,
The European Greens proudly stand for ments: environmentalists and anti-nuclear equitable and environmentally sustainable
the sustainable development of human- activists concerned with the growing dam- world. We defend values like justice, hu-
ity on planet Earth, a mode of develop- ages to our planet; non-violent peace ac- man and citizen’s rights, solidarity, sus-
ment respectful of human rights and tivists promoting alternative ways to tainability and the right of each individual
built upon the values of environmental resolve conflicts; feminists, struggling for to lead their own lives, free from fear.

and Venice operated completely without the use of


automobiles because of the threat they pose to the
city’s very existence. In Paris, whenever automo-
bile emissions reached dangerous levels, cars were
banned from city streets until the emission levels
receded. The Smart, a very small car using reduced
amounts of fuel, became a fashionable way in
Europe to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Cities
also developed bicycle lanes on major city streets.
To reduce dependence on fossil fuels, parts of
Europe developed wind power to such an extent
that 20 percent of some countries’ electricity was
generated by wind. Many cities in the West began
to recycle waste materials. These were success sto-
ries, involving changing habits and dependencies
in some of the most industrialized countries in the
world. By 1999, some eighty-four countries, in- Smart Cars in Europe
cluding EU members, had signed the Kyoto Pro- The havoc caused by the oil crisis of the 1970s spurred many European
tocol, an international treaty whose signatories states to encourage the development of alternate sources of energy and
transportation. Thus, by the twenty-first century, the landscape was
agreed to reduce their levels of emissions and
dotted not only with windmills but also with tiny, highly fuel-efficient
other pollutants to specified targets. The Kyoto automobiles like the Smart car shown here. European governments also
emissions reductions finally went into effect in heavily taxed gasoline with the result that it cost twice as much or more
February 2005, but with the world’s leading than in the United States, thus further encouraging people to buy the
polluter — the United States — still refusing to join Smart car rather than an SUV—a far rarer sight in Europe than in the
either its former allies or developing nations in the United States. (© David Cooper / Toronto Star / ZUMA / Corbis.)
968 C h a pt e r 2 9 ■ A N e w G lo b a l i s m 1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t

TAKING MEASURE

World Population Growth,


7
1950–2010
North America
In the twenty-first century,
Europe
6 a major question is whether
Latin America and the Caribbean
Africa
the global environment can
Oceania sustain billions of people
5 Asia indefinitely. In the early
modern period, local
communities had lived
Population in billions

4 according to unwritten rules


that balanced population
size with the productive
3 capacities of individual
farming regions. Centuries
later, the same need for
2
balance had reached global
proportions. As fertility
1
dropped around the planet
because of contraception,
population continued to grow
0 because of improved health.
1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
(projected)

effort. Here was a sign that the West was fragment- tion number. Some forecasters predicted that this
ing, with cooperation on the environment one of low rate meant that by 2050 the population of Eu-
the first defining issues. rope would fall from 725 to 600 million. Econo-
mists saw as a consequence fewer young workers
paying into the social security system to fund re-
Population, Health, and Disease tirees’ pensions.
The issue of population was as staggering in the Population problems were especially dire in
early twenty-first century as it had been in the former Soviet-bloc countries, where life ex-
1930s. Nations with less-developed economies pectancy was declining at a catastrophic rate from
struggled with the pressing problem of surging a peak of seventy years for Russian men in the mid-
population, while Europe experienced negative 1970s to fifty-three in 1995 and to fifty-one at the
growth (that is, more deaths than births) after beginning of the twenty-first century. Heart dis-
1995. The less industrially developed countries ac- ease and cancer were the leading causes of male
counted for 98 percent of worldwide population death, and these stark death rates were generally
growth, in part because the spread of Western attributed to increased drinking (one in seven men
medicine enabled people there to live much longer was an alcoholic in Russia), smoking, drug use,
than before. By late 1999, the earth’s population poor diet, and general stress. Meanwhile, fertility
had reached six billion, with a doubling forecast rates were also declining: the lowest levels of fer-
for 2045 (see “Taking Measure,” above). Yet many tility in 2003 were in the Czech Republic and
European countries were not replacing their pop- Ukraine with a rate of 1.1 children, and children
ulation, leading to an aging of the citizenry and a in eastern Europe lived on average twelve years less
shortage of people to bring new ideas and pro- than their counterparts in western Europe. Be-
mote change. In fact, Europe as a region had the tween 1992 and 2002, the Russian population de-
lowest fertility in the world. The fertility rate in clined from 149 to 144 million, with predictions
Italy and Spain was only 1.3 children per woman that by 2050 it would fall below 100 million.
of reproductive age, far below the replacement Good health was spread unevenly around the
level of 2.1 needed to maintain a steady popula- world. Western medicine brought better health to
1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t C h a ll e n g e s f rom a n I n t e rco n n e c t e d Wo r l d 969

many in the less-developed world through the in- much as environmental dangers underscored the
creased use of vaccines and drugs for diseases such interconnectedness of the world’s peoples.
as malaria and smallpox. However, half of all
Africans lacked access to basic public health facil-
ities such as safe drinking water. Drought and North versus South?
poverty, along with the maneuvers of politicians During the 1980s and 1990s, world leaders tried to
in some cases, spread famine in Sudan, Somalia, address the growing schism between the earth’s
Ethiopia, and elsewhere. Around the world, the northern and southern regions. Other than Aus-
poor and the unemployed suffered more chronic tralians and New Zealanders, southern peoples
illnesses than those who were better off, but they generally suffered lower living standards and
received less care. Whereas in many parts of the measures of health than northerners. Recently
world people still died from malnutrition and in- emerging from colonial rule and economic ex-
fectious diseases, in the West noncontagious ill- ploitation by northerners, citizens in the southern
nesses — heart and autoimmune diseases, stroke, regions could not yet count on their new govern-
cancer, and depression — were more lethal. The ments to provide welfare services or education.
distribution of health services — heart transplants Their funds generally coming from the wealth of
for the wealthy versus preventive health care for a the northern countries, international organiza-
wider range of clients — became a hotly debated tions like the World Bank and the International
issue in the general argument about whether tech- Monetary Fund provided loans for economic de-
nological solutions could remedy global problems. velopment. However, the conditions tied to those
Disease, like population and technology, op- loans, such as cutting government spending for
erated on a global terrain, though there were education and health care, led to criticism that
many regional differences. In the early 1980s, ordinary citizens gained no real benefit. Some
both Western values and Western technological twenty-first-century leaders from both north and
expertise were challenged by the spread of a south advocated that wealthy countries simply give
global epidemic disease: acquired immunodefi- southern countries the money they needed as
ciency syndrome (AIDS). An incurable, highly reparation for centuries of imperial plunder.
virulent killer that effectively shuts down the Southern regions experienced different kinds
body’s entire immune system, AIDS initially af- of barriers to economic development. Latin Amer-
flicted heterosexuals in central Africa; the disease ican nations grappled with government corrup-
later turned up in Haitian immigrants to the tion, multibillion-dollar debt, widespread crime,
United States and in homosexual men worldwide. and grinding poverty, though some countries —
Within a decade, AIDS became a global epidemic. prominent among them Mexico — began to
The disease spread especially quickly and widely strengthen their economies by marketing their oil
among the heterosexual populations of Africa and other natural resources more effectively. Africa
and Asia, passed mainly by men to and through suffered from drought, famine, and civil war. In
women. By the late 1990s, no cure had yet been countries such as Rwanda, Somalia, and Sudan, the
discovered, though protease-inhibiting drugs military rule, ideological factionalism, and ethnic
helped alleviate the symptoms. The mounting antagonism encouraged under imperialism pro-
death toll made some equate AIDS with the Black duced a lethal mixture of conflict and genocide in
Death. Treatment was often not forthcoming for the 1990s and early 2000s. Millions perished; oth-
some forty million victims because most of them, ers were left starving and homeless due to kleptoc-
living in sub-Saharan Africa and the slums of racies that drained revenues. Although African
Asian cities, were too poor. On top of the AIDS countries began turning away from military dicta-
pandemic, the deadly Ebola virus and dozens of torship and toward parliamentary government,
other viruses smoldered like a global conflagra- global economic advance was uneven on the con-
tion in the making. In 2003, an unknown respi- tinent, and in the twenty-first century the scourge
ratory illness traveled the world: in the space of of AIDS and other unchecked diseases added to
a month, severe acute respiratory syndrome the weight of Africa’s problems.
(SARS) caused hundreds of deaths despite quar-
antines and surveillance of travelers. Incidences
of avian flu virus — potentially deadly to hu- Islam Meets the West
mans — appeared in Asian chickens in 2002 and North – south antagonisms became evident in the
by 2006 had shown up in Turkey, Romania, and rise of militant Islam, which often flourished
in other Mediterranean countries. Disease as where democracy and prosperity for the masses
970 C h a pt e r 2 9 ■ A N e w G lo b a l i s m 1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t

were missing. The Iranian hostage crisis that be- Saddam Hussein, fearing a rebellion from Shi’ites
gan in 1979 showed religion, nationalism, and in Iraq, attacked Iran in 1980, hoping to channel
anti-Western sentiment commanding the world’s Shi’ite discontent with a patriotic crusade against
attention. The charismatic leaders of the 1980s and non-Arab Iranians. The United States provided
1990s — Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini; Iraq with massive aid in the struggle against Iran.
Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi; Iraq’s Saddam Hus- But eight years of combat, with extensive loss of
sein; and Osama bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaeda life on both sides, ended in stalemate. The Soviet
transnational terrorist organization — variously Union had become embroiled against Islam in
promoted a pan-Arabic or pan-Islamic world or- Afghanistan when it supported a coup by a
der that gathered increasing support. Khomeini’s Communist faction against the government in
program — “Neither East, nor West, only the Is- 1979. Tens of thousands of Soviets fought in
lamic Republic” — had wide appeal. Renouncing Afghanistan, using the USSR’s most advanced mis-
the Westernization that had flourished under the siles and artillery to combat a powerful group of
shah, Khomeini’s regime in Iran required women Muslim resisters. The United States, China, Saudi
once again to cover their bodies almost totally in Arabia, and Pakistan provided aid to this resist-
special clothing, restricted their access to divorce, ance movement, some of whose members later co-
and eliminated a range of other rights. Buoyed by alesced into the Taliban — a militant Islamic
the prosperity that oil had brought, Islamic revo- political group. The losing war in Afghanistan so
lutionaries believed that a strict theocracy would riled the Soviet population and drained resources
restore the pride and Islamic identity that imperi- that the Soviet leaders withdrew the troops in 1989.
alism had stripped from Middle Eastern men. In the late 1990s, the Taliban took over the govern-
Khomeini built widespread support among Shi’ite ment of Afghanistan and imposed a regime that
Muslims by proclaiming the ascendancy of the forbade girls from attending schools and women
Shi’ite clergy. Although they were numerous, even from leaving their homes without a male escort.
constituting the majority in parts of the Middle The Middle East remained in turmoil, as Sad-
East, the Shi’ites had long been discriminated dam Hussein tested the post – cold war waters by
against by the Sunnis. invading Kuwait in 1990 in hopes of annexing the
Power in the Middle East remained dispersed, oil-rich country to debt-ridden Iraq. A UN coali-
however, and Islamic leaders did not achieve their tion quickly stopped the invasion and defeated the
unifying goals. Instead, war plagued the region, as Iraqi army, but discontent mounted in the region
(Map 29.5). Conflict between the Israelis and the
Palestinians continued. As Israeli settlers began
Osama bin Laden: Wealthy leader of the militant Islamic group taking more Palestinian land, Palestinian suicide
al-Qaeda, which executed terrorist plots, including the attacks
on the United States in 2001, to rid Islamic countries of infidel bombers began murdering Israeli civilians in the
influence. late 1990s. The Israeli government retaliated with

Europeans React to 9/11 Terror


On September 11, 2001, terrorists killed
thousands of people from dozens of
countries in airplane attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Throughout the world, people expressed
their shock and sorrow in vigils, and like
this British tourist in Rome, they
remained glued to the latest news.
Terrorism, which had plagued Europeans
for several decades, easily traveled the
world in the days of more open borders,
economic globalization, and cultural
exchange. (© Pizzoli Alberto / Corbis Sygma.)
■ For more help analyzing this image,
please see the visual activity for this
chapter in the Online Study Guide at
bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t C h a ll e n g e s f rom a n I n t e rco n n e c t e d Wo r l d 971

missiles, machine guns, and tanks, often killing for both Israelis and the repressive regimes in the
Palestinian civilians in turn. In 2006, the Israelis, Middle East.
responding to the political militia Hezbollah’s kid- On September 11, 2001, the ongoing terror-
napping of Israeli soldiers, attacked Lebanon, de- ism in Europe and around the world finally caught
stroying infrastructure, sending missiles into its the full attention of the United States. In an un-
capital city of Beirut, and killing hundreds of civil- precedented act, Muslim militants hijacked four
ians. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s and into the planes in the United States and flew two of them
twenty-first century, terrorists from the Middle into the World Trade Center in New York City and
East and North Africa planted bombs in many Eu- one into the Pentagon in Virginia. The fourth
ropean cities, blew airplanes out of the sky, and plane, en route to the Capitol, crashed in Pennsyl-
bombed the Paris subway system. These attacks, vania when passengers forced the hijackers to lose
causing widespread destruction and loss of life, control of the aircraft. The hijackers, most of
were said to be punishment for the West’s support whom were from Saudi Arabia, were inspired by

BULGARIA Bl a ck S e a GEORGIA RUSSIA KAZAKHSTAN

Ca
 Istanbul

spi
ARMENIA   UZBEKISTAN

an
Ankara
GREECE
 
S ea
Aegean TURKMENISTAN TAJIKISTAN
TURKEY
Sea AZERBAIJAN 

Euphr
a
 

T ig r i s R

CYPRUS 
Teheran
tes

Nicosia SYRIA Kabul


Beirut
R.

Med i t er r anean S e a
Damascus 

.

LEBANON AFGHANISTAN
Baghdad 
Suez
ISRAEL
Tel Aviv  IRAQ 
  IRAN
Canal Amman 
Jerusalem
Cairo

JORDAN   
SINAI  Kuwait
PEN. PAKISTAN
 r s OMAN
Pe


N il

KUWAIT  ian   Strait of



eR

LIBYA EGYPT . G Hormuz


BAHRAIN ulf
Manama  G
 Doha Abu Dhabilf of Oman
u
Riyadh

SAUDI QATAR Muscat INDIA
 
Re

ARABIA
dS

UNITED ARAB Lebanon, Israel, and Gaza, 2006


Mecca OMAN
 EMIRATES
ea

Major Hezbollah
attacks LEBANON
Major Israeli
attacks
SUDAN SYRIA
Sanaa Golan
YEMEN Heights

West
n
Countries with majority Aden
f Ade Bank
Shi’ite population Gulf o Gaza Jerusalem
DJIBOUTI Strip
Countries with majority N
Sunni population ISRAEL

 Oil field SOMALIA


W E
JORDAN

ETHIOPIA
Iraq War, 2003 engagements S EGYPT

Coalition advances, 2003


0 250 500 miles
 Missile and bomb attacks 0 25 50 miles SAUDI
0 250 500 kilometers ARABIA
0 50 kilometers

MAP 29.5 The Middle East in the Twenty-first Century


Tensions among states in the Middle East, especially the ongoing conflict between the Palestinians and
Israelis and animosities among Shi’ites and Sunnis, became more complicated from the 1990s on. The
situation in the Middle East grew more uncertain in 2003 when a U.S.- and British-led invasion of Iraq
deteriorated into escalating violence among competing religious and ethnic groups in the country.
Additionally, for thirty-four days in the summer of 2006, Israel bombed Lebanon, including its capital
city and refugee camps, with fire returned by Hezbollah and Hamas forces in the region.
972 C h a pt e r 2 9 ■ A N e w G lo b a l i s m 1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t

War Protest in Seville, Spain 2003


Hundreds of thousands of demon-
strators around the world protested
the invasion of Iraq in March 2003,
including these in Seville, Spain,
whose signs condemned the alliance
of Spanish prime minister José Maria
Anzar with U.S. president George W.
Bush as producing “war crimes” and
“the dead for oil.” Some 92 percent of
Spaniards objected to the invasion of
Iraq in March 2003, but the prime
minister sent 1300 troops anyway.
(© Felipe Rodriguez / Alamy.)

the wealthy radical leader Osama bin Laden, who


sought to end the presence of U.S. forces in Saudi
Arabia. The hijackers had trained in bin Laden’s
terrorist camps in Afghanistan and learned to pi-
lot planes in the United States. The loss of more
than three thousand lives led the United States to
declare a “war against terrorism.” The administra-
tion of U.S. president George W. Bush forged a
multinational coalition, which included the vital
cooperation of Islamic countries such as Pakistan.
The coalition enjoyed initial successes in driving
the ruling Taliban out of Afghanistan, though it
failed in its major goal of capturing bin Laden and
permanently crushing the Taliban.
At first, the September 11 attacks and other
lethal bombings around the world promoted
global cooperation. European countries rounded
up terrorists and conducted the first successful tri-
als of them in the spring of 2003. Ultimately, how-
ever, the West became divided when the United
States claimed that Saddam Hussein was conceal-
ing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and sug-
gested ties between Saddam Hussein and bin
Laden’s terrorist group. Great Britain, Spain, and
Terrorist Attacks on Spanish Commuter Trains, 2004 Poland were among those who joined the U.S. in-
Terrorism became more widespread from the 1970s onward, taking vasion of Iraq in March 2003, but powerful Euro-
many forms and espousing many causes. Although terrorists of the
pean states, including Germany, Russia, and
1970s and early 1980s often targeted prominent individuals, later ones
France, refused. Many people in the United States
engineered wider attacks on random citizens to increase the loss of life.
On March 11, 2004, foreign terrorists who opposed Spain’s participa- were furious, sporting bumper stickers with the
tion in the Iraq War used bombs planted on commuter trains to kill 191 demand “First Iraq, Next France” and joining
people and injure more than 2000. Spanish voters ousted the prime happy hours to participate in “French bashing.”
minister and installed one who pulled Spanish forces out of Iraq. U.S. war fever mounted with the suggestion that
(AFP / Getty Images.) Syria and Iran should also be invaded, while the
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rest of the world condemned what seemed a sud- China, pursuing a policy of economic moderniza-
den American blood lust. Europeans in general, in- tion and market orientation, had joined the surge
cluding the British public, accused the United in productivity. Japan, however, led the initial
States of becoming a world military dictatorship charge of Asian economies with investment in
in order to preserve its only remaining value — high-tech consumer industries driving the Japan-
wasteful consumerism. The United States counter- ese economy. For example, in 1982, Japan had
charged that the Europeans were too selfishly thirty-two thousand industrial robots in opera-
enjoying their democracy and creature comforts tion; western Europe employed only nine thou-
to help fund the military defense of freedom un- sand, and the United States had seven thousand.
der attack. The Spanish withdrew from the U.S. In 1989, the Japanese government and private
occupation of Iraq after terrorists linked to al- businesses invested $549 billion to modernize in-
Qaeda bombed four Madrid commuter trains on dustrial capacity, a full $36 billion more than U.S.
March 11, 2004. The British, too, reeled when ter- public and private investment. Such spending paid
rorists exploded bombs in three subway cars and off substantially, as buyers around the world
a bus in central London in July 2005. As the war snapped up automobiles, televisions, videocassette
in Iraq dragged on into its fourth year, there was recorders, and computers from Japanese or other
a sense that the West was coming apart. Asian Pacific companies. As the United States
poured vast sums into its military budgets and a
series of wars, Asian and Middle Eastern govern-
World Economies
ments purchased U.S. government bonds, thus fi-
on the Rise nancing America’s ballooning national debt. Forty
Amid these confrontations, an incredible rise in years after its total defeat in World War II, Japan
industrial entrepreneurship and development of was bankrolling its former conqueror.
technology took place outside the West, especially Despite rising national prosperity, individual
in Asia. Just as economic change in the early mod- workers, particularly outside of Japan, often paid
ern period had redirected European affairs from dearly for this newly created wealth. For example,
the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, so explosive safety standards in China were abominable, lead-
productivity from Japan to Singapore in the 1980s ing to horrendous mining disasters. Women in
and 1990s spread economic power from the At- South Korea, Taiwan, and Central America labored
lantic region to the Pacific. In 1982, the Asian Pa- in sweatshops to produce clothing for such U.S.-
cific nations accounted for 16.4 based companies as JCPenney
percent of global gross domestic 0 250 500 miles
and Calvin Klein. Using the lure
product, a figure that had doubled 0 500 kilometers of a low-paid and docile female
since the 1960s. By 1989, East workforce, governments were
Asia’s share of world production MONGOLIA Sea of
Japan Tokyo able to attract electronics and

had grown to more than 25 per- N.
KOREA
other industries. However, edu-
cent as that of the West declined. Beijing
  Seoul
S. KOREA JAPAN
cational standards rose, along
By 2006, China alone was achiev- with access to birth control and
ing economic growth rates of over other medical care for these
East
10 percent per year, while Japan CHINA China women.
Sea
had developed the second largest PACIFIC Other emerging economies
Taipei
national economy after the  OCEAN in the Southern Hemisphere as a
TAIWAN
United States, with Germany in Hong Kong
whole continued to increase their

HONG KONG
third place and China poised to (U.K. until 1997) share of the world’s gross domes-
overtake it. LAOS South
PHILIPPINES tic product during the 1980s and
South Korea, Taiwan, Singa- THAILAND
China
Sea
1990s, and some achieved politi-
pore, and Hong Kong were pop- VIETNAM cal gains as well. In South Africa,
ularly called Pacific tigers for the native peoples began winning the
ferocity of their growth in the CAMBODIA
struggle for political rights when,
1980s and 1990s. By the 1990s, in 1990, the moderate govern-
M A L A YSIA
ment of F. W. de Klerk released

Singapore
SINGAPORE political leader Nelson Mandela,
Pacific tigers: Countries of East Asia so I N D O N E S I A imprisoned for almost three
named because of their massive economic
growth, much of it from the 1980s on; fore- decades because of his antia-
most among these were Japan and China. Tigers of the Pacific Rim, c. 1995 partheid activism. After holding
974 C h a pt e r 2 9 ■ A N e w G lo b a l i s m 1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t

free elections in 1994, which Mandela won, South changed even more rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s
Africa — like Russia, Brazil, Iran, Saudi Arabia, than it had hundreds of years earlier when it came
Nigeria, and Chile — profited from the need for into intense contact with the rest of the globe
vast quantities of raw materials such as oil and ores through migration and communications. More-
to feed global expansion. India made strides in ed- over, national boundaries in the traditional Euro-
ucation, women’s rights, and local cooperation pean center of the West were weakening, given the
(calming bitter rivalries), but assassinations of growing strength of the EU and the influx of mi-
prime ministers raised the question of whether In- grants. Culture transcended national boundaries,
dia would continue to have the strong leadership as East, West, North, and South became saturated
necessary to attract investment and thus to con- with one another’s cultural products. Some ob-
tinue modernization. After the brief rule of a servers labeled the new century an era of denation-
Hindu nationalist government that often blocked alization — meaning that national cultures as well
development, India’s economy also achieved soar- as national boundaries were becoming less dis-
ing growth early in the twenty-first century, taking tinct. There is no denying that even while the West
business from Western firms and making global ac- absorbed peoples and cultures, it continued to ex-
quisitions that gave it, for example, the world’s ercise not only economic but also cultural influ-
largest steel industry. Although Western firms faced ence over the rest of the globe. Yet Western
the challenge of competition, they also profited influence was also being debated and contested.
from prosperity that was more widely spread
around the world.
Redefining the West:
The Impact of Global Migration
Review: What were the principal challenges facing the
The global movement of people was massive in the
West at the beginning of the twenty-first century?
last third of the twentieth century and into the
twenty-first. Uneven economic development, po-
litical persecution, and warfare (which claimed
more than 100 million victims after 1945) sent tens
Global Culture and Society of millions in search of opportunity and safety. By
in the Twenty-first Century 2001, France had some six million Muslims within
its borders and Europe as a whole had between
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, in- thirty-five and fifty million. Other parts of the
creased migration and growing global communi- world were as full as the West of migrants from
cations were changing culture and society, other cultures. The oil-producing nations of the
prompting many to ask what would become of na- Middle East employed millions of foreign work-
tional cultures and Western civilization itself. ers, who generally constituted one-third of the la-
Would the world become a homogeneous mass bor force. Violence in Africa sent Rwandans,
with everyone wearing the same kind of clothing, Congolese, and others to South Africa, as its gov-
eating the same kind of food, and watching the ernment became dominated by blacks. Wars in
same films (on their cell phones)? Some critics pre- Afghanistan increased the number of refugees to
dicted a clash of civilizations in which increasingly Iran to nearly two million in 1995, while the Iraq-
incompatible religions and cultures would lead to Iran war and successive attacks on Iraq by the West
a global holocaust. Others asked whether the West sent millions more fleeing. By 2000, there were
would collapse as the United States wore itself some 120 million migrants worldwide, many of
down waging war while much of Europe distanced them headed to the West.
itself from its former ally. Migrants often earned desperately needed in-
The migration that had accelerated since the come for family members who remained in the na-
1990s, the spread of disease, global climate change, tive country, and in some cases they propped up
the information revolution, and the global sharing the economies of entire nations. In countries as
of culture argued against the cultural purity of any different as Yugoslavia (before its breakup), Egypt,
group, Western or otherwise. “Civilizations,” In- Spain, and Pakistan, money sent home from
dian economist and Nobel Prize winner Amartya abroad constituted up to 60 percent of national in-
Sen wrote after the terrorist attacks of September come. Sometimes migration was coerced; many
11, “are hard to partition . . . given the diversities eastern European and Asian prostitutes were held
within each society as well as the linkages among in international sex rings that controlled their
different countries and cultures.” Western society passports, wages, and lives. Others came to the
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Foreign workers were often scapegoats for


native peoples suffering from economic woes
such as unemployment caused by downsizing.
On the eve of EU enlargement in 2004, the highly
respected weekly magazine The Economist in-
cluded an article entitled “The Coming Hordes,”
which warned of Britain’s being overrun by Roma
(Gypsies) from eastern Europe. Political parties
with racist programs sprang to life in Europe,
aided by celebrities: the Moscow rock band Cor-
roded Metals campaigned for anti-immigrant can-
didates with hate-filled songs and chants in
English of “Kill, kill, kill, kill the bloody foreign-
ers” running in the background. Even citizens of
immigrant descent often had a difficult time be-
ing accepted. In Austria, France, the Netherlands,
Sweden, and many other Western countries, thriv-
ing anti-immigrant and white supremacist politi-
cians challenged centrist parties. In Austria and the
Netherlands, anti-immigration candidates were
elected to head the government. (See “Contrasting
Views,” page 976.) Nonetheless, especially as em-
ployers sought out illegal immigrants for the work
they performed and the low wages they could be
paid, the West remained a place of opportunity.

Global Networks and the Economy


Headscarf Controversy in Germany
Like migration, rapid technological change also
Western countries have long debated the relationship
between religion and the nation-state. In particular,
weakened traditional political, cultural, and eco-
that debate targeted the need for religiously neutral nomic borders — if it did not make them alto-
education in order to develop citizens with undivided gether obsolete. In particular, the world’s economy
national loyalties. In an age of global migration, the became far more global than ever before. In 1969,
issue of religion in the schools resurfaced, this time the U.S. Department of Defense developed a com-
focusing on the headscarfs worn by many Muslim puter network to carry communications in case of
women. Although in 2003 Germany upheld the right of nuclear war. This system and others like it in uni-
the teacher Fereshta Ludin, pictured here, to wear her versities, government, and business grew into an
headscarf while teaching on the grounds of religious unregulated system of more than ten thousand
freedom, it simultaneously asserted the right of
networks globally. These came to be known as the
children to a religiously neutral education. (Michael
Internet — shorthand for internetworking. By
Latz / ddp Berlin.)
1995, users in more than 137 countries were con-
nected to the Internet, creating new “communi-
ties” based on business needs, shared cultural
West voluntarily, seeking opportunity and a better interests, or other factors that transcended com-
life: “I do not want to go back to China,” said one mon citizenship in a particular nation-state. An
woman restaurant owner in Hungary in the 1990s. online global marketplace emerged, offering goods
“Some of my relatives there also have restau- and services ranging from advanced weaponry to
rants. . . . They have to have good relations with organ transplants. While enthusiasts claimed that
officials, . . . and sometimes they have to bribe the Internet could promote world democracy, crit-
somebody. . . . I would not be happy living like ics charged that communications technology fa-
that.” Like the illegal Congolese café proprietor vored elites and disadvantaged those without
Therese, whose story opens this chapter, many computer skills.
lived on the margins of the law, supporting net- By 2000, as postindustrial skills spread, the In-
works of family and maintaining global economic ternet brought service jobs to countries that had
ties from a new base in the West. heretofore suffered unemployment and real
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CONTRASTING VIEWS

Muslim Immigrants and Turkey in the EU:


The Dutch Debate Globalization

Early in the twenty-first century, Westerners debated a series of in- 2. Too Much Islamic Architecture
tertwined issues springing from conditions created by the new glob-
alized world. The issue of immigration and the accommodation of Many immigrants and their descendants, all of whom could become
peoples from outside the West was one of them. The Netherlands Dutch citizens, often lived in cities where there was economic op-
was one of the European countries that began debating whether portunity. Although mosques existed in many cities, most were
globalization hadn’t gone too far in this direction. The debate came tucked away in obscure and shabby parts of town near the ghettos
to the fore in the Netherlands after an animal rights activist in 2002 where many Muslim immigrant families lived. When the Muslim
assassinated Pim Fortuyn, a candidate for prime minister who ran community in Rotterdam proposed building a stately mosque with
on a popular anti-immigrant platform and proclaimed, “Holland 164-foot minarets, many in Rotterdam opposed the project. Ronald
is full.” When, in 2004, a Muslim radical assassinated filmmaker Sorenson, a member of Rotterdam’s city council, objected in partic-
Theo van Gogh, who took special pride in insulting Islam, the Dutch ular to the design of the proposed mosque and its cultural conno-
debate over globalization fixated on the presence of foreigners, es- tations.
pecially Muslims, in the Netherlands and the admission of Turkey
There’s no reason the minarets have to be that high — it will not
to the European Union.
be Rotterdam; it will be Mecca on the Maas [river].

1. The View from Everyday Life Source: Jennifer Ehrlich, “Liberal Netherlands Grows Less So on Immi-
gration,” Christian Science Monitor, December 19, 2003.
Leon was a Rotterdam window cleaner who did not want his last
name revealed. Here is his opinion of the main problem of Dutch
life brought about by globalization. 3. Opposing Immigration
and Turkey’s Membership
There are too many people coming here who don’t want to work. in the European Union
Before long there will be more foreigners than Dutch people, and
Acceptance of new members has made the EU the largest eco-
Dutch people won’t be the boss of their own country. That’s why
nomic power in the world. In the first decade of the twenty-first
this has to be stopped.
century, some Europeans looked to the integration of Turkey into
Source: Jennifer Ehrlich, “Liberal Netherlands Grows Less So on Immi- the EU as further expansion of EU influence. Others, however,
gration,” Christian Science Monitor, December 19, 2003. opposed it, as the issue of EU enlargement had implications for

poverty. One of the first countries to recognize the ing enterprises were more likely than those in do-
possibilities of computing and help-desk services mestic firms to participate in the global consumer
was Ireland, which pushed computer literacy to at- economy, much of it for Western goods. Benefiting
tract business. In 2003, U.S. firms spent $8.3 bil- from the booming global economy of the 1990s,
lion on outsourcing to Ireland and $7.7 billion on the Irish and eastern Europeans became integrated
outsourcing to India. The Internet allowed for jobs into the Western consumer economy. Their new
to be apportioned anywhere. Moroccans did help- disposable income allowed them to purchase lux-
desk work for French or Spanish speakers, and in ury automobiles, CD players, and personal com-
the twenty-first century Estonia, Hungary, and the puters that would have been far beyond their means
Czech Republic as well as India and the Philippines a decade earlier. Non-Westerners may have taken
were rebuilding their economies successfully by jobs from the West, but they often sent funds back.
providing call-center and other business services. A twenty-one-year-old Indian woman, working for
The Internet allowed service industries to global- a service provider in Bangalore under the English
ize just as the manufacturing sector had done name Sharon, used her salary to buy Western con-
much earlier through multinational corporations. sumer items, such as a cell phone from the Finnish
Globalization of the economy affected the West company Nokia. “As a teenager I wished for so
in complex ways. Those who worked in outsourc- many things,” she said. “Now I’m my own Santa
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immigration. Geert Wilders, member of Dutch parliament, voiced answer this question with another question. “Does Holland
his opposition. really love aliens?” Just in time, I bite my tongue.

Turkey is an Islamic country and as such doesn’t belong in the Source: Funda Müjde Web site: http//:www.fundam.nl/English/fundas
-column-telegraaf-daily-newspaper-04.htm
EU. The flow [of Turks] is already too big. . . . There is a big
problem with the integration of immigrants already in
Holland. They top the list in terms of criminality, unemploy- 5. Encouragement for Religious
ment, welfare payments, domestic violence . . . Let us concen- Tolerance in the EU
trate on solving the problems with the immigrants already here
properly. On July 21, 2004, Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende gave
a speech before the European Parliament that called on Europeans
Source: Expatica, October 5, 2004. to reconsider their position on immigration.

4. An Evaluation of Dutch Values We must not allow ourselves to be guided by fear, for example,
of Islam. The raising of barriers to any particular religion is not
Popular Amsterdam actress Funda Müjde admitted to being called consistent with Europe’s shared values. Our opposition should
a “filthy Turk” during the debates over immigration and ethnic vi- be directed not against religions, but against people and groups
olence in the city.1 Nonetheless, in her online stage performances misusing their religion to get their way by force. Islam is not the
and journalism, she gave sharp-witted responses to the anti-immi- problem.
gration furor around her.
Source: European Stability Initiative, “Speech by the President, Jan Peter
“Do aliens actually love Holland?” This question woke me up Balkenende, to the European Parliament, in Strasbourg on 21 July 2004,”
with a start. After work (a workshop at the Employment Office) http://www.esiweb.org.
I traveled back with a colleague because he needed to be in Am-
sterdam. We have been working together for a while now and I
notice that our conversations are always about something sub- Questions to Consider
stantial. 1. What are the main points of view in the debate over immigra-
Now it seemed as if he was even bolder in asking all kinds tion and the admission of Turkey to the European Union?
of questions. 2. How do you evaluate the strength of each position?
Hurray! Do we aliens (read: mainly the first-generation Mo- 3. Given that globalization brought about a wide variety of
roccans and Turks) really love Holland? Immediately I want to changes, why would immigration and Turkish EU member-
ship become such heated issues?
1 Ian Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the
Limits of Tolerance (New York: Penguin, 2006), 175.

Claus.” Ordinary Western workers often discovered In the post – World War II period, tourism had be-
that this global revolution threatened their jobs. In come the largest single industry in Britain and in
Germany, where taxes for social security and other many other Western countries by the early 1990s,
welfare-state financing comprised 42 percent of promoting cultural exchange. Chinese students in
payroll costs in 2003, the incentive for businesses Tiananmen Square in 1989 testified to the power
to downsize or to move to countries with lower of the West in the world’s imagination when in the
costs was strong. Globalization redistributed jobs name of freedom they rallied around their own
across the West and revamped economic networks. representation of the Statue of Liberty (which it-
self was a gift from France to the United States).
In Japan, businesspeople wore Western-style cloth-
A Global Culture? ing and watched soccer, baseball, and other West-
As far back as the first millennium of human his- ern sports using English terms, while Europeans
tory, culture has transcended political boundaries. and Americans wore flip-flops, carried umbrellas,
In the ancient world, Greek philosophers and and used the “thumbs up” sign — all imports from
traders knew distant Asian beliefs, while in the beyond the West.
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Western Remarkable innovations in communications
scholars immersed themselves in Asian languages. integrated cultures and made the earth seem a
978 C h a pt e r 2 9 ■ A N e w G lo b a l i s m 1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t

Tourism, Migration, and the


Mixing of Cultures
Tourism was a major economic boon
to the West, and Western countries
were the top tourist destinations in
the world. Spreading prosperity
allowed for greater leisure and travel
to distant spots. Curiosity grew about
other cultures. This Scottish bagpiper
in London clearly arouses the interest
of passersby, whether visitors from
afar or citizens of his own country.
(© Will van Overbeek. All Rights Reserved.)

much smaller place, though possibly one with a Culture from beyond the West. As it had done for
Western flavor. Videotapes and satellite-beamed centuries, the West continued to devour material
telecasts transported American television shows from other cultures — whether Hong Kong films,
to Hong Kong and Japanese movies to Europe African textiles, Indian music, or Latin American
and North America. American rock music sold pop culture. Publishers successfully marketed
briskly in Russia and elsewhere in the former So- written work by major non-Western artists and in-
viet bloc. When more than 100,000 Czechoslova- tellectuals, and Hollywood made many of their
kian rock fans, including President Václav Havel, novels into internationally distributed films.
attended a Rolling Stones concert in Prague in Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz, the author of more
1990, it was clear that despite half a century of than forty books and recipient of the Nobel Prize
supposedly insular Communist culture, Czechs for Literature in 1988, gained critical acclaim and
and Slovaks had tuned in to the larger world. a wide readership in the West. His celebrated Cairo
Young black immigrants forged transnational Trilogy, written in the 1950s, describes a middle-
culture when they created hip-hop and other pop class family — from its practice of Islam and seclu-
music styles by combining elements of Africa, the sion of women to the business and cultural life of
Caribbean, Afro-America, and Europe. Athletes men in the family. British colonialism forms the
like the Brazilian soccer player Ronaldo, the trilogy’s backdrop; it impassions the protagonists
American golf hero Tiger Woods, and Japanese and shapes their lives and destinies. In the eyes of
baseball star Ichiro Suzuki became better known Arab critics, Mahfouz was a safe choice for the No-
to countless people than their own national lead- bel Prize because he had adopted a European style.
ers were. Film entrepreneurs marketed such “He borrowed the novel from Europe; he imitated
international blockbusters as the Chinese Crouch- it,” charged one fellow Egyptian writer. “It’s not an
ing Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). With their mes- Egyptian art form. Europeans . . . like it very much
sages conveyed around the world, even today’s because it is their own form.” After author Gao
moral leaders — the Nobel Peace Prize winners Xingjian was harassed in China as an example of
Nelson Mandela, former president of South “intellectual pollution,” his searing Soul Mountain
Africa; the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Ti- (1990) about a ten-month contemplative trip by
bet; and Aung San Suu Kyi, opposition leader in foot through his homeland, became a European
Burma — are global figures. best seller. Gao finished writing his masterpiece
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from exile in Paris, and in 2000 the Norwegian No- sign of deterioration similar to that brought
bel Prize Committee awarded him its prize for lit- about by immigration.
erature — the first Chinese author to be so
honored. Non-Western literature’s global appeal Building Post-Soviet Culture. In the former So-
did not guarantee a warm welcome in an author’s viet bloc, artists and writers faced unique chal-
homeland. lenges. After the Soviet Union collapsed, classical
Immigrants to Europe described how the ex- writers like Mikhail Bulgakov (1891 – 1940), fa-
perience of Western culture felt to the transna- mous in the West for his novel The Master and Mar-
tional person. Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta, in garita (published posthumously in 1966 – 1967),
her novel In the Ditch (1972), explored the expe- became known in his homeland. At the same time,
riences of a newcomer to Britain, critiquing colo- the collapse put literary dissidents out of business,
nialism and the welfare state from a non-Western because, having helped bring down the Soviet
perspective. Her book The New Tribe (2000) regime, they had lost their subject matter — the
looked at the next generation’s search for an iden- critique of a tyrannical system. State-sanctioned
tity; the hero, of Nigerian descent, finds that he is authors, suddenly deprived of their jobs, had to sell
a total outsider when he visits Nigeria. Emecheta, their products on the free market in countries
like many other immigrants, felt the lure of West- where economic conditions were so harsh that
ern education and values, but this new allegiance books were an unaffordable luxury. Eastern-bloc
could become dangerous. The novel The Satanic writers who formerly found both critical and fi-
Verses (1988) by Salman Rushdie, an immigrant nancial success in the West seemed less heroic —
to Great Britain from India, ignited outrage among and less talented — in the wide-open post-Soviet
Muslims around the world because it appeared to world. The work of Czech writer Milan Kundera,
blaspheme the prophet Muhammad. From Iran, for example, lost its luster. It had been, according
the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, promising
both a monetary reward and salvation in the af-
terlife to anyone who would assassinate the writer.
Toni Morrison, Recipient of the Nobel Prize
Rushdie’s Norwegian publisher was shot and his
The first African American woman to receive the Nobel
Italian and Japanese translators murdered, but in Prize, Toni Morrison has used her literary talent to
a display of Western cultural unity, international depict the condition of blacks under slavery and after
leaders took bold steps to protect Rushdie until the emancipation. Morrison has also published cogent
threat to his life was lifted a decade later. essays on social, racial, and gender issues in the
The mainstream became fraught with con- United States. (Time & Life Pictures / Getty Images.)
flict as groups outside the accepted circles en-
gaged in artistic production. From within the
West, novelist Toni Morrison became, in 1993,
the first African American woman to win the No-
bel Prize for Literature. Her works such as
Beloved (1987) and Jazz (1992) describe the
nightmares, daily experiences, achievements, and
dreams of the descendants of men and women
who had been brought as slaves to the United
States. But some parents objected to the inclu-
sion of Morrison’s work in school curricula
alongside Shakespeare and other white authors.
Critics charged that, unlike Shakespeare’s univer-
sal Western truth, the writing of African Ameri-
cans, Native Americans, and women represented
only a partial vision, not great literature. In both
the United States and Europe, politicians on the
right saw the presence of multiculturalism as a

Salman Rushdie: Immigrant British author, whose novel The


Satanic Verses led the Ayotallah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran to
issue a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s murder.
Toni Morrison: The first African American woman to win the No-
bel Prize for Literature; her works include Beloved and Jazz.
980 C h a pt e r 2 9 ■ A N e w G lo b a l i s m 1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t

to one critic, merely about Western publishers’ U.S. Cultural Dominance. The political and eco-
hype, that is, not literature but merely a “line of nomic power of the United States gave its culture
business.” To make matters worse, there was no an edge. U.S. success in “marketing” culture, along
idea of what the post-Communist arts should be, with the legacy of British imperialism, helped
sending artists in the former Soviet bloc scurrying make English the dominant international language
for solutions. by the end of the twentieth century. Such English
Talented fresh voices rang out, however. An- words as stop, shopping, parking, okay, weekend,
drei Makine, an expatriate Russian author, became and rock infiltrated dozens of non-English vocab-
popular worldwide for his poignant yet disturbing ularies. English became one of the official lan-
novels of the collapse of communism, many of guages of the European Union; across Europe it
them showing the attraction of western European served as the main language of higher education,
culture and the resonance of the war and the Gu- science, and tourism. In the 1960s, French presi-
lag on the imaginations of eastern-bloc people, in- dent Charles de Gaulle, fearing the corruption of
cluding teenagers and older people. Both Dreams the French language, had banned such new words
of My Russian Summers (1995) and Once Upon the as computer in government documents, and suc-
River Love (1994) describe young people bred to ceeding administrations followed his path; but
fantasize about the wealth, sexiness, and material such a directive did not stop the influx of English
goods of western Europe and America. Victor into scientific, diplomatic, and daily life. Nonethe-
Pelevin wrote more satirically and bitingly in such less, in another sign of cultural divide, the EU’s
works as The Life of Insects (1993), in which insect- parliament and national cultural ministries regu-
humans buzz around Russia trying to discover lated the amount of American programming on
who they are in the post-Soviet world. Pelevin, a television and in cinemas.
Buddhist and former engineer, wrote hilarious American influence in film was dominant:
send-ups of politicians and the almost sacred So- films such as Titanic (1997) and The Matrix Re-
viet space program, depicting it as a media sham loaded (2003) earned hundreds of millions of
run from the depths of the Moscow subway sys- dollars from global audiences. Simultaneously,
tem in which hundreds of cosmonaut-celebrities however, the United States itself welcomed films
are killed to prevent the truth from getting out. from around the world — whether the Mexican Y
For him, “any politician is a TV program, and this Tu Mamá También (2001) or the Italian Life Is
doesn’t change from one government to another.” Beautiful (1997). “Bollywood” films — happy, lav-
So one simply judged them by haircuts, ties, and ish films from the Indian movie industry — had a
other aspects of personal style, as he showed in his huge following in all Western countries, even in-
novel Homo Zapiens, in which politicians were all fluencing the plots of some American productions.
“virtual”— that is, produced by technical effects The fastest-growing medium in the United States
and scriptwriters. in the twenty-first century was Spanish-language
In music and the other arts, much energy was television, just one more indication that even in
spent on recovering and absorbing all the under- the United States culture was based on mixture and
ground works that had been hidden since 1917. global exchange.
The situation was utterly astonishing as the work
of literally dozens of first-rate composers, for ex- Postmodernism. Some have called the global
ample, emerged. They had written their classical culture of the late twentieth and early twenty-first
works in private for fear that they might contain centuries postmodernism, defined in part as in-
phrasings, sounds, and rhythms that would be tense stylistic mixing in the arts without a central
called subversive. Meanwhile, they had often unifying theme or elite set of standards guiding
earned a living writing for films, as did Giya the art. Striking examples of postmodern art
Kancheli, who wrote immensely popular music abounded in Western society, including the AT&T
for more than forty films but was in addition a building (now known as the Sony Building) in
gifted composer of classical music. Other work New York City, the work of architect Philip John-
could now become even better known. Alfred son. Although the structure itself, designed in the
Schnittke (1934 – 1998) produced rich composi-
tions — dozens of operas, symphonies, chamber
music pieces, concertos, and other works — that postmodernism: A term applied in the late twentieth century
were extremely sad, punctuated with anger in to both an intense stylistic mixture in the arts without a central
unifying theme or elite set of standards and a critique of En-
loud bursts of dissonance, and set in a somber lightenment and scientific beliefs in rationality and the possi-
bass register. bility of certain knowledge.
1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t C o n c lu s i o n : Th e M a k i n g o f t h e We s t C o n t i n u e s 981

political postmodernism included the decline of


the Western nation-state. A structure like the Bil-
bao Guggenheim was simply an international
tourist attraction rather than an institution reflect-
ing Spanish traditions or national purpose. It em-
bodied consumption, global technology, mass
communications, and international migration
rather than citizenship, nationalism, and rights.
These qualities made it a rootless structure, unlike
the Louvre in Paris, for example, which was built
by the French monarchy to serve its own purposes.
Critics saw it as drifting, more like the nomadic
businesswoman Therese, who moved between na-
tions and cultures with no set identity. Cities and
nations alike were losing their function as places
providing social roots, personal identity, or human
rights. For postmodernists of a political bent, com-
puters had replaced the autonomous, free self and
bureaucracy had rendered representative govern-
ment obsolete.
The issues raised by postmodernism —
whether in architecture, political thought, or the
popular media — focused on the basic ingredients
The German Reichstag: Reborn and Green of Western identity as it had been defined over the
Nothing better symbolizes the end of the postwar era past two hundred years. Postmodernism was part
and the new millennium than the restoration of the of the rethinking and questioning that accompa-
Reichstag, the parliament building in Berlin. Like other nied globalization. Such critical thinking — what-
manifestations of postmodernism, the restoration—
ever its tentative conclusions may be — is today,
designed by a British architect—preserves the old,
while adding a new dome of glass, complete with
as in the past, a key ingredient in the making of
solar panels that make the building self-sufficient in the West.
its energy needs. Visitors can walk around the glass
dome, looking at their elected representatives
Review: What social and cultural questions has global-
deliberating below. (© Svenja-Foto / zefa / Corbis.)
ization raised?

late 1970s, looks sleek and modern, its entryway is


a Roman arch, and its cloud-piercing top suggests
eighteenth-century Chippendale furniture. Build- Conclusion: The Making
ings designed by Johnson and other postmod- of the West Continues
ernists appealed to the human past and drew from
cultural styles that spanned millennia and conti- Postmodernism has not fully eclipsed modern val-
nents without valuing one style above others. The ues in the global age, however. Although some
Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, designed postmodernists have proclaimed an end to cen-
by American Frank Gehry, was considered bizarre turies of faith in progress, they themselves have
by classical or even “modern” standards as it rep- worked within the modern Western tradition of
resented forms, materials, and perspectives that, by constant criticism and reevaluation. Moreover,
rules of earlier decades, did not belong together. said their critics, the daunting problems of con-
Architects from around the world working in a va- temporary life — population explosion, scarce re-
riety of hybrid styles completed the postunifica- sources, North – South inequities, global pollution,
tion rebuilding of Berlin. ethnic hatred, and global terrorism — demanded,
Other intellectuals defined postmodernism more than ever, the exercise of humane values and
in political terms as part of the decline of the rational thought. Postmodernists and other
eighteenth-century Enlightenment ideals of hu- philosophers countered that attempts at rational
man rights, individualism, and personal freedom, decision-making fall short because of the issue of
which were seen as “modern” (see page 766). This “unintended consequences”— that is, one cannot
982 C h a pt e r 2 9 ■ A N e w G lo b a l i s m 1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t

know in advance the consequences of an act. Who from Asia, Africa, and the Americas — areas far
would have predicted, for example, the human from Europe, the traditional center of the West.
misery and rising criminality resulting initially Non-Westerners of all kinds have challenged, crit-
from the fall of the Soviet empire? icized, refashioned, and made enormous contribu-
The years since 1989 have proved both sides tions to Western culture; they have also served the
of the postmodernist debate correct. The collapse West’s citizens as slaves, servants, and menial
of communism signaled the eclipse of an ideology workers. One of the greatest challenges to the West
that was perhaps noble in intent but deadly in and the world in this global millennium is to de-
practice. Events from South Africa and Northern termine how diverse peoples and cultures can live
Ireland, for example, indicated that certain long- together on terms that are fair for everyone. Supra-
feuding groups could rationally put aside decades national organizations, both governmental and
of bloodshed and work toward peace. In contrast, nongovernmental, have attempted to meet the
those reformers rationally seeking improved con- challenges created by increased globalism, but the
ditions by bringing down Soviet and Yugoslav long-term effects of these efforts are not yet
communism unleashed bloodshed, sickness, and known.
even genocide. The global age ushered in by the A final challenge to the West involves the in-
Soviet collapse has unexpectedly brought dena- ventive human spirit. Over the past five hundred
tionalization to many regions of the world. years, the West has benefited from its scientific and
The consequences of increasing globalization technological advances. Longevity and improved
are still being determined. While the Internet and material well-being spread to many places. In the
migration suggest that people will and often do past century, communication and information
have empathy for one another worldwide, mili- technology brought people closer to one another
tants from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Indonesia, the than ever before. Simultaneously, through the use
Philippines, North Africa, Britain, and elsewhere of technology, the period from the last century to
have unleashed unprecedented terrorism on the the present one has become the bloodiest era in
world in an attempt to push back global forces. human history — and one during which the use of
Even as globalization has raised standards of liv- technology threatens the future of the earth as a
ing and education in many parts of the world, in home for the human race. War, genocide, terror-
other areas — such as poorer regions in Africa and ism, and environmental deterioration are among
Asia — people face disease and the dramatic social technology’s hallmarks, posing perhaps the great-
and economic deterioration associated with the est challenge to the West and to the world. The
global age. Rational results of planning and inex- making of the West has been a constantly inven-
plicable consequences coexist in our present tive undertaking, but also a deadly one. The ques-
world. tion is, How will the West and the world manage
Western traditions of democracy, human both the promises and challenges of technology to
rights, and economic equality have much to offer. protect the creativity of the human race in the
Given that these were initially intended for a lim- years ahead?
ited number of people — white men in powerful
Western nations — global debates about their
value and relevance abound. The nation-state, For Further Exploration
which protected those values for the privileged and ■ For suggested references, including Web sites,
denied them to many others, is another legacy of for topics in this chapter, see page SR-1 at the
the West that must be rethought in an age of end of the book.
transnationalism. Migrants, for example, demand
the dignity of citizenship and these demands are ■ For additional primary-source material from
often resisted even though migrants’ work and this period, see Chapter 29 in Sources of THE
taxes are welcomed. Moreover, it is often suprana- MAKING OF THE WEST, Third Edition.
tional organizations rather than the nation-state
that have advocated for worldwide prosperity and ■ For Web sites and documents related to topics
human values. At the same time, the West faces in this chapter, see Make History at
questions of its own unity and cultural identity — bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.
an identity that more than ever includes people
1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t
MA P P I N G T H E W E ST

C o n c lu s i o n : Th e M a k i n g o f t h e We s t C o n t i n u e s
The World’s Wealth Internet Use byy Percent
of Country Population
Income bands
High 76–100%
Middle 51–75%
Low 26–50%
No data available 0–25%
No data available

The World in the New Millennium


By the twenty-first century, the Internet had transformed communications and economic organization into an interconnected
global network. People in the so-called north had greater access to this network in 2007 and for the most part enjoyed
greater wealth. Despite inequalities and lower Internet usage compared to the north, the rate of growth of the Internet
accelerated in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. ■ In what ways does this map indicate a closely connected world?
(From www.internetworldstats.com. Copyright © 2007, Miniwatts Marketing Group.)

983
984 C h a pt e r 2 9 ■ A N e w G lo b a l i s m 1 9 8 9 to t h e Pr e s e n t

Ch a pt e r R ev i ew
Key Terms and People Making Connections
globalization (952) nongovernmental 1. In what ways were global connections at the beginning of
Slobodan Milosevic organizations the twenty-first century different from the global con-
(953) (NGOs) (965) nections at the beginning of the twentieth century?
ethnic cleansing (954) global warming (966) 2. How did the Western nation-state of the early twenty-first
Vladimir Putin (956) Green Party (966) century differ from the Western nation-state at the open-
Maastricht Treaty (961) Osama bin Laden (970) ing of the twentieth century?
European Union (EU) Pacific tigers (973)
(961) Salman Rushdie (979)
euro (961) Toni Morrison (979) For practice quizzes, a customized study plan, and other
postmodernism (980) study tools, see the Online Study Guide at
bedfordstmartins.com/hunt.

Review Questions
1. What were the major issues facing the former Soviet bloc
in the 1990s and early 2000s?
2. What trends suggest that the nation-state was a declining
institution at the beginning of the twenty-first century?
3. What were the principal challenges facing the West at the
beginning of the twenty-first century?
4. What social and cultural questions has globalization raised?

Important Events

1989 Chinese students revolt in Tiananmen Square 1994 Nelson Mandela elected president of South Africa;
and government suppresses them; fall of the Russian troops invade Chechnya; European Union
Berlin Wall (EU) officially formed
1990s Internet revolution 1999 Euro introduced in the European Union; world
1990–1991 War in the Persian Gulf population reaches six billion

1991 Civil war erupts in the former Yugoslavia; 2000 Vladimir Putin becomes president of Russia
failed coup by Communist hard-liners in the 2001 Terrorist attack on the United States and declaration
Soviet Union of a “war against terrorism”
1992 Soviet Union is dissolved 2003 United States invades Iraq; the West divides on this
1993 Toni Morrison is the first African policy
American woman to win the Nobel Prize; 2004 Ten countries join the European Union
Czechoslovakia splits into Czech Republic 2005 Emissions reductions of Kyoto Protocol go into effect
and Slovakia
2007 Bulgaria and Romania admitted to the European
Union
Appendix
Useful Facts and Figures

Prominent Roman Emperors A-1 Rulers of Austria and Austria-Hungary A-6


Prominent Byzantine Emperors A-2 Leaders of Post–World War II Germany A-6
Prominent Popes A-3 Rulers of Russia, the USSR, and the Russian
The Carolingian Dynasty A-3 Federation A-7
German Kings Crowned Emperor A-3 Rulers of Spain A-7
Rulers of France A-4 Rulers of Italy A-7
Monarchs of England and Great Britain A-4 Secretaries-General of the United Nations A-8
Prime Ministers of Great Britain A-5 United States Presidential Administrations A-8
Rulers of Prussia and Germany A-6 Major Wars of the Modern Era A-8

PROMINENT ROMAN EMPERORS

Julio-Claudians Period of Instability The Western Empire


27 B.C.E.–14 C.E. Augustus 235–238 Maximinus Thrax 395–423 Honorius
14–37 Tiberius 238–244 Gordian III 406–407 Marcus
37–41 Gaius (Caligula) 244–249 Philip the Arab 407–411 Constantine III
41–54 Claudius 249–251 Decius 409–411 Maximus
54–68 Nero 251–253 Trebonianus Gallus 411–413 Jovinus
253–260 Valerian 412–413 Sebastianus
Flavian Dynasty 270–275 Aurelian 423–425 Johannes
69–79 Vespasian 275–276 Tacitus 425–455 Valentinian III
79–81 Titus 276–282 Probus 455–456 Avitus
81–96 Domitian 283–285 Carinus 457–461 Majorian
461–465 Libius Severus
Golden Age Emperors Dominate 467–472 Anthemius
284–305 Diocletian 473–474 Glycerius
96–98 Nerva
306 Constantius 474–475 Julius Nepos
98–117 Trajan
306–337 Constantine I 475–476 Romulus Augustulus
117–138 Hadrian
138–161 Antoninus Pius 337–340 Constantine II
161–180 Marcus Aurelius 337–350 Constans I
337–361 Constantius II
Severan Emperors 361–363 Julian
363–364 Jovian
193–211 Septimius Severus
364–375 Valentinian I
211–217 Antoninus (Caracalla)
364–378 Valens
217–218 Macrinus
367–383 Gratian
222–235 Severus Alexander
375–392 Valentinian II
378–395 Theodosius I (the Great)

A-1
A-2 Appendix

PROMINENT BYZANTINE EMPERORS

Dynasty of Theodosius 780–797 Constantine VI 1071–1078 Michael VII Ducas


797–802 Irene 1078–1081 Nicephorus III
395–408 Arcadius 802–811 Nicephorus I Botaniates
408–450 Theodosius II 811 Strauracius 1080–1081 Nicephorus
450–457 Marcian 811–813 Michael I Melissenus
Dynasty of Leo 813–820 Leo V
Comnenian Dynasty
457–474 Leo I Phrygian Dynasty
1081–1118 Alexius I
474 Leo II 820–829 Michael II 1118–1143 John II
474–491 Zeno 821–823 Thomas 1143–1180 Manuel I
475–476 Basiliscus 829–842 Theophilus 1180–1183 Alexius II
484–488 Leontius 842–867 Michael III 1183–1185 Andronieus I
491–518 Anastasius 1183–1191 Isaac, Emperor of
Macedonian Dynasty Cyprus
Dynasty of Justinian
867–886 Basil I Dynasty of the Angeli
518–527 Justin 869–879 Constantine
527–565 Justinian I 887–912 Leo VI 1185–1195 Isaac II
565–578 Justin II 912–913 Alexander 1195–1203 Alexius III
578–582 Tiberius II 913–959 Constantine VII 1203–1204 Isaac II (restored)
578–582 Tiberius II (I) Porphrogenitos with Alexius IV
Constantine 920–944 Romanus I 1204 Alexius V Ducas
582–602 Maurice Lecapenus Murtzuphlus
602–610 Phocas 921–931 Christopher
924–945 Stephen Lascarid Dynasty in Nicaea
Dynasty of Heraclius
959–963 Romanus II 1204–1222 Theodore I Lascaris
610–641 Heraclius 963–969 Nicephorus II 1222–1254 John III Ducas
641 Heraclonas Phocas Vatatzes
641 Constantine III 976–1025 Basil II 1254–1258 Theodore II Lascaris
641–668 Constans II 1025–1028 Constantine VIII 1258–1261 John IV Lascaris
646–647 Gregory (IX) alone
649–653 Olympius 1028–1034 Romanus III Argyrus Dynasty of the Paleologi
669 Mezezius 1034–1041 Michael IV the
668–685 Constantine IV 1259–1289 Michael VIII
Paphlagonian
685–695 Justinian II (banished) Paleologus
1041–1042 Michael V Calaphates
695–698 Leontius 1282–1328 Andronicus II
1042 Zoe and Theodora
698–705 Tiberius III (II) 1328–1341 Andronicus III
1042–1055 Constantine IX
705–711 Justinian II 1341–1391 John V
Monomachus
(restored) 1347–1354 John VI
1055–1056 Theodora alone
711–713 Bardanes Cantancuzenus
1056–1057 Michael VI
713–716 Anastasius II 1376–1379 Andronicus IV
Stratioticus
716–717 Theodosius III 1379–1391 John V (restored)
Prelude to the Comnenian Dynasty 1390 John VII
Isaurian Dynasty 1391–1425 Manuel II
1057–1059 Isaac I Comnenos 1425–1448 John VIII
717–741 Leo III 1059–1067 Constantine X (IX) 1449–1453 Constantine XI
741–775 Constantine V Ducas (XIII) Dragases
Copronymus 1068–1071 Romanus IV
775–780 Leo IV Diogenes
Appendix A-3

PROMINENT POPES

314–335 Sylvester 1227–1241 Gregory IX 1831–1846 Gregory XVI


440–461 Leo I 1243–1254 Innocent IV 1846–1878 Pius IX
590–604 Gregory I (the Great) 1294–1303 Boniface VIII 1878–1903 Leo XIII
687–701 Sergius I 1316–1334 John XXII 1903–1914 Pius X
741–752 Zachary 1447–1455 Nicholas V 1914–1922 Benedict XV
858–867 Nicholas I 1458–1464 Pius II 1922–1939 Pius XI
1049–1054 Leo IX 1492–1503 Alexander VI 1939–1958 Pius XII
1059–1061 Nicholas II 1503–1513 Julius II 1958–1963 John XXIII
1073–1085 Gregory VII 1513–1521 Leo X 1963–1978 Paul VI
1088–1099 Urban II 1534–1549 Paul III 1978 John Paul I
1099–1118 Paschal II 1555–1559 Paul IV 1978–2005 John Paul II
1159–1181 Alexander III 1585–1590 Sixtus V 2005– Benedict XVI
1198–1216 Innocent III 1623–1644 Urban VIII

THE CAROLINGIAN DYNASTY

687–714 Pepin of Heristal, Mayor 877–879 Louis II, King East Francia
of the Palace 879–882 Louis III, King
715–741 Charles Martel, Mayor of 879–884 Carloman, King 840–876 Ludwig, King
the Palace 876–880 Carloman, King
741–751 Pepin III, Mayor of the Middle Kingdoms 876–882 Ludwig, King
Palace 876–887 Charles the Fat,
840–855 Lothair, Emperor Emperor
751–768 Pepin III, King 855–875 Louis (Italy), Emperor
768–814 Charlemagne, King 855–863 Charles (Provence),
800–814 Charlemagne, Emperor King
814–840 Louis the Pious 855–869 Lothair II (Lorraine),
West Francia King

840–877 Charles the Bald, King


875–877 Charles the Bald,
Emperor

GERMAN KINGS CROWNED EMPEROR

Saxon Dynasty 1198–1215 Otto IV (Welf) 1493–1519 Maximilian I


1220–1250 Frederick II 1519–1556 Charles V
962–973 Otto I 1250–1254 Conrad IV 1556–1564 Ferdinand I
973–983 Otto II 1564–1576 Maximilian II
983–1002 Otto III Interregnum, 1254–1273: 1576–1612 Rudolf II
1002–1024 Henry II Emperors from Various Dynasties 1612–1619 Matthias
Franconian Dynasty 1273–1291 Rudolf I (Habsburg) 1619–1637 Ferdinand II
1292–1298 Adolf (Nassau) 1637–1657 Ferdinand III
1024–1039 Conrad II 1298–1308 Albert I (Habsburg) 1658–1705 Leopold I
1039–1056 Henry III 1308–1313 Henry VII (Luxemburg) 1705–1711 Joseph I
1056–1106 Henry IV 1314–1347 Ludwig IV (Wittelsbach) 1711–1740 Charles VI
1106–1125 Henry V 1347–1378 Charles IV (Luxemburg) 1742–1745 Charles VII (not a
1125–1137 Lothair II (Saxony) 1378–1400 Wenceslas (Luxemburg) Habsburg)
1400–1410 Rupert (Wittelsbach) 1745–1765 Francis I
Hohenstaufen Dynasty 1765–1790 Joseph II
1410–1437 Sigismund (Luxemburg)
1138–1152 Conrad III 1790–1792 Leopold II
1152–1190 Frederick I (Barbarossa) Habsburg Dynasty 1792–1806 Francis II
1190–1197 Henry VI 1438–1439 Albert II
1198–1208 Philip of Swabia 1440–1493 Frederick III
A-4 Appendix

RULERS OF FRANCE

Capetian Dynasty 1364–1380 Charles V After 1792


1380–1422 Charles VI
987–996 Hugh Capet 1422–1461 Charles VII 1792–1799 First Republic
996–1031 Robert II 1461–1483 Louis XI 1799–1804 Napoleon Bonaparte,
1031–1060 Henry I 1483–1498 Charles VIII First Consul
1060–1108 Philip I 1498–1515 Louis XII 1804–1814 Napoleon I, Emperor
1108–1137 Louis VI 1515–1547 Francis I 1814–1824 Louis XVIII (Bourbon
1137–1180 Louis VII 1547–1559 Henry II Dynasty)
1180–1223 Philip II (Augustus) 1559–1560 Francis II 1824–1830 Charles X (Bourbon
1223–1226 Louis VIII 1560–1574 Charles IX Dynasty)
1226–1270 Louis IX (St. Louis) 1574–1589 Henry III 1830–1848 Louis Philippe
1270–1285 Philip III 1848–1852 Second Republic
1285–1314 Philip IV Bourbon Dynasty 1852–1870 Napoleon III, Emperor
1314–1316 Louis X 1870–1940 Third Republic
1316–1322 Philip V 1589–1610 Henry IV 1940–1944 Vichy government,
1322–1328 Charles IV 1610–1643 Louis XIII Pétain regime
1643–1715 Louis XIV 1944–1946 Provisional government
Valois Dynasty 1715–1774 Louis XV 1946–1958 Fourth Republic
1774–1792 Louis XVI 1958– Fifth Republic
1328–1350 Philip VI
1350–1364 John

MONARCHS OF ENGLAND AND GREAT BRITAIN

Anglo-Saxon Monarchs House of Plantagenet Commonwealth and


Protectorate (1649–1660)
829–839 Egbert 1154–1189 Henry II
839–858 Ethelwulf 1189–1199 Richard I 1653–1658 Oliver Cromwell
858–860 Ethelbald 1199–1216 John 1658–1659 Richard Cromwell
860–866 Ethelbert 1216–1272 Henry III
866–871 Ethelred I 1272–1307 Edward I House of Stuart (Restored)
871–899 Alfred the Great 1307–1327 Edward II 1660–1685 Charles II
899–924 Edward the Elder 1327–1377 Edward III 1685–1688 James II
924–939 Ethelstan 1377–1399 Richard II 1689–1694 William III and Mary II
939–946 Edmund I 1694–1702 William III (alone)
946–955 Edred House of Lancaster
1702–1714 Anne
955–959 Edwy 1399–1413 Henry IV
959–975 Edgar 1413–1422 Henry V House of Hanover
975–978 Edward the Martyr 1422–1461 Henry VI 1714–1727 George I
978–1016 Ethelred the Unready
House of York 1727–1760 George II
1016–1035 Canute (Danish
1760–1820 George III
nationality)
1461–1483 Edward IV 1820–1830 George IV
1035–1040 Harold I
1483 Edward V 1830–1837 William IV
1040–1042 Hardicanute
1483–1485 Richard III 1837–1901 Victoria
1042–1066 Edward the Confessor
1066 Harold II House of Tudor House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
Norman Monarchs 1485–1509 Henry VII 1901–1910 Edward VII
1509–1547 Henry VIII
1066–1087 William I (the House of Windsor
1547–1553 Edward VI
Conqueror)
1553–1558 Mary 1910–1936 George V
1087–1100 William II
1558–1603 Elizabeth I 1936 Edward VIII
1100–1135 Henry I
House of Stuart 1936–1952 George VI
House of Blois 1952– Elizabeth II
1603–1625 James I
1135–1154 Stephen
1625–1649 Charles I
Appendix A-5

PRIME MINISTERS OF GREAT BRITAIN

Term Prime Minister Government Term Prime Minister Government


1721–1742 Sir Robert Walpole Whig 1852–1855 George Hamilton Gordon Peelite
1742–1743 Spencer Compton, Earl Whig Aberdeen, Earl of Aberdeen
of Wilmington 1855–1858 Henry John Temple Palmerston, Tory
1743–1754 Henry Pelham Whig Viscount Palmerston
1754–1756 Thomas Pelham-Holles, Whig 1858–1859 Edward Geoffrey–Smith Stanley Whig
Duke of Newcastle Derby, Earl of Derby
1756–1757 William Cavendish, Whig 1859–1865 Henry John Temple Palmerston, Tory
Duke of Devonshire Viscount Palmerston
1757–1761 William Pitt (the Elder), Whig 1865–1866 John Russell (Earl) Liberal
Earl of Chatham 1866–1868 Edward Geoffrey–Smith Tory
1761–1762 Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke Whig Stanley Derby, Earl of Derby
of Newcastle 1868 Benjamin Disraeli, Earl Conservative
1762–1763 John Stuart, Earl of Bute Tory of Beaconfield
1763–1765 George Grenville Whig 1868–1874 William Ewart Gladstone Liberal
1765–1766 Charles Watson-Wentworth, Whig 1874–1880 Benjamin Disraeli, Earl Conservative
Marquess of Rockingham of Beaconfield
1766–1768 William Pitt, Earl of Chatham Whig 1880–1885 William Ewart Gladstone Liberal
(the Elder) 1885–1886 Robert Arthur Talbot, Conservative
1768–1770 Augustus Henry Fitzroy, Duke Whig Marquess of Salisbury
of Grafton 1886 William Ewart Gladstone Liberal
1770–1782 Frederick North (Lord North) Tory 1886–1892 Robert Arthur Talbot, Conservative
1782 Charles Watson-Wentworth, Whig Marquess of Salisbury
Marquess of Rockingham 1892–1894 William Ewart Gladstone Liberal
1782–1783 William Petty FitzMaurice, Whig 1894–1895 Archibald Philip–Primrose Liberal
Earl of Shelburn Rosebery, Earl of Rosebery
1783 William Henry Cavendish Whig 1895–1902 Robert Arthur Talbot, Conservative
Bentinck, Duke of Portland Marquess of Salisbury
1783–1801 William Pitt (the Younger) Tory 1902–1905 Arthur James Balfour, Conservative
1801–1804 Henry Addington Tory Earl of Balfour
1804–1806 William Pitt (the Younger) Tory 1905–1908 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman Liberal
1806–1807 William Wyndham Grenville Whig 1908–1915 Herbert Henry Asquith Liberal
(Baron Grenville) 1915–1916 Herbert Henry Asquith Coalition
1807–1809 William Henry Cavendish Tory 1916–1922 David Lloyd George, Earl Coalition
Bentinck, Duke of Portland Lloyd-George of Dwyfor
1809–1812 Spencer Perceval Tory 1922–1923 Andrew Bonar Law Conservative
1812–1827 Robert Banks Jenkinson, Tory 1923–1924 Stanley Baldwin, Earl Conservative
Earl of Liverpool Baldwin of Bewdley
1827 George Canning Tory 1924 James Ramsay MacDonald Labour
1827–1828 Frederick John Robinson Tory 1924–1929 Stanley Baldwin, Earl Conservative
(Viscount Goderich) Baldwin of Bewdley
1828–1830 Arthur Wellesley, Tory 1929–1931 James Ramsay MacDonald Labour
Duke of Wellington 1931–1935 James Ramsay MacDonald Coalition
1830–1834 Charles Grey (Earl Grey) Whig 1935–1937 Stanley Baldwin, Earl Coalition
1834 William Lamb, Viscount Whig Baldwin of Bewdley
Melbourne 1937–1940 Neville Chamberlain Coalition
1834–1835 Sir Robert Peel Tory 1940–1945 Winston Churchill Coalition
1835–1841 William Lamb, Viscount Whig 1945 Winston Churchill Conservative
Melbourne 1945–1951 Clement Attlee, Earl Attlee Labour
1841–1846 Sir Robert Peel Tory 1951–1955 Sir Winston Churchill Conservative
1846–1852 John Russell (Lord) Whig 1955–1957 Sir Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon Conservative
1852 Edward Geoffrey–Smith Stanley Whig 1957–1963 Harold Macmillan, Earl Conservative
Derby, Earl of Derby of Stockton
(Continued)
A-6 Appendix

PRIME MINISTERS OF GREAT BRITAIN (continued)

Term Prime Minister Government Term Prime Minister Government


1963–1964 Sir Alec Frederick Douglas- Conservative 1976–1979 James Callaghan, Lord Labour
Home, Lord Home of Callaghan of Cardiff
the Hirsel 1979–1990 Margaret Thatcher (Baroness) Conservative
1964–1970 Harold Wilson, Lord Wilson Labour 1990–1997 John Major Conservative
of Rievaulx 1997–2007 Tony Blair Labour
1970–1974 Edward Heath Conservative 2007– Gordon Brown Labour
1974–1976 Harold Wilson, Lord Wilson Labour
of Rievaulx

RULERS OF PRUSSIA AND GERMANY RULERS OF AUSTRIA AND AUSTRIA-HUNGARY

1701–1713 *Frederick I 1493–1519 *Maximilian I (Archduke)


1713–1740 *Frederick William I 1519–1556 *Charles V
1740–1786 *Frederick II (the Great) 1556–1564 *Ferdinand I
1786–1797 *Frederick William II 1564–1576 *Maximilian II
1797–1840 *Frederick William III 1576–1612 *Rudolf II
1840–1861 *Frederick William IV 1612–1619 *Matthias
1861–1888 *William I (German emperor after 1871) 1619–1637 *Ferdinand II
1888 Frederick III 1637–1657 *Ferdinand III
1888–1918 *William II 1658–1705 *Leopold I
1918–1933 Weimar Republic 1705–1711 *Joseph I
1933–1945 Third Reich (Nazi dictatorship under Adolf 1711–1740 *Charles VI
Hitler) 1740–1780 Maria Theresa
1945–1952 Allied occupation 1780–1790 *Joseph II
1949–1990 Division of Federal Republic of Germany in 1790–1792 *Leopold II
west and German Democratic Republic 1792–1835 *Francis II (emperor of Austria as Francis I
in east after 1804)
1990– Federal Republic of Germany (reunited) 1835–1848 Ferdinand I
1848–1916 Francis Joseph (after 1867 emperor of
*King of Prussia Austria and king of Hungary)
1916–1918 Charles I (emperor of Austria and king of
Hungary)
1918–1938 Republic of Austria (dictatorship after 1934)
1945–1956 Republic restored, under Allied occupation
1956– Free Republic

*Also bore title of Holy Roman Emperor

LEADERS OF POST – WORLD WAR II GERMANY

West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany), 1949–1990


Years Chancellor Party
1949–1963 Konrad Adenauer Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
1963–1966 Ludwig Erhard Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
1966–1969 Kurt Georg Kiesinger Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
1969–1974 Willy Brandt Social Democratic Party (SPD)
1974–1982 Helmut Schmidt Social Democratic Party (SPD)
1982–1990 Helmut Kohl Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
Appendix A-7

LEADERS OF POST – WORLD WAR II GERMANY (continued)

East Germany (German Democratic Republic), Federal Republic of Germany (reunited),


1949–1990 1990–
Years Communist Party Leader Years Chancellor Party
1946–1971 Walter Ulbricht 1990–1998 Helmut Kohl Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
1971–1989 Erich Honecker 1998–2005 Gerhard Schroeder Social Democratic Party (SPD)
1989–1990 Egon Krenz 2005– Angela Merkel Christian Democratic Union (CDU)

RULERS OF RUSSIA, THE USSR, AND THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

c. 980–1015 Vladimir 1689–1725 Peter I (the Great) Union of Soviet Socialist


1019–1054 Yaroslav the Wise 1725–1727 Catherine I Republics (USSR)*
1176–1212 Vsevolod III 1727–1730 Peter II
1462–1505 Ivan III 1730–1740 Anna 1917–1924 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
1505–1553 Vasily III 1740–1741 Ivan VI 1924–1953 Joseph Stalin
1553–1584 Ivan IV 1741–1762 Elizabeth 1953–1964 Nikita Khrushchev
1584–1598 Theodore I 1762 Peter III 1964–1982 Leonid Brezhnev
1598–1605 Boris Godunov 1762–1796 Catherine II (the Great) 1982–1984 Yuri Andropov
1605 Theodore II 1796–1801 Paul 1984–1985 Konstantin Chernenko
1606–1610 Vasily IV 1801–1825 Alexander I 1985–1991 Mikhail Gorbachev
1613–1645 Michael 1825–1855 Nicholas I Russian Federation
1645–1676 Alexius 1855–1881 Alexander II
1676–1682 Theodore III 1881–1894 Alexander III 1991–1999 Boris Yeltsin
1682–1689 Ivan V and Peter I 1894–1917 Nicholas II 1999– Vladimir Putin

*USSR established in 1922

RULERS OF SPAIN

1479–1504 Ferdinand and Isabella 1746–1759 Ferdinand VI 1873–1874 Republic


1504–1506 Ferdinand and Philip I 1759–1788 Charles III 1874–1885 Alfonso XII
1506–1516 Ferdinand and Charles I 1788–1808 Charles IV 1886–1931 Alfonso XIII
1516–1556 Charles I (Holy Roman 1808 Ferdinand VII 1931–1939 Republic
Emperor Charles V) 1808–1813 Joseph Bonaparte 1939–1975 Fascist dictatorship
1556–1598 Philip II 1814–1833 Ferdinand VII under Francisco
1598–1621 Philip III (restored) Franco
1621–1665 Philip IV 1833–1868 Isabella II 1975– Juan Carlos I
1665–1700 Charles II 1868–1870 Republic
1700–1746 Philip V 1870–1873 Amadeo

RULERS OF ITALY

1861–1878 Victor Emmanuel II


1878–1900 Humbert I
1900–1946 Victor Emmanuel III
1922–1943 Fascist dictatorship under
Benito Mussolini
(maintained in northern
Italy until 1945)
1946 (May 9–June 13) Humbert II
1946– Republic
A-8 Appendix

SECRETARIES-GENERAL
OF THE UNITED NATIONS

Nationality
1946–1952 Trygve Lie Norway
1953–1961 Dag Hammarskjöld Sweden
1961–1971 U Thant Myanmar
1972–1981 Kurt Waldheim Austria
1982–1991 Javier Pérez de Cuéllar Peru
1992–1996 Boutros Boutros-Ghali Egypt
1997–2006 Kofi A. Annan Ghana
2007– Ban Kimoon South Korea

UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATIONS

Term(s) President Political Party Term(s) President Political Party


1789–1797 George Washington No party designation 1889–1893 Benjamin Harrison Republican
1797–1801 John Adams Federalist 1893–1897 Grover Cleveland Democratic
1801–1809 Thomas Jefferson Democratic-Republican 1897–1901 William McKinley Republican
1809–1817 James Madison Democratic-Republican 1901–1909 Theodore Roosevelt Republican
1817–1825 James Monroe Democratic-Republican 1909–1913 William H. Taft Republican
1825–1829 John Quincy Adams Democratic-Republican 1913–1921 Woodrow Wilson Democratic
1829–1837 Andrew Jackson Democratic 1921–1923 Warren G. Harding Republican
1837–1841 Martin Van Buren Democratic 1923–1929 Calvin Coolidge Republican
1841 William H. Harrison Whig 1929–1933 Herbert C. Hoover Republican
1841–1845 John Tyler Whig 1933–1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt Democratic
1845–1849 James K. Polk Democratic 1945–1953 Harry S. Truman Democratic
1849–1850 Zachary Taylor Whig 1953–1961 Dwight D. Eisenhower Republican
1850–1853 Millard Filmore Whig 1961–1963 John F. Kennedy Democratic
1853–1857 Franklin Pierce Democratic 1963–1969 Lyndon B. Johnson Democratic
1857–1861 James Buchanan Democratic 1969–1974 Richard M. Nixon Republican
1861–1865 Abraham Lincoln Republican 1974–1977 Gerald R. Ford Republican
1865–1869 Andrew Johnson Republican 1977–1981 Jimmy Carter Democratic
1869–1877 Ulysses S. Grant Republican 1981–1989 Ronald W. Reagan Republican
1877–1881 Rutherford B. Hayes Republican 1989–1993 George H. W. Bush Republican
1881 James A. Garfield Republican 1993–2001 William J. Clinton Democratic
1881–1885 Chester A. Arthur Republican 2001– George W. Bush Republican
1885–1889 Grover Cleveland Democratic

MAJOR WARS OF THE MODERN ERA

1546–1555 German Wars of Religion 1796–1815 Napoleonic wars


1526–1571 Ottoman wars 1846–1848 Mexican-American War
1562–1598 French Wars of Religion 1853–1856 Crimean War
1566–1609, 1621–1648 Revolt of the Netherlands 1861–1865 United States Civil War
1618–1648 Thirty Years’ War 1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War
1642–1648 English Civil War 1894–1895 Sino-Japanese War
1652–1678 Anglo-Dutch Wars 1898 Spanish-American War
1667–1697 Wars of Louis XIV 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War
1683–1697 Ottoman wars 1914–1918 World War I
1689–1697 War of the League of Augsburg 1939–1945 World War II
1702–1714 War of Spanish Succession 1946–1975 Vietnam wars
1702–1721 Great Northern War 1950–1953 Korean War
1714–1718 Ottoman wars 1990–1991 Persian Gulf War
1740–1748 War of Austrian Succession 1991–1997 Civil War in the former Yugoslavia
1756–1763 Seven Years’ War 2003– Iraq War
1775–1781 American Revolution
Glossary of Key Terms and People

This glossary contains definitions of terms and people that are central to your understand-
ing of the material covered in this textbook. Each term or person in the glossary is in bold-
face in the text when it is first defined, then listed again in the corresponding Chapter Review
section to signal its importance. We have also included the page number on which the full dis-
cussion of the term or person appears so that you can easily locate the complete explanation
to strengthen your historical vocabulary.
For words or names not defined here, two additional resources may be useful: the index,
which will direct you to many more topics discussed in the text, and a good dictionary.

Abbasids (268): The dynasty of caliphs that, in 750, took over appeasement (861): The strategy of preventing a war by making
from the Umayyads in all of the Islamic realm except for Spain concessions for legitimate grievances.
(al-Andalus). From their new capital at Baghdad, they presided aretê (44): The Greek value of competitive individual excellence.
over a wealthy realm until the late ninth century.
Arianism (210): The Christian doctrine named after Arius, who
abolitionists (560): Advocates of the abolition of the slave trade argued that Jesus was “begotten” by God and did not have an
and of slavery. identical nature with God the Father.
absolutism (484): A system of government in which the ruler Aristotle (108): Greek philosopher famous for his scientific
claims sole and uncontestable power. investigations, development of logical argument, and practical
agora (78): The central market square of a Greek city-state, a ethics.
popular gathering place for conversation. art nouveau (775): An early-twentieth-century artistic style in
agricultural revolution (529): Increasingly aggressive attitudes graphics, fashion, and household design that featured flowing,
toward investment in and management of land that increased sinuous lines, borrowed in large part from Asian art.
production of food in the 1700s. asceticism (212): The practice of self-denial, especially through
Alexander II (693): Russian tsar (r. 1855–1881) who initiated the spiritual discipline; a doctrine for Christians emphasized by
age of Great Reforms and emancipated the serfs in 1861. Augustine.
Alexander the Great (110): The fourth-century B.C.E. Atlantic system (520): The network of trade established in the
Macedonian king whose conquest of the Persian Empire led to 1700s that bound together western Europe, Africa, and the
the greatly increased cultural interactions of Greece and the Near Americas. Europeans sold slaves from western Africa and bought
East in the Hellenistic Age. commodities that were produced by the new colonial plantations
Alexius I (Alexius Comnenus) (312): The Byzantine emperor in North and South America and the Caribbean.
(r. 1081–1118) whose leadership marked a new triumph of the Augustine (208): Bishop in North Africa whose writings defining
dynatoi. His request to Pope Urban II for troops to fight the Turks religious orthodoxy made him the most influential theologian in
turned into the First Crusade. Western civilization.
Alfred the Great (287): King of Wessex (r. 871–899) and the first Augustus (165): The honorary name meaning “divinely favored”
king to rule over most of England. He organized a successful that the Roman Senate bestowed on Octavian; it became
defense against Viking invaders, had key Latin works translated shorthand for “Roman imperial ruler.”
into the vernacular, and wrote a law code for the whole of England. Avignon papacy (379): The period (1309–1378) during which
Anabaptists (436): Sixteenth-century Protestants who believed the popes ruled from Avignon rather than from Rome.
that only adults could truly have faith and accept baptism. baroque (472): An artistic style of the seventeenth century that
anarchism (713): The belief that people should not have featured curves, exaggerated lighting, intense emotions, release
government; it was popular among some peasants and workers in from restraint, and even a kind of artistic sensationalism.
the last half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the Basil II (267): The Byzantine emperor (r. 976–1025) who
twentieth. presided over the end of the Bulgar threat (earning the name
apostolic succession (184): The principle by which Christian Bulgar-Slayer) and the conversion of Kievan Russia to
bishops traced their authority back to the apostles of Jesus. Christianity.

G-1
G-2 G lo s s a ry o f Ke y Te r m s a n d Pe o pl e

battle of Hastings (320): The battle of 1066 that replaced the castellan (285): The holder of a castle. In the tenth and eleventh
Anglo-Saxon king with a Norman one and thus tied England to centuries, castellans became important local lords, taking over
the rest of Europe as never before. the rights of the ban (to call up men to military service, to collect
Beauvoir, Simone de (904): Author of The Second Sex, a globally taxes, or to administer justice).
influential work that created an interpretation of women’s age- Catherine de Médicis (453): Italian-born mother of French king
old inferior status from existentialist philosophy. Charles X; she served as regent and tried but failed to prevent
Beethoven, Ludwig van (642): The German composer religious warfare between Calvinists and Catholics.
(1770–1827) who helped set the direction of musical Cavour, Camillo di (696): 1810–1861. Prime minister of the
romanticism; his music used recurring and evolving themes to kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia and architect of a united Italy.
convey the impression of natural growth. chansons de geste (348): Epic poems of the twelfth century about
bin Laden, Osama (970): Wealthy leader of the militant Islamic knightly and heroic deeds.
group al-Qaeda, which executed terrorist plots, including the Chaplin, Charlie (855): 1889–1977. Major entertainment leader,
attacks on the United States in 2001, to rid Islamic countries of whose satires of Hitler and sympathetic portrayals of the
infidel influence. common man helped preserve democratic values.
Bismarck, Otto von (699): 1815–1898. Leading Prussian Charlemagne (273): The Carolingian king (r. 768–814) whose
politician and German prime minister who waged war in order to conquests greatly expanded the Frankish kingdom. He was
create a united German Empire, which was established in 1871. crowned emperor on December 25, 800.
Black Death (388): The term historians give to the plague that Charles V (430): Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1519–1556) and the
swept through Europe in 1346–1353. most powerful ruler in sixteenth-century Europe; he reigned over
Blitzkrieg (862): Literally, “lightning war”; a strategy for the the Low Countries, Spain, Spain’s Italian and New World
conduct of war in which motorized firepower quickly and dominions, and the Austrian Habsburg lands.
overwhelmingly attacks the enemy, leaving it unable to resist Chartism (677): The British movement of supporters of the
psychologically or militarily. People’s Charter (1838), which demanded universal manhood
Bolívar, Simon (646): 1783–1830. The European-educated son of suffrage, vote by secret ballot, equal electoral districts, and other
a slave owner who became one of the leaders of the Latin American reforms.
independence movement in the 1820s. Bolivia is named after him. cholera (662): An epidemic, usually fatal disease caused by a
Bolshevik Revolution (811): The overthrow of Russia’s waterborne bacterium that induces violent vomiting and
Provisional Government in the fall of 1917 by V. I. Lenin and his diarrhea; devastating outbreaks swept across Europe in
Bolshevik forces. 1830–1832 and 1847–1851.
Bonaparte, Louis-Napoleon (680): 1808–1873. Nephew of Christ (181): Greek for “anointed one,” in Hebrew Mashiach or in
Napoleon I; he was elected president of France in 1848, declared English Messiah; in apocalyptic thought, God’s agent sent to
himself Emperor Napoleon III in 1852, and ruled until 1870. conquer the forces of evil.
Bonaparte, Napoleon (620): The French general who became Christian Democrats (889): Powerful center to center-right
First Consul in 1799 and emperor in 1804; after losing the battle political parties that evolved in the late 1940s from former
of Waterloo in 1815, he was exiled to the island of St. Helena. Catholic parties of the pre–World War II period.
Boniface VIII (377): The pope (r. 1294–1303) who unsuccessfully Christian humanism (427): A general intellectual trend in the
asserted the special place of the pope in the church and the sixteenth century that coupled love of classical learning, as in
spiritual subordination of the king. Renaissance humanism, with an emphasis on Christian piety.
buccaneers (527): Pirates of the Caribbean who governed Cicero (150): Rome’s most famous orator and author of the
themselves and preyed on international shipping. doctrine of humanitas.
bureaucracy (489): A network of state officials carrying out city-state (7): An urban center exercising political and economic
orders according to a regular and routine line of authority. control over the surrounding countryside.
Calvin, John (432): French-born Christian humanist Civil Code (625): The French legal code formulated by Napoleon
(1509–1564) and founder of Calvinism, one of the major in 1804; it ensured equal treatment under the law to all men and
branches of the Protestant Reformation; he led the reform guaranteed religious liberty, but it curtailed many rights of women.
movement in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1541 to 1564. civil disobedience (843): The act of deliberately but peacefully
Capetian dynasty (288): A long-lasting dynasty of French kings, breaking the law, a tactic used by Mohandas Gandhi in India and
taking their name from Hugh Capet (r. 987–996). earlier by British suffragists to protest oppression and obtain
capital-intensive industry (730): A mid- to late-nineteenth- political change.
century development in industry that required great investments civilization (4): A way of life that includes political states based
of money for machinery and infrastructure to make a profit. on cities with dense populations, large buildings constructed for
Carolingian (273): The Frankish dynasty that ruled a western communal activities, diverse economies, a sense of local identity,
European empire from 751 to the late 800s; its greatest vigor was and some knowledge of writing.
in the time of Charlemagne (r. 768–814) and Louis the Pious classicism (510): A style of painting and architecture that
(r. 814–840). reflected the ideals of the art of antiquity; in classicism, geometric
G lo s s a ry o f Ke y Te r m s a n d Pe o pl e G-3

shapes, order, and harmony of lines take precedence over the Council of Trent (439): A general council of the Catholic church
sensuous, exuberant, and emotional forms of the baroque. that met at Trent between 1545 and 1563 to set Catholic doctrine,
cold war (880): The rivalry between the United States and the reform church practices, and defend the church against the
Soviet Union following World War II that led to massive growth Protestant challenge.
in nuclear weapons on both sides. Cuban missile crisis (910): The confrontation in 1962 between
coloni (200): Literally, “cultivators”; tenant farmers in the Roman the United States and the USSR over Soviet installation of missile
Empire who became bound by law to the land they worked and sites off the U.S. coast in Cuba.
whose children were legally required to continue to farm the cult (53): In ancient Greece, a set of official, publicly funded
same land. religious activities for a deity overseen by priests and priestesses.
Colosseum (175): Rome’s fifty-thousand-seat amphitheater built cult of the offensive (803): A military strategy of constantly
by the Flavian dynasty for gladiatorial combats and other attacking the enemy that was believed to be the key to winning
spectacles. World War I but that brought great loss of life while failing to
Columbus, Christopher (421): An Italian sailor (1451–1506) bring decisive victory.
who opened up the New World by sailing west across the Atlantic cuneiform (10): The earliest form of writing, invented in
in search of a route to Asia. Mesopotamia and done with wedge-shaped characters.
common law (338): Begun by Henry II (r. 1154–1189), the curials (200): The social elite in Roman empires’ cities and towns,
English royal law carried out by the king’s justices in eyre most of whom were obliged to serve on municipal senates and
(traveling justices). It applied to the entire kingdom and thus was collect taxes for the imperial government, paying any shortfalls
“common” to all. themselves.
commune (301): In a medieval town, a sworn association of Cyrus (37): Founder of the Persian Empire.
citizens who formed a legal corporate body. The commune
Darwin, Charles (719): 1809–1882. English naturalist who
appointed or elected officials, made laws, kept the peace, and
popularized the theory of evolution and thereby challenged the
administered justice.
biblical story of creation.
communists (676): Those socialists who after 1840 (when the
debasement of coinage (189): Putting less silver in a coin without
word was first used) advocated the abolition of private property
changing its face value; practiced during the third-century C.E.
in favor of communal, collective ownership.
crisis in Rome.
Concordat of Worms (307): The agreement between pope and
de-Christianization (603): During the French Revolution, the
emperor in 1122 that ended the Investiture Conflict.
campaign of extremist republicans against organized churches
Congress of Vienna (636): Face-to-face negotiations (1814–1815) and in favor of a belief system based on reason.
between the great powers to settle the boundaries of European
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (595): The
states and determine who would rule each nation after the defeat
preamble to the French constitution drafted in August 1789; it
of Napoleon.
established the sovereignty of the nation and equal rights for
conservatism (638): A political doctrine that emerged after citizens.
1789 and rejected much of the Enlightenment and the French
decolonization (897): The process — both violent and peaceful —
Revolution, preferring monarchies over republics, tradition
by which colonies gained their independence from the imperial
over revolution, and established religion over Enlightenment
powers after World War II.
skepticism.
decurions (177): Municipal senate members in the Roman
constitutionalism (484): A system of government in which rulers
Empire responsible for collecting local taxes.
share power with parliaments made up of elected representatives.
deists (559): Those who believe in God but give him no active
consumer revolution (528): The rapid increase in consumption
role in human affairs. Deists of the Enlightenment believed that
of new staples produced in the Atlantic system as well as of other
God had designed the universe and set it in motion but no longer
items of daily life that were previously unavailable or beyond the
intervened in its functioning.
reach of ordinary people.
Delian League (74): The naval alliance led by Athens in the
Continental System (631): The boycott of British goods in France
Golden Age that became the basis for the Athenian Empire.
and its satellites ordered by Napoleon in 1806; it had success but
was later undermined by smuggling. demes (63): The villages and city neighborhoods that formed the
constituent political units of Athenian democracy in the late
Corn Laws (674): Tariffs on grain in Great Britain that benefited
Archaic Age.
landowners by preventing the import of cheap foreign grain; they
were repealed by the British government in 1846. demography (P-10): The study of the size, growth, density,
distribution, and vital statistics of the human population.
cortes (377): The earliest European representative institution,
called initially to consent to royal wishes; first convoked in 1188 Diaspora (42): The dispersal of the Jewish population from their
by the king of Castile-León. homeland.
Cortés, Hernán (425): A Spanish explorer (1485–1547) who DNA (919): The genetic material that forms the basis of each cell;
captured the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlán (present-day Mexico the discovery of its structure in 1952 revolutionized genetics,
City), in 1519. molecular biology, and other scientific and medical fields.
G-4 G lo s s a ry o f Ke y Te r m s a n d Pe o pl e

domesticity (669): An ideology prevailing in the nineteenth epigrams (121): Short poems written by women in the
century that women should devote themselves to their families Hellenistic Age; many were about other women and the writer’s
and the home. personal feelings.
dominate (197): The blatantly authoritarian style of Roman rule equites (152): Wealthy Roman businessmen who chose not to
from Diocletian (r. 284–305) onward; the word was derived from pursue a government career.
dominus (“master” or “lord”) and contrasted with principate. Estates General (592): A body of deputies from the three estates,
Dual Alliance (756): A defensive alliance between Germany and or orders, of France: the clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second
Austria-Hungary in 1879 as part of Bismarck’s system of alliances Estate), and everyone else (Third Estate).
to prevent or limit war. It was joined by Italy in 1882 as a third ethnic cleansing (954): The mass murder — genocide — of
partner and then called the Triple Alliance. people according to ethnicity or nationality, beginning with the
dual monarchy (702): A shared power arrangement between the post–World War I elimination of minorities in eastern and
Habsburg Empire and Hungary after the Prussian defeat of the central Europe and continuing with the rape and murders that
Austrian Empire in 1866–1867. resulted from the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
dualism (107): The philosophical idea that the human soul (or euro (961): The common currency accepted by twelve members
mind) and body are separate. of the European Union. It went into effect gradually, used first in
Duma (787): The Russian parliament set up in the aftermath of business transactions in 1999 and entering public circulation in
the outbreak of the Revolution of 1905. 2002.
European Economic Community (EEC or Common Market)
dynatoi (266): The “powerful men” who dominated the
(892): A consortium of six European countries established to
countryside of the Byzantine Empire in the tenth and eleventh
promote free trade and economic cooperation among its
centuries and to some degree challenged the authority of the
members. Since its founding in 1957, its membership and
emperor.
activities have expanded.
Edict of Milan (203): The proclamation of Roman co-emperors
European Union (EU) (961): Formerly the European Economic
Constantine and Licinius decreeing free choice of religion in the
Community (EEC, or Common Market), and then the European
empire.
Community (EC); formed in 1994 by the terms of the 1992
Edict of Nantes (455): The decree issued by French king Henry Maastricht Treaty. Its members have political ties through the
IV in 1598 that granted the Huguenots a large measure of European parliament as well as long-standing common
religious toleration. economic, legal, and business mechanisms.
Einstein, Albert (772): 1879–1955. Scientist whose theory of existentialism (903): A philosophy prominent after World War II
relativity revolutionized modern physics and other fields of developed primarily by Jean-Paul Sartre to stress the importance
thought. of action in the creation of an authentic self.
Eliot, George (716): The pen name of English novelist Mary Ann family allowance (853): Government funds given to families with
Evans (1819–1880), who described the harsh reality of many children to boost the birthrate in totalitarian and democratic
ordinary people’s lives in her works. countries alike.
Elizabeth I (458): English queen (r. 1558–1603) who oversaw the fascism (833): A doctrine that emphasized violence and glorified
return of the Protestant Anglican church and, in 1588, the the state over the people and their individual or civil rights.
successful defense of the realm against the Spanish Armada.
Fatimids (270): Members of the tenth-century Shi’ite dynasty
empire (12): A political state in which one or more formerly who derived their name from Fatimah, the daughter of
independent territories or peoples are ruled by a single sovereign Muhammad and wife of Ali; they dominated in parts of North
power. Africa, Egypt, and even Syria.
Enabling Act (848): The legislation passed in 1933 suspending fiefs (282): Grants of land, theoretically temporary, from lords to
constitutional government for four years in order to meet the their noble dependents (fideles or, later, vassals) given in
crisis in the German economy. recognition of services, usually military, done or expected in the
enlightened despots (573): Rulers — such as Catherine the future; also called benefices.
Great of Russia, Frederick the Great of Prussia, and Joseph II First Consul (622): The most important of the three consuls
of Austria — who tried to promote reform without giving up established by the French Constitution of 1800; the title, given to
their own supreme political power; also called enlightened Napoleon Bonaparte, was taken from ancient Rome.
absolutists. First Crusade (313): The massive armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem
Enlightenment (545): The eighteenth-century intellectual that lasted from 1096 to 1099. It resulted in the massacre of Jews
movement whose proponents believed that human beings could in the Rhineland (1095), the sack of Jerusalem (1099), and the
apply a critical, reasoning spirit to every problem. setting up of the crusader states.
Entente Cordiale (790): An alliance between Britain and France First Triumvirate (158): The coalition formed in 60 B.C.E. by
that began with an agreement in 1904 to honor colonial holdings. Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar. (The word triumvirate means
Epicureanism (123): The philosophy founded by Epicurus of “group of three.”)
Athens to help people achieve a life of true pleasure, by which he Five Pillars of Islam (235): The five essential practices of Islam,
meant “absence of disturbance.” namely, the zakat (alms); the fast of Ramadan; the hajj
G lo s s a ry o f Ke y Te r m s a n d Pe o pl e G-5

(pilgrimage to Mecca); the salat (formal worship); and the Glorious Revolution (504): The events of 1688 when Tories and
shahadah (profession of faith). Whigs replaced England’s monarch James II with his Protestant
five-year plans (845): Centralized programs for economic daughter, Mary, and her husband, Dutch ruler William of
development first used by Joseph Stalin and copied by Adolf Orange; William and Mary agreed to a Bill of Rights that
Hitler; these plans set production priorities and gave production guaranteed rights to Parliament.
targets for individual industries and agriculture. Golden Horde (380): The political institution set up by the
Fourteen Points (816): U.S. president Woodrow Wilson’s World Mongol Empire in Russia, lasting from the thirteenth to the
War I peace proposal; based on settlement rather than on fifteenth century.
conquest, it encouraged the surrender of the Central Powers. Gorbachev, Mikhail (943): Leader of the Soviet Union from 1985
to 1991; he instituted reforms such as glasnost and perestroika,
Fourth Crusade (351): The crusade that lasted from 1202 to
thereby contributing to the collapse of Communist rule in the
1204; its original goal was to recapture Jerusalem, but the
Soviet bloc and the USSR.
crusaders ended up conquering Constantinople instead.
Gothic architecture (333): The style of architecture that started
Fourth Lateran Council (360): The council that met in 1215 and
in the Île-de-France in the twelfth century and eventually
covered the important topics of Christianity, among them the
became the quintessential cathedral style of the Middle Ages,
nature of the sacraments, the obligations of the laity, and policies
characterized by pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and stained-glass
toward heretics and Jews.
windows.
Franciscans (349): A religious order, founded by St. Francis (c.
Great Famine (381): The shortage of food and accompanying
1182–1226), dedicated to poverty and preaching, particularly in
social ills that besieged northern Europe between 1315 and 1322.
towns and cities.
Great Fear (595): The term used by historians to describe the
Franco, Francisco (859): 1892–1975. Right-wing military leader
French rural panic of 1789, which led to peasant attacks on
who successfully overthrew the democratic republic in Spain and
aristocrats or on seigneurial records of peasants’ dues.
instituted a repressive dictatorship.
Great Persecution (202): The violent program initiated by
Frederick I (Barbarossa) (342): King of Germany (r. 1152–1190)
Diocletian in 303 to make Christians convert to traditional
and emperor (crowned 1155) who tried to cement the power of
religion or risk confiscation of their property and even death.
the German king through conquest (for example, of northern
Italy) and the bonds of vassalage. Great Schism (398): The papal dispute of 1378–1417 when the
church had two or even three popes. The Great Schism was ended
Frederick II (373): The king of Sicily and Germany, as well as by the Council of Constance.
emperor (r. 1212–1250), who allowed the German princes a free
hand as he battled the pope for control of Italy. Green Party (966): A political party first formed in West
Germany in 1979 to bring about environmentally sound policies.
Frederick William of Hohenzollern (493): The Great Elector of It spread across Europe and around the world thereafter.
Brandenburg-Prussia (r. 1640–1688) who brought his nation
through the end of the Thirty Years’ War and then succeeded in Gregorian reform (305): The papal movement for church reform
welding his scattered lands into an absolutist state. associated with Gregory VII (r. 1073–1085); its ideal included
ending the purchase of church offices, clerical marriage, and lay
Freemasons (568): Members of Masonic lodges, where nobles investiture.
and middle-class professionals (and even some artisans) shared
interest in the Enlightenment and reform. Gregory the Great (256): The pope (r. 590–604) who sent
missionaries to Anglo-Saxon England, wrote influential books,
Freud, Sigmund (769): 1856–1939. Viennese medical doctor and tried to reform the church, and had contact with the major ruling
founder of psychoanalysis, a theory of mental processes and families of Europe and Byzantium.
problems and a method of treating them.
Gregory of Tours (247): Bishop of Tours (in Gaul) from 573 to
Gladstone, William (752): 1809–1898. Liberal politician and 594, the chief source for the history and culture of the
prime minister of Great Britain who innovated in popular Merovingian kingdoms.
campaigning and who criticized British imperialism.
guild (300): A trade organization within a city or town that
glasnost (943): Literally, “openness” or “publicity”; a policy controlled product quality and cost and outlined members’
instituted in the 1980s by Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev responsibilities. Guilds were also social or religious associations.
calling for greater openness in speech and in thinking, which
translated to the reduction of censorship in publishing, radio, Hammurabi (14): King of Babylonia in the eighteenth century
television, and other media. B.C.E., famous
for his law code.
globalization (952): The interconnection of labor, capital, ideas, Hanseatic League (409): A league of northern European cities
services, and goods around the world. Although globalization has formed in the fourteenth century to protect their mutual interests
existed for hundreds of years, the late twentieth and early twenty- in trade and defense.
first centuries are seen as more global because of the speed with heliocentrism (475): The view articulated by Polish clergyman
which people, goods, and ideas travel the world. Nicolaus Copernicus that the earth and planets revolve around
global warming (966): An increase in the temperature of the the sun.
earth’s lower atmosphere resulting from a buildup of chemical Hellenistic (115): An adjective meaning “Greek-like” that is today
emissions. used as a chronological term for the period 323–30 B.C.E.
G-6 G lo s s a ry o f Ke y Te r m s a n d Pe o pl e

helot (59): A slave owned by the Spartan city-state; such slaves iconoclasm (245): Literally, “icon breaking”; referring to the
came from parts of Greece conquered by the Spartans. destruction of icons, or images of holy people. Byzantine
Henry II (336): King of England (r. 1154–1189) who ended the emperors banned icons from 726 to 787; a modified ban was
period of civil war there and affirmed and expanded royal revived in 815 and lasted until 843.
powers. He is associated with the creation of common law in ideology (654): A word coined during the French Revolution to
England. refer to a coherent set of beliefs about the way the social and
Henry IV (305): King of Germany (r. 1056–1106), crowned political order should be organized.
emperor in 1084. From 1073 until his death, he was embroiled in imperialism (670): European dominance of the non-West
the Investiture Conflict with Pope Gregory VII. through economic exploitation and political rule; the word (as
Henry VIII (433): The English king (r. 1509–1547) who first distinct from colonialism, which usually implied establishment of
opposed the Protestant Reformation and then broke with the settler colonies, often with slavery) was coined in the mid-
Catholic church, naming himself head of the Anglican church in nineteenth century.
the Act of Supremacy of 1534. impressionism (749): A mid- to late-nineteenth-century artistic
Heraclius (240): The Byzantine emperor who reversed the style that captured the sensation of light in images, derived from
fortunes of war with the Persians in the first quarter of the Japanese influences and in opposition to the realism of
seventh century. photographs.
heresy (184): False doctrine; specifically, the beliefs banned for Industrial Revolution (654): The transformation of life in the
Christians by councils of bishops. Western world over several decades in the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries as a result of the introduction of
hetaira (83): A witty and attractive woman who charged fees to steam-driven machinery, large factories, and a new working
entertain at a symposium. class.
hierarchy (P-7): The system of ranking people in society Innocent III (360): The pope (r. 1198–1216) who called the
according to their importance and dominance. Fourth Lateran Council; he was arguably the most powerful,
hieroglyphs (17): The ancient Egyptian pictographic script for respected, and prestigious of medieval popes.
writing official texts.
Investiture Conflict (306): The confrontation between Gregory
Hijra (235): The emigration of Muhammad from Mecca to VII and Henry IV that began in 1073 over lay investiture and the
Medina. Its date, 622, marks the year 1 of the Islamic calendar. nature of church leadership. It was resolved in 1122 by the
Hitler, Adolf (847): 1889–1945. Chancellor of Germany who, Concordat of Worms.
with considerable backing, overturned democratic government, in vitro fertilization (921): A process developed in the 1970s by
created the Third Reich, persecuted millions, and ultimately led which eggs are fertilized with sperm outside the human body and
Germany and the world into World War II. then implanted in a woman’s uterus.
Homer (44): Greece’s first and most famous author, who Jacobin Club (599): A French political club formed in 1789 that
composed The Iliad and The Odyssey. inspired the formation of a national network whose members
home rule (753): The right to an independent parliament dominated the revolutionary government during the Terror.
demanded by the Irish and resisted by the British from the second Jacquerie (396): The 1358 uprising of French peasants against the
half of the nineteenth century on. nobles amid the Hundred Years’ War; it was brutally put down.
Homo sapiens sapiens (P-5): The scientific name (in Latin) of the Jesuits (439): Members of the Society of Jesus, a Catholic
type of early human being identical to people today; it means religious order founded by Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556) and
“wise, wise human being.” approved by the pope in 1540. Jesuits served as missionaries and
hoplite (53): A heavily armed Greek infantryman. Hoplites educators all over the world.
constituted the main strike force of a city-state’s militia. Joan of Arc (392): A peasant girl (1412–1431) whose conviction
hubris (95): The Greek term for violent arrogance. that God had sent her to save France in fact helped France win the
Hundred Years’ War.
humanism (402): A literary and linguistic movement cultivated
in particular in the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries Julian the Apostate (205): The Roman emperor (r. 361–363),
and founded on reviving classical Latin and Greek texts, styles, who rejected Christianity and tried to restore traditional religion
and values. as the state religion. Apostate means “renegade from the faith.”
humanitas (150): The Roman orator Cicero’s ideal of “humane- Julio-Claudians (173): The ruling family of the early principate
ness,” meaning generous and honest treatment of others based on from Augustus through Nero, descended from the aristocratic
natural law. families of the Julians and the Claudians.
Hundred Years’ War (392): The long war between England and Justinian and Theodora (221): Sixth-century emperor and
France, 1337–1453; it produced numerous social upheavals yet empress of the eastern Roman Empire, famous for waging costly
left both states more powerful than before. wars to reunite the empire.
hunter-gatherers (P-5): Human beings who roam to hunt and Kennedy, John Fitzgerald (909): U.S. president, from 1961 to
gather food in the wild and do not live in permanent, settled 1963, who faced off with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in the
communities. Cuban missile crisis.
G lo s s a ry o f Ke y Te r m s a n d Pe o pl e G-7

Khrushchev, Nikita (896): Leader of the USSR from c. 1955 until Louis XIV (484): French king (r. 1643–1715) who personified the
his dismissal in 1964; known for his speech denouncing Stalin, absolutist ruler; in theory he shared his power with no one, but
creation of the “thaw,” and participation in the Cuban missile crisis. in practice he had to gain the cooperation of nobles, local
Koine (127): The “common” or “shared” form of the Greek officials, and even the ordinary subjects who manned his armies
language that became the international language in the and paid his taxes.
Hellenistic period. Louis XVI (591): French King (r. 1774–1792) who was tried and
Kollontai, Aleksandra (832): 1872–1952. Russian activist and found guilty of treason; he was executed on January 21, 1793.
minister of public welfare in the Bolshevik government; she Luther, Martin (429): A German monk (1483–1546) who started
promoted social programs such as birth control and day care for the Protestant Reformation in 1517 by challenging the practices
children of working parents. and doctrines of the Catholic church and advocating salvation
Kulturkampf (718): Literally, “culture war”; in the 1870s, German through faith alone.
chancellor Otto von Bismarck used the term to describe his fight Maastricht Treaty (961): The agreement among the members of
to weaken the power of the Catholic church. the European Community to have a closer alliance, including the
ladder of offices (142): The series of Roman elective government use of common passports and eventually the development of a
offices from quaestor to aedile to praetor to consul. common currency; by the terms of this treaty, the European
Community became the European Union (EU) in 1994.
laissez-faire (561): An economic doctrine developed by Adam
Smith that advocated freeing the economy from government Maat (17): The Egyptian goddess (“What Is Right”) embodying
intervention and control. (The term is French for “to leave alone.”) truth, justice, and cosmic order.
lay investiture (303): The installation of clerics into their offices Magna Carta (340): The charter of baronial liberties that King
by lay people, normally rulers or lords. John was forced to agree to in 1215. It implied that royal power
was subject to custom and law.
League of Nations (818): The international organization set up
following World War I to maintain peace by arbitrating disputes mandate system (819): The political control over the former
and promoting collective security. colonies and territories of the German and Ottoman empires
granted to the victors of World War I by the League of Nations.
Lebensraum (858): Literally, “living space”; the land that Hitler
proposed to conquer so that true Aryans might have sufficient Marie-Antoinette (591): Wife of Louis XVI and queen of France
space to live their noble lives. who was tried and executed in October 1793.
Lenin, V. I. (811): 1870–1924. Bolshevik leader who executed the Marshall Plan (886): A post–World War II program funded by
Bolshevik Revolution in the fall of 1917, took Russia out of World the United States to get Europe back on its feet economically and
War I, and imposed communism in Russia. thereby reduce the appeal of communism. It played an important
Leopold II (734): King of Belgium (r. 1865–1909) who sponsored role in the rebirth of European prosperity in the 1950s.
the takeover of the Congo in Africa, which he ran with great martyr (183): Greek for “witness,” the term for someone who dies
violence against native peoples. for his or her religious beliefs.
Lepanto (455): A site off the Greek coast where, in 1571, the allied Marxism (713): A body of thought about the organization of
Catholic forces of Spain’s king Philip II, Venice, and the papacy production, social inequality, and the processes of revolutionary
defeated the Ottoman Turks in a great sea battle; the victory gave change as devised by the philosopher and economist Karl Marx.
the Christian powers control of the Mediterranean. materialism (123): A philosophical doctrine of the Hellenistic
Levellers (499): Disgruntled soldiers in Cromwell’s New Model Age that denied metaphysics and claimed instead that only things
Army who wanted to “level” social differences and extend consisting of matter truly exist.
political participation to all male property owners.
Mazzini, Giuseppe (672): An Italian nationalist (1805–1872)
liberalism (674): An economic and political ideology that who founded Young Italy, a secret society to promote Italian
emphasized free trade and the constitutional guarantees of unity. He believed that a popular uprising would create a unified
individual rights such as freedom of speech and religion. Italy.
limited liability corporation (730): A legal entity, developed in Medici (412): The ruling family of Florence during much of the
the second half of the nineteenth century, in which the amount fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries.
that owners of a factory or other enterprise owed creditors was
Mediterranean polyculture (26): The cultivation of olives,
restricted (limited) in case of financial failure.
grapes, and grains in a single, interrelated agricultural system.
Linear B (28): The Mycenaeans’ pictographic script for writing
Mehmed II (396): The sultan under whom the Ottoman Turks
Greek.
conquered Constantinople in 1453.
Lombards (240): The people who settled in Italy during the sixth
century, following Justinian’s reconquest. A king ruled the north mercantilism (490): The doctrine that governments must
of Italy, while dukes ruled the south. In between was the papacy, intervene to increase national wealth by whatever means possible.
which felt threatened both by Lombard Arianism and by the Merovingian dynasty (252): The royal dynasty that ruled Gaul
Lombards’ geographical proximity to Rome. from about 486 to 751.
Louis IX (375): A French king (r. 1226–1270) revered as a mestizo (527): A person born to a Spanish father and a native
military leader and a judge; he was declared a saint after his death. American mother.
G-8 G lo s s a ry o f Ke y Te r m s a n d Pe o pl e

metaphysics (107): Philosophical ideas about the ultimate nature principles of the nineteenth century, including the reduction of
of reality beyond the reach of human senses. welfare-state programs and the cutting of taxes for the wealthy to
Methodism (566): A religious movement founded by John promote economic growth.
Wesley (1703–1791) that broke with the Anglican church in Neolithic Age (P-4): The “New Stone” Age, dating from about
Great Britain and insisted on strict self-discipline and a 10,000 to 4000 B.C.E.
“methodical” approach to religious study and observance. Neolithic Revolution (P-8): The invention of agriculture, the
metic (82): A foreigner granted permanent residence status in domestication of animals, and the consequent changes in human
Athens in return for paying taxes and serving in the military. society that occurred about 10,000–8000 B.C.E. in the Near East.
Metternich, Klemens von (636): An Austrian prince (1773–1859) Neoplatonism (188): Plotinus’s spiritual philosophy, based
who took the lead in devising the settlement arranged by the mainly on Plato’s ideas, which was very influential for Christian
Congress of Vienna. intellectuals.
Milosevic, Slobodan (953): Serb leader of post-Communist new unionism (751): Nineteenth-century development in labor
Yugoslavia; he was tried for crimes against humanity in the ethnic organizing that replaced local craft-based unions with those that
cleansing that accompanied the dissolution of the Yugoslav state. extended membership to all kinds of workers.
mir (695): A Russian farm community that provided for holding new woman (767): A woman who, from the 1880s on, dressed
land in common and regulating the movements of any individual practically, moved about freely, and often supported herself.
by the group. Nicene Creed (210): The doctrine agreed on by the council of
Mitteleuropa (791): Literally, “central Europe,” but used by bishops convened by Constantine at Nicaea in 325 to defend
military leaders in Germany before World War I to refer to land orthodoxy against Arianism; it declared that God the Father and
in both central and eastern Europe that they hoped to acquire. Jesus were “of one substance” (homoousion).
modernism (771): Artistic styles around the turn of the twentieth Nicholas II (779): Tsar of Russia (r. 1894–1917) who promoted
century that featured a break with realism in art and literature anti-Semitism and resisted reform in the empire.
and with lyricism in music. Nietzsche, Friedrich (772): 1844–1900. German philosopher
monotheism (5): The belief in only one god, as in Judaism, who called for a new morality in the face of the death of God at
Christianity, and Islam. the hands of science and whose theories were reworked by his
sister to emphasize militarism and anti-Semitism.
moral dualism (39): The belief that the world is the arena for an
ongoing battle for control between divine forces of good and evil. Nixon, Richard (936): U.S. president from 1969 to 1974 who
escalated the Vietnam War, worked for accommodation with
Morrison, Toni (979): The first African American woman to win
China, and resigned from the presidency after trying to block free
the Nobel Prize for Literature; her works include Beloved and
elections.
Jazz.
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) (965): Charitable
mos maiorum (134): Literally, “the way of the elders”; the set of
foundations and activist groups such as Doctors Without Borders
Roman values handed down from the ancestors.
that work outside of governments, often on political, economic,
multinational corporation (921): A business that operates in and relief issues; also, philanthropic organizations such as the
many foreign countries by sending large segments of its Rockefeller, Ford, and Open Society Foundations that shape
manufacturing, finance, sales, and other business components economic and social policy and the course of political reform.
abroad.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (887): The security
Mussolini, Benito (833): 1883–1945. Leader of Italian fascist alliance formed in 1949 to provide a unified military force for the
movement and, after the March on Rome in 1922, dictator of United States, Canada, and their allies in western Europe and
Italy. Scandinavia.
mystery cults (81): Religious worship that provided initiation Nuremberg Laws (850): Legislation enacted by the Nazis in 1935
into secret knowledge and divine protection, including hope for that deprived Jewish Germans of their citizenship and imposed
a better afterlife. many other hardships on them.
nationalism (672): An ideology that arose in the nineteenth Opium War (671): War between China and Great Britain
century and that holds that all peoples derive their identities from (1839–1842) that resulted in the opening of four Chinese ports
their nations, which are defined by common language, shared to Europeans and British sovereignty over Hong Kong.
cultural traditions, and sometimes religion.
optimates (153): The Roman political faction supporting the
nation-state (696): A sovereign political entity of modern times “best,” or highest, social class; established during the late republic.
based on representing a united people.
orders (142): The two groups of people in the Roman republic—
Nazi-Soviet Pact (861): The agreement reached in 1939 by patricians (aristocratic families) and plebeians (all other citizens).
Germany and the Soviet Union in which both agreed not to
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) (937):
attack the other in case of war and to divide any conquered
A consortium that regulated the supply and export of oil and that
territories.
acted with more unanimity after the United States supported
neoliberalism (941): A theory first promoted by British prime Israel against the Arabs in the wars of the late 1960s and early
minister Margaret Thatcher, calling for a return to liberal 1970s.
G lo s s a ry o f Ke y Te r m s a n d Pe o pl e G-9

orthodoxy (184): True doctrine; specifically, the beliefs defined Peace of Paris (816): The series of peace treaties that provided the
for Christians by councils of bishops. settlement of World War I.
Ostpolitik (928): A policy initiated by Willy Brandt in the late Peace of Utrecht (538): Treaties drawn up in 1713–1714 that
1960s in which West Germany sought better economic relations ended the War of the Spanish Succession.
with the Communist countries of eastern Europe. Peace of Westphalia (463): The settlement (1648) of the Thirty
ostracism (76): An annual procedure in Athenian radical Years’ War; it established enduring religious divisions in the Holy
democracy by which a man could be voted out of the city-state Roman Empire by which Lutheranism would dominate in the
for ten years; its purpose was to prevent tyranny. north, Calvinism in the area of the Rhine River, and Catholicism
Ottonian kings (289): The tenth- and early-eleventh-century in the south.
kings of Germany; beginning with Otto I (r. 936–973), they perestroika (943): Literally, “restructuring”; an economic policy
claimed the imperial crown and worked closely with their instituted in the 1980s by Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev
bishops to rule a vast territory. calling for the introduction of market mechanisms and the
outwork (727): The process of having some aspects of industrial achievement of greater efficiency in manufacturing, agriculture,
work done outside factories in individual homes. and services.

Pacific tigers (973): Countries of East Asia so named because of Pericles (75): Athens’s political leader during the Golden Age.
their massive economic growth, much of it from the 1980s on; Peter the Great (540): Russian tsar Peter I (r. 1689–1725), who
foremost among these were Japan and China. undertook the Westernization of Russia and built a new capital
palace society (25): Minoan and Mycenaean social and political city named after himself, St. Petersburg.
organization centered on multichambered buildings housing the Petrarch, Francis (402): An Italian poet (1304–1374) who
rulers and the administration of the state. revived the styles of classical authors; he is considered the first
Paleolithic Age (P-4): The “Old Stone” Age, dating from about Renaissance humanist.
200,000 to 10,000 B.C.E. Philip II (455): King of Spain (r. 1556–1598) and the most powerful
Pankhurst, Emmeline (778): 1858–1928. Organizer of a militant ruler in Europe; he reigned over the western Habsburg lands and all
branch of the British suffrage movement, working actively for the Spanish colonies recently settled in the New World.
women’s right to vote. Philip II (Philip Augustus) (340): King of France (r. 1180–1223)
Pan-Slavism (702): A movement in the nineteenth century for who bested the English king John and won most of John’s
the unity of all Slavs across national and regional boundaries. continental territories, thus immeasurably strengthening the
power of the Capetian dynasty.
Parnell, Charles Stewart (753): Irish politician (1846–1891)
whose advocacy of home rule was a thorn in the side of the philosophes (556): Public intellectuals of the Enlightenment who
British establishment. wrote on subjects ranging from current affairs to art criticism
with the goal of furthering reform in society. (The word in
Parthenon (78): The massive temple to Athena as a warrior goddess French means “philosophers.”)
built atop the Athenian acropolis in the Golden Age of Greece.
Pietism (536): A Protestant revivalist movement of the early
partition of Poland, first (576): Division of one-third of Poland- eighteenth century that emphasized deeply emotional individual
Lithuania’s territory between Prussia, Russia, and Austria in 1772. religious experience.
patria potestas (136): Literally, “father’s power”; the legal power a plantation (521): A large tract of land that produced staple crops
Roman father possessed over the children and slaves in his family, such as sugar, coffee, and tobacco; was farmed by slave labor; and
including owning all their property and having the right to was owned by a colonial settler.
punish them, even with death.
Plato (107): A follower of Socrates who became Greece’s most
patriarchy (P-15): Dominance by men in society and politics. famous philosopher.
patron-client system (136): The interlocking network of mutual plebiscites (143): Resolutions passed by the Plebeian Assembly;
obligations between Roman patrons (social superiors) and clients such resolutions gained the force of law in 287 B.C.E.
(social inferiors).
polis (47): The Greek city-state, an independent community of
Pax Romana (164): The two centuries of relative peace and citizens.
prosperity in the Roman Empire under the early principate
begun by Augustus. political states (P-4): People living in a defined territory with
boundaries and organized under a system of government with
Peace of Augsburg (446): The treaty of 1555 that settled disputes powerful officials, leaders, and judges.
between Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and his Protestant
princes. It recognized the Lutheran church and established the politiques (455): Political advisers during the sixteenth-century
principle that all Catholic or Lutheran princes enjoyed the sole French Wars of Religion who argued that compromise in matters
right to determine the religion of their lands and subjects. of religion would strengthen the monarchy.

Peace of God (287): A movement begun by bishops in the south polytheism (5): The worship of multiple gods.
of France around 990, first to limit the violence done to property pop art (925): A style in the visual arts that mimicked advertising
and to the unarmed, and later, with the Truce of God, to limit and consumerism and that used ordinary objects as a part of
fighting between warriors. paintings and other compositions.
G-10 G lo s s a ry o f Ke y Te r m s a n d Pe o pl e

Popular Front (854): An alliance of political parties (initially led realism (715): An artistic style that arose in the mid-nineteenth
by Léon Blum in France) in the 1930s to resist fascism despite century and was dedicated to depicting society realistically
philosophical differences. without romantic or idealistic overtones.
populares (153): The Roman political faction supporting the Realpolitik (690): Policies developed after the revolutions of 1848
common people; established during the late republic. and initially associated with nation building; they were based on
positivism (720): A theory developed in the mid-nineteenth realism rather than on the romantic notions of earlier
century that the study of facts would generate accurate, or nationalists. The term has come to mean any policy based on
“positive,” laws of society and that these laws could, in turn, help considerations of power alone.
in the formulation of policies and legislation. reconquista (305): The collective name for the wars waged by the
postmodernism (980): A term applied in the late twentieth Christian princes of Spain against the Muslim-ruled regions to
century to both an intense stylistic mixture in the arts without a their south. These wars were considered holy, akin to the crusades.
central unifying theme or elite set of standards and a critique of redistributive economy (14): A system in which state officials
Enlightenment and scientific beliefs in rationality and the control the production and distribution of goods.
possibility of certain knowledge.
Reform Act of 1884 (752): British legislation that granted the
praetorian guard (166): The group of soldiers stationed in Rome right to vote to a mass male citizenry.
under the emperor’s control; first formed by Augustus.
Reform Bill of 1832 (649): A measure passed by the British
predestination (432): John Calvin’s doctrine that God Parliament to increase the number of male voters by about 50
preordained salvation or damnation for each person before percent and give representation to new cities in the north; it set a
creation; those chosen for salvation were considered the “elect.” precedent for widening suffrage.
principate (164): The Roman political system invented by res publica (140): Literally, “the people’s matter” or “the public
Augustus as a disguised monarchy with the princeps (“first man”) business”; the Romans’ name for their republic and the source of
as emperor. our word republic.
proletarians (153): In the Roman republic, the mass of people so restoration (638): The epoch after the fall of Napoleon, in which
poor they owned no property. the Congress of Vienna aimed to “restore” as many regimes as
Pugachev rebellion (579): A massive revolt of Russian Cossacks possible to their former rulers.
and serfs in 1773 against local nobles and the armies of Catherine revocation of the Edict of Nantes (489): French king Louis XIV’s
the Great; its leader, Emelian Pugachev, was eventually captured decision to eliminate the rights of Calvinists granted in the edict
and executed. of 1598; Louis banned all Calvinist public activities and forced
pump priming (849): An economic policy used by governments those who refused to embrace the state religion to flee.
to stimulate the economy through public works programs and Robespierre, Maximilien (600): A lawyer from northern France
other infusions to public funds. who laid out the principles of a republic of virtue and of the
purges (846): The series of attacks on citizens of the USSR Terror; his arrest and execution in July 1794 brought an end to
accused of being “wreckers,” or saboteurs of communism, in the the Terror.
1930s and later. rococo (534): A style of painting that emphasized irregularity and
Puritans (458): Strict Calvinists who opposed all vestiges of asymmetry, movement and curvature, but on a smaller, more
Catholic ritual in the Church of England. intimate scale than the baroque.
Putin, Vladimir (956): President of Russia elected in 2000; he has Romanization (177): The spread of Roman law and culture in the
worked to reestablish Russia as a world power through control of provinces of the Roman Empire.
the country’s resources and military capabilities. romanticism (566): An artistic movement of the late eighteenth
Qur’an (234): The holy book of Islam, considered the word of and early nineteenth centuries that glorified nature, emotion,
God (Allah) as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. genius, and imagination.
radical democracy (76): The Athenian system of democracy Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (561): One of the most important
established in the 460s and 450s B.C.E. that extended direct philosophes (1712–1778); he argued that only a government
political power and participation in the court system to all adult based on a social contract among the citizens could make people
male citizens. truly moral and free.
raison d’état (464): French for “reason of state,” the political ruler cults (128): Cults that involved worship of a Hellenistic
doctrine, first proposed by Cardinal Richelieu of France, which ruler as a savior god.
held that the state’s interests should prevail over those of religion. Rushdie, Salman (979): Immigrant British author, whose novel
rationalism (65): The philosophic idea that people must justify The Satanic Verses led the Ayotallah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran to
their claims by logic and reason, not myth. issue a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s murder.
Razin, Stenka (496): The head of a powerful band of pirates and Russification (696): A program for the integration of Russia’s
outlaws in southern Russia, who in 1667 led a rebellion that many nationality groups that involved the forced learning of the
promised peasants liberation from noble landowners and Russian language and the practice of Russian Orthodox religion
officials; Razin was captured by the tsar’s army in 1671 and as well as the settlement of ethnic Russians among other
publicly executed in Moscow. nationality groups.
G lo s s a ry o f Ke y Te r m s a n d Pe o pl e G-11

salon (513): An informal gathering held regularly in private Solidarity (945): A Polish labor union founded in 1980 by Lech
homes and presided over by a socially eminent woman; salons Walesa and Anna Walentynowicz that contested Communist
spread from France in the seventeenth century to other countries Party programs and eventually succeeded in ousting the party
in the eighteenth century. from the Polish government.
samizdat (928): A key form of dissident activity across the Soviet Solon (62): Athenian political reformer whose changes promoted
bloc; individuals reproduced uncensored publications by hand early democracy.
and passed them from reader to reader, thus building a Sophists (88): Competitive intellectuals and teachers in ancient
foundation for the successful resistance of the 1980s. Greece who offered expensive courses in persuasive public
Sand, George (666): The pen name of French novelist Amandine- speaking and new ways of philosophic and religious thinking
Aurore Dupin (1804–1876), who showed her independence in beginning around 450 B.C.E.
the 1830s by dressing like a man and smoking cigars. The term South African War (785): The war between Britain and the Boer
George-Sandism became an expression of disdain for (originally Dutch) inhabitants of South Africa for control of the
independent women. region (1899–1902); also called the Boer War.
Sappho (64): The most famous woman lyric poet of ancient soviets (811): Councils of workers and soldiers first formed in
Greece, a native of Lesbos. Russia in the Revolution of 1905; they were revived to represent
Schlieffen Plan (803): The Germans’ strategy in World War I that the people in the early days of the 1917 Russian Revolution.
called for attacks on two fronts — concentrating first on France to stagflation (938): The combination of a stagnant economy and
the west and then turning east to attack Russia. soaring inflation; a period of stagflation occurred in the West in
scholasticism (367): The method of logical inquiry used by the the 1970s as a result of an OPEC embargo on oil.
scholastics, the scholars of the medieval universities; it applied Stalin, Joseph (844): 1879–1953. Leader of the USSR who, with
Aristotelian logic to biblical and other authoritative texts in an considerable backing, formed a brutal dictatorship and forcefully
attempt to summarize and reconcile all knowledge. converted the country into an industrial power.
scientific method (475): The combination of experimental Statute in Favor of the Princes (374): A statute finalized by
observation and mathematical deduction that was used to Frederick II in 1232 that gave the German princes sovereign
determine the laws of nature and became the secular standard of power within their own principalities.
truth.
St. Bernard (309): The most important Cistercian abbot (early
Scott, Sir Walter (643): A prolific author (1771–1832) of popular twelfth century) and the chief preacher of the Second Crusade.
historical novels; he also collected and published traditional
Stoicism (123): The Hellenistic philosophy whose followers
Scottish ballads and wrote poetry.
believed in fate but also in pursuing virtue by cultivating good
Sea Peoples (29): The diverse groups of raiders who devastated sense, justice, courage, and temperance.
the eastern Mediterranean region in the period of calamities
Suleiman the Magnificent (443): Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
around 1200–1000 B.C.E.
(r. 1520–1566) at the time of its greatest power.
Second International (751): A transnational organization of
Synod of Whitby (253): The meeting of churchmen and King
workers established in 1889, mostly committed to Marxian
Oswy of Northumbria in 664 that led to the adoption of the
socialism.
Roman brand of Christianity in England.
secularization (471): The trend toward making religious faith a
Terror (600): The policy established under the direction of the
private domain rather than one directly connected to state power
Committee of Public Safety during the French Revolution to
and science; it prompted a search for nonreligious explanations
arrest dissidents and execute opponents in order to protect the
for political authority and natural phenomena.
republic from its enemies.
Seven Years’ War (574): A worldwide series of battles
tetrarchy (198): The “rule by four,” consisting of two co-emperors
(1756–1763) between Austria, France, Russia, and Sweden on one
and two assistant emperors/designated successors, initiated by
side and Prussia and Great Britain on the other.
Diocletian to subdivide the ruling of the Roman Empire into four
simony (303): The sin of giving gifts or paying money to get a regions.
church office.
Thatcher, Margaret (940): Prime minister of Britain from 1979 to
social contract (504): The doctrine that all political authority 1990; she set a new tone for British politics by promoting
derives not from divine right but from an implicit contract neoliberal economic policies and criticizing poor people, union
between citizens and their rulers. members, and racial minorities as worthless, even harmful
socialism (675): A social and political ideology that advocated the citizens.
reorganization of society to overcome the new tensions created Themistocles (71): Athens’s leader during the great Persian
by industrialization and restore social harmony through invasion of Greece.
communities based on cooperation. Theodosius I (205): The Roman emperor (r. 379–395) who
Socratic method (90): The Athenian philosopher Socrates’ made Christianity the state religion by ending public sacrifices in
method of teaching through conversation, in which he asked the traditional cults and closing their temples; in 395 he also
probing questions to make his listeners examine their most divided the empire into western and eastern halves to be ruled by
cherished assumptions. his sons.
G-12 G lo s s a ry o f Ke y Te r m s a n d Pe o pl e

Thermidorian Reaction (606): The violent backlash against the Visigoths (216): The name given to the barbarians whom Alaric
rule of Robespierre that dismantled the Terror and punished united and led on a military campaign into the western Roman
Jacobins and their supporters. Empire to establish a new kingdom; they sacked Rome in 410.
Third Republic (753): The government that succeeded Napoleon Voltaire (548): The pen name of François-Marie Arouet
III’s Second Empire after its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of (1694–1778), who was the most influential writer of the early
1870–1871. It lasted until France’s defeat by Germany in 1940. Enlightenment.
Torah (40): The first five books of the Hebrew Bible, also referred Walpole, Robert (539): The first, or “prime,” minister of the
to as the Pentateuch. It contains early Jewish law. House of Commons of Great Britain’s Parliament. Although
total war (800): A war built on the full mobilization of soldiers, appointed initially by the king, through his long period of
civilians, and technology of the nations involved. The term also leadership (1721–1742) he effectively established the modern
refers to a highly destructive war of ideologies. pattern of parliamentary government.
Treaty of Verdun (278): The treaty that, in 843, split the war guilt clause (818): The part of the Treaty of Versailles that
Carolingian Empire into three parts; its borders roughly outline assigned blame for World War I to Germany.
modern western European states. Warsaw Pact (887): A security alliance of the Soviet Union and its
triremes (74): Greek wooden warships rowed by 170 oarsmen allies formed in 1955 when NATO admitted West Germany.
sitting on three levels and equipped with a battering ram at the Weimar Republic (815): The parliamentary republic established
bow. in 1919 in Germany to replace the monarchy.
troubadours (347): Vernacular poets in southern France in the welfare state (893): A system comprising government-sponsored
twelfth and early thirteenth centuries who sang of love, longing, programs aimed to bring economic democracy by providing
and courtesy. health care, family allowances, and pensions for veterans and
Truman Doctrine (884): The United States’s policy to limit retired workers.
communism after World War II by countering political crises wergild (219): Under Frankish law, the payment that a murderer
with economic and military aid. had to make as compensation for the crime, to prevent feuds of
Twelve Tables (142): The first written Roman law code, enacted revenge.
between 451 and 449 B.C.E. Westernization (540): The effort, especially in Peter the Great’s
Umayyad caliphate (237): The caliphs (successors of Russia, to make society and social customs resemble counterparts
Muhammad) who traced their ancestry to Umayyah, a member in western Europe, especially France, Britain, and the Dutch
of Muhammad’s tribe. The dynasty lasted from 661 to 750. Republic.
United Nations (UN) (901): An organization set up in 1945 for William, prince of Orange (504): Dutch ruler who, with his
collective security and for the resolution of international conflicts Protestant wife, Mary (daughter of James II), ruled England after
through both deliberation and the use of force. the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
Urban II (312): The pope (r. 1088–1099) responsible for calling wisdom literature (20): Texts giving instructions for proper
the First Crusade in 1095. behavior by officials.
Vatican II (903): A Catholic Council held between 1962 and 1965 ziggurats (8): Mesopotamian temples of massive size built on a
to modernize some aspects of church teachings (such as stair-step design.
condemnation of Jews), to update the liturgy, and to promote Zionism (783): A movement that began in the late nineteenth
cooperation among the faiths (i.e., ecumenism). century among European Jews to found a Jewish state.
Suggested References

Prologue Snell, Daniel C. A Companion to the Ancient Near East. 2004.


Sumerian literature: http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk
Çatalhöyük: Excavations of a Neolithic Anatolian Höyük: http://
www.catalhoyuk.com
Egypt, Home of the First Unified Country, 3050–1000 B.C.E.
Clark, J. Desmond, et al. “Stratigraphic, Chronological and
Behavioural Contexts of Pleistocene Homo Sapiens from Middle Research and writing on ancient Egypt continue at a furious pace,
Awash, Ethiopia.” Nature 423 (June 12, 2003): 747–52. while scholars studying the eastern Mediterranean region increasingly
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human emphasize the interaction of its various cultures in trade and in war.
Societies. 1999.
Assmann, Jan. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt. Trans. David
Fagan, Brian M. People of the Earth: An Introduction to World
Lorton. 2001.
Prehistory. 11th ed. 2003.
Baines, John. Religion and Society in Ancient Egypt. 2003.
Klein, Richard G. The Dawn of Human Culture. 2002.
Hawass, Zahi. Silent Images: Women in Pharaonic Egypt. 2000.
Lewis-Williams, David, and David Pearce. Inside the Neolithic Mind:
*Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature. 3 vols. 1973.
Consciousness, Cosmos and the Realm of the Gods. 2005.
Meskell, Lynn. Private Life in New Kingdom Egypt. 2002.
Mithen, Steven. After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000–5000
Morkot, Robert G. The Black Pharaohs: Egypt’s Nubian Rulers. 2000.
BC. 2004.
Partridge, Robert B. Fighting Pharaohs: Weapons and Warfare in
Sahara Desert: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5192410.stm
Ancient Egypt. 2002.
Wenke, Robert J. Patterns in Prehistory: Humankind’s First Three Million
Redford, Donald B., ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. 2000.
Years. 4th ed. 1999. White, Tim D., et al. “Pleistocene Homo Sapiens
Roehrig, Catherine H., ed. Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh. 2005.
from Middle Awash, Ethiopia.” Nature 423 (June 12, 2003): 742–47.
Sahara Desert: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/
1130989vl, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/
07/060720-sahara.html
Chapter 1
*Simpson, William Kelly, ed. The Literature of Ancient Egypt. An
Mesopotamia, Home of the First Civilization, Anthology of Stories, Instructions, and Poetry. 3rd ed. 2003.
4000–1000 B.C.E. Spalinger, Anthony J. War in Ancient Egypt. 2004.
Thebes in ancient Egypt: http://www.thebanmappingproject.com
Archaeological exploration in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) has Virtual Museum of Nautical Archaeology (including the Uluburun
been almost completely halted for more than a decade. Scholars have shipwreck): http://ina.tamu.edu/vm.htm
therefore been limited to studying already excavated material and
texts. Modern translations have made Mesopotamian myths more
The Hittites, Minoans, and Mycenaeans, 2200–1000 B.C.E.
accessible to today’s readers.
Archaeology provides the securest evidence for the emergence of
Alcock, Susan, et al., eds. Empires. 2001.
Greek and Anatolian civilizations. It has not yet, however, revealed
Ancient Near East: http://www.etana.org/abzu
what initiated the period of calamities around 1200–1000 B.C.E.
Aruz, Joan, ed. Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from
the Mediterranean to the Indus. 2003. Bryce, Trevor. Life and Society in the Hittite World. 2002.
Bertman, Stephen. Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia. 2003. Crete and the Aegean Islands: http://harpy.uccs.edu/greek/crete.html
Bienkowski, Piotr, and Alan Millard, eds. Dictionary of the Ancient Dickinson, Oliver. The Aegean Bronze Age. 1994.
Near East. 2000. Fagan, Brian. The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization.
Bottéro, Jean. Everyday Life in Mesopotamia. Trans. Antonia Nevill. 2001. 2003.
*Chavalas, Mark W., ed. The Ancient Near East. Historical Sources in Farnoux, Alexandre. Knossos: Searching for the Legendary Palace of
Translation. 2006. King Minos. Trans. David J. Baker. 1996.
Crawford, Harriet. Sumer and the Sumerians. 1991. Minoan civilization: http://www.culture.gr/2/21/211/21123m/
*Dalley, Stephanie, trans. Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, The e211wm01.html
Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. 1991. Mycenaean civilization: http://harpy.uccs.edu/greek/mycenae.html
Mieroop, Marc van de. A History of the Ancient Near East. c. 3000–323 Sanders, N. K. The Sea Peoples: Warriors of the Ancient Mediterranean,
BC. 2003. 1250–1150 B.C. Rev. ed. 1985.
*Richardson, M. E. J. Hammurabi’s Laws: Text, Translation and *Singer, Itamar. Hittite Prayers: Writings from the Ancient World.
Glossary. 2000. 2002.
*Primary source.
SR-1
SR-2 Suggested References

Chapter 2 Archaic Greek sculpture: http://harpy.uccs.edu/greek/archaicsculpt


.html
From Dark Age to Empire in the Near East, 1000–500 B.C.E. Balot, Ryan K. Greek Political Thought. 2005.
Recent surveys of ancient Near Eastern history take an integrative *Barnes, Jonathan. Early Greek Philosophy. 1987.
approach to the subject, treating its various empires comparatively. *Campbell, David A. Greek Lyric. Five volumes. 1982–1993.
The significance of Persian religion for later faiths has also been an Cartledge, Paul. Spartan Reflections. 2001.
active field of study. Halperin, David M. One Hundred Years of Homosexuality and Other
Essays on Greek Love. 1990.
Brosius, Maria. Women in Ancient Persia, 559–331 B.C. 1996. Hurwitt, Jeffrey M. The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 1100–480 B.C.
Kugel, James. The God of Old: Inside the Lost World of the Bible. 2003. 1985.
*Lieber, David L., ed. Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary. 2001. McGlew, James F. Tyranny and Political Culture in Ancient Greece. 1993.
*Malandra, William W. An Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion: *Robinson, Eric W. Ancient Greek Democracy: Readings and Sources.
Readings from the Avesta and the Achaemenid Inscriptions. 1983. 2003.
Persepolis and Ancient Iran: http://www.oi.uchicago.edu/OI/
MUS/PA/IRAN/PAAI/PAAI_Persepolis.html Chapter 3
Silberman, Neil, and Israel Finkelstein. The Bible Unearthed:
Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Wars between Persia and Greece
Sacred Texts. 2002.
Like many groups in history, the ancient Greeks defined their own
Stiebing, William H., Jr. Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture. 2003.
identity by contrasting themselves with others, especially non-Greek-
speaking peoples (“barbarians”). The Persian Wars strengthened
Remaking Greek Civilization, 1000–750 B.C.E. their sense of difference from other peoples ruled by kings.
Scholarship on the Dark Age, such as by Sarah Morris, emphasizes Georges, Pericles. Barbarian Asia and the Greek Experience: From the
that it was not as dark as sometimes asserted in the past because Archaic Period to the Age of Xenophon. 1994.
Greece was never completely cut off from contact with the Near East. Hall, Jonathan M. Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity. 1997.
Hanson, Victor Davis. The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Hanson, Victor Davis. The Wars of the Ancient Greeks. 1999.
Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization. 1995. *Herodotus. The Histories. Translated Aubrey de Sélincourt. Revised
*Hesiod. Theogony; Works and Days. Trans. M. L. West. 1999. by John Marincola. New edition, 1996.
Lavelle, B. M. Fame, Money, and Power: The Rise of Peisistratos and Persian art: http://www.oi.uchicago.edu/OI/MUS/GALLERY/
“Democratic” Tyranny at Athens. 2005. PERSIAN/New_Persian_Gallery.html
Miller, Stephen G. Ancient Greek Athletics. 2004. Strauss, Barry. The Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter That Saved
Morris, Ian, ed. The Dark Ages of Greece. 2006. Greece — and Western Civilization. 2005.
Morris, Sarah P. Daidalos and the Origins of Greek Art. 1992. Wees, Hans van, ed. War and Violence in Ancient Greece. 2000.
Olympia: http://harpy.uccs.edu/greek/olympia.html
Social justice in Homer’s Odyssey: http://www.chs.harvard.edu/ Athenian Confidence in the Golden Age
discussion_series.sec/the_homeric_odyssey.ssp Athenian government remains significant for modern scholars in
debates over direct versus representative democracy and the nature
The Creation of the Greek Polis, 750–500 B.C.E. of citizenship. Online resources are also now available and important
for studying the full context of Golden Age Athens.
The Greek city-state did not spring up in a cultural vacuum, but the
scarcity of sources for this period makes it difficult to evaluate the Athenian democracy: http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/home
importance of various influences on it. Cahill, Nicholas. Household and City Organization at Olynthus. 2001.
Camp, John M. The Archaeology of Athens. 2001.
Burkert, Walter. The Orientalizing Revolution: The Near Eastern Cohen, Edward E. The Athenian Nation. 2000.
Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age. Trans. Ober, Josiah, and Charles W. Hedrick, eds. Demokratia: A Conversation
Margaret E. Pinder and Walter Burkert. 1992. on Democracies, Ancient and Modern. 1996.
Fisher, Nick, and Hans van Wees, eds. Archaic Greece: New Approaches Parthenon: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/vor?x=16&y=
and Evidence. 1998. 13&lookup=parthenon
Garlan, Yvon. Slavery in Ancient Greece. Rev. ed. Trans. Janet Lloyd. 1988.
Garland, Robert. Religion and the Greeks. 1994. Tradition and Innovation in Athens’s Golden Age
Tsetskhladze, Gocha R., ed. Greek Colonisation: An Account of Greek
Colonies and Other Settlements Overseas. Volume 1. 2006. Lively debates continue about how to measure and evaluate the
Wees, Hans van, ed. War and Violence in Ancient Greece. 2000. difference between ancient Greek and modern Western customs.
Davidson, for example, has rebutted the recent idea that Greeks
New Directions for the Polis, 750–500 B.C.E. considered sex a game of aggressive domination.
Blundell, Sue. Women in Ancient Greece. 1995.
Contemporary scholarship stresses the diversity of city-state
Brunschwig, Jacques, and Geoffrey E. R. Lloyd, eds. Greek Thought: A
governance and customs, but, as always in ancient history, the
Guide to Classical Knowledge. 2000.
scarcity of hard evidence hinders our gaining a clear picture.
Davidson, James. Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions
Anhalt, Emily Katz. Solon the Singer: Politics and Poetics. 1993. of Classical Athens. 1998.

*Primary source.
Suggested References SR-3

Fisher, N. R. E. Slavery in Classical Greece. 1995. Heckel, Waldemar. Who’s Who in the Age of Alexander the Great. 2006.
Greek gods: http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/display ObjectList? Macedonian royal tombs at Aigai: http://alexander.macedonia
sub=2031503 .culture.gr/2/21/211/21117a/e211qa07.html
Herman, Gabriel. Morality and Behavior in Democratic Athens. 2006. O’Brien, John Maxwell. Alexander the Great, the Invisible Enemy: A
Parker, Robert. Athenian Religion: A History. 1996. Biography. 1992.
Patterson, Cynthia B. The Family in Greek History. 1998. *Plutarch. The Age of Alexander. Trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert. 1973.
Stoneman, Richard. Alexander the Great. 2nd ed. 2004.
The End of the Golden Age
Controversy still exists over whether to explain the Athenian defeat The Hellenistic Kingdoms, 323–30 B.C.E.
in the Peloponnesian War as caused by political disunity and failure Recent research stresses the innovative responses of Hellenistic kings
of leadership at Athens, or by Persia’s financial support of Sparta; to the challenges of ruling multicultural empires. Underwater
Strassler’s edition of Thucydides is the best resource for assessing the archaeology has begun to reveal ancient Alexandria in Egypt, whose
evidence of the most important ancient source. harbor district has sunk below the level of today’s Mediterranean Sea.
Hanson, Victor Davis. A War Like No Other. How the Athenians and *Austin, M. M. The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman
Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War. 2005. Conquest: A Selection of Ancient Sources in Translation. 1981.
Kagan, Donald. The Peloponnesian War. 2003. *Burstein, Stanley M. The Hellenistic Age from the Battle of Ipsos to the
Lazenby, J. F. The Spartan Army. 1985. Death of Kleopatra VII. 1985.
The Peloponnesian War and Athenian Life: http://www.perseus.tufts Chaniotis, Angelos. War in the Hellenistic World. 2005.
.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0009& Ellis, Walter M. Ptolemy of Egypt. 1994.
query=head%3D%23212 Empereur, Jean-Yves. Alexandria: Jewel of Egypt. 2002.
*Pseudo-Xenophon, Constitution of the Athenians. Trans. G. W. Erskine, Andrew. A Companion to the Hellenistic World. 2003.
Bowersock, in Xenophon VII. Scripta Minora. 1971. Lewis, Naphtali. Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt. 1986.
*Strassler, Robert B., ed. The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Ptolemaic Egypt: http://www.houseofptolemy.org
Guide to the Peloponnesian War. 1996. Sherwin-White, Susan, and Amélie Kuhrt. From Samarkhand to
Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire. 1993.
Shipley, Graham. The Greek World After Alexander 323–30 B.C. 2000.
Chapter 4
Classical Greece after the Peloponnesian War, 400–350 B.C.E. Hellenistic Culture
The works of Plato and Aristotle, unlike those of many ancient Old scholarship viewed Hellenistic culture as “impure” and less
authors, have survived in quantity. Xenophon’s Hellenica and valuable than Classical Age culture because it mixed traditions.
Anabasis offer action-packed accounts of the wars of the early fourth Scholars today identify the imaginative ways in which Hellenistic
century B.C.E. thinkers and artists combined the old and the new. Hellenistic
philosophy has become important in the study of ethics.
*Aristotle. Complete Works. Ed. Jonathan Barnes. 1985.
Barnes, Jonathan. Aristotle. 1982. Ancient Alexandria in Egypt: http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/alexandria
Fortenbaugh, William W. Aristotle’s Practical Side: On His Psychology, Archimedes: http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~crorres/Archimedes/
Ethics, Politics and Rhetoric. 2006. contents.html
Garnsey, Peter. Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine. 1996. *Bartlett, John R. Jews in the Hellenistic World: Josephus, Aristeas, The
*Plato. The Collected Dialogues (including Apology, Crito, and Sibylline Oracles, Eupolemus. 1985.
Republic). Eds. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. 1963. Chamoux, François. Hellenistic Civilization. Trans. Michel Roussel. 2003.
Tritle, Lawrence A., ed. The Greek World in the Fourth Century: From Inwood, Brad, ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics. 2003.
the Fall of the Athenian Empire to the Successors of Alexander. 1997. Long, A. A. Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics. 2nd ed.
*Xenophon. A History of My Times (Hellenica). Trans. Rex Warner. 1986.
1979. *Menander. The Plays and Fragments. Trans. Maurice Balme. 2002.
———. The Persian Expedition (Anabasis). Trans. Rex Warner. 1972. Mikalson, Jon D. Religion in Hellenistic Athens. 1998.
Pollard, Justin, and Howard Reid. The Rise and Fall of Alexandria: The
The Rise of Macedonia, 359–323 B.C.E. Birthplace of the Modern Mind. 2006.
Pollitt, J. J. Art in the Hellenistic Age. 1986.
Modern scholars energetically debate Alexander’s character;
Pomeroy, Sarah B. Women in Hellenistic Egypt: From Alexander to
Bosworth, for example, brands him a natural-born killer, while
Cleopatra. Rev. ed. 1990.
O’Brien sees him as overcome by alcoholism.
Schäfer, Peter. Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient
*Arrian. The Campaigns of Alexander (Anabasis). Trans. Aubrey de World. 1997.
Sélincourt. 1971. Sharples, R. W. Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics: An Introduction to
Borza, Eugene N. In the Shadow of Olympus: The Emergence of Hellenistic Philosophy. 1996.
Macedon. 1990. Snyder, Jane M. The Woman and the Lyre: Women Writers in Classical
Bosworth, A. B. Alexander and the East: The Tragedy of Triumph. 1996. Greece and Rome. 1989.
———. Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great. 1988. Walker, Susan, and Peter Higgs, eds. Cleopatra of Egypt: From History
Carney, Elizabeth Donnelly. Women and Monarchy in Macedonia. 2000. to Myth. 2001.

*Primary source.
SR-4 Suggested References

Chapter 5 ———. “Human Mobility in Roman Italy, II: The Slave Population.”
Journal of Roman Studies 95 (2005): 64–79.
Roman Social and Religious Traditions Toynbee, J. M. C. Roman Historical Portraits. 1978.
Scholarship on Roman culture emphasizes how Roman values were
grounded in religious belief. Study of stories about Rome’s Upheaval in the Late Republic
foundation shows how Romans in the late republic relied on those Cicero’s many letters and speeches and Caesar’s memoirs give vivid
tales to define their national identity. personal views of the late republic. New arguments about the failure
Ancient Rome: http://www.vroma.org of the republic now stress political issues and not just personal
Bradley, Keith. Slavery and Society at Rome. 1994. connections as significant sources of discord.
*Cicero. On Duties. Eds. M. T. Griffin and E. M. Atkins. 1991. Beard, Mary, and Michael Crawford. Rome in the Late Republic. 1985.
Gardner, Jane. Women in Roman Law and Society. 1986. *Caesar. The Civil War. Trans. John Carter. 1997.
Harvey, Paul, and Celia Schultz, eds. Religion in Republican Rome. *———. The Gallic War. Trans. Carolyn Hammond. 1998.
2006. *Catullus. The Poems. Trans. Guy Lee. 1998.
Pallottino, Massimo. A History of Earliest Italy. Trans. M. Ryle and *Cicero. Philippic Orations. From Philippics. Trans. Walter C. Ker. 1969.
K. Soper. 1991. Gruen, Erich. The Last Generation of the Roman Republic. 1995.
Rawson, Beryl, ed. The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives. Jiménez, Ramon L. Caesar Against Rome: The Great Roman Civil War.
1986. 2000.
Wiseman, T. P. Remus: A Roman Myth. 1995. Julius Caesar: http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/caesar.html
Keaveney, Arthur. Sulla: The Last Republican. 1982.
From Monarchy to Republic Shaw, Brent D. Spartacus and the Slave Wars: A Brief History with
Documents. 2001.
Scholars now stress the Romans’ own shaping of their state and
Southern, Pat. Cleopatra. 1999.
culture. Interpretation of the struggle of the orders concentrates on
Stockton, David. The Gracchi. 1979.
the effects of the overlapping interests of patricians and plebeians.
Cornell, T. J. The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze
Chapter 6
Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 B.C.). 1995.
Flower, Harriet, ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Creating the Roman Peace
Republic. 2004.
Ladder of offices: http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/romangvt. Whether scholars label Augustus tyrant or reformer, they agree that
html he was a brilliant visionary. Recent research on the ways Augustus
*Livy. From the Founding of the City, Books 1–5. From The Early and his successors communicated the meaning of empire to the
History of Rome. Trans. Aubrey de Sélincourt. 2002. public stresses the role of grandiose and often violent spectacles.
MacNamara, Ellen. The Etruscans. 1991. Barrett, Anthony A. Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome. 2002.
Miles, Gary B. Livy: Reconstructing Early Rome. 1992. Futrell, Alison. Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle of Roman Power. 1997.
Stewart, Roberta. Public Office in Early Rome: Ritual Procedure and Galinsky, Karl. Augustan Culture. 1996.
Political Practice. 1998. Horace’s poetry and country house: http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/
horaces-villa
Roman Imperialism and Its Consequences Potter, David. A Companion to the Roman Empire. 2006.
Roman emperors: http://www.roman-emperors.org
Controversy over Roman imperialism remains a major topic. Works
Roman technology: http://www.unc.edu/courses/rometech/public/
on Roman warfare now offer a vivid sense of what life on the ground
frames/art_set.html
was like during Rome’s wars of expansion.
Southern, Pat. Augustus. 1998.
Conte, Gian Biagio. Latin Literature: A History. Trans. Joseph B. *Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars. Trans. Robert Graves. 1979.
Solodow; rev. Don Fowler and Glenn W. Most. 1994. *Virgil. Aeneid. Trans. Robert Fagles. 2006.
Daly, Gregory. Cannae. The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic
War. 2002. Maintaining the Roman Peace
Etruscan art and objects: http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MGE/
Research shows that the Roman Peace was made possible both by the
MGE_Main.html
devotion to duty of emperors such as Marcus Aurelius and by the
Harris, William V. War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327–70
general prosperity that emerged during the absence of civil war.
B.C. 1985.
Lancel, Serge. Carthage: A History. Trans. Antonia Nevill. 1995. *Apuleius, The Golden Ass. Trans. P. G. Walsh. 1995.
*Livy. From the Founding of the City, Books 6–10, 21–45. From Rome Atkins, Margaret, and Robin Osborne. Poverty in the Roman World.
and Italy. Trans. Betty Radice. 1986. 2006.
Roman slavery: www.chs.harvard.edu/publications.sec/online_ Ball, Warwick. Rome in the East: The Transformation of an Empire. 2001.
print_books.ssp/frank_m._snowden_jr./snowden_bradley_tei Champlin, Edward. Nero. 2003.
.xml_7 Garnsey, Peter, and Richard Saller. The Roman Empire: Economy,
Scheidel, Walter. “Human Mobility in Roman Italy, I: The Free Society, and Culture. 1987.
Population.” Journal of Roman Studies 94 (2004): 1–26. *Marcus Aurelius. Meditations. Trans. A. L. Farguharson. 1998.

*Primary source.
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Mattern, Susan. Rome and the Enemy: Imperial Strategy in the Bowersock, G. W., Peter Brown, and Oleg Grabar, eds. Late Antiquity:
Principate. 1999. A Guide to the Postclassical World. 1999.
Treggiari, Susan. Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Elsner, Jaś. Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph: The Art of the
Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. 1991. Roman Empire A.D. 100–450. 1998.
Wiedemann, Thomas. The Julio-Claudian Emperors, A.D. 14–70. 1989. *Grubbs, Judith Evans. Women and Law in the Roman Empire: A
Sourcebook on Marriage, Divorce, and Widowhood. 2002.
The Emergence of Christianity Mitchell, Stephen. A History of the Later Roman Empire, AD 284–641.
Scholarly debate concerning early Christianity remains energetic. The 2006.
sources’ meanings are hotly contested because both the ancient authors Southern, Pat, and Karen R. Dixon. The Late Roman Army. 1996.
and their modern interpreters usually have particular points of view.
Christianizing the Empire, 312–c. 540
Crossan, John Dominic, and Jonathan L. Reed. Excavating Jesus:
Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts. 2001. Recent research has deepened our appreciation of the emotional
Early Christianity: http://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/internet/ depths that the Christianization of the empire stirred for both
early.htm polytheists and Christians. People’s ideas about themselves changed
*Ehrman, Bart D., ed. The New Testament and Other Early Christian as their ideas about divinity changed.
Writings: A Reader. 1998. Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography. Rev. ed. 2000.
Kraemer, Ross Shephard. Her Share of the Blessings: Women’s Religion Caner, Daniel. Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the
among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World. 1992. Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity. 2002.
MacMullen, Ramsay. Voting About God in Early Church Councils. 2006. Curran, John. Pagan City and Christian Capital: Rome in the Fourth
Mitchell, Margaret M., and Frances M. Young. Cambridge History of Century. 2000.
Christianity. 2006. Drake, H. A. Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance.
Nickelsburg, George W. E. Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins. 2000.
Diversity, Continuity, and Transformation. 2003. *Early Christian literature: http://www.voskrese.info/spl/index.html
Schürer, Emil. The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Glancy, Jennifer A. Slavery in Early Christianity. 2002.
Christ (175 B.C.– A.D. 135). Rev. ed. 4 vols. 1973–1987. *Lee, A. D. Pagans and Christians in Late Antiquity: A Sourcebook. 2000.
Torjesen, Karen Jo. When Women Were Priests: Women’s Leadership in *Maas, Michael. Readings in Late Antiquity: A Sourcebook. 2000.
the Early Church and the Scandal of Their Subordination in the Rise MacMullen, Ramsay. Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to
of Christianity. 1993. Eighth Centuries. 1997.
Turcan, Robert. The Cults of the Roman Empire. Trans. Antonia Odahl, Charles. Constantine and the Christian Empire. 2nd ed. 2006.
Nevill. 1996. Rives, James B. Religion in the Roman Empire. 2006.
Trombley, Frank R. Hellenic Religion and Christianization c. 370–529.
The Third-Century Crisis
Vol. 2. 2001.
The fundamental problem in the third century remained the same:
the Roman monarchy’s propensity to generate civil war and the Non-Roman Kingdoms in the West, c. 370–550s
inevitably disastrous effects on the economy. Hence, scholarly study
of the crisis emphasizes military and political history. Debate continues over how to categorize the social and cultural
transformation of the Roman world in the fourth and fifth centuries
Bowman, Alan, et al. The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 12, The and the development of separate ethnic identities by the non-Roman
Crisis of Empire, AD 193–337. 2005. peoples who created new kingdoms inside the empire’s borders.
Campbell, Brian. Warfare and Society in Imperial Rome, 31 B.C.– A.D.
284. 2002. Burns, Thomas. Rome and the Barbarians. 2003.
Decius, the persecutor of Christians: http://www.roman-emperors.org/ Carr, Karen Eva. Vandals to Visigoths: Rural Settlement Patterns in
decius.htm Early Medieval Spain. 2002.
*Dodgeon, Michael H., and Samuel N. C. Lieu. The Roman Eastern *Drew, Katherine Fischer, trans. The Laws of the Salian Franks. 1991.
Frontier and the Persian Wars A.D. 226–363: A Documentary Geary, Patrick J. The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe.
History. 1994. 2001.
Elton, Hugh. Frontiers of the Roman Empire. 1996. Goffart, Walter. Barbarians and Romans, A.D. 418–584. 1987.
Grant, Michael. The Collapse and Recovery of the Roman Empire. 1999. Halsall, Guy. Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West. 2007.
*Herodian. The History (180 to 238 C.E.). Trans. C. R. Whittaker. 1969. Heather, Peter. The Goths. 1996.
Southern, Pat. The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine. 2001. Lançon, Bertrand. Rome in Late Antiquity: Everyday Life and Urban
Change, A.D. 312–609. Trans. Antonia Nevill. 2001.
MacGeorge, Penny. Late Roman Warlords. 2002.
Chapter 7 *Mathisen, Ralph W. People, Personal Expression, and Social Relations
Reorganizing the Empire, 284–395 in Late Antiquity. 2 vols. 2002.

Scholars continue to debate the religious motives of Diocletian and


The Roman Empire in the East, c. 500–565
Constantine. Understanding them is challenging because their
religious sensibilities, markedly different from those of most modern Scholars of the eastern Roman Empire (also called the Byzantine
believers, so deeply influenced their political actions. empire after about 500 C.E.) emphasize the challenge posed to its

*Primary source.
SR-6 Suggested References

rulers in trying to maintain order and prosperity for their Collins, Roger. Early Medieval Spain: Unity in Diversity, 400–1000. 1983.
multicultural and multilingual population. *Fouracre, Paul, and Richard A. Gerberding. Late Merovingian
Eastern Roman (Byzantine) civilization: http://www.fordham.edu/ France: History and Hagiography, 640–720. 1996.
halsall/byzantium Geary, Patrick. Before France and Germany: The Creation and
*Geanakoplos, Deno J. Byzantium: Church, Society, and Civilization Transformation of the Merovingian World. 1988.
Seen Through Contemporary Eyes. 1986. *Gregory of Tours. The History of the Franks. Trans. Lewis Thorpe. 1976.
Haldon, John. The Byzantine Wars. 2001. Heinzelmann, Martin. Gregory of Tours: History and Society in the
Kalavrezou, Ioli. Byzantine Women and Their World. 2003. Sixth Century. 2001.
Matthews, John. The Journey of Theophanes. Travel, Business, and Smith, Julia M. H. Europe after Rome: A New Cultural History
Daily Life in the Roman East. 2006. 500–1000. 2005.
Moorhead, John. The Roman Empire Divided, 400–700. 2001. Smyth, A. P. Warlords and Holy Men: Scotland, AD 80–1000. 1984.
Women in Byzantine history, bibliography: http://www.doaks.org/ Van Dam, Raymond. Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique Gaul.
WomeninByzantium.html 1993.
Wickham, Chris. Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the
Mediterranean, 400–800. 2005.
Chapter 8 *The World of Gregory of Tours: http://www.nipissingu.ca/
Islam: A New Religion and a New Empire department/history/MUHLBERGER/4505/GREGORY.HTM

The classic discussion is in Hodgson. Crone’s book is considered


highly controversial. Berkey’s book is balanced and up-to-date. Chapter 9
Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Byzantium: Renewed Strength and Influence
Modern Debate. 1992.
Berkey, Jonathan P. The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in Recent studies of Byzantium stress the revival in the arts and
the Near East, 600–1800. 2003. literature, but Whittow is excellent on political, social, and religious
Crone, Patricia. Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam. 1987. issues. Almost nothing was available in English on eastern Europe
Donner, Fred McGraw. The Early Islamic Conquests. 1981. and Russia until the 1980s.
Hodgson, Marshall G. S. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History Brubaker, Leslie, and Julia M. H. Smith. Gender in the Early Medieval
in a World Civilization. Vol. 1, The Classical Age of Islam. 1974. World: East and West, 300–900. 2004.
*Islamic Sourcebook: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/islam/ Fine, Jon V. A., Jr. The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from
islamsbook.html the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century. 1983.
Kennedy, Hugh. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Franklin, Simon, and Jonathan Shepard. The Emergence of Rus,
Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century. 1986. 750–1200. 1996.
Garland, Lynda. Byzantine Empresses: Women and Power in
Byzantium: A Christian Empire under Siege Byzantium, AD 527–1204. 1999.
While some scholars (Ousterhout and Brubaker) concentrate on Maguire, Henry, ed. Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204. 1997.
religion, culture, and the role of icons, others (Treadgold, Whittow) *Psellus, Michael. Fourteen Byzantine Rulers: The Chronographia.
tend to stress politics and war. Trans. E. R. A. Sewter. 1966.
Whittow, Mark. The Making of Byzantium, 600–1025. 1996.
Connor, Carolyn L. Women of Byzantium. 2004.
*Geanakoplos, Deno John, ed. and trans. Byzantium: Church, Society, The Islamic World: From Unity to Fragmentation
and Civilization Seen through Contemporary Eyes. 1986.
Haldon, J. F. Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The Transformation The traditional approach to the Islamic world is political (Kennedy).
of a Culture. 1990. Glick is unusual in taking a comparative approach. The newest issue for
Norwich, John Julius. Byzantium: The Early Centuries. 1989. scholars is the role of women in medieval Islamic society (Spellberg).
Ousterhout, Robert, and Leslie Brubaker. The Sacred Image East and Cobb illustrates the forces that later tore the Abbasid caliphate apart.
West. 1995. Cobb, Paul M. White Banners: Contention in Abbasid Syria, 750–880.
*Selected sources: Byzantium: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ 2001.
sbook1c.html Glick, Thomas. Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages:
Treadgold, Warren. A History of the Byzantine State and Society. 1997. Comparative Perspectives on Social and Cultural Formation. 1979.
Whittow, Mark. The Making of Byzantium, 600–1025. 1996. Islamic sources: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1d.html
Kennedy, Hugh. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The
Western Europe: A Medley of Kingdoms
Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century. 1986.
Smith and Wickham provide new and complementary overviews. Makdisi, George. The Rise of Colleges. 1981.
Keen interest in the role of the cults of the saints in early medieval Spellberg, Denise. Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past. 1994.
society is reflected in Van Dam. While interest in Anglo-Saxon
England has not diminished, other parts of the British Isles are The Creation and Division of a New European Empire
receiving new attention, as Smyth demonstrates. Many of the primary sources for the Carolingian world are now available
*Bede. A History of the English Church and People. Trans. Leo Sherley- in English translation, thanks in large part to the work of Dutton.
Price. 1991. Hodges and Whitehouse provide the perspective of archaeologists. The

*Primary source.
Suggested References SR-7

Carolingian renaissance is increasingly recognized as a long-term Church Reform and Its Aftermath
development rather than simply the achievement of Charlemagne.
The Investiture Conflict, which pitted the pope against the emperor,
Becher, Matthias. Charlemagne. 2003. has been particularly important to German historians. Blumenthal
*Dutton, Paul Edward, ed. Carolingian Civilization: A Reader. 1993. gives a useful overview, while Miller gives the key primary sources.
*———, ed. and trans. Charlemagne’s Courtier: The Complete The consequences of church reform and the new papal monarchy
Einhard. 1998. included the growth of canon law (see Brundage). Little provides the
*Einhard and Notker the Stammerer. Two Lives of Charlemagne. now-classic discussion of the new monastic orders of poverty.
Trans. Lewis Thorpe. 1969.
Berman, Constance Hoffman. The Cistercian Evolution: The
Hodges, Richard, and David Whitehouse. Mohammed, Charlemagne,
Invention of a Religious Order in Twelfth-Century Europe. 2000.
and the Origins of Europe. 1983.
Blumenthal, Uta-Renate. The Investiture Controversy: Church &
McKitterick, Rosamond. Carolingian Culture: Emulation and
Monarchy from the 9th to the 12th Century. 1991.
Innovation. 1994.
Brundage, James A. Medieval Canon Law. 1995.
Nelson, Janet. Charles the Bald. 1987.
Little, Lester K. Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval
Riche, Pierre. Daily Life in the World of Charlemagne. Trans. J. A.
Europe. 1978.
McNamara. 1978.
*Miller, Maureen C. Power and the Holy in the Age of the Investiture
After the Carolingians: The Emergence of Local Rule Conflict. 2005.
Robinson, Ian S. Henry IV of Germany. 2000.
Historians used to lament the passing of the Carolingian Empire.
More recently, however, they have come to appreciate the strengths The Crusades
and adaptive strategies of the post-Carolingian world. Duby speaks of
A perennially popular topic, the crusade movement as a whole is
the agricultural “takeoff ” of the period, whereas Head and Landes
given balanced treatment by Tyerman, while Asbridge covers the First
explore new institutions of peace.
Crusade in lively detail.
Duby, Georges. The Early Growth of the European Economy: Warriors
Asbridge, Thomas. The First Crusade: A New History. 2004.
and Peasants from the Seventh to the Twelfth Century. Trans. H. B.
Crusades: http://www.medievalcrusades.com
Clark. 1974.
*Kerak castle: http://www.vkrp.org/studies/historical/town-castle
Engel, Pál. The Realm of St. Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary,
*Peters, Edward, ed. The First Crusade: The Chronicle of Fulcher of
895–1526. Trans. Tamás Pálosfalvi. 2001.
Chartres and Other Source Materials. 1971.
Forte, Angelo, Richard Oram, and Frederick Pederson. Viking
Tyerman, Christopher. God’s War: A New History of the Crusades. 2006.
Empires. 2005.
Frantzen, Allen. King Alfred. 1986. The Revival of Monarchies
Goldberg, Eric J. Struggle for Empire: Kingship and Conflict under
Louis the German, 817–876. 2006. The growth of monarchical power and the development of state
Head, Thomas, and Richard Landes, eds. The Peace of God: Social institutions are topics of keen interest to historians. Clanchy points to
Violence and Religious Response in France around the Year 1000. the use of writing and recordkeeping in government. Suger shows the
1992. importance of the royal image. Douglas and Hallam each discuss
Jones, Gwyn. A History of the Vikings. Rev. ed. 1984. different aspects of the Norman conquest of England.
*Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts: http://www.columbia.edu/ Bayeux Tapestry: http://www.bayeuxtapestry.org.uk/Index.htm
cu/libraries/indiv/rare/images/date.html Chibnall, Marjorie. Anglo-Norman England, 1066–1166. 1986.
Sweeney, Del, ed. Agriculture in the Middle Ages: Technology, Practice, Clanchy, Michael. From Memory to Written Record: England
and Representation. 1995. 1066–1307. 2nd ed. 1993.
*Whitelock, Dorothy, ed. English Historical Documents. Vol. 1. 2nd Douglas, David C. William the Conqueror: The Norman Impact upon
ed. 1979. England. 1967.
Dunbabin, Jean. France in the Making, 843–1180. 1985.
Chapter 10 Grant, Lindy. Abbot Suger of St-Denis: Church and State in Early
Twelfth-Century France. 1998.
The Commercial Revolution Hallam, Elizabeth M. Domesday Book through Nine Centuries. 1986.
The idea of a commercial revolution in the Middle Ages originated *Suger. The Deeds of Louis the Fat. Trans. Richard C. Cusimano and
with Lopez. Hyde explores the society and government of the Italian John Moorhead. 1992.
communes.
Chapter 11
Constable, Olivia Remie. Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The
Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900–1500. 1994. New Schools and Churches
Hyde, J. K. Society and Politics in Medieval Italy: The Evolution of Civil
Abelard’s story is both entertaining and revealing. The life and works
Life, 1000–1350. 1973.
of Peter the Chanter are masterfully presented in Baldwin’s study.
Lopez, Robert S. The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages,
Coldstream looks at Gothic architecture in its full European context.
950–1350. 1976.
*———, and Irving W. Raymond. Medieval Trade in the *Abelard’s The Story of My Misfortunes: http://www.fordham.edu/
Mediterranean World. 1955. halsall/source/abelard-sel.html

*Primary source.
SR-8 Suggested References

Baldwin, John. Masters, Princes and Merchants: The Social Views of Audisio, Gabriel. The Waldensian Dissent: Persecution and Survival, c.
Peter the Chanter and His Circle. 1970. 1170–c. 1570. Trans. Claire Davison. 1999.
Bouchard, Constance Brittain. “Every Valley Shall Be Exalted”: The Bartlett, Robert. The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization, and
Discourse of Opposites in Twelfth-Century Thought. 2003. Cultural Change, 950–1350. 1993.
Clanchy, Michael. Abelard: A Medieval Life. 1997. Christiansen, Eric. The Northern Crusades. 2nd ed. 1998.
Coldstream, Nicola. Medieval Architecture. 2002. *The Little Flowers of Saint Francis. Trans. L. Sherley-Price. 1959.
Gothic architecture: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/arch/ Little, Lester K. Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval
gothic_arch.html Europe. 1978.
*The Letters of Abelard and Heloise. Trans. Betty Radice. 1974. Robson, Michael. The Franciscans in the Middle Ages. 2006.
Tyerman, Christopher. Fighting for Christendom: Holy War and the
Governments as Institutions Crusades. 2004.
Wakefield, Walter L. Heresy, Crusade, and Inquisition in Southern
The medieval origins of modern state institutions is a traditional
France, 1100–1250. 1974.
interest of historians studying the medieval period. Hudson explores
the growth of royal institutions of justice. Baldwin gives a carefully
focused account of the French experience. Bartlett insists on the
differences between medieval and modern political institutions.
Chapter 12
Baldwin, John W. The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of The Church’s Mission
French Royal Power in the Middle Ages. 1986. Historians (e.g., Sayers) remain interested in the important religious
Bartlett, Robert. England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, figures behind the thirteenth-century church. Bynum looks at the
1075–1225. 2000. impact of new church doctrine on the laity and the way the laity
Evergates, Theodore, ed. Aristocratic Women in Medieval France. 1999. actively interpreted it. There is considerable interest in the
Fuhrmann, Horst. Germany in the High Middle Ages, c. 1050–1200. persecution of minorities — see Jordan, Moore, and Nirenberg.
Trans. T. Reuter. 1986.
Hudson, John. The Formation of the English Common Law: Law and Bynum, Caroline Walker. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious
Society in England from the Norman Conquest to Magna Carta. 1996. Significance of Food to Medieval Women. 1987.
Jordan, Karl. Henry the Lion: A Biography. Trans. P. S. Falla. 1986. *Fourth Lateran Council: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/
*Otto of Freising. The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa. Trans. C. C. lat4-select.html
Mierow. 1953. Jordan, William Chester. The French Monarchy and the Jews: From
Philip Augustus to the Last Capetians. 1989.
The Growth of a Vernacular High Culture Moore, R. I. The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and
Deviance in Western Europe, 950–1250. 1987.
Chrétien de Troyes’s Yvain is a good example of a twelfth-century Nirenberg, David. Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities
romance, while troubadour poetry is collected in Goldin’s anthology. in the Middle Ages. 1996.
Cheyette gives an illuminating account of one southern French ruler Sayers, Jane. Innocent III: Leader of Europe, 1198–1216. 1994.
and her world, and Wheeler and Parsons’s collection sheds light on
another. The Medieval Synthesis
Bouchard, Constance B. “Strong of Body, Brave and Noble”: Chivalry There is always lively interest in Thomas Aquinas (see, e.g., McInerny
and Society in Medieval France. 1998. and Nichols). For literature, Dante is key. Gothic art and architecture
Cheyette, Fredric L. Ermengard of Narbonne and the World of the is well covered in Duby’s work.
Troubadours. 2001.
*Chrétien de Troyes. Yvain: The Knight of the Lion. Trans. Burton *Dante. The Divine Comedy. Many editions; recommended are
Raffel. 1987. translations by Mark Musa and John Ciardi. The Inferno has been
Crouch, David. William Marshal: Court, Career, and Chivalry in the particularly well translated by Robert Pinsky and, most recently,
Angevin Empire, 1147–1219. 1990. by Robert Hollander and Jean Hollander.
*Goldin, Frederick. Lyrics of the Troubadors and Trouvères: Original Duby, Georges. The Age of the Cathedrals: Art and Society, 980–1420.
Texts, with Translations. 1973. Trans. Eleanor Levieux and Barbara Thompson. 1981.
*The Song of Roland. Trans. P. Terry. 1965. McInerny, Ralph M. Aquinas. 2004
Troubadour poetry: http://globegate.utm.edu/french/globegate_ Nichols, Aidan. Discovering Aquinas: An Introduction to His Life,
mirror/occit.html Work and Influence. 2003.
Wheeler, Bonnie, and John Carmi Parsons, ed. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Panofsky, Erwin. Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism. 1951.
Lord and Lady. 2003. Smart, Alastair. The Dawn of Italian Painting, 1250–1400. 1978.
*Thomas Aquinas: http://www.newadvent.org/summa
Religious Fervor and Crusade
The Politics of Control
The Little Flowers of Saint Francis gives a good idea of Franciscan
spirituality, while the Franciscans are explored as part of wider Thirteenth-century states used to be seen as harbingers of modern
religious, social, and economic movements in Little’s study. Audisio ones, but the newest history suggests that this is anachronistic. Thus,
looks sympathetically at one heretical group. Tyerman intelligently Abulafia argues that Frederick II followed models of medieval
sums up the crusading movement as a whole. rulership, and O’Callaghan shows how far different medieval

*Primary source.
Suggested References SR-9

representative institutions were from their modern counterparts. Consolidating Power


Only in the last ten or so years have historians studied the prelude to
Cohn and Hay both provide overviews, but most recent books on the
Columbus’s voyages by looking at medieval precedents.
period specialize in one country or another.
Abulafia, David. Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor. 1988.
Cohn, Samuel K., Jr. Lust for Liberty: The Politics of Social Revolt in
Campbell, Mary B. The Witness and the Other World: Exotic European
Medieval Europe, 1200–1425. 2006.
Travel Writing, 400–1600. 1989.
Hay, Denys. Europe in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. 2nd ed.
Farmer, Sharon. Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris: Gender, Ideology,
1989.
and the Daily Lives of the Poor. 2002.
Herlihy, David, and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber. Tuscans and Their
Fernández-Armesto, Felipe. Before Columbus: Exploration and
Families: A Study of the Florentine Catasto of 1427. 1985.
Colonization from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229–1492.
Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of
1987.
Power. 2002.
*Joinville, Jean de, and Geoffroy de Villehardouin. Chronicles of the
*The Letters of the Rožmberk Sisters: Noblewomen in Fifteenth-
Crusades. Trans. M. R. B. Shaw. 1963.
Century Bohemia. Ed and trans. John M. Klassen. 2001.
Jordan, William Chester. The Great Famine: Northern Europe in the
O’Callaghan, Joseph F. A History of Medieval Spain. 1975.
Early Fourteenth Century. 1996.
Morgan, David. The Mongols. 1986.
O’Callaghan, Joseph F. The Cortes of Castille-León, 1188–1350.
1989.
Chapter 14
Richard, Jean. Saint Louis: Crusader King of France. Trans. Jean Widening Horizons
Birrell. 1992.
Strayer, Joseph R. The Reign of Philip the Fair. 1980. The study of European voyages of exploration and conquest has been
reshaped by a more global historical perspective, which pays as much
attention to indigenous peoples’ reactions to the newcomers as it
Chapter 13 does to the conditions experienced by the Europeans.
Buisseret, David. The Mapmakers’ Quest: Depicting New Worlds in
Crisis: Disease, War, and Schism
Renaissance Europe. 2003.
Aberth provides a good overview, while Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Christopher Columbus: http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/1492.exhibit/
Bynum explore various aspects of late medieval piety. Intro.html
Crosby, Alfred. The Colombian Exchange: Biological and Cultural
Aberth, John. From the Brink of the Apocalypse: Confronting Famine,
Consequences of 1492. 1972.
War, Plague, and Death in the Later Middle Ages. 2001.
Fritze, Ronald. New Worlds: The Great Voyages of Discovery,
Babinger, Franz. Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time. 1978.
1400–1600. 2005.
Benedictow, Ole J. The Black Death, 1346–1353: The Complete
Subrahmanyam, Sanjay. The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama. 1997.
History. 2004.
*Symcox, Geoffrey, and Blair Sullivan. Christopher Columbus and the
*The Black Death. Ed. and trans. Rosemary Horrox. 1994.
Enterprise of the Indies: A Brief History with Documents. 2005.
Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Renate. Poets, Saints, and Visionaries of the
Great Schism, 1378–1417. 2006.
*Books of Hours: http://www.wellesley.edu/Library/SpecColl/ The Protestant Reformation
BookOfHours/bookhome.html While continuing to refine our understanding of the leading
Bynum, Caroline. Wonderful Blood. Theology and Practice in Late Protestant reformers, recent scholars have also offered new
Medieval Northern Germany and Beyond. 2006. interpretations that take into consideration the popular impact of
*Joan of Arc. La Pucelle. Trans. Craig Taylor. 2006. the reformers’ teachings.
Bernard, G. W. The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking
The Renaissance: New Forms of Thought and Expression of the English Church. 2005.
Once considered a purely Italian phenomenon, the Renaissance is Eisenstein, Elizabeth. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern
now understood to have penetrated all of Europe and the court of the Europe. 2005.
Ottoman sultan as well. *Essential Works of Erasmus. Ed. W. T. H. Jackson. 1965.
*Hillerbrand, Hans J., ed. The Protestant Reformation. 1969.
Bisaha, Nancy. Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Hsia, R. Po-chia, ed. Cambridge History of Christianity. Vol. 6, Reform
Ottoman Turks. 2004. and Expansion 1500–1660. 2006.
Boehm, Barbara Drake, and Jiří Fajt, eds. Prague: The Crown of Jardine, Lisa. Erasmus: Man of Letters. 1993.
Bohemia, 1347–1437. 2005. Martin Luther’s writings: http://www.ctsfw.edu/etext/luther
*Elmer, Peter, Nick Webb, and Roberta Wood, eds. The Renaissance in Rublack, Ulinka. Reformation Europe. 2005.
Europe: An Anthology. 2000.
Grendler, Paul F. The Universities of the Italian Renaissance. 2002.
Reshaping Society through Religion
Jardine, Lisa, and Jerry Brotton. Global Interests: Renaissance Art
between East and West. 2000. The most important trend in recent scholarship has been the
Kent, F. W. Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Art of Magnificence. 2004. consideration of the impact of the Reformation on society and
Kirkpatrick, Robin. The European Renaissance: 1400–1600. 2002. culture. Many studies have shown the limited influence of the ideas

*Primary source.
SR-10 Suggested References

of reformers; others document the persistence of traditional religious Pursell, Brennan C. The Winter King: Frederick V of the Palatinate and
habits and practices well past the sixteenth century. the Coming of the Thirty Years’ War. 2003.
Bagchi, David, and David Steinmetz. The Cambridge Companion to
Reformation Theology. 2004. Economic Crisis and Realignment
Collinson, Patrick. The Reformation: A History. 2004. Painstaking archival research has enabled historians to reconstruct
Koenigsberger, H. B. Early Modern Europe 1500–1789. 1999. the demographic, economic, and social history of the period
Marshall, Sherrin, ed. Women in Reformation and Counter- discussed in this chapter. Recently, attention has shifted to the
Reformation Europe: Public and Private Worlds. 1989. competition for empire in the New World.
*Müntzer, Thomas. Revelation and Revolution: Basic Writings of
Thomas Müntzer. 1993. Ashton, Trevor H., ed. Crisis in Europe. 1965.
O’Malley, John W. Trent and All That. 2000. Braudel, Fernand. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in
Wiesner, Merry. Christianity and the Regulation of Sexuality in the the Age of Philip the Second. 2 vols. Trans. Siân Reynolds.
Early Modern World. 2000. 1972–1973.
*Greer, Allan, ed. Jesuit Relations: Natives and Missionaries in
A Struggle for Mastery Seventeenth-Century North America. 2000.
Seymour, M. J. The Transformation of the North Atlantic World,
Still focused on the struggle between the Habsburg and Valois 1492–1763: An Introduction. 2004.
dynasties, historical scholarship has also moved out in the direction Wiesner, Merry E. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. 2nd
of cultural and military history. ed. 2000.
*Guicciardini, Francesco. The History of Italy. Trans. Sidney
Alexander. 1969. The Rise of Secular and Scientific Worldviews
Kleinschmidt, Harald. Charles V: The World Emperor. 2004.
The transformation of intellectual and cultural life has long
Levin, Carole, Debra Barrett-Graves, and Jo Eldridge Carney, eds.
fascinated scholars. Recent works have developed a new kind of study
“High and Mighty Queens” of Early Modern England: Realities and
called microhistory, which focuses on one person (like Ginzburg’s
Representations. 2003.
Italian miller).
MacHardy, Karin. War, Religion, and Court Patronage in Habsburg
Austria, 1521–1622. 2003. Briggs, Robin. Witches & Neighbors: The Social and Cultural Context
Shaw, Christine, ed. Italy and the European Powers: The Impact of of European Witchcraft. 1996.
War, 1500–1530. 2006. The Galileo Project: http://riceinfo.rice.edu/ Galileo
Tanner, Marie. The Last Descendant of Aeneas: The Hapsburgs and the Ginzburg, Carlo. The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a
Mythic Image of the Emperor. 1993. Sixteenth-Century Miller. Trans. John Tedeschi and Anne
Tedeschi. 1992.
Isaac Newton: http://www.newtonproject.ic.ac.uk/prism.php?id’1
Chapter 15
Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic. 1971.
Religious Conflicts and State Power, 1560–1618
The personalities of rulers such as Elizabeth I of England and Philip Chapter 16
II of Spain remain central to the religious and political conflicts of
this period. Louis XIV: Absolutism and Its Limits
Benedict, Philip. Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed: A Social History Recent studies have insisted that absolutism could never be
of Calvinism. 2002. entirely absolute because the king depended on collaboration and
Elizabeth I: http://englishhistory.net/tudor/monarchs/eliz1.html cooperation to enforce his policies. Some of the best sources for
Holt, Mack P. The French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629. 1995. Louis XIV’s reign are the letters written by important
Kamen, Henry. Spain, 1469–1714: A Society of Conflict. 2005. noblewomen.
Mattingly, Garrett. The Defeat of the Spanish Armada. 2nd *Beik, William. Louis XIV and Absolutism: A Brief Study with
ed. 1988. Documents. 2000.
Philip II: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Phillip.htm *Forster, Elborg, trans. A Woman’s Life in the Court of the Sun King:
*Pryor, Felix. Elizabeth I: Her Life in Letters. 2003. Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d’Orléans. 1984.
Rowlands, Guy. The Dynastic State and the Army under Louis XIV:
The Thirty Years’ War, 1618–1648 Royal Service and Private Interest, 1661 to 1701. 2002.
As ethnic conflicts erupt again in eastern Europe, historians have *Sévigné, Madame de. Selected Letters. Trans. Leonard Tancock. 1982.
traced their roots back to the intertwined religious, ethnic, and Treasure, G. R. R. Louis XIV. 2001.
dynastic struggles of the Thirty Years’ War. Versailles: http://www.chateauversailles.fr

Bonney, Richard. The Thirty Years’ War 1618–1648. 2002.


Absolutism in Central and Eastern Europe
Parker, Geoffrey. The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the
Rise of the West, 1500–1800. 1996. Too often central and eastern European forms of state development
Parrott, David. Richelieu’s Army: War, Government and Society in have been characterized as backward in comparison with those of
France, 1624–1642. 2001. western Europe. Now historians emphasize the patterns of ruler-elite

*Primary source.
Suggested References SR-11

cooperation shared with western Europe, but they also underscore Chapter 17
the weight of serfdom in eastern economies and political systems.
The Atlantic System and the World Economy
Barkey, Karen. The Ottoman Route to State Centralization. 1994.
Çiçek, Kemal, ed. The Great Ottoman-Turkish Civilisation. 4 vols. It is easier to find sources on individual parts of the system than on
2000. the workings of the interlocking trade as a whole, but work has been
Kotilaine, Jarmo, and Marshall Poe, eds. Modernizing Muscovy: rapidly increasing in this area. The Dunn book remains one of the
Reform and Social Change in Seventeenth-Century Russia. 2004. classic studies of how the plantation system took root.
Vierhaus, Rudolf. Germany in the Age of Absolutism. Trans. Jonathan Blackburn, Robin. The Making of New World Slavery: From the
B. Knudsen. 1988. Baroque to the Modern, 1492–1800. 1997.
Wilson, Peter H. German Armies: War and German Politics, Dunn, Richard S. Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the
1648–1806. 1998. English West Indies, 1624–1713. 1972.
Harms, Robert. The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave
Constitutionalism in England Trade. 2003.
McKendrick, Neil, John Brewer, and J. H. Plumb. The Birth of a
Though recent interpretations of the English revolutions emphasize Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century
the limits on radical change, Hill’s portrayal of the radical ferment of England. 1982.
ideas remains fundamental. Slave movement during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries:
Cromwell: http://www.olivercromwell.org http://dpls.dacc.wisc.edu/slavedata
*Graham, Elspeth, et al., eds. Her Own Life: Autobiographical Writings
by Seventeenth-Century English Women. 1989. New Social and Cultural Patterns
*Haller, William, and Godfrey Davies, eds. The Leveller Tracts,
Many of the novels of the early eighteenth century provide fascinating
1647–1653. 1944.
insights into the development of new social attitudes and customs. In
Hill, Christopher. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas
particular, see Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Moll
during the English Revolution. 1972.
Flanders (1722); the many novels of Eliza Haywood; and Antoine
*Pincus, Steven C. A. England’s Glorious Revolution, 1688–1689.
François Prévost’s Manon Lescaut (1731), a French psychological
2006.
novel about a nobleman’s fatal love for an unfaithful woman, which
became the basis for an opera in the nineteenth century.
Outposts of Constitutionalism Earle, Peter. The Making of the English Middle Class: Business, Society,
Studies of the Dutch Republic emphasize the importance of trade and Family Life in London, 1660–1730. 1989.
and consumerism. Recent work on the colonies has begun to explore Eighteenth-Century Resources: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/
the intersecting experiences of settlers, native Americans, and African ~jlynch/18th/index.html
slaves. Handel’s Messiah: The New Interactive Edition. CD-ROM. 1997.
Roche, Daniel. The People of Paris: An Essay in Popular Culture in the
France in America: http://international.loc.gov/intldl/fiahtml/ Eighteenth Century. Trans. Marie Evans. 1987.
fiatheme.html#track1
Gragg, Larry. Englishmen Transplanted: The English Colonization of
Consolidation of the European State System
Barbados, 1627–1660. 2003.
Price, J. L. The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century. 1998. Studies of rulers and states can be supplemented by works on public
Schama, Simon. The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of health.
Dutch Culture in the Golden Age. 1988.
Black, Jeremy, ed. The Origins of War in Early Modern Europe. 1987.
Thornton, John. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic
Brewer, John. The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English State,
World, 1400–1800. 1992.
1688–1783. 1990.
Brockliss, Laurence, and Colin Jones. The Medical World of Early
The Search for Order in Elite and Popular Culture Modern France. 1997.
Cracraft, James. The Petrine Revolution in Russian Culture. 2004.
Historians do not always agree about the meaning of popular Hughes, Lindsey. Peter the Great: A Biography. 2002.
culture: Was it something widely shared by all social classes or a set Porter, Roy. Madness: A Brief History. 2002.
of activities increasingly identified with the lower classes, as Burke War of the Spanish Succession: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/
argues? Was discipline of the lower classes increasing as members of PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ad06
the court learned the new emphasis on manners, as Elias argues?
Burke, Peter. Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. 1978. The Birth of the Enlightenment
Davis, Natalie Zemon. Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-
The definitive study of the early Enlightenment is the book by
Century Lives. 1995.
Hazard, but many others have contributed biographies of individual
Elias, Norbert. The Civilizing Process. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. 2000.
figures or, more recently, studies of women writers.
*Fitzmaurice, James, ed. Margaret Cavendish: Sociable Letters. 1997.
*Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin). The Bourgeois [Middle-Class] Besterman, Theodore. Voltaire. 1969.
Gentleman. Trans. Bernard Sahlins. 2000. Grendy, Isobel. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. 1999.

*Primary source.
SR-12 Suggested References

Hazard, Paul. The European Mind: The Critical Years, 1680–1715. 1990. Showalter, Dennis E. The Wars of Frederick the Great. 1996.
*Hill, Bridget, ed. The First English Feminist: Reflections upon Venturi, Franco. The End of the Old Regime in Europe, 1768–1776:
Marriage and Other Writings by Mary Astell. 1986. The First Crisis. Trans. R. Burr Litchfield. 1989.
*Jacob, Margaret C. The Enlightenment: A Brief History with Selected
Readings. 2000. Rebellions against State Power
Women Writers Online: http://www.wwp.brown.edu/texts/wwoentry
Historians have recently shown great interest in the riots and
.html
rebellions of this era, but most have focused on one national case.
Palmer’s overview of political movements therefore remains valuable
Chapter 18 for its comparative aspects.

The Enlightenment at Its Height Alexander, John T. Autocratic Politics in a National Crisis: The Imperial
Russian Government and Pugachev’s Revolt, 1773–1775. 1969.
The interpretive study by Gay remains useful even though it is over Cash, Arthur H. John Wilkes: The Scandalous Father of Civil Liberty.
thirty years old, but the Kors volumes give the most up-to-date views. 2006.
The Lessing play focuses on the question of toleration for the Jews. Palmer, R. R. The Age of Democratic Revolution: A Political History of
*Allison, Robert J., ed. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Europe and America, 1760–1800. Vol. 1, The Challenge. 1959.
Equiano (Written by Himself). 2nd ed. 2006. *Rakove, Jack N. Declaring Rights: A Brief History with Documents.
Gay, Peter. The Enlightenment: An Interpretation. 2 vols. 1966, 1969. 1998.
Immanuel Kant: http://www.manchester.edu/kant Thompson, E. P. Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black Act. 1975.
Kors, Alan Charles, ed. Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment. 4 vols. 2003. John Wilkes: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRwilkes.htm
*Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim. Nathan the Wise. Ed. Ronald Schechter.
2004. Chapter 19
Porter, Roy. The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold Story of the
British Enlightenment. 2000. The Revolutionary Wave, 1787–1789
*Voltaire. Candide. Ed. and trans. Daniel Gordon. 1999.
In the 1950s and 1960s, historians debated vehemently about
whether the French Revolution should be considered part of a more
Society and Culture in an Age of Enlightenment
general phenomenon of Atlantic revolutions, as R. R. Palmer argues.
Recent work has drawn attention to the lives of ordinary people. The The most influential book on the meaning of the French Revolution
personal journal of the French glassworker Ménétra is a rarity: it is still the classic study by Tocqueville, who insisted that the
offers extensive documentation of the inner life of an ordinary Revolution continued the process of state centralization undertaken
person during the Enlightenment. Ménétra claimed to have met by the monarchy.
Rousseau. Even if not true, the claim shows that Rousseau’s fame was
*Censer, Jack R., and Lynn Hunt. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity:
not limited to the upper classes.
Exploring the French Revolution. 2001. (Includes a CD-ROM with
Darnton, Robert. The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in images, songs, and documents.) See also the accompanying Web
French Cultural History. 1984. site: http://www.chnm.gmu.edu/revolution
Hull, Isabel V. Sexuality, State, and Civil Society in Germany, Lefebvre, Georges. The Coming of the French Revolution. Trans. with
1700–1815. 1996. a new preface, R. R. Palmer. 1989.
*Ménétra, Jacques Louis. Journal of My Life. Trans. Arthur Palmer, R. R. The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History
Goldhammer. Intro. Daniel Roche. 1986. of Europe and America, 1760–1800. Vol. 2, The Struggle. 1964.
Mozart Project: http://www.mozartproject.org Polasky, Janet L. Revolution in Brussels, 1787–1793. 1987.
Smith, Douglas. Working the Rough Stone: Freemasonry and Society in Te Brake, Wayne. Regents and Rebels: The Revolutionary World of an
Eighteenth-Century Russia. 1999. Eighteenth-Century Dutch City. 1989.
Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, Tocqueville, Alexis de. The Old Regime and the French Revolution.
1500–1800. Abridged ed. 1979. Trans. Stuart Gilbert. 1955. Originally published 1856.

State Power in an Era of Reform From Monarchy to Republic, 1789–1793


Biographies and general histories of this period tend to From 1789 onward, commentators on the French Revolution have
overemphasize the individual decisions of rulers. Although these differed over its meaning: Was it a struggle for human rights and
decisions are incontestably important, the relentless growth of democracy or a dangerous experiment in implementing reason and
armies impacted virtually every European society. destroying religion and tradition? Among the most important
additions to the debate have been new works on women, Jews,
Blanning, T. C. W. Joseph II and Enlightened Despotism. 1994.
Protestants, and slaves.
Catherine the Great: http://russia.nypl.org/level4.html
*Frederick II, King of Prussia. Frederick the Great on the Art of War. *Hunt, Lynn, ed. The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief
Ed. and trans. Jay Luvaas. 1999. Documentary History. 1996.
Gorbatov, Inna. Catherine the Great and the French Philosophers of the *Levy, Darline Gay, Harriet Branson Applewhite, and Mary Durham
Enlightenment: Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and Johnson, eds. Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789–1795. 1979.
Grimm. 2006. Schama, Simon. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. 1989.

*Primary source.
Suggested References SR-13

*Two Classics of the French Revolution: Reflections on the Revolution “Europe Was at My Feet”: Napoleon’s Conquests
in France (Edmund Burke) and The Rights of Man (Thomas
Napoleon’s armies affected every European state. Whether annexed,
Paine). 1973.
allied, or simply defeated, every nation had to come to terms with
*Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Ed.
this dynamo of activity.
Miriam Brody. 1992.
*Brunn, Geoffrey. Napoleon and His Empire. 1972.
Terror and Resistance Connelly, Owen. Napoleon’s Satellite Kingdoms. 1965.
Forrest, Alan. Napoleon’s Men: The Soldiers of the Revolution and
The most controversial episode in the French Revolution has, not
Empire. 2002.
surprisingly, provoked conflicting interpretations. Not to be over-
Simms, Brendan. The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics,
looked, however, are studies of broader underlying processes, such as
Foreign Policy, and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797–1806. 1997.
Desan’s study of women and the family.
Andress, David. The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in The “Restoration” of Europe
Revolutionary France. 2006.
Diplomatic historians have shown how events in this period shaped
Desan, Suzanne. The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France. 2004.
European affairs for decades. Domestic politics have been relatively
Furet, François. Interpreting the French Revolution. Trans. Elborg
understudied.
Forster. 1981.
Hunt, Lynn. Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution. Johnson, Paul. The Birth of the Modern: World Society, 1815–1830. 1991.
1984. Laven, David, and Lucy Riall, eds. Napoleon’s Legacy: Problems of
Palmer, R. R. Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Government in Restoration Europe. 2000.
Revolution. 1989. Schroeder, Paul W. The Transformation of European Politics,
Scurr, Ruth. Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution. 2006. 1763–1848. 1994.
Seward, Desmond. Metternich: The First European. 1991.
Revolution on the March
In the past, controversy about the Revolution in France raged while
Challenges to the Conservative Order
its influence on other places was relatively neglected. This imbalance In general, the early nineteenth century is an understudied period of
is now being redressed. European history. Unsuccessful revolts attract less attention than
successful ones, but even the Greek, Latin American, and Belgian
Blanning, T. C. W. The French Revolutionary Wars, 1787–1802. 1996.
independence movements need to be better integrated into
Dubois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian
European history.
Revolution. 2004.
———, and John D. Garrigus. Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, Berlin, Sir Isaiah. The Roots of Romanticism. 1999.
1789–1804: A Brief History with Documents. 2006. Betley, J. A. Belgium and Poland in International Relations,
Haitian Revolution: http://www.ci.miami.fl.us/haiti2004/history 1830–1831. 1960.
.htm *Breckman, Warren. European Romanticism. A Brief History with
Irish Rebellion of 1798: http://www.iol.ie/~98com Documents. 2008.
Elliot, Marianne. Partners in Revolution: The United Irishmen and Brewer, David. The Flame of Freedom: The Greek War of Independence,
France. 1982. 1821–1833. 2001.
Forrest, Alan I. The Soldiers of the French Revolution. 1990. Kroen, Sheryl. Politics and Theater: The Crisis of Legitimacy in
Restoration France, 1815–1830. 2000.
*Leader, Zachary, and Ian Haywood, eds. Romantic Period Writings,
Chapter 20 1798–1832: An Anthology. 1998.
The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte Romantic Chronology: http://english.ucsb.edu:591/rchrono
Sir Walter Scott digital archives: http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac
Much has been written about Napoleon as a military leader, but only .uk/home.html
recently has his regime within France attracted interest. Historians
now emphasize the mixed quality of Napoleon’s rule. He carried
forward some revolutionary innovations and halted others. Chapter 21
*Arnold, Eric A., Jr., ed. A Documentary Survey of Napoleonic France. The Industrial Revolution
1994.
The spread of industrialization has elicited much more historical
*Blaufarb, Rafe. Napoleon: A Symbol for an Age. A Brief History with
interest than the process of urbanization because the analysis of
Documents. 2008.
industrialization occupied a central role in Marxism.
Englund, Steven. Napoleon: A Political Life. 2004.
Kafker, Frank A., and James M. Laux. Napoleon and His Times: Berend, Ivan T. History Derailed: Central and Eastern Europe in the
Selected Interpretations. 1992. Long Nineteenth Century. 2003.
Napoleon Foundation: http://www.napoleon.org Industrial Revolution: http://www.victorianweb.org/technology/
Wilson-Smith, Timothy. Napoleon and His Artists. 1996. ir/irov.html
Woloch, Isser. Napoleon and His Collaborators: The Making of a Morgan, Kenneth. The Birth of Industrial Britain: Social Change,
Dictatorship. 2001. 1750–1850. 2004.

*Primary source.
SR-14 Suggested References

*Pollard, S., and C. Holmes. Documents of European Economic impact in Russia. Worobec’s and Stites’s books give a searching look
History. Vol. 1, The Process of Industrialization, 1750–1870. 1968. at the lives of Russian serfs in this age of transition.
Thompson, E. P. The Making of the English Working Class. 1964.
Baumgart, Winfried. The Crimean War, 1853–1856. 1999.
Hazareesingh, Sudhir. From Subject to Citizen: The Second Empire and
Reforming the Social Order the Emergence of Modern French Democracy. 1998.
There is no shortage of materials on social and cultural life in this Stites, Richard. Serfdom, Society, and the Arts in Imperial Russia: The
era, but what is lacking is broader integration of them into the Pleasure and the Power. 2005.
general historical narrative. The Web site Gallica, produced by the Worobec, Christine. Peasant Russia: Family and Community in the
National Library of France, offers a wealth of imagery and Post-Emancipation Period. 1991.
information on French cultural history. Wortman, Richard S. Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in
Russian Monarchy. 2 vols. 1995–2000.
Davidoff, Leonore, and Catherine Hall. Family Fortunes: Men and
Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850. 1987. War and Nation Building
The Dickens Project: http://humwww.ucsc.edu/dickens
Gallica: Images and Texts from Nineteenth-Century French- Nation building has produced a varied literature ranging from
Speaking Culture: http://gallica.bnf.fr biographies to studies of ceremonials and the presentation of royalty
Townsend, Mary Lee. Forbidden Laughter: Popular Humor and the as celebrities and unifying figures. Two Web sites show the
Limits of Repression in Nineteenth-Century Prussia. 1992. complexities of this process: Brown University’s Victorian Web
demonstrates the connections among royalty, politicians, religion, and
Ideologies and Political Movements culture; and Bucknell University’s Russian Studies site opens to the
strains of the Russian national anthem, composed in the reign of
Ideologies are too often studied in an exclusively national context, so Nicholas I to foster reverence for the dynasty and homeland.
broader generalizations are especially welcome.
Ascoli, Albert Russell, and Krystyna Von Henneberg, eds. Making and
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin Remaking Italy: The Cultivation of National Identity around the
and Spread of Nationalism. 1983. Risorgimento. 1991.
Blom, Ida, Karen Hagemann, and Catherine Hall, eds. Gendered Blackbourn, David. Fontana History of Germany, 1780–1918: The
Nations: Nationalisms and Gender Order in the Long Nineteenth Long Nineteenth Century. 1997.
Century. 2000. Breuilly, John. The Formation of the First German Nation-State,
Hobsbawm, E. J. The Age of Revolution, 1789–1848. 1996. 1800–1871. 1996.
*Mather, F. C., ed. Chartism and Society: An Anthology of Documents. Homans, Margaret. Royal Representations: Queen Victoria and British
1980. Culture, 1837–1876. 1998.
Sewell, William H., Jr. Work and Revolution in France: The Language Russian Studies: http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/Russian
of Labor from the Old Regime to 1848. 1980. Smith, Paul. Disraeli: A Brief Life. 1996.
Taylor, Barbara. Eve and the New Jerusalem: Socialism and Feminism The Victorian Web: http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/victov
in the Nineteenth Century. 1983. .html
Wetzel, David. A Duel of Giants: Bismarck, Napoleon III, and the
The Revolutions of 1848 Origins of the Franco-Prussian War. 2001.
Interest in the revolutions of 1848 has revived of late, perhaps
because the recent upsurge of ethnic violence in the Balkans has
Establishing Social Order
prompted scholars to look again at this critical period. Nation building entailed state-sponsored activities stretching from
promoting education to rebuilding cities. New histories show the
Dowe, Dieter, ed. Europe in 1848: Revolution and Reform. Trans.
process of creating a sense of nationality through government
David Higgins. 2001.
management of people’s environment, such that citizenship became
Evans, Robert, and Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann, eds. The
part of everyday life. Hine and Faragher show the intersection of U.S.
Revolutions in Europe, 1848–1849. 2000.
expansionism and nation building, while works by Megill and Eichner
Lincoln, W. Bruce. Nicholas I: Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias.
interpret Marx and the Paris Commune. Northwestern University has
1978.
digitized its collection on the Siege of Paris and the Commune.
Sperber, Jonathan. The European Revolutions, 1848–1851. 1994.
Toíbín, Colm, and Diarmaid Ferriter. The Irish Famine: A Documentary. Chakravarty, Gautam. The Indian Mutiny and the British
2002. Imagination. 2005.
*Walker, Mack. Metternich’s Europe. 1968. Eichner, Carolyn. Surmounting the Barricades: Women in the Paris
Commune. 2004.
Hamm, Michael F. Kiev: A Portrait, 1800–1917. 1993.
Chapter 22 Hine, Robert V., and John Mack Faragher. The American West: A New
Interpretative History. 2001.
The End of the Concert of Europe
Hoffenberg, Peter H. An Empire on Display: English, Indian, and
Historians have often neglected the inglorious Crimean War despite Australian Exhibitions from the Crystal Palace to the Great War. 2001.
its impact on European politics. Much of the best new literature Johanson, Christine. Women’s Struggle for Higher Education in Russia,
focuses not only on political changes but also on the war’s social 1855–1900. 1987.

*Primary source.
Suggested References SR-15

Jordan, David. Transforming Paris: The Life and Labor of Baron interpretation of the social relations involved. Headrick connects the
Haussmann. 1995. advance of industry with both peaceful activities and imperial
Keene, Donald. Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852–1912. expansion and warfare. The University of Pennsylvania’s African
2002. studies Web site offers vivid depictions of African art and
Megill, Allan. Karl Marx: The Burden of Reason (Why Marx Rejected architecture, such as that confiscated for Western museums, while the
Politics and the Market). 2002. Chrétien book investigates the long-term effects of European
Rotenberg, Robert. Landscape and Power in Vienna. 1995. imperialism in Africa.
Siege of Paris Collection, Northwestern University: http://www
African Studies Center: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/
.library.northwestern.edu/spec/siege
AS.html
Cannadine, David. Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their
The Culture of Social Order
Empire. 2001.
Like the biographies of politicians, the biographies of artists and Chrétien, Jean-Pierre, The Great Lakes of Africa: 2,000 Years of
intellectuals have proved crucial to understanding the period of History. 2003.
realism and Realpolitik. Eldredge’s book on Darwin examines his Crosby, Alfred W. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansions of
notebooks to see at what point he switched from believing the Europe, 900–1900. 1993.
religious story of creation to proposing evolution. Kaufman’s book Ferro, Marc. Colonization: A Global History. 1997.
shows how the Catholic church harnessed the modern forces of Headrick, Daniel R. The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and
tourism and transportation to religious fervor. International Politics, 1851–1945. 1991.
Keene, Donald. Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World. 2002.
Bordenheimer, Rosemarie. The Real Life of Mary Ann Evans: George
*Stanley, Sir Henry. Autobiography. 1909.
Eliot, Her Letters and Fiction. 1994.
Wildenthal, Lora. German Women for Empire, 1884–1945. 2001.
Eldredge, Niles. Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life. 2005.
Kaufman, Suzanne. Consuming Visions: Mass Culture and the Lourdes
Shrine. 2005.
Imperial Society and Culture
Nord, Philip. Impressionists and Politics: Art and Democracy in the Historians have come to see that industrial development and the
Nineteenth Century. 2000. spread of imperialism affected the smallest details of everyday life as
*Turgenev, Ivan. A Hunter’s Sketches. 1852. well as the larger phenomena of class formation and massive regional
and global migration. Blakely gives particularly rich portrayals of
Chapter 23 cultural mixture, exploitation, motivation, and resistance under the
colonial regime.
The Advance of Industry
Blakely, Allison. Blacks in the Dutch World: The Evolution of Racial
Industry in the 1870s–1890s advanced on every front, from the Imagery in Modern Society. 1993.
development of new products and procedures to the reorganization *Bonnell, Victoria, ed. The Russian Worker. 1983.
of work life and consumption. Crouzet’s sweeping new work on the Callen, Anthea. The Art of Impressionism: Painting Technique and the
creation of economic structures contrasts with other recent studies Making of Modernity. 2000.
(such as Rappaport’s) on the impact of consumers and taste in Hoerder, Dirk. Cultures in Contact: World Migrations in the Second
driving economic change. Millennium. 2002.
Maynes, Mary Jo. Taking the Hard Road: Life Course in French and
Crossick, Geoffrey, and Serge Jaumin, eds. Cathedrals of
German Workers’ Autobiographies in the Era of Industrialization. 1995.
Consumption: The European Department Store, 1850–1939. 1999.
McReynolds, Louise. Russia at Play: Leisure Activities at the End of the
Crouzet, Francois. A History of the European Economy, 1000–2000. 2001.
Tsarist Era. 2003.
Franzoi, Barbara. At the Very Least She Pays the Rent: Women and
Moch, Leslie Page. Moving Europeans: Migration in Western Europe
German Industrialization. 1985.
since 1650. 2003.
Malone, Carolyn. Women’s Bodies and Dangerous Trades in England,
Reeder, Linda. Widows in White: Migration and the Transformation of
1880–1914. 2003.
Rural Italian Women, Sicily, 1880–1920. 2003.
Marks, Steven G. Road to Power: The Trans-Siberian Railroad and the
Colonization of Asian Russia, 1850–1917. 1991.
The Birth of Mass Politics
Morris, Charles B. The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D.
Rockefeller, Jay Gould, and J. P. Morgan Invented the American Historical study of politics in this period entails looking at both
Supereconomy. 2005. government policies and the activism based on neighborhood
Smith, Michael S. The Emergence of Modern Business Enterprise in solidarity, the growth of unions, and the rise of the mass media. The
France, 1800–1930. 2006. Avalon Project at the Yale Law School provides access to major treaties
Rappaport, Erika. Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of and conventions, making it an excellent resource for this period.
London’s West End. 2000.
Applegate, Celia. A Nation of Provincials: The German Idea of Heimat.
1990.
The New Imperialism
Avalon Project at Yale Law School: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/
New studies of imperialism show not only increasing conquest and avalon/avalon.htm
the creation of an international economy but also the cultural Eley, Geoff. Forging Democracy: A History of the Left in Europe,
impulses behind it. Cannadine offers a readable — and debatable — 1850–2000. 2002.

*Primary source.
SR-16 Suggested References

Glassheim, Eagle. Noble Nationaists: The Transformation of the working class a foundation in the works of Shakespeare and other
Bohemian Aristocracy. 2005. classical writers. Another major phenomenon was a growing political
Hoppen, K. Theodore. Ireland since 1800: Conflict and Conformity. 1999. hatred and the rise of militant nationalism to replace nationalism
Jenkins, Jennifer. Provincial Modernity: Local Culture and Liberal based on constitutional values.
Politics in Fin-de-Siècle Hamburg. 2003.
Dennis, David B. Beethoven in German Politics, 1870–1989. 1996.
McDonough, Terrence, ed. Was Ireland a Colony?: Economics, Politics,
Forth, Christopher E. The Dreyfus Affair and the Crisis of French
and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Ireland. 2005.
Manhood. 2004.
Mazower, Mark. The Balkans: A Short History. 2000.
Frankel, Richard E. Bismarck’s Shadow: The Cult of Leadership and the
Ross, Ellen. Love and Toil: Motherhood in Outcast London,
Transformation of the German Right, 1898–1945. 2005.
1870–1918. 1993.
Kent, Susan. Gender and Power in Britain, 1640–1990. 1999.
Lendavi, Paul. The Hungarians: A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat.
Chapter 24 2003.
Lindemann, Albert. Anti-Semitism before the Holocaust. 2000.
Private Life in the Modern Age
Robertson, Ritchie, and Edward Timms. Theodor Herzl and the
Historians are engaged in serious study of the transformations of Origins of Zionism. 2005.
everyday life brought about by industrial and imperial advance in the Rose, Jonathan. Intellectual Life of the British Working Class. 2001.
early twentieth century. Women’s striving for personal autonomy was
expressed in dozens of novels about the “new woman,” including the European Imperialism Challenged
famous Keys to Happiness, now available in an English translation.
In the midst of raucous political and social debate, the European
Forth, Christopher. The Dreyfus Affair and the Crisis of French powers faced growing resistance to their domination and increasingly
Manhood. 2004. serious setbacks. Many historians now judge Europe to have played a
Roberts, Mary Louise. Disruptive Acts: The New Woman in Fin-de- less commanding role in the rest of the world than the leading
Siècle France. 2002. empires claimed. Imperial instability, as some studies show, paved the
*Verbitskaya, Anastasia. The Keys to Happiness. Trans. Beth Holmgren road to war. The fascination with the major non-Western
and Helen Goscilo. 1999. Originally published 1908–1913. contender — Japan — can be traced on the Japanese history Web site.
Vicinus, Martha. Intimate Friendships: Women Who Loved Women,
1778–1928. 2004. Japanese history: http://www.csuohio.edu/history/japan/index.html
Walkowitz, Judith. City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Conklin, Alice. A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in
Danger in Late-Victorian London. 1993. France and West Africa, 1895–1930. 1997.
Gooch, John, ed. The Boer War: Direction, Experiences, Image. 2000.
Modernity and the Revolt in Ideas Hull, Isabel. Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of
Some of the most controversial historical writing sees the road to World War in Imperial Germany. 2005.
War I as paved with cultural conflict. Many of the studies here suggest Kansu, Aykut. The Revolution of 1908 in Turkey. 1997.
that new forms of art, music, dance, and philosophy were as central to Sinha, Mrinalini. Colonial Masculinity: The “Manly Englishman” and
the challenges Europe faced as were ethnic, economic, and international the “Effeminate Bengali” in the Late Nineteenth Century. 1995.
turmoil. The Web offers good cultural sites for this important period. South African War: http://www.anglo-boer.co.za
Weeks, Theodore R. Nation and State in Late Imperial Russia:
Art nouveau: http://www.nga.gov/feature/nouveau/nouveau.htm Nationalism and Russification on the Western Frontier. 1996.
Eksteins, Modris. Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the
Modern Age. 1989.
Roads to War
Everdell, William R. The First Moderns: Profiles in the Origins of
Twentieth-Century Thought. 1997. Why World War I broke out remains a widely debated topic. There are
Gibson, Mary. Born to Crime; Cesare Lombroso and the Origins of always newcomers to the discussion devoted to assessing the
Biological Criminology. 2002. responsibility for the war’s beginning, some fixing on a single country
Marchand, Suzanne, and David Lindenfeld, eds. Germany at the Fin and others investigating the full range of diplomatic, military, social,
de Siècle: Culture, Politics, and Ideas. 2004. and economic conditions.
Marks, Steven. How Russia Shaped the Modern World: From Art to
Ascher, Abraham. The Revolution of 1905: Russia in Disarray. 1988.
Anti-Semitism, Ballet to Bolshevism. 2003.
Clark, Christopher. William II. 2000.
Nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy: http://www
Cornwall, Mark, ed. The Last Years of Austria-Hungary: A Multi-
.epistemelinks.com/index.asp
National Experiment in Early Twentieth-Century Europe. 2002.
Safranski, Rüdiger. Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography. 2002.
Hermann, David G. The Arming of Europe and the Making of the First
Staller, Natasha. A Sum of Destructions: Picasso’s Cultures and the
World War. 1996.
Creation of Cubism. 2001.
Hewitson, Mark. Germany and the Causes of the First World War. 2004.
Hobson, Rolf. Imperialism at Sea: Naval Strategic Thought, the
Growing Tensions in Mass Politics
Ideology of Sea Power, and the Tirpitz Plan, 1875–1914. 2002.
Historians are uncovering the dramatic changes in political life and Manning, Roberta. The Crisis of the Old Order in Russia. 1982.
the rise of mass politics across Europe, including the development of Nolan, Michael E. The Inverted Mirror: Mythologizing the Enemy in
suffragist movements. Rose shows that mass education gave the France and Germany, 1898–1914. 2005.

*Primary source.
Suggested References SR-17

Chapter 25 The Aftermath of War: Europe in the 1920s


The Great War, 1914–1918 Two themes shape the history of the 1920s: recovery from the trauma
of war and revolution and ongoing modernization of work and
The most recent histories of the Great War consider its military, social life. The great technological innovations of the prewar period
technological, psychic, social, and economic aspects. This vision of such as films and airplanes receive sophisticated treatment by
the war as a phenomenon occurring beyond the battlefield as well as historians for their impact on people’s imagination. The radio is
on it characterizes the newest scholarship. another phenomenon just beginning to find its historians.
Davis, Belinda. Home Fires Burning: Food, Politics, and Everyday Life African American Culture and its influence in the Jazz Age:
in World War I Berlin. 2000. http://www.nypl.org/research/sc/sc.html
Echenberg, Myron. Colonial Conscripts: The “Tirailleurs Sénégalais” Hau, Michael. The Cult of Health and Beauty in Germany: A Social
in French West Africa, 1857–1960. 1990. History, 1890–1930. 2003.
Healy, Maureen. Vienna and the Fall of the Habsburg Empire: Total Kent, Susan. Making Peace: The Reconstruction of Gender in Postwar
War and Everyday Life in World War I. 2004. Britain. 1994.
Leed, Eric J. No Man’s Land: Combat and Identity in World War I. 1979. Lerner, Paul. Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of
Panchasi, Roxanne. “Reconstructions: Prosthetics and the Trauma in Germany, 1890–1930. 2003.
Rehabilitation of the Male Body in World War I.” Differences. 1995. Makaman, Douglas, and Michael Mays, eds. World War I and the
Roshwald, Aviel, and Richard Stites, eds. European Culture in the Great Cultures of Modernity. 2000.
War: The Arts, Entertainment, and Propaganda, 1914–1918. 1999. Roshwald, Aviel. Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires: Central
Schmitt, Bernadotte E., and Harold C. Vederler. The World in the Europe, Russia and the Middle East, 1914–1923. 2001.
Crucible, 1914–1919. 1984. Schwartz, Vanessa, and Leo Charney, eds. Cinema and the Invention
World War I Documents Archive: http://www.lib.byu.edu/ of Modern Life. 1995.
%7Erdh/wwi.
Mass Culture and the Rise of Modern Dictators
Protest, Revolution, and War’s End, 1917–1918 Mass communications advances in cinema and radio provided new
Histories of the war’s end account for the cataclysmic setting: tools for the rule of modern dictators who arose from the shambles
deprivation, ongoing mass slaughter, and the eruption of revolution. of war and revolution. Many of the most interesting recent studies
Peacemaking also occurred, and that too was complex. In all, the look at the cultural components of the consolidation of dictatorial
violence of the postwar scene has made historians call into question power, while Kollontai’s novel is an example of fiction being used to
the idea that wars end with an armistice. teach literacy and Soviet citizenship.
Barry, John. The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Greatest Plague Ben-Ghiat, Ruth. Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922–1945. 2001.
in History. 2004. Helstosky, Carol. Garlic and Oil: The Politics of Food in Italy. 2004.
Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution, 1917–1932. 1995. *Kollontai, Aleksandra. Love of Worker Bees. 1923.
Holquist, Peter. Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia’s Continuum Northrop, Douglas. Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Stalinist
of Crisis, 1914–1921. 2002. Central Asia. 2004.
Horne, John, ed. State, Society and Mobilization in Europe during the Russian Revolution documents and links: http://www.fordham.edu/
First World War. 2000. halsall/mod/modsbook39.html
Lewis, David Levering. W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the Sneeringer, Julia. Winning Women’s Votes: Propaganda and Politics in
American Century, 1919–1963. 2000. Weimar Germany. 2002.
Smith, Leonard V., et al. France and the Great War 1914–1918. 2003. Tumarkin, Nina. Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia. 1997.
Welch, David. Germany, Propaganda, and Total War, 1914–1918: The
Sins of Omission. 2000.
Chapter 26
The Search for Peace in an Era of Revolution The Great Depression
Peacemaking was a fraught process, occurring amid revolution, the Historians look to the depression as a complex event with economic,
flu pandemic, and starvation. Many aspired to a lasting peace and to social, and cultural consequences, but in addition they see its impact
social justice. Both dreams were to be dashed, as the story of as yet another indication of the tightening of global economic
individuals and the fate of institutions like the League of Nations connections. To follow some of the political implications for
show. Thompson investigates the new mandates. European empires, see in particular Columbia University’s South Asia
Web site, which explores Gandhi’s economic resistance to British
Cooper, John Milton. Breaking the Heart of the World: Woodrow
colonialism.
Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations. 2001.
Marks, Sally. The Ebbing of European Ascendency: An International Balderston, Theo, ed. The World Economy and National Economics in
History of the World. 2002. the Interwar Slump. 2003.
Thompson, Elizabeth. Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Clavin, Patricia. The Great Depression in Europe, 1929–1939. 2000.
Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon. 2000. Evans, Richard J., and Dick Geary. The German Unemployed:
Wrigley, Chris, ed. The First World War and the International Experiences and Consequences of Mass Unemployment from the
Economy. 2000. Weimar Republic to the Third Reich. 1987.

*Primary source.
SR-18 Suggested References

South Asia and Gandhi: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/ Seidman, Michael. Republic of Egos: A Social History of the Spanish
indiv/area/sarai Civil War. 2002.
Strachura, Peter D. Poland, 1918–1945. 2004.
World War II, 1939–1945
Totalitarian Triumph In a vast literature historians have charted the war’s innumerable and
The vicious dictators Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini are among the most global horrors, with issues of the Holocaust, industrial killing, and the
popular subjects for historians and readers alike. Recent histories nature of racial thinking drawing particular attention. The U.S.
study their mobilization of art and the media and consider people’s Holocaust Memorial Museum provides online exhibits giving the
complex participation in totalitarian regimes. Studies like those by history of the Holocaust in different locations, while an online
Engel and Posadskaya-Vanderbeck, Gellately and Stolzfus, and Kaplan collection by Soviet war photographers reveals every aspect of the
have provided us with fascinating if grim insights into everyday life. Soviet defense and offense, down to the capture of Berlin in May
1945. While looking at the social aspects of war, historians have
Ben-Ghiat, Ruth. Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922–1945. 2001. intensely debated the development of the cold war within the hot war.
Burleigh, Michael. The Third Reich: A New History. 2000.
*Engel, Barbara Alpern, and Anastasia Posadskaya-Vanderbeck, eds. A Browning, Christopher. The Origins of the Final Solution: The
Revolution of Their Own: Voices of Women in Soviet History. 1998. Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939–March 1942. 2004.
Fritzsche, Peter. Germans into Nazis. 1998. Dower, John W. War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific
Gellately, Robert, and Nathan Stolzfus, eds. Social Outsiders in Nazi War. 1986.
Germany. 2001. Holocaust Museum: http://usholocaustmuseum.org
Hellbeck, Jochen. Revolution on My Mind: Writing a Diary under Gross, Jan. Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in
Stalin. 2006. Jedwabne, Poland. 2001.
Kaplan, Marion. Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Miner, Steven Merritt. Stalin’s Holy War: Religion, Nationalism, and
Germany. 1998. Alliance Politics, 1941–1945. 2003.
Viola, Lynn, ed. Contending with Stalinism: Soviet Power and Popular Slaughter, Jane. Women in the Italian Resistance, 1943–1945. 1997.
Resistance in the 1930s. 2003. Soviet War Photography: http://www.shicklerart.com/exh/sovietwar/
index.html
Democracies on the Defensive Weinberg, Gerhard. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War
II. 2005.
The democracies attacked the depression from a variety of
perspectives, ranging from state policy to film and the arts, yet
another indication of how complex politics can be. Further departures
Chapter 27
from liberal policies, whether in trade or in the development of the World Politics Transformed
activist welfare state, also have attracted historical study.
In the past decade, both the opening of Soviet archives and closer
Bok, Sissela. Alva Myrdal: A Daughter’s Memoir. 1991. research in American records have allowed for more informed views
Cook, David A. A History of Narrative Film. 2004. of the diplomacy and politics of the cold war in Europe and around
Lebovics, Herman. True France: The Wars over Cultural Identity, the world. Although few defend Stalin, we now benefit from balanced
1900–1945. 1992. assessments of superpower rivalry. Several Web sites on the cold war
Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in contain biographies of the main players, time lines, and descriptions
Depression and War, 1929–1945. 1999. of how nuclear weapons actually work and how they cause
Pawlowski, Merry M. Virginia Woolf and Fascism: Resisting the destruction.
Dictators’ Seduction. 2001.
Rearick, Charles. The French in Love and War: Popular Culture in the Cold War Files: Interpreting History through Documents: http://
Era of the World Wars. 1997. coldwarfiles.org
The Cold War Museum: http://www.coldwar.org
Cronin, James. The World the Cold War Made: Order, Chaos, and the
The Road to Global War
Return of History. 1996.
The road to war encircled the globe, involving countries seemingly Eisenberg, Carolyn Woods. Drawing the Line: The American Decision
peripheral to the struggles among the antagonists. The perennial to Divide Germany, 1944–1949. 1996.
question for many historians is whether Hitler could have been Gaddis, John. The Cold War: A New History. 2006.
stopped, but with globalization there is new attention to the Leffler, Melvyn P., and David S. Painter. Origins of the Cold War: An
beginnings of war beyond the West as a prelude to decolonization. International History. 2005.
Trachtenberg, Marc. A Constructed Peace: The Making of a European
Bix, Herbert P. Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. 2000.
Settlement, 1945–1963. 1999.
Chickering, Roger, and Stig Förster, eds. The Shadows of Total War:
Zubkova, Elena. Russia after the War: Hopes, Illusions, and
Europe, East Asia, and the United States, 1919–1939. 2003.
Disappointments, 1945–1957. 1998.
Imlay, Talbot C. Facing the Second World War: Strategy, Politics, and
Economics in Britain and France 1938–1940. 2003.
Political and Economic Recovery in Europe
Martin, Benjamin. France in 1938. 2005.
Peattie, Mark R. Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power, Though painstaking and complex, recovery in its material and political
1909–1940. 2002. forms yielded a distinctly new Europe whose characteristics historians

*Primary source.
Suggested References SR-19

are still uncovering. Because of the opening of the archives, historical Chapter 28
attention has focused on charting Soviet occupation, Communist
takeover, and the ethnic cleansing that were part of postwar recovery. The Revolution in Technology
Crowley, David, and Susan E. Reid, ed. Socialist Spaces: Sites of Wartime technological development came to have profound
Everyday Life in the Eastern Bloc. 2002. consequences for the peacetime lives of individuals and for society.
Frommer, Benjamin. National Cleansing: Retribution against Nazi The works listed here describe the new technologies and analyze their
Collaborators in Postwar Czechoslovakia. 2005. importance, with authors divided on whether the new developments
Herf, Jeffrey. Divided Memory: The Nazi Past in the Two Germanies. should be feared or embraced. The International Atomic Energy
1997. Agency site has all the facts about nuclear energy, including the
Hitchcock, William. The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of percentage of energy generated by nuclear reactors, construction of
a Divided Continent, 1945–2002. 2003. new plants, and international monitoring.
Kenney, Padraic. Rebuilding Poland: Workers and Communists, Bauer, Martin W., and George Gaskell, eds. Biotechnology: The
1945–1950. 1997. Making of a Global Controversy. 2002.
Milward, Alan S. The United Kingdom and the Economic Community. Edwards, Jeannette. Born and Bred: Idioms of Kinship and New
2002. Reproductive Technologies in England. 2000.
Moeller, Robert. War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Harvey, Brian. Europe’s Space Program: To Ariane and Beyond. 2003.
Federal Republic of Germany. 2001. Hecht, Gabrielle. The Radiance of France: Nuclear Power and National
Taubman, William. Khrushchev: The Man and His Era. 2003. Identity after World War II. 1998.
Van Hook, James C. Rebuilding Germany: The Creation of the Social International Atomic Energy Agency: http://www.iaea.org
Market Economy, 1945–1957. 2004. Natalicchi, Giorgio. Wiring Europe: Re-Shaping the European
Telecommunications Regime. 2001.
Decolonization in a Cold War Climate
Novelists, philosophers, and historians debate the impact and issues Postindustrial Society and Culture
of decolonization. Powerful evocations of the brutality of the process
appear most often in novels such as Sidwha’s Cracking India, which Changes in the way people worked became striking in the 1960s,
was made into the film Earth. causing social observers to analyze the social and cultural meaning
of the transformation. Many critics agree that technology’s creation
Connelly, Matthew. A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Quest for of a postindustrial workplace changed not only the way people
Independence and the Origins of the Post–Cold War Era. 2002. worked but also how they lived in families and interacted with peers.
Elkins, Caroline. Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s
Gulag in Kenya. 2005. Chandler, Alfred D., Jr., and Bruce Mazlish, eds. Leviathans:
*Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. 1961. Multinational Corporations and the New Global History. 2005.
The Korean War Educator: http://www.koreanwar-educator.org Evans, Christopher. The Micro Millennium. 1979.
Macey, David. Frantz Fanon: A Biography. 2000. Ramet, Sabrina P., and Gordana P. Crnković, eds. Kazaaam! Splat!
Marsh, Steve. Anglo-American Relations and Cold War Oil. 2003. Ploof! The American Impact on European Culture since 1945. 2003.
Shepard, Todd. The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War Roulleau-Berger, Laurence. Youth and Work in the Post-Industrial City
and the Remaking of France. 2006. of North America and Europe. 2003.
*Sidhwa, Bapsi. Cracking India: A Novel. 1992. Wakeman, Rosemary. Modernizing the Provincial City: Toulouse
1945–1975. 1997.
Cultural Life on the Brink of Nuclear War
Protesting Cold War Conditions
Cold war culture, including the growth of consumerism, make the
1950s a fertile field for research, especially as new sources become Historians look to domestic politics, international events, and social
available. Jobs’s work shows the concern for youth and their culture, change to capture the texture of the tumultuous 1960s. The
while Herzog’s study describes the importance of sexual norms to the momentous changes on so many fronts are beginning to
creation of West Germany. receive synthetic treatment in books such as Suri’s, which connects the
move for détente with domestic protest around the world. The Martin
Engel, Barbara Alpern. Women in Russia, 1700–2000. 2004.
Luther King Web site introduces visitors to the biography, speeches,
Heineman, Elizabeth D. What Difference Does a Husband Make?
sermons, and major life events of the slain civil rights leader.
Women and Marital Status in Nazi and Postwar Germany. 1999.
Herzog, Dagmar. Sex after Fascism: Memory and Morality in *Dubček, Alexander. Hope Dies Last: The Autobiography of Alexander
Twentieth-Century Germany. 2005. Dubček. 1993.
Jobs, Richard I. Riding the New Wave: Youth and the Rejuvenation of Fink, Carole, et al., eds. 1968: The World Transformed. 1998.
France after World War II. 2007. *Guy-Sheftall, Beverly, ed. Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-
Poiger, Ute G. Jazz, Rock, and Rebels: Cold War Politics and American American Feminist Thought. 1995.
Culture in a Divided Germany. 2000. *Lévi-Strauss, Claude. Tristes Tropiques. 1961.
Rowley, Hazel. Tête-à-Tête: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. The Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project: http://www.stanford.edu/
2005. group/King/mlkpapers
When Bomb Shelters Were All the Rage: http://detnews.com/history/ Suri, Jeremi. Power and Protest: Global Revolution and the Rise of
shelters/shelters.htm Détente. 2003.

*Primary source.
SR-20 Suggested References

Varon, Jeremy. Bringing the War Home: The Weather Underground, The Nation-State in a Global Age
the Red Army Faction, and Revolutionary Violence in the Sixties
The many new institutional forms, such as global cities and rising
and Seventies. 2004.
regionalism, are outlined in both Applegate and Sassen, among
Williams, Kieran. The Prague Spring and Its Aftermath: Czechoslovak
others. The advance of the European Union is one of the
Politics, 1968–1970. 1997.
transnational stories of the 1990s and the twenty-first century.
The Testing of Superpower Domination Applegate, Celia. “A Europe of Regions: Reflections on the
and the End of the Cold War Historiography of Sub-National Places in Modern Times.” The
American Historical Review. 1999.
As the superpowers continued their standoff, historians found that
European Union: http://europa.eu.int
myriad global changes affected their status and that protest
Ried, T. R. The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the
continued at home. The dissident art of the Soviet Union is striking
End of American Supremacy. 2005.
for its deft and moving critique of life under communism. Attempts
Sassen, Saskia. Cities in a World Economy. 2006.
at reform succeeded in the United States and western Europe, but
Wilson, Andrew. Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. 2005.
eastern Europe saw the surprising collapse of communism and the
end of the cold war in 1989.
*Gorbachev, Mikhail. Memoirs. 1996. Challenges from an Interconnected World
Kenney, Padraic. A Carnival of Revolution: Central Europe 1989. 2002. The international scene is politically challenging and often dangerous.
Kligman, Gail. The Politics of Duplicity: Controlling Reproduction in The forces of overpopulation, disease, and pollution remain
Ceausescu’s Romania. 1998. potentially destructive. Kagan pictures the West as losing its unity.
Reiton, Earl A. The Thatcher Revolution: Margaret Thatcher, John
Major, Tony Blair, and the Transformation of Modern Britain. Baldwin, Peter. Disease and Democracy: The Industrialized World
2002. Faces AIDS. 2005.
Rosenfeld, Alla, and Norton T. Dodge. From Gulag to Glasnost: Bess, Michael. The Light-Green Society: Economic and Technological
Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union. 1995. Modernity in France. 2003.
Rothschild, Joseph, and Nancy M. Wingfield. Return to Diversity: A Frieden, Jeffry A. Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth
Political History of East Central Europe. 2000. Century. 2006.
*Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr Isaevich. The Gulag Archipelago. Kagan, Robert. Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the
1973–1976. New World Order. 2003.
Sternhal, Suzanne. Gorbachev’s Reforms: De-Stalinization through Prunier, Gérard. Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide. 2005.
Demilitarization. 1997. Rashid, Ahmed. Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia. 2002.
Weigel, George. Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II. Rosefielde, Steven. Russia in the 21st Century: The Prodigal
1999. Superpower. 2006.
United Nations. State of the World Population: People, Poverty, and
Possibilities. 2003.
Chapter 29
Collapse of the Soviet Union and Its Aftermath Global Culture and Society in the Twenty-first Century
Historians will be telling and retelling this story, for the full The fate of cultural identity in an age of globalization engages a wide
consequences of communism’s collapse are still unfolding. As new range of studies. This age of migration and the Internet requires a
information becomes available, scholars like Goldman explain the rethinking of long-standing identities and individual relationships,
post-Communist situation in terms of long-standing trends. as Turkle, among others, suggests. New technology both enhances
Balkansnet gives documents and testimony on one of the massacres and challenges Western prosperity. The Public Broadcasting Service’s
as Yugoslavia fell apart. Web site offers a wide array of information on current issues.
Balkansnet: Srebrenica. http://balkansnet.org/srebrenica.html Agre, Philip. Computation and Human Experience. 1997.
Benson, Leslie. Yugoslovia: A Concise History. 2004. *Emecheta, Buchi. The New Tribe. 2000.
Engel, Barbara. Women in Russian History, 1700–2000. 2004. Forrester, Sibelan, et al., eds. Over the Wall/After the Fall: Post-
Goldman, Marshall. The Piratization of Russia: Russian Reform Goes Communist Cultures through an East-West Gaze. 2004.
Awry. 2003. Hoerder, Dirk. Cultures in Contact: World Migrations in the 2nd
*Gorbachev, Mikhail. Memoirs. 1996. Millennium. 2002.
Humphrey, Caroline. The Unmaking of Soviet Life: Everyday Iriye, Akira. Cultural Internationalism and World Order. 1997.
Economies after Socialism. 2002. MacGaffey, Janet, et al. Congo-Paris: Transnational Traders on the
Kotkin, Stephen. Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, Margins of the Law. 2000.
1970–2000. 2001. *Morrison, Toni. Paradise. 1998.
Mazower, Mark. The Balkans: A Short History. 2000. Public Broadcasting Service: http://www.pbs.org
Naimark, Norman. Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth- Smith, Andrea, ed. Europe’s Invisible Migrants. 2002.
Century Europe. 2001. Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. 1995.

*Primary source.
Index

A note about the index:

Names of individuals appear in bold face; biographical dates are included for major
historical figures.
Letters in parentheses following pages refer to:
(i) illustrations, including photographs and artifacts
(f) figures, including charts, graphs, and tables
(m) maps
(b) boxed features (such as “Contrasting Views”)

Aachen. See also Aix-la-Chapelle in 1960s, 915 refugees from, 974


Charlemagne at, 273, 274, 274(i) in Poland, 945 Russia and, 737, 944
Abbasid caliphate, 262, 268–269, 279, 311 for regional autonomy, 965 Taliban in, 970, 971
Abbots and abbesses social sciences and, 720–721 Afinogenov, Alexander, 851(b)
Irish, 253 student, 931 Africa. See also Egypt (ancient); North
Merovingian, 252 by women, 777–778, 931–933 Africa; specific countries
Abelard, Peter (1079–1142), 329–331, 367 by workers, 750–751 attitudes toward, 560
Abolitionism, 560, 670 World War I and, 807, 816 decolonization in, 897
Bill of Rights and, 583 Act of Union (Britain) disease in, 969
Aboriginal Australians, P-5 in 1707, 538–539 economy in, 969
Abortion in 1801, 673 in c. 1890, 735(m)
in Germany, 850–851 Adam, Robert, 569(i) ethnic groups in, 900(m), 900–901
in Italy, 933 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 858 Europeans in, 527
Napoleon and, 626 Addison, Joseph (1672–1719), 534 German colonies in, 824
in 1960s, 920–921 Adenauer, Konrad (1876–1967), 890 Great Depression in, 843
in Russia, 832 Administration. See also Government; immigrants from, 951
in Soviet Union, 846 specific locations imperialism in, 733(m), 733–737,
World War I and, 766 of Austria-Hungary, 702 739–740
Abraham (Hebrew), 39 of England, 320 independence in, 900(m), 900–901
Absolutism, 484 of France, 341, 375, 596, 596(m) Islamic trade with, 271
Bodin and, 474 Hellenistic, 117 nationalism in, 859
in central and eastern Europe, 492–497 Napoleon and, 623, 625 in 1914, 784(m)
Enlightenment ideas and, 556, 578 Neo-Assyrian, 36 population, 1700–1800, 571(f)
expansionism and, 490–491 of Rome, 196, 197–198 Portuguese forts in, 421
Hobbes view of, 504–505 of Russia, 695 public health in, 969
linkage with warfare, 491 Adrianople racism in, 736
Louis XIV and, 483 battle of, 195 refugees from, 901
Montesquieu and, 560 Treaty of (1829), 645–646 resistance to colonialism in, 789–790
of Peter the Great, 541–542 Adriatic region, crusades and, 351 savannahs in, P-8
public cooperation in, 484 Advancement of Learning, The (Bacon), slavery and, 425, 466, 508
Abstract expressionism, 909 476–477 World War I and, 801–802
Académie Française, 487 Adventures of a Simpleton, The World War II and, 868, 869(m), 870
Academy (Athens), 107, 107(i), 205–206, 227 (Grimmelshausen), 462(b) Africa (Carriera), 529(i)
Acid rain, 966 Advertising, culture and, 907, 908 African Americans
Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome Aedile (Rome), 142 civil rights for, 904–905, 928–930, 931
(AIDS), 969 Aegean Sea region, 47, 48(m) emancipation of, 705
Acre, siege of, 351 chariots in, 28 Afterlife
Acropolis. See also Parthenon (Athens) civilization in, 4, 24 in Egypt, 3–4, 19
in Athens, 79(i) in 1500 B.C.E., 23(m) Paleolithic, P-7
in Corinth, 61(i) shipping in, 43(m) Agadir, in Second Moroccan Crisis, 790
Actium, battle of, 165, 172 Aeneid, The (Virgil), 172, 176 Agamemnon (legendary king), 27
Activism. See also specific movements Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.E.), 94 Agbar (Osrhoëne king, r. 179–216),
by citizens, 930–936 Affair of the Placards, 432, 445 210(i)
environmental, 966–968 Afghanistan Age, social status and, P-6
by homosexuals, 932(i) Alexander the Great in, 113 Agincourt, battle of (1415), 392
in India, 788–789 Greek language in, 127 Agora, in Athens, 78
I-1
I-2 Index Agreement of the People–Anne of Austria

“Agreement of the People, as Presented to diplomacy of, 629–630, 632, 638 Ambrose (bishop of Milan, c. 339–397),
the Council of the Army, The” reforms of, 631 211, 226
(Levellers), 500(b) Alexander II (Russia, r. 1855–1881), 693, America (Farinati), 471(i)
Agriculture, P-8. See also Farms and farming; 694–695, 758, 758(i) American Historical Association, 770
Irrigation Alexander III, the Great (Macedonia, Americanization, of culture, 902–903, 908,
in Archaic Age, 55(f) r. 336–323 B.C.E.), 103–104, 110, 909
Black Death and, 390 112–115, 113(i) American Temperance Society, 668
in Byzantine Empire, 242 conquests by, 114(m) American War of Independence
cultivation and, P-15 impact of, 114–115 (1776–1783), 581(i), 581–583
development of, P-9(m) Alexander III (Russia, r. 1881–1894), 758 French influence on, 560, 587
genetic research in, 923 Alexander IV (Macedonia), 115 Americas. See also New World; specific
in Great Depression, 841 Alexander VI (Pope, r. 1492–1503), 423 countries
Great Famine and, 381 Alexandra (Russia), 810 African slaves and, 521
Greek, 43, 48 Alexandria, 113, 120, 127, 177, 227 colonies in (1492–1560), 425(m)
Hellenistic, 118–119 Alexei (Russia, r. 1645–1676), 496–497 competition for control of, 527
improvements in, 520, 663 Alexius I (Alexius Comnenus) (Byzantine land bridge to, P-5
innovations in, 728 Empire, r. 1081–1118), 312, 315, 319, population, 1700–1800, 571(f)
medieval, 283–285 319(i) settlement of, 526–527
Mediterranean, 26 Alfonso VI (Castile, 12th century), 317 society in, 6
in Neolithic Revolution, P-8 Alfonso IX (Castile-León, r. 1188–1230), 377 Amiens, Treaty of (1802), 629
peasants and, 302 Alfonso X (Castile-León, r. 1252–1284), 377 Amphitheaters (Roman), 179(i), 247
population growth and, P-8–P-9 Alfred the Great (Wessex, r. 871–899), 280, in Arles, France, 246(i)
reforms in, 578 287–288, 288(m) Amritsar massacre (1919), 824
revolution in, 529, 655 Algebra, 15, 271 Amsterdam, 458, 469, 506
Roman, 177, 191 Algeria, 664, 670–671, 843 Amun (god), 21
in Russia, 695 France and, 733, 734 Amun-Re (god), 21–22
scientific experiments in, 511 immigrants to Europe from, 902 Anabaptists, 434–435, 436–437
in Soviet bloc, 895 independence for, 901 Anarchists, 713, 751, 777
in Sumer, 8 Alhambra, 414 Anatolia, P-4n, 23–24. See also Turkey
technicians in, 924 Ali (Hashim clan), 237 Attalids in, 116(m)
after Thirty Years’ War, 466 Allah, 234 civilization in, 4, 6
workers in, 658 Allegiance, oaths of, 597 in 400 B.C.E., 100(m)
Ahura Mazda (god), 39 Alliances. See also specific alliances in Hellenistic Age, 118
Aïda (Verdi), 688(i), 712 Athenian, 69, 88(b) Hittites and, 25
AIDS. See Acquired immunodeficiency in cold war, 887, 888(m) Mycenaeans and, 27
syndrome (AIDS) Delian League as, 74(m) Persia and, 37, 110
Aids (payments), in England, 320 Diplomatic Revolution and, 574 Sea Peoples and, 29
Airbus, 922, 922(m) Dual Alliance, 756 Anatomy, 127
Airlifts in former Soviet Union, 957(m) Anaximander (Miletus, c. 610–540 B.C.E.), 65
Berlin, 887 Great Schism and, 398 Ancestors
World War II and, 881 Greek Hellenic League as, 72–73 in Athens, 81
Airplanes Hittite, 25 in Rome, 135, 135(i), 138
Airbus, 922, 922(m) Holy Alliance and, 638 Ancient Near East, P-4n
supersonic, 922 Peloponnesian League as, 74, 74(m) Al-Andalus (Spain), 270, 272(b)
World War I and, 805(i) in 1799, 616(m) Charlemagne in, 274
Aix-la-Chapelle. See also Aachen against Sparta, 110 political fragmentation of, 304–305
Peace of (1748), 574 Three Emperors’ League as, 755 reconquista and, 354(m)
Treaty of (1668), 491 Triple Alliance, 756 Angela of Foligno, 364
Akhenaten (Egypt, r. 1372–1355 B.C.E.), 22 World War I and, 790, 800, 821 Angevin dynasty, 337
Akhmatova, Anna (1889–1966), World War II and, 864 Angles, 217
850–851(b), 896 Allies Anglican church (Church of England), 434
Akkad, downfall of, 13 Roman, 154 under Elizabeth I, 445, 458(i)
Akkadian Empire, 12(m), 12–13 World War I and, 800, 814, 816 establishment of, 433–434
Alaca Höyük, Anatolia, 24(i) World War II and, 864, 866, 868, 870, 871, “popery” in, 498
Alaric (Visigoth), 216, 217 873–875, 881, 884 tests of allegiance to, 503
Albania, 792 All Quiet on the Western Front (Remarque), Anglo-Saxon (Old English) language, 254,
Albanian Kosovars, 954–955 830, 849 288
Albert (England), 703, 704(b), 704(i), 707 Alphabets Anglo-Saxon people, 217
Alberti, Leon Battista (1404–1472), 403(i), Canaanite, 15–16 culture of, 254
404, 405 Cyrillic, 267 in England, 253, 320
Albertus Magnus (c. 1200–1280), 368 development of Western, 16 Animals
Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229), 353, Greek, 43 breeding and herding of, P-9
354–355, 362 Roman, 141 in Çatalhöyük, P-11
Albigensians, 350–351 Slavic, 267 Anjou, 337, 341, 375
Alchemy, 478 Sumerian writing and, 10 Anjou dynasty, 411
Alcibiades (Athens, c. 450–404 B.C.E.), 98–99 al-Qaeda organization, 970, 973 Ankara, Turkey, 844
Alcuin (c. 732–804), 276 Alsace, 463, 701, 728, 801, 803 Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), 757
Aldrin, Edwin “Buzz,” 918 linked to France, 491 Annals (Ennius), 149
Alemanni people, 219 World War I and, 817 Annam, 737
Alexander I (Russian tsar, r. 1801–1825), 645 Altman, N. J., 851(i) Anne (England, r. 1702–1714), 538
conservative views of, 639 Amar, Jules, 799, 806, 821 Anne of Austria, 485
Annunciation–Armenian language Index I-3

Annunciation, The (Leonardo da Vinci), 406, Arabia, Fatimids in, 270 in Great Britain, 539
407(i) Arabic language, 237, 238, 270 under the Habsburgs, 494–495
Anschluss (merger), 860–861 Arabic numerals, 272 Junkers, 492
Anse (Saint) (1033–1109), 311, 321, 329 Arab-Israeli wars (1967, 1973), 937 lifestyle of, 532
Anthony, Susan B. (1820–1906), 777 Arab world. See also Islam in Merovingian society, 250–251
Anthropology Algeria and, 901 in Poland, 409, 672
biological, P-12(b) coin from, 239(b), 239(i) in Poland-Lithuania, 460
ethnicity and, 249(b) Israel and, 899, 899(m) reforms and, 584
in 1960s, 926–927 Jewish Middle East settlement and, 899 in Rome, 135(i), 136, 165
Anti-Catholicism, 580 jihad in, 237 in Russia, 496, 542, 579–580, 695
Anticlericalism, 632, 638 Middle East and, P-4n women in, 286, 485
Anticommunism, of Hitler and Mussolini, 858 Muhammad and, 235–236 Aristophanes (c. 455–385 B.C.E.), 91–92, 96
Anti-Corn Law League, 674 nomads in, 232–233 Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.), 51, 108–110,
Antifascism, in 1930s, 855 pan-Arab movements and, 897 109(b)
Antiglobalism, 965 Spanish control by, 255 on inheritance, 82
Antigone (Sophocles), 94–95 Aragon, 353, 354(m), 375, 408, 410 On the Length and Shortness of Life, 358(i),
Antigonid dynasty, 116 Aramaeans, deporting of, 36 359
Antigonus (c. 382–301 B.C.E.), 116, 128 Aramaic language, 36, 222 on logic, 330, 367–368
Anti-immigrant campaigns, 975 Arawak Indians, 423, 423(b) scientific teachings of, 475
Antioch, 177–178, 240, 316 Arc de Triomphe, 623 Arius (c. 260–336), 210
Antiochus I (Seleucids, c. 324–261 B.C.E.), Archaeology, P-4 Arles, amphitheater at, 246(i)
117 ethnicity and, 249(b) Armada, 459, 459(m)
Antiochus IV (Seleucids, r. 175–163 B.C.E.), osteological, P-12(b) Armed forces. See also Military; Navies;
129, 181 Archaic Age (Greece), 47, 48(m). See also Soldiers; Warriors; Wars and warfare;
Antiquity, end of, 232 Greece (ancient); specific locations specific branches
Anti-Semitism family size and agricultural labor in, 55(f) in Abbasid caliphate, 269
in Austria, 854 intellectual thought in, 64–65 in Athens, 77, 110
in former Soviet Union, 956, 959 Archilochus of Paros (Greek poet), 64 of Austrian Habsburgs, 494
in France, 754, 780, 780(i) Archimedes of Syracuse (287–212 B.C.E.), of Brandenburg-Prussia, 493
in Germany, 780–781, 847, 849–852 126 as burden on common people, 491–492
in Great Depression, 843 Architecture Byzantine, 242–243, 262
Jewish response to, 782–783 baroque, 510 canton system in, 575
migration from, 743 in England, 705 in Crimean War, 693
at Paris Peace Conference (World War I), Gothic, 326(i), 327–328, 333–336, in England, 280, 499
819 370–371, 405, 409(i), 665 in First Crusade, 312–313
in Poland-Lithuania, 497 Greek, 49, 78(i), 79(i), 79–80 in former Soviet Union, 956
in Russia, 779–780 Islamic, 976(b) in France, 490–492, 607, 754
in Soviet Union, 935 medieval, 332–336, 665 German, 815, 862–863
in totalitarian societies, 845(b) of Mycenaean tombs, 27 Grand Army of Napoleon, 628–629,
World War I and, 764, 779–783 Neo-Assyrian, 36 632–633, 633(b)
World War II and, 881, 883 neoclassical, 569(i), 623 in Greece, 53–54
Antislavery societies, 670 in 19th century, 747 Hellenistic, 117
Antiwar sentiment, in Vietnam War, 930 postmodern, 980–981 Hittite, 24
Antoninus Pius (Rome, r. 138–161 C.E.), Renaissance, 403(i), 404–405 in Hundred Years’ War, 394–396
175 Roman, 150, 169–170, 179(i) Islamic, 236–237
Antony (c. 251–356), 212 Romanesque, 332(i), 332–333, 333(i), Macedonian, 111
Antony, Mark (Rome, 82 or 81–30 B.C.E.), 335(i) Mongol, 380
120, 165 Versailles Palace and, 488 Neo-Assyrian, 35–36
Antwerp, 456 Archives, government documents in, 885(b) of Ottoman Empire, 397
Anu (god), 11–12 Archons, in Athens, 62, 63, 76 in Peloponnesian War, 98(m)
Anubis (god), 2(i), 3–4 Arctic region, pack ice in, 966 Persian, 38
Anyte (Hellenistic female poet), 122(b) Areopagitica (Milton), 509–510 in Prussia, 543, 573, 575–576
Anzar, José Maria, 972(i) Areopagus Council (Athens), 63 research spending and, 924
Apartheid, in South Africa, 973–974 Aretê (excellence), 44, 73–74, 78 Roman, 141, 142, 153, 154(b), 166,
Aphrodite (goddess), statue of, 122, 123(i) Argentina, British war with, 941 176–177, 189, 190, 200
Apocalyptism, 129, 181 Arian Christianity, 209–210 in Russian Republic, 956
Apollo (god), temple at Corinth, 61(i) in Italy, 255 in Second Crusade, 317
Apollonis (Pergamum), 119 of Theodoric, 219 16th century growth of, 444
Apostate, 205 of Vandals, 217 in 17th century, 493(b)
Apostles, 182 of Visigoths, 255 in Soviet Union, 883
Apostolic succession, 184 Ariosto, Ludovico (1474–1533), 441–442 in Sparta, 57
Appeasement, 861 Aristarchus of Samos (3rd century B.C.E.), spending in cold war, 891(f), 910
Appliances. See Consumer goods 126 technology for, 127
Apprentices, in guilds, 300 Aristides (c. 525–465 B.C.E.), 77 in Thirty Years’ War, 462–463
Apuleius (Rome, c. 125–170 C.E.), 170, 179 Aristocracy, 741. See also Nobility totalitarian, 845(b)
Apulia, battle at, 304 in Athens, 62 in tsarist Russia, 496
Aqueducts court life of, 442, 486, 512–514 World War I and, 792–793, 817, 863
in Greece, 105(i) created by Napoleon, 623 Armenia and Armenians
at Nîmes, France, 146(i) after 1848 revolutions, 684 demonstrations by, 787
Roman, 146, 169 in Enlightenment, 567–568 in Tajikistan, 956
Aquitaine, 247(m), 337, 340 in France, 452–453, 486, 606, 615 Armenian language, 222
I-4 Index Armistice–Austrasia

Armistice, World War I and, 814–815 Venus figurines and, P-7, P-7(i) Athaulf (Visigoths, r. 410–415), 219
Arms and armaments. See also Weapons World War I and, 828–831 Atheists, 559
growth in (1890–1914), 793(f) Artemia (mother of Nicetius), 252 Athena (goddess), 138
in Japan, 857 Arthur (legendary English king), 348–349, Athenian Empire, 74–80
in Soviet Union, 943 369 Athens, 48(m). See also Greece
World War I and, 792–793 Arthur Tudor (1486–1502), 434 alliances in, 69, 88(b)
Arms race, 887–888 Articles of Confederation (U.S.), 583 democracy in, 57, 62–64, 75–77
World War I and, 764 Article 231, of Versailles Treaty, 817–818 education in, 86–88
Armstrong, Louis (1900–1971), 831 Artisans, 300, 532 elites in, 62
Armstrong, Neil (1930–), 918 Art nouveau, 774–775 in 5th century B.C.E., 78(m)
Arnolfo di Cambio (d. 1302), 378(i) Art of Love (Ovid), 173 Golden Age society in, 74–96
Arnulf of Ardres (12th century), 307 Art of Measurable Song (Franco of Cologne), Ionian Revolt and, 71
Arsinoe II (Egypt, c. 316–270 B.C.E.), 119, 370 navy of, 74–75, 106
119(i) Aruru (goddess), 11 after Peloponnesian War, 105–106
Art(s). See also Architecture; Patronage; Aryans Peloponnesian War and, 96, 97(m), 97–99,
Sculpture; specific types in Nazi Germany, 848, 849, 851 98(f)
avant-garde, 831 “unification” of, 861 Persian Wars and, 71, 73
baroque, 472, 473(i), 510 Asceticism, Christian, 212–213 philosophy in, 88–92
black-figure painting, 32(i), 34, 43, 60(i), Asclepius (Greek god), 93(i), 128–129 plague in, 98
83(i) Ashoka (Afghanistan, r. c. 268–232 B.C.E.), 127 science in, 126(i)
Byzantine, 264–265 Asia 750–500 B.C.E., 62(m)
Carolingian, 276–277 agriculture and domesticated animals in, slaves and metics in, 86
in Çatalhöyük, P-12, P-13 P-10 Solon in, 62–63
cave painting and, P-6, P-7(i) cold war in, 898 Sparta and, 69–70, 77, 99, 110
classical, 405, 510 decolonization in, 897–899 Thebes and, 110
in cold war, 909 European racism toward, 740 women in, 82
conveying news, 587(i) Europeans in, 527 Athletics. See Sports
Dance of Death and, 390, 391(i) Great Depression in, 843 Atlantic Charter, 874
in Dutch Republic, 506–507 humans from, P-3 Atlantic Ocean region, Vikings in,
in Egypt, 20 imperialism and, 739–740, 786(m) 279–280
in 1850–1870, 690 Japan and, 783–784, 857–858 Atlantic system, world economy and,
exhibitions of, 570 missionaries in, 440 520–529
explosion in 19th century, 667 Mongols in, 380 Atomic age
in former Soviet bloc, 979–980 philosophies of, 829 bomb shelter in, 910(i)
French republican, 602 population (1700–1800), 571(f) society during, 909–911
Gothic, 218, 218(i), 370–372 Russian expansion in (1865–1895), 738(m) Atomic bomb, 871–873, 872(m), 890. See
in Greece, 43, 64, 78(i), 78–80, 80(i) Western imperialism in, 737–738 also Nuclear weapons
Greek influence on Roman, 150 World War II and, 872 (map) Atomic theory, 772, 856
under Hellenistic kings, 120–122 Asia Minor, P-4n ATTAC. See Association for the Benefit of
as information, 418(i) Christianity in, 184(m) Citizens (ATTAC)
innovation in, 664 Paul of Tarsus in, 182 Attalid dynasty, 116(m), 149
liberal, 328–329 Rome and, 149, 155 Attalus I (Pergamum, r. 241–197 B.C.E.),
mannerism in, 472 Asian Pacific nations, 973 121(i)
modern, 773–775 Aspasia (Miletus), 84 Attila (Huns, r. c. 440–453), 216
Mycenaean, 27 Assassinations. See specific individuals Attlee, Clement (1883–1967), 890
Napoleon and, 621 Assemblies Atum (god), 22
in Nazi Germany, 849 in Athens, 62, 75, 76 Auerstädt, battle at (1806), 629
Neo-Assyrian, 36(i) in France, 378 Augsburg, Peace of (1555), 446, 451, 452,
neoclassical, 569(i) in Rome, 143–144, 152 460
in 1960s, 925–926 Assembly of Notables (France), 591–592 Augustine (archbishop of Canterbury,
19th-century society and, 747–750 Assembly of the Land (Russia), 496 r. 601–604), 253
Paleolithic, P-6 Assignats, 597 Augustine of Hippo (354–430), 208,
Persian, 73(i) Assimilation 211–212
politics and, 774 of colonies, 670–671 Augustinus (Jansen), 489
polytheist traditions in, 226 by Jews, 719 Augustus (Rome, r. 27 B.C.E.–14 C.E.), 120,
portraiture, 387 Association for the Benefit of Citizens 160(m), 163–174, 166(i), 176(m)
postmodernism in, 980–981 (ATTAC), 965 as emperor, 166–167
realism in, 716–718 Assyria, 13(m), 13–14 forum of, 167(i)
red-figure painting, 51(i), 64(i), 68(i) Hittites and, 25 Pax Romana under, 164–174
Renaissance, 387, 403–408, 412, 441–442 Israel destroyed by, 41 principate under, 165–166
rococo, 529(i), 534(i), 534–535, 570 Neo-Assyrian Empire in, 35–36 Res Gestae, 168–169(b), 173(i)
Roman, 145 Astarte figurines, 40(i) Augustus (title), for Philip II (France), 341
romanticism in, 566, 640–643 Astell, Mary (1666–1731), 549–550 Aurelian (Rome, r. 270–275 C.E.), 191
Rousseau on, 561–562 Astrology, 478 Auschwitz concentration camp, 839
in Russia, 832 Astronauts, 918 Ausculta Fili (Boniface VIII), 379
scientific illustration, 510–511 Astronomy, 475, 546(i) Austerlitz, battle of (1805), 629
secularization in, 471–472 Chaldean, 37 Australia, 560, 881, 892
in Soviet bloc, 928 heliocentric model and, 126 Aborigines of, P-5
of Soviet dissidents, 929(b), 929(i) Mesopotamian, 15 migration to, 743
in Soviet Union, 847 space exploration and, 919 Austrasia, 247(m), 252, 253
Austria–Beethoven Index I-5

Austria Avian influenza virus, P-10 Bandung Convention, 901


anti-immigrant politics, 975 Aviation. See Airplanes Bankruptcy, 730
armed forces in, 493(b), 494 Avicenna. See Ibn Sina (Avicenna) Banks and banking, 731
Bohemia and, 495 Avignon papacy, 379, 397–399 Bank of Amsterdam, 506
Bosnia-Herzegovina and, 791 Axis powers, 859, 864, 870–871 Bank of England, 540
coal in, 658(f) Aztecs, 425–426 Bank of France and, 623
Congress of Vienna and, 636–637, 638 of EU, 961
Crimean War and, 692 Baal (god), 40 Fugger bank, 445
at end of 17th century, 516(m) Ba’al Shem Tov. See Eliezer, Israel ben (Ba’al in Germany, 755
France and, 692 Shem Tov) government-sponsored Dutch, 589
German unification and, 699–700 Babi Yar (Yevtushenko), 928 in Italy, 287
in Great Depression, 842(b) Baby boom, 883 Medici bank, 412
Italian unification and, 696, 697 Babylon, 14, 36 political influence of, 445
merger with Germany, 860–861 Hittites in, 25 in 16th century, 444–445
Napoleon and, 629 Persian conquest of, 37 Baptists, in England, 499
in 1930s, 854 Babylonia, 13 Barbados, 508
Ottoman Turks and, 544 Hammurabi’s code in, 14–15 Barbarians. See also Germanic peoples
partition of Poland and, 612, 612(m) Judah captured by, 41 empires of, 214–221
prosperity in, 942 Neo-Babylonian Empire in, 36–37 Roman Empire and, 195–196
serfdom in, 577–578 Persian overthrow of, 41 Barnard, Christiaan (1922–2001), 920
in 1740, 551(m) Babylonian captivity, of Roman Catholic Barons (England), 321, 337, 377
Seven Years’ War and, 574–575 Church, 379 Magna Carta and, 340, 342–343(b)
War of the Austrian Succession and, Babylonian exile, of Jews, 41 Baroque, 472
573–574, 574(m) Bacchus (god). See Dionysus (god) Barry, Charles (1795–1860), 665
World War I and, 816 Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685–1750), 535 Barth, Karl (1886–1968), 856
Austria-Hungary, 792 Bacon, Francis (1561–1626), 476–477 Bartholomew, Peter, 316
authoritarianism in, 756 Bactria, 116 Basil II (Byzantine Empire, r. 976–1025), 267
ethnic politics in, 781–782 Badr, battle of, 235 Basil of Caesarea (“the Great,” c. 330–379),
German alliance with, 755, 756 Bagatelle, battle at, 805(i) 214
industrialization in, 729 Baghdad, 262, 268, 311 Basques, 939, 965
monarchy in, 702(m), 702–703 Baker, Josephine (1906–1976), 831 Bastille, 587, 592–593, 593(i), 594(m)
railroads in, 656(f) Bakst, Léon, 775(i) Bastille Day (France), 854
in Triple Alliance, 790 Bakunin, Mikhail (1814–1876), 713 Batavian Republic, 608
World War I and, 794, 800–801, 804, 810, 815 Baku region, 787, 802 Bathing, in 18th century Europe, 545
Austrian Empire Balance of power Baths. See Roman baths
cotton in, 658 in Europe, 616(m), 637 Bathsheba at Her Bath (Rembrandt), 473(i)
ethnic groups in, 672, 682–683 superpowers and, 936–942 Bathsheba at the Fountain (Rubens), 473(i)
industrialization in, 658 World War I and, 824 Batista, Fulgencio, 910
revolt of 1848 in, 682–683 Balkan region, 266–267 Battering rams, 35
Austrian Netherlands, 607, 608(m), 621 Bulgars in, 241 Battles. See also specific battles and wars
Austrian Succession, War of the cities in, 765 in Pacific Ocean region (World War II),
(1740–1748), 573–574, 574(m) collapse of communism in, 948(m) 871–873
Authoritarianism diverse population of, 703(i) Paleolithic, P-5
in Austria, 854 in c. 850–950, 267(m) in Persian Wars, 73–74
in Austria-Hungary, 756 in 1878, 757(m) World War I and, 803–806, 804(m),
in 1850–1870, 690 family system in, 767 804–806
Napoleon and, 620 Huns in, 216 Baudelaire, Charles-Pierre (1821–1867), 716
in Russia, 779–780 nationalism in, 756, 790 Bauhaus, 831
World War I and, 821–822 in 1908–1914, 791(m) Bavaria, 612, 682, 701(b)
Authority. See also Political power Ottoman Turks in, 396, 397, 397(m), 459, Baxter, George (1804–1867), 685(i)
in ancient civilizations, 4 495 Bayeux “Tapestry,” 320, 321(i)
of castellans, 285 Slavs in, 240, 241 Bayle, Pierre (1647–1706), 513, 546–547
in Crete, 25–26 unrest in, 756 Bay of Pigs invasion, 910
in Egypt, 3, 17–19 violence in, 953–955, 955(m) Bazán, Emilia Pardo (1859–1921), 747
in England, 337–340 World War I and, 791–792 Beatles, 905, 925
Merovingian, 252–253 Balkan Wars, 792 “Beat” writers, 906
in Rome, 136, 197–198 Ball, John, 400 Beauharnais, Eugène de, 625
Autobahn, 849 Ballet, 775, 775(i) Beaumarchais, Pierre-Augustin Caron de
Autocracy Ballot Act (England, 1872), 752 (1732–1799), 580
in Rome, 197, 224–225 Baltic region Beaumer, Madame de, 562(b)
in Russia, 684 Christianity in, 353–354 Beauvoir, Simone de (1908–1986), 904,
World War I and, 822 independence in, 948(m), 956 904(i)
Automobiles Ivan IV and, 460 Beccaria, Cesare (1738–1794), 577
in France, 727 Northern Crusades and, 354 Becket, Thomas (1118–1170), 339, 339(i)
Smart, 967, 967(i) Polish access to, 816 Beckford, William (1760–1844), 525
World War I and, 825 Soviet annexation of, 863 Becquerel, Antoine (1852–1908), 772
Avant-garde arts, 774, 831, 847 Treaty of Nystad and, 543 Bede (673–735), 254, 276
Avaris, Egypt, 21 World War II and, 861, 870 Bedouins, 233, 236
Avars, 240, 249(b) Balzac, Honoré de (1799–1850), 666 Beer Hall Putsch, 823
Charlemagne and, 273 Bandits, 609 Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770–1827), 570, 642
I-6 Index Beguines–Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Beguines, 350 Bicycles, 742–743, 967 Black Shirts (Italy), 833, 834(i)
Psalter of, 350(i) Big bang theory, 919 Black Skin, White Masks (Fanon), 904
Behavior Big-game hunting, 741, 741(i) Blake, William (1757–1827), 643(i)
codes of, 509 “Big Three,” at Yalta (1945), 874 Blanc, Louis (1811–1882), 676
Socrates on, 91 Bilbao, Guggenheim Museum in, 981 Blanche of Castile (France), 375, 375(i)
Behavioral sciences, 768–770 Bildung, 777 Blitzkrieg (“lightning war”), 862–863
Behavior modification, 769 Bill of Rights (United States, 1791), 583 Blockades
Behn, Aphra (1640–1689), 513 Bin Laden, Osama, 970, 972 of Berlin, 887
Beijing, Tiananmen Square riots in, 945 Biological anthropology, P-12(b) World War I and, 809(f)
Beirut, 971 Biology Blois, house of, 337
Béla III (Hungary, r. 1172–1196), 346 ethnicity and, 249(b) Blood libel (1100–1300), 366(m)
Belarus, 460, 961 in 1960s, 919–921 Blood pressure, 127
Belgium, 278 Bird flu virus, P-10 Bloody Sunday (January 30, 1972), 940
coal in, 658(f) Birth control, 664, 747 “Bloody Sunday” (Russia, 1905), 787
commercial centers in, 297 in France, 931 Blue-collar workers, 922
decolonization and, 901 in Germany, 850–851 “Blue Rider” group (artists), 774
German invasion of, 794 in Italy, 933 Blues (faction), 222
independence of, 589–590, 648, 650(m) in 1960s, 920 Blum, Léon (1872–1950), 854
railroads in, 657 in Russia, 832 Bodin, Jean (1530–1596), 474, 478
suffrage in, 754 in Soviet Union, 846 Boers, 736
World War I and, 803, 817 World War I and, 766 Boer War (1899–1902), 785
World War II and, 863 Birth control pill, 931 Bohemia
Bellerophon (Greek hero), 33, 46 Birth of the Virgin (Giotto), 372, 372(i) Austria and, 495
Bellini, Gentile (c. 1329–1507), 386(i), 412, Birth of Venus, The (Botticelli), 405–406, Czech identity of, 401
413(i) 406, 407(i), 413 Hussites in, 400–401
Benedictine rule, 214, 277 Birthrate, 968 as imperial seat, 409
Benedictines, 303, 309 Black Death and, 391 industrialization in, 658
Benedict of Aniane (c. 750–821), 277 British industrialization and, 659 Roman Catholicism in, 291
Benedict of Nursia (Saint, c. 480–553), 214
ˆ in Communist countries, 894 Thirty Years’ War and, 460, 462
Benes, Edvard (1884–1948), 886 decline in, 766 Boleslaw the Brave (Poland, r. 992–1025), 291
Benevento, 256 in 18th century, 572 Boleyn, Anne (1507–1536), 434
Benignus (martyr), 248 in Great Depression, 843 Bolívar, Simon (1783–1830), 646, 647(i)
Bentham, Jeremy (1748–1832), 674 marriage laws and, 767 Bolivia, 646
Benz, Karl (1844–1929), 727 in 1960s, 925 Böll, Heinrich (1917–1985), 906
Berbers, 269, 353 in 17th century, 469 “Bollywood” films, 980
Berlin Soviet, 883 Bologna
expansion to 1914, 755(m) U.S. baby boom and, 883 school of law in, 329
Jewish Museum in, 867(i) Biscop, Benedict (c. 630–690), 254, 276 university in, 331, 332
population growth in, 653, 765 Bishops Bolshevik Revolution (Russia), 811–812
reuniting of, 945–946, 946(i) in Byzantine Empire, 243, 243–244 Bolsheviks, 777
World War II and, 890(i) Christianity and, 183–184, 208, 214 resistance to, 831–832
Berlin airlift, 887 Jesus as, 182 sham trials against, 846
Berlin Conference (1884–1885), 734 laymen and, 282 World War I and, 816
Berlin Wall, 903, 910, 945–946, 946(i) marriage by, 251 Bombs and bombings. See also Atomic
Bernadette (Saint). See Soubirous, Merovingian, 251 bomb; Nuclear weapons
Bernadette monasteries and, 214 hydrogen bomb and, 888
Bernard (Franks), 261 of Rome, 208 of Pearl Harbor, 864
Bernard of Clairvaux (St. Bernard) Bismarck, Otto von (1815–1898), 686, 689, terrorist, 971
(c. 1090–1153), 309–310, 317 690, 697(b), 699(i), 699–702, 700(m), World War II and, 863, 864, 881
Bernini, Gian Lorenzo (1598–1680), 509(i), 701(b) Bomb shelter, 910(i)
510 Africa and, 734 Bonald, Louis de, on social order, 638–639
Berthier, Alexandre, 623 Kulturkampf and, 718–719 Bonaparte, Caroline (1782–1839), 625
Berthold (Franciscan), 362–363 power politics and, 754–756 Bonaparte, Jerome (1784–1860), 630
Berthollet, Claude, 623 William II and, 758–759 Bonaparte, Joseph (1768–1844), 625, 633
Bertoldo di Giovanni (c. 1435–1491), 413 Black and Tans, 824 Bonaparte, Louis (1778–1846), 625, 631
Betrothed, The (Manzoni), 642–643 Black Death (1348–1350), 387, 388–391, Bonaparte, Louis-Napoleon. See Napoleon III
Bible, 278(i) 389(f), 437. See also Plague Bonaparte, Lucien (1775–1840), 621
Christian New Testament, 42, 182, 208–209 Black-figure painting, 32(i), 34, 43, 60(i), Bonaparte, Napoleon. See Napoleon I
Council of Trent and, 439 83(i) Bonaparte
Darwin on, 719 “Black is beautiful,” 931 Bonapartists (France), 639
Gutenberg, 427 “Black monks,” 309 Bones, of Neolithic people, P-12(b)–P-13(b),
Hebrew Old Testament, 35, 39–41, 40, Black Panthers, 931 P-12(i)
129, 182 Black power, 931 Boniface (Wynfrith) (680–754), 255, 273
historical criticism of, 547 Blacks Boniface VIII (Pope, r. 1294–1303), 376,
King James, 459 feminist criticisms by, 932 377, 378(i), 379(b)
literary culture and, 254 transnational culture of, 978 Book of Common Prayer (Anglican), 498,
Noah and ark in, 12 violence after King’s death, 934 502
Pietism and study of, 536 Black Sea region, 802 Book of Images of the Fixed Stars (Islamic
reading, 435, 437, 459, 668 Constantinople in, 199 book), 271(i)
translations of, 400, 437, 459, 639(i) Crimean War and, 692(m), 693 Book of Laughter and Forgetting, The
Tyndale, 437 Greeks in, 49 (Kundera), 935–936
Book of Psalms–Bureaucracy Index I-7

Book of Psalms, 242–243 Brezhnev, Leonid (1909–1982), 928 Seven Years’ War and, 574–575
Book of the Dead (Egypt), 2(i), 3–4, 22, 23 Brezhnev Doctrine, 945 slavery and, 323(m), 614, 670
Book of the New Moral World, The (Owen), 675 Brides, in Greece, 56(i) Spanish Armada and, 459, 459(m)
Book of the Prefect (Byzantine Empire), 265(b) Bridges, medieval, 299 Spanish Civil War and, 860, 860(i)
Books Britain. See also Ireland; specific leaders strikes in, 677
bookbinding, 557(i) African independence and, 900–901 taxation in, 280
Christian, 226–227 agriculture in, 529–531 temperance societies in, 668
in Middle Ages, 254 under Alfred the Great, 287–288, 288(m) terrorist attacks in, 973
middle class and, 571 Anglo-Saxons and, 217, 253 Thatcher in, 940–941
in 19th century, 716(i) armed forces in 17th century, 493(b) after Thirty Years’ War, 466
ownership of, 572 Battle of, 863, 864 Tories and Whigs in, 503–504
Books of Hours, 399, 400(b) battle of Agincourt and, 392 trade with, 631
Borders. See Boundaries; Frontiers Bill of Rights (1689) in, 504 uprisings in, 396
Borkowska, Teofila, 744(b) Canada and, 575, 705 urbanization in, 661–662
Borkowski, Wladyslaw, 744(b) Chartism in, 677, 684 Vikings and, 280
Borodino, battle at (1812), 632 Christianity in, 253–255 voting in, 649, 677
Bosnia, 756, 953, 955 civil war in, 498, 500–501(b) War of the Austrian Succession and,
Serbs and Muslims in, 954 clergy vs. state in, 378 573–574, 574(m)
Bosnia-Herzegovina, 703(i), 791, 793, coal in, 657, 658(f) Wars of the Roses in, 411
953–954 cold war and, 884 welfare state and, 893
Bossuet, Jacques-Benigne (1627–1704), 489, common law in, 336–340 woman suffrage in, 777, 778
547 in Common Market, 892 World War I and, 794, 820
Boston Female Moral Reform Society, 668 Congress of Vienna and, 636, 637, 638 World War II and, 862, 863, 864, 874, 881
Boston Tea Party, 582 constitutionalism in, 484, 497–505 British and Foreign School Society, 668
Botticelli, Sandro (c. 1445–1510), 405–406, continental Europe and, 321 British and Foreign Temperance Society, 668
407(i), 413 cotton industry in, 658–659 British Commonwealth, 892
Boucher, François (1702–1770), 534(i), Danish conquest of, 288 British East India Company, 526
534–535 decolonization and, 897–898 British Empire, 733
Boucicaut, Aristide and Marguerite, 732 Domesday survey in, 413 Brittain, Vera, 830(b)
Boudica (Britain, 1st century C.E.), 175 education in, 709 Brontë, Charlotte (1816–1855), 666
Boulanger, Georges (1837–1891), 754 Egypt invaded by (1882), 733(m) Bronze, 21, 43
Boulton, Matthew, 655 end of serfdom in, 396 Bronze Age, 7, 27
Boundaries. See also Frontiers in Entente Cordiale, 790 Bronze weapons, 12–13
after Congress of Vienna (1815), 637(m), food riots in, 579 Brothers of St. Frances, 349–350
637–638 freeholders in, 302 Brown, Louise (1978–), 921
global culture and, 974 German occupation by, 886 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (1806–1861),
Islamic, 270 Glorious Revolution in, 504 664–665
medieval, 262 government of, 336–340 Brown Shirts (Germany), 823
Roman at Rubicon River, 158 in Great Depression, 841, 842 Brown v. Board of Education (1954), 904
of United States, 705 Great Famine in, 382 Bruges, Belgium, 297
of Western civilization, 5 Hitler and, 861 Brunhild (Franks), 256
Bourbon, Charlotte of, 452–453 Hundred Years’ War and, 391–396, 393(m) Bruno, Giordano (1548–1600), 475
Bourbon-Condé, Louis-Antoine-Henri de India and, 710–712, 788–789 Bruno of Cologne (c. 1030–1101), 309
(Duc d’Enghien), 623 industrialization in, 655, 728 Brutus, Marcus Junius (85–42 B.C.E.), 159
Bourbon family (France), 453, 453(m), 753 iron in, 657 Buccaneers, 527
Bourgeoisie, 741. See also Middle class Jews in, 365–367 Buddha, Greek-style, 115(i)
communist view of, 676 labor laws in, 660–661 Budget, in United States, 942
Bourges, cathedral in, 335(i) Labour Party in, 890 Buildings. See also Architecture; specific
Bové, José, 965 land reclamation in, 302 buildings
Boxer Uprising (China), 788 law code in, 288 Roman, 146, 167, 167(i)
Boyars, 460 liberalism in, 674, 778–779 Bulatov, Eric, 929, 929(i)
Boys. See also Men Malay peninsula, Burma, and, 737, 737(m) Bulgakov, Mikhail (1891–1940), 979
in Athens, 88 as mercantile power, 469 Bulgaria, 240, 262, 266–267, 281, 356(m),
education for, 87, 138 Middle East and, 802, 899 756, 791, 792
in Sparta, 59, 60 migration from, 743 cold war and, 884
Bradbury, Ray, 908 monarchy in, 287–288 collapse of communism in, 948(m)
Brahe, Tycho (1546–1601), 475, 478 Napoleon and, 629, 632 economy of, 964
Brain drain, 924, 935–936, 959 navy of, 792 refugees to, 823
Brandenburg-Prussia, 464, 494(m) in 1930s, 853–854 Russia and, 756
absolutism in, 492, 493–494 non-European immigrants in, 901 Soviets and, 871, 874
armed forces in 17th century, 493, 493(b) Normans and, 319–321, 320, 320(m) World War II and, 863
at end of 17th century, 516(m) paganism in, 253 Bulgars, 240, 241
Brandon, Richard, 501(i) Parliament in, 377 Bulls. See Papal bulls
Brandt, Willy (1913–1992), 928 poor laws in, 668 Bundesrat (Germany), 701
Braque, Georges (1882–1963), 774 Protestantism in, 433–434 Burckhardt, Jakob (1818–1897), 402(b)
Brazil, 646 railroads in, 656(f), 656–657 Bureaucracy
claimed by Portugal, 423 reforms in, 648–649, 703–705, 752–753 aristocracy and, 684
slavery in, 521, 521(f), 524, 670 religion in, 445–446, 502, 504 of Louis XIV, 489–490
Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of, 812 revolutions in, 498–505 modernization of, 576
Brethren of the Common Life, 399, 427–428 Roma (Gypsies) in, 975 Napoleon and, 623
Bretons, 965 Roman invasion of, 174 papal, 308
I-8 Index Bureaucracy–Cavendish

Bureaucracy (Continued) Cairo, 733 Caporetto, battle at, 814


in Rome, 201(b) Cairo geniza (depository), 318(b) Cappadocian language, 222
in Russia, 497, 832 Cairo Trilogy (Mahfouz), 978 Caracalla (Rome, r. 211–217 C.E.), 190–191
Soviet, 845, 943 Calabria, 304 Caravels, 421
after Thirty Years’ War, 464 Calas, Jean, 560 Carbonari, 631–632, 639, 644
in unions, 825 Calculus, 511 Carey, William (1761–1834), 639(i)
Burgundian people, 219 Calendar Caribbean region
Burgundofara (nun), 252 in Egypt, 21 colonies in, 470
Burgundy, 247(m), 252 in French Republic, 603–604 immigrants to Europe from, 901–902,
court in, 392, 410–411 Islamic, 235 902(i)
duchy of, 392, 410 in Rome, 159 slavery in, 508, 521, 521(f)
expansion of, 410(m) in Russia, 540, 810n Carib Indians, 423, 426
Hundred Years’ War and, 388, 392, 393(m) California, 470, 705 Carnegie, Andrew (1835–1919), 729
Burials Caligula (Gaius) (Rome, r. 37–41), 174 Carnival, 515
in Egypt, 23 Caliphs (Islamic), 232, 236–237 Caroline miniscule, 277
Etruscan, 141(i) Abbasid, 262, 268–269 Carolingian dynasty, 262
Mycenaean, 27, 28(i) capital of, 262 Carolingian Empire, 272–282, 275(m)
Neolithic, P-13 Shi’ites, Sunnis, and, 237 Bible manuscript from, 260(i)
Paleolithic, P-6–P-7 Umayyad, 237–238, 262 capital at Aachen, 274, 274(i)
Burke, Edmund (1729–1799), 610(b), 638 Call centers, 976 Roman Catholic Church and, 273
Burma, 737, 737(m), 864 Calligraphy, Arab, 238 Carolingian renaissance, 275–277
Burschenschaften (student societies), 645 Callot, Jacques, 461(i) Carrier, Jean-Baptiste (1756–1794), 605, 607
Bury-Saint-Edmunds, England, expulsion of Calvin, John (1509–1564), 432–433 Carriera, Rosalba (1675–1757), 529(i)
Jews from, 367 Calvinism, 433(b). See also Puritanism Carson, Rachel (1907–1964), 966
Bush, George W., Iraq War and, 972(i), Edict of Nantes and, 489 Cartels, 730, 824
972–973 Edict of Resolution and, 461 Carter, Jimmy, 938
Business. See also Commerce; Trade growth of, 445, 452 Carthage, 48, 73
in eastern Europe, 963 Knox and, 445–446 in 400 B.C.E., 100(m)
in former Soviet Union, 959 Peace of Augsburg and, 452, 460 Punic Wars and, 146–149, 147(m)
in Great Depression, 841 Peace of Westphalia and, 464 Syracuse and, 73
in Italy, 287, 833–834 spread of, 433 Carthusians, 309
limited liability corporation and, 730 Cambodia, 737, 936 Cartwright, Edmund, 655
medieval agreements for, 300–301 Cambridge University, women in, 710 Caspian Sea region, Mongols and, 380
multinational corporations and, 921–922 Cambyses (Persia, r. 530–522 B.C.E.), 72(m) Cassatt, Mary (1845–1926), 749, 749(i)
revolution in, 731–733 Cameroon, 734 Cassiodorus (c. 490–585), 220–221
World War I and, 809, 824–825 Campagnia (economic venture), 300 Castellans, 282, 285, 288–289, 301
Byron, George Gordon (Lord, 1788–1824), Camus, Albert (1913–1960), 903 Castiglione, Baldassare (1478–1529), 404,
640, 641(i) Canaan, 39, 41 441, 442
Byzantine Empire, 238–245. See also Eastern Canaanites, 15–16 Castile, 353, 354(m), 408, 410
Roman Empire Canada, 881, 892 Castile-León, cortes of, 377
Balkans and, 266–267 cession to Britain, 575 Castle, The (Kafka), 831
Comnenian dynasty in, 319 exploration of, 426 Castlereagh, Robert (1769–1822), 637, 638
dynatoi landowning elite in, 266 mercantilism in, 490 Castles, in Italy, 287
eastern Roman Empire as, 221, 232 migrants to, 746(f) Castro, Fidel (1926–), 909–910
expansion of (860–1025), 263(m) nation building in, 705 Catacombs, Jewish and Christian, 183(i)
imperial power in, 262–264 self-determination in, 671 Çatalhöyük, Turkey, P-10–P-14, P-14(i)
Kievan Russia and, 267 united dominion of, 705 Catalogs, mail-order, 732
Macedonian renaissance in, 262, 264–266, welfare state in, 894(i) Catalonia, revolt in (1640), 462
266(i) Canals, 302, 656, 663 Catasto (Italian census), 413
Manzikert and, 311 Cannae, battle at, 147 Cateau-Cambrésis, Treaty of (1559), 443, 445
Muslims in, 237 Canon (church) law, 308 Cathars, 350–351
Ottoman Empire and, 388, 396, 397(m) textbook, 304 Cathedrals. See specific locations
papacy and, 256 Canossa, Investiture Conflict and, 306 Catherine (Saint), monastery of (Mount
Persian attacks on, 239, 240 Canterbury, Becket at, 339(i) Sinai), 213(i)
religion in, 243–245 Canton system, 575 Catherine II (the Great) (Russia,
Seljuk Turks and, 311 Cape of Good Hope, 421, 422(m) r. 1762–1796), 554(i), 556, 568, 569–570
in c. 600, 241(m) Capetian dynasty (France), 288–289, 289(m), law code reforms and, 577
in c. 750, 258(m) 332, 340, 355 Poland and, 590, 612
Third Crusade and, 351 Capital (financial), communist view of, Catherine de Médicis (1519–1589), 453
in 12th century, 346, 346(m) 677(b) Catherine of Alexandria (Saint), 213
in c. 1215, 356(m) Capital cities. See also specific cities Catherine of Aragon (d. 1536), 434
warfare in, 238–240 Carolingian, 274, 274(i) Catholic (universal) church, 184
Byzantium. See Byzantine Empire Islamic, 262, 268 Catholicism. See Roman Catholicism
of Roman Empire, 198, 199 Catholic League, 455
Cabet, Étienne (1788–1856), 676 Capital-intensive industry, 730 Cato, Marcus Porcius (234–149 B.C.E.), 148,
Cabinet, 539(i) Capitalism 149
Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (movie), 828 Marx and, 714, 776 Catullus (c. 84–54 B.C.E.), 150, 156
Cabral, Pedro Alvares (1467–1520), 423 Russia and, 812 Caucasus area, Hittites from, 24
Caesar, Julius (100–44 B.C.E.), 156–157, in Turkey, 843–844 Cavaliers, 498
158–159, 159(i) Capitularies (summaries of royal decisions), Cave men, P-5
Cage, John (1912–1992), 926 274, 276, 277 Cavendish, Margaret (1623–1673), 511
Cave painting–Christianity Index I-9

Cave painting as father of Europe, 276–277(b) China, 6


of bison at Lascaux, P-7(i) Harun al-Rashid and, 268 Britain and, 737
Paleolithic, P-6 as successor of Augustus, 276(b) civil service in, 709
Cavour, Camillo di (Italy, 1810–1861), 689, successors to, 277–278 Communists in, 890, 898
696–697, 697(b) Charles, Simon, 394–395(b) economic growth in, 973
Ceauşescu, Nicolae (1918–1989), 947 Charles I (England, r. 1625–1649), 498, Europeans, and, 380, 527, 549, 712–713
Celibacy, clerical, 251, 303, 308 500–501, 501(i) France and, 928
Celtic peoples Charles II (England, r. 1660–1685), industrial safety in, 973
Anglo-Saxons and, 217 502–504 Japan and, 786, 857, 864
Gauls as, 121–122, 145 Charles II (Spain, r. 1665–1700), 536 Mongols and, 380, 420
Irish culture of, 254 Charles IV (Holy Roman emperor, Nixon in, 937
Censer (dish), 243(i) r. 1355–1378), 391 porcelain from, 421
Censorship Charles IV (Spain, r. 1788–1808), 632 printing in, 426
in Cromwell’s England, 502 Charles V (Spain, r. 1519–1556), 426, 446 revolution in (1911), 788
in Enlightenment, 564–565 court of, 419 revolution in (1949), 890, 898
in France, 547–648, 602 Erasmus instruction of, 428 riots in, 945
in German Confederation, 645 German princes and, 436 Russia and, 737, 961
Index of Prohibited Books and, 565 Habsburg-Valois-Ottoman wars and, 443, Taiping in, 712
in Italy, 672 444, 448 U.S. relations with, 936
papal Index and, 439, 549 Schmalkaldic League and, 446 World War I and, 803
printing press and, 427 Truce of Nice and, 443(i) Chingiz (Genghis) Khan (Mongols,
in Soviet bloc, 895 Charles VI (Holy Roman emperor, c. 1162–1227), 380
Census, 708 r. 1711–1740), 573 Chirac, Jacques, 942
Domesday survey as, 320–321, 323(m), 413 Charles VII (France, r. 1422–1461), 392 Chivalry, 395
in First and Second Punic Wars, 148(f) Charles IX (France, r. 1560–1574), 453, 454 Chlorine gas, World War I and, 803
Italian catasto as, 413 Charles X (France, r. 1824–1830), 646–647 Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), 966
in Rome, 141 Charles XII (Sweden, r. 1697–1718), 543 Cholera, 662, 662(m)
as tool of power, 413–414 Charles Albert (Piedmont-Sardinia, Chopin, Frédéric (1810–1849), 666
Central Europe r. 1831–1849), 644, 680–681 Chosroes II (Sasanids, r. 591–628), 239(b), 240
government in, 289–291 Charles Martel (Franks, 714–741), 272–273 Chrétien de Troyes (c. 1150–1190), 348–349
monarchies in, 282 Charles of Anjou, 375 Christ, 181, 182, 183(i). See also Jesus
in 1930s, 854 Charles the Bald (Carolingians, r. 843–877), Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter (Perugino),
revolts in, 681–684 261, 278, 278(i) 405(i)
in 1648–1699, 494(m) Charles the Bold (Burgundy, r. 1467–1477), Christian IV (Denmark, r. 1596–1648), 461
Thirty Years’ War and, 460–465 410, 411 Christian Democrats, 889, 928
World War I and, 823 Charter 77 (Czechoslovakia), 946 Christianity, 181–188, 207–208, 209–212. See
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 909, 910 Charter of the Nobility (Russia), 568, 580 also specific groups
Centralization, in eastern Roman Empire, Chartism, 677, 684 in Anglo-Saxon England, 253
224–225 Chartres cathedral, 326(i), 327 Aristotle and, 358(i)
Central Powers (World War I), 800, 804, 814 Chateaubriand, François-René de Bible of, 42
Central Short Time Committee (Britain), 661 (1768–1848), 627–628 in Britain, 217, 253, 253–255, 288
Ceramics, Greek, 64 Châtelet, Émilie du (1706–1749), 558 Byzantines and, 267
Cervantes, Miguel de (1547–1616), 459, 512, Chávez, César (1927–1993), 931 Charlemagne and, 273
535 Chechen rebels, 960(i), 960–961 in China, 380
Cézanne, Paul (1839–1906), 773–774 Chechnya, 965 Christian humanism and, 427
CFCs. See Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) Russia and, 956–958, 960(i), 960–961 church hierarchy in, 183–184, 208–209, 214
Chaeronea, battle of, 112, 112(m) Cheka (secret police), 813 classical culture and, 265–266
Chalcedon, Council of (451), 211 Cheops. See Khufu (Cheops) classical rhetoric and, 226
Chalcis (city-state), rebellion in, 88(b) Chernobyl catastrophe, 943, 944, 966 Constantine and, 196(i)
Chaldeans, 36–37 Chiefdoms, of non-Roman peoples, 215 crusades and, 311–319
Chamberlain, Neville (1869–1940), 861 Childbirth, 921 Donatist, 210–211
Chamber of Deputies (France), 639, 753, in Greece, 82 in eastern Roman Empire, 222, 225
754, 854 midwife and, 180(i) eastern-western division in, 225, 308
Chamber of Peers (France), 639 in Paleolithic Age, P-5 growth of, 182–185, 209(m)
Champagne region, fairs in, 296 in Rome, 137–138, 180 hierarchy in, 183–184, 208–209, 214
Chandragupta (India, r. 323–299 B.C.E.), 116 test-tube babies and, 921(i) in 14th century, 399, 400
Chansons de geste, 348 Child labor, in factories, 659(i), 660–661 Islam and, 237
Chanters, 331 Children monasticism in, 212–214
Chaplin, Charlie (1889–1977), 828, 855 abandonment of, 119 Monophysite, 210–211
Chariots, 25, 28 in 18th century, 572–573 Nestorian, 210–211
Charity(ies), 669(i), 743 in Great Depression, 843 in 1960s, 927
Christian, 208 Hebrew, 40–41 in Normandy, 280
in Great Famine, 382 illegitimate, 361, 768 in northern Europe, 353–354
Napoleon and, 626 in 1960s, 925 Orthodox form of, 267
religious orders and, 668 oblation and, 251 persecution of, 182–183, 191
supranational, 965 in Romania, 947(i) popular piety and, 399, 427
Charlemagne (Carolingians, r. 768–814), in Rome, 136–137 population in late 3rd century C.E., 184(m)
262, 276(b) thalidomide and, 920(i) in Rome, 163, 164, 186–187(b), 196,
in Aachen, 273, 274, 274(i) World War I and, 767 204–214, 254–255
Carolingian Empire of, 272, 273–277, Children’s Crusade, 355(b) in Russia, 267
275(m) Chimera (mythology), 33 saints and relics in, 248
I-10 Index Christianity–Clients

Christianity (Continued) schools in, 328 in Russia, 812–814, 814(m)


seizure of Jerusalem by, 315(b) self-government for, 301 in Spain (1936–1939), 859–860, 860(i),
Spanish reconquista and, 305, 353 social life in, 531–534 860(m)
women in church, 184–185 social order in, 706–708 in United States, 696, 705
Christianization, 439–440 in Soviet Union, 928 Clair, René, 854–855
Christian Social Party (Austria-Hungary), in Spain, 377 Clandestine workers, in Europe, 902
781–782 in Sumer, 7, 7–9 Clans, of non-Roman peoples, 215
Christine de Pisan (c. 1365–c. 1430), 403 “unplanned,” 298–299 Clare (13th century), 350
Christmas Carol, A (Dickens), 666 in western Europe, 247 Classes. See also Aristocracy; Social
Church(es). See also specific religions Citizens and citizenship. See also Democracy hierarchies; Status; specific classes
Byzantine vs. Roman, 267 activism in 1960s and 1970s, 930–936 Assyrian elite, 36
in Constantinople (600–900), 243(f) in Athens, 62–63, 70, 76, 77 in Athens, 62, 62–63
in France, 376 education for, 709 in Çatalhöyük, P-14
Gothic, 333–336, 334(i), 335(i) in Greece, 34, 47, 51, 54–56, 57 in cities, 706–707
Great Awakening and, 566 for native Americans, 706(m) in eastern Roman Empire, 222–223
Hagia Sophia as, 225 in Rome, 140, 154, 166, 170, 190 education for, 709
in Holy Roman Empire, 289–290 women and, 56 in Greece, 34, 44–45
music and, 406, 408 City of God (Augustine of Hippo), 211–212 hostility between, 663, 681(b)
reform of, 302–311 City-states, 7. See also Citizens and medieval orders as, 376–377
Roman Catholic vs. Greek Orthodox, 304 citizenship; Polis peasants as, 283–285
Romanesque, 332(i), 332–333, 333(i), 335(i) Geneva as theocratic, 433 in Rome, 136, 138, 142, 179–180
social order and, 718 Greek, 34, 46, 47–57, 104, 110, 112 World War I and, 805–806, 825
tithes and, 468 Italian, 408, 412 Classical culture, 220–221. See also Literature
Church and state Sumerian, 7–9 in Britain, 254–255
balance between, 378–379 City walls in Byzantine Empire, 265–266
Investiture Conflict and, 307 Alexander and, 113 in Middle Ages, 330
in Italy, 255–256 in Jericho, P-10 preservation of, 225–226
in 19th century, 719 at Megiddo, 41(i) Classical Greece, 70, 95(m). See also Golden
in Spain, 255 Civil Code (Napoleonic), 620, 625–627, 630 Age; specific locations
Church fathers, 211, 275 land ownership and, 664 end of, 110
Churchill, Randolph (1849–1895), 741 Louis XVIII and, 639 after Peloponnesian War, 104–110
Churchill, Winston (1874–1965), 741, 874, women under, 669 Classical music, 570–571
884, 899 Civil Constitution of the Clergy (France, Classicism, 405, 510
Church of England. See Anglican church 1790), 597 in architecture, 405
(Church of England) Civil disobedience French, 509
CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in India, 843, 844(i) in music, 408
Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106–43 B.C.E.), 137, in U.S. civil rights movement, 904–905 vs. romanticism, 640
138, 150, 226, 401 Civilians Claudius (Rome, r. 41–54), 174
Cimon (Athens, 5th century B.C.E.), 76, 78 in Chechnya, 960 Cleisthenes (Athens, 508 B.C.E.), 63–64, 75
Cincius Romanus, 401–402 World War I and, 807–809 Clemenceau, Georges (1841–1929), 816
Ciompi Revolt (1378), 412 World War II and, 864–866, 869–870 Clement VII (antipope, r. 1378–1446), 398
Circle of the Lustful, The (Blake), 643(i) Civilization(s), P-4. See also Culture; Clement VII (Pope, r. 1523–1534), 434
Circumcision, 182 Geography; Western civilization; Clement XIV (Pope, r. 1769–1774), 577
Circumnavigation, 420–421 Western world; specific societies Cleon (Athens, 5th century B.C.E.), 98
CIS. See Commonwealth of Independent in Aegean and Mediterranean regions, Cleopatra VII (Egypt, 69–30 B.C.E.), 115,
States (CIS) 23(m), 23–29 119(i), 120, 158, 165
Cisalpine Republic, 608, 682(i) “clash of,” 952 Clergy. See also specific types
Cistercians, 309–310, 310(f) defined, 4–6, 6(b) Byzantine, 243, 319
Cîteaux, monastery of, 309 Mediterranean, 66(m) celibacy of, 303, 308
Cities and towns. See also Urban areas; in Mesopotamia, 7–16 French Terror and, 606
Walled cities; specific locations Neolithic Revolution and, P-10 in Holy Roman Empire, 289–290
Babylonian, 15 Western, 4–7 indigenous people as, 440
in Byzantine Empire, 241 writing in, 10–11 in medieval universities, 332
commerce in, 296–299 Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, The Methodist, 567
culture in, 529 (Burckhardt), 402(b) in 1930s, 856
in Egypt, 16 Civil rights in Prussia, 718
in Enlightenment, 568 legislation for, 930 in revolutionary France, 597
in Fascist Italy, 833 movements, 904, 928–930, 931 roles of, 427, 448
globalization of, 964 in Nazi Germany, 848 as social order, 376–377
Great Famine and, 382 in Northern Ireland, 939–940 in Spanish colonies, 527
Hellenistic, 117–118 Civil Rights Act (U.S., 1964), 930 taxation of, 377–378
illegitimacy in, 663 Civil service, 709. See also Bureaucracy training of, 439
industrialization and, 659 in eastern Roman Empire, 223 World War II resistance by, 870
in Italy, 379–380 Civil war(s) Clermont, Urban II, First Crusade, and, 312,
Jews in, 297–298 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 953–954 314(b)
migration to, 653, 659 in China (1840s–1864), 712 Clermont Tonnerre, Stanislas de
population growth in, 765 in England (12th century), 321, 337 (1757–1792), 597(b)
religious orders in, 349–350 in Islam, 237 Clients
in Roman Empire, 168–171 in Rome, 153–155, 158, 165, 175, 188, Greek cities and leagues as, 148
rural aspects of, 662 190–191, 200 in Roman society, 136
Climate–Comte Index I-11

Climate Collective bargaining, in France, 854 permanent centers of, 296


in Europe, 248–249 Collectives, peasant, 302 private joint-stock companies in, 470
global warming and, 966 Collective security. See also Alliances; specific Thomas Aquinas and, 368
in ice age, P-6 alliances Commercial revolution, 296–302
little ice age of 1600–1850, 466–467(b) World War I and, 821 Committee of Public Safety (France), 600,
Mediterranean, 48 Collectivization, 676 601, 605, 606
of Mesopotamia, 7 in Soviet bloc, 846, 895 Commodities, trade in, 520, 522(m)
Neolithic Revolution and, P-8 Colleges. See Universities Commoners, in English Parliament, 377
Cloning, 920 Coloni (tenant farmers), 200, 247 Common law (England), 336–340, 339(i)
Clothar II (Merovingian, r. 613–623), 252 Colonies and colonization Common Market, 889, 892–893, 937, 961
Clothing in Americas, 425(m), 470, 470(m) cooperation in, 922
in eastern Roman Empire, 222 British, 737(m) as European Union, 952
gender differences in, 669 criticism of, 560 Spain in, 942
industrialization and, 655–656 decolonization and, 897–902 Common people
for Jews, 362 European culture and, 738 burden of warfare on, 491–492
Napoleonic revolution in, 624(i) French, 613–615 music and, 535
after plague, 390–391 French (1930s), 844 Commonwealth, British, 892
social status of, 533 in Great Depression, 843 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS),
Clotilda (Franks), 219 Greek, 48–51, 52(b) 957(m)
Clouds, The (Aristophanes), 91–92 human rights and, 904 Communes, 301. See also Paris Commune
Clovis (Franks, r. 485–511), 219, 255 imperialism vs., 670 in Italy, 307, 344–345
Clown, The (Böll), 906 independence movements in, 647(m) Paris as, 713, 714–715
Cluniacs, 303, 309 of Napoleon, 630–632 in Russia, 695
Cnut (Canute) (Denmark, r. 1017–1035), in 19th century, 710–713 Communications
280, 288 in North America, c. 1780, 583 global, 952, 977–978
Coahuiltecan people, P-5 oil and, 938(f) mass journalism and, 752
Coal and coal industry, 727 products from, 733 Communications satellites, 917, 919
in Britain, 657 resistance to, 788–790 Communism, 676
child labor in, 661 Roman, 145–146 in China, 890, 898
in Germany, 657 trade patterns and, 522(m) cold war and, 884
output of (1830–1850), 658(f) violence and, 734(i) collapse of, 942–947, 948(m), 953–961
strikes in England (1926), 823 World War I and, 785, 801, 818(b), 819, in Czechoslovakia, 914(i), 915
World War I and, 820 824 French Revolution and, 590(b)
World War II and, 892 World War I soldiers and, 806 in Germany, 847, 848
Coalitions, against Sparta, 110 World War II and, 856 Hitler, Mussolini, and, 858
Cochin China, 712, 737 Colosseum (Rome), 175 in Indochina, 844
Cochlaeus, Johannes, 432(b) Colossus (computer), 917 Marshall Plan and, 886
Cockade (French badge), 603 Colossus, The (Goya), 622(i) McCarthyism and, 890–891
Code of Laws (Muscovy, 1649), 469 Columbanus (Saint, d. 615), 251 revolutions of 1989 and, 945–947
Codes, World War II and, 863 Columbian exchange, 420, 426 Soviet, 845–847, 894–897, 956
Codes of law. See Law(s); Law codes Columbus, Christopher (1451–1506), 420, Soviet Union after, 958(i)
Codex (book), 226–227 423(b), 424(b) totalitarianism of, 844
Codex (Justinian), 225 Combahee River Statement (1977), 932(b) utopia of, 831–833
Coffee (kavah), 519 COMECON. See Council for Mutual in Yugoslavia, 886, 886(m)
Coffeehouses, 518(i), 519, 528, 534 Economic Assistance (COMECON) Communist China. See China
Cohen, Mark R., 318 Comedy Communist International, 813
Coins in Greece, 95–96 Communist League, 676, 677(b)
debasement of, 189, 189(i) Hellenistic, 121 Communist Manifesto, The (Marx and
Persian and Arabic, (i), 239, 239(b) New Comedy and, 124(b) Engels), 676, 677(b)
Roman, 159(i), 167, 189, 189(i) Roman, 150(i) Communist Party
Colbert, Jean-Baptiste (1619–1683), 486(i), Coming South (Roberts), 724(i) in Russia, 812
490, 511 Commedia (Dante), 369 Soviet, 943, 956
Cold war, 880, 927–936 Commerce. See also Business; Commercial World War II and, 890
in Asia, 898 revolution; Seaborne trade; Trade Communist theory, Marx and, 283
culture of, 908–909 Assyrians and, 13–14 Communities, 675, 676
decolonization during, 897–902 in Bronze Age, 7 Islamic ummah as, 236
end of, 947 Byzantine, 264 monastic, 213–214
government archives and truth about, Canaanites and, 15 Comnenian dynasty (1081–1185), 319
885(b) centers of, 298–299 Compendium Maleficarum (Guazzo), 478(i)
lifestyle and culture during, 902–911 in cities and towns, 298–299 Competition
military spending during, 891(f) Continental System of, 631 for control of Americas, 527
origins of, 883–886 in countryside, 301–302 economic, 469, 470, 922
space age and, 919 crafts and, 299–301 among great powers, 520
totalitarianism and, 845(b) Dutch, 458, 506, 506(m) Hobbes view of, 504
world during (1960), 912(m) of Egypt, 16 over India, 527–528
Cole, Thomas (1801–1848), 664 Greeks and, 43, 49–51 in 17th century trade, 506, 506(m)
Collaborators, World War II and, 888 in Islamic world, 270–271 in shipbuilding, 490
Collage, 774 Jewish involvement in, 297 Computers, 917–918, 975, 976
Collection in 74 Titles, 304 medieval, 250 Comte, Auguste (1798–1857), 669–670,
Collective action, by workers, 750 in Mycenae, 27 720–721
I-12 Index Concentration camps–Courts

Concentration camps Huguenots and, 454 Corporate state, in Italy, 833–834


in Germany, 839, 848–849 Montesquieu and, 560 Corporations
as memorials, 867 in Poland-Lithuania, 484 Italian families as, 287
survivors of, 881 Constitutions of Melfi (Frederick II), 373–374 limited liability, 730
World War II and, 865(m), 865–866 Consulate (France), 621 multinational, 921–922
Concert of Europe, end of, 690–696 Consuls, in Milan, 301 Corpus Christi processions, 515, 515(i)
Conciliar Movement, 399 Consuls (Rome), 142 Corresponding societies, 608–609
Concordat of Worms (1122), 306n, 307, 323 Marius as, 153 Corruption
Concorde, 922 Octavian (Augustus) as, 165 Augustine on, 211
Condition of the Working Class in England, Pompey as, 155 in British government, 581
The (Engels), 660(b) Consumer economy, 923 in former Soviet Union, 956, 959
Condoms, 664 Consumer goods, 827, 891, 925 public opinion on, 580
Confederation of the Rhine, 630, 630(m), 633 Consumerism, 905(b) Corsica and Corsicans, 147, 965
Confessions (Augustine of Hippo), 212 department stores and, 732(i), 732–733 Cortes (Spain), 410, 644
Confessions (Rousseau), 566 in eastern Europe, 964 of Castile-León, 377
Confraternities, 514 gender norms and, 905–908 Cortés, Hernando (Hernán) (1485–1547),
Congo, 734, 951, 974 global, 976 418(i), 425–426
Congregationalism, in England, 499 in 1960s, 925 Cosmonauts, female, 918, 918(i)
Congress of Berlin, 756 protests against, 931 Cossacks, 497, 579, 579(i)
Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), 636, Consumer revolution, 528–529, 530(b) Cost of living
636(i), 648, 650(m), 692 Consumption, patterns of, 525–526 in 1848, 678
Conquest of Jerusalem, The, 419 Contado (countryside), 301 World War I and, 809(f)
Conquistadores, 426 Continental Europe, England and, 321 Cotton, 528(i), 658–659
Conrad III (Holy Roman Empire, Continental System, 631 Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
1093–1152), 317, 323 Contraception. See Birth control (COMECON), 895
Conscription. See also Military draft Contracts Council of Five Hundred (France), 621
under Napoleon, 631 Greek marriage, 85(b) Councils. See also Senate
World War II and, 868 medieval, 300 of Areopagus (Athens), 76
Conservatism Contrasts (Pugin), 665 in Athens, 63
emergence of, 638–639 Convents, 214, 283 in England, 377
gender roles and, 684 in Arles, France, 246(i) of Five Hundred (Athens), 76, 77, 88
political, 754 Beguines and, 350 in Sparta, 59
World War I and, 815 Benedictine, 309 Councils (Christian)
Conservative Party (England), 752–753, 792, Merovingian, 252 of Chalcedon (451), 211
890, 941(b) Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds of Constance (1414–1418), 399, 400, 401
Conservatives (Fontenelle), 546 First Vatican Council, 719
in England, 703, 778–779 Conversion Fourth Lateran (1215), 360–361
in Germany, 781 of Bedouins to Islam, 236 of Justinian II, 256
Considerations on France (Maistre), 611(b) to Calvinism, 452–453 of Lyon (1245), 374
Considerations on the Main Events of the to Catholicism, 527 of Reims (1049), 304
French Revolution (Staël), 611(b) to Christianity, 182, 202–203, 380 Second Vatican Council (Vatican II),
Constance (Sicily), 373 of Constantine, 202–203, 204 903, 927
Constant, Benjamin (1767–1830), 634–635(b) to Islam, 232, 234–235 of Soissons (1121), 331
Constantine (Rome, r. 306–337), 192, 196(i), of Muslims, 414 Third Council of Toledo, 255
210 of native Americans, 419 Third Lateran, 367
conversion to Christianity, 202–203, 204 of Vladimir, 267 of Trent (1545–1563), 438–439
tetrarchy of, 198 Conversos, 414 Counterculture, 931, 936
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos (Byzantine Cook, James (1728–1779), 560 Counter-Reformation, 435
emperor, r. 913–959), 264(i), 264–265 Cooking, P-6 Countryside. See Rural areas
Constantinople, 199, 204, 239, 241 Cooperatives, 675, 676 Counts, as warriors, 285
fall of, 646(i) Copenhagen, telephone exchange in, 731(i) Coups, in Russia, 956
in First Crusade, 312(m) Copernicus, Nicolaus (1473–1543), 475 Courbet, Gustave (1819–1877), 717, 717(i)
in Fourth Crusade, 340 Copper, 12 Courtier, The (Castiglione), 442
Hagia Sophia in, 225, 226(i), 397 Co-Prosperity Sphere, Japanese, 858 Courtly love, 347
as Istanbul, 844 Coptic alphabet, 18(f) Court of Star Chamber (England), 498
under Justinian, 225(m) Coptic Christians, 211, 324(m) Courts
Ottomans in, 387, 388, 396, 397 Corday, Charlotte (1768–1793), 604 in England, 337–339
sack of (1204), 352, 352(m) Córdoba, 270, 271, 942 in France, 375
St. Sophia in, 268(i) Corinth, 48(m), 60–62, 70, 74 in Germany, 373–374
Turkish control of (1453), 218 black-figure vase from, 32(i), 34, 43, 60(i) of inquisition, 360
Constantius II (Rome, r. 337–361), 210 Rome and, 149 World Court, 955
Constitution 750–500 B.C.E., 57(m) Courts (royal)
in France, 596, 607, 622, 674 temple of Apollo at, 61(i) of Burgundy, 392
in Japan, 738 tyranny in, 57, 60–62 Byzantine, 263
in Poland, 823 Corneille, Pierre (1606–1684), 487–488, 513 in eastern Roman Empire, 222, 223(i), 224(i)
in United States, 583 Cornelia (Rome, 2nd century B.C.E.), Fatimid, 270
Constitutionalism, 483–484 137–138 in High Renaissance, 441–442
in England, 484, 497–505, 504 Corn Laws (Britain), repeal of, 674 of Louis XIV, 483, 486–489, 487(b)
in English North America, 505, 508 Coronation of Napoleon III, 691
Enlightenment and, 564 of Charlemagne, 274–275 of Philip IV, 464(i)
freedoms and, 509 of Stephen I (Hungary), 291 women in, 512–514
Covenant–Daguerreotype Index I-13

Covenant, Hebrew, 40, 42 by Louis IX (France), 375 in Near East, 34


Crafts northern, 353–355 in 19th century, 666–667
Minoan, 26 Richard I (England) in, 340 in 1930s, 854–856
organization of, 299–301 “Cry of the Children, The” (Browning), popular, 514, 572
Cranmer, Thomas (1489–1556), 434 664–665 postindustrial, 921–927
Crassus, Marcus Licinius (c. 115–53 B.C.E.), Crystal Palace, 684, 685, 685(i) in provinces, 177–178
155 Ctesibius of Alexandria (c. 310 B.C.E.), 127 of rock-and-roll, 905–906
Credit, 366 Ctesiphon, 237, 240, 268 Roman, 130, 134
Great Depression and, 840 Cuba in Russia, 832
Crete, 23, 23(m) Castro in, 909–910 secular, 903
civilization in, 4, 6, 24 slavery in, 670 of social order, 715–721
Minoans in, 25–27 U.S. and, 785 social question and, 664–667
Mycenaeans and, 28 Cuban missile crisis, 885, 910, 911(m) of Soviet dissidents, 928
wall painting from, 26(i) Cubism, 774 spread of, 733
Crick, Francis, 906 Cult(s) television and, 917
Crime and criminals of Asclepius, 93(i) U.S. dominance of, 980
attitudes toward, 514 of Aten, 22 vernacular in, 346–349
in England, 288 Christianity compared with, 205 in western Europe, 219–221
in former Soviet Union, 959 of efficiency, 825 World War I and, 827–834
in London, 648 in Egypt, 21 Cuneiform, 10, 11(f), 13, 18(f)
in Mesopotamia, 14–15 in Greece, 53 Curia (city senate), 200–201, 202
political, 605 Greek women and, 56 Curials (urban social elite), 200–201, 242
in rural areas, 572 Hellenistic, 127–128 Curie, Marie (1867–1934), 772, 773, 773(i)
in urban areas, 663 hero, 81 Curie, Pierre (1859–1906), 772
Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky), 717 imperial (Rome), 175 Currency
Crimean War (1853–1856), 690, 691, of Mithras, 185(i) collapse of international system, 937
692(m), 692–694, 704 Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone, 185 euro as, 961
Crimes against humanity mystery, 81, 129 Curriculum
by Milosevic, 955 of the offensive (World War I), 803 in France, 754
Nuremberg trials and, 888 of personality (Soviet Union), 896 in Middle Ages, 328–329, 331–332
Criminology, 769 of Reason (France), 603 in 19th century, 709
Critias ruler, 128 in Roman schools, 172
on religion, 89 Cultivation, P-10, P-15. See also Agriculture; student protests against, 931
on Spartan society, 99 Crops; Farms and farming Customs, culture and, 5
as tyrant, 106 Cult of the Supreme Being (France), 603 Cybulski, Zbigniew, 906
Critique of Pure Reason, The (Kant), 565 Cultural imperialism, 740–750 Cynics, 125
Croatia, 953, 954, 955 Cultural Revolution (China, 1960s), 937 Cyprus, P-4n, 459, 963
Croats, 672, 682–683, 684 Culture. See also Art(s); Intellectual thought; Cypselus (Corinth), 61–62
Croesus (Greece), 50, 50(i) Society; specific cultures Cyrene, Greeks in, 52(b)
Cromwell, Oliver (1599–1658), 499, advertising and, 907, 908 Cyril (missionary, c. 863), 267
500–502, 502(i) Americanization of, 902–903, 908, 909 Cyrillic alphabet, 267
Cromwell, Thomas (1485–1540), 434 in Balkan region, 703(i) Cyrus (Persian Empire, r. 557–530 B.C.E.),
Crops, P-10. See also specific crops from beyond West, 978–979 37, 41, 72(m)
in Europe, 248–259 in Britain, 217, 254, 254–255, 704 Czartoryska, Zofia, 558
failures of, 678 in Byzantine Empire, 240, 242–243 Czechoslovakia, 816
Greek, 48 Cairo geniza documents about, 318 collapse of communism in, 946–947, 948(m)
introduction of, 578 in Christianized Roman Empire, 196–197 EU and, 963(b)
medieval, 279 civilization and, 5 fragmentation of, 965
in New World, 420, 426 classical, 220–221, 225–226, 254–255 Nazi invasion of, 861
staple, 521 in cold war, 902–911 in 1930s, 854
yield of (1400–1800), 531 530(f) debates over future, 828–831 in 1990s, 954(m)
Cross-cultural contact. See also Culture; in eastern Europe, 895 Prague Spring in, 934(i), 934–935
Trade; specific countries in eastern Roman Empire, 222–223 protests in, 914(i), 915
Greek, 48 in Egypt, 21 refugees from, 881
Near East and Greece, 33 in 1850–1870, 690 Soviets and, 886
Roman, 140–141 during Enlightenment, 567–573 student protests in, 931
Cross in the Mountains, The (Friedrich), 641 ethnicity and, 249(b) World War I and, 821
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (movie), 978 European in colonies, 738 Czech people, 672, 683, 854
Crucifixion, of Jesus, 182 in former Soviet bloc, 979–980 in Austria-Hungary, 702, 781
Cruikshank, George (1792–1878), 666 French Republican, 602–603 in Bohemia, 401
Crusader states, 313n, 316(m), 316–317 global, 977–981, 978(i) Roman Catholicism and, 291
Crusades, 311–319, 313(i) in global cities, 964 self-determination of, 461
First (1096–1099), 311, 312(m) in Greece, 33–34, 42, 70, 81–96 Thirty Years’ War and, 460
Second (1147–1149), 317, 351, 353 Greek influence on Roman, 141, 149–150 World War I and, 807
Third, 340, 351 Hellenistic, 120–129 Czech Republic, 963, 965, 968
Fourth, 346, 351–353, 360 imperialism and, 739–740
Albigensian, 353, 354–355 in India, 712 Dachau concentration camp, 848–849, 867
Children’s, 354(b) in Mali, 737(i) Dacia, Rome and, 192(m)
1150–1204, 352(m) Mediterranean, 26 Dada movement, 829–830
in Europe, 353–355 in Middle Ages, 327–328 Daguerre, Jacques (1787–1851), 667, 667(i)
long-term impact of, 317–319 national identity and, 690 Daguerreotype, 667, 667(i)
I-14 Index Daily life–Disabilities

Daily life. See Lifestyle Defenestration of Prague, The (Matthäus), Desprez, Josquin (1440-1521), 406, 408
Daladier, Édouard (1884–1970), 861 450(i) D’Este, Isabella (1474–1539), 406
Dalai Lama, 978 Defense Détente policy, 937
Dalmatian coast, 356(m) cold war spending on, 910 Devaluation, 444
Damascus, 236(m), 262, 268 Minoan, 25–26 Devolution, War of (1667–1668), 491(b)
Great Mosque in, 237–238, 238(i) Roman, 177 Dhuoda, 261, 278
in Second Crusade, 317 Deficits Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World
Dance, modern, 775 trade, 730–731 Systems (Galileo), 477(b)
Dance of Death, 390, 391(i), 409 in United States, 941 Dialogues, of Plato, 107, 226
Danegeld, 280, 321 Defoe, Daniel (1660–1731), 530(b), 535 Diamonds, in Africa, 736
Danelaw, 280 Deforestation, 284, 966 Diaphragm, for birth control, 747, 766
Danhauer, Gottfried, 542(i) De Gaulle, Charles (1890–1970), 917, Diary of a Young Girl (Frank), 903
Dante Alighieri (1365–1321), 369 919, 928 Diaspora, Jewish, 42
Danton, Georges-Jacques (1759–1794), Algerian independence and, 901 Dickens, Charles (1812–1870), 666, 716
603, 605 on French language purity, 980 Dictators (Rome)
Danube River, as Roman frontier, 189, 196 student protests and, 934 Caesar as, 158–159
Dardanelles, 693 World War II and, 864, 868–869, 889 Sulla as, 155
Darius I (Persia, r. 522–486 B.C.E.), 38–39, Degeneration (Nordau), 768–769 Dictatorship
58, 69, 71, 72(m), 73(m) Deism, 559, 603 in Austria, 854
Dark Age(s), 233 Deities. See Gods and goddesses; specific in Fascist Italy, 833–834
in Greece, 42–45, 43(m), 44 deities in 1930s, 840
in Near East, 34–35 De Klerk, F. W. (1936–), 973 in Romania, 947
Darwin, Charles (1809–1882), 719–720, 720(i) De Kooning, Willem (1904–1997), 909 Diderot, Denis (1713–1784), 557, 565
Daumier, Honoré (1808–1879), 669(i) Delacroix, Eugène (1798–1863), 641–642 on Jews, 577
David (Hebrew), 41 Delhi, British in, 710–711 on legal reform, 560
David (Michelangelo), 441(i) Delian League, 74, 74(m), 75, 77, 88(b), 96 persecution of, 564
David, Jacques-Louis (1748–1825), 603, Delphi, oracle at, 52 Didymus (Egypt, c. 80–10 B.C.E.), 120–121
618(i), 626(i) Deluge (Poland-Lithuania), 497 Dien Bien Phu, battle of, 930(m)
Davis, Angela, 931 Demagogues, in Great Depression, 842 Diet (assembly)
Dawes Plan (1924), 821 De Male, Louis, 396 in Hungary, 495
Daycare centers, 894 De Manny, Walter, 394 of Worms (1521), 430
D-Day (June 6, 1944), 870 Demes (political units), 63–64 Diet (nutrition). See also Foods
Dean, James, 905 Demeter (goddess), cult of, 81–82, 185 cooking and, P-6
Death Demilitarization, World War I and, 821 in Egypt, 16
in Egypt, 23 Democracies. See also specific countries Mediterranean, 26
Myceanaean, 27 Great Depression in, 852–854 Paleolithic, P-5
Neolithic interest in, P-13–P-14 in 1930s, 840, 852–856 World War II and, 894
Death camps, for Jews, 839 terrorism against, 939–940 Dietrich, Marlene (1901–1992), 855
Death penalty, 577, 601(i), 605 World War II and, 889–893 Digest (Justinian), 225
De Baudricourt, Robert, 394(b) Democracy Diggers, 500
Debt Aristotle on, 108 Dikes, in England, 302
Great Depression and, 840–841 in Athens, 57, 62–64, 70, 74–77 Dioceses, in Rome, 198, 199(m)
of United States, 973 in early United States, 583 Diocletian (Rome, r. 284–305), 192, 196,
Debussy, Claude (1862–1918), 775 economic, 822 197–198
Decembrist Revolt, 645, 668 in former Soviet Union, 959 division of Rome by, 198, 199(m), 204(i)
De-Christianization, in revolutionary France, in Persia, 58(b) economy and, 200–202
603 Plato on, 108 Edict on Maximum Prices and Wages,
Decius (Rome, r. 249–251), 191 Rousseau and, 563, 564 201(b)
Declaration of Independence (United States, Demography, P-10 Roman district of, 199(m)
1776), 582(b) in Greece, 104 Diogenes (Sinope, d. 323 B.C.E.), 125, 125(i)
Enlightenment ideals in, 556, 578, 582 Sparta and, 60 Dionysus (god)
Declaration of Indulgence (1673), 503 Demoiselles d’Avignon, Les (Picasso), 774(i) cult of, 94(i), 129, 207(b)
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Demonstrations, in 1968, 934 Greek festival of drama and, 93–94, 95
Citizen (France), 595, 597(b), 638 Demosthenes (384–322 B.C.E.), 111 theater at Athens, 94(i)
Declaration of the Rights of Women Denazification, World War II and, 888 Dior, Christian, 907
(Gouges), 595–596 Denmark, 280, 542, 765, 881 Diphtheria, 894
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, The England and, 288 Diplomacy, 573–576
(Gibbon), 218 welfare state in, 894(i) by Akhenaten, 22
Decolonization World War II and, 863 Athenian, 69
of Africa, 900(m), 900–901 Department stores, 732(i), 732–733 in 18th century, 544
Belgian, 901 Dépôts de mendicité, 572 Hittite-Egyptian, 25
during cold war, 897–902 Depression (economic), 729–730. See also Roman, 145
Dutch, 901 Great Depression Soviet, 896–897
human rights and, 904 Deregulation U.S., 937
in North Africa, 901 of grain trade, 579 World War I and, 763–764, 821
oil and, 938(f) physiocrats and, 578 Diplomatic Revolution, 574
Decorative arts, 747–748 Descartes, René (1596–1650), 476–477 Directory (France), 607, 621
Decretum (Gratian), 308 De Sica, Vittorio, 909 Dirham, 239
Decurions, in Rome, 177 Despotism Disabilities
Defender of the Peace, The (Marsilius of in Britain, 581 in Nazi Germany, 851
Padua), 397 enlightened, 573 thalidomide and, 920(i)
Discourse on Method–Ecce Homo Index I-15

Discourse on Method (Descartes), 477 Dominate (Rome), 197–198, 201 Dutch War (1672–1678), 491(b)
Discovery of Achilles on Skyros (Poussin), Dominic (Saint, 1170–1221), 354 Du Tertre, Jean-Baptiste (1610–1687), 526
510(i) Dominican Order, 354 Dynastic wars, 442–444
Discrimination Domitian (Rome, r. 81–96 C.E.), 175, Thirty Years’ War as, 461–462
legislation against, 930 188–189 Dynasties. See also Kings and kingdoms;
Social Darwinism and, 720 Donation of Constantine, 274 Monarchs and monarchies; specific
Diseases, 969 Donatist Christianity, 211 dynasties and rulers
AIDS and, 969 Don Quixote (Cervantes), 459, 512, 535 Catholic Church and, 308
from animals, P-10 Doré, Gustave (1832–1883), 671(i) in Egypt, 29
in Babylonia, 15 Dostoevsky, Fyodor (1821–1881), 690, Italian leadership and, 255
carried to New World, 420, 426 716–717, 757, 758 of Ur III, 13
causes of, 662(m) Double Arguments (Sophist handbook), 90 Dynatoi (Byzantine landowning elite), 266,
in cities, 707 Double Helix, The (Watson), 906 269, 311
in 18th century, 544–545 Double standard, of gender behavior, 742
in Europe, 248–259 Dowry Early Middle Ages, 233
famines and, 390 in Greece, 82 Earth, circumference of, 126
global, 952 Merovingian, 251 East Africa, 734, 789, 900–901
life expectancy and, 968–969 Drachma, 239 East Anglia, 288
in 1960s, 920 Draco (Athens, 621 B.C.E.), 62 East Asia, 898
in Rome, 169, 224 Draconian, origins of term, 62 East Berlin, Berlin Wall and, 946
urbanization and, 662–663 Draft. See Military draft Easter, date of, 253
World War II and, 894 Drama Easter Monday (1916), Irish protests on, 810
Disraeli, Benjamin (1804–1881), 703, 756 Greek, 92–96, 95(i), 124(b) Eastern Europe, 231
Dissidents, Soviet, 928, 929(b), 929(i) Hellenistic, 121 cold war in, 884
Diversity Roman, 150(i) collapse of communism in, 953–961
in Hellenistic religions, 127–128 Dreadnought, H.M.S. (ship), 792 countries of former Soviet Union
Muslim, 269–270 Dresden, World War II and, 864 (c. 2000), 957(m)
in Roman Empire, 220(m) Dreyfus, Alfred (1859–1935), 780 development of, 266–268
Dives and Lazarus, illustration of, 294(i), Dreyfus Affair (France), 780, 780(i) education in, 668
295, 310 Drug culture, 931 EU and, 962–964
Divided Heaven (Wolf), 928 Dual Alliance, 756 families in, 765(i)
Divine Comedy (Dante), 369 Dualism government in, 289–291
Divine right of monarchs, 464–465, 505 as heresy, 350–351 industrialization in, 658
Bossuet on, 489 moral, 39 industry in, 842
Louis XIV and, 489 Plato on, 107–108 in 1930s, 854
Montesquieu and, 560 Dual Monarchy, 702, 792 in 1990s, 954(m)
Divinity. See also Gods and goddesses Dubček, Alexander, 935, 946 peasants in, 531
of Christ, 182 Du Bois, W. E. B. (1868–1963), 820 population problems in, 968
Divorce Duchies, in Germany, 289 racism in, 843
Civil Code of Napoleon and, 626 Dukes, 255, 285 revolution of 1848 in, 683(i)
Council of Trent and, 439 Duma (Russia), 787–788 revolutions of 1989 in, 945–947
in eastern Roman Empire, 222 Dumuzi (god), 12 Roman Catholicism in, 291
in France, 604, 639 Duncan, Isadora (1877–1927), 775 in 17th century, 497(m)
in Greece, 57 Dunkirk, 863 in 1648–1699, 494(m)
Hammurabi on, 14 Duns Scotus, John (1266–1308), 368–369 socialism in, 678
marriage and, 767 Dürer, Albrecht (1471–1528), 428(i) social welfare in, 894
in Russia, 832 Dutch. See also Netherlands Soviets and, 870–871, 886
in Soviet Union, 846 decolonization and, 901 in 12th century, 346, 346(m)
DNA, P-3, 906, 919–920 Japan and, 712 West German trade with, 928
Doctors. See also Medicine in southern Africa, 736 women in, 767
in Rome, 180 values of, 977(b) World War I and, 822–823
Doctors Without Borders, 965 Dutch East India Company, 506(m), 519, 540 World War II and, 864, 894–897
Doctor Zhivago (novel and movie), 878(i), Dutch Patriot Revolt (1787), 589 Eastern front, World War I and, 803, 810
879, 896, 909, 911 Dutch Republic Eastern Orthodox Church, 225
Doctrine (Christian), 184, 244, 397–398 Batavian Republic and, 608 Eastern Roman Empire, 196–197, 198–200,
Doge, 412 Britain and, 582, 583 199(m), 220(m), 221–227, 231. See also
Dogs, domestication of, P-9 colonial commerce of, 470 Byzantine Empire; Roman Empire;
Dollfuss, Engelbert (1892–1934), 854 colonization by, 426 Western Roman Empire
Doll’s House, A (Ibsen), 747, 748(b) Congress of Vienna and, 638 classical learning in, 225–226
Dolly (cloned sheep), 920 decentralized government of, 505–506 separation from western empire, 225–226
Dome of the Rock (Jerusalem), 230(i), 238 Dutch Patriot Revolt in, 589 in 600, 228(m)
Domesday survey, 320–321, 323(m), 413 in 18th century, 540 East Germany, 887, 887(m), 945–946, 948(m)
Domestication of animals at end of 17th century, 516(m) East India Company (Britain), 671, 710, 711,
in Near East, P-9–P-10 independence from Spain, 505 733
Neolithic, P-8 intellectual thought in, 457, 476 East Indies, exploration of, 421
Paleolithic, P-5 maritime commerce and, 457–458 Eberbech, Cistercian church in, 310, 311(f)
Domesticity, 654, 668–669 as mercantile power, 469 Ebert, Friedrich (1871–1925), 815, 816
middle-class, 742 religious tolerance in, 457 Ebla, Mesopotamia, 13
Queen Victoria and, 684 17th century wars of, 507 Ebola virus, 969
women and, 731 Spanish defeat by, 455 Ecce Homo (Grosz), 829(i)
World War II and, 907 Thirty Years’ War and, 462, 466 Ecce Homo (Nietzsche), 829(i)
I-16 Index Ecology–Elizabeth I

Ecology, pollution and, 966 ECSC. See European Coal and Steel in Roman Empire, 176
Economic democracy, 822 Community (ECSC) Rosetta stone and, 102(i)
Economist, The (periodical), 674 Ecumenism, Vatican II and, 903 sculpture in, 50, 50(i)
Economy. See also Agriculture; Farms and Edessa, crusaders and, 316 Sea Peoples and, 29
farming; Great Depression; Labor; Edgar (England, r. 957–975), 288 society in, 19–20
Wealth Edict of Milan (313), 203–204 3050–1000 B.C.E., 16–23
in Athens, 62, 105 Edict of Nantes (1598), 455, 520 women in, 10, 120
in Austria-Hungary, 702 revocation of, 489, 493 Eiffel Tower, 727
Byzantine, 242, 264 Edict of Resolution (1629), 461 Einhard (c. 770–840), on Charlemagne,
consumer, 923 Education. See also Higher education; Schools 273–274, 274–275, 276(b)
cycles in, 730 Black Death and, 391 Einstein, Albert (1879–1955), 772–773
in eastern Europe, 964 in Byzantine Empire, 242 Eisenhower, Dwight (1890–1969), 870
in 1850–1870, 690 in Carolingian renaissance, 276 Eisenstein, Sergei (1898–1948), 828, 829
emerging, 922 in Dutch Republic, 507 Prokofiev’s music and, 847
in England, 340, 853 in France, 603, 668, 754 Elba, island of, 633
in EU, 961–962 in Germany, 728 Eleanor of Aquitaine (c. 1122–1204), 317,
fairs in, 296 in Greek Golden Age, 86–88 337, 340, 347
feudalism in, 282–283 Jesuit, 439 Elections
in first civilizations, 4–5 Locke and, 505 in Moscow, 944
in former Soviet Union, 956, 958–960, Merovingian, 251 in Rome, 142
959(i) in Middle Ages, 328–332 Electricity, 727, 728(i)
in France, 601, 692, 942 middle class interest in, 571 nuclear plants for, 919
in French Vietnam, 712 Mill and, 721 wind generation of, 967
in Germany, 755–756, 847, 849, 942 Napoleon and, 626 Electronic circuitry, in computers, 917
global, 964, 975–977 in 1960s, 924 Elektra (Strauss), 775
in Great Depression, 840–841 in 19th century, 709–710 Elements of the Philosophy of Newton
during Great Famine, 382 reforms in, 577 (Voltaire), 548–549
Greek, 43, 49 Roman Catholic church and, 399 El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos)
Hellenistic, 117–119 in Rome, 138, 172 (1541–1614), 472
Hittite, 25 in sciences, 709 Eliezer, Israel ben (Ba’al Shem Tov)
in India, 710, 974 secondary, 710 (c. 1700–1760), 566
in Italy, 287, 833–834 social status and, 533–534(i) Eliot, George (Mary Ann Evans)
in Jericho, P-11 Sunday schools and, 667–668 (1819–1880), 716
Jews and, 365–366 in universities, 331–332 Eliot, T. S. (1888–1965), 830
laissez-faire, 561 for women, 511, 550 Elisabeth Charlotte (Orléans), 487
in medieval Europe, 248–250, 296–302 Edward I (England, r. 1272–1307), 377, 378 Elisabeth de Valois, 455
Mesopotamian, 14 Edward VI (England, r. 1547–1553), 434, 445 Elisabeth of Hungary (1207–1231), 363–364
Minoan, 26–27 Edward VII (England, r. 1901–1910), 771(i) Elites
money, 295–296, 302 Edward the Confessor (England, Assyrian, 36
Mycenaean, 27 r. 1042–1066), 319 in Athens, 62, 76
under Napoleon, 630–631 EEC. See European Economic Community in Bohemia, 400
in Near East, 34–35 (EEC) in British North America, 508
Neolithic, P-12–P-13 Egypt, 801 Byzantine dynatoi as, 266
in 19th century, 729–731 England and, 790 in Byzantine Empire, 242
in non-Roman kingdoms, 217 Fatimids in, 269 codes of behavior of, 509
in North and South, 969 hermit monks in, 212–213 in Dutch Republic, 457, 458, 507
oil and, 937–938, 938(f), 938(i) imperialism in, 733 in eastern Europe, 895
Persian, 37–38 independence for, 899 in England, 502
physiocrats and, 578 interest in, 688(i), 712 in Enlightenment, 555–556, 568–571
postindustrial, 921–924 Muslims in, 236–237 in 15th century republics, 411
postwar surge in, 891 Napoleon in, 621 French reforms and, 609
power shift in, 469, 479 self-rule for, 844 Greek, 44–45
regional differences in, 469, 479–480 World War I and, 824 Hellenistic, 117–118
rise in world economies, 973–974 Egypt (ancient), 17(m) Hispano-Roman, 255–256
in Rome, 158, 167–171, 177, 188, 189, 191, Alexander the Great in, 113 missionary efforts among, 440
197–198, 200–202 arts in, 20 “nobility of the robe” as, 455
in Russia, 810 authority in, 19 in Ottoman Empire, 495
in South Africa, 974 civilization in, 4, 6 poor and, 514
Soviets and, 845–846, 895, 943 Greece and, 49 popular culture and, 514
subsistence and gift, 249–250 Hebrews in, 39 in Rome, 151, 152–153, 159, 200–201
in Sumer, 13 Hittites and, 25 in rural society, 664
in Sweden, 852–853 Hyksos people in, 39 social activities of, 741–742
Thatcher and, 940–941, 941(b) Middle Kingdom in, 20–21 socialist, 776–777
after Thirty Years’ War, 465–471, 479 names and dates in, 16n social order and, 668
in United States, 883, 941–942 New Kingdom in, 21 witches and, 479
in West, 939 Old Kingdom in, 16, 17–20 women as, 119
in western Roman Empire, 215 Persian Empire and, 37 Elizabeth (Russia, r. 1741–1762), 574
in West Germany, 890 polytheism in, 5 Elizabeth I (England, r. 1558–1603), 434
World War I and, 820–821, 824–825 Ptolemies in, 116, 117, 119, 120 Anglicanism under, 445, 458(i)
World War II and, 880, 889–890, 891–893 religion in, 2(i), 17–18, 21–22, 127 Calvinists and, 452
Ecosystems, disturbance of, 966 reunification of, 21 Philip II and, 458–459
Ellis–Europe Index I-17

Ellis, Havelock (1859–1939), 768 Declaration of Independence and, 556, Ethnic groups. See also specific countries
Ellison, Ralph, 930 582, 583–584 in Balkan region, 791–792
Elpinike (Athens), 85 France and, 564–565, 588 concepts of, 249(b)
Emancipation in Germany, 565–566 in former Soviet Union, 956, 959
of Russian serfs, 694–695, 695(i) literature of, 566(b) in nation-states, 964–965
of U.S. slaves, 705 Maistre on, 611(b) in 1930s, 854
Emancipation Proclamation (1863), 705 optimism in, 547(b) of non-Roman peoples, 214–215
Embargo public opinion in, 580 Ethnography, 927
against Italy, 859 rebellions and, 578–583 Etruscans, 49, 77, 140(m), 141(i), 141–142,
by U.S. on supplies to Japan, 857–858 reforms in, 573–578 145
Embassy, U.S. in Iran, 939 term “modern” and, 766(b) EU. See European Union (EU)
Emecheta, Buchi, 979 Enlil (god), 11, 13 Eucharist, 308, 349, 401(i), 432
Emerging economies, in Southern Ennius (d. 169 B.C.E.), 149 Council of Trent and, 439
Hemisphere, 973–974 Entente Cordiale, 790, 792 disagreement over, 400, 401
Emerging nations, 901, 922, 961 Triple Alliance and, 800 salvation and, 361, 364
Emigration. See also Immigrants and Entertainment Eugenics, 766–767
immigration; Migration in 18th century, 572 Eugénie (France, r. 1853–1871), 691, 691(i)
from Europe (1870–1890), 746(f) popular, 668 Eugenius III (Pope, r. 1145–1153), 317
from former Soviet Union, 958 Roman public, 171–172 Eulalius, 252
by Soviet Jews, 935 World War I and, 828 Eunuchs, in Byzantine Empire, 262
Émile (Rousseau), 562, 562(b) Environment Euphrates River region, P-8, 7
Emir (commander), 270 feminism and, 933(b) Euripides (c. 485–406 B.C.E.), 84(b), 94
Emirates, in Spain, 270 global issues and, 952 Euro, 961, 962(i), 962(m)
Emissions controls, 967 pollution problems and, 966–968 Europe, 516(m). See also specific countries,
Emperors. See also specific empires and rulers Ephesus, 241, 242(m) regions, wars, and issues
Augustus as, 166–167 Ephialtes (Athens, 5th century B.C.E.), 76, 77 in 400 B.C.E., 100(m)
in Byzantine Empire, 243, 263–264 Ephors (overseers), in Sparta, 59 in 600, 228(m)
Charlemagne as, 275 Epic literature, 44, 46(b), 348–349 in 1150–1190, 338(m)
Christian, in Rome, 205 Epic of Gilgamesh, 11–12, 36 in 1212–1250, 374(m)
in eastern Roman Empire, 197–199, Epicureanism, 123 c. 1215, 356(m)
224–225 Epicurus (Greece, 341–271 B.C.E.), 123 c. 1340, 383
German kings as, 289 Epidemics. See also Black Death; Diseases c. 1492, 415(m)
in Japan, 713 of cholera, 662(m), 662–663 c. 1560, 447(m)
Roman cult of, 175, 185 in eastern Roman Empire, 224 c. 1648, 463(m)
Roman religion and, 202–204 malnutrition and, 468 in 1648–1699, 494(m)
in western Roman empire, 197–199 Epigrams, 121, 122(b) in 1668–1697, 492(m)
Empires, 12. See also Imperialism; specific Epirus, 356(m) c. 1715, 537(m)
empires and rulers Equal Employment Opportunity in 1740, 551(m)
in Balkan region, 791(m) Commission (EEOC), 930 in 1799, 616(m)
challenges to European, 784–787 Equality in 1815, 637(m)
competition for, 739 in Athens, 63 in 1830, 650(m)
decolonization and, 897–902 in Greece, 53 in 1850, 686(m)
decorative arts and, 747–748 racial, 843 in 1920s, 821–827, 827(i)
pride in, 740(i) Equiano, Olaudah, 560 in 1929, 836(m)
Empiricism, 565 Equites (Roman equestrians, knights), 152–153 abolition of slavery and, 670
Employment Erasmus, Desiderius (1466–1536), 427–428 balance of power in, 544
Civil Code of Napoleon and, 626–627 Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 275–194 B.C.E.), Carolingian Empire in, 272–282
global redistribution of, 977 126 after Carolingians, 282–291
in Great Depression, 842 Erhard, Ludwig (1897–1977), 890 China and, 380, 712–713
World War I and, 825 Eriksen, Vigilius, 554(i) cholera in, 662(m), 662–663
World War II and, 891 Erikson, Erik, 770(b) collapse of communism in, 944–947,
Ems telegram, 701 Erinna (Hellenistic female poet), 122(b) 948(m)
Enabling Act (Germany), 848 Ermengard (9th century), 278 colonialism and, 470, 470(m)
Enclosure movement, 530–531 Essay Concerning Human Understanding Common Market in, 892–893
Encyclopedia (Diderot, ed.), 557, 557(i), (Locke), 505 Congress of Vienna and, 636–640, 637(m)
562(b), 568, 578 Estates (classes), 592–593 consolidation of state system in, 536–545
Engels, Friedrich (1820–1895), 660(b), 676, Estates General (France), 378, 592 crusades in, 353–355
677(b), 678–679 Estonia, 354, 460, 861, 863, 956, 963, 964 cultural imperialism by, 740
England (Britain). See Britain Ethics economic power shift in, 452, 465–471, 469
English language Aristotle on, 109–110 EU in, 961–962
development of, 321 Hellenistic, 123 exploration by, 419, 422(m)
international dominance of, 980 Jewish, 41–42 foreign-born population of, 902, 902(i)
Old English as, 255 in Persia, 39 global exchange and, 420
English Royal African Company, 523 Plato on, 107–108 industrialization in, 657(m)
Enheduanna (Akkad, 23rd century B.C.E.), 11 Socrates on, 90–92 internal migration within, 744–745
Enkidu (Gilgamesh), 11–12 Ethiopia Iraq War (2003–) and, 972–973
Enlightened despots, 573 fossils from, P-3 languages of 19th century, 672(m)
Enlightenment, 520, 545–546, 556-573, hunting in Paleolithic, P-5 little ice age in, 466–467(b)
565(b) Italian attack on, 779, 785, 858, 859(m) Mediterranean region and, 258(m),
American Revolution and, 581–583 struggle for (1896), 785, 785(m) 292(m), 722(m)
criticisms of, 565(b) Ethnic cleansing, 889(i), 954 migration and, 741, 901–902
I-18 Index Europe–Fields

Europe (Continued) Phoenician and Greek (750–500 B.C.E.), Faria, Manoel Severim de, 425
Napoleon and, 628(m), 635, 649 49(m) Farinati, Paolo (c. 1524–c.1606), 471(i)
New World and, 511(i) Roman, 133–134, 140–141, 145–152, Farmers General, 594(m)
nobility and, 567 147(m), 176(m) Farms and farming. See also Agriculture;
papacy and, 273 Russian, 460, 692 Irrigation; Rural areas
after peace settlements (1919–1920), 817(m) of United States, 705, 706(m) in Britain, 530–531
plague in, 389(f) Exploration in former Soviet Union, 959
possessions of (c. 1780), 583(m) by British, 560 in Frankish kingdoms, 247
potential for unification of, 953 by Europeans, 419–420 in Great Depression, 841
railroads in, 656–657 by French, 490 iron implements for, 43–44
recovery in, 888–897 by Portugal and Spain, 420–421 medieval, 279
religion and, 451–480 voyages of, 422(m) Mediterranean, 26
revolts in 1820s, 644(m) Exports. See Trade; specific countries Neolithic, P-10–P-14
Russia and, 497 Expressionism, 774 in postindustrial age, 923
serfdom in, 469 of Kafka, 831 in Rome, 151, 200
slave trade and, 525–526 Extended family, 767 Fascism, 844, 845(b), 854. See also Nazis and
terrorism in, 939, 971 Extermination camps, World War II and, Nazism (Germany)
totalitarianism in, 844–852 865(m), 865–866 in Italy, 833–834, 834(i)
transnational institutions in, 961–964 Eylau, battle at (1807), 630(i) resistance to, 868–871
vs. United States, 952 Eyres, in England, 337–338 in Spain, 859–860
welfare state in, 894(i) Ezechiel (Jew in Alexandria), 121 Fashion, 742
West and, 5 World War I and, 826–827
women in, 907–908 Fabian Society, 746 World War II and, 907
in world economy, 520 Factories Fashoda, Sudan, 790
European Coal and Steel Community child labor in, 659(i) Fathers and Sons (Turgenev), 716
(ECSC), 892, 893(b) in Great Depression, 842 Fatihah (Qur’an), 234, 234(b)
European Community (EC), 961 resistance to, 660 Fatimah (Islam), 237
European Economic Community (EEC), 892 Soviet, 845 Fatimids, 269(m), 270, 270(i)
European Economic Market, 889 Factory Act (Britain, 1833), 660–661 Faust (Goethe), 641
European Green Party, 967 Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury), 908 Fauves (painters), 773
European Union (EU), 952, 961–962 Fairs, 296–297, 301 Fawcett, Millicent Garrett (1847–1929), 777
eastern Europe and, 962–964, 963(b) Falange Party (Spain), 859 Fealty, 283
religious toleration in, 977(b) Falconry, 441 Felician (Roman martyr), 257(i)
Schuman Plan and, 893(b) Falkland Islands, war over, 941 Females. See also Women
Turkey in, 5, 976–977(b) Families, 765(i) infanticide and, 236
in 2007, 962(m) in Archaic Age, 55(f) Feminine Mystique, The (Friedan), 931
Evangelicals, 430 in Carolingian Empire, 278 Feminism, 549–550. See also Women
Evans, Arthur (1851–1941), 25 Civil Code of Napoleon and, 626 debates in, 932–933(b)
Evelyn, John (1620–1706), 502, 503(i) compagnia and, 300 in Ottoman Empire, 789
Everard (9th century), 286 in 18th century, 572–573 repression of, 684
Evolution, Darwin on, 719 as factory workers, 659 Saint-Simonians and, 676
Examinations, for civil service, 709 in 15th century Florence, 414 women’s rights and, 767
Exarchate of Ravenna, 240, 256 in Great Depression, 842(b) World War I and, 806
Exclusion Crisis (England, 1678), 503 in Greece, 82 Fénelon, François de Salignac de la Mothe
Excommunication in Ireland, 678 (1651–1715), 538
in France, 376 in Italy, 287 Ferdinand I (Austrian Empire, 1835–1848),
of Frederick II (emperor), 374 migrant incomes for, 974 682
of Henry IV (Holy Roman Empire), 306 migration and, 744 Ferdinand I (Holy Roman emperor,
of Otto IV, 373 Mill on, 721 r. 1558–1564), 446
Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All in 1960s, 924–925 Ferdinand II (the Catholic) (Aragon,
Nations, 684, 685(i) of non-Roman peoples, 215 r. 1479–1516), 410, 414, 421, 434
Existentialism, 903–904, 904(i) patrilineal, 286, 289 Ferdinand II (Holy Roman Emperor,
structuralism and, 927 Protestant reform and, 438, 438(i) r. 1619–1637), 460
Exodus (Hebrew), 39–40 putting-out system and, 655, 656 Ferdinand VII (Spain, r. 1808 and
Expansion in Qur’an, 234 1814–1833), 644
of absolutist governments, 490–491 in Rome, 136–138 Fertile Crescent, P-8, P-9, P-10, 7
in Asia, 737–738, 738(m) in rural areas, 664 Fertility, P-8–P-9, 767, 968, 968(f)
of Byzantine Empire (860–1025), 263(m) in Soviet Union, 846–847 Fertilizers, 728
Carolingian, 273–275, 275(m) in Sweden, 853 Festivals
of Corinth, 61–62 as tyrants, 61 in Athens, 81
European overseas, 311 of upper class, 742 in Egypt, 21
French, 608(m), 616(m), 712 workhouses and, 668 French republican, 602–603
German, 291, 858–859 working women and, 731–732 religious, 515
imperialism in 1930s, 856–859 World War I and, 764 in Rome, 138–139
of Islam, 236(m) Family allowance, in Sweden, 853 Feudalism, 282, 283(b)
Japanese (1930s), 856–858, 858(b) Famines Feudalism (Ganshof), 283
of Louis XIV, 490, 492(m) in Europe, 248–259 Ficino, Marsilio (1433–1499), 405
by Nazi Germany (1933–1939), 862(m) Great Famine and, 373, 380–382, 390 Fideles (“faithful men”), 282, 283
of Neo-Assyrian Empire, 35(m) in Ireland, 678, 678(i) Fides, in Rome, 135
in 19th century, 726–727 after Thirty Years’ War, 467–468 Fiefs, 282, 283
of Ottoman Turks, 396–397, 397(m) Fanon, Frantz (1925–1961), 904 Fields, Gracie (1898–1979), 855
Fighting “Téméraire”–Francis Joseph Index I-19

Fighting “Téméraire” Tugged to Her Last Ford, Henry (1863–1947), 832 Hundred Years’ War and, 391–396,
Berth to Be Broken Up, The” (Turner), Ford Motor Company, 825 393(m)
665, 665(i) Foreign aid imperialism by, 737, 738
Films. See Movies Marshall Plan and, 886 Indochina and, 789–790
“Final Solution,” World War II and, 865. See World War II and, 884–886 Jews in, 367
also Holocaust Foreign investment, in eastern Europe, 963 under Louis IX, 375–376
Finland, 638, 778, 778(i), 891, 966 Foreign policy as mercantile power, 469
Finnish language, 281 imperialism and, 739–740 as military power, 607–608
Fire, in Paleolithic Age, P-6 of Napoleon III, 692 monarchy in, 321–322, 598–600
Fireside chats, by Roosevelt, Franklin D., 852, of United States, 936–939 Muslims in, 974
853(i) Foreign workers, 974, 975 Napoleon III and, 691–692
First Balkan War (1912), 792 Forests, cutting of, 284, 966 national workshops in, 679
First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Formosa. See Taiwan in 1930s, 853, 854
Regiment of Women (Knox), 446 Forms (Plato), as reality, 107, 108 nobility in, 286
First Continental Congress (U.S.), 582 Forum (Rome), of Augustus, 167(i) North African colonies of, 733, 734
First Crusade (1096–1099), 311–316, 312(m), Fossil fuels, pollution from, 966 Peace of Westphalia and, 463
313(m), 314–315(b) Fossils, P-3 plague in (1628–1632), 468
First Estate (clergy), 592 Fouché, Joseph (1759–1820), 623 policy changes in, 928
First Intermediate Period (Egypt), 20 Foundlings, 572, 626, 663 political repression in, 623
First Moroccan Crisis (1905), 790 Fourier, Charles (1772–1837), 675 Protestantism in, 432, 453(m)
First Punic War (264–241 B.C.E.), 146–147, Fournier of Pamiers (Bishop, 1318–1325), 364 railroads in, 656(f)
147(m), 148(f) Fourteen Points (1918), 810, 816, 818(b) realist literature in, 716
First Reich (Germany), 849 Fourth Crusade, 346, 351–353, 360 reforms in, 578, 647, 674, 679
First Triumvirate (Rome), 158 Fourth Lateran Council (1215), 360–361, Regency in, 538
First Vatican Council, 719 362, 364 religious wars in, 454–455
First World War. See World War I Fourth Republic (France), 889 republic in, 622–623
Five “Good Emperors” (Rome, 96–180 C.E.), Four-year plan (Germany), 849 Republic of Virtue in, 602–604
175 France. See also French Revolution; Paris; restoration government of, 639
Five Pillars of Islam, 235 Second Empire revolts in, 396
Five-year plans, in Soviet Union, 845, 883 abolition of slavery in, 670 revolution in colonies of, 613–615
Flagellants, 390, 399 acquisitions in 1668–1697, 492(m) Rhineland and, 859
Flanders administrative division of, 596, 596(m) as Roman province, 149
communes in, 301 African decolonization and, 900 Second Republic in, 680
France and, 341 Albigensian Crusade and, 355, 362 serfdom in, 578
in Hundred Years’ War, 392 American Revolution and, 582 17th century wars of, 491
land reclamation in, 302 amphitheater in, 246(i) Seven Years’ War and, 574–575
uprisings in, 396 anti-Semitism in, 780, 780(i) situationist protests in, 931
Flappers, 827(i), 828 armed forces in 17th century, 493(b) Spain and, 354(m)
Flaubert, Gustave (1821–1880), 715–716, 766(b) assimilation and, 670–671 Spanish Civil War and, 860, 860(i)
Flavians (Rome), 175 battle of Agincourt and, 392 state religion in, 622
Fleming, Ian (1908–1964), 908–909 birthrate in, 766 student strike in, 934
Fleurs du mal, Les (Baudelaire), 716 Capetian kings of, 288–289, 289(m) Third Republic in, 753–754
Fleury, Hercule de (1653–1743), 538 castellans in, 285 Thirty Years’ War and, 461–462
Floods Charles the Bald and, 278 urban areas in, 661
in Epic of Gilgamesh, 12 coal in, 658(f) Vietnamese workers for, 809
by Nile River, 16 colonies and, 470, 739, 844 Vikings in, 280
Florence, 408, 413–414 communes in, 301 voting in, 622, 623, 639, 647
Dante in, 369 Congress of Vienna and, 636, 637, 638 War of the Austrian Succession and,
guilds in, 300 consolidation of, 340–341 573–574, 574(m)
Medici family in, 412 constitutional reform in, 674 War of the Spanish Succession and, 537(m)
Flour War (France, 1775), 579 constitutions of, 596, 622 war with Austria and Prussia, 598
Flying buttresses, 334 cultural revolution in, 602–603 welfare state and, 893
Folk motifs, 747 de Gaulle as chief of state, 889 withdrawal from NATO, 928
Fontainebleau, 441 Directory in, 607 woman suffrage in, 822
Fontenelle, Bernard Le Bovier de economic crisis in, 942 women’s movement in, 931
(1657–1757), 546 Edict of Nantes in, 455 World War I and, 794, 801(i), 803, 805,
Foods. See also Crops; Diet (nutrition); education in, 668 816, 817, 820, 821
specific types Egypt invaded by (1882), 733(m) World War II and, 862, 863, 863(m)
in Çatalhöyük, P-11 in Enlightenment, 564–565 Francia, 219
in Egypt, 16 in Entente Cordiale, 790 Francis (Saint, 1182–1226), 349, 363(i)
granary for, 44(i) expansion of, 411, 608(m), 712 Francis I (France, r. 1515–1547), 419, 441,
iron farm implements and, 43–44 exploration by, 426 443(i), 444, 445, 446
medieval demand for, 302 First Republic in, 599, 601–602 Francis I (Holy Roman Emperor,
Neolithic, P-8–P-9 fiscal crisis in, 587, 591–592 r. 1792–1835), 574, 672
Paleolithic, P-5 food riots in, 579 Franciscans, 349–350, 363
shortages of, 577–580, 592, 593, 595 German occupation by, 886 Francis Ferdinand (Austria, 1863–1914), 793
in Sumer, 7 government of, 596–597 Francis Joseph (Austrian Empire,
transportation of, 731 in Great Depression, 841 r. 1848–1916), 683, 692, 697, 700, 781
World War I and, 806 Greeks in, 49 Austro-Hungarian Empire and, 702
Forced labor. See also Slaves and slavery Hitler and, 861 ethnic groups and, 756
World War I and, 807(i) Huguenots (Calvinists) in, 452–455 Vienna and, 706
I-20 Index Franco–Geoffrin

Franco, Francisco (1892–1975), 859, 860(m) French language Gandhi, Mohandas (“Mahatma,”
Franco of Cologne (c. 1250–c. 1280), 370 Académie Française and, 487 1869–1948), 829, 843, 844(i)
Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), 692, English words in, 80 assassination of, 898
699(i), 701(b), 801 Normans and, 321 U.S. civil rights movement and, 904–905
Frank, Anne (1929–1945), 903 French Revolution (1787–1800), 587, Ganshof, F. L., 283
Frankenstein (Shelley), 618, 641 591–612, 606(b) Gao Xingjian, 978–979
Frankfurt, 426–427, 966–967 Burke on, 610(b) Garibaldi, Giuseppe (1807–1882), 681,
Frankfurt parliament, in 1848, 682 counterrevolution and, 594 697–698, 698(m)
Frankish kingdoms, 246–248, 252 Declaration of Rights in, 595–596 Gas (poison), World War I and, 803
Franks, 219, 219–220, 255, 256. See also European reactions to, 608–612 Gaul
Carolingian Empire fall of Bastille and, 592–594 as Francia, 219
Fraternal groups, religious, 349–350 Maistre on, 611(b) Magyar raids on, 282
Frederick I (Brandenburg-Prussia, as origin of totalitarianism, 588, 590(b) Rome and, 149, 176–177
r. 1688–1713), 494 Paris in, 594(m) Spain and, 255
Frederick I Barbarossa (Germany, Rousseau’s influence on, 563 Visigoths in, 217
r. 1152–1190), 323, 341(i), 342–346 second revolution (1792), 598–599 Gauls (Celts)
Europe under, 338(m) Staël on, 611(b) in Hellenistic sculpture, 121–122
Henry the Lion and, 345–346 Terror in, 600–607 sack of Rome by, 145
Italy and, 344–345, 373–374 women in, 586(i), 587, 595–596 Gays. See Homosexuals and homosexuality
reply to the Romans, 344(b) French Revolution (1830), 646–648 Gaza, 937
Third Crusade and, 351 French Revolution (1848), 679–680 Geffels, Franz, 495(i)
Frederick II the Great (Prussia, r. “French Revolution” (Wordsworth), 641 Gehry, Frank, 981
1740–1786), 568, 569, 570, 573 French Wars of Religion, 454, 455, 485 Gender issues. See also Men; Women
Dutch Patriot Revolt and, 589 Frescoes, 332(i) changing norms and, 905–908
militarism of, 575–576 Freud, Sigmund (1856–1939), 763, 764, in clothing, 669
reforms by, 576–577, 578 766(b), 769(i), 769–770 conservatism and, 684
Frederick II (Sicily, Germany, Holy Friars, 363(i) domesticity of women and, 668–669
Roman Empire, r. 1212–1250), 373–375, Franciscan, 349–350 double standard and, 742
374(m) preaching, 362–363 in Dutch Republic, 507
Frederick V (Palatinate, r. 1616–1623), 460 Friedan, Betty (1921–2006), 931 Egypt and, 20
Frederick the Wise (Saxony, r. 1486–1525), Friedland, battle at (1807), 629 in 18th century, 572
430 Friedrich, Caspar David (1774–1840), 641, Freud on, 769–770
Frederick William I (Prussia, r. 1713–1740), 643(i) gender gap as, 719
543, 544, 575 Froissart, Jean (1333?–c. 1405), on in Great Depression, 842
Frederick William III (Prussia, Jacquerie, 396 in Minoan society, 26
r. 1797–1840), 631 Fronde, The (France, 1648–1653), 485(i), modernism and, 766(b)
Frederick William IV (Prussia, 485–486, 489 in Nazi Germany, 849
r. 1840–1860), 682 Front for National Liberation (FNL, Algeria), Neolithic inequality in, P-14–P-15
Frederick William of Hohenzollern (Great 901 in 1960s, 925
Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia, Frontiers. See also Boundaries in Paleolithic society, P-6
r. 1640–1688), 464, 493–494, 511 Byzantine, 239–240 in postwar society, 906–908
Free Companies, 396 of Roman Empire, 188–189, 196 in rural areas, 664
Free Corps (Dutch Patriots), 589 Fronts in Russia, 832
Freedom(s). See also Rights World War I and, 803–806, 804(m) team sports and, 743
constitutionalism and, 509 World War I home front, 806–809 wages and, 923
Kant and, 565–566 World War II and, 863 World War I and, 764–765, 826
for peasants, 302 Fugger, Jakob (1459–1525), 445 General, The (Orlov), 929, 929(i)
religious, 203(b) Führer, Hitler as, 847–848 General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs
in Rome, 202 Fulbert (Parisian cleric), 330, 331 (GATT), 892(f)
Rousseau and, 561 Fulcher of Chartres (c. 1059–c.1127), 313, General Maximum (France), 601
Smith and, 561 314(b), 316 General School Ordinance (Austria), 557
Soviet, 846–847 Funeral Oration (Pericles), 84(b), 97 General strike (England, 1926), 823
in towns, 301 Furet, François, 590(b) General theory of relativity, 772–773
Freedom of a Christian (Luther), 430 Fur trade, 470 Generation gap, 905(b), 925
Freedom of Information Act (U.S., 1966, Fustat, Egypt, 318(b) Genetics, 719–720, 919–920, 923, 965
1974), 885 Geneva, as theocratic city-state, 433
Free French, 864, 868–869 Gaelic language, 673 Geneva Conference (1954), 899, 930
Freeholders, 302 Gagarin, Yuri (1934–1968), 918 Genevan Company of Pastors, 452
Free-market economy, in revolutionary Gaius. See Caligula Genius of Christianity (Chateaubriand), 627
France, 601 Gaius Gracchus. See Gracchus family Geniza (depository), 318(b)
Freemasonry, 565(b), 568–569 Galen (c. 131–c. 201), 476 Genlis, Stéphanie de (1746–1830), 571, 572–573
Free trade, 579, 730–731 Galerius, Roman district of, 199(m) Genoa, 638
attacks on, 965 Galicia, 672, 804 Genocide, 969. See also Holocaust
in Austria-Hungary, 756 Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), 475, 476, ethnic cleansing as, 954
World War I and, 778 476(i), 477(b) as global issue, 952
Free Woman, The (newspaper), 676 Gallicanism, 411 World War II and, 862
Freikorps (Germany), 815, 816 Gallo-Romans, 247, 248 Gentilhomme, 513
French and Indian War. See Seven Years’ Gama, Vasco da (c. 1460–1524), 421 Geocentric view, 126
War Gamberros (“hooligans,” Spain), 905 Geoffrin, Marie-Thérèse (1699–1777), 558,
French East India Company, 526 Gandhara style, 115(i) 558(i), 590
Geography–Government Index I-21

Geography population growth in, 765 Hebrews and, 39, 40


civilization and, 5 power politics in, 754–756 Hittite, 24(i)
Eastern and Western Roman capitals and, railroads in, 656(f) Mesopotamian, 11
199–200 reuniting of, 945–946, 946(i) Mycenaean, 27, 28
expanding knowledge of, 424(b) Schlieffen Plan and, 803 in Persia, 39
of Greece, 33, 42, 47–48 Schmalkaldic League and, 446 Roman, 138–139, 139(i)
mathematical, 126 socialism in, 776 ruler cults and, 128
of Rome, 140(m), 178(m) Spanish Civil War and, 859, 860(m) Goering, Hermann (1893–1946), 848
Geometry, Hellenistic, 126 taxation in, 977 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749–1832),
George I (England, r. 1714–1727), 538, 539 temperance societies in, 668 566, 641
George II (England, r. 1727–1760), 539, 539(i) in Triple Alliance, 790 Golan Heights, 937
George III (England, r. 1760–1820), 580, 582 unification of, 689, 699–702, 700(m) Gold, from New World, 455, 465
George IV (England, r. 1820–1830), 648 urban areas in, 661 Gold Coast (Africa), 736, 900
George V (England), 804 Gestapo, 848 Golden Age (Greece), 70, 74–96, 96–99
Gerbert (Ottonian tutor), 290 Geta, Publius Septimius (Rome, 189–211 Golden Age (Rome), 172, 175, 176–180
German Confederation, 645, 650(m), 700 C.E.), 190, 190(i) Golden Ass, The (Apuleius), 179, 186–187
German Empire, 701–702 Ghana, state of, 900 Golden Horde, 380
Germanic peoples. See also Barbarians; Ghetto, in Warsaw, 866(i) Gole, Jacob (c. 1660–1723), 546(i)
specific groups Ghiberti, Lorenzo (c. 1378–1455), 405, Gömbös, Gyula (1886–1936), 854
ethnicity of, 215 405(i), 406(i) Gomley, Margaret, 661
Roman Empire and, 195 Giacometti, Alberto, 874(i) Gómora, Francisco López de, 421
German people, 672 Gibbon, Edward (1737–1794), 218, 564 Gonne, Maud (1866–1953), 779
depiction of (World War II), 868 Gift economy, in western Europe, 250 Gorbachev, Mikhail (1931–), 943(i),
unification of, 682, 686 Gilbert of Liège, 328 943–946, 944(b), 956
Germany. See also East Germany; Nazis and Gilbert of Poitiers (d. 1154), 329(i) Gorbachev, Raisa, 943(i)
Nazism (Germany); West Germany; Gilgamesh (Mesopotamian hero), 11–12 Gordion knot, 113
World War I; World War II; specific Gillray, James (1756–1815), 609(i) Gordon, George, 580
leaders Giolitti, Giovanni (1842–1928), 779 Gordon riots (London, 1780), 580
anti-Semitism in, 780–781 Giotto (1266–1337), 372 Gospels, Lindisfarne, 254(i)
Austrian merger with, 860–861 Girls. See also Women Gothic arts and architecture, 333n, 333–336,
Austro-Hungarian Dual Alliance with, 756 education for, 87 335(i), 370–372, 371(i), 372(i), 665
autonomy of, 463–464 Girondins (France), 600, 601, 604 at Chartres, 326(i), 327–328
Balkan crises and, 791–792 Glaciers, in Paleolithic Age, P-6 Goths
birthrate in, 766 Gladiators (Rome), 162(i), 163, 171(i), arts of, 218, 218(i)
Brandenburg-Prussia and, 493 171–172 Rome and, 192(m)
coal in, 657, 658(f), 730 Gladstone, William (1809–1898), 750, 752 Gouges, Olympe de (1748–1793), 595–596
consolidation of, 630(m) Glanvill (legal treatise), 338 Goulash communism, 896
crusades and, 354 Glasnost (openness), 943, 944 Government. See also Administration;
Czechoslovakia and, 861 Glenn, John (1921–), 918 Authority; Kings and kingdoms; Society;
division of, 874, 886–888, 887(m) Global exchange, 420, 426 specific locations
economy in, 672, 849 Globalization, 952, 983(m). See also Augustine on, 211
after 1850, 684 Immigrants and immigration; Bodin’s three forms of, 474
in Enlightenment, 565–566 Migration; specific issues of British India, 711–712
expansion by, 858–859 attacks on, 965 British parliamentary, 540
France and, 928 challenges of, 966–974 Burke on, 610(b)
government of, 289–290 of cities, 964 of Byzantine cities, 242
Great Depression in, 841(i), 842(b), of communications, 952 after Carolingians, 282–291
847–848 of culture, 977–981 in central Europe, 289–291
headscarf controversy in, 975(i) economic, 975–977 centralization of, 622–623
Holy Roman Empire and, 341, 373–375 issues in, 952 of eastern Europe, 289–291
imperialism by, 738, 785–786 migration and, 950(i), 951–952 of eastern Roman Empire, 221–223,
independent princes in, 374–375 nation-state and, 961–965 224–225
industrialization in, 728 of organizations, 965 economy and, 940–941
inflation in, 820(i), 820–821 pollution and, 966–968, 967(b) under Frederick II (emperor), 373–374
Japan and, 864 Global markets, 921–922, 937, 952 in Great Depression, 841
Kulturkampf in, 718–719 Global North, 969, 983(m) of Hebrews, 39
Louis the German and, 278 Global South, 969, 973, 983(m) of Hellenistic kingdoms, 116–118
Magyar raids on, 281–282 Global warming, 966 Hobbes on, 501(b)
military in, 792 Glorious Revolution (England, 1688), industrial enterprises and, 730
monarchy in, 341–346 502–504 as institutions, 336–346
Mongols and, 380 Gnidias, Matthias, 431(b) of Islam, 237
nationalism in, 632, 672, 780–781 Göbelki Tepe, Turkey, P-8 Levellers on, 500(b)
as nation-state, 696 Gödel, Kurt (1906–1978), 855 medieval buildings for, 299
Nazi-Soviet Pact and, 861, 863 Gods and goddesses. See also Religion(s); on migration, 744(b)
non-European immigrants to, 901 specific deities of monasteries, 214
Ottonian kings in, 289 in ancient civilizations, 4 under Napoleon, 631
Peasants’ War of 1525 and, 435(m), Athens and, 89–90 of Neo-Assyrians, 36
435–436, 436(i) in Çatalhöyük, P-14 non-Greeks in Hellenistic world, 117
policy changes in, 928 Egyptian, 2(i), 3–4, 17–18, 21–22 Plato on, 108
political power in, 322–323 Greek, 51–53 of Poland, 823
I-22 Index Government–Hanukkah

Government (Continued) revolts in, 644(m), 645–645 Gregory the Great (Pope, r. 590–604), 253,
powers and rights of, 505 World War II and, 861, 874, 884 256
protection as purpose of, 505 Greece (ancient), 24. See also Athens; Grimmelshausen, Hans (1622?–1676), 462(b)
public opinion and, 556 Hellenistic world; Ionia; Minoan Greece; Gros, Antoine Jean (1771–1835), 630(i)
railroads and, 657 Mycenaean Greece; Sparta; specific cities Grosz, George (1893–1959), 829(i), 829–830
regulation by, 708–709 and towns Grotius, Hugo (1583–1645), 474
relief programs of, 668 Aegean Sea region and (1500 B.C.E.), 23(m) Grundy, Sydney, New Woman, The, 767(i)
representative, 376–377 Alexander the Great and, 113 Guadalcanal, battle at, 871
republican, 591 alphabet and, 16 Guam, 785, 864
role in economy, 561 Archaic (750–500 B.C.E.), 48(m) Guangzhou (Canton), 527, 671
social contract theory and, 504–505, central region (750–500 B.C.E.), 62(m) Guazzo, Francesco Maria, 478(i)
563–564 citizenship in, 34, 47, 51, 54–56 Guelphs, 341–342
support of science, 512 city-states in, 34, 47–57 Guernica (Picasso), 859–860
television funded by, 917 civilization in, 4, 42–47 Guggenheim Museum (Bilbao, Spain), 981
World War I and, 806 Classical Age in, 70 Guilds, 299–300, 331
Government archives, truth about cold war Dark Age in, 42–45, 43(m) Guillotin, Joseph-Ignace (1738–1814), 601(i)
and, 885(b) expansion by (750–500 B.C.E.), 49(m) Guillotine, 600, 601(i), 605, 606
Government of India Act (1858), 711 family size and agricultural labor in Guise family (France), 453, 455
Goya, Francisco José de (1746–1828), 622(i) Archaic Age, 55(f) Guizot, François (1787–1874), 668
Gracchus family in 400 B.C.E., 100(m) Gulag, 846, 896
Gaius, 137, 152–153 geographic notion of West in, 5 Gulag Archipelago, The (Solzhenitsyn), 935
Tiberius, 137, 152 Golden Age in, 70, 74–96 Gustavus III (Sweden, r. 1771–1792), 580, 612
Grain government of, 57–59 Gustavus IV (Sweden, r. 1792–1809), 612
Neolithic, P-12(i), P-12–P-13 Hellenistic Jews and, 129 Gustavus Adolphus (Sweden, r. 1611–1632),
in Rome, 151, 170 intellectual thought in, 57, 64–65, 70, 87–96 461, 474
Soviet imports of, 943 Koine language in, 127 Gutenberg, Johannes (c. 1400–1470), 426
Granada, Spain, 942 marriage in, 84–85(b) Gutian people, 13
Grand Alliance. See also Allies Minoan impact on, 25 Guyenne, 391–392
World War II and, 864, 874 Mycenaeans and, 27–28 Guyon, Jeanne Marie (1648–1717), 536
Grand Army, 628–630 Near East and, 33, 120 Gymnastics, 645
life in, 633(b) New Comedy in, 124(b) Gynecologists, in Rome, 180
retreat from Moscow of, 632, 633, 633(b) Olympic Games in, 45–46 Gypsies
Graphic arts, 749–750 Peloponnesian War and, 96, 97(m), 97–99, in England, 975
Gratian (church reformer, c. 1140), 308 105–106 Nazis and, 840, 851
Gravity, Einstein and, 773 Persia and, 69, 71–74 World War II genocide and, 862
Great Awakening, 566, 567(i) Philip II of Macedonia in, 111–112
Great Britain. See also Britain philosophy in, 65 Habsburgs (Habsburg dynasty). See also
formation of, 538–539 politics in, 110 Holy Roman Empire
political foundation of, 502 religion in, 34, 51–53, 81–82 absolutism of, 492–493, 494–495
Great Charter. See Magna Carta Rome and, 141, 148–150, 149(f), 178 in Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, 702
Great Councils (England), 377 sculpture in, 50, 50(i) debts of, 445
Great Depression (1930s), 840–844 Sea Peoples and, 29 at end of 17th century, 516(m)
culture during, 854–856 slavery in, 54–56 end of empire, 816
in democracies, 852–854 social elites in, 44–45 in Holy Roman Empire, 375
in England, 853 trade and colonization of, 48–51 Peace of Westphalia and, 463–464
in France, 853 warfare in, 69(i) in 1648–1699, 494(m)
in non-Western countries, 843–844 women in, 56, 56(i), 82–85, 84–85(b) Thirty Years’ War and, 460
totalitarianism during, 845(b) Greek language, 43, 227 wars with Valois and Ottomans, 442(m),
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Greek literature, 64, 225–226 442–443
858(b) Greek Orthodox Church World War I and, 793, 794(i)
Great Famine (1315–1317), 373, 380–382, in c. 1150, 324(m) Hadith literature, 238
390 vs. Roman Catholicism, 304 Hadrian (Rome, r. 117–138 C.E.), 175, 185
Great Fear, in rural France, 595 Green Armies, 831–832 Hagia Sophia, 225, 226(i), 397
Great Fire of London (1666), 503, 503(i) Greenhouse effect, 966 Hague, The, women’s meeting in, 807
Great Khan. See Chingiz (Genghis) Khan Greenland, Vikings and, 279 Haithabu (Hedeby, Germany), 279
Great King, Cyrus as, 38 Green Party Haiti, 588, 615. See also St. Domingue
Great men, in Rome, 155–156, 159 in Germany, 966 Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca), 235
Great Mosque, at Damascus, 237–238, 238(i) transnational, 967(b) Hall of Mirrors (Versailles), German Empire
Great Northern War, 542–543 Greens (faction), 222 proclaimed at, 701
Great Persecution, of Christianity, 202, 212 Gregoras, Nicephorus, 388–389 Halo, in art, 304(i)
Great powers Gregorian calendar, in Russia, 810n Hamlet (Shakespeare), 459, 472
at Congress of Berlin, 756 Gregorian reform, 305–306 Hammurabi (Babylon), laws of, 14–15, 15(b)
intervention in Greece by, 645–646 Gregory VII (Pope, r. 1073–1085), 302, Handbook of the Militant Christian
Great Pyramid (Egypt), 19, 19(i) 305–307 (Erasmus), 428, 428(i)
Great Schism (1378–1417), 388, 397–401 Gregory XI (Pope, r. 1370–1378), 398 Handel, George Frideric (1685–1759), 535
Great Society, 930 Gregory XIII (Pope, r. 1572–1585), 454(i) Handwriting, in Carolingian Empire, 277
Great War. See World War I Gregory of Tours (Bishop, r. 573–c. 594), Hannibal (Carthage, 241–182 B.C.E.),
Greece, 791, 792 247–249, 251 147–148
in cold war, 884–886 on Eulalius, 252 Hanse, 409
EU and, 961, 962–963 Jews, commerce, and, 250 Hanseatic League, 409, 409(m)
independence of, 646, 646(i) on Merovingian kings, 252 Hanukkah, 129
Harald Hardrada–Holy Roman Empire Index I-23

Harald Hardrada (Norway, 11th century), Henry IV (Holy Roman Empire, Himmler, Heinrich (1900–1945), 848
319, 320 r. 1056–1106), 302, 305 Hindenburg, Paul von (1847–1934), 803
Hard Times (Dickens), 716 government under, 322–323 Hindus, 710, 897, 974
Harlem, arts from, 831 Investiture Conflict and, 306–307 Hippias (Athens), 63
Harold (Wessex, mid-11th century), 319, 320 Jews of Speyer and Worms and, 313 Hippocrates of Cos (c. 460–c. 377 B.C.E.), 92
Harun al-Rashid (Abbasid caliph, Henry V (England, r. 1413–1422), 392 Hirohito (Japan, r. 1926–1989), 856, 857, 864
r. 786–809), 268–269 Henry V (Holy Roman Empire, Hiroshima, bombing of, 873, 873(i)
Harvey, William (1578–1657), 476 r. 1105–1125), 323, 341 Hispaniola, 613
Hashim clan, 237 Henry VII (England, r. 1485–1509), 411 Hispano-Roman elites, 255–256
Hasidism, 566 Henry VIII (England, r. 1509–1547), 429, Historical Account of the Black Empire of
Hastings, battle of, 320, 320(m) 433–434, 438, 445 Hayti (Rainsford), 614
Hatshepsut (Egypt, r. 1502–1482 B.C.E.), 21, Henry of Anjou. See Henry II (England) Historical and Critical Dictionary (Bayle), 547
21(i) Henry of Hervordia (d. 1370), 390 Histories (Gregory of Tours), 247–248
Hattusas (Hittite city), 25 Henry the Lion (Saxony, c. 1130–1195), Histories (Herodotus), 92
Haussmann, George Eugène (1809–1891), 345(i), 345–346, 353–354 History and historians, P-4, 92. See also
706–707, 963(b) Henry the Navigator (Portugal), 421 specific individuals
Havel, Václav, 946–947, 978 Henry the Younger (England, 12th century), divisions of history, 233
Hawaii, 560, 785, 864 337 ethnicity and, 249(b)
Haydn, Franz Joseph (1732–1809), 570 Hephaistion (Macedonia), 114 promotion of militant nationalism by,
Haywood, Eliza (1693?–1756), 535 Hepworth, Barbara (1903–1975), 908(i) 795(b)
Headscarf, controversy over, 975(i) Hera (goddess), 45, 138 psychohistory and, 770–771(b)
Head Start program, 930 Heraclius (Byzantine Empire, r. 610–641), on recent past, 952–953
Head tax, in Rome, 200 240 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Health. See also Diseases; Health care Herakles (Hercules), cults of, 81 Empire (Gibbon), 564
European, 740–741 Herculaneum, 169(i), 175 History of the Peloponnesian War
industrialization and, 660 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 697 (Thucydides), 92
worldwide conditions of, 968–969 Heredity, 719–720 Hitler, Adolf (1889–1945), 840, 847–848,
Health care Heresy, 184 850–851(b), 871
Black Death and, 390 anti-heretic campaigns (1150–1204), assassination attempts against, 870
in 17th century, 469 352(m) in central Europe, 860–861
in 18th century, 545 Christian, 209–210 expansion by, 858–859
in welfare state, 894 heretical movements and, 399–401 Jewish-Masonic conspiracy and, 565(b)
Hebrew Bible. See Bible medieval, 350–351 Munich Pact and, 861
Hebrews, 35 Spanish Inquisition and, 414 Mussolini and, 823, 834
monotheism of, 5, 41–42 suppression of, 362 totalitarianism of, 844, 845(b)
origins to 539 B.C.E., 39–42 Hermit monks, 212–213 World War II and, 863, 864–865
wisdom literature and, 37 Hero cults, 81 Hitler Youth, 849
Hegel, Georg W. F. (1770–1831), 547(b) Herod Antipas (Judaea), 181 Hittites, 23, 24(i), 24–25, 29
Heisenberg, Werner (1901–1976), 855–856 Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c. 485–425 Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679), 484, 501(b),
Heliocentrism, 126, 475–476, 476(i), 546 B.C.E.), 38–39 504–505
Hellenic League, 73 on Athens, 62, 71 Hobson, J. A., 784
Hellenistic world (323–30 B.C.E.), 103, on Persia, 58(b), 71 Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969), 844, 898–899
115–120 Herod the Great (Judaea, r. 37–4 B.C.E.), 181 Hohenlinden, battle of (1800), 629
culture in, 120–129 Herzegovina, 756 Hohenstaufen clan (Staufer family), 341–342
Jews in, 129 Herzen, Alexander (1812–1870), 675 Hohenzollern family, 464
kingdoms in, 115–120, 116(m) Herzl, Theodor (1860–1904), 783, 783(b) Holland, 625
Rome and, 130, 130(m), 177–178 Hesiod (Greek poet), 46–47, 48, 57 “Hollow Men, The” (Eliot), 830
Hellespont, 72 Hetaira (companions), in Greece, 83–84 Holocaust, 864–866, 867, 867(i), 903
Heloise (c. 1100–c. 1163/1164), 330–331 Heterosexuality Holocaust Museum (Washington, D.C.), 867
Helots (Greek slaves), 59 homosexuality and, 768 Holstein, 700
Help-desk services, 976 mass culture and, 826 Holy Alliance, 638
Helvetic Republic, 608 Hezbollah, 971 Holy communion. See Eucharist
Hemingway, Ernest (1899–1961), 826 Hierarchy. See also Social hierarchies; Status Holy Cross, relic of, 240
Henricus Martelus, 424(b) in Christian church, 183–184, 208–209, Holy Land. See also Israel; Jerusalem;
Henry I (England, r. 1100–1135), 321 214, 253, 304 Palestine
Henry I (Saxony, r. 919–936), 289 in guilds, 300 crusades and, 311–319, 351, 352, 352(m)
Henry II (England, r. 1154–1189), 317, Hieroglyphs (Egypt), 17, 18(f), 102(i), 621 Holy Roman Empire, 322–323. See also
336–340, 377 High culture, during cold war, 909 Habsburgs (Habsburg dynasty)
Europe under, 338(m) Higher education. See also Universities c. 1340, 383(m)
France and, 340–341 Enlightenment and, 558 c. 1492, 415(m)
punishment for crimes and, 339(i) Great Awakening and, 566 in 1648–1699, 494(m)
Henry II (France, r. 1547–1559), 443, 445, Islamic, 272 in 1740, 551(m)
453 in 1960s, 924 church reform in, 303
Henry II (Holy Roman Empire, for women, 710 emperor of, 630
r. 1002–1024), 289 High Middle Ages, 233 at end of 17th century, 516(m)
Henry III (England, r. 1216–1272), 342, High-tech industries, 973 Frederick I Barbarossa and, 341–346, 344(b)
343(b), 375, 377 Hijra, 235 Germany, Italy, and, 341
Henry III (France, r. 1574–1589), 454, 455 Hildebrand (c. 1020–1085), 304, 305. See Investiture Conflict and, 306(m), 306–307
Henry III (Holy Roman Empire, also Gregory VII Italy and, 344–345
r. 1039–1056), 303, 306 Hillel (Rabbinic teacher), 181 Luther and, 430
Henry IV (France, r. 1589–1610), 454–455 Hillesum, Etty, 839 origins of term, 374–375
I-24 Index Holy Roman Empire–Imperialism

Holy Roman Empire (Continued) Huguenots, 452–455, 489, 493. See also Ice age, P-6
Ottonian emperors of, 289(m), 289–290 Protestantism Iceland, Vikings in, 279
Peace of Augsburg and, 446 Humanism Iconoclasm
Peace of Westphalia and, 463–464 Calvin and, 432 in Byzantine Empire, 245
Peasants’ War (1525) and, 435–436, 435(m) Christian, 427–429, 430 in Ravenna and Venice, 256
population loss in, 466 in Padua, 412 Icons, 244(i), 244–245
Protestant challenges to, 435–437 in Renaissance, 401–403, 402(b) Idealism, Kant and, 565
Thirty Years’ War and, 460–462 Humanitas, Cicero on, 150 Ideal Marriage: . . . (Stopes), 826
wars of, 491 Human rights, 904–905 Ideas, culture and, 5
weakening of, 373–375 Humans Identity. See also National identity
Home front, in World War I, 806–809 in Greek sculpture, 80 cultural, 690
Homeless people, in Rome, 151 origins of, P-3–P-4 in global cities, 964
Homer (Greek poet), 27, 33, 44–45, 46 Paleolithic society of, P-4–P-8 in Middle East, 899–900
Home rule, for Ireland, 753, 779 Humbert of Silva Candida (c. 1000–1061), new combinations of, 965
Homicide, in Greece, 52–53 304 Western, 981
Homo sapiens, P-3 Hume, David (1711–1776), 559 Ideology, 654. See also Liberalism;
Homo sapiens sapiens, P-4, P-5 Hundred Days, 633–634, 637 Utilitarianism; specific philosophies
Homosexuals and homosexuality, 572 Hundred Years’ War (1337–1453), 388, domesticity, 668–669
activism and, 931, 932(i) 391–396, 393(m) of Fascism, 833
AIDS and, 969 Hungarian Revolution (1956), 896 political movements and, 671–678
in Athens, 88 Hungary, 356(m) views of industrialization and, 660(b)
in eastern Roman Empire, 225 agriculture in, 895 Ides of March, 159, 159(i)
Nazi concentration camps and, 848–849 in Austria-Hungary, 702 Idylls (Theocritus), 121
in Soviet Union, 846 battle of Mohács, 443 Ignatius (bishop of Antioch, c. 35–107),
Spartan boys and, 60 collapse of communism in, 945, 948(m) 183
World War I and, 764, 768, 768(i) economy in, 959(i) Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), 439
World War II genocide and, 862 ethnic groups in, 495, 682–683 Île-de-France, 288, 322
Hondius, Abraham, 467(i) in EU, 963 Iliad, The (Homer), 27, 33, 44, 46(b)
Hong Kong, 671, 898, 973 foreign investment in, 963 Illegitimacy, 361, 663, 768
Honorius (Rome, r. 395–423), 199–200, 217 Huns and, 215–216 Illiteracy, 709, 755(i)
Hoover, Herbert, 852 industrialization in, 675 Illness. See Diseases; Health; Medicine
Hoplites Magyars in, 822 Illuminated manuscripts, 266(i)
in Greece, 53–54, 54(i), 68(i) Mongol invasion of, 380 Illyria, 111
in Persian Wars, 71 nationalism in, 675, 682, 781 Imam, 237
Horace (65–8 B.C.E.), 120, 172 in 1930s, 854 Immaculate Conception, 719
Horseshoes, 285 Ottomans in, 444(i), 494(m), 495, 544 Immigrants and immigration. See also
Hospitals, 545 refugees from, 881 Migration
for foundlings, 572, 626, 663 Roman Catholicism in, 291 campaigns against, 975
in 17th century France, 514–515 Soviets and, 886 French racism and, 942
Hôtel des Invalides, 594(m) in 12th century, 346, 346(m) gender imbalance of, 527
House, Edward Mandell (U.S. Colonel, World War I and, 804, 816, 823 Greeks as, 104
1858–1938), 790 World War II and, 863, 874 from Ireland, 678
Households young people in, 895(i) Muslim, 976(b)
design for, 747–748 Hunger. See Famines non-European to Europe, 901–902, 902(i)
in 12th century, 302 Huns, 214, 215–216, 807 into Roman Empire, 215–219
in 1960s, 925 Hunter-gatherers, P-5, P-8 in Sweden, 942
urban, 709–710 Hunting women and, 513–514
House of Anjou, in England, 337 aristocrats and, 568 World War II and, 856
House of Commons (England), 377, 778 big-game, 741, 741(i) worldwide, 950(i)
House of Lords (England), 778–779 in Çatalhöyük, P-11 Imperial cult (Rome), 175, 185
Housing Neo-Assyrian, 36 Imperialism
in Çatalhöyük, P-11 Hus, Jan (1372 or 1373–1415), 400, 430 in Asia (1894–1914), 786(m)
in cities, 298–299, 532–533 Huskisson, William (1770–1830), 653 challenges to European, 783–790
in England, 705 Hussite Revolution (1415–1436), 400–401, 409 in China, 712
for families, 767 Hutchinson, Lucy, 500–501(b) colonialism vs., 670
in Greece, 105(i) Huygens, Christian (1629–1695), 478 crusades and, 311
Neolithic, P-10 Hydrogen bombs, 888 Egyptian, 21
Paleolithic, P-6, P-6(i) Hygiene, in Russia, 832 English, 710–712
Roman, 151(i), 168–169 Hyksos people, in Egypt, 20–21, 39 French, 712, 844
social classes and, 663 Hyperinflation. See also Inflation German, 785–786
urbanization and, 662 in Rome, 200 international politics and, 739–740
in Vienna, 826(i) Hyphasis River, Alexander the Great at, 113 Japanese, 738, 786–787, 856–858, 857(m),
of wealthy, 741 858(b)
World War I and, 809(f), 826 Iaroslav the Wise (Kiev, r. 1019–1054), leisure activities and, 741
World War II and, 894 267–268, 268(i) new imperialism, 726–727, 733–740
Hubble, Edwin (1889–1953), 855, 919 Iberia. See Portugal; Spain in 1920s, 824
Hubris (arrogance), 95 Ibn Al-Athir (13th century), 315(b) in 1930s, 856–859
Hugenberg, Alfred (1865–1951), 847 Ibn Darraj al-Quastali (958–1030), 272 popularity of, 736(b)
Hugh Capet (France, r. 987–996), 288, 289(m) Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (980–1037), 271–272 Roman, 145–152
Hugh of St. Victor (12th century), 308 Ibsen, Henrik (1828–1906), 747, 748(b), Russian, 786
Hugo, Victor (1802–1885), 635(b) 767(i), 777 in 16th century, 446
Imperialism–International Women’s Day Index I-25

society, culture, and, 740–750 Council of Trent and, 439 Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the
Spanish, 785 Luther and, 429–430 Wealth of Nations, An (Smith), 561
by United States, 785 for shedding of blood, 322(b) Inquisition, 362, 414
World War II and, 856–859, 857(m) Industrial innovation, 727–731 Bruno and, 475
Impressionism, 748 Industrialization, 653, 727–729. See also courts of, 360
Inanna (goddess), 11, 12 Factories Galileo and, 476, 476(i), 477(b)
Incas, 426 areas of slower, 729 Installment buying, 827
Income tax, in Sweden, 708–709 costs and benefits of, 660–661(b) Institutes of the Christian Religion (Calvin), 432
Independence Crystal Palace and, 684, 685 Institutions
in Africa, 900(m), 900–901 in Europe (c. 1850), 657(m) governments as, 336–346
in Belgium, 589–590, 648, 650(m) in Germany, 657 transnational in Europe, 961–964
for Egypt, 899 in Great Depression, 841 Institutions (Cassiodorus), 221
for ethnic groups, 965 in Hungary, 675 Instruction of Ptahhotep (Egypt), 20
of former Soviet republics, 958 ideologies and, 671 Instructions for Marikare (Egypt), 3
in Greece, 646, 646(i) in literature, 665–666 Insurance, in Germany, 755
in Haiti, 615 population change and, 766 Intellectual thought. See also Philosophy;
in India, 898 romanticism and, 664–667 specific issues and thinkers
in Ireland, 824 roots of, 654–656 absolutism, 474
in Latin America, 646, 647(i), 647(m) in Russia, 787 abstractions in, 565
in Middle East, 899–900 of Soviet Union, 845 in Athens’ Golden Age, 81–96
in North Africa, 901 urbanization and, 661–662 brain drain and, 935–936
in Poland, 823 Industrial Revolution, 653, 654–664 Chaldean, 36–37
in United States, 581(i), 581–583 England as leader in, 655 in cold war, 908–909
Independence movements “second,” 727–728 conservatism and, 638–639
decolonization and, 897–902 socialist criticism of, 675 debates over future, 828–831
World War I and, 807 urbanization and, 661–662 empiricism and, 565
Independence Party (Austria-Hungary), 781 Industry in Enlightenment, 556–558, 561
Index of Prohibited Books, 565 adaptation to, 745–746 existentialism and, 903–904
India capital-intensive, 730 French Revolution and, 590(b)
Alexander the Great in, 113 in eastern Europe, 963 in German states, 612
Allied soldiers from, 868 expansion of, 727–733 in Greece, 57, 64–65, 70, 87–96, 106–110
Amritsar massacre in (1919), 824 Fatimid, 270 Greek influence on Roman, 149–150
British rule in, 710–712, 733 in former Soviet Union, 959 idealism and, 565
cotton industry and, 658 in Great Depression, 842 laissez-faire economics and, 561
decolonization in, 897 high-tech, 973 liberalism and, 674
division of, 898 innovation in, 727–731 in Macedonian renaissance, 264–266, 266(i)
economy in, 974 in Japan, 739(i) in Middle Ages, 328–332
Europeans in, 527–528 medieval, 300–301 modernity and, 766(b), 771–776
Gandhi in, 829, 843, 844(i), 898 in Russia, 831 in 19th century, 715–718
in Great Depression, 843 safety in, 973 nominalism and, 397–398
independence for, 898 Soviet, 845 postmodern, 980–981
missionaries in, 639(i), 640 workers and, 743 progress and, 547(b)
movies from, 980 World War I and, 806 scholasticism and, 367–369
nationalism in, 788–789 World War II and, 866, 891, 892 scientific method, 475, 476–477
railroads in, 656 Infanticide, 236, 572, 626, 663 secular worldview in, 452, 471
Russia and, 737, 961 Infant mortality, 572, 664, 894 skepticism, 474, 477, 546–547
Seven Years’ War in, 575, 575(m) Infantry. See also Armed forces; Soldiers social contract theory and, 563–564
society in, 6 Athenian, 71, 110 women and, 558
Sumerian trade with, 8–9 hoplites as, 53–54 writing, music, and, 369
World War I and, 802 Neo-Assyrian, 35 Intelligence tests, 769
World War II and, 872(m) in Sparta, 57 Intelligentsia, in Russia, 787
Indian National Congress, 737(i), 788, Infants, abandonment of, 119 Intelsat I (satellite), 919
844(i), 898 Inflation Intendants (France), 489
Indian Ocean region, Portuguese forts in, in Germany, 820(i), 820–821, 847 Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah
421 New World gold and silver and, 426 Equiano, The (Equiano), 560
Indian Rebellion, 711, 711(i) oil and, 937–938 Interest rates, oil prices and, 938
Indigenous peoples, attitudes toward, 560 in Rome, 189(i), 191, 200 Intermarriage, in colonies, 527
Individuals in 16th century, 444, 465 International Court of Justice. See World Court
roles in society, 560 after Thirty Years’ War, 464 International law, Nazi trials and, 888
Rousseau on, 561–564 in West Germany, 942 International Monetary Fund, 965, 969
Indochina. See also Vietnam Information, governmental, 708–709 International organizations. See specific
cold war in, 898 Information age, 916–918 organizations
French in, 739, 789–790 Infrastructure, in Spain, 942 International politics. See Foreign policy;
in 1930s, 844 Inheritance specific countries
in 1954, 898(m) in Greece, 82 Internationals
Union of, 737–738 by nobility, 286 Second, 750, 751, 776
World War I and, 824 in revolutionary France, 604 Third (Communist), 813
Indochinese Communist Party, 844 Innocent III (Pope, r. 1198–1216), 360–361, International trade. See Trade
Indo-European languages, of Hittites, 24 361(i), 373 International Woman Suffrage Alliance
Indonesia, 824, 864, 901 Innovation. See Intellectual thought; (1904), 777
Indulgences (forgiveness of sins), 399 Inventions; specific types International Women’s Day, 810
I-26 Index International women’s movement–Jefferson

International women’s movement, World Iroquois Indians, 490 Persian Wars and, 73
War I and, 807 Irrigation political power in, 287
International Zionist Congress (1897), 783 in Egypt, 17(m) railroads in, 656(f)
Internet, 975–976, 983(m) in Mesopotamia, 7, 8 Renaissance in, 402
Internment camps, for Japanese Americans, Isaac (Hebrew), 39 revolts in, 644(m), 647
868 Isabella of Castile, 410, 414, 421, 434 signori in, 379–380
Interpretation of Dreams, The (Freud), 769 Ishak Cohen Nassy, David de, 524(b) Spanish Civil War and, 859, 860(m)
Interventionism, by U.S., 884 Ishtar (goddess), 11, 12, 36 in Triple Alliance, 756, 790
Invasions. See also specific invasions Isis (goddess), 129 unification of, 689, 696–698, 698(m)
at Bay of Pigs, Cuba, 910 cult of, 185–188 voting rights in, 754
Mongol, 380, 381(m) Islam, 231, 232, 233–238, 269(m). See also women in, 710, 822
in Near East, 28–29 Arab-Israeli wars; Middle East; Muslims; World War I and, 779, 800, 801, 804,
in 9th and 10th centuries, 279–282, 281(m) Oil 808(b), 808(i), 814
Norman, of England (1066), 320, 320(m) Abbasid caliphate in, 262, 268–269 World War II and, 863, 866, 870, 881
of Roman Empire, 189, 191 crusades and, 317–318 Ivanhoe (Scott), 643
Viking, 279–280 Dome of the Rock and, 231 Ivan IV (the Terrible) (Russia, r.
Inventions. See also Technology dynastic revolution in, 262 1533–1584), 452, 460
arts and, 664 in c. 1150, 324(m)
industrial, 654–655, 727–728 expansion to 750, 236(m) J’accuse (Zola), 780
Investiture Conflict, 304, 306(m), 306–307 immigration and, 976(b) Jacob (Hebrew), 39
emperor, papacy, and, 341–342 influence of, 952 Jacobin Clubs (France), 599, 600, 607, 609
Frederick I Barbarossa and, 344 Khomeini and, 938–939 arrest of, 623
political power after, 323 Qur’an and, 42 suspicion of, 612, 621
Investment regional diversity in, 5, 269–270 Jacobitism, 538, 539
Assyrian, 14 renaissance in, 271–272 Jacobs, Aletta (1851–1929), 747, 807
in eastern Europe, 963 Russian Christianity and, 267 Jacquerie uprising (Paris, 1358), 396
in research, 922, 924 Spanish emirate of, 270 Jacques de Vitry (biographer), 350
in United States, 974 vs. Western world, 969–973 Jadwiga, 409
In vitro fertilization, 921 Isolationism, World War II and, 883 Jahn, Friedrich Ludwig (1778–1852), 645
Ionia, 44, 65, 69 Israel, P-8. See also Jews and Judaism; James I (England, r. 1603–1625), 459,
Ionian Revolt, 71 Palestine 464–465
Ionic style, in architecture, 80 Arab wars with (1967, 1973), 937 James II (England, r. 1685–1688), 502–503,
Ipatescu, Ana, 683(i) Assyrian destruction of, 41 538, 539
Iran. See also Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah creation of, 899, 899(m) James V (Scotland, r. 1513–1542), 445–446
Afghan refugees in, 974 Lebanon and, 971, 971(m) James Edward (Old Pretender, 1688–1766),
in 1930s, 844 Palestinians and, 970–971 538
Parthians in, 116 Istanbul, 199, 844. See also Constantinople Jane Eyre (Brontë), 666
U.S. hostages in, 939 Italian Wars (1494), 442–443 Janissaries, 397
war with Iraq, 974 Italy, 278. See also Papacy; Roman Empire; Jansen, Cornelius (1585–1638), 489, 536
World War I and, 824 Rome Jansenism, 489, 536
Iranians, Medes as, 36 ancient (500 B.C.E.), 140(m) Japan
Iraq. See also Babylon; Baghdad Byzantine control of, 240 atomic bombing of, 871–873, 872(m)
invasion of (2003), 972 carbonari in, 631–632 China and, 786, 857, 864
Kuwait invasion by, 970 Charlemagne and, 273 conscription by, 868
Iraq-Iran war, 974 church and state in, 255–256 economy in, 973
Iraq War (2003–), 972(i), 972–973 communes in, 301, 307 expansion by, 856–858, 857(m), 858(b)
Ireland, 217. See also Northern Ireland consolidation of, 630(m) Germany and, 864
Christianity in, 253 decline in commerce of, 469 globalization of culture in, 977
computing and help-desk services in, 976 dynastic wars in, 442–443 Great Depression in, 843
Cromwell in, 502 in 1848, 680(m) and Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity
England and, 779 Ethiopian attack by, 779, 785, 858, 859(m) Sphere, 858(b)
migration from, 743 expansion in (500–220 B.C.E.), 145–146 imperialism by, 738, 786–787
monasticism in, 251 fascism in, 833–834 Meiji Restoration in, 712–713
nationalism in, 673–674 feminism in, 933, 933(b) migrants in England from, 964
Northern Ireland and, 942 in 400 B.C.E., 100(m) missionaries in, 440, 440(i)
political reforms and, 753 Frederick I Barbarossa and, 344–345, modernization in, 738, 739(i)
protests in, 810 373–374 power of, 783–784
rebellion in, 539 Frederick II (Holy Roman Empire) and, Siberia and, 813
Roman Catholicism and, 253–254 373–374 World War I and, 801, 824
Scottish resettlement of, 502 government of, 379–380, 889 World War II and, 864, 866, 871–873, 873
World War I and, 823–824 Greece and, 49 Japanese Americans, internment camps for,
Irish Free State, 824, 824(m) Holy Roman Empire and, 341 868
Irish National Land League, 753 independence in north, 965 Jaruzelski, Wojciech, 945
Irish National Theater, 779 independence of, 375 Java, Dutch in, 527
Irish Republican Army (IRA), 940 industrialization in, 729 Javelin, 285
Iron and iron industry, 727 Japan and, 864 Jazz, 830
in Britain, 657 in late 13th century, 373(m) Jazz Age, 822
in Germany, 657, 728 Napoleon in, 621, 625 Jean de Meun (c. 1240–before 1305), 369(b)
Greek metallurgy and, 43 nationalism in, 632, 642–643, 680, 686 Jefferson, Thomas (1743–1826), 582, 582(b)
Hittite, 25 as nation-state, 696 on Declaration of Independence, 583–584
for tools and plows, 301 at Peace of Lodi (1454), 412(m) on French Declaration of Rights, 595
Jena–Kings and kingdoms Index I-27

Jena, battle at (1806), 629 supposed conspiracies of, 565(b) Justinian (Byzantine Empire, r. 527–565),
Jenner, Edward (1749–1823), 545 Vatican II and, 903 213(i), 221–222, 223–225, 238, 397
Jericho, P-10, P-11(i) World War I and, 779–783 eastern Roman Empire under, 228(m)
Jerome (Saint, c. 347–420), 148(f), 211, 212, World War II and, 839, 862, 881–882 laws of, 225
214 Jihad, 235, 237 Justinian II (Byzantine Empire, r. 685–695),
Jerome, Jeanette, 741 Jingoism, 756 256
Jerusalem Joan of Arc (c. 1412–1431), 392(i), 393(m), Jutland, battle at, 804
Babylonian capture of, 41 394–395(b), 403 Juvenal (Rome, c. 65–130 C.E.), 169, 179
Christian seizure of, 315(b) at battle of Orléans, 392
in crusades, 312 (map), 316, 351 Job Corps, 930 Ka’ba, 233, 234
Dome of the Rock in, 238 Jobs. See also Employment Kádár, János, 928
Jesus in, 181–182 global redistribution of, 977 Kadesh, battle of, 25
Persia and, 240 Jogailo, 409 Kaemheset (Egypt), 50, 50(i)
sack of (1099), 313n John (England, r. 1199–1216), 340, 341, Kafka, Franz (1883–1924), 831
Solomon’s temple in, 41 342–343(b) Kaiser. See William I (Prussia and Germany);
Jesuits, 439, 460, 577, 639 John II (France, r. 1350–1364), 396 William II (Germany)
Jesus (c. 4 B.C.E.–30 C.E.), 181–182, 208(i) John II (Portugal, r. 1481–1495), 421 Kalahari Desert, people of, P-5
Jewish Museum (Berlin), 867(i) John XXII (Pope, r. 1316–1334), 398 Kamikaze tactics, World War II and, 873
Jewish State, The (Herzl), 783 John XXIII (antipope, r. 1410–1415), 398, Kancheli, Giya, 980
Jews and Judaism. See also Anti-Semitism; 399, 401 Kandinsky, Wassily (1866–1944), 774
Holocaust; Israel John XXIII (Pope, r. 1958–1963), 903 Kant, Immanuel (1724–1804), 557, 565–566,
apocalyptism and Christianity, 181 John of Damascus (Saint, c. 675–749), 244, 609
assimilation and, 719 245(b) Kapital, Das (Marx), 713
attacks on, 609 John Paul II (Pope, 1920–2005), 477, 945 Karlsbad Decrees, 645
in Austria, 577 John Philoponus (c. 490–570), 227 Kay, John, 655
in Austria-Hungary, 781 Johnson, Lyndon B. (1908–1973), 930 Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928), 821
Black Death and, 390 Johnson, Philip, 980–981 Kemal, Mustafa (“Atatürk,” 1881–1938),
in Byzantine Empire, 243 Joliot-Curie, Irene, 773(i) 843–844
in Christianized Rome, 206–207 Jolliet, Louis (1645–1700), 490 Kennedy, John F. (1917–1963), 885, 928
Christians and, 362 Jongleur (musician), 347–348, 348(i) civil rights and, 930
chronicle of First Crusade and, 314–315(b) Jordan, Israel and, 937 cold war and, 909–910
in cities, 297–298 Joseph II (Austrian and Holy Roman Cuban missile crisis and, 910, 911(m)
Clermont Tonnerre on, 597(b) Emperor, r. 1780–1790), 577, 589–590 Kent State University, 936
couple on wedding night, 366(i) Joseph the Provider (Mann), 855 Kenya, 802, 900–901
Crusader attacks on, 313(m), 313–314 Joshua (Syrian monk, 8th century), 231 Kepler, Johannes (1571–1630), 475
Diaspora and, 42 Journal des Dames, Le (periodical), Kerensky, Aleksandr (1881–1970), 811
Diderot on, 577 562–563(b) Khadija, 233, 234
in Dutch Republic, 457 Journalism, mass, 752 Khagan, 249(b), 266
in c. 1150, 324(m) Journeymen and journeywomen, 300 Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah (1902–1989),
Enlightenment and, 565 Joyce, James (1882–1941), 831 938–939, 970
in former Soviet Union, 959 Judaea, 175, 181 Khrushchev, Nikita (1894–1971), 885, 896,
in France, 754 Judah (kingdom), 40(i), 41 909, 928
geniza of Jewish synagogue, 318(b) Judah the Maccabee, 129 Khufu (Cheops) (Egypt, r. 2609–2584 B.C.E.),
in Great Depression, 843 Judaism. See Jews and Judaism 19, 19(i)
Hasidism and, 566 Judgment day, in Egyptian religion, 2(i) Kievan Russia, 267–268, 346, 380
Hebrew Old Testament and, 39–41 Judicial system. See also Courts; Law(s) Kikuyu people, 900–901
Hellenistic, 118, 129 in Athens, 63 Kindergarten movement, 710
Islam and, 235, 237, 270–271 in Rome, 144–145 King, Martin Luther Jr. (1929–1968), 904,
Jesus Movement and, 181 Judiciary. See also Courts; Judicial system 934
Louis IX (France) and, 376 in England, 337 Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes,
massacre in Rhineland (1095), 313n Judith (Carolingians, 9th century), 278 816, 823
massacres of, 366 Julia (Rome, daughter of Julius Caesar), 158 King James Bible, 459
in Middle Ages, 250, 365–367 Julian calendar, in Russia, 810n King Lear (Shakespeare), 459
Middle East and, 899 Julian the Apostate (Rome, r. 361–363), 205 Kings and kingdoms. See also Empires;
migrations by, 743, 782(m) Julio-Claudians, 173, 174–175 specific kings and kingdoms
Nazis and, 848–849, 851–852 Julius II (Pope, r. 1503–1513), 434 after Carolingian Empire, 282
origins of terms, 41 Julius III (Pope, r. 1550–1552), 446 Charlemagne and, 275
Ottoman tolerance of, 459 June Days (France), 679, 681(b) in Egypt, 16, 17–23
Palestine and, 783, 783(b), 856, 881–882 Jünger, Ernst, 830 in England, 287–288
in Poland-Lithuania, 497 Junius Bassus, sarcophagus of, 207(i) in France, 288–289, 321–322
religion of, 41–42 Junkers, 493, 578, 699 Frankish, 246–248, 252
responses to anti-liberal policies by, 782–783 Juno (goddess), 138 in Greece, 59
revivalism and, 566 Jupiter (god), 138, 185 Hellenistic, 104, 115–120, 116(m)
Romans and, 181 Justice Investiture Conflict and, 307
Rousseau on, 569 in Athens, 63 in Macedonia, 111
in Russia, 577, 758, 758(m) in Egypt, 17–18 in Middle Ages, 327
sects of, 182 Greek, 46(b), 46–47 non-Roman in West (c. 370–550s), 214–221
as slave owners, 524(b) Hebrew, 40–41 Norman, in England, 320
in Soviet Union, 883, 928 lay, 378 Ostrogothic, 219
in Spain, 353, 414 in Rome, 142 Persian, 37(i)
state for, 783(b) in Sumer, 10 power of, 252–253
I-28 Index Kings and kingdoms–Lay Down Your Arms

Kings and kingdoms (Continued) Labour Party (England), 746, 751, 778, 853, Laos, in Indochina, 737
in Rome, 134, 139–140 890 Larrey, Dominique-Jean (1766–1842), 627
in Spain, 255, 354(m) Ladies, lords and, 282–283 La Salle, René Robert Cavelier (Sieur de,
in Sumer, 9–10 Lady of the Lake, The (Scott), 643 1643–1687), 490
Visigoth, 217 Lafayette, Madame de (Marie-Madeleine de Las Casas, Bartolomé de (1474–1566), 425
warriors and, 285 la Vergne) (1634–1693), 486–487, 513 Las Cases, Emmanuel de (1766–1842), 634(b)
in western Europe, 242, 245–247, 336–346 Lafayette, Marie-Joseph (Marquis de, Lascaux, cave painting at, P-7(i)
King’s Peace (386 B.C.E.), 110 1757–1834), 594, 599 Las Navas de Tolosa, battle at (1212), 353,
Kipling, Rudyard (1865–1936), 785, 825 L’Aire, Raimond de, 365(b) 354(m)
Kissinger, Henry, 936 Laissez-faire, 561, 705–706 Late Middle Ages, 233
Klemperer, Victor, 850(b) Laity, sacraments and, 361–362 Lateran Agreement (1929), 833
Knight, Death, and the Devil, The (Dürer), Lakshmibai (India, d. 1858), 711 Latifundia (farms), in Rome, 151–152
428(i) Lamb, Ann, 670 Latin America, 969
Knights, 283. See also Warriors Lancelot (legendary knight), 348–349 abolition of slavery in, 670
lifestyles of, 285–286 Land Great Depression in, 843
Knights Templar, 317 in Carolingian Empire, 278–279 independence movements in, 646, 647(i),
Knossos, Crete, 25, 26(i) Civil Code of Napoleon and, 664 647(m)
Knox, John (1514–1572), 445–446 consolidation of agricultural, 663–664 Latin language, 227
Kohl, Helmut (1930–), 942 in Great Depression, 841 in Carolingian Empire, 282
Koine language, 127 Great Famine and, 382 in Frankish kingdoms, 247–248
Kokoschka, Oskar (1886–1980), 774 Jewish ownership of, 297 in Italy, 145–146
Kolkhoz (collective farms), 846 loss of, 468 literature in, 149–150, 172–173
Kollontai, Aleksandra (1872–1952), 832 peasants and, 302 in medieval education, 328–329
Kollwitz, Käthe (1867–1945), 798(i), 828 reclamation of, 302 Renaissance humanists and, 401–402
Korea in Rome, 146, 151, 200 Latin people, 140(m)
Japan and, 738, 857(m), 858(b) Soviet, 846 Latin scholarship, 225–226
World War II and, 874 Land and Liberty (Russia), 757 Latium, 140(m)
Korean War (1950–1953), 891, 898, 898(m) Land bridge, to Americas, P-5 Latvia, 460, 861, 863, 956, 963, 964
Kościuszko, Tadeusz (1746–1817), 612 Land Freedom Army (Africa), 900 Laud, William (1573–1645), 498
Kosovo Land grants, in Russia, 695 Launay, Bernard René de, 593(i)
Albanians in, 954–955 Landowners Laurana, Luciano, 404
battle of (1389), 396 Jews as, 250 Law(s), 7. See also Law codes; Legislation
Kossuth, Lajos (1802–1894), 675, 682, 684 medieval, 249–250 in Athens, 63
Kosygin, Alexei (1904–1980), 928 in Rome, 151 Augustine on, 211
Kotzebue, August von (1761–1819), 645 in Russia, 695–696 canon, 308
Kouros statues, 50 vs. serfs, 285 in England, 337–338, 340
Krasikov Street (Bulatov), 929, 929(i) Langer, William, 770(b) under Frederick II (emperor), 373–374
Kristallnacht, 851–852 Languages. See also Writing; specific Hebrew, 40–41
Kronstadt naval base, 832 languages Jewish religious, 41–42
Krum (Bulgarian Khagan, r. c. 803–814), Anglo-Saxon (Old English), 254, 288 of Justinian, 225
266, 267 Arabic, 237, 270 reform of, 576–577
Kulak, in Russia, 846 Aramaic, 36 Roman, 142, 145, 179–180, 198
Kulturkampf, 718–719, 754 of Assyrian kings, 36 schools of, 329
Kundera, Milan (1929–), 935, 979 in eastern Roman Empire, 222 in Sparta, 59
!Kung San people, P-5 English, 321, 980 on status of slaves, 508
Kurile Islands, World War II and, 874 Finnish, 281 tribal, 215
Kuwait, Iraq invasion of, 970 Greek, 43, 227 Viking, 280
Al-Kwarazmi (Islam, d. 850), 271 in Hellenistic Age, 103 Visigothic and Frankish, 219–220
Kyoto Protocol, 967 humanism and, 401–402 witchcraft and, 479
Indo-European, 24 Law, John (1671–1729), 538
Labadie, Jean de (1610–1674), 511 in Ireland, 779 Law codes
Labadists, 511 in Islamic world, 270–271 Civil Code of Napoleon and, 625–627, 630
Labor. See also Slaves and slavery in Italy, 681 in England, 288
agricultural, P-9, 118–119 Koine, 127 of Hammurabi, 14–15
in Çatalhöyük, P-11–P-12 Latin, 328–329 Hebrew, 40
Civil Code of Napoleon and, 626–627 Magyar, 280–281, 683 of Justinian, 225
industrialization and, 727–728 Minoan, 25 marriage and, 438
non-Europeans as, 902 Near Eastern, 11(f) Marsilius on, 397
protests by, 750–751 of 19th century Europe, 673(m) in Muscovy, 469
of Roman slaves, 170–171 of Normans, 321 in revolutionary France, 604
Soviet, 883 in revolutionary France, 603 in Sumer, 13
World War I and, 776–777, 802, 806, in Roman world, 178(m) Twelve Tables (Rome) as, 142
807–808 Slavic, 267 Visigothic, 219
Labor strikes. See Strikes Spanish language television and, 980 Law of Indemnity (France, 1825), 647
Labor unions, 750 Sumerian, 7–8 Law of Sacrilege (France, 1825), 647
bureaucracy in, 825 used by Galileo, 475 Lawrence, D. H. (1885–1930), 826
development of, 659 vernacular, 254–255, 328, 346–349 Laws for Physicians (Hammurabi), 15(b)
in Italy, 833 World War I and, 821 Laws of War and Peace, The (Grotius), 474
for women, 676 Languedoc, 355, 376, 376(m) Lay brothers, 310(f)
World War I and, 776 Laodice (Seleucids, 195 B.C.E.), 119 Lay Down Your Arms (Suttner), 777
Lay investiture–Literature Index I-29

Lay investiture, 303 Leovigild (Visigoths, r. 569–586), 255 of peasants, 284–285


Laypeople Lepanto, battle of, 455, 459 in Rome, 167–171, 176–180
bishops and, 282 Lepers, in Middle Ages, 367 in Russia, 496, 497, 958
Christian, 360 Lepidus (Rome, 1st century B.C.E.), 165 in 16th century, 467–468, 468(i)
piety of, 362–363 Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel, 364–365(b) of slaves and slave owners, 523–525
League of Augsburg, War of the Lesbians. See Homosexuals and Soviet, 883, 942–943
(1688–1697), 491, 491(b), 536 homosexuality of warriors, 285–286
League of Nations, 818–820, 821, 824, 836(m) Lesbos, city-states on, 47 of women, 767
Germany and, 858 Lessing, Gotthold (1729–1781), 565 World War I and, 801(i), 826–827
Italian aggression and, 858–859 “L’état, c’est moi” (Louis XIV), 484 World War II and, 868, 894
Japanese expansionism and, 857 Letter, The (Cassatt), 749, 749(i) Ligeti, Gyorgy, 935
racial equality and, 843 Letters Concerning the English Nation Lighting, electric, 728(i)
Rhineland and, 859 (Voltaire), 548, 548(b) Limited liability corporation, 730
United States and, 853 Letters on Education (Macauley-Graham), Lincoln, Abraham (1809–1865), 705
World War II and, 856 563(b) Lincoln, England, cathedral in, 294(i), 295
Learned societies, 568–569, 655 Levant, 733 Lindisfarne Gospels, 254(i)
Learning. See also Intellectual thought Levellers, 499, 500(b), 580 Linear B writing, 28, 29, 42
in Carolingian renaissance, 275–277 Levi, Primo, 865 “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern
Islamic, 271–272 Leviathan (Hobbes), 501(b), 504 Abbey” (Wordsworth), 640–641, 642(b)
in Ottonian Holy Roman Empire, 290 Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1908–), 927 Lisbon, in Second Crusade, 317
Lebanon, Israeli attack on, 971, 971(m) Lewes, battle of, 377 Lissitsky, Eli, 831(i)
Lebensraum (living space), 858, 863 Lewis, Sarah, 669 Literacy, 529, 709. See also Illiteracy
Lechfeld, battle of, 289 Liberal arts, 327, 328–329 Assyrian, 36
Lectures, 331, 546 Liberalism, 690 in Dutch Republic, 507
Lefèvre d’Étaples, Jacques (c. 1455–1536), in Britain, 778–779 in 1800s, 665
437 in economics and politics, 674–675 in Greece, 87
Left wing rejection of, 754 Islamic, 238
student protests and, 934 Liberal Party (England), 752, 752–753, 778 political, 752
World War I and, 816 Liberation movements, Fanon on, 904 in Rome, 172(i)
Legal systems, modernization of, 576–577 Liberty in 1700s, 572
Legion of Honor, 623 Burke on, 610(b) social status and, 533–534(i)
Legions, Roman, 176–177 representation of, 602(i), 609(i) Literary clubs, 612
Legislation. See also Law(s) “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,” 588 Literary culture, in England, 254–255
civil rights, 930 Libraries Literature. See also Classical culture; Epic
marriage and, 767 at Alexandria, 120 literature; Poets and poetry; specific
social, 747 in England, 254 works and authors
in Sparta, 59 Islamic, 271 advice books, 669
Legislative assembly, in Athens, 75 lending, 665, 666 Arabic, 238
Legislative Assembly (France), 598, 599, Libya, 52(b), 785 chivalric romances, 512
614–615 Licinius (Rome, r. 308–324), 203(b) classical, 225–226
Legislature. See Assemblies; Councils; Senate; Liebeskind, Daniel, 867(i) in cold war, 908–909
specific bodies and countries Liebknecht, Karl (1871–1919), 815 comedies of manners, 512–513
Legnano, battle of, 345 Liège, baptismal font at, 299(i) Egyptian wisdom literature, 20
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646–1716), Life and Martyrdom of St. William of Norwich, of Enlightenment, 566(b)
511, 558 The (Thomas of Monmouth), 366 of epic and romance, 348–349
Leisure, 741, 894 Life expectancy existential, 903–904
Lem, Stanislaw (1921–), 919 in former Soviet bloc, 968 in former Soviet Union, 979–980
Lemonnier, Anicet Charles, 558(i) health and, 968–969 Greek, 64, 225–226
Lending libraries, 665, 666 of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers, P-5 in Hellenistic court, 121
Lenin, V. I. (1870–1924), 776–777, 811–812, Lifespan historical novels, 643
812(i), 815, 832, 833, 885 Paleolithic, P-6 of Holocaust, 903
Leningrad, 832, 863. See also Petrograd; World War II and, 894 humanism and, 401–403
St. Petersburg Lifestyle in Latin language, 149–150
Le Nôtre, André (1613–1700), 488 of aristocracy, 532 Minoans and, 25
Leo III (Pope, r. 795–816), 274 in Athens, 77–80, 86–87, 105–106 in Nazi Germany, 849
Leo III (the Isaurian) (Byzantine Empire, Byzantine iconoclasm and, 245 Neo-Babylonian, 36–37
r. 717–741), 244, 256 during cold war, 902–911 in 19th century, 665–666
Leo IX (Pope, r. 1049–1054), 303–305, 304(i) in Dutch Republic, 506–507, 507(i) novels, 513, 535
Leo X (Pope, r. 1513–1521), 430, 434 in Egyptian New Kingdom, 22–23 realist, 716–717
Leo XIII (Pope), 719 in former Soviet Union, 959–960 Roman, 145, 172–173, 178–179
León, 354(m), 376–377 Greek, 42–43, 82–83 romanticism in, 566
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), 406, 407(i) of Hellenistic women, 119–120 Russian society and, 757–758
Leopold (Austria, 12th century), 351 Homeric ideal and, 44–45 social conditions in, 665–666
Leopold I (Belgium, r. 1831–1865), 647 of hunter-gatherers, P-5, P-7–P-8 Soviet, 847
Leopold I (Habsburg, r. 1658–1705), in Macedonia, 111, 111(i) Sumerian, 13
494–495 of medieval Jews, 250 travel, 549
Leopold II (Belgium, r. 1865–1909), 734(i), in Middle Ages, 318(b) vernacular, 369
734–735 monastic, 309 Western culture and, 978–979
Leopold II (Holy Roman Emperor, Neolithic origins of, P-10 women and, 666
r. 1790–1792), 578, 590 in 1960s, 925 about World War I, 830
I-30 Index Lithography–Mainz

Lithography, 664 Lothar III (Holy Roman Empire, Peasants’ War of 1525 and, 436
Lithuania, 354, 409–410, 576, 861, 863, 956, r. 1125–1137), 323 propaganda about, 431(b)
963. See also Poland-Lithuania Louis IV (Bavaria, r. 1328–1347), 398 Lutheranism
Little Entente, 821, 821(m) Louis VI (Louis the Fat) (France, Peace of Augsburg and, 446, 452
Little ice age, of 1600–1850, 466–467(b) r. 1108–1137), 321–322, 333 Peace of Westphalia and, 464
Liturgy Louis VII (France, r. 1137–1180), 317, 340 Lützen, battle of (1632), 461
Catholic, 903 Louis IX (St. Louis, France, r. 1226–1270), Luxembourg, 278, 803
Cistercian, 310 371(i), 373, 375(i), 375–376 Luxembourg imperial dynasty, 409
language of, 401 Louis XI (France, r. 1461–1483), 411 Luxemburg, Rosa (1870–1919), 815
Liutprand of Cremona (Bishop, c. 922–c. Louis XIII (France, r. 1610–1643), 462, 485 Luxuries
972), 264, 280 Grotius and, 474 in Akkad, 12
Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 652(i), 653 Louis XIV (France, r. 1643–1715), 462 in Rome, 152, 170
Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Architects, as absolute ruler, 484–492, 515 Lycées, 626, 710
Painters, and Sculptors (Vasari), 402(b) acquisitions of, 492(m) Lyceum, of Aristotle, 108
Livia (Rome, 1st century B.C.E.), 166, 166(i), arts and, 487–488 Lycia, 33
174 “black code” of, 508 Lydia (Christian woman), 182
Living standards bureaucracy of, 489–490 Lydus, John, 222, 223
in Dutch Republic, 506, 506(m) Charles II and, 503 Lynchings, in 1930s, 852
in industrialized areas, 660–661(b) court of, 482(i), 483, 486–489, 487(b) Lyon, 351, 604
of peasants after plague, 390 death of, 536, 538 Lyre (instrument), 64
Livs (Livonia), 354 Frond and, 485(i), 485–486 Lyric poetry, 64
Livy (54 B.C.E.–17 C.E.), 144, 148, 173, 401 hospitals and, 514–515 Lysias (Syracuse, c. 445–380 B.C.E.), 81, 83
Lloyd George, David (1863–1945), 816 politics of, 486, 487–488, 491 Lysimachus (Macedonia), 119
Loans religious orthodoxy and, 489 Lysistrata (Aristophanes), 96
for business, 300 revocation of Edict of Nantes and, 489
Great Depression and, 840–841 as Sun King, 487 Maastricht Treaty, 961
Locarno, Treaty of (1925), 821 wars of, 490–492, 491(b) Maat (goddess), 3, 17–18, 20
Locke, John (1632–1704), 474, 484, 505, Louis XV (France, r. 1715–1774), 538, 578 Mabuse, Peter, 685(i)
548(b), 564, 713 Louis XVI (France, r. 1774–1792), 578, 580, Macaulay, Thomas Babington (1800–1859),
empiricism and, 565 591–592 547, 649, 674
liberalism and, 674 civil rights and, 577 Macaulay-Graham, Catharine Sawbridge
Lodi, Peace of (1454), 412(m) execution of, 599(i), 599–600, 601 (1731–1791), 563(b), 571
Logic, 329, 330 flight of, 598, 598(i) MacBeth (Shakespeare), 459
of Aristotle, 108 Louis XVIII (France, r. 1814–1824), 633, MacDonald, Ramsay (1866–1937), 823, 853
Hellenistic, 123 634, 639 Macedonia, 111(i), 792
scholasticism and, 367 Louisiana, 490 Cleopatra VII and, 115
Lollards, 399 Louisiana Territory, 629, 629(m) expansion under Philip II, 112(m)
Lombard League, 345 Louis-Philippe (France, r. 1830–1848), 647, rise of (359–323 B.C.E.), 110–115
Lombards, 240, 249(b), 255, 273 670, 674, 679 Rome and, 148, 149
Lombardy, 697 Louis the German (Carolingians, Macedonian renaissance, 262, 264–266, 266(i)
London, 964 r. 843–876), 278 Machiavelli, Niccolò (1469–1527), 442, 472
building in, 707 Louis the Pious (Carolingians, r. 814–840), Machine gun, 736, 792
coffeehouses in, 518(i), 519 261, 277 Machinery
Crystal Palace in, 684 Lourdes, Bernadette at, 719 in arts, 831
Great Fire of 1666 in, 503, 503(i) Love Affairs (Ovid), 173 in 1960s, 916
plague of 1665, 503 Love in Excess (Haywood), 535 World War I and, 803
police force in, 648 Love poems, courtly love and, 347 Macrina, 214
population of, 532, 653 Low Countries Madame Bovary (Flaubert), 716
sanitation in, 662 in duchy of Burgundy, 410 Madame Butterfly (Puccini), 775
social disorder in, 663 Habsburg-Valois-Ottoman wars in, 442 Madrasa (Islamic school), 272, 276
terrorist attacks in, 973 protests in, 589–590 Madrid, terrorist attack in, 972(i), 973
Treaty of (1915), 801, 816, 833 in 1787, 589(m) Mafia, Russian, 959
Vauxhall Gardens in, 533(i) Lower classes. See also Classes Magellan, Ferdinand (1480–1521), 421
London Corresponding Society, 608–609 double standard and, 742 Magic, 23, 478–479
London Society for Effecting the Abolition in Enlightenment, 556 Magna Carta (England, 1215), 340,
of the Slave Trade, 670 women in, 670 342–343(b)
London Stock Exchange, 730 Lower Egypt, 16 Magna Graecia, 49
Long-distance trade. See Trade Lucca, 287 Magyarization, 781
Long Walls (Athens), 105, 106(i), 106(m), 110 Lucian (Rome, c. 117–180 C.E.), 178 Magyars, 280–282, 672, 682–683
Lord Protector, Cromwell as, 502 Lucretia (legendary Roman), 142, 144(b) in Austria-Hungary, 702
Lords, 282–283. See also Nobility Lucretius (c. 94–55 B.C.E.), 149 century invasions by, 281(m)
in Carolingian Empire, 282 Luddites, 656 defeat of, 289
Islamic, 269 Ludendorff, Erich (1865–1937), 803, 823 in Hungary, 291, 822
peasants and, 283–285 Ludin, Fereshta, headscarf of, 975(i) in 10th century, 280–282
power of, 262 Lueger, Karl (1844–1910), 781–782 Mahan, Alfred Thayer (1840–1914), 792
rulers as, 345–346 Luftwaffe, 863 Mahdi (messiah), 270
Lorentz, Alcide, 666 Lully, Jean-Baptiste (1632–1687), 487 Mahfouz, Naguib, 978
Lorrain, Claude (1600–1682), 510 Lupercalia festival (Rome), 138–139 Mail-order catalogs, 732
Lorraine, 544, 701, 728, 801, 803, 817 Lusitania (ship), 804 Maintenon, Françoise d’Aubigné, marquise
Lothar (Carolingians, r. 840–855), 278 Luther, Martin (1483–1546), 420, 429–430, de (1635–1719), 488–489
438, 770(b) Mainz, massacre of Jews in, 313
Maistre–Media Index I-31

Maistre, Joseph de (1753–1821), 611(b) Market(s), 301 Mary Tudor (England and Ireland,
Makine, Andrei, 980 in cities and towns, 296–297 r. 1553–1558), 434, 445, 455
Malaria, 736, 969 colonial, 739 Masons and Masonic lodges, 565(b),
Malaya, 864 Dutch Republic and, 458 568–569, 612
Malay peninsula, British colonialism in for European products, 470 Massacres
(1826–1890), 727, 727(m) global, 921–922, 937, 952, 975 in 15th century Spain, 414
Mali, 737(i) Italian, 287 of Jews, 366
Malnutrition, 969 for New World commodities, 470 in Napoleonic wars, 632
Malta, in EU, 963 peasant access to, 302 in Paris, 599
Mamluks, 269 Smith, Adam, and, 561 in Srebrenica, 954
Management World War I and, 822 of Turks and Greeks, 645
industrial, 731 Market economy in Vendée region, 605
in postindustrial age, 922 in former Soviet Union, 956, 958–960 Mass culture
scientific, 825 in Hungary, 928 Warhol and, 926
Manchester, 659–660, 660, 662 in Poland, 945 World War I and, 827–834
Manchuria, 786 Marketing Masses
Japan and, 857, 857(m) in 19th century, 732 culture for, 828
World War II and, 874 postwar, 908 Hitler on, 848
Mandate system, 819–820 of U.S. culture, 980 Mass journalism, 752
Mandela, Nelson (1918–), 973–974, 978 Marne River, World War I and, 803 Mass politics, 750–759, 776–783
Manet, Édouard (1821–1883), 717 Marquette, Jacques (1637–1675), 490 Mass transport, 765
Manhattan Project, 873 Marriage Master and Margarita, The (Bulgakov), 979
Manhood suffrage, 754 Anabaptists and, 436 Mastersingers of Nuremberg, The (Wagner),
Manius Curius (d. 270 B.C.E.), 152 Augustine on, 212 717–718
Mann, Horace, 667 Black Death and, 391 Masturbation, 572
Mann, Thomas (1875–1955), 855 Catholic Church and, 307–308, 361–362 Materialism, 123, 713
Mannerism, 472 clerical, 303, 308 Mathematics
Manners, 512–514 of elites, 742 Babylonian, 15
Manorialism, 283 Fourth Latern Council on, 361 Hellenistic, 126
Manors, Carolingian, 279 in Greece, 56–57, 85(b) Islamic, 272
Manse, families on, 302 Hammurabi on, 15 in 1930s, 855–856
Mantiklos (Greece), 52 of knights, 286 teaching of, 329
Mantinea, battle of, 110 in Merovingian society, 251 Matilda (daughter of Henry II, England,
Manufactured goods, trade in, 522(m) in 1960s, 925 12th century), 345
Manufacturing 19th century women and, 670 Matilda (England, mother of Henry II), 337
Britain as world leader in, 657 reforms of, 766–767 Matilda of Tuscany (11th century), 306, 307(i)
in Byzantine Empire, 241–242 registration of, 438 Matisse, Henri (1869–1954), 773
computers in, 917–918 in revolutionary France, 604 Matrimonial Causes Act (England, 1857), 703
in Germany, 657 of Roman slaves, 171 Mau Mau, 900
in India, 712 in Rome, 137, 180 Maurice of Saxony, 446
medieval, 299–300 sacrament of, 307 Maximian, Roman district of, 199(m)
in 19th century, 727 in 17th century, 469 Maximianus (bishop of Ravenna), 224(i)
world output (1950–1970), 892(f) women and, 84–85(b) Maximilian (Mexico), 692
World War II and, 891 World War I and, 826 Maximilian I (Holy Roman Emperor,
Manuscript illuminations, 266(i), 372 Marriage of Figaro, The (Beaumarchais), 580 r. 1493–1519), 445
Manzikert, battle at, 311 Married Love (Stopes), 826 Maximilla (Asia Minor, 2nd century C.E.),
Manzoni, Alessandro (1785–1873), 642–643 “Marseillaise, La” (French anthem), 602 184–185
Mao Zedong (1893–1976), 845(b), 898, Marshall, George C. (1880–1959), 886 Max Planck Institutes, 773
936–937 Marshall Plan (1947), 886, 891, 892 Mayakovsky, Vladimir (1893–1930), 832
Mapmaking, in Age of Exploration, 424(b) Marsilius of Padua (c. 1280–c. 1343), 397, Mayas, 426
Maps, in Babylonia, 15 399–400 Mayflower (ship), 470
Maquis (partisans), World War II and, 869 Martin (Saint, 4th century), 248 Mayor of the palace, 252–253
Marat, Jean-Paul (1743–1793), 600, 604 Martin, Jean-Baptiste, 488(i) Mazarin, Jules (1602–1661), 462, 485, 486
Marathon, battle of, 71 Martin V (Pope, r. 1417–1431), 399 Mazzini, Giuseppe (1805–1872), 672, 680–681
Marathon race, 71 Martin of Tours (c. 316–397), 213 McCarthy, Joseph, and McCarthyism,
Marcel, Étienne, 396 Martyrs, Christian, 162(i), 163, 182–183 890–891
Marconi, Guglieo (1874–1937), 828 Marx, Karl (1818–1883), 283, 590(b), McDonald’s, protests against, 965
Marco Polo (1254–c. 1324), 420 660(b), 676, 677(b) Measles, 894
Marcus Aurelius (Rome, r. 161–180), 175, Rousseau’s influence on, 563–564 Mecca, 233, 235–236
188, 189 Marxism, 713–714 Mechanics Institutes, 668
Marduk (god), 36 labor unrest and, 750 Mechanization, 728
Marengo, battle of (1800), 629 Russian, 776–777, 787, 812 Medea (Euripides), 82
Marguerite de Valois (1553–1615), 454 socialist parties and, 751 Medes, 36
Maria Theresa (Austria, r. 1740–1780), 573, World War I and, 776 Media. See also specific types
574, 577 Marxist socialism, 706 Hitler and, 848
Marie-Antoinette (1755–1793), 580, 591, Mary. See Virgin Mary movies and, 828
591(i), 598, 601 Mary (England, 1689–1694), 503, 504, 538 in 1930s, 855
Marie de Sévigné (1626–1696), 487(b) Mary of Guise (1515–1560), 445–446 radio and, 828
Marienthal, Germany, 842(b) Mary of Oignies (1177–1213), 350 Roosevelt, Franklin D., and, 852
Marijuana, 931 Mary Stuart (Scotland, r. 1542–1587), World War I and, 827–828
Marius, Gaius (c. 157–86 B.C.E.), 153, 154–155 445–446, 458, 459 World War II and, 866–868
I-32 Index Medici–Migration

Medici family, 412 Menander (c. 343–291 B.C.E.), 121, 124(b), Mickiewicz, Adam (1798–1855), 672
Cosimo de’ (1388–1464), 412 124(i) Middle Ages, 232, 233
Lorenzo de’ (the Magnificent) Mendel, Gregor (1822–1884), 719–720 accounting in, 250(i)
(1449–1492), 412–413 Mendelssohn, Moses (1729–1786), 565 architecture in, 332–336
Medicine, 968–969 Mendicants, 373 culture of, 327–328
artificial limbs and, 799 Menes. See Narmer (Menes) (Egypt, economic activity in, 248–250
breakthroughs in, 476 c. 2925 B.C.E.) intellectual thought in, 328–332
childbirth and, 921 Mensheviks, 777 Jews in, 365–367
in concentration camps, 865 Mental illness, 768–770, 851 lepers in, 367
in Egypt, 23 Mercantilism lifestyle of ordinary people in, 318(b)
in 18th century, 544–545 Colbert and, 490 periods in, 233
gods, healing, and, 128–129 in England, 502 religion during, 359–367
in Greece, 92, 93(i) science and, 511–512 social synthesis in, 367–372
health care and, 894 Mercenaries trade routes in, 298(m)
Hellenistic, 126–127 in Habsburg-Valois-Ottoman wars, 443 Middle class, 659. See also Bourgeoisie;
Hippocrates and, 92 in Hundred Years’ War, 394–395 Classes
licensing in, 709 Ottoman peasants as, 495 arts and, 535
in medieval universities, 331 Swiss, 411–412 in Athens, 62
Mesopotamian, 15 in Thirty Years’ War, 461, 462–463 attitudes toward lower classes, 654
motherhood and, 767 Merchants courtly manners and, 513
Napoleon and, 627 Assyrian, 14 in Dutch Republic, 506–507
in 1960s, 920 Byzantine, 264 in England, 703
reproductive systems and, 550 Chinese trade and, 380 Enlightenment and, 564, 568–571
Roman childbirth and, 180 Greek, 48 expansion of, 741–742
schools of, 329 in London, 411 joining elite, 567
in 17th century, 469 in Swiss Confederation, 411 lifestyle of, 532
Medievalism, 665 Mercia, 288 literacy and, 534
Medina, Hijra to, 235 Merian, Maria Sibylla (1646–1717), professions and civil service in, 709
Meditations (Marcus Aurelius), 188 510–511, 512(i) as Prussian officers, 631
Mediterranean polyculture, 26 Merian, Matthäus (1593–1650), 450(i) social fears of, 663
Mediterranean region Merikare (Egypt), 19, 20 socialist view of, 675
calamities in (1200–1000 B.C.E.), 28–29, Merovech (Franks), 219, 246 sports and, 743
30(m) Merovingian dynasty, 219, 252–253 Wilkes affair and, 580
civilizations of, 23–24, 66(m) Merovingian kingdoms, 246, 247(m), woman suffrage movement and, 777
Crimean War and, 692–694 249–253 women and, 664, 670
Egyptian kingdom in, 16 Mesopotamia, P-4n Middle-Class Gentleman, The (Molière), 513
Europe and, 258(m), 292(m), 712, 722(m) Akkad and, 12 Middle East, P-4n. See also Near East;
expansion into, 49(m) Assyria and, 13–14 specific peoples and states
in 400 B.C.E., 100(m) Babylonia and, 13 Arab world in, 231
Greeks and, 47, 49, 49(m) civilization in, 4, 6, 7–16 colonies in, 824
Jews in, 297 mythology in, 11–12 crusades and, 317–318
lifestyle in, 318(b) polytheism in, 5 decolonization in, 897
new imperialism in, 733 slavery in, 10 England and, 802
Persian Empire in, 37 Sumer in, 7–11, 13 foreign workers in, 974
Roman control of, 149, 176(m) Trajan in, 176(m) independence struggles in, 899–900
Spanish control of, 455 Messiah, Jesus as, 181, 182 Islamic theocracy in, 967
Megabyzus (Persia), 58 Messiah (Handel), 535 Jewish nation in, 783(b)
Megarons, 27–28 Mestizos, 527 in 1930s, 843–844
Megiddo, Solomon’s walls at, 41(i) Metacomet (King Philip), 508 oil policy and, 937–938, 938(f), 938(i)
Mehmed I (Sultan, r. 1410–1421), 396 Metal and metallurgy, 6, 7, 12, 301, 727 in 21st century, 971(m)
Mehmed II (Sultan, r. 1451–1481), 386(i), iron, 43 World War I peace settlements and
387, 396–397, 412, 646(i) in Mesopotamia, 12 (1919–1920), 817(m), 818(b)
Meiji Restoration (Japan), 712–713 metalwork in Çatalhöyük, P-12 Middle Kingdom (Egypt), 20–21
Mein Kampf (Hitler), 834, 848 ore in Greece, 47–48 “Middle Kingdom” (Europe), 278, 289
Meir, Golda, 899 Metamorphoses (Ovid), 173 Middlemarch (Eliot), 716
Melanippe the Captive (Euripides), 84(b) Metaphysics, 107 Midian (tribe), 40
Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson Methodism, 566–567, 639–640 Midrash, 207
(1664–1671) (Hutchinson), 500–501(b) Methodius (missionary, c. 863), 267 Midway Island, battle at, 871
Memphis, Egypt, 16 Metics (foreigners in Greece), 82, 86 Midwives, 180(i), 709
Men. See also Boys; Gender Metric system, 604 Mieszko I (Poland, r. 963–992), 291
as citizens, 53 Metternich, Klemens von (1773–1859), Migration. See also Immigrants and
earnings of, 923 636–637, 639, 644–645, 672, 682, 690 immigration
in Egypt, 20 Meulen, Adam Frans van der (1632–1690), from Anatolia, 23–24
in Great Depression, 842 482(i) cultural globalization and, 978(i)
in Greece, 57, 82, 83 Mexican Americans, protests by, 931 to Egypt, 16
homosexual activity between, 225 Mexican Ecclesiastical Provincial Council by Europeans, 741
inheritance by, 286 (1555), 440 experiences of, 744–745(b)
in Islam, 236 Mexico, 418(i), 692, 969 globalization and, 950(i), 952, 964, 974
Neo-Assyrian, 36 Miasma (ritual contamination), 52 human, P-4
Paleolithic, P-6 Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564), 413, Jewish, 782(m)
in postwar society, 906–907 441, 441(i) by Near Eastern farmers, P-10
Migration–Mosques Index I-33

in 19th century, 664, 724(i), 725–727 in China, 380 libraries and, 401–402
by non-Romans into Roman Empire, in Europe, 419 Merovingian, 251
214–221 European imperialism and, 740 under Napoleon, 630
of rural poor, 571 in India, 639(i), 640 in revolutionary France, 597
in Western world, 974–975 Irish, 253 at Saint-Germain-des-Près, 279
by workers, 743–745 Jesuit, 439 schools and, 277, 332
World War I and, 822 in New Spain, 419, 439–440 of St. Gall, 401
World War II and, 881, 889(i) in Philippines, 470–471 Monet, Claude (1840–1926), 749
Mikvah, window from, 313, 316(i) Mithras (god), 185(i) Monetarism, 940
Milan, 287, 411, 680 cult of, 185, 187–188 Money
consuls as government of, 301 Mithridates VI (Pontus, 120–63 B.C.E.), 154, in 11th century, 295
Frederick I Barbarossa and, 344–345 154(m), 155 Roman status and, 136
as major power, 408 Mitrochondrial DNA, P-3 Money markets
as Roman capital, 198 Mitteleuropa, 791, 794 Amsterdam as, 458
uprising in, 682(i) Mitterrand, François (1916–1996), 942 Dutch Republic and, 506
Militance. See also Activism; specific groups Mobilization Mongols and Mongol Empire, 373, 380,
by blacks, 931 World War I and, 794, 806–807 381(m), 420, 421
Islamic, 939 World War II and, 862 Monogamy, in Greece, 57
promotion of, 795(b) Modern art, 773–775 Monophysite Christianity, 210–211, 213(i),
World War I and, 776 Modernism, 547(b), 771 225, 237
Militarism in dance and music, 775–776 Monotheism, 5
Neo-Assyrian, 35–36 in painting, 773–775 of Hebrews, 41–42
World War I and, 821–822 Modernity of Islam, 232
Military. See Armed forces Enlightenment and, 561 Monroe, James, 646
Military dictatorship, French Revolution and, ideas and, 771–776 Monroe Doctrine, 646
588 World War I and, 764, 766(b) Monstrance, 401(i)
Military draft. See also Conscription Modernization Montagu, Mary Wortley (1689–1762), 545
World War I and, 792 in eastern Europe, 895 Montaigne, Michel de (1533–1592), 474, 478
Military intelligence, in 1960s, 916 of French armed forces, 490 Montaillou: . . . (Le Roy Ladurie), 364–365(b)
Military spending, under Reagan, 942 of government, 576–578 Montefeltro, Federico da (Duke of Urbino,
Military technology of Japan, 738, 739(i) 1422–1482), 403(i), 404
of conquistadores, 426 in Russia, 497, 540–541, 541(i) Montenegro, 756, 791, 792
in 14th century, 395 Mohács, battle of (1526), 443 Montespan, Madame de, 487
in 16th century, 444 Moldavia, 693 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat
Mill, Harriet Taylor, 721, 777 Molecular biology, 919–920 (Baron de, 1689–1755), 549, 560, 577,
Mill, John Stuart (1806–1873), 721, 777 Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) 591, 600–601
Mill on the Floss (Eliot), 716 (1622–1673), 124(b), 487, 512 Montessori, Maria, 768
Milo (Greece), 45 Monarchs and monarchies, 7, 9–10. See also Monteverdi, Claudio (1567–1643), 472
Milosevic, Slobodan, 953, 955 Kings and kingdoms; Queens; specific Montfort, Simon de (England,
Milton, John (1608–1674), 509–510 kingdoms and rulers c. 1208–1265), 377
Milvian Bridge, battle of, 202 Austro-Hungarian, 702–703 Montpellier, 329, 331
Minerva (goddess), 138, 185 Bodin on, 474 Moon landing (1969), 918
Mines Act (Britain, 1842), 661 central European, 282 Moral dualism, 39
Minimalist composers, 926 consolidation of power in, 408–409 Morality, in 1930s, 855
Ministerials, in Germany, 291 Danish, 280 Moral majority (U.S.), 941
Minnesingers (love singers), 348 divine right and, 464–465 Moral relativism, Sophists and, 89
Minoan Greece, 34 in England, 287–288, 703–705, 704(b), Moral values, in Rome, 134–136
Minoans, 24, 25, 25–27 704(i) More, Thomas (1478–1535), 427, 428–429, 434
Mycenaeans and, 27–28 in France, 288–289, 341, 598–600 Morel, Jean, 394–395(b)
Minorities. See also specific groups in Germany, 341–346 Moriscos, 455–456
activism of, 931 Mesopotamian, 12, 13 Morocco, 790, 901
in Austria-Hungary, 781 in Near East, 34 Morris, May (1862–1938), 747
in Byzantine Empire, 264 Ottoman Empire as, 397 Morris, William (1834–1896), 747
fears of, 766 papal, 308–309 Morrison, Toni, 979, 979(i)
in Islamic world, 270–271 in Persia, 37–38, 58(b) Mortality, infant, 572, 894
rights for, 764 revival of, 319–323 Mosaics
World War II and, 868 in Rome, 174–175 of family from Edessa, 210(i)
Minos (Minoan), 25 royal images and, 464–465 of Jesus as Sun God, 208(i)
Mir (Russian community), 695 ruler cults and, 128 in Ravenna, 200
Miseries and Misfortunes of War, The Monasticism and monasteries. See also Roman, 162(i), 171(i)
(Callot), 461(i) Religious orders in St. Sophia (Kiev), 268(i)
Misfortunes (Abelard), 330–331 in Arles, France, 246(i) at Santo Stefano Rotondo, 257(i)
Missi dominici, 274 Benedictine, 214 in Sicily, 221(i)
Missiles in Byzantine Empire, 243–244 of Theodora, 223(i)
Cuban missile crisis and, 910, 911(m) Cassiodorus and, 220–221 Moscow, 729(i), 863, 964
Soviet reduction in, 944 Christian, 212–214 Moses, 40, 41
Missions and missionaries. See also specific Cistercian, 309–310, 310(f) Mos maiorum, in Rome, 134, 135(i)
orders communities of, 213–214 Mosques
Arian, 210 in Holy Roman Empire, 289–290 at Damascus, 237–238, 238(i)
in Asia, 440, 440(i) Irish, 251, 253 Dome of the Rock as, 231
Calvinist, 452, 453(m) Jesuits, 439, 577 Hagia Sophia as, 226(i)
I-34 Index Mostar Bridge–Navarre

Mostar Bridge, Yugoslavia, 954, 955(i) in Provence, 280 National identity, 690–691
Motet, 370, 370(i) in Russia, 832 in eastern Europe, 964
Mountain (French political faction), 600 Spain and, 270, 305, 353, 414, 419 in England, 704(b), 704(i)
Movies in 10th century, 280 in former Yugoslavia, 956(m)
global culture and, 978 World War II and, 868 National Insurance Act (England, 1911),
about Holocaust, 903 Muslim terrorism, Russia and, 960, 960(i) 778
neorealist, 909 Mussolini, Benito (1883–1945), 833–834, Nationalism, 672, 690–691, 696, 697, 697(b)
in 1930s, 854–855 834(i), 870 in Africa, 859
U.S. influence on, 980 expansion by, 858–859 in Algeria, 901
World War I and, 828 Munich Pact and, 861 in Austria-Hungary, 781
Mozarabs, 270, 353 totalitarianism of, 844 in Austrian Empire, 672
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756–1791), World War II and, 863 in Balkans, 756
570–571, 580 Mutual aid societies, 659, 677, 678 Basque, 965
Mrs. Dalloway (Woolf), 831 Mutualism, 713 French Revolution and, 588, 601–602
Muhammad (c. 570–632), 231, 232, Mycenaean Greece, 34 in Germany, 632, 645, 672, 780–781
233–234, 237. See also Islam Mycenaeans, 24, 27–28, 28(i), 42 growth of, 615
Müller-Otfried, Paula, 850(b) Myrdal, Alva (1902–1986), 853 in India, 712, 788–789
Multiculturalism, 979 Mystery cults, 81–82, 129 in Indochina, 789–790, 898
Multinational corporations, 921–922 Mythology in Ireland, 753
Multinationalism, in Austria-Hungary, 782 Egyptian, 4 in Italy, 632, 672
Mummies, 23, 124(b) Greek, 33, 34, 46–47, 52 in Japan, 824, 856–857
Munch, Edvard (1863–1944), 762(i), 774 Hittite, 24(i) Jewish, 782–783
Munich Pact (1938), 861 Mesopotamian, 11–12 in literature, 642–643
Munitions, World War I and, 792 in Ottoman Empire, 789
Münster, Anabaptists in, 436 Nagasaki, bombing of, 873 Pan-German, 759
Münter, Gabriele (1877–1962), 774 Nagy, Imre (1896–1958), 896 in Poland, 648
Müntzer, Thomas (1468?–1525), 435–436 Nancy, battle at, 410 promotion of, 795(b)
Murad I (Ottomans, r. 1360–1389), 396 Nanjing, China, Japanese attack on, 857 psychohistory on, 770
Murat, Joachim (1767–1815), 625 Nanking, Treaty of (1842), 671 romanticism and, 642–643
Murner, Thomas (1475–c. 1537), 431(b) Naples, 408, 411, 625, 644 in Russia, 672–673
Mursili II (Hittites, r. 1321–1295 B.C.E.), 24 Napoleon I Bonaparte (France, 1799–1815), in Spain, 632
Muscovite state, 346 615(i), 621, 626(i), 630(i), 638 World War I and, 764, 779, 792, 806, 824
Muscovy, 452, 460, 469 America and, 629, 629(m) Nationalist Party (China), 788
Museum(s), 120, 707 conquests by, 628(m), 628–635 Nationalities. See also Ethnic groups;
on Holocaust, 867, 867(i) Constant on, 634–635(b) Minorities
in Vienna, 707(i) criticism of, 627–628 in Austria-Hungary, 702
Music in Egypt, 621 National Organization for Women (NOW),
churches and, 406, 408 Frankenstein and, 618–619 931
classical, 570–571 Goethe and, 566 National Socialists (Germany). See Nazis and
in former Soviet bloc, 980 Hundred Days of, 634 Nazism
French republican, 602 impact of, 649 National workshops (France), 679
Greek, 64 Italy and, 608, 621 Nation building. See also Unification
Louis XIV and, 487–488 on own legacy, 634(b) in Canada, 705
medieval, 369–370 papyrus discoveries and, 124(b) in 1850–1870, 690
modern, 775–776 on religion, 622 in United States, 705
with movies, 828 rise of, 620–628 Nations, Battle of the (1813), 633
in 1960s, 926 slave rebellion and, 615 Nation-state, 696. See also State (nation)
opera and, 472, 717–718 Napoleon III (France, 1808–1873), 680, 681, in global age, 961–965
public concerts, 535 690, 691(i), 691–694 order in, 713–715
Renaissance, 406, 408, 408(i) Germany and, 701 Native Americans
rock-and-roll culture and, 905–906 Italian unification and, 697 attitudes toward, 471(i)
Rolling Stones and, 925(i) United States and, 705 citizenship for, 706(m)
romanticism in, 642 Napoleonic Empire, 628(m), 628–635 colonists and, 508
troubadours and, 347–348, 348(i) Naram-Sin (Akkad), 13 Columbus and, 423(b)
World War I and, 830 Narmer (Menes) (Egypt, c. 2925 B.C.E.), 16 diversity of, 425
Muskets, 508 Narrative poems, as epics, 348 missionaries and, 439–440
Muslim League, 788, 898 Naseby, battle of (1645), 499 as slaves, 508
Muslims, 232, 969–973. See also Islam Nasser, Gamal Abdel (1918–1970), in Spanish mines, 465
in Balkan region, 703(i) 899–900 NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty
Bosnian, 954 Nation. See State (nation) Organization (NATO)
Byzantine Empire and, 240, 241(m) National Aeronautics and Space Natural History of Religion, The (Hume), 559
diversity of, 269–270 Administration (NASA), 896 Natural law, 474, 557
in France, 974 National Assembly (France), 594, 597, 598, Natural rights, 557, 560
headscarf controversy and, 975(i) 606, 679, 680 Natural science, in 19th century, 719–720
immigration of, 976 National Association for the Advancement of Natural selection, 719
in India, 897 Colored People (NAACP), 904 Nature
in Jerusalem, 312 National Convention (France), 599, 600, 603, Egyptian religion and, 17
Mongols and, 380 604, 605, 607 romanticism and, 639–640
9th and 10th century invasions by, 280, National Front Party (France), 942 Stoics on, 125
281(m) National Guard (France), 594, 679, 680 Navarre, 354(m), 453(m)
Navies–North Vietnam Index I-35

Navies values in, 977(b) Nika Riot (532), 223


Athenian, 70, 74–75, 77, 106, 110 World War II and, 881 Nile River region, 16, 22–23. See also Egypt
English, 287 Networks, computer, 975 (ancient)
Hellenistic, 117 Neurasthenia, 763 1984 (Orwell), 874–875, 908
Salamis battle and, 73 Neuroses, in 20th century society, 763, 770 Nineveh, destruction of, 36
World War I and, 792, 804 Neustria, 247(m), 252 Nine Years’ War (1689–1697), 536
Navigation, Viking, 279–280 Neutrality policy, of U.S. in World War I, 804 Ninth Symphony (Beethoven), 642
Navigation Acts (England), 502 New Caledonia, 560 Nippur, Babylonia, 15
Nazis and Nazism (Germany), 838(i), 839, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, freedom in, 301 Nixon, Richard (1913–1994), 936, 937
842, 848(i). See also Fascism New Comedy, in Greece, 124(b) Nkrumah, Kwame (1909–1972), 900
Austria and, 854 New Deal (U.S.), 852 Noah, biblical account of, 12
central European conquests by, 860–861 New Economic Policy (NEP), 832 Nobel Prize, 773
denazification program in, 888 New France, mercantilism in, 490 global recipients of Peace Prize, 978
emigration from, 856 New Harmony, Indiana, 675 for Literature, 978, 979, 979(i)
growth of (1933–1939), 862(m) New Heloise, The (Rousseau), 562 Nobility. See also Aristocracy
Hitler and, 847–848 New imperialism, 726–727, 733–740 Byzantine, 319
Holocaust and, 864–866, 865(m) New Kingdom (Egypt), 21–23, 29 in England, 321
Jews and, 849–852 New Lanark, Scotland, 675 in France, 341
Nuremberg trials and, 888 New Left, in 1968, 934 inheritance by, 286
religious opposition to, 856 Newly independent nations, 901 in Italy, 379–380
resistance to, 869–870 “New man,” in Rome, 153 as social order, 376–377
Russia and, 863 “New Man, The” (Lissitsky), 831(i) “Nobility of the robe,” 455
totalitarianism of, 844, 845(b) New Model Army, of Cromwell, 499 “Noble savages,” 549
West Germany and, 942 New Plymouth Colony, 470 Nomads, 39, 214, 232–233
Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939), 861, 863 News from the Republic of Letters (Bayle), Nominalism, 397–398
Neanderthals, P-5 546–547 Nonaggression pact, Nazi-Soviet, 861
Near East, P-4n. See also Hellenistic world; New Spain, 426, 465(f) Nonaligned nations, 901
Mesopotamia; Middle East; specific Newspapers, 534 Nonantola, abbot of (10th century), 285
countries and regions in France, 623 Non-Christian religions, 927
ancient (4000–3000 B.C.E.), 8(m) increase in, 571 Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),
culture of, 34 influence of, 556 965
Dark Age in, 34–35 mass journalism and, 752 Nordau, Max (1849–1923), 769
Fertile Crescent in, P-8 serialization in, 665 Normandy, 280, 341, 870
Greek contact with, 33 News reporting, global, 952 Normans
Hellenistic culture and, 120 New Stone Age. See Neolithic Age England and, 319–321, 320, 320(m), 321(i)
migration from, P-10 New Testament. See Bible French language of, 321
Neolithic Age in, P-8 Newton, Isaac (1642–1727), 475, 477–478, Sicily and, 304
period of calamities in, 28–29, 30(m) 511, 548–549, 558 North (global), 969, 983(m)
political states in, P-14–P-15 New unionism, 751 North (U.S.), 705
religious legacy from, 42 New woman, 767(i), 767–768, 825 North, Marianne (1830–1890), 725, 726(i),
Necker, Jacques (1732–1804), 592, 593, New Woman, The (Grundy), 767(i) 732–733
611(b), 627 New World, 508, 511(i). See also Americas North Africa
Neferkare Pepy II (Egypt, r. c. 2300–2206 New world order, of Japan, 856–857 Arab world in, 231
B.C.E.), 19 New York, 964 Berbers from, 353
Nelson, Horatio (1758–1805), 621, 629 September 11, 2001, attacks on, 970(i), colonies in, 733
Neo-Assyrian Empire, 35(m), 35–36, 36(i) 971–972 decolonization in, 897
Neo-Babylonian Empire (600–539 B.C.E.), New Zealand, 560, 671, 743, 892 Fatimids in, 270
36–37 Nicaea, battle of, 315–316, 351 Greeks in, 49
Neoclassical style, 569(i), 569–571, 623 Nice, 608(m), 638, 697 independence in, 901
Neoliberalism, 941 Nicene Creed, 210 Roman architecture in, 179(i)
Neolithic Age, P-4, P-8–P-15 Nicephorus I (Byzantine Emperor, Vandals in, 217
Neolithic Revolution, P-8 r. 802–811), 266, 267 World War II and, 870
agriculture and, P-8–P-9, P-9(m) Nicetius (bishop), 252 North America
economic basis of civilization in, 7 Nicholas I (Russia, r. 1825–1855), 645, 648, colonization of, 583(m)
Neoplatonism, 188 668, 675, 684, 692 Great Awakening in, 566
school in Alexandria, 227 Nicholas II (Russia, r. 1894–1917), 779–780, migration to, 743, 746(f)
Neorealism, in movies, 909 787, 788, 794, 807 revolution in, 581–583
Nera, Fulk (Anjou, 987–1040), 285 Russian Revolution and, 810 Seven Years’ War in, 574, 575(m)
Nero (Rome, r. 54–68), 174–175, 182–183 Nicholas V (Pope, r. 1447–1455), 403 Vikings in, 279–280
Nerva (Rome, r. 96–98 C.E.), 175 Nicomedia, 198 War of the Austrian Succession and, 574
Nestlé, 824, 922 Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844–1900), 768, 772, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO),
Nestorian Christianity, 211 829(i) 887, 888(m), 928
Netherlands, 278. See also Dutch Nigeria, 897, 900 Kosovo and, 954–955
anti-immigrant politics, 975 Nightingale, Florence (1820–1910), 693(i), Northern Crusades, 354–355
Calvinist revolt in, 456–458 693–694 Northern Europe, Christianity in, 353–354
Congress of Vienna and, 637(m), 638, Night of the Long Knives (Nazi Germany), Northern Ireland, 824, 939(i), 939–940, 942
648 849 North German Confederation, 700
French hostilities against, 491 Nihilism, 696, 716, 772 North Korea, 898
Muslims in, 976(b) Nijinsky, Vaslav (1890–1950), 775(i) Northumbria, 288
Nazi conquest of, 839 Nijmegen, Treaty of (1678–1679), 491 North Vietnam, 930, 936. See also Vietnam
I-36 Index Norway–Painting

Norway, 638, 729, 863 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch Oshere (warrior), helmet of, 253
Nossis (Hellenistic female poet), 122(b) (Solzhenitsyn), 896 Osman I (Ottomans, r. 1280–1324), 396
Notke, Bernt, 409 On Liberty (Mill), 721 Osrhoëne, 210(i)
Novels, 535. See also Literature; specific works On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church Osteological archaeology, P-12(b)
about espionage, 908–909 (Luther), 430 Ostpolitik, 928
realist, 716–717 On the Construction of the Human Body Ostracism, in Athens, 76(i), 76–77
Nubia, Egypt and, 17 (Vesalius), 476 Ostrogoths, 217–219, 255
Nuclear age, 919 On the Length and Shortness of Life Oswy (Northumbria, 7th century), 253
Nuclear power, 919 (Aristotle), 358(i), 359 Otanes (Persia), 58
Chernobyl catastrophe and, 943, 944, 966 On the Nature of Things (Lucretius), 149 Otto I (Germany, r. 936–973), 282
scientists for, 924 On the Origin of Species (Darwin), 719 Otto I (Greece, r. 1832–1862), 646
Nuclear weapons On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres Otto I (Holy Roman Empire, r. 936–973), 289
atomic bomb and, 871–873, 872(m) (Copernicus), 475 Otto II (Holy Roman Empire, r. 973–983),
cold war society and, 909–911 On the Rivers of Europe, 120 289
Einstein and, 773 On the Support of the Poor (Vives), 438 Otto III (Holy Roman Empire, r. 983–1002),
government archives on, 885 OPEC. See Organization of Petroleum 289, 290, 290(i)
Soviet, 890 Exporting Countries (OPEC) Otto IV of Brunswick (Holy Roman
test-ban treaty and, 910–911 Opera, 472, 487, 570, 688(i), 689, 717–718, Empire, 1174?–1218), 373
World War II and, 880 775 Ottoman Empire, 792. See also Turkey
Nucleic acids, 919 Operation Vittles, 887 Balkan nationalism and, 756
Numidia, Third Punic War and, 148 Opium War (1839–1842), 671, 671(m) Catholic alliance against, 455
Nur al-Din (Islam), 351 Optimates, 153, 155, 159 Crimean War and, 690, 692–694
Nuremberg Laws (Germany, 1935), 850–851 Optimism, 547(b) at end of 17th century, 516(m)
Nuremberg trials, 888 Oracle, at Delphi, 52 Europe and, 712
Nursing, in Crimean War, 693–694, 694(b) Oral culture expansion of, 396–397, 397(m)
Nystad, Treaty of (1721), 543 Anglo-Saxon, 254 Habsburgs, Valois dynasty, and, 442(m),
Greek, 42 443–444
Oaths, of allegiance, 597 of slaves, 524–525(b) in Hungary, 544
Obinsk, nuclear plant in, 919 Orange Free State, 785 Italian battle with, 785
Oblation, Merovingian, 251 Oration on the Dignity of Man (Pico), 403, Middle East after, 843–844
Obsidian, P-13 404(b) religious clashes with, 459–460
Obstetricians, 921 Oratorio, 535 Russia and, 737
Occitan (language), 347 Oratory, in Rome, 138, 172 Venice and, 412
Occupation (job), postindustrial, 922–924, Order Vienna and, 443, 444(i), 495, 495(i)
923(i) Augustine on, 211 World War I and, 800, 816
Occupation (military) culture of, 715–721 Young Turks in, 789–790
of Germany, 874, 886–888, 887(m) in nation-states, 713–715 Ottoman Turks, 383(m)
World War II and, 882(m) after protests of 1968, 935–936 Ottonian kings (Germany), 289–291, 290(i)
Ockeghem, Johannes (c. 1420–1495), 408 religion and, 718–720 “Out of Africa” theory, P-3–P-4
Ockham, William of (c. 1285–1349), 397, social, 705–715 Outwork, 727, 745–746
399–400 Orderic Vitalis (historian, 1075–c. 1142), 308 Ovid (43 B.C.E.–17 C.E.), 173
Ockham’s razor, 398 Order of the Sisters of St. Francis, 350 Owen, Robert (1771–1858), 675
O’Connell, Daniel (1775–1847), 673–674 Orders (classes), 142, 179–180, 376 Owenites, 676
Octavian (Augustus). See Augustus “Ordinances for Calvinist Churches,” 433(b) Oxenstierna, Axel (1583–1654), 464
Odoacer (c. 434–493), 217, 219 Oresteia (Aeschylus), 94 Oxford University, 331, 710
Odyssey, The (Homer), 44, 48 Orfeo (Monteverdi), 472
Ogodei (Mongols, 1186–1241), 380 Organization of Labor (Blanc), 676 Pachomius (Saint, c. 290–346), 213
Oil and oil industry, 824, 899, 937–938, Organization of Petroleum Exporting Pacific Ocean region
938(f), 938(i) Countries (OPEC), 937–938 economic growth in, 973
Okinawa, Japan and, 738 Organizations, global, 965 Japanese expansion in, 857–858
Old Believers, 496 Organized crime, in former Soviet Union, World War II in, 864, 871–873, 872(m)
Old Curiosity Shop, The (Dickens), 666 959 Pacific tigers, 973, 973(m)
Oldenburg, Claes (1929–), 926, 926(i) Organ transplants, 920 Pacifism
Old English language, 254, 255, 288 Origen (c. 185–255 C.E.), 188 in 1930s, 855
Old Kingdom (Egypt), 16, 17–20 Origins, The (Cato), 149 women and, 777
Old Stone Age. See Paleolithic Age Orlando (Woolf), 829, 831 World War I and, 806, 819
Old Testament. See Bible Orlando Furioso (Ariosto), 442 Pact of Steel (1939), 861
Oleg (Viking, 9th century), 267 Orléans, battle of, 392 Padua, 412
Oligarchy Orléans, Philippe II, duke of (1674–1723), 538 Pagans and paganism
in Athens, 77 Orlov, Boris, 929, 929(i) in England, 253
in Corinth, 62 Oroonoko (Behn), 513 repression of, 514
in Persia, 58(b) Ortelius, Abraham, 424(b) in Rome, 184(m), 185
in Rome, 153 Orthodox Christianity, 209–212, 219, 267. in Russia, 267
in Sparta, 57–60 See also Greek Orthodox Church Vikings and, 280
Oliver Twist (Dickens), 666 in Austria, 577 Paine, Thomas (1737–1809), 610(b)
Olympia (Manet), 717 celibacy and, 308 Painted Stoa (Athens), 78, 123
Olympias (Macedonia), 112, 115–116 in Russia, 684, 756 Painting, 86(i), 774. See also Art(s); specific
Olympic Games, 45–46 tolerance by Ottomans of, 459 works and periods
On Agriculture (Cato), 149 Orthodoxy (true doctrine), 184 abstract expressionism, 909
On Crimes and Punishments (Montesquieu), Orwell, George (1903–1950), 855, 874–875, on black-figure pottery, 32(i), 34, 43, 60(i),
577 908 83(i)
Painting–Peloponnesian League Index I-37

in catacombs, 183(i) Paramilitary, in France, 854 of Esterházy family, 570


in cold war, 909 Paris, 322, 928, 964. See also France; Peace of of Francis I, 441
Gothic, 372 Paris entries of Louis XIV, 482(i), 486(i), 487–488, 510
Greek, 49, 105(i) African immigrants in, 951 of Medicis, 412–413
Hellenistic, 121–122 cholera in, 662–663 of Mehmed II, 387
impressionism in, 748 in French Revolution, 594(m) of middle class Dutch, 506–507
from Knossos, 26(i) Haussmannization in, 706–707, 708 Mozart on, 570–571
in 19th century, 717, 717(i), 748–749 June Days in, 679, 681(b) by Napoleon, 623
red-figure style, 51(i), 64(i), 68(i) population growth in, 653 of Philip IV, 464(i)
Roman, 150 rebuilding of, 692 system, 540
World War I and, 773–774 revolt of 1358 in, 396 Patron-client system, in Rome, 136, 153, 155
Pakistan, creation of, 898 sanitation in, 662 Paul (Russia, r. 1796–1801), 631
Palace mayor, Charles Martel as, 272–273 September massacres in, 599 Paul III (Pope, r. 1534–1549), 438–439
Palaces university in, 331 Paul VI (Pope, r. 1963–1978), 927
Minoan, 25–27 uprising in (1871), 690 Paul of Tarsus (Saint, c. 10–65), 181, 182
Mycenaean, 27–28 violence during Great Famine, 382 Pavlov, Ivan (1849–1936), 769
at Pylos, 29 World War II and, 870 Pax Romana, 164–180
Sumerian, 9 Paris, Treaty of (1763), 575 Paxton, Joseph (1801–1865), 685(i)
Palach, Jan, 914(i), 915, 935, 946 Paris Commune, 713, 714(m), 714–715, 715(i) Peace. See also specific treaties
Pale of Settlement (Russia), 758, 758(m) Paris peace conference (1919–1920), World War I and, 804, 810, 815–821
Paleolithic (“Old Stone”) Age, P-2(i), 815–818, 817(m), 818(b) World War II and, 874
P-4–P-8, P-6(i) Parks, Rosa (1913–2005), 904 Peacekeeping, in Kosovo, 954–955
Palermo, Sicily, 680 Parlements (France), 375, 377n, 485, Peace of God movement, 287
Palestine 489–490, 578, 592 Peace of Paris (1856), 693
in Hellenistic Age, 129 Parliament, 377n Peace of Paris (1919–1920), 816–818,
Israeli wars with (1967, 1973), 937 of EU, 961 817(m), 818(b), 820–821
Jews in, 783, 783(b), 856, 881 in Germany, 701 Pearl Harbor, Japanese attack on, 864
partition of, 899, 899(m) representative government and, 376 Peasant Party (Poland), 884
Palestinians, Israel and, 970–971 Parliament (England), 377, 580, 581, 665 Peasants. See also Serfs
Pan-African Congress, World War I and, Charles I and, 498–500, 500–501(b) in Austrian Empire, 683
818(b) rights and powers of, 504, 505 Byzantine, 266
Pan-Arabic world, 970 World War I and, 778–779 castellans and, 282
Pan-Arab movements, 897 Parliament Bill (England, 1911), 779 in China, 788
Pandemics, in eastern Roman Empire, 224 Parnell, Charles Stewart (1846–1891), 753 culture of, 514
Pandora (goddess), 57 Pärt, Arvo, 926 in eastern Europe, 531
Pan-Islamic world, 897, 970 Parthenon (Athens), 78–80, 79(i), 80(i) economy and, 248–250, 301–302
Pankhurst, Christabel, 806 Parthians, 116, 189 education of, 668
Pankhurst, Emmeline (1858–1928), 778, 806 Partisans, World War II and, 869 in Frankish kingdoms, 247
Pan-Slavism, 702–703, 756 Partitions. See also Zones of occupation as free landowners, 285
Papacy. See also Popes; specific popes of Palestine, 899, 899(m) French, 486
in Avignon, 379, 397–399 of Poland, 816 in French Revolution, 594–595, 604–605
Carolingians and, 273, 274 of Poland-Lithuania, 576, 576(i), 576(m) as Green Armies, 831–832
church reform and, 302 Partnerships, medieval, 300 Hellenistic, 119
clerical marriage and, 308 Pascal, Blaise (1623–1662), 489, 509 in Indochina, 898
criticism of, 397–398 Pasternak, Boris (1890–1960), 878(i), 879, in Italy, 833
French concessions from, 411 896, 911 Jews as, 250
Great Schism in, 397–401 Pastoralists, P-10 land reclamation by, 302
Holy Roman Empire and, 341–342 Pastoral Rule (Gregory the Great), 256 lifestyle of, 468(i)
Investiture Conflict and, 306–307 Paternalism lords and, 283–285
in Italy, 255, 701 in Civil Code of Napoleon, 625–627 medieval, 249–250, 279
medieval political life and, 256 in Greece, 56 migrants and, 743–744
as monarchy, 308–309 Patria potestas (“father’s power”), in Rome, of Montaillou, 364–365(b)
as political power, 408 136–137 Polish, 672
power of, 303–305 Patriarch (Constantinople), 304 in Prussia, 631
scandals in, 397–398 Patriarchy rebellions by, 578–580
schism within, 388 in Civil Code of Napoleon, 625–627 in Rome, 202(f)
Spain and, 455 in Near East, P-15 rural violence and, 286–287
weakening of, 377–379 of non-Roman peoples, 215 Russian, 612, 695, 729, 788
Papal bulls, Unam Sanctam as (1302), 378 Patricians (Rome), 142–143, 146 as serfs, 469
Papal chancery, Donation of Constantine Patrick (Saint), 253 in 17th century, 468–469
and, 274 Patrilineal inheritance, 286, 289 Soviet, 845–846, 895
Papal infallibility, 397, 719 Patriotic Women’s Club, The (Lesueur), 595(i) taxation of, 568
Papal primacy, 305 Patriotism Tolstoy on, 757–758
Papal States, 373 of women, 809 Peasants’ War (1525), 435(m), 435–436,
Paper, in Islamic world, 272 World War I and, 806, 807 436(i), 445
Papermaking, 426 Patronage Peel, Robert (1788–1850), 648, 674
Papyrus, 2(i) of Catherine II, 569–570 Peisistratus (Athens, 546 B.C.E.), 63
plays on, 124 of church, 406, 408 Pelevin, Victor, 980
Paracelsus (1493–1541), 476, 478 of Duke Federico, 404 Pelletier, Fernande, 924
Paradise Lost (Milton), 509 in Egyptian court, 121 Peloponnese region, 27, 45, 73, 110
Parallel Lives (Plutarch), 178 in 18th century, 535 Peloponnesian League, 74, 74(m), 77
I-38 Index Peloponnesian War–Poland

Peloponnesian War (431–404 B.C.E.), 70, 96, Philip I (France, r. 1052–1108), 322 Pius VI (Pope, r. 1775–1799), 597
97(m), 97–99, 98(f), 104–110 Philip II (Augustus) (France, r. 1180–1223), Pius VII (Pope, r. 1800–1823), 622
Peltast, as Athenian infantry, 110 340–341, 351 Pius IX (Pope, r. 1846–1878), 681, 719
Pensées (Pascal), 509 Philip II (Macedonia, r. 359–336 B.C.E.), 110, Pius XI (Pope, r. 1922–1939), 856
Pensions, in former Soviet Union, 960 111–112, 112(m) Place de la Révolution, 594
Pentagon, terrorist attack on, 971 Philip II (Spain, r. 1556–1598), 443, 446, Plague, 98, 387–391, 468, 469, 502. See also
Pentateuch. See Torah 455–456 Black Death; Epidemics
People of color Catholic League and, 455 Plague, The (Camus), 903
Egyptians as, 16–17 Elizabeth I and, 458–459 Plainchant, 369–370
human rights issues and, 904 empire of, 456(m) Planck, Max (1858–1947), 772
in 1930s, 843 expulsion of Muslims by, 452, 456 Plantagenet dynasty, 337n
“People of the book,” 237 on massacre of Huguenots, 454 Plantations, slavery in, 521
People’s Charter, 677 Philip IV (the Fair) (France, r. 1285–1314), Plants
People’s (Peasants’) Crusade, 313, 315 367, 377–378, 379(b) new species of, 725
People’s Will (Russia), 758 Philip IV (Spain, r. 1621–1665), 464(i) as Paleolithic food, P-5
Perestroika (restructuring), 943, 944 Philip VI (France, r. 1328–1350), 391–392 Plato (Greece, 429–348 B.C.E.), 90, 107, 108,
Pergamum, 116 Philip of Hesse, 446 226
Pericles (Athens, c. 495–429 B.C.E.), 75, 76, Philippi, congregation of, 182 Playboy magazine, 906
77, 84, 84(b), 96, 97–98 Philippines, 470 Playwrights. See Drama; specific writers
Perpetua, Vibia (Rome, 2nd century C.E.), U.S. and, 785 Plebeians (Rome), 142, 143, 146, 152
163, 182, 183 World War II and, 864 Plebiscites, 143–144, 622, 623
Persephone (goddess), 81, 185 Philips, Thomas, 641(i) Pliny (62?–113 C.E.), 180, 183, 186–187(b)
Persepolis, 38 Philip the Good (Burgundy, r. 1418–1467), Plotinus (c. 205–270 C.E.), 188
Persia. See also Persian Empire; specific 410 Plows, 301
dynasties Philosophes, 556–558 Plutarch (c. 50–120), 156, 178, 600
Byzantine invasions by, 239, 240 Philosophical and Political History of Pneumatics, 127
coin from, 239(b), 239(i) European Colonies and Commerce Poets and poetry. See also specific poets
as Iran, 844 in Two Indies (Raynal), 560 epics and, 348
Muslims in, 237 Philosophical Dictionary (Voltaire), 559 in Greece, 64
Russia and, 737 Philosophy. See also specific philosophers Hellenistic, 121, 122(b)
Sasanids and, 189 Asian, 829 Islamic, 272(b)
Sparta and, 110 existential, 903–904 Latin, 149
Susa palace in, 73(i) Greek, 34, 65, 81, 87, 88–92, 107–110 lyric, 64
Persian Empire (557–500 B.C.E.), 36, 37(i), Hellenistic, 122–126 romanticism in, 640–641
37–39 in Roman Empire, 188 troubadours and, 347–348
Alexander the Great and, 112–113, 114(m) scholastic, 368 Umayyad, 238
Athens and, 77 science and, 65 in vernacular, 369
democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy in, of Sophists, 88–90 women and, 122(b)
58(b) Phocas, Nicephorus (Byzantine Empire, about World War I, 830
economy and government of, 37–39 r. 963–969), 266 Pogroms, in Russia, 743
ethnic groups in, 38 Phoenicia, 29 Poitiers
expansion of (c. 550–490 B.C.E.), 38(m) Phoenicians, 43, 49(m) battle at (732), 273
Greece and, 66, 69, 72–73 Photography, 664, 667, 704(b), 704(i), 748 battle of (1358), 396
Philip II of Macedonia and, 112 Phrygian language, 222 Poitou, 341, 376, 376(m)
religion in, 39 Physicians. See Doctors; Medicine Poland
warfare in, 68(i), 71–74 Physics, 123, 856 agriculture in, 895
Persian Gulf region, P-4n, 36 Physiocrats, 578, 579 cold war and, 884
Persian Letters (Montesquieu), 549 Piacenza, 379, 380 collapse of communism in, 945, 948(m)
Persian Wars (499–479 B.C.E.), 70, 71–74, Piano, elites and, 742 Congress of Vienna and, 637(m), 638, 648
72(m) Picasso, Pablo (1881–1973), 774, 774(i), economy of, 945, 964
Perugino, Pietro (1445–1523), 404, 405(i) 859–860 in EU, 963
Pétain, Henri Philippe (1856–1951), 863 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni foreign investment in, 963
Peter (apostle), 208–209 (1463–1494), 403, 404(b) in 14th century, 409–410
Peter I (the Great) (Russia, r. 1689–1725), Pictographs, Sumerian writing and, 10 German invasion of (1939), 840, 862
540–542, 541(i), 542(i) Picture stones (Viking), 280(i) in Great Depression, 841
Peter III (Russia, r. 1762–1762), 576 Piedmont, 689, 697 Great Famine in, 382
Peterloo, battle of, 648 Piedmont-Sardinia, 638, 644, 680–681, 696, in Great Northern War, 542
Peter the Chanter (d. 1197), 331, 367 698(m) Holocaust in, 865
Petition of Right (England), 498 Pieds noirs, in Algeria, 901 Jews in, 881
Petrarch, Francesco (1304–1374), 402–403, Pietism, 536, 566, 639 Mongols and, 380
406 Pilgrimages, 311 nationalism in, 648, 672
Petrograd, 804. See also St. Petersburg Pilgrims (New Plymouth Colony), 470 Northern Crusades and, 354
as Leningrad, 832 Pill, the, 931 partition of, 576, 612(m), 612–613
revolts in, 810, 811 Pilsudski, Jozef (1867–1935), 823 rebellion in (1980s), 944–945
Petty, William (1623–1687), 544–545 Pinsker, Leon (1821–1891), 783, 783(b) refugees from, 881, 889(i)
Peugeot, Armand (1849–1915), 727 Pipe Rolls (England), 338 reunification of, 823
Phalanx, in Greece, 53–54 Pippin (Carolingians, d. 838), 278 revolts in, 590, 612–613, 648, 672, 896
Pharaohs (Egypt), 21, 39 Pippin III (Carolingians, r. 751–768), 256, 273 Roman Catholicism in, 291
Pharisees, 182 Piraeus, 77, 78(m), 106(i) Solidarity movement in, 945
Pharmacology, 476 Pisano, Nicola (c. 1220–1278), 372 Soviet invasion of, 863
Philanthropy, 746–747. See also Charity(ies) Pitt, William (1759–1806), 601 World War I and, 801, 804, 816, 821, 823
Poland–Priestesses Index I-39

World War II and, 861, 870–871, 874 Political states, P-4, P-14–P-15, 12 Great Famine and, 382
youth culture and, 906 Politics (Aristotle), 109(b) of Greek slaves, 54
Poland-Lithuania, 493. See also Lithuania; Politiques, 455 growth of, 302, 528, 968, 968(f)
Poland Poliziano, Angelo (1454–1494), 405, 413 of nobility, 567
constitutional system in, 497 Polke, Sigmar, 926 in 16th century, 465
control of Ukraine and Belarus by, 460 Pollock, Jackson (1912–1956), 909 after Thirty Years’ War, 466
decline of, 497 Pollution, 660, 660(b), 966–968, 967(b) of world (1700–1800), 571(f)
at end of 17th century, 516(m) Polo, 742(i) World War I and, 765–766
Hasidic Jews in, 566 Polo, Marco (1254–1324), 380 World War II and, 881
Ivan IV and, 460 Polonium, 772 Porcelain, 421
nobility in, 567 Poltava, battle of (1709), 543 Port Arthur, 786
partition of, 576 Polybius (second century B.C.E.), 154, 154(b) Portraits
religious tolerance in, 460 Polyculture, Mediterranean, 26 emulation of kings in, 502(i)
in 17th century, 497(m) Polygyny, 233 Renaissance, 387, 406
Polanians, 291 Polyphony, 369–370 Roman, 150
Police, 645 Polytheism, 5, 182 Portugal
in London, 648 Christianity and, 204–205 African forts of, 421
political persecution by, 776 Egyptian, 127 American colonies of, 425(m)
in Russia, 813 Greek, 53 explorations by, 420–421, 422(m)
Polio, 894 Roman, 185–188, 205, 205(i) Napoleon and, 632
Polis, 34, 47–57. See also City-states Pommier, Amédée, 663 slavery and, 425
Aristotle on, 109(b) Pompadour, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Spain and, 455, 462
Homer on justice in, 46(b) marquise de (1721–1764), 558 Treaty of Tordesillas and, 423
from 750–500 B.C.E., 57–65 Pompeii, 139(i), 172(i), 175 Positivism, 720, 771–772
Polish Corridor, 816 Pompey, Gnaeus (Rome, 106–48 B.C.E.), Possessed, The (Dostoevsky), 716, 758
Polish Legion, 672 155(i), 155–156, 158 Postal systems, 493
Polish Succession, War of (1733–1735), Poniatowski, Stanislaw August (Poland, Postindustrial society and culture, 915,
543–544 r. 1764–1795), 590 921–927, 923(i)
Political life. See also Authority; Government; Pont-du-Gard aqueduct, 146(i) Postmodernism, 980–981, 982
specific forms of government; specific Pontifex maximus (chief Roman priest), 139, Potatoes, 530, 678, 678(i)
locations 204, 205 Potato famine (Ireland), 743
anti-Semitism in, 780–783 Pontius Pilate (Judaea, r. 26–36), 182 Potemkin (battleship), 787
art and, 774 Poor people. See also Poverty Potemkin (movie), 828
in central and eastern Europe, 754–759 in Athenian democracy, 77 Potosí (Bolivia), 426
conservatism and, 638 attitudes toward, 437–438, 514–515 Pottery. See Art(s); Black-figure painting;
in 1850–1870, 689–690 education of, 668 Red-figure painting; specific works
Machiavelli on, 442 in Greece, 53 Poulain de la Barre, François (1647–1723),
mass politics and, 750–759 Hebrew law on, 40 513
in Middle Ages, 261–262 in Hellenistic world, 118–119 Poussin, Nicolas (1594–1665), 510, 510(i)
natural laws of, 472–474 laws affecting, 668 Poverty. See also Poor people
in Near East, P-14–P-15, 34 lifestyle of, 532, 571–572 of Franciscans, 349–350
in 19th century, 721 in Rome, 151 in Greece, 44–45
papacy and, 256 as source of disorder, 484 of religious orders, 309–311
participation in, 752–754 Pop art, 925–926 in Rome, 136, 151
public opinion and, 556 Popes, 208. See also Papacy; specific popes Power (political). See Political power
radio and, 828 vs. Byzantine emperors, 256 Power politics, in central and eastern
raison d’état and, 464 Carolingians and, 274 Europe, 754–759
religion and, 452 claimants as, 303 Praetor (Rome), 142
secular explanations of, 472–474 crusades and, 352–353 Praetorian guard (Rome), 166
sexuality and, 768 Louis IX and, 376 Pragmatic Sanction (Austria, 1713), 573
television and, 917 military of, 304–305 Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438), 411
World War I and, 776–783, 806, 810, Polish loyalty to, 291 Pragmatists, 772
822–824 power of, 256, 373, 374, 375 Prague, 683, 946–947
World War II and, 880–888, 889–891 from 1216 to 1250, 374 defenestration of, 451
Political parties. See also specific parties Popolo (people), 379–380, 398 student protests in, 931
socialist, 776 Popular culture, in 18th century, 572 Prague Spring, 934(i), 934–935
in Soviet Union, 943 Populares, 153 Praise of Folly, The (Erasmus), 428
workers in, 751–752 Popular Front (France), 854 Pravda (Soviet newspaper), 846, 956
World War II and, 889–890 Popular lectures, 655 Praxiteles (Greece, c. 375–330 B.C.E.), statue
Political power. See also Authority; specific Population. See also Agriculture; Foods of Aphrodite, 122, 123(i)
locations agriculture and, P-8–P-9 Prayer, 251(i)
balance of, 616(m), 637 birthrate decline and, 766 Predestination, 432–433
changing balance of, 936–942 Black Death and, 389(f) Prehistory, P-4
church reform and, 302 of British North America, 526 Presbyterianism, 458
citizens and, 54–56 Christian late 3rd century C.E., 184(m) Presley, Elvis (1935–1977), 905
consolidation of, 408–409 in cities, 531–532, 653, 661–662 Prester John, 421
in Merovingian society, 250–253 of Constantinople, 397 Price, Richard (1723–1791), 608
in Middle East, 970 in 18th century, 528 Price controls, in Roman Empire, 200,
of papacy, 377–379 of Europe, 571, 571(f), 686(m) 201(b)
representative governments and, foreign-born in Europe, 902, 902(i) Prices, 302, 571
376–377 in Great Depression, 843 Priestesses, Greek women as, 56
I-40 Index Priests–Quraysh

Priests Prose writing, in Arabic, 238 Ptolemy XIII (63–47 B.C.E.), 158
Christian, 208 Prostitution, 572, 663 Public concerts, 570
Eucharist and, 399, 400 in eastern Roman Empire, 222 Public health, 544–545, 705–706, 709, 969
Neo-Assyrian, 36 reform societies and, 668 agencies for, 662(m), 663
in Rome, 139 regulation of, 709 hygiene and, 772
Prime ministers, 464 Protagoras (5th century B.C.E.), 89, 90(b) in 19th century, 707–708
Primogeniture, 286 Protective Association, 675 Public life
Primus (Roman martyr), 257(i) Protest(s). See also specific movements in Athens, 77–78, 88
Prince, The (Machiavelli), 442 in China (1989), 945 education for Roman, 138
Princeps (Rome), 164 in cities, 706 Public office
Princes, in Germany, 306, 374–375 in Czechoslovakia, 946 in Athens, 77
Princess of Clèves, The (Madame de in France, 854 in Roman Republic, 143
Lafayette), 487, 513 in Italy, 779 in Rome, 142
Princip, Gavrilo (1894–1918), 793, 794(i) labor, 750–751 Public opinion, 556, 580
Principate (Rome), 164, 165–166, 167, in 1960s, 914(i), 915, 916, 928–934 Public works
173–174, 175 in Soviet bloc, 896, 945 in cities, 707–708
destruction of, 190–191 by students, 931 in France, 692
religions and, 185 against World War I, 810 in Great Depression, 842
Principia Mathematica (Newton), 478 Protestantism, 426 of Louis XIV, 488
Printing press, invention of, 426–427 in Austria, 577 Puccini, Giacomo (1858–1924), 775
Prisca (Asia Minor, 2nd century C.E.), Calvinist churches and, 433(b) Puerto Rico, U.S. and, 785
184–185 Edict of Nantes in, 455 Pugachev, Emelian (1742–1775), rebellion
Prison, rehabilitation in, 674 in England, 458 led by, 579(i), 579(m), 579–580
Prison camps, World War I and, 806 in France, 453(m) Pugin, Augustus Welby Northmore
Prisoners, Soviet, 846 in German states, 446 (1812–1852), 665
Privacy, public debate over, 764–770 Great Awakening and, 566 Pulcher, Publius Claudius (Rome, 3rd
Private companies, 470 in Ireland, 753 century B.C.E), 139
in slave trade, 521 in 1960s, 927 Pump priming, 849, 853
Private property, Marxism and, 713 in Northern Ireland, 939–940 Punic Wars, 146–149, 147(m)
Privatization, in eastern Europe, 963 Pietism and, 536 Punishment
Procession in Piazza San Marco (Bellini), Protestant Reformation, 420, 426–434, 437 in England, 288, 337–339, 339(i)
413(i) Catholic reaction to, 438–440 in Greece, 52–53
Production Luther and, 429–430 in Rome, 198
in eastern Europe, 895 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph (1809–1865), Visigothic, 219
World War II and, 868 676, 713 Purgatory, 399
Productivity, World War I and, 825 Provence, Islamic raids on, 280 Purges, by Stalin, 846, 895–896
Products Provinces, Roman, 147(m), 149, 176, Puritanism. See also Calvinism
from colonies, 733 177–178 Cromwell and, 502
in department stores, 732–733 Provincial Letters (Pascal), 489 in England, 458–459
in markets and fairs, 301 Provisional Government (Russia), 810–811 in English civil war, 498, 499
Professions Provosts, in France, 322 Hutchinson on, 500–501(b)
in 19th century, 709 Prussia, 494, 577 Pushkin, Alexander (1799–1837), 645
women in, 710 Austrian war with (1866), 700 Putin, Vladimir, 956–958
Progress, Enlightenment and, 555–556 clergy in, 718 Chechnya and, 960(i), 960–961
Project Head Start, 930 Congress of Vienna and, 636, 637, 638 Putting-out system, 655, 658
Prokofiev, Sergei (1891–1953), 847 education in, 668 Pyall, H., 652(i)
Proletarians, in Rome, 153 France and, 692, 701(b) Pylos, palace at, 29
Proletariat, 590(b), 676, 714 German unification and, 699(i), 699–701 Pyramids, in Egypt, 19, 19(i)
Propaganda industrialization in, 658 Pythagoras (Greece, 530 B.C.E.), 65
during cold war, 909 militarism of, 543, 573, 575–576
against Louis XIV, 491 Napoleon and, 629–630, 631 Qing dynasty (China), 712, 788
Lutheran, 430, 431(b) Northern Crusades and, 354 Quadrivium, 329
against Napoleon, 632 Paris siege by, 714 Quakers, 499, 670
World War I and, 807, 808(b), 808(i) partition of Poland and, 612, 612(m) Quantum theory, 772
World War II and, 866–868 revolt of 1848 in, 681–682 Queen Caroline Affair (England), 648
Property serfdom in, 578 Queens. See also Kings and kingdoms;
communist view of, 676, 677(b), 681(b) in 1740, 551(m) Monarchs and monarchies; specific
Greek women and, 82 Seven Years’ War and, 574–575 rulers
Hebrew laws for, 41 War of the Austrian Succession and, in Egypt, 21, 21(i)
in Italy, 287 573–574, 574(m) Hellenistic, 119
Marxism and, 713 Psalters, 242–243, 286(i), 350(i) Hittite, 24
to Merovingian women, 251–252 Psychoanalysis, 763, 768, 769–770 in Sumer, 9–10
in Rome, 201 Psychohistory, 770–771(b), 771(i) Quest of the Holy Grail, 369
slaves as, 55 Psychology, 768, 769 Quietism, 536, 538
women as owners of, 284(f) Ptolemies, 116, 117 Quilombos (runaway slaves), 524
Property rights, Civil Code of Napoleon fall of, 120 Quinine, 736
and, 626 queens and, 119 Quirini, Lauro (1420–1475?), 387,
Prophets Ptolemy (2nd century), 475 403, 412
Jewish, 41, 42 Ptolemy I (c. 367–282 B.C.E.), 116, 129 Qur’an, 42, 234, 235(i), 236
Muhammad as, 232 Ptolemy II, 116, 121, 129 Fatihah of, 234, 234(b)
Proscription, by Sulla, 155 Ptolemy V (Egypt), 103 Quraysh, 233, 235
Race and racism–Religion(s) Index I-41

Race and racism Reason, 91, 555–556 Regency (France), 538


in Africa, 736–737 Rebellions. See Revolts and rebellions Regional differences
attitudes toward, 440, 440(i), 526 Rebel Without a Cause (movie), 905 culture and, 5
Catholic church and, 440 Reccared (Visigoths, 586–601), 255 in diseases, 969
Egyptian skin color and, 16–17 Receipt Rolls (England), 338 Islamic, 269–270
equality and, 843 Recessions Regulation, governmental, 708–709
in France, 942 consequences of, 467–469 Regulus, Marcus Atilius (d. c. 250 B.C.E.),
in Great Depression, 843 oil and, 937 150–151
human rights and, 904 after Thirty Years’ War, 465–467 Reich (Germany), 701, 754, 859
Hume and, 560 Recollections (Tocqueville), 681(b) Reichstag (Germany), 701–702, 755, 847,
in Nazi Germany, 849–852 Reconquista (Spain, 1150–1212), 305, 353, 848, 981(i)
population change and, 766 354(m) Reims
racial purity and, 645 Recycling, 967 archbishop of, 371(i)
Social Darwinism and, 720 Red Army (Russia), 812, 813, 895 market in, 298
in United States, 852, 928–930 Red Army Faction, 939 Reinsurance Treaty (1887), 756, 759
World War II and, 864, 868 Red Brigades, 939 Relativists, 772
Racine, Jean-Baptiste (1639–1699), 487–488, Red-figure painting, 51(i), 64(i), 68(i) Relativity theory, 772–773
513 Redistributive economy, in Mesopotamia, 14 Relics and reliquaries, 248(i)
Racing, bicycle, 742–743 Red Shirts (Italy), 698, 698(i) in churches, 333
Radar, 863 Reflections on the Revolution in France of crucifixion, 311
Radetzky, Joseph (1766–1858), 683 (Burke), 610(b) of Holy Cross, 240
Radiation, pollution from, 966 Reflections upon Marriage (Astell), 550 medieval, 248
Radical democracy, in Athens, 75–77 Reform Act (England, 1884), 752 of St. Denis, 246
Radicalism Reform and reformers of saints, 213
France and, 692 abolitionism and, 560 Relief programs, 668. See also Social welfare
Russia and, 758 administrative and legal, 576–577 in 17th century, 514
Radical right, anti-Semitism and, 779 in Athens, 62–64, 76, 77 World War I and, 806–807
Radio, 828, 829(i), 908, 909 of Catholic Church, 302–311 Reliefs (money), in England, 320
Radioactivity, 772 Cluniac, 303 Religion(s). See also Christians and
Radio telescope, 919 constitutional and reform societies, 608–609 Christianity; Crusades; Islam; Jews and
Radium, 772 in Czechoslovakia, 935 Judaism; specific groups
Al-Rahman III, Abd (caliph of Córdoba, Dickens and, 666 in ancient civilizations, 4
912–961), 270 educational, 709–710 in Balkan region, 267, 791
Railroads, 652(i), 656–657 in England, 288, 337, 703–705, 752–753, Bayle on, 547
in Austria-Hungary, 756 778–779 in Byzantine Empire, 243
in Britain, 685 Enlightenment and, 557, 558, 573–578, 584 in Çatalhöyük, Turkey, P-13–P-14
food distribution by, 663 Erasmus and, 428 Civil Code of Napoleon and, 626, 630
in France, 692 in France, 596(m) conflicts arising from, 451–480
in Hungary, 675 government regulation and, 708–709 conservatism and, 638–639
in June Days revolt, 681(b) Gregorian, 305–306 crisis in faith, 903
metal for, 727 in Hungary, 675 critics of, 558–560
Rain, Steam, and Speed: the Great Western in Italy, 779 decline in, 667
Railway (Turner), 665 in Japan, 712–713 distribution in Europe of, 464
Rainsford, Marcus, 614 Luther and, 429–430 in eastern Europe, 266
Raison d’état, 464 of marriage laws, 767 in eastern Roman Empire, 219
Rákóczi, Ferenc (1676–1735), 544 by Napoleon, 630 education and, 975(i)
Ramadan, 235 in 1960s, 915–916 in Egypt, 17
Rapallo, Treaty of (1922), 820 19th century social, 667–670 in England, 287–288
“Rape of Nanjing,” 857 popular resistance to, 515 Enlightenment and, 557
“Rape of the Sabine Women, The,” 133 Protestant Reformation and, 420, 426, European imperialism and, 740
Rasputin, Grigori (1872–1916), 810 432–434 evolution and, 719–720
Rationalism, 65 in Prussia, 631 festivals and, 515
Plato and, 108 in Rome, 152, 153, 197–200 Freemasonry as secular, 569
religion and, 719 in Russia, 631, 694–696, 787–788 French secularism and, 602–603
Rationality, Aristotle and, 108 in Soviet Union, 928 in Germany, 754
Rauschenberg, Robert (1925–), 925 state-sponsored, 576–578 in Greece, 34, 51–53, 56, 81–82
Ravenna student activism and, 931 in Hellenistic world, 127–129
Exarchate of, 240, 256 in Sweden, 853 Hittite, 24–25
Justinian in, 224(i) for workers, 746–747 in Holy Roman Empire, 289–290
Theodora in, 223(i) Reformation Europe (c. 1560), 447(m) independence movements and, 897
as western Roman capital, 200 Reform Bills (England) Islam as, 233–238
Raymond d’Aguiliers (11th century), 316 in 1832, 649, 684 in Italy, 255
Raynal, Guillaume (1713–1796), 560 Second, 703 Jewish, 41–42
Razin, Stenka (d. 1671), 496, 496(i) Reform League (England), 703 in late 12th century, 349–351
Reagan, Ronald (1911–2004), 940(i), Refugees, 974 medieval society and, 359–367
941–942, 944 from former Soviet Union, 958–959 Mesopotamian, 11
Reaganomics, 941–942 as non-European immigrants to Europe, Minoan, 27
Realism 901–902 missionaries and, 733
Greek, 150 Polish, 889(i) monotheistic, 5, 246 (t)
in 19th century, 715–716 World War I and, 822–823 Mycenaean, 27
Realpolitik, 689, 690, 696, 698, 713 World War II and, 881 Napoleon on, 622
I-42 Index Religion(s)–Robinson Crusoe

Religion(s) (Continued) Republicanism (Spain), 859, 860(m) Revolutionary War in America. See American
national order and, 718–720 Republican Party (U.S.), 705 War of Independence
Neo-Assyrian, 36 “Republic of letters,” 556–557 Rhenish-Westphalian Coal Syndicate, 730
Neo-Babylonian, 37 Republic of Virtue (France, 1793–1794), Rhetoric, 138, 226
Neolithic, P-8 602–604 Rhineland
new Protestant sects, 499–500 Research German invasion of, 859
Nietzsche on, 772 genetic, 923 Jews in, 297, 313
in 1930s, 856 investments in, 922 World War I and, 821
in 1960s, 927 Napoleon and, 627 Rhine River region
non-Christian, 927 in 1960s, 924 as Roman frontier, 189, 196
Paleolithic, P-6 Res Gestae (My Accomplishments) World War II and, 881
Persian, 39 (Augustus), 168–169(b) Rhodes, 120
polytheistic, 5 Resistance movements, in World War II, Rhodes, Cecil (1853–1902), 736, 785
popular, in 17th century, 514 869–870, 888 Rhodesia, 897
revivals in, 536, 566, 639–640 Res publica (republic), 140 Richard I the Lion-Hearted (England,
in Rome, 135, 138–139, 185–188, 202–204 Revisionism, 776 r. 1189–1199), 340, 348, 351
social reform and, 667–670 Revivalism, 566, 639–640 Richard II (England, r. 1377–1399), 398(b)
Sophists on, 89 Revolts and rebellions Richelieu, Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal
in Spain, 255 Boxer Uprising, 788 (1585–1642), 461, 462, 464, 485
state building and, 441, 445–446 against British in India, 710–711 Rich people. See Wealth
in Sumer, 9 by Chalcis, 88(b) Riga, 708
tolerance of, 577 in Chechnya, 960(i), 960–961 Rights. See also specific rights and freedoms
women and, 363–365 Decembrist Revolt, 645 in American Constitution, 583
Religious orders. See also Monasticism and in 1820s, 644(m), 644–645 of aristocrats, 568
monasteries; specific orders in 14th century, 396 for blacks in French colonies, 614–615
Beguines as, 349–350 in France, 485, 491, 714 Civil Code of Napoleon and, 626, 630, 639
Cathars and, 350–351 by Greek slaves, 55 civil rights movement and, 904
Cluniac reforms and, 303 inspired by French Revolution, 588 Declaration of Independence and, 582
of poverty, 309–311 in Ionia, 71 of Egyptian women, 20
reestablishment of, 639 in Italy, 680 Enlightenment thinking on, 557
in revolutionary France, 597 by Jews (66 C.E.), 182 in France, 577
scholasticism and, 367 June Days in France, 679–680, 681(b) in Greece, 34, 54
of women, 214, 668 in Latin America, 647(m) Grotius and, 474
Religious toleration in Lyon, 604 Hebrew, 40–41
in eastern Roman Empire, 219 Neo-Assyrian, 36 human rights issues and, 904–905
Edict of Milan on, 203(b) in Ottonian Holy Roman Empire, 289 for minorities, 597(b), 764
in EU, 977(b) in Paris (1871), 690 natural, 557, 560
Remarque, Erich Maria (1898–1970), by peasants, 578–580 in Nazi Germany, 848–849
830, 849 in Poland, 590, 612–613, 648, 672 of non-Roman women, 215
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669), 473(i) Pugachev Rebellion, 579 of women, 60, 767, 777–778
Remigius (Saint), 304 in Russia, 496(i), 645, 696 Rights of Man, The (Paine), 610–611(b)
Renaissance, 386–416 in Soviet bloc (1956), 896 Right wing
Carolingian, 275–277 against Spain, 456–458, 462 in Germany, 781, 823
European, 233 Vendée Rebellion, 604(m) in Hungary, 854
humanism and, 401–403 Wat Tyler’s Rebellion (1381), 396, 398(b), in Spain, 859–860
Islamic, 271–272 400 World War I and, 779
Macedonian, 262, 264–266, 266(i) Revolution(s), 590(b). See also specific Rijswijk, Peace of (1697), 491
painting, 405–406, 407(i) countries and types Riots
as religious age, 402(b) agricultural, 529–531, 655 against Catholic church, 580
spread of, 415 American, 560, 581–583 in China (1989), 945
in Venice, 412 in astronomy, 475–476 in England, 941
Reparations, World War I and, 817, 820, 821 Atlantic, 588 food, 578–580, 593, 678
Representative government, 376–377 in China (1911), 788 Nika (532), 223
Reproduction in China (1949), 890, 898 student, 934
government reforms and, 747 in clothing, 624(i) urban, 931
heredity and, 719–720 consumer, 528–529 World War I and, 810
outside body, 921 in Czechoslovakia, 946–947 Risorgimento (Italy), 696, 697
in Rome, 180 in diplomacy, 574 Rite of Spring, The (Stravinsky), 775
technology in 1960s, 920–921 in 1830, 620 Rivers. See also specific rivers and river
Republic (Plato), 108 in 1848, 678–685, 690–691 regions
Republic(s). See also Roman Republic; in England, 498, 502–504 medieval commerce and, 299
specific locations French cultural, 602–603 Roads and highways
in 15th century, 411–413 in Hungary, 896 in Ottoman Empire, 397
in eastern Europe, 822 Islamic, 970 Persian, 38
in former Soviet Union, 956, 958 in 1989, 945–947 Roman, 145
in France, 753 in Russia (1905), 787, 787(m) Roaring Twenties, 822
in Germany, 814, 815–816, 823 in Russia (1917), 776, 810–812 Roberts, Thomas (1856–1931), 724(i)
Turkey as, 843–844 scientific, 474–478 Robespierre, Maximilien (1758–1794), 600,
Republicanism (France), 599, 714, 753–754 in Yugoslavia, 886 603, 605, 606
French Revolution and, 588 Revolutionary Tribunal (France), 601, Robins, John, 500
Robespierre and, 600–601 605, 607 Robinson Crusoe (Defoe), 535
Rob Roy–Russia Index I-43

Rob Roy (Scott), 643 coins in, 189(i) Greek developments compared with, 149(f)
Rock-and-roll music, culture of, 905–906, crisis in 3rd century, 188–191, 192(m) Italy and, 698, 701
906(i), 925, 925(i) division of, 196–197, 198–200, 199(m) military discipline in, 154(b)
Rockefeller, John D. (1839–1937), 729, 730 economy in, 200 mythical origins of, 132(i)
Rocket (railroad engine), 653, 654–655 education in, 172 papacy and, 397–399
Rococo style, 529(i), 534(i), 534–535, 570 expansion of (30 B.C.E.–117 C.E.), 176(m) during Republic, 143(m)
Roehm, Ernst (1887–1934), 849 fall of, 217–219, 218(b) republic in (1848), 681
Roger I (Norman, c. 1040–1101), 304 features and languages of, 178(m) sacks of, 216–217
Roland, Jeanne (1754–1793), 600, 601 frontiers of, 188–189 Social War in, 154
Rolin, Nicolas (1376–1462), 406 Hellenistic world and, 120, 130, 130(m) student protests in, 931
Rolling Stones, 925(i), 978 Julio-Claudians in, 173, 174–175 Rome, Treaty of (1957), 892
Rollo (Vikings, 10th century), 280 law and order in, 179–180 Rome-Berlin Axis, 859
Roma. See Gypsies non-Roman migrations into, 214–221 Rommel, Erwin (1891–1944), 870
Roman baths, 169, 170(b) peasants in, 202(f) Romulus and Remus, 132(i), 139
Roman Catholicism, 225, 254–255. See also peoples and kingdoms of (526), 220(m) Romulus Augustulus (Rome, r. 475–476), 217
Papacy philosophy in, 188 Roosevelt, Eleanor (1884–1962), 852, 853(i)
Carolingian dynasty and, 273 religions in, 185–188 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano (1882–1945),
charities and, 668 reorganization of, 197–204 852, 853(i), 857
Christianization campaigns of, 439–440 tenant farmers in, 200 cold war and, 884
Council of Trent and, 438–439 Turkey in, 5 World War II and, 864
Counter-Reformation of, 435 Vandals in, 217 Roosevelt, Theodore (1858–1919), 766, 785
in eastern Europe, 291, 895 Romanesque architecture, 332(i), 332–333, Roses, Wars of the (1455–1487), 411
in c. 1150, 324(m) 333(i), 335(i) Rosetta stone, 102(i), 621
in England, 253–254 Romania, 693, 791 Rossbach, battle at, 574
French de-Christianization and, 603 cold war and, 884 Rossellini, Roberto, 909
in Germany, 289, 754, 856 collapse of communism in, 947, 948(m) Roundheads, 498
vs. Greek Orthodoxy, 304 economy of, 964 Round Table, of Arthur, 369
Henry VIII and, 429, 433–434 homeless children in, 947(i) Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–1778), 556,
Inquisition and, 362 Soviets and, 871, 874 564(i), 566
Investiture Conflict and, 306–307 World War I and, 821, 822 civic religion of, 602–603
in Italy, 255–256, 833 World War II and, 861, 863 on republics, 591
Jesuits and, 577 Romanians, 682–683, 683(i) Robespierre and, 600–601
laity, sacraments, and, 361–362, 400–401 Romanization, 177–178 on society, 561–564
language of liturgy in, 401 Roman literature, preservation of, 225–226 Rowe, Elizabeth Singer, 550
London riots against, 580 Romanov, Michael (Russia, r. 1613–1645), 460 Royal Academy of Sciences (France), 511
Luther and, 429–430 Romanov dynasty, 664, 667–670, 810. See Royal Dutch Shell, 824
medieval universities and, 332 also specific tsars Royal hymns, as literary form, 13
in Middle Ages, 360–367 Roman Republic, 134, 140, 608. See also Royalists, in France, 607
modernization of, 719 Roman Empire; Rome Royal Society of London, 512
Napoleon and, 620, 622 civil wars in, 153–155, 158 Royalty. See Kings and kingdoms; Monarchs
in 1960s, 927 downfall of (83–44 B.C.E.), 155–159, and monarchies; Queens; specific
in Northern Ireland, 939–940 160(m) kingdoms and rulers
orthodox Christianity and, 267 early period in (509–287 B.C.E.), 142 Rubens, Peter Paul (1577–1640), 473(i)
Ottoman Turks and, 455 imperialism by, 145–152, 147(m) Rubicon River, Caesar at, 158
Peace of Westphalia and, 464 late period in, 152–159 Rudolf (Habsburgs, Germany, r. 1273–1291),
Protestant Reformation and, 420, 447 principate and, 165 374–375
Quietism and, 536 Punic Wars and, 146–149, 147(m) Ruhr basin, World War I and, 820–821
racism in, 440 rise of, 133–134 Ruler cults, 128
rationalism, science, and, 719 Rome (city) during, 143(m) Rump Parliament (England), 500–502
reforms of, 302–311, 597 sack of (387 B.C.E.), 145 Rural areas. See also Farms and farming
religious orders and, 668 social stresses in, 150–152 commerce in, 301–302
revival of, 639 society in, 134–139, 140–142 commercial revolution in, 301–302
sacraments in, 307–308 Romanticism, 233 crime in, 672
in Spain, 255, 754 Romanticism, 566, 640–643 industrialization of, 662
superstitious practices and, 514 realism and, 715–716 lifestyle in, 663–664
Vatican II and, 903 social question and, 664–667 medieval, 283–285
World War II and, 869 Romantic literature, medieval, 348–349 migration from, 571, 662
Romance of the Rose, The (Jean de Meun), Romanus IV (Byzantine Empire, in revolutionary France, 594–595
369(b) r. 1069–1071), 311 Rousseau on life in, 562
Roman Empire, 134, 160(m), 164–192. See Rome. See also Roman Empire; Roman Soviet workers from, 845
also Civil war(s); Cult(s); Eastern Republic violence in, 286–287
Roman Empire; Economy; Pax Romana; alphabet and, 16 World War I and, 765, 765(i)
Roman Republic; Rome; Western bishops of, 182, 208 Rushdie, Salman, 979
Roman Empire; specific rulers, citizenship in, 140, 154, 166, 170, 190 Russia, 262, 281. See also Russian Republic;
dynasties, and religions civil wars in, 200 Soviet Union
administration of, 196 Etruscans and, 141–142 armed forces in 17th century, 493(b)
under Augustus, 167–171 expansion of, 133–134 arts in, 831
Charlemagne and, 275 families in, 136–138 Austria-Hungary and, 756
Christianity in, 163, 164, 181–183, Fascist march on (1922), 833 authoritarianism in, 779–780
186–187(b), 196, 204–214, 209(m) government of, 139–145 Bolshevik Revolution in, 811–812
citizenship in, 190–191 Greek culture and, 141, 149–150 Byzantine trade with, 264
I-44 Index Russia–Scholars and scholarship

Russia (Continued) SA (Nazi Germany), 849 Sand, George (Amandine-Aurore Dupin,


Christianity in, 267 Sabines, 133 1804–1876), 666, 666(i)
civil war in, 812–814, 814(i) Sachs, Nelly (1891–1970), 903 San Isidore de León, Romanesque church of,
colonies of, 710 Sacks 332(i)
Congress of Vienna and, 636, 637, 638 of Constantinople (1204), 352, 352(m) Sanitation, 662, 662(m), 663
Crimean War and, 690, 691, 692–694 of Jerusalem (1099), 313n in Crimean War, 693–694
Decembrist Revolt in, 645 of Rome, 145, 216–217 in French Vietnam, 712
Duma in, 787–788 Sacraments, 307–308, 361–362 in 19th century, 707–708
economy in, 958–960 Sacred texts, 42, 370 Parisian sewers and, 708(i)
education in, 668, 684 Sacrifice of Isaac (Ghiberti), 406, 406(i) in Rome, 169
in Entente Cordiale, 790 Saddam Hussein, 970 Sans-culottes (French workers), 598
ethnic groups in, 696 Saduccees, 182 San Stefano, Treaty of (1878), 756
as European power, 540–544 Safety Sant’Andrea at Vercelli, 336, 336(i)
expansion in Asia (1865–1895), 738(m) issues in, 705–706 Santayana, George (1863–1952), 547(b)
expansionism of, 460 in Rome, 169 Santo Stefano Rotondo, mosaic at, 257(i)
Great Northern War and, 542–543, 543(m) for workers, 973 San Vitale (Ravenna), 223(i), 224(i)
Huns in, 215 in workplace, 747 Sappho (Lesbos, 630 B.C.E.), 64
imperialism by, 737, 786 Sahara Desert, P-8, 16 Saracens, Muslims as, 269
industrialization in, 658, 729 Sailors, World War I and, 814 Sarajevo, Francis Ferdinand assassinated in,
under Ivan IV, 460 Saint(s). See also specific individuals 793
Jewish migration from, 743 medieval, 248 Sarcophagi, 206(i), 206–207(b), 207(i)
Kievan, 267–268 relics of, 213 Sardinia, 147, 689, 696, 697, 698(m)
liberalism in, 675 St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (1572), 454 Sargon (Akkad), 11, 13
Marxism in, 776–777 St. Bartholomew’s Night: The Massacre of Sartre, Jean-Paul (1905–1980), 903–904,
migration from, 822 the Huguenots (Vasari), 454(i) 904(i)
Mongols and, 373, 380 St. Domingue, 523. See also Haiti Sasanid Empire
Napoleon I and, 629–630, 632–633 revolt in, 613(b), 613–615, 614(i), 629, Byzantine Empire and, 240
Napoleon III and, 691 629(m) coin of, 239(b), 239(i)
New Economic Policy in, 832 in 1791, 614(m) c. 600, 241(m)
nobility in, 567 Sainte-Chapelle, 371(i) Muslims in, 236–237
partition of Poland and, 612, 612(m) St. Gall, monks of monastery of, 286(i) Rome and, 189, 191
peasant unrest in, 612 Saint-German-des-Près (monastery), 279 Satanic Verses, The (Rushdie), 979
Poland-Lithuania and, 460 St. Helena, island of, 635 Satellites (artificial), 896
political parties in, 776 St.-Martin at Tours, monastery of, 250(i) communications, 917, 919
provisional government in, 810–811 Saint-Maurice d’Agaune, monastery of, 248(i) in 1960s, 916
public works in, 708 St. Peter’s Basilica, 510 Satellite states. See Soviet bloc; Soviet Union
railroads in, 656(f) St. Petersburg, 541. See also Leningrad; Sati (widow’s self-immolation), 639(i), 640,
realist novels in, 716–717 Petrograd 712
reforms in, 694–696 Russian Revolution and, 813(b) Satraps, in Persian Empire, 38
revolts in, 644(m) World War I and, 804, 807 Satyagraha (Gandhi), 904–905
rural social order in, 664 Saint Phalle, Niki de (1930–2002), 926 Saudi Arabia, terrorists from, 971–972
serfs emancipated in, 694–695, 695(i) Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, church of, 335(b), Saul (Hebrew), 41
in 17th century, 496–497 335(i) Savage Mind, The (Lévi-Strauss), 927
Seven Years’ War and, 574–575 Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvray, duke of Savannahs, in Africa, P-8
Slavophiles and Westernizers in, 672–673 (1675–1755), 538, 675–676 Savior gods, 128
after Soviet Union, 956–957 St. Sophia (Kiev), mosaic of Mary in, 268(i) Savoy, 608(m), 638, 697
as Soviet Union, 832–833 Saisset, Bernard (c. 1232–1311), 378 Saxons, 217
in 12th century, 346, 346(m) Sakhalin Islands, World War II and, 874 Charlemagne and, 273
unrest in, 757–759 Saladin (Islam, 1138–1193), 351 Saxony, 446, 542, 574, 658
Western influences in, 497, 540–541 Salamis, battle at, 73, 76(i) Scandinavia. See also Vikings; specific
World War I and, 791, 794, 803–804 Salem, Massachusetts, witchcraft trials in, countries
Russian Academy of Sciences, 540, 541 479 economy in, 891
Russian Mafia, 959 Salerno, university in, 331 England and, 288
Russian Orthodox church, 496, 542, 673 Salian dynasty, 290–291 immigrants to, 901–902
Ivan IV and, 452, 459–460 Salome (Strauss), 775 industrialization in, 729
Russian Republic, 956. See also Russia; Soviet Salons, 513, 558, 558(i), 717 Schiller, Friedrich (1759–1805), 612
Union (former) SALT I. See Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty Schism, in Catholic Church, 304, 308
Chechnya and, 956–958, 960(i), 960–961 (SALT I) Schleswig, 700
corruption in, 956 Salt March (India, 1930), 844(i) Schlieffen Plan, 803
Russian Revolution (1905), 787, 787(m) Salvation Schliemann, Heinrich, 27
Russian Revolution (1917), 776 Christian, 205, 361 Schmalkaldic League, 446
of March, 810–811 Cluniac monks and, 303 Schoenberg, Arnold (1874–1951), 766(b), 776
of November, 811–812 in Hellenistic religions, 128 Scholars and scholarship. See also History
outbreak of, 813(b) of Jews, 41 and historians; Intellectual thought;
Russification, 788 in mystery cults, 129 specific disciplines and individuals
under Alexander II (Russia), 696 Samizdat culture, 928 Assyrian, 36
in eastern Europe, 895 Samurai (Japan), 738 in Carolingian renaissance, 275–276
Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), 785, Sanchez, Raphael, 423(b) classical, 220–221, 225–226
786–787 Sanctions in Dutch Republic, 507
Russo-Polish war, 497 in former Yugoslavia, 954 education and, 329
Rwanda, 969, 974 by League of Nations, 856 Hellenistic, 120–121
Scholars and scholarship–Shelley Index I-45

Islamic, 271–272 Second Balkan War (1913), 792 Serfs and serfdom, 283. See also Slaves and
Jewish, 207 Second Crusade (1147–1149), 317, 351, 353 slavery
in Ottonian Holy Roman Empire, 290 Second Empire (France), 680, 692, 701, 753 in Brandenburg-Prussia, 493
Scholastica, 214 Second Estate (aristocracy), 592 in England, 396
Scholasticism, 367–369 Second Great Awakening, 640 in France, 578, 595
Schools. See also Education “Second” Industrial Revolution, 727–728 in Habsburg lands, 577–578
attendance in, 709–710 Second Intermediate Period (Egypt), 20–21 in Hungary, 683
in Byzantine Empire, 242–243 Second International, 750, 751, 776 industrialization and, 658
in Carolingian Empire, 276 Second Moroccan Crisis (1911), 790 Jews as, 297
Islamic, 272 Second Punic War (218–201 B.C.E.), 147, Napoleon’s abolition of, 630
in Middle Ages, 328–332 147–148, 148(f) in Poland, 612–613
in Rome, 172 Second Reform Bill (England), 703 in Prussia, 631
for Sumerian scribes, 10–11 Second Reich (Germany), 849 in Russia, 495, 532(i), 568, 577, 664, 684,
Sunday school movement and, 667–668 Second Republic (France), 680 694–695, 695(i)
Schott, Johann, 431(b) Second Sex, The (Beauvoir), 904 in western Europe, 469, 497
Schreiner, Olive (1855–1920), 747 Second Triumvirate (Rome), 165 Sergius I (Pope, r. 687 or 689–701), 256
Schumacher, E. F. “Fritz,” 966 Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), Serious Proposal to the Ladies, A (Astell), 550
Schuman, Robert (1886–1963), 892, 893(b) 903, 927 Servants, 742
Schuman Plan on European Unity (1950), Second World War. See World War II in Rome, 172
893(b) Secret police slaves as, 10, 170–171
Schutzstaffel (SS), in Nazi Germany, 848 in Italy, 672 women as, 527, 532
Science. See also Astronomy; Medicine; in Russia (KGB), 956 Servetus, Michael (1511–1553), 433
Technology; specific fields Secularism, 471, 479 Service industries, 922–923, 975–976
Aristotle and, 108 Enlightenment and, 560–561 Settlement houses, 746
attitudes about women in, 669–670 trend toward, 903 Settlements. See also Cities and towns;
brain drain and, 924 Secular music, 370 Villages; specific locations
early industrialists and, 655 Secular power. See also Church(es); Political in Crete, 25–26
in eastern Europe, 895 power; specific institutions Frankish, 248
government support for, 512 after Investiture Conflict, 307 Greek, 43, 48–49, 49(m), 49–50
Hellenistic, 126–127 universities and, 332 at Jericho, P-11(i)
Islamic, 271–272 Security Council (UN), 898 in Mesopotamia, 7
learned societies and, 569 Sedition laws, World War I and, 807 Neolithic, P-8, P-10
Napoleon and, 621, 627 Segregation, 904, 930 in North America, 490
in 19th century, 719–720 civil rights movement and, 928–930 in Quebec, 490
in 1930s, 855–856 Seigneurial dues, 568, 592, 594, 595, Slavic, 266
philosophy and, 65 604–605, 607 Seurat, Georges (1859–1891), 748–749
popularization of, 520, 546 Sejm (Polish parliament), 497 Sevastopol, 693
in postindustrial society, 919–921 Selective breeding, population control Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), 574, 575(m)
religion and, 719 through, 767 Severan dynasty, in Rome, 190–191
Rousseau on, 561–562 Seleucids, 116, 116(m), 117, 120, 181 Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS),
of “self,” 768–770 Seleucus (c. 358–281 B.C.E.), 116, 117 969
teaching of, 329 Self-determination Sewage systems, 707–708, 708(i)
training in, 709 World War I and, 807, 816 Sex and sexuality. See also Homosexuals and
World War I and, 772–773 World War II and, 874 homosexuality
Scientific management, 825 Self-government, for cities and towns, 301, 307 in Athens, 83–84, 88
Scientific method, 474, 475, 476–477 Self-immolation, in Czechoslovakia, 914(i), Augustine on, 212
Scientific research, on public health, 707 915 birth control and, 747
Scientific revolution, 474–478 Self-interest, Smith on, 561 of Cathars, 350–351
Scientific societies, 511 Seljuk Turks, First Crusade and, 311 in eastern Roman Empire, 225
Scotland Semites Freud on, 769–770
Christianity in, 253 Chaldeans as, 36 in Greece, 57
Mary Stuart and, 459 in Egypt, 20–21 middle class views of, 663
religious wars in, 445–446, 498 Sen, Amartya, 974 natural science and, 719–720
Scott, Walter (1771–1832), 643 Senate (Rome), 140, 143, 152, 153, 200–201 in 1960s, 925
“Scramble for Africa,” 733–737 Augustus and, 165–166 pill and, 931
Scream, The (Munch), 762(i), 774 Seneca (4 B.C.E.–65 C.E.), 170(b) regulation of behavior, 572–573
Scribes, 10–11, 11(f), 226 Senegal, immigrants from, 950(i) reproductive technology and, 920–921
Sculpture Separatism, for African Americans, 931 in Sparta, 60
Egyptian, 20, 50, 50(i) September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 970(i), World War I and, 768, 826
goddess figurines as, 40(i) 971–972 youth movement and, 905(b)
in Gothic cathedrals, 371–372 September massacres, in Paris, 599 “Sexology,” 768
Greek, 49, 50, 50(i), 64, 80, 80(i), 87(i) Septimius Severus (Rome, r. 193–211 C.E.), Sex rings, 974
Hellenistic, 118(i), 121(i), 121–122 171, 190, 190(i) Sextus Aurelius Victor (Rome), 199(m)
Neolithic, P-12(i) Serbia, 262, 266–267, 281, 756, 792, 793, Sexual Inversion (Ellis), 768
in Parthenon, 80, 80(i) 794 Shahadah (profession of faith), 235
prehistoric Venus figurines, P-7, P-7(i) autonomy of, 791 Shakespeare, William (1564–1616), 124(b),
Roman, 150, 173 Milosevic and, 953 178, 459, 471, 472
Romanesque, 333 World War I and, 791, 804 Shamash (god), 14
Seacole, Mary (1805–1881), 694(b) Serbs, 267, 672, 684 Shapur I (Sasanids, r. 241–272 C.E.), 191
Sea Peoples, 29 Albanian Kosovars and, 954–955 Shelley, Mary (1797–1851), 618, 641
Secondary education, 710 destruction by, 954–955, 955(i) Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792–1822), 618
I-46 Index Shelter–Society

Shelter, Paleolithic, P-6, P-6(i) Slav congress (1848), 683 Smuggling, 631
Shi’at Ali, 237 Slave code (Barbados), 508 of books, 565
Shi’ites, 237, 268, 270, 970 Slaves and slavery. See also Serfs and serfdom Sobieski, Jan (Poland-Lithuania,
Ships and shipping abolition of, 670 r. 1674–1696), 495(i), 497
caravels, 421 Aristotle on, 109 Social classes. See Classes
Dutch Republic and, 457–458, 506 in Athens, 86 Social Contract, The (Rousseau), 562–563
French, 490 in Atlantic system, 521 Social contract theory, 504–505, 509, 561–564
Greek, 48 Bill of Rights and, 583 Social Darwinism, 720, 736, 741, 747, 769
steam power in, 665 Caribbean sugar mill and, 526(i) Social Democrats, 751, 928
tide calendars and, 421 Columbus and, 423 in Germany, 755, 776, 781, 792, 814, 928
transmission of plague and, 389 criticism of, 560 Social disorder
triremes and, 74, 75(i) in Egypt, 20, 23 in 17th century England, 499(i)
at Washington naval conference, 824 in England (1086), 323(m) in urban areas, 663
World War I and, 792, 804 in Frankish kingdoms, 247 Social engineering, 674
Shire (England), 288 in Greece, 47, 54–56, 59, 82, 86 Social hierarchies, P-7, 6. See also Classes
Shtetls (Jewish villages), 497 in Hellenistic world, 118 in Byzantine Empire, 266
Shulgi (Ur), 9(i) lifestyle of, 523–525 in Çatalhöyük, P-14
Siberia, 675 medieval, 279 in Egypt, 19–20
Japanese withdrawal from, 813 native Americans as, 508 in Hellenistic society, 118–120
Russia and, 737, 738, 787 oral history of, 524–525(b) in Paleolithic society, P-7
Sic et Non (Abelard), 332 revolts in Haiti, 588, 613(b), 613–615, in Rome, 142, 170, 179–180
Sicily, 140(m), 304, 375 614(i), 629, 629(m) in Sumer, 9–10
in 400 B.C.E., 100(m) in Rome, 136(i), 140, 152, 170–171 Socialism, 675–677
Frederick II in, 373–374 Rousseau on, 563 feminist criticisms of, 932–933
Garibaldi and, 697 in 17th century, 508 in Germany, 776
Greeks in, 49 in Sparta, 60 in Indochina, 898
migration from, 743 in Sumer, 10 Marxist, 706
Persian Wars and, 73 in Suriname, 525(i) political parties and, 751
Rome and, 147 in United States, 705 women and, 676
World War II and, 870, 881 as widespread institution, 423, 425 World War I and, 815
Sickingen, Franz von (1481–1523), 428(i) Slave trade, 522(m), 523 Socialist parties, 751, 928
Sidonius Apollinaris (c. 430–479), 217 abolition of, 613(b), 670 Socialist realism, 847, 928, 929
Siege towers, 35 in Atlantic system, 521 Socialist Revolutionaries (Russia), 777
Sieyès, Emmanuel-Joseph (1748–1836), Congress of Vienna and, 638 Social mobility, World War I and, 825
592, 623 criticism of, 560 Social order, 668
Sigismund (Holy Roman Emperor, factors increasing, 508 conservatism and, 638–639
r. 1410–1437), 400, 409 from Hispaniola to Seville, 423 ideological views of, 654
Signori (Italy), 379–380 impact on Europe, 525–526 Social question, of 19th century, 664–667
Silent Spring (Carson), 966 private companies in, 508 Social sciences, 561, 720–721, 926–927
Silesia, 573, 574(m) profitability of, 425 Social security, welfare state and, 893
Silk industry, Byzantine, 242 c. 1780, 583(m) Social Security Act (U.S., 1935), 852
Silver stagnation in, 466 Social War (Rome, 91–87 B.C.E.), 154
imports into Spain, 465(f) white, 752 Social welfare
from New World, 455 Slavic language, alphabet for, 267 in Austria, 942
at Potosí, 426 Slavophiles (Russia), 672–673 in England, 853
supply of, 465 Slavs, 672 in former Soviet Union, 960
Silver Age, of Latin literature, 179 in Austria-Hungary, 756 in France, 854
Simon Magus (New Testament), 303n in Balkans, 241 in Germany, 755
Simons, Menno (1469–1561), 437 Byzantine Empire and, 240 in 19th century, 709–710
Simony, 303 crusades and, 354 in smaller states, 942
Simplicius (Pope, r. 468–483), 257 ethnicity and, 249(b) in Sweden, 853, 942
Simyonov, Yulian, 909 fragmentation of, 964–965 in United States, 852
Sin Hitler and, 840 in welfare state, 893–894
Christian, 182 Magyars and, 281 World War I and, 778, 826
shedding of blood as, 322(b) in Nazi Germany, 851 Societies for mutual help, 659, 677, 678
Sinai, 937 Otto I and, 289 Society. See also Art(s); Religion; Social
Singapore, 671, 864, 973 Pan-Slavism and, 702–703 hierarchies
Single Form (Hepworth), 908(i) Polanians as, 291 Aristotle on, 109
Sinn Fein (Ireland), 779 settlements of, 266 in Athenian Golden Age, 74–96
Sino-Japanese War (1894), 786 World War I and, 801, 807 attitudes toward poor in, 437–438
Sirmium, as Roman capital, 198 World War II genocide and, 862 in Austria-Hungary, 702
“Sister republics,” 607 Slovakia, 963, 965 beginnings of, P-3
Sisters (religious), 350 Slovaks, 682–683, 702, 854 of Brandenburg-Prussia, 493
Sistine Chapel, 405(i) Slovenes, 682–683 in Byzantine Empire, 242
Sit-ins, in United States, 904 Slovenia, 953, 955, 963, 964 in Çatalhöyük, P-14
Six Acts (Britain), 648 Slums, birth control in, 747 Christian, 208
Six Books of the Republic, The (Bodin), 474 Small Is Beautiful (Schumacher), 966 in Christianized Roman Empire, 197–198
Six-Day War (1967), 937 Smallpox, 545, 969 class struggles in, 677(b)
Skeletons, Neolithic, P-12(b)–P-13(b), P-12(i) Smart car, 967, 967(i) in cold war, 909–911
Skepticism, 125, 546–547, 638 Smelting, 12 Columbian exchange and, 420
Skin color, in Egypt, 16–17 Smith, Adam (1723–1790), 561, 565, 578, 579 conservatism and, 638–639
Society–Spain Index I-47

Darwin and, 719 Solar system, heliocentric model of, 126 domesticity in, 907
disease and, 663 Soldiers. See also Armed forces; Veterans eastern Europe and, 886
in Dutch Republic, 506–507 barbarians as, 196 economy in, 845–846
in eastern Roman Empire, 222–224 Byzantine, 244 German occupation by, 886
egalitarian Paleolithic, P-6 colonial World War I and, 802, 806 Gorbachev in, 943(i), 943–946
Egyptian, 19–20 hoplites as, 53–54 Islamic world and, 970
elites in, 741–742 Neo-Assyrian, 35 literary emigrés and, 936
in England, 703–705 in Persian Wars, 71 Nazi attack on (1941), 863
in Enlightenment, 567–573 Roman, 153, 189, 190 Nazi-Soviet Pact and, 861, 863
feudalism in, 282 in Russia, 695 nuclear plant of, 919
in Florence, 413, 414 Spartan, 59–60 Poland and, 863, 944–945
Frankish, 247–248 in Vietnam War, 930 political changes in, 928
in Great Depression, 842(b), 842–843 World War I and, 792–793, 805–806, 809 problems in, 937
Great Famine and, 381–382 World War II and, 868, 888 purges in, 846
Greek, 33–34, 42–47, 57 Solidarity movement, 945 scientific establishment in, 924
Hellenistic, 118–120 Solomon (Hebrew), 41, 41(i) social order in, 927–928
hierarchy in, P-7, 6 Solomon Bar Simson (12th century), social welfare in, 894
imperial, 740–750 314–315(b) Spanish Civil War and, 860
individuals and, 561–564 Solon (Athens, 594 B.C.E.), 51, 62 Stalin in, 832–833, 844–847
Islamic, 235, 236 Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr (1918–), 896, 935 as superpower, 883
Jews in, 297–298 Somalia, 969 World War II and, 864, 866, 870, 874, 881
in literature, 665–666 Somme, battle at the, 804, 805 youth in, 905
Marx on, 713 Sony Corporation, 917, 922 Soviet Union (former)
medieval synthesis in, 367–372 Sophie (Austria), 793 Chechnya and, 956–958, 960(i), 960–961
Merovingian, 250–253 Sophists, 81, 87, 88–90, 90(b) countries of (c. 2000), 957(m)
under Napoleon, 627 Sophocles (c. 496–406 B.C.E.), 94 international politics in, 960–961
Neolithic, P-8–P-15 Sorbonne, student riots at, 934 lifestyle in, 958, 958(i)
non-Roman in Roman Empire, 215 Sorrows of Young Werther, The (Goethe), 566 market economy in, 958–960
and order in 19th century, 705–715 Soubirous, Bernadette (St. Bernadette of Space exploration, 896, 918–919
Paleolithic, P-4–P-8 Lourdes) (1844–1879), 719 Spain. See also Cortes (Spain); Spanish Civil
Plato on, 108 Soul Mountain (Gao Xingjian), 978–979 War (1936–1939)
positivism and, 720–721 Source material, government archives as, 885 American colonies of, 425(m), 455
postindustrial, 915, 921–927 South (global), 969, 973, 983(m) Arabs in, 255
after protests of 1968, 935–936 South Africa, 973–974 Armada and, 459, 459(m)
Puritan, 459 South African (Boer) War (1899–1902), 785, bankruptcy in, 464
rapid change in, 654 803 Basque nationalists in, 965
religion and, 359–367, 434, 437 South America, 647(m), 743 church and state in, 255
Roman, 134–139, 140–142, 200–201 South Asia, 711–712, 902(i) commerce of, 469
Rousseau on, 561–564 Southeast Asia, 936 in Common Market, 942
in rural areas, 663–664 Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), Dutch revolt against, 456
in Russia, 695–696 898 empire of, 426, 456(m)
secular, 402(b), 560, 561 Southern Africa, imperialism in, 736 explorations by, 421–423
in Spain, 255 South Korea, 898, 973 government of, 410
Spartan, 59 South Slavs, 807 Greeks in, 49
in Turkey, 844 South Vietnam, 930, 936. See also Vietnam industrialization in, 729
20th century changes in, 763–764 Sovereignty, national, 378 Inquisition in, 414
in urban areas, 531–534 Soviet bloc Iraq War and, 972(i), 973
Utopian, 429 communist collapse in, 942–947, 948(m) Louis XIV and, 491
Visigoth, 216–217 dissent in, 945 Muslims in, 270, 452, 456
witchcraft and, 479 order restored in, 935–936 under Napoleon, 625
World War I and, 764–770, 799–800, postindustrial work life in, 923 nationalism in, 632
801(i), 825–827 revolutions of 1989 in, 945–947 nobility in, 567
World War II and, 866–868 scientific findings in, 924 Peace of Westphalia and, 463–464
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to World War II and, 894–897 Portugal and, 455
Animals, 668 Soviet bloc (former), 954(m), 968, 979–980 reconquista in, 305, 353, 354(m)
Society of Jesus (Jesuits), 439, 577 Soviet republics, World War I and, 816 revolts in, 462, 644, 644(m)
Society of Revolutionary Republican Soviets (councils), 811 in 17th century, 516(m)
Women, 605 Soviet Union. See also Russia; Soviet Union silver imports of, 465(f)
Society of Supporters of the Bill of Rights, (former) slave rebellion and, 614
580, 581 Afghanistan and, 944 suffrage in, 754
Society of the Friends of Blacks, 613(b), 614 archives of, 885, 885(i) terrorist attack in (2004), 972(i), 973
Society of United Irishmen, 609 arms race and, 887–888 Treaty of Tordesillas and, 423
Sociology, 720–721 atomic bomb test by, 890 unification of, 408, 410, 410(m)
Socrates (Athens, 469–399 B.C.E.), 81, 91(i), Baltic States and, 863, 870 U.S. and, 785
105 Berlin and, 887, 903 unity in medieval, 255
on ethics, 90–92 in cold war, 883–886, 909 Visigoths in, 217
execution of, 106 collapse of, 948(m), 953–961 war for independence by, 632, 632(m)
on gender roles in marriage, 84–85(b) creation of, 832–833 War of the Spanish Succession, 536,
Socratic method, 90–91 Czech protests and, 935 537(m), 538
Soissons, Council of (1121), 331 détente and, 937 war protest in (2003), 972(i)
Solaris (Lem), 919 dissident arts in, 929, 929(b) women in, 907
I-48 Index Spanish-American War–Sweden

Spanish-American War (1898), 785 Starvation Submarines


Spanish Armada (1588), 459, 459(m) in global South, 969 nuclear, 919
Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), 855, World War I and, 809 World War I warfare by, 804, 810
859–860, 860(i), 860(m) Star Wars program (SDI), 942 Sub-Saharan Africa, P-4, 802–803
Spanish Fury, 456 State (nation). See also Church and state; Subsistence economy, in western Europe,
Spanish language television, 980 Nation-state 249–250
Spanish Succession, War of the (1701–1713), Bolsheviks on, 813 Suburbs, 894
536–538 consolidation of state system, 536–545 Succession
Sparta, 48(m) expanded power of, 479 to Charlemagne, 277–278
Athens and, 69–70, 77 in Italy, 833–834 in Christian church, 184
coalition against, 110 in Near East, P-14–P-15 in Germany, 323
government of, 57 sovereignty of, 378 to Henry II (England), 340
in Hellenic League, 73 taxation of clergy and, 377–378 to Muhammad, 237
Ionian Revolt and, 71 State building Sudan, 969
Macedonia and, 112(m) in central and eastern Europe, 494(m) Sudetenland, 861
marriage in, 57 in Renaissance, 441 Suetonius (Rome, c. 70–130), 156, 157, 275
oligarchy in, 57–60 Statistics, interpretation of, 660–661(b) Suez Canal, 692, 712, 733, 733(m), 756, 801,
Peloponnesian League and, 74 Status. See also Classes; Social hierarchies; 844
Peloponnesian War and, 96, 97(m), 97–99, specific classes crisis over (1956), 899–900
98(f), 104–105 in Paleolithic society, P-6, P-7 Suffrage. See also Voting and voting rights
in 750–500 B.C.E., 57(m) in Rome, 136 in Britain, 677
Thebes and, 110 in Sumer, 9–10 in France, 680
Spartacists, 815 Statute in Favor of the Princes (1232), 374 male, 649, 677, 754
Specialization, business, 922 Staufer family (Hohenstaufens), 341–342 woman, 721, 764, 777–778, 822
Spectator, The (magazine), 534 Steamboats, 657 Suffragists, World War I and, 825
Spencer, Herbert (1820–1903), 720 Steam engines, 655, 656, 685 Al-Sufi (10th century), 271(i)
Spending Stedman, John Gabriel, 525(i) Sugar and sugar industry, 520
on education and research, 924 Steel, 727, 894 in Caribbean region, 470, 526(i)
by Japan, 973 Steele, Richard (1672–1729), 534 slavery in, 425, 508
military, 891(f), 910, 942 Steen, Jan (1626–1679), 507(i) as standard food item, 525–526
Speyer, Germany, 299, 313, 316(i) Stephen I (Saint, Hungary, r. 997–1038), 291 Suger (abbot of Saint-Denis, 1081–1152),
Spies and spying, novels about, 908–909 Stephen II (Pope r. 752–757), 256 322, 333–334
Spinoza, Benedict (1633–1677), 507 Stephen of Blois (England, r. 1135–1154), 337 Sukarno, Achmed (1901–1970), 901
Spirit of the Laws, The (Montesquieu), 549, Stephenson, George (1781–1848), 653, Suleiman I (the Magnificent) (Sultan,
560 654–655, 656 r. 1520–1566), 443–444, 444(i)
Spoleto, 256 Sterilization, voluntary, 920 Sulla, Lucius Cornelius (c. 138–78 B.C.E.),
Spontaneous ovulation, 719–720 Stilicho (Rome, c. 400 C.E.), 194(i) 153–155
Sports “Still Life” (Daguerre), 667 Sumer and Sumerians, 5, 7–11, 13. See also
in Britain, 572 Stirrups, 285 Mesopotamia
global culture and, 978 Stoa, in Athens, 78 Summa, 367–368
in Greece, 45(i), 45–46 Stockhausen, Karlheinz (1928–), 926 Summa Theologiae (Thomas Aquinas), 368
popular blood, 668 Stock market, 839–840 Sun Also Rises, The (Hemingway), 826
professional, 742–743 Stoicism, 123–125, 185, 188 Sunday school movement, 667–668
team, 742(i) Stolypin, Pyotr (1863–1911), 788 Sunna, 237
World War I and, 828 Stone Age. See Neolithic Age; Paleolithic Age Sunni Muslims, 237, 270, 311
Sputnik, 896, 918 Stopes, Marie (1880–1958), 826 Sun Yat-Sen (China, 1866–1925), 788
Srebrenica, slaughter of Muslims in, 954 Story of an African Farm, The (Schreiner), 747 Superpowers. See also Soviet Union; United
SS. See Schutzstaffel (SS) Story of Sinuhe, The (Egypt), 20 States
Stadholder (Dutch official), 505–506, 589 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 694 balance of power and, 936–942
Staël, Anne-Louise-Germaine de Stranger, The (Camus), 903 cold war and, 912(m), 927–936
(1766–1817), 611(b), 627, 627(i), 632 Strasbourg, 431(b) German occupation and, 886–888
Stagflation, 938, 938(i), 941 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), glasnost, perestroika, and, 944
Stained glass, 370–371, 371(i) 937 order after 1968 and, 935–936
Stalin, Joseph (1879–1953), 832–833, 840, Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), 942 World War II and, 883, 888(m)
844–847, 885, 895–896 Strategos (general), 242 Supersonic aircraft, 922
cold war and, 884 Strauss, Richard (1864–1949), 775 Supply-side theories, 940
Germany and, 886–887 Stravinsky, Igor (1882–1971), 775 Supranational organizations, 965
Hitler and, 863 Strikes, 750 Supranational policy, in Europe, 961
Nazi-Soviet Pact and, 861 in Baku, 787 Sura, in Qur’an, 234, 235(i)
totalitarianism of, 845(b) in Britain, 677 Suriname, slaves in, 525(i)
World War II and, 874, 883 Civil Code of Napoleon and, 626–627 Survival of the fittest, 719
Stalingrad, battle of (1942–1943), 870, 871(i) in English coal industry (1926), 823 Susa, palace in, 73(i)
Stamp Act (Britain, 1765), 582 in Europe, 678 Sutri, Synod of (1046), 303
Standard of living government responses to, 751 Suttner, Bertha von (1843–1914), 777
in eastern Europe, 963 in 1968, 934 Suu Kyi, Aung San, 978
in Soviet Union, 943 in Russia, 787, 788 Suzdal, 346
World War II and, 894 Structuralism, 927 Swabia, 375
Standard of Ur (Sumer), 9(i) Struggle of the orders (Rome), 142 Sweden, 464, 881
Standard Oil Trust, 730 Students, activism by, 931, 933, 934 armed forces in 17th century, 493(b)
Stanford Bridge, battle at, 320 Subjection of Women, The (Mill), 721 birthrate in, 766
Stanley, Henry (1841–1904), 736(b) Subjectivism, 89 Congress of Vienna and, 638
Sweden–Third Reich Index I-49

Great Northern War and, 542–543, 543(m) medieval collection of, 299(i) as global issue, 952
income tax in, 708–709 under Napoleon, 631 in Middle East and North Africa, 971
industrialization in, 729 of papal property, 256 Muslim, 960(i)
Ivan IV and, 460 of peasants, 468, 568 in Nazi Germany, 848–849
migration from, 743 in Persian Empire, 38 Palestinian suicide bombers, 970–971
in 1930s, 852–853 recording of information on, 11 in Russia, 757, 758
Peace of Westphalia and, 463 reforms in, 576 on September 11, 2001, 970(i), 971–972
service-sector employees in, 923 revolts against, 464 in Spain, 972(i)
social welfare in, 942 in Rome, 166, 177, 200 at U.S. embassy in Iran, 939
in Thirty Years’ War, 461, 462 in Spain, 459 in West Germany, 939, 942
university students in, 924 in Sweden, 708–709 World War I and, 777
Swiss Confederation, 411(m), 411–412, 463 in United States, 941–942 Tertiaries, 363
Switzerland, 278 Taylor, Frederick (1856–1915), 825, 832 Tertullian (Christian leader, c. 160–240),
Syllabus of Errors, The, 719 Tea Act (Britain, 1773), 582 183, 186(b)
Symmachus (Rome, c. 340–402), 205 Team sports, 742(i), 743 Test Act (England, 1673), 503
Synagogues. See also Temples Technocrats, 892 Test-ban treaty, 910–911
in Palestine, 206 Technology. See also Science Test-tube babies, 921(i)
in Worms, 297(i), 313 arts and, 664 Tet Offensive, 933
Syncretism, 205(i) bronze in Egypt, 21 Tetradia, 252
Syndicalists, 777 in Crimean War, 693 Tetrarchy, 198, 204(i)
Synod of Whitby, 253–254, 255 global, 952 Tetzel, Johann (c. 1465–1519), 429
Synods global economy and, 975–977 Texas, 705
in Spain, 255 industrial change and, 745–746 Textile industry, 465–466, 727
of Sutri (1046), 303 industrialization and, 654–655 in Britain, 631, 658–659, 660–661
Syracuse, 49, 70, 73, 98–99 of iron metallurgy, 43 in France, 592
Syria, P-8 Luddites and, 656 in India, 526, 711–712
Fatimids in, 270 maritime, 421 industrialization of, 655–656
Greeks and, 49 medieval economy and, 249–250 Thales (Miletus, c. 625–545 B.C.E.), 65
Israel and, 937 in Mesopotamia, 9 Thalidomide, impact on children, 920(i)
Muslims in, 236–237 military, 35, 127 Thatcher, Margaret (1925–), 940(i),
Persia and, 191, 240 music and, 926 940–941, 941(b)
Tell Abu Hureyra in, P-12–P-13 in 1960s, 916–921 Theaters, 471–472, 512–513. See also Drama
Syriac language, 222 Paleolithic, P-6–P-8 Greek drama and, 92–96, 94(i), 95(m)
System of Positive Politics . . . . (Comte), 720 printing, 426–427 Louis XIV and, 487–488
Széchenyi, Stephen (1791–1860), 675, 682, 684 protests against, 931 Thebes, 21, 104, 110, 112
in Soviet Union, 943 Themes (military districts), 242, 262
Taaffe, Edouard von (1833–1895), 756 space, 896, 919 Themistocles (Athens, c. 528–462 B.C.E.), 71,
Tabula rasa (blank slate), 505 status and, 6 72, 73, 74, 76(i), 77
Tacitus (c. 56–120), 179 Western imperialism and, 736 Theocracy, Islamic, 967
on Augustus, 167 World War I and, 765(i), 803, 806, 831 Theocritus (c. 300–260 B.C.E.), 121
Robespierre and, 600 World War II and, 891 Theodora (eastern Roman Empire,
on Roman emperors, 175 Technopoles, in Soviet Union, 928 500–548), 221, 222, 223, 223(i)
Tahiti, 670 “Teddy boys” (England), 905 Theodore (Archbishop, r. 669–690), 254
Taifas (principality), 270, 272(b), 305 Teenagers, in 1960s, 925 Theodore (Pope, r. 642–649), 257(i)
Taiping (“Heavenly Kingdom” movement), Teheran, U.S. embassy hostages in, 939 Theodoric (Ostrogoths, r. 493–526), 217, 219
712 Telegraph, 731 Theodosius I (Rome, r. 379–395), 195, 196,
Taiwan, 857(m), 858(b), 973 Telephone, 731(i) 205–206, 216
Tajikistan, 956 Telescope, 475 Theogony (Hesiod), 46–47
Taliban, 970, 971 Television, 908, 916–917, 978 Theology
Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de in 1960s, 925 of Arian Christianity, 209–210
(1754–1838), 637 Spanish-language, 980 of Augustine of Hippo, 208, 211–212
Talmuds, Babylonian, 207 Tell Abu Hureyra, P-12–P-13 Christian, 205, 211
Tanzania, World War I and, 802 Tell el-Amarna, Egypt, 22 classical rhetoric and, 226
Tapestry, 486 Temperance movement, 668 in eastern Roman Empire, 222
Tariffs, 730 Temples. See also Synagogues Hellenistic, 129
internal, 630–631 in Egypt, 21, 23 of Islam, 235–236
in 17th century France, 490 Jewish, in Jerusalem, 41, 129, 182 of Justinian, 225
Tarqinia, 141(i) Neo-Assyrian, 36 medieval, 329
Tartuffe (Molière), 487 ziggurats as, 8 schools of, 329
Tatars, demonstrations by, 787 Tenant farmers, 247 Theory of Harmony (Schoenberg), 776
Taxation Hellenistic, 119 Thera (polis), 52(b)
business and, 977 in Rome, 200 Thermidorian Reaction, 606–607
of clergy, 377–378 Ten Commandments, 40 Thermopylae, battle at, 73
Danegeld and, 280 Ten Days That Shook the World (movie), 828 Theseus (legendary founder of Athens), 213
in eastern Roman Empire, 223, 224 “Tennis court oath,” 592 Third Council of Toledo, 255
in Egypt, 20 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (1809–1892), 669 Third Crusade, 340, 351
in England, 321, 498 Tenochtitlán (Mexico City), 426 Third Estate (general populace), 593, 593(i)
in Florence, 413–414 Tereshkova, Valentina (1937–), 918, 918(i) Third International, 813
in 14th century, 396, 410 Terror (France), 600–607 Third Lateran Council, 367
in France, 322, 396, 411, 464, 485, 491, Terrorism Third Punic War (149–146 B.C.E.), 148
591–592, 595, 679 French Revolution and, 588 Third Reich (Germany), 849, 871
I-50 Index Third Republic–Turkey

Third Republic (France), 753–754 To the Nobility of the German Nation nuclear test-ban, 910–911
Third world, 880 (Luther), 430 World War I and, 816–818
Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, 458 Touraine, France and, 341 Trench warfare, World War I and, 803, 805,
Thirty Tyrants, 99, 106 Tour de France, 743 805(i), 806
Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), 460–463, Tourism, 977, 978(i) Trial, The (Kafka), 831
461(i), 462(b), 463(m), 479 Tours, in c. 600, 248(m) Trials
defenestration of Prague, 450(i) Toussaint L’Ouverture, François Dominique of Bolsheviks, 846
economic crisis after, 465–471 (1743–1803), 614(i), 615 of Nazis, 888, 889
Peace of Westphalia and, 463–465 Towns. See Cities and towns; Urban areas; Tribal Assembly (Rome), 143–144
as religious conflict, 451–452 Villages; specific locations Tribes. See also specific groups
Tholos tombs, 27 Toxic waste, 966 Hebrew, 41
Thomas Aquinas (Saint, c. 1225–1274), 368, Trade. See also Commerce; Free trade Islamic ummah as, 236
397 in ancient civilizations, 4 non-Roman, 215
Thomas of Monmouth, blood libel and, 366 Assyrian, 14 Viking, 267
Thornton, Alice, 469 Athenian, 77 Tribunes (Rome)
Thoth (god), 2(i), 3–4 Atlantic system of, 520 Augustus and, 165–166
Thrace, 195, 356(m) in Austria-Hungary, 756 Gaius Gracchus as, 152–153
Three Emperors’ League, 755, 756 Byzantine, 264 Tiberius Gracchus as, 152
Three-field system, 279 Carolingian, 278–279 Tributes, Danegeld as, 280
Three Guineas (Woolf), 855 with China, 380 Tricolor (French flag), 603, 753
“Three Principles of the People” (Sun competition in, 469 Triennial Act (Great Britain, 1694), 539
Yat-Sen), 788 consumer revolution and, 528 Trier, as Roman capital, 198
Thucydides of Athens (historian, c. 455–399 Continental System of, 631 Trietschke, Heinrich von, 795(b)
B.C.E.), 75, 92 in crusader states, 317 Trinity, Christian, 209–210
Funeral Oration of Pericles, 84(b) deficits in, 730 Triple Alliance, 756, 790, 800
on Peloponnesian War, 96, 98(f) Dutch and, 426, 457–458 Triremes (warships), 74, 75(i)
Thysdrus, Tunisia, 179(i) in England, 853 Tristan, Flora (1801–1844), 676
Tiananmen Square, riots in, 945, 977 in 15th century, 420 Triumvirate (Rome)
Tiberius (Rome, r. 14–37), 166(i), 174, in France, 692 First, 158
177, 181 in Germany, 928 Second, 165
Tiberius Gracchus. See Gracchus family global, 952 Trivium, 328–329
Tigris River region, P-8, 7 in Great Depression, 841 Trojan War, 27, 29, 33, 44, 46
Tilak, B. G. (1856–1920), 788 Greek, 34, 43–44, 47–51 Troops. See Armed forces; Military; Soldiers
Tilsit, Treaties of, 629–630 in India, 9 Trotsky, Leon (1879–1940), 813, 833
Timbuktu, Islamic trade with, 271 with Japan, 712 Troubadours, 347–348, 348(i)
Time, and Mesopotamian division of hours, long-distance, P-6, 7 Trousers, 624(i)
minutes, and degrees, 15 markets and, 296–297 Trouvères (singers), 348
Time of Troubles, 460 medieval, 250, 298(m), 299 Trowel (Oldenberg), 926(i)
Tin, 43 Neolithic, P-12–P-13 Troy, 27
Tinguely, Jean, 926 Paleolithic, P-6 Truce of God, 287, 311
Tithe, 468 patterns of European, c. 1740, 522(m) Truce of Nice (1538), 443(i)
Tito (Josip Broz) (1892–1980), 886 Roman, 140, 177, 192(m) Truman, Harry S. (1884–1972), 872(m),
Titus (Rome, r. 79–81 C.E.), 175, 182 in Sumer, 8 874, 884, 886
Tlaxcala, New Spain, 419 World War I and, 820–821 Truman Doctrine, 884–886
Tobacco, 470, 526 Trade unions. See also Labor unions Trusts (business), 730
Tocqueville, Alexis de (1805–1859), in Britain, 677 Truth (Protagoras), 89
659–660, 679–680, 681(b) in Europe, 678 Tsars (Russia). See also specific individuals
Tokyo Trafalgar, battle of (1805), 629 as absolutists, 496
rebuilding of, 738 Tragedy, Greek, 92–95 Tsushima Straits, battle of, 786
World War II and, 864, 873 Trajan (Rome, r. 98–117 C.E.), 175, 176(m), Tuberculosis, 663, 894
Toledo, Third Council of, 255 179 Tuileries palace, 598–599
Toleration Act (England, 1689), 504 Translations, 330. See also Bible Tullia (Rome, c. 79–45 B.C.E.), 137
Tolstoy, Leo (1828–1910), 690, 757 Transnationalism, 961–964, 979 Tunis. See Carthage
Tolstoya, Tatyana, Gorbachev criticized by, Transplants, organ, 920 Tunisia
943 Transportation. See also Canals; Mass France and, 733
Tombs. See Burials transport; specific types independence for, 901
To Myself (Meditations) (Marcus Aurelius), of food, 731 Turgenev, Ivan (1818–1883), 694, 716
188 urban in 19th century, 728(i) Turgot, Jacques (1727–1781), 578, 579
Tonkin, 737 World War I and, 803 Turkey, P-4n, P-8, 48(m). See also Anatolia;
Tools Trans-Siberian Railroad, 729, 737, 786 Ottoman Empire
handaxe as, P-2(i) Transvaal, 785 in cold war, 884–886
iron, 43–44, 301 Transylvania, 683(i) Crimean War and, 692–694
Paleolithic, P-6 Trapnel, Anna, 500 EU and, 961–962, 976–977(b)
Torah, 40, 42 Trasformismo policy (Italy), 779 immigrants to Europe from, 902
Tordesillas, Treaty of (1494), 423 Travel, 47–48, 520, 549 Kemal Atatürk in, 843–844
Tories (England), 503–504, 703 Travels in Icaria (Cabet), 676 Mycenaeans and, 27
Torture, 474, 560, 577 Travels of Marco Polo, The (Marco Polo), Neolithic settlements in, P-11
Totalitarianism, 845(b) 421 as republic, 843–844
in Europe, 844–852 Treaties. See also specific treaties Russian war with, 756
French Revolution and, 588, 590(b), 601 after battle of Kadeseh, 25 Sea Peoples and, 29
Total war, World War I and, 800, 821–822 Grotius and, 474 in West, 5
Turkey–Venereal disease Index I-51

World War II and, 861 Korean War and, 898 Urban areas, 529, 653. See also Cities and
Young Turks and, 789–790 in Kosovo, 954–955 towns; specific locations
Turks, in Constantinople (1453), 218 newly independent nations in, 901 in Athenian Golden Age, 77–80
Turner, Joseph M. W. (1775–1851), 641, 665, Palestine partition and, 899 in Byzantine Empire, 240–242
665(i) United States crime in, 663
Tustari brothers (merchants), 270–271 American Revolution and, 581–583 education in, 709–710
Tutankhamun (Egypt, r. 1355–1346 B.C.E.), 22 arms race and, 887 in Enlightenment, 568
Twelve Tables (Rome), 142 civil rights in, 904, 931 Hellenistic, 117–118
2001: A Space Odyssey (movie), 918–919, 935 Civil War in, 696, 705 industrialization and, 659, 661–662
Two-field system, 279 in cold war, 883–886 in Italy, 287
“Two Islands, The” (Hugo), 635(b) cultural dominance by, 980 migration to, 659, 662
Two Treatises of Government (Locke), 505 debt of, 973 in 19th century, 726
Tychê (god), 127 détente policy and, 937 refurbishing, 706–707
Tyndale, William (1495–1536), 437 dominance by, 952 riots in United States, 931
Tyrants and tyranny economic theories in, 940 social life in, 531–534
in Athens, 63 economy in, 824–825 uncertainties in, 678–679
in Corinth, 57 vs. Europe, 952 World War I and, 765, 765(i)
in Greece, 54 expansion of, 705, 706(m) World War II and, 894
Tyre, 113 foreign policy of, 936–939 Urbanization, 661–663, 744
Tz’u-hsi (Empress) (Cixi, China, German occupation by, 886 Crystal Palace as view of, 685
1835–1908), 788 Great Depression in, 852 in Dutch Republic, 507
industrialization of, 729 in eastern Europe, 895
Ubayd Allah (Fatimids, d. 934), 270 interventionism of, 884 ideologies and, 671
U-boats. See Submarines McCarthy in, 890 in literature, 665–666
Ukraine migrants to, 746(f) population change and, 766
in CIS, 957(m) nation building in, 705 romanticism and, 664–667
Cossacks in, 497 pollution from, 967 Ur-Nammu (Ur), 9(i)
fertility rate in, 968 under Reagan, 941–942 Uruk, Mesopotamia, 11–12
Kiev and, 267 September 11, 2001, attacks on, 970(i), USSR. See Soviet Union
under Poland-Lithuania, 460 971–972 Usury, 300, 363(i), 365
Russia and, 961 service-sector employees in, 923 Uthman (Umayyad, r. 644–656), 237
Ulster, 824, 824(m), 939(i) slavery in, 670 Utilitarianism, 674
Ultra group, 863 social disorder in, 928–934 Utnapishtim (Mesopotamia), 12
Ultras (French ultraroyalists), 639 social protests and, 927 Utopia, communist, 831
Ulysses (Joyce), 831 in Spanish-American War, 785 Utopia (More), 429
Umayyads, 235(i), 236(m), 262 stock market collapse in (1929), 839–840 Utopianism, 590(b)
caliphate of, 237 as superpower, 883 Utrecht, Peace of (1713–1714), 537(m), 538,
coin of, 239(b), 239(i) temperance societies in, 668 544
poetry of, 238 Watergate scandal in, 937 Uzbekistan, Alexander the Great in, 113
in Spain, 270 welfare state in, 894(i)
Ummah, 234, 236 World War I and, 820 Vaccines, 894
UN. See United Nations (UN) World War II and, 864, 880–881 Václav (Bohemia, r. 920–929), 291
Unam Sanctam (papal bull, 1302), 378 United States of Belgium, 590 Valdemar I (Denmark, r. 1157–1182),
Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Universal Exhibition (Manet), 717 353–354
(Kundera), 935–936 Universal Exposition (Paris, 1889), 727 Valens (Rome, r. 364–378), 195, 216
Uncertainty (indeterminacy) principle, 856 Universe. See also Astronomy Valerian (Rome, r. 253–260 C.E.), 191
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 694 big bang theory of, 919 Valerius Flaccus, 401
Underclass, in geniza documents, 318 Universities. See also Education; Higher Vallain, Jeanne-Louise, 602(i)
Underground economy, in Russia, 958 education Valois dynasty (France), 442(m), 442–443,
Unemployment Enlightenment and, 558 445, 453
assistance in England, 778 Great Awakening and, 566 Values
in 1848, 678 growth in 1960s, 924 humane, 904
in former Soviet Union, 958, 958(i) in Middle Ages, 328–332 modern, 981–982
in Germany, 849 need for reform in, 571 in Rome, 134–136, 143, 155
in Great Depression, 842, 842(b) resurgence of, 612 Spartan, 59–60
in prerevolutionary France, 592 student activism in, 931 “Western,” 903–905
World War I and, 822 women in, 332 Vandals, 217
Unification. See also Berlin; Berlin Wall; Upper classes. See also Aristocracy; Classes; Van de Velde, Theodor, 826
Germany Elites; Lords Van Eyck, Jan (1390–1441), 406, 408(i)
of Egypt, 16 families in, 742 Van Gogh, Theo, 976
of Europe, 953 Roman women in, 137 Van Gogh, Vincent (1853–1890), 749–750
of Germany, 689, 699–702, 700(m) in Russia, 696 Varro, 401
of Italy, 689, 696–698, 698(m) seclusion of women in, 527 Vasari, Giorgio (1511–1574), 402(b)
Union of Indochina, 737–738, 738(m) Upper Egypt, 16 Vassals, 282–283, 289, 290–291, 345–346
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Ur (city), 9, 39 Vatican, Mussolini and, 833
See Soviet Union ziggurat of, 8 Vatican II, 903, 927
Union of Soviet Writers, 847 Ur III dynasty, 13 Vega, Lope de la, 472
Unions. See Labor unions Uranium, 772 Velázquez, Diego (1465–1524), 464(i)
United Nations (UN), 874, 880, 891 Urban II (Pope, r. 1088–1099), 312–313, Velvet revolution, in Czechoslovakia, 946–947
Bosnia and, 954 314(b) Vendée Rebellion (1793), 604(m), 604–605
former Yugoslavia and, 954, 955(m) Urban VI (Pope, r. 1378–1389), 398 Venereal disease, prostitution and, 709
I-52 Index Venetia–Wealth

Venetia, 697, 698 loyalties and obligations in, 285 Walpole, Robert (1676–1745), 539(i),
Venice medieval, 248, 284–285 539–540
Fourth Crusade and, 351–352 Neolithic farming, P-10–P-14, 7 Walter, Jakob (1788–1864), 633(b)
in late 17th century, 516(m) Villani, Matteo (d. c. 1363), 390–391 Wanamaker, John (1838–1922), 732
as major power, 408, 412 Villeneuve Saint-Georges (manor), 279 Wanderer about the Sea of Fog (Friedrich),
Piazza San Marco in, 413(i) Violence. See also Wars and warfare 643
Renaissance arts in, 412 Fanon’s analyses of, 904 War and Peace (Tolstoy), 757
Spain and, 455 peace of God movement against, 287 War communism, in Russia, 831, 832
Venne, Adriaen Pietersz van de, 468(i) Vipsania (Rome), 174 War crimes, in World War II, 888–889
Ventris, Michael, 28 Virgil (70–19 B.C.E.), 172, 176, 179, 275 War guilt clause, 818
Venus figurines, P-7, P-7(i) Virginia, African slaves in, 466 Warhol, Andy (1928–1987), 926
Verdi, Giuseppe, 688(i), 689, 712 Virgin Mary Warinus (abbot, St. Arnulf of Metz), 304(i)
Verdun Chartres Cathedral and, 327 War of Independence (United States). See
battle at, 804, 805 Cistercian churches and, 310 American War of Independence
Treaty of (843), 275, 278, 289 Virgin of Chancellor Rolin, The (Van Eyck), War of Italian Unification, 692
Vernacular languages 406, 408(i) War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1713),
in England, 254–255, 288 Virtue 536–538
high culture in, 346–349 Socrates on, 91 Warriors. See also Armed forces; Soldiers
medieval literature in, 369 Stoic, 125 Greek and Persian, 68(i)
in Middle Ages, 328 Virtus, in Rome, 134–135 Huns as, 215
Versailles, 482(i), 483, 488(i), 488–489 Viruses, P-10, 969 lords as, 282
Estates General at, 592 Visigoths, 195, 216–217, 219–220, 255 Merovingian aristocrats as, 250–251
German Empire proclaimed at, 701 Visual arts. See also Art(s) Mycenaean, 27
march to, 587 in 1960s, 925–926 pharaohs as, 21
Versailles Treaty, 817–818 Vives, Juan Luis (1492–1540), 438 prohibitions on fighting by, 287
Vesalius, Andreas (1514–1564), 476 Vivian Bible, 278(i) in Sparta, 59
Vespasian (Rome, r. 69–79), 169, 175 Viziers, Islamic, 272 Wars and warfare. See also Armed forces;
Vespucci, Amerigo (1454–1512), 423 Vladimir (Kiev, r. c. 980–1015), 267 Fortifications; Mercenaries; specific
Vesta (goddess), 138 Vladislav Jagiello (Bohemia, r. 1471–1516), battles and wars
Vestal Virgins (Rome), 138 409 absolutism and, 491
Vesuvius, eruption of (79 C.E.), 151(i), 175 Voice of America, 909 of Charlemagne, 273–274
Veterans, World War I and, 821, 822, 825 Volksgemeinschaft, in Germany, 848, 849 in 14th century, 395–396
Vichy France, 863 Volkswagen, 922 Great Famine and, 382
Victor Emmanuel II (Italy, r. 1861–1878), Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) holy, 311
689, 696, 697, 698(m) (1694–1778), 548(b), 548–549, 558 of liberation, 607
Victor Emmanuel III (Italy, r. 1900–1946), Catherine II and, 555 medieval warriors and, 285–286
833 criticism of torture by, 560 nation building and, 696–705
Victoria (England, r. 1837–1901), 684, persecution of, 564 Neolithic origins of, P-10
703–705, 704(b), 704(i), 711 Voting and voting rights. See also Suffrage of non-Roman peoples, 215
Victorian epoch, 669–670, 703–705 in Athens, 76 pacifism and, 777
Vidal, Peire (troubadour poet), 348(i) in Britain, 649 for political control, 573–576
Video recorders, 917 in England, 752–753 shifting reasons for, 464
Vienna, 702, 706, 707(i) in France, 680 Warsaw, duchy of, 638
growth of, 662 mass politics and, 750 Warsaw Ghetto, 866(i)
housing in, 826(i) for men, 754 Warsaw Pact, 887, 888(m)
Ottoman siege of, 443, 444(i), 495, 495(i) in 19th century, 715–716 Washington, George (1732–1799), 582
uprising of 1848 in, 683 in Roman assemblies, 144 Washington Conference (1921), 821, 824
Vietcong, 930 for women, 721, 777–778 “Waste Land, The” (Eliot), 830
Viet Minh, 898 Vranitsky, Franz, 942 Waste materials, recycling of, 967
Vietnam, 737. See also Indochina; Vsevolod III (Russia, r. 1176–1212), 346 Watergate scandal, 937
Vietnam War Waterloo, battle at (1815), 634
in cold war, 898–899 Wages Water supplies, in cities, 707–708
division of, 930 controls in Roman Empire, 200, 201(b) Waterways. See also Rivers
France and, 712 by gender, 923 canals, 302, 656, 663
World War I workers from, 809 of industrial workers, 678 medieval commerce and, 299
Vietnam War (1954–1975), 930, 930(m) for women, 732 Watson, James, 906
peace and, 936 Wagner, Richard (1813–1883), 717–718 Watt, James (1736–1819), 655
protests against, 931 Wajda, Andrzej, 906 Watteau, Antoine (1684–1721), 534–535
Tet Offensive in, 933 Walachia, 693 Wat Tyler’s Rebellion (1381), 396, 398(b),
Vigée-Lebrun, Marie-Louise-Elizabeth Waldensians, 351 400
(1755–1842), 570, 591(i) Waldo (12th century), 351 Wealth
Vigilius (Pope), 225 Wales, 217 distribution of, 822
Vikings, 278–279 Walesa, Lech (1943–), 945 in global cities, 964
in England, 288 Walker, Robert, 502(i) health care and, 969
invasions by, 279–280 Walled cities in Hellenistic world, 117–118, 120
Kievan Russia and, 267 in Italy, 287 from imperialism, 740–742
9th and 10th century invasions by, 281(m) medieval, 299 of Knights Templar, 317
picture stones of, 280(i) Roman, 189 of medieval women, 284(f)
Villages Wallenberg, Raoul (1912–1947), 870 from New World plantations, 521
Çatalhöyük, Turkey, as, P-10–P-11 Wallenstein, Albrecht von (1583–1634), 461 of nobility, 567–568
Jericho as, P-10, P-11(i) Wall painting, from Knossos, 25(i) Smith, Adam, on, 561
Weapons–Women Index I-53

Weapons. See also Arms race; Nuclear Europe as, 5 Windischgrätz, Alfred von (1787–1862), 683
weapons; Technology fragmentation of, 964–965 Wind power, 967
African imperialism and, 736 global migration and, 974–975 Wireless technology, 828
for Bosnian Muslims, 954 Great Depression beyond, 843–844 Wisdom literature, 20, 37, 42
bronze, 12–13 illnesses in, 969 Witches and witchcraft, 478(i), 478–479
Cuban missile crisis and, 910, 911(m) vs. Islam, 969–973 Wittenberg, 429, 430
Greek, 54 Japanese expansionism and, 857–858 Wives, Hammurabi on, 14
Hellenistic, 117 Mongol impact on, 380 Wladyslaw II Jagiello (Lithuania-Poland,
Hittite, 25 Nazi invasions and, 861 r. 1377–1434), 409–410
of warriors, 285 new imperialism and, 726–727 Wolf, Christa, 928
World War I and, 792–793, 803, 804 non-Roman kingdoms in, 214–221 “Wolf-Man” (Freud’s patient), 763, 764
World War II and, 863, 868(f) non-Western control by, 710–713 Wollaston, John, 567(i)
Weber, Max (1864–1920), 772 nuclear power in, 919 Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759–1797), 619
Weddings, 56–57, 307–308 postindustrial work life in, 922–923, 924 Wolsey, Thomas (c. 1475–1530), 434
Wedgwood, Josiah (1730–1795), 569 religion and, 324(m), 927 Woman suffrage, 721, 764, 777–778
Weimar Republic, 815–816, 823, 834, 847 rivalry to, 952 in Finland, 778, 778(i)
Welfare. See Social welfare West Germany, 887, 887(m), 888(m) World War I and, 822
Welfare state, 893–894, 894(i), 928 economy of, 891 Women. See also Feminism; Gender; Girls;
in Austria, 942 former fascists and Nazis in, 889 Woman suffrage; Women’s rights
in Britain, 941 Green Party in, 966 activism of, 931
television programming and, 917 inflation in, 942 in aristocracy, 286
in United States, 852 policy changes in, 928 Aristotle on, 109
Wellington, Arthur Wellesley (Duke of, postwar culture of, 906 in arts, 749
1769–1852), 634, 648 postwar politics in, 890 Assyrian, 36
Wells, H. G. (1866–1946), 763, 805 terrorism in, 939, 942 in Athens, 77, 81, 105
Wergild, 219–220 university students in, 924 as authors, 11, 513, 549–550
Werner, Anton von, 699(i) welfare state and, 893–894 Beauvoir and, 904
Wesley, John (1703–1791), 566–567, 639, 640 women’s movement in, 931 birth control and, 766
Wessex, 288 West Indies, 421, 575, 575(m) black, 932
Alfred the Great in, 287–288 Westphalia, Peace of (1648), 463(m), charitable work of, 668
West Africa 463–465, 544 in Chartist movement, 677
decolonization in, 900 What Is Property? (Proudhon), 676 Christian, 182, 184–185, 208
Portuguese exploration of, 420–421 What Is the Third Estate? (Sieyès), 592 Civil Code of Napoleon and, 626
slave trade and, 521, 523 When She Approached (Ibn Darraj colleges for, 710
Treaty of Tordesillas and, 423 al-Quastali), 272(b) as composers, 11
West Bank, 937 Whigs (England), 503–504, 539, 703 in dangerous trades, 747
Western civilization. See also Western world Whitby, Synod of, 253–254, 255 domesticity and, 668–669, 731
defining, 4–6 White-collar service workers, 922–923 in domestic service, 468, 532
location of ancient, 6–16 Whitefield, George (1714–1770), 567(i), 640 earnings of, 923
Western Europe White Mountain, battle of, 461 in eastern Roman Empire, 222
after Carolingians, 282–291 Whites education for, 332
and eastern Roman Empire (600), 228(m) civil rights movement and, 904, 928–930 in Egypt, 20, 21
economic rebirth of, 891 Darwin on, 720 in elite classes, 741–742
governments in, 336–346 Whites (faction), in Russia, 812, 813 emigration of, 513–514
kingdoms in, 245–257 White slave trade, 752 in England, 703
medieval economy in, 248–250 Why God Became Man (Anse), 311, 321 Enlightenment and, 562–563(b)
money economy in, 295–296 Wilde, Oscar (1854–1900), 768, 768(i) as factory workers, 660–661
Russia and, 267 Wild One, The (movie), 905 feminist debates and, 932–933(b)
social order in, 927–928 Wilkes, John (1727–1797), 580, 581 in France, 679, 680(i), 854
uniting by Charlemagne, 275(m) William (Franks, 9th century), 261, 278 in Frankish kingdoms, 248
western Roman Empire as, 231 William I (the Conqueror) (England, in French Revolution, 586(i), 587,
and world (c. 1890), 760 (map) 1027–1087), 319–320, 321(i) 595–596, 604, 605
World War I and, 823–824 William I (Prussia and Germany, Freud on, 770
Western front, World War I and, 804, r. 1861–1888), 699, 699(i), 755 Gouges on rights of, 596
804(m) William I of Orange (the Silent) in Great Depression, 842
Westernization (1533–1584), 453, 456, 457 in Greece, 44(i), 47, 56–57, 81, 82–85, 105(i)
of Russia, 540–541 William II (Germany, r. 1888–1918), in Greek comedies, 96
of Turkey, 843–844 758–759, 768, 771(i), 776, 790, 792 Hebrew, 40–41
Westernizers (Russia), 672–673 flight from Germany, 814 in Hellenistic world, 119–120, 121, 122(b)
Western Roman Empire, 194(i), 196–197, World War I and, 804, 806 as hetaira (companions), 83–84
198–200, 199(m), 220(m). See also William III (Prince of Orange and king of Hittite, 24
Eastern Roman Empire; Roman Empire England and Scotland, r. 1689–1702), homosexual activity between, 225
separation from eastern empire, 225–226 504, 536, 538, 539 as immigrants, 527
transformation of, 217 William IX of Aquitaine (1071–1126), 347 in Islam, 236
as western Europe, 231 William of Champeaux, 330 in Italy, 834
Western world. See also World War I; World Williamson, Jeffrey G., 661(b) in labor organizations, 751
War II Wilson, Woodrow (1856–1924), 790, literature and, 535, 571, 666
civilizations in, 4 804, 816 living standards of, 973
cultural transformation in, 219–221 Fourteen Points, 810, 816, 818(b) marriage and, 84–85(b), 767
culture from beyond, 978–979 League of Nations and, 818–820 mass politics and, 750
economies in, 939 Winchester, England, housing in, 298–299 medieval peasant, 279
I-54 Index Women–Yukos Oil Company

Women (Continued) in political parties, 751–752 genocide in, 862


in Merovingian society, 251–252 in postindustrial age, 922–924 Holocaust during, 864–866
modern, 766(b) as proletariat, 714 imperialism preceding, 856–859, 857(m)
in Nazi Germany, 849 reforms for, 746–747 Jews and, 839
in Near East, P-15 safety standards for, 973 outbreak of, 840, 862
Neolithic agriculture and, P-9 in service industries, 922–923 in Pacific region, 864, 871–873, 872(m)
of non-Roman peoples, 215 solidarity among, 751–752 postwar settlement and, 873–875
Paleolithic, P-5, P-6 Soviet, 845 resistance in, 868–871
in Paris Commune, 714–715, 715(i) strikes by, 934 societies in, 866–868
patrilineal inheritance and, 286 in textile industry, 656 Spain as training ground for, 859–860
piety of, 363–364 uncertainties of urban, 678–679 weapons in, 868(f)
positivism and, 720–721 World War I and, 815 Worms
in postwar Berlin, 890(i) Workforce Concordat of (1122), 306n, 307, 323
in postwar society, 907–908 in Germany, 901 Imperial Diet of (1521), 430
as Protestant leaders, 500 in Great Depression, 841 massacre of Jews in, 313
protests by, 750–751 outwork by, 745–746 synagogue in, 297(i)
religion and, 214, 350, 719 Soviet, 883 Wretched of the Earth, The (Fanon), 904
rights of, 438 in Sweden, 942 Writing
roles of, 664, 684 women in, 679, 731–732, 834, 891, 907(f), Canaanite, 15–16
in Rome, 135–136, 137(i), 137–138, 180 907–908, 925 cuneiform, 10, 11(f), 18(f)
in Russia, 541, 958 World War I and, 807(i) Egyptian, 17, 18(f)
as salon hostesses, 513 World War II and, 866 historical, 92
science and, 536(i), 546 Workhouses, 571–572, 668 Linear B, 28, 29, 42
sexuality and, 572–573, 768 Working class, 659 medieval, 369
as slaves, 171 associations, 676 Rosetta stone and, 102(i)
social etiquette and, 512–514 education of, 668 Sumerian invention of, 10–11
social welfare and, 894 living standards of, 660–661(b) Writs, in England, 320
Socrates and, 91 organization of, 676–678 Wycliffe, John (c. 1330–1384), 399–400, 433
Soviet, 847, 883 socialist view of, 675 Wynfrith (Boniface) (680–754), 255
in Sparta, 60 Sunday school movement and, 667–668
in Sumer, 9–10 woman suffrage movement and, 777–778 Xavier, Francis (Saint) (1506–1552), 440
upper-class, 283 Workplace Xenophanes of Colophon
wealth of, 44(i), 284(f) dangers in, 747 (c. 570–c. 478 B.C.E.), 65
witches and, 479 safety in, 659(i) Xenophobia, 645
in workforce, 731–732, 825, 891, 907(f), Works and Days (Hesiod), 47 Xenophon (Athens, c. 430–355 B.C.E.), 60,
907–908, 925 World 83–84, 88
World War I and, 807(i), 807–808, 825, in new millennium, 983(m) Xerxes I (Persia, r. 486–465 B.C.E.), 72, 73
827 North vs. South, 969 Xhosa people, 736
World War II and, 866, 889 World Bank, 965, 969
Women in Love (Lawrence), 826 World Court, Milosevic and, 955 Yahweh (Hebrew deity), 39–40, 41, 42
Women’s movement, 931–933 World Trade Center, destruction of, 971 Yalta meeting (1945), 874
Women’s Paradise (Zola), 747 World Trade Organization, 965 Yataro, Iwasaki, 738
Women’s rights, 596, 721, 777–778 Worldview Year of the Four Emperors (Rome), 175
Women’s Social and Political Union in Enlightenment, 560–564 Yeats, William Butler (1866–1939), 779, 830
(WSPU), 778 mechanistic, 511 Yehud, 41
Wonders of the World, The, 120 secular, 452 Yeltsin, Boris, 944, 956
Woolf, Virginia (1882–1941), 829, 831, 855 World War I (1914–1918) Yevtushenko, Yevgeny (1933–), 928
Wool industry, 300, 300(i) alliances in, 800 Yom Kippur War (1973), 937
Woolley, Hannah, 513 armistice in, 814–815 York, Christianity in, 253
Wordsworth, William (1770–1850), 615, Balkan crises before, 791–792 Young Bosnians, 794(i)
640–641, 642(b) battlefronts in, 803–806 Young Ireland, 673
Workday, 659, 661 cost of living in, 809(f) Young Italy, 672
Worker Opposition (Russia), 832 ending of (1918), 814–815 Young Man Luther (Erikson), 770(b)
Workers. See also Labor Europe at outbreak of, 796(m) Young people
agricultural, 658 events leading to, 763–793, 790–794 activism by, 931
Civil Code of Napoleon and, 626–627 fronts of (1914–1918), 802 generation gap and, 905(b)
clandestine, 901 home front in, 806–809 in Nazi Germany, 847, 848(i), 849
in Europe, 902 mass culture after, 827–834 postwar youth culture and, 906
in factories, 658 medical technology and, 799 World War I and, 826
foreign, 974 outbreak of, 793–794 World War II and, 895(i)
in former Soviet Union, 959, 959(i) participants in, 800–803 Young Plan (1929), 821
in France, 854 peace in, 815–821 Young Turks, 789–790, 791
industrial change and, 745–746 politics after, 822–824 Ypsilanti, Alexander, 645
Italian Fascists and, 833 in Russia, 810 Yugoslavia, 816
Marxism and, 713 society after, 825–827 breakup of, 948(m), 953–955, 955(i),
medieval, 300 submarine warfare in, 804, 810 955(m), 964
migration by, 743–745 World War II, 862–875 after Communist revolution in, 886(m)
in Nazi Germany, 847 in Africa, 869(m) resistance to Soviets in, 886
in 19th century, 726–727, 750–752 in Europe, 862–863, 869(m) World War I and, 821, 822
non-Europeans as, 902 Europe after, 874–875, 876(m), 882(m) World War II and, 874
peasants as, 283–285 events leading to, 856–861 Yukos Oil Company (Russia), 956
Zachary–Zwingli Index I-55

Zachary (Pope, r. 741–752), 256, 273 Zeno (eastern Roman emperor, r. 474–491), Zographos, Panagiotis, 646(i)
Zadruga (Balkan family system), 767 217–219 Zola, Émile (1840–1902), 747, 780
Zakat (tax), 235 Zeno (Greece, 333–262 B.C.E.), 104, 118 Zollverein (customs union), 672
Zara (Dalmatia), 352 Zenobia (Payra, r. 269–272 C.E.), 191 Zones of occupation
Zarathustra, 39 Zero, Islamic introduction of, 271 in Germany, 874, 886–888, 887(m)
Zasulich, Vera, 757 Zeus (god), 46, 57, 138 World War II and, 882(m)
Zell, Katharina, 438 Zhenotdel (Women’s Bureau, Russia), 832 Zoroaster (Zarathustra), 39
Zell, Matthew (1477–1548), 438 Zhukov, Georgy (Marshal, 1896–1974), 896 Zulu people, 736
Zemstvos (Russian councils), 695, 787 Ziggurats, in Sumer, 8, 13 Zurich, reforms in, 432, 436
Zengi (Seljuk Turks, 12th century), 317 Zionism, 783, 881–882 Zwingli, Huldrych (1484–1531), 432, 436

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