The Industrial Revolution spread from Great Britain to the continent, where the state played a greater role in promoting industry. The transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy began in Britain in the 18th century, spread to France and Germany between 1850 and 1870, and finally to Russia in the 1890s. The governments of those countries actively supported industrialization. In southern and eastern Europe, some pockets of industry developed, surrounded by traditional agrarian economies. Although continental nations sought to borrow from and in some instances imitate the British model — the success of which was represented by the Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851 — each nation’s experience of industrialization was shaped by its own matrix of geographic, social, and political factors. The legacy of the revolution in France, for example, led to a more gradual adoption of mechanization in production, ensuring a more incremental industrialization than was the case in Britain. Despite the creation of a customs union in the 1830s, Germany’s lack of political unity hindered its industrial development. However, following unification in 1871, the German Empire quickly came to challenge British dominance in key industries, such as steel, coal, and chemicals. Beginning in the 1870s, the European economy fluctuated widely because of the vagaries of financial markets. Continental states responded by assisting and protecting the development of national industry in a variety of ways, the most important being protective tariffs, military procurements, and colonial conquests. Key economic stakeholders, such as corporations and industrialists, expected governments to promote economic development by subsidizing ports, transportation, and new inventions; registering patents and sponsoring education; encouraging investments and enforcing contracts; and maintaining order and preventing labor strikes. State intervention reached its culmination in the 20th century, when some governments took over direction of the entire process of industrial development under the pressure of war and depression and/or from ideological commitments.
I. Great Britain established its industrial dominance through the mechanization of textile production, iron and steel production, and new transportation systems.
A. Britain’s ready supplies of coal, iron ore, and other essential raw materials promoted industrial growth.
B. Economic institutions and human capital such as engineers, inventors, and capitalists helped Britain lead the process of industrialization, largely through private initiative.
Examples of Britain’s leadership such as the following:
– The Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition of 1851
– Banks
– Government financial awards to inventors
C. Britain’s parliamentary government promoted commercial and industrial interests because those interests were represented in Parliament.
II. Following the British example, industrialization took root in continental Europe, sometimes with state sponsorship.
A. France moved toward industrialization at a more gradual pace than Great Britain, with government support and with less dislocation of traditional methods of production.
Examples of government support of industrialization
– Canals
– Railroads
– Trade agreements
B. Industrialization in Prussia allowed that state to become the leader of a unified Germany, which subsequently underwent rapid industrialization under government sponsorship.
Examples of industrialization in Prussia:
– Zollverein
– Investment in transportation network
– Adoption of improved methods of manufacturing
– Friedrich List’s National System
C. A combination of factors including geography, lack of resources, the dominance of traditional landed elites, the persistence of serfdom in some areas, and inadequate government sponsorship accounted for eastern and southern Europe’s lag in industrial development. Teachers have flexibility to use examples of geographic factors in eastern and southern Europe such as the following: w Lack of resources w Lack of adequate transportation AP European History Course and
III. During the second industrial revolution (c. 1870–1914), more areas of Europe experienced industrial activity, and industrial processes increased in scale and complexity.
A. Mechanization and the factory system became the predominant modes of production by 1914.
B. New technologies and means of communication and transportation — including railroads — resulted in more fully integrated national economies, a higher level of urbanization, and a truly global economic network.
Examples of new technologies:
– Bessemer process
– Mass production
– Electricity
– Chemicals
Examples of developments in communication and transportation:
– Telegraph
– Steamship
– Streetcars or trolley cars
– Telephones
– Internal combustion engine
– Airplane
– Radio
C. Volatile business cycles in the last quarter of the 19th century led corporations and governments to try to manage the market through monopolies, banking practices, and tariffs.
The experiences of everyday life were shaped by industrialization, depending on the level of industrial development in a particular location. Industrialization promoted the development of new socioeconomic classes between 1815 and 1914. In highly industrialized areas, such as western and northern Europe, the new economy created new social divisions, leading for the first time to the development of self-conscious economic classes, especially the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. In addition, economic changes led to the rise of trade and industrial unions, benevolent associations, sport clubs, and distinctive class-based cultures of dress, speech, values, and customs. Europe also experienced rapid population growth and urbanization that resulted in benefits as well as social dislocations. The increased population created an enlarged labor force, but in some areas migration from the countryside to the towns and cities led to overcrowding and significant emigration overseas. Industrialization and urbanization changed the structure and relations of bourgeois and working-class families to varying degrees. Birth control became increasingly common across Europe, and childhood experience changed with the advent of protective legislation, universal schooling, and smaller families. The growth of a cult of domesticity established new models of gendered behavior for men and women. Gender roles became more clearly defined as middle-class women withdrew from the workforce. At the same time, working-class women increased their participation as wage-laborers, although the middle class criticized them for neglecting their families. Industrialization and urbanization also changed people’s conception of time; in particular, work and leisure were increasingly differentiated by means of the imposition of strict work schedules and the separation of the workplace from the home. Increasingly, trade unions assumed responsibility for the social welfare of working-class families, fighting for improved working conditions and shorter hours. Increasing leisure time spurred the development of leisure activities and spaces for bourgeois families. Overall, although inequality and poverty remained significant social problems, the quality of material life improved. For most social groups, the standard of living rose; the availability of consumer products grew; and sanitary standards, medical care, and life expectancy improved.
I. Industrialization promoted the development of new classes in the industrial regions of Europe.
A. In industrialized areas of Europe (i.e., western and northern Europe), socioeconomic changes created divisions of labor that led to the development of self-conscious classes, such as the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
B. In some of the less industrialized areas of Europe, the dominance of agricultural elites persisted into the 20th century.
C. Class identity developed and was reinforced through participation in philanthropic, political, and social associations among the middle classes, and in mutual aid societies and trade unions among the working classes.
II. Europe experienced rapid population growth and urbanization, leading to social dislocations.
A. Along with better harvests caused in part by the commercialization of agriculture, industrialization promoted population growth, longer life expectancy, and lowered infant mortality.
B. With migration from rural to urban areas in industrialized regions, cities experienced overcrowding, while affected rural areas suffered declines in available labor as well as weakened communities.
III. Over time, the Industrial Revolution altered the family structure and relations for bourgeois and working-class families.
A. Bourgeois families became focused on the nuclear family and the cult of domesticity, with distinct gender roles for men and women.
B. By the end of the century, wages and the quality of life for the working class improved because of laws restricting the labor of children and women, social welfare programs, improved diet, and the use of birth control.
Examples of laws restricting the labor of children and women such as the following:
w Factory Act of 1833
w Mines Act of 1842
w Ten Hours Act of 1847
C. Economic motivations for marriage, while still important for all classes, diminished as the middle-class notion of companionate marriage began to be adopted by the working classes.
D. Leisure time centered increasingly on the family or small groups, concurrent with the development of activities and spaces to use that time.
Examples of leisure time activities and spaces such as the following:
w Parks
w Sports clubs and arenas
w Beaches
w Department stores
w Museums
w Theaters
w Opera houses
IV. A heightened consumerism developed as a result of the second industrial revolution.
A. Industrialization and mass marketing increased both the production and demand for a new range of consumer goods — including clothing, processed foods, and labor-saving devices — and created more leisure opportunities.
Examples of mass marketing such as the following:
w Advertising
w Department stores
w Catalogs
B. New efficient methods of transportation and other innovations created new industries, improved the distribution of goods, increased consumerism, and enhanced the quality of life.
Examples of new efficient methods of transportation and other innovations such as the following:
– Steamships
– Railroads
w Refrigerated rail cars
w Ice boxes
w Streetcars
w Bicycles
Examples of new industries during the second industrial revolution such as the following:
w Chemical industry
w Electricity and utilities
w Automobile
w Leisure travel
w Professional and leisure sports
V. Because of the persistence of primitive agricultural practices and land-owning patterns, some areas of Europe lagged in industrialization while facing famine, debt, and land shortages. [PP-3 | IS-10]
Examples of primitive agricultural practices and famines such as the following:
w The “Hungry ’40s”
w Irish potato famine
w Russian serfdom
The problems of industrialization provoked a range of ideological, governmental, and collective responses. The French and industrial revolutions triggered dramatic political and social consequences and new theories to deal with them. The ideologies engendered by these 19th-century revolutions — conservatism, liberalism, socialism, nationalism, and even romanticism — provided their adherents with coherent views of the world and differing blueprints for change. For example, utopian socialists experimented with communal living as a social and economic response to change. The responses to socioeconomic changes reached a culmination in the revolutions of 1848, but the failure of these uprisings left the issues raised by the economic, political, and social transformations unresolved well into the 20th century. In the second half of the 19th century, labor leaders in many countries created unions and syndicates to provide the working classes with a collective voice, and these organizations used collective action such as strikes and movements for men’s universal suffrage to reinforce their demands. Feminists and suffragists petitioned and staged public protests to press their demands for similar rights for women. The international movements for socialism, labor, and women’s rights were important examples of a trend toward international cooperation in a variety of causes, including antislavery and peace movements. Finally, political parties emerged as sophisticated vehicles for advocating reform or reacting to changing conditions in the political arena. Nationalism acted as one of the most powerful engines of political change, inspiring revolutions as well as campaigns by states for national unity or a higher degree of centralization. Early nationalism emphasized shared historical and cultural experiences that often threatened traditional elites. Over the course of the 19th century, leaders recognized the need to promote national unity through economic development and expanding state functions to meet the challenges posed by industry.
I. Ideologies developed and took root throughout society as a response to industrial and political revolutions.
A. Liberals emphasized popular sovereignty, individual rights, and enlightened self-interest but debated the extent to which all groups in society should actively participate in its governance.
Examples of liberals such as the following:
w Jeremy Bentham
w Anti-Corn Law League
w John Stuart Mill
B. Radicals in Britain and republicans on the continent demanded universal male suffrage and full citizenship without regard to wealth and property ownership; some argued that such rights should be extended to women.
Examples of advocates of suffrage such as the following:
w Chartists
w Flora Tristan
C. Conservatives developed a new ideology in support of traditional political and religious authorities, which was based on the idea that human nature was not perfectible.
Examples of conservatives such as the following:
w Edmund Burke
w Joseph de Maistre
w Klemens von Metternich
D. Socialists called for a fair distribution of society’s resources and wealth and evolved from a utopian to a Marxist scientific critique of capitalism.
Examples of utopian socialists such as the following:
w Henri de Saint-Simon
w Charles Fourier
w Robert Owen
Examples of Marxists such as the following:
w Friedrich Engels
w August Bebel
w Clara Zetkin
w Rosa Luxemburg
E. Anarchists asserted that all forms of governmental authority were unnecessary and should be overthrown and replaced with a society based on voluntary cooperation. Teachers have flexibility to use examples of anarchists such as the following: w Mikhail Bakunin w Georges Sorel
F. Nationalists encouraged loyalty to the nation in a variety of ways, including romantic idealism, liberal reform, political unification, racialism with a concomitant anti-Semitism, and chauvinism justifying national aggrandizement.
Examples of nationalists such as the following:
w J. G. Fichte
w Grimm Brothers
w Giuseppe Mazzini
w Pan-Slavists
Examples of anti-Semitism such as the following:
w Dreyfus Affair
w Christian Social Party in Germany
w Karl Lueger, mayor of Vienna
G. A form of Jewish nationalism, Zionism, developed in the late 19th century as a response to growing anti-Semitism in both western and eastern Europe.
Examples of Zionists such as the following:
w Theodor Herzl
II. Governments responded to the problems created or exacerbated by industrialization by expanding their functions and creating modern bureaucratic states.
A. Liberalism shifted from laissez-faire to interventionist economic and social policies on behalf of the less privileged; the policies were based on a rational approach to reform that addressed the impact of the Industrial Revolution on the individual.
B. Government reforms transformed unhealthy and overcrowded cities by modernizing infrastructure, regulating public health, reforming prisons, and establishing modern police forces.
Examples of modernizing infrastructure such as the following:
w Sewage and water systems
w Public lighting
w Public housing
w Urban redesign
w Parks
w Public transportation
C. Governments promoted compulsory public education to advance the goals of public order, nationalism, and economic growth.
III. Political movements and social organizations responded to the problems of industrialization.
A. Mass-based political parties emerged as sophisticated vehicles for social, economic, and political reform.
Examples of mass-based political parties such as the following:
w Conservatives and Liberals in Great Britain w Conservatives and Socialists in France
w Social Democratic Party in Germany
B. Workers established labor unions and movements promoting social and economic reforms that also developed into political parties.
Examples of political parties representing workers such as the following:
w German Social Democratic Party
w British Labour Party
w Russian Social Democratic Party
C. Feminists pressed for legal, economic, and political rights for women as well as improved working conditions.
Examples of feminists and feminist movements such as the following:
w Flora Tristan
w British Women’s Social and Political Union
w Pankhurst family
w Barbara Smith Bodichon
D. Various private, nongovernmental reform movements sought to lift up the deserving poor and end serfdom and slavery.
Examples of reform movements and social reformers such as the following:
w The Sunday School Movement
w The Temperance Movement
w British Abolitionist Movement
w Josephine Butler
Examples of the deserving poor such as the following:
w Young prostitutes
w Children
w Women
w Elderly
European states struggled to maintain international stability in an age of nationalism and revolutions. Following a quarter-century of revolutionary upheaval and war spurred by Napoleon’s imperial ambitions, the Great Powers met in Vienna in 1814–1815 to re-establish a workable balance of power and suppress liberal and nationalist movements for change. Austrian Foreign Minister Klemens von Metternich led the way in creating an informal security arrangement to resolve international disputes and stem revolution through common action among the Great Powers. Nonetheless, revolutions aimed at liberalization of the political system and national self-determination defined the period from 1815 to 1848. The revolutions that swept Europe in 1848 were triggered by poor economic conditions, frustration at the slow pace of political change, and unfulfilled nationalist aspirations. At first, revolutionary forces succeeded in establishing regimes dedicated to change or to gaining independence from great-power domination. However, conservative forces, which still controlled the military and bureaucracy, reasserted control. Although the revolutions of 1848 were, as George Macaulay Trevelyan quipped, a “turning point at which modern history failed to turn,” they set the stage for a subsequent sea change in European diplomacy. A new breed of conservative leader, exemplified by Napoleon III of France, co-opted nationalism as a top-down force for the advancement of state power and authoritarian rule in the name of “the people.” Further, the Crimean War (1853–1856), prompted by the decline of the Ottoman Empire, shattered the Concert of Europe established in 1815 and opened the door for the unifications of Italy and Germany. Using the methods of Realpolitik, Cavour in Italy and Bismarck in Germany succeeded in unifying their nations after centuries of disunity. Their policies of war, diplomatic intrigue, and, in Bismarck’s instance, manipulation of democratic mechanisms created states with the potential for upsetting the balance of power, particularly in the case of Germany. Following the Crimean War, Russia undertook a series of internal reforms aimed at achieving industrial modernization. The reforms succeeded in establishing an industrial economy and emboldened Russia’s aspirations in the Balkans. They also led to an active revolutionary movement, which employed political violence and assassinations and was one of the driving forces behind the 1905 Russian Revolution.
After the new German Emperor Wilhelm II dismissed Chancellor Bismarck in 1890, Germany’s diplomatic approach altered significantly, leading to a shift in the alliance system and increased tensions in European diplomacy. Imperial antagonisms, growing nationalism, militarism, and other factors resulted in the development of a rigid system of alliances. The Great Powers militarized their societies and built up army and naval forces to unprecedented levels (fed by industrial and technological advances), while at the same time developing elaborate plans for the next war. The long-anticipated war finally came in the summer of 1914. The assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne in Sarajevo forced the political leaders of the Great Powers, locked in the rigid structure of the Triple Entente versus the Triple Alliance, to implement war plans that virtually required the escalation of hostilities. The ensuing Great War revealed the flaws in the diplomatic order established after the unifications of Germany and Italy, but more importantly, it produced an even more challenging diplomatic situation than that faced by the diplomats in 1814–1815.
I. The Concert of Europe (or Congress System) sought to maintain the status quo through collective action and adherence to conservatism.
A. Metternich, architect of the Concert of Europe, used it to suppress nationalist and liberal revolutions.
B. Conservatives re-established control in many European states and attempted to suppress movements for change and, in some areas, to strengthen adherence to religious authorities.
C. In the first half of the 19th century, revolutionaries attempted to destroy the status quo.
Examples of early 19th-century political revolts such as the following:
w Greek War of Independence
w Decembrist Revolt in Russia
w Polish Rebellion
w July Revolution in France
D. The revolutions of 1848 challenged the conservative order and led to the breakdown of the Concert of Europe.
II. The breakdown of the Concert of Europe opened the door for movements of national unification in Italy and Germany as well as liberal reforms elsewhere.
A. The Crimean War demonstrated the weakness of the Ottoman Empire and contributed to the breakdown of the Concert of Europe, thereby creating the conditions in which Italy and Germany could be unified after centuries of fragmentation.
B. A new breed of conservative leaders, including Napoleon III, Cavour, and Bismarck, co-opted the agenda of nationalists for the purposes of creating or strengthening the state.
C. The creation of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, which recognized the political power of the largest ethnic minority, was an attempt to stabilize the state by reconfiguring national unity.
D. In Russia, autocratic leaders pushed through a program of reform and modernization, which gave rise to revolutionary movements and eventually the Revolution of 1905.
Examples of reformers in Russia such as the following:
w Alexander II
w Sergei Witte
w Peter Stolypin
III. The unification of Italy and Germany transformed the European balance of power and led to efforts to construct a new diplomatic order.
A. Cavour’s Realpolitik strategies, combined with the popular Garibaldi’s military campaigns, led to the unification of Italy.
B. Bismarck employed diplomacy and industrialized warfare and weaponry and the manipulation of democratic mechanisms to unify Germany.
C. After 1871, Bismarck attempted to maintain the balance of power through a complex system of alliances directed at isolating France. Teachers have flexibility to use examples of Bismarck’s alliances such as the following: w Three Emperors’ League w Triple Alliance w Reinsurance Treaty
D. Bismarck’s dismissal in 1890 eventually led to a system of mutually antagonistic alliances and heightened international tensions.
E. Nationalist tensions in the Balkans drew the Great Powers into a series of crises, leading up to World War
I. Teachers have flexibility to use examples of nationalist tensions in the Balkans such as the following: w Congress of Berlin in 1878
w Growing influence of Serbia
w Bosnia-Herzegovina Annexation Crisis, 1908
w First Balkan War w Second Balkan War
A variety of motives and methods led to the intensification of European global control and increased tensions among the Great Powers. The European imperial outreach of the 19th century was in some ways a continuation of three centuries of colonization, but it also resulted from the economic pressures and necessities of a maturing industrial economy. The new technologies and imperatives of the second industrial revolution (1870–1914) led many European nations to view overseas territories as sources of raw materials and consumer markets. While European colonial empires in the Western hemisphere diminished in size over this period as former colonies gained independence, the region remained dependent on Europe as a source of capital and technological expertise and was a market for European-made goods. European powers also became increasingly dominant in Eastern and Southern Asia in the early 19th century, and a combination of forces created the conditions for a new wave of imperialism there and in Africa later in the century. Moreover, European national rivalries accelerated the expansion of colonialism as governments recognized that actual control of these societies offered economic and strategic advantages. Notions of global destiny and racial superiority fed the drive for empire, and innovations such as antimalarial drugs, machine guns, and gunboats made it feasible. Non-European societies without these modern advantages could not effectively resist European imperial momentum. The “new imperialism” of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was promoted in European nations by interest groups that included politicians, military officials and soldiers, missionaries, explorers, journalists, and intellectuals. As an example of a new complex phase of imperial diplomacy, the Berlin Conference in 1884–1885 outlined the procedures that Europeans should use in the partition of the African continent. By 1914, most of Africa and Asia were under the domination of Great Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
Notwithstanding the power of colonial administrations, some groups in the colonial societies resisted European imperialism, and by 1914, anticolonial movements had taken root within the non-European world and in Europe itself. Imperialism exposed Europeans to foreign societies and introduced “exotic” influences into European art and culture. At the same time, millions of Europeans carried their culture abroad, to the Americas and elsewhere, through emigration, and helped to create a variety of mixed cultures around the world.
I. European nations were driven by economic, political, and cultural motivations in their new imperial ventures in Asia and Africa.
A. European national rivalries and strategic concerns fostered imperial expansion and competition for colonies.
B. The search for raw materials and markets for manufactured goods, as well as strategic and nationalistic considerations, drove Europeans to colonize Africa and Asia, even as European colonies in the Americas broke free politically, if not economically.
C. Europeans justified imperialism through an ideology of cultural and racial superiority.
II. Industrial and technological developments (i.e., the second industrial revolution) facilitated European control of global empires.
A. The development of advanced weaponry invariably ensured the military superiority of Europeans over colonized areas.
Examples of advanced weaponry such as the following:
w Minié ball (bullet)
w Breech-loading rifle
w Machine gun
B. Communication and transportation technologies allowed for the creation of European empires.
C. Advances in medicine supported European control of Africa and Asia by preserving European lives.
Examples of advances in medicine such as the following:
w Louis Pasteur’s germ theory of disease
w Anesthesia and antiseptics
w Public health projects
w Quinine
III. Imperial endeavors significantly affected society, diplomacy, and culture in Europe and created resistance to foreign control abroad. [INT-7 | INT-9 | INT-10 | INT-11 | OS-6 | SP-9 | SP-17 | SP-18 | IS-7 | IS-10]
A. Imperialism created diplomatic tensions among European states that strained alliance systems. Teachers have flexibility to use examples of diplomatic tensions such as the following: w Berlin Conference in (1884–1885) w Fashoda crisis (1898) w Moroccan crises (1905, 1911)
B. Imperial encounters with non-European peoples influenced the styles and subject matter of artists and writers and provoked debate over the acquisition of colonies.
Examples of artists and writers and works such as the following:
w Jules Verne’s literature of exploration
w Paul Gauguin and Pablo Picasso’s Primitivism
w Vincent Van Gogh and Japanese prints
w Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
Examples of participants in the imperialism debate such as the following:
w Pan-German League
w J. A. Hobson’s and Vladimir Lenin’s anti-imperialism
C. As non-Europeans became educated in Western values, they challenged European imperialism through nationalist movements and/or by modernizing their own economies and societies.
Examples of responses to European imperialism such as the following:
w Indian Congress Party
w Zulu Resistance
w India’s Sepoy Mutiny
w China’s Boxer Rebellion
w Japan’s Meiji Restoration
European ideas and culture expressed a tension between objectivity and scientific realism on one hand, and subjectivity and individual expression on the other. The romantic movement of the early 19th century set the stage for later cultural perspectives by encouraging individuals to cultivate their uniqueness and to trust intuition and emotion as much as reason. Partly in reaction to the Enlightenment, romanticism affirmed the value of sensitivity, imagination, and creativity and thereby provided a climate for artistic experimentation. Later artistic movements such as Impressionism, Expressionism, and Cubism, which rested on subjective interpretations of reality by the individual artist or writer, arose from the attitudes fostered by romanticism. The sensitivity of artists to non-European traditions that imperialism brought to their attention also can be traced to the romantics’ emphasis on the primacy of culture in defining the character of individuals and groups.
In science, Darwin’s evolutionary theory raised questions about human nature, and physicists began
to challenge the uniformity and regularity of the Newtonian universe. In 1905 Einstein’s theory of relativity underscored the position of the observer in defining reality, while the quantum principles of randomness and probability called the objectivity of Newtonian mechanics into question. The emergence of psychology as an independent discipline, separate from philosophy on the one hand and neurology on the other, led to investigations of human behavior that gradually revealed the need for more subtle methods of analysis than those provided by the physical and biological sciences. Freud’s investigations into the human psyche suggested the power of irrational motivations and unconscious drives. Many writers saw humans as governed by spontaneous, irrational forces and believed that intuition and will were as important as reason and science in the search for truth. In art, literature, and science, traditional notions of objective, universal truths and values increasingly shared the stage with a commitment to and recognition of subjectivity, skepticism, and cultural relativism.
I. Romanticism broke with neoclassical forms of artistic representation and with rationalism, placing more emphasis on intuition and emotion. [PP-14 | OS-10 | OS-12 | OS-13]
A. Romantic artists and composers broke from classical artistic forms to emphasize emotion, nature, individuality, intuition, the supernatural, and national histories in their works.
Examples of romantic artists such as the following:
w Francisco Goya
w Caspar David Friedrich
w J. M. W. Turner
w John Constable
w Eugène Delacroix
Examples of romantic composers such as the following:
w Ludwig van Beethoven
w Frédéric Chopin
w Richard Wagner
w Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
B. Romantic writers expressed similar themes while responding to the Industrial Revolution and to various political revolutions.
Examples of romantic writers such as the following: w Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
w William Wordsworth
w Lord Byron
w Percy Shelley
w John Keats
w Mary Shelley
w Victor Hugo
II. Following the revolutions of 1848, Europe turned toward a realist and materialist worldview.
A. Positivism, or the philosophy that science alone provides knowledge, emphasized the rational and scientific analysis of nature and human affairs.
B. Charles Darwin provided a rational and material account of biological change and the development of human beings as a species, and inadvertently a justification for racialist theories known as Social Darwinism.
C. Marx’s scientific socialism provided a systematic critique of capitalism and a deterministic analysis of society and historical evolution.
D. Realist and materialist themes and attitudes influenced art and literature as painters and writers depicted the lives of ordinary people and drew attention to social problems.
Examples of realist artists and authors such as the following:
w Honoré de Balzac
w Honoré Daumier
w Charles Dickens
w George Eliot
w Gustave Courbet
w Fyodor Dostoevsky
w Jean-Francois Millet
w Leo Tolstoy
w Émile Zola
w Thomas Hardy
III. A new relativism in values and the loss of confidence in the objectivity of knowledge led to modernism in intellectual and cultural life. [OS-8 | OS-10 | OS-12 | OS-13]
A. Philosophy largely moved from rational interpretations of nature and human society to an emphasis on irrationality and impulse, a view that contributed to the belief that conflict and struggle led to progress.
Examples of philosophers who emphasized the irrational such as the following:
w Friedrich Nietzsche
w Georges Sorel
w Henri Bergson
B. Freudian psychology provided a new account of human nature that emphasized the role of the irrational and the struggle between the conscious and subconscious.
C. Developments in the natural sciences such as quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of relativity undermined the primacy of Newtonian physics as an objective description of nature.
Examples of scientists who undermined the notion that Newtonian physics provided an objective knowledge of nature such as the following:
w Max Planck
w Marie and Pierre Curie
D. Modern art, including Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Cubism, moved beyond the representational to the subjective, abstract, and expressive and often provoked audiences that believed that art should reflect shared and idealized values such as beauty and patriotism.
Examples of modern artists such as the following:
w Claude Monet
w Paul Cézanne
w Henri Matisse
w Edgar Degas
w Pablo Picasso
w Vincent Van Gogh