History Midterm

Early Modern Period

The chronological span-roughly 1450 to 1740- between medieval and modern Europe, defined by a cluster of transformations that dissolve the structures of the medieval world without yet producing the industrial, democratic, and nationalist configurations of the 19th century

The Fiscal-military State

A governing structure that emerged in the late 17th and 18th centuries in Europe in which the primary business of the state is waging war, and in which the administrative, financial, and bureaucratic apparatus of government is built out and rationalized in order to fund and sustain the warfare

Enlightenment Rationalism

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

Philosophes

A group of European intellectuals who proclaimed that they were bringing the light of knowledge to their fellow humans in the Age of Enlightenment

Encyclopedia or Encyclopedie

The most important single publication of the Enlightenment. The project had both an overt and a covert ambition. Overtly, it aimed to compile and systematize all human knowledge; covertly, the encyclopedia was an instrument of Enlightenment critique

Deism

Belief in a distant, noninterventionist deity; common among Enlightenment thinkers

Salon

Regular social gathering held by talented and rich Europeans in their homes, where philosophers and their followers met to discuss literature, science, and philosophy

Public Sphere

An idealized intellectual space that emerged in Europe during the Enlightenment, where the public came together to discuss important issues relating to society, economics, and politics

Feudalism

A decentralized system of political and military organization characteristic of medieval Europe in which authority is fragments and exercised through personal bonds: lords grant land to vassals in exchange for military service and loyalty, producing a hierarchy of local power rather than centralized sovereignty

Absolutism

A centralized system of government in which a monarch claims sovereign authority unchecked by any competing institutional power. No parliament, no independent judiciary, no church hierarchy that can effectively constrain royal will. The king is the sole source of law, justice, and policy

Enlightened Absolutism

Term coined by historians to describe the rule of 18th century monarchs who, without renouncing their own absolute authority, adopted Enlightenment ideals of rationalism, progress, and tolerance

Constitutional Monarchy

A system in which the monarch’s powers are formally limited by a written constitution, by law, by representative institutions, or by established convention so that sovereignty is shared rather than concentrated in the crown alone

Seven Year’s War

A global conflict (1756-1763) pitting Britain and Prussia against France, Austria, Russia. France’s defeat was catastrophic not only territorially, losing Canada and much of it Indian empire, but fiscally, saddling the French monarchy with enormous debt

Estates General

A legislative body in pre-Revolutionary France made up of representatives of each of the three classes, or estates. It was called into session in 1789 for the first time since 1614

Cahiers de Doléances

Lists of complaints and reform proposals drawn up by the three estates across France in preparation for the Estates-General of 1789

Estates

The three legal categories, or orders, of France’s inhabitants: the clergy, the nobility, and everyone else

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 to 1791

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

Document issued by the French revolutionary assembly in August 1789 listing the rights of citizens under the proposed constitutional monarchy

Constitution of 1791

It established a constitutional monarchy with a unicameral legislature, embedding the principles of national sovereignty and the separation of powers while simultaneously restricting political participation to “active citizens” with sufficient property, a tension between universal rights and propertied liberalism that would prove unstable almost immediately

Phrygian Cap

A soft, forward-pointing conical hat originating in antiquity that became the preeminent symbol of liberty and republicanism during the French Revolution

Revolutionary Calendar

Introduced in 1793, replacing the Gregorian calendar with a rationalized system of twelve thirty-day months given poetic names drawn from nature and climate and abolishing Sundays and saint’s days in favor of a ten-day week. It was a sweeping attempt to detach everyday life from traditional time and reground it in republican and natural order

Metric System

A universal system of weights and measures imposed by revolutionary France in the 1790s, replacing the chaotic patchwork of local weights and measures. It embodied Enlightenment ideals while also serving the revolutionary goal of dismantling the feudal and regional particularists encoded in the old measures

Jacobin Club

A political club in revolutionary France whose member were well-educated radical republicans

Girondists or Girondins

A moderate group that fought for control of the French National Convention in 1793

Sans-culottes

A laboring poor of Paris, so called because the men wore trousers instead of the knee breeches of the aristocracy and middle class; the word came to refer to the militant radicals of the city

Reign of Terror

The period from 1793 to 1794 during which Robespierre’s Committee of Public Safety tried and executed thousands of suspected of treason and a new revolutionary culture was imposed

Thermidorian Reaction

A reaction to the silence of the Reign of Terror in 1794, resulting in the execution of Robespierre and the loosening of economic controls

Napoleonic Code

French civil code promulgated in 1804 that reasserted the 1789 principles of the equality of all male citizens before the law and the absolute security of wealth and private property, as well as restricting rights accorded to women by previous revolutionary laws

Grand Empire

The empire over which Napoleon and his allies ruled, encompassing virtually all of Europe except Great Britain and Russia

Continental System

A blockade imposed by Napoleon to halt all trade between continental Europe and Britain, thereby weakening the British economy and military

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 18th century

Dual Revolutions

The French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution together considered as foundation points for modernity

Cottage Industry

The pre-industrial system of manufacturing, especially textiles, in which merchant-capitalists distributed raw materials to rural households who processed them at home for a piece wage, integrating peasant families into market production while leaving them formally on the land

Four-field system

The four-field system, associated with the 18th century Dutch and British agricultural revolution, replaced the fallow field of medieval agriculture with a field planted with restorative crops like turnips or clover, dramatically increasing productivity by keeping land in continuous use.

Seed Drill

Associated with Jethro Tull in early 18th century England, it was a mechanical device character of enlightened improvement that deposited seeds at controlled depths in rows rather than broadcasting them by hand, reducing waste, improving germination rates, and enabling systematic weeding between rows

Selective Breeding

Associated in the British agricultural revolution with figures like Robert Bakewell, it was the deliberate mating of livestock to enhance desirable traits, transforming animals from multipurpose farm creatures into specialized productive units

Enclosure movement

The process by which common lands, open fields, and shared pastures in England were consolidated into privately owned and fenced holding, accelerating through parliamentary enclosure acts in the 18th and early 19th centuries

Demographic Glass Ceiling

Refers to the Malthusian check on pre-industrial population growth, whereby rising numbers pressed against the limits of agricultural productivity, a cycle that kept most pre-industrial societies from sustaining long-run population growth until the agricultural and industrial revolutions broke the constraint

Industrious Revolution

A concept developed by historian Jan de Vries, describes the process by which early modern European households, before and alongside industrialization, shifted their labor toward market-oienated production and away from leisure and domestic self-sufficiency

Spinning Jenny

A simple, inexpensive, hand-powered spinning machine created by James Hargreaves in 1764-65 that multiplied output compared to a traditional spinning wheel

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

Steam Engine

A breakthrough invention first implemented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712 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

Iron Law of Wages

Proposed by English economist David Ricardo suggesting that the pressure of population growth prevents wages from rising above the subsistence level

Society of Orders

“Society of Orders” describe a hierarchy organized around legally defined, hereditary corporate groups whose rank derives from function and juridical status, while “society of classes” describes a hierarchy organized around economic position and ownership

Separate Spheres

A gendered division of labor with the wife at home as a mother and homemaker and the husband as wage earner

Class Consciousness

Awareness of belonging to distinct social and economic class whose interests might conflict with the of other classes

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 September 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, religion, speech, assembly, and freedom from arbitrary arrest

Laissez Faire

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

Republicanism

An expanded liberal ideology that endorsed universal democratic voting rights, at least for men, and radical equality for all

Nationalsim

The idea that each people had its own genius and specific identity that manifested itself especially in a common language and history, which 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 radicals Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, which called for a working-class revolution to overthrow capitalist society and establish a Communist state

Bourgeoisie

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

Proletariat

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

Hegelian Dialectic

The philosophical process by which history and thought advance through contradiction and conflict, a thesis that Engels and Marx later materialized, replacing Hegel’s ideas with class conflict as the engine of historical change

Shock City

A historian’s term for a city so explosively new, so disorienting in its scale, density, poverty, and social disorder, the contemporaries experienced it as a traumatic rupture with everything familiar, Manchester being the paradigm case for the early industrial period

Romanticism

An artistic movement at it 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

Latin American Wars of Independence

A series of revolts across Spanish and Portuguese America in the first half of he 19th century triggered by the Napoleonic invasion of Iberia that delegitimized colonial authority; producing a cascade of independence movements that drew on Enlightenment liberalism while also reflecting deep tensions of race, class, and regionalism within colonial societies

Greek War of Independence

From 1821-1829, an uprising against the Ottoman rule that combined genuine nationalist revolution with the romantic philhellenism of Western European liberals, drawing foreign volunteers like Byron and eventually great-power intervention

Peterloo Massacre

The British Army’s violent suppression in 1819 of a protest that took place at 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 increased the number of male voters by about 50 percent and gave political representation to new industrial areas

Chartism

The first mass working-class political movement in Britain, active from the late 1830s through 1848, organized around the People’s Charter which demanded reforms including universal male suffrage, secret ballot, and abolition of the property qualification for MPs

Bourbon Restoration

From 1814-1830, it returned the French throne first to Louis XVIII and then Charles X after Napoleon’s defeat

July Ordinances

Four decrees issued by Charles X that dissolved the newly elected Chamber of Deputies, restricted the press, and narrowed the electorate- a direct royal assault on the constitutional charter that immediately triggered the July Revolution

Utilitarianism

The idea of Jeremy Bentham that social policies should promote the “greatest good for the greatest number”

Professionalization

The process in which members of skilled trades and occupations established criteria for training and certification and banded together unprofessional organizations to defend their interests

Sweated Industries

Poorly paid handicraft production, often carried out by married women paid by the piece and working at home

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

Companionate Marriage

Marriage based on romantic love and middle-class family values that became increasingly dominant in the second half of the 19th century

Second Industrial Revolution

The burst of technological innovation and science-driven industrialization that promoted strong economic growth in the last third of the 19th century

Risorgimento

The 19th century struggle for Italian independence and unification

Realpolitik

A German term referring to political practice based on a careful calculation of real-world conditions rather than ethical ideals or ideological assumptions, employed by Bismark and other 19th century politicians

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

Reichstag

The popularly elected lower house of the government of the New German Empire after 1871

Suffrage Movement

A militant movement for women’s right to vote led by middle-class British women, which exemplified broader international campaigns for women’s political rights around 1900