Studied by 5 people
afrikaners
Descendants of the Dutch settlers in the Cape Colony in southern Africa
battle of peterloo
The army's violent suppression of a protest that took place at Saint Peter's Fields in Manchester in reaction to the revision of the Corn Laws.
berlin conference
A meeting of European leaders held in 1884 and 1885 in order to lay down some basic rules for imperialist competition in sub-Saharan Africa.
bloody sunday
A massacre of peaceful protesters at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg in 1905, triggering a revolution that overturned absolute tsarist rule and made Russia into a conservative constitutional monarchy.
Bourgeoisie
The middle-class minority who owned the means of production and, according to Marx, exploited the working-class proletariat.
class-consciousness
Awareness of belonging to a distinct social and economic class whose interests might conflict with those of other classes.
combination acts
British laws passed in 1799 that outlawed unions and strikes, favoring capitalist business people over skilled artisans. Bitterly resented and widely disregarded by many craft guilds, the acts were repealed by Parliament in 1824.
companionate marriage
marriage based on romantic love and middle-class family values that became increasingly dominate in the second half of the nineteenth century
congress of vienna
A meeting of the Quadruple Alliance - Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Great Britain - restoration France, and smaller European states to fashion a general peace settlement that began after the defeat of Napoleon's France in 1814.
corn laws
British laws governing the import and export of grain, which were revised in 1815 to prohibit the importation of foreign grain unless the price at home rose to improbable levels, thus benefiting the aristocracy but making food prices high for working people.
crimean war
A conflict fought between 1853 and 1856 over Russian desires to expand into Ottoman territory; Russia was defeated by France, Britain, and the Ottomans, underscoring the need for reform in the Russian empire.
crystal palace
The location of the Great Exhibition in 1851 in London; an architectural masterpiece made entirely of glass and iron.
dreyfus affair
A divisive case in which Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish captain in the French army, was falsely accused and convicted of treason. The Catholic Church sided with the anti-Semites against Dreyfus; after Dreyfus was declared innocent, the French government severed all ties between the state and the church.
duma
The Russian parliament that opened in 1906, elected indirectly by universal male suffrage but controlled after 1907 by the tsar and the conservative classes.
evolution
The idea, applied by thinkers in many fields, that stresses gradual change and continuous adjustment.
factory acts
English laws passed from 1802 to 1833 that limited the workday of child laborers and set minimum hygiene and safety requirements
germ theory
The idea that disease was caused by the spread of living organisms that could be controlled.
german social democratic party
A German working-class political party founded in the 1870s, the SPD championed Marxism but in practice turned away from Marxist revolution and worked instead for social and workplace reforms in the German parliament.
global mass migration
The mass movement of people from Europe in the nineteenth century; one reason that the West's impact on the world was so powerful and many-sided.
great famine
The result of four years of potato crop failure in the late 1840s in Ireland, a country that had grown dependent on potatoes as a dietary staple.
great rebellion
The 1857 and 1858 insurrection by Muslim and Hindu mercenaries in the British army that spread throughout northern and central India before finally being crushed.
greater germany
A liberal plan for German national unification that included the German-speaking parts of the Austrian Empire, put forth at the national parliament in 1848 but rejected by Austrian rulers.
gunboat diplomacy
The use or threat of military force to coerce a government into economic or political agreements.
holy alliance
An alliance formed by the conservative rulers of Austria, Prussia, and Russia in September 1815 that became a symbol of the repression of liberal and revolutionary movements all over Europe.
homestead act
An American law enacted during the Civil War that gave western land to settlers, reinforcing the concept of free labor in a market economy.
hundred days of reform
A series of Western-style reforms launched in 1898 by the Chinese government in an attempt to meet the foreign challenge.
Industrial Revolution
A term first coined in 1799 to describe the burst of major inventions and economic expansion that began in Britain in the late eighteenth century.
iron law of wages
Theory proposed by English economist David Ricardo suggesting that the pressure of population growth prevents wages from rising above the subsistence level.
Karlsbad Decrees
Issued in 1819, these decrees were designed to uphold Metternich's conservatism, requiring the German states to root out subversive ideas and squelch any liberal organizations.
kulturkampf
Bismark's attack on the Catholic Church within Germany from 1870 to 1878, resulting from Pius IX's declaration of papal infallibility.
labor aristocracy
a concept developed by Friedrich Engels to designate an upper section of the working class which was in receipt of higher wages and hence liable to be bribed into a surrender of its class interests.
Laissez-faire
A doctrine of economic liberalism that calls for unrestricted private enterprise and no government interference in the economy.
liberalism
The principal ideas of this movement were equality and liberty; liberals demanded representative government and equality before the law as well as individual freedoms such as freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of worship, and freedom from arbitrary arrest.
luddites
Group of handicraft workers who attacked factories in northern England in 1811 and later, smashing the new machines that they believed were putting them out of work.
marxism
An influential political program based on the socialist ideas of German radical Karl Marx, which called for a working-class revolution to overthrow capitalist society and establish a Communist state.
meiji restoration
the restoration of the japanese emperor to power in 1867, leading to the subsequent modernization of japan.
mines act of 1842
English law prohibiting underground work for all women and girls as well as for boys under ten.
nationalism
The idea that each people had its own genius and specific identity that manifested itself especially in a common language and history, and often led to the desire for an independent political state.
nativism
Policies and beliefs, often influenced by nationalism, scientific racism, and mass migration, that give preferential treatment to established inhabitants over immigrants.
neo-europes
Settler colonies with established populations of Europeans, such as North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Latin America, where Europe found outlets for population growth and its most profitable investment opportunities in the nineteenth century.
new imperialism
The late-nineteenth-century drive by European countries to create vast political empires abroad.
october manifesto
The result of a paralyzing general strike in October 1905, a Russian decree that granted full civil rights and promised a popularly elected Duma (parliament) with real legislative power.
opium wars
Two mid-nineteenth-century conflicts between China and Great Britain over the British trade in opium, which was designed to "open" China to European free trade. In defeat, China gave European traders and missionaries increased protection and concessions.
orientalism
A term coined by literary scholar Edward Said to describe the way Westerners misunderstood and described colonial subjects and cultures.
people's budget
A bill proposed after the Liberal Party came to power in Britain in 1906, it was designed to increase spending on social welfare services, but was initially vetoed in the House of Lords.
proletariat
The industrial working class who, according to Marx, were unfairly exploited by the profit-seeking bourgeoisie.
realism
A literary movement that, in contrast to romanticism, stressed the depiction of life as it actually was.
red shirts
The guerrilla army of Giuseppe Garibaldi, who invaded Sicily in 1860 in an attempt to liberate it, winning the hearts of the Sicilian peasantry.
reform bill of 1832
A major British political reform that increased the number of male voters by about 50 percent and gave political representation to new industrial areas.
reichstag
The popularly elected lower house of government of the new German Empire after 1871.
revisionism
An effort by moderate socialists to update Marxist doctrines to reflect the realities of the time.
rocket
The name given to George Stephenson's effective locomotive that was first tested in 1829 on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway at 24 miles per hour.
romanticism
An artistic movement at its height from about 1790 to the 1840s that was in part a revolt against classicism and the Enlightenment, characterized by a belief in emotional exuberance, unrestrained imagination, and spontaneity in both art and personal life.
second industrial revolution
The burst of industrial creativity and technological innovation that promoted strong economic growth in the last third of the nineteenth century.
separate spheres
A gender division of labor with the wife at home as mother and homemaker and the husband as wage earner.
separate spheres
A gender division of labor with the wife at home as mother and homemaker and the husband as wage earner.
social darwinism
A body of thought drawn from the ideas of Charles Darwin that applied the theory of biological evolution to human affairs and saw the human race as driven by an unending economic struggle that would determine the survival of the fittest.
socialism
A backlash against the emergence of individualism and the fragmentation of industrial society, and a move toward cooperation and a sense of community; the key ideas were economic planning, greater social equality, and state regulation of property.
spinning jenny
A simple, inexpensive, hand-powered spinning machine created by James Hargreaves in 1765.
steam engines
A breakthrough invention by Thomas Savery in 1698 and Thomas Newcomen in 1705 that burned coal to produce steam, which was then used to operate a pump; the early models were superseded by James Watt's more efficient steam engine, patented in 1769.
suffrage movement
A militant movement for women's right to vote led by middle-class British women around 1900.
sweated industries
poorly paid handicraft production, often carried out by married women paid by the piece and working at home
tanzimat
a set of reforms designed to remake the ottoman empire on a western european model
tariff protection
A government's way of supporting and aiding its own economy by laying high taxes on imported goods from other countries, as when the French responded to cheaper British goods flooding their country by imposing high tariffs on some imported products.
thermodynamics
A branch of physics built on Newton's laws of mechanics that investigated the relationship between heat and mechanical energy.
utilitarianism
The idea of Jeremy Bentham that social policies should promote the "greatest good for the greatest number."
water frame
A spinning machine created by Richard Arkwright that had a capacity of several hundred spindles and used waterpower; it therefore required a larger and more specialized mill - a factory.
white man's burden
The idea that Europeans could and should civilize more primitive nonwhite peoples and that imperialism would eventually provide nonwhites with modern achievements and higher standards of living.
young turks
Fervent patriots who seized power in a 1908 coup in the Ottoman Empire, forcing the conservative sultan to implement reforms.
zionism
A movement dedicated to building a Jewish national homeland in Palestine, started by Theodor Herzl.
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Flashcard (108)