Weekly Summary One

I'm not really sure how this summary paragraph should work, but from the reading and everyone's blog posts I get the sense that the first half of the 19th century must have been an extremely chaotic time to live in. There were class revolts, government reforms, and cultural rebellions all over Europe. Almost everyone must have been aware of all the conflict that was occurring and all the changes that were taking place, and whether you were a baker, a bureaucrat, or some type of creative person whose profession begins with the letter “b” so that I might be able to have some alliteration in my sentence, at least one aspect of your life probably would have changed over a ten year period. Perhaps I am being hyperbolic. Most people’s lives will have changed at least a bit over ten years, but not necessarily so society. It’s interesting to see how much happened in that time despite the many attempts by conservatives to crush revolts and maintain order. Napoleon basically opened up the Pandora’s box, or genie’s bottle, of Liberalism and Nationalism, and no matter how many times these movements were prevented from succeeding in their goals, they still stayed around and stuck it out. In fact, Conservative retaliation only made some members of these movements more radical and more ardent about their cause. I did mention in an earlier post that Conservatism in Europe, or at least Conservatism based on the Congress of Vienna did not fall apart in one big piece, but it was still being chipped away at slowly. So, basically Europe went through a lot of awkward changes.

Unifications of Nations

The separate unifications of the Italian and German states provide us with many interesting similarities. The nationalist movements in both eventual countries were driven primarily by one of the many states that would later comprise each country. These specific states, Piedmont-Sardinia in Italy and Prussia in Germany, were the top political, military, and economic powers in their respective regions, and they initiated both the military and diplomatic maneuvers that enabled their countries to eventually unify. Furthermore, the unification in each country was, for the most part, a form of top-down nationalism. The governments in Piedmont-Sardinia and Prussia, and their monarchs in particular, had rejected the previous attempts at unification during the 1848 revolutions, specifically Mazzini’s Republican movement and, as I mentioned in a previous post, a constitutional monarchy that Frederick William IV considered “too liberal” (Coffin 749). These monarchs were willing to support Nationalism, but they wanted to do it on their own terms and to establish a state of their liking. What do these similarities all mean, though? I think these comparisons complement my last post on Conservatism. It was still around after 1848, but it did have to adapt a bit by co-opting nationalist movements.

More Conservatism!!! (Coffin739-753)!!!

Though gains for Liberalism were slowly being made in Europe over the course of the 19th century, the Conservatism still remained a significant force in Europe both during and after the 1848 revolutions. Regardless of his own political beliefs, in the first few years after Louis Napoleon was elected president of France he restored and strengthened France’s ties with the Catholic church, cracked down on workers’ organizations, and became emperor of the Second French Empire, although he did this with the people’s support. After the revolution in Germany, Prussian ruler Frederick William IV refused to become king of the proposed nation of Germany because he thought its constitution was too liberal, and soon thereafter defeated the revolutionaries. In Hungary, the Russian army simply crushed the revolution led by Lajos Kossuth after Austria asked Tsar Nicholas I to do so. While opposition to Conservatism did increase in this time, the Conservative attempt at Restoration did not fall apart in one big piece.

Perhaps I am Nitpicking the Mean Nurse...

This is in response to Lollote's post:

That is a good analysis and overview of Romanticism, but I don’t entirely agree with your last paragraph. The modern sensibility of art and the artist that many of us have definitely came from the Romantic period, and Romanticism had a very large impact on the course of European history. However, Romanticism was only a reaction to a way of viewing the world and creating art. Modernism, for the most part, was a conscious attempt to make a significant break with the past. Many romantics looked to the past for inspiration or used texts from the past in their work. They did react to Classicism, but they were continuing the traditions of European art and culture on at least a technical level, whereas the modernists put their focus mainly on the present and the future and experimented with the basic building blocks of their respective mediums. Perhaps that distinction is not strong enough, and the two movements were similar in many ways, particularly in terms of a rejection of the past and individuality, but I still think that, while Romanticism did break with the past to some extent, this break was not enough to warrant a division in European history between everything that happened before Romanticism and everything that happened after.

Who needs the French Revolution?

This is in response to JED's post and DLemma's comment on the same post:

The French Revolution certainly spread the ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity across Europe, and it expedited the growth and development of the 19th-century ideologies supporting or reacting to those ideas. However, I think the right conditions for conservatism, liberalism, socialism, and nationalism were already in place in Europe before the French Revolution. In other words - you could consider this type of counterfactual - the French Revolution was not necessary for the creation of these ideologies to occur. The Enlightenment ideas had already been discussed throughout Europe for a century. The Industrial Revolution, and the social disparities that came along with it, had already begun in Britain before the French Revolution. If there were no French Revolution, the main difference between this hypothetical situation and the real subsequent history of Europe would be that the Conservative movement would have been considerably weaker.

Karl Marx, or Mr. Presumes-a-lot

I will admit that I approached tonight’s reading of The Communist Manifesto with quite a bit of bias against it. I had experienced a brief infatuation with communism in the 9th grade – I believe it occurred not long after reading A People’s History of the United States – but I soon realized the contradictions and, dare I say, utter foolishness of this deterministic and paternalistic system of thought, and my opinions on the subject weren’t changed by this reading. This is not to say, however, that capitalism is absolved of any guilt. There are problems inherent in that system too – no one can deny the terrible conditions that so many working-class people in Europe suffered through – but it is Marx who I have my eye on for this post.

So back to those two qualities I have ascribed to Communism: deterministic and paternalistic. Now, having the benefit of knowing the past 160 years of history, I could write multiple pages on how history has proven Marx wrong (it would probably sound like this: Marx claims that “national differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing.” Really. World War One? World War One! WORLD WAR ONE!), so I will refrain from that tempting exercise in bombast. Still, his take on the future seems incredibly naïve if we take even the slightest glimpse at the past or at human nature. When the proletariat take over and reorganize the hell out of everything as they see fit - well, first off, who’s making all these changes? None of Marx’s “conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat” could be accomplished on a large scale without some central, organized authority. Marx assumes everything’s gonna be peachy-keen, that “the public power will lose its political character,” but, call me a pessimist, I don’t believe there is very large percentage of humankind who, upon reaching a position of power, is content to give up that power of their own accord. Was Marx not an educated man? (That is perhaps a bit mean-spirited; for the record, he was educated). But if he thought everything was going to work itself out, he had to have been kidding himself.

I don’t have much to say about the paternalism in this excerpt. Marx is basically claiming that Communists know what every working-class person wants. That doesn’t really contradict anything in Communist ideology, but Marx is once again presuming quite a lot, as it seems to be his wont to do.

Revolution, Restoration, and Britain (Coffin 709-717)

In addition to the Industrial Revolution, the effects of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars made Britain and its empire one of the most powerful entities of the 19th century. To begin with, Britain won the wars, so it didn't have to give away any money as an indemnity, like the French did (also, Britain's infrastructure wasn't even damaged, as happened with countries on the continent, particularly Russia). In fact, Britain received new territories from France as compensation for the war, increasing the size of the British Empire and giving a large base from which to expand. The British Empire also benefited from the Congress of Vienna. The delegates there wanted stability in Europe and thought the best way to achieve this goal would be to maintain a balance of power by means of organizations like the Quintuple Alliance and the creation of small independent states. This meant that Britain's rivals wouldn't become too powerful a threat to Britain, or, if they did, the other countries of Europe would ally with Britain against that rival. Britain, then, didn't have to commit as many troops to Europe and could instead use its armies to conquer and rule territory for its empire. In the Western Hemisphere, the French Revolution and the ideas associated with it had inspired revolutions and wars of independence in almost every country. These developments took land, resources, and markets away from some of Britain's trading competitors, Portugal and Spain, and opened up new markets for British goods. The Monroe Doctrine in 1823, which warned against European intervention in the Western Hemisphere and which Britain supported, helped secure these markets for Britain. Interestingly enough, the ideas of both the French Revolution and the Congress of Vienna, which was a reaction to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, were beneficial to Britain and the growth of its empire.