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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.