Period 2: 1648 to 1815
Key Concept 2.1
Different models of political sovereignty affected the relationship among states and between states and individuals.
Between 1648 and 1815, the sovereign state was consolidated as the principal form of political organization across Europe. Justified and rationalized by theories of political sovereignty, states adopted a variety of methods to acquire the human, fiscal, and material resources essential for the promotion of their interests. Although challenged and sometimes effectively resisted by various social groups and institutions, the typical state of the period, best exemplified by the rule of Louis XIV in France, asserted claims to absolute authority within its borders. A few states, most notably England and the Dutch Republic, gradually developed governments in which the authority of the executive was restricted by legislative bodies protecting the interests of the landowning and commercial classes.
Between the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), European states managed their external affairs within a balance of power system. In this system, diplomacy became a major component of the relations among states. Most of the wars of the period, including conflicts fought outside of Europe, stemmed from attempts either to preserve or disturb the balance of power among European states. While European monarchs continued to view their affairs in dynastic terms, increasingly, reasons of state influenced policy.
The French Revolution was the most formidable challenge to traditional politics and diplomacy during this period. Inspired in part by Enlightenment ideas, the revolution introduced mass politics, led to the creation of numerous political and social ideologies, and remained the touchstone for those advocating radical reform in subsequent decades. The French Revolution was part of a larger revolutionary impulse that, as a transatlantic movement, influenced revolutions in Spanish America and the Haitian slave revolt. Napoleon Bonaparte built upon the gains of the revolution and attempted to exploit the resources of the continent in the interests of France and his own dynasty. Napoleon’s revolutionary state imposed French hegemony throughout Europe, but eventually a coalition of European powers overthrew French domination and restored, as much as possible, a balance of power within the European state system. At the same time, the conservative powers attempted to suppress the ideologies inspired by the French Revolution.
I. In much of Europe, absolute monarchy was established over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Watch: Foundations of Absolutism
A. Absolute monarchies limited the nobility’s participation in governance but preserved the aristocracy’s social position and legal privileges.
* Examples of absolute monarchs:
– James I of England
– Peter the Great of Russia
– Philip II, III, and IV of Spain
Peter the Great: Watch
B. Louis XIV and his finance minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, extended the administrative, financial, military, and religious control of the central state over the French population.
C. In the 18th century, a number of states in eastern and central Europe experimented with enlightened absolutism.
* Examples of enlightened monarchs:
– Frederick II of Prussia
– Joseph II of Austria
D. The inability of the Polish monarchy to consolidate its authority over the nobility led to Poland’s partition by Prussia, Russia, and Austria, and its disappearance from the map of Europe.
Partition of Poland: Watch
E. Peter the Great “westernized” the Russian state and society, transforming political, religious, and cultural institutions; Catherine the Great continued this process.
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II. Challenges to absolutism resulted in alternative political systems.
A. The outcome of the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution protected the rights of gentry and aristocracy from absolutism through assertions of the rights of Parliament.
* Examples of these outcomes such as the following:
– English Bill of Rights
– Parliamentary sovereignty
B. The Dutch Republic developed an oligarchy of urban gentry and rural landholders to promote trade and protect traditional rights.
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III. After 1648, dynastic and state interests, along with Europe’s expanding colonial empires, influenced the diplomacy of European states and frequently led to war.
Prussian Absolutism: Watch
A. As a result of the Holy Roman Empire’s limitation of sovereignty in the Peace of Westphalia, Prussia rose to power and the Habsburgs, centered in Austria, shifted their empire eastward.
* Examples of Prussian and Habsburg rulers:
– Maria Theresa of Austria
– Frederick William I of Prussia
– Frederick II of Prussia
B. After the Austrian defeat of the Turks in 1683 at the Battle of Vienna, the Ottomans ceased their westward expansion.
C. Louis XIV’s nearly continuous wars, pursuing both dynastic and state interests, provoked a coalition of European powers opposing him.
* Examples of Louis XIV’s nearly continuous wars:
– Dutch War
– Nine Years’ War
– War of the Spanish Succession
D. Rivalry between Britain and France resulted in world wars fought both in Europe and in the colonies, with Britain supplanting France as the greatest European power.
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IV. The French Revolution posed a fundamental challenge to Europe’s existing political and social order.
A. The French Revolution resulted from a combination of long-term social and political causes, as well as Enlightenment ideas, exacerbated by short-term fiscal and economic crises.
B. The first, or liberal, phase of the French Revolution established a constitutional monarchy, increased popular participation, nationalized the Catholic Church, and abolished hereditary privileges.
* Examples of actions taken during the moderate phase of the French Revolution
– Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
– Civil Constitution of the Clergy
– Constitution of 1791
– Abolition of provinces and division of France into departments
C. After the execution of the Louis XVI, the radical Jacobin Republic led by Robespierre responded to opposition at home and war abroad by instituting the Reign of Terror, fixing prices and wages, and pursuing a policy of de-Christianization.
* Examples of radical Jacobin leaders and institutions:
– Georges Danton
– Jean-Paul Marat
– Committee of Public Safety
D. Revolutionary armies, raised by mass conscription, sought to bring the changes initiated in France to the rest of Europe.
E. Women enthusiastically participated in the early phases of the revolution; however, while there were brief improvements in the legal status of women, citizenship in the republic was soon restricted to men.
F. Revolutionary ideals inspired a slave revolt led by Toussaint L’Ouverture in the French colony of Saint Domingue, which became the independent nation of Haiti in 1804.
G. While many were inspired by the revolution’s emphasis on equality and human rights, others condemned its violence and disregard for traditional authority.
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V. Claiming to defend the ideals of the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte imposed French control over much of the European continent that eventually provoked a nationalistic reaction.
A. As first consul and emperor, Napoleon undertook a number of enduring domestic reforms while often curtailing some rights and manipulating popular impulses behind a façade of representative institutions.
* Examples of domestic reforms under Napoleon:
– Careers open to talent
– Educational system
– Centralized bureaucracy
– Civil Code
– Concordat of 1801
* Examples of curtailment of rights under Napoleon:
– Secret police
– Censorship
– Limitation of women’s rights
B. Napoleon’s new military tactics allowed him to exert direct or indirect control over much of the European continent, spreading the ideals of the French Revolution across Europe.
C. Napoleon’s expanding empire created nationalist responses throughout Europe.
D. After the defeat of Napoleon by a coalition of European powers, the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) attempted to restore the balance of power in Europe.
KEY CONCEPT 2.2
The expansion of European commerce accelerated the growth of a worldwide economic network. The economic watershed of the 17th and 18th centuries was a historically unique passage from limited resources that made material want inescapable, to self-generating economic growth that dramatically raised levels of physical and material well-being. European societies — first those with access to the Atlantic and gradually those to the east and on the Mediterranean — provided increasing percentages of their populations with a higher standard of living. The gradual emergence of new economic structures that made European global influence possible both presupposed and promoted far-reaching changes in human capital, property rights, financial instruments, technologies, and labor systems.
These changes included:
? Availability of labor power, both in terms of numbers and in terms of persons with the skills (literacy, ability to understand and manipulate the natural world, physical health sufficient for work) required for efficient production
? Institutions and practices that supported economic activity and provided incentives for it (new definitions of property rights and protections for them against theft or confiscation and against state taxation)
? Accumulations of capital for financing enterprises and innovations, as well as for raising the standard of living and the means for turning private savings into investable or “venture” capital
? Technological innovations in food production, transportation, communication, and manufacturing
A major result of these changes was the development of a growing consumer society that benefited from and contributed to the increase in material resources. At the same time, other effects of the economic revolution — increased geographic mobility, transformed employer–worker relations, the decline of domestic manufacturing — eroded traditional community and family solidarities and protections.
European economic strength derived in part from the ability to control and exploit resources (human and material) around the globe. Mercantilism supported the development of European trade and influence around the world. However, the economic, social, demographic, and ecological effects of European exploitation on other regions were often devastating.
Mercantilism – Absolutists: Watch
Internally, Europe divided more and more sharply between the societies engaging in overseas trade and undergoing the economic transformations sketched above (primarily countries on the Atlantic) and those (primarily in central and eastern Europe) with little such involvement. The eastern European countries remained in a traditional, principally agrarian, economy and maintained the traditional order of society and the state that rested on it.
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I. Early modern Europe developed a market economy that provided the foundation for its global role.
A. Labor and trade in commodities were increasingly freed from traditional restrictions imposed by governments and corporate entities.
* Examples of trade freed from traditional restrictions:
– Market-driven wages and prices
– Le Chapelier laws
B. The Agricultural Revolution raised productivity and increased the supply of food and other agricultural products.
C. The putting-out system, or cottage industry, expanded as increasing numbers of laborers in homes or workshops produced for markets through merchant intermediaries or workshop owners.
D. The development of the market economy led to new financial practices and institutions.
* Examples of new financial practices and institutions:
– Insurance w Banking institutions for turning private savings into venture capital
– New definitions of property rights and protections against confiscation
– Bank of England
II. The European-dominated worldwide economic network contributed to the agricultural, industrial, and consumer revolutions in Europe.
A. European states followed mercantilist policies by exploiting colonies in the New World and elsewhere.
B. The transatlantic slave-labor system expanded in the 17th and 18th centuries as demand for New World products increased.
* Examples of transatlantic slave-labor systems:
– Middle Passage
– Triangle trade
– Plantation economies in the Americas
C. Overseas products and influences contributed to the development of a consumer culture in Europe.
* Examples of overseas products:
– Sugar
– Tea
– Silks and other fabrics
– Tobacco
– Rum
– Coffee
D. The importation and transplantation of agricultural products from the Americas contributed to an increase in the food supply in Europe.
E. Foreign lands provided raw materials, finished goods, laborers, and markets for the commercial and industrial enterprises in Europe.
III. Commercial rivalries influenced diplomacy and warfare among European states in the early modern era.
A. European sea powers vied for Atlantic influence throughout the 18th century.
B. Portuguese, Dutch, French, and British rivalries in Asia culminated in British domination in India and Dutch control of the East Indies.
KEY CONCEPT 2.3
The popularization and dissemination of the Scientific Revolution and the application of its methods to political, social, and ethical issues led to an increased, although not unchallenged, emphasis on reason in European culture. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Europeans applied the methods of the new science — such as empiricism, mathematics, and skepticism — to human affairs. During the Enlightenment, intellectuals such as Rousseau, Voltaire, and Diderot aimed to replace faith in divine revelation with faith in human reason and classical values. In economics and politics, liberal theorists such as John Locke and Adam Smith questioned absolutism and mercantilism by arguing for the authority of natural law and the market. Belief in progress, along with improved social and economic conditions, spurred significant gains in literacy and education as well as the creation of a new culture of the printed word, including novels, newspapers, periodicals, and such reference works as Diderot’s Encyclopédie, for a growing educated audience. Several movements of religious revival occurred during the 18th century, but elite culture embraced skepticism, secularism, and atheism for the first time in European history, and popular attitudes began to move in the same directions. From the beginning of this period, Protestants and Catholics grudgingly tolerated each other following the religious warfare of the previous two centuries. By 1800, most governments had extended toleration to Christian minorities and in some states even to Jews. Religion was viewed increasingly as a matter of private rather than public concern. The new rationalism did not sweep all before it; in fact, it coexisted with a revival of sentimentalism and emotionalism. Until about 1750, Baroque art and music glorified religious feeling and drama as well as the grandiose pretensions of absolute monarchs. During the French Revolution, romanticism and nationalism implicitly challenged what some saw as the Enlightenment’s overemphasis on reason. These Counter-Enlightenment views laid the foundations for new cultural and political values in the 19th century. Overall, intellectual and cultural developments during this period marked a transition in European history to a modern worldview in which rationalism, skepticism, scientific investigation, and a belief in progress generally dominated, although such views did not completely overwhelm other worldviews stemming from religion, nationalism, and romanticism.
I. Rational and empirical thought challenged traditional values and ideas.
A. Intellectuals such as Voltaire and Diderot began to apply the principles of the Scientific Revolution to society and human institutions.
* Examples of works applying scientific principles to society:
– Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws
– Cesare Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments
B. Locke and Rousseau developed new political models based on the concept of natural rights.
C. Despite the principles of equality espoused by the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, intellectuals such as Rousseau offered new arguments for the exclusion of women from political life, which did not go unchallenged.
* Examples of individuals who challenged Rousseau’s position on women:
– Mary Wollstonecraft
– Olympe de Gouges
– Marquis de Condorcet
II. New public venues and print media popularized Enlightenment ideas.
A. A variety of institutions, such as salons, explored and disseminated Enlightenment culture.
* Examples of institutions that broadened the audience for new ideas:
– Coffeehouses
– Academies
– Lending libraries
– Masonic lodges
B. Despite censorship, increasingly numerous and varied printed materials served a growing literate public and led to the development of public opinion.
* Examples of printed materials:
– Newspapers
– Periodicals
– Books
– Pamphlets
– The Encyclopédie
C. Natural sciences, literature, and popular culture increasingly exposed Europeans to representations of peoples outside Europe.
III. New political and economic theories challenged absolutism and mercantilism.
A. Political theories, such as John Locke’s, conceived of society as composed of individuals driven by self-interest and argued that the state originated in the consent of the governed (i.e., a social contract) rather than in divine right or tradition.
B. Mercantilist theory and practice were challenged by new economic ideas, such as Adam Smith’s, espousing free trade and a free market.
* Examples of proponents of new economic ideas such as the following:
– Physiocrats
– Francois Quesnay
– Anne Robert Jacques Turgot
IV. During the Enlightenment, the rational analysis of religious practices led to natural religion and the demand for religious toleration.
A. Intellectuals, including Voltaire and Diderot, developed new philosophies of deism, skepticism, and atheism.
* Examples of intellectuals
– David Hume
– Baron d’Holbach
B. Religion was viewed increasingly as a matter of private rather than public concern.
C. By 1800, most governments had extended toleration to Christian minorities and, in some states, civil equality to Jews.
V. The arts moved from the celebration of religious themes and royal power to an emphasis on private life and the public good.
A. Until about 1750, Baroque art and music promoted religious feeling and was employed by monarchs to glorify state power.
* Examples of Baroque artists and musicians who promoted religion or glorified monarchy:
– Diego Velásquez
– Gian Bernini
– George Frideric Handel
– J. S. Bach
B. Artistic movements and literature also reflected the outlook and values of commercial and bourgeois society as well as new Enlightenment ideals of political power and citizenship.
* Examples of artistic movements that reflected commercial society or Enlightenment ideals:
– Dutch painting
– Frans Hals
– Rembrandt
– Jan Vermeer
– Neoclassicism
– Jacques Louis David
– Pantheon in Paris
* Examples of literature that reflected commercial society or Enlightenment ideals:
– Daniel Defoe
– Samuel Richardson
– Henry Fielding
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
– Jane Austen
VI. While Enlightenment values dominated the world of European ideas, they were challenged by the revival of public sentiment and feeling.
A. Rousseau questioned the exclusive reliance on reason and emphasized the role of emotions in the moral improvement of self and society.
B. Revolution, war, and rebellion demonstrated the emotional power of mass politics and nationalism.
C. Romanticism emerged as a challenge to Enlightenment rationality.
KEY CONCEPT 2.4
The experiences of everyday life were shaped by demographic, environmental, medical, and technological changes. The legacies of the 16th-century population explosion, which roughly doubled the European population, were social disruptions and demographic disasters that persisted into the 18th century. Volatile weather in the 17th century harmed agricultural production. In some localities, recurring food shortages caused undernourishment that combined with disease to produce periodic spikes in mortality. By the 17th century, the European marriage pattern, which limited family size, became the most important check on population levels, although some couples also adopted birth control practices to limit family size. By the middle of the 18th century, better weather, improvements in transportation, new crops and agricultural practices, less epidemic disease, and advances in medicine and hygiene allowed much of Europe to escape from the cycle of famines that had caused repeated demographic disaster. By the end of the 18th century, reductions in child mortality and increases in life expectancy constituted the demographic underpinnings of new attitudes toward children and families. Particularly in western Europe, the demographic revolution, along with the rise in prosperity, produced advances in material well-being that did not stop with the economic: Greater prosperity was associated with increasing literacy, education, and rich cultural lives (the growth of publishing and libraries, the founding of schools, and the establishment of orchestras, theaters, and museums). By the end of the 18th century, it was evident that a high proportion of Europeans were better fed, healthier, longer lived, and more secure and comfortable in their material well-being than at any previous time in human history. This relative prosperity was balanced by increasing numbers of the poor throughout Europe, who strained charitable resources and alarmed government officials and local communities
I. In the 17th century, small landholdings, low-productivity agricultural practices, poor transportation, and adverse weather limited and disrupted the food supply, causing periodic famines. By the 18th century, Europeans began to escape from the Malthusian imbalance between population and the food supply, resulting in steady population growth.
A. By the middle of the 18th century, higher agricultural productivity and improved transportation increased the food supply, allowing populations to grow and reducing the number of demographic crises (a process known as the Agricultural Revolution).
B. In the 18th century, plague disappeared as a major epidemic disease, and inoculation reduced smallpox mortality.
II. The consumer revolution of the 18th century was shaped by a new concern for privacy, encouraged the purchase of new goods for homes, and created new venues for leisure activities.
* Examples of a new concern for privacy:
– Homes were built to include private retreats, such as the boudoir
– Novels encouraged a reflection on private emotions
* Examples of new consumer goods for homes:
– Porcelain dishes
– Cotton and linens for home décor
– Mirrors w Prints
* Examples of new leisure venues:
– Coffeehouses
– Taverns
– Theaters and opera houses
III. By the 18th century, family and private life reflected new demographic patterns and the effects of the commercial revolution.
A. Although the rate of illegitimate births increased in the 18th century, population growth was limited by the European marriage pattern and, in some areas, by the early practice of birth control.
B. As infant and child mortality decreased and commercial wealth increased, families dedicated more space and resources to children and child-rearing, as well as private life and comfort.
IV. Cities offered economic opportunities, which attracted increasing migration from rural areas, transforming urban life and creating challenges for the new urbanites and their families.
A. The Agricultural Revolution produced more food using fewer workers; as a result, people migrated from rural areas to the cities in search of work.
B. The growth of cities eroded traditional communal values, and city governments strained to provide protection and a healthy environment.
C. The concentration of the poor in cities led to a greater awareness of poverty, crime, and prostitution as social problems, and prompted increased efforts to police marginal groups.