Key Concepts and Impacts of the Enlightenment, Nationalism, and Industrial Revolution

Enlightenment Beliefs & Effects

• Natural Rights: Rights are given by the creator, not monarchs.
• Social Contract: People have the power to govern themselves; government exists by the people's consent.

Enlightenment Impact

• Reform Movements:
  • Women's suffrage (right to vote)
    • Seneca Falls Convention (1848): Call for equal rights for women.
  • Abolitionism: Movement to end slavery.
    • Slave trade banned in many states (early 1800s).
    • Serfdom abolished in Russia (1861).

Nationalism & Revolutions

• Nationalism Defined: A people's sense of belonging based on common language, religion, customs, state, and territory.

Revolutions Resulting from Enlightenment & Nationalism

• American Revolution:
  • Enlightenment ideals in the Declaration of Independence.
  • Growing nationalism due to repressive British policies.
  • The United States of America established by 1783.
• Inspiration: American Revolution inspired the French and Haitian revolutions, as well as Latin American independence movements.

Documents Exhibiting Enlightenment Thought

• Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (France).
• Simon Bolivar's Letter from Jamaica.

Industrial Revolution

• Change in how goods were made for sale; shift from handmade to machine-made.

Beginning in Britain

• Britain had proximity to waterways for transporting materials.
• Abundant raw materials like coal, iron, and timber.
• Urbanization due to the enclosure movement.
• Improved agricultural productivity due to crop rotation and technologies like the seed drill.

Rise of the Factory System

• Initially powered by the water frame and then steam engines.
• Factories mass-produced goods, especially textiles (clothing).
• Greater specialization of labor, rise of unskilled laborers.

Shift in Global Manufacturing

• As Western industrialization spread, Middle Eastern and Asian countries' share in global manufacturing declined.
• Steam power helped European countries dominate manufacturing.
• Industrialization spread to Continental Europe, the US, Japan, and Russia.
• The US had human capital due to immigration to urban centers.
• Russia constructed the Trans-Siberian Railroad.
• Japan embraced industrialization defensively (Meiji Restoration).

Impact on India

• British textile industry increased production and imposed taxes on Indian textiles.
• Indian textile production faced decline due to Britain policy.

New Technologies & Manufacturing

• First Industrial Revolution (1750s-1830s):
  • Textiles
  • Powered by the steam engine (coal).
  • Locomotives and steam-powered factories.
• Second Industrial Revolution (1830s-1920s):
  • Steel.
  • Powered by internal combustion engine (oil).
  • Fossil fuel revolution increased available energy.

Railroads

• Transcontinental railroads united large land masses into single economies.
• Consolidated colonial power (e.g., Cecil Rhodes in Africa).

Telegraph

• Instantaneous communication over long distances fueled the industrial revolution.

Economic Shifts

• Free Market Capitalism:

  • Western European nations abandoned mercantilism, adopting free market capitalism.
  • Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations argued for laissez-faire economics (government hands-off).
  • Prosperity through consumer choices, supply and demand, and the "invisible hand."

• Transnational Corporations:

  • Companies operating across national boundaries.
  • Unilever Corporation (British and Dutch venture) with soap factories worldwide.
  • Improved businesses structures.

• Increased Standards of Living:

  • Mass production led to lower prices and goods became more affordable.
  • Rise of the middle class.

Reforms Due to Industrialization

• Labor Unions:

  • Factory workers formed unions for collective bargaining due to long hours, dangerous conditions, and low pay.
  • Successful in winning minimum wage laws, shorter workdays, overtime pay, five-day work week, etc.

• Karl Marx's Criticism:

  • Criticized capitalism for its class structure, as laid out in The Communist Manifesto (with Friedrich Engels).
  • Bourgeoisie own the means of production and proletariat (working class) works for them.
    • Marx argued the proletariat would eventually rise up to create communism, a society defined by equality without classes.

• Ottoman Empire's Tanzimat Reforms:

  • Reforms to industrialize the Ottoman Empire and eliminate government corruption.
  • Somewhat effective but ultimately didn't prevent Western intrusion.