Era of Western Hegemony

1750-1900

Enlightenment c1650-1700s

empiricism: thinking logically about the world
natural rights
- Locke: life, liberty, property granted to all men
  - government must protect those rights > if not right to revolt
social contract: citizens give up some of their freedoms to the government to have their other rights protected
popular sovereignty > democracy (republic)
- government’s power should come from the consent of the governed
liberalism
- dominate political theory in Atlantic revolutions during this time
laissez-faire capitalism/free market (Anti-mercantilism)
- Smith
key enlightenment thinkers
- Locke
  - natural rights
- Voltaire
  - separation of church of state
  - freedom of religion, speech, etc.
- Montesquieu
  - separation of powers
  - checks and balances
- Woolstone craft
  - apply men’s rights to women’s rights
- Smith
  - laissez-faire capitalism

Atlantic Revolutions 1775-1820s

Inspired by enlightenment ideas
colonies breaking free from their metropole
American
- Washington, Jefferson
- Declaration of independence
French
- absolute monarchs overthrown
- Declaration of the Rights of Man and the French Citizen
Latin America
- Haiti
  - L’Ouverture
- Mexico
  - Father Hidalgo
- South America
  - Simon Bolivar
    - Jamaican letter
colonies > independence > proclaims Republics
- only US maintains republic government
  - French gains dictator again: Napoleon
  - Latin America puts only caudillos in power
not everyone is granted rights
- Feminist Movement (do not gain rights in this era)
  - Wollstonecraft
  - Olympe de Gouge
- Abolitionist Movement
  - end African chattel slavery

Industrial Revolution

starts 1750 in Britain
- causes:
  - unplanned
  - access on Atlantic oceans
  - 2nd agricultural revolution
    - boosts population: fewer farmers + more industrial workers
  - abundance of raw materials
    - coal, iron
  - infrastructure
    - waterways, roads, canals
  - entrepreneurial and capitalist ideology
    - trans-national businesses
      - Debier
      - Lipton
1st Industrial revolution: 1750-1850
- coal, steam engines, railroads, steam boats
2nd Industrial revolution 1850-1914
- chemicals, electricity, petroleum (internal combustion engines), telegraph lines
Spread across W. Europe, USA, Russia, Japan
- entrepreneurial: W. Europe, USA
- state sponsored: Russia and Japan
new social classes
- middle class
  - management of factories
- factory workers
impacts on Africa, Asia, Pacific, Latin America
- sources of exporting raw materials
- new alternatives to capitalism = socialism, Marxism (communism)
  - socialism: government has some control
  - communism: uprising of workers, one class (working class), everything given to the government to be equally distributed

2nd Wave of Western Imperialism

Africa, Asia, Pacific, Latin America
- causes
  - need to produce raw materials
  - racial ideologies: Social Darwinism
  - competition against western powers
  - White Man’s Burden
  - maxum guns, railroads, telegraph lines
- effects
British East India Company > British Raj (1858-1947)
- due to sepoy mutiny
- ended Mughal empire
Qing China > spheres of influence
- opium import for Britain > opium wars
- loss in opium war > Treaty of Nanjing
  - first of many unequal treaties
  - more western european nations want their own unequal treaty
Scramble for Africa > Berlin Conference (1884-85)
- Belgian Congo
Economic imperialism in Latin America
- Argentina: exporting beef to Britain
- Infrastructure: owned and built by western powers

Indigenous Resistance to Imperialism

Coerced labor systems end 1800s

Migrations

Atlantic slave trade continued until the mid 1800s
Europeans to Americas
- Irish to USA and Canada
  - due to famine
Indentured Servants
- Asia (India) > Latin America and Pacific
  - also going to other colonies
  - establish ethnic enclaves

Responses to the West and Modernization