Renaissance to Industrial Revolution: European History Key Terms

Black Death

ca. 1350 plague spread by trade and fleas; eroded Church authority, raised labor costs, hurt feudalism, helped lead to the Renaissance /

Little Ice Age

Century of poor harvests that weakened people before the Black Death /

Renaissance

ca. 1400-1600 rebirth of classical achievements /

Humanism and Individualism

Focus on human achievement and self-reliance; spurred by the Black Death's aftermath /

Vernacular

Writing in everyday language instead of Latin; Dante /

Patronage

Rich people paying for art; the Medicis /

Printing press

Spread Renaissance ideas north and let Luther spread the Reformation /

Da Vinci

Mona Lisa, Last Supper, Vitruvian Man /

Michelangelo

David, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Dome /

Shakespeare

Tragedies, comedies and histories, ca. 1600 /

Machiavelli

"Better to be feared than loved"; "the ends justify the means" /

Montaigne

Invented the essay /

Cervantes

Don Quixote; the novel /

Reformation

1500s split from the Catholic Church; rise of Protestants, nation-states, individualism and sectarian violence /

Martin Luther

Challenged the Church and used the printing press; his heresies implied the Church wasn't needed for spirituality /

Nation-state

Grew as monarchs broke from the Pope /

Sectarian violence

Decades of religious conflict after the Reformation; Puritans, Huguenots, Calvinists, Lutherans /

Scientific Revolution

ca. 1500-1700 shift to observation, experiment and reason /

Copernicus

Sun-centered theory /

Bacon and Descartes

Scientific method /

Newton

Laws of motion and gravity /

Vesalius and Harvey

Human body and circulation of blood /

Absolutism

All power held by the monarch; Louis XIV at Versailles /

Louis XIV

French king who embodied Absolutism at Versailles /

Versailles

Late 1600s palace showing royal patronage, rational control over nature, bureaucracy and colonial wealth /

Enlightenment (Big E)

18th C movement: critical, rational and encyclopedic, seeking to understand society, secular /

Social contract

Giving up some freedom in exchange for the benefits of government /

State of nature

What life was like before government /

Hobbes

1650; life is "solitary, nasty, poor, brutish, and short," so give up freedom for security under an absolute sovereign /

Locke

Late 1600s; tabula rasa, "life, liberty, and property," separation of powers, citizens can rebel /

Tabula rasa

Locke's idea that the mind starts blank, so education matters /

Glorious Revolution

1688 bloodless revolution that shaped Locke /

Rousseau (JJR)

1700s; people are born good and society corrupts them; direct democracy; influenced Romanticism and Nationalism /

General Will

Rousseau's idea of what the people decide together /

Adam Smith

Scottish author of Wealth of Nations; free markets and the invisible hand; godfather of capitalism /

Invisible hand

Smith's idea that people pursuing their own interests makes everyone wealthier /

Laissez-faire

Government staying out of the economy /

Montesquieu

Separation of powers; Persian Letters /

Voltaire

Satire; Candide /

Diderot

Encyclopédie; cataloged all knowledge /

Deism

God built the universe, then let it run; the Blind Watchmaker /

French Revolution successes

More democracy, citizens instead of subjects, inspired people worldwide /

French Revolution failures

Violence, short-lived reforms, ended with a dictator /

Bastille

Stormed in 1789; symbol of the French Revolution /

Napoleon

1790s-1815 dictator and emperor; Napoleonic Code, Roman symbols, spread Nationalism /

Napoleonic Code

Napoleon's law system that spread across Europe and still influences law today /

Nationalism

Idea that a people should unite around their nation; spread by Napoleon /

Industrial Revolution

Began in England in the late 1700s through a positive feedback loop /

Positive feedback loop

Coal, textiles, high wages, canals, patents and colonies feeding each other /

Bourgeoisie

Factory owners and managers /

Proletariat

Workers in mines and factories /

Marxism

Reaction to the Industrial Revolution /

Romanticism

Late 1700s to mid-1800s; feeling, nature, the sublime, genius; Beethoven's Ninth, Frankenstein /

Darwin

Evolution; challenged Natural Theology and led to Social Darwinism /

Social Darwinism

"Survival of the fittest" applied to people; used to justify Imperialism 2.0 /

Imperialism 2.0

Late 1800s to early 1900s European empire-building, mainly in Africa /

WBC's triad

Material abundance, social order, cultural meaning /

Imperialism 2.0: why

Resources and markets, competition among nations, White Man's Burden /

Imperialism 2.0: how

Maps, railroads, steamboats, quinine, guns, co-opted local elites /

Berlin Conference

1884-85 meeting where Europeans divided up Africa /

Scramble for Africa

European race for African territory, kicked off by King Leopold claiming the Congo