French & Industrial Revolutions (1789-1900): Comprehensive Study Notes

Guiding Questions for the Week

• Keep three framing questions in mind while studying $1789{-}1900$:
  • What is a revolution?
  • What was revolutionary about the Industrial Revolution?
  • How have revolutions changed from $1789$ to the Arab Spring?
• Lecturer directs students to complementary recordings/interviews:
  • Conversation with Dr Ian Trigenza (conceptual definitions).
  • Current lecture on Industrial Revolution (essay relevance).
  • Conversation with Dr Noah Basil (evolution of revolutions from France to Cuba & Arab Spring).

Defining Revolution

• Plurality of definitions: Modern scholarship avoids a single, rigid definition.
• Jack Goldstone (2014, “A Brief Introduction”) – widely recommended primer.
  • Synthesises prior theories, insists on combining mass mobilisation + institutional change + ideology of social justice.
  • Goldstone’s working definition:
  • “A revolution is the forcible overthrow of a government through mass mobilisation (military, civilian, or both) in the name of social justice, producing new political institutions.”
  • Emphasises elite/military defection as necessary catalyst.
• Five necessary pre-conditions (Goldstone):
  1. National economic or fiscal strains.
  2. Growing alienation/opposition among elites.
  3. Widespread popular anger at injustice.
  4. Bridging ideology linking elite & popular grievances through a shared narrative of resistance.
  5. Favourable international relations (external allies, benign neighbours, or distracted great powers).
• When all five align, normal mechanisms of order fail ⇒ revolution ensues.

French Revolution (Case Study)

• Context: End of American War of Independence left France with large war debts ⇒ meets Goldstone criterion 1 (fiscal crisis).
• Blocking of tax reform by courts & notables ⇒ King calls Estates-General (clergy, nobility, commoners) – convenes May $1789$ amidst famine & riots.
• Third Estate proclaims itself National Assembly; joined by reformist clergy/nobles ⇒ aims to “reshape France”.
• Milestones:
  • Bastille stormed $14/07/1789$ – symbolic attack on royal fortress.
  • Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen drafted.
  • Abolition of monarchy & feudal privileges; execution of King & Queen.
  • Catholic Church nationalised; land sold off.
  • France declared a Republic under motto “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.”
• Conflict & consolidation:
  • Internal factionalism; external wars.
  • Napoleon assumes control post-$1801$; eventually defeated $1814$; Bourbons restored.
• Legacy:
  • Popular sovereignty replaces divine kingship in global imagination.
  • Prototype for subsequent revolutions: terror, constitutionalism, mass armies.

Conceptual Impact of the French Revolution

• Theda Skocpol (1989) – marks $1789$ as point where “revolution” = sudden, fundamental, innovative break, not cyclical return.
• Lynn Hunt: Revolution births key traits of modern politics – ideological contestation, democratic participation, party systems.
• E.J. Hobsbawm:
  • France supplies vocabulary & issues of liberal/radical politics.
  • Spreads nationalism, scientific organisation, metric system, legal codes.
  • French ideological export penetrates civilisations long resistant to Europe.

Industrial Revolution (Britain-centred Overview)

• Coined by Arnold Toynbee (lectures $1881{-}1882$).
• Historians debate pace & heroics; consensus: something extraordinary occurred $18^{th}$–$19^{th}$ c.
• Key structural features:
  • Decline of rural population; urbanisation surge.
  • Expansion of transport – railway = emblem of speed & connectivity.
  • Technological & scientific innovation (steam power, mechanised textiles, iron production).
  • Shift from agriculture to factory system.
  • Britain as “workshop of the world” circa $1851$ – dominates global manufactured trade, shipping, services.
  • Empire & military power underpin export markets & raw-material supply.
• Invisible contemporaneity: Majority living through changes unaware of “Industrial Revolution” label – reminds us to reflect on our own era.

Hobsbawm’s “Dual Revolution” Thesis

• “The Age of Revolution $1789{-}1848$” stresses interaction:
  • British Industrial Revolution shapes global economy.
  • French Political Revolution shapes global ideologies & politics.
• $1789$ world ≈ overwhelmingly rural → by $1851$ urban populations edge ahead (England census).
• Literature & arts from $1830s$ onward haunted by capitalism’s rise (context for Marx & Engels).

Social & Living-Standards Debates (Historiography)

• Standard of Living Debate – dominant $1970s{-}1990s$, pitched economic historians (quantitative vs qualitative).
  • Optimists: Real wages & purchasing power rose.
  • Pessimists: Wage/price data show stagnation & depression (post-Napoleonic $1815$, crisis $1838$).
• Sources & Methods: Parish records, wage series, autobiographies, Poor Law archives; emphasises need to interrogate source type.
• Toynbee & later social historians (e.g., Sidney & Beatrice Webb) criticised exploitation, machine “spirit-crushing.”
• Emma Griffin, “Liberty’s Dawn” (recent):
  • Uses working-class autobiographies; argues many felt agency & improvement, not oppression.
  • Reminder: autobiographical corpus skewed (male, literate, self-selecting) ⇒ caution in generalisation.

Resistance & Adaptation

• Luddites destroy textile machinery (Nottingham et al.) – emblem of tech backlash.
• Historians now note majority adapted: migrated long distances, integrated family labour, engaged new occupations.
• Industrialisation enabled accommodation of rapid population growth.

Global Diffusion of Industrialisation

• Belgium – quick adopter (rich coal reserves).
• Germany – accelerates post-$1850$ (Rhine-Ruhr coal, state support).
• USA & Japan – emerge as industrial powers late $19^{th}$ c.
• British lead wanes: Paris Exhibition $1867$ symbolises declining supremacy; by century’s end Germany & US technologically overtake.

Methodological & Cross-Lecture Connections

• Emphasis on interdisciplinary sources: economic data, court records, life writing, art, literature.
• Links to unit themes:
  • Nationalism (lectures by Mark Hearn).
  • Exploitation/Empire (lectures by Alison, Mark).
  • Marxist theory (discussed by Ian).
• Encourage exploration of non-Anglo industrial histories (South America/Brazil, etc.) despite present lecture’s UK focus.

Beyond French & Industrial: Other Revolutionary Trajectories

• Upcoming unit focus:
  • Anti-colonial revolutions (lecture by Dr Keith Rathbone).
  • Examples: American, Haitian, Latin American, Algerian, Indian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Angolan, Mozambican.
  • Social revolution – Sexual Revolution $20^{th}$ c. (re-conceptualises intimacy, gender, power).
  • Neoliberal Revolution – late $20^{th}$ c. financial & ideological upheavals (“tsunami” > ripple).
• Mixed-type revolutions illustrate analytical limits of strict categories:
  • $2011$ Libya & Syria – began democratizing ⇒ civil war.
  • Turkish Young Turks/1908, Japanese Meiji Restoration $1868$, Egyptian Nasser/1952 – toppled monarchies but produced military regimes.

Rethinking Revolutionary Theory

• Late $20^{th}$ c. cases challenge structuralist & Marxist explanations (as noted by Dr Ian Trigenza).
• Scholars now integrate: culture, identity, transnational flows, non-violent mobilisation.

Future of Revolutions & Open Questions

• Last major ideological revolutions: Nicaragua $1979$, Iran $1979$.
• Rise of non-violent resistance (e.g., Occupy, #MeToo).
• Reflective prompt: What conditions today would move you to revolt?
• Consider new definitions of revolution relevant to $21^{st}$ c. digital, globalised contexts.

Numerical & Chronological References (Quick List)

• $1789$ – French Revolution starts.
• $14/07/1789$ – Bastille Day.
• $1789{-}1900$ – “dual revolution” century.
• $1801$ – Napoleon consolidates power.
• $1814$ – Napoleon defeated; Bourbons restored.
• $1830s$ – Capitalist anxieties in arts/literature.
• $1851$ – Britain reaches industrial zenith (Great Exhibition).
• $1867$ – Paris Exhibition highlights British decline.
• $1881{-}1882$ – Toynbee popularises term “Industrial Revolution.”
• $2011$ – Arab Spring revolutions (Libya, Syria).