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Lecture Notes Modern History
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English Lecture notes for the First Year History course Modern History
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Week 2 09/09/2020INTRODUCTION
How and why did Europeans become modern?
—> Modern means “becoming more like us”
- Modern meant the opposite of ancient, but in this course it means becoming more like us.
Revolutions
- Political revolution
- Ruled by kings and queens to a more democratically organised government
- Economic revolution
- Agrarian to industrial society
- Cultural revolution
- Religion based society to secular society
The long 19th century was a period of rapid change.
How to define Europe
- Political unit
- Europe is hard to define by politics.
- Entity defined by language
- Middle Ages —> Latin was the most spoken language
- Now —> No linguistic unity, the languages don’t even belong to the same family.
- Cultural unit
- Religious unity was lost and it split into two hostile blocks in the 16th century.
- Geographic (what we use for this course)
- Europeans —> people who live in what is referred to the continent Europe.
- Geographic definition of Europe is the oldest definition of Europe that we have.
- Geographic region, that is pretty well defined to the west, it ends at the Atlantic, but it’s
hard to define where in the east it ends.
- Strahlenberg —> border of Europe lays on the Ural Mountains, everything behind it
is Asia.
- Eastern boundary is artificial as russia is part European and part Asian.
- Less artificial that the political, linguistic or cultural definition
Modernisation of Europe
- Big effect on the whole world.
- Forced other counties to become more modern as well.
- Sometimes it’s voluntary —> Meiji Revolution in Japan.
- Japan realises they have to modernise / westernise.
- Political inventions —> written constitution.
- Military inventions.
- Japanese officials had to wear Western dress.
- Most often forced
- Europe’s modernisation gave it military rule over a country for roughly 100 years.
Dating the process of modernisation (beginning)
1
, - End of 18th century (1770s)
- Outbreak of American revolution
- French Revolution
- Industrial revolution
- Cultural changes —> ongoing process of secularisation, starts being embraced by more
people after the American and French Revolution.
- 1830s
- Economic change, industrial revolution.
Dating the process of modernisation (end)
- Struggle for democracy does not suddenly end, some argue it’s still happening until the
1950s.
- Economic revolution —> continues throughout the 19th century.
- Some argue it’s still ongoing.
- 1960s
- Secularisation of Europe.
POLITICAL REVOLUTION
Europe became more modern
- Europe became more democratic
What is democracy?
- Concept comes from the ancient greek
- Demos —> people
- Kratos —> rules
- Democracy —> rules of the people.
- Direct democracy —> citizens came together on a mountains, each citizen individually
participated in making decisions.
- Nowadays
- Indirect democracy —> elected representatives don’t consult the citizens.
- Supposed to act in out place and not for themselves.
Democracies in the old regimes
- Europe was majorly reigned by kings and queens (autocrats).
- England and The Netherlands were ruled by tiny elites (oligarchies).
- England
- English had far less power than his French counterpart due to the Glorious
Revolution, a lot of power was given to parliament.
- No more than 3% of people could vote and positions in the House of Lords was
hereditary
- Dutch
- Repulic
- Tiny elite —> the regents.
- They were not elected, the other members of the regions elites chose the new ones
if someone quit or died.
2
, - France
- Total monarchies —> Louis XIV “l’état c’est moi” (apocryphal).
- The king decided everything.
HOW DID IT HAPPEN?
Background facts
- Europe didn’t become democratic overnight, the process took about a 100 years.
- Revolutionary process —> dramatic starts and stops, involvement of violence.
- Voting rights are slowly expanded.
- British experience is atypical as to how the democratisation of Europe came to be.
European Milestones
- The Atlantic Revolutions
- The 1848 Revolutions
- World War I
The Atlantic Revolutions
- Began in north America with the American revolution and then expanded to Europe mainly
France.
- Atlantic revolution —> revolutions happened on both sides of the Atlantic.
- American revolution
- British impose new taxes onto Americans without consenting them.
- American colonists revolutionise to declare their independence from the British.
- The Netherlands
- They were a republic.
- Dutch patriots say power should be taken away by the regent elite.
- The French Revolution
- French king is confronted with physical problems.
- American colonists decided to break away from Britain and France wanted to help and
sent their military.
- He has a lot of expenses, he doesn’t have enough funds anymore.
- The French king Louis XVI calls together the Estates General.
- Estates General —> representatives from different regions / estates in France
- French kings had stopped calling together the estates general as their own power had
been limited.
- The king realises he needs more help from the notables of his country, if he wants to
impose new taxes successfully.
- Calling the Estates General leads to the abolition of monarchies in France
- Members of the Third Estate became unhappy with that they have fewer representatives
than the clergy and nobles, despite representing more people.
- Third estate leaves when the king refuses, they rename themselves the National
Assembly —> they are the nation and they should be in charge.
- The king tries to escape from Paris to Prussia and hopes to get military support, the
French people don’t like that and that leads to the decapitation of the French king.
- France becomes a republic.
3
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