EUROPEAN POLITICAL CHOICES IN AN AGE OF CHANGE

1
CHAPTER 17

• EUROPEAN POLITICAL CHOICES IN AN AGE OF CHANGE

2
The Power of Power

• "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts
  absolutely."
• When Lord Acton, the great English historian of
  liberty, conceived this celebrated dictum, he had
  in mind rulers like Louis XIV, whose statecraft
  tended toward absolutism, or the unrestricted
  exercise of power.

3
Louis XIV a Complex Man

• It is difficult to define corruption and to apply
  the definition to a person as complex as this
  seventeenth-century French monarch.

4
He Loved Power

• His contemporaries, as well as modern historians,
  would probably agree that Louis XIV pursued power
  single-mindedly for the joy of exercising it and
  for the glory it brought.

5
Could Not Achieve His Goals

• His political prudence failed him.
• He mismatched the resources of France to the
  goals that he sought
• a French frontier on the Rhine
• French dominance in Europe.

6
Other Miscalculations

• He also miscalculated the working of the balance
  of power in Europe.
• The enemies of the French king coalesced ever
  more effectively against him as they perceived
  that his policies threatened them all.
• Led by England and the Dutch Republic,

7
Gains

• He gained for France
• Franche-Comté
• Strasbourg
• a few other small northeastern territories.

8
Losses

• He left it with
• a cumbersome and costly administration
• an enormous debt
• a peasantry burdened with heavy taxes.

9
Balance of Power Remained

• The balance of power that checked the ambitions
  of Louis XIV was maintained throughout the
  eighteenth century.

10
New Powers Emerge

• Poland and other antiquated great states
  declined.
• But new powers such as Russia and Prussia
  emerged.
• The Habsburg monarchy was rejuvenated.

11
Volatile Europe

• Because of the fragile and frequently changing
  relationships between the major powers, Europe
  endured several decades of almost constant
  diplomatic intrigue and military conflict.

12
YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND

• Absolutism and its personification in Louis XIV.
• The reform of the Habsburg monarchy.
• The consolidation of the power of the
  Hohenzollerns in Prussia.
• The rise of Russia.

13
YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND

• Power politics in the wars of Louis XIV.
• The War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven
  Years' War, and the partitions of Poland.
• The economic, social, and political problems that
  characterized the Old Regime.

14
Some European Progress

• Since the end of the medieval period, the
  European peoples had made some economic progress.
  
• But the improvements came slowly and their
  benefits were unevenly distributed.

15
Prosperity and Stagnation

• During the seventeenth century there was
  prosperity in
• the southern part of England
• certain French provinces
• cities of the Dutch Republic.
• Elsewhere there was economic decline, as in
  Spain, or economic stagnation.

16
Population Steady

• The population in most countries remained steady,
  or increased imperceptibly.
• Spain's declined.

17
Many Hardships

• Many factors prevented any general improvement in
  the European standard of living
• The Thirty Years' War
• other similar great religious conflicts.
• frequent famines and plagues.

18
The Treaty of Utrecht

• The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) ushered in a long
  period of peace during which the European economy
  began a remarkable upswing.

19
Trade and Capital Improve

• Europe's trade with its colonies, as well as with
  other African and Asian countries, increased
  dramatically.
• Capital accumulated for investment in agriculture
  and industry.

20
Population Increases

• As economic conditions improved, population
  increased rapidly in the countryside as well as
  in the cities.

21
Middle Class Wealth Emerges

• A newly emerging urban middle class garnered a
  disproportionate share of the wealth.
• The wealth was generated by the growth of
  capitalistic ventures in agriculture, commerce,
  and industry.

22
Upper Class Wealth Declines

• The upper classes, clergy and aristocracy
  generally prospered less than the middle class.
• They clung tenaciously to their privileges.

23
Problems Abound

• Burdened with inefficient systems of
  administration, European rulers confronted
• enormous economic problems
• severe social tensions.

24
England and the Netherlands

• In England and the Netherlands, economic growth
  and social changes contributed to the
  establishment of new political systems.
• These were unique from the trend toward
  absolutism elsewhere in Europe.

25
Constitutional Governments

• The Dutch and English established constitutional
  governments that limited the power of the
  monarchy and protected the political and property
  rights of individuals.
• By no means truly democratic in character.

26
Netherlands Briefly Ascendant

• The economic and cultural dynamism of the
  Netherlands far outlasted its brief ascendancy as
  a major European power.

27
English Empire Emerges

• After 1650, England eclipsed the Dutch and began
  building its world empire.
• Both nations contributed to a new political
  paradigman alternative to absolutism and the Old
  Regimes in Europe.

28
Basis for Revolutions Created

• By the late eighteenth century, the ideals of
  constitutional government and individual rights
  forged by the Dutch and the English provided the
  theoretical basis for the revolutionary movements
  in colonial America and France.

29
YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND

• The major episodes in the development of limited
  centralized government in the Netherlands and
  England and the socioeconomic factors that
  promoted political change.

30
YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND

• The ferment in European society expressed in
  population growth, migration, urbanization,
  changes in values and life-styles, and the growth
  of a new middle class.

31
YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND

• Europe's expanding economy and the rise of
  free-enterprise capitalism.
• Problems in foreign trade, industry, and rural
  economy.