Industrialization and Nationalism (1800–1870)

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering key terms, historical movements, concepts, and ideologies from the nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution and national unification movements.

Enclosure movement

A series of laws passed by the British Parliament in the 1700s that fenced off common lands, forcing many peasants to relocate to towns and creating a plentiful supply of factory labor.

Capital

A ready supply of money available to invest in new industrial machines, factories, and businesses.

Entrepreneurs

Individuals who actively sought new business opportunities and innovative ways to make financial profits.

Cottage industry

A two-step production method widely used in the eighteenth century in which rural individuals spun thread and wove cloth in their homes.

Puddling

A process developed by Henry Cort in the 1780s using coke derived from coal to burn away impurities in pig iron to produce iron of high quality.

Industrial capitalism

An economic system based on industrial production and manufacturing, which produced the industrial middle class.

Socialism

An economic system in which society, usually in the form of the government, owns and controls some means of production, such as factories and utilities, to distribute wealth more equitably.

Utopian socialists

Early nineteenth-century socialist reformers who envisioned hypothetical, cooperative societies where workers' needs would be met; contemptuously labeled as impractical dreamers by Karl Marx.

Congress of Vienna

An 1814 peace conference attended by Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia to restore the old political order and establish a balance of power in Europe after Napoleon's defeat.

Conservatism

A political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, favoring obedience to political authority, organized religion, and the maintenance of the established order over revolution.

Principle of intervention

The doctrine adopted by the great European powers asserting their right to deploy military forces into countries experiencing revolutions to restore legitimate monarchs to power.

Liberalism

A political philosophy rooted in Enlightenment principles asserting that people should be as free as possible from government restraint, emphasizing the protection of civil liberties and government by constitution.

Nationalism

A political and cultural force arising from individuals identifying as part of a distinct community defined by common language, institutions, and customs, maintaining that each nationality should govern itself.

Universal male suffrage

The legal right of all adult males in a nation to vote in elections.

Multinational state

A sovereign political entity comprising a collection of diverse ethnic groups and nationalities, such as the Austrian Empire.

Militarism

A political entity's glorification of and strong reliance on military power and preparedness, as exemplified by Prussia.

Realpolitik

The 'politics of reality'; a pragmatic approach to governance based on practical power considerations rather than theory, ideology, or ethics, epitomized by Otto von Bismarck.

Kaiser

The German title for emperor, proclaimed for King William I of Prussia upon the unification of the Second German Empire in 1871.

Plebiscite

A direct popular vote submitted to the entire electorate to accept or refuse a measure or constitutional change, used by Louis-Napoleon in France.

Compromise of 1867

An agreement establishing the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, granting Hungary its own constitution, legislature, and capital while sharing a common monarch, military, and financial system.

Emancipation

The act of legally freeing enslaved persons or serfs, as carried out by Czar Alexander II of Russia in his imperial edict of 1861.

Abolitionism

A nineteenth-century political and moral movement in the United States committed to bringing about the immediate end of slavery.

Secede

To formally withdraw from a political federation or national union, as done by Southern states leading up to the American Civil War.

Romanticism

An intellectual and artistic movement emerging in the late eighteenth century as a reaction against Enlightenment reason, emphasizing emotion, imagination, individualism, and a reverence for nature.

Secularization

A growing indifference to or rejection of religious beliefs and institutions in daily life and societal affairs.

Organic evolution

The principle formulated by Charles Darwin stating that every plant and animal species evolved over long periods from earlier, simpler forms of life.

Natural selection

The biological process in which organisms with advantageous variations best suited to their environment survive, reproduce, and pass on those traits to future generations.

Realism

A mid-nineteenth-century literary and visual arts movement that rejected romanticism in order to depict the everyday world, social realities, and ordinary people with exact, photographic fidelity.