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.