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The Isms of the 19th

Century and Global Domination

© L.M. Stallbaumer‐Beishline, 2016

Liberalism

Communism

Industrialization

Socialism

Politicization of Middle and Working Classes in 19th Century

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Feminism • Still seeking civil and political rights

• Barred from property ownership, no legal identity, family law favored men

• Sought right to education and professional employment

• Socialist‐Feminists  revolution would end oppression

British women gain right to vote in 1919

Racism• Enslavement of Africans (1400s and after) 

• Alleged African primitiveness and barbarity

• Bringing Christianity to “heathens”

• Popular belief that darker pigmentations represented inferiority

• Developed into pseudo science during the Enlightenment

Portuguese explorer in 1444: “’because they lived like beasts, without any of the customs of rational creatures, since they did not even know what were bread and wine, nor garments of cloth, nor life in the shelter of a house; and worse still was their ignorance, which deprived them of knowledge of good, and permitted them only a life of brutish idleness.’” 

David Hume, Of Natural Characters (1748)“I am apt to suspect that negroes and in general all other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites.  There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent amongst them, no arts, no sciences…. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages if nature had not made an original distinction between these breeds of men.”

Source: McKay, et al., A History of Western Society, 11th ed., 2014, 470‐472, 539‐541.

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Romanticism• Flourished 1790s‐1840s• Develop each person’s unique potential• Intuition and nostalgia for the past• Emotional excess, unrestrained imagination, spontaneity• Interest in nature  inspirational potential not how it works• Ethnic groups inspired by the discovery of their identity (proved a threat to multi‐national empires)

• History and historical novels of “great men” or famous battles• Literature fueled nationalism through exploration of folk songs and tales (e.g. Brothers Grimm)

• No longer limited to church or the nobility• “endless yearning of the soul” … “transport the listener to ecstasy and hysteria”

Music

Literature & Art

Source: McKay, et al., A History of Western Society, 11th ed., 701‐706 

Alexander Dumas (1802‐1870)

Jane Austen (1775‐1817)

Mary Shelley (1797‐1851)

Edgar Allan Poe (1809‐1849)

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Eugène Delacroix (1798‐1863)

Casper David Friedrich (1774‐1840)

Joseph M. W. Turner (1777‐1851)

Frédéric Chopin (1810‐1849)Franz Liszt (1811‐1866)Ludwig van Beethoven (1770‐1827)

Pre‐1848 European Tensions• Industrialization 

• Rapid urbanization• Challenges to the artisan class

• Population doubles during 18th C• Ideological Visions

• Liberalism, nationalism, socialism, democracy

• Reaction Measures • Prussian Carlsbad Decrees• English Six Acts

• Agricultural Crises  higher food prices

• Poor harvests + potato blight

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Major 1848 Revolutions

Country Start Date

Groups Rebelling Visions/Goals Outcomes

France Beg Feb 1848

Working Class Democracy/Republicanism Right to Work/Socialist

November 1848 New Constitution with President and one-house legislature

President Louis Napoleon Bonaparte coup d’etat declares 2nd French Empire

Middle Class More political power End corruption of King Louis

Philippe

Lost support of the working classes

Austrian Empire

13 March 1848

Peasants End Serfdom Improve food supplies

Emperor Franz Joseph (r. 1848-1916) regained control with military after initial shock; assisted by Russian Tsar

Middle Class Liberal Constitutional Monarchy

End authoritarianism of Metternich

Could not gain support of urban working class nor peasants; middle class feared radicalization of revolution

Nationalists Hungarians, Slavs)

Autonomy or independence from Austrian Emperor

Austrian & Russian Army defeated Hungarian army

Austrian Army defeated Slavs in Bohemia Hungarians gained some autonomy in 1866

compromise Italian Peninsula

Spring 1848

Nationalists Seek independence from French and Austrian princes ruling in Milan, Lombardy, Venetia, Kingdom of Two Sicilies

Rural populations did not support; Revolutionary not united; Lack of leadership Giuseppe Mazzini with the support of Giuseppe

Garibaldi temporarily created a republic in Rome; French troops defeat and restore Pope Pius IX

Liberals Constitutional Monarchy Victor Emmanel II becomes ruler of Kingdom of Piedmont Sardinia; he eventually supports liberal reforms under guidance of Count Cavour

German states

Spring 1848

National Unity Seeking some sort of a united German state or empire

Disagreement over whether or not Prussia would lead; Austria be included; or a union of the smaller German states to the exclusion of Austria and Prussia

Frederick William IV attempted to create a German Confederation under his leadership but forced in 1850 to back down

Liberals in Berlin Constitutional Monarchy Overthrown by Frederick William IV and Prussian army after he regained control in 1849

Liberals (in Frankfurt)

Constitutional Monarchy Universal male suffrage

Defeated by Prussian army when Prussian king, Frederick William IV (r. 1840-1861) refuses to accept their offer of a monarchy

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Nationalism• Share common ethnicity, language, culture, tradition, history

• Self‐identity• Before 1848/1850, embraced by middle‐class liberals and democrats

• Influence expanded with mass education, popular press, and romanticism

• 1860s and after: increasingly exclusionary, intolerant, linked to racism, chauvinistic

Nation‐State

• State/Territory to house nation

• 1848 Revolutions• Irish independence movement

• Italy, 1859‐1870 (war and guerrilla war of Red Shirts)

• Germany, 1864‐1871 (three wars)

• Dissolution of Austro‐Hungarian Empire (1860s‐1918)

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Militarism• Glorification of military ideals 

• Arms race driven by national rivalries and weapons’ manufacturers

Imperialism 

Motives• Economic

• National Security/Competition

• “Civilizing Mission”

Jules Ferry (1832‐1893), FranceContext: Prime minister advocating colonial expansion

F. D. Lugard (1858‐1945), Great 

Britain in AfricaContext: Midpoint of a long career as colonial administrator and soldier

Albert J. Beveridge (1862‐192&), U.S. SenatorContext: US defeated Spain in Cuba (1898 Spanish‐American War) and debating future of Philippines

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Informal Imperialism (1600s‐1850s)• Trade monopolies granted by European governments as “charters”

• Indirect rule

• Colonial bureaucracies relatively small

• Troops used to protect business interests

• Companies exploiting resources/cash crops “represent” the European government, examples include:

• East India Company (British)

• Dutch East India Company

• French East India Company

• German East African Company

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Chartered_companies

India• British East India Company

• Own army

• Collected taxes

• Trade monopolies

• Indian Rebellion or Sepoy Mutiny 1857‐1858

• Government of India Act of 1858

• 1876 Queen Victoria declared Empress of India

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China

• Trading settlements

• Qing dynasty & “Opium Wars” 1839‐1842

• Treaty of Nanking, 1842

• Treaty Port System

Age of “New Imperialism”

• Indirect to direct rule or informal to formal

• Accelerated expansion

• Arationality

• Between 1870s‐1900

• “master narrative”  

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African Continent

• Prior to 1880s

African Continent

• Prior to 1880s

• “Scramble for Africa”

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African Continent

• “Scramble for Africa”

• Berlin Conference 1884‐1885

• Reasons for Timing

Ndansi Kumalo

Dadabhai Naoroji

Writing in the 1970s, French sociologist Jacques Ellul rebuked westerner intellectuals who entertained the "silly attitude . . . [of] hating their own world and then illogically exalting all other civilizations."  While he admits that western powers did not always live up to their ideals, he argued that they made one contribution to the world.  He wrote: "The whole of the modern world, for better or for worse, is following a western model; no one imposed it on others, they have adopted it themselves, and enthusiastically.” 

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Historical Judgments

Eurocentric – Theodore von Laue

• Crave western possessions• Select indigenous people eager • Hospitals, medicines, & education• “Ideals of freedom and self‐determination”

• Look how westerners treated their own

• Failure to achieve cultural and political equality & “reasonable harmony in the body politic”

• Anti‐Western “fury has its justification”

• Achieved by “historical and geographic accident”

Afro‐centric – A. Adu Boahen

• Thesis: Negatives outweigh the positives• Political: peace & stability after incredible violence; independent states but boundaries artificial and uneven distribution of natural resources; civil service and new judicial system but not equally capable; nationalism and pan‐Africanism accidental; professional army but anarchy

• Economic: infrastructure but self‐serving; primary sector of economy but monocrop/cashcrop and little industrialization; joined world economy but wealth exported; uneven regional development; “land acquired great commercial value”; raised standard of living for some;; money economy; banking activities

• Social: population growth restored after major loss; urbanization; spread of Christianity, Islam and western education; created an African elite who might be deracinated or “alienated”; created a lingua franca for each state; greater social mobility based on merit and achievement; BUT gap between rural and urban; social services “grossly inadequate and unevenly distributed”; education same problem as social services; high levels of illiteracy; education not always practical; women lost status; African culture condemned as inferior

• Psychological: “colonial mentality”  reject African culture

1914  formal or informal Western imperialism throughout the globe; Qing empire collapses in 1911; Japan successful; Africa and India formal imperial ties

Post 1918  WWI involved colonial possessions; costs of maintaining empire begin to put a strain on Imperial powers; independence movements in Africa & India developing; defeat and partition of Ottoman Empire leads to Western imperialism in Middle East (e.g. mandate system); Japanese Greater East Asia Co‐Prosperity Sphere; China civil war

Post 1945  DecolonizationAfrican colonies gain independence in 1950s and 1960s; China becomes a communist nation/empire; Middle East mandates begin to gain their independence in 1941; and India partitioned and independence in 1947 

Twentieth‐Century