Alle lectures en tutorials met werkgroep vragen van History of Modern Societies
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Course
History of Modern Societies
Institution
Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam (EUR)
Het document bevat alle 4 de lectures, de 12 werkgroepen en de vragen die worden behandeld tijdens de werkgroepen. Ook is het een samenvatting voor het tentamen.
History of Modern societies
Lecture 1 (12-01-2024) Political change and consequences of the French Revolution and the
Napoleonic wars
History= understanding relation between continuity & discontinuity.
Many early modern tendencies (previous course) continue to develop:
- Capitalism -> goes back to late middle ages
- Modern science -> Scientific Revolution of 17th century
- National states -> late middle ages
But there are also discontinuities:
-Something changes around 1800...but what?
1. Productivity: the Industrial Revolution (next week)
2. Politics: states and international relations as a framework
• States are very old.
• Since French Revolution: strong growth in state capabilities
->solid framework for economic and many other forms of development= THIS WEEK’s topic
Eric Hobsbawm : A volcano with two craters.
Economics/technology; Joel Mokyr (ca 2000): The rise of the western economies based on economic
growth and technological progress is the central event in modern history. Nothing else even comes
close.
Political institutions; Theodoros Kolokotronis (1840): In my view, the French Revolution and the
doings of Napoleon opened the eyes of the world. Nations knew nothing before and people thought
that kings were gods upon the earth.
Dual revolution: Industrial and French Revolution as “midwives” of modern European history
3. The third revolution: Enlightenment (& Romanticism)
• Enlightenment produces the idea of progress.
• Romantic movement produced a thorough criticism of this idea.
Therefore: TRIPLE REVOLUTION
Three revolutions & the Great Divergence; French Revolution, Industrial Revolution and
Enlightenment produces the idea of progress.
This also affected the relation between the West and ‘the rest’
Reactions on these developments/revolutions: Nationalism, fascism
This course: economic, political & cultural development from c.1800
Four themes:19th century
1. The rise of the modern western state: culture (political ideas) & politics (‘from above’)
2. Industrialization and social relations: economic-social ideas and class relations (culture & economy)
20th century
3. Crisis of democracy, fascism: culture & politics (‘from below’)
4. Modern environment: architecture, design, cities (culture + politics)
the rise of the modern state
• From Napoleon to around 1850
• Leading question: Did the French Revolution fundamentally change the nature of states?
o Role of Napoleon spreading the ideas
o Was there continuity with the reforms of the 18th c. rulers?
,• Politics: Politics concerns power relations, at every level from family to state including the
international order.
o Max Weber: “Power is the chance of a man or a number of men to realize their own will in a
communal action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action.”
Three questions about power relations
1. Who possess power?
2. How is power exercised?
3. How is power legitimated and/or contested? Traditional power distribution ... Power legitimated by
... Contested by ...
The 18th century state: who possessed power?
• Not very centralized
• Power of king depended on: Intelligence and Strength of personality- >Unusually talented princes
• Always partly dependent on their powerful subjects
State as the instrument of the king
• For waging war
• Raising taxes to pay for the army
• Strengthen the economy to improve tax base-> idea of the ‘good king’ emerges
Legitimacy:
• The king always had to prove his power and usefulness -> take care of common interests
• 18th century: ‘enlightened rulers’
And for cities and common people.
18th -century state
• No strong central power continuous rivalry & war
• ‘Enlightened rulers’ tried to centralize power
o Ended tax privileges nobility / church
o Curb power of representative bodies to block royal decisions.
o Replace noble civil servants by highly educated people irrespective of social class
• Rivalry also led to crises, first in France
French crisis of 18th century
• Enormous wars, always against Britain
• Struggle for dominance: wars Huge state debts
• Financed by... Tirth Estate
Theatres of war for France: Europe, West-Africa, West Indies, Canada, India
England: best arrangement public finance
• Tax payers: nobility, represented in parliament, often involved in international trade
• Land tax since 1692
• Tends to win wars
France:
• Nobles hardly paid taxes: refused to contribute to state budget
• Weak kings: unable to push their program
• Rumours became important after wars were lost & economy failed
,→ Loss of legitimacy
1789: after failure of financial reforms:
• Estates General meet
• French Revolution
French Revolution: why a turning point in state development
1. Demolished the old order
• Nobility and the church lost their privileges
• Church nationalized
2. Creating a new order
• Citizen’s rights
• Legislation by elected bodies although with a limited franchise (‘stake in society’-theory)
4 Important points for development of states
1. French Revolution produced a new kind of state.
2. Was in fact a series of revolutions -> McKay!
3. New state institutions imposed elsewhere by Napoleon
4. Most countries had to deal with problems by centralizing power, and expanding state interventions
in society
-> Napoleon introduced many of these reforms
Napoleon’s four innovations of the state (not in McKay!)
1) Gendarmerie expanded. (Gendarmerie uitbreiden)
2) Préfets at the head of the 83 départements. (Vertegenwoordigers op lokaal niveau in de 83
departementen)
3) Charting possessions by creating a cadaster (land register). (Bezittingen in kaart brengen
door het creëren van een kadaster(grondregister))
4) Created a competent & loyal apparatus of state civil servants. (Een bekwame en loyale
apparatus van staatsambtenaren gecreëerd)
Napoleon Built a powerful state
• 4 Innovations
• Made peace with nobility and church
Eliminates two main sources of conflict, which undermined state power.
Napoleon’s accomplishments in more general terms:
• State power: centralized and expanded. At the expense of ...
• Exercise of power: in the hands of ...
• Legitimacy:
This pattern prolonged & emulated after 1815
• Prolonged: because old elites were displaced>State had to solve problems
• Emulated: problems elsewhere similar>Reforming ideas widespread
• Internal: states remained just as under Napoleon
Congress Vienna 1814-1815
• Wanted to supress revolutionary ideas: Russia, Prussia and Austria
• But wanted also to modernize Europe: create stability by: Supervision by Congress of the big Five:
, Russia, Britain, France, Austria and Prussia: Concert of Europe Limited the sovereignty of the
smaller states
o Restored princes, but these also increased their geographical power
o Did as if it was only a restauration of the old order, but was not
o Many princes ruled over lands that never before were theirsProblem of legitimacy
New phenomena confronting legitimacy
Revolutionary ideas
• Liberalism and nationalism linked
• Sometimes also anti-Semitism and anti-French sentiments
• Liberalism threatened all princess -> ctd issues w/ legitimacy
• Nationalism growing problem,Esp. Russia, Austria, German states -> dynastic states without
intrinsic unity
Suppression of:
o nationalist revolts in German states and Austrian north Italy
o revolutionary & liberal ideals by censorship & policing.
Social dislocation by; industrialization, urbanization, population growth:
->state had to solve these problems (Friday: the English example)
Reformers
Most reformers: civil servants, not kings
• Serving society, rather than king/queen, based on The idea of PROGRESS
Progress Relatively new idea. Until around 1750:
o Dominant view: human development is a cycle
Same with kingdoms. Bible
o Connected with christian view: All human endeavor is tainted with sin. Only God lasts forever.
Renaissance:
o Humans may create a better world
o Utopian writings: Thomas More, Utopia (1516), An island far away, fantasy-blueprint.
Enlightenment and politics CORE IDEA:
Discovering the laws of human development (individual, collective) , like the natural laws
discovered by science (Galilei, Newton, etc)
• The human condition could be improved on the basis of scientific insight-> suffering = caused by
ignorance. Voorbeeld: Adam Smith and Karl Marx on economy and society (next week).
• Government is to serve ‘society’
• But how? Not democracy -> majority of population too stupid.
Therefore:
o Appeal to ‘enlightened rulers’
o Condorcet: education for all, but rule by highly educated, serving active state: “technocracy”
Conclusion I
• The French Revolution overthrew the old-style order, in which
o power was distributed over privileged groups: the nobility, the church, and guilds,
o all with their inherited rights.
• It replaced this order by one in which IN PRINCIPLE
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