Notes
The Enlightenment
Thinkers applied reason to politics and society: John Locke (natural rights; government by consent), Montesquieu (separation of powers), Rousseau (the social contract), and Voltaire (freedom of religion and speech). These ideas challenged absolute monarchy and the Church.
Atlantic revolutions
- American Revolution (1775–1783): based on Enlightenment ideas; the Declaration of Independence.
- French Revolution (1789): the Declaration of the Rights of Man; overthrew the monarchy; the Reign of Terror; then Napoleon, who spread revolutionary ideas across Europe.
- Haitian Revolution (1791–1804): led by Toussaint Louverture, enslaved people overthrew French rule and created the first Black-led republic, ending slavery there.
- Latin American revolutions: creoles like Simón Bolívar led independence movements in the early 1800s.
- Results: new nations, but often limited rights for women, the poor, and enslaved people. Later movements fought for abolition (Britain ended the slave trade in 1807) and women's suffrage (Mary Wollstonecraft).
Nationalism
Shared language, culture and history inspired nationalism: the unification of Italy (1861) and Germany (1871, Bismarck), and later resistance to empires.
The Industrial Revolution
- It began in Britain because of coal and iron, rivers and ports, capital from trade, an agricultural revolution that freed workers, and a colonial empire.
- The steam engine (James Watt), textile machines and the factory system changed production. A second industrial revolution brought steel, chemicals, electricity and oil.
- Industrialization spread to Western Europe, the U.S., Russia and Japan (the Meiji Restoration, 1868).
- In some places, like Egypt under Muhammad Ali and the Ottoman Empire, states tried to industrialize with limited success.
Practice
Governments exist to protect these rights.
It began as a slave revolt in Saint-Domingue.
He helped free Venezuela, Colombia and other nations from Spain.
Coal powered steam engines and iron built machines.
It could be used almost anywhere.
Shared identity united smaller states.
Japan adopted Western technology to stay independent.
She wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
Free response
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Free-response question
Answer (a), (b) and (c).
(a) Identify ONE Enlightenment idea that influenced revolutions between 1750 and 1900.
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Popular sovereignty: governments get their power from the consent of the governed (Locke, Rousseau).
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(b) Explain ONE way the Haitian Revolution was different from the American Revolution.
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The Haitian Revolution was led by enslaved people and ended slavery, while the American Revolution was led by elites and kept slavery.
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(c) Explain ONE reason the Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain.
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Britain had abundant coal and iron, capital from overseas trade, and a workforce freed by the agricultural revolution, plus access to colonial markets.
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