BY: Dr. ROBERT SANDERSON
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Brief Review |
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The Renaissance was an era of intellectual and artistic brilliance unsurpassed in European history. It is clear that some thinking people in this era, largely a mercantile elite, saw themselves living in an age more akin to that of the bright and creative ancient world than that of the recent dark and gloomy Middle Ages.
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A great religious upheaval called the protestant Reformation ended the centuries-long religious unity of Europe and resulted in a number of important political changes. In the sixteenth century, cries for reform were nothing new, but this time they resulted in revolution.
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The attempts by Catholic monarchs to re-establish European religious unity and by both Catholic and Protestant monarchs to establish strong centralized states led to many wars among the European states.
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The two most important forms of government to evolve in early modern times were the absolute monarchy and the constitutional state. England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands provide a picture of constitutionalism triumphing over absolutism.
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In the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the educated classes of Europe moved from a world-view that was basically religious to one that was primarily secular. The development of scientific knowledge was the key cause of this intellectual change.
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The Industrial Revolution began in the textile industry, where a series of inventions created new demands for laborers. Between 1733 and 1793, inventors produced new machines, such as the flying shuttle, the spinning jenny, and a water-powered loom, that speeded up the spinning and weaving of wool and cotton.
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It was in France that the ideas of the Enlightenment and liberalism were put to their fullest test. The bankruptcy of the state gave the French aristocracy the chance to grab power from a weak king. This move backfired, however, because the middle class grabbed even harder.
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Romanticism is an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in 18th century Western Europe during the industrial revolution. In part a revolt against aristocratic, social, and political norms of the Enlightenment period and a reaction against the rationalization of nature. Romanticism elevated the achievements of heroic individuals and artists that altered society. |
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Between 1850 and 1914, strong nation-states developed. Napoleon III of France played a pioneering role in this triumph of nationalism. In Italy, Count Cavour, managed to unify most of Italy and in 1862, Otto von Bismarck of Prussia, a master of power politics, skillfully fought three wars to unify the states of Germany into a single nation under Prussian leadership. |
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"New Imperialism" occurred primarily between 1880 and 1900, when European governments scrambled frantically for territory. White people came, therefore, to rule millions of black and brown people in Africa and Asia. The causes of the new imperialism are still hotly debated. Competition for trade, superior military force, European power politics, and a racist belief in European superiority were among the most important. |
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In the aftermath of World War I, all of the new states of Central and Eastern Europe became democracies. But during the 1920s the democratic flame began to flicker, and in the 1930s it threatened to die out almost completely. Instead of an age of democracy, the interwar years, to a large extent, became an era of dictatorship. In three countries—the Soviet Union, Italy, and Germany—the dictatorial regimes became totalitarian. |
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