APWH 1750-1900

Age of Revolutions

Intellectual, Political, and Economic + New types of Imperialism

Intellectual Revolutions

Scientific Revolution + Enlightenment

Scientific Rev.

  • 16th Century

  • Astronomy

  • Why do celestial bodies move in the way they do

  • Cosmology

  • Critique on geo-centric cosmology (Earth at Center)

  • consistent w/ Bible

  • Start with Nicholas Copernicus (Polish Monk) (heliocentric)

  • naked observation of stars, best way to observe stars is to put the Sun at the center of the universe

  • other scientists confirm → Isaac Newton, Galileo

  • Scientific Method develops out of Scientific Rev.

  • scientists observe lots of tech to observe (stronger telescopes)

  • helps now when we observe instead of believing simply the bible

State Sponsorship of Science

  • Practical Application → realized by States of EU

  • scientific academies popping up around EU

  • propelled forward by European states

Enlightenment

  • inspired by the Scientific Rev.

  • 17th Century

  • observations of the Human World

  • The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement in 18th-century Europe that emphasized reason, science, and individual rights. It promoted ideas such as freedom, democracy, and separation of church and state. Key figures include Voltaire, Rousseau, and Locke.

Divine Right of Kings

  • medieval kings justified their rule because God put them on the throne

  • Enlightenment critiquing their idea → came up w/ the Social Contract

The Social Contract

  • power is not given by God

  • power is instead given by those who are governed

  • based on the consent of the governed

  • Thomas Hobbes in the Leviathan

  • concluded the true nature of man is violent

  • Hobbes argues that ppl will only give their loyalty to the ruler if the ruler governs well

  • and ppl will honor their part of the social contract + cannot challenge ruler

  • secular theory of power (nothing to do w. God)

  • John Locke

  • Two Treaties of Government → another version of Social Contract

  • Locke lived through the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which happened w/o bloodshed

  • man was naturally good (vs Hobbes)

  • argued that Monarch must protect the inalienable rights of their people

  • Life, Liberty, and property

  • if these aren’t kept, ppl do have the right to overthrow their rulers

  • Locke was influential for the American Rev + Dec. of Independence

Political Revolutions

First Wave of Pol. Revolutions / Atlantic Revolutions

All were consequences of the enlightenment

leads to the idea of Nationalism → redefines people’s political loyalties → shared language, culture and history

EU to rest of Globe

Nationalism comes from popular sovereignty (power lays in the people)

French Revolution

  • Nationalism appears + inspires

  • Starts in 1789

  • arrest and execute King and family

  • Prussia, Austria, GB attacked Britain to stop rev. → reinforced the idea that the French people have the power, not foreigners

Napoleon Bonaparte

  • 1799 comes to power

  • successor of Fr. Revolution

  • declares himself as Emperor

  • maintains Fr. Nationalism and spreads it because he conquests most of EU

American and Latin Similarities

  • independence

  • no social revolutions

  • Latin → you still have caste system

  • American → social order stays the same (slavery, etc.)

American Rev.

  • war vs Brits

  • goes back to the Seven Years War

  • GB vs France

  • Fought in NA and the Indian Ocean (and also in Europe plus other oceans)

  • GB wins, France loses

  • Even though GB won, cost a lot of money which led to exploitation of colonies (said it was for their interest)

  • heavy taxing which pissed them off

  • Colonies said they had no representation, so they shouldn’t have to pay shit

  • Americans wanted to bleed the British dry (just make it so costly for so long)

  • Americans didn’t win much, but they won by staying alive + w/ French help

Latin American Rev.

  • Latin American colonies

  • Spain and Portuguese colonies

  • Brazilian and Portuguese monarchs ruled through the Peninsulares

  • Napoleon conquers Iberian peninsula → delegitimizes the Latin American rulers

  • Kings who appointed them kicked out, rule has been delegitimized

  • gives Creole (econ. Elite) opportunity to kick authorities out permanently

  • get support of Cath. church and lower caste

Simon Bolivar

  • fights for independence of South America

  • wants to unite all of SA

  • Gran Colombia ruler

  • SA is so big, so it fails → fractures SA into many independent states

  • undermined by Nationalism

French and Haitian

  • Social and Political Not as much independence

French Revolution

  • also as a result of the seven years war

  • leaves Fr. Monarchy bankrupt

  • 1760→1770 → horrible famine

  • lots of social unrest

  • educated classes in France lead a popular revolution against the monarchy

  • elite already have great education of social contract among other things

  • execute king and shi

  • violent (guillotine)

  • social revolution as it eliminates aristocratic privileges and restructures the social order.

  • citizen equality

  • best exemplified by the declaration of the rights of man

  • Napoleonic Code → rewriting of Fr. Law + ignores class status

  • same crimes and punishments

  • beefed w/ Catholic because they took some of the land to pay for the revolution debts

Haitian Revolution

  • 1791 → great slave revolt

  • richest slave colony in the Carribean

  • hundreds of thousands of slaves owned by a few elite

  • Fr. Revolution comes out against Slavery → enlightenment ideas

  • bad condition + enlightenment ideas causes slaves to revolt and fight plantations, french colonial troops, lead by Toussaint-Louverture

  • end up winning revolution (convince French that it is not worth holding on to Haiti)

  • 2nd independent nation in the West, first Black controlled one

  • still is reliant on exporting cash crops to europe

  • very impoverished because in it’s agreement w/ France, they pay France a huge indemnity

  • redistribute land to slaves

  • one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere even going into the 20th century

Consequences of French Rev. + Enlightenment

  • inspired first critique of the institution of slavery

  • people would only be critiquing of how masters treated their slaves, not the actual institution.

  • stressed the ideals of equality of man

  • Quakers write about slavery → Brit. pass the Slave Trade act in 1807 (bans trading slaves)

  • payed a fine if you got caught

  • 1811→ became a felony

  • 25 yrs later, ppl revolt against slavery itself (1833)

  • Baptist War → slave revolt and costs a lot for the British

  • British decide that slavery is not worth it.

Spread of Abolitionism

  • 1864 → abolition of slavery in the US

  • Because of Civil War (after the Northern States win)

Emergence of Feminism Mvmt.

  • women’s rights mvmt

  • emergences from Fr. Revolution

  • Female leaders lead Rev.

  • critique ideas of patriarchy

  • ALL societies were patriarchal, just to different degrees.

  • First time where ppl were saying patriarchy was wrong

  • closely related to the abolitionist movement

  • and takes a lot of inspiration

  • Seneca Falls Convention → Elizabeth Cady Stanton → Declaration of Sentiments

  • argues for the fundamental equality of women and Men

  • primary goal is Female Suffrage (voting)

  • Believed that Patriarchy could best be attacked if women could have a say in politics

  • men argue that women are more irrational /emotional, that they lead the household so it won’t matter if women are given the right to vote, etc.

  • New Zealand (1st, 1893)

  • 1920 (US)

  • 1944 (France)

Economic Revolutions

Industrial Revolution

  • GB, Hearth, mid 18th Century

  • technological, economic

  • leads GB to be leading economic power

  • spreads into C. EU, and the US and Japan

  • begins in the textile industry

  • very labor intensive (taking raw cotton wool and spinning it by hand)

Spinning Jenny

  • automates spinning cotton

  • hand crank → water

Steam Engine

  • 1709 (very impractical)

  • James Watt → artificial source of power (first one) crated the more useful, small one

  • you could hook a spinning Jenny by a steam engine → 24/7

  • production of things centralized in factories

  • powered by coal

  • restructured human labor

  • people made things with their hands

  • human labor transformed to tend the machines

  • necessitates a revolution in transportation

  • powers transformation

  • steam engine is put on boats (steamboats) takes stuff and people upriver even against the current or wind

  • steam powered locomotive

  • trains are crucial, they can transport goods and people at large volumes to distant places

  • lowers the cost of goods

Iron

  • Wrought Iron

  • improved → smelt iron using coal, which makes it inconsistent (because coal has impurities)

  • but if you cook the coal first and make coke, then when you smelt the iron it will be less inconsistent

  • more flexible, does not break as easily

  • used for everything

  • very widely applicable material

Steel

  • Bessemer Process → put air while smelting iron

  • more durable and flexible and strong

  • 2nd industrial rev.

New Organization of Labor

  • pottery industry

  • 1st industrial

  • Josiah Wedgewood

  • far more efficient if you break down the process and have one person do the job of each component part

  • one person shaping the pot, one person doing the clay, etc.

  • more uniform product

  • pack more of these goods tgth.

2nd Rev

  • electricity powered

  • iron

Spread of Industrial Rev.

  • spread to other countries like Germany

  • also spreads to Eastern US

Russia Indus.

  • late 19th Century Russia → Russia attempts to industrialize but it is state directed industrialization but it fails

  • Tsar does not get it going in Russia

  • remains thoroughly agricultural economy

  • vs Japan

Japan Indus.

  • Japan first non-EU country to industrialize

  • when Europeans moved into Asia, Portuguese first come to Japan in 1500’s and comes Catholic missionaries

  • converts significant Japanese to Catholic faith (esp. in S. Japan)

  • was a Feudal society, run by the Shogunate

Tokugawa Shogunate

  • most powerful leader in Japan (Tokugawa Shogunate)

  • demanded loyalty of the Japanese and became worried of the Christianity in Japan because they don’t want Japanese to have loyalty to the Pope (Rome)

  • Tokugawa move against Portuguese and Catholicism

  • chase out Portuguese

  • to make sure people don’t convert, 1635 closes themselves out from the outside world

  • isolates themselves

  • forbids EU to come to Japan except the Dutch in one small island called Dishima to trade

  • worked w/ Dutch because they didn’t care about Christianity

  • next 200 years, Japan is cut off from rest of the world and does not develop like Europe

  • this changes in 1853, an American armada comes into Tokyo Harbor led by Matthew Perry

  • force Japan to open up borders because they need supplies and said Japan cannot isolate themselves from the US

  • Japan could not stand up to US strength, and Japan agrees

  • cascades and destabilizes Shogunate → revolution → overthrown in 1868, replaced by the Meiji

Meiji Restoration

  • Called the Meiji Restoration

  • pissed by the forced opening up by US

  • mass produce rice, takes it and sells it for cash and starts to builds factories, railroads, etc.

  • unlike Russians, Japan industrializes by the end of the 19th century

  • leaders in textiles, ship building, etc.

  • industrialized to protect themselves from Europeans.

Consequences of Industrial Revolutions (social)

  • industrial capitalist's (new upper class)

  • even richer than previous aristocrats

  • new middle class → accountants, lawyers, engineers, employed by factory owners to run production

  • new lower class (proletariats) → factory workers, majority

  • proletariats do not benefit, but instead sacrifice due to horrid working conditions

  • little pay (pennies per hour) dangerous conditions

  • heavy pollution (feces and smoke), bad sanitation, bad infrastructure , lack of sunlight due to pollution

  • average lifespan is 25 years

  • female and child labor becomes more common → more docile and smaller (fit in small spaces)

  • long working hours due to bad pay

Consequences of Industrial Revolution (patriarchy)

  • justified the patriarchy

  • cult of domesticity

  • middle and upper class → women did not need to work due to high wages (NOT FOR PROLETARIAT)

  • cult of domesticity → stay in homes → no need to vote or education, as voting was something to fight for change in the public sphere, and women were not in the public sphere due to their domesticity

Responses to the Industrial Revolution (Justifications)

  • intellectuals like Adam Smith (economist)

  • Wealth of Nations → critiques Mercantilism → L’aissez Faire Economics

  • Industrial Capitalists loved this

Responses to the Industrial Revolution (Resistance)

  • proletariats would break stuff

  • passive resistance (working poorly)

  • creating labor unions → threatened to go on strike. → still continues today

  • government action (in GB) addressing child and female and child labor in the textile industry → factory act of 1833

Karl Marx

  • theorized that Industrial econ → lead to collapse of bourgeois state in the comm. manifesto

  • 5 diff stages of historical development → historical materialism (things that we need at the time)

  • oppression of lower class would overthrow the bourgeois capitalist state, and lead to communism

  • 1. primitive communism

  • 2. slavery

  • 3. feudalism

  • 4. capitalism

  • 5. communism

New Imperialism

  • 1st wave → trading post empires

  • 2nd wave → motivated by industrialization

  • motivated by need for raw materials + markets to sell goods (motivated by industrialization)

  • also motivated by nationalism (colonies)

  • motivated by social Darwinism → survival of the fittest

  • motivated by white man’s burden → moral obligation to go civilize other people.

  • Christianization of other civilizations

India BEIC

  • Mughal fragments → Mughal emperor stays on the throne as a figurehead

  • BEIC trades w/ India, also has it’s own private army

  • many fragmented Indian states ask for BEIC help versus each other

  • BEIC takes over more and more of India and runs it for it’s own profit

  • employs native Indians in their army as Sepoys and becomes a very large army

  • BEIC indirectly controls or directly controls most of India

  • BEIC only had ~1000 British people, simply running through Indian officials for BEIC profit

  • regulates trade such as where Opium can be sold

  • wipes out Indian textile industry by selling British

  • BEIC stop caring about Indians (“moral idiots”) which sets off revolt (Sepoy Rebellion of 1857-1858) → British army make new rifle where you have to bite the cartridge

  • smeared animal fat which pissed off Hindus and Muslims

  • British had to set British troops in India → after Sepoy rebellion, British GOV. decide that the BEIC is not fit to rule India and decides to turn it into a Crown colony → end of Mughal empire

  • Crown Colony leads to Indians migrating for the first time, Indian Diaspora

  • Becomes the British Raj

  • British modernizes India to address grievances

  • Indian Civil Service, Indian public service education to create competent administrators, modernizes agriculture, and built a railway system

  • no Indian identity, which changed after the railway system, education system introduced Indian people to nationalism, popular sovereignty, etc. which created Indian National identity.

  • example of this is Indian National Congress

Chinese Imperialism

  • Qing Dynasty was last imperial Dynasty (Manchu Dynasty)

  • Canton system, which restricted trade w/ EU

  • Motivated British to start selling Opium, grown in India and sold illegally in China → so much profit for British

  • China tried to stop, but the British went to far because of the amt. of profit that was being made

  • British whooped China with adv. army

  • Treaty of Nanjing → fucks over China and lets them get dominated economically by the Europeans; lets EU get free trade as well as eliminat3es the Canton system

  • extra territoriality → foreigners were not governed by any laws, instead governed by laws of their own countries → lots of troops raping women, killing people, etc. (part of Treaty of Nanjing)

  • also put China in lots of debt, put indemnity

  • lots of discontent, humiliates the country and it’s citizens → Taiping Rebellion

Taiping Rebellion

  • started by the Hakka but spread elsewhere

  • led by Hong Xiquan → repeatedly failed the Civil Service Exams → realized he was the brother of Jesus Christ himself

  • inspired by Christianity

  • rebellion against Qing (blamed it on the Manchu) and ended up taking over China and ruling it for over 14 years

  • British and France side with Qing to help put an end to the Taiping rebellion (gain benefits)

  • 30 million died due to it, because of disease, famine, and fighting

  • EU impose another indemnity on China and ask for more privileges, like putting British officials on the Qing government and having them control indemnity payments and finances

  • cripples China for 2nd half of 19th century, which makes them very bitter

  • also means that Qing has very little authority in China, and local power is wielded by warlords.

Overthrow of Manchu

  • people pissed that Chinese getting BITCHED by Europeans

  • hated Manchu because they were foreign

  • Hong Xiquan that was supposed to do it

Boxer Rebellion

  • 1805

  • humiliation

  • anti foreign sentiment because EU just beat tf outta all Chinese people

Egyptian European Imperialism

  • French Invasion in 1796 (Napoleon)

  • sets off a critique of Egyptian society and leadership → realized how easily they got bitched

Muhammad Ali

  • Muhammad Ali → Egypt needs to modernize

  • invites European scientists, adopts EU tech and modernizes army and government, public education system (modeled after EU)

  • done through Egyptian agricultural economy, forces farmers to sell Egyptian farmers to sell Cotton on the global economy which pays for modernization

  • 1830’s → Egypt is most advanced country in the Islamic world

  • followed by Ishmael

Ishmael

  • 1863-1879

  • grandson of Muhammad Ali, and continues modernization

  • starts the Suez Canal

  • connects to the Red Sea

  • cuts travel time from EU to India by two months

  • huge moneymaker by imposing tolls, built w/ French engineers

  • 1869 completed, done by borrowing from EU banks

  • builds a railroad system in Egypt + postal service

  • builds Cairo

  • 1860’s, Cotton collapses and Egypt was not able to pay for the interest on it’s loans (100mil pounds, 1/3 of money was just interest off loans)

  • Allows British to bring personnel into Egyptian gov. to collect taxes and do wtv. they want

  • deeply resented by Egyptian people, causes revolt in 1882

  • British move troops in and take over Suez Canal and take over Egypt (but not as a crown colony), rulers serve in interest of British

  • ——> sets off Scramble for Africa because they see how easily the strongest African country got taken over

Scramble for Africa

  • believed war would breakout by German Chancellor

  • calls for Berlin Conference where they designate parts of Africa to different European countries

  • use steamships, gunpowder weapons (esp. machine guns) to absolutely destroy Africa

  • also creation of Quinine → prevention of Malaria → allowed Europeans to go wherever they wanted

  • Ethiopia (Christian Kingdom) had a modernized army → 1896 tried to be taken over by Italian

  • Ethiopia remained only independent kingdom in Africa.

European Resources in Africa

  • Europeans really wanted resources

  • almost no restrictions in Africa and they exploited Africans significantly

  • brutalized, tortured, etc.

Belgian Congo

  • King Leopold the Third

  • BIG source of Rubber

  • Leopold exploited the African people significantly

  • abused, maimed, limbs severed, murder, etc.

  • 50% of population lost their lives

  • world found out → Belgian government stepped in and took over, and made the Congo a possession of Belgium (like BEIC/GB)

Europeans Modernization of Africa

  • built schools

  • railroads

  • postal systems

  • + other infrastructure

  • lots of educated African people in some parts of Africa

  • become exposed to Western Ideals (like the enlightenment) and African Nationalist aspirations start for the first time → advocations for their independence

  • → point out hypocrisy

  • Christian Missionaries → convert large numbers of Africans to Christianity → only converted if new African churches can be made

  • → Sub Saharan Africa, syncretic Christianity (independent from EU church)

  • N. Africa remains mainly Muslim, vs the Sahara

  • Religious division of Africa

  • 49% Christian, 42% Muslim → to this day.