Revolutions and Nationalism

Mexico

• peasant rebellion in Mexico led by a parish priest, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753-1811),

• social and economic warfare by the masses against the elites of Mexican society,

• Virgin of Guadalupe and by calling for the death of Spaniards.

• Hidalgo became the symbol of Mexican independence, and the day on which he proclaimed his revolt—16 September 1810

Simon Bolivar

• 1825: creole forces had overcome Spanish armies and deposed Spanish rulers throughout South America.

• 1830, strong political and regional differences had undermined Gran Colombia.

Brazil

• Napoleon invaded Portugal in 1807, the royal court fled Lisbon and established a government in exile in Rio de Janeiro.

• Son Pedro in Brazil as regent.

• Portuguese Cortes (parliament) tried to curtail his power, he declared himself emperor

Creole dominance

• creole elites dominated Brazilian society just as they did in former Spanish colonies.

• military authority to local charismatic strongmen, known as caudillas,

• continuation of slavery, Roman Catholic church, repressed the lower orders

• Beneficiaries: the creole elites

Ideologies

• An ideology is i coherent vision of human nature, human society, and the larger world that proposes some particular form of political and social organization as ideal.

Conservatism

• English political philosopher. Edmund Burke that society. was a compact between a people's ancestors, the present generation, and their descendants as yet unborn.

• condemned radical or revolutionary change, could only lead to anarchy.

Liberalism

• For liberals the task of political and social theory was not to stifle change but, rather, to manage it in the best interests of society,

• favored republican forms of government

• Most liberals, for example, held the view that voting was more of a privilege than a right, and therefore was legitimately subject to certain qualifications.

• liberals started to look to government to minimize or correct the problems that accompanied industrialization.

• John Stuart Mill

  • universal suffrage

  • taxation of business profits and high personal incomes

  • seeking to extend the rights of freedom and equality to women and working people

  • age of revolutions in the Atlantic world illustrated the centrality of suffrage in establishing a people's and a nation's sense of democratic legitimacy

• Mary Wollstonecraft

  • Wollstonecraft argued that women possessed all rights that Locke had granted to men.

  • “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”

Nationalism

Nationalism is NOT an enlightenment idea

• peoples throughout Europe re-ponded enthusiastically to ideologies of nationalism

  • which promised glory and prosperity to those who worked in the interests of their national communities.

• European peoples came to identify strongly with communities they called nations.

• Intense feelings of national identity fueled ideologies of nationalism,

• Advocates of nationalism insisted that the nation must be the focus of political loyalty.

• Zealous nationalist leaders maintained that members of their national communities had a common destiny that they could best advance by organizing independent national states and resolutely pursuing their national interests.

• Congress of Vienna:

  • representatives of the "great powers" that defeated Napoleon Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia— attempted to restore the prerevolutionary order.

  • The European balance of power established at Vienna survived for almost a century, until the outbreak of a general continental and global war in 1914.

National communities

• France: inspired patriotism and encourage citizens to rally to the defense of the revolution when for foreign armies threatened it.

  • use of “Marseillaise” inspired pride, opposition to Napoleon and his imperial designs also inspired national feeling in Britain.

• Zionism, a political movement that holds that the Jewish people constitute a nation and have the right to their own national home-land,

  • Zionism in tur provoked a resentful nationalism among Palestinian Arabs displaced by Jewish settlers,

Nationalist rebellions

• 1821: Greek people sought independence from the Ottoman.

• The uprisings of 1848 brought down the French monarchy and seriously threatened the Austrian empire, where subject peoples clamored for constitutions and independence.

• The unification of Italy and Germany made it clear that when coupled with strong political, diplomatic, and military leadership, nationalism had enormous potential to mobilize people who felt a sense of national kinship.