CH21 APEURO VOCAB

Congress of Vienna

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.

Holy Alliance

An alliance formed by the conservative rulers of Austria, Prussia, and Russia in Septmeber 1815 that became a symbol of the repression of liberal and revolutionary movements all over Europe.

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.

Karlsbad Decrees

Issued in 1819, these repressive regulations were disgined to uphold Metternich’s conservatism, requiring the German states to root out subversive ideas and squelch an liberal organizations.

Laissez Faire

A doctrine of economic liberalism that calls for unrestricted private Enterprise and no government interference in the economy.

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.

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.

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.

Bourgeoisie

The middle class minority who owned the means of production and, according to Marx, exploited the working-class proletariat.

Proletariat

The industrial working class who, according to Marx, were unfairly exploited by the profit-seeking bourgeoisie.

Romanticism

An artistic movement at its height from about the 1790s 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.

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.

Battle of Peterloo

The army’s violent suppression of a protest that took place in Saint Peter’s Fields in Manchester in reaction to the revision of the Corn Laws.

Reform Bill of 1832

A major British political reform that increase the number of male voters by about 50% and gave political representation to new industrial areas.

Great Famine

The result of four years of potato failure in the late 1840s in Ireland, a country that had grown dependent on potatoes as a dietary staple.

Great 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.