HI 112 Raffael Scheck Colby College

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HI 112Raffael ScheckColby College

• A Survey of Modern Europe
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The Consolidation of Other Nation States
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France after 1871

• Modernization and consolidation after 1871
• Attack on local dialects
• Compulsory education
• Mass draft
• Branch railroad building
• Anti-clericalism in the wake of the Dreyfus
  Affair
• Successful democracy despite instability of
  governments

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Reform in Russia

• Defeat also triggers modernization
• Abolition of serfdom, 1861
• Local parliaments
• Judicial system
• National minorities
• Anti-Semitism
• Revolution of 1905

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Democratization in Britain

• Electoral reforms of 1832, 1867, and 1881
  gradual extension of the suffrage to almost all
  adult males
• Limitation of the power of the Upper House
• Pride in powerful industrial revolution and
  global empire
• But nationalist tensions, above all in Ireland

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Failed Consolidation in Austria-Hungary

• Division of the Austrian Empire, 1867
• Democratization in Austria but not in Hungary
• Separatist nationalisms chaos for Austrian
  democracy
• Slow industrialization in Austria
• Huge free-trade area but politically unstable

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Changes in Society 1850-1914
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Overview

• Industrial take-off on the Continent after 1850
• Population Explosion
• Urbanization and rebuilding of cities
• Effects on the countryside and on worldviews

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European Population Growth 1800-1900(in millions)
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Urban Growthin 1000s
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Growth Rates
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Urbanization

• Growth in royal residences already before 1800,
  but explosion during industrial revolution
• Huge challenges feeding, housing, policing,
  hygiene, transportation
• Demands large administration

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The Tertiary (White-Collar) Sector

• Huge cities and consolidated states require large
  state administrations
• Banking, finance, insurance business, services
  thrive
• Job opportunities for many men and women
• Consumerism department stores

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The Growth of Organized Labor

• Organization in huge industrial areas
• Housing shortages
• Mass strikes
• Repressive states
• But Trade union movements and socialist parties
  begin integrating the workers into the state in
  Western and Central Europe
• Still fear of revolution

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Changes in the Countryside

• Markets expand, but foreign competition from the
  U.S. and Russia undercuts agriculture
• Farmers demand protective tariffs and become a
  conservative counterweight to the labor movement
• Strategic interests of nation states

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Changes in Mentalities

• Challenges to organized religion
• Dechristianization?
• Feminization of religion
• Upsurge of individualism

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Modernism and Modern Thought
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What is Modernism?

• Rational, scientific, individualistic,
  progressive, urbanized form of life in place
  around 1900 (in the advanced countries)
• But it breeds its opposite irrationalism,
  nihilism, cultural pessimism

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The New Toughness of Mind, 1850-80

• Trend to scientific understanding of all things
  human (Marx)
• Auguste Comte (1798-1857) Positivism
• Realism in paiting and literature (e. g.
  Flaubert)
• Charles Darwin (1809-82) and Charles Spencer
  (1820-1903)
• Shock to romantic and religious minds

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The Challenge to Rationality

• World full of chaotic, destructive wills
  (Schopenhauer)
• Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) call for a
  transvaluation of all values
• Naturalism critique of society and family
  (Ibsen, Strindberg. Zola)
• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) exploring the
  unconscious

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Conclusion

• Massive outbreak of irrationalism at the end of
  the rational 19th century
• But not a romantic irrationalism in the sense of
  the richness of feeling - rather anguish,
  madness
• Search for meaning

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The Zenith of European Imperialism
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The New Imperialism Facts and Motivations

• Scramble for colonies 1880-1900
• Deeper penetration and higher investment made
  possible by industrial revolution and new
  technology
• Feeling of cultural superiority and civilizing
  mission (the white mans burden)
• Nationalism (mass press)
• Demographic and social arguments
• Neo-mercantilism
• Domino effect?

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The British Empire
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The French Empire
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Realities of the New Imperialism

• Poor communication and organization
• Failure of the settlement idea
• Limited economic benefits
• Anti-imperialism

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Informal Empire

• Trading with established but less powerful
  states attempts to control their finances and
  exploit their economies
• Examples Ottoman Empire, China, Latin America,
  maybe Russia?

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The Human and Cultural Cost

• Destruction or disruption of cultures
• Forced labor under abusive conditions
• Divisions within colonized peoples massacres
  in response to uprisings
• Europeanization of the globe?
• But also powerful foreign influence on Europe