Western Civilization Since 1500s

Absolutism

A system where sovereignty and all state power is concentrated in the hands of a singular monarch. It was justified through divine rights of kings claiming they only answered to God.

Agricultural Revolution

A period of rapid and significant change in farming methods that drastically increased food production and altered human society.

Community Controls

A pattern of cooperation and common action in a traditional village that sought to uphold the economic, social, and moral sustainability of the closely knit community.

Conservatism

A political or theological orientation advocating the preservation of the best in society and opposed radical changes.

Constitutionalism

A form of government where the government’s power is limited by law and balanced with the rights and freedoms of its citizens. Examples include constitutional monarchies and republics.

Cottage Industry

A stage of industrial development in which rural workers used hand tools in their homes to manufacture goods on a large scale in a market.

Enlightened Despotism

Describes the rule of eighteenth-century monarchs who, without renouncing their own absolute authority, adopted Enlightenment ideals of rationalism, progress, and tolerance.

Guild System

The organization of artisanal production into trade-based associations, or guild, each of which received a monopoly over its trade and the right to train apprentices and hire workers.

Illegitimacy Explosion

A sharp increase in out-of-wedlock births that occurred in Europe between 1750-1850, caused by low wages and the breakdown of community controls.

Industrial Revolution

Describes the burst of major inventions and economic expansion that began in Britain in the late eighteenth century.

Liberalism

A movement that supports equality, individual liberty, representative government, equality before the law, and freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and religion, as well as protection from arbitrary arrest.

Mercantilism

System of economic regulations aimed at increasing the power of a state based on the belief that international power was based upon wealth (in specific gold and silver).

National Assembly

The first French revolutionary legislature, made up primarily of representatives of the third estate and a few from the nobility and clergy in session from 1789 - 1791.

Nationalism

The belief each nation has its own unique identity, language, and history and should have its own independent political state.

Pietism/Methodism

A Protestant revival movement in the early eighteenth-century Germany and Scandinavia that emphasized emotional religious experiences, the idea that all believers can serve God, and apply Christian faith to everyday life through religious practices.

Rationalism

A secular, critical way of thinking in which nothing was to be accepted on faith and everything was to be submitted to reason.

Reign of Terror

Period from 1793-1794 where Robespierre’s Committee of Public Safety tried and executed thousands suspected of treason and new revolutionary culture was imposed.

Romanticism

An artistic movement from 1790 to the 1840s that rejected classism and Enlightenment ideals and emphasized emotion, imagination, creativity, and spontaneity in art and everyday life.

Scientific Revolution

A major change in European thought starting in the mid-1500s, in which the study of the natural world began to be characterized by careful observation and the questioning of accepted beliefs.

Socialism

A movement that opposed individualism and the division of industrial society and emphasized cooperation, community, greater social equality, economic planning, and government regulation of property.

Triangle Trade

A trade system that connect Europe, West Africa, and the Americans from the 16th to the mid 19th century through multiple trade routes.

Tsar

The title given to the emperor of Russia who held supreme political authority and ruled as an autocratic monarch with little to no constitutional limits on their power.