Unit 7
19th-Century Perspectives and Political Developments
Notes
Ideologies
- Liberalism: constitutions, individual rights, free markets. Conservatism: tradition, monarchy, the Church. Nationalism: loyalty to a nation with a shared language and culture. Socialism: collective ownership to reduce inequality.
- Romanticism valued emotion, nature and the past (Wordsworth, Beethoven). Later, realism depicted ordinary life and social problems.
National unification
- Italy: Cavour (Piedmont-Sardinia's prime minister) used diplomacy and war; Garibaldi and his Red Shirts took the south. Italy unified in 1861 (Rome in 1870).
- Germany: Otto von Bismarck used realpolitik (practical, power-based politics) and "blood and iron": wars with Denmark (1864), Austria (1866) and France (1870–1871). Germany unified in 1871.
- Austria-Hungary: the Dual Monarchy (1867) gave Hungary its own government.
Reform and reaction
- Britain reformed gradually: Reform Acts expanded voting; Parliament repealed the Corn Laws (1846).
- Russia: Alexander II emancipated the serfs (1861), but reforms were limited and he was assassinated. Russia remained autocratic.
- France: the Second Empire under Napoleon III, then the Third Republic (1870). The Dreyfus Affair exposed anti-Semitism.
- Bismarck created social insurance (health and accident insurance, pensions) to win workers away from socialism.
- Women's suffrage campaigns grew (Emmeline Pankhurst's militant suffragettes in Britain).
New imperialism and new ideas
- European powers expanded into Africa and Asia (the Berlin Conference, 1884–1885). Motives: raw materials, markets, prestige, and Social Darwinism and the "civilizing mission."
- Darwin's theory of evolution (1859), Freud's psychology (the unconscious), and Einstein's relativity challenged certainty. Modern art moved away from realism.
- Anti-Semitism and Zionism (Theodor Herzl) arose.
Practice
He unified Germany through "blood and iron."
After the Franco-Prussian War.
Garibaldi conquered the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
Reforms were limited, and he was assassinated in 1881.
It reacted against Enlightenment rationalism.
A Jewish officer was falsely convicted of treason.
It misapplied evolution to societies.
He wanted workers loyal to the state.
Free response
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Free-response question
Answer (a), (b) and (c).
(a) Describe ONE method Bismarck used to unify Germany.
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He provoked short wars with Denmark, Austria and France, building German nationalism and Prussian leadership.
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(b) Explain ONE way nationalism weakened multinational empires in the 1800s.
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In Austria, Hungarians and Slavic groups demanded self-rule, leading to the Dual Monarchy (1867) and ongoing ethnic tension.
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(c) Explain ONE way new scientific or intellectual ideas challenged traditional beliefs in the late 1800s.
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Darwin's theory of evolution challenged religious explanations of human origins, and Freud argued that irrational unconscious drives shape behavior.
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