Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Making Europe
P E O P L E , P O L I T I C S , A N D C U LT U R E
Frank L. Kidner
San Francisco State University
Maria Bucur
Indiana University
Ralph Mathisen
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Sally McKee
University of California, Davis
Theodore R. Weeks
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
New York
Brief Contents
Maps xix
Features xxi
Preface xxv
About the Authors xxxi
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
262
Chapter 11
292
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
380
Chapter 15
410
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
32
58
88
114
144
174
204
234
322
348
442
476
506
vi
Brief Contents
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
622
Chapter 23
654
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Index I-1
594
682
714
742
772
804
836
866
536
566
Contents
Maps xix
Features xxi
Preface xxv
About the Authors xxxi
Echo
Introduction 35
Merchants and Traders of the Eastern Mediterranean,
1200650 B.C.E. 35
From Bronze to Iron 35
The Phoenicians 36
Other Eastern Mediterranean Traders 38
The Hebrews and Monotheism, 1800900 B.C.E. 39
Hebrew Origins 40
The Exodus and the Age of Judges 41
vii
viii
Contents
Contents
Voice
Echo
Echo
ix
Contents
Introduction 237
Regional Rule, Local Views, 500750 237
Kingship and Rule in Merovingian Gaul 238
The Iberian and Italian Peninsulas 239
The Decline of Trade 240
The Decline of Cities 241
The Western Church, 500800 242
The Christianization of Northern Europe 242
Echo
Crusade 290
Contents
xi
xii
Contents
Echo
Echo
Echo
Palaces 474
Contents
Echo
Coffeehouses 504
xiii
xiv
Contents
Echo
Frankenstein 593
Contents
Summary 651
Echo
Tourism 681
xv
xvi
Contents
Voice
Echo
Echo
Contents
Index I-1
xvii
Maps
1.0
9.2
1.1
10.0
2.0
10.1
10.2
11.0
10
2.1
37
3.0
293
3.1
11.1
303
11.2
3.2
11.3
4.0
12.0
4.1
12.1
5.0
13.0
Europe in 1556
5.1
13.1
13.2
366
13.3
372
310
337
349
363
6.0
14.0
6.1
14.1
7.0
15.0
15.1
The Netherlands
7.2
15.2
8.0
8.1
Justinians Empire
16.0
Europe in 1715
8.2
16.1
9.0
16.2
16.3
7.1
9.1
194
205
209
221
421
443
xix
xx
Maps
17.0
18.0
18.1
25.2
723
26.0
26.1
27.0
743
758
511
27.1
18.2
519
27.2
19.0
Europe in 1789
27.3
War in Asia
19.1
27.4
The Holocaust
28.0
28.1
28.2
28.3
29.0
29.1
30.0
30.1
30.2
537
19.2
561
20.0
20.1
21.0
21.1
22.0
22.1
Revolutions of 1848
632
22.2
Unification of Italy
633
22.3
23.0
23.1
24.0
24.1
24.2
24.3
Central Asia
701
24.4
Asia in 1914
706
25.0
25.1
Balkans, 19121913
572
623
696
720
789
794
796
799
805
817
867
873
886
Features
Choice
Akhenaton Decides to Make Aton the Main God of Egypt
34
60
90
116
146
176
206
236
264
294
324
350
382
412
444
568
596
624
656
684
716
744
774
806
508
538
478
838
868
xxi
xxii
Features
Voice
Akhenaton, Great Hymn to Aton
The Song of Deborah
23
42
83
97
126
168
196
228
244
274
317
334
368
394
429
448
490
520
548
581
668
688
733
762
800
30
57
818
853
891
603
645
Features
86
113
142
202
232
260
290
320
346
378
408
439
474
Coffeehouses
504
534
564
593
Standardized Time
620
172
652
681
712
741
770
864
894
834
803
xxiii
Preface
For years we five professors from across the country
have taught Western Civilization courses without the
textbook we really wanted to havea textbook with
a coherent strategy for helping students to study and
learn. In 1999 we commenced to develop such a text.
This book is the result.
The five of us bring to this book a variety of backgrounds, interests, and historical approaches, as well
as a combined total of nearly one hundred years of
teaching history. Two of us completed graduate degrees in literature before turning to history. We have
all studied, worked, or lived on three continents; we
are all American citizens, but not all of us were born
in the United States. Although we come from different parts of the country and have different historical
specializations, all of us teach in large state university
systems. We have a strong commitment to the kinds
of students who enroll in our schools and in community collegesyoung people and nontraditional
students from richly diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds who are enthusiastic and prepared to work
but have little knowledge of history and few formal
skills in historical analysis. We were gratified to be developing a new kind of textbook that met their needs.
We conceived of a textbook that would be lively
and absolutely up-to-date but did not presume a
great deal of prior knowledge of western civilization.
We also wanted to include new types of learning aids
that were fully integrated into the text itself. Our
greatest hope is that students who use this book will
come to understand how the West has developed
and, at the same time, to see the importance of the
past for the present. In other words, we want to help
them value the past as well as understand it and thus
to think historically.
xxv
xxvi Preface
behavior, social values, and political action, while simultaneously adjusting to or resisting changes in
other aspects of life. In addition, of course, they regularly influenced European activity in colonies and
empires.
In our treatment of religion we do not focus simply
on the dominant religion of any time or place. Judaism, for example, is discussed throughout the
text, while Islam, introduced in Chapter 8, is discussed again in connection with such issues as the
Moriscos of Spain, the Habsburg re-conquest of Hungary, tension in Russian Central Asia and the Balkans before World War I, Soviet campaigns against
religion, the arrival of Muslim immigrants in post
World War II Europe, and the dissolution of Yugoslavia. In addition, an emphasis on religious pluralism
in European life leads to discussions of the variety of
subcultures found in the West, many of which believe
that their religious and ethnic identity is integral to
their other values and practices. Indeed, our belief
that religion continues to play an important role in
modern European history rests in large part on the
abundant evidence showing it to be a core component of life for subcultures within the larger western
context. Catholic and Protestant Irish, Protestant
northern Germans and Catholic southern Germans,
Orthodox Russians, and Bosnian Muslims stand as
examples of communities whose values and actions
have been significantly shaped by ongoing religious
allegiances and whose interactions with those practicing other religions have had lasting repercussions. Our intention is to present the religious past
of the West in all its complex, multifold voices to
students who are more and more self-consciously
aware of racial, cultural, and ethnic diversity in their
own world.
We also believe that attention to religion reflects
the current public debate over values, using students
experience of this contested territory to stimulate
their interest. Their awareness of current valuesbased programs can serve as a springboard for a
study of the past. Does one choose aggression, persuasion, or passive resistance and nonaggression?
Social History: The theme of social history is integrated into the text as consideration is given to the
way politics and religion affect people and societies.
Discussions of daily lives and family structures are illuminated through occasional spotlights on the experience of a single, typical individual. We also pay
close attention to issues of gender norms and roles in
the past, drawing on the work of a generation of historians concerned with the history of ordinary men,
women, and children. We see many possibilities for
Preface
era of the chapter, sometimes from the same individual featured at the beginning of the chapter in
Choice. An explanatory headnote sets the context
for the document. Students are then helped to analyze it historically through a series of marginal notes
called Exploration Points. The points are also designed to aid instructors seeking to integrate primary
sources into their classrooms.
End-of-Chapter Feature: Echo: This feature is a
brief exploration of an interesting and often fun connection between the chapters era and the students
life today. Topics often relate to material culture,
identity and memory, and technology. For example,
Chapter 14, which deals with sixteenth-century reform movements in the western church, picks up on
the important role of the new technology of the printing press in reformers programs to discuss Media
Revolutions down to the present. Chapter 28 takes
us on a journey in the postWorld War II Volkswagen
Transporter minibus as it caught on with Europeans
on both sides of the Iron Curtain, then with American hippies of the 1960s, and finally morphed into the
suburban minivan of today.
In addition, we have built into each chapter a
strong framework of pedagogical aids to help students navigate the text. Each chapter opens with a
map that provides a geographical orientation to political content. A timeline highlights seven to nine landmark events that define the time frame. Each chapter
opening also has an outline of chapter topics and
subtopics, listed together with chapter features. A
chapter introduction provides an overview of chapter topics and themes. Chapter openings also include
a chronology that lists events and serves as a guide
to the text and as a study aid. Each major chapter
division begins with two focus questions that direct
students attention to the central concerns and issues
about to be examined. Where events follow thick
and fast, brief boxed chronologies outline their
sequence. At the end of the chapter is a summary,
preceded by three synthetic review questions that
prompt students to draw connections among the
chapters focus questions. One review question in
every chapter highlights the identity theme. Basic
answers to these questions can be found in the
summary, which reinforces what the students have
read, but instructors will find that the review and
focus questions prompt students to do more than regurgitate pat answers. Their aim has been to prompt
critical thinking. At the end of the summary is a
thinking back, thinking ahead question that asks
students to extend their thinking to previous eras or
into the eras to come. At the end of each chapter is a
xxvii
xxviii Preface
Flexible Format
Western Civilization courses differ widely in chronological structure from one campus to another. To accommodate the differing divisions of historical time
into intervals for various academic year divisions,
Making Europe: People, Politics, and Culture is published in three print versions, two of which embrace
the complete work, and two electronic versions:
One-volume hardcover edition: Making Europe:
People, Politics, and Culture
Two-volume paperback: Making Europe: People,
Politics, and Culture, Volume I: To 1790 (Chapters
117); Volume II: Since 1550 (Chapters 1530)
Making Europe: People, Politics, and Culture, Since
1300 (Chapters 1230), for courses on Europe
since the Renaissance
An ebook of the complete one-volume edition
A two-volume ebook of volumes one and two
Ancillaries
A wide array of supplements accompany this text to
help students better master the material and to help
instructors in teaching from the book:
Student Website
Instructor Website
HM Testing CD-ROM (powered by Diploma)
Online Instructors Resource Manual
Online Study Guide (powered by eCommerce)
PowerPoint maps, images, and lecture outlines
PowerPoint questions for personal response
systems
Blackboard and WebCT course cartridges
Eduspace (powered by Blackboard)
Interactive ebook
HistoryFinder
The student website, HM HistorySPACE, which
is accessible by visiting college.hmco.com/pic/
kidner1e, is a companion website for students that
features a wide array of resources to help students
master the subject matter. The website, prepared by
Craig Pilant of the County College of Morris, and
Mark Seidl, is divided into three major sections:
Prepare for Class includes material such as
learning objectives, chapter outlines, and preclass quizzes for a student to consult before going to class.
Improve Your Grade includes practice review
materials such as interactive flashcards, chronological ordering exercises, primary sources, and
interactive map exercises.
ACE the Test features our successful ACE
brand of practice tests as well as other selftesting materials.
Students can also find additional text resources
such as an online glossary, audio mp3 files of chapter
summaries, and material on how to study more effectively in the General Resources section.
The instructor website, HM HistorySPACE,
also accessible by visiting college.hmco.com/pic/
kidner1e, is a companion website for instructors. It
features all of the material on the student website
plus additional password-protected resources that
help instructors teach the course, such as an electronic version of the Instructors Resource Manual and
PowerPoint slides.
The Instructors Resource Manual, prepared by Doug
McGetchin of Florida Atlantic University, contains instructional objectives, chapter outlines, lecture suggestions, suggestions on using primary sources, activities
for the Choice feature, activities for the Voice feature,
activities for the Echo feature, map activities, audiovisual bibliographies, and internet resources.
HM Testing (powered by Diploma) offers instructors a flexible and powerful tool for test generation
and test management. Now supported by the Brownstone Research Groups market-leading Diploma software, this new version of HM Testing significantly
improves on functionality and ease of use by offering
all the tools needed to create, author, deliver, and customize multiple types of tests. Diploma is currently
in use at thousands of college and university campuses throughout the United States and Canada. The
HM Testing content for this text was developed by
Kathleen Addison of California State University at
Northridge and offers key term identification, essay
questions (with guidelines for how to effectively
Preface
Acknowledgments
It is a pleasure to thank the many instructors who
read and critiqued the manuscript through its development:
Patricia E. Behre, Fairfield University
Robert J. Brennan, Cape Fear Community College
Dorothy L. Brown, Columbia College
Peter Buhler, Boise State University
Christine Caldwell, St. Louis University
Susan Carrafiello, Wright State University
Maryanne Cline Horowitz, Occidental College
Luanne Dagley, Pellissippi State Technical
Community College
A. Dudley Gardner, Western Wyoming College
Kathryn A. Edwards, University of South
Carolina
Carla C. Falkner, Northeast Mississippi
Community College
Joanne M. Ferraro, San Diego State
Carlos R. Galvao-Sobrinho, University of
Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Paul S. George, Ph.D., Miami-Dade Community
College
Eva Giloi, Rutgers University, Newark
Jay Harmon, Catholic High School
Robert Henry, Skyline College
John Howe, Texas Technical University
Paul J. L. Hughes, Ph.D., Sussex County
Community College
Theodore M. Kluz, Troy State University
Craig Koslofsky, University of Illinois, Urbana
Michael Kulikowski, University of Tennessee
Tom Lansburg, Front Range Community
College
F. Thomas Luongo, Tulane University
Molly McClain, University of San Diego
Andrew McMichael, Western Kentucky
University
T. Mills Kelly, George Mason University
Prudence Moylan, Loyola University
Charlotte Newman Goldy, Miami University
Patricia O. ONeill, Central Oregon Community
College
William A. Paquette, Tidewater Community
College
Ricky E. Parrish, Brevard Community College
Brian A. Pavlac, Kings College
Ty M. Reese, University of North Dakota
Paula M. Rieder, University of Nebraska,
Kearney
xxix
xxx
Preface
Joseph Schmelter
Savannah Short
Jaron Smith
Anran Wang
Frank Kidner wishes to thank his colleagues Bob
Cherney, Trevor Getz, Pi-Ching Hsu, Julyana Peard,
and Jarbel Rodriguez for their help at various points
in Making Europes development.
Maria Bucur wishes to thank her husband, Daniel
Deckard, for continued support and inspiration in
matters intellectual and musical, and her children
Dylan and Elvin, for putting up with the many hours
mommy had to be away from them and reinvigorating her in the hours she was lucky to be with them.
Ralph Mathisen wishes to thank Frank Kidner for
getting this project going and keeping it on track. He
would also like to thank his two children, Katherine
and David Mathisen, for putting up with piles of civ
texts, notes, and drafts spread all over for these past
eight years.
Sally McKee wishes to thank her fellow authors for
their mutual support, epicurean disposition, and
good cheer over the years.
All of us wish to express our deepest thanks to our
development editor, Ann Hofstra Grogg, who
worked with us throughout the writing of this book.
A thousand thanks, Ann!
F. L. K.
M. B.
R. M.
S. M.
T. R. W.
and religion of Late Antiquity. His teaching experience includes Western Civilization and topics in the
Ancient Near East, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, coinage, and Roman law. He has written more than seventy scholarly articles and written or edited ten books,
the most recent of which is People, Personal Expression,
and Social Relations in Late Antiquity. He is also the editor of the Journal of Late Antiquity.
Sally McKee is Associate Professor of History at the
University of California at Davis, where she teaches
courses on Western Civilization and medieval history.
Her research focus has been Venice and its colonies
and Mediterranean slavery, but her new project centers on nineteenth-century France. She is the author
of articles that have won prizes and been anthologized, and she has also published a three-volume
edition of Venetian-Cretan wills and a monograph,
Uncommon Dominion: Venetian Crete and the Myth of
Ethnic Purity.
Theodore R. Weeks is Professor of History at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, where he
teaches Western Civilization and world and European history. His research centers on nationality,
inter-ethnic relations, and antisemitism in eastern
Europe. He is the author of Nation and State in Late
Imperial Russia and From Assimilation to Antisemitism:
The Jewish Question in Poland, 18501914, and his articles have appeared in several languages, including
Lithuanian and Belarusian.
xxxi
Making Europe
CHAPTER
The Origins of Western
Civilization in the
Ancient Near East,
30001200 B.C.E.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Akhenaton Decides to Make Aton
the Main God of Egypt
Introduction
Mesopotamian Civilization,
30001200 B.C.E.
Sumerian Gods and Legends
Sumerian Government and Society
Semitic and Indo-European Peoples
The Code of Hammurabi
Summary
Echo: The Return of the Mummy
Suggested Readings
10,000 B.C.E.
9000 B.C.E.
8000 B.C.E.
Neolithic Age begins
8000
Note: B.C.E. means before common era.
Websites
8000 B.C.E.
7000 B.C.E.
3000 B.C.E.
Beginning of Bronze Age
civilization in Sumeria and Egypt
3000
6000 B.C.E.
2700 B.C.E.
Old Kingdom
in Egypt begins
2500
5000 B.C.E.
Black
Sea
Caspian
Sea
A N AT O L I A
HIT T IT ES
gr
ZA
RO
PAL
E
STI
NE
LEVANT
Babylon
K A S S IT ES
BA
Uruk
BY
LO
NI
Ur
A
MT
S.
AM
EL
Sidon
Tyre
R.
Byblos
Mediterranean Sea
SYRIA
sR
Cyprus
Crete
hr
te
Ugarit
is
Eup
Rhodes
Knossos
Phaistos
TS.
Ti
M
US
UR
TA
Pylos
Pe
r
G sian
ul
f
LOWER EGYPT
Memphis
ARABIA
UPPER EGYPT
Thebes
Egyptian civilization
N il e R .
NUBIA
Kassite Kingdom
Re
Hittite Kingdom
dS
ea
0
4000 B.C.E.
3000 B.C.E.
2000 B.C.E.
2050 B.C.E.
Middle Kingdom in
Egypt begins
2350 B.C.E.
Akkadian Empire
begins
2000 B.C.E.
Minoan palace
complexes
appear in Crete
2000
1000 B.C.E.
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
100
200 Km.
100
200 Mi.
1000 C.E.
1760 B.C.E.
Old Babylonian
Empire begins
1600 B.C.E.
Mycenaean civilization begins in Greece
1200 B.C.E.
Bronze Age ends,
Iron Age begins
1570 B.C.E.
New Kingdom in Egypt begins
1500
1000
CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Western Civilization in the Ancient Near East, 30001200 B.C.E.
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Akhenaton Decides to Make
Aton the Main God of Egypt
Akhenaton
and Nefertiti
A relief, ca. 1350 B.C.E.,
shows Akhenaton and Nefertiti playing with their daughters as they bask in the rays
of the sun god Aton. Aton
was depicted as a disc whose
descending rays terminated
in human hands that oversaw the welfare of Egypt.
Akhenaton was devoted to
the worship of Aton, and
determined to make him the
main god of Egypt. (Bildarchiv
Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art
Resource, NY)
Introduction
Before History,
2,000,0003000 B.C.E.
CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Western Civilization in the Ancient Near East, 30001200 B.C.E.
Chronology
2,000,000 B.C.E.
1,000,000 B.C.E.
40,000 B.C.E.
1790 B.C.E.
1730 B.C.E.
1600 B.C.E.
8000 B.C.E.
1570 B.C.E.
4000 B.C.E.
1500 B.C.E.
1498 B.C.E.
3000 B.C.E.
1483 B.C.E.
2700 B.C.E.
1400 B.C.E.
2600 B.C.E.
1350 B.C.E.
2500 B.C.E.
2350 B.C.E.
2050 B.C.E.
1180 B.C.E.
2000 B.C.E.
banded together for protection and found shelter under overhanging cliffs. Beginning about a million
years ago, a more advanced population, known as
Homo erectus (upright human), about the same
size as modern people, learned how to use fire. Flint,
a very hard and easily worked stone, became the preferred material for making tools, which included
weapons used to hunt big game, such as elephants.
Homo sapiens (thinking human) appeared in
Africa about 400,000 b.c.e., and by 150,000 b.c.e. a Eu-
CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Western Civilization in the Ancient Near East, 30001200 B.C.E.
The Emergence of
Near Eastern Civilization
The most extensive exploitation of agriculture occurred in river valleys, where there were both good
soil and a dependable water supply regardless of the
amount of rainfall. In the Near East, this happened in
the Fertile Crescent, a region extending up the Nile
River valley in Egypt, north through the Levant
(Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria), and then southeast
into the Tigris and Euphrates River valleys of Mesopotamia. The richest soil was located in the deltas at
the mouths of the rivers, but the deltas were swampy
and subject to flooding. Before they could be farmed,
they needed to be drained and irrigated and flood
control systems had to be constructed. These activities required administrative organization and the
ability to mobilize large pools of labor. In Mesopotamia, perhaps as a consequence of a period of drought,
massive land reclamation projects were undertaken
after 4000 b.c.e. to cultivate the rich delta soils of the
Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The land was so productive of crops that many more people could be fed, and
a great population explosion resulted. Villages grew
into cities of tens of thousands of persons.
These large cities needed some form of centralized
administration. Archaeological evidence indicates that
the organization initially was provided by religion,
for the largest building in each city was a massive
temple honoring one of the many Mesopotamian gods.
In Uruk, for example, a sixty-foot-long temple known
as the White House was built before 3000 b.c.e. There
were no other large public buildings, suggesting that
the priests who were in charge of the temples also
were responsible for governing the city and organizing people to work in the fields and on irrigation
projects building and maintaining systems of ditches
and dams.
The great concentration of wealth and resources
in the river valleys brought with it further technological advances, such as wheeled vehicles, multicolored
CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Western Civilization in the Ancient Near East, 30001200 B.C.E.
CAU
CAS
US
S.
as
MT
Black Sea
BALKANS
pi
an
xe
HITTITES
ANATOLIA
U
TS
TA
is
gr
Ti
GREECE
Knossos
Phaistos
SYRIA
CRETE
Med
ite
LEBANON
Eup
hr
ate
s
Babylon
PALESTINE
LOWER
EGYPT DELTA
A R A B I A N
TS
rs
Mesopotamian culture
Gu
lf
Se
a
Thebes
ia
EASTERN
DESERT
PT
300 Mi.
ELAM
Ur
Egyptian culture
150
ARYANS
OS
Akhetaton
(El-Amarna)
EG
GR
Probable
ancient
coastline
D E S E R T
Re
UPPER
300 Km.
Kish
SUMERIA
Uruk
Giza
Memphis
150
ZA
AKKAD
LIBYA
IRAN
ASSYRIA
MESOPOTAMIA
rrane
an Sea
S A H A R A
Sea
Aegean
Sea
a
Ar
ARMENIA
Nile
10
M A P 1 . 1 The Fertile Crescent During the Bronze Age, river valley civilizations based on the extensive exploitation of agriculture arose in a Fertile Crescent extending from the Nile valley in Egypt up
through the Tigris and Euphrates valleys in Mesopotamia.
exploitation of agriculture, and supported large populations. Bronze was a valuable commodity; the copper
and tin needed for its manufacture did not exist in
river valleys and had to be importedtin from as far
away as Britain. Bronze therefore was used mainly for
luxury items, such as jewelry or weapons, but not for
everyday domestic items, which were made from pottery, animal products, wood, and stone. In particular,
bronze was not used for farming tools. Thus, civilizations based on large-scale agriculture, such as those of
Mesopotamia and Egypt, were feasible only in soils
that could be worked by wooden scratch-plows pulled
by people or draft animals such as oxen. Other Bronze
Age civilizations, however, such as those that arose in
the Levant and the eastern Mediterranean, took advantage of their location on communication routes to
pursue economies based on trade.
Mesopotamian Civilization,
30001200 B.C.E.
was a stylus, or pointed stick, that made wedgeshaped indentations in the clay. The writing system,
called cuneiform, began as a multitude of pictograms,
signs that looked like what they represent, such as a
star. By 3000 b.c.e., about a hundred of the signs had
come to stand for syllabic soundsthat is, a consonant plus a vowel (ba, be, bi, bo, and so on)and could
be used to spell any word. Significant numbers of
texts, however, do not appear until about four hundred years later. Sumerian accounts of their earlier
history, such as their lists of kings, are therefore often
based on myths and legendsstories passed down
orally about gods and heroesthat often seem fantastic but usually are based on a core of truth.
Sumerian ideas about their place in the world
stemmed largely from their geography. Mountains
rise to the north of Mesopotamia, and to the south
and west lies the Syrian-Arabian Desert, a semiarid
area that supported substantial pastoralist populations. Sumeria proper received less than ten inches of
rainfall a year, but the upper reaches of the rivers in
the mountains of Anatolia (modern Turkey) often received heavy rainfalls that surged downriver. These
inundations were useful for agriculture, but they also
sometimes flooded the cities without any warning
and Mesopotamians lived in constant fear of floods.
They also feared raids by mountain peoples from the
north and desert dwellers from the south. Life in
Sumeria thus was full of uncertainties, which gave
the Sumerians a pessimistic outlook on life and a
great concern for organizing their world to make it as
safe as possible.
The Sumerians were polytheists who believed
that the world was controlled by many gods, who
had created people to do the gods work. The gods
were conceived of as being anthropomorphicthat
is, looking like people. Making the world secure
meant being able to influence the gods. Because life
was uncertain, the gods also were considered to be
11
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CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Western Civilization in the Ancient Near East, 30001200 B.C.E.
One side of the Standard of Ur, ca. 2600 b.c.e., shows Sumeria at war, with troops marching on foot and riding
on carts and with bodies of slain enemies lying at the bottom. The other side shows the land at peace, with the
king holding court at the top and farmers and merchants doing their work below. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the
British Museum)
tracts of land, and the priests, who oversaw the temples and the property of the gods. Next in status were
civil servants and soldiers. Ranking below them, in
a sort of middle class, were artisans and specialized
laborers, including potters, artists, metal and leather
workers, weavers, bricklayers, stonemasons, teachers,
scribes, fishers, sailors, and merchants. The majority
of the population, however, was occupied in farming. A few small farmers owned their own land, but
most worked plots belonging to nobles or priests and
paid rents of about one-seventh of their produce.
Lowest in status were the slaves, who included war
captives, persons born as slaves, and those who had
been sold into slavery for debt. Slaves usually performed household tasks. Even slaves were full-fledged
members of the community, for they, too, were believed to be doing the work of the gods, and it was
understood that after performing enough work, they
deserved to be set free.
Economic activity was largely controlled by the government. There was no coined money. Economic transactions took place by barter, the exchange of goods
and services. The government collected taxes in produce and in labor. Landowners paid a percentage of
their crops, which were stored in government warehouses and redistributed to pay the salaries of government employees, who included soldiers, shepherds,
fishermen, craftworkers, and even snake charmers.
The annual salary of a typical government worker
was thirty bushels of barley and one ounce of silver.
Labor taxes were paid with work on public works
projects ranging from temple building to digging and
cleaning irrigation ditches. Government bureaucrats
kept detailed records of every tax payment, distribution of rations, and bit of labor.
The lack of any local resources besides water, mud,
and plant materials created a need for raw materials,
which could be acquired only through tradeoften
under government supervision. Sumerian exports
13
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CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Western Civilization in the Ancient Near East, 30001200 B.C.E.
cities that did not get along with one another. In some
ways he tried to be conciliatory. For example, even
though he favored Ishtar, he respected Enlil, the most
important Sumerian god, by calling himself the Great
King of Enlil. In other ways, however, Sargon was excessively domineering. He humiliated defeated rulers,
15
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CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Western Civilization in the Ancient Near East, 30001200 B.C.E.
under a single legal system. The code was a compilation of existing laws and customs relating to civil and
criminal procedures. It recognized three classes of
people: nobles, free persons, and slaves. Many laws
dealt with business and property, setting prices for
manufactured items and wages for laborers such
as sailors, barbers, physicians, veterinarians, homebuilders, artisans, and farm workers. Other laws
dealt with agriculture. For example, someone whose
dam broke and caused flooding was to be sold as a
slave to pay for the damages.
Of the 282 laws in the code, 49 dealt with marriage.
First marriages usually were arranged by a girls family. Men were permitted to have two wives, but
women were allowed only one husband. The code acknowledged that marriages did not always work out.
If a wife was childless, her husband could pay her a
mina (about a pound) of gold for a divorce or take a
second wife, who would rank beneath the first wife.
If a wife became incapacitated by disease, a husband
could marry a second wife but had to support the
first wife as long as she lived. A man who divorced a
wife who had borne him children had to support her
until the children were raised; she then received part
of his property so she could marry the man of her
heart. A woman who ruined her house, neglected
her husband, and was judicially convicted could be
divorced but would be forced to remain with her exhusband as a servant even if he remarried. A woman
whose husband left her received a divorce, but a
woman who left her husband was thrown into the
river (and presumably drowned).
Egyptian Civilization,
30001200 B.C.E.
How did geography influence Egyptians views of themselves, the world, and the afterlife?
How and why did the role and status of the pharaoh
change during the course of Egyptian history?
A six-foot tall black basalt obelisk created ca. 1760 b.c.e. bears
the Code of Hammurabi. Hammurabi, standing at the left, is
shown receiving the code from the sun god Shamash. Hammurabi said, The gods called me, Hammurabi, who feared
God, to bring about the rule of righteousness and to destroy
the wicked and the evil-doers, so that the strong would not
harm the weak. Copies of the law code were posted throughout the empire. (Hirmer Verlag Mnchen)
17
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CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Western Civilization in the Ancient Near East, 30001200 B.C.E.
lation also meant that influence from outside was restricted. Change came slowly.
The Egyptians divided the Nile valley into two
sections, Lower Egypt (the Nile Delta) and Upper
Egypt (the rest of the river valley south to Nubia).
These designations are used because water flows
from higher to lower ground. Before 3000 b.c.e., Upper and Lower Egypt were separate kingdoms, but
around 3000 b.c.e., the two kingdoms were united by
a ruler named Narmer and political unity became the
normal condition of Egypt. To unify Egypt further,
Narmer founded a new capital city at Memphis,
where Upper and Lower Egypt met. This unity further contributed to the Egyptians sense of optimism.
Narmer was the first of a multitude of rulers known
as pharaohs. Subsequently, pharaohs belonging to
the same family were organized into dynasties.
During the first two dynasties of pharaohs (3000
2700 b.c.e.), all the fundamental aspects of Egyptian
culture, religion, and government evolved. Egyptian
writing, known as hieroglyphics, had more than
seven hundred symbols that represented different
words, thoughts, or meanings. Only highly educated
scribes could write. The usual writing materials were
stone, for large monuments, or papyrus (the source of
our word paper), for record keeping. Hollow papyrus
reeds were split down the middle, flattened, and
glued together in a two-layer crosshatched pattern to
form sheets about fifteen inches square. Writing was
done with a pen and ink.
Egypt was divided into forty-two smaller territories called nomes, each administered from a city center. As in Mesopotamia, cities served as centers for
administration and for the storage and distribution
of food supplies. Each Egyptian cityagain, as in
Mesopotamiahad its own main god. Egyptian
cities were not large population centers, however,
and they were not walled. Most of the people lived
securely in the countryside, close to their fields.
The Egyptians had a multitude of gods, many of
whom were depicted as animals, such as Anubis, the
nomes Smaller geographical and administrative regions of ancient Egypt, governed by nomarchs.
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CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Western Civilization in the Ancient Near East, 30001200 B.C.E.
The three largest pyramids were constructed at Giza beginning ca. 2600 b.c.e. The Great Pyramid of
the pharaoh Khufu, in the center, is 781 feet at the base, 481 feet tall, and contains 2.3 million stone
blocks weighing from two to fifteen tons each. The smaller pyramids in the foreground were for other
members of the royal family. (TIPS Images)
Pharaohs did all they could to ensure that work proceeded as quickly as possible, and here lay the seeds of
future problems. Pharaohs gave private estates, tax
exemptions, and special privileges to nomarchs who
fulfilled their labor and supply quotas, and the sons
of nomarchs were allowed to succeed them, thus
strengthening the noble class. These policies helped individual pharaohs in the short term but made fewer
resources available to their successors. Pyramids became smaller and smaller, reflecting a decline in the
pharaohs resources. At the same time, nobles gained a
greater sense of self-importance and began to build
tombs for themselves with pyramid texts in their own
nomes, a sign that they believed they now had their
own afterlife without needing to share the pharaohs.
Powerful nobles began to challenge the pharaohs authority and compete with one another for power. The
last pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty (23502200 b.c.e.)
was Nitocris, the first woman to rule Egypt. After her
death, revolts among nobles broke out, and Egypt lost
its customary unity and stability.
continued enjoyment of all the best spiritual and material things they had enjoyed during lifeproviding
their bodies were preserved by mummification. All
the internal organs except the heart were removed
and mummified separately. The brain was scrambled,
sucked out through the nose, and discarded, and the
remaining skin, bones, and muscle were soaked in
natron, a salt solution that removed moisture. The
dried corpse then was wrapped with linen bandages
and buried underground in an elaborately decorated
coffin, accompanied by grave goods such as food,
jewelry, and domestic items. Those who could not afford this expensive process made do with a simpler
burial in the desert sand, which often resulted in natural mummification.
Egyptians believed that before receiving a good afterlife they would be questioned by Osiris to determine whether they had lived according to Maat.
Those who failed the test were devoured by the Eater
of the Dead, a demon that was part crocodile, part
hippopotamus, and part lion. To ensure that they
passed, Egyptians wrapped mummies with a collection of answers to Osiriss questions known as the
Book of the Dead, which contained advice such as,
Say No when asked if you ever stole anything.
Thus, even in death, Egyptian optimism prevailed;
everyone was believed to pass the test and receive a
good afterlife.
About 1730 b.c.e., the Middle Kingdom came to an
end when Egypt was invaded by a Semitic people
known as the Hyksos. Using the latest military technology, including the horse and chariot and the compound bowa bow made from laminated layers of
wood and animal horn for extra strengththe Hyksos
easily overcame the undefended cities and untrained
armies of the Egyptians, and Egypt again entered a
period of disunity, the Second Intermediate Period
(17301570 b.c.e.). The Hyksos became pharaohs in
northern Egypt but allowed the rest of Egypt to be
governed by Egyptian subordinate rulers called vassals, who were left alone as long as they acknowledged Hyksos authority.
21
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CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Western Civilization in the Ancient Near East, 30001200 B.C.E.
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Akhenaton, Great Hymn to Aton
The pharaoh Akhenatons Great Hymn to Aton, found engraved on the tomb of
the pharaoh Ay at El-Armana, expresses Akhenatons personal devotion to the god
Aton in formal and ceremonial language. The hymn begins with praises of Akhenaton and his wife, Nefertiti, and Akhenaton also is referred to by his coronation
name, Nefer-kheperu-Ra Wa-en-Ra (Sole-One-of-Ra). The text has similarities to
the scriptures of other world religions.
Praise of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, who lives on truth, the Lord of the
Two Lands: Nefer-kheperu-Ra Wa-en-Ra, the Son of Ra, who lives on truth, the
Lord of Diadems, Akhenaton, long in his lifetime; and praise of the Chief Wife of
the King, his beloved, the Lady of the Two Lands: Neferneferu-Aton Nefertiti,
living, healthy, and youthful forever and ever.
Akhenaton says:
Thou appearest beautifully on the horizon of heaven,
Thou living Aton, the beginning of life!
Thou art gracious, great, glistening, and high over every land;
Thy rays encompass the lands to the limit of all that thou hast made.
As thou art Ra, thou reachest to the end of the lands;
Thou subduest them for thy beloved son.
Who is this son?
When thou settest in the western horizon,
The land is in darkness, in the manner of death.
Darkness is a shroud, and the earth is in stillness.
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CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Western Civilization in the Ancient Near East, 30001200 B.C.E.
Lost Civilizations
of the Bronze Age,
25001200 B.C.E.
The Bronze Age was the great age of river valley civilizations based on the extensive exploitation of agriculture. At the same, however, other peoples living
outside large river valleys in the Levant, on the island
of Crete, and in Greece created civilizations of their
own. These peoples focused on trade as a means of expanding their economies. Around 1200 b.c.e., Bronze
Age civilization came to an end as the result of disruptions caused by the arrival of Indo-European invaders known as the Sea Peoples.
Baal (from Semitic for master) Name given to several western Semitic gods.
Canaan Area of the Levant bordering the Mediterranean coast (modern Lebanon and Palestine).
25
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CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Western Civilization in the Ancient Near East, 30001200 B.C.E.
The Minoan activity known now as bull leaping may reflect either sport or religious ritual, and is one of
many examples of the importance of bulls in ancient societies. This comic-strip-like portrayal from the
Minoan palace at Knossos shows a long-horned bull charging a young man or woman who grasps the
horns, flips over the bull, and lands with arms outstretchedmuch like a modern gymnastbehind
the bull. (Scala/Art Resource, NY)
a legendary Cretan king. Soon after 3000 b.c.e., an advanced culture centered on coastal towns appeared,
and by 2000 b.c.e., several small urban centers known
as palace complexes had been built near the coast,
including Knossos in the north and Phaistos in the
south. Minoan palaces complexes had rooms of
roughly equal size organized around a central plaza.
As the complex expanded, additional rooms were
added on the periphery. The palace complexes were
administrative centers overseeing the manufacture,
storage, and distribution of goods rather than population centers. They seem to have been independent
of each other, and their lack of walls indicates that
they were at peace with one another and not threatened by foreign attack. Most people lived in the
palace suburbs or in the countryside, in houses that
had doors, windows, and even indoor plumbing.
Crete did not have fertile river valleys that could
be used for large-scale grain production. For economic expansion, the island location encouraged
trade by sea, and Minoan ships traveled the Mediterranean. Most were merchant vessels propelled by
sails, but some were oar-driven warships whose purpose was to protect the Minoan trading fleet. The Minoans imported metal from the Aegean islands and
Italy, as well as amber that had reached the Mediterranean from the Baltic Sea. Their exports included
olive oil, made from olive trees grown on sunny hillsides, and manufactured goods such as fine pottery,
stoneware, carved gemstones, and intricate metal jewelry, which they shipped to Greece, Anatolia, the Levant, and Egypt. Egyptian wall paintings record a
people called the Keftiu who came from the islands
in the great green sea, generally thought to be a reference to Minoan traders. The Minoans also established trading colonies on islands, such as Thera, in
the Aegean Sea, and even on the coast of Anatolia.
From about 2000 to 1400 b.c.e., the Minoans had a virtual monopoly on Mediterranean trade.
The Minoans created their own writing system,
known as Linear A, which is unlike that of Mesopotamia or Egypt. Characters were scratched on clay with
a pointed wooden stylus. Linear A has not yet been
deciphered, but the purpose of Minoan documents is
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CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Western Civilization in the Ancient Near East, 30001200 B.C.E.
Massive Mycenaean fortifications like the Lion Gate of Mycenae, ca. 1250 b.c.e., indicate a need for defense against attack.
The later Greeks believed that these walls had been built by
the Cyclops, the one-eyed giants of Greek myths (Benaki
Museum)
By 1200 b.c.e., the Bronze Age was ending in Mesopotamia and Egypt. For a long time, there had been no
major technological, economic, cultural, or intellectual
advances in the river valleys; most innovations had
been occurring in places like Syria, Crete, and Greece.
Archaeological evidence from around 1200 b.c.e.
shows massive population movements that began
with an invasion of several groups of Indo-Europeans
from the Central Asian steppes. Collectively, the
Egyptians called the invaders the Sea Peoples, and
the disruption they caused was remembered in both
contemporary documents and later legends.
Evidence for the first appearance of the Sea Peoples can be found in the Greek legend of a Mycenaean
attack on Troy, a rich and powerful trading city in
northwestern Anatolia. Centuries later, the Greek
poet Homer wrote in a poem called the Iliad that King
Agamemnon of Mycenae led a Greek coalition of a
thousand ships (each carrying about fifty men)
against Troy. The city was captured, sacked, and
burned after a ten-year siege. For centuries it was
thought that Homers account was just a legend and
that Troy could not have existed at that place and
time. In the late nineteenth century, however, archaeologists discovered Troy, which was just as Homer
had described. In addition, the legendary date of the
Trojan War, 1184 b.c.e., is consistent with the movements of the Sea Peoples just after 1200 b.c.e. So, too,
are the Egyptian accounts of groups of Sea Peoples
called the Danuna and Akawasha, names strikingly
similar to the Danaans and Achaeans, as Homers
Summary
Summary
Review Questions
What factors resulted in the creation of Near Eastern
civilization?
In what ways were the civilizations of Mesopotamia,
Egypt, and the eastern Mediterranean similar to and
different from one another?
How did geography influence the way Near Eastern
peoples saw their place in the world?
Dorians Indo-Europeans who began to settle in southern Greece about 1150 b.c.e.
29
CHAPTER 1 The Origins of Western Civilization in the Ancient Near East, 30001200 B.C.E.
civilizations were located in fertile river valleys, produced vast food surpluses through the extensive
exploitation of agriculture, and supported large populations. The use of writing marked the beginning of
history, for people now could create permanent narrative accounts of their past. Over time, pastoral peoples
such as the Semitic and Indo-European peoples interacted with the river valley peoples and assimilated their
culture, and civilization spread out of the river valleys.
Western civilization began with the civilizations of
Egypt and Mesopotamia. Although these two civilizations were similar in their general outlines, they
had very different specific traits. The Mesopotamians
were geographically exposed, politically disunited,
and generally pessimistic. The Egyptians were geographically protected, usually united into a single
kingdom, and extraordinarily optimistic. The Mesopotamians had little faith that their gods would take
care of them; the Egyptians had complete confidence
in their gods. Both peoples made fundamental contributions to western civilization in the areas of government and law, economic development, technology,
religious belief, and literary and artistic expression.
30
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
The Return of the Mummy
Ever since antiquity, people have been fascinated by the civilization of ancient Egypt. Modern interest in
Egypt received a boost in the nineteenth century, when hieroglyphic writing was deciphered, and was revived in 1922, when the tomb of Tut-ankh-amon, popularly known as King Tut, was unearthed. In the
1970s a dance called the King Tut even enjoyed a brief vogue. Egyptian settings are particularly common
in the movies, ranging from Cleopatra to Stargate to The Scorpion King. The most popular Egyptian-based
movies involve bringing a mummy back from dead. Nearly a hundred mummy films have been made. The
most famous one, The Mummy, was released in 1932 and starred Boris Karloff as Imhotep, an Egyptian
priest who was mummified alive. It was remade in 1999 under the same title. After archaeologists bring
Imhotep back to life by reading a spell from the Scroll of Thoth, he then desires to revive his lost love,
Ankhsenamun. He briefly does so, but both soon die a second death.
Why are we so interested in mummies? Why does Egyptian civilization fascinate us? Does it still have
something to tell us? People certainly do not watch mummy movies to learn history. Along with pyramids,
palm trees, and loincloths, mummy movies contain just enough factual information to provide a
background for the plot. For example, there really was an Imhotep, but he was an architect, not a priest.
There also was a book of spells that gave life after death, but it was the Book of the Dead, not the Scroll
of Thoth. And although the Egyptians certainly did create mummies, they did not believe that they would
rise from the dead.
Mummy movies do, however, deal with issues of great interest in the present day, such as the relationship
between bodily death and perpetual life. In any mummy movie, the mummy is revivified and then attempts
Websites
once again to enjoy earthly pleasures. In addition, unlike historical dramas that take place in the past,
mummy movies bring the past into the present and portray the contrasts between past and present cultures
and value systems. Even though the mummies are often villains, we nevertheless can feel sympathy for their
desire to recover their lost lives and lost loves. But their attempts to do so, which sometimes involve human
sacrifice, bring them into conflict with modern-day ethics and morality, and as a result the revived mummies
almost always are compelled to return to the grave.
Suggested Readings
Breasted, James H. The Ancient Records of Egypt. 5 vols. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001. A thorough look at the
kinds of documents produced by the Egyptians.
Hallo, William W., and William K. Simpson. The Ancient Near
East: A History. 2nd ed. New York: Holt Rinehart Winston,
1997. A general survey of ancient Near Eastern history.
Jackson, Danny P., Robert D. Biggs, and James G. Keenan. The
Epic of Gilgamesh. Wauconda, Ill.: Bolchazy-Carducci, 1997. A
translation of the adventures of the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh.
Knapp, A. Bernard. The History and Culture of Western Asia
and Egypt. Chicago: Dorsey, 1988. A survey of the history of
Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Levant to the fourth century b.c.e.
Websites
Sources on ancient civilizations, including prehistory and archaeology, The History of the Ancient Near East Electronic
Compendium, at http://ancientneareast.tripod.com
For Sumerian literature, The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, at http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/index.html
31
32
CHAPTER
Iron Age Civilizations,
1200500 B.C.E.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Deborah Leads the Hebrew
People Against the Canaanites
Introduction
Merchants and Traders of the
Eastern Mediterranean,
1200650 B.C.E.
From Bronze to Iron
The Phoenicians
Other Eastern Mediterranean Traders
The Hebrews and Monotheism,
1800900 B.C.E.
Hebrew Origins
The Exodus and the Age of Judges
Suggested Readings
Websites
1000 B.C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1100 B.C.E.
Dorians settle
southern Greece
1200 B.C.E.
Bronze Age ends,
Iron Age begins
1200
1500 B.C.E.
1150
1100
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
970 B.C.E.
Solomon becomes
Hebrew king
1050
1000
950
900 B.C.E.
Rise of the
Assyrian Empire
900
850
Assyrian
homeland
Growth of the Assyrian
Empire to 570 B.C.E.
Persian homeland
Growth of the Persian
Empire to 500 B.C.E.
ANATOLIA
Sardis
CARIA
Crete
anea
BACTRIA
Nineveh
Aradus
CYPRUS
ASSYRIA
SYRIA
Byblos
PH
Nimrud
Ashur
ARAMEANS u
ph
Damascus
Samaria
Jerusalem ISRAEL
r at
es
Behistun
ig
r is
Babylon
B UR
PARTHIA
Z MTS.
Ecbatana
MEDIA
RO
Sidon
Tyre
EL
LIBYA
n Sea
Oxus
IA
err
TS
N IC
dit
SM
CILICIA
Rhodes
OE
Me
TAURU
SOGDIANA
TS
P L A TE
HINDU
KU
SH
AU
OF
IRA
N
Susa
ELAM
JUDAEA
Memphis
INDIA
BABYLONIA
Pasargadae
EGYPT
Ind
PE
ARMENIA
ROYAL R O A D
Sea
LYDIA
an
IONIA
Ephesus
GREECE
pi
CAUC
A SU
SM
TS.
IAN
RS
te s
THRACE
Aegean
Sea
ar
as
MACEDONIA
Ja
x
Aral
Sea
Persepolis
PERSIA
er
Thebes
si
an
us
GEDROSIA
Re
Gulf
S A H A R A
Se
A R A B I A N
le
Ni
D E S E R T
Arabian
Sea
INDIAN OCEAN
0
200
200
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
400 Km.
1500 C.E.
400 Mi.
2000 C.E.
612 B.C.E.
Assyrian Empire ends
814 B.C.E.
Phoenicians
found
Carthage
800
753 B.C.E.
Rome is
founded
in Italy
750
721 B.C.E.
Assyrians
conquer Israel
700
587 B.C.E.
Chaldeans capture Jerusalem and send Jews into exile
650 B.C.E.
Lydians
invent
coinage
650
550 B.C.E.
Persian Empire begins
600
550
500
33
34
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Deborah Leads the Hebrew People
Against the Canaanites
Deborah
Women usually were kept in
the background in Hebrew
political life. In times of
stress, however, able women
such as Deborah took leadership roles. In this illustration
from a manuscript in the
Bodleian Library in Oxford,
England, Deborah is shown,
sword in hand, leading the
Hebrew army against the
Canaanites. The accompanying text reads, Therefore
came Deborah and Barak son
of Abynoam against the
enemies of Israel in battle
and routed them. (Bodleian
Library, Oxford/The Art
Archive)
The biblical book of Judges reports that not long after the Hebrews
settled in Canaan they faced an attack by the Canaanite king Jabin and
his general Sisera. The male Hebrew leaders were reluctant to act, so it
was a woman, Deborah, who led the Hebrew resistance. Deborah must
have been a woman of great character, for at this time political leadership was almost always exercised by men. Deborah overcame convention and served as one of the Hebrew judges, leaders who arose to help
the Hebrews overcome spiritual or military troubles. Deborah may have
been able to take charge of the Hebrew resistance because she also was
called a prophetess, meaning that she was thought to be in direct communication with God.
When Deborahs story begins, she is holding court under a palm tree
where Hebrews come to have their disputes settled. The Hebrew people call out to
God for help against the Canaanites, and when the Hebrew men do nothing, it is
Deborah who acts. Summoning the Hebrew general Barak, she reminds him that
God had commanded him to assemble ten thousand men to fight the Canaanites.
Barak timidly responds, If you will go with me, I will go; but if you will not go
with me, I will not go. It was unusual for women to accompany armies into battle, but Deborah replies, I will go with you, but you will not gain any honor, for
God will surrender Sisera into the hands of a woman. The Hebrews were especially afraid because Siseras army included 900 iron chariots. Iron had only
recently begun to be used for weapons and was thought to bestow a great military advantage. Deborah again encourages Barak to take action, saying, Get up,
for this is the day that God has delivered Sisera into your hands.
Then Barak led his ten thousand men to face the Canaanites, and Deborah
went with him. Sisera called out his chariots, but a fierce storm turned the ground
into mud and Siseras chariots were unable to maneuver. The Hebrew army
charged and put the Canaanites to flight.
Sisera fled and took refuge in the tent of Jael, a distant female relative of
Moses. She cunningly welcomed him, tucking him into bed with a bottle of milk.
But when he was fast asleep, she hammered a tent peg into his head and killed
him. Barak arrived in pursuit to discover that Deborahs prophecy had been
fulfilledSisera had been surrendered into the hands of a woman.
Deborah then sang a victory song, which may well be the oldest original composition to survive in Hebrew scripture. Her story provides a brief insight into a
world dominated by men where one woman serving as Gods spokesperson took a
leadership role in the Hebrew resistance and another woman slew an enemy general. One has to wonder whether there were other occasions when women also
provided leadershipoccasions that were not preserved in the historical sources,
almost all of which were written by and about men.
Introduction
The iron chariots used by Siseras army illustrate a significant change that occurred in western civilization
around 1200 b.c.e. By this time, the river valley civilizations of the Bronze Age had expanded to their limits.
Future technological, economic, and political developments would occur outside the river valleys, facilitated
by the growing use of a new metal, iron, which was
much less expensive to manufacture than bronze. If
bronze was the metal of societys elite, iron was the
common persons metal, and it gave its name to the Iron
Age. Iron could be used for tools such as plows, which
permitted agriculture to spread to areas with tougher
soils outside the river valleys. Another important characteristic of the Iron Age was the vastly increased use of
trade as a means of economic and political expansion
by peoples of the eastern Mediterranean coast.
Eventually the Iron Age also saw the creation of
empires much larger than those of the Bronze Age,
first in Assyria and then in Persia. These empires
were more concerned than Bronze Age empires with
economic expansion, the encouragement of trade,
and the accumulation of wealth. They also were characterized by powerful rulers overseeing vast administrative systems.
At the same time, the Hebrews, a people descended from the Semitic groups that inhabited the
fringes of Mesopotamia, created a religious culture
incorporating not only belief in a single god but also
concepts of morality and ethics that would have great
influence on the subsequent evolution of western civilization. The story of the Hebrews struggle to preserve their cultural and religious identity continues
to resonate in the modern day.
The new patterns of Iron Age civilization first appeared about 1200 b.c.e. in the lands bordering the
eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Here peoples
who previously had existed in the shadows of the civilizations and empires of Mesopotamia and Egypt
were able to achieve a greater degree of political, economic, and religious self-expression. They made tools
and weapons of iron, engaged in widespread trade,
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Chronology
1270 B.C.E.
671 B.C.E.
1230 B.C.E.
650 B.C.E.
1200 B.C.E.
612 B.C.E.
1150 B.C.E.
587 B.C.E.
1050 B.C.E.
1010 B.C.E.
970 B.C.E.
814 B.C.E.
800 B.C.E.
750 B.C.E.
513 B.C.E.
721 B.C.E.
701 B.C.E.
700 B.C.E.
not keep a sharp edge. Initially, therefore, bronze remained the best metal for weapons, which had to hold
up in battle. Only over time did processes such as carburizing (alloying iron with about 1 percent carbon),
quenching (sudden immersion of heated iron in water), tempering (reheating quenched iron and allowing it to cool slowly), and hammering come into use
for creating hard, nonbrittle, and sharp iron weapons.
The use of iron brought great economic changes.
Iron plows could work tough soils, such as those
in the Danube and Rhine valleys in Europe, that
wooden scratch-plows could not, and large-scale
agriculture thus expanded out of the Near Eastern
river valleys. But Iron Age societies could never be as
completely dependent on agriculture as the river valley civilizations of the Bronze Age, for their soils were
not nearly as rich. Thus, in the Iron Age, people had
to find other ways of expanding their economies, and
they did so by focusing much more heavily on manufacturing and trade, which became another of the distinguishing characteristics of the Iron Age.
During the Iron Age, peoples living outside river
valleys gained a greater opportunity to expand their
political and economic influence. The centers of civilization, culture, and economic development moved
The Phoenicians
Many of the seacoast cities of Phoenicia (modern
Lebanon) recovered following the attacks of the Sea
Peoples. The hilly and forested coastal land was unsuitable for extensive agriculture, so the Phoenicians,
Phoenicians Semitic people engaged in sea trade who
inhabited modern-day Lebanon.
ANATOLIA
ASSYRIANS
Harran
NS
ICIA
EN
HO
P
Tigris
Sidon
Tyre
RIA
SY
ARAMEANS
Damascus
T
PO
Mediterranean
Sea
Byblos
ES
Cyprus
Nineveh
M
Euph
rat
es
IA
PH
I L IS
TIN
LE
STI
NE
ES
such as ivory, gemstones, and peacocks from Africa and India; paBabylon
HEBREWS
pyrus from Egypt; spices such as
Jerusalem
myrrh and frankincense from AraCHALDEANS
P
Dead Sea
bia; and metals such as gold, silGaza
JUDAH
ver, tin, and copper from Cyprus,
EGYPT
Spain, Britain, and Africa. These
ARABIAN DESERT
raw materials were either reexSINAI
ported or used in local manufac0
100
200 Km.
turing. The city of Byblos exported
100
0
200 Mi.
so much papyrus that the Greek
word for book, biblion, and hence
the word Bible, come from the city
name. Fine furniture was made
from the extensive cedar and hardwood forests.
another of the Semitic peoples, turned to trade as a
Phoenician glassblowing, including the creation of
means of economic expansion. The great trading city
transparent glass, began a tradition that lasted for
of Ugarit was never rebuilt, but other cities, such as
centuries. Other local products such as timber, salted
Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos, became centers of a reinvigfish, and wine also were exported. But the Phoeniorated seaborne commerce. Each Phoenician city was
cians were best known for Tyrian purple, a dye
an independent city-state, governed by a king who
made from a local shellfish that was used for coloring
was advised by a council of nobles.
royal garments.
Borrowing nautical technology from the Sea PeoAs an aid in keeping business records, the Phoeniples, the Phoenicians built ships with keels for imcians perfected the alphabet. The Phoenician alphaproved strength and maneuverability. They traveled
bet had twenty-two consonants beginning with the
the Mediterranean and beyond, navigating by the
letters aleph (originally a consonant), beth, and gimel.
sun and the stars. Because rowers were expensive
This alphabet was later borrowed by the Greeks, from
and took up valuable deck space, Phoenician merwhom it made its way to the Romans and then to us.
chant ships were driven by sails. Ancient sailing
And as another means of assisting in their commerships were unable to sail against the wind effectively,
cial enterprises, the Phoenicians established colonies
so trading ships could be stuck in port for weeks
along their trade routes. Carthage, founded on the
waiting for a favorable wind. Like all ancient sailors,
coast of modern Tunisia in 814 b.c.e. by Princess
the Phoenicians hugged the coast rather than striking
Elissa of Tyre, later became a major power in its own
out for the open sea, and they headed for shore at the
right. Cadiz, on the Atlantic coast of Spain just befirst sign of bad weather. Each Phoenician city also
yond the Strait of Gibraltar, was a port for ships that
maintained a navy to protect its trade. Warships had
traded all the way to the British Isles.
to be maneuverable and ready to go at a moments
notice, regardless of the wind, so they were propelled
by oarsmen. With two banks of oars, rows of shields,
a bronze ram, and an armed body of marines, a
Carthage Phoenician trading colony founded on
Phoenician galley (an oar-driven ship) would have
the coast of modern Tunisia in 814 b.c.e. by the city
been a fearsome sight to any pirate.
of Tyre.
Phoenician merchants became legendary. The Bible
Strait of Gibraltar Strait between Spain and North
describes the Phoenicians of Tyre as those whose
Africa that connects the Mediterranean Sea with the
Atlantic Ocean.
merchants are princes, whose traders are honored in
the world. The Phoenicians imported luxury goods
CANAAN
ISRAEL
37
N il e
38
The Phoenicians worshiped a triad of three primary gods, who were reflected in the architecture of
Phoenician temples, which had three chambers. The
creator god was El, a word that meant simply god.
El, who was called the father of the gods and the
creator of the creators, was often worshiped at an altar in a high place. The son of El was Baal, a storm
god who was viewed as the most important god on
earth. Baal eventually eclipsed El, much as the god
Enlil had overshadowed his father An in Sumeria.
Baal had many forms: in Tyre; he became Melqart
and under that name was exported to Carthage. The
third primary deity was Astarte, a goddess representing fertility, sexuality, and war. Astarte was known
under different names to many different peoples: she
was called Ishtar in Mesopotamia, Ashtoret in the
Bible, and Aphrodite in Greece. A surviving cult
statue of Astarte has holes punctured in her breasts
that could be stopped up with wax. When the wax
was subtly melted during a ceremony, milk (stored in
the statues hollow head) flowed from her breasts.
Early Phoenician worship also included human sacrifice, a practice that continued in Carthage even after
it had been abandoned in the Phoenician homeland.
Like the Egyptians, the Phoenicians believed in an
afterlife and attempted to preserve their dead in elaborate tombs and coffins, even though Phoenician
mummies soon decomposed in the damp seacoast climate. A Phoenician king inscribed on his coffin these
words: I, Tabnit, priest of Astarte, King of Sidon, am
Other Eastern
Mediterranean Traders
Along the eastern Mediterranean, other peoples also
assimilated Iron Age culture. The Arameans, a
Semitic people from northern Arabia, established
city-kingdoms such as Damascus to the east of the
Phoenicians just before 1200 b.c.e. and gained a virtual monopoly on trade by land. Aramean caravans
carried goods ranging from agricultural products to
textiles south to Egypt and Arabia, north to Turkey
and Central Asia, and east all the way to India.
Because Arameans traveled everywhere, their language, Aramaic, replaced Akkadian as a common
language that allowed people from different countries to communicate.
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Hebrew Origins
The Hebrews, later known to history as the Jews,
played a major role in the history of the early Iron
Age. They were the first People of the Book, that is,
people who, like the Christians and Muslims after
them, based their beliefs on teachings that were preserved in written form, known as scripture, and that
were thus resistant to change over the centuries. Hebrew scripture, known to Jews as the Tanakh and to
Christians as the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament,
describes not only the relations of the Hebrews with
their God but also the history of the Hebrew people.
It begins with five books called the Torah, and also
contains nineteen books of Prophets and eleven
books known as Writings. For the ancient Hebrews,
scripture provided an accurate portrayal of their ancient history. Today, a comparison of Hebrew scripture with other evidence, such as archaeology or
contemporary Near Eastern records, shows that the
Bible is no more or less accurate than any other historical sources surviving from the early Iron Age. In
many instances, archaeological evidence strikingly
confirms the outlines of what is reported in scripture,
but in other cases, such as the dates of the creation of
the world and the Hebrew Exodus, startling inconsistencies have produced debates among theologians
and historians. The following discussion is based primarily on the Hebrews view of their history as preserved in the Tanakh.
In Hebrew scripture, the human past began with
Gods creation of the world and the first two humans,
Adam and Eve, over 6,000 years ago. The Hebrews
believed that their special relationship with their God
began about 1800 b.c.e., when God, at that time
known as El Shaddai (God Almighty), made a covenanta binding agreementwith Abraham, the patriarch, or head, of a group of Semitic pastoralists. In
the book of Genesis, God said to Abraham, I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you
for the generations to come, to be your God and the
God of your descendants after you. The whole land
of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as
an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God. As for the
Hebrews, God said, You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between
Me and you. By keeping this covenant, the Hebrews
became the chosen people of God.
Previously, like other peoples of that time, the
Hebrews had believed in many gods, but Gods
covenant with Abraham set them on the path to
monotheism, the belief that there is only one god.
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the date of the Exodus is still unresolved, but at present, the later datethat is, 1270 b.c.e.is generally
thought to be more consistent with the evidence. The
Hebrew invasion of Canaan thus provides one more
example of the movement of peoples that occurred
toward the end of the Bronze Age.
After the settlement in Canaan, the Hebrew tribes
were united religiously by a shared shrine at Shiloh,
where a sacred container known as the Ark of the
Covenant preserved the Ten Commandments. But
the Hebrews lacked any political unity, which made
them easy prey to enemies such as the Canaanites to
the north and the Philistines on the coastal plain to
the west. The most important Hebrew leaders now
were called judges. Believing themselves to be acting
under Yahwehs authority, judges led short-lived
coalitions of tribes against foreign threats, especially
the Philistines. The unsettled times gave persons who
ordinarily were lacking in privilege the opportunity
to assume significant leadership roles, as when Deborah served as a judge around 1150 b.c.e. and led an
army to victory against the Canaanites. Another Hebrew judge, Samson, was a warrior of very great
strength. According to Hebrew scripture, he killed
many Philistines in single combat and did great damage to Philistine crops, but he then was captured,
blinded, and enslaved. The Philistines continued to
dominate the Hebrews, even capturing the Ark of the
Covenant and forbidding the Hebrews to make use of
iron technology.
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
The Song of Deborah
The account in the biblical book of Judges of the Hebrew victory over the Canaanite general Sisera is followed by Deborahs victory song, in which the Hebrew
judge Deborah expresses her thanks to Yahweh for bringing victory to the Hebrews. It is generally considered to be one of the oldest texts in Jewish scripture,
having been composed in the late twelfth century B.C.E., and is one of the rare
instances in which a primary source was inserted directly into the text of the Bible.
The song recapitulates much of the story told in the previous chapter of Judges.
Even though the song begins with the names of both Deborah and her general
Barak, the text clearly shows that it is Deborah who is speaking, and it provides a
rare portrayal of a womans point of view.
1 Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day: 2 That the
leaders took the lead in Israel, that the people offered themselves willingly, bless
Yahweh! 3 Hear, O kings; give ear, O princes; to Yahweh I will sing, I will make
melody to Yahweh, the God of Israel. . . . 6 In the days of Shamgar, son of Anath,
in the days of Jael, caravans ceased and travelers kept to the byways. 7 The
peasantry ceased in Israel, they ceased until you arose, Deborah, arose as a mother
in Israel. . . . 12 Awake, awake, Deborah! Awake, awake, utter a song! Arise,
Barak, lead away your captives, O son of Abinoam. 13 . . . The people of Yahweh marched down for Him against the mighty. 14 From Ephraim they set out
thither into the valley, following you, Benjamin, with your kinsmen; and from
Zebulun those who bear the marshals staff; 15 the princes of Issachar came with
Deborah, and Issachar faithful to Barak; into the valley they rushed forth at his
heels. Among the clans of Reuben there were great searchings of heart. 16 Why
did you tarry among the sheepfolds, to hear the piping for the flocks? Among the
clans of Reuben there were great searchings of heart. 17 Gilead stayed beyond the
Jordan; and Dan, why did he abide with the ships? Asher sat still at the coast of
the sea, settling down by his landings. . . . 19 The kings came, they fought; then
the kings of Canaan fought, at Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo [a great
Canaanite city]; they got no spoils of silver. 20 From heaven fought the stars, from
their courses they fought against Sisera. 21 The torrent Kishon [a flash flood]
swept them away. . . . 22 Then loud beat the horses hoofs with the galloping, galloping of his steeds. 23 Curse Meroz [a village that let the Canaanite fugitives
escape], says the angel of Yahweh, curse bitterly its inhabitants, because they
came not to the help of Yahweh. . . . 24 Most blessed of women be Jael, the
wife of Heber, of tent-dwelling women most blessed. 25 Sisera asked water and
she gave him milk, she brought him curds in a lordly bowl. 26 She put her hand to
the tent peg and her right hand to the workmens mallet; she struck Sisera a blow,
she crushed his head, she shattered and pierced his temple. 27 He sank, he fell, he
lay still at her feet; at her feet he sank, he fell; where he sank, there he fell dead.
28 Out of the window she peered, the mother of Sisera gazed through the lattice:
Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why tarry the hoofbeats of his chariots? 29
Her wisest ladies make answer, Nay. She gives answer to herself, 30 Are they not
finding and dividing the spoil? A maiden or two for every man; spoil of dyed stuffs
for Sisera, spoil of dyed stuffs embroidered, two pieces of dyed work embroidered
for my neck as spoil? 31 So perish all thine enemies, O Yahweh! But thy friends be
like the sun as he rises in his might
Hebrew laws were in many ways much more comprehensive than the laws of other Near Eastern
peoples, for they dealt not only with religious, civil,
and criminal law but also with intimate aspects of
personal behavior, such as personal hygiene and food
preparation. Laws often were expressed as prohibitions that began with the words Thou shalt not and
were addressed not to society in general, as were the
laws of most other nations, but to individuals. Four of
the Ten Commandments had to do with honoring
Yahweh, including not worshiping any other gods
and respecting the Sabbath, the day of worship. The
remaining six commandments regulated human society and prohibited behaviors such as adultery, theft,
murder, false testimony, and covetousness. These
briefly stated regulations did not specify punishments for guilty parties, but other sections of Hebrew
law did. In many cases, violations of the law, such as
not respecting the sanctity of the Sabbath, were punishable by death. But most Hebrew adherence to the
law was self-imposed. It was the individual responsibility of every Hebrew to live an upright life.
In some ways, Hebrew law, religion, and society
were similar to those of other Near Eastern peoples.
Sabbath Jewish holy day, modern Saturday.
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the process, David captured the heavily fortified Canaanite city of Jerusalem and made it the Hebrew
capital. He also expanded the borders of the kingdom
all the way to the Mediterranean coast. The creation
of this expanded Hebrew kingdom was seen as the
fulfillment of Yahwehs promise to Abraham to provide a land for His chosen people.
David was succeeded as king by his son Solomon
(r. 970930 b.c.e.), who centralized Hebrew worship
by constructing in Jerusalem a temple to contain the
Ark of the Covenant. The Temple was designed by architects from Tyre and built, over seven years, at great
cost, with 70,000 haulers, 80,000 quarryers, and 3,300
foremen taking part in its construction. It became the
focus of Hebrew religious rituals, and once a year, a
high priest entered the Holy of Holies, the sanctuary
of the Temple, to pray and sacrifice on behalf of the
people.
Like other Near Eastern rulers, Hebrew kings had
great authority. Solomon ruled wisely and was famous for his fair settlements of lawsuits and quarrels.
But Hebrew kings also sometimes abused their
power. David, for example, connived to take the
woman Bathsheba from Uriah the Hittite, a foreign
mercenary serving in Israels army, by sending Uriah
into the front line of battle, where he was soon killed.
David, however, did not go unpunished. The prophet
Nathan rebuked him, saying, Because you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you
shall die. Other prophets, also acting under Yahwehs authority, approached other Hebrew kings to
advise and censure them and to ensure that they
ruled according to the law.
By the time of Solomon, the Hebrews had changed
from a loosely organized group of pastoral peoples
bound together by a shared religion into an urbanized and politically centralized kingdom that was
a full participant in the political and economic life
of the early Iron Age. The Hebrew kingdom now
extended from the Euphrates River to the Sinai Peninsula. The Hebrews controlled the trade routes
between the Mediterranean and Red Seas, and they
taxed caravans traveling from the east. Trade brought
a profitable return on goods such as gold, silver,
ivory, and exotic animals, and tribute and gifts came
This reconstruction of the temple built in Jerusalem by King Solomon ca. 966 b.c.e. shows its three-part plan,
with two side sections and a larger central section. The style is similar to the three-chambered temples of the
Phoenicians and may be attributed to Solomons use of Phoenician architects and artisans. The Temple provided a centralized site for the performance of Hebrew religious rituals and gave the Hebrew kings great
religious authority. (Ritmeyer Archaeological Design)
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The age of small nations that characterized the beginning of the Iron Age came to an end with the creation
of the first Iron Age empire by the Assyrians. The Assyrian Empire was the first Near Eastern empire to incorporate both the Nile and the Mesopotamian river
valleys. The Assyrians reflected Iron Age patterns
by showing great concern for economic expansion
and the accumulation of wealth. They also created a
model of an empire based on military might, and
their economic exploitation of the peoples they conquered led to their fall.
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were annexed, made into provinces, and directly governed by Assyrian administrators. More distant or
marginal defeated peoples were made into vassals
and permitted to govern themselves as long as they
followed Assyrian orders.
The empire was a moneymaking enterprise. Foreign trade benefited the state, and luxury goods were
funneled into the royal court. Warfare created income
in several ways. Tribute was assessed on defeated
peoples, and additional contributions also were extorted from them. Raiding parties plundered beyond
the empires frontiers. Wherever they went, the Assyrians siphoned off as much wealth as possible. In
general, they had no concern for the economic wellbeing of subject peoples and did not incorporate
them into Assyrian society or give them a share in
the benefits of empire. Trading peoples such as the
Phoenicians and Arameans, who helped meet the insatiable Assyrian demand for luxury goods, did have
a privileged legal status, but their resources were
drained for the benefit of the Assyrians. These shortsighted policies resulted in constant unrest, resistance, and revolt in the conquered territories.
The Assyrians used terror tactics to maintain control of their subject populations. Opposition was
punished by enslavement, expulsion, and harsh
treatment. For example, Assyrian records report that
when some Phoenicians resisted paying their taxes,
Assyrian soldiers made the people jump around
with the points of their spears. When a Syrian leader
revolted, he was captured and skinned alive. In order
to demoralize newly conquered peoples, the Assyrians often deported large numbers of them, especially
the well-to-do, to other conquered territories far
Table 2.1
Assyrian Rulers
Shalmaneser III (r. 858824 b.c.e.)
Sammuramat (r. 800 b.c.e.)
Tiglath-Pilezer III (r. 745727 b.c.e.)
Sargon II (r. 721705 b.c.e.)
Sennacherib (r. 704681 b.c.e.)
Esarhaddon (r. 681668 b.c.e.)
Assurbanipal (r. 671627)
Babylonians, and Egyptians, had dealt with conquered peoples individually. In contrast, the Assyrians created a centralized administrative system that
applied equally to all conquered territories. At the
top of the Assyrian administrative and social structure was the king, who, like all Mesopotamian kings,
was seen as the representative of the primary god, in
this case Assur. Assyrian art, however, often depicts
the king as even more prominent than the god. The
king was the supreme political, military, judicial, and
religious leader. In short, he was the state, and, in a
very personal way, it was the king who unified the
otherwise diverse empire. As ruler of an empire perpetually at war, he was primarily a military leader.
Each year the army visited conquered and neighboring peoples, extorting financial contributions
along the way. Grandiose monuments catalogued the
peoples the king had defeated and the plunder he
had accumulated. In fact, one of the reasons so much
is known about the Assyrians is that Assyrian rulers
recorded so many of their achievements. After several campaigns, for example, King Shalmaneser III
gloated, I carried away their possessions, burned
their cities with fire, demanded from them hostages,
tribute, and contributions, and laid on them the
heavy yoke of my rule. As warrior kings, Assyrian
rulers are often depicted in artwork participating
in a pastime considered appropriate for a military
monarch: huntingand hunting the most dangerous
quarry of all, lions, which still lived wild in the Near
East. The king would hunt with bow and arrow, either on foot or on horseback. Units of the Assyrian
army would accompany him and serve as beaters,
driving the lions into the center of a circle, where the
king awaited. One king claimed that on a single hunt
he killed 10 elephants, plus 120 lions on foot and 800
from his chariot.
The king was at the heart of the centralized administrative web. All imperial officials were servants of the
king and responsible directly to him, as were the no-
bles and priests. The king kept close watch on government officials through a system of royal messengers
who reported personally to him. A class of scribes, using standard Mesopotamian cuneiform writing, kept
yearly chronicles of events such as military campaigns
and eclipses, thus permitting modern historians to establish Assyrian chronology with a great degree of accuracy. State control even extended to traders and
craftsmen, who were organized into government-run
associations. And multitudes of slaves, many of whom
were war captives, performed a wide range of duties.
Slaves were protected from harsh treatment by their
owners and had the rights to own property, make
binding contracts, and testify in court.
Assyrian kings built magnificent palaces that served
as the administrative and social centers of the empire.
Sennacherib established Nineveh as the primary Assyrian capital, where he built what he called the
palace without a rival, 600 by 630 feet in size. Later
kings added additional palaces there, along with temples to Ishtar, Nergal, Nanna, and other deities. The
palaces housed the kings family, which included multiple wives and many children. It was expected that a
king would be succeeded by a son, and male children
plotted to be named as the next king. Also living in the
palaces were rulers and nobles of conquered and vassal peoples, who were kept in honorable captivity to
ensure the good behavior of their people.
The Assyrians, who considered books and learning to be another form of plunder, originated the concept of libraries. Assurbanipal (r. 671627 b.c.e.), for
example, assembled at Nineveh an extensive collection of texts dealing with history, mythology, religion,
law, mathematics, astronomy, grammar, and, in particular, magic. Some twenty thousand clay tablets
from Assurbanipals library have been discovered
during excavations of the ruins of Nineveh, and it is
thanks to him that many of the literary works of ancient Mesopotamia have survived to the present day.
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A little more than fifty years after the end of the Assyrian Empire, an even greater Iron Age empire
arosethat of the Persians. The Persian homeland
was in southern Iran, marking the first time that a
major Near Eastern empire had not originated in a
large river valley. The Persian Empire was similar to
the Assyrian Empire in that the Persians also were interested in economic expansion and the accumulation
of wealth. It was very different, however, in that the
Persians were much more successful in convincing
their subject peoples that they had a share in the benefits of the empire.
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archers, both mounted and on foot, for the infantrymen were lightly armored, often protected only by
wicker shields. The Persians usually defeated their
enemies not by fighting skill but by sheer numbers. A
built-in weakness of the Persian recruitment system
was the length of time necessaryup to two years
to mobilize the army, thus leaving the Persians vulnerable to sudden attacks.
Like the Assyrians, the Persians organized their
subject peoples into annexed territories and vassals.
Vassals remained under native rulers as long as they
stayed loyal. The annexed territoriesmost of the empirewere divided up into twenty very large units
called satrapies. Egypt, Lydia, and Babylonia were
each separate satrapies. A satrap appointed by the
king governed each satrapy. Sometimes the satraps
were local people, but usually they came from an elite
group of Persian noble families known as The Seven.
Satraps were very powerful, almost like petty kings,
and it took a strong-willed king to control them. When
a king died, the next king was chosen from the royal
family by The Seven. Sometimes they chose a weak
king so that they would have more freedom of action.
The Persian Empire was therefore much more loosely
organized than the Assyrian Empire. Local officials,
thousands of miles from the court, had much autonomy. Darius did what he could to keep officials under
his authority and sent out spies, known as the eyes
and ears of the king, who reported back to him regarding what was going on in the satrapies. There was
no direct oversight, however, of a satraps day-to-day
activities, and a prudent king always had to be prepared to deal with satraps who abused their authority.
Darius and later kings introduced policies intended to unify their huge empire, to facilitate trade,
and to increase economic productivity. Standardized
law codes reduced confusion about which laws applied to whom. A simplified cuneiform system reduced the number of signs from several hundred to
forty-two alphabetic symbols, thus making record
keeping much easier. Aramaic was used as a universal language of commerce and diplomacy. Good communications were crucial, and Darius introduced the
first large-scale road system in antiquity. The Royal
Road, which extended 1,600 miles from Susa in Persia
to Sardis in Lydia, was used by merchants and imperial couriers; the latter could carry a message its full
length in a week by changing horses at regular stops.
A nautical trade route from India to Egypt was
opened, and the canal connecting the Mediterranean
and Red Seas was completed, permitting merchant
ships to sail from Spain to India. Economic exchange
and productivity were facilitated by Dariuss introduction of a standardized coinage system, and the
gold daric and silver siglos were accepted throughout the Near Eastern world. Persian kings amassed
incredible wealth, with huge gold and silver reserves
stored in palace treasuries, and were often more concerned with hoarding their money than with using it
for necessary expenditures.
autonomy (from Greek for self rule) A degree of independence or self-government of a territory or people
within a larger political unit.
Zoroaster Persian prophet (in Persian, Zarathustra)
who established the Persian religion known as
Zoroastrianism.
55
Summary
Review Questions
How did the new styles of Iron Age life affect the
development of cities and empires?
How did the Hebrews establish their identity in the
Near Eastern world?
Describe the similarities and differences between the
Assyrian and Persian Empires.
of the Persians. The Persian Empire succeeded because of its ability to recruit a large and loyal army, its
good treatment of its subject peoples, its effective system of administration, and its Zoroastrian religion,
which advocated ethics and morality. On the other
hand, the empire also had two weaknesses: an administrative structure that put great power in the
hands of the satraps and required an effective king to
keep them under control, and a cumbersome army
recruitment system that took up two years to assemble the empires full military strength.
The aspect of the Iron Age having the greatest future impact was the evolution of the religious beliefs
and practices of the Hebrews. The Hebrews belief
that they were the chosen people of a single God, coupled with their moral and ethical teachings, made
their religion different from all of the other Near
Eastern religions. The Hebrews creation of written
scripture was especially important in preserving their
beliefs and identity in the course of many centuries
during which they had lost their political independence. Their struggle to preserve their religious identity and cultural heritage would result in the creation
of a great world religion that in the future also would
have an enormous influence on the birth and development of Christianity and Islam. The Hebrews thus
laid the religious foundations for the subsequent religious history of western civilization.
In many ways, we still are in the Iron Age. Our
cities still are focused on economic expansion through
manufacturing and trade. Wide-ranging commercial
and political powers still search for unifying factors
that can bring people together and give them common ground. Lastly, religions still are based on written scriptures, moral and ethical teachings, and the
belief in a single God.
56
Websites
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
From the Lydian Shekel to the Silver Dollar
Ever since the Bronze Age and before, gold and silver, two rare and valuable metals, have been used to
store wealth and as a medium of exchange. In the Bronze and early Iron Age, they were just commodities,
like copper or fish, that had to be laboriously weighed out with every transaction. Not until about 650 B.C.E.
did merchants from Lydia begin to create lumps of gold and silver that all had the same standard weight.
These became the first coins. They took their name, the shekel, from a unit of weight, about 2 1/2 ounces.
Coins must have a reliable weight and metal content to be trusted by the people using them. The merchants who created the first coins were not always dependable. They could go out of business or be difficult to hold accountable. The right to issue coins was therefore taken over by the Lydian government,
which guaranteed that the coins had the proper metal content by placing a symbol of a lion or bull on
them. It was in the governments interest to control the coinage because good coinage facilitated trade,
which increased the tax income. The government also severely punished counterfeiting, which undermined
popular trust in the coins, with the chopping off of hands and even death.
Coinage spread quickly. Gold and silver coins issued by the Persians became the standard means of
exchange throughout their vast empire. Other commercial peoples, such the Greeks, Phoenicians, and even
the Celts of western Europe, also issued coins. Ever since then, world economies have been based on the
use of money that has a standard value. In the United States, the monetary system initially was based on
gold and silver coins, such as the twenty-dollar gold piece and the silver dollar. As the U.S. economy expanded, however, metal coins became cumbersome and paper money came into use. At first, U.S. paper
money was backed up by gold and silver, but in 1933, the United States went off the gold standard, and, as
of 1964, paper money no longer could be exchanged for silver. As a result, the dollar became worth just
the paper it was printed on, resulting in growing inflation. The value of the dollar now is determined by
economic forces such as purchasing power and the money supply, and gold and silver have returned
to the status they had in the Bronze Agejust one more commodity.
Suggested Readings
Boyce, Mary. Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2001. A detailed discussion
of the Persian national religion.
Briant, Pierre. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrouns, 2002. The history
of the Persian Empire from its foundation by Cyrus until its
conquest by Alexander the Great.
Harden, Donald. The Phoenicians. 2nd ed. London: Penguin,
1980. A study of the great seafaring traders of the early Iron Age.
Matthews, Victor H. A Brief History of Ancient Israel.
Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002. A history
of the ancient Hebrews from their origins until the fourth century b.c.e.
Olmstead, Albert T. History of the Persian Empire. 2nd ed.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959. The standard indepth discussion of the Persian Empire.
Roux, Georges. Ancient Iraq. 3rd ed. London: Penguin, 1992. A
classic summary of the evolution of Assyrian civilization.
Thompson, Thomas L. Early History of the Israelite People:
From the Written and Archaeological Sources. Leiden, The
Netherlands: Brill, 1992. A discussion of Hebrew history focusing on geography, anthropology, and sociology.
Websites
Collection of sources related to early Jewish history, Internet
Jewish History Sourcebook, at http://www.fordham.edu/
halsall/jewish/jewishsbook.html
History, religion, and culture of the Assyrian Empire, Assyria,
at www.crystalinks.com/assyrian.html
57
58
CHAPTER
The Rise of Greek
Civilization, 1100387 B.C.E.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Socrates Chooses Death
Introduction
The Development of Greek Identity,
1100776 B.C.E.
The Greek Dark Ages
Competition and Conflict
Gender Roles
Greek Religion and Culture
Summary
Suggested Readings
Websites
1500 B.C.E.
1000 B.C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
776 B.C.E.
First recorded
Olympic games
Archaic Age
begins
1100 B.C.E.
Dorians settle southern Greece
First wave of Greek colonization begins
Greek Dark Ages begin
1200
1100
1000
900
800
Persian Empire
Major battle
Black Sea
ea
THRACE
ILLYRIA
Sea of Marmara
Epidamnus
Amphipolis
422 B.C.E.
Potidaea
432430 B.C.E.
CORCYRA
TS
ACARNANIA
Ionian
Sea
Delphi
G u lf o
SICILY
Miletus
Argos
AEGINA
Halicarnassus
DELOS
MESSENIA
Sparta
Pylos
425 B.C.E.
Ephesus
SAMOS
Corinth
PELOPONNESUS
Syracuse
IO
Thebes
LACONIA
Melos
416 B.C.E.
MELOS
M e
d i
t e r
r a n
e a n
RHODES
CRETE
S e a
0
100
1000 C.E.
508 B.C.E.
Cleisthenes creates the
Athenian democracy
753 B.C.E.
Rome is founded in Italy
1500 C.E.
500 B.C.E.
Classical Age begins
480 B.C.E.
Greeks fight
Persians at
Thermopylae
and Salamis
750 B.C.E.
Second wave of Greek colonization begins
700
600
500
200 Km.
200 Mi.
100
500 C.E.
IA
Mantinea
418 B.C.E.
CHIOS
f C o r i n th
ACHAEA
ARCADIA
Olympia
Arginusae Islands
406 B.C.E.
Naupactus
429 B.C.E.
BOEOTIA
PE RSIAN
EMP IRE
LESBOS
Sardis
EUBOEA
AETOLIA
A N A T O L I A
Aegean
Sea
DU
Aegospotami
405 B.C.E.
LEMNOS
THESSALY
PI N
EPIRUS
THASOS
nt
CHALCIDICE
lle
sp
o
Pella
MACEDONIA
He
ITALY
2000 C.E.
431 B.C.E.
Peloponnesian War begins
399 B.C.E.
Death of Socrates
387 B.C.E.
Kings Peace ends warfare
between Sparta and Athens
400
300
59
60
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Socrates Chooses Death
Socrates
After the Athenian philosopher Socrates was sentenced
to death on trumped-up
charges of corrupting the
youth, he had several opportunities to escape execution, but instead he chose to
demonstrate his convictions
by carrying out the sentence
on himself. Socrates suicide
has been portrayed in many
modern artworks, as in this
1780 painting by the French
painter Jean-Antoine Watteau depicting Socrates taking the cup of hemlock while
surrounded by grieving students and friends. (Runion
des Muses Nationaux/Art
Resource, NY)
In 399 B.C.E., the Athenian philosopher Socrates was put on trial on false
charges and sentenced to death. He was given the chance to go into
exile, but to show his commitment to his beliefs, he chose to abide by
the sentence and died by drinking poison. At this time, Athens was in
turmoil. Five years earlier, the Athenians had lost a hard-fought war with
Sparta and they were looking for people to blame for the political instability that followed.
In his early life, Socrates seemed much like an average Athenian. He
was the son of a sculptor and a midwife and fought heroically in the
lengthy war against Sparta. After the war, however, rather than taking
part in public life by attending meetings of the assembly or holding
public office, he chose to become a philosopherin Greek, a lover of
wisdom. Socrates was interested in concepts of right and wrong, justice, virtue, and love. He believed that vice came from ignorance and
that people had a natural tendency to be good if they could only be
taught what good was. Feeling that he could serve Athens best by teaching the
Athenians to look into their souls, he spent his time in the marketplace, questioning people about their beliefs and guiding them by his questions to a greater
understanding of goodness. What is the nature of the gods, he asked; what is the
role of government? Is striving for wealth, office, and status more important than
seeking wisdom, morality, goodness, and the health of ones soul?
By challenging some of the Greeks most fundamental beliefs, Socrates made
enemies. Raising such questions was dangerous at a time when Athens was having
political difficulties, and in a democracy where any citizen could bring a legal
charge against anyone else. Socrates was well aware that he was taking risks. But
when asked whether his choice to challenge conventional values concerned him,
he replied, You are wrong, sir, if you think that a man who is any good at all
should take into account the risk of life or death; he should look to this only in his
actions, whether what he does is right or wrong, whether he is acting like a good
or a bad man.
Eventually Socrates was accused of neglecting the gods and corrupting the
youth by teaching that the gods did not exist. He was put on trial before a jury of
five hundred Athenian citizens. Instead of respectfully defending himself against
the charges, he used the occasion to present his teachings, thereby insulting the
jury, which convicted him and sentenced him to death. Socrates declined to make
an appeal, which might well have been granted, and asserted not only that
Athens could kill his physical body but never his soul, but also that by killing him,
his judges were harming their own souls.
The Athenians had a tradition that those sentenced to death could escape the
penalty by going into exile, and many of those who voted to convict Socrates may
have done so simply to get him out of town. However, when his friends urged
Socrates to flee, he refused, claiming that he must respect the law: if he were to
flee, it would seem that he was arguing that the laws should be disobeyed, which
is the last thing he wanted to do. Rather than being executed by the state,
Socrates was given the opportunity to commit suicide. On the designated day,
surrounded by his friends, Socrates told them that his soul soon would be in the
realm of the blessed and that only his body would be left behind for burial. He
then drank a cup of hemlock, a common poison used for suicide in those days, and
a fatal numbness crept up from his legs to his vital organs.
To maintain his self-respect, as a Greek and as a philosopher, Socrates chose
death. As a Greek, he was expected to display his virtue publicly, and once he had
taken his stand, he was committed to following through. As a philosopher, he had
to remain true to his beliefs, even at the cost of his life.
Introduction
61
62
Chronology
1100 B.C.E.
776 B.C.E.
490 B.C.E.
480 B.C.E.
479 B.C.E.
440s B.C.E.
750550 B.C.E.
ca. 700 B.C.E.
650500 B.C.E.
431404 B.C.E.
Peloponnesian War
430427 B.C.E.
410 B.C.E.
621 B.C.E.
404 B.C.E.
592 B.C.E.
401 B.C.E.
546 B.C.E.
399 B.C.E.
Socrates dies
508 B.C.E.
387 B.C.E.
500 B.C.E.
on
Pella
Al
ia
THRACE
Byzantium
bru
Sea of Marmara
Thasos
CHALCIDICE
Ao
us
mo
Axius
MACEDONIA
ry
os
He
St
Ne
st
Hellespont
Mt. Olympus
Lemnos
Pe n
eus
THESSALY
PIN
EPIRUS
Troy
ANATOLIA
DU
Sa n g a
rius
TS
Lesbos
.
lo u
Aeg
Ithaca
Euboea
Delphi
Marathon
Plataea
th
479 B.C.E. Eleusis 490 B.C.E.
Sicyon
Athens
ELIS
Corinth Megara
Salamis ATTICA
Nemea
Olympia
480 B.C.E.
ARCADIA
Mycenae
Aegina
Mantinea
Argos
PELOPONNESUS
Tegea
it
an
ea
Major battles of
the Persian Wars
Mountains
Sanctuaries
50
Se
Miletus
CYCLADES
Delos
Halicarnassus
LACONIA
Melos
Rhodes
Cythera
Knossos
100 Km.
50
100 Mi.
Gortyn
Ancient Greece, ca. 1050 B.C.E. During the Dark Ages, the Greeks inhabited both the Greek
mainland and Ionia, the western coast of Anatolia. City life developed in Ionia and in the southern part of
Greece to a much greater extent than in Macedonia and in the north.
MAP 3.1
r
ande
Samos
Crete
0
Ma e
ed
rr
Hermus
Sardis
Ephesus
Sparta
S.
OS MT
M
er
GE T
TAY
MESSENIA
Pylos
Chios
f of
Cor
in
Chaeronea
BOEOTIA
Thebes
Se
Gul
ACHAEA
LYDIA
ean
Ac
AETOLIA
A
N I
I O
Thermopylae
480 B.C.E.
he
ACARNANIA
63
64
Greek cities introduced new concepts in government. Unlike Near Eastern kingdoms and cities,
which were ruled by kings or gods, Greek cities, to a
greater or lesser degree, were ruled collectively by
their citizens. Someone was a citizen if one of his or
her parents was one. Slaves and resident foreigners,
therefore, were not citizens. A city could make a foreigner a citizen, but this did not happen very often.
Citizens were equal under the law, and all adult male
citizens had some degree of participation in the government, even if only to vote in the assembly. This degree of popular rule was unheard of in the Near East,
and it gave citizens a special sense of identity with
and ownership of their cities. Civic loyalty could be
just as important as family loyalty. Even though some
cities were very small, just a few thousand people
and covering less than a hundred square miles, each
Greek thought that his or her polis was the best one
in Greece.
Gender Roles
Another way that Greek men demonstrated their superiority was by controlling Greek women. In nearly
every Greek city, women were an underclass in both
public and private life, a subordinate position that began at birth. Male children were preferred, and it was
not uncommon for families to abandon unwanted infants, females in particular. Abandoned infants could
arete (Greek for excellence) Greek sense of personal
excellence.
65
66
In Greek mythology, after Zeus received a prophecy that Metis, the goddess of wisdom, would bear a son
stronger than he, he swallowed her when she became pregnant. When Zeus began to have terrible headaches,
the god Hephaestus chopped open his head to see what was wrong. This Athenian black-figure ointment container of ca. 570 b.c.e. shows Athena springing fully armed from the head of Zeus, shown with his thunderbolt.
Zeus is flanked by two birth goddesses with their arms raised, accompanied by Hephaestus with his ax and
Poseidon with his trident. (Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY)
were believed to meet on Mount Olympus, in northern Greece. The chief Olympian god was Zeus,
the god of lightning and thunder, and the others
were his siblings and children. The siblings were his
wife Hera, the goddess of marriage and childbirth;
barbarians (Greek for a person who speaks bar-barbar) Greek term for anyone who did not speak Greek
and therefore was not Greek.
Olympian gods Important Greek gods and goddesses
who were said to meet on Mount Olympus in
northern Greece
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68
as amends for a terrible crime, such as killing a relative or disrespecting the gods. At shrines in the countryside, people could receive oracles, messages from
the gods about the outcomes of future events. Oracles
could be received in many forms, such as through the
interpretation of dreams or the sounds in a brook.
The shrines of gods who provided oracles were some
of the few places in Greece where there were permanent staffs of priests and priestesses.
By the eighth century b.c.e., Greek cities were in
more frequent contact. The fame of the oracle of
Apollo at Delphi, in northern Greece, for example,
spread, and even foreigners came to seek advice on
matters ranging from settling quarrels to undertaking
wars. A priestess inhaled volcanic fumes and then recited a cryptic answer that could often be interpreted
in several ways. Consulting the oracle provided a
means whereby local disputes, such as crimes involving bloodguilt that followed from the killing of a relative, could be resolved once the oracles advice had
been given.
In 776 b.c.e., the first firmly attested date in Greek
history, the Greeks began to record the meetings of a
pan-Hellenic festival in honor of the god Zeus held
at Olympia in southern Greece. Zeus was honored
with athletic contests known as the Olympic games,
which subsequently were held every four years. The
names of the victors were preserved with great care,
and the four-year periods, known as Olympiads, became a standard means of dating. The great statue of
Zeus at Olympia, designed by Phidias, the most distinguished sculptor of Greek antiquity, became one of
the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In theory,
warfare was supposed to cease during the games so
that athletes and spectators could attend with relative
personal security. Customs such as these gave the
Greeks an even stronger sense of being Greek.
69
UKRAINE
ia
GAUL
P S
A L
CRIMEA
Se
CAUCASUS MTS.
PY
Eb
RE
NE
ro
Balearic Is.
M KA
Byzantium
Rome LY Epidamnus
TS N
.
Cumae
Sea of
Tarentum
Sardinia
Naples
CHALCIDICE Marmara
GREAT Cocyra
ANATOLIA
GREECE
Saguntum
Cadiz
BA
IT
Corsica
SPAIN
Black Sea
Danu b e
ESMarseilles
GREECE
Messina
Strait of Gibraltar
Sicily
Carthage
Syracuse
Sparta
NORTH AFRICA
LYDIA
Al-Mina
Miletus
Cyprus
Rhodes
Citium
Crete
Malta
Mediterranean
Nineveh
Sea
PHOENI
CIA
70
SYRIA
Aradus
Byblos
Sidon
Tyre
Euphra
te s
T i g r is
Babylon
Cyrene
Naucratis
Greek colonization
250
Memphis
D E S E R T
EGYPT
500 Km.
500 Mi.
S A H A R A
Se
250
ed
Ni
e
A R A B I A N
LIBYA
MAP 3.2
Greek Colonization, ca. 750550 B.C.E. During the second wave of Greek colonization,
Greek colonies were established along the shores of the Black, Adriatic and western Mediterranean seas
and carried Greek culture far beyond the Greek mainland.
Athenian pottery with red figures on a black background had become the preferred style.
During the Archaic Age the Greeks also began to
build stone temples as focal points of civic pride as
well as to honor their primary gods. Temples usually
were constructed in simple rectangular form, with a
tile roof supported by external rows of stone columns.
The column style evolved from the simple grooved
fluted Doric style; to the Ionic style, with spiral rolls
on the capital (the piece on top of the column); to the
Corinthian style, with elaborate floral capitals. Temples often housed a statue of the god and an altar and
were also places where offerings made to the god by
individuals or cities were put on display.
fertile plains of the southern half of the Peloponnesus. Conflict also developed over the control of
trade routes. After Corinth seized control of the shortest passage across the narrow isthmus connecting
northern and southern Greece, it became the wealthiest Greek trading city.
The growth of trade and warfare had important
consequences for Greek society and government. The
expansion of trade led to the rise of a new moneyed
class whose wealth came from trade rather than land.
No matter how wealthy or influential these newly
rich people became, however, they could never become aristocrats, for aristocratic status by now was
based on birth. Wealthy merchants therefore could
not hold office or serve on the council, duties that
were limited to aristocrats. They grew discontented
about having no voice in decisions that affected their
ability to do business. The increase in warfare brought
them opportunities to gain greater rights. In the past,
fighting had been limited to aristocrats because only
they could afford the necessary arms and armor. This
situation changed when merchants grew rich. Trading cities that feared they would lose the next battle
began to permit all those who could afford arms and
armor to perform military service. As a result, many
rich merchants and well-to-do but nonaristocratic
farmers became full-fledged citizen soldiers. There
was no way that a city with a small aristocratic army
could hope to compete with a city fielding an army of
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72
That was when the slaughter started, as pursuing hoplites and cavalrymen cut down fleeing enemies from
behind. The Greeks gained well-deserved reputations as excellent soldiers, giving rise to another way
for dealing with overpopulation. Many adventurous
Greeks went overseas to serve as mercenaries. As
early as 650 b.c.e., Greek mercenaries, called men of
bronze, were serving in Egypt.
73
74
Lycurgus Spartan lawgiver of ca. 700 b.c.e. who established the Spartan way of life known as the Good Rule.
Sparta, those who were free were the most free anywhere, and those who were slaves were the most enslaved. The primary goal of the Spartans was to
preserve their system and to keep the helots in their
place. The helots were always ready to revolt. To
make this point, Spartan men in their late teens were
sent to spy on the helots and authorized to kill any
who appeared disloyal. This duty impressed on
young Spartans how greatly outnumbered they were
and helped to justify the sacrifices they had to make
in the service of the city. To protect themselves further
against the helots, the Spartans also organized a
mutual-defense alliance of Greek cities in the Peloponnesus, called the Peloponnesian League. Any
member who was attacked could call on the help of
any other member. The Spartans thus had a core of local allies to help them whenever the helots revolted.
The constant fear of a helot uprising meant that the
Spartans were very reluctant to send their army very
far away from home.
women in the world who could rule men, she arrogantly replied, Because we are the only women who
are the mothers of men. While the men were away
on campaign, Spartan women oversaw the household economies. They were responsible for providing
each Equals contribution to his army dining club.
And they were the only women in Greece who were
permitted to inherit property. In fact, it was said that
nearly half of the land in Sparta eventually belonged
to women.
The Spartans needed to maintain this military
lifestyle because Spartas agricultural land was
worked by helots, agricultural slaves whose ancestors had been enslaved when Sparta conquered their
territory. The Spartans were greatly outnumbered:
only about 5 percent of the total population, never
more than 8,000 soldiers, was Spartan; about 15 percent were free noncitizens; and the remaining 80 percent were helots. Plutarch also commented that in
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76
77
78
lightly armed and inexperienced Persian infantrymen proved no match for the Greek hoplites. The
Athenians posted most of their troops on the Persian
flanks and allowed the Persians to push back the center of their line. The Athenian wings then closed
behind the Persians, who fled for their ships and escaped as best as they could. The final toll was 6,400
Persian dead to 192 Athenians. A runner was sent to
Athens with the news, the first running of the
marathon. He fell dying in the marketplace, gasping,
Nenikekamen (We have won!). The Spartans arrived the next day and could only congratulate the
Athenians and lament that they had not been there to
share in the glory.
The Battle of Marathon had shown that the Persians could be beaten. But it was by no means the end
of Persian attempts to defeat the Greeks. The Greeks
realized that the Persians would be back. When a
huge silver mine was discovered near Athens, the
strategos Themistocles convinced the Athenians to invest the money in a new fleet of 200 triremes, warships driven by three banks of oars. The thetes backed
this measure because each ship required 180 rowers,
who were recruited from thetes too poor to serve in
the army and were handsomely paid. In the future,
any proposals that would use the navy would be supported by the thetes.
Darius died in 486 b.c.e. His son Xerxes soon prepared a massive attack on Greece by land and sea. In
481 b.c.e., the Greek cities met at Corinth to plan their
defense but immediately fell to quarreling over who
would be in charge. Meanwhile, hoping to split up
the Greeks, the Persians sent ambassadors to all the
Greek cities except Sparta and Athens, demanding
earth and water and promising them good treatment.
About one-third of the Greek cities went over to the
Persians. Another third decided to wait and see who
was going to win. Only Sparta and Athens, and their
trustworthy allies, resolved to resist the Persians. The
situation looked bleak for the Greeks. Even the Delphic oracle foresaw failure, telling the Spartans that
they must lose their city or one of their kings and
recommending to the Athenians that they flee to the
worlds end. When the Athenians asked for another
oracle, they were told to trust to their wooden
walls, which many interpreted as meaning the
wooden wall around the city.
Themistocles Athenian leader who organized the resistance against the Persians in the 480s b.c.e.
The Olympias, a reconstructed Greek trireme, is shown being propelled by oars. The effective use of a triremes
three banks of oars, manned by 180 rowers, required extensive training and coordination. A trireme had a top
speed of over 11 miles per hour and was maneuvered so that its iron ram could punch a hole in the side of an
enemy ship. (Paul Lipke/Trireme Trust USA)
Thermopylae (Greek for hot gates) Battle at a narrow pass in northern Greece where 300 Spartans were
annihilated by the Persians in 480 b.c.e.
Salamis Naval battle in 480 b.c.e. at an island off
the coast of Athens where the Greeks defeated
the Persians.
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80
army was defeated at Plataea. The Spartans performed heroically, standing stoically under Persian
arrow fire until it was their turn to charge. On the
same day, it was said, the Athenians destroyed what
was left of the Persian fleet in Ionia, and the Ionian
cities again revolted from the Persians.
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The Athenian Acropolis was the most famous complex of temples in the ancient world. Most of the monuments
were either begun or built during the time of Pericles, including the Parthenon, the great temple of Athena that
was 101 feet wide and 228 feet long; the temple of Nike, the goddess of Victory; and the Erechtheum, with its
distinctive caryatids, female statues that serve as columns. A grand entrance called the Propylaeum led up to
the sacred area on top. These very expensive building projects were paid for with tribute brought in by the
Athenian Empire. (Sotiris Toumbis Editions)
Voice
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Aristophanes Suggests How to End the War
When dissent was expressed in Athens, it had to be done in a roundabout manner if
its author hoped to avoid criminal charges. Comic plays permitted politically dangerous ideas to be raised in an ostensibly nonserious way. In Aristophanes play Lysistrata, presented ca. 410 B.C.E., the women of Greece come up with a plan for how to
end the Peloponnesian War, which had been devastating Greece for nearly twenty
years. The Athenians would have found this concept humorous because in all Greek
cities except Sparta, women were expected to remain at home and not participate
in politics. The selection begins when Lysistrata, who had summoned women from
various Greek cities to a meeting, meets her friend Cleonice in the street in Athens.
She is worried because the women she is expecting have not arrived.
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Cleonice: Oh! They will come, my dear; but its not easy, you know, for women
to leave the house. One is busy pottering about her husband; another is getting
the servant up; a third is putting her child to sleep or feeding the brat.
Lysistrata: But I tell you, the business that calls them here is far more urgent.
Cleonice: And why do you summon us, dear Lysistrata?
Lysistrata: It means just this, Greece saved by the women! Our countrys fortunes depend on us. If the Boeotian and Peloponnesian women join us, Greece
is saved.
Cleonice: But look! Here are some arrivals.
Myrrhine: Are we late, Lysistrata? Tell us, pray. What, not a word?
Cleonice: No, lets wait until the women of Boeotia arrive and those from the
Peloponnesus.
Lysistrata: Yes, that is best. . . . Ah! Here comes Lampito. [Lampito, a husky Spartan woman, enters with two women from Boeotia and one from Corinth.]
Good day, Lampito, dear friend from Sparta. How handsome you look! What a
rosy complexion! And how strong you seem. Why, you surely could strangle a bull!
Lampito: Yes, indeed, I really think I could. Its because I do gymnastics and
practice the bottom-kicking dance. But who has called together this council of
women, pray?
Lysistrata: I have.
Lampito: Well then, tell us what you want of us.
Lysistrata: First answer me one question. Dont you feel sad because the fathers
of your children are far away with the army?
Cleonice: Mine has been the last five months in Thrace.
Myrrhine: Its seven since mine left.
Lampito: If mine ever does return, hes no sooner home than he takes down
his shield again and flies back to the wars.
Lysistrata: And not so much as the shadow of a lover! Now tell me, if I have
discovered a means of ending the war, will you all second me?
Cleonice: Yes, verily, by all the goddesses.
Lampito: Why, to secure peace I would climb to the top of Mount Taygetus [a
mountain outside Sparta].
Lysistrata: Then I will out with it at last, my mighty secret! Oh! Sister
women, if we would compel our husbands to make peace, we must refrain . . .
Cleonice: Refrain from what?
Lysistrata: We must refrain from the male altogether. . . . Nay, why do you turn
your backs on me? So, you bite your lips, and shake your heads, eh? Why these
pale, sad looks? Why these tears? Come, will you do ityes or no?
Cleonice: I will not do it, let the war go on. Anything, anything but that! To rob
us of the sweetest thing in all the world, Lysistrata, darling!
Lysistrata: You, my dear, you from hardy Sparta, if you join me, all may yet be
well. Help me, I beg you.
Lampito: Tis a hard thing, by the two goddesses [Demeter and Persephone],
it is! For a woman to sleep alone without ever a strong male in her bed. But there,
peace must come first.
Lysistrata: Oh, my darling best friend, you are the only one deserving the name
of woman!
Cleonice: Very well, if you must have it so, we agree.
The Classical Age also was the great age of historical writing. The Greeks were the first people to believe that one can learn from studying the past and
thus not only avoid making the same mistakes over
again but also anticipate how to behave in similar circumstances in the future. The three most influential
early Greek historians all worked in Athens. During
the 440s b.c.e., Herodotus, who has been called the
father of history, composed a massive study intended
to explain how the Greeks and Persians had become
involved in the greatest war the world had yet
known. Even though Herodotus portrayed the war as
a conflict between civilization and barbarism, he was
sympathetic to Near Eastern culture. He was the first
historian to use the historical method, the system by
which historians gather evidence, form hypotheses,
test the validity of their evidence, and come to conclusions based on the most reliable evidence. Much of
Herodotus evidence was drawn from myth and legend, and, like the writers of tragedy, he adopted a
moral approach to human behavior in which the
gods rewarded the good and punished the wicked.
For Herodotus, there were fundamental rights and
wrongs, with no middle ground.
Thucydides, an Athenian general who had lost a
battle and been sent into exile, wrote a history of the
Peloponnesian War up to the year 411 b.c.e. In his
view, the gods were not involved in the making of
history. People were, and they were responsible for
their own actions. For Thucydides, the most fundamental human motivation was a struggle for power.
He observed, The strong do what they can and the
weak suffer what they must. Thucydides relied on
written documents and first-person evidence for his
conclusions and argued that there were two sides to
every quarrel, without any absolute right or wrong.
He believed it was possible to detect underlying patterns in events. He wrote for those who wish to have
a clear view of events that likely will occur again
and hoped that a critical study of the factors leading
up to the Peloponnesian War could help to prevent
ruinous wars in the future.
Xenophon, another Athenian general, continued
the history of Greece from 411 to 362 b.c.e. Unlike
Herodotus and Thucydides, however, Xenophon
wrote his history mostly as narrativefirst this happened, then this, then thiswithout any attempt to
make events fit a particular model. His March of the
10,000an account of how a band of trapped Greek
mercenaries fought their way out of the Persian Empire in 401 b.c.e.is one of the great adventure stories of all time. Most subsequent historians followed
Xenophons narrative style.
The Greeks also continued their study of philosophy. Philosophers turned from explaining the nature
of the universe to examining the nature of human interactions. Educators known as sophists, who sometimes passed as philosophers, taught how to make
effective arguments using debate and rhetoric, a useful skill to have in Athenian politics. Sophists often
taught how to argue both sides of a question, for to
them there was no absolute truth: everything was relative to the side of the argument one decided to support. Some Greeks thus viewed the sophists as
immoral. The relativism of the sophists was opposed
by the Athenian philosopher Socrates (see Choice),
who taught during the latter part of the Peloponnesian War. He believed that truth could be discovered by question and answer, an approach still known
as the Socratic method. Because he questioned some
fundamental Athenian values, Socrates was sentenced
to death in 399 b.c.e.
Socrates left no writings of his own, and his teachings have come down to us in the books of his pupil
Plato. Plato established his own school of philosophy
in Athens, known as the Academy. His written works
investigate abstract questions such as, What is justice? Plato assumed the existence of a divinely
established perfection that humans should strive to
copy. The world we live in, he taught, is a very imperfect copy of the perfect forms and ideas that exist
in the perfect static universe, and he was particularly disillusioned with the democracy that had condemned Socrates to death. Platos most influential
book, The Republic, presented a model for a perfect
human society that was lacking the strife and contention so characteristic of the Greeks. Everyone living in Platos republic was under the control of the
state and had his or her fixed place. Some people
were soldiers, and others were workers. The rulers, of
course, were the philosophers, who could be either
women or men.
Herodotus Author, during the 440s b.c.e., of a history
of the Persian Wars, known as the father of history.
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Summary
Review Questions
What was the significance of the polis in defining the
Greeks personal identity?
What was the nature of the conflict between Sparta
and Athens?
What were the causes and consequences of the
Greeks inability to unite?
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ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
The Olympic Games
In both antiquity and the modern day, the value of athletic competition for both participants and spectators
has been widely acknowledged. For the Greeks, the most important athletic games were the Olympics. The
ancient Olympics had only a small number of events, such as footraces, the discus and javelin throws, the
long jump, boxing, wrestling, horse racing, chariot races, and the pentathlon. All athletes participated in
the nude. The winners received no medals, but simply an olive wreath, and there were no prizes for second
or third place. Winning brought great acclaim from ones city. Victors were granted tax exemptions, frontrow seats at all local athletic events, and the right to dine free in the town hall for the rest of their lives.
Losing, on the other hand, was an unbearable disgrace. The poet Pindar described Olympic losers sneaking home to their mothers by the back roads.
Websites
The holding of the ancient Olympics was outlawed in 393 C.E. by the Christian emperor Theodosius I because it was un-Christian. The Olympics were not held again until 1896, when they were revived by Pierre
de Coubertin, a French historian, and held in Athens. The games of the modern Olympics are less violent
than some of the ancient versions. In the ancient games, Greek boxers were allowed to wear weighted
leather gloves, and in the pancration, a combination of boxing and wrestling, the contestants fought until
one admitted defeat. Some competitors preferred death to giving up. The modern Olympics also have many
more events than the ancient ones, and they admit any person designated as a representative of a country,
whereas the ancient Olympics admitted only Greeks.
The most noticeable difference is that half of the competitors in the modern version are women. The ancient Olympics did not allow women at all, although in 396 B.C.E., horses trained by the Spartan woman
Cynisca won the Olympic chariot race. Unmarried Greek women did participate at Olympia in their own
games called the Heraia, in honor of Hera, queen of the gods and the wife of Zeus. The only event was a
footrace in which the younger women were allowed to start first. They ran on the same track as the men
and received the same olive wreath prize. Unlike the men, the women were permitted to wear clothing, a
short tunic that hung loose from one shoulder.
Suggested Readings
Andrewes, Antony. The Greek Tyrants. London: Hutchinsons
University Library, 1956. A classic discussion of the rise and
role of Greek tyrants.
Boardman, John. The Greeks Overseas: Their Early Colonies
and Trade. 4th ed. London: Thames & Hudson, 1989. A good
overview of the role played by commerce in Greek civilization.
Dover, Kenneth J. Greek Homosexuality. 2nd ed. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989. A discussion of a controversial aspect of Greek society.
Guthrie, William K. C. The Greek Philosophers from Thales to
Aristotle. London/New York: Routledge, 1989. An overview
of Greek philosophy from the sixth through the fourth centuries b.c.e., including a discussion of the role played by
Socrates.
Websites
Professional site with several sections on ancient Greece, including Homer and ancient Athens, Ancient Greece, at
www.stoa.org
Comprehensive collection of websites dealing with the ancient
Greeks, Ancient Greece, at www.teacheroz.com/greeks.html
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CHAPTER
From Polis to
Cosmopolis: The
Hellenistic World,
38730 B.C.E.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: The Maccabees Decide to Revolt
Introduction
Alexander the Great, 387323 B.C.E.
The Rise of Macedonia
The Unification of Greece
Alexanders Wars
Alexanders Empire
Summary
Suggested Readings
1500 B.C.E.
338 B.C.E.
Macedonians
defeat the Greeks
380
Websites
1000 B.C.E.
336 B.C.E.
Alexander becomes
king of Macedonia
360
340
331 B.C.E.
Battle of
Guagamela
500 B.C.E.
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
300 B.C.E.
Ptolemy I founds Alexandria Museum
Euclid publishes theorems of geometry
Zeno begins teaching Stoicism
280 B.C.E.
Final partition of
Alexanders empire
330 B.C.E.
Third wave of Greek
colonization begins
320
300
280
260
240
220
200
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
1500 C.E.
2000 C.E.
30 B.C.E.
Cleopatra, last of the
Ptolemies, commits suicide
165 B.C.E.
Judas Maccabee
defeats the Seleucids
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
89
90
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
The Maccabees Decide to Revolt
Judas Maccabee
Sometimes making a choice
was not just a personal issue
but involved the survival of
an entire people. Such was
the case in the second century B.C.E. when the Hellenistic Jews had to choose
between obeying the orders
of a king or preserving their
ancestral beliefs. The Jewish
priest Mattathias and his
sons, known as the Maccabees, rose in revolt against
the powerful Seleucid Empire. In the decisive battle,
depicted here in an engraving by the nineteenth-century
French artist Gustav Dor,
Judas Maccabee leads the
Jewish army against the
Seleucid war elephants.
(Bettmann/Corbis)
In the 160s B.C.E., the faith of the elderly Jewish priest Mattathias
was put to the test. He could remain true to his religious convictions, or he could follow the orders of a Greek king and sacrifice to
non-Jewish gods. Mattathias was in this position because ever since
the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E., the Jews of Judaea had been under foreign domination. Their rulersfirst the Chaldeans, then the
Persians, then Alexander the Greatusually had allowed them religious freedom, and the Jews were confident that they would be
able to continue to practice their religion without outside interference. But in 167 B.C.E., the Greek ruler of Judaea, King Antiochus IV,
attempted to impose Greek culture on the Jews. As described in the
book of the Maccabees in the Hebrew Bible, when the kings men
attempted to force Mattathias to sacrifice a pig, an animal considered unclean by the Jews, Mattathias and his sons were horrified:
they tore their clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned greatly. A royal official
addressed old Mattathias: You are a leader, honored and great in this town. Now
be the first to come and do what the king commands, as all the Gentiles and the
people of Judah and those that are left in Jerusalem have done. Then you and
your sons will be numbered among the Friends of the king. Mattathias, however,
knew where his duty lay and fearlessly replied, I and my sons and my brothers
will continue to live by the covenant of our ancestors. We will not obey the kings
words by turning aside from our religion. He then killed both the official, who
was about to make a sacrifice on a Jewish altar, and the kings officer. Crying, Let
every one who is zealous for the law and supports the covenant come out with
me! Mattathias fled into the hills with his five sons and was soon joined by many
other Jews.
Mattathiass decision to resist the kings orders must have looked like certain
suicide to most observers. The Jews were outnumbered and were facing an army
that included professional mercenary soldiers. But the Jews were fighting for their
religious freedom and were willing to die, whereas mercenary soldiers generally
were used in battles in which both sides strove to limit their losses.
At first, the Greek army had an unfair advantage, for many Jews refused to
fight on the Sabbath, the holy Jewish day of rest. On one occasion, thousands of
Jewish men, women, and children were slaughtered when they refused to fight.
Mattathias and his army, therefore, had another crucial choice to make: Would
they abide by their law and be slaughtered, or put the law aside to be able to
defend themselves? They said to each other, If we do as our kindred did and
refuse to fight with the Gentiles on the Sabbath, they will quickly destroy us.
Thus they decided, Let us fight against anyone who comes to attack us on the
Sabbath day; let us not all die as our kindred died in their hiding places.
Mattathias soon died, and his son Judas took his place as the leader of the Jewish revolt. He, too, chose to continue the fight against all odds. When Antiochuss
huge army approached, the Jewish rebels began to lose heart, saying How can
we, few as we are, fight against so great and so strong a multitude? But Judas
gave them courage by replying, It is not on the size of the army that victory in
battle depends, but strength comes from Heaven. They come against us in great
insolence and lawlessness to destroy us and our wives and our children, and to
despoil us; but we fight for our lives and our laws. God himself will crush them
before us; as for you, do not be afraid of them. Judas then led the attack, and
the enemy was routed. By refusing to adopt Greek culture and by choosing to
fight for their beliefs, even if it meant doing so on the Sabbath, the Jews were not
only able to preserve their way of life but even to overcome what, at the outset,
appeared to be insurmountable odds.
Introduction
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Chronology
387 B.C.E.
280 B.C.E.
359 B.C.E.
250 B.C.E.
338 B.C.E.
336 B.C.E.
225 B.C.E.
335 B.C.E.
220 B.C.E.
334 B.C.E.
175 B.C.E.
332 B.C.E.
165 B.C.E.
331 B.C.E.
140 B.C.E.
327 B.C.E.
80 B.C.E.
323 B.C.E.
Alexander dies
50 B.C.E.
30 B.C.E.
c.300 B.C.E.
Alexanders Wars
Alexander proved any remaining doubters wrong.
Believing himself the son of Zeus, he planned to conquer not just Anatolia but the whole world, all the
way to the great eastern ocean that geographers believed lay on the far side of India. In 334 b.c.e.,
Alexander led his army into Anatolia. He had only
35,000 men, whereas against him the Persians could
raise 250,000. But Alexander took the Persians by surprise, before they had time to assemble their entire
army. Anatolia was defended only by an army of
Greek mercenaries, who put up a very stiff resistance.
At the Battle of the Granicus River, as in every battle,
Alexander was in the thick of the fighting. According
to Plutarch, one of the opposing mercenaries gave
Alexander such a blow with his battle-axe on the
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Mosaic of the first century c.e. from the buried Roman city of Pompeii shows Alexander, at the far left, charging
Darius III, standing in his chariot, at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 b.c.e. This was the crucial moment of the
battle, for when Darius fled, his army then followed and Alexander won a great victory. (Scala/Art Resource, NY)
helmet that he cut off its crest and the edge of the
weapon touched the hair of his head. Only after a
desperate fight were the mercenaries defeated.
By 333 b.c.e., the Persian king Darius III (r. 338
331) had been able to mobilize only the western half
of his empire. Alexander met the Persian army at Issus in northern Syria. The sight of the advancing
Macedonian phalanx sent Darius fleeing, and his
army fled with him. Taken captive were Darius
mother, wife, and daughters, who were fearful of what
would befall them at Alexanders hands. Alexander
gained much credit for receiving them kindly. Before
pursuing Darius, Alexander thought it prudent to occupy Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean coast so
as not to leave any enemies in his rear. Most cities surrendered peacefully and were well treated, but the
island city of Tyre held out, emboldened by Alexanders lack of a navy. Alexander used eight valuable
months building an earth and stone jetty out to the
city, which he then stormed and sacked. In Egypt,
Alexander was welcomed as the pharaoh and as the
son of Ra and the son of Zeus. At this point, Darius
offered to turn over to Alexander all of the Persian
Empire west of the Euphrates, but Alexander declined, for he had much more ambitious goals.
200
400 Km.
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CA
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The Empire of Alexander, 323 B.C.E. Alexanders empire, created in just ten years,
extended from Greece in the west into India in the east, and was the largest empire ever created
in the western world.
MAP 4.1
sian capital of Persepolis, he discovered 180,000 talents (over 10,000 tons) of silver hoarded in the Persian
treasury, which he used to pay his own mounting expenses. Indeed, Alexander issued so many silver coins
that the price of silver plummeted throughout the
Mediterranean world. When Persepolis burned soon
afterward, some claimed it was in retribution for the
Persians burning of Athens in 480 b.c.e.; but others
said it was an accident.
It took Alexander four more years to conquer the
rest of the Persian Empire. Bactria, modern Afghanistan, proved especially difficult, but Alexander eventually won the allegiance of the natives by his
bravery and magnanimity as well as by his marriage
to a local princess named Roxanne. In 327 b.c.e., not
content with having conquered the Persian Empire,
Alexander invaded India. The Indians resisted desperately, village by village. Alexander himself was
wounded many times. In one hard-fought battle, the
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96
wounded that he nearly died. After reaching the Indian Ocean, the army had to make a difficult trek
along the desert coast of the Persian Gulf to get back
to Persia. Many never made it back at all. Alexander
finally returned to Persia in 324 b.c.e.
Alexanders Empire
In only ten years, Alexander had been able to create
the largest empire the world had yet known. He next
attempted to consolidate his territorial gains. To provide some Greek presence in the conquered territories, and land for thousands of army veterans who
were disabled, ill, or whose services were no longer
needed, Alexander founded more than seventy
colonies throughout the empire, all of them named
Alexandria except for one that he named after his
horse, Bucephalus. Alexanders colonies extended
from Alexandria in Egypt to the one called Last
Alexandria in Afghanistan and began what can be
called the third wave of Greek colonization, which
lasted from about 332 to 250 b.c.e. Unlike the first two
waves, which resulted in many seacoast colonies,
these colonies were inland. After the fighting was
over, Greek settlers continued to emigrate to Asia.
The colonies brought Greeks and Greek culture to the
far corners of the Asian world.
In spite of the colonies, there were far too few
Macedonians to be able to administer the empire directly. Alexander realized that he would need the cooperation of the conquered peoples and therefore
adopted the Persian model of showing respect for native customs. He copied the Persian method of administration by dividing his empire up into satrapies, and
he integrated native peoples into his government.
Furthermore, Alexander developed a vision for unifying the Greek and Persian peoples. He already had recruited 30,000 Bactrians into his army and trained
them in Macedonian fighting styles. He also adopted
Persian dress and customs and attempted to introduce the Persians to the Macedonians by having 5,000
Macedonians marry 5,000 Persian women. He himself
took a second wife, Statira, the daughter of Darius.
Many conservative Macedonians objected to
Alexanders adoption of so many Persian customs,
and when Alexander suggested he would like his
subjects to prostrate themselves before him, in the
Persian manner, the Macedonians simply refused.
But they could not resist the effects of their exposure
to eastern culture. Most chose to remain in the east,
and those who did return home brought eastern culture and customs with them. In one way or another,
therefore, many Greeks were assimilating the ancient
culture of the Near Eastern world.
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Plutarch and Arrian Describe Alexanders
Mass Marriages
One of Alexanders goals was to integrate the Macedonian and Persian populations.
Given past incompatibilities between Greeks and Persians, this would not have been
an easy task. He decided that intermarriage would be a good way for the two
peoples to get to know each other. He himself married two eastern women, and in
324 B.C.E. he supported the marriages of 5,000 Greek men to 5,000 Persian women.
The following accounts are from two Greek historians who wrote in the second
century C.E., during the Roman Empire. Plutarch, in his Life of Alexander, describes
the events associated with Alexanders marriage to Roxanne in 327 B.C.E. Arrian of
Nicomedia, in Campaigns of Alexander, reports Alexanders marriage to the daughter of the Persian king Darius III in early 324 B.C.E., after he had returned from India.
Plutarch
Now, also, he more and more accommodated himself in his way of living to
that of the natives, wisely considering that it would be wiser to depend on the
good-will which might arise from intermixture and association as a means of maintaining tranquility, than on force and compulsion. As for his marriage with Roxanne, whose youthfulness and beauty had charmed him at a drinking
entertainment, where he first happened to see her taking part in a dance, it was,
indeed a love affair, yet it seemed at the same time to be conducive to the object
he had in hand. For it gratified the conquered people to see him choose a wife
from among themselves, and it made them feel the most lively affection for him,
to find that in the only passion that he was overcome he yet restrained himself
until he could obtain her in a lawful and honorable way.
Arrian of Nicomedia
Then Alexander also celebrated weddings in Persia, both his own and those
of his Companions. He himself married Statira, the eldest of Darius daughters. He
had already married previously Roxanne, the daughter of Oxyartes of Bactria. He
gave Drypetis to Hephaestion, she too a daughter of Dariushis intention was
that the children of Hephaestion should be cousins to his own children. . . . To
Ptolemy the bodyguard and to Eumenes the royal secretary he gave the daughters
of Artabazus, Artacama to one and Artonis to the other. To Nearchus he gave the
daughter of Barsine and Mentor, and to Seleucus he gave Apame, the daughter of
Spitamenes of Bactria.
Similarly he gave to the other Companions the noblest daughters of the
Persians and Medes, some 80 in all. The marriages were celebrated according to
Persian custom. Chairs were placed for the bridegrooms, and the brides came in
and sat down, each by the side of her groom. They took them by the hand and
kissed them. The king began the ceremony, for all the weddings took place
together. More than any action of Alexander this seemed to show a popular and
comradely spirit. After receiving their brides, the bridegrooms led them away, and
to all Alexander gave a dowry. And as for all the Macedonians who had already
married Asian women, Alexander ordered a list of their names to be drawn up;
they numbered over 10,000, and Alexander offered them gifts for the wedding.
Source: Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library from Arrian:
Volume II, Loeb Classical Library Volume 269, translated by P. A Brunt on the basis of E. Iliff Robsons edition,
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Copyright 1929, 1976 by the President and Fellows of Harvard
College. The Loeb Classical Library is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
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inflation Process by which the cost of goods and services increases and the value of money declines.
market economy Economy in which goods and services are exchanged between buyers and sellers.
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Hellenistic Cities
Hellenistic civilization, like the civilization of the Archaic and Classical Ages, was built around cities that
served as commercial centers. But Hellenistic cities
outside Greece proper were different in that almost
all were ruled by kings and no longer were centers of
independent political life. They also were the places
where Greeks settled, preserved their learning and
culture, and retained their identity. Hellenistic monarchs were also great supporters of scholarly studies,
and some major Hellenistic cities became famous
centers of learning.
The Seleucids, for example, realized that their Greek
population was far too small to disperse throughout
the countryside, so they continued Alexanders policy of establishing colonies that could be centers of
Seleucid rule. Greek colonies could be found across
the length and breadth of the vast Seleucid territories.
The most important Seleucid city was the great city of
Antioch in Syria, named after the Seleucid king Antiochus I. It became the core of the Seleucid kingdom,
with a reputation as a center for literature and the
arts. By the first century b.c.e., it had a population of
five hundred thousand.
The Hellenistic colonies left a curious legacy in the
easternmost part of the Seleucid kingdom. After 250
b.c.e., the Greek cities of Bactria were cut off from the
rest of the Greek world by the Parthians and forgotten
by the western Greeks. Against all the odds, however,
they maintained their Greek way of life as best as they
could, although they also enlisted native help and
incorporated native customs much more extensively
than any other Greeks. For example, their coins carried lettering in both the Greek and Indian languages.
And when the Bactrian king Menander invaded India, not only was he supported by the local Buddhists
but, according to legend, he even became a Buddhist
himself. He was later considered one of the four great
Buddhist rulers of India. The last Greek rulers in India finally succumbed to invaders from central Asia
about 50 b.c.e. The Greek kings of Bactria and India
are known primarily through their coins and the archaeological remains of their cities.
In Egypt, the greater number of Greek settlers allowed the Ptolemies to continue the ancient Egyptian
custom of having farmers live in villages rather than
in cities. The exception was the capital city of the
Ptolemaic kingdom, Alexandria, founded by Alexander in 332 b.c.e. on the Mediterranean coast at the
mouth of the Nile and the only Macedonian colony in
Egypt. The harbor entrance to the city was marked by
a gigantic 384-foot-tall lighthouse that became one of
the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Its mirror
Museum (from Greek for home of the Muses) University established in Alexandria by the Ptolemies.
parchment (based on Greek pergamene, from Pergamum) Writing material made from cured and
stretched animal skins.
Rhodes (from Greek rhodos, rose) Island city-state
located off the southwestern coast of Anatolia.
Voyages of Exploration
Greek expansion during the Hellenistic period
brought the Greeks into direct contact with a multitude of foreign cultures, stimulating a great interest
in geographical exploration. A popular genre of
travel literature known as the periplus described the
strange places and peoples that travelers encountered in the course of their journeys. These literary
works were often of a practical nature, having been
commissioned by rulers interested in the nature of
the territories to which they had laid claim or authored by merchants seeking the best places to trade
and the safest routes for getting there. In contrast to
earlier geographical accounts, which had been based
on myth and legend, these were based on firsthand
observations. Much of the impetus for these works
came from the campaigns of Alexander the Great, especially his travels in India.
In 325 b.c.e., Alexanders admiral, Nearchus, was
ordered to survey the coast between India and Persia.
He did so in great detail, and after his return, around
310 b.c.e., he wrote a book about India. He told of
trees so large that one of them could shade ten thousand people and he discussed the habits of elephants,
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102
We were struck with terror and our fortune-tellers advised us leave the island. Farther along, he reported
encountering an island full of savages. They had
hairy bodies and the interpreters called them gorillas. If this account is true, Hanno must have gone as
far as the Congo River. According to one account,
Hanno eventually turned back because of a lack of
supplies, but another version has him sailing around
Africa and eventually arriving in Arabia.
Finally, a Greek sailor from Marseilles named Pytheas described a voyage he made up the Atlantic coast
of Europe around 300 b.c.e. looking for a sea route to
sources of tin and amber. He traveled to Britain,
which he called Albion, and then continued even farther north to a place called Thule, six days sail north
of Britain, which has been identified as the Shetland
Islands or even Iceland, places previously unknown
to the Greeks. Pytheas noted that on June 21, the sun
never set, suggesting that he even reached the Arctic
Circle. He described sailing conditions in which there
was no distinction between the earth, air, and sea,
perhaps a reference to a very thick fog. He also was
the first Greek to report on the tides and to connect
them with the motion of the moon.
Hellenistic Culture
and Science
koine
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104
change. Every change, he believed, occurs for a reason, by means of some material cause and for some
purpose. There was little room for gods in Aristotles
universe. He acknowledged that some kind of divinity had originally set the universe in motion, but it
then became self-perpetuating. He created a method
for understanding the world based on observation,
logic, and common sense that could also be replicatedthat is, proved by someone elsethus making Aristotles model very different from the methods
of earlier philosophers. Aristotle laid down many of
the rules for what later would be known as the scientific method, in which evidence is collected, studied,
classified, and analyzed, with conclusions based on
the evidence, not on who can make the best argument. His approach was adopted by other Hellenistic
scientists, whose experiments, observations, and conclusions in fields such as mathematics, medicine,
physics, and astronomy were not superseded until
the seventeenth century or later.
Hellenistic Science
Alexander the Great himself was a believer in scientific investigation, and his armies included a staff of
scientists who observed and recorded discoveries in
fields ranging from geography to botany. The works
of his botanist Theophrastus, for example, served as
the foundation for modern botany. Alexandria was
especially famous as a center of science and mathematics, and the most influential of the Alexandrian
scientists was the mathematician Euclid, who wrote a
textbook on plane geometry around 300 b.c.e. that is
said to be, after the Bible, the most influential book
ever published. Euclids textbook presented five axioms that were obviously true, such as that only one
line parallel to another line can be drawn through a
given point, and then combined them to prove more
complex propositions, called theorems, which then
could be used to prove other theorems. Modern
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Hellenistic Technology
During antiquity, technology generally evolved
slowly, and antiquity is not generally thought of as a
great age of invention. The Hellenistic Age, however,
stimulated by the intellectual interaction of eastern
and western thought, was a period of great technological advancement. Machines were invented both
for practical purposes and as curiosities; some prefigured modern technological developments. The first
great Hellenistic inventor, Ctesibius of Alexandria,
was the son of a barber. His first invention was a
counterweighted mirror that could be adjusted to the
height of a customers head. His realization that air
was a substance that could be manipulated led to the
invention of a number of devices based on the use of
water pressure and compressed air. He created a water clock in which a system of valves turned the supply of water on and off, a high-pressure pump used to
shoot streams of water at fires, and an organ that used
water pressure to create airflow through sets of
pipesthe first keyboard instrument.
Hero of Alexandria, nicknamed the machine
man, likewise devised machines based on air and water pressure. He invented the first steam engine, which
transformed steam into circular motion by means of
jets placed on the sides of a hollow sphere. The same
principle is used in the modern jet engine. Instead of
being put to practical use, Heros engine was used
only as a toy, to make puppets dance. Other curiosities
invented by Hero included automatic door openers for
temples. More practical were his hydraulic devices to
force the oil out of olives. He also invented an odometer, a system of gears connected to a wheel that could
be used to measure distances. During the Roman Empire, Heros odometer was used to place the mile
markers on the famous Roman road system.
The most famous Hellenistic inventor was Archimedes, a native of Syracuse in Sicily, who had been
a pupil of Aristarchus at Alexandria. Around 225
b.c.e., Archimedes invented the field of mathematical
physics. According to one story, Archimedes was
once sitting in a bath when he observed that his body
had displaced its own volume of water. On this basis,
he was able to calculate specific gravity of any object,
the ratio of the objects weight to the weight of the
same volume of water. He also invented the Archimedes screw, a device for boosting water out of rivers
and canals for irrigation.
Hellenistic inventions also could be used for warfare, as happened in 212 b.c.e., when Syracuse was
attacked by the Romans. According to Plutarch,
Archimedes used his engineering knowledge to attack the Roman navy: huge poles thrust out from the
The octagonal Tower of the Four Winds in Athens was designed by the Hellenistic scientist Andronicus of Cyrrhus
around 150 b.c.e. to be used on the outside as a sundial and
weathervane and on the inside as a waterclock. The name
comes from the depictions of the eight winds carved on the
eight sides: Boreas, for example, represented the north wind.
(Ancient Art & Architecture Collection)
Identity in a
Cosmopolitan Society
For many Greeks, the Hellenistic period created a crisis of identity. The city-states that had been major
participants in world politics had been superseded
by Hellenistic kingdoms and no longer provided the
same focal points for loyalty and personal identity.
The importance of Greece itself had declined to the
point that even being a Greek no longer created the
same sense of self-satisfaction as before. Both Greeks
and non-Greeks felt adrift in the new Hellenistic multicultural world. To hold on to their old identity or
find a new sense of identity, many people turned to
philosophy and religion.
An Age of Anxiety
During the Hellenistic period, there was no opportunity for a Greek polis to play an important role in
world politics. This was a time of kings and king-
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though there were several general similarities. Initiates were sworn to secrecy, but enough information
slipped out to give a general picture of the rites. The
ceremony often began with a purification ritual that
made the initiate fit to come into contact with the deity. The initiate then sat through, or participated in,
an elaborate performance that explained the cycle of
life and death.
To be initiated into most mystery cults, all one had
to do was attend the ceremony, although some cults
had more demanding initiations than others. The
Eleusinian mysteries at Athens honored the grain
goddess Demeter. In Greek mythology, Demeters
daughter Persephone had been carried off to the underworld by the god Hades but was allowed to return to earth six months of the year. The initiation
began with a ritual purification in which initiates carried a piglet into the sea. Then the piglet was sacrificed, and the initiates were baptized by being
sprinkled with its blood. They then took part in a
torchlight procession to holy places in the Athenian
countryside that appeared in the myth of Demeter
and Persephone, thus sharing in the goddesses experiences. The climax of the ceremony occurred in the
Hall of Initiation, where a religious drama depicting
the return of Persephone from the underworld was
presented. Sacred objects, such as ancient wooden
statues of the goddesses and wheat stalks, also were
displayed. The poet Pindar wrote about these mysteries, Blessed are those who have seen these things for
they understand the end of mortal life and the beginning of a new life given by god.
Initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries took place
only in Athens, but initiation into most other cults
could occur anywhere. During the Hellenistic period,
the ancient Egyptian cult of Isis, whose brother Osiris
had been brought back from the dead after being torn
to pieces, was revived. This cult was similar to the
Eleusinian mysteries, but it also made greater demands. Initiates were expected to purify themselves
by living in the temple with the priests and attending
worship services, even if only for a day. Participants
then viewed sacred books and were baptized in wamystery cult (based on Greek mysterion, secret)
Form of worship modeled on the experiences of a god
and promising a happy afterlife through secret initiation rituals.
salvation Process by which people believed they were
saved from the suffering and troubles of this world
and gained eternal life; also known as redemption.
Eleusinian mysteries Mystery cult at Athens that
honored the grain goddess Demeter.
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110
Hellenistic Judaism
At the same time that mystery cults and new philosophies were emerging, a very significant religion of
antiquity was once again facing challenges from outside. Under Persian rule, the Jews of Judaea, as the
Jewish homeland was now called, had been permitted,
and even encouraged, to pursue their worship with
little or no interference from the government. When
Judaea was absorbed into the empire of Alexander,
the Jews continued to enjoy the same religious freedom. Following the disintegration of Alexanders
empire, Judaea lay in the disputed border area between the Ptolemaic and Seleucid kingdoms and thus
was often drawn into a long series of border wars.
Eventually the Seleucids prevailed, and the Seleucid
kings initially maintained the Jews freedom to worship as they saw fit.
The situation changed with the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who, desiring to unify his still
vast and very disparate kingdom, sought to implant
Greek culture in Judaea much more actively than had
his predecessors. Many Jews, mostly from among the
well-to-do, already had become Hellenized by learn-
111
Summary
Review Questions
How did Alexander and his successors attempt to
maintain control of the Macedonian conquests?
What made the Hellenistic period different from
preceding periods of Greek history?
How did Hellenistic people try to find a sense of
personal identity?
At the beginning of the Hellenistic period the conflicts between the Greeks and the Persians came to an
end. Led by Alexander the Great, Macedonian Greek
armies repeatedly defeated the Persians, resulting in
the creation of an empire that extended from the
Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. Before his death in
323 b.c.e., Alexander attempted to unify his empire
by planting colonies of Greeks throughout the empire
and by respecting the customs of conquered peoples.
After Alexanders death, however, his empire disintegrated into three large pieces, ruled by the families
of three of his powerful generals: the Antigonids,
Ptolemies, and Seleucids. The Macedonian rulers of
Egypt and western Asia were remarkably successful
in creating a composite society that continued to respect the customs of their very culturally and ethnically diverse populations. Cities such as Alexandria
and Antioch served not only as royal capitals but also
as centers of learning. Smaller powers, based in the
cities of Pergamum and Rhodes, also became centers
of learning and economic wealth.
The conquests of Alexander had unforeseen cultural consequences for the Greeks, who were forced
to reckon with the non-Greek world. Greeks no
longer could hold the view that they were the best
people in the world and that all non-Greeks were bar-
Septuagint (based on Latin for seventy) Greek translation of Jewish scripture by seventy translators.
barians. Geographers brought accounts of the cultures of peoples living as far away as India, central
Africa, and Britain. Foreign influences affected every
aspect of Greek art and thought, creating a composite
Hellenistic culture that extended from India across
the Mediterranean. Never at any time in history has
the western world, broadly defined, been so culturally united.
The study of science and technology emerged
during the Hellenistic period. Most large cities were
centers of some branch of learning. In Athens, the
philosopher Aristotle introduced scientific classification. At the Museum of Alexandria, mathematicians
created standard concepts of geometry, astronomers
and geographers mapped both the heavens and the
earth, physicians studied human anatomy, and inventors experimented with the uses of water and
steam pressure.
The Hellenistic world also brought a sense of personal crisis to many Greeks, who felt lost now that the
polis was no longer the focus of their lives. Many
Greeks even lost the feeling of being Greek. Foreign
languages and culture were everywhere. In an effort
to discover a sense of identity and find their place in
the world, many people turned to mystery religions,
which promised an afterlife and to philosophies that
provided guidelines for life. And in Judaea, the Jews
strengthened their hold on their own identity by establishing their political independence for the first
time in more than 400 years.
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Websites
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
Antiquity was a time of massive construction as rulers attempted to immortalize themselves, their nations,
and their people with pyramids, temples, fortifications, palaces, and tombs. All the peoples of antiquity,
from Mesopotamians to Egyptians to Persians to Greeks, placed great importance on architecture. But
whereas the Near Eastern peoples such as the Egyptians are remembered for quantity, as represented in the
size of their monuments, the Greeks are remembered for quality. Most Greek temples were in fact quite
small but were so exquisitely designed that they have never been surpassed.
During the Hellenistic period, the competitive Greeks compiled a list of the seven most famous construction
projects of antiquity. The Egyptians were represented by the pyramids, the Babylonians by their hanging
gardens, and the Lydians by the temple of Artemis at Ephesus in Ionia. The remaining four entries were
Greek. The classical period of Greek art was represented by the statue of Zeus at Olympia, the site of the
Olympics (curiously, the Parthenon did not make the list). The Hellenistic period had three representatives:
the mausoleum built ca. 350 B.C.E. at Halicarnassus in Ionia by King Mausoleus for his wife, Artemisia; the
lighthouse built at Alexandria ca. 290 B.C.E.; and the giant statue of the sun god Helios built at the entrance
to the harbor on the island of Rhodes circa 280 B.C.E. Of these wonders, only the pyramids survive.
Ever since antiquity, other rulers and other peoples have likewise attempted to make a lasting mark on history by constructing huge monumentsduring the Roman Empire, amphitheaters; in the Middle Ages,
cathedrals; today, massive museums, churches, libraries, and government buildings. And ever since antiquity,
Greek styles of architecture have been used for monumental buildings. The architectural and artistic styles of
Greek temples, with their rectangular format and rows of Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian columns and sculptural
decoration, are as common today as in antiquity. Modern buildings often use the form of a Greek temple or
other ancient model to create a sense of majesty, and even private homeowners wishing to create an air of
elegance and permanence will put a row of Greek columns outside, or even inside, their homes.
Suggested Readings
Green, Peter. Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of
the Hellenistic Age. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1990. A historical survey of the Hellenistic period from 336 to 30 b.c.e.
Hammond, Nicholas G. L. Alexander the Great: King, Commander, and Statesman. Bristol, England: University of Bristol
Press, 1989. An excellent biography of Alexander by a leading
classical historian.
Rihll, Tracy E. Greek Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999. An overview of Greek science with excellent coverage of
Hellenistic scientific thought.
Roisman, Joseph. Alexander the Great: Ancient and Modern
Perspectives. Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1995. A survey of
Websites
Resource site with links to more than 200 other sites relating to
the Hellenistic world, The Hellenistic World on the Web, at
www.isidore-of-seville.com/hellenistic
Well-illustrated site detailing the life and achievements of
Alexander the Great, Alexander the Great, at http://
1stmuse.com/frames/index.html
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CHAPTER
The Rise of Rome,
75327 B.C.E.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Spartacus Decides to Revolt
Introduction
The Development of Roman Identity,
753509 B.C.E.
A City on Seven Hills
What It Meant to Be Roman
Early Roman Religion
Roman Family Life
Summary
Suggested Readings
Websites
1500 B.C.E.
1000 B.C.E.
500 B.C.E.
509 B.C.E.
Roman Republic
is established
753 B.C.E.
Rome is founded
by Romulus and Remus
800
750
700
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
650
600
550
500
450
400
Roman territory
ca. 500 B.C.E.
added by 264 B.C.E.
ATLANTIC
Alesia
52 B.C.E.
OCEAN
Rh
ne
Eb
P S
D n ie
p er
BO
NORICUM
PANNONIA
Trebia River
218 B.C.E.
Arretium
Lake Trasimene
Corsica 217 B.C.E. ITALY
at
O
SP
NG
DO
ga
Caspian
Sea
CAUCASUS M
TS.
Black Sea
MOESIA
ARMENIA
THRACE
ic
Se
Byzantium
Cannae
a
216 B.C.E.
MACEDONIA Philippi
Ti g
CAPPADOCIA
PHRYGIA
ris
Pydna
Capua
GALATIA
Sardinia
Tarentum Brundisium
168 B.C.E.
Cynoscephalae Pergamum A N A T O L I A
EPIRUS
Carrhae
197 B.C.E.
ASIA
53 B.C.E.
Tarsus
Drepana
Actium
PA R T H I A
Ephesus
Pharsalus
48 B.C.E.
Eu
A
31 B.C.E.
I
PAMPHYLIA
M e 249 B.C.E.
ph
IC
Athens
L
I
Antioch
rat
C
Corinth
di
Messina
Ctesiphon
e
SICILY
s
LYCIA
ACHAEA
te
Syracuse
Seleucia
rr
Carthage
SYRIA
Rhodes
a
n Malta
Zama
ea
Cyprus
Damascus
202 B.C.E.
n
NUMIDIA
NIA
AFR
Crete
IC
Se
PR
JUDAEA
Jerusalem
Cyrene
NORTH AFRICA
NS
UL
AR
Petra
Alexandria
CYRENAICA
A R A B I A N
SINAI
IS
EGYPT
Ni
le
S A H A R A
0
0
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
200
200
300
250
200
2000 C.E.
44 B.C.E.
Caesar is
assassinated
108 B.C.E.
Marius creates
the volunteer army
150
Red
Sea
400 Mi.
1500 C.E.
202 B.C.E.
Romans
defeat the
Carthaginians at
Battle of Zama
390 B.C.E.
Rome is sacked
by Gauls
D E S E R T
400 Km.
218 B.C.E.
Hannibal invades Italy
350
RA
KI
Vo l
DACIA
Danu
be
ILLYRICUM
Balearic Is.
New Carthage
ETA
D on
dr
NEARER
SPAIN
M AUR
Marseilles
Major battle
tu l a
Rome
Saguntum
Cadiz
V is
Narbonne
CISALPINE
GAUL Po
NARBONESE GAUL
ro
Numantia
FARTHER
SPAIN
Cordba
added by 44 B.C.E.
RAETIA
GAUL
Lyons
Baltic
Sea
GERMANY
BELGICA
100
30 B.C.E.
Cleopatra, last of
the Ptolemies,
commits suicide
27 B.C.E.
Roman Republic ends,
Roman Empire begins
50
115
116
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Spartacus Decides to Revolt
Spartacus
During the Roman Republic,
most Roman slaves had no
right to make meaningful
decisions about their lives
and could do nothing about
their condition, no matter
how badly they were treated.
But Spartacus, a Thracian
slave, chose to revolt and, by
so doing, gave hope to the
other slaves in Italy. Spartacus example has intrigued
people for centuries, and his
story has been told in art and
literature. This nineteenthcentury engraving shows
Spartacus and his fellow
slaves being overwhelmed
by Roman soldiers at the
end of their revolt.
(Bettmann/Corbis)
By doing so, he demonstrated that he would not tolerate failure. Crassus finally
cornered Spartacus in southern Italy, and Spartacus had no choice but to fight the
large, well-trained Roman army. In the ensuing battle, Spartacus and many of his
followers were surrounded and slaughtered. Rebels who tried to escape were
killed or captured, and six thousand captives were crucified along the road leading
south from Rome. The great slave revolt was over, but if the example of Spartacus
taught Italian slaves the futility of revolt, it also taught the Romans something,
too. To prevent future slave revolts, they improved the conditions in which slaves
were forced to live.
Introduction
sequences for Roman life. Some of the foreign customs and concepts that the Romans assimilated, especially from the Greeks, conflicted with traditional
Roman values. During the first century b.c.e., the
government of the Roman Republic collapsed as a
result of its unwillingness or inability to deal with
problems such as poorly administered foreign territories, armies that could no longer be controlled, and
senators who put personal ambitions ahead of the
best interests of Rome.
At the time of its founding, Rome was a small agricultural village. Romans had a strong sense of duty that
subordinated individuals to the greater goods of family, nation, and religion. They adopted what they believed were the best elements of foreign cultures and
even accepted foreign peoples into their midst while
at the same time preserving their own unique identity. The Romans social and religious values gave
them a strong sense of being able to work together
and to overcome adversity.
117
118
Chronology
1184 B.C.E.
186 B.C.E.
133122 B.C.E.
753 B.C.E.
90 B.C.E.
88 B.C.E.
500287 B.C.E.
7371 B.C.E.
451450 B.C.E.
63 B.C.E.
60 B.C.E.
44 B.C.E.
43 B.C.E.
31 B.C.E.
27 B.C.E.
390 B.C.E.
343290 B.C.E.
264146 B.C.E.
227 B.C.E.
216 B.C.E.
212 B.C.E.
Denarius is introduced
202 B.C.E.
According to legend, Romulus city was first populated by Latin men who needed wives. They therefore kidnapped women from the Sabines, a nearby
Italian people who spoke a slightly different dialect.
Romulus established a monarchy and became the
first of seven kings of Rome. Later Romans believed
that these kings had established many of Romes
most ancient traditions and customs, such as that the
kings had two powers: the imperium, which gave
Latins Peoples living in Latium in central Italy, distinguished from the neighboring Italian peoples by their
dialect; they gave their name to the Latin language.
Romulus and Remus Twin brothers, the legendary
founders of Rome in 753 b.c.e.
imperium Power of Roman kings and consuls to govern Rome and command armies.
Terra cotta urns in the shape of the huts in which people lived
were used for burying the ashes of the dead in early Rome.
These urns can be used in conjunction with surviving postholes that held the support posts of early Roman huts on the
Palatine Hill to reconstruct the homes of the early Romans.
(Scala/Art Resource, NY)
them the authority to lead armies, and the auspicium, the right to consult the gods.
These foundation legends played an important
role in defining Roman identity. They exemplified the
Roman willingness to integrate newcomers into their
society. They also connected Rome to Greek antiquity
and to Greek gods and revealed that the Romans
wanted to be part of the broader, civilized Mediterranean world and to show the Greeks that they, too,
had a distinguished history and were not barbarians.
Even though the legends are based on a core of
truth, they also include many elaborations. Archaeological excavations offer more concrete information
about the early history of Rome and demonstrate that
the first settlement of the hills of Rome did in fact take
place around 750 b.c.e. The presence of two populations is attested by the use of two different burial
techniques, cremation, in which bodies were burned,
and inhumation, in which bodies were buried without being burned. At first, Rome was just a small
farming village of straw huts perched on some of the
hills. The southern part of Italy was inhabited by
Greeks in the coastal areas and Italian peoples in the
uplands. Just north of Rome lived the Etruscans, a
people who may have emigrated from the coastal region of Anatolia about 800 b.c.e. In several ways the
Etruscans were like the Greeks. They were not unified, and they lived in twelve independent cities
ruled by warrior aristocracies. They had a highly developed economy based on trade and manufacturing,
and they were especially expert at metalworking.
Much Etruscan trade was with the Greeks; in fact,
some of the best-preserved Greek pottery comes from
graves in Etruria. The Etruscans used an alphabet
adapted from Greek to write a language that is still
undeciphered.
Around 600 b.c.e., the Etruscans began expanding
south and occupied Rome. The site attracted them because it was strategically positioned at the best crossing of the lower Tiber River, providing a means of
good communications between northern and southern Italy. The Etruscans brought urbanization and
civilization to Rome. They drained the swampy land
between the hills and constructed the first paved
roads, the first stone buildings, and the Forum, or
central meeting place. They introduced new occupations, such as trading and pottery manufacturing,
and made Rome a commercial center. Their religious
practices and version of the Greek alphabet also were
adapted by the Romans. Under Etruscan influence,
Rome developed from a village into a city.
The Etruscans also provided the last three kings of
Rome. Patriotic legends told how the wicked son of
the autocratic Etruscan king Tarquin the Proud raped
the virtuous Roman matron Lucretia, who then committed suicide for having disgraced her family. An
uprising of enraged native Roman aristocrats expelled
Tarquin in 509 b.c.e., and the Romans resolved never
again to have a king. To do so, in the same year they
created the Roman Republic.
Republic (in Latin, the public thing) System of government introduced by the Romans after the expulsion
of kings in 509 b.c.e., based on collegiate rule and rule
by law.
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Latium
15 Km.
ETRUSCANS
Lake
Sabatinus
15 Mi.
Tib
e
Veii
An
AEQUI
Ar
Tibur
Rome
T ib
Gabii
LATIUM
M
er
T
Tusculum
Lake
Albanus
Praeneste
e
HERNICI
Mt. Albanus
M
An
Anagnia
Tre
ru
s
O
Ost
Ostia
Lake
Nemorensis
Lavinium
Cora
Ty
rr
A
Ardea
Norba
he
ni
an
Satricum
V O L S C I
Privernum
Se
a
Ravenna
Antium
m
A
Ligurian
Sea
Volater
Po
Populonia
ia
ti
c
Elba
ea
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Tarquinii
Caere
Co
Co
le
of N
Bay
ap
Pom
T
Gulf of
Tarentum
Tyrrhenian Sea
Cape
Bon
Messina
s na
a
Med
ite
rr
an
ea
n
Early Romans
M
Malta
0
Etruscans of Etruria
Expansion of Etruscans
to 450 B.C.E.
Latins
50
Gauls
Expansion of Celts/Gauls
to 200 B.C.E.
Greeks
100 Km.
Carthaginians
0
50
100 Mi.
MAP 5.1
Early Italy, ca. 760500 B.C.E. When Rome was founded ca. 750 B.C.E., Italy was occupied by
three groups of peoples: Greeks on the southern coast, Etruscans in the northwest, and Italian peoples in
the uplands. By 400 B.C.E., the Po Valley in northern Italy had been occupied by Celts (also known as Gauls)
from Gaul. All these peoples influenced the development of Roman culture.
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122
Etruscan fears about the afterlife are reflected in this scene from an Etruscan tomb of ca. 300 b.c.e. depicting the
execution of Trojan captives during the Trojan War to placate the ghosts of the dead. The underworld demons
Charu (Greek Charon), who will hit the deceased with his hammer, and his winged female companion Vanth
wait to escort the dead man to the underworld (From Massimo Pallottino, The Great Centuries of Painting:
Etruscan Painting [Milan: Skira Editore]. Courtesy, Princely House of Torlonia, Rome)
ing the crops. Religious rituals were marked by compulsive attention to detail. The slightest deviation
from a ritual, such as a sneeze or whisper, would neutralize its effectiveness. The greatest personal sacrifice that an individual Roman could make was the
ritual called devotion. When a Roman battle was going badly, a Roman commander sometimes devoted
himself to the gods and then committed suicide by
charging into the enemy ranks. His men then regained confidence in the belief that the gods would
fulfill their part of the bargain by granting victory.
As a consequence of their contacts with the Etruscans and Greeks, the Romans also began to worship
anthropomorphic gods and goddesses in permanent
stone temples. Thus, Jupiter, along with being the
formless numen of lightning and thunder, also could
be visualized as a bearded man throwing a lightning
bolt. In the course of creating Rome as a city, the Etruscans built several temples in the area of the Forum.
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offspring, whereas children of married Roman citizens also were citizens. Marriage was a private matter between two consenting persons who agreed to
treat a relationship as a marriage. No legal or religious ceremonies were required, although a wedding feast often was held as a means of publicizing
the union, and the parents of girls usually provided a
dowry. In a type of marriage common at the beginning of the Republic, called purchase, a father fictitiously sold his daughter to her husband, who then
assumed authority over her. But as time went on, another type of marriage, called usage, became more
popular. The wife remained under her fathers authority as long as she spent three nights away from
her husbands house each year. In this kind of marriage, a woman came under her own authority when
her father died, although even then she needed a cooperative male guardian to carry out any business,
such as buying property or making a will, on her behalf. Either party in a marriage could obtain a divorce
simply by declaring I divorce you three times before a witness. It was only in the matter of the disposition of property that fault was considered. For
example, if a divorce occurred by mutual consent or if
a husband declared a divorce without cause, the husband was required to return the entire dowrya consideration that inhibited men from seeking divorce.
But if the wife was guilty of adultery, the husband
could keep one-sixth of the dowry. Any children went
to the father, and a divorced mother had no right
even to see them again.
Children in early Rome were educated mainly in
the home by mothers and fathers, who shared the responsibility equally. Boys were instructed in law and
history and engaged in physical training that would
prepare them for military life. Girls learned household economy and were taught to perform the most
virtuous feminine activity of all: spinning wool to
make the familys clothing. Mothers instilled Roman
virtues, such as reverence for the gods and respect for
authority. Fathers took their sons along on their daily
round of business activities and public life. In senatorial families, mothers and fathers both were responsible for forwarding the careers of their sons and for
securing good marriages for their daughters.
Roman women were expected to be modest, obedient, and loyal. The primary duty of a married woman
was to bear children. Poor women in particular were
expected to have as many children as possibleoften
ten or moreto ensure that at least some of them,
given the high infant mortality rate, survived to maturity. Many women died in childbirth. A Roman
gravestone, for example, tells of a woman named Veturia, who was married at eleven, bore six children
(only one lived), and died at twenty-seven. Womens
duties also included supervising any household slaves
and overseeing domestic activities such as cooking,
clothing production, and child care. Plebeian women
who were not fully occupied at home could help support themselves and their families by working in a
senatorial household; in the clothing industry; in service positions, such as hairdressers, masseuses, midwives, maids, and wet nurses; or as entertainers, such
as dancers and prostitutes. In several regards, Roman
women had greater liberties and responsibilities than
their Greek counterparts. Roman women regularly
appeared outside the home, with or without their
husbands, engaging in such activities as visiting the
How was the collective will of the Roman people expressed in Roman government?
Why were the Romans initially reluctant to create
an empire?
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Table 5.1
Officials of the Roman Republic (by 146 B.C.E.)
Title
Number
Duties
Term
Consul
Praetor
Aedile
Quaestor
Tribune
2
6
4
6
10
1 year
1 year
1 year
1 year
1 year
1
2
varies
varies
6 months maximum
18 months
13 years
Will of the governor
Nonannual Officials
Dictator
Censor
Proconsul
Legate
life. But the assemblies did not have the right to introduce laws. Instead, they could vote only on measures
presented to them by the consuls, and the consuls
were expected to have consulted with the Senate before they introduced any laws. The Senate thus was
the primary governing body of Rome, and the patricians controlled the government because all three
hundred or so members of the Senate were patricians
and could instruct their plebeian clients how to vote
in the assemblies. The patricians controlled the elections in the same way, and given that new senators
were appointed by the censors, there was no chance
that a plebeian would be chosen. In addition, only the
patricians knew the laws, which were passed down
by word of mouth from one generation to the next. At
the beginning of the Republic, therefore, the patricians held virtually all the political, legal, social, and
economic authority.
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Polybius Describes the Roman Constitution
During the 130s B.C.E., the Greek historian Polybius, a Roman hostage who became
a good friend of Scipio Aemilianus and other leading Roman senators, described
the constitution of the Roman Republic as an evenly balanced combination of
monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. He equated the consuls with monarchy, the
Senate with aristocracy, and the Roman people with democracy. By explaining
Roman government in terms of various forms of Greek government, Polybius
demonstrated both that Greeks were trying to understand Rome in terms of their
own experiences and that Romans wanted their own traditions to be understood
in terms of the more ancient Greek past.
Three kinds of government shared in the control of the Roman state with such
fairness that it was impossible even for a native to pronounce with certainty
whether the system was aristocratic, democratic, or monarchical. For if one
fixed ones eyes on the consuls, the constitution seemed completely monarchical; if
on that of the Senate, it seemed again to be aristocratic; and when one looked at
the power of the masses, it seemed clearly to be a democracy. The parts of the
state falling under the control of each element are as follows.
The consuls, before leading out their legions, exercise authority in Rome over
all public affairs. Besides this, they consult the Senate on matters of urgency, they
carry out in detail the provisions of its decrees. It is their duty to summon assemblies, to introduce legislation, and to preside over the enforcement of the
popular decrees. As for warfare, their power is almost uncontrolled, for they are
empowered to make whatever demands they choose. They also have the right of
inflicting punishment on anyone under their command, and they are authorized
to spend any sum from the public funds. So that if one looks at this part of the
administration alone, one may reasonably pronounce the constitution to be a
pure monarchy.
To pass to the Senate. It has the control of the treasury, all revenue and expenditure being regulated by it. In addition, crimes committed in Italy, such as treason, conspiracy, poisoning, and assassination, are under the jurisdiction of the
Senate. It also occupies itself with the sending of all embassies to countries outside
of Italy for the purpose either of settling differences, or of offering friendly advice, or indeed of imposing demands, or receiving submission, or of declaring
war; and in like manner with respect to embassies arriving in Rome it decides answer should be given to them. All these matters are in the hands of the Senate, so
that without the consuls the constitution appears to be entirely aristocratic.
After this we might ask what part in the constitution is left for the people,
considering that the Senate controls all the particular matters I mentioned, and
that the consuls have uncontrolled authority as regards armaments and military
operations. But nevertheless there is a very important part left for the people. The
people alone have the right to confer honors and inflict punishment. They are
the only court that may try capital charges. The people bestow office on the deserving, the noblest reward of virtue in a state. The people have the power of approving or rejecting laws, and they deliberate on the question of war and peace.
Further, in the case of alliances, terms of peace, and treaties, it is the people who
ratify all these or the reverse. Thus, here again one might plausibly say that the
peoples share in the government is the greatest, and that the constitution is a
democratic one.
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Going to War
The early years of the Republic were a struggle for
survival as the Romans fought off Etruscan attempts
to recapture the city and competed with neighboring
Latins and Italians for control of the rich agricultural
plain of Latium. The combined army of patricians and
plebeians was able to defend Rome until 390 b.c.e.,
when a raiding party of Gauls from northern Italy
attacked. The Gauls, more generally known as the
rule of law The idea that the law has higher authority
than governments and officials.
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130
Spain. Chosen consul for the year 205 b.c.e., Scipio began training an army to invade Africa, which he did
the next year. He convinced many Numidians to
change sides, thus gaining some excellent cavalry. Scipio defeated the Carthaginians, who then recalled
Hannibal from Italy. The final confrontation came in
202 b.c.e. at the Battle of Zama, where the Roman cavalry was able to slip behind the Carthaginian army
and attack from the rear. Hannibal was defeated, and
Scipio received the nickname Africanus (the conqueror of Africa) in recognition of his victory. The
next year, Carthage surrendered. The Romans did not
take over any territory in Africa, but they did compel
Carthage to give up Spain (which was made into two
new Roman provinces), destroy its navy, and pay an
indemnity of 20,000 talents. Scipio generously permitted Hannibal to live, but Carthage never again
would be a strong military power.
The Romans looked back to the Second Punic War as
their defining moment. They had never considered surrendering. All of Rome pulled together: Roman women
donated their jewelry to the war effort, and contractors
provided war supplies on credit. The war also demonstrated the strength of Romes Italian alliance, for
nearly all Romes allies had stayed loyal. Rome now
was the only power in the western Mediterranean.
The war also left Rome completely exhausted.
Tens of thousands of soldiers had been killed, Italian
property losses were staggering, and the Roman government was deep in debt. Nevertheless, Rome immediately was drawn into conflicts with two of the three
great Hellenistic kingdoms to the east: Antigonid
Macedonia, Seleucid Syria, and Ptolemaic Egypt. In
200 b.c.e., the Romans declared war on Macedonia because the Macedonians had made an alliance with
Hannibal. Three years later, they soundly defeated
the Macedonians and compelled them to pay a war
indemnity, give up their navy, and evacuate their
Punic Wars (from the Latin Poenus, Phoenician)
Series of three wars (264241, 218201, and 149
146 b.c.e.) that Rome fought against Carthage in
North Africa.
indemnity Monetary penalty imposed by the Romans
on a defeated enemy.
Hannibal (ca. 247183 b.c.e.) Carthaginian general
who invaded Italy in 218 b.c.e., beginning the Second
Punic War.
Numidia Region of western North Africa famous for
horsemanship.
Scipio Africanus (ca. 236183 b.c.e.) Roman general
who defeated Hannibal at the Battle of Zama in
202 b.c.e.
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132
The growth of Roman power had many consequences for Roman life. To cope with the acquisition
of far-flung provinces, the Romans had to restructure
Cato the Elder (ca. 234149 b.c.e.) Conservative Roman senator who represented old Roman values and
opposed the assimilation of Greek culture.
Scipio Aemilianus (185129 b.c.e.) Roman senator
who defeated Carthage and favored the assimilation of
Greek culture.
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134
Not all Romans, however, thought that the acceptance of Greek culture was a good thing. Some conservative senators, such as Cato the Elder, feared that
old Roman values would be destroyed by what he
perceived as Greek luxury, extravagance, and immorality. He advised his son, Take this as a prophecy:
when those Greeks give us their writings, they will
corrupt everything. As censor, Cato expelled from
the Senate any senator who did not meet his moral
standards. When Greek Epicurean philosophers, who
Romans thought advocated a life of self-indulgence,
visited Rome, Cato saw to it that they were deported.
And in a personal protest against Greek literature,
Cato wrote his own history of Rome in Latin. Later
Roman authors followed his example, and by the end
of the second century b.c.e., Latin had become an established literary language in its own right. The Romans even developed their own literary genre, satire,
which used parody, obscenity, and abuse to project a
critical but humorous view of society, morality, and
personal behavior.
Romans concerns about their values also surfaced
with regard to foreign religious practices, which
Rome also assimilated. At the end of the third century
b.c.e., for example, the worship of the eastern mother
goddess Cybele was introduced into Rome. The uninhibited practices associated with these religions caused
anxiety in some conservative senators. In 186 b.c.e., a
Roman consul received a report that worshipers of
the wine god Bacchus were holding secret orgies. The
Senate not only saw such behavior as a threat to conventional morality but also feared that the covert
gatherings might lead to conspiracies against the
government. According to the Roman historian Livy,
many Romans were sentenced to death, with women
being turned over to their families so they could inflict the punishment in private. In spite of Roman
resistance, however, Greek culture continued to infiltrate Rome.
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136
as they could. In provinces with the tithe, tax collectors known as publicans had a reputation for seizing
large quantities of crops and calling it a tenth. Even if
a governor protested against this practice, as many
did, he did not have the workforce to prevent it.
At best, the Roman attitude toward the provinces
could be called benign neglect. The Romans did not
intend to exploit the provinces, and they did not
make much money from them. Any corruption that
arose benefited individual governors or profiteers,
not the Roman government. The government simply
did not have any centralized procedures for policing
the provinces. One of the primary failures of the Republic was that it was unable to integrate the provinces,
and their inhabitants, into the mainstream of Roman
government and society.
her jewelry and asked to see Cornelias jewelry, Cornelia called in her two sons and said, These are my
jewels. It came as a great surprise to many when
these two distinguished senators attempted to reform
the Roman landholding system
As a tribune of the plebs in 133 b.c.e., Tiberius
Gracchus introduced legislation to distribute public
land to poor plebeians in order to make them prosperous enough for military service. His proposal met
great resistance from senators who had been renting
public land and saw it as their personal property. Suspecting that the Senate would not pass his legislation,
Tiberius took it directly to the Council of the Plebs,
where it was passed and put into effect without first
being discussed by the Senate. His ignoring of traditional procedures threatened the authority of conservative senators, who organized an armed mob that
confronted Tiberius in the Forum. In the ensuing riot,
Tiberius and several hundreds of his supporters were
killed. Tiberiuss younger brother Gaius then was
elected as tribune in 123 b.c.e. and proposed additional reforms, including a law to confiscate land
from senators and give it to poor plebeians. A year
later, conservative senators organized another mob,
and Gaius committed suicide rather than be captured
alive. Over a thousand of his supporters reportedly
were killed.
The deaths of the Gracchi and their supporters
marked not only the first appearance of serious violence in republican politics but also the breakdown of
the carefully cultivated cooperation among senators
that had made the Republic work. Increasingly, senators looked out for their own self-interest as they
competed to gain political influence and high office.
Instead of working with the Senate, many ambitious
senators now took their legislation directly to the assemblies, appealing to the urban poor by offering
jobs, entertainment, subsidized food, free land, and
reduced army service.
113 b.c.e. The first crisis came when two large groups
of northern European Celts, the Cimbri and Teutones, arrived in southern Gaul looking for land and
defeated one Roman army after another. At the same
time, Rome went to war against the Numidian chieftain Jugurtha, whose army had massacred some Italian merchants, but Roman armies had little success
against Jugurthas hit-and-run tactics. In addition,
there was a massive slave revolt in Sicily in 104 b.c.e.
It was simply impossible to recruit enough soldiers to
handle these emergencies.
The recruitment problem was solved by Marius, a
member of a previously undistinguished equestrian
family. After gaining a military reputation in Spain,
Marius pursued a political career. As a newcomer, he
had a difficult time and lost several elections, but he
persevered. He also married Julia, a member of the
distinguished Julius Caesar family. In 108 b.c.e., Marius was elected consul and thus became a new man.
He was appointed to take command in Africa, and to
raise an army he enlisted men who had no property
at all. Other generals soon did the same, thereby
creating a volunteer army of professional soldiers
whose livelihood was based on their military service.
Soldiers no longer fought to protect their homes, but
for pay and any other kinds of personal profit. When
the Senate refused to pay for these new armies or to
reward the soldiers with land grants after the war
was over, these responsibilities were left to the generals. The armies, therefore, began to feel more loyalty
toward their generals than toward the state. Using this
new army, Marius soon was able to defeat Jugurtha,
the Cimbri and Teutones, and the Sicilian slaves. By
101 b.c.e., the military threats to Rome had been
averted, and the military recruitment crisis was over.
But Rome was now left with an even more serious
problemarmies whose loyalty to the state was dependent on the goodwill of the senatorial generals
who commanded them.
Military recruitment policies also created another
problem for the Republic. Over time, Romes Italian
allies had provided an ever greater percentage of
Romes armies, increasing from half in the third century b.c.e. to two-thirds by the early first century
b.c.e. The allies believed they were bearing more of
the burden for Romes wars but sharing less in the
benefits. These concerns grew into Italian demands to
be granted Roman citizenship. The Senate repeatedly
refused, resulting in a massive revolt of the Italian allies in 90 b.c.e. The Romans could not hope to win
such a war and once again showed that they could
change if they had to. Citizenship was quickly
granted to the Italians, and the fighting soon stopped.
Nearly all of the free people living in Italy thus be-
Sullas Example
Following the Italian revolt, the Roman Republic confronted three overwhelming problems: ineffective
administration of the provinces, lack of control over
the volunteer army, and ambitious senators who put
their personal interests ahead of the best interests of
Rome. Dissatisfaction with provincial administration
was especially widespread in prosperous provinces
such as Sicily and Asia in Anatolia, where there was
more opportunity for corruption. In 88 b.c.e., resentment of tax collection methods boiled over into open
revolt in the province of Asia, providing an opening
for Mithridates, the ambitious king of Pontus on the
southeastern coast of the Black Sea, to invade the Roman province. Eighty thousand Romans were said to
have been murdered on a single day, and a Roman
general was executed by having molten gold poured
down his throat while being told, And now let the
Roman thirst for gold be satisfied.
Cimbri and Teutones Celtic peoples who attacked
Roman territory beginning in 113 b.c.e.; finally defeated by Marius in 101 b.c.e.
Marius (15786 b.c.e.) Roman general who created the
volunteer army ca.108 b.c.e.
volunteer army Professional Roman army comprised
of men without any property.
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The Triumvirates
Crassus, Pompey, and Caesar all had been disrespected by the Senate. In 60 b.c.e., therefore, they
formed an unofficial alliance known as the First Triumvirate, whereby they agreed to use their influence
on one anothers behalf. As consul, Caesar saw to it
that Pompeys legislation was passed and that land
was given to his soldiers. Caesar himself was reassigned two provinces in Gaul, giving him an opening
for military adventures to the north. And Crassus,
who desired to refurbish his own military standing,
eventually was granted a military command against
the Parthians in the east. The triumvirs thus controlled affairs in Rome by cooperating and avoiding
competition with one another. Conservative senators
were troubled by this arrangement but could do
nothing about it.
In 58 b.c.e., Caesar took his army to Gaul, where he
remained for nine years. One of the best generals of
antiquity, Caesar played off one Celtic people against
another and ultimately defeated them all. His reports
of his campaigns, the Gallic Wars, are one of the best
historical works of antiquity. By 50 b.c.e., Caesar had
annexed all of Gaul up to the Rhine River, gained
triumvirate A group of three men; the First Triumvirate (Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey) was formed in 60
b.c.e., and the Second Triumvirate (Antony, Lepidus,
and Octavian) in 43 b.c.e.
Lepidus (d. 13 b.c.e.) One of Caesars generals and a
member of the Second Triumvirate.
Mark Antony (ca. 8030 b.c.e.) One of Caesars generals and a member of the Second Triumvirate; defeated
by Octavian, committed suicide in 30 b.c.e.
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The life and death of Cleopatra, the last queen and pharaoh of Egypt, fascinated the people of the Roman
world, and she often appeared in artwork. This fresco from the Via Latina catacombs in Rome shows Cleopatra
committing suicide as she holds a poisonous asp to her breast. Thus, even Christians were fascinated by the
career of Cleopatra. (Photo Held Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library)
Summary
Summary
Review Questions
What kinds of beliefs and practices identified a person as being Roman?
How did Rome grow from a small village to be the
strongest power in the Mediterranean?
What were some of the reasons for the failure of the
Republic?
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ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
From Appian Way to Interstate Highway
The marvels of Roman engineering are most spectacularly evident in Romes roads and bridges. In the past,
Mediterranean peoples had used the sea for transportation and communication. But the Romans realized
that to concentrate military resources quickly, it also was necessary to have a road system. The first military
road was the Appian Way, begun in 312 B.C.E., which connected Rome to southern Italy. Eventually a network of roads radiating from Rome reached northern Italy, Gaul, Spain, and the rest of the Roman world.
Roman roads were well-drained, with foundations of crushed stone several feet deep topped with cutstone pavements. They were built largely by Roman soldiers.
More than twenty centuries later, the United States also discovered a need for a military road system. In
1956, construction of a National Defense Highway System was authorized by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to provide for the speedy concentration of military resources and the rapid evacuation of cities in
case of nuclear attack. Plans called for the creation of some forty-two thousand miles of high-speed, multilane, limited-access highways, which were seen as much less vulnerable to bombing than railroads. The
final link in the original systemthe largest government public works project ever undertakenwas completed in 1993. Construction continues on additional stretches of the interstate highway system, which has
been called one of the Seven Wonders of the United States.
As in ancient Rome, the road networks built by the U.S. government for military purposes came to be used
primarily for personal and commercial purposes. Both networks led not only to increased economic development but also to expanded cultural interactions among the different sections of vast territories. But there
is one big difference between the two systems. Roman roads and bridges have stood the test of time. During World War II, for example, General George Pattons tanks used several Roman bridges in Italy. The spectacular Rome bridge at Alcantara, Spain, continues to be used today, as does the aqueduct at Nmes in
France. But U.S. interstate highways are in a constant state of disrepair, resulting not only in travel delays
but also in a proliferation of unanticipated repair expenditures.
Suggested Readings
Boatwright, Mary T., Daniel J. Gargola, and Richard J. A. Talbert. The Romans: From Village to Empire. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004. The rise of Rome, with particular attention given to Romes early history.
Bradley, Keith. Slavery and Society at Rome. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1994. A thorough discussion of slavery in the Roman world, including the significance
of the revolt of Spartacus.
Websites
Websites
Vast collection of images and primary and secondary sources
related to Roman history, LacusCurtius, at http://
penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/home.html
Participatory website with extensive information on Roman
history, life, and geography, The Roman World, at http://
vlib.iue.it/history/europe/ancient_rome/index.html
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CHAPTER
The Roman Empire,
27 B.C.E.284 C.E.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Boudicca Chooses to Revolt
Against Rome
Introduction
Summary
Websites
1500 B.C.E.
Suggested Readings
1000 B.C.E.
500 B.C.E.
14 C.E.
Death of Augustus
Roman Peace begins
27 B.C.E.
Roman Empire
begins
40
20
60
Revolt of
Boudicca
20
40
79
Eruption of Mount Vesuvius
destroys Pompeii
96
Antonine
Dynasty
begins
69
Flavian
Dynasty
begins
ca. 33
Jesus is
crucified
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
60
80
100
120
Hadrian's Wall
122 C.E.
North
Sea
York
Baltic
Sea
Parthian Empire
BRITAIN
St. Albans
LUGDUNENSIS
R Strasbourg
UPPER
GERMANY
GAUL
AQUITANIA
Lyons
Bordeaux
Rh
ne A
NARBONENSIS
Eb
ro
Nmes
LP
RAETIA
Milan
PANNONIA D
anu
at
ITALY
Tarragona
Rome
Ostia
Se
Cordba
Pompeii
SARDINIA
BALEARIC IS.
ARMENIA
MACEDONIA
BIT
AFR
NUMIDIA
rr
IC
A
PR
O
LYCIA
ACHAEA
RI
160
200
es
Ctesiphon
SYRIA
Seleucia
Damascus
Jerusalem
Cyrene
Petra
A R A B I A N
ARABIA
EGYPT
BAHRIYA
OASIS
1000 C.E.
180
rat
Palmyra
CYRENAICA
LA
ph
JUDAEA
200
Ni
le
D E S E R T
Red
Sea
400 Km.
200
140
Antioch
Alexandria
SU
Eu
CRETE
193
Severan
Dynasty
begins
(115117 C.E.)
Tarsus
CYPRUS
S A H A R A
500 C.E.
I
CIL
A
CI
RHODES
Leptis
NORTH AFRICA
Ephesus
Athens
e a Malta
n
Se
PAMPHYLIA
PARTHIA
MESOPOTAMIA
is
Carthage
Syracuse
ASSYRIA
(116 117 C.E.)
gr
Ti
MAU
RET
ANIA
(114117 C.E.)
CAPPADOCIA
ASIA
Corinth
SICILY
IA
D PONTUS
Pergamum A N A T O L I A
Actium
31 B.C.E.
te
AN
GALATIA
EPIRUS
di
HY
Salonica
Brundisium
BAETICA
Me
Caspian
Sea
MOESIA
THRACE
Byzantium
Mt. Vesuvius
Mrida
Black Sea
DALMATIA
ic
AN
DO
ga
CAUCASUS M
TS.
Belgrade
i
CORSICA
OR
NG
be
CISALPINE
GAUL
Po
dr
TARRACONENSIS
P
OS
KI
Vo l
Budapest
DACIA
NORICUM
Marseilles Arretium
SPAIN
LUSITANIA
Vienna
Narbonne
D n ie
p er
hi
Alesia
52 B.C.E.
D on
ne
BELGICA
Paris
tu l a
Teutoberg Forest
Bonn 9 C.E.
Mainz
Cologne
OCEAN
V is
GERMANIA
LOWER (49 C.E.)
GERMANY
London
ATLANTIC
Major battle
Elb
e
Colchester
400 Mi.
1500 C.E.
212
Caracallas
citizenship grant
220
2000 C.E.
284
Imperial
crisis ends
235
Imperial
crisis begins
240
260
280
300
145
146
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Boudicca Chooses to Revolt
Against Rome
Boudicca
Some of the strongest resistance to Roman expansion
came from the Celts. In
Britain, Celtic resistance was
led by Boudicca, queen of
the Iceni. In 1905, this
bronze sculpture showing
Boudicca and her two
daughters was erected in
London to symbolize all
British resistance against
invaders. (Courtesy, Gary
Houston)
The lusts of the Romans have grown to the point that they respect the bodies of no one; they leave untouched neither old age nor undefiled virginity.
Now, the gods of avenging justice are at hand. One legion that dared to
fight us already has been destroyed; the others have fled or are hiding in
their camps. We must conquer in the line of battle or fall. That is the fate of
this woman; let men live on as slaves if they wish.
The wild Celtic charge then was met by the disciplined Romans, who were
drawn up on a hillside with forests protecting their flanks and rear. The Britons
were thrown back, became entangled in their own wagons, and then were slaughtered. It was said that 80,000 Celts were killed, but only 400 Romans.
Boudicca, like Cleopatra before her, committed suicide to avoid the disgrace
of being paraded in a triumph in Rome. After this last attempt at independence,
the British Celts accommodated themselves to Roman rule. In modern times,
Boudicca, also known as Boadicea, became the symbol of British resistance to
any foreign invader.
Introduction
The most important development during the Roman Empire was the rise of Christianity, a religion that
grew out of Judaism and spread from Palestine
throughout the Roman world. Ease of travel during
the Roman Peace facilitated the spread of new religious ideas, and Christianity filled spiritual and social
needs that other religions failed to address. It developed a large following, especially in urban areas and
among underprivileged people. But some of its beliefs
and practices brought it into conflict with the Roman
government, leading to occasional persecutions.
By the third century, however, new problems, including economic decline and an unruly military,
confronted the empire, problems that the methods introduced by Augustus could no longer effectively
solve. The result was a period of imperial crisis that
nearly destroyed the empire.
147
148
Chronology
31 B.C.E.
30 B.C.E.
27 B.C.E.
6996
79
96192
27 B.C.E.68 C.E.
9 C.E.
14
14192
203
212
227
235
250
Death of Augustus
ca. 33
193235
270
60
284
64
149
150
garrison army Professional army stationed permanently in the same place that does little fighting.
Table 6.1
The Roman Coinage System
Metal
Denomination
Gold
aureus (aurei)
Silver
denarius (denarii)
Copper
Copper
sestertius (sesterces)
as (asses)
Value
25 denarii =
100 sesterces =
400 asses
4 sesterces =
16 asses
4 asses
151
152
153
154
successors, but only when an emperor had the foresight to put his successor in place before he died. If he
failed to do so, a crisis could arise if the Senate and
different armies around the empire disagreed over
who the next emperor should be.
Augustus died in 14 c.e. at the age of seventyeight. He was immediately deified by the Senate, and
Tiberius smoothly succeeded him as emperor. It now
had been more than seventy years since the Republic
had actually worked. Few remembered it as anything
but ancient history, and everyone expected that Rome
henceforth would be ruled by emperors. The succeeding Roman emperors are organized into families
known as dynasties (shown in Table 6.2); Augustus
was the first emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty
(27 b.c.e.68 c.e.).
Several important political developments occurred during the principate, including the increasing influence of the army, the declining importance of
the Senate, and the growing power of the emperor.
The emperors were well aware that their power was
based on the army, and newly appointed emperors
felt compelled to give the soldiers a gold offering
known as a donative to ensure their loyalty. When an
emperor died without naming a successor, the power
of the army became even clearer. Even though the
Senate had the legal authority to grant the powers
that made an emperor, it rarely acted quickly. Thus, it
was almost always the army that took the lead in
finding a new emperor. In 37 c.e., Tiberius died without having named his successor. The Praetorian
Guard in Rome immediately hailed Tiberiuss nephew
Caligula (r. 3741 c.e.) as the next emperor, and the
Senate had no choice but to agree. In 41 c.e., the army
acted even more directly by assassinating Caligula
and naming his uncle Claudius (r. 4154 c.e.) as emperor. Once more, the Senate had to concur. A more
serious crisis occurred in 68 c.e., when Nero, the last
Julio-Claudian emperor, died without naming a successor. There were no family members left to succeed
him, and when armies around the empire sponsored
their own candidates, civil war broke out. The winner
was Vespasian (r. 6979 c.e.), a general who was in
Table 6.2
Dynasties of Emperors
Julio-Claudian Dynasty (27 B.C.E.68 C.E.)
155
156
god Jupiter. Domitian (r. 8196 c.e.) liked being addressed as lord and god. And Commodus (r. 180
192 c.e.) portrayed himself on coinage as the Greek
hero Hercules and fought as a gladiator. Emperors
who exhibited such extreme behavior ran the risk of
being assassinated, as in fact happened to the three
just mentioned.
Urban Life
Urbanism provided another unifying factor, for life
during the principate was centered on cities. The
countryside, of course, remained important, for farming was the backbone of the Roman economy. But
cities were the focus of cultural, social, religious, and
economic development. Of all the cities in the empire,
Rome was easily the most important and provided a
model for urban life elsewhere. Rome now was home
to 1 million inhabitants who had come from places
both within and outside the empire. In the streets,
one would encounter Greeks, Celts, Egyptians, and
Syrians as well as red-haired and blue-eyed Germans,
black Africans, and dark-skinned Arabs and Indians.
Commercial goods flowed in from throughout the
world, as did foreign languages, cultures, and religious practices. About the year 100 c.e., the Roman
satirist Juvenal wrote, The Syrian river Orontes now
flows into the Tiber, bringing its language and customs. Rome had become a melting pot of peoples
and cultures.
Rome was the showcase of the Roman world as
emperors continued to adorn the city. Vespasians Forum of Peace portrayed Vespasian, like Augustus, as
one who had brought peace after a period of civil
war. Vespasian and his sons sponsored the construction of the Flavian Amphitheater, commonly known
as the Colosseum, one of the most enduring Roman
monuments. Trajan built baths, a forum, and a market used for the distribution of subsidized food.
Hadrian constructed the circular Pantheon, a temple
of all the gods, and a new mausoleum for himself
and his successors. Caracalla built a huge public bath
complex that is still used for opera performances.
Many emperors contributed to the upkeep of roads,
bridges, aqueducts that brought in fresh water from
up to forty miles away, and a sewer system that
flushed Romes waste into the Tiber River. The most
destitute residents of Rome could expect the emperor
to provide basic foodstuffs, such as bread and olive
oil, and perhaps even some occasional cheese and
wine. On special occasions, such as an imperial birthday, the emperors even distributed money.
Outside Rome, city life also formed the basis for
the enjoyment and extension of Roman culture. Many
western European cities, such as Lyons in Gaul, had
been created out of nothing to meet the needs of the
Roman administration, and they now served as focal
points for the dissemination of Roman civilization. So
did colonies of Roman citizens that had been established early in the empire, such as Merida in Spain,
and the restored cities of Carthage in North Africa
and Corinth in Greece. Even on the frontiers, army
garrison posts gave rise to cities such as Bonn, Mainz,
Strasbourg, Vienna, Budapest, and Belgrade. By the
second century, Alexandria in Egypt, Antioch in Syria,
and Carthage in North Africa had populations of
over a quarter of a million. Members of city councils,
the decurions, patterned themselves on the Senate of
Rome and manifested their civic pride by competing
with one another to endow their cities with the same
amenities as Rome, including theaters, amphitheaters, temples, town halls, and libraries. Aqueducts
delivered fresh water, which was made available at
streetcorner fountains. Public latrines were equipped
with constantly flushing toilets. And elaborate public
157
158
the seacoast and were rescued by Roman naval vessels. Others took refuge underground, where they
were asphyxiated by the poisonous gases. Still others
died in collapsing buildings or in the streets. The entire city was buried under thick layers of rock, mud,
and ash. Over ten thousand inhabitants were killed.
The city was not rediscovered until the eighteenth
century, and excavations of the site are still going on.
The city preserves the tiniest details of everyday
life. Like most Roman cities, Pompeii had a forum, a
theater, an aqueduct, public baths, a senate house, a
temple of the imperial cult, and even its own small
amphitheater for putting on gladiatorial contests. The
poor lived in large apartment buildings, the rich in
villas built around a central garden. The streets were
laid out on a grid plan, at right angles to each other.
Steppingstones allowed inhabitants to avoid the animal droppings and other refuse that littered the streets;
sewers under the streets carried away the waste when
it rained. Streetcorner lunch counters served soup,
vegetables, and beverages. Vendors sold round loaves
of bread. Street musicians entertained passersby. A
mosaic at the front entrance to one house depicts a
dog and the warning, Beware the Dog. Graffiti
carved into the walls preserve the actual words of inhabitants, such as Restitutus was here with his
brother, Marcus loves Spendusa, or Money has
no odor. Like no other Roman remains, Pompeii
brings the Romans back to life.
Economic Activity
Even though cities have the greatest visibility in the
literary and archaeological source material, they could
not exist without the produce of the countryside. The
Roman economy remained primarily rural, and most
of the population lived in rural areas. Ninety percent
of the governments tax income came from the tax on
agricultural land. Some farmland was owned by small
farmers, but most was consolidated into the large latifundia of senators. Initially, latifundia had been farmed
primarily by a combination of slave and day labor,
but by the second century c.e., there was an increasing use of tenant farmers known as coloni, who paid
a portion of their crop to the landowner and kept the
rest for themselves. Many senators were absentee
landlords and left the administration of their estates
to privileged slaves. The largest landowner of all
was the emperor, whose estates grew ever larger as
a result of purchases, bequests, and confiscations.
These, too, often were overseen by high-ranking imperial slaves.
Manufacturing and trade expanded dramatically
during the Roman Peace, as an empirewide free mar-
159
160
North Sea
Lead
Chester
BRITAIN
Wool Grain
London
Tin Lead Cloth
ATLANTIC
Amber
be
Don
Cologne
GERMANY
Rh
Pottery
Stone
Iron
SPAIN
AL
Rh n e
Eb
Lyons
Glass
Pottery
Wine
Olives
ro
Narbonne
Marble
Cadiz
Grain
Danub DACIA
Grain
Marseilles
Ostia
Split
Dioscurias
Rome
ITALY
Dyrrhachium
SARDINIA
Fish
Byzantium
SICILY
Timber
Copper
MAURETANIA
Carthage
Olives
Slaves
Grain
NUMIDIA
Grain
Syracuse
ed
it
er
Carpets
Corinth
Pottery
ACHAEA
Myra
Copper
CRETE
ran
Salt
ean
CYPRUS
Sea
NORTH AFRICA
Ivory
Incense
Exotic animals Leptis
Olives
from Africa
Cyrene
400 Km.
200
NORTH AFRICA
400 Mi.
S A H A R A
a te
Ctesiphon
Seleucia
Damascus
Olives
Glass
Cloth
Caesarea
Alexandria
A R A B I A N
Aelana
Memphis
Glass
Grain
Cloth EGYPT
Papyrus
Gold and Ivory
from Africa
Nile
200
Sidon
Eup
hr
JUDAEA
Silphium
LIBYA
0
Antioch
Wine
SYRIA
Timber
is
gr
Ti
Caesarea
Melitene
Horses
Marble
ASIA
Wine
Ephesus
Olives
Marble
Fish
CAPPADOCIA
Wool
MACEDONIA
ARMENIA
Grain
Salonica
Pozzuoli
Wine
Routes to China
and India
Trebizond
Amisus
Timber
THRACE
Fish
Horses
Silk
SM
TS Spices
Iron . Gems
Perfumes
Slaves
Sinope
MOESIA
Silver
CAUCA
SU
Panticapeum
Fish CRIMEA
Black Sea
DALMATIA
Pottery
Ancona
Olives
Wool
Silver
New
Carthage
Potaissa
Gold
Sea
Salt
Olbia
Copper
Aquileia
Po
Grain
Olives
Metals
Wool
Luna
CORSICA
Tarragona
PS
Caspian
Grain
Horses
Horses
Dnie
per
Wine
Grain
Betanzos
Lead
Gold
Vol
ga
Hides
in e
Cloth
Grain
GAUL
la
stu
Vi
BELGIUM
OCEAN
El
Slaves
Baltic
Sea
JUTLAND
D E S E R T
Routes to southern Arabia,
Sea
MAP 6.1
Trade Routes of the Roman Empire In exchange for trade goods such as textiles, glass, pottery, wine, and silver coinage, the Romans
imported products from as far away as the Baltic, India, and Africa. Roman economic influence thus extended far beyond the frontiers of the empire
and resulted in extensive cultural exchange with foreign peoples.
of Mediterranean influence. The most numerous barbarians were on the northern frontier, for in the south
was the sparsely populated Sahara desert and to the
east were the Parthians, who were just as civilized as
the Romans. The northern barbarians, mostly Celtic
and Germanic peoples, were settled farmers and had
been living in contact with the Romans for centuries,
so they were not uncivilized savages. Roman and
barbarian traders and travelers exchanged not only
trade goods but also elements of culture, and barbarians could not help picking up Roman culture, including the Latin language. A third-century historian
remarked, The barbarians were adapting themselves
to the Roman world. They did not find it difficult to
change their lives, and they were becoming different
without realizing it. Romes influence extended even
to modern Poland, where an iron-working industry
fluctuated according to economic and political conditions within the empire. Hoards of Roman coins found
hundreds of miles beyond the frontiers also demonstrate Romes economic reach.
Roman trade routes extended to the Far East, India,
and even China. Roman gold, silver, fabrics, glassware,
and wine were exchanged for eastern silks, spices,
gems, and perfumes. The emperor Trajan dredged out
a canal between the Nile River and the Red Sea, and
every year a fleet of over a hundred trading ships
set out from Egypt to the east. The journey from Italy
to India took about sixteen weeks. An Indian poet of
the second century wrote, Drink the cool and fragrant wine brought by the Greeks in their vessels. In
166 c.e., traders claiming to be the representatives of
the emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 161180) visited the
Chinese court. One consequence of all this foreign
commerce was a huge trade deficit of some 550 million
sesterces per yearenough to pay the annual salaries
of the entire Roman army three times over. So many
silver denarii flowed out of the empire that the denarius became the standard coinage used in India.
The principate was a period of great religious development and change, caused, in part, by the expanded
contact among peoples of different religious beliefs
under a unified government. Eastern religious practices, including mystery cults, philosophical beliefs,
and Judaism, spread throughout the Mediterranean
161
162
healed the sick. He was believed to have overpowered a vampire and to have expelled a demon that
was bringing the plague. It even was said that he
could be in two places at the same time. Some supposedly divine men, however, were opportunists who
took advantage of peoples gullibility. The satirist Lucian made fun of swindlers who deal in magic; they
will guide your love life, defeat your enemies, find
you treasure, or get you an inheritance. Lucian also
suggested, These scoundrels are completely unprincipled. They understand that human life is ruled by
fear and hope, and that anyone who can control these
two things will become rich.
By the third century, as a result of religious syncretism, the many different polytheistic gods were
seen as being part of a single universal deity. Many
believed that the sun, worshiped as Jupiter, Apollo,
or the Unconquered Sun, represented a single, primary
god. The emperor Aurelian (r. 270275 c.e.) even attempted to make the Unconquered Sun into the main
god of the Roman Empire, and December 25, when
the sun began to rise higher in the sky, was declared
to be his birthday.
Roman emperors often erected triumphal arches meant to commemorate their achievements. An arch built by
the emperor Titus shows scenes of the Roman sack of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 c.e. Here, Roman
soldiers carry off Jewish sacred items including the seven-branched Menorah that was used at Hanukkah to
celebrate the liberation from the Seleucids by the Maccabees. (Scala/Art Resource, NY)
did benefit, for the Jewish interest in commerce depicted in this passage reflects the unparalleled opportunities to pursue business activities that were open
to Jews in cities throughout the Roman world and beyond that had Jewish communities.
(or epistles) written by followers of Jesus. From a historical perspective, the evidence of the New Testament is considered to be very reliable.
Jesus of Nazareth was born at the end of the reign
of the Jewish king Herod, a time when many Jews
were expecting the arrival of the Messiah, a word
163
164
A sixth-century manuscript from Rossano in Italy shows Jesus on trial before Pontius Pilate. On Pilates left,
Jews cry out for the condemnation of Jesus. Pilate disclaims responsibility for his order that Jesus be crucified
by washing his hands. (Scala/Art Resource, NY)
translated into Greek as Christos, or Christ. According to Christian scripture, Jesuss mother, Mary, had
been told by the angel Gabriel that even though she
was a virgin, she would conceive by the Holy Spirit
and give birth to the Son of God. Mary thus already
was pregnant when she married Joseph, a distant descendant of King David and a carpenter in the town
of Nazareth. Christian tradition placed the birth of
Jesus on December 25 in a stable in the town of Bethlehem. Jesuss humble origins also were indicated by
his early life as a carpenter.
When he was about thirty years old, Jesus was
baptized in the Jordan River by his cousin John the
Baptist, a Jewish holy man whom some Jews had already identified as the Messiah. The book of Luke
said of Jesus, The Holy Spirit descended on him as a
disciples, Judas, to identify him, and on that night Jesus was arrested and questioned by the Sanhedrin.
Witnesses testified that Jesus had blasphemed against
God, a capital crime under Jewish law. But only the
Roman governor had the authority to impose the
death penalty, so on Friday Jesus was brought before
Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect, or governor, of Judaea, who sentenced Jesus to death. Because Jesus
was not a Roman citizen, he was subjected to the humiliating punishment of crucifixion. He died that
evening and was buried in the tomb of one of his followers. Two days later, on Sunday, the Gospels report
that Jesus rose from the dead. In the book of Matthew,
Jesus appeared to his disciples and commanded
them, Go and make disciples of all nations, thus
making it clear that his message was to be delivered
not just to Jews but to all the people in the world.
Forty days after his resurrection, his followers believed, Jesus rose to heaven.
165
166
167
168
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Vibia Perpetua Records the Events Leading to
Her Martyrdom
Vibia Perpetua was a young Christian woman of Carthage in North Africa. In 202
C.E. she was arrested, convicted of being a Christian, and sentenced to fight wild
animals in the arena. Her first-person account of the events leading up to her
martyrdom on March 7, 203 C.E.including her trial before the Roman procurator
and several visions she had during the course of her imprisonmentis preserved in
The Passion of Sts. Perpetua and Felicitas, from which the following selection is
taken. The following day Perpetua was sent into the arena to die. When a mad
cow failed to kill her, she guided the executioners sword to her throat with her
own hand. Her account then provided a model for later Christians for how to live
their lives.
Another day we were suddenly snatched away to be tried; and we came to the
forum and a very great multitude gathered together. We went up to the tribunal.
The others being asked if they were Christians, confessed. So they came to me.
And my father appeared there also, with my son, and tried to draw me from the
step, saying, Perform the sacrifice; have mercy on the child. And Hilarian the
procurator said: Spare your fathers gray hairs; spare the infancy of the boy. Make
sacrifice for the emperors prosperity. And I answered, I am a Christian. Then
Hilarian passed sentence on us all and condemned us to the beasts; and cheerfully
we went down to the dungeon. The day before we fought, I saw in a vision
that Pomponius the deacon had come to the door of the prison and knocked hard
on it. And I opened to him, and he said to me: Perpetua, we await you; come.
And he took my hand, and we went through rugged and winding places. At last
he led me into the arena. And he said to me: Be not afraid. And he went away.
And I saw many people watching closely. And because I knew that I was condemned to the beasts I marveled that beasts were not sent out against me. And
there came out against me a repulsive Egyptian, to fight with me. Also there came
to me comely young men as my helpers. And I was stripped naked, and I became a man. And my helpers rubbed me with oil as their custom is for a contest.
And there came forth a man of very great stature, wearing a purple robe and
holding a green branch on which were golden apples. And he besought silence
and said: If this woman shall conquer the Egyptian, she shall receive this branch.
And he went away. And we came close to each other. The Egyptian tried to trip up
my feet, but with my heels I smote his face. And I rose up into the air and began
so to smite him. And I caught his head, and he fell on his face; and I trod on his
head. And I went up to the master of gladiators and received the branch. And he
kissed me and said to me: Daughter, peace be with you. And I began to go
with glory to the gate called the Gate of Life. And I awoke; and I understood that I
should fight, not with beasts but against the devil; but I knew that mine was the
victory. Thus far I have written this, till the day before the games; but as for the
deed of the games themselves let him write who will.
Source: Excerpt from Vibia Perpetua Records the Events Leading to Her Martyrdom, W. H. Shewring,
trans., The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity (London: Sheed & Ward, 1931). Reproduced by kind permission
of Continuum International Publishing Group.
By the third century c.e., the principate was not functioning as well as it had in the past. New political and
economic problems arose that the approach of Augustus could not solve. The supposed partnership of
the emperors with the Senate fell apart as the emperors exercised more and more direct authority. At the
same time, the army became more difficult to control,
and the coinage lost much of its value. The inability
of emperors to deal with these problems resulted in a
period of civil wars and invasions that nearly destroyed the empire.
As of the late second century c.e., there were growing enclaves of Christians in cities throughout the
Roman world. Christianity had shown remarkable
staying power, not only enduring, but even being
strengthened by periods of persecution. Christian
intellectuals known as apologists, some of them
converted polytheists, made an intellectual case for
Christianity to the larger polytheist population. They
argued that Christian teachings were compatible with
the teachings of polytheistic philosophers such as
Plato and that Christians were responsible subjects of
the emperor. In addition, Christianity was gradually
becoming part of the mainstream of Roman religion.
For example, many people thought the Christians
were sun worshipers because they met on the day of
the Sun and their god had the same birthday as the
sun. Even some Christians had a special reverence for
the sun. But there still was no feeling among the general public that Christianity would ever be anything
more than just one more eastern mystery religion.
169
170
in another drain on the treasury. In some cases, emperors appointed caretakers to oversee a citys finances,
thus increasing the size of the imperial bureaucracy.
There also were problems with tax collection, which
traditionally had been in the hands of the decurions.
Shortfalls, which occurred more and more often, had
to be made up by the decurions from their own resources. In addition, philanthropy by decurions that
in the past had been optional, such as sponsoring
entertainments, by the third century c.e. had become
mandatory. As a consequence, being a decurion
sometimes no longer was the great honor it once
had been, and the emperors were in danger of losing
local support.
imperial crisis Period of civil war and foreign invasions, between 235 and 284 c.e.
New Persian kings advertised their achievements on a large scale. In this rock carving from Naqsh-e Rostam in
Iran, the captured Roman emperor Valerian begs for mercy from King Shapur I, who had captured Valerian in
260 C.E. Valerian spent the rest of his life as a slave of the New Persians. (Ancient Art and Architecture Collection)
171
Summary
Review Questions
In what ways was the Roman Empire successful or
unsuccessful during the principate?
In what ways did the people living in the Roman
Empire have a shared sense of identity?
How did various religions meet the needs of people in
the Roman world?
172
Compare the effectiveness of the Roman Empire with the effectiveness of other empires of
the ancient world.
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
From Roman Gladiators to Boxing and Wrestlemania
The practice of ritual fighting to the death arose among the Etruscans as a means of appeasing underworld
demons. The Romans copied it, and the first gladiators appeared in Rome in 264 B.C.E. at a senators funeral. As a form of mock warfare, gladiatorial combats found a ready audience among the Romans, who
were raised on stories of military bloodletting. During the empire, gladiators were the most popular entertainers in the Roman world, and many cities had their own gladiatorial teams. Some gladiatorial shows
were truly spectacular: the emperor Trajan sponsored games with ten thousand combatants.
Gladiators were recruited from slaves, war captives, condemned criminals, and even freeborn persons
including senators, equestrians, and womenlooking for fame and excitement. They swore an oath to be
Websites
burned, bound, beaten, and killed by the sword. Gladiators were classified according to their weapons.
For example, some fought from chariots; some were armed like Gauls and wore large helmets decorated
with a fish; and others were equipped with a net and trident. Female gladiators fought as Amazons, the
female warriors of Greek legend.
If a gladiator was badly wounded, the crowd screamed Hoc habet! (Hes had it!). If they turned their
thumbs down, he was put to the sword, but if thumbs went up, he lived. Most combats did not end in
deathafter all, gladiators were expensive to train and maintain. An individual gladiator might fight only
two or three times a year. Victorious gladiators were the sports heroes of their day. They enjoyed lengthy
periods of leisure, receiving hero worship from the crowd, access to good food, and other forms of pleasure
before training for their next combat. It was not uncommon for enslaved gladiators to be set free by popular demand after just a few victories.
The spirit of Roman gladiators lives on in many modern-day sports. Boxing matches often end with one or
both contestants bloody and battered and the bloodthirsty crowd screaming for more. But for showmanship, the closest modern equivalent to gladiatorial contests would be professional wrestling spectaculars,
where the crowd likewise screams for blood, but whereas must have been the case with many Roman
gladiatorial matchesthe fighting is well choreographed, with little real danger to the participants.
Suggested Readings
Balsdon, John P. V. D. Romans and Aliens. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979. The role played by nonRomans in the evolution of Roman society.
Cary, Max, and Howard H. Scullard. A History of Rome Down
to the Reign of Constantine. 3rd. ed. New York: Bedford/St.
Martins Press, 1976. A massive and detailed standard survey
of the full extent of Roman history.
Dodds, Eric R. Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety: Some
Aspects of Religious Experience from Marcus Aurelius to
Constantine. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. A
discussion of the social, cultural, and emotional aspects of
the period when Christianity and paganism had their greatest
conflict.
Garnsey, Peter, and Richard Saller. The Roman Empire: Economy, Society, and Culture. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
Websites
On the role played by Roman coinage, Roman Numismatics,
Art History, and Archaeology, at www.romancoins.info
Detailed biographies of all the Roman emperors, including
maps and battle summaries, De Imperatoribus Romanis (On
the Rulers of Rome), at www.roman-emperors.org
173
174
CHAPTER
Late Antiquity, 284527
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Constantine Decides to Become
a Christian
Introduction
The Restoration of the Roman
Empire, 284337
Diocletian and the Return to Order
The Rise of Constantine
Constantine and Late Roman Government
The Christian Empire, 312415
Constantine and the Church
The Impact of Christianity
The Christian Life
Christian Asceticism and Monasticism
The Expansion of Christian Authority
1500 B.C.E.
Suggested Readings
Websites
1000 B.C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
392
Christianity becomes the
empires legal religion
280
325
Nicene
Creed is
issued
306
Constantine
becomes
emperor
284
Diocletian
becomes
emperor
300
320
378
Battle of
Adrianople
340
360
380
395
Roman Empire
splits into
east and west
400
Prefecture of Gaul
Prefecture of Italy
Prefecture of Illyricum
Baltic
Sea
R hin
OCEAN
GAUL
Rh
ne
PANNONIA
ro
Po Milan
Ravenna
DA
DACIA
Danu
be
Adrianople
378
MOESIA
IA
ARMENIA
THRACE
Constantinople Chalcedon
Nicomedia
MACEDONIA (Byzantium)
Nicaea
PHRYGIA
Pergamum
Ti g
CAPPADOCIA
ASIA
Smyrna
Me
Hippo Carthage
di
te
rr
SICILY
NUMIDIA
Black Sea
Brundisium
SARDINIA
BALEARIC IS.
at
Milvian i c
Se
Bridge
a
312
er
Rome
LM
dr
T ib
CORSICA
CAUCASUS M
TS
VISIGOTHS
CISALPINE GAUL
Marseilles
NIA
ETA
M A U R BERBERS
Caspian
Sea
OSTROGOTHS
NORICUM
NARBONESE GAUL
FARTHER
SPAIN
NEARER
SPAIN
ga
D n ie
p er
RAETIA
AQUITAINE
Lyons
Eb
Vo l
BURGUNDIANS
ALAMANNI
Chalons
451
Tours
D on
VANDALS
GERMANY
HUNS
Major battle
SAXONS V
is t
ul a
FRANKS
ATLANTIC
ea
Corinth
Tarsus
Ephesus
Athens
CILICIA
Antioch
Syracuse
Se
CYPRUS
Line of division
between east
and west
ph
rat
es
SYRIA
RHODES
Eu
ris
NEW
PERSIAN
EMPIRE
CRETE
Damascus
JUDAEA
Jerusalem
ARABS
Cyrene
Petra
Alexandria
LIBYA
NORTH AFRICA
EGYPT
Ni
le
S A H A R A
0
0
500 C.E.
A R A B I A N
1000 C.E.
200
D E S E R T
Red
Sea
400 Km.
200
400 Mi.
1500 C.E.
2000 C.E.
476
Fall of the western Roman Empire
481
Clovis becomes
king of the Franks
410
Visigoths sack Rome
420
440
460
480
527
Justinian becomes
Byzantine emperor
500
520
540
175
176
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Constantine Decides to Become
a Christian
Constantine
Raised to worship the sun,
Constantine became Roman
emperor when Christianity
was a persecuted religion.
Soon afterward, he began to
support Christianity. Several
stories circulated about why
Constantine had made this
decision. Some believed he
had received signs directly
from God, as seen in this
fresco of ca. 1500 in the
papal palace in Rome by
Raphael Sanzio showing
Constantine seeing a vision
of the Christian cross in the
sky. (Scala/Art Resource, NY)
tially did not make his religions preferences obvious. For example, when he
erected an arch of triumph in Rome, he attributed his victory to the will of the
divinity, without specifying which divinity. He also waited until he was on his
deathbed to be baptized as a Christian, leading some to suggest he was not a
committed Christian, although it was common at the time for Christians to delay
baptism until the last moment in the belief that a person would then die without
sin and go directly to heaven. If Constantine had not decided to become a Christian, and if the Roman government had continued to suppress Christianity, western civilization would have taken a different course. Later, because of his support
for Christianity, he was called Constantine the Great.
Introduction
177
178
Chronology
284
303
306
312
313
325
337
364
378
387
392
395
406
410
437
451
476
481
489
527
the generals cloak for a floor-length purple robe encrusted with gemstones and wore a pearl diadem as
a crown. Everything associated with the emperors
personthe laws, the government, the coinage, his
every wordbecame sacred. Those who met with
Diocletian were expected to fall facedown before him.
These changes made it more difficult for potential rivals to pass themselves off as emperors.
As another means of reducing the possibility of a
revolt, Diocletian limited the power of possible rivals
and took away all remaining power from the Senate.
Political authority now belonged to the emperor and
army alone, and the Senate was reduced to the status
of a city council for Rome. To lessen senators influence even further, Diocletian also limited the oppor-
Diocletian (r. 284305) Emperor who began the creation of the Late Roman Empire.
tunities for senators to hold high-ranking government posts, especially military ones. He divided up
possible sources of power. He split the army by
pulling the most able troops back from the border
and creating a mobile field army stationed in the interior, leaving the remaining troops as a border army
guarding the frontier. He separated civil careers from
military careers so provincial governors did not command troops and generals did not govern provinces.
By subdividing the provinces, he increased their number from fifty to one hundred, thereby decreasing the
power of each governor. These subdivisions of authority helped end the cycle of revolts but also greatly
increased costs. Soon there were approximately 40,000
officials on the imperial payroll, and the army had a
paper strength of about 450,000.
Once Diocletian had solidified his authority over
the army and the government, he turned his attention
to the economy. Tax income had been reduced because farms in border areas had been abandoned owing to the constant warfare. In addition, the debased
silver coinage was virtually worthless; soldiers complained that their entire annual salary was used up
on one small purchase. Taxes paid in these coins were
hardly worth collecting. There was not enough gold
and silver in the treasury to issue good gold and silver coins, so in an attempt to make the money worth
something again, Diocletian issued a large copper
coin coated with silver. No one, however, was fooled.
He then tried to restore value to the money by issuing
a law that set maximum prices for goods and services, but the law was blatantly disregarded.
Diocletian finally recognized that the value of the
money could not be restored, so he required that the
land tax be paid in produce rather than in the worthless coinage. A farmer, for example, paid roughly 20
percent of a harvest as taxes. Sheep owners paid in
wool; the owners of iron mines paid in iron. Foodstuffs and other raw materials were gathered into imperial storehouses, processed in imperial factories,
and used to pay soldiers with food rations, clothing,
and weapons. A soldiers only significant monetary
compensation was the donative, which now was issued in pure gold and silver at five-year intervals. This
system was cumbersome, requiring an even larger
bureaucracy, but it worked. In a further attempt to
keep the empire going, Diocletian identified compulsory services that had to be performed. These who
performed these occupations, such as soldiers, bakers, decurions, and tenant farmers, were prohibited
from changing jobs, and their children were required
to hold the same jobs. Enforcement of this requirement, however, proved virtually impossible.
Like earlier emperors, Diocletian believed that
179
180
Table 7.1
The Tetrarchy
East
West
Augustus
Caesar
Diocletian
(r. 284305)
(Anatolia, Syria,
Egypt)
(retired in 305)
Galerius
(r. 293311)
(the Balkans)
Maximian
(r. 286305)
(Italy, Africa, Spain)
(retired in 305)
Constantius
(r. 293306)
(Gaul, Britain)
(promoted to
augustus in 305)
Son: Constantine
Son: Maxentius
A statue in porphyry (a purple stone), originally in Constantinople but now in Venice, shows the four emperors of the
Tetrarchy demonstrating their solidarity with each other. The
message is that even though there are four emperors, there is
only one empire. Each emperor has one hand on his sword,
demonstating the source of his authority. (Alinari/Art
Resource, NY)
which had been the greatest cause of instability during the principate. Diocletian decided that the successor of each senior emperor would be his junior
emperor, who then would become the new senior emperor and name a new junior emperor. In 305, claiming that he had ruled long enough, Diocletian took an
unprecedented step: he retired and made his co-augustus Maximian do the same, thus ensuring that his
system for dealing with the imperial succession took
effect. A second Tetrarchy was formed: Galerius and
Constantius assumed the rank of augustus, and they
appointed two new caesars. A potential difficulty
with this arrangement, however, was that it ignored
(promoted to
augustus in 305)
Hippodrome (from Greek for running horse) Chariot racecourse in Constantinople and a site for gatherings of the people.
Hagia Sophia (Greek for holy wisdom) Church built
in Constantinople by Constantine.
181
182
Constantine established a method for choosing emperors on the basis of dynastic succession that proved
to be remarkably stable. Whenever possible, fathers
were succeeded by sons. If an emperor had no sons
and the position became vacant, the army had the authority to acclaim a new emperor. The reigning emperor or emperors also had the authority to create new
emperors. The Senates of Rome and Constantinople
had no role in choosing emperors except to deliver
congratulations. Male emperors still bore the title augustus, and imperial women could be granted the title
augusta. Women were not constitutionally excluded
from ruling although for more than four hundred and
fifty years no woman ruled in her own name.
Late Roman government was cumbersome, but it
worked. The government had civil and military
branches. The highest-ranking generals were the masters of soldiers, and the chief civil officials were the
four praetorian prefects. Ranking below them were
many layers of other officials. The Late Roman Empire,
including the emperors themselves, continued to be
ruled by law. Emperors preferred to deal with problems by issuing laws, many thousands of which survive. Every word that came from the emperor, even
brief replies to questions, had the force of law. All of
this legislation makes the Late Empire look like it regulated all aspects of Roman life, such as who could
marry whom or who could pursue what kind of career.
In reality, however, emperors were unable to enforce
all these laws, and the laws often were disobeyed.
They worked well enough to keep the empire going,
but not so well that it became a complete dictatorship.
When Constantine died in 337, his new succession
policy went into effect, and the empire was divided
among his three sons. The empire appeared as sound
and stable as it had been in the time of Augustus.
183
184
Armagh
Tara
IRELAND
Christianity introduced in
Britain by Romans in
3rd century, nearly lost
during Anglo-Saxon invasion
Whitby
Canterbury
D on
Aachen
Rouen
Reims
Paris
Tours
GERMANY
R hn
e
an
br
o
be
sp
Da
nu
GAUL
Ligug
GOTHS
Lyons P
o Milan
LOMBARDS
Ulfilas (340381)
CAUC
Black Sea
(6th cen.)
Cannes
Narbonne Marseilles
SPAIN
Toledo
Tarragona
Crdoba
Corsica
Sardinia
Sinope
Constantinople
Athens
Antioch
Syracuse
edi
Rhodes
Crete
terra
TS
.
ASIA MINOR
Corinth
ARMENIA
Chalcedon
Nicaea
Ephesus
Sicily
Se
nean
SYRIA
Cyprus
Sea
Cyrene
Damascus
Jerusalem
ri s
(409429)
THRACE
Nursia
Rome
Naples
Carthage
VANDALS
A SU
SM
T ig
Caesarea
Hippo Regius
Vol
ga
Dnie
per
Ca
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
Cologne
Rhi
n
IRISH
North
Sea
BRITAIN
Euph
rate
s
Ctesiphon
Seleucia
ARABS
Alexandria
Memphis
0
0
250
500 Km.
250
500 Mi.
NORTH AFRICA
EGYPT
Ni
le
Red
Sea
MAP 7.1
The Spread of Christianity to 600 C.E. During the first six centuries C.E., Christianity spread
throughout the Roman world, with the greatest acceptance of Christianity coming after Constantine
began making it into a favored religion after 312 C.E. Christians and Zoroastrians interacted in the New
Persian Empire.
185
186
village demonstrated the existence of an active Christian community. The simplest kind of church could be
a converted house. Churches in cities, on the other
hand, could be very large. Some were built in the
shape of a cross, but most were constructed in the
basilica style that in the past had been used for large
public audience halls. Chapels often were attached to
the sides of larger churches and dedicated to particular saints. Churches could be elaborately decorated,
with fine mosaics or frescoes on the walls and marble
columns. The holiest section, or chancel, was on the
east end. The chancel housed the altar and was accessible only to the clergy and choir. A screen divided the
chancel from the remainder of the church, or nave,
where the congregation of men and women stood to
worship. The main entrance was on the west end,
where a baptismal font, or baptistery, for the performance of baptisms often was located. Many churches
also had an underground crypt, usually below the
chancel, for burials and the preservation of relics.
Christian church services in Late Antiquity included prayers; readings from scripture; the singing
and chanting of hymns and biblical psalms by both
choir and congregation; and sermons by bishops and
priests, who often were trained speakers. The church
calendar included saints days that marked the date
Christian Asceticism
and Monasticism
Some Christians believed that to reach a higher level
of spirituality and become closer to God, they had to
separate themselves from the everyday world. These
187
188
The Expansion of
Christian Authority
Antiquity tended to identify themselves as Gauls, Italians, Egyptians, and so on. The empire no longer unified people as effectively as it once had. Nor did the
empire protect people as well as before. The government issued laws attempting to strengthen the empire and to protect everyones interests, but the laws
were full of loopholes and exceptions and were regularly disregarded. Powerful persons often operated
outside the law. The loss of imperial legal protection
made it important for everyone, privileged or not, to
look for a more powerful protector. Increasing numbers of the poor became dependents of the rich and
powerful. But the changing times also brought new
opportunities. Ambitious individuals from all segments of society could better themselves if they had
enough initiative, good luck, and the right friends.
The Christian church in particular provided new
prospects for personal expression and social advancement to men and women, rich and poor alike.
189
190
New Opportunities
The rise of the Christian church brought new social
and economic opportunities for men and women.
Less privileged persons could find work in churches
as doorkeepers, readers, and gravediggers. Some even
became deacons, who oversaw church finances, or
priests, who provided spiritual guidance. But the greatest honor was the office of bishop. As the most important institution in the Roman world, the church became
increasingly wealthy as a result of offerings and bequests made by emperors, aristocrats, and the general
public. The person who controlled that wealththe
bishopthus had great economic and political authority as well as spiritual authority. Bishops served
for life, and episcopal office became increasingly at-
Literary Culture
Late antiquity was an age of great literary creativity.
Some of it was due to the efforts of senators who took
pride in participating in and supporting intellectual
endeavors. The senators of Rome, for example, sponsored the work of the last great historian of antiquity,
Ammianus Marcellinus, whose history went up to
the year 378 and painted a glowing picture of the pagan emperor Julian. With their own hands, senators
made manuscript copies of the literature of the past.
But the greatest expansion of literary creativity took
place in the Christian church, to which many of the
brightest minds were attracted. Christian writers such
as Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome wrote sermons,
letters, theological treatises, commentaries on scripture, and even Christian versions of Roman history
that had an immense effect on Christian belief and
practice. Christian intellectuals debated the role pagan
literature should have in the Christian world, some
Church of the Holy Sepulcher Church built by Helena in Jerusalem on the site of Christs tomb.
Melania the Elder (d. 410) and the Younger (d. 439),
grandmother and granddaughter; famous for leading
lives of Christian asceticism and good works.
manuscript (from Latin for written by hand) Handwritten document or book.
191
192
the walls. Earlier public monuments that fell into disrepair were quarried for materials to be used in
church building. Thus the old urban centers decayed
at the same time that Christian centers, often located
outside the old city limits, prospered. Some cities
even reoriented around the churches, and the old city
center was just abandoned.
193
No rt h
Sea
Ba
BRITAIN
e
Elb
English Channel
FRANKS
ine
Rh
OCEAN
lt
200
400 Km.
200
400 Mi.
SAXONS
ANGLO
SAXONS
ATLANTIC
Se
IRELAND
194
BRETONS
Loire Paris
Dn
Od
er
ALAMANNI
ALANS
MOLDAVIA
LOMBARDS
Chalons 451
ie pe
GAUL
VISIGOTHS
ES
EV
SU
Clermont
BURGUNDIANS
Milan
Toulouse
GEPIDS
HUNS
Dan
ube
OSTROGOTHS
Black Sea
Ravenna
A
at
ic
SPAIN
dr
ITALY
CORSICA
Rome
Crdoba
Se
Adrianople 378
Constantinople
Chalcedon
Nicaea
THRACE
SARDINIA
Ephesus
Hippo
AF RI CA
ANATOLIA
Antioch
SICILY
Carthage
VANDALS
BERBERS
Me
dit
er
SYRIA
CRETE
ranea
n
Sea
Jerusalem
Alexandria
Bethlehem
ARABS
Vandals
Visigoths
Major battle
EG Y PT
MAP 7.2
The Barbarians and Rome By the middle of the fifth century C.E., the occupation of the
western Roman Empire by various barbarian peoples was well underway. The Anglo-Saxons, Franks,
Visigoths, Burgundians, Sueves, and Vandals already had established independent kingdoms on Roman
territory. At the same time, the entire Roman world was threatened by the Huns.
people who had been forced westward out of Mongolia centuries earlier. As the Huns continued to move
west, they created a barbarian empire and came ever
closer to Roman territory.
Table 7.2
Barbarian Peoples
West
Germans
East
Germans
Steppe
Nomads
Alamanni
Visigoths
(west Goths)
Ostrogoths
(east Goths)
Burgundians
Vandals
Huns
Franks
Angles
Saxons
principate. By the middle of the fourth century, Roman and barbarian armies were using the same personnel and the same tactics.
In 375, a group of defeated Germans with whom
Valentinian was meeting were so insolent that the
emperor became enraged, suffered a stroke, and died.
A year later, Valens was faced with a momentous decision. A large group of Visigoths fleeing from the
Huns had appeared on the banks of the Danube River.
The Visigoths offered military service in exchange for
the right to settle on deserted lands located safely inside the Roman frontier. Valens agreed, believing that
doing so would allow him to find more army recruits
and also to get more land into cultivation and on the
tax rolls. But, once inside the empire, the Visigoths
began raiding and looting. Assembling the eastern
Roman army, Valens attacked the Visigoths. In 378, at
the Battle of Adrianople, northwest of Constantinople, his army was virtually annihilated and he was
killed. His successor, Theodosius I, was unable to defeat, much less expel, the Visigoths. The best he could
do was to recognize them as Roman allies. This facesaving measure left the Visigoths free to roam about
under their own leaders, one of whom was the able
general Alaric. The barbarian invasions of the Roman
Empire had begun.
195
196
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Ammianus Describes the Huns
The Romans fear of the barbarians often led them to portray barbarians as uncouth savages who represented the opposite of everything a civilized Roman or
Greek stood for. For Romans of the late fourth century, the Huns, who had only
recently appeared on the Roman frontiers, were the most savage barbarians of all,
hardly better than animals. In the following selection from his Histories, the late
Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, a former army officer who personally
observed all kinds of barbarians, describes the Huns as they appeared to the Romans in the 390s. His account is full of stereotypes and would have made the Romans feel justified in the repugnance that they felt toward the Huns.
The people of the Huns exceed every degree of savagery. Because the cheeks of
the children are deeply furrowed with steel from their very birth, in order that the
growth of hair may be checked by the wrinkled scars, they grow old without
beards and without any beauty, like eunuchs. They all have compact, strong
limbs and thick necks, and are so monstrously ugly and misshapen that one might
take them for two-legged beasts. They are so hardy that they have no need of fire
nor of savory food, but eat the roots of wild plants and the half-raw flesh of any
kind of animal whatever, which they put between their thighs and the backs of
their horses, and thus warm it a little.
They are never protected by any buildings, but they avoid these like tombs.
Roaming at large amid the mountains and woods, they learn from the cradle to
endure cold, hunger, and thirst. They dress in the skins of field mice sewn
together. When they have once put on a faded tunic, it is not taken off until by
long wear it has been taken from them bit by bit. They are almost glued to
their horses, and sometimes they sit on them woman-fashion and thus perform
ordinary tasks. From their horses every one of that nation buys and sells, eats and
drinks, and bowed over the narrow neck of the animal relaxes into sleep. And
when deliberation is called for, they all consult as a common body on horseback.
They are subject to no royal restraint, but they are content with the disorderly
government of their important men.
You would not hesitate to call them the most terrible of all warriors, because they fight from a distance with missiles having sharp bone, instead of the
usual metal points. Then they gallop over the intervening spaces and fight handto-hand with swords, regardless of their own lives; and they throw nooses over
their opponents and so entangle them that they fetter their limbs.
No one in their country ever plows a field or touches a plow-handle. They
are all without fixed abode, without hearth, or law, or settled mode of life, and
keep roaming from place to place, accompanied by the wagons in which their
wives weave their hideous garments, cohabit with their husbands, bear children,
and rear them to the age of puberty. None of their offspring, when asked, can tell
you where he comes from, because he was conceived in one place, born far from
there, and brought up still farther away.
In truces they are faithless and unreliable. Like unreasoning beasts, they are utterly ignorant of the difference between right and wrong; they are deceitful and
ambiguous in speech, never bound by any reverence for religion or for superstition.
Source: Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of the Loeb Classical Library from Ammianus Marcelinus: Volume III, Loeb Classical Library Volume 331, translated by J. C. Rolfe, pp. 380381, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Copyright 1939 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
The Loeb Classical Library is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
197
198
Empire, which described the fall of the western empire as the triumph of Christianity and barbarians.
He suggested that Christianity had weakened the
will of the Romans to resist, opening the way for invasions by more warlike barbarians. This explanation
now is seen as overly simplistic. After all, most barbarians were Christians themselves. And as for the
invasions, the emperors had dealt effectively with
barbarian threats for centuries. Aside from the Battle
of Adrianople, the barbarians did not win many significant military victories. The west was occupied
more by means of infiltration, peaceful settlement,
and persistence than by military conquest. The real
question, it seems, is what made it possible for barbarians to succeed in the fifth century when in the
past they had been unable to occupy virtually any
Roman territory.
More recently, historians have proposed many interrelated causes. Some suggestions, ranging from
drastic climatic change to ethnic mixing to lead poisoning, can easily be dismissed. More plausible suggestions include the withdrawal of senatorial support
for the emperors, increased administrative decentralization, too many barbarians in the army, economic collapse, excessive taxation, corruption, military
recruitment shortages, excessive bureaucracy, poor
leadership, lack of organized resistance, and just plain
bad luck. In addition, any explanation for the political decline of the west also must explain why the east
did not fall. In this regard, it is clear that the east had
more secure geographical frontiers, a stronger economy, a larger population, and a more dependable Roman military recruitment base. In view of the easts
advantages, it may be that the once the empire split in
two, the downfall of the west was inevitable.
By the beginning of the sixth century, the Mediterranean world was vastly different from what it had
been in the time of Augustus. The unity so carefully
constructed by the Romans had disappeared. The
western part of the Roman Empire had been partitioned among several barbarian peoples. The most
powerful were the Visigoths, who occupied Aquitaine
and Spain, and the Vandals, who held the rich
provinces of North Africa. Elsewhere, the Angles and
199
200
issued a law code, the Salic law. It incorporated a Germanic practice whereby the perpetrators of crimes
like murder, theft, or vandalism made fixed payments
to their victims. Not long afterward, Cloviss sons annexed the Burgundian kingdom, and the Franks thus
became the most important power in Gaul, eventually
giving their name to modern France.
erally content with the Nicene faith, eastern Christians continued to dispute the nature of Christ, and
the emperors often were compelled to intervene. The
Nestorians, named after Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, argued that while on earth Christ was
just a man and was not divine until after the Crucifixion. This viewpoint angered Nicene Christians, who
believed that the divine and human natures of Christ
were mixed and who viewed Mary as the Theotokos,
or mother of God. In 431, at the third ecumenical
council, summoned by Theodosius II at Ephesus on
the Anatolian coast, Nestorianism was condemned.
Many Nestorians then chose to go into exile in the
New Persian Empire; some eventually even made
their way to China, where eight hundred years later
the Italian traveler Marco Polo claimed to have met
their descendants.
Discussions about the nature of Christ were revived by the Monophysites, who denied that Christ
had any human nature at all. In 451, a fourth ecumenical council, held at Chalcedon, just east of Constantinople, confirmed the belief that the divine and
human natures of Christ were intermixed and declared Monophysite teachings to be heresy. But the
Monophysites refused to surrender their beliefs and
continued to have a wide following in Egypt (where
they survive as the modern Copts), in Syria (where a
few thousand survive as the Jacobites), and in the
New Persian Empire. The Council of Chalcedon also
granted the bishop of Constantinople a status equal
to that of the bishop of Rome. Bishop Leo the Great of
Rome and his successors refused to accept the bishop
of Constantinople as an equal, creating dissension between the eastern and western Christian churches.
By 527, when the emperor Justinian came to the
throne, the Byzantine Empire seemed secure. Economic prosperity had been restored, the barbarian
threat had been contained, and religious dissent had
been suppressed if not completely eliminated. It
seemed that the empire in the east had avoided the
misfortunes that caused the fall of the west, and its inhabitants could look to the future with optimism.
Nestorians Christians who believed that the divine
and human natures of Christ were completely separate; the belief was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431; named after Nestorius, bishop of
Constantinople.
Monophysites (from Greek for single nature) Christians who believed that Christ had a single, divine
nature; the belief was condemned at the Council of
Chalcedon in 451.
201
Summary
Review Questions
How did the official acceptance of Christianity
change the Roman Empire?
In what ways did living a Christian life change how
people thought about themselves and their world?
Why did the western part of the Roman Empire fall
but the east survive?
202
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Sunday Blue Laws
Beginning with Constantine, Roman emperors issued laws intended to make Sunday a day of worship on
which commercial activities, legal processes, and entertainments were prohibited. A law of 372 declared,
On the Lords day, which is the first day of the week, the pleasures of the theaters and games are to be
kept from the people in all cities, and all the thoughts of Christians and believers are to be occupied with
the worship of God. Fourteen years later, another law decreed, Let all law suits and all business cease on
Sunday, and let no one try to collect either a public or a private debt, and let there be no hearing of disputes by any judges. But even Constantine made exceptions to his lawfor example, he permitted legal
business on Sunday for the purpose of freeing slaves.
Websites
The idea of Sunday as a day of worship persisted in the Middle Ages, when agricultural work was prohibited by church councils and kings. Subsequently, some Christian sects were more rigorous than others in
their observance of Sunday. One of the strictest was the English Puritans, who brought their beliefs to North
America in the seventeenth century. The Puritans issued so-called blue laws (perhaps named after the blue
paper on which they were printed) that specified what could and could not be done on Sunday. The blue
laws prohibited trade, commerce, public entertainment, travel (except to go to church services), hair cutting, and drunkenness on Sunday, and some of the laws were incorporated into state law codes in the early
years of the United States.
Many blue laws remained on the books into the twentieth century. As recently as the 1920s, for example,
sporting events and movies were forbidden on Sunday in some parts of the United States. Even more recently, most stores had to remain closed. Over the past fifty years, however, most blue laws have been
repealed. All forms of entertainment are now regularly scheduled on Sunday, although complaints still arise,
especially in regard to youth events. Stores now are permitted to open on Sunday nearly everywhere. One
of the most deeply entrenched of the blue laws was the prohibition of sales of alcoholic beverages on Sunday, and even now many states prohibit Sunday liquor sales. The only remaining universal blue law, however, a direct descendant of Constantines Sunday legislation, is the closing of nearly all government offices
on Sunday.
Suggested Readings
Barnes, Timothy D. The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982. A
detailed discussion of the ways in which Diocletian and Constantine created the Late Roman Empire.
Bowersock, Glen W., Peter Brown, and Oleg Grabar, eds. Late
Antiquity: A Guide to the PostClassical World. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press / Belknap Press, 1999. A massive compilation of information about the late antique world, including both long essays and short dictionary-style discussions.
Brown, Peter R. L. The World of Late Antiquity: A.D. 150750.
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974. The standard
book on Late Antiquity, which established Late Antiquity as a
major historical period.
Cameron, Averil. The Later Roman Empir, A.D. 284430. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993. A balanced survey of the history of the later Roman Empire up to 430.
Websites
Artwork, architecture, and political significance of the Arch of
Constantine, The Arch of Constantine, at http://sights.seindal
.dk/sight/299_Arch_of_Constantine-2.html
Texts of the writings of many early Christian writers, including
Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, and Leo the Great, The Early
Church Fathers, at www.ccel.org/fathers2
203
204
CHAPTER
The Eastern
Mediterranean, 5001000
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Empress Theodora Changes
Emperor Justinians Mind
Introduction
Justinian and the Revival of Empire in the
East, 500650
Justinians Ambitions
The Search for Christian Unity
The Codification of Roman Law
Constantinople: The New Rome
The Empire After Justinian
Summary
Echo: Sunnis and Shiites
Suggested Readings
Websites
1500 B.C.E.
1000 B.C.E.
527
Justinian becomes
Byzantine emperor
500
550
622
Muhammad moves
to Medina
Beginning of the
Muslim calendar
600
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
500 B.C.E.
732
Franks defeat
Muslims at Tours
632
Death of
Muhammad
650
711
Muslims begin
conquest of Spain
700
754
Council of
Constantinople
forbids
veneration
of icons
750
Islam, 661
Baltic
Sea
DANES
CE
LT
S
AN
SA GLO
XO NS
IR
IS
North
Sea
London
Tournai
ATLANTIC
ET
Paris
BR
THURINGENS
Rouen
Mainz
SLAVS
Rheims
Caspian
Sea
I
ANN
ALE
OCEAN
LOMBARDS
Autun
Lyons
ES
Milan
EV
BAS
SU
QUE
Toulouse
Narbonne
Tarragona
GEPIDS
Black Sea
Ravenna
Marseilles
Salerno
Corsica
Constantinople
Rome
Naples
Ankara
Sardinia
Crdoba
Seville
Nicaea
Salonica
Cartagena
Hippo
Regius
Athens
Carthage
Ephesus
Antioch
Sicily
Cyprus
BERBERS
Me
Damascus
dite
rrane
Crete
an
Sea
Jerusalem
Alexandria
ARABS
0
0
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
Red
Sea
400 Km.
200
400 Mi.
1500 C.E.
2000 C.E.
988
Kievan Rus
accept Christianity
787
Second Council of
Nicaea restores
veneration of icons
800
200
850
900
950
1000
1075
Seljuk Turks
defeat the
Byzantine army
1050
1100
205
206
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Empress Theodora Changes Emperor
Justinians Mind
Theodora
Empress Theodora served as
one of the closest advisers to
her husband, Emperor Justinian. Though her enemies
deplored her humble origins
and her Monophysite beliefs,
she won the loyalty of ordinary subjects, many of
whom shared her religious
tendencies and received her
protection. In hindsight,
Byzantine observers believed
she had exerted a moderating influence over Justinian,
who, after her death in
548, grew increasingly intolerant of religious doctrine
deemed heretical. (Scala/Art
Resource, NY)
fore she married Justinian, many people in Constantinople knew of her from her
circus performances and as the lover of powerful men. Justinian, too, came from a
humble family, but his military service under his uncle, an emperor who had first
risen through the ranks of the Byzantine army, gave him the experience in commanding others that the office of emperor required. The young actress and courtesan Theodora, in contrast, must have possessed an exceptional intelligence and
aptitude for politics that marriage to the ambitious soldier and future emperor
released. Her influence over her husband aroused the envy of less powerful members of the imperial court, who spread rumors about her past to undermine her
reputation. Whether the stories in circulation about her lewd behavior were true
or false, never had a woman from as humble a background as Theodoras attained
the rank of empress.
Introduction
Of all the emperors to rule the Byzantine Empire, Justinian left the longest-lasting legacy. When he ascended the throne in 527 at age forty-five, he shared
it with his uncle, Justin I, an old peasant from the
207
208
Chronology
527
632
532
656
658
661
533563
534
542
552
711714
ca. 570
Birth of Muhammad
730
732
750
787
610
613
622
803
628
988
630
Heraclius returns relic of the True Cross to Jerusalem; Muhammad returns to Mecca
1071
Justinians Ambitions
From an imperial perspective, the old Roman Empire
was gone. Barbarians had established kingdoms in
Do
Bu
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
Paris
LOMBARDS
VISIGOTHIC
KINGDOM
Corsica
Sardinia
552
Rome
Naples
ia
Se
KINGDOM
Salonica
Constantinople
Nicaea
Se
NEW
PERSIAN
EMPIRE
Ankara
Ephesus
Athens
Antioch
SYRIA
Crete
Mediterranean
Byzantine Empire
Rhodes
Sea
Cyprus
Damascus
s
es
Ctesiphon
Euphra
t
Caesarea PALESTINE
Jerusalem
Alexandria
Cairo
Memphis (Founded 969)
EGYPT
Ni
e
500 Km.
250
500 Mi.
Thebes
Se
ed
250
CAUCA
SUS
ia
i
gr
Ti
Sicily
535
VANDAL Carthage
Syracuse
Date of conquest
Adrianople
Aegean
Sea
Hippo
Regius
535
sp
ARMENIA
ti
Cartagena
AF RI CA
Ca
Black Sea
Danu b e
551
534
AVARS
BULGARS
OSTROGOTHIC
KINGDOM A d r
Vo
lg
SLAVS
ter
FRANKISH
KINGDOM
RUS
Kiev
Dnie
pe r
Sou
the
rn
Dni
Bu
es
Justinians Empire Out of the old Roman world emerged three civilizations. In western
Europe, the barbarian kingdoms adapted the Latin language. In Constantinople, the new center of the
old empire, the people spoke Greek. To the south, the Muslims introduced Arabic to North Africa, Syria
and Palestine. Was peaceful coexistence henceforth possible?
MAP 8.1
209
210
Mass Christian liturgical ceremony in which the officiating priest symbolically reenacts Jesuss Last Supper
with his disciples.
laity (adj. lay) Collective term used to refer to everyone
except the clergy.
nun Woman who has entered a monastic order for
women to lead a life of prayer and contemplation.
ecclesiastical Pertaining to a church.
Body of Civil Law Justinians three-volume codification issued between 533 and 563, containing the laws
and jurist opinions of the Roman Empire and the
canons issued by church councils.
patria potestas (in Latin, paternal authority) Legal
authority of a head of household, usually a father, over
the members of his household, including his family,
servants, and slaves.
contract Framework of rules and legal remedies for an
agreement.
211
212
been spectacular. The awed observer would have noticed subtle gradations of colors in the marble walls
and, on the flat surfaces at the top of arches on either
side of the nave, mosaic images depicting sacred figures against a shimmering background of gold leaf.
Light entered through arched windows set around
the base of the dome and the exterior walls. Hagia
Sophia made worshipers feel Gods majesty.
Crowds standing outside Hagia Sophia in the hot
sun felt no less a sense of overwhelming majesty. The
immense bulk of the building dominated the space
around it, with the imperial palace complex on one
side, near the Hippodrome, itself capable of seating
thousands of spectators at the chariot races. To the
east was the Sea of Marmora. A merchant sailing into
port would have seen Hagia Sophia first, for it towered over the city. With its exceptional harbor, the
Byzantine capital drew merchants not only from the
Mediterranean but also from as far away as India and
Scandinavia. Spices, glass, ceramics, silks, furs, and
his equal in energy, administrative ability, and shrewdness, ruling the empire was not an enviable task. The
Lombards, a people from northern Europe, began
their gradual conquest of the Italian peninsula after
Justinians death. By the end of the eighth century,
they had taken most of northern Italy. Large bands of
people living beyond the borders of the empire
pressed harder and harder on the frontiers. Epidemics
of plague continued to weaken the empires economy
and reduce its population. Tensions among Christians with divergent views of Christs nature increased
and became entrenched along regional lines. The
long decline of the Byzantine Empire had begun.
By the time of Heraclius, in the seventh century,
the empire was in sore need of a strong military
leader. What began as a migration of Slavs into the
empire looked more and more like an invasion when
they resisted efforts to hold back their advances. The
Avars, a people related to the Huns, also tried to force
their way over the frontier. They pushed into the
Balkans and, by 617, had reached the outskirts of
Constantinople. At the same time, the Persians on the
eastern flank chipped off pieces of Mesopotamia,
Syria, and Armenia. In 613, the capture of Jerusalem
by the Persians stung the Christian empire, particularly when Persian soldiers looted and destroyed the
Church of the Holy Sepulcher, founded by Helena,
Constantine the Greats mother, in the fourth century.
The Persians took away with them what the faithful
believed to be a piece of the True Cross on which Jesus
had been crucified. The problem for Heraclius, then,
was to stop further erosion of the empires territory
and to reclaim land already lost, especially Jerusalem.
With an almost empty treasury, Heraclius devised
ways to generate the revenue he needed to maintain
an army in the field. These methods did not make
him popular, but they helped him achieve his goals.
He confiscated church furnishings made of precious
metals to melt them into much-needed coinage. He
reformed the tax system, making it harsher but more
efficient. Extensive as these and other measures were,
bubonic plague Disease caused by the bacillus Yersina
pestis that attacks the lymph glands and is nearly always fatal if not treated with antibiotics.
Lombards A northern German people who crossed the
Alps and in 572 established a kingdom based in northern Italy.
Heraclius (r. 610641) Emperor who recovered the
Byzantine Empires eastern provinces and defeated the
Persian Empire.
Avars A people originally from western Asia who
settled in eastern Europe in the sixth century.
213
214
Mecca City of Muhammads birth, located in the western part of the Arabian Peninsula, toward which Muslims pray.
Kaaba Shrine in the form of a large cubeits name
derived from the Arabic word for cubelocated in
Mecca (today, in Saudi Arabia).
215
216
The angel three times commanded, Muhammad, recite! When he opened his mouth, Muhammad began
to utter the sayings Muslims believe to be the words
of God. Eventually Muhammads recitations, called
sura, were written down by his followers and compiled to form the Quran. They expressed a belief in
one GodAllahand described the path to achieving salvation.
At first, the messages Muhammad received went
no farther than his own household. His wife, Khadidja, became Islams first convert. But others, too,
began to find Muhammads exhortations to live lives
of prayer and charitable purpose appealing. Muhammad was offering the Meccans Allah as a substitute
for the tribal gods and, ultimately, for tribal loyalty.
As the number of converts grew and Muhammad began to speak out against the traditional gods of
Mecca, the towns powerful families, who benefited
financially from the pilgrimages to the Kaaba, viewed
Muhammad with increasing hostility.
As tensions between Muslims and the authorities
in Mecca grew, it seemed likely that Muhammad and
his followers would be banished. Just then, the people of Medina, a smaller town a few hundred miles
to the north, invited Muhammad and his followers
to come and lead them. The prominent families of
Medina, who frequently engaged in disputes that
threatened the peace of the town, felt the need for
an objective outsider to come among them as a mediator. The Medinans were looking for a political
leader, not a religious one. Instead, they got both in
one man. The year Muhammad left Mecca to go to
Medina, 622, marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar, and his journey there is called the Hejira.
Muhammad brought political and religious unity
to Medina, primarily by forcing out the Jews, most of
whom would not convert to his new religion. Up to
that point, the early Muslims had prayed facing in the
direction of Jerusalem, since they, like the Jews, revered the holy city. But not long after he and his followers moved to Medina, Muhammad substituted
the town from which they had been exiled, Mecca, as
the focal point of worship, thereby reducing Jerusalem to the rank of second most holy city of Islam.
But Muhammad was determined to become a political and economic force whom the leaders of Mecca
could not afford to ignore. To undermine the Meccan
economy, he conducted raids on caravans heading
there. Eventually, in 630, the leaders of Mecca had to
negotiate with Muhammad. At the head of his community of followers, Muhammad returned to Mecca
and took up the role as head of the Quraysh clan and
the ruler of the city. Now the political leader of both
But, by not making the pilgrimage strictly mandatory, he took into account the limited means of the
poor and sick to fulfill this obligation. Over the
course of a set week in the Muslim calendar, pilgrims
who do go to Mecca perform a series of rituals established by Muhammad in the last year of his life.
Muhammad meant for the five pillars of Islam to give
shape to the lives of all Muslims by uniting them in
common purpose and action.
Five Pillars of Islam The basic duties of every Muslim: acknowledgment of one God, prayer five times a
day, fasting at set times of the year, charity, and a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime.
mosque Building where Muslims worship together.
Ramadan Ninth and holiest month of the Muslim
lunar calendar when Muslims fast during the day.
Hajj Pilgrimage to Mecca expected of all Muslims at
least once in a lifetime.
217
218
Muslims include Jerusalem among the holy cities of Islam. They believe that Muhammad ascended to heaven from the rock covered by the dome of this mosque. (Scala /Art Resource, NY)
Muslim Families
Muslim families lived according to certain rules that
placed them within the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Like Jews, Muslims both prohibited the eating of pork
and required their sons to be circumcised. Unlike
Jews, however, they banned alcohol. Sharing a fear of
idolatry with Christians and Jews, Muslims prohibited images of living creatures partly on the grounds
that such depictions competed with God the Creator.
And like the Byzantine Christian women, Muslim
women wore veils in the presence of men who were
not their kin and were confined to sections of their
homes where male guests were not permitted.
But Muslims set themselves apart from the traditions of those older religions by allowing polygamy,
the practice of multiple spouses. Muhammad set a
limit of four wives for every Muslim man, but he himself did not take more than one wife until after the
death of his first wife, Khadidja. Islam accords a place
of honor to Khadidja, a capable woman who had been
married to a prosperous merchant before marrying
Muhammad. After her death, Muhammad took other
wives in part as a way to cement alliances with the
heads of other powerful families in areas of the Arabian Peninsula. To mark a tribes acceptance of Muhammads religious and political leadership, the tribal
head would offer him a female relative in marriage.
Muhammads last wife, Aisha, played a significant
role in the power struggles among Muhammads successors, even leading an army into battle.
Before Muhammad revolutionized Arabian society
with his new code of living, women occupied a low
rung on the social ladder. They could not own property outright, and their legal rights amounted to little
more than those of children. In this respect, they were
not much worse off than women in Christian lands,
who likewise had limited property rights and lived
perpetually under the guardianship of a father, husband, or other male relative. As in Judaism, divorce
was an option in Arabian society for both men and
women, although men more easily initiated an end to
their marriages than women did. The practice of hav-
219
220
Dn
Aachen
CAROLINGIAN
EMPIRE
Tours 732
Vo
ti c
Sardinia
Sicily
Me
BY
dite
Tripoli
ZAN
Aegean
Sea
Constantinople
TINE EMPIRE
Crete
rranean
Cyprus
Antioch Ti
SYRIA
Sea
Talas 751
Kashgar
KHWARAZM
FERGHANA
Bukhara
Samarkand
Oxu
s
Qum
is
gr
Tunis
CAUCA
SU S
MOUN
TAI N S
NIA
ME
AR
AZERBAIJAN
ea
an S
Rome S
e
SPAIN
ANDALUSIA
Seville Crdoba
Black Sea
1000 Mi.
Jaxa
rte
s
Aral
Sea
spi
ria
Corsica
nu b e
500
lga
KHAZAR
KINGDOM
Ca
Da
1000 Km.
500
D on
Venice
Marseilles
Gibraltar 711
Ad
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
ie p e
KHORASAN
Damascus 635
Euph
rat
es
Yarmuch R. 632
PALESTINE
Alexandria Cairo
Jerusalem
Kufah
Lahore
Basra
Kandahar
Pe
rs
EGYPT
JA
Gu
Medina
Badr 624
Mecca
lf
Gu
OM lf of O m a n
AN
ARABIAN
PENINSULA
us
Ind
SIND
Arabian
Sea
ea
dS
Ni
l
Re
Hormuz
ia
HE
AFRICA
Kabul
Isfahan
Ctesiphon
637
YEMEN
G u l f of A d
en
HORN OF
AFRICA
INDIAN OCEAN
MAP 8.2
The Spread of Islam After the death of Muhammad in 632, Muslim forces brought the
Arabian Peninsula, Syria, Palestine, all of northern Africa, and the Iberian peninsula under Muslim rule
within one hundred years. How much of this vast territory had once formed part of the Roman Empire?
Tariq ibn Ziyad (d. 720) Muslim general who led the
invasion and conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.
221
222
Islamic Civilization
From Persia in the east, through Mesopotamia and
Arabia, north to Palestine and Syria, west through
Egypt, arcing across North Africa and penetrating
Spain to the Pyrenees, Muslims ruled a vast portion of
the old Roman Empiremore, in fact, than Justinian
had in his control when the Byzantine Empire was at
its greatest extent. As the Muslims came into contact
with older civilizations, they absorbed aspects of these
cultures that enriched Islamic thought, art, and society.
Muslim philosophers translated many philosophical
and medical works of ancient Greek writers, which
had survived in Syrian monasteries. Astronomers provided maritime traders with the elements of celestial
navigation. Mathematicians studied Euclids geometry and developed trigonometry and calculus. The
Arabic origin of the word algebra demonstrates how
much western mathematics owes to Muslim scientists.
The very concept of zero, unknown in the Roman system of numerals, was developed by these thinkers.
Later, in the fourteenth century, when Arabic numerals
were adopted in the west, all kinds of new mathematical calculations became possible.
Through intellectual pursuits and law, Islamic
society achieved a cultural unity that was visually apparent in its distinctive style. Rejecting representations of human figures, Islamic art favored a highly
ornamental form of decoration that used brilliant colors, images of lush foliage, and elaborate curved lines
to display calligraphic Quranic quotations on manuscript pages, ceramics, metalwork, and the walls of
buildings. The architecture and decoration of mosques
and public and private structures in Islamic Spain at
Gibraltar (from Jabal Tariq, mountain of Tariq)
Mountain at the southern tip of Spain.
Tours Battle in 732 in which the Franks defeated Muslims advancing north from Spain.
one end of the Mediterranean displayed features similar to those found in Syria at the other end.
The greatest masterpieces of Muslim literature
lyrical and passionate love poems, biting political
satire, and profound religious enquirywere written
during the Abbasid dynasty, after 750, when a high
standard of composition in the Arabic language was
attained. The poetry of Abu Nuwas, considered the
best in that period, reflected the urban culture that
flourished in Baghdad. The popularity of this poets
drinking songs makes it clear that, prohibitions against
drinking alcohol notwithstanding, life in Muslim
cities had much in common with cities in the west.
Following its start in the town of Mecca, Muslim civilization continued to be urban and commercial. In fact,
commercial prosperity underlay much of the wealth
and power of Muslim society. The Abbasid caliphs promoted trade and intellectual pursuits in all regions
regardless of religion. Muslim prosperity drew merchants from western Europe, particularly from the Italian port cities, to the ports and markets of Egypt,
Palestine, and Syria. The traders from far away brought
ideas and skills as well as products. By 793, for instance,
Central Asian traders had brought from China to Baghdad the technique of papermaking, whose inexpensive
manufacture made manuscripts and notebooks available more cheaply to literate people.
Though centralized control was lax, the one feature all Muslim provinces shared was a new language
of religion, learning, and administration. When the
peoples around the southern rim of the Mediterranean accepted the Muslim religion of their new
rulers, they had to learn Arabic, the language of the
Quran. Because Muslim leaders had decreed that the
word of God as revealed in the Quran must remain
untranslated, Arabic was the only language of worship and study. Those who did not convert had incentives to learn Arabic, too, since the Muslims used it in
their political administration. Thus, the Muslim advances of the seventh and eighth centuries brought
223
224
about an Arabization of conquered lands that was linguistic as well as religious. Arabic, once spoken only
in the Arabian Peninsula, became the dominant language wherever Islam made itself the law. In the
eighth and ninth centuries, however, with political
unity increasingly fragmented, the Arabic language
took on local characteristics, each region developing
a dialect of its own.
The Muslim conquest of the southern and eastern regions of the Byzantine Empire brought far-reaching
and permanent changes. With the loss of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, three of the most important cities of
ChristianityJerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria
no longer had Christian rulers. In losing them, the
Byzantine Empire also lost important revenue. Despite
territorial decline, the Byzantine Empire had energetic
emperors in the seventh and eighth centuries. Sending
missionaries north to convert the people living along
the Volga River, they spread Byzantine culture. Some
emperors attempted to shore up their defenses along
the frontiers and to strengthen the imperial army. But
societies need more than missionaries and military
might to prosper. As Muslim raids from the south and
Slavic harassment from the north continued, sheer survival became the emperors most pressing priority.
These external pressures, in addition to more outbreaks
of plague, had economic, military, and cultural repercussions that made life precarious and strained the empire itself, in what is known as its middle period.
Constans II (630668) Emperor responsible for extensive administrative and military reforms of the Byzantine Empire.
themes Administrative units of the Byzantine Empire
corresponding to the dispersal of military battalions
throughout the empire.
Dardanelles Strait The water passage connecting the
northern Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmora and
Constantinople.
Greek fire Petroleum-based substance that ignited
on contact with water; used by the Byzantine army
in warfare.
cataphracts Units of heavy cavalry that dominated
Byzantine military tactics on land by the seventh
century.
Invented in the seventh century by Callimachus, a Syrian engineer, Greek fire was a mixture formed from petroleum, sulfur, saltpeter, and lime that ignited on contact with water. (Institut Amatller dArt Hispanic)
and Muslim lands continued in the eastern Mediterranean, while commercial traffic toward western Europe had begun to decline even before the advent of
Muslim merchants. In contrast to the great number of
cities in the Muslim world, however, the Byzantine
Empire had very few urban centers apart from the
capital city. Rarely did Byzantine traders venture
with their merchandise very far from Constantinople.
Instead, traders came to them.
But when the Middle Byzantine period is compared
to the fifth and sixth centuries, a decline in almost all
aspects of society can be seen. Most catastrophically,
periodic outbreaks of the plague reduced population
everywhere. By the ninth century, Constantinoples
population had dropped from nearly 500,000 to
around 100,000. Nearly every other city in the empire
similarly shrank in size and population. Some disappeared altogether. Athens no longer resembled at all
the classical city-state that had produced the philosophers Socrates and Plato and graceful temples like
the Parthenon. Only the city of Thessalonica prospered a little in hard times. Most people resided in
small villages out in the countryside, where livelihoods and diets were restricted. Villagers ate bread
from local grain as well as beans, honey, and olives.
For meat and dairy products, they relied on sheep and
goats. Imported spices, dried fruits, and other products
225
226
church fathers Early Christian writers, such as Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, and Leo the Great.
227
228
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Church Councils Condemn and Restore the Use
of Icons
If demiurgos means
Although the iconoclastic movement lasted one hundred years, it had an impact
that can be partially measured by how very few icons made prior to 730 survived
past the ninth century. Thousands of icons cherished by men and women
throughout the empire were destroyed when Leo III forbade the use of icons in
liturgical services. Painters closed their workshops. Families risked hiding their
beloved icons or surrendered them to authorities to be destroyed. Imperial
troops cleared monasteries of the icons that people had traveled great distances
on pilgrimage to visit. Few icons, mostly those housed in remote monasteries,
such as St. Catherines in the Sinai peninsula or in Russia, escaped destruction.
The first selection here, from the Council of Constantinoples condemnation of
icons in 754, sets out the rationale for the banning of icons. The second selection,
from the Council of Nicaea in 787, explains the councils reasons for restoring the
veneration of icons.
From the Council of Constantinople in 754
Satan misguided men, so that they worshipped the creature instead of
the Creator. The Mosaic law and the prophets cooperated to undo this ruin;
but in order to save mankind thoroughly, God sent his own Son, who turned us
away from error and the worshipping of idols, and taught us the worshipping
of God in spirit and in truth. As messengers of his saving doctrine, he left us his
Apostles and disciples, and these adorned the church, his Bride, with his glorious
doctrines. This ornament of the church the holy Fathers and the six Ecumenical
Councils have preserved inviolate. But the before-mentioned demiurgos of
wickedness could not endure the sight of this adornment, and gradually brought
back idolatry under the appearance of Christianity. As then Christ armed his
Apostles against the ancient idolatry with the power of the Holy Spirit, and sent
them out into all the world, so has he awakened against the new idolatry his servants our faithful Emperors, and endowed them with the same wisdom of the
Holy Spirit. . . .
What avails, then, the folly of the painter, who from sinful love of gain
depicts that which should not be depictedthat is, with his polluted hands he
tries to fashion that which should only be believed in the heart and confessed with
the mouth? He makes an image and calls it Christ. The name Christ signifies God
and man. Consequently it is an image of God and man, and consequently he has in
his foolish mind, in his representation of the created flesh, depicted the Godhead
which cannot be represented, and thus mingled what should not be mingled. Thus
he is guilty of a double blasphemythe one in making an image of the Godhead,
and the other by mingling the Godhead and manhood.
From the Second Council of Nicaea, 787
We define with all accuracy and care that the venerable and holy icons be
set up like the form of the venerable and life-giving Cross, inasmuch as matter
consisting of colours and pebbles and other matter is appropriate in the holy
church of God. . . , as well as the image of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus
Christ, of our undefiled Lady the Holy Mother of God, of the angels worthy of
honour, and of all the holy and pious men. For the more frequently they are
seen by means of pictorial representation the more those who behold them are
aroused to remember and desire the prototypes and to give them greeting and
worship of honourbut not the true worship of our faith which befits only the
divine naturebut to offer them both incense and candles, in the same way as to
the form of the venerable and life-giving Cross and to the holy gospel books and
to the other sacred objects, as was the custom even of the Ancients.
controversy was at an end. Symbolically, Irene replaced the Christ icon at the Chalke Gate, but very
few other icons had survived. Irenes popularity rose,
in large part because the people of the empire viewed
her as responsible for restoring their beloved icons.
bride shows Presentation of prospective brides to imperial representatives charged with finding a bride for
an unmarried emperor or heir to the throne.
229
230
Rus Scandinavian-Slavic people who established themselves in Novgorod and Kiev by the late ninth century.
Cyril (ca. 827869) and Methodius (ca. 825885) Missionaries and brothers sent to the Kievan Rus to oversee their conversion; they created the Cyrillic alphabet.
Cyrillic alphabet System of letters, named for the
ninth-century missionary Cyril, used to write Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian, and other Slavic languages.
Seljuk Turkic people from the steppes of Central Asia
who migrated westward into Byzantine territory and
eventually converted to Islam.
Manzikert Battle in 1071, in which Seljuk Turkic forces
defeated the Byzantine army and extended their control into Anatolia.
Summary
Review Questions
How would a Christian traveler know he or she was in
a Muslim city?
How did Byzantine and Muslim authorities each deal
with religious diversity?
When the memory of the Roman past receded, what
cultures emerged and spread beyond the old empires
borders?
The people of the eastern empire still thought of themselves as Roman in the ninth century, but so much had
changed in the preceding three centuries that a Latinspeaking resident of the city of Rome would not have
understood the Greek-speaking inhabitants of Constantinople, the New Rome. Rumors of barbarian
kingdoms to the west and the north circulated among
the sophisticated members of Byzantine society, but
no one knew much about them. They were too far
away for anyone to care deeply. More important to
them were local issuestaxes, trade goods, and the
precious icons that they once again prayed before.
Disagreements over the nature of Christ had not
diminished. The Christians of sixth-century Constantinople had very strong and conflicting opinions
about Jesuss humanity and divinity, which Emperor
Justinian and Empress Theodora at first tried to ignore. Eventually, after the Nika Riot disrupted the
capital in 532, the emperor suppressed those who disagreed with church doctrine, as threatening to Christian unity. Ironically, the regions where the majority
of Christians did not follow church teachings about
Christs nature gained freedom of belief only when
they came under the rule of people of another faith altogether, the Muslims.
Founded by Muhammad, who recited what he believed to be Gods word to humanity, Islam drew on
Jewish and Christian traditions, but the new religion
had from its start a firmer political and cultural foundation in the Arabian Peninsula than Christianity had
enjoyed in the Roman Empire. After an initial period
of conflict between believers and nonbelievers, the
founder of Islam united the people of the Arabian
Summary
231
232
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Sunnis and Shiites
In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, distinctions between the Sunni and the Shiite sects of
Islam achieved a higher level of visibility in the west than ever before. Unfortunately, it has taken war and
acts of terrorism in the United States and abroad to spark interest in the history of Islam, despite the millions of U.S. citizens who are Muslim. The revolution in Iran in 1979; the wars conducted by Iraqs leader,
Saddam Hussein, on neighboring Iran and his own nations Shiite population in the 1980s; and conflicts
between Iraqs Sunni and Shiite populations in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion in 2003 have shown that
what began as a dispute over the caliphate in the seventh century has evolved over the centuries into divergent traditions of spiritual authority.
The majority of the worlds Muslims900 million, by some estimatesbelong to the Sunni sect, which
traditionally favored choosing its leaders from among Meccas Quraysh elite. Today, in contrast to Shiite
Muslims, who believe their leaders (imams) must be direct descendants of Muhammad through Ali and his
sons, Sunni Muslims in nations with secular rulers select their religious leaders through consensus. The
prosperity of Sunni Muslim nations ranges widely, from oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and
Qatar to countries with great disparities of wealth, such as Morocco, Algeria, and Malaysia. Shiites have
faced discrimination in many Sunni countries where they are the minority, most notably in Saddam Husseins Iraq, where they made up the majority of the population.
The 60 or 70 million Shiites around the world represent approximately 10 percent of the worlds Muslims.
They constitute a minority in most Islamic countries, where Sunnis form the majority. The first modern Shiite
state, established in Iran in 1979 after the overthrow of the U.S.-supported shah (an ancient Persian word
meaning king), is considered by most western observers to be governed by Shiite imams, who have the
power to overrule the countrys constitutionally elected president and parliament. Within Islam, the Shiites
reputation for protecting the poor and the weak contributed to the sects growth among poor and oppressed populations, while the Sunni sect remained dominant among ruling elites.
Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Shiites have dominated the newly constituted government there. By
2007, tensions between the countrys Shiite majority and Sunni minority had led many observers to consider
Iraq to be in a state of civil war.
Suggested Readings
Ahmed, Leila. Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots
of a Modern Debate. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
1993. An examination of the position of women in Muslim societies, past and present, by a prominent scholar of Islam.
Browning, Robert. The Byzantine Empire. Washington, D.C.:
Catholic University of America Press, 1992. A combined political and cultural history of Byzantium by one of the finest scholars of the Byzantine Empire.
Evans, James A. S. The Empress Theodora: Partner of Justinian.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. A good overview of
Theodoras life and political influence in the reign of Justinian I.
Herrin, Judith. Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. An ac-
Websites
Websites
Primary documents for the Byzantine Empire, Internet
Medieval Sourcebook, Byzantium, at: www.fordham.edu/
halsall/sbook1c.html
Accessible and useful primary sources for the history and religion of Islam,
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234
CHAPTER
The Kingdoms of
Western Europe,
5001000
CHAPTER OUTLINE
From King to Emperor
Imperial Rule in the West
The Partition of Charlemagnes
Empire
Introduction
Regional Rule, Local Views, 500750
Kingship and Rule in Merovingian Gaul
The Iberian and Italian Peninsulas
The Decline of Trade
The Decline of Cities
Summary
Suggested Readings
The Bishops
The Bishop of Rome
Monasticism and Learning
Websites
1500 B.C.E.
1000 B.C.E.
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
500 B.C.E.
511
Cloviss lands are divided among his sons
476
Fall of the
western
Roman Empire
400
450
500
525
Benedict founds
monastery at
Monte Cassino
550
ca. 563
Columba founds
monasteries in
Scotland and Britain
600
650
700
S
T
L
A
AG
ne
Se
a
Ti
g
r is
Antioch
Eu
Rh
in
e
Crete
Cyprus
P E
phra
t
es
Tripoli
ARMENIA
Constantinople
Se
Samarkand
Am
uD
ar y a
an
B l a ck S ea
SERBS
Ionian
Sea
Syrda
rya
Aral
Sea
Se
a Sicily
n
Do
pi
ne
i ep
er
as
Palermo
DUCHY OF
BENEVENTO
AR
KHAZAR KHANATE
ean
A eg
Tunis
Tyrrhenian
Sea
BULGAR
KHANATE
D a n ube
TS
OA
CR
ra
Dn
SLAVS
Tahert
ter
TI
Se
Medi
t ic
Rome
Sardinia
Naples
Balearic Is.
ria
PAPAL
STATES
Corsica
W
AL
ES
Rh
Venice
Ravenna
ES
ISTRIA
AL
Barcelona
P LES
PEO
VIC
LA
M
Po
LOMBARDY
Marseilles
Crdoba
Ceuta
VENETIA
Ad
SPANISH
MARCH
811
Milan
r
Eb
Toledo
GASCONY
POL
YS
ALEMANNIA
BAVARIA
BURGUNDY
788
Lyons
AQUITAINE
la
T AR
IBU
TR
AUSTRASIA
Tours
PRUS
Vis
tu
Baghdad
Indus
SAXONY
804
Aachen
Rouen
Paris
NEUSTRIA
KIEVAN
RUS
B
ER
E lb
D
L AN
BRITTANY
UMAYYAD
CALIPHATE
Baltic
Sea
DANISH
MARCH
London
Canterbury
Roncesvalles
Whitby
ENGLAND
ATLA N TI C
OC E A N
S I B E R I A
ED
IRELAND
FINNS
Damascus
Jerusalem
Alexandria
C A
L I
Pe
Basra
r si
Y
P
N il
S A H A R A
Hormuz
an
G
ulf
Muscat
HE
A R A B I A N
JA
Medina
OMAN
Ar abian
Sea
P E N I N S U L A
Re
Se
Mecca
400
500 C.E.
732
Franks defeat
Muslims at Tours
751
Pepin becomes
king of the Franks
750
YEMEN
800 Km.
400
800 Mi.
I ND I AN
O CEAN
Aden
1000 C.E.
1500 C.E.
2000 C.E.
late 700s
Viking raids begin
800
Charlemagne
becomes
emperor
800
843
Treaty of Verdun
divides empire among
Charlemagnes grandsons
850
962
Otto I
becomes
emperor
900
950
1000
235
235
236
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
The Pope Crowns Charlemagne Emperor
Charlemagne and
His Wife
Charlemagne, seen here in
this manuscript page with his
wife, was the first ruler in the
West to bear the title of
emperor in over three hundred years. (Erich Lessing/Art
Resource, NY)
Pope Leo III stood waiting, off to the side in front of the altar in the
ancient Church of Saint Peters in Rome. The priests assisting him at the
Christmas Mass in the year 800 were helping Charles, king of the Franks
and king of the Lombards, don once again the robes and symbols of his
royal authority. Earlier in the Mass, the king had divested himself and
prostrated himself before the altar as a humble gesture of an ordinary
manwhich he most definitely was not. The king was as proud a man as
they come.
All his life, Charles exhausted everyone he came into contact with. Tall
for his time (a little more than six feet) and burly, this new emperor in
the west wore out officials, armies, horses, clergy, and family. From the
time he became king in 768 until he died as emperor in January 814,
Charles spent every year of his reign except the last four conducting war
and conquering territory. His empire stretched from the Pyrenees Mountains in the southwest of Gaul to the river Elbe in eastern Europe. He
conquered the Aquitainians, Lombards, Romans, Friulians, Saxons, Bretons, Beneventans, Bavarians, Slavs, Avars, Bohemians, Linonians, Abodrites, Alamannians,
Gascons, Catalans, Pannonians, Dacians, Dalmatians, and others too many to
name. Wherever he conquered, he forced his new subjects to convert to Christianity. The king seemed never to rest. The Byzantines, nervously pondering where
lay the limits of Charless ambitions, had a proverb: Have a Frank as a friend,
never as a neighbor.
Now, his prayers finished, the time had come for Charles to reassume his mantle
and crown. Pope Leo took the crown from the altar and prepared to set it again
on the kings head. He had done the same at Christmas Mass in years past, when
Charles had come to Rome in the winter after safeguarding the popes lands and
position in central Italy. But this time, the pope deviated from past practice. Setting the crown on the kings head, Leo declared that Charles was now emperor
of the Roman Empire, the first to bear that title in the west since the end of the
fifth century.
When the news that the pope had crowned Charles emperor reached Constantinople, it made the Byzantines especially uneasy, for their ruler at the
time was the empress Irene, and to somein both the east and the west
rule by a woman meant that the throne in Constantinople might as well have
been vacant. To call Charles emperor was at least presumptuous; at the worst,
it could be threatening. There was little, however, the Byzantines could do
about it, under pressure as they were from invaders on their southern
borders.
The monk Einhard, Charless biographer, claimed much later that Charles reluctantly accepted the title of emperor, which at first he disliked so much that he
stated that, if he had known in advance of the popes plan, he would not have
entered the church that day, even though it was a great feast day. As unlikely
as it was that Charles did not know in advance what the pope intended to do,
Charles had good reason to dislike the popes action, or at least to feel ambivalent
about it. Symbolically, the popes crowning of the emperor suggested that the
emperor received his authority from the pope and, therefore, owed the pope
the respect due a superior. Was the emperor actually beholden to the pope? Or
was the pope merely the conduit of Gods approval? The question took centuries
to resolve.
Introduction
Although no one realized it at the time, Romulus Augustulus, deposed in 476, would be the last Roman
emperor in the west. When that office remained vacant
in the late fifth century, rulers in the western provinces,
once labeled barbarian by their Roman masters,
stepped forward to lead their people off on their own.
Partially as a result, the world became local. No
longer did the peoples of the western interior look to
the Mediterranean for direction or innovation, and
no longer did the lands bordering the Mediterranean
237
238
Chronology
507
774
525
late 700s
552
800
813
816
843
878
899
ca. 563
572
ca. 590s
597
718
732
751
c. 924
ca. 750s
768
936
962
The sword hilts pictured here reveal the high quality of Frankish crafts during the Merovingian dynasty. The delicate gold
leaf on the handle indicates that the king who wielded these
weapons used them for display more than for battle. (Erich
Lessing/Art Resource, NY)
became king of an equal portion of the land their father had conquered. This division of a fathers estate
was custom, and custom had the force of law. In other
words, the division of Cloviss kingdom was not so
much a political division as a familial one.
Thinking of a kingdom as a familys estate makes it
easier to understand why the temptation to restore the
fathers territory overcame brotherly affection in nearly
every generation after Clovis. The Merovingian kings
of the seventh century spent much of their time and
wealth conducting wars against family members. Every
time a king died, his sons fought each other, each
seeking to acquire the power and wealth their father
had possessed. The result was constant violence and
murder. With alarming predictability, brothers slaughtered brothers, mothers attempted to kill daughters,
and uncles massacred nephews.
Thus, Merovingian kings were not so much rulers
of territories who sought to govern as they were warrior chieftains who sought to seize and subdue land
Following their defeat by the Franks in 507, the Visigoths retreated over the Pyrenees to the Iberian Peninsula, where they found the population easier to
subdue. As a province of the Roman Empire, Spain
had had close cultural and religious ties to the imperial city. The upper levels of society were descendants
of Roman military and civilian administrators and
people indigenous to the region. These Christians
looked to the bishop of Rome as their spiritual leader.
The Visigoth kings, who were Arian Christians, came
to understand that as long as they appeared to be
heretics in the eyes of their subjects, their legitimacy
would be in question. So, they converted to Roman
Christianity. Thereafter, Visigoth kings cooperated
closely with the bishops to bolster one anothers authority. The arrival of the Muslims in 711 and the
Muslim conquest of the peninsula in 718 brought
Visigothic rule and society to an end.
In the same period the Lombards from the north of
Germany crossed the Alps into northern Italy and
drove the Byzantines out. The Italian cities that had
survived the collapse of the western empire owed
their existence largely to their bishops, who assumed
many of the responsibilities as well as the grandeur of
imperial power. Now the Lombards used the municipal buildings and organizations they found in these
cities to good effect, trying to rule as they imagined
the Romans would have done. Once they had established their capital at the inland town of Pavia in 572,
they gave themselves the titles, offices, and authority
of the old Christian Roman Empire. Not surprisingly,
the bishops did not welcome these new competitors
for civic authority, some of whom were Arian Christians and therefore, in their opinion, heretics. The ill
239
240
enthusiasm for travel and trade around the Mediterranean. Up to that point, the axis of long-distance
trade routes ran on sea and land from northwestern
Europe in a southeasterly direction toward Constantinople. Now the dangers of long-distance trade
caused a shift in the principal trade routes to an axis
running north-south within western Europe, from
the Baltic Sea to the shore of the Mediterranean.
These economic and political changes in the old Roman world had three effects on western Europe: a decrease in the quantity of luxury goods that reached the
royal and aristocratic courts of eighth-century Gaul, a
change from gold to silver coins, and a heightened
self-sufficiency in the population of western Europe as
a whole. Merchants still brought wares from the east to
markets near the residences of nobles and bishops, but
in smaller quantities and less often. Spices, gold, silk
cloth, and ceramics became extremely difficult to find
in the markets of the west. Trade became increasingly
local and regional as western Europe increasingly
came to rely on its own resources.
By the eighth century, people in Europe had little
access to or use for gold coinage. What little there was
entered Europe from Byzantine and Muslim lands,
since Europes only gold mines had been depleted by
the eighth century. Moreover, because trading occurred most frequently on a local level, ordinary
people found it more convenient to use a silver coin,
the solidus, for their purchases. Gold coins were sim-
ply impractical for the small purchases people typically made. The switch to silver coins from gold
reveals much about the kinds of commercial transactions taking place in early medieval Europe.
The use of silver coins does not mean that these
transactions always involved coinage. Often coinage
only supplemented exchanges of goods. For example,
a peasant woman might want to purchase a pig from
a neighbor. She had only three hens and some rough
woolen cloth she wove herself to give for the pig, but
those items did not come close to what a pig was
worth. Pigs were valuable, and therefore expensive,
not only for their meat but also for their low maintenance, since they wandered freely and could feed
themselves off the growth in pastures and forests.
The peasant woman did have some silver coins,
which she could use to make up the difference between the value of her goods and the value of the
pig. Barter, or exchange in kind, predominated in
very isolated areas where coins were rarest and persisted throughout the early Middle Ages, particularly
among people of humble status.
In general, people had less need of markets than
they had had in the past. Markets had become places
where peasants made purchases or bartered to supplement the foods they grew. There they encountered
neighbors, and perhaps a few traders displaying locally or regionally produced goods. But there were no
traders hawking wares from distant lands. And the
peasants did not purchase much. Whether in times of
241
242
The Christianization of
Northern Europe
Across the channel from the Frankish kingdom, the
newly arrived Angles and Saxons pushed the Celts
and descendants of the Roman population to the
margins of the island or off it altogether. Those who
remained vied to dominate Britain. By the late sixth
century, the region was divided among numerous
kings whose fortunes rose and fell. A Saxon kingdom
took shape in Wessex in the southwest and another in
Northumbria in the north. In the southeast, King
Aethelbert of Kent established his capital in the town
Aethelbert (r. ca. 593ca. 617) King of Kent, a region in
southeastern Britain bordering on the English Channel.
ently from the method followed in Rome, a distinction that caused considerable tension among Pope
Gregorys missionaries and the Irish monks when
they met in the courts of the British kings. In the end,
representatives of the pope convinced Oswy, the king
of Northumbria, to follow their calculation at the
Synod of Whitby in 664, and Roman Christianity
Canterbury Capital of the kingdom of Kent and seat of
the archbishop and head of the English church.
Gregory I (r. 590604) Pope who dispatched missionaries to northern Europe and wrote theological works
and saints biographies.
Augustine (d. 604) Augustine of Canterbury, a monk
who converted King Aethelbert to Christianity and
became the first archbishop of Canterbury.
Bertha (539ca. 612) Christian daughter of a Frankish
king who married King Aethelbert and helped establish Christianity in Britain.
Synod of Whitby Meeting in 664 at which Roman
usages and the date for Easter were adopted, thus
bringing English Christianity into the Roman tradition.
243
244
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Pope Gregory Sends Instructions to
a Missionary
is not fitting that two or three cups should be placed on the altar when the ceremony of the Mass is performed. . . .
You ask further, if a father or mother shall have placed a young son or daughter in a cloister under the discipline of a rule, whether it is lawful for the child
after reaching the years of discretion to leave the cloister and enter into marriage.
This we absolutely forbid, since it is an impious thing that the restraints of desire
should be relaxed for children offered to God by their parents. . . .
Lepers, if they are believing Christians, may receive the body and blood of the
Lord, but they may not take food together with persons in health.
You ask whether, in the case of a contagious disease or plague in a church
or monastery, those who are not yet attacked may escape danger by flight. We
declare this to be the height of folly; for no one can escape from the hand of God.
Finally, your letter states that certain priests and bishops are so involved in
vices of many sorts that their lives are a blot upon the priesthood and you ask
whether it is lawful for you to eat with or to speak with them, supposing them not
to be heretics. We answer, that you by apostolic authority are to admonish and
persuade them and so bring them back to the purity of church discipline. If they
obey, you will save their souls and win reward for yourself. You are not to
avoid conversation or eating at the same table with them. It often happens that
those who are slow in coming to a perception of the truth under strict discipline
may be led into the paths of righteousness by the influence of their table companions and by gentle admonition. You ought also to follow this same rule in dealing
with those chieftains who are helpful to you.
The Bishops
Bonifaces elevation to the office of bishop of the German lands reflects the kind of work bishops undertook in northern Europe, where there were not yet
many practicing Christians. In these regions, bishops
resembled missionaries more than they did ecclesiastical administrators. In southern Gaul, Spain, and Italian cities, on the other hand, bishops became the
caretakers not only of the early medieval church but
also of early medieval society. In addition to overseeing the spiritual care of the Christians living under
their jurisdiction, they became the effective rulers of
many Italian and southern French cities. The bishops
of Milan and Lyons acquired reputations for their
courts of justice. In northern Europe, bishops acted
more as advisers to kings in the absence of other officials. The bishops of a region met occasionally to discuss and address problems in their areas. But their
primary role centered on their status as spiritual head
of an administrative unit called the bishopric or diocese, which had authority over local churches, in
smaller administrative units called parishes, within it.
Parish priests assigned to local churches to perform
religious services answered to the bishop in whose
diocese their churches were located. The bishopric
was centered on a city, and at the heart of the bishops
city stood the cathedral, the principal church of a diocese, and at the heart of the cathedral were preserved
the relics and tombs of local holy figures considered
saints by ordinary people. The cathedral of Tours attracted pilgrims from all over Gaul who desired to
pray to Saint Martin, a Roman soldier-turned-monk
whose remains and relics lay under the altar. The
proximity of sacred relics to the bishops seat by the
altar was meant to instill pious obedience in the hearts
of the men and women living in the bishopric.
A bishops authority nevertheless rested on more
than an aura of holiness. His spiritual authority derived as well from worldly wealth and political power,
in the form of revenue from land belonging to the
bishopric. Throughout the Middle Ages, the church
was the single largest landowner, if all the land belonging to bishoprics and monasteries is counted.
Other sources of income also contributed to a bishops
authority. When bishops allied themselves to the
245
246
ruling and noble families of western Europe, they received gifts of land from wealthy men and women
who wished to have commemorative Masses performed for the benefit of their souls or those of their
relatives after they died. Bishops also relied on tithes,
a tax placed on all Christians for the maintenance of
the church. Bolstered by revenue from land and the
tithes, and endowed with the gifts of the royal and
noble patrons, bishops became very wealthy.
The bishops wealth, combined with the authority
delegated to them by kings, made these churchmen
very powerful in both ecclesiastic and secular spheres.
They exerted influence over ordinary Christians by
virtue of their role as spiritual pastors. Bishops oversaw the instruction of the laity in Christian dogma,
the administration of relief to the poor and and to the
general populace in times of famine, and the supervision of the clergy in their duties. These ecclesiastical
responsibilities alone afforded them considerable
power. Everywhere in Europe bishops developed
mutually beneficial relationships with rulers. Kings
found in bishops capable advisers and administrators, and bishops looked to kings and their royal families for support in the extension and deepening of
the Christian faith in western Europe. With the help
of royal women, bishops organized missionary work
and the establishment of new monastic communities.
They served as judges in the kings courts and oversaw the maintenance not only of churches but also
occasionally of city walls and other municipal structures. To a modern eye, many Frankish bishops look
very much like city mayors.
Because of the cooperation between rulers and
bishops, Frankish kings felt they had the right to
appoint churchmen to ecclesiastical positions within
their kingdoms, although this notion went against
long-established church law. In some respects, the
kings expectations were reasonable. After all, the duties of bishops extended far beyond the walls of their
cathedrals, and, as practically the only literate people
in society, the lower clergy such as priests and deacons performed critically important services in royal
and municipal administration. Some bishops were inclined to agree with the kings view of appointments,
but many bishops, and especially the pope, did not
approve of secular appointments to church positions
at any level, which they felt undermined the churchs
authority. Such appointments raised a question of
loyalty: should a bishop owe his first loyalty to the
church or to the layman who appointed him to his office? By the eleventh century, more and more people
believed the health of the church depended on keeping the clergy out of the kings business and on keeping the king out of the churchs affairs.
year 750, a document came to light that gave the office of the pope the legitimacy it needed to rule territory. The Donation of Constantine purported to be a
fourth-century agreement between the emperor Constantine the Great and the bishop of Rome, Silvester,
in which Constantine, departing for his new capital
in Constantinople, transferred to Silvester authority
not only over the institution of the church but also directly over much of the territory of central Italy and
indirectly over the secular rulers of the west. The document made it appear that Constantine was leaving
Silvester in charge of the western half of the empire.
In the fifteenth century, the Italian scholar Lorenzo
Valla proved the document was a forgery, but even in
the ninth century some doubted its authenticity.
The Donation of Constantine reveals, however, the
high ambitions of the popes in contrast to the limits of
their practical power. Frankish kings, in emulation of
the eastern emperors, could still convene church
councils, a prerogative that the pope claimed in principle exclusively for himself. Also, there was little the
pope could do at this point to prevent kings from
appointing bishops or prevent lords from appointing priests on their lands. Although they viewed the
pope as the head of the church, western secular rulers
and even bishops and archbishops outside of Rome
felt no obligation to recognize, much less put into
practice, the popes laws. It would not be until the
end of the twelfth century that the papacy would begin to realize its claim to hold supreme authority in
spiritual and secular affairs. But the desire to do so
had long been apparent.
247
248
By the late eighth century, most people in western Europe associated the office of emperor with the Byzantine emperors. For the eastern emperors, there had
been no break in continuity from the golden days of
Rome to the less glorious present of a much-reduced
eastern empire. But the Frankish king and nobility
also remembered that there had once been a system
of two emperors, one in the east and one in the west,
and so the possibility of a revival of the western title
existed. The time was especially favorable, because a
woman occupied the imperial throne in Constantinople. For many in the west, that meant that the office of
emperor was, in effect, vacant.
decay of the office of king, as did pressure from powerful noble families. The nobles benefited from their
position as the kings chief supporters, as the estates
granted to them by the kings allowed them to create
strongholds where they exercised authority equal to
and eventually surpassing that of the kings. In fact,
the kings became so insignificant politically that the
most powerful nobles of the moment chose the king
from the pool of Merovingian descendants.
As early as 600, the Frankish kingdom had consisted of three provincesNeustria, Austrasia, and
Burgundy. Each province had its own king, but a
court official called the mayor of the palace, or major
domus, effectively ruled in the place of the king. Instead of the kings fighting among themselves, the
struggle for power shifted to the mayors, who fought
for dominance over as much of one anothers provinces
as they could manage to acquire. The Merovingian
kings had become little more than puppets for the
ambitions of land-hungry mayors.
One family in particular rose to power from its
base in Austrasia, the northeastern region of the
Frankish kingdom. Charles Martel, the mayor of
Austrasia, waged war against his fellow mayors in
the adjacent regions and eventually brought the
heartland of Europe under his rule. Once he had set
up a puppet Merovingian king in Neustria, he turned
his attention to east of the Rhine River. The populations there had had little previous contact with
Frankish culture, nor had they yet converted to
Christianity. When Charles incorporated them by
force into his realm, he brought them into Christendom at the same time.
Charles Martel also battled for Christianity in the
southwest, where he faced a Muslim foe. A little more
than a century after conquering the Iberian Peninsula, Abd-ar-Rahman, the Muslim ruler based in the
city of Cordoba, led an army over the Pyrenees and
headed north, claiming the Frankish land he passed
through by right of conquest. At Tours, in 732, Charles
stopped the Muslim advance, and the invaders withdrew to the south. By the time he died in 741, Charles
had more territory under his control than any Merovingian king had ever accumulated. Although he never
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250
Charlemagne spent nearly his entire reign on military campaign. Only late in life did he give up life in camp and settle
in his capital at Aachen in northern Germany. (Giraudon/The
Bridgeman Art library)
251
252
The Partition of
Charlemagnes Empire
Like the Merovingian kings before him, Charlemagne
submitted to custom regarding the inheritance of
property and planned for an equal division of his empire among his three sons after his death. But two sons
died before him, leaving only his third son, Louis, to
inherit the empire. To ensure a smooth succession after his death, Charlemagne arranged in 813 for Louis,
known to his contemporaries as Louis the Pious, to
come to his capital at Aachen. There in the cathedral
Charlemagne had Louis place a crown on his own
head, making himself co-emperor with his father until
his fathers death would leave him sole emperor. This
coronation without the pope would have set a lasting
precedent had it not been for Louis insecurity following his fathers death in 814. Wishing to bolster his
claim to the title, Louis reverted to his fathers precedent. In 816, he had himself recrowned by Pope
Stephen V in the cathedral at Rheims. From that point
on, the central role of the pope in the coronation of all
western emperors was established.
No doubt mindful of the premature deaths of his
brothers, Louis began early in his reign to plan for the
division of the empire after his own death. In 817, he
allotted the bulk of the empire and the title of emperor to his oldest son, Lothar, who would hold a rank
superior to that of his two younger brothers, Pepin and
Louis. These last two were to receive smaller shares
of their fathers domain, a distinct innovation for its
time. In 823, Louis had Lothar crowned co-emperor
and king of Italy.
Thereafter, however, Lothar viewed his father and
co-emperor as a rival, while the younger brothers resented both their emperor-brother and their emperorfather. When, after his first wife died, Louis had
another son, Charles the Bald, by a second wife, the
three older sons perceived this new brother as a threat
to their inheritance. In 833, Louis sons captured their
father and placed him in a monastery. Louis gained
his freedom and his authority in 835, but, in spite of
the death of Pepin, the potential for warfare only increased. Louis death in 840 signaled a new, violent
phase in the civil wars of the Carolingian dynasty.
In the generations after Louis death, the empire
253
254
dation, as this secondary grant of fiefs is called, sometimes led to complications. Nobles who swore an
oath of fealty to one lord in exchange for land could
then swear an oath to another lord to acquire even
more land. If a vassals two lords went to war against
each other, the vassal was at risk of forfeiting part of
his lands. Only exceptionally did women become
vassals, usually when they had no brother to inherit
their fathers commitments.
Feudal armiesmade up of vassals performing
their obligatory military service to their kingwere
notoriously unreliable. The strength of a sworn oath
rarely overcame the reluctance of most lords to leave
their lands to go fight their kings battles. Over time,
the great nobles of the Frankish kingdoms greatly
preferred to make cash payments instead of performing military service, and kings came to prefer cash
payments, too, since they could then hire an army of
professional soldiers, or mercenaries.
In the ninth century, when the power of the Carolingian kings dwindled as a consequence of the warfare among Charlemagnes descendants, the nobility
exercised powers within their fiefdoms that kings
had once sought to regulate. Nobles dispensed justice
without concern that a king would step in to impose
royal law on them. Nobles kept more of the taxes they
collected from the peasants living on their lands.
Their armies functioned like militias, policing the
fiefdom, guarding the borders, and occasionally raiding their neighbors lands. Just as in the Merovingian
period, the world of those without land or powerin
other words, the vast majority of the population
had once again become local, violent, and arbitrary.
Baltic
Sea
North Sea
York
DANISH
MARCH
200
400 Km.
200
400 Mi.
Haithabu
Elb
e
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
FL
AN
ne
hi
ALEMANNIA
BAVARIA
Rh
ne
Saint Gall
Milan
Po Venice
gh
da
PE
OP
LE
A
TI
Black
Sea
DUCHY e
a
OF
BENEVENTO
Constantinople
Naples
Salerno
ghda
d
ea
n S
gea
Palermo
to Ba
Ae
ic
r r Monte Cassino
he
ni
an
Se
a
BYZANTINE EMPIRE
ea
ran
Danu
be
at
Spoleto
Rome
Ty
SARDINIA
ri
CORSICA
BALEARIC IS.
Ionian
Sea
Se
CYPRUS
to Baghda
CRETE
Damascus
Monasteries
Charlemagnes empire
Muslim areas
Byzantine Empire
Venice
Tripoli
to Arab World
Alexandria
Trade in the Carolingian World Merchants in Europe never ceased to supply slaves to the
Byzantines and Muslim. Captives were sold in the major slave markets of Constantinople, Cordoba, Rome,
and Alexandria. Where did captives sold in the markets of the Mediterranean come from?
MAP 9.1
Nile
Slave trade
SICILY
Tunis
Tributary peoples
Lrins
Barcelona
ISTRIA
LOMBARDY
Ravenna
PAPAL
STATES
Marseilles
SPANISH
MARCH
Crdoba
Ceuta
Ba
VENETIA
Pavia
Aniane
Mediter
to
IC
SL A V
BURGUNDY
Lyons
Ad
o
br
Toledo
D n ie
p er
Prague
E
UMAYYAD SPAIN
Mainz
Reichenau
Poitiers
Roncesvalles
Fulda
AUSTRASIA
Orlans
Tours
Bordeaux
D on
K H A
Z A
Y
AR
UT
IB
TR
NEUSTRIA
GASCONY
tu l a
Dorestad
ER S
Aachen
Saint Wandrille
Quentowic
Rouen
Echternach
Jumiges
St. Denis
BRITTANY
Paris
AQUITAINE
Vi s
SAXONY
Utrecht
Canterbury
255
256
Greenland
d North America
ICELAND
874
Faeroe Is.
Trondheim
800
Shetland Is.
700
VIKINGS
Bergen
Oslo
SCOTLAND
Iona
Lindisfarne
Novgorod
8 78
Lund
Bremen
Echternach
917
ro
e
nn
844
Lisbon
LO
Lrins
Barcelona
Corsica
Rome
844
859861
882
D ni
eper
Balearic Is.
883
941
Po
895
Danube
Y
RD
BA
M
PROVENCE
Marseilles
Tagu
s
MAGYARS
900
Saint Gall
899
Rhne
Ga
Santiago
Reichenau
BURGUNDY
Bordeaux
Kiev
895
BAVARIA
Rh
e
Sein
896911
ine
NORMANDY Denis
Loir e
Od
er
be
Aachen Fulda
Rouen
Saint-
El
Weser
Saint Wandrille
Jumiges
Hamburg
SAXONY
es
a
tul
Vis
Tham
846
9 07
Humber
Estuary
8438 8 2
RUSSIA
Dublin
York
820
841
8
8
IRELAND
839
8 59
Jarrow
Durrow
Volga
Uppsala
North
Sea
Black
Sea
8 66
OCEAN
B a lt
S e a ic
ATLANTIC
Constantinople
Monte
Cassino
Carthage
Monasteries
Muslims
Me
dite
rranean Sea
Alexandria
Vikings
Magyars
827
Sicily
842
MUSLIMS
40
Hippo
Regius
Ceuta
96
Sardinia
0
0
200
400 Km.
200
400 Mi.
MAP 9.2
The Migrations of the Vikings, Magyars,
and Muslims. In the ninth and tenth centuries, the Vikings,
the Muslims, and the Magyars contributed to the disorder
created by the wars between Carolingian heirs. Peasants
received little protection from their lords. Monastic communities abandoned their cloisters and moved deeper into the
Frankish kingdom. Which parts of the kingdom were most
vulnerable to invasion?
257
258
Summary
Summary
Review Questions
What factors contributed to economic decline and
social disorder in the west?
How did a series of interlocking obligations, among
kings, lords, vassals, bishops, priests, and peasants,
define a persons place in the world?
How did the emperor and the pope each view their
authority with respect to the other?
259
granting land to supporters in exchange for their military aid. In principle, the distribution of fiefs to vassals was meant to furnish an army at little expense to
the king, but once in possession of their fiefs, vassals
proved reluctant to leave their estates. Kings found it
more convenient to accept cash payments from their
vassals in lieu of military service. The western emperor, Otto I, turned to an even more convenient way
depending on his vassals. He appointed bishops
many of whom also happened to be his relativesto
the position of duke, the rulers of the provinces into
which his empire was divided. In this way Otto ensured that the bearer of the title would not produce an
heir. Emperor Otto, the Carolingian kings of the Franks,
and their vassals used their armies to fight among
themselves and to confront incursions by Vikings,
Magyars, and Muslims into their territories. In the
ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries, the ordinary
people of western Europe could expect little protection from the invaders. No onenot the powerful
armies nor the clergyseemed capable of securing
the peace necessary for developing trade, reliable
harvests, and the prosperity of families.
260
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
The Beginning of Time
How do we measure time? When do we say it begins? Civilizations and cultures often look to their own
founding to fix the beginning of time. The Romans set their calendar with the founding of Rome as year 1.
But to the medieval world, Rome was said to have been founded in 753 B.C. (before Christ), because
Christian Europe looked to a new event to mark the beginning of timethe birth of Jesus. Starting with
this event, Christians designated time as A.D. (anno domini, in the year of Our Lord). But the year of
Jesuss birth is based on a calculation that is in error.
This year was calculated by Dionysius Exiguus (Dennis the Little), an early sixth-century abbot of a
monastery in Rome who was steeped in scripture and the Latin literature of old Rome. Dionysius received
assignments from the pope that very few others had the literary skills to do. He compiled the canons of all
the church councils prior to the sixth century, and he also calculated the date of Easter, the feast day commemorating Jesuss resurrection. Because the date is tied to the lunar calendarthe phases of the moon
Websites
Dionysius devised a method for calculating when it would fall each year. Not all groups of Christians accepted his method, but it served as an important starting point. The Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches
continued to follow the old method of calculating the date of Easter.
Dionysius replaced the Roman calendar with a calculation based on the year of Jesuss birth, basing his
calculation on the year of King Herods death753 years after the founding of Romethe year the New
Testament indicates Jesus was born. Not since Julius Caesar sponsored the calendar reform that bore his
name (the Julian calendar) in 46 B.C. had such a radical recalculation taken place. In the sixteenth century,
however, Dionysius was shown to have miscalculated the year of King Herods birth by four years. So, according to the Christian calendar, Jesus most likely was born about the year 4 B.C.
As an acknowledgment that not everyone in the world calculates time according to the Christian calendar,
a new set of designations has recently been adopted and is used in this textbook: B.C.E. (before the common era) to refer to dates prior to the traditional birthdate of Jesus Christ and C.E. (common era) to
refer to time thereafter.
Suggested Readings
Collins, Roger. Early Medieval Europe, 3001000. New York:
Palgrave, 1999.
A detailed narrative account of the transition from the Roman
Empire to a Frankish-dominated Europe.
Dutton, Paul Edward, ed. Charlemagnes Courtier: The Complete Einhard. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 1998. A
collection of text and documents pertaining to Charlemagnes
biographer, the monk Einhard, that contains the biography as
well as letters illustrative of the ecclesiastical concerns of
Charlemagne and his son, Louis.
Fichtenau, Heinrich. Living in the Tenth Century: Mentalities
and Social Orders. Translated by Patrick J. Geary. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. An interesting exploration of
daily life and the social customs of the late Carolingian period.
McKitterick, Rosamund. The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms, 789895. London: Longmans, Green, 1977. The
standard work on the growth of the church during the Carolingian period.
McKitterick, Rosamund, ed. The Early Middle Ages: Europe, 400
1000. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. In this collection of essays, each author addresses presents an overview of
the most recent scholarship on particular themes in early medieval history.
Smith, Julia M. H. Europe After Rome: A New Cultural History,
5001000. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. An up-tothe-minute overview of the cultural and social changes in the
wake of the Roman Empires end in the west.
Wickham, Chris. Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and
the Mediterranean, 400800. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2005. An authoritative and dense assessment of the evidence for the changes in long-distance trade and the economy
of the Frankish kingdoms; an invaluable reference work.
Websites
For medieval documents (including Einhards biography of
Charlemagne), saints lives, law texts, and maps, Internet Medieval Sourcebook, at www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook.html
Entertaining and educational site relating to the archaeology
and history of Viking York, Jorvik Viking Centre, at www
.jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk/
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262
CHAPTER
The High Middle Ages,
10001300
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Thomas Becket Defends the
Liberties of the Church
Introduction
Church Reform and Spiritual Renewal
Reform from Within
The Church and Secular Authority
Innocent III and the Fourth Lateran Council
Lay Leaders and Friars
The Crusades
A War to Renew the Church
Crusading Armies and Crusader States
Voice: Anna Comnena Describes the
Crusaders
Crusades in the East and in Europe
The Impact of the Crusades
1500 B.C.E.
Suggested Readings
Websites
1000 B.C.E.
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1066
William, duke of Normany, conquers England
1076
Pope Gregory VII excommunicates Emperor Henry IV
962
Otto I becomes
emperor
960
980
1095
Pope Urban IIs sermon
provokes the crusading movement
1000
1020
1040
1060
1080
1100
1120
1140
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
1500 C.E.
2000 C.E.
1204
Constantinople falls
to Fourth Crusade
1163
Construction
of Notre Dame
Cathedral
begins
1160
1180
1187
Saladin
defeats the
Crusaders
1200
1291
Acre, last Christian
outpost in east,
falls to Muslims
1215
Fourth Lateran Council sets new standards
King John signs the Magna Carta
1220
1240
1260
1280
1300
1320
1340
263
264
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Thomas Becket Defends the
Liberties of the Church
Eventually, Henry, fearing isolation from his fellow Christian rulers, met with
Thomas and agreed that Thomas would return to Canterbury. When he did so,
Thomas was greeted by cheering crowds. But he would not overturn the excommunications he had issued against Henry and those who supported him, and
Henry took that as an insult. It was at that point that Henrys knights sped to Canterbury and murdered Thomas.
Almost immediately, Thomas Beckets grave in the cathedral became a focal
point for pilgrims. So strong was Thomass reputation for holiness and defense
of the church that Pope Alexander III canonized him three years after his murder
in 1173.
Introduction
By the year 1000, the standards the church had set for
itself had sunk on all fronts. Rich monasteries, ecclesiastical offices for sale, married priests, and secular
rulers appointing bishops all indicated that the
church was losing sight of its mission. Some clergy
were determined to turn the church around. Their
campaign for reform inspired many laypeople to
dedicate themselves to Gods work among the poor
and infirm. Yet church leaders also worried that religious enthusiasm would create an atmosphere in
which the churchs essential role in salvation would
be ignored. The task was to find a way for the laity to
participate more fully in the life of the church without
challenging its authority.
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266
Chronology
910
1184
987
1187
1191
1192
1204
1208
1209
1215
1049
1076
1095
1096
1098
1099
1120
1216
1163
1291
1182
Clunys renewal of the monastic ideal included instilling in its monks the necessity for church reform. In
the eleventh century, highly educated monks helped
direct church and papal policy. They prescribed a
stricter adherence to celibacy, a minimal level of literacy, and a ban on the purchase of ecclesiastical office.
Viewing human sexuality in mostly negative terms by
associating all that is good with the spirit and all that
is bad with the flesh, the church in western Europe reinforced its long-standing requirement that the clergy
be chaste and unmarried. The requirement, dating
back to 390, had been increasingly ignored, as priests
and deacons had taken wives and concubines and had
children by them. In the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, a series of church councils invalidated such
marriages and reduced the wives and children of
priests and deacons to servile status.
At the same time, the reformers instituted a rule
that required clergymen to be literate enough to be
able to read the Bible and the prayers involved in the
liturgy. They also put on notice those clergymen who
had purchased their positions, a practice known as simony. It had been customary for lords to accept fees
from priests in exchange for the rights to officiate in
the churches located on the lords lands, despite the
fact that bishops claimed to control these rights. Some
bishops and archbishops even accepted payment for
the lower-ranking offices in their jurisdiction. Now,
all such payments were condemned.
Like most successful reform movements, over time
the products of reform became themselves in need of
reform. By the end of the eleventh century, the Cluniac Order, too, had become rich. The abbey church at
Cluny was the largest structure in Europe, and the
monastery resembled more a bustling city than a
sanctuary for silent prayer. Clunys influence can be
measured by the great number of papal, royal, and
noble delegationssimilar to the elaborate ceremonial visits secular rulers paid each othersent to pay
respects to the orders abbot. Important visitors required accommodations and banquets befiting their
exalted status. The orders own high standards had
collapsed under the weight of its success.
A new set of reformers then sought to revive the
standards the Cluniac Order had attempted to set. In
1098, monks from a monastery associated with Cluny
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268
269
270
isolated monasteries, friars lived according to a monastic rule in the world and carried out the churchs mission, working or begging to provide for their very
simple needs.
The Order of the Minor Brothers, commonly known
as the Franciscan Order, vowed obedience to the pope,
renunciation of property, and chastity. Relief of the
poor and preaching stood at the center of their mission.
Their founder, Francis, was born in 1182 in Assisi, a hill
town in central Italy, to a family of prosperous cloth
merchants. After serving in a war, he renounced his
claim on his fathers goods in 1207, gave away all his
clothing and goods, and dedicated his life to the poor
and infirm. The powerful example of his conversion
convinced many of his friends to join him. Within
two years, in 1209, Pope Innocent III approved the
rule Francis wrote. The Franciscan friars wandered
over Italy, preaching repentance and aiding the sick;
within ten years, they numbered in the thousands.
Their wanderings took them not only across Europe
but also to Muslim territories, where they sought converts. Women followed a more traditional path in the order. With support from Francis, a young woman from
Assisi, Clare, founded an order of nuns in 1212 that became known later as the Order of the Poor Clares. Unlike the friars, however, they lived in strict seclusion.
Francis of Assisi (11821226) Founder of the Franciscan friars, the first mendicant order.
The friars work made a deep impression on religious life in Europe. By setting an example of apostolic poverty, they made people question their
attachment to material things and made them more
sympathetic to the poverty surrounding them. They
placed a greater emphasis on learning. They also participated in the papacys campaign to impose uniformity of belief on Christian society.
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272
The Crusades
The belief that Jerusalemthe holiest spot in Christendomneeded rescue gave a focus to an enthusiasm
few people suspected lay behind the spirit of reform.
Beginning in the late eleventh century the church
until then an advocate of peacesent armies across
the continent for the purposes of war and conquest.
Thousands left homes and families to travel great distances and fight non-Christians for possession of land
they thought of as theirs but that, in fact, had not been
under Christian rule since the seventh century. Crusading armies attacked not only Muslims but also
Jews, other non-Christians, Christians believed to be
heretics, and the Christians of the Byzantine Empire.
The march of Christian armies changed the nature of
the Christian religion and created deep and lasting
enmities that persist to this day.
hostilities. The Byzantine emperor, Alexius I Comnenus, asked for aid against the Seljuk Turks, who
had seized land in Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine
from both Byzantine and Muslim rulers. Instead of
appealing to the German emperor or the king of the
French, Alexius applied to the pope, whose status in
western Europe he understood to resemble his own
in his empire. Even before receiving Alexiuss request, the pope had heard that the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher had been destroyed in 1010 by a Muslim
ruler of Jerusalem. Rumors about the mistreatment of
Christians there were widespread in the west. In reality, the Muslims, who by then had ruled Jerusalem for
centuries, and Seljuks, who replaced them, benefited
economically from the great number of pilgrims who
came to worship at Christian shrines and so were inclined to leave the Christians in peace. The pope was
in possession of mistaken and outdated news.
Yet, on November 25, 1095, Pope Urban II preached
a sermon to a large crowd in Clermont, in central
France, where he had been presiding over a local
council. Enemies of the faith, he reportedly declared,
were intent on conquering the Holy Land. He urged
men of all ranks whatsoever, knights as well as footsoldiers, rich and poor, to hasten to exterminate this
vile race from our lands and to aid the Christian inhabitants in time. He promised a remission of sins for
any of those who went to fight non-Christians, making war an act of penance. Christians fighting Muslims for control of the Iberian Peninsula would also
have their sins remitted. This war, said the pope, unlike the noblemens violence, was a just war.
The church taught that war in itself was not sinful,
especially when it was defensive. Since Saint Augustine in the fourth century, Christians had considered
violence, when necessary, lawful if the proper authorities condoned it, if the cause was deemed just, and if
the soldiers themselves meant good by it. In Alexiuss
letter, Urban saw an occasion for a just war that met
all those criteria.
primogeniture System of inheritance that directs the
majority of or the entire estate from a father to his
eldest son.
knights Armed supporters of nobles who lived and
served in the households of their lords.
Urban II (r. 10881099) Pope who in 1095 inspired the
crusading movement.
Alexius I Comnenus (r. 10811118) Byzantine emperor whose request for aid from the west served as
the pretext for the Crusades.
just war The idea and theological explanation of when
it is legitimate to wage war.
The Crusades
In this fourteenth-century
manuscript illumination,
Pope Urban II arrives at
the council and gives the
sermon that galvanized
thousands to march to Jerusalem. (BridgemanGiraudon/Art Resource, NY)
273
274
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Anna Comnena Describes the Crusaders
The Crusades
275
276
The Growth of
Royal Authority
277
ENGLAND
Bruges
Hastings
1066
Calais
Ypres Ghent
FL A N D E RS
Bouvines
A RT O I S
English
Chan
1214
nel
MAI NE
ANJOU
Bay
BLOIS
ire
Lo
HOLY
Orlans
ROMAN
BU RG U N D Y
Tours
Nantes
of
CH A M PA G N E
Paris Lagny
Chartres
BRI TTANY
Soissons
Reims
100 Mi.
use
e
in
NORMANDY
Se
100 Km.
50
Me
Bayeux
50
V E RM A N D O I S
Rouen PICARDY
Caen
Rennes
Arras
Amiens
MAP 10.1
The Growth of the
Kingdom of France The French kings
revenue derived from the royal domain. At the start of the twelfth century, the royal domain consisted of
mainly the region surrounding Paris.
Over the succeeding two centuries,
the royal domain grew larger as the
king took land away from his vassals.
Which regions did the French kings
first set out to confiscate?
TOURAI NE
EMPIRE
Bourges
POI TOU
Poitiers
Biscay
BO U RBO N
Clermont
Bordeaux
Added 12701314
Royal fiefs
GASCONY
SPAIN
ne
on
Gar
Major battle
Lyons
AQUI T AI N E
Added by Phillip
Augustus, 11801223
Added 12231270
Cluny
Rhne
278
Avignon
T O U L O U SE
PRO V E N CE
Montpelier
Toulouse
LA N G U E D O C
Marseilles
Mediterranean Sea
279
280
As kings in France, England, and the Holy Roman Empire sought to centralize their authority, and popes
sought to maintain theirs, written records became increasingly useful and in the thirteenth century proliferated. By 1300, many people in western Europe had
reasons to consult a written document at least once in
their lives. Managers of estates kept account books of
inventories and sales of estate produce. Knights preserved charters to show they had rights to the land
granted to them by their lords. Noblemen sent instructions to their vassals in letters. Merchants relied
heavily on written documents to communicate with
their partners and employees traveling on business
and to keep accounts of the business they conducted.
By far, the record offices of secular rulers and
popes produced the most documents. The chief secretary of a kings or popes records acquired the title of
chancellor. His responsibility was to draft letters in
response to requests for the kings advice. At the start
of the thirteenth century, the records of the French
king traveled with him. By the end of the same century, the kings business had become so complex that
it was necessary to store his correspondence and account books in a fixed, permanent place.
The commercial culture of Italian cities gave rise to
needs that brought about changes in record keeping
and legal documents for which customary law had
few answers. Merchants looked to the law of the Roman Empire, specifically the Body of Civil Law, to
supply legal formulas that would protect the interests
of both parties to contracts. Two merchants forming a
company or a short-term business venture called on a
notarya public official charged with drawing up legal documentsto write a contract with the proper
legal formula. The revival of Roman business law and
practice in the thirteenth century made merchants
adept at the intricacies of loans, bills of sale, receipts,
wills, and other documents involving the management of property.
Universities began to specialize in teaching law. At
the University of Bologna, the most famous and prestigious of law faculties in the Middle Ages, law students absorbed principles of law and legal remedies
281
282
documents, taxes, and financial obligations. New opportunities for trade led some to traffic in human
beings.
Expansion in Agriculture
Throughout the Middle Ages, land was the measure of
most aspects of life. A persons wealth was measured
by the amount of land in his or her possession. The
amount of land under cultivation determined how
much food was available. Toward the end of the tenth
century, an increase in the amount of crop-producing
land was accompanied by an increase in population,
with the potential for that number to rise even higher.
The increase in agricultural production came about as a
result of a combination of factors, the most prominent
of which were changing methods of field management
and improvements in agricultural technology.
For much of the early Middle Ages, peasants, like
the Romans before them, had divided their fields in
two, left one half fallow, or uncultivated, for a year,
and planted their crops in the other half. Fallow land
replenished its nutrients, but the practice meant that
half the land produced nothing every year. In southern Europewith its drier climatethis system of
two-field crop rotation continued, but in northern Europe, peasants improved on this system by dividing
their land into three parts. One they left fallow, another they planted in the spring, and the third they
planted with winter crops. This three-field crop rotation, dependent on more rainfall than southern Europe received, meant that two-thirds instead of half of
a peasants land was under production in one year.
Related to the changes in crop rotation were improvements in plows and animal harnessing. More
land under cultivation spurred experimentation in
the construction of plows. Peasants attached wheels
to their plows, which made it easier for oxen to pull
them through the heavier, wetter soil of northern Europe. A vertical blade, or coulter, made a narrow slice
through the soil, followed by the plowshare, an ironcovered blade that cut horizontally. The moldboard
tipped the cut soil over, creating the ridge of a row.
Wheels made it possible for a plow to move more
quickly down a rowprovided it had a speedy animal pulling it.
Oxen are slow and unintelligent compared to
horses. But because the strap that circles an oxs neck
under a yoke would strangle a horse, peasants could
not use horses to pull plows until they devised a different kind of harnessing. With a harness resting on
its shoulders rather than its neck, a horse could be
used to plow, and horses could walk more quickly
and work longer hours than oxen. They also required
Fish
Grain
Flax
Lead
York
Dublin
Fish
Fish
Waterford
Boston
Stourbridge Iron
Over 80,000
Iron
Over 40,000
Hemp
Salt
Boundary of the
Holy Roman Empire
Antwerp
Grain Poznan
Wine
Brussels
Copper
Tar
Pitch
Iron
Iron
Prague
Wheat
Nrdlingen
Silver
Nuremberg
Paper
Linz
Vienna
Munich
Zurzach
Salt Saltzburg
Tours
Dijon
Hall
Bourges
Besanon Innsbruck Schwaz
Gastein
Villach
Wine
wares Vicenza
Wine
Geneva Bergamo Mfd.
Brescia Padua
Lyon
Milan
Bordeaux
Mfd. wares Cremona
Wine
VeronaVenice
Pavia
Piacenza
MantuaGlass
Parma
Mfd. waresGenoa
Ravenna
Bologna
Wool
Avignon
Zara
Rimini
Lucca
Toulouse Montpellier Beauclaire
Florence Ancona
Pisa
Artwares
Narbonne
Wine
Arezzo
Siena
Perugia
Orvieto
Saragossa
Iron
Strasbourg
Augsburg
Salt
150
300 Km.
150
300 Mi.
Fruits+foodstuffs
Leon
Iron
Villaln
Valladolid
Wine
Wool
Coimbra
Timber
Pitch
Fruits+foodstuffs
Madrid
Barcelona
Toledo
Lisbon
Krakow
Frankfort
Iron
Guibray Rouen
Paris Paper
Flax
St. Denis
Provins
Lagny
Wheat
Troyes
Orlans
Wine
Bar
Lublin
Breslau
Cologne
Ghent
Amiens
Leipzig
Salt
ine
Rh
Ypres
Tournai
Berlin
Magdeburg
Bruges
Torun
Hemp
Bremen
Deventer
London
Over 10,000
Marketing center, under 10,000 Fish
Lbeck
Fish
Bristol
Lead
Tin
Over 20,000
Danzig
Flax
Wool
Rome
Iron
Buda
Horses
Silver
Wine
Metalwares
Leather
Silver
Paper
Naples
Cotton
Olives
Valencia
Copper
Cork
Cotton
Crdoba
Seville
Horses
Olives
Palermo
Silk
Messina
Granada
Olives
Wine
Algiers
Ceuta
Slave market
Slave market
Olives
Slave market
Olives
Tunis
Olives
MAP 10.2
283
284
285
286
Notre Dame became one of the most recognizable buildings in the world. Even in the Middle Ages, when
people associated the cathedral closely with the city of Paris. (David R. Frazier/Photo Researchers)
287
288
289
Summary
Review Questions
Describe the contest for authority between the papacy and secular rulers.
How did Christian identity develop and change during
the High Middle Ages?
What new opportunities were available to the people
of western Europe in this era? What new restrictions
constrained them?
the name of Godholy warbecame a growing obsession among many Christians and one more way in
which the church extended its authority over Christian society in Europe.
Kings also sought to expand their authority, but
their power did not increase at the same pace or in a
uniform fashion. The new Norman kings of England
benefited from institutions already in place when they
conquered the island in 1066. In France, the kings applied brute force to increase their authority, capturing
as much land as possible from the vassal who held
more land within the kingdom than did the king himself. This vassal was the king of England, however, and
thus was set in motion a contest that would continue
into the following centuries. Meanwhile, successors
of Otto started calling their empire the Holy Roman
Empire to reinforce a claim to defend the church and
to be actively involved in church affairs.
Kings of western Europe could extend their authority in large part because more of their subjects had
property worth taxing. Improved agricultural technology increased food supplies. Long-distance trade
revived, and towns grew. Merchants, craftsmen, and
those who supplied services to them had more money
than previous generations to spend on goods from
near and far, to invest in business ventures, and to educate themselves. The church and inhabitants of the
young cities devoted some of this wealth to building
cathedrals, monuments to the glory of God. At new
universities, scholars debated new approaches to learning and faith. In the High Middle Ages, everyone from
peasants and townsfolk to kings experienced an improvement in the conditions of their lives. The question was: how long would it last?
290
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Crusade
On September 16, 2001, in the wake of attacks by terrorists, President George W. Bush announced that the
United States was going to war against terrorism. He cautioned the American people, This crusade, this
war on terrorism, is going to take a while. His use of the word crusade provoked a strong reaction from
people in Arab nations, while it evoked barely a comment from people in the United States.
Websites
Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda, an alliance of the terrorist organizations, did not hesitate to turn the
phrase back on the American president in issuing a call for jihad: Bush left no room for doubts or the opinions of journalists, but he openly and clearly said that this war is a crusader war. He said this before the
whole world to emphasize this fact. Bin Ladens perception of history and international policy rests on
the enduring image of crusading in Muslim countries of the Middle East. The word crusade recalls the time
when their lands were invaded by Christian armies, but Bin Laden also connected it to the early twentieth
century. Following World War I, he stated in his call, which ended more than eighty-three years ago, the
whole Islamic world fell under the crusader bannerunder the British, French, and Italian governments.
The reference is to European intervention in lands with majority Muslim populations, including Syria, Iraq,
Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon. While the extreme views of Bin Laden do not reflect those held by the overwhelming majority of the worlds Muslims, his reference to the Crusades of the twelfth century and the
colonies of the twentieth century was comprehensible to Muslims in the Middle East in a way that it was
not to Christians and Jews in the United States.
The power of words and history to incite people continues to complicate relations among Christians, Jews,
and Muslims. When, in a university lecture in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI quoted a Byzantine theologians negative assessment of Islam, Muslim leaders took it as an insult to their religion. Some Muslims saw the popes
words as further proof of the long-standing enmity the Christian west has displayed toward Islam. Why the
series of armed migrations of western Europeans toward the east nearly a millennium ago still resonates in
relations between Christians and Muslims is a question that the study of history can help answer.
Suggested Readings
Blumenthal, Uta-Renate. The Investiture Controversy: Church
and Monarchy from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988. A succinct introduction to the broad scope of the movement to reform the church.
Clanchy, Michael T. Abelard: A Medieval Life. Cambridge,
Mass.: Blackwell, 1999. An insightful biography of one of the
most brilliant minds of the Middle Ages.
Duby, Georges. The Early Growth of the European Economy:
Warriors and Peasants from the Seventh to the Twelfth Century. Translated by H. B. Clarke. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1974. A classic of medieval economic history.
Radding, Charles, and William W. Clark. Medieval Architecture, Medieval Learning: Builders and Masters in the Age of
Websites
Examples of medieval art from the best medieval museum in
the United States, The Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum,
at www.metmuseum.org/events/ev_cloisters.asp?HomePage
Link=collections_cloisters_l.
The British monarchys webpage with an interesting overview
of its own history, History of the Monarchs of the United
Kingdom, at www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page5.asp.
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292
CHAPTER
Reversals and Disasters,
13001450
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Joan of Arc Recants, Then
Retracts Her Recanting
Introduction
Famine and Plague
The Spread of Hunger
The Specter of Death
Endurance and Adaptation
Economies Under Stress
1500 B.C.E.
A Worldly Church
Papal Ambitions
The Avignon Papacy
The Great Schism
The Laity and the Church
Summary
Echo: The Black Death and AIDS
Suggested Readings
Websites
1000 B.C.E.
1305
Avignon papacy
begins
1215
King John signs
the Magna Carta
1200
1220
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1240
1260
1280
1300
1320
1337
Hundred Years
War begins
1340
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
1500 C.E.
2000 C.E.
1347
Black Death first appears in Italy
1356
French defeated
at Battle
of Poitiers
1360
1378
Great Schism
begins
1380
1453
Fall of Constantinople
Hundred Years War ends
1417
Great Schism
ends
1400
1420
1440
1460
1480
293
294
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Joan of Arc Recants, Then
Retracts Her Recanting
Joan of Arc
Key to the story of Joan of
Arc are the mens clothing
she wore. It was considered
improper for women to dress
like men, because it implied
their ability to act like men.
Though trial records indicate
Joan wore male attire to her
death, the illuminator depicts
her at her execution in
womens clothing.
(Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art
Resource, NY)
and once more to obey the voices of the saints that she believed she had heard.
The possession of courage, it must be remembered, does not mean the absence of
fear. Joan bravely went to her death at the stake in terror of the agony she was
about to endure. After the war against the English ended, the people of France
cherished the memory of Joans short life and career as a soldier for her king. She
became a symbol of France and in 1920 was canonized.
Introduction
By 1300, the benefits of more land in cultivation, increased long-distance trade, and strengthened royal
authority were felt by many throughout western Europe. Population expanded: some 4 million people
lived in the British Isles and 10 million or so in the
Italian peninsula. More towns and villages dotted the
landscape. People had a little more to eat, better
clothes to wear, and a wider range of goods to buy. As
long as the harvests were plentiful and families well
nourished, the peasantry and townsfolk could look
forward to living longer than previous generations.
295
296
Chronology
1261
1378
1301
1381
1305
1402
1323
1409
1346
1415
1347
1415
1356
1358
1360
1429
1361
1453
1378
1378
plicated physicians understandings of what they observed in their patients. Because the number of
deaths in heavily populated areas was so high, physicians believed the disease spread by contact between
persons. Because everyone, not just physicians,
lacked an understanding of germs, poor hygiene and
filth contributed to the spread of disease. The only
option open to medical men and the women who
worked more informally as healers was to fall back
297
298
The Dance of Death became a common scene in manuscript illuminations, frescoes, and
statuary. Even though the poor died in greatest numbers, the figure of Death is depicted here
leading off to the afterlife people of all social ranks, including, as seen here, a pope, an emperor,
and a noble woman. (The Dance of Death[detail], 1463, attributed to Bernt Notke. St. Nicolais
Church, Tallinn, now the Niguliste Museum)
others. Groups of flagellants had existed in the thirteenth century, but their popularity waned after the
church condemned their activity in 1261. After the
plague hit, flagellants went from town to town in processions, scourging themselves as they walked, until, in
1349, Pope Clement VI again condemned the activity.
Others felt the need to blame someone else, and
Jews proved to be convenient scapegoats. Across Europe, whole communities of Jews died at the hands of
rioting Christians who believed that the Jews had
poisoned the water supply or in some other mysterious way introduced the disease. Such persecutions
caused some Jews to leave western Europe, migrating east toward Poland and Russia, where they remained in large numbers until the twentieth century,
or southeast toward Muslim lands, where they received a slightly warmer welcome.
mous convoys of merchant galleys to Flanders, England, Crete, the Black Sea, and the ports of the Levant.
The two major trading regions continued to be the
Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea. In the Mediterranean, the merchants of Venice, Genoa, and Barcelona
dominated maritime trade. Nobles, kings, manufacturers, and even popes took advantage of the credit
services offered by Florentine merchants, whose interest rates for loans were far below those of merchants elsewhere. In Florence, too, the government
promoted schools where aspiring merchants learned
basic arithmetic, bookkeeping, and business practices,
a policy that Genoa and Venice emulated. On the
Baltic Sea, the city of Lbeck (in present-day northern
Germany) was unrivaled in the import-export traffic
that passed through its port. In 1358, it became the official headquarters of the Hanseatic League, an association of German merchants with branches throughout
the Holy Roman Empire.
Yet even before the plague hit western Europe,
trade with the eastern end of the Mediterranean had
begun to decline, and economies were weakening.
Migrations and disturbances far to the east in Central
Asia and China made the long treks to the markets
there increasingly difficult. Muslim conquest of the
Black Sea region also hampered Christian trading in
the east. Venetians, Genoese, and Catalans still traveled to the Black Sea to do business, but Muslim merchants offered them stiff competition. Then, with
famine and plague, population decreases and the disruptions of warfare, the demand for luxury goods decreased. Many trading companies went bankrupt.
Overall, the economic consequences of the plague
were mixed. Death emptied rural areas of workers,
causing rents to fall. At the same time, although some
cities experienced an increase in populationmostly
refugees from the countrysidethe scarcity of labor
drove up wages. Skilled and unskilled workers earned
more than ever before, but had less to buy than they
would have had at the start of the century. By the
middle of the fifteenth century, population levels had
still not recovered, trade with the east was still difficult, and the people of Europe had learned to endure
the new realities of a frightening world.
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300
What caused the Hundred Years War, and why did it last
so long?
How did the war create national sentiment in the English
and the French?
Famine and plague arrived in the midst of a war between France and England that continued, intermittently, for more than one hundred years. The war
began for dynastic reasons, created at the time of the
Norman Conquest, when William, the duke of Normandy, added king of England to his titles and lands
across the English Channel to his realm. Henry II inherited his great-grandfathers lands in northern
France and, through his marriage to Eleanor, assumed control of the Aquitaine, making him a greater
landowner in France than the French king. By the end
of the thirteenth century, the French king had deprived the English king of most of his lands in France
and was intent on taking them all.
Buildup to War
Frustrated by their loss of land and revenue in France,
the English kings of the thirteenth century looked
northward to Scotland to compensate for their losses.
Scottish barons resisted English sovereignty over Scotland in a series of rebellions between 1295 and 1304.
Prominent among the rebel lords was Robert Bruce,
who exploited the dissension among the barons to
claim the throne of Scotland. He was crowned in 1306,
an event that did not stop Edward Iand afterward
his son, Edward IIfrom pressuring the Scottish king
to become a vassal of the English king. With Frances
support, King Roberts army inflicted a decisive defeat on the English army at Bannockburn in 1314. Another fourteen years passed before, in the Treaty of
Northampton, the English crown formallybut, in
practice, only temporarilyrecognized Robert as king
and renounced all claims to overlordship in 1328.
By then, a new king sat on the throne of England.
Only sixteen years old in 1328, Edward III was too
young to reign on his own, but not too young to
marry. The regentshis widowed mother, Queen Isabella, sister of the French king, and her lover, Roger
Mortimerarranged Edwards marriage to Philippa
of Hainault to cement an alliance with William, count
of Hainault and Holland. The marriage sent a signal
to the French king, Charles IV, not to make further incursions into Guyenne, the English territory in
southwestern France that included Gascony and the
Aquitaine, and to cease undermining English authority there. But then Charless death, with no male heir
to succeed him, caused a dilemma. The French nobles
could choose the late kings cousin or his nephew, son
of his sister. In addition to a prejudice against the female line of succession, crowning the nephew posed a
special problem because the nephew was Edward III,
already king of England. Thus the majority of French
noblemen instead supported his cousin, who was
crowned king of France in 1328 as Philip VI, the first
of the Valois dynasty.
To most observers of these dynastic disputes, war
between the English and French kings, with Scotland
in alliance with France and the Low Countries sympathetic to England, seemed increasingly likely from
this point on.
An Occasional War
Within a decade, the conflict had begun. The nobles of
Guyenne were divided between those who supported
King Edwards overlordship and those who preferred
the direct lordship of the king of France. Each side
repeatedly tested the limits of authority, leading to occasional outbreaks of violence. By the late 1330s, Edward III believed the only way to compel the French
king to accept Englands sovereignty over Guyenne
was to defeat him in war. In 1337, what would eventually be known as the Hundred Years War began.
In 1338, Edward arrived in Flanders with an army,
hoping that his presence on Frances northeastern
frontier and his army in Guyenne in the southwest
would squeeze the French king into compliance. But
the first six years of war produced little result. Short
of money and soldiers and now calling himself king
of France, Edward avoided the French kings larger
army until August 1346, when, at Crcy, he arranged
Robert Bruce (r. 13061329) King Robert I of Scotland,
who successfully resisted English attempts to impose
lordship over his kingdom.
Edward III (r. 13271377) King of England whose
claim to the throne of France was largely responsible
for the Hundred Years War.
Guyenne Region in southwest France, originally a part
of Aquitaine, under English rule from the twelfth to
the mid-fifteenth century.
Hundred Years War (13371453) The long conflict
between the kings of England and France.
Crcy Battle in 1346 between English and French
armies in which the English gained advantage with the
longbow and France lost much of its nobility.
But it was not yet half over. In its first phase the
war was not so much between the countries of England and France as it was between the kings of England and France. To persuade his subjects to finance
his war through taxation, Edward III fostered a connection between the crown and the people by holding
a series of public pageants to celebrate his armys victories. As long as the English army was winning, he
succeeded. Since the French were unable to mount an
invasion of England, the English people did not suffer from warfare as did the people of France. In France,
on the other hand, support for the war had never
been strong. From the start, the people of northern
France, where most of the fighting occurred, viewed
longbow Bow six feet high that had been used by the
Welsh to resist the English and then adopted by the
English army, where it proved decisive in Edward IIIs
battles in France.
Poitiers Battle in 1356 that marked the second defeat
of the French army by the English, during which
the French king was captured and held in England
for ransom.
301
302
Hundred Years War As the sequence of four maps showing the stages of the Hundred Years
War indicates, a large proportion of the kingdom of France came under the rule of the English king after 1360. By
the 1430s, France stood in danger of becoming entirely a possession of the English king.
MAP 11.1
303
304
war that stood in contrast to the often gallant consideration knights and nobles showed to enemy combatants of their own social rank. This form of warfare
extended far beyond the boundaries of battlefields.
Many parts of France had no peace, for people had
as much to fear from the cessation of fighting as they
had from pitched battles and long sieges. If the soldiers were not fighting, they were not paid. So between military campaigns, companies of unemployed
soldiers moved from place to place, looting as they
went or demanding to be paid off instead. It was
abundantly clear that neither the king nor the nobility
could provide protection for their subjects or for the
kingdom as a whole.
Famine, plague, and war brought the people of Europe much to endure. When bonds between kings
and their subjects strengthened, many were emboldened to ask their rulers for greater freedom and political participation, especially since they had to pay
heavy taxes. But when their hopes for protection, relief, and political rights were disappointed, many
vented their frustrations on those they held responsible for their problems. Across Europe, and throughout the fourteenth century, revolts broke out and
were ultimately put down.
Flanders
The cities of Flanders, just beyond Frances northeastern border, were among Europes largest by the end of
the thirteenth century. Bruges was a commercial hub.
Ghent, with more than sixty thousand inhabitants,
ranked second only to Paris in population. These
cities owed their size and economic vitality to the textile industry. From England came vessels carrying bales
of raw wool, which would be washed, carded, spun,
woven, fulled, dyed, and finished as cloth before being sent out from Flemish cities along trade routes
heading south toward the Mediterranean and north
toward the Baltic ports. The process of turning wool
into cloth involved both rural and city workers. Although textiles made many Flemish cloth producers
wealthy, the economy nevertheless depended largely
on agricultural production, mainly grain, and on livestock on rural estates belonging to the merchant families in the cities. Whoever ruled Flanders stood to
benefit richly from custom duties and taxes.
By 1320, the Flemish found themselves caught between the French king, on the one hand, and the English king, on the other. Their own ruler, Louis, count
of Flanders and a vassal of the French king, favored
the French, though it was clear that the French king
was interested primarily in revenue from taxation
and customs duties. Louis subjects felt differently.
Dependent heavily on the wool trade with England,
Flemish peasants and merchants resented the heavy
tax burdens the count imposed on them as well as the
pressure the French king put on their economy. They
had already pushed the French out of their territory
when a Flemish army defeated the French kings
army at Courtrai in 1302. Just when their economy
was improving, not only were the counts taxes crushing them, but his corrupt government was making
him wealthy at their expense.
In 1323, peasant farmers in the countryside rioted
against the counts oppressive taxation. Well-to-do
textile merchants and less well-off workers in the city
allied with them and forced the governors of their
cities to flee. Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, and other cities of
Flanders formed a federation of rebel governments,
with city councils and an administration made up of
rebels from the upper levels of Flemish peasant and
urban society. The first action the new rulers took was
to cancel tax collection. They organized themselves
into an army that met and defeated the counts forces
on more than one occasion.
The Flanders revolt that began in 1323 changed
character over the five years it lasted. What began as
a tax revolt of prosperous merchants and peasants
against the count of Flanders eventually gained the
France
In contrast to Flanders, whose merchants and peasants fought for a greater say in the management of
their economy and government, the dire conditions
in France made peasants desperate and angry. Following the French defeat at Poitiers, when the English massacred or captured almost all of the nobles,
including the king himself, the peasants were forced
to raise the kings ransom. The situation was worse in
the areas where the English armies conducted their
chevauches, as the land was ravaged. More than any
other rebellion of the fourteenth century, the rebellion
of the Jacquerieso called for the name the nobles
called peasants, Jacquesarose from the ranks of
the much-oppressed peasants.
The violence began in May 1358 as resistance to
plundering soldiers near the town of Compigne. It
very quickly turned into an expression of rage toward
the nobility. Soon peasants from all over northeastern
France attacked and destroyed castles and slaughtered nobles and their families. Word of the rebels violence spread far beyond the region affected. As
rebels traveled along the Loire and the Seine Rivers,
moving in the direction of Paris, noble families fled.
In the same period, the city of Paris was experiencing political turmoil of its own. There the need to
Jacquerie Peasant revolt of 1358 in northern France
directed mainly at the nobility.
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Florence
As in Flanders, the workers and well-to-do inhabitants of Italian cities grew increasingly dissatisfied
with the way they were being governed, taxed, and
excluded from political decisions. More and more
people questionedin private, for the most part
the privileges that aristocratic families demanded as
their due. Periodic riots against city governments
contributed to a growing sense of disorder, most notably in Florence.
Florence was governed by a system of councils,
chief of which was the Signoria. Made up of representatives from the citys twenty-one major and minor
guilds, it acted like an executive council overseeing
all the other councils charged with governing the
large mercantile city. The rotation every two months
of the guild members on councils looked from a distance like a republican government, as so many of
Florences guild members proudly insisted that it
was. In reality, a small group of wealthy merchants
and their male relatives and clients were repeatedly
elected to the citys public offices, and guilds representing the most prestigious occupationslawyers,
merchants from the textile trade, bankers, shopkeepers, and furriersdominated Florentine political life.
Middling businessmen, artisans, and poor skilled
and pushed the middling and lower ranks of Florentine society out of political power. An oligarchy of
wealthy guild members monopolized civic authority
in Florence once more.
England
In 1381, contingents of horsemen and men on foot,
armed with bows and pikes, marched along the roads
of Essex and Kent toward London, recruiting artisans
and farmers as they went. They were men of property
intent on seeing that someone would suffer for the
heavy taxes imposed on them by the kings ministers.
Earlier that year, the government had imposed the
third head tax in four years on all property owners.
Finally, they had had enough. Wars, famine, inflation,
and disease placed the heaviest burden on the poor,
but the social standing of the people on their way to
London reflected the profound changes taking place
in English society.
Well-to-do peasants, merchants, artisans, and craftworkers profited from the low cost of real estate,
abandoned property, and the shortage of food. By
buying land cheaply or simply taking possession of
abandoned farmland and by selling the food produce
they grew at inflated prices where food was scarce,
they earned more than they ever had before. Some of
the marchers were technically still serfs, even if they
were quite well off. Reeves, or managers of noble estates, came from the countryside north of London to
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A Worldly Church
Papal Ambitions
Like most political or administrative capitals, Romes
population consisted of wealthy, modest, and poor
families, all of whom depended on the citys biggest
employerthe churchfor jobs, patronage, and business. It now took a manager as much as a spiritual
leader to oversee the bureaucracy of the papacy. The
pope had the authority to appoint clergy to lucrative
positions within the church, and the competition
among clergy for positions with good incomes, called
benefices, was not only fierce but corrupt. Bribes paid
A Worldly Church
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MAP 11.2
The Great Schism
The Great Schism, when the church
was split between popes in Avignon
and Rome, played into the political
antagonisms of the late fourteenth
century. The king of England and his
allies supported the pope in Rome,
while the French king and his allies
backed the Avignon pope.
A Worldly Church
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312
The Contraction of
Europes Borders
deal of autonomy. Political, cultural, or social cohesion was nearly impossible, given the size of the empire and the innumerable peoples, each with its own
language, living within its borders. An empire like
the Mongols could be held together only by force
and the cooperation of local elites. As with previous
empires, however, the strains of ruling such far-flung
provinces, together with the impact of the bubonic
plague that devastated Asia before reaching western
Europe in 1347, contributed to their decline in the
mid-fourteenth century.
The fall of the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad allowed for the emergence of other, independent
caliphates in Egypt and India. In thirteenth-century
Egypt, the position of caliph became the prerogative
of the descendants of Mamluks, or slave soldiers,
many of them Turkish in origin, who had gained control over the caliphs. Under the Abbasids, Muslim
armies relied on slave soldiers who over time acquired influence over their masters to such a degree
that they became, in effect, the rulers. Eventually in
Egypt and in India, they replaced the caliphs altogether and established dynasties that lasted until the
sixteenth century.
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MAP 11.3
The Spread of the Ottoman Empire and the Contraction of the Byzantines The Ottoman
Turks first ruled the region around Nicaea before expanding across Asia Minor, north into the Balkans
and eastern Europe, and south into Muslim territories. Their expansion occurred mainly at the expense of
Byzantine power, but the older Muslim dynasties ruling Egypt also succumbed to their might.
Ottoman Empire Empire ruled by the sultan descendants of the house of Osman.
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316
A Multiethnic World
While the people of western Europe often cast their
world in terms of religionMuslim or Jew versus
Christianthe people of the Ottoman Empire experienced their world differently. Men and women of
Turkish descent held a privileged position in Ottoman society, but not one that was exclusively theirs.
The new empire encompassed lands occupied by
many different ethnic groups that followed the Christian, Jewish, or Muslim religion. No matter their ancestry, converts to Islam entered fully into the rights
and privileges of Muslim life. Even some who remained Christians and Jews achieved positions of
wealth and power. But most of the non-Turkish population entered Ottoman society involuntarily and on
an inferior social footing.
Slaves were central to the households of early Ottoman sultans and the ruling elite. Although most
slaves performed menial labor, slaves also formed the
backbone of the army, served as advisers and ministers in the bureaucracy, and bore the sultans children. Slaves in the army and government had usually
been brought as children from Christian and other
non-Muslim lands to Ottoman territory. They were
raised as Muslims and expected to display unswerving loyalty to the sultan. Endowed by Islamic law
with limited power to act on their masters behalf,
slaves could exercise some authority. At the level of
the sultan, eunuch slaves served as officials in various departments of government.
Because of the prevalence of compulsory labor in
Ottoman households and in the sultans government,
slaves factored heavily into sexual relations and reproduction in Ottoman society. It was common for
slave concubines to bear their masters children, who
inherited their free fathers status. Once she gave birth
to a boy, her position in her masters household was
protected. The head of the household, whether the
sultan or an Ottoman official, was not allowed to sell
her once she had borne him a son, and at his death she
would be freed. By the middle of the fifteenth century,
the sultans had given up marrying and had children
exclusively with slaves, whose offspring provided the
sultan with a pool of potential heirsand had also
created conditions for their rivalry. Men of lower social rank continued to take legal wives.
After the fifteenth century, all Ottoman sultans
had mothers who had been slaves in their fathers
household, which also means that sultans had mothers of different ethnic origins from their fathers, since
Muslims are forbidden to enslave other Muslims. The
mother of a ruling sultan often wielded great political
power through her influence over her son. Mothers
come and often persecuted, Jewish communities responded by emphasizing among themselves their
bonds of kinship, common faith, and vibrant culture.
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Eleazar of Mainz Writes His Last Testament
Mainz, Germany, was one of the cities whose Jewish population was massacred by
crusading zealots in 1096. More than 250 years later, around 1357, a member of
the small, barely revived Jewish community, Eleazar ben Samuel HaLevi, wrote a
kind of last testament for his children known as an ethical will. Unlike most wills,
which dispose of the testators worldly goods among his or her heirs, ethical wills
bequeath to the heirs the testators moral and spiritual legacy. Eleazars will is the
last lesson in life that he passed on to his children.
These are the things which my sons and daughters shall do at my request. . . .
Their business must be conducted honestly, in their dealings both with Jew and
Gentile. They must be gentle in their manners and prompt to accede to every
honorable request. They must not talk more than is necessary; by this will they be
saved from slander, falsehood, and frivolity. They shall give an exact tithe of all
their possessions: they shall never turn away a poor man empty-handed, but must
give him what they can, be it much or little. If he beg a lodging over night, and
they know him not, let them provide him with the wherewithal to pay an
innkeeper. Thus shall they satisfy the needs of the poor in every possible way. . . .
If they can by any means contrive it, my sons and daughters should live in
communities, and not isolated from other Jews, so that their sons and daughters may
learn the ways of Judaism. Even if compelled to solicit from others the money to pay
a teacher, they must not let the young of both sexes go without instruction in the
Torah. Marry your children, O my sons and daughters, as soon as their age is ripe, to
members of respectable families. Let no child of mine hunt after money by making a
low match for that object; but if the family is undistinguished only on the mothers
side, it does not matter, for all Israel counts descent from the fathers side. . . .
On holidays and festivals and Sabbaths seek to make happy the poor, the unfortunate, widows and orphans, who should always be guests at your tables; their
joyous entertainment is a religious duty. Let me repeat my warning against gossip
and scandal. And as you Speak no scandal, so listen to none; for if there were no
receivers there would be no bearers of slanderous tales; therefore the reception
and credit of slander is as serious an offense as the originating of it. The less you
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say, the less cause you give for animosity, while in the multitude of words there
wants transgression [Proverbs 10:19].
I beg of you, my sons and daughters, my wife, and all the congregation,
that no funeral oration be spoken in my honor. Do not carry my body on a bier,
but in a coach. Wash me clean, comb my hair, trim my nails, as I was wont to
do in my lifetime, so that I may go clean to my eternal rest, as I went clean to
synagogue every Sabbathday. If the ordinary officials dislike the duty, let adequate
payment be made to some poor man who shall render this service carefully and
not perfunctorily. . . .
Put me in the ground at the right hand of my father, and if the space be a little
narrow I am sure that he loves me well enough to make room for me by his side. If
this be altogether impossible put me on his left, or near my grandmother, Yura.
Should this also be impractical, let me be buried by the side of my daughter.
Source: Reprinted from Jacob R. Marcus, The Jew in the Medieval World, with permission of the Hebrew
Union College Press, Cincinnati.
At the same time that the religious and political climate in Christian Europe worsened for Jews, it improved in the newly established Ottoman territories.
While Christendom was unable to incorporate Jews
as Jews, the Ottomans were willing to let Jews prosper in relative security. Ottoman cities such as Constantinople (now called Istanbul) and Edirne had
Jewish residents. Thessalonica had had prosperous
Jewish communities well before 1453.
The inclusion of Jews in Ottoman society was not
entirely voluntary. Soon after the conquest of Constantinople, which had been depopulated and in decline in the years leading up to its capture, Mehmed II
forcibly relocated Jews from the Balkans and Anatolia
to his new capital to help revive the economy. Thereafter, he encouraged Jewish immigrants from the
west. Jewish physicians, merchants, and bankers became much sought after in the new empire. Opportunities to live in peace, make a living, and even join the
ranks of the wealthy (despite a tax rate higher than
Muslims paid) were available to Jews under the Ottomans as they were not in the west.
grandsons received a portion of his empire, the western portion falling to his grandson Batu, who ruled
the population of Mongols, Turks, and Russians
known to the west as the Empire of the Golden
Horde. In 1240 Batus army laid waste to the city of
Kiev, the populous capital of trade and government.
Only the death of his uncle, the great khan, stopped
Batu from pushing farther westward.
Once Batu had conquered all the Russian principalities, he and his people settled in the steppes and
south of the Volga River. As the overlord of the Russian princes, he organized the collection of tribute
and the conscription of soldiers for the army of the
Golden Horde. Important caravan routesknown as
the Great Silk Roadconnecting China with the
Byzantine Empire passed through their land. Silk,
spices, precious jewels, and ceramics came west to be
exchanged for Scandinavian slaves, fur, hides, salt,
and Caspian caviar in demand in the east. The khans
granted Genoese merchants the use of Caffa, a port
on the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea, as a base
for their trade in slaves and other commodities. The
Venetians had the use of Tana, another port on the
Black Sea, where they engaged in similar commerce.
To the north, in the lands of the Russian princes,
the fur and timber of Russia forests attracted merchants from everywhere. The Baltic Sea served as a
highway for the cogs sailing from Scandinavian and
German ports, while rivers gave access to merchants
Golden Horde Collection of Tartar-Mongol tribes who
conquered and ruled the land of the Rus from the midthirteenth to the late fifteenth century.
Great Silk Road Long trade route from China to the
Mediterranean coast; so-called because it was the route
by which silk goods arrived in the west.
Summary
Summary
Review Questions
Describe life, and death, in fourteenth-century Europe.
How did the papacy and secular rulers contest each
other for authority?
Where did the loyalties of various ranks of people
lie? How did they assert their rights and dignity
and spirituality?
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ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
The Black Death and AIDS
Until the influenza pandemic between 1918 and 1920, when nearly 100 million people around the world
died within two years, the epidemic of diseases that swept across western Europe beginning in 1347 was
the deadliest. The Black Death held a position in popular opinion in the west as the most physically and
psychologically devastating catastrophe ever to strike a large population. That an estimated one-third to
one-half of Europes population died within a few years overwhelmed the imagination of people living in
the twentieth century. What it must have been like to live in societies where people could die unexpectedly
within hours of contracting a disease defies imagination today.
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) first entered the
consciousness of Americans during the early 1980s, when large numbers of homosexual men in the United
States and a smaller number of people around the world began to die. Then the disease and the virus
spread through sexual contact and blood transfusions to all sectors of the population and throughout the
world. More than 25 million people worldwide have died from AIDS since 1981. As of 2006, more than 38
million peopleover 21 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa aloneare living with AIDS or are HIV-positive.
Unlike victims of the bubonic plague, those who are HIV-positive can live for years. Once they contract the
full-blown disease of AIDS, they can last another few years. Although drugs can now prolong the lives of
those infected by decades, the high cost of medication means that millions cannot afford treatment.
The long-term economic and psychological impact of AIDS has yet to be fully felt. Since the majority of those
infected are between the ages of fifteen and sixty, a significant percentage of the workforce and student population of Africa have been incapacitated. Twelve million children have lost their parents. Households of children
raised by grandparents are common. Just as the Black Death created ghost villages and set back the gains of
the European economy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, so, too, is AIDS undoing many of the economic
advances made in recent decades by countries such as South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.
Suggested Readings
Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. London and New York:
Penguin Classics, 2003. A collection of one hundred delightful
tales filled with insights into daily life, the Black Death in Florence, and relations between men and women.
Cohen, Mark R. Under Cross and Crescent: The Jews in the
Middle Ages. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995
A comparison between the condition and status of Jews in
Christian territory and those in Muslim countries.
Froissart, Jean. Chronicles. London and New York: Penguin
Classics, 1978. A lively account of the first phase of the Hundred Years War written in the late fourteenth century.
Herlihy, David. The Black Death and the Transformation of
the West. Edited by Samuel K. Cohn Jr. Cambridge, Mass.:
Websites
Links to a wide variety of sites of interests to students of medieval warfare, De Re Militari: The Society for Medieval Military History, at deremilitari.org
Text of Giovanni Boccaccios collection of tales and many interesting articles on aspects of life in fourteenth-century Italy,
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CHAPTER
The Renaissance in
Italy and Northern
Europe, 13501550
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Leonardo da Vinci Seeks
Employment
Introduction
A New Climate of Cultural Expression
The Spirit of Humanism
From Artisan to Artist
Perspectives and Techniques
The Pleasure of Things
The Northern European Renaissance
Northern European Art
Northern Humanists
Voice: Erasmus Defends His Translation of
the Greek New Testament
Suggested Readings
Websites
1500 B.C.E.
1000 B.C.E.
1417
Great Schism
ends
1347
Black Death
first appears
in Italy
1340
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1360
1380
1400
1420
1440s
Gutenberg
invents
printing
process
1440
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
1460
1480
2000 C.E.
1508
Michelangelo begins painting ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
1492
Columbus sets sail
1485
Henry Tudor
defeats Richard III
of England
1500 C.E.
1494
Savonarola
institutes
reforms
in Florence
1500
1516
Erasmus translates the Greek New Testament
1517
Luther condemns
indulgences
1520
1532
Machiavelli publishes
The Prince
1540
1560
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324
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Leonardo da Vinci Seeks Employment
Introduction
A New Climate of
Cultural Expression
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326
Chronology
1356
1362
1380
1417
1436
1440
1485
1494
1496
1498
1508
15081512
1440s
1450
14551485
ca. 1455
1470
1478
1512
1516
1520
1532
tutors in the hopes of employment in the governments of Italian cities. Women from well-to-do families, too, studied philosophy and theology, but solely
out of a love of learning, since careers outside of
home and marriage were closed to them. Lay scholars became interested in exploring the question of
what it meant to be human. They were called humanists because their intellectual interests centered on the
study of humanity (studium humanitatis), or humanism. They esteemed the works of ancient Romans for
their literary qualities rather than their usefulness for
Christian theology. Their interest in language and the
technical aspects of literature led them to criticize
Scholastic thinkers for not paying closer attention to
grammar and vocabulary in their interpretation of
biblical texts. In general, however, they celebrated
human potential and downplayed the theological
emphasis on the sinful nature of humanity.
One of the earliest humanists, Francesco Petrarca,
born in 1304 in Tuscany and known as Petrarch, belonged to the generation of scholars that joined the
clergy to acquire a higher education. His father wanted
him to study canon law, but a love of literature directed the young scholar toward poetry both in Latin
and in the everyday vernacular language. Petrarchs
poems made him famous throughout Italy, southern
France, and eventually all of Europe, but his love of
manuscripts made a greater impact on literature. As
ambassador to the Avignon popes, Petrarch traveled
all over Europe, stopping in monasteries along his
way. A bibliophile of the first order, Petrarch searched
through their libraries for old manuscripts and discovered lost works by Cicero. Writing to the ancient
Roman as if he were alive, Petrarch chastised Cicero
for contributing to the downfall of the Roman Republic. He emulated the style and content of the ancients
with such success that readers took a new interest in
the language and texts associated with Rome.
Ancient Greek texts benefited from the arrival of
refugees from the Byzantine Empire in the 1390s.
Fleeing the Ottomans, they emigrated to Italy and
stimulated a great interest in the literature of the past.
After a tour of Europe in 1394, the great Greek scholar
Emmanuel Chrysoloras made Florence a new center
of Greek learning, thanks to his skills as a teacher and
to the manuscripts he brought with him. Other Byzantine scholars found employment elsewhere in Italy,
where they not only taught Greek but also introduced
intellectuals to the previously unknown body of scientific works by Plato, Aristotle, and others.
Not all intellectuals worked as papal secretaries or
scribes in city government. Some worked directly for
autocratic rulers and wealthy merchants who enjoyed
the prestige that came with being patrons of humanists. These men employed scholars in their households, to instruct their children or to converse when
visitors came to call. Humanist clients encouraged
their patrons to collect manuscripts and, later, books
that would form the basis of some of Europes most
important libraries. Lorenzo de Medici, the ruler of
Florence in the late fifteenth century, amassed an important collection of manuscripts and books under
the guidance of the humanist scholars whose patron
he was. Although humanists tended to embrace the
values of the patrons for whom they worked, they admired Ciceros involvement in Roman public affairs
and valued political engagement in city life. The Florentine humanists took from Cicero an appreciation
for republicanism, which rejected autocractic rule in
favor of government by the people. Civic humanism,
the study of ancient texts to develop ideological support for Florences republican government, gave the
humanists an opportunity to express their patriotism.
Through the study of these texts, the humanists
sought to bring what they perceived to be the best of
the ancient world to life again in their own time
hence their conviction that they lived in a period of
rebirth, or renaissance.
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Brunelleschis reputation
rests on his engineering of
the dome of Florences
cathedral, finished in 1436
and pictured here. Italians
refer to cathedrals by their
word for dome, duomo.
The Duomo stands out so
clearly in Florences skyline that it epitomizes the
city today as much as it
did in the fifteenth century. (Scala/Art Resource,
NY)
copo Bellini, the father of Gentile Bellini, the prominent Venetian painter.
Brunelleschis fame, in his own time and today,
however, stems mainly from his architectural and engineering accomplishments. Although the foundation of Florences cathedral was laid at the very end
of the thirteenth century, it still lacked a roof and a
dome in the first decades of the fifteenth century. In
1420, Brunelleschi, chief architect of the ongoing construction, implemented his plan to build an enormous
and immensely heavy octagonal dome on top of the
completed cathedral walls. It was a daring project, involving updated Roman engineering equipment and
ancient brick and stone methods of construction. In
the end, Brunelleschis plan worked, and the dome
was consecrated in 1436. A friend of all the great
artists at the time, Brunelleschi represents the extraordinary combination of talent, skill, and great
learning found in many of the artists who emerged in
the fifteenth century.
Leonardo da Vinci rivaled Brunelleschi and Michelangelo in breadth of knowledge, skill, and talent. He
worked as a painter of portraits and of the large frescoes in monasteries and civic buildings that only ecclesiastical institutions and governments could afford
to commission. His skills as a military engineer made
him just as well known (see Choice). He was a scholar,
too, who read widely in many fields. The humanist
quest to celebrate all that was human inspired Leo-
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Before beginning his painting in 1482, the Adoration of the Magi, Leonardo sketched on paper its composition,
using linear perspective in the architectural elements. The painting was never finished, but Leonardos sketches
have taught art historians much about how painters in the fifteenth century worked. (Scala/Art Resource, NY)
dishes and cookware, tended to be uniform and utilitarian in shape, color, and material.
As the fifteenth century progressed, people bought
more and more things, because, in large part, there
were now more things to buy. Italian cities were becoming societies of consumers, intent on spending
money in ways that would show off their status and
taste. The wealthiest families directed their money
toward building palaces that would reflect their social status. Domestic architecture emerged as a style
distinct from ecclesiastic and governmental architecture. Builders designed palaces for their patrons that
looked magnificent and imposing from the outside
and luxurious and ceremonial on the inside. Spacious
reception rooms, where the members of the family
met with visitors, now contained more kinds of furniture than before. Larger and more ornately decorated
wooden storage chests lined the wall. More chairs
were available. A sideboard held the familys silverplate in a room now specifically designated for eating.
Framed devotional paintings or frescoes depicting all
the members of the family and their patron saints
filled in the spots on the wall not covered by tapestries. People spent their money on luxury goods that
The Northern
European Renaissance
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332
Manuscripts from the late fourteenth century reveal the earliest signs of northern European artists
unique approach to representing the world around
them. Wealthy women and men paid copyists to
compile prayer books for use in daily worship and
artists to illuminate the pages with designs and figures in brilliant colors and gold leaf. A so-called Book
of Hours contained a calendar with feast days and
saints days marked, the Psalms, and readings from
the Gospels. Typically, illuminating the calendar offered the artist an opportunity to use bright and costly
blue, red, and gold pigments to illustrate a month. In
the manuscript collections of the Psalms (Psalters) and
the schedule of church services throughout the year,
which were small enough to fit conveniently in the
hand, artists rendered painstakingly detailed scenes
of the banquets, hunts, and other recreations of the
nobility and urban elites. The Very Rich Hours of the Duke
of Berry, executed around 1416, offers an exquisite example of the artistry to be seen in northern Europe.
From the detailed miniature manuscript illuminations to oil paintings was a short step. Unlike Italian
artists, who used paints made of pigments mixed
with egg yolksknown as temperaeither on fresh
wall plaster or on wooden boards joined to form a
smooth surface, Flemish painters set their scenes in
pigments mixed with linseed oil and on linen canvas.
The practice of painting in oil migrated from Flanders
to Italy by the start of the sixteenth century, once Italian artists saw the superb work of Jan van Eyck,
court painter to Philip, duke of Burgundy, and other
Flemish artists. Apart from this difference in painting
medium, two other differences in technique between
the Italians and the Flemish are immediately noticeable. Whereas Italian painters relied on linear perspective to convey depth and dimension, the Flemish
used gradations in color and the optical effect of
painted light to achieve the same effect. And Italian
painters presented their paintings in an architectural
frame within the painting that separated the viewers
from the paintings subject, while Flemish painters
placed their subjects in a setting that seemed to include the viewer of the painting in the same space.
In contrast to the monumental, spare quality of Italian painting, the oil painting of Flanders looked cluttered and busy, with too many objects claiming the
viewers attention. Nothing in the world around
themfrom sacred figures to the buttons on the jacket
worn by a portraits subjectseemed insignificant to
van Eyck and his fellow painters. They sought to realistically depict things and people as they looked to the
human eye. It was the ordinariness of life that interested them. Not everyone appreciated the effort.
Northern Humanists
Scholars from all over Europe undertook the arduous
journey through the mountain passes into Italy to
learn from the humanist scholars, especially those in
Florence, whose works displayed a refreshing approach to classical literature. Frenchmen, Englishmen, and scholars from the Low Countries, in
particular, came to Florence, Pisa, Venice, and other
cities, where they found tutors in Greek and specialists in Latin literature to study with. When they returned home, they took with them new methods for
the analysis of texts, a deeper appreciation for Greek
and Roman literature, and plans to apply their newly
acquired learning in the service of the church. In contrast to the Italian humanists, who believed public
333
334
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Erasmus Defends His Translation of the Greek
New Testament
Erasmus, a theologian and editor and translator of the Greek New Testament,
faced strong criticism for undertaking his translation from church leaders and other
theologians, who feared what would happen if laypeople studied the text on their
own. Erasmus had an enormous circle of friends throughout Europe. All his life, he
wrote letters to them in which he discussed whichever work he was composing at
the time, debated with them about political trends, and defended his belief in
church reform. In the following letter, written in 1515, he responds to Martin Dorp,
a Dutch theologian who in a previous letter had questioned the need for and legitimacy of the New Testament translation that Erasmus was about to begin. In his
reply, Erasmus aggressively defends his translation at the same time as he insinuates that someone like Dorp, who could not read scripture in its original language
of Greek, was in no position to lecture a theologian who could.
ment within the church and among traditional scholars made ecclesiastical authorities look with suspicion
on scholars like Johannes Reuchlin, a German theologian at the university in Wrttemberg, who studied
the kabbala, a Jewish mystical text.
Neither northern humanists nor their Italian counterparts sought to challenge the authority of the
church and the papacy. But to varying degrees, the humanist project in northern Europe and in Italy helped
to create the conditions out of which powerful critiques of the church emerged in the sixteenth century.
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336
many identical copies of a work quickly for distribution. A goldsmith from the German city of Mainz,
Johannes Gutenberg, is believed to have invented in
the 1440s the process in which a printer pressed inkcoated movable type onto paper. Although the Chinese had centuries before devised a printing process
by carving the characters that made up their written
language onto blocks of wood, Gutenbergs innovation was, first, to cast small pieces of metal type, each
with a raised face in the shape of a letter. A typesetter
arranged the metal type, letter by letter, in horizontal
rows to spell out the text to be published. Setting the
type was the most time-consuming part of the printing process. After the rows were locked within a frame,
the printer brushed the set type with ink, laid paper
on it, and then slid it under a heavy press. When all
the pages of the text had been printed, the metal type
was disassembled so that it could be set again for another text.
The development of the printing process depended
on the availability and low cost of paper in western
Europe. Originally a product from China that Muslim
merchants brought back along the caravan routes to
the Mediterranean, paper attracted the attention of
Christian merchantsand possibly the crusaders
who had dealings in the Muslim world. They recognized that paper, made from pulverized cotton cloth,
N O R WAY
SW E DE N
Stockholm
1483
SCOTLAND
By 1470
IRE
LA
ND
Edinburgh
1507
North
Sea
Copenhagen
1493
DENMARK
14711485
Baltic
Sea
14861500
After 1500
Dublin
1551
ENGLAND
Oxford
1478
ATLANTIC
Political boundaries
in 1490
Warsaw
1578
P OLA N D
MOLDAVIA
D a nu b e
HU N GA R Y
Belgrade
1552
Rhne
OCEAN
Hamburg
Emden 1491
Berlin
Amsterdam
1554
1540
Deventer 1477
1523
London
Utrecht 1472
Leipzig
1480
Antwerp
1481
1470 Cologne 1466
Brussels
Bonn 1543
Prague 1478
1474
Frankfurt 1478
Mainz
Bamberg 1460
1448
HOLY Nuremberg
R OM A N 1470
Paris
Vienna
1470
EM P I R E Augsburg 1468
1482
Strasbourg
Munich
1460 hine
R
1482
F R A N C E Basel 1462
Zurich
Bern
1508
Cluny
1525
1483
Geneva
Lyons
1478
Venice
V 1469
1473
Milan
E
1470
N
I
C
Florence
E
PAPAL
1471
STATES
UG
AL
NAVARRE
RT
PO
Lisbon
1489
Rome
1467
ARAGON
Madrid
1499
CASTILE
Barcelona
1475
Subiaco
1465
Thessalonica
1515
NAPLES
Mediter
GRANADA
OTTOMAN Constantinople
1488
EMPIRE
ran
ea
NORTH AFRICA
Reggio di Calabria
1480
Se
0
0
150
300 Km.
150
300 Mi.
MAP 12.1
The Growth of Printing Bills of sale, sermons, bibles, and scholarly works were among
the first printed texts that printers produced. The new invention quickly spread across western Europe.
Within fifty years, Venice had more printing presses than any other city in Europe.
337
338
The Cities of
Renaissance Italy
Cosimo de Medici (13891464) First important member of this wealthy family to make himself ruler of the
city of Florence.
Girolamo Savonarola (14521498) Italian Dominican
friar who tried to carry out church reform in Florence.
This map from 1480 shows that many of the landmarks that Florence is known for today were already in place.
The Duomo and the public buildings appear in the center of the map. The expansion of the city across the river
Arno, to the right, required extending the city walls. (Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY)
339
340
Maritime Republics
The Florentines were not the only people of Italy who
claimed their city embodied the classical virtues of
civic humanism. Similar to the elites of Florence, small,
hereditary groups of merchant families ruled the republics of Venice and Genoa by the end of the fourteenth century. The governments of both city-states
consisted of councils, over each of which a doge
presided as the official head of state. In Venice, the
members of the ruling councils considered themselves
to be nobles, but the term they used to describe themselves was reminiscent of ancient Romepatricians.
They represented only about 1 percent of the population of Venice, which fluctuated just above and below
100,000. A similarly tiny percentage of Genoas population exercised complete political authority there.
The families that rose to the top of Venetian and Genoese societies became wealthy through long-distance
trade. Trading companies had extensive networks of
branch offices around the Mediterranean and in the
ports of northern Europe.
Economic competition between Genoa and Venice
at times led to open hostilities and even warfare between the two republics. Four timesin 1258, 1298,
1350, and 1380the fleets of the two cities met in sea
battles in the vicinity of their trading operations in
the east and in the Venetian lagoon. They fought over
access to and commercial dominance of the Aegean
Islands and the Black Sea. During the last and decisive conflict known as the War of Chioggia in 1380,
the Venetians relied on cutting-edge military technology by mounting cannon on their war galleys, which
they aimed both at attacking ships and at on-shore
military defenses. Venices victory over Genoa had as
much to do with its advanced weaponry as it did
with Genoas internal weaknesses. Factional fighting
among Genoas ruling elite led to frequent changes in
Genoas government and the shifting of the responsibility for the citys overseas trade to the Maona, a private mercantile company in Genoa that assumed the
role of the state in the Aegean Islands under Genoese
rule. Genoas instability gave the edge to Venetian
merchants, who benefited from the stable and mature
institutions of their government, which maintained a
war fleet in the region that protected them. By the
turn of the fifteenth century, Venice had emerged as
the stronger power.
Of the two cities, Venice had the more illustrious
certainly the more notoriousreputation. By the fifteenth century, Venetians lived as much by means of
the sea as literally in the sea. A city made up of more
than a hundred tiny islands connected by bridges,
Venice had thoroughfares that were either footpaths or
341
342
Renaissance Ideals in
Transition, 14001550
Pope Julius, the Sforza dukes, and the Medici demonstrated that the appreciation of humanist ideals could
coexist with autocratic domination over their subjects. Similarly, the people of other countries and their
rulers absorbed the cultural and intellectual innovations of Italy and Flanders at different rates and in
their own ways. The French king admired the Italian
Renaissance so much that, when he invaded the
peninsula to conquer it, he made sure to acquire as
many works of artand artistsas he could along
the way. For most of the fifteenth century, civil war
distracted the nobility of England from the pleasures
of patronage. In Germany, painters took some notice
of the Italian and Flemish artists, but farther east, the
Russians clung to the stylized forms icon painters
had absorbed from the Byzantines long ago.
343
344
nephews murdered turned the nobles and the population against the king, thus presenting an opportunity for the supporters of Henry VIs House of
Lancaster to reassert their claim to the throne. In 1485,
Richards chief Lancastrian opponent, Henry Tudor
of Wales, defeated Richard at Bosworth Field. When
Henry married Elizabeth of York in 1486, he united
the Lancastrian and Yorkist factions. Crowned Henry
VII, the founder of the Tudor dynasty set out to restore stability to England and replenish the nearly
empty royal treasury. Only under later Tudors would
England achieve its Renaissance.
Summary
Summary
Review Questions
How did Renaissance ideals affect the expectations
of the people and behavior of rulers?
How did ideas about painters, sculptors, and architects change over the course of the Renaissance?
What was the impact of printing?
345
Papal States. In ruling circles, the appeal of civic humanism was limited.
Elsewhere in Europe, the news of these cultural
movements led slowly to similar changes. Francis I of
France could not conquer Italy, but he returned with
a great appreciation of the Renaissance and lured
many of its artisans, like Leonardo, to follow him.
The absorption of Renaissance ideals by the peoples
of England, the Holy Roman Empire, and Russia occurred at a slower pace. Political stability and peace
had to return to those war-torn regions before the influence of the Renaissance could be felt.
346
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Renaissance Art, Modern Art
What is art? If you walk into a museum today, you might find one gallery filled with huge canvases covered
with stripes of color or splattered paint. In the next room might be portraits and religious scenes painted
centuries ago. One kind of art seems like childs play, while the other seems to have required much skill in
its creation. Can they both really be art? Must art involve craftsmanship and fine technique as well as
beauty, as in a Renaissance painting? Or does anything that an artist does or makes that stimulates a response in a viewer qualify as art?
Such questions have long preoccupied artists, art critics, and the public. Renaissance artists meant to glorify
God, in the first place, and humanity, in the second. Their aim was to faithfully represent the world they
saw around them, and by faithfully they would have intended faithfulness to God and nature. In later
centuries, artists abandoned the goal of accurately depicting the human form and expression and sought
instead to depict an interior realitywhat an emotion felt like, for example, or the fragmentation of modern life, or the chilling efficiency of machines and technology.
Since the Renaissance, the purpose or role of art in society has never ceased to change. Pablo Picasso, one
of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, insisted that when he incorporated African and
Asian-Pacific elements into his paintings and sculptures, he was seeking only to broaden the range of what
was considered beautiful. His goal was to render new models of beauty accessible to people in the west.
Still other modern artists renounced the ideal of beauty in art altogether. Barnett Newman, a twentiethcentury artist, wrote in 1948, The impulse of modern art is the desire to destroy beauty, a sentiment that
stands in strong contrast to the objectives of Renaissance artists, whose aim was to exalt the human form.
Today the desire to createeven if to do so is to suggest destructioncontinues to motivate artists to put
their works before the public. The concept of art has become so broad that it can encompass the altarpiece
painting that appeals to religious and nonreligious people alike and an abstract painting that consists of a
solid block of color.
Suggested Readings
Abulafia, David. The Western Mediterranean Kingdoms, 1200
1500. London and New York: Longman, 1997. A useful study of
mainly Italy and Spain.
Baxandall, Michael. Painting and Experience in FifteenthCentury Italy. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. A
work that helped establish the social history of Renaissance art.
Websites
Websites
On Leonardo, a museum in his birthplace, The Leonardo Museum, at www.leonet.it/comuni/vinci
An excellent site to look at images of artwork, organized by
the artists name, Web Gallery of Art, at www.wga.hu/
frames-e.html?/html
A group seeking to vindicate Richard III of the charge of murder offers many interesting features relating to the Wars of the
Roses, The Richard III Society, American Branch, at www
.r3.org/intro.html
347
348
CHAPTER
Europes Age
of Expansion,
14501550
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Isabella of Castile Finances
Christopher Columbuss Voyage Across
the Atlantic
Introduction
1500 B.C.E.
Suggested Readings
Websites
1000 B.C.E.
1462
Ivan III
becomes
tsar
1440s
Gutenberg invents
printing process
1440
1450
1460
500 B.C.E.
1485
Henry VII
becomes king
of England
1469
Marriage of Ferdinand
of Aragon and
Isabella of Castile
1470
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
1480
1490
1492
Columbus
sets sail
Jews expelled
from Spain
Europe in 1556
The political boundaries of Europe in the year of Emperor Charles Vs abdication
indicate the power of the Habsburgs. In what ways do the size and location of his
lands suggest potential threats to the independence and stability of other European states?
N O R WA Y
France
ESTONIA
England
Ottoman Empire
SCOTLAND
TEUTONIC
KNIGHTS
ENG LA N D
PRUSSIA
Elb
e
Hamburg
WALES
Cambridge
Amsterdam
Oxford
London
HESSEKASSEL
R hin
Paris
LORRAINE
POLAND-LITHUANIA
RG
DY
UN
SAVOY
SALZBURG
REP. OF
VENICE
MILAN
Po
Rh
n
HUNGARY
AUSTRIA
TYROL
PA
GENOA
PA
MODENA
TUSCANY
Lisbon
ATES
ANDORRA
Tagus Madrid
L ST
PORTUGAL
Corsica
(Genoa)
S P AIN
Rome
Naples
SARDINIA
Seville
Black Sea
Danube
MONTENEGRO
NAPLES
Palos
Constantinople
N
E
Otranto
BALEARIC IS.
P I
R E
Tangiers
Algiers
Melilla
Bougie
Bona
Oran
200
400 Km.
200
NORTH AF R IC A
SICILY
Tunis
Me
O TT O MA N
E MPIR E
dite
rrane
an
Sea
Crete
(Rep. of Venice)
400 Mi.
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
1500 C.E.
2000 C.E.
1552
Las Casas
publishes Brief
Account of the
Destruction
of the Indies
1515
Francis I crowned king of France
1510
Albuquerque
conquers Goa
1500
1510
1517
Charles V begins to rule in Spain
Luther condemns indulgences
1520
per
MORAVIA
Vienna
SWISS
CONFED.
Dn ie
BOHEMIA
FRANCHECOMT
SILESIA
BAVARIA
CHAROLAIS
Eb
r
LUSATIA
SAXONY
RHINE
PALATINATE UPPER
PALATINATE
WRTTEMBERG
BU
F RA N C E
tu l
ANHALT
LUXEMBOURG
ATLANTIC
V is
BRANDENBURG
NETHERLANDS
Antwerp
OCEAN
Bal ti c
Sea
DENMARK
North
Sea
IRELAND
RUSSIA
1530
1540
1550
349
350
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Isabella of Castile Finances Columbuss
Voyage Across the Atlantic
Isabella of
Castile
In this painting by an unknown artist, Queen Isabella
is presented in modest dress,
head covered. There is no
hint of royal splendor in her
appearance or expression.
She appears, rather, as the
woman head of household, a
role she emphasized for her
subjects. (Institut Amatller
dArt Hispanic)
Introduction
monarchs could raise quick cash.) Finances settled, the queen could relish the gains
from Columbuss voyage. Spain, like the rest of Europe, was hungry for the gold
and spices of the east. But the country was cut off from a land route across Asia by
the Venetians and their Muslim trading partners, and from a sea route around
Africa by treaties with the Portuguese. A direct westward route was therefore the
only one available to the Spanish. Moreover, both the Spanish and Portuguese had
discovered and colonized islands in the Atlantic during the past seventy years.
Perhaps Columbus would find more on the way to Asia, increasing the likelihood
of riches.
Columbuss proposal also appealed to Isabellas fervent Catholic faith; a
Spanish presence in eastern Asia would open the way for a Christian
encirclement of the Muslim world and even the recapture of the holy city of
Jerusalem. This vision exerted a powerful influence on a Spanish queen whose
ancestors had extended their rule over a Muslim-dominated Iberian Peninsula.
In fact, at the very moment Columbus appeared at court in 1492, Isabella and
Ferdinand were celebrating their conquest of Granada, the last independent
Muslim state on the peninsula. The Muslim defeat also provoked an attack on
the other non-Christian people of the peninsula, the Jews. Shortly after Isabella
offered Columbus the money he needed, she ordered the forced conversion or
expulsion of all Jews in her lands. In the spring of 1492, just as the unconverted
Jews were being shipped out of Spain, Columbus began preparing for his westward voyage.
Introduction
The Europe Columbus left in 1492 was bustling with
renewed energy. The economic stagnation and population decline that had followed the trauma of the
Black Death, the turmoil of the Hundred Years War
in France, and the Wars of the Roses in England was
easing. By 1450, Europes population was once again
growing, and commerce revived. Both rural and urban dwellers profited from these upswings as increased demand for labor resulted in good wages,
laying the foundation for an economically prosperous and expanding Europe.
The years after 1450 also saw a vigorous new generation of rulers in Spain, France, and England who
consolidated state power and increased their control
over their subjects, often with the help of new, professionally trained legal and financial experts. At the
same time, these rulers continued to fight wars that
drained their treasuries and forced them to tax and
borrow at unprecedented levels. These European
states were stronger and more centralized in 1550
than they had been in 1450 and exercised increasingly
effective control over their inhabitants. In other parts
of Europe, however, especially in Germany and Italy,
the trend was toward smaller regional states instead
of large, centralized ones. In the east, the rulers of
Moscow broke free from their Mongol overlords, conquered vast territories, and established a Russian empire that stretched from Poland to Siberia.
Europeans also extended their political and economic power over Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
When the decline of the Mongol Empire disrupted
Europes land routes to Asia, the Portuguese sought
new sea routes to the east and created a trading empire that stretched down the west coast of Africa,
where they purchased gold and slaves. They also
crossed the Indian Ocean to India and China, where
they traded for spices, silks, and porcelain to sell in
Europe, and ventured to the Western Hemisphere,
where they established a colonial empire in Brazil
based on African slave labor. The Spanish established
an empire in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Peru that exploited the labor of Indians and then African slaves.
Europes territorial and economic expansion created
the first global economy and turned many European
states into colonial powers. It also raised the troubling issue of the relation of Europeans to the nonEuropean peoples encountered in imperial expansion.
While the peoples of Africa and the Americas experienced cataclysmic changes, the century between 1450
and 1550 was, for Europeans, marked by economic,
political and territorial expansion. It was Europes
first modern age.
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352
Chronology
1420
1462
1469
1480
1485
1488
1492
1517
1519
1531
1533
1542
1552
1556
Charles V abdicates
1557
1559
15001502
1509
1510
1515
15651572
From 1347 to 1351, between a third and a half of Europes people died from the Black Death. For the next
hundred years, population declined; outbreaks of
plague, devastation caused by war, and failures of the
grain harvest raised death rates to crisis levels and
prevented a recovery. Then, about 1450, as plague,
war, and famine subsided, the population once again
started to grow. Population growth was also accompanied by an economic revival in both the countryside and towns.
Population Increase
Historians using the techniques of modern demography have determined that even in the good times after 1450, European death rates were shockingly high.
Half the children born died before they reached their
twenties. If a person made it to adulthood, however,
the chances were good that he or she would live on
for another thirty-five years. People over sixty, however, were rare, and the older they were, the stranger
they were thought to be. Old people aroused fears:
Why had they lived so long? Were they especially
blessed by God, or (more likely!) had they made deals
with the Devil? No social or economic group escaped
these high mortality rates. Death cut down the families of kings and queens along with those of their
humblest subjects, with no consideration of social
distinctions or levels of wealth.
Once the crisis conditions in the century following
the Black Death eased, the low population level created favorable economic conditions for those who
had survived. Fewer people meant more available
agricultural land, greater food supplies, and a higher
demand for labor, which in turn produced higher
wages. These favorable economic conditions affected
marriage rates. In the lands of the Roman Catholic
Church, a distinctive marriage pattern had emerged
by the mid-fifteenth century. Women married in their
Peter Bruegel the Elders The Harvesters (1556) captures the beauty of a good harvest. Grain stalks shimmer
in the sun as men scythe them, while men and women bind them. Other workers take a meal under a tree.
This painting presents a powerful image of agricultural abundance and human wellbeing. (Copyright The
Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA)
marriage and birth rates caused the increase in Europes population. In 1450, Europes population was
about 60 million. In 1550, it was nearly 69 million.
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354
whose well-being depended on the harmonious interaction of all the people living in them. It was therefore the responsibility of the well-off to care for the
needy by founding hospitals, orphanages, and homes
for the elderly.
Mens work in sixteenth-century cities can be classified into four categories. Some men turned agricultural products like grain into food such as bread, the
basic element in the urban diet. Bread was such a basic necessity that urban governments strictly regulated its price and tried to assure its availability in
times of grain shortages, since they feared riots if the
supply gave out. Others manufactured cloth and
leather goods for clothing. Still others were engaged
in construction; with urban populations growing and
more buildings under construction, these men were
in constant demand. Finally, some men made household furnishings or fashioned the tools that builders
used. The most prestigious workers in a city, such as
weavers of fine woolen or silk cloth or workers in
gold, were organized into guilds. Guilds had originated in the Middle Ages but were in their heyday
from 1450 to 1550. Like society at large, the guilds
were organized on hierarchical lines; the men admitted to them were divided into masters, journeymen,
and apprentices. Journeymen hoped someday to be
admitted to the ranks of the masters, but often they
were not, since masters worked to keep their membership limited. Guilds had originated as social clubs
for artisans, providing opportunities for drinking
and offering protection from a saint adopted as the
guilds patron. In the sixteenth century, these older
functions were still important, but the guilds main
purpose was to regulate the manufacture of specific
goods for the marketplace.
Membership in a guild was a prized source of male
identity, and members proclaimed their skills and the
perfection of their products. They thought of themselves as the backbone of the urban world and were
concerned with maintaining an honorable position in
society. To this end they carefully policed themselves,
punishing the wayward for indecent or immoral behavior. Also, in line with the idea that the community
should function as a harmonious whole, the guilds
were required by law to maintain the quality of their
products in the interests of consumer protection.
Guild work was considered skilled and, therefore,
usually open only to men. In the Middle Ages, a few
women had participated in guilds, but after 1500,
most lost their place in them. As in the countryside,
most women were confined to housekeeping or lowpaid work. Women did, however, have a significant
role in retail trade, operating stalls in marketplaces and
355
356
This painting by an unknown artist from the Netherlands shows the bustling commercial activity of Antwerp.
The crowds examining goods for sale, the groups of men talking, and the carts carrying barrels of beer or wine
give a lively sense of the city as Europes leading commercial center in the sixteenth century. (Muses Royaux
des Beaux-Arts de Belgique)
Resurgent Monarchies
Resurgent Monarchies
While Europes population and economy were expanding after 1450, new, energetic rulers extended
their control over their subjects and centralized their
governments. Civil wars were brought to an end,
state control of justice increased, new officials enforced government decrees, and new sources of revenue were created. Above all, a period of warfare
erupted in Italy, where the rulers of Spain and the
Holy Roman Empire fought the kings of France for
control of the peninsula.
357
358
conversions to Christianity. But these New Christians, or Conversos, were often accused of secretly
holding to their old Jewish ways. In response, the
monarchs created the Spanish Inquisition, a church
court authorized to examine Conversos about the
genuineness of their Christian faith. Over the next
dozen years, hundreds of them failed to prove their
sincerity and were burned alive as heretics. Then, in
1491, news of a supposed atrocity swept across
Castile. Some New Christians and unconverted Jews
in the town of La Guardia were accused of murdering
a Christian boy and ripping out his heart for use in
magic. A story like this was a standard element in late
medieval Christian attacks on Jews, and in 1491 it led
to the execution of the accused men, despite the fact
that no one in La Guardia reported a missing child.
Faced with rising anti-Jewish passions, some Jews responded in kind, repeating old arguments that Christians souls were created by the Devil. It was against
this background that Ferdinand and Isabella ordered
the forced conversion or expulsion of all remaining
Jews. About fifty thousand converted, while some
forty thousand fled to Portugal, Italy, and North
Africa. Many of these refugees eventually returned
and submitted to baptism. Thus the edict eliminated
Jewish communities but greatly increased the number of New Christians, who continued to be accused
of half-hearted conversion. The Jews who had fled to
Portugal were expelled from that kingdom in 1497.
Some then moved to Antwerp, where they established a thriving merchant community that prospered from the revival of European commerce. In
1494, Pope Alexander VI proclaimed Ferdinand and
Isabella Catholic Rulers in recognition of their efforts to suppress non-Christian religions.
Finally, between 1500 and 1502, all remaining
Muslims in Granada and Castile were also ordered to
convert to Christianity or leave. Some, like the Jews,
became Christians. But these Moriscos were no more
well received than the Conversos, since the sincerity
of their conversions was also questioned. Most who
left went to North Africa. The forced conversion or
expulsion of Jews and Muslims ended the religious
pluralism and cultural diversity of Castile and Aragon.
The war against Granada had united Castilians and
Aragonese in a common Spanish crusade. The expulsion of the Jews and Muslims created a new, exclusively Christian Spanish identity.
As they consolidated their power and promoted a
new identity among their subjects, Ferdinand and Isabella searched for a husband for their eldest surviving child, Joan. They themselves had made a good
political marriage, and they wanted one for their
daughter. Fortunately, they found an ideal match in
the son of the Holy Roman emperor, Philip the Handsome. Joan brought Castile, Aragon, Granada, Naples,
Sicily, and Sardinia to the marriage, while Philip
brought the Habsburg familys land of Austria, inherited from his father, along with the Netherlands,
inherited from his mother. Theirs was the royal wedding of the century. All that was needed was a child
who would inherit this vast collection of territories.
Resurgent Monarchies
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360
in the forms of annuitieslong-term loans that guaranteed an annual payment to the lender.
Annuities turned out to be the way that cashhungry sixteenth-century states managed to meet
their financial obligations. The success of annuities
depended on two things: the availability of lenders
and the recruitment of managers to supervise states
growing indebtedness. The demographic and economic expansion of Europe from 1450 to 1550 ensured the former; prosperous times put money in the
pockets of many people who then looked for relatively safe ways to invest it. Lending to a state
seemed one way. Charles borrowed from bankers in
Germany and the Netherlands who were financing
the growing trade networks centered on Antwerp,
the prize jewel in his inheritance. He also turned to
individual subjects who had money to invest.
The rise of a professionally trained class of bureaucrats began with Ferdinand and Isabellas lawyers.
Under Charles, men with expert skills were recruited
to collect taxes more efficiently. Increasingly, trained
managers supervised governments growing debts
and oversaw the new complexity of state borrowing
in a time of escalating military costs. Borrowing from
banks and subjects turned Charles, and other rulers
who did the same, into royal credit risks whose credit
ratings were closely watched by would-be lenders.
By 1550, Charles V was growing weary of rule. He
had been personally involved in the Italian and
French wars for thirty years. Moreover, the political
and religious situation in the Holy Roman Empire
was becoming destabilized with the rise of Protestantism. He suffered from gout and insomnia. During
the sleepless nights, he tinkered with his collection of
clocks, taking them apart and reassembling them
over and over again. He sank into depression and
wept like a child. Finally, in 1556, he decided to abdicate. He granted the position of emperor and his Austrian lands to his younger brother, Ferdinand. His son
Philip received the Netherlands, the Italian possessions, the Spanish states, and Spains vast new American empire. Charles then retired to a monastery in
southwestern Spain, where he died in 1558.
annuities Long-term loans to European states guaranteeing an annual interest payment to the lender.
Resurgent Monarchies
361
362
Resurgent Monarchies
AY
RW
O
N
SW
ED
EN
Dv
i na
N S
A I
N T
O U
O
N
St.Petersburg
ESTONIA
Novgorod
Pskov
L
R A
Stockholm Helsinki
L.
Ladoga
L.
Onega D
O
R
O
G
V
N.
FINLAND
Ob
Arkhangelsk
MAP 13.1
The Expansion of
Russia, to 1725 From its beginnings
as the small Principality of Moscow,
Russia expanded to become one of
the worlds largest states. Ivan IIIs
and Ivan the Terribles acquisitions
made Russia both a European and a
central Asian power.
SIBERIA
S
N
Vo l g a
Nizhni
Novgorod Kazan
Ka
CO
SS
A
lg
GR
EA
T
LATVIA
ma
RU
SS
IA
er
.
TS
M
ep
363
as
an
pi
Se
364
This anonymous portrait of Ivan the Terrible employs traditions of Russian religious art to depict the tsar. The text
around his head and the stylized hair and beard echo the
icons found in Russian churches. The artists use of icon techniques is a way of depicting Ivans majesty and divinely
sanctioned rule. (National Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark)
and then rushing to his palace, where he would preside over bands of executioners engaging in drunken,
blasphemous orgies. The oprichnina convulsed Russia
for seven years and then subsided. Ivan continued to
suffer from fits of violent rage, during one of which
he brutally killed his son and heir. He died in 1584, a
year after his defeat in the Livonian War.
Despite its violence, the oprichninas lasting effects
on Russia were minimal. Many old noble and landlord families survived the purge, while some of Ivans
agents, temporarily raised to power during this terrible episode, sank back into the class of modest
provincial landowners. Ivans attempt to rule despotically had failed. Like their counterparts in the west,
Russias rulers were most successful when they cooperated with their social and economic elites instead of
trying to crush them.
When Ivan IV died, the tsar ruled over vast, culturally diverse lands. The northern peoples and those in
western Siberia were non-Russians who spoke their
own distinct languages and worshiped local, nonChristian gods. The people of the center were Slavs
who had converted to Orthodox Christianity, while
the peoples of the south, in the former Mongol lands,
were either Muslims or pagans. The tsars policy was
to respect these religious differences. Although they
were Orthodox Christian in religion, and claimed descent from the Christian rulers of Kiev and Constantinople, Ivan III and his successors officially forbade
the Orthodox Church from systematic missionary activity among the non-Christian peoples of the emerging Russian Empire. This policy contrasted sharply
with that adopted farther west by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain.
365
366
Map of Martin Beheim, 1492 Martin Beheim, a fifteenth-century German map maker,
showed the world as round in 1492. Africa and part of Europe are on the far right. The Madeira and
Cape Verde Islands are identified, and then Cipongu (Japan). This is the information Columbus had when
he set sail. (From Admiral of the Ocean Sea by Samuel Eliot Morison. Copyright 1942 by Samuel Eliot
Morison; Copyright renewed 1970 by Samuel Eliot Morison. By permission of Little, Brown and
Company, Inc.)
MAP 13.2
would have gotten nowhere had it not been for technological developments that made long-distance sailing on the open seas a practical possibility.
In the Middle Ages, Europes ships were ill suited
to long voyages on rough Atlantic waters. Propelled
by oars or a simple sail, they were small, with only
crude steering devices. By the end of the fifteenth
century, however, ships had improved. They were
larger, better constructed, fitted with improved rudders for steering, and supplied with a triangular lateen sail, popularized by Arab sailors, that allowed
them to pick up the wind regardless of the direction
from which it was blowing. They could also carry
cannons and thus take advantage of the new gunpowder technology.
Navigational aids had also improved. Mapmaking
became more accurate with the spread of navigational
manuals and the development of cartography, which
allowed mapmakers to accurately draw large portions of the known world. Sailors were also able to
determine their north/south position (latitude) with
greater accuracy, using astrolabes or quadrants for
measuring the distance of heavenly bodies (the sun
or known stars) from the horizon. Finding ones east/
west position (longitude) was more difficult, but a
skilled sailor could calculate it using a magnetic com-
he turned back to Portugal before reaching India itself. Then in1497, Vasco da Gama landed on the west
coast of India, returning to Portugal in 1499 with a
shipload of spices and cotton cloth. Da Gamas success launched the Portuguese drive into the Indian
Ocean. Sailors soon discovered that the best winds
for getting around southern Africa were picked up
far out in the Atlantic. They therefore sailed due west
of the Cape Verde Islands, found these winds, and
then turned around and sailed to the southeast past
the Cape of Good Hope. In 1500, on one of these trips,
the ships sailed farther west than usual and sighted
the coast of South America. Soon the Portuguese settled there, calling it Brazil after a local wood used for
dying cloth.
The founder of the Portuguese Empire in Asia
was Alfonso de Albuquerque. Appointed governorgeneral of Portuguese possessions along the Indian
Ocean, Albuquerque sought to take over the spice
trade with Europe. He attacked local Muslim merchants ships at sea, pounding them with his superior
shipboard cannons, and led armed expeditions on
land against key trading posts. In 1510, he captured
Goa on Indias west coast, killing the Muslim men
there and forcing their widows to marry his sailors to
establish a Portuguese community. With Goa secured,
he attacked the spice-trading center of Malacca on the
Malay Peninsula. In 1557, the Portuguese established
the first European settlement in China at Macau. Albuquerque mixed a passion for trade with hatred of
Muslims. To him, they were liars and cheats; force,
not friendship, was the only thing they understood.
367
368
His dispatches to Portugal reveal the kind of stereotyping that would feed western imaginations for centuries to come. For Albuquerque, smashing infidel
control of Far Eastern commerce would allow for the
triumphant planting of the cross of Christ in heathen
lands. He was the perfect crusader trader.
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Isabella of Castile Writes Her Last Will
and Testament
On October 12, 1504, twelve years to the day after Columbus landed in the Bahamas, the dying Isabella began to dictate her last will and testament. In it she
made arrangements for her burial and the disposition of her worldly goods. She
also summed up the major achievements of her reign and asked her successors to
honor them.
369
370
In this engraving, the Inca prince Atahualpa rises from his throne on his litter just before his capture by the
Spanish at Cajamarca. He attempts to fend off a soldier while a Spanish friar raises a cross either in blessing or
as protection against a pagan. The cannon in the foreground reminds the viewer of the withering Spanish fire
power. (Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana Venice/Dagli Orti/The Art Archive)
371
372
GREENLAND
Cartier, 1534-41
4-41
Lisbon
Seville
Azores
San Salvador
1519
Acapulco
1492
Jamaica
Aden 1513
1519
AFRICA
GOLD COAST
1534
INDIAN
IL
AZ
Sumatra
Borneo
Java
OCEAN
152
BR
152
Malacca 1509
15
152
Buenos Aires
AUSTRALIA
Cape Horn
Strait of
Magellan
1535
1500
Columbus
3000 Km.
1500
3000 Mi.
ANTARCTICA
New Guinea
1500
OCEAN
Santiago
11
MADAGASCAR
1516
PHILIPPINES
Ceylon
Rio de Janeiro
152
OCEAN
1517
1505
1
Mozambique
ATLANTIC
INDIA
1513
Goa Bay of
1510
Bengal
1498
1498
97
Potos
Calicut
PACIFIC
Canton
Macau
498
Mombasa
14
SOUTH
AMERICA
RU
1535
PE
Lima
Bombay
ETHIOPIA
EA
Quito
Muscat
ARABIA
1444
IN
OCEAN
1507
CAPE
VERDE
GU
Cartagena
JAPAN
1542
Kyushu
CHINA
Hormuz
SA H A RA
1492
Panama
ASIA
PERSIA
1415
Canary Is.
1492
Zacatecas Cuba
1492
Mexico City Veracruz
1519
PACIFIC
Ceuta
NEW
SPAIN
Constantinople
as
Cartier, 153
1493
cc
1608
EUROPE
lu
1497
Quebec
Amsterdam
Antwerp
Cabot, 1497
97
Cabot, 14
Newfoundland
NORTH
AMERICA
Spanish holdings
Da Gama
Portuguese holdings
Other
MAP 13.3
World Expansion, 14921535 By 1535, Europes worldwide sea-lanes were well established, following the voyages of Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus, and Ferdinand Magellan. Compare the size of Spain and Portugal with the size of their overseas empires.
ARCTIC OCEAN
373
374
Las Casass arguments were thoroughly Eurocentric. He believed in the superiority of European
civilization and thought that the Indians conversion
to Christianity was the only way to save them from
eternal damnation. His recognition of their full humanity and his demands for a just treatment of them, along
with his sense of the superiority of European culture
and religion, gave voice to many of the principles that
guided European colonial expansion in subsequent
centuries. Finally, Las Casas, aware of the labor shortage in the Americas created by the decline in local populations, urged his fellow Europeans to import African
slaves to fill the gap, a position he later regretted.
375
376
Summary
Summary
Review Questions
How did Europes economic expansion create a
global economy?
What strategies did European rulers use to increase
control over their territories?
What factors shaped the formation of Europeans
individual and collective identities and those of the
peoples they encountered in global expansion?
The growth of Europes population, which began after 1450, stimulated an economic expansion based on
increasing agricultural activity and the growth of
new trading networks. From 1450 to 1550, most urban and rural workers benefited from a rise in wages,
although rates of pay were sharply different for men
and women because of prevailing notions about the
relative value of mens and womens work. The gendered distribution of wages echoed the general patriarchal organization of society. Both urban and rural
communities were headed by men. In addition, these
communities were arranged hierarchically from the
better sort to the lesser sort.
Although many communities became less economically self-sufficient as they were linked to large-scale
trading networks, a strong sense of community identity and mutual responsibility characterized Europes
villages, towns, and cities. The community was conceived of as an organic whole in which anyones fate
was everyones business. This view explains Europeans commitment to public hospitals and welfare
377
378
What were the long-term consequences of European overseas expansion during the sixteenth
century?
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Christopher Columbus
Cristoforo Colombo, a Genoese sailor, died before the full impact of his voyages was understood in Europe.
He certainly could not have known how famous he would becomeor that he would be a symbol for all
that later generations admired or condemned in the complex encounter between the New World and
Europe that his voyages set in motion.
Curiously, this Italian who sailed for a Spanish Catholic monarch became a hero for nineteenth-century
Americans, most of whom were staunchly Protestant. In their eyes, Columbus embodied all the virtues they
most admired in themselves. He seemed to represent the rugged individualist whose contempt for hidebound traditionalists arguing that the world was flat led him on a heroic adventure across the unknown
frontier of the Atlantic. This way of thinking reached a climax in 1892, when President Benjamin Harrison
issued a proclamation for a national observance of the four-hundredth anniversary of Columbuss discovery of America.
In the first half of the twentieth century, Columbus was returned to his ethnic roots and became the darling
of Americans of Italian descent, who campaigned for an annual national holiday in his honor. In 1937,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had recently won a landslide reelection victory with many Italian American votes, created the present holiday. (In 1971, the observance was changed to the second Monday in
October to give workers the chance for a three-day weekend.)
In the second half of the twentieth century, Columbus became a contested symbol. Italian Americans continued to venerate him, but so did Hispanics, claiming that his voyages were a thoroughly Spanish event.
In 1996, both groups organized rival Columbus Day parades in New York City. On the other hand, Scandinavians complained that Columbus was a latecomer and called for a holiday honoring the first Norse discoverers, who landed in North America around the year 1000. All three groups have also had to compete
with Native Americans counterimage of Columbus as the man who brought devastating disease, followed
by slavery, to the peoples of the Western Hemisphere. In 1992, on the five-hundredth anniversary of his
voyages, a protest holiday, Indigenous Peoples Day, was observed in some places by Native Americans and
their supporters. Although seventy towns or districts in the United States are today named in honor of
Columbus, the Genoese sailor continues to be a contested figure for people with different ethnic loyalties
and conflicting historical memories.
Suggested Readings
Cameron, Euan, ed. Early Modern Europe: An Oxford History.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. A recent general account.
Kamen, Henry. Empire: How Spain Became a World Power,
14921763. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2003. Detailed
account of Spanish empire building in the Western Hemisphere.
Websites
Websites
For sections and links to readings on many of the topics discussed in this chapter, Internet Modern History Sourcebook,
at www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook03.html
A detailed listing of products traded in the emerging world
economy, Trade Products in Early Modern History, at
www.bell.lib.umn.edu/Products.html
379
380
CHAPTER
Reform in the
Western Church,
14901570
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Teresa of vila Chooses to
Reform the Carmelites
Introduction
The Context of Church Reform,
14941517
Growing Discontent in the
Western Church
Gods Wrath and Church Reform
Humanism and Church Reform
Summary
Echo: Media Revolutions
Suggested Readings
Websites
1500 B.C.E.
1000 B.C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
1516
Erasmus translates the
Greek New Testament
1494
Savonarola
institutes reforms
in Florence
1490
1495
1527
Henry VIII
breaks with
the pope
1517
Luther condemns
indulgences
1500
1505
1510
1515
1520
1525
1530
Bergen
N OR WA Y
Helsinki
ESTONIA
Stockholm
Lutheran
Calvinist (Reformed)
SCOTLAND
Church of England
John Knox
Orthodox
Muslim
WALES
Huguenot centers
Copenhagen
ENGLA N D
London
Amsterdam
Mnster
Slaughter of
Anabaptists,
1535
NETHERLANDS
Menno Simons
Thomas More
Plymouth
Antwerp
Brussels
Marburg
ATLANTIC
Paris
Orlans
Nantes
Warsaw
Martin Luther
SILESIA
Prague
EMPIRE
Edict of Worms,
BOHEMIA
1521 Speyer
Nuremberg MORAVIA
Jacob Hutter
Stuttgart
F RA N C E
La Rochelle
POLAND-LITHUANIA
Wittenberg
Leipzig
Erfurt SAXONY
Strasbourg
Edict of Nantes,
1598
OCEAN
BRANDENBURG
HOLY ROMAN
Worms
Rennes
PRUSSIA
Hamburg
Oxford
Boundary of
Ottoman Empire, 1566
Baltic
Sea
DENMARK
North
Sea
Dublin
Spread of
Calvinism
Boundary of
Holy Roman Empire
Riga
Penetration of Calvinism
to England after 1558
IRELAND
RUSSIA
LIVONIA
Edinburgh
Roman Catholic
Augsburg
Vienna
Munich
Basel
AUSTRIA
Zurich
HUNGARY
Buda Pest
TRANSYLVANIA
Ulrich Zwingli
Geneva
Bordeaux
John Calvin
Milan
Corsica
Barcelona
Toledo
ATES
Girolama Savanorola
Madrid
Belgrade
Jewish
Ghetto,
1516
L ST
Pisa
Florence
Marseilles
ANDORRA
vila
Teresa
of vila
Lisbon
Avignon
PA
PORTUGAL
Genoa
Toulouse
Trent
Venice
PA
Loyola
Ignatius Loyola
Pavia
Council of Trent,
15451563
Black Sea
T
Rome
S P AIN
Roman Inquisition
established, 1542
Valencia
Naples
Sardinia
Seville
Balearic Is.
Constantinople
N
E
NAPLES
Granada
P I
R E
Sicily
ALGIERS
TUNIS
Me
OT T OMA N
EMPIR E
dite
rrane
an
Sea
0
0
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
1500 C.E.
200
400 Km.
200
2000 C.E.
1535
Anabaptists slaughtered at Mnster
1536
Calvins
Institutes
published
1535
1540
Pope approves
Jesuits
1540
1555
Peace of Augsburg
accepts split in
western Christianity
1545
Council of
Trent opens
1545
1550
1555
1560
1563
Council of
Trent ends
1565
1570
1575
381
400 Mi.
382
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Teresa of vila Chooses to
Reform the Carmelites
Teresa of vila
Teresa of vila, one of the
Catholic Churchs great reformers, reinvigorated her
religious order, the
Carmelites, and wrote spiritual works that were quickly
recognized as masterpieces
of devotion. As a woman,
she faced huge obstacles
because women were
thought to be unsuited for
such serious work. But she
won over even her fiercest
opponents and at her death
was recognized as one of the
pillars of the Roman Catholic
Church. (Institut Amatller
dArt Hispanic)
Introduction
experience visions of Christ during her prayers. His Majesty, as she called Jesus,
appeared to her frequently and spoke to her in her heart, as one friend to another.
When Teresa told her father confessor and other male clergymen of these visions,
they were alarmed and ordered her to write them down in detail so they could
examine them for errors. She obeyed. These writings, which described her visions
and offered advice on how to pray, soon brought her to the attention of the Spanish Inquisition. But she was able to convince the inquisitors and others that there
was nothing heretical or devilish in her experiences or writings.
Soon after Teresa died in 1582, her friends collected her writings and published
them. The recently invented printing press, which could rapidly spread an authors
works throughout Europe, made Teresa famous. She was immediately recognized
as a masterful guide for Catholics who sought a more perfect life of prayer and a
closer union with God. In 1612, she was declared a saint of the Catholic Church.
But the gender expectations of her age, which classified women lower than men,
even shaped the decrees proclaiming her sainthood. She was labeled a virile
woman with a manly soul, as male clerics believed that, before Teresa could
become an object of public devotion, she had to be made manlike. But her life
and writings carried a different message. Here was an intelligent, capable woman
who counteracted deep prejudices to renew the life of her religious order, write
treatises on prayer that became instant classics of Christian spirituality, and lead
church reform. In 1969, Teresa was the first woman to be proclaimed a doctor, or
authoritative teacher, of the Roman Catholic Church.
Introduction
Teresa of vilas reform of the Carmelite religious order was part of a larger church renewal movement
sweeping over Europe in the sixteenth century. Church
reform had been a feature of Christian life throughout the Middle Ages, but the movement that gained
strength around the year 1500 was unparalleled in intensity and scope. It also split the Catholic Church
apart. One branch of reform, known as Protestantism,
rejected the authority of the pope, who until then had
been the head of western Christianity. The other branch
remained loyal to the pope while insisting, like Teresa,
on the need for basic change within the Catholic
Church. Only the Orthodox churches of eastern Europe and the Middle East were largely untouched by
these reforms.
In Germany, Martin Luther launched Protestant
reform. He was followed by other Protestants who
began reforms of their own that sometimes disagreed
with Luthers. Thus Protestants had to choose which
reformer to follow. The leaders in Catholic reform
were the religious orders of the church and the Roman popes. Together they refashioned Catholicism in
ways that lasted until the mid-twentieth century. Be-
383
384
Chronology
1494
1516
1517
1521
1522
1524
1525
1527
1535
The famine and plague that beset Europe in the fourteenth century intensified religious concerns and
raised anxieties about Gods wrath and judgment.
Above all, people looked to the traditional head of
the western church, the pope, for spiritual leadership,
but when he did not provide it, they turned elsewhere
for religious guidance. Some found it in the sermons
of fiery preachers predicting Gods punishment on
sinful humankind, while others turned to new forms
of piety and to the humanist movement for inspiration. By 1500, spiritual hunger and a growing sense
that the western church was ineffective and worldly
had set the stage for the waves of religious reform that
swept over Europe in the sixteenth century.
1536
1540
1541
1545
1549
1555
1558
1563
These two prints attack Pope Alexander VI. The left image, the first a viewer would see, shows the official
Alexander in his papal robes, carrying a ceremonial cross and wearing the papal triple tiara. The caption reads
Alexander VI Supreme Pontiff. After lifting up the first image the viewer would see the right image of the
real Alexander, a hideous, hellish monster. The caption reads I am the pope. (University Library Bern,
Switzerland. Biblia. (lat.) Interprete Sebastiano Castalione, Basel; Johannes Oprinus, 1550, sign. Hosp. 44)
385
386
use them sexually. Although many of these accusations were exaggerated, they fed a growing belief that
the clergy as a whole, not just the pope, was corrupt.
In the absence of strong papal leadership, rulers in
many parts of Europe tried to meet their subjects religious expectations while strengthening their own
control over the church in their lands. Ferdinand and
Isabella in Spain, along with Francis I of France,
showed what determined rulers could do in reforming perceived abuses and regulating relations with
the pope. Their efforts inspired others to look to the
state as an agent of religious reform.
Finally, the printing revolution that swept over Europe during the fifteenth century allowed for fast reproduction of inexpensive texts and illustrations in
large numbers. It was in the Rhineland and the
Netherlands that printing first became widespread.
In the fifty years between 1450 and 1500, more books
were produced using the new technology than during the previous thousand years. After 1500, church
reformers quickly exploited the possibilities of rapid,
widespread dissemination of their views that the
printing press made possible.
Thomas More (14771535) English lawyer and humanist, author of Utopia and friend of Erasmus.
387
388
389
SWEDEN
DENMARK
Baltic Se a
Stralsund
Greifswald
Rostock
Lbeck
Stettin
El
Bremen
be
le
Frankfurt
Mainz
Worms
Wrzburg
R O M A N
E M P I R E
Schweinfurt
Main
Bamberg
Kitzingen
Prague
ava
D a nu b e
AUSTRIA
TYROL
SWISS
CONFED.
BOHEMIA
V lt
Windsheim
Nuremberg
Rothenburg
Schwbisch-Hall
Weissenburg
Heilbronn
Regensburg
Schwbisch-Gmnd
Nrdlingen
Strasbourg
Esslingen
e
b
u
D an
Reutlingen
Ulm Augsburg BAVARIA
Rottweil
Biberach
Munich
Freiburg-im-Breisgau
Memmingen
Ravensburg
Mulhouse
Kaufbeuren
Kempton
Waldshut
Isny
Constance
Inn
Lindau
s el
Mo
H O L Y
SILESIA
ne
LUXEMBOURG
Oder
Cologne
Nordhausen
Torgau
Frankenhausen
SAXONY
Leipzig
Erfurt
Weimar
Zwickau
Magdeburg
Wittenberg
ta
ar
R hi
Paderborn Einbeck
Gttingen
Ru
hr
Mhlhausen
Eisenach
Gotha
Braunschweig
Goslar
POLAND
BRANDENBURG
Celle
Hanover
er
Lneburg
Wismar
Od
Hamburg
MAP 14.1
Cities and
Towns of the Reformation
in Germany This map shows
the early spread of Protestantism in the cities and
towns of the Holy Roman
Empire. It also shows where
the supporters of Roman
Catholicism stopped the
spread. At first, Protestantism was concentrated
mainly in the center and
southwest of the Empire.
Eventually, it spread to the
north and east, where it set
down its most lasting roots.
F R
A N C
E
390
50
ones. In the cities of southern Germany and Switzerland, local religious or political leaders encouraged
men and women from the middle ranks of urban society to support reform. These were hardworking
people who resented their exclusion from the ruling
elite and thought of themselves as the backbone of
the town on whom its collective well-being depended.
After 1520, they produced a flood of printed pamphlets
that, like Luthers, were circulated throughout Germany and constitute a kind of sixteenth-century public opinion poll. It shows that Luthers criticism of the
pope and his priests was widely accepted. In the decentralized political world of Germany, papal taxes
and clerical exemptions from them were often easily
imposed and deeply resented. As a result, urban reformers attacked the privileges of the Catholic clergy,
demanding that they be taxed like all other citizens.
The urban reformers also believed that community
100 Km.
50
100 Mi.
391
392
Along with Lutheranism, other forms of Protestantism developed. One movement, led by radicals, went
even further than Luther and Zwingli in rejecting
traditional Catholicism. Another, founded by the
Frenchman John Calvin, proved to be the most rapidly expanding form of Protestantism. In England, an
ambiguous type of reform was eventually introduced
from above by the state.
receiving or responding to such a call. Soon these radicals were being denounced as Anabaptists, since
they insisted on being rebaptized as adults in a true,
voluntary baptism.
Anabaptism first emerged among the craftsmen of
the Swiss city of Zurich. They preached adult baptism, called for a separated church, and refused to
honor customary civic obligations like paying church
taxes, holding public office, or serving in the militia.
They even began to hold all their material goods in
common, inspired by the first-century church in Jerusalem, which had implemented this form of Christian
communalism, as described in the New Testament
book of Acts. Anabaptist separatism was thus deeply
subversive because it rejected the generally accepted
idea that everyone in a given place should be a
church member and that society would fall apart
without the unifying force of a common religion. To
suppress Anabaptism, Charles V issued an imperial
edict in 1529 decreeing the death penalty for anyone
who held a separatist view of church-state relations.
In some states, executions were carried out by
drowning, a punishment thought to fit the crime.
In the northwestern German city of Mnster, the
Anabaptists would not be suppressed. Elected to the
city government in 1534, they declared all real estate
common property, banned money, and decreed that
house doors were to be unlocked and open day and
night. Then polygamy was introduced. The reformers
justified the practice of mens taking multiple spouses
by citing the Old Testament, but the practice may
have had more to do with remedying a gender imbalance in the Anabaptist community and the need to put
women under male rule in individual households.
When Mnsters expelled bishop tried to retake the
city by force but was defeated, the Anabaptists proclaimed the impending end of the world, with Mnster designated as the New Jerusalem. As executions
of the wayward began, Catholic and Lutheran rulers
were so alarmed that they set aside their differences
and joined forces to recapture Mnster. Following
their victory in 1535, they slaughtered almost all
Mnsters inhabitants in one of the greatest bloodbaths of the century.
The catastrophe in Mnster permanently discredited all forms of violent Anabaptism. Following it, the
Mnster City in northwestern Germany where a violent Anabaptist movement was defeated by a combined Protestant and Catholic army.
radical remnant turned to leaders who denounced violence and embraced pacifism. Jacob Hutter provided the inspiration for those who fled to Moravia,
where they continued to practice Christian communalism and prospered economically in the later years
of the sixteenth century. By 1600, about 20,000 Hutterites lived in peaceful coexistence with their Catholic and Protestant neighbors.
In the northern Netherlands, Menno Simons, a
Dutch ex-priest, organized churches as a refuge for
those Anabaptists who had survived the slaughter of
1535. Simonss churches were based on voluntary
membership and adult baptism, but he gave up the
New Testament ideal of Christian communalism and
called simply for mutual aid among church members.
These Mennonites numbered about one hundred
thousand at the end of the century. Like the Hutterites, they gained a degree of respectability in the
eyes of their non-Anabaptist neighbors. Beginning in
the eighteenth century, many began to emigrate to
North America, where their descendants today make
up the Amish and Mennonite communities of Pennsylvania and parts of the Midwest. They still live a
life separated from the larger world.
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the clergy were placed above ordinary church members to teach and administer discipline in the community. His insistence that the church alone should appoint
the clergy was closer to traditional Catholic practice
than the procedures adopted in Lutheran lands, where
the state controlled clergy recruitment. But Calvin
joined Luther in increasing worshipers personal participation in church services by translating the book
of Psalms into French and setting the Psalms to simple tunes that the congregation could sing.
Calvin also agreed with Luther that everyone in a
given territory should belong to the same church.
But, because of his belief in the doctrine of double
predestination, he did not think that all church members were necessarily saved. Predestination taught
that before the world was created, God foresaw that
human beings would sin and thereby merit damnation as the just punishment for their sin. God then decreed that some of these sinners were predestined for
Hell while others were predestined for Heaven. Those
predestined for Hell suffered just punishment for
their sins, testifying to Gods justice. Those predestined for Heaven were forgiven their sins and would
be reunited with God, testifying to Gods mercy.
Calvin often argued that probably only one in a hundred would be saved. Like Luther, he believed that
sin had corrupted peoples wills so that they could do
nothing that contributed to their salvation. Therefore,
they were saved not through any merit or works of
their own but solely as a result of Gods loving kindness. Although a persons good works did not earn
salvation, Calvin taught that they were a sign that
God had chosen the person as one of the elect destined for salvation. Since impulses to act as good
Christians were an assurance of salvation, Calvinists
were quick to nurture their desire for church and
state reform. Calvin also argued that hard work and
thrift were signs of election. He believed that the doctrine of double predestination explained why some
people refused to join the reformed churches. It also
assured believers that, in the end, God would triumph over sinners opposition to him.
Calvins opportunity to put his theology into practice came in 1541, when the town council of the little
city-state of Geneva called him to reform the local
church. For the next fourteen years, he argued, threatened, and maneuvered to get a reform to his liking.
Calvins cause was helped by an influx of religious
refugees from his native country who fled to Geneva
to avoid persecution by the French government.
These Frenchmen, solidly behind their fellow countrymans agenda, were able to take over Genevas
government in 1555. It was then that Calvin finally
gained full control over the church.
Because Calvin thought of the church in territorial
terms, everyone in Geneva had to conform to church
standards. To enforce reform, he created the Consistory, a body made up of Calvinist ministers and members of the city government. The Consistory scrutinized
every aspect of Genevans behavior, imposing fines
or imprisonment for infractions. Everything people
said or did was to be supervised and controlled. Like
the advocates of the pure gospel, Calvinists in Geneva
were trying to forge a new Christian identity based
strictly on Protestant religious principles.
Throughout the period of Calvins rule in Geneva,
religious refugees from all over Europe continued to
stream into the city. It is estimated that between 1550
and 1562 about seven thousand of the citys ten thousand inhabitants were foreigners. These refugees,
double predestination Belief that God has predestined some human beings for damnation and others
for salvation.
the elect Those whom God has chosen (elected) for
salvation.
Consistory Assembly made up of Calvinist ministers
and members of city government that enforced Calvinist standards of behavior in Geneva.
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
The Pastors of Geneva Establish Rules for
Proper Christian Conduct
Beginning in 1541, the reformed clergy of Geneva, under the guidance of John
Calvin, published rules governing the behavior of clergy and laity in Geneva.
Calvinisms great strength lay in its ability to forge strong bonds and loyalties between members of a Calvinist community. This could be done by rewarding behav-
ior that conformed to Calvinist community norms while punishing behavior that
did not. It could also be done by trying to reconcile quarreling members of the
community. The rules of 1541 provided guidelines for carrying out all aspects of
Calvinisms community building agenda.
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ened by organized persecution from Catholic authorities, were prepared to resist rulers if they opposed
Calvinist reform. This position directly conflicted
with Luthers views about obedience to rulers.
Reform in England
Calvinists in Scotland introduced religious reform
from the bottom up. To the south, in England, it was introduced from the top down. In 1521, King Henry VIII
published a treatise condemning Lutheranism. Shortly
thereafter, the pope granted him the title Defender of
the Faith in recognition of his service to Catholicism.
Twelve years later, however, Rome excommunicated
Henry, a surprising turn of events that occurred because succession problems were plaguing the king.
When the pope refused to grant Henry an annulment from Catherine of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the king turned to the English
clergy. With their support, he divorced Catherine and
married her lady-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn, who was
already pregnant with his child. Anne gave birth to
Henrys second daughter, Elizabeth. When the pope
learned of Henrys action, he excommunicated him.
In retaliation, Henry, in the Act of Supremacy, proclaimed himself the only supreme head on earth of
the church of England, a title still held today by
British monarchs. In 1536, Henry, still in search of a
male heir, had Anne convicted of adultery and beheaded. Following her execution, Henry married
four more times, finally having a son, Edward, by his
fourth wife. All three of Henrys children were to rule
England, as Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth I.
Although Henry VIII broke with Rome, he had no
intention of breaking with traditional Catholicism.
Jeanne dAlbret (15281572) French noblewoman who
introduced Calvinism into the kingdom of Navarre.
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Church. Although their specific goals were often different, all the reforms aimed to increase Catholics commitment to the moral and spiritual teachings of the
church. Most began in Italy or Spain, where Protestantism was less widespread than in northern Europe. None was founded to counteract Protestantism,
although some later took up the fight against it.
Teresa of vilas reformed Carmelites set the tone
for womens orders (see Choice). Her convents were
strictly separated from the larger world because of
traditional disapproval of women working actively
as teachers or preachers. These nuns maintained their
dwellings and prepared their communitys food, depending on donations to help with their upkeep. Social distinctions between rich and poor nuns, or noble
and common ones, observed in many convents, were
abolished. Although not all reformed womens orders
adopted the strict poverty of Teresas Carmelites, most
followed separation from the world and a rigorous
life of prayer, which, they believed, would strengthen
the church as a whole. Recruitment to womens orders rose during the sixteenth century. For example,
in 1427 two out of a hundred people living in Florence were nuns; in 1622, six out of a hundred were.
The largest reformed male order was the Capuchins, a branch of the Franciscans. The Capuchins
took strict vows of poverty. They lived in mud huts,
went barefoot, and begged in public for their food to
show their detachment from worldly possessions and
pleasures. They also preached lively sermons on street
corners and in churches, urging Catholics to live more
in accordance with Jesuss teachings and setting an
example by caring for plague victims. In 1542, scandal
rocked the order when its head moved to Geneva and
became a Calvinist. Nevertheless, the Capuchins continued to attract new members. By 1600, there were almost nine thousand; by 1700, twenty-seven thousand.
The most dynamic new religious order was the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits. Its founder was Ignatius
of Loyola, a nobleman from northern Spain. As a
young man he embarked on the classic noble career,
service in the army. In 1521, aged thirty, he was badly
wounded and forced into a long convalescence. During this period, Ignatius had a profound religious
conversion and decided to become a spiritual soldier
instead of a military one. In 1522, he offered his old
sword to the Virgin Mary and symbolized his new
life of dedication to God by exchanging his fine
clothes for those of a beggar.
Ignatius wanted to convert Muslims to Christianity in the Holy Land, but an outbreak of plague
delayed his departure. As he waited for better travel
conditions, he formulated his Spiritual Exercises, a
training program designed to strengthen ones will to
meditation Form of mental prayer developed by Ignatius that concentrated on a scene from the life of
Jesus as recounted in the Gospels.
Paul III (r. 15341549) Most important reforming pope
of the Catholic Church.
College of Cardinals Body charged with the election
of new popes.
The Index of Prohibited Books A list of books that
Catholics were forbidden to read.
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with Protestantism, it developed a fortresslike mentality, identifying itself as a militant church guarding
against heresy. This new emphasis had a chilling effect on what many Catholics did or said in public.
Paul IIIs most significant act was to convene a
church council in the city of Trent to address Protestantism and Catholic Church reform. He was not eager to convene the council, fearing it would get out of
control or be ineffective, but he conceded to pressure
from Charles V, who still hoped to restore religious
unity in the empire. The Council of Trent met in three
separate sessions from 1545 to 1563. The first two sessions (15451547 and 15511552) reaffirmed traditional Catholic theology. To counter Luthers doctrine
of scripture alone, the council declared that both scripture and the traditions of the church were authoritative for Catholics. Moreover, it decreed that only the
Roman Catholic Church, headed by the pope, had the
right to interpret scripture. To counter the doctrine of
In this engraving of the Council of Trent, cardinals, bishops, and papal representatives are shown on either side
of the Councils Chancellor, who sits at a desk while the king of Spains representative speaks. Representatives
of other Catholic rulers are seated in the center. Behind them is a crowd of observers. (Courtesy of the Trustees of
the British Museum)
from the old system, including an assassination attempt, Borromeo was remarkably successful in making Milan a showcase of reform. He died in 1584, at
age forty-six. In 1610, the pope proclaimed him a
Catholic saint.
Borromeo showed the way for reforming bishops
elsewhere in the Catholic world. A hundred years after the Council of Trent, that world had been largely
transformed. The Catholic Church was more centralized than ever before. Vigorous leadership after 1534
strengthened the position of the Roman popes, while
centralized and dynamic orders like the Capuchins
and Jesuits spread new ideals and practices to Catholic
communities all over the globe. Religious devotion
seminaries Schools for the training of the Christian clergy.
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402
Thus, in Peru, local people went to churchafter protecting the building by smearing animal blood on its
foundations, an old Inca ritual. This modified Latin
American Catholicism still exists, illustrating the
complexity of the encounter that took place as the
Catholic Church established itself in the Americas.
In Asia, Portuguese missionaries led in spreading
Catholicism. One of the first was Francis Xavier, who
with Ignatius of Loyola had founded the Jesuits. Xavier
was active in India and Japan, using as his base the
Portuguese trading post at Goa. In 1549, he also traveled to Japan and stayed two years, leaving behind a
small Christian community made up of Jesuits and
Japanese converts. This missions success depended
on the Japanese political elite. Some local rulers supported the missionaries in hopes of strengthening
their commercial ties with the Portuguese. For their
part, the Jesuits were careful to respect Japanese customs by dressing appropriately, bathing frequently,
and eating only locally acceptable foods. The result
was the establishment of a Christian community that
numbered some 250,000 by 1600, or about 0.5 percent
of the total population. But after 1593, when Spanish
missionaries arrived from the Philippines, quarrels
with the Portuguese caused the missionary effort to
collapse in the face of imperial rivalries. In 1616, the
Japanese government began suppressing Christianity
and ultimately executed almost forty thousand men,
women, and children, some by crucifixion. Japan
then closed its doors to the west. Christianity was
driven underground, where it survived for centuries
as a secret religion passed on in families and local
communities from generation to generation.
The Jesuits also initiated missionary activity in
China. In 1552, Francis Xavier arrived there but died
shortly after landing on an island near Hong Kong. The
real founder of the Chinese mission was an Italian Jesuit, Matteo Ricci, who was born in the year Xavier
died. Ricci learned Mandarin, dressed in Chinese
clothes, and emphasized the similarities between
Catholicism and the traditional Chinese philosophy of
Confucianism. Like the Jesuits in Europe, Ricci concentrated on Chinese political and social elites, hoping for
conversions in powerful places. He eventually resided
at the imperial court in Beijing, where he gained a few
converts, though most refused baptism. Thus, Riccis
influence in China was small, but his influence in EuFrancis Xavier (15061552) Jesuit who led Catholic
missions in India and Japan.
From Savonarola on, both Catholic and Protestant reformers hoped that church renewal would bring
about a renewal of society as a whole. Reformers,
therefore, tried to impose new codes of conduct on
their communities, and people had to decide whether
to accept or reject them. The result was a negotiation
between reformers and the population at large, during which some changes were accepted and others
were modified or rejected. This process was at work
in three areas: childrens education, poor relief, and
family life. Finally, both Protestants and Catholics reassessed their relations with the largest religious and
social minority in Europe, the Jews.
In the Middle Ages, primary schooling was mainly reserved for boys destined for careers in the church, the
state, law, and medicine. As a result, many men, like Ignatius of Loyola before he decided to become a missionary, saw no reason why they should study or learn
to read and write. Protestant reformers, however, began
to question these traditional ways and to argue for popular educational reform. Luthers belief in the priesthood of all believers led him to promote elementary
education for both boys and girls, along with the establishment of public libraries. His goal was to turn children into good Christians by teaching them how to read
the Bible. In 1529, he also published a Small Catechism
for them, which contained the Lords Prayer along with
simple statements of Lutheran theology. Calvin adopted
a similar program in his Geneva Catechism of 1545.
Leaders in a number of communities adopted
Luthers and Calvins educational agendas, but only
after modifying them. While primary schools for
boys were established, those for girls lagged behind,
reflecting current social values. Few people, including many girls, thought that womens social or work
roles were the same as mens; their education could
be limited to training as wives and mothers, since
these were the only respectable roles left for them after the Protestants abolished religious orders.
Lords Prayer The prayer Jesus taught his followers to
use, found in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of
Matthew.
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Poor Relief
In Europe, the number of poor people grew during the
sixteenth century, rising to nearly half the population
in the hardest-hit urban and rural areas. It is, therefore,
not surprising that Protestant and Catholic reformers
called for a rethinking of the problem of poverty. The
outcome was a change in attitudes about the poor and
the ways communities should deal with them.
In the Middle Ages, the poor were given sacred
significance. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus identified the hungry, the naked, and the sick with himself.
Anyone, therefore, who cared for them was also caring for him. As a result, charity toward the needy
made up a major portion of the good works medieval
people performed; they looked after the sick and dying and provided food and shelter for the destitute.
Above all, they gave to beggars. These practices came
under attack from both Protestants and Catholics
during the sixteenth century.
As early as 1522, Martin Luther issued an ordinance governing poor relief in Wittenberg. It outlawed all public begging and mandated that care of
the poor was to be transferred from private individuals or groups to the city. Funds for poor relief were to
be collected in all the citys churches and then distrib-
uted by the municipal government. Only those identified by the authorities as deserving would receive
help, thus restricting aid to those who were truly unable to work because of age, disability, or sickness.
People who simply chose not to work would be left to
fend for themselves.
The guiding principle behind Luthers ordinance
was his rejection of good works as a means toward
salvation. No longer were people to think that giving
to the poor helped to save them. Charity was simply
a free act of love performed by Christian people for
the benefit of other Christians. Luthers reform was
rooted in his theology, but his decision to turn poor
relief over to the city government had profound consequences: from then on, the state, not the church,
was responsible for care of the destitute.
Catholic reformers also argued that the state should
assume the task of poor relief. In 1526, Juan Luis
Vives, a Spanish humanist living in the Netherlands,
argued that municipal governments should administer all funds for the poor. Vivess work won the support of other Catholics, but his proposals were never
fully implemented in Catholic lands. The old practice
of individual giving to the poor was too strong to be
swept away completely, as the success of the begging
Capuchins shows. Moreover, the idea that charity
was a praiseworthy good work was reinforced by the
Council of Trent. As a result, Catholics tended to create a variety of different systems for poor relief. State
authorities administered some funds, religious confraternities collected and distributed others, and private
individuals continued to give. Like the Lutherans,
Catholics usually tried to distinguish between the deserving and undeserving poor.
Calvins program for the poor resembled both
Luthers and Vivess, since the government of Geneva
took responsibility for the needy. Calvin believed that
all wealth came from God and was to be used for the
benefit of the community as a whole. Thus the state
should tax the rich for the benefit of the poor. He also
thought that poverty was a sign of Gods anger over
sin, but he did not place the sin simply on the shoulders of the poor themselves. If there was poverty, it
Hail Mary Roman Catholic prayer praising Mary
and asking her to pray to Jesus on behalf of the one
reciting it.
Piarists Catholic religious order dedicated to the education of poor boys.
literacy Ability to read and write.
Juan Luis Vives (14921540) Spanish Catholic humanist living in the Netherlands who supported a state
takeover of relief for the poor.
Family Life
A third area in which Protestant and Catholic reformers tried to introduce new social attitudes and practices was family life. As with primary education and
poor relief, communities accepted some reforms while
modifying or rejecting others. The result was a melding of old and new that resulted from a prolonged
contest between reforming elites and ordinary people.
In the western Catholic Church during the Middle
Ages, family life was based on the institution of marriage. The church taught that the purpose of marriage
was twofold: to provide an outlet for sexual impulses
and to bring children into the world. Both purposes
were considered acceptable but not ideal. The highest
state for Christians was that of permanent sexual abstinence expressed in a life of celibacy, following the
example of Jesus and the apostle Paul. Thus clergymen, monks, and nuns were thought to live a better
kind of Christian life than married people. For the
married, sexual intercourse was permissible only between husband and wife, only on certain days, and
only in certain positions. Of course, there were many
who failed to live up to these ideals, and some clergymen even expected that people would find it impossible to observe them. Thus many city governments
established brothels, arguing that men, especially, were
incapable of controlling their sexual passions and
that use of brothels was better than rape and adultery.
Marriage itself was considered a sacrament that the
bride and groom administered to each other through
the exchange of vows. The free consent of the partners
to marriage was thus required. The Council of Trent
also required that the marriage take place in public
before witnesses, including the priest in the parish
where the agreement to marry had taken place. Marriages contracted secretly were not recognized as binding on the couple. Once a proper marriage had taken
place, it would last until the death of one of the
spouses, since divorce was prohibited. It was also
widely agreed that after marriage, the husband was
head of the family, with his wife and all others subject
to him.
As in other areas of life, Martin Luther swept away
many of these traditional attitudes and practices. He
declared that marriage was not a sacrament but simply a God-given social institution. He saw it as the
foundation of all social order, since it created the basic
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Summary
Summary
Review Questions
What motivated the leaders of church reform,
whether Protestant or Catholic?
How did Protestant and Catholic reform reshape the
religious identities of both Christians and non-Christians in western Europe and overseas?
How did religious reformers, rulers, and ordinary
people interact in the business of reform?
Catholic Church from within. Along with the religious orders, the papacy led Catholic Church reform
when Paul III convened the Council of Trent. The council reaffirmed Catholic teaching, thereby cementing
the division between Catholics and Protestants, and
created a blueprint for reform that was implemented
over the next hundred years throughout the Catholic
world. Finally, Catholics inaugurated the first overseas missions by western Christians. Missionaries often tried to impose European values on converts as
they sought to make up for the souls lost in Europe to
Protestantism. Some local people accepted Christian
teachings wholeheartedly, while others rejected them
or blended them into their old religions.
In Europe, the decisive factors determining the
success of reform, whether Protestant or Catholic, were
the choices made by rulers, nobles, and ordinary
people. The choices of the elite were the most important in determining whether communities would become Protestant or remain Catholic, but the long-term
success of reform within a community depended on
popular reception. Many reformers thought their programs would restore a united church to a state of purity they believed had existed formerly. In this sense,
they were looking backward. Some reformers thought
that church reform and overseas missions would usher
in Christs Second Coming and thus the end of the
world. One outcome of reform was the introduction
into European life of some basic features of the emerging modern worldthe spread of literacy, new state
administration of poverty programs, and changing
standards for family life.
What were the consequences of religious reform in Catholic and Protestant Europe for future generations of Europeans?
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ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Media Revolutions
The first modern media revolution took place in the second half of the fifteenth century with the invention
of printing using movable type. Studies of printed material in the sixteenth century show that most publications dealt with religious matters. Catechisms, prayer books, Bibles, and saints lives were turned out in everincreasing numbers. Not only were more religious texts produced in shorter time, mistakes in texts were
produced in a different way. When a scribe made one copy of a manuscript, his mistakes were in that copy
alone. When the printing press churned out many identical copies of a single work, mistakes were repeated
over and over again. In England, for example, a printer was summoned before a church court on the charge
of blasphemy because of a mistake in his edition of the Bible. His text read, Thou shalt commit adultery.
The use of print media to promote Catholic or Protestant reform meant that, for the first time, reading skills
were necessary for the mass of Europeans. The ability to read and write therefore became a central aspect
of European identity. Historians measure the growth of literacy by noting the percentage of personally
signed documents in the surviving sources. By this indicator, literacy spread gradually throughout Europe in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, first in the northwest and then in the south and east.
Beginning in the late nineteenth century, when literacy was widespread in all parts of Europe, media revolutions followed each other in rapid succession. The silent motion picture and the phonograph, which were
invented at about the same time, emphasized different channels of communicationsight and sound. In
the early twentieth century, radio expanded sound communication even further. Then the two were united
in the talking motion pictures. After World War II, the development of television brought sight and sound
into the home. Now it was possible to get the daily news or enjoy a story without having to use reading
skills, and some critics complained that peoples reading ability would decline.
Today, communication via e-mail, online newspapers, and audiovisual streaming in real time links millions of
people around the globe in radically new ways. But the Internet revolution is only the latest in a series of
media revolutions that have changed peoples lives. Compared to the Internet revolution, the printing revolution looks pretty primitive. But, in its time, its impact was equally profound.
Suggested Readings
Donnelly, John Patrick. Ignatius of Loyola: Founder of the Jesuits. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2004. A good biography.
Hsia, Ronnie Po-chia. The World of Catholic Renewal, 1540
1770. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. A
comprehensive guide to Catholic reform in Europe and overseas.
Kittelson, James M. Luther the Reformer. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1986. A readable biography.
McGrath, Alister E. A Life of John Calvin. Malden, Mass.:
Blackwell Publishers, 1990. A biography that places Calvins
life and thought within the larger context of church reform.
Websites
Basic information and many links to more specialized topics,
Internet Modern History Sourcebook / Reformation Europe, at
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook02.html#Protestant
More basic information and links, The Reformation Guide,
at www.educ.msu.edu/homepages/laurence/reformation/
index.htm
410
CHAPTER
A Century of War
and Wonder,
15501650
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Jacques Callot Publishes the
Miseries and Misfortunes of War
Introduction
1500 B.C.E.
1000 B.C.E.
1555
Peace of
Augsburg
accepts split
in western
Christianity
1550
1560
Summary
Echo: War Stories
Suggested Readings
Websites
500 B.C.E.
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
1562
French Wars of
Religion begin
1598
Edict of Nantes
grants tolerance for
French Protestants
1566
Calvinist revolt in
the Netherlands
1570
1580
1590
1600
1610
FINLAND
NORWAY
SWEDEN
ESTONIA
RUSSIA
SCOTLAND
LIVONIA
Edinburgh
North
Sea
IRELAND
DENMARK
JUTLAND
Copenhagen
SCHLESWIG
Dublin
London
LbeckP
UNITED
PROVINCES
Amsterdam
Hamburg
Baltic
Sea
Vilna
PRUSSIA
Danzig
OMERA NIA
V is
BRANDENBURG
tu l
a
Magdeburg
Essen
Breitenfeld
E
Cologne
Antwerp
1631
SPANISH
Ltzen 1632
SAXONY SILESIA
NETHERLANDS
White Mountain 1620
Rocroi
LOWER
Prague
1643
UPPER
R hi
PALATINATE
Paris
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
L oire
FRANCE
FRANCHECOMT
Zurich
SWITZERLAND
Geneva
EP
U B Venice
L
IC
MILAN
GENOA
per
i e st
er
OF
CRIMEA
TRANSYLVANIA
SLAVONIA
VEN
Black
Sea
Belgrade
IC E
SPAIN
Pest
Buda
HUNGARY
Trent
R
ON T
DM
IE
Eb
r
TUSCANY PAPAL
STATES
dr
Madrid
Corsica
(Genoa)
Lisbon
Rome
at
Tagus
Dn
BAVARIA
SAVOY
PORTUGAL
PALATINATE
BOHEMIA
Nantes
D n ie
POLANDLITHUANIA
ne
Siege
Warsaw
e
lb
Major battle
Berlin
ic
MONTENEGRO
NAPLES
Naples
Se
SARDINIA
Balearic Is.
Me
ALGIERS
MOROCCO
TUNIS
di
Constantinople
Palermo
te
rr
Lepanto
1571
SICILY
ea
E M
P I R
E
Athens
Crete
(Rep. of Venice)
Se
200
400 Km.
200
400 Mi.
CYRENICA
TRIPOLI
EGYPT
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
1500 C.E.
1648
Thirty Years War ends
1618
Thirty Years
War begins
1620
1660
Monarchy is restored
in the British Isles
1649
Charles I is executed,
England becomes
a republic
1629
French Wars of
Religion end
1630
2000 C.E.
1640
1650
1665
Sabbatai Sevi is
proclaimed the Messiah
1660
1670
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412
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Jacques Callot Publishes The
Miseries and Misfortunes of War
Jacques Callot
Jacques Callot was one of
the greatest artists and printmakers of his generation.
Born into a noble family, he
spent his early years documenting the pageants and
festivities of European rulers
in works that pioneered
remarkable new techniques
of fine line etching and were
printed on the new printing
press. In his last years, Callot
produced scenes portraying
the horrors of war that have
inspired generations of antiwar protesters. (Lucas
Vorsterman, Flemish, 1595
1675, Portrait of a Man
[Jacob Callot]. Princeton
University Art Museum. Gift
of Junius S. Morgan. x1934367a. 2007 Trustees of
Princeton University)
In 1633, Jacques Callot, nearing the end of his life and suffering from a
painful stomach disorder, published eighteen large etchings depicting
The Miseries and Misfortunes of War. Military scenes had always been
part of his artistic repertory, but the Miseries were something different. With them, the respected portrayer of elite life in early-seventeenthcentury Europe revealed himself as one of the most powerful protesters
against the dark side of war.
Callot was born in 1592 into a noble and devout Roman Catholic family in the duchy of Lorraine. His artistic talent was apparent at an early
age, and in his teens he joined a band of gypsies heading south to Rome,
where he worked as an assistant in a printshop specializing in religious
images at a time when the campaign against Protestantism gripped the
city. The papacy urged the Catholic faithful to come to Rome to reinforce their faith through visits to the tombs of saints and the citys magnificent churches. When they left, these pilgrims were eager to take
home souvenirs, and prints like Callots of the famous paintings they had seen in
churches were especially prized.
In 1611, Callot moved to Florence to serve the grand duke Cosimo II and his
mother, the grand duchess Christine, who, like Callot, was from Lorraine. Cosimos
court was one of the most brilliant and intellectually distinguished in Europe, and
Florence was filled with artists and scientists in the grand dukes employ. Here
Callot perfected his etching technique using the extra-hard varnish Italian violin
makers put on their instruments. This varnish allowed Callot to prepare his copper
printing plates by cutting fine, clear lines with his etching needle. The result was a
remarkably detailed and precise etching ready to pick up ink for printing. In
Florence, Callot continued to produce religious prints, but he also documented
the lives of the grand dukes and their lavish courtscenes of operas, precision
marching, and tournaments. Soldiers also figured prominently in these works because the rulers of the time were expected to project an image of warrior power.
Callots soldiers were dashing and heroic, mounted on prancing horses and glittering with finely polished armor.
In 1621, Cosimo II died, and the grand duchess Christine, reducing state expenditures, dismissed Callot and other court artists. Callot returned to his fathers
house in Lorraine, which, in 1630, the French invaded. They invaded again in 1632
and in 1633, when they finally annexed the duchy to France and demanded an
oath of loyalty from all locally prominent people, including Callot.
The invasion of Lorraine brought the harsh facts of warfare directly into Callots
family. Plague swept through the duchy, brought in by French soldiers, and Callots
father fell victim to it. It was in this context that Callot decided to create his Miseries and Misfortunes of War. The series of prints were published in 1633. The
first shows an army recruiter luring men to sign up with promises of good pay. A
Introduction
fierce battle scene follows, and then come five prints showing the cruelty of soldiers against civilians as troops pillage a farm, attack a monastery, burn a village,
and seize a stagecoach. In these scenes people are stabbed, shot, and burned alive.
The next prints show the tables turned on the soldiers, who are tortured and killed
by their commanders for military crimes such as desertion. Here men are tied to a
rope and hurled earthward from a great height, shot by a firing squad, torn apart
on a rack, or burned at the stake, while others hang by their necks like human
fruit on the branches of a great tree. We then see wounded and mangled soldiers
crowding a hospital, people dying by a roadside, and peasants attacking soldiers in
revenge for their atrocities. The series ends with a conqueror rewarding his troops,
implying that the horrors, now celebrated as a victory, will start all over again.
Callot presented his prints without any commentary, intending that his artistic skill
alone should carry his bitter message; the moralizing lines now seen on many of
them were added later.
In 1635, at the age of forty-three, Jacques Callot died in a Lorraine that was
ravaged by wartime disease and famine. But his prints endured. They struck home
to many of his generation who, like him, were deeply committed Christians,
whether Catholic or Protestant, and who were also appalled by the horror and
futility of the warfare that had torn Europe apart for nearly a century.
Introduction
Callots Europe was indeed troubled and turbulent.
Rulers fought increasingly expensive and destructive
wars and, not content with battling their enemies at
home, carried the struggles overseas. The Spanish and
Portuguese fought to maintain their empires, while
the French, English, and Dutch attempted to seize
their rivals wealth or establish competing empires of
their own in the Western Hemisphere and Asia.
After 1550, the prosperity Europeans had experienced since the mid-fourteenth century ended. In both
town and country, the numbers of the poor grew,
while a small, well-to-do elite struggled to maintain
control over the increasingly restless and riot-prone
masses. Hard times produced widespread anxiety. People became obsessed with witches, who were feared
as agents of the Devil bent on ruining society. Many
believed that the troubles they were experiencing
were a prelude to Christs Second Coming to judge
the world.
The church reforms of the sixteenth century had
created two mutually hostile religious communities in
western Europe. Neither the Protestants nor the Catholics accepted that religious unity had been shattered,
and both fought ferociously to impose their own ways
on their opponents. Capitalizing on his New World
wealth and extensive European territories, Philip II of
Spain, the son of Charles V, took the lead in the fight
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414
Chronology
1540s
1603
1555
1556
1618
1558
1625
1559
1562
1564
1566
1571
1572
1659
1588
1660
1589
1665
1598
1667
Europes Continuing
Overseas Expansion
During the sixteenth century, Portuguese and Spanish success in creating empires stirred similar ambi-
A River of Silver
Spains silver mines in the Americas, opened in the
1540s, produced huge quantities of precious metal that
flowed to Europe and Asia. Contemporary official estimates of silver exports from the Spanish Empire place
the figure at some 17,800 tons, but smuggling and unofficial exports may have pushed it as high as 29,000
tons. This amount would have tripled silver supplies
in Europe, where the metal was used mainly as money;
when news of silvers discovery reached Europe,
Charles Vs credit rating soared. The most productive
mine was in present-day Bolivia at San Luis de Potos. The other main source was at Zacatecas in northern Mexico. Gold and emeralds were also mined.
The silver of Potos was either minted into coins or
Louisiana French colony in the Mississippi valley
named after King Louis XIV.
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416
A Revolution in Prices
Around the middle of the sixteenth century, Europe
experienced inflation, a sharp rise in prices for land,
food, and other basic necessities that had major ef-
Local political leaders shared the concern for maintaining popular order. In addition to economic hard
times and social unrest, they also faced religious turmoil and spiritual anxiety as Europe split permanently into hostile Protestant and Catholic camps.
Religious uncertainty lay behind rising beliefs that
the world was coming to an end and that the Devils
attempt to destroy good Christians was intensifying.
These fears led in turn to a search for scapegoats who
could be blamed for the troubled times.
For centuries, Europeans thought that some people
possessed magical skills that allowed them to cast
harmful or helpful spells. These so-called cunning men
and women were consulted by people at all levels of
society. Both Catholic and Protestant reformers considered them nuisances and tried to draw their followers
away from their superstitious practices, usually with
little effect. By the sixteenth century, however, a belief
spread that these cunning folk were not just magicians,
but Devil worshippers. As it did, authorities in many
parts of Europe inaugurated a crusade against witches.
Little Ice Age Period of cooler weather in Europe
beginning around the start of the fourteenth century.
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418
Philip II
In 1556, Philip II succeeded his father, Charles V, as
head of the Habsburg dynasty. Despite Charless
grant of the Holy Roman emperorship to his younger
brother, Ferdinand I, Philip ruled over a vast assembly of territories: Castile, Aragon, and Granada in
Spain; the Netherlands; Franche-Comt on the Rhine;
Naples, Sicily, and Milan on the Italian peninsula;
Spanish America; and the Philippine Islands (named
after him) in East Asia. His global empire was the
wonder of the world, and he was the most powerful
ruler of his age.
Philip used marriage to increase his political
power. His short-lived first wife, Mary of Portugal,
allied him with the other great imperial power of his
time, while his second wife, Mary Tudor of England,
prayed and meditated with the monks. His most important advisers were the priests who heard his confessions and the theologians he kept at his side.
In appearance, Philip hardly looked like the selfappointed leader of the Catholic world. Short and
soft-spoken, he presided over a somber court and
rarely left the area around Madrid, since he thought
that traveling about ones kingdom is neither useful
nor decent. In this he unwisely rejected the policy of
his predecessors, whose frequent travels throughout
their lands kept them in touch with their subjects.
Cautious by nature, he kept tight personal control
over government, making every important policy decision and spending hours alone in his office pouring
over the mountains of memoranda that had to be prepared for his approval. Before his death, Charles V
had urged Philip to fight heresy and to hold onto the
lands God had given him. Philip followed this advice. The money he amassed through taxes and borrowing was spent in pursuit of these aims.
In the early sixteenth century, the Ottoman Turks continued to push into Christian territory. Hungary fell
in 1521, and in 1529 a Turkish army laid siege, unsuccessfully, to Vienna. When the Ottomans conquered
Christian peoples in the Balkans, they organized them
as a millet, or non-Muslim subject people. Millet Christians had to pay special taxes and accept that some of
their boys would be recruited into the army as janissaries. But they were allowed to practice their religion,
and conversion to Islam was discouraged because the
taxes Christians paid were an important source of state
revenue. Nevertheless, many Christians did convert
to improve their position in society. The Christian
millet was dominated by Greeks in Constantinople,
headed by the Orthodox patriarch there. Jews under
the Ottomans were not organized into a millet but
were encouraged to immigrate to Turkish lands when
western Christian states expelled them.
Ottoman Turks Muslims who captured Constantinople in 1453, ending the Byzantine Empire and founding the Ottoman Empire.
Escorial Philip IIs palace and monastery complex
outside of Madrid.
millet Legally defined community for non-Muslims
living within the Ottoman Empire.
janissaries Ottoman infantry composed mainly of
Christian boys either captured or given in tribute to
the sultan to be raised as Muslim soldiers.
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420
The Turks also established contact with the Moriscos. Following Ferdinand and Isabellas conquest of
Granada in 1492, its Muslim population, now called
Moriscos, had been forced to convert to Christianity.
Then Christians seized their lands and sought to stamp
out their culture along with their religion. Speaking
Arabic and bathing on Fridays, along with traditional
dancing and eating couscous, were forbidden as signs
of heresy. Faced with this repression, the Moriscos
rose up in 1569. The revolt lasted two years and involved thirty thousand rebels joined by four thousand Turks and North Africans. Each side outdid the
other in cruelty, since each believed that its enemy
was Gods enemy. The revolt was put down in 1571,
but hatred remained on both sides. Finally, in 1609,
Philips son, Philip III, ordered all three hundred
thousand Moriscos expelled from Spain. Many went
to North Africa, while some went to northern Greece
and Constantinople. The expulsion of the Moriscos
was the last step in the dismantling of the cultural
and religious diversity that had characterized medieval Spain. Some Spaniards hailed the expulsion as
a purification of the land, but others, like the great
novelist Miguel de Cervantes condemned it. In Don
Quixote, Ricote, an expelled Morisco, laments, Wherever we are, we weep for Spain, because we were
born there and it is our native land.
In 1571, the last year of the Morisco revolt, Philip
destroyed the Turkish navy at Lepanto off the coast
of Greece; 195 ships in the Turkish fleet of 230 were
captured or sunk, thirty thousand Turks were killed
or wounded, and three thousand were taken prisoner. Although the Turks assembled another fleet in
1572 and continued to harass the coasts of Italy and
Sicily, their dominance of the Mediterranean had
been weakened. Then, in 1580, Philip became ruler of
Portugal and its empire when the Portuguese king
disappeared on a crusade in Morocco against the
Muslims. Philip was now at the height of his power.
GRONINGEN
FRIESLAND
DRENTHE
North
Sea
Amsterdam
HOLLAND
UTRECHT
OVERUSSEL
GELDERLAND
Utrecht
Rotterdam
Brill
DUCHY OF
BRABANT
Bruges
Antwerp
t
d
Ghent S h el
c
FLANDERS
GELDERLAND
HOLY
Brussels
ARTOIS
Valenciennes
LIMBOURG
e
Rh i n
Ypres
ROMAN
BISHOPRIC
NAMUR OF LIGE
Cambrai HAINAUT
Cateau-Cambrsis
EMPIRE
DUCHY OF
LUXEMBOURG
50
use
Me
FRANCE
100 Km.
50
100 Mi.
MAP 15.1
The Netherlands When the Twelve Years
Truce was signed in 1609, the seven northern provinces of
the Netherlands , along with parts of the Duchy of Brabant and the County of Flanders, were put under Dutch
control. Spain continued to control the remaining southern provinces.
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422
This engraving from 1647 shows fluteships in a Dutch harbor. The fluteships deck is narrower than the bulging
hull below it, which will be filled with the goods shipped in what the Dutch called the mother trade between
Dutch ports and Baltic ports in the east. (Courtesy, Stichting Atlas van Stolk [Historisch Museum Het Schielandhuis,
The Netherlands])
timber for its navy and grain for its food-hungry territories in Italy. So the Spanish swallowed their principles and traded.
The Dutch also entered the East Asian trade. In
1602, the government licensed the United East India
Company to set up trading posts from Persia to Japan.
Because Portugal was ruled by Spain after 1580, the
Dutch aimed to reduce Spanish power by supplanting Portuguese traders in Asia. After the Portuguese
were driven out, the company dominated the spice
trade with Europe. It also dominated the inter-Asian
trade, picking up cotton cloth in India and trading it
elsewhere for goods like porcelain and silk that were
then sold in Europe. After the Japanese government
began persecuting Japanese Christian converts and
shut off contact with the outside world, the Dutch
SCANDINAVIA
North Sea
Herring
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
NORTH
AMERICA
Azores
Timber Iron
Copper
Tar
Pitch Fur
THE
BALTIC
Wool
Amsterdam
Wheat
Rye
DUTCH REPUBLIC
FRANCE EUROPE
ASIA
Wine
Wool
CHINA
Nagasaki
Canton
Tea
Silk
Amoy
Silk
Luxury goods
Chinsura Porcelain
Port
Zeelandia
Calcutta
Macau
Canary Is.
West Indies
Bombay INDIA
Goa
Madras Cloth
Cochin Negapatam
Colombo
Ceylon
Cloves
Malacca
Cinnamon
Tobacco
Curaao
AFRICA
Cape
Verde Is.
Stabroek
(Georgetown)
Equator
JAPAN
Tulips
Tobacco
Slaves
GUIANA
Sugar
SOUTH
AMERICA
Mombasa
DUTCH
BRAZIL
(16301654)
Zanzibar
Sugar
Mozambique
Homeward
trade
INDIAN
Manila
PACIFIC
PHILIPPINES
OCEAN
Borneo
Madagascar
NEW HOLLAND
Mauritius
Capetown
Provisioning
Station
1500
3000 Km.
1500
3000 Mi.
MAP 15.2
Dutch Commerce in the Seventeenth Century By the seventeenth century the Dutch
had developed a complex global trading network. They took over Europes East Asia trade from the Portuguese, dominated the European seaborne trade routes, traded with their New World colonies, and
became the major trading partner with the Portuguese in Brazil.
Dutch Civilization
Science flourished in the Dutch Republic, where scientific experimenters tried to develop practical devices that would aid people in their worldly callings.
The Dutch scientist Anton van Leeuwenhoek, who
perfected the magnifying lenses of the microscope,
was the first to describe the world of microorganisms,
drawing the protozoa he found in rainwater, the bac-
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424
Franois Dubois painting of the Saint Bartholomews Day Massacre, August 24, 1572, graphically depicts the
chaos of this event. Note the killings, the corpses, the raised swords and clubs, the blood on the ground, and the
men on horseback. The barking dog, at center left, seems to give voice to the violence. (Muse Cantonal des
Beaux-Arts de Lausanne, Switzerland/ The Art Archive)
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426
427
428
Thieving soldiers are executed in this etching from Jacques Callots Miseries of War. A priest blesses the men as
they are led up a ladder to be hung. A caption describes the executed as infamous lost souls . . . hung like
unhappy fruit. (Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY)
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Simplicius Simplicissimus Encounters Some
Merry Cavalrymen
Jacques Callot was not alone in commenting on seventeenth-century warfare. In
1669, a German innkeeper, Johann von Grimmelshausen, who had fought as a
soldier in the Thirty Years War, published Simplicius Simplicissimus (Simplest of
Simpletons), a tale that mixes humor and horror in equal measure. It went
through three editions in 1669 alone. In the excerpt that follows, young Simplicius/
The Simpleton, while working as a shepherd for his father, meets a band of cavalrymen and accompanies them to his home. Here he tells us what happened next.
Though I hadnt intended to take the peace-loving reader into my fathers home
and farm along with these merry cavalrymen, the orderly progress of my tale
requires me to make known to posterity the sort of abysmal and unheard-of cruelties
occasionally perpetrated in our German war, and to testify by my own example that
all these evils were necessarily required for our own good by the kindness of our
Lord. For, my dear reader, who would have told me that there is a God in heaven if
the warriors hadnt destroyed my [fathers] house. . . .
The first thing these horsemen did in the nice black rooms of the house was to
put in their horses. Then everyone took up a special job, a job having to do with
death and destruction. Although some began butchering, heating water, and rendering lard, as if to prepare for a banquet, others raced through the house, ransacking
upstairs and down. . . . Still others bundled up big bags of cloth, household goods,
and clothes, as if they wanted to hold a rummage sale somewhere. What they did
not intend to take along they broke up and spoiled. Some ran their swords into the
hay and straw, as if there hadnt been hogs enough to stick. . . . Some shook the
feathers out of beds and put bacon slabs, hams, and other stuff in the ticking, as if
they might sleep better on these. They flattened out copper and pewter dishes
and baled the ruined goods. They burned up bedsteads, tables, chairs, and benches,
though there were yards and yards of dry firewood outside the kitchen. Jars and
crocks, pots and casseroles, all were broken, either because they preferred their meat
broiled or because they thought theyd eat only one meal with us. In the barn, the
hired girl was handled so roughly that she was unable to walk away, I am ashamed
to report. They stretched the hired man out flat on the ground, stuck a wooden
wedge in his mouth to keep it open, and emptied a milk bucket full of stinking
manure drippings down his throat; they called it a Swedish cocktail. He didnt relish
it and made a very wry face. By this means they forced him to take a raiding party
to some other place where they carried off men and cattle and brought them to our
farm. . . . I cant say much about the captured wives, hired girls, and daughters because the soldiers wouldnt let me watch their doings. But I do remember hearing
pitiful screams from various dark corners and I guess that my mother and our Ursula
had it no better than the rest. Amid all this horror I was busy turning a roasting
split and didnt worry about anything, for I didnt know the meaning of it. In the
afternoon I helped water the horses and that way got to see our hired girl in the
barn. She looked wondrously messed up and at first I didnt recognize her. In a sickly
voice she said, Boy, get out of this place, or the soldiers will take you with them.
Source: The Adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus by Hans Jacob Christoffel van Grimmelshausen.
A modern translation with an introduction by George Schultz-Behrend, second revised edition.
Rochester, New York: Camden House, 1993. Reprinted with permission.
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Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I was one of Englands ablest and most popular rulers. At five feet ten inches, she was exceptionally tall for her time, and her flaming red hair, along
with her trim, athletic body, caught everyones attention. Elizabeth was a shrewd ruler who played on her
womanhood, challenging contemporary views about
womens weakness with her own force of will and
political skill while instilling fear in anyone who
challenged her. She was exceptionally well educated,
speaking French, German, and Italian as well as reading Latin and Greek with ease. When Philip II, anxious
to continue his English alliance, proposed marriage,
the virgin queen turned him down, as she did everyone else, saying, I am wedded to England. Her subjects hailed her as Good Queen Bess.
In addition to promoting a moderate form of Protestantism in England, Elizabeth faced two problems
the power of Spain and opposition in Ireland. Philip
IIs attempt to assert strong Spanish and Catholic control over the Netherlands threatened English economic
interests there, since the Netherlands had long been
the main market for English wool exports. Thus, in
1585, Elizabeth sent an army to aid the Dutch rebels
against Philip. The next year, she sanctioned Sir Francis Drakes raids on Spanish colonial shipping. The
English now identified themselves as pro-Protestant,
anti-Catholic, and anti-Spanish. Thus religious, economic, and political issues deepened the rift between
Spain and England, thereby ending the medieval alTreaty of the Pyrenees Treaty in 1659 ending the wars
between France and Spain and leaving France the most
powerful state in Europe.
balance of power Long-time European diplomatic aim
for a distribution of power among several states that
would prevent the dominance of any one state.
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432
In this woodcut print of the execution of Charles I, the blindfolded king, his hat set to the side, puts his
neck on the chopping block and waits for the executioners ax. An Anglican clergyman prays while
armed guards and a crowd look on. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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434
Oliver Cromwell
One of Parliaments generals in favor of Charless execution was Oliver Cromwell. In 1649, Cromwell led
an army to put down the rebellion in Ireland, where
disruptions from fighting and crop failures had produced widespread famine; the Irish population fell
by almost 40 percent. Cromwells invasion delivered
the final blows. His army massacred thousands, 80
percent of agricultural land was transferred to the
Protestant minority, Catholicism was outlawed, and
twelve thousand rebels were deported as penal slaves
to Barbados and other English colonies in the West Indies. For the next two hundred years, English Protestant control of Ireland was assured.
With Ireland subdued, Cromwell turned to Scotland. Despite their differences with Charles I, most
Scots favored the continuation of monarchy. After the
kings execution, Charles II, Charles Is elder son, was
How did Europes Jews define themselves as a community in the larger Christian world?
What explains the rise and fall of Sabbatai Sevi?
The expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal destroyed Europes largest Jewish community. In the
early sixteenth century, Italy alone in western Europe
had a significant Jewish population. In eastern Europe, Poland also admitted large numbers of Jews.
Then, after 1550, Jews returned to western Europe
when the Dutch Republic, Bohemia, France, and England once again admitted them. But the rising religious passions of the Christian reformations led to an
upsurge of anti-Jewish attacks, including devastating
massacres in eastern Poland. Like some Christians,
Jews believed that the troubles they experienced were
signs of the worlds end. In 1665, thousands of them
looked to a young Jew from Smyrna in Ottoman
Turkey, Sabbatai Sevi, who proclaimed that he was
the long-awaited Jewish Messiah.
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436
War in Poland
In 1648, the year of the Peace of Westphalia, war
broke out in Poland-Lithuania when Cossacks, warriors protecting lands bordering on Muslim territory,
rebelled in Ukraine. The rebellion was provoked in
part by a decision to reduce the number of Cossacks
in the Polish army and in part by religious clashes
the Polish Cossacks were Russian Orthodox, while
the kings of Poland were Roman Catholics. CatholicOrthodox tensions were particularly high in the seventeenth century after the Union of Brest-Litovsk,
which united bishops in Polish Ukraine with the Roman Catholic Church, despite Orthodox Christian
opposition.
The Cossack revolt of 1648 inaugurated nineteen
years of warfare. Like the Thirty Years War, it started
as a local dispute but was soon internationalized when
both Sweden and Russia joined in. In 1655, Sweden,
fresh from territorial gains during the Thirty Years
War, hoped to amass more lands on the Baltics southern shore. The Russian tsar also used the war for territorial gain. The Swedes withdrew in 1660 after
receiving territory from the king of Denmark, with
Sabbatai Sevi
In some Jewish circles, 1648 was widely held to be the
year in which the Jewish Messiah would appear to
gather the exiled children of the Covenant, lead them
into the land of Israel, and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. The greeting Next year in Jerusalem! gave
voice to this longing for restoration, which grew more
intense after the expulsions from Spain and Portugal
and the slaughters in Poland. But the Messiah did not
appear. Then, in 1665, a twenty-nine-year-old Jew,
Sabbatai Sevi, proclaimed that he was the Messiah.
Sevi grew up in Izmir, a commercial center on the
western coast of Turkey. From an early age, he excelled in Jewish religious studies and was eventually
ordained a rabbi. Before Sevi claimed to be the Mes-
other men had claimed to be the Messiah, but none attracted the following that Sevi gained. News of him
spread quickly along trade routes. Soon Jews in the
Ottoman Empire and Europe were performing the
penitential acts prescribed for the time of the Messiahs arrival and saying prayers for Sevi in their worship. People said that Sevi was about to seize the
sultans crown or that he performed miraculous cures.
In their own way, these proclamations were like contemporary Christians belief in the Second Coming.
437
Summary
Review Questions
438
Suggested Readings
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
War Stories
This chapter opens and ends with a war story. War stories have been told in the western world for thousands of years. Some early ones are found in Homers Iliad and the monuments of Egyptian pharaohs. From
the beginning, war stories have been told with words and images. Homer wrote his stories in verse, while
the pharaohs had workers carve battle scenes on the walls of their mortuary temples. Homers warriors lose
battles and die in them. In his temple, the pharaoh never loses.
Over the last hundred and fifty years, war stories in ever-greater numbers have circulated more and more
quickly during conflicts. In the nineteenth century, American reporters wrote stories about the great battles
of the Civil War, and Mathew Brady, following in Jacques Callots footsteps, took shockingly graphic photographs of battlefield carnage. In World War I and World War II, carefully edited film footage of battle was
shown weekly in newsreels to the civilian population in movie theaters. During the Vietnam War, reporters
using portable video cameras shot fighting scenes that were shown every night on network television news.
Never had scenes of war been seen so often by so many people. Their graphic detail alarmed some, who
thought that the news broadcasts weakened the countrys resolve to fight the war. During the 1991 Gulf
War television cameras and news reporters were not allowed on the battlefield. In 2003, during the war in
Iraq, the Department of Defense allowed some reporters and cameramen to be embedded with troops
entering Iraq. But it also banned television coverage of flag-draped coffins from Iraq arriving at Andrews Air
Force Base. Shortly thereafter, the president of the United States flew onto a navy aircraft carrier to be
televised in front of a banner announcing Mission accomplished! Then pictures of torture at Abu Ghraib
Prison in Baghdad appeared on the Internet.
Governments know the power of images in time of war and therefore try to control what people see. But
some images seem always to get beyond their control. On the other hand, there is always the suspicion
that images have been doctored to make a point. What lies just beyond the cameras frame? Has something been airbrushed out or pasted in? Digital photography, which does away with the fixed film image,
makes these questions even more important and faith in the truth of pictures even more risky.
Suggested Readings
Cameron, Euan, ed. Early Modern Europe: An Oxford History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. A recent general account.
Davies, Norman. The Isles: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.The history of all the British Isles.
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Websites
Sections and links to readings on many of the topics discussed
in this chapter, Internet Modern History Sourcebook, at
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook03.html
On the history of Jews in early modern Europe, Internet Jewish
History Sourcebook, at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/
jewish/jewishsbook.html
Information on artists and their work in the seventeenth century, Web Gallery of Art, at http://www.wga.hu/frames-e
.html?/welcome.html
442
CHAPTER
State Building and the
European State System,
16481789
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Louis XIV Decides to Rule France
on His Own
Introduction
Absolutism in France, 16481740
The Sun King at Versailles
Summary
1500 B.C.E.
Echo: Palaces
Suggested Readings
Websites
1000 B.C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
1657
Leopold I becomes Holy Roman emperor
1640
Frederick William becomes
elector of Brandenburg
1640
1650
1660
Monarchy is restored in the British Isles
1661
French King Louis XIV becomes
his own prime minister
1660
1670
1682
Peter the Great becomes tsar
1688
Glorious Revolution begins
1680
1690
1700
1710
Europe in 1715
In 1715, when Louis XIV died, France was still the dominant power in Europe. But
other centers of powerthe Austrian Habsburg lands, Great Britain, Russia, and a
small newcomer, Prussiawere prepared to challenge France. After 1715, how
did the ambitions of all these states affect the goal of maintaining a European wide
balance of power?
S W E D E N
St. Petersburg
INGRIA
NORWAY Oslo
ESTONIA
KINGDOM
SCOTLAND
OF
Edinburgh
North
Sea
GREAT BRITAIN
Austrian Hapsburg lands
DENMARK
Dublin
EAST
PRUSSIA
UNITED
PROVINCES
Utrecht
London
Major battle
SI
e
lb
ENGLAND
Swedish lands
RA N
DE
R
BU
G-
PR
R hi
SAXONY
PALATINATE
SA
nn
e
Kiev
D n ie
Da
n u be
Buda
SWITZERLAND
BL
GENOA
IC
OF
VE
TUSCANY PAPAL
STATES
NI
Pest
HUNGARY
Black
Sea
CE
LONIA
at
Corsica
(Genoa)
Rome
ic
MONTENEGRO
Se
KINGDOM
OF
Naples NAPLES
Minorca
(Gr. Br.)
SARDINIA
Balearic Is.
Constantinople
Corfu
A N
(Rep. of Venice)
Me
GILBRALTAR
(Gr. Br.)
ALGERIA
TUNIS
di
te
(Rep. of Venice)
(Savoy)
ea
E M
P I R
E
MOREA
SICILY
rr
Se
200
OTTOM
TRIPOLI
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
1740
Frederick the Great
becomes king of Prussia
War of the Austrian
Succession begins
1730
1740
1750
1500 C.E.
400 Km.
200
1720
Poltava
1709
dr
CATA
Lisbon
MOROCCO
per
i e st
er
SAVOY M
R
Venice
P o ILAN E P U
Madrid
Warsaw
Dn
Vienna
Marseilles
SPAIN
Tagus
Rhone
ro
PORTUGAL
POLAND
SILESIA
BAVARIA
AL
FRANCE
Duero
tu l
AUSTRIA
CE
L oire
Toulouse
V is
BOHEMIA
LORRAINE
Strasbourg
Eb
r
Berlin
ne
Se
e
Versailles Paris
Ga
in
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
RUSSIAN
EMPIRE
LITHUANIA
Baltic
Sea
DENMARK
IRELAND
Prussian lands
Moscow
LIVONIA
AN
400 Mi.
EMPIR
2000 C.E.
1756
Seven Years War begins
1763
Seven Years War ends
1760
1770
1780
1790
443
444
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Louis XIV Decides to Rule France
on His Own
Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France embodied
the ideal of the vigorous,
state-building monarch.
Throughout his long reign,
he dominated European
diplomacy and warfare, and
his glittering court established standards of grandeur
that other monarchs tried to
imitate. As a young man, he
seemed more interested in
the pleasures of the court
than in politics. In fact, however, he emerged as one of
Europes ablest and most
disciplined rulers following
the death of his prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin.
(Chteau de Versailles/Laurie
Platt Winfrey, Inc.)
Introduction
Absolutism in France,
16481740
and Parliament ensured a high degree of political stability and proved important to Britains success in empire building, trade, and manufacturing. In some parts
of Europe, warfare and state building fostered a strong
sense of national identity as people embraced the policy perspectives of their rulers and defined themselves
as the opposite of their enemies. In other European
states, however, the religious and ethnic roots of collective identity were so strong that a common sense of
community centered on the state failed to emerge.
445
446
Chronology
1640
1657
1660
1661
1711
1713
1713
1714
1715
1727
16721679
1682
1685
16881689
17001721
17011713
17401748
17561763
1762
1772
1780
1702
1780s
1707
1790s
his politeness and beautiful manners. Courtiers commented that they rarely saw him lose his temper. If
someone misbehaved, a simple look or short comment was enough to convey his displeasure. Like
court etiquette, the kings gentlemanly behavior had
a political purpose, since it reinforced a new trend in
noble society that emphasized polite speech and
good manners as necessary qualities for the highborn
and powerful. Encouraged by noblewomen in Paris,
who presided over salons in which this conduct was
divine right Theory that kings were called by God to
rule and that opposition to the king was therefore
opposition to God.
salons Meetings in great Parisian homes presided
over by well-born women who set the style for
discussions of literature, science, and other matters
of current interest.
This aerial view of Versailles shows the palace as it appeared toward the end of Louis XIVs reign. Its grandeur
is apparent. At the top, the towns boulevards converge on the palace front. The rear faade looks out over the
palaces large gardens and park. Louis personal rooms were located in the center of the central wing to emphasize that everything at Versailles was centered on the king. (Yann Arthus-Bertrand/Altitude)
Dutch War Frances 16721678 invasion of the Netherlands aimed at breaking Dutch control of international
trade and shipping.
447
448
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Louis XIV Advises His Son
In 1666, Louis XIV assembled a team of collaborators to help him write his memoirs, which were intended for his young son, another Louis, when he became king.
Such memoirs were common in early modern Europe. Charles V had written one
for Philip II, and Cardinal Richelieu had composed one for Louis XIII. Although
Louis son died before the king and, therefore, could never follow his fathers
advice, the Memoirs reveal the preoccupations and principles of Louis XIV some
five years after he became his own prime minister.
king be concerned
that a division of political authority would
lead to the greatest
misfortunes?
concern to promote
the interest of the
state shape his behavior toward others?
449
450
the French clergys adoption of the Four Gallican Articles, which proclaimed that church councils were superior to the pope and that the pope could not alter the
way the French church was governed. The attack on
the Huguenots was designed in part to heal the rupture with the pope. Relations with the papacy were
further improved when Louis supported the popes
condemnation of the Jansenists, austere Catholics
whose notions about human sinfulness struck some
Catholics as too close to the views of John Calvin.
During the famine of 1709, Louis took the unprecedented step of issuing a letter directly asking his subjects for help. This appeal went against the principles
of absolutism, in which the king was the only political player, but it was well received. As a result, king
and subjects bonded in an effort to meet the crisis,
and a new sense of collective identity was forged.
Now people started to think of themselves as part of
a unified nation facing a common task. Louis XIVs
regulation of religious affairs, his control of the French
nobility, his efficient royal administration of tax and
economic policies, and his establishment of better
working relations with his subjects all promoted a
growing sense of national unity, exemplifying French
royal absolutism in action.
Yet in 1715, seventy-seven years old and dying,
Louis reflected on his failings. He told his five-yearold great-grandson and heir, Louis XV, Try to remain at peace with your neighbors. I loved war too
much. Do not follow me in that or in overspending.
How was the Austrian Habsburg form of absolutist kingship similar to and different from French royal absolutism?
What factors delayed the implementation of state building in the Habsburg lands before 1740?
Louis XV
After 1715, France avoided prolonged warfare. Capitalizing on peaceful times and a smoothly functioning state administration, Louis XV continued his
great-grandfathers absolutist policy of expanding
the states activity in new directions. One was policing. Traditionally, cities maintained rudimentary police forces, and the army was the real maintainer of
public order. Under Louis XV, the armys policing
role declined, and professional police forces were created. Paris saw the first changes. Its police force,
which numbered 193 in 1700, grew to 725 by 1760. In
the rest of the kingdom, about 3,000 men functioned
as police. These forces were spread thinly over a population of 24 million, but they represented the beginning of a modern, professional police network.
Another area of activity concerned poor relief. Increasingly, the state assumed care of poor children
and the elderly, who were housed, clothed, and fed in
urban hospitals. Life in the hospitals was strict; attendance at morning and evening prayers was oblig-
451
452
the state, and Austria was not remodeled along absolutist lines. Its reach was simply too great and its population too diverseparticularly after the reconquest
of Hungaryto permit the perfect alignment of the
king and the law that had been Louis XIVs aim.
Leopold I
In 1657, on the death of his elder brother from smallpox, the seventeen-year-old Leopold I unexpectedly
became Holy Roman emperor and head of the Austrian Habsburgs. He had been destined for a career in
the church, and at first he did not play the role of
monarch very well. Throughout his life he remained
deeply religious. He married three times and had sixteen sons and daughters, only five of whom outlived
him. He was also withdrawn and bookish as well as an
accomplished musician who composed many pieces
performed at his court in Vienna.
Leopold I (r. 16571705) Head of the Austrian Habsburgs, emperor, ruler in Austria, king of Bohemia, and
king of Hungary, which he reconquered from the Turks.
Schnbrunn (in German, beautiful spring) Leopold
Is palace on Viennas outskirts, built on the model
of Versailles.
453
454
Warfare did not lead Charles to reform the Habsburg state, as it did in France. Instead, during his
twenty-nine-year reign, he devoted his mediocre
talents to two basic policies: making sure that his
brothers daughters did not succeed him and that his
own daughter did. The matter was complicated. The
emperor had always been male, so Charless daughter, Maria Theresa, could not follow him in that office.
But she could succeed him as ruler of the familys
hereditary lands. To this end, Charles coaxed the magnates into recognizing her succession and then sought
guarantees from the other European rulers that they,
too, would recognize it. When Charles died in 1740,
his careful plans exploded. In the War of the Austrian
Succession, another new ruler, Frederick II of Prussia, attacked Maria Theresa during the opening phase
of the two world wars that convulsed Europe in the
mid-eighteenth century. The new war showed just
how weak the Habsburgs had become.
North
Sea
Ba
lti
Knigsberg
PRUSSIA
EASTERN
POMERANIA
El b
BRANDENBURG
Berlin
RAVENSBURG
CLEVE
POLAND
Leipzig
Od
SAXONY
Cologne
Warsaw
MAGDEBURG
MARK
s
eu
a
Se
SILESIA
er
100
200 Km.
100
200 Mi.
Prague
BOHEMIA
CA
RP
hi
ne
MORAVIA
AUSTRIA
BAVARIA
Munich
Vienna 1683
Pest
Buda
STYRIA
TYROL
HI
AN
TRANSYLVANIA
HUNGARY
CARINTHIA
AT
.
TS
M
e
nub
Da
BREISGAU
Zenta 1697
Mohcs
Venice
CARNIOLA
CR
IA
AT SLAVONIA
Karlowitz
Belgrade
e
nub
Da
Passarowitz
Ad
ri
at
ic
Mediterranean Sea
Se
OTTOMAN EMPIRE
MAP 16.1
The Growth of Austria and Prussia to 1748 Both Austria and Brandenburg-Prussia were
expanding in the first half of the eighteenth century. The Austrians continued adding territories in their
southeast, but in the north lost Silesia to Brandenburg-Prussia. Prussian lands were still scattered; by 1772
however, Brandenburg would be joined to Prussia in the First Partition of Poland under Frederick the Great.
Territorial Consolidation
In 1640, a twenty-year-old, Frederick William von
Hohenzollern, known as the Great Elector, became
ruler of Brandenburg and a string of other territories
that stretched across northern Germany from the
Rhineland to the Polish border. In the west, little Cleves
and Mark owed him allegiance; in the center were
Brandenburg and its capital, Berlin, where he ruled as
margrave; to the east was the duchy of Prussia, which
he held as a vassal of the king of Poland. These Hohenzollern lands were separated by territories belonging
to other rulers, and each had its own jealously guarded
political traditions. Because Frederick William was
455
456
In addition to imposing his right to tax and reorganizing his domain revenues, the elector encouraged
economic growth along mercantilist lines by increasing exports and introducing new manufacturing
centers. As a youth, he had spent time in the Dutch
Republic and seen firsthand the thriving economic
life there. After 1685, he welcomed some twenty thousand exiled Huguenots. These French artisans, merchants, and manufacturers played a vital role in the
economic recovery after the Thirty Years War.
During his reign, Frederick William had united his
far-flung lands into a single state, imposed his right
to tax them on a regular basis, and reinvigorated the
economy. His growing army made him the most important military figure in Germany after the Habsburgs. In 1688, the elector was succeeded by his son,
Frederick, who ruled until 1713. Frederick spent most
of his time in Berlin, presiding over a lavish court
in the style of Louis XIV. His one major accomplishment was to adopt the title of King in Prussia in 1701
after obtaining Leopold Is recognition with promises
of military aid in the looming War of the Spanish
Succession. The title gave Frederick the standing he
thought appropriate for his states new power.
457
458
tem was codified in the Table of Ranks. Administrators received noble status as they moved up. Peters
reform of his civil and military administration was
one of the first attempts in modern European history
to overturn the idea that nobles had a right to govern
in favor of the notion that government should be in
the hands of a civil service staffed by experts whose
advancement depended on their performance. To train
experts for state service, Peter established engineering, artillery, and medical schools, a school of mathematics and navigation, and a naval academy. In 1725,
he established an Academy of Sciences that quickly
gained an international reputation for excellence. Peters insistence on able and expert administrators was
central to his program of state building.
Peter loved alcohol, coarse language, and even
coarser practical jokes. Throughout most of his reign,
he presided over a Most Drunken Council that engaged in monumental drinking bouts while mocking
Catholic, but not Orthodox, church ceremonies. His
practical joking was often violent, as when he forced
food down the throat of a courtier, who collapsed in a
fit of coughing with blood running from his nose and
mouth. Peters violence matched that of Frederick
William I of Prussia and contrasted sharply with the
refined manners promoted at the court of Louis XIV
and the piety of Leopold I.
Peters most radical reform was to abolish the office of patriarch in the Russian Orthodox Church. In
the Orthodox world, patriarchs were bishops with
great prestige and influence. The patriarch of Moscow,
who had received the title in 1589, had served as a
counterweight to tsars and a check on their power.
By Peters time, however, the patriarchate had been
weakened by a schism in the church when the Old
Believers rejected his authority and denounced him
as the Antichrist. The patriarch had tried to reform
church practice, and although Russian church councils
and the other patriarchs approved the reforms, Old
Believers rejected them because they had not been
used traditionally in Holy Russia. Moreover, people
unhappy about Peters policy of cultural westernizaTable of Ranks Decree by Peter the Great in 1722 that
restructured civil and military administration into a
system of advancement based on merit.
patriarch Title of the most important bishops in the
Eastern Orthodox Church.
Old Believers Orthodox Christians who rejected the
Russian patriarchs attempt to alter church ceremony.
459
460
lf
Gu
NORWAY
nd
inla
of F
St. Petersburg
ESTONIA
Area of Poland
in 1772
Austria in 1795
Vo
l
ga
SWEDEN
Prussia in 1795
LIVONIA
Russia in 1795
Ottoman Empire
in 1795
1772 Year territory
seized
Moscow
Riga
1772
Se
Smolensk
t
a l Knigsberg
ic
1772
PRUSSIA
Dn
Rhi
HOLY
SAXONY
Dresden
1795
1793
1795
UKRAINE
Kiev
Lublin
1793
SILESIA
Cracow
1772
GALICIA
EMPIRE
Da
P O L A N D
Warsaw
ROMAN
FRANCE
BRANDENBURG
O
Berlin
der
1795
1772
RUSSIA
er
ie
Danzig
(Gdansk)
E lb
Vilna
be
nu
MOLDAVIA
Vienna
Sea
of Azov
17831792
(from Ottoman Empire)
BOHEMIA
CRIMEA
BESSARABIA
AUSTRIAN EMPIRE
HUNGARY
SWISS
CONFEDERATION
Black
Venice
Sea
WALLACHIA
CROATIA
D a n ub e
BOSNIA
SERBIA
BULGARIA
MONTENEGRO
Medit
e rr
a nea
Constantinople
OTTOMAN
n
EMPIRE
0
Sea
200
400 Km.
200
400 Mi.
MAP 16.2
The Partition of Poland and the Expansion of Russia Prussia, Russia, and Austria all
benefited from the partitions of Poland. By incorporating the part of Poland that had previously separated them, Prussia and Brandenburg were finally united. But Prussian lands further to the west were still
separated from those in the east by other states. Russia continued its westward expansion taking presentday Belarus, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Austria took part of southwestern Poland and Galicia, the lands
closest to its eastern border.
461
462
Coercion from above was crucial in this transformation. Modernization and westernization also increased
privileges for the landowning class and reduced the
condition of the peasant population, which (serfs and
free peasants together) constituted more than 90 percent of Russias inhabitants. The gulf between the
landowning elite and the mass of inhabitants was as
great as, if not greater than, any in Europe.
In 1660, after eleven years of civil war, religious controversy, republican government, and Oliver Cromwells
dictatorship, monarchy was restored in the British
Isles when Charles Is son, already crowned king of
Scotland, was crowned king of England and Ireland.
Restoration, however, did not bring either political or
religious peace. For the next seventy years, the British
Isles were torn apart by conflicts pitting king against
Parliament. Religious divisions also persisted, as restored Anglicans refused all compromise with the Puritans. When the Catholic king James II seemed to have
established a permanent Catholic dynasty, he was overthrown, and his Protestant daughter Mary II, along
with her husband, the Dutch stadholder William III,
were crowned with Parliaments blessing. But Mary
and then her successor, Anne, died without heirs, and
Parliament again determined who would rule when it
chose a German Protestant prince, George I. In this turbulent period, as Parliament made and unmade monarchs, its power grew. Political stability was achieved
in the early eighteenth century, when Crown and Parliament started to cooperate in governing the country.
was a charming, witty man with a taste for good living and an eye for women. A string of mistresses,
along with packs of spaniels, shared his bed. God
will not damn a man for taking a little unregular pleasure along the way, he once quipped. In pursuit of
pleasure, Charles reopened London theaters and canceled the traditional prohibition against women playing female roles. Now people could revel in worldly
comedies like Love in a Wood or The Gentleman Dancing-Master.
Underneath the glitter of Restoration society, the
long-standing political conflict between king and
Parliament continued to shape events. Like his predecessors, Charles could conduct foreign policy on his
own and choose his ministers. He could also call Parliament into session and dismiss it, veto its legislation,
and override any parliamentary law by suspending it
or dispensing people from its provisions. For its part,
Parliament could impeach royal ministers. It also controlled state finances through its right to raise taxes.
In sum, both sides had formidable powers, and neither
could gain a permanent advantage over the other. This
situation contrasted to the absolutist monarchies on the
continent, where power was increasingly concentrated
in the hands of the king.
The issue that provoked the greatest political fights
was religion. Although Charles II was officially Anglican, he favored some form of religious toleration in
England. But the Parliament elected in 1661 was determined to promote Anglicanism alone and force conformity to the Book of Common Prayer. Therefore, it
enacted the Clarendon Code, which required all clergymen to swear an oath supporting Anglican theology and prohibited non-Anglican Protestants from
worshiping in public. About 10 percent of the clergy
refused to accept it and turned their backs on Anglicanism. These clergymen and their supporters, known
as dissenters, supported the kings more tolerant attitude. Most Anglicans suspected that the kings policy
of religious toleration was shaped by loyalty to his
Catholic familyhis mother, wife, and younger brother,
James, Duke of York, were all Roman Catholics.
These suspicions deepened when Charles allied
with his cousin, Louis XIV, in the Dutch War of 1672.
In fact, Charles and Louis had signed a secret treaty
in 1670 in which Louis granted Charles a subsidy to
free him from Parliaments control of the purse. In return, the king promised to convert to Roman Catholicism when the time was ripe. Always politically astute,
Charles postponed his conversion until he was on
his deathbed.
The problem of Catholic members of the royal
family became especially acute in the 1670s. Although
Charles fathered at least seventeen illegitimate children by his many mistresses, he had no legitimate
heir to succeed him, so his brother James would be
the next king if the rule of strict hereditary succession
was applied. The prospect of a Catholic king created
a rift among the Anglican elite, which controlled Parliament and ran local government, since Anglicans
hated Catholics as well as dissenters. Soon two parties, the Tories and the Whigs, fought each other over
the issue of succession. Tories supported the Duke of
Yorks right to the crown, even if this meant that
Protestant England would have a Catholic king, because they believed that hereditary monarchy was divinely instituted and that opposition to it was a sin.
Whigs wanted a Protestant monarch at all costs. Following the argument of the English philosopher John
Locke, they believed in the contractual theory of government. The English monarchy was based on a contract between the ruler and his subjects, represented
in Parliament, which could be broken for good reason. As battles between the two parties raged, a new
politically active press emerged under the relatively
moderate censorship regime of the restored monarchy.
Press and parties encouraged the English publicly to
discuss politics and take sides on issues in ways that
were inconceivable under the absolutist monarchies
on the continent.
James II
In 1685, when Charles II died, the principle of hereditary succession won out, and the Duke of York became
James II. James kept up some Anglican appearances,
463
464
In this painting of the House of Commons by Karl Anton Hickel, the Speaker of the House sits with his hat on
at the center behind secretaries. The MPs (Members of Parliament) flank him on either side. The man standing
is the kings first minister, William Pitt the Younger, who is addressing the House. (National Portrait Gallery,
London)
the British Isles and laid the foundations for a constitutional monarchy in which the monarch and Parliament ruled as partners following the principles of the
rule of law.
The reign of William and Mary inaugurated twentyfive years of war against France. Whigs supported
Williams pursuit of Louis XIV, while Tories grum-
465
466
Act of Union Parliamentary act of 1707 uniting Scotland and England in the one kingdom of Great Britain.
Table 16.1
The Eighteenth-Century World Wars
and the Diplomatic Revolution
The War of the Austrian Succession, 17401748
Britain
France
versus
Austria
Prussia
Britain
versus
Prussia
Austria
France
The Wars
In 1740, Frederick II of Prussia attacked Maria Theresa
of Austria, beginning the War of the Austrian Succession. The rulers of Bavaria and Saxony challenged
Maria Theresas right to rule on the grounds that they
were more legitimate heirs to Charles VI than she.
Frederick, however, accepted the legitimacy of her
succession. What he wanted was Silesia, the richest of
Austrias territories. Taking advantage of challenges
to Maria Theresas right of succession, he claimed
that Silesia rightfully belonged to Prussia and then
seized the province. Britain had been at war with
Spain since 1739 over the trading rights conceded to
it at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession. In
1740, Britain joined Austria to fight Prussia, renewing
the British-Austrian alliance that had been forged in
the wars against Louis XIV. The British also attacked
the French in North America and India. France, in
turn, stood by its traditional ally, Prussia, in order to
check Austrian power. In 1748, at wars end, Prussia
emerged victorious, keeping Silesia. The war between
Britain and France ended indecisively.
Eighteenth-Century Warfare
The complex, ever-shifting alliances and counteralliances that characterized the world wars of the mideighteenth century were typical of the culture of war in
early modern Europe. War was accepted as an inevitable and ongoing feature of the relations between
European states. Rulers did little to counteract this
idea; the old ideal of the king as head of the warrior
band was too deeply embedded in European tradition.
The growth of large professional armies in the hundred years between 1650 and 1750 reinforced the idea
of the inevitability of ongoing warfare. The profes-
467
468
In this engraving from a Prussian army manual of 1726 a drill master supervises the marching and field
maneuvers for which the Prussian army was famous. Soldiers who fail to follow his commands will have
to mount the donkey punishment device shown on the left. By emphasizing the stark simplicity of the
surrounding buildings, the engraver reinforces the precision and orderliness of the troops at drill.
(Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY)
step, which kept soldiers in a straight line. Not surprisingly, Frederick William I was a pioneer in this
field, earning him the nickname the royal drill sergeant. Soon, other armies were training their troops
in similar ways. Army officers, almost always drawn
from the nobility, received instruction in drill and battlefield tactics in new military academies and then
applied them to the common soldiers under their
command.
Eighteenth-century statesmen used warfare to enforce the doctrine of the balance of power, based on
the assumption that Europes international system
functioned best when power was evenly distributed
among states, thereby preventing any one of them from
achieving dominance over the others. Thus, the coalitions against Louis XIV were explained as restoring
the balance that the Sun Kings aggressive military
activity had threatened. Of course, agreement on the
balance rested on the agreement of all the interested
players. And that was where the problems began.
In this painting by R. Warthmlle, Frederick II of Prussia inspects a potato field. Potatoes grew well in the
sandy soils of Fredericks lands, and he promoted the cultivation of this New World vegetable for its high nutritional value and abundant yield. Well-fed Prussians, he knew, would live to pay taxes and serve in the army.
(Private Collection, Hamburg/akg-images)
469
KA
AS
AL
KA
AS
AL
Hudson
Bay
Hudson
Bay
HUDSONS BAY
COMPANY
HUDSONS BAY
COMPANY
Miquelon &
St. Pierre Is.
(French)
QUEBEC
Quebec
Quebec
R
.
T S
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
TEXAS
NEW
MEXICO
MT
N
IA
LA
CH
LOUISIANA
AP
TEXAS
FLORIDA
THIRTEEN
COLONIES
PA
AN
HI
AL
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European Claims in North America Before and After the Seven Years War In losing the
Seven Years War, France lost its continental North American empire. New France went to Britain, and
Louisiana went to Spain. France retained only Newfoundland and its island colonies in the Caribbean.
as it had in Prussia under the Great Elector. To increase government efficiency, she founded a school to
train state administrators. In 1761, she decreed that
her state council, staffed by experts, could make policy decisions that were binding on her and the state
administration. She, therefore, repudiated the kingcentered decision making that Louis XIV and Frederick William I of Prussia had developed.
In 1756, when the Seven Years War began, Maria
Theresas reforms were put to the test and failed.
With Silesia still in Fredericks hands at wars end,
Austria initiated more reforms, primarily to increase
revenue to pay for a better army. This time, however,
Maria Theresa tackled the problem by focusing on
the economic improvement of the mass of her subjects, the serfs. Like Leopold I, she tried to reduce
serfs uncompensated work for their landlords, de-
Some official portraits of Maria Theresa show her with her husband and children,
emphasizing her role as wife and mother. This one, by Martin Meyhens (c. 1743).
shows her in military dress as commander of the Austrian army. (Erich Lessing/Art
Resource, NY)
Maria Theresa also imposed new taxes on the Catholic Church. Although she was a pious Roman Catholic
who hated heresy, she believed that the church should
assume a greater part of the expenses needed to defend
the state against competitors. The clergy were taxed
without the popes permission, and the church was
forbidden to acquire new land that would be tax-free.
471
472
restored order by making concessions to the landlords. He reinstituted serfdom and landlords control
of peasants. Serfdom was not permanently abolished
until 1848.
Austrias defeat in war led to radical social reforms
intended to increase peasant prosperity, which in turn
would allow for higher taxes and more money for the
army. Thus, the dynamics of Europes fiercely competitive international system fundamentally shaped the
course of Austrian state building over the second half
of the eighteenth century.
Although Britain and France fought each other in
Europe alongside their respective allies, their real contest was overseas in North America and India. In 1763,
at the end of the Seven Years War, Britain was the
undisputed winner. British victories drove the French
off the North American mainland. Britain also secured its predominant place in India. But the victory in
North America created problems of its own that led
directly to the American Revolution and indirectly to
revolution in France.
Summary
Review Questions
How did governments try to establish good working
relations with the people?
What effect did state building have on the various
religious communities of Europe?
What factors worked to develop or retard a collective
sense of national identity?
Summary
473
474
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Palaces
The word palace derives from the name for the hill in Rome, the Palatium, where the Emperor Augustus
resided. In the Middle Ages, palatium (palace) referred to the temporary lodgings of kings on the move.
It was also used for a monasterys guesthouse for royalty. Charlemagnes residence at Aachen was a palace
of sorts. At Fontainebleau, Francis I of France built a palace blending Italian Renaissance architectural principles with traditional French design. In the late sixteenth century, Philip II of Spain built the Escorial, a grand
palace-monastery complex outside Madrid. In the late seventeenth century, Louis XIVs Versailles outdid
them all and set the standard for later palaces throughout Europe.
In the eighteenth century, Frederick II, following Leopold Is Schnbrunn, built a palace at Potsdam to show
that Prussia also knew how to keep up with the Bourbons. The British monarchs lagged behind these
palace makers. In 1762, George III bought the run-down townhouse of the Duke of Buckingham for his
wife. It was only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that remodeling made it into the Buckingham
Palace of today. British monarchs from Queen Victoria on have lived there.
Although Versailles was Europes grandest palace, it was not very clean. Men used areas under stairways as
urinals, and contemporaries remarked on the stench when they climbed the stairs. Interestingly, Versailles
was open to the public. All a man needed to stroll the gardens and walk through the public rooms was a
hat, gloves, and sword. If you forgot yours or did not own them, they could be rented at the gate. Visitors
could also watch the king eat at midday; they got in line and filed through the far end of the room. Easy
public access to the rulers residence contrasts with the strict security that now surrounds almost all
political leaders.
Today, most government heads do not live in palaces. The president of the United States lives in the White
House, not the White Palace. The prime minister of Britain lives at 10 Downing Street. One exception is the
president of France, who lives in Paris in the lyse Palace, decorated in the style of Louis XIV and Louis XV.
By the twenty-first century, many old palaces had undergone democratization. The Louvre Palace in Paris,
the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, and even Versailles have been turned into public monuments or museums. You can stroll through them for the price of a ticket.
Suggested Readings
Collins, James B. The State in Early Modern France. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2001. A good introduction to state
building.
Gagliardo, John. Germany Under the Old Regime, 16001790.
New York: Longman, 1991. A good general account.
Ingrao, Charles. The Habsburg Monarchy, 16181715. 2nd ed.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. A history of state
building in the Habsburg lands.
Riasanovsky, Nicholas V., and Mark Steinberg. A History of
Russia. 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. The
standard account in English.
Websites
Websites
On early modern absolutism, Structures of PoliticsAbsolutism,
at www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook1.html#Structures
%20of%20Politics%20-%20Absolutism
On politics in the Dutch Republic and the British Isles, England,
Holland, and AmericaAlternative Polities and Economies,
at www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook1.html#England,
%20Holland,%20and%20America
475
476
CHAPTER
The Scientic
Revolution and
the Enlightenment,
15501790
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Introduces Smallpox Inoculation
in England
Enlightenment Religion
Diderot and the Encyclopdie
The Late Enlightenment
Introduction
A Revolution in Astronomy
Ancient and Medieval Astronomy
A New View of the Universe
Models of Scientific Knowledge
Why Change Occurred
Enlightenment Debates
Europeans and Non-Europeans
Slavery
Men and Women
Summary
Echo: Coffeehouses
Suggested Readings
The Enlightenment
The Early Enlightenment
Voltaire
Websites
1500 B.C.E.
1000 B.C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1637
Descartes,
The Discourse on Method
1543
Copernicus, On the Revolution
of the Heavenly Bodies
1540
1560
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
1580
1600
1620
1640
1660
Major university
Scientific society
Salon
Tea/coffee house
Edinburgh
Boundary of
Holy Roman Empire
GREAT
BRITAIN
Bacon
Harvey
Hobbes
Boyle
Locke
Behn
Newton
Pope
Lady Montagu
Wollstonecraft
Cook
Oslo
OF
Moscow
AND
Ba ltic
Sea
NORWAY
Copenhagen
Brahe
Cambridge
Oxford
Leiden
London
SIA
US
PR
DUTCH
REPUBLIC
Franklin
Jefferson
Catherine II
DENMARK
Vesalius
van Leeuwenhoek
UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA
St. Petersburg
Stockholm
KINGDOM
North Sea
Dublin
KINGDOM
OF SWEDEN
Kepler
Amsterdam Mendelssohn
Frederick II
RUSSIAN
EMPIRE
Copernicus
Kant
Knigsberg
PO LA N D
S
Berlin
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
Warsaw
Gttingen
AUSTRIAN
NETHERLANDS
Descartes
Pascal
Baron de Montesquieu
Voltaire
Chtelet
La Mettrie
Abb Raynal
Diderot
Vige-Lebrun
FRANCE
Prague
Heidelberg
Paris
AUSTRIA
Tbingen
Vienna
SWITZERLAND
Freiburg
Geneva
Lyons
Rousseau
Rudolph II
Mozart
Bern
Budapest
HUNGARY
Venice
AL
UG
RT
Bologna
Florence
PAPAL
STATES
Madrid
PO
IC
BL
Salamanca
PU
Lisbon
Gallileo
Cosimo II
RE
Padua
Genoa
Toulouse
Montpellier
VE
O
NI
CE
Rome
SPAIN
Black Sea
Constantinople
EM
Naples
KINGDOM
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OF THE
TWO
SICILIES
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400 Mi.
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1687
Newton, Mathematical Principles
of Natural Philosophy
1680
1700
1720
dite
rrane
an
Sea
1500 C.E.
1733
Voltaire,
Philosophical
Letters on
the English
1690
Locke, An Essay Concerning
Human Understanding
Me
1740
1748
Montesquieu,
The Spirit of the Laws
2000 C.E.
1776
American Declaration
of Independence
1751
Diderot, Encyclopdie,
volume 1
1760
1784
Kant, What Is
Enlightenment?
1780
1800
477
478
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Introduces
Smallpox Inoculation in England
Lady Mary
Wortley
Montague
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,
an aristocrat, moved in Englands literary circles as well,
publishing poems and pamphlets anonymously. Her
letters to friends and family
were eventually collected and
published, since letter writing
was considered an art form
in her day. She was also the
wife of the British ambassador to the Ottoman Turkish
sultans court in Constantinople. In 1718, she witnessed
the Turkish practice of inoculating people against the
deadly disease of smallpox.
(Boston Athenaeum)
In March 1718, an aged Greek woman, her hands shaking, reached for the
arms of the six-year-old son of the British ambassador to the sultans court
in Constantinople. After opening veins in the boys arms with a blunt,
rusty needle, she smeared pus into the cuts. The pus, carried in a nutshell,
had come from a victim of smallpox. The old woman then bound up the
wounds with more nutshells. A day later, the boys arms began to swell,
and on the third day bright spots appeared on his face and quickly turned
into a hundred pustules. For a week he lay in bed with a fever. Then the
pustules subsided, the fever fell, and the boy was well. He had survived a
mild case of smallpox and would not get the disease again.
The boys mother had supervised this engrafting, as the procedure
was then called. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had seen it performed and
had written home that Turks and Greeks in the sultans lands often held
engrafting parties, at which ten or fifteen people were infected with the
best sort of smallpox. Some Greeks liked to have the cuts made on their foreheads, arms, and chest to make the sign of the cross. For the Protestant Lady Mary,
this was pure superstition; she preferred cuts in hidden places so that the scars
they caused would not be seen. After contracting a mild form of the disease, almost everyone survived in complete health. Impressed with the procedures success, Lady Mary decided on engrafting for her son to protect him from the death
or disfigurement that smallpox so often brought.
Lady Mary knew, personally, the ravages of smallpox. In 1713, a beloved
brother had died from the disease. Three years later, she contracted it. Luckily, she
lived, but she lost her eyelashes and had deep pits on her face from scars the pustules had left. When her son survived his inoculation unblemished, Lady Mary
became a strong advocate for the procedure. After her return to England in 1718,
she encouraged friends and family to undergo inoculation and set the example
again by having her infant daughter engrafted. As an aristocrat, she moved in
Britains highest social and political circles, and in 1721 the Princess of Wales joined
her cause. At the princesss command, six volunteers were recruited at Londons
notorious Newgate Prison, and promised freedom if they survived. Physicians, surgeons, and members of the Royal Society, Englands leading scientific institute,
witnessed the engrafting, which was successful. The princess then ordered more
experiments on London orphans. When they, too, were successful, she had two of
her own daughters inoculated. Members of the royal court then began to inoculate themselves and their children. However, when two of them died, a huge controversy erupted over the wisdom of the procedure.
Some Anglican clergymen attacked inoculation on the grounds that it was contrary to Gods will. But six Puritan clergy from Boston wrote that they found nothing theologically offensive in the treatment. Physicians attacked it on all fronts:
inoculations protective power was not satisfactorily demonstrated; the disease
might be spread through it; the procedure was the work of amateurs who should
Introduction
leave such matters to the medical professionals. Worst of all, not only was it foreign, it was Turkish! As one doctor fumed, inoculation was the work of Ignorant
Women amongst an illiterate and unthinking People.
Faced with these attacks, Lady Mary wrote a scathing article in which she accused physicians of opposing the procedure out of greed and snobbery. Here she
made public the speculation she had stated privately in a letter to her sister
whether doctors would be willing to destroy such a considerable branch of their
revenue for the good of mankind. The article, printed in a leading London newspaper, was published anonymously, for Lady Mary did not believe that a person of
high breeding, like herself, should write for the public. Nevertheless, her campaign
for the good of mankind continued to flourish. The practice of inoculation
spread, and improvements, such as using cowpox, a milder variant of smallpox,
made it safer.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, wide use of vaccine essentially eradicated smallpox, a lethal disease that had long ravaged human populations. Therefore, routine vaccination is no longer necessary today for prevention.
Introduction
Lady Mary was caught up in many of the intellectual
currents of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Her interest in medicine and her attention to observation and experimentation were part of a general shift
in scientific theory and method that had begun in the
sixteenth century. This Scientific Revolution, which
first occurred in astronomy, physics, and anatomy,
had fundamentally altered peoples view of the universe and led to the development of a scientific method
that relied more on human reason to arrive at truth
and less on the authority of ancient authors and sacred
scripture. Now a new intellectual figure, the scientific
expert, began to challenge the views of traditional
theologians and those who believed that the best human knowledge was found in the works of ancient
Greeks and Romans.
The New Science also inspired attempts to apply
scientific methods to other fields of inquiry in an intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment.
Relying on the scientific methods use of human reason to arrive at truth, the Enlightenment created the
modern social sciences. Traditional Christianity also
came under scrutiny; Lady Marys scorn for religious
superstition was shared by many supporters of the
Enlightenment, who thought that religion should be
based on observation of the natural world and the exercise of human reason. Some abandoned traditional
Christianity altogether. As a result, the Christian worldview that had dominated European thought for more
than a thousand years now competed with nonChristian and even nonreligious alternatives.
479
480
Chronology
1543
1761
1637
1762
1651
1687
1772
1688
1690
1775
1717
1776
1718
1778
1733
1781
1746
1784
1748
1789
1751
1791
A Revolution in Astronomy
The religious crises that shook Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were accompanied
by an intellectual crisis. Beginning as a new theory of
the universe that placed the sun, not the earth, at its
center, it grew into a questioning of the traditional
sources of authority guiding European thought about
the natural worldancient authors, and Christian
scripture. Gradually, as the new view of the universe
gained acceptance, new sources of authority based on
close observation of natural phenomena and the use
of independent human reasoning were embraced.
These changes are usually described as the Scientific
Revolution.
A Revolution in Astronomy
481
482
A Revolution in Astronomy
483
484
Scientific Networks
The first scientific societies developed in princely
courts. In Prague, the emperor Rudolf II (r. 15761612)
established one of the first. Rudolph was a moody,
reclusive man who fought with his brother for control
of the Habsburg Empire, but he was also interested in
artistic and scientific developments and joined with
the king of Denmark to support Tycho Brahes work.
In Florence, Cosimo II not only patronized artists
such as the French printmaker Jacques Callot but also
supported Galileo and encouraged scientific discusalchemy Discipline practiced in the Middle Ages
that searched for the hidden relations between
natural phenomena.
Andreas Vesalius (15141564) Flemish physician who
dissected human corpses and corrected some ancient
statements about human anatomy.
William Harvey (15781657) English physician who
described the circulation of blood in the human body.
Scientific Revolution Name given to the new views
of the natural world and the new methods for obtaining them that began in the sixteenth century.
485
486
Pascal was one of many seventeenth-century scientists whose beliefs were shot through with traditional Christian values and concerns. Bacon believed
that the accumulation of natural knowledge would
prepare for Christs return to earth, while Newton believed that human mastery of nature was a step in
restoring the human race to Paradise, where Adam
was master of the world before he fell into sin.
The Enlightenment
Growing enthusiasm for the New Science also provoked a sharp argument over the nature of human
history. Traditional seventeenth-century understandings of history were pessimistic. Some stated that history was the sad story of decline and decay from an
original high point, sometimes identified as the Garden of Eden and sometimes as Greek and Roman culture. In either case, humanitys passage through time
was simply a slide downhill from an earlier golden
age. A less dismal view presented history in cyclical
terms. Humanity passed through high stages and then
slid into decay until, once again, it started to ascend
to a high point that, in turn, would provoke another
period of decline. Thus, in a Protestant version of the
cyclical theory, the high point of Christianitys first
days was followed by a decline as Catholicism spread,
The Enlightenment
How did the Enlightenment employ the methods of the
New Science?
What were the major items on the Enlightenments
agenda for reform?
487
488
John Locke, to apply it to a new field of study, the human mind. In 1690, Locke published An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, in which he took issue
with Descartes belief that God had planted some innate ideas in the mind. Instead, Locke argued, our
minds at birth are like white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas. Ideas arise only through
experience of the world around us. And that experience comes through our senses of sight, hearing, taste,
touch, and smell.
Lockes Essay was one of the foundational documents of the Enlightenment. It showed how Newtons
scientific method could be used to establish a new science, that of the human mind, and thereby laid the
foundations for the modern discipline of psychology.
At the same time, it ratified a central tenet of the scientific methodreasoning on the basis of experience
and observation. The Essay also had one profound implication. Sense knowledge can come only from the
physical, material world, since it alone is capable of registering on the senses. That meant that human beings
could not directly know the immaterial or supernatural world, even if it exists. Thus, the Essay, repudiating
the notion of innate ideas and limiting human knowledge to sense impressions, cast serious doubt on the
reality of divine revelation as an authority for guiding peoples lives. Messages from the supernatural
beyond seemed less and less likely in Lockes world.
Lockes interest in the mind testifies to a central concern of the Enlightenment: the study of human beings.
In the sixteenth century, when the western Christian
world split into two warring campsCatholic and
Protestantthe problem of God was a central intellectual issue. The Scientific Revolution brought the
study of nature to the fore. In the Enlightenment, attention shifted once again. As Alexander Pope put it:
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The Proper study of Mankind is Man.
Another center of the Enlightenment was France,
where the Baron de Montesquieu took the study of
humans in a different direction. A nobleman and a
lawyer, Montesquieu sat in the French Parlement of
Bordeaux. He made his literary debut in 1721 with The
Persian Letters, a witty critique of French society supposedly written by Persian tourists. In 1748, he published one of the great works of the Enlightenment,
The Spirit of the Laws. Unlike Locke, who had studied
the individual human mind, Montesquieu focused on
human beings as a group. Assuming that there was a
universal human nature, he then sought the causes for
the great variety of human political arrangements
monarchies, republics, despotic statesand found
them in environmental factors. A comparative analy-
Voltaire
If any person embodied the Enlightenment, it was the
French philosopher and author Voltaire. The son of a
middle-class Parisian lawyer, Voltaire attended the
prestigious Jesuit school of Louis-le-Grand. He then
defied his father, who wanted him to enter the law, by
deciding to make his living as a writer. In 1718, his
first play, Oedipus, which recounted the Greek legend
of the king who killed his father and slept with his
mother, ran on the Paris stage for an unprecedented
forty-five nights. This success established the young
man as Frances foremost author of tragedies. A few
years later, he published an epic poem on the reign
of Henry IV of France, the Henriade, his most popular work.
In late 1725, a quarrel with a descendant of one of
Frances greatest noble families landed Voltaire in the
Bastille, a notorious royal prison. He was released in
1726, on the condition that he go into exile in England.
He did, and his exile set him on the path that made
him Frances greatest philosophe, the name French
supporters of Enlightenment gave themselves.
Voltaire stayed in England until 1729, becoming
familiar with Newtons and Lockes writings and
learning about the English form of monarchical and
parliamentary government. In 1733, he published
Philosophical Letters on the English, a seemingly innoBaron de Montesquieu (16891755) One of the
founders of the modern discipline of sociology and
author of The Spirit of the Laws.
Voltaire (16941778) Social critic, attacker of Christianity, defender of the principle of autonomous human reason, and author of Candide.
Bastille Medieval fortress in Paris serving as a royal
prison.
philosophes (in French, philosophers) Name French
supporters of Enlightenment ideas gave themselves.
The Enlightenment
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490
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Voltaire Attacks Christianity
Voltaire wanted to present the ideas of the Enlightenment to a large reading
public. He therefore polished a literary style that sparkled with wit and was laced
with biting satire and moral outrage. The two pieces presented below illustrate
Voltaires attack on traditional Christianity, the infamous thing. They were published anonymously, without the approval of the French royal censors, and represent the Enlightenment attack on Christianity in its most radical form. They
offended many traditionalists, who dismissed Voltaire as a filthy little atheist,
but they expressed views that many people repeated in the years after Voltaire
published his attack.
On the Trinity
Here is an incomprehensible question which for over sixteen hundred years has
exercised curiosity, sophistical subtlety, bitterness, the spirit of cabal, the rage to
dominate, the rage to persecute, blind and bloodthirsty fanaticism, barbaric
credulity, and which has produced more horrors than the ambition of princes,
which indeed has produced enough.
Is Jesus Word? If he is Word, did he emanate from God, is he co-eternal and
consubstantial with him, or is he of a similar substance? Is he distinct from him
or not? Is he created or engendered? Can he engender in turn? Has he paternity,
or productive virtue without paternity? Is the holy ghost created or engendered or
produced? Does he proceed from the father, or from the son, or from both? Can
he engender, can he produce? Is his hypostasis consubstantial with the hypostasis
of the father and the son? And why, having precisely the same nature, the same
essence as the father and the son, can he not do the same things as these two
persons who are himself?
I certainly do not understand any of this; nobody has ever understood any of
this, and this is the reason for which people have slaughtered one another.
The Story of the Banishing of the Jesuits from China
Brother Rigolet: Our God was born in a stable, seventeen hundred and twentythree years ago, between an ox and an ass. . . . [His mother] was not a woman,
but a girl. It is true that she was married, and that she had two other children,
named James as the old gospels say, but she was a virgin none the less.
The Emperor: What! She was a virgin and she had children!
Brother Rigolet: To be sure. This is the nub of the story: it was God who gave this
girl a child.
The Emperor: I dont understand you. You have just told me that she was the
mother of God. So God slept with his mother in order to be born of her?
Brother Rigolet: Youve got it Your Sacred Majesty; grace was already in operation.
Youve got it I say; God changed himself into a pigeon to give a child to a carpenters wife, and that child was God himself.
The Emperor: But then we have two Gods to take into account: a carpenter and a
pigeon.
The Enlightenment
Enlightenment Religion
Although Voltaire declared war on Christianity, he
was no atheist. He embraced deism, a rational religion based solely on the observation of nature. Deism
drew on Lockes sense-based psychology, the argument from design, and Newtons clocklike universe.
As a religious movement, it denied Christian doctrines of the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, and the divine authority of the Bible. Most deists also rejected
Newtons notion that God intervenes in the universe
to keep it going. Deists emphasized the need for humane treatment of human beings, supporting the
campaign against judicial torture.
For Voltaire and other deists, like Benjamin Franklin
and Thomas Jefferson, deism and religious toleration
went hand in hand. Since traditional religion, whether
Jewish or Christian, was based on fraud and foolishness, it could never be legitimately defended by attacking those who rejected it. Even acceptable religious
belief, like deism, was a matter of individual conscience over which no state or church authority ought
to have jurisdiction. Voltaires pursuit of these points
in the Calas affair met with growing sympathy, and,
491
492
This engraving of a craft process from Diderots Encyclopdie shows a printers shop. From left to right men set
type for a page, arrange lines, and lock the type in place. The type will print four pages at once. Previously printed
pages are drying on lines above workmens heads; when dry, they will be folded to arrange the pages in proper
sequence. Diderots emphasis on craft and manufacturing processes reminded readers of their importance and
gave them a new dignity. (Division of Rare & Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library)
The Enlightenment
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494
Just as scientific societies helped to spread Newtonian physics, so new institutions served to popularize
the Enlightenment. Publishers expanded the types of
books they produced from religious works to new literary forms like the novel. Newspapers also became
increasingly available to readers. This wider array of
reading materials, which encouraged readers to digest the news of the day or enter into the world of the
novel, offered new ways of thinking about human experience. The Enlightenments insistence on rational
discussion of topics spread through society as new
opportunities opened for comment on current affairs
in coffeehouses, salons, and Masonic lodges. Critical
discussion of issues also spilled over into the political
realm as ordinary people commented on rulers policies and required rulers to justify their actions before
a new political force, public opinion.
til the next days newspaper was available. As the variety of reading material expanded, it is likely that
Europeans received more information about the
world and, often lost in the contents of the page in
front of them, had a wider range of imaginative reading experiences than people had ever had before. One
of the clearest signs of Europeans expanding reading
habits was the spread of lending libraries, which al-
495
496
Enlightenment Sociability
Along with new types of literature and changing styles
of reading, new institutions sprang up in which people
could discuss what they read and put into practice the
central method of the Enlightenmentthought based
on autonomous human reason. Chief among them
were coffee and tea houses. Europeans consumption of
coffee and tea rose significantly during the eighteenth
century as a result of expanded colonial trade and an
improving European economy. While both beverages
were drunk at home, many people, especially men,
liked to take them in cafs where there were newspapers and pamphlets to read, opportunities to buy and
sell stocks in joint-stock companies, and people to
talk to. The coffeehouse phenomenon had begun in
Restoration London when Whigs took tea or coffee
and discussed politics at Old Slaughters, while the
Tories gathered at the Cocoa Tree. Coffeehouses then
sprouted up in Paris, Vienna, and other major European cities. The atmosphere in them was informal;
one dropped in and left at will. Originally patronized
by the rich and fashionable, coffeehouses became
more socially inclusive over the century. Men of different backgrounds who would normally be separated on more formal occasions mixed easily with one
another in the coffeehouse atmosphere. And always,
politics and other current events were discussed. Because coffee is a stimulant, animated discussion was
the rule. Unlike taverns, however, where drinking often led to brawling, coffeehouse conversation was supposed to be orderly and polite, even if heated.
Conversation was also the rule in salons. Invented
in Paris during the seventeenth century, the salon
became a central Enlightenment institution for the
educated and well-born. Women like Madame du
Deffand, the wife of a rich Parisian financier, presided
over salons that met in their homes on specified days
and discussed topics that the hostess announced. The
hostess also set rules for conversation that prohibited
shouting, swearing, and name calling. Guests were to
converse politely, intelligently, and amusingly about
the scientific, artistic, or political matters assigned for
discussion. Anyone able to do this would be admitted. Thus, men and women, nobles and commoners,
joined in. Although the hostess was usually rich and
often noble, salons, like coffeehouses, were relatively
informal institutions in which an ability to converse
well counted more than wealth or social background.
497
498
tics from the sidelines. While court etiquette at Versailles and official press accounts of the kings daily activities reinforced this view, it proved increasingly
difficult to maintain. Prolonged conflicts between the
French king and the parlements over Jansenism, during which the parlements published their grievances,
made it clear that others beside the king claimed a political role. The growth of the newspaper press and the
rise of rational discussion in new social settings also
encouraged the kings subjects to become actively engaged in discussion of policies and events.
In both England and France, therefore, public opinion played a growing role in politics. Its advent constituted a major shift in European political life. Monarchs
who had previously argued that they ruled by divine
grace and operated in a political world, whose rules
could not be understood by the mass of their subjects,
now had to contend with a growing chorus of voices
commenting on and even criticizing what they did. Although criticism of rulers could lead to charges of treason, it also forced governments to become more open
in explaining and justifying their policies. As states
made increasing demands on their subjects, rulers
were increasingly expected to account for their actions.
Enlightenment Debates
Discussion and debate were at the heart of Enlightenment intellectual life. Debating clubs, where men and
women could hear opposing views on subjects of current concern, often addressed the degree of likeness
and difference in the human community. The philosophes believed in universal natural laws and a universal human nature. At the same time, they lived in
a world where difference separated some people from
others and thereby challenged universalism. Debates on
human likeness and difference, which raged throughout the eighteenth century, focused especially on three
issues: the relation between Europeans and nonEuropeans; the institution of slavery; and the relation
between men and women.
Enlightenment Debates
499
500
Slavery
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men
are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These
words in one of the Enlightenments most famous
documents, the Declaration of Independence (1776),
were written by Thomas Jefferson and proclaimed
the philosophes belief in universal human rights.
Enlightenment Debates
Quakers An English Protestant sect that rejected ceremony and an ordained ministry, relying instead on a
mystical inner light to guide conscience.
Elisabeth Vige-Lebrun (17551842) French society
painter.
501
502
coupled his arguments about the power of autonomous human reason with a discussion of the
minds relation to the body. He argued that the two
were radically different; humans bodies were wholly
material and were subject to the laws of matter in
motion. The mind, however, was nonmaterial. This
Cartesian dualism made one thing perfectly clear:
mind was not shaped by the body it went with,
whether male or female. It floated free in a nonmaterial and, therefore, sexless world. Lockes picture of
the human mind pointed to similar conclusions. If the
mind was like a blank sheet of paper, there seemed no
good reason to argue for different male and female
minds, since both were subject to the same stimulus
from sense experience.
Many philosophes accepted the implications of
Lockes and Descartes arguments. Diderot did not
think that men and women were all that different and
agreed with Montesquieu that a womans sexually
based role as a mother was only one part of her life,
not its defining characteristic. Voltaire rejected the
idea of distinct male and female minds; men and
women were intellectual equals, as his collaborator,
Mme. du Chatelet, demonstrated.
Acceptance of intellectual equality between men
and women, however, did not prevent many philosophes from assigning them separate social roles. Rejecting the traditional idea that men had to rule
women because women were prone to irrational and
unruly behavior, the philosophes now argued that
women should enforce the rules of civilization in society and thereby tame mens unruly behavior. The salon hostess performed this task and did so in womens
traditional sphere, the household, while other women
performed it as mothers who educated their children
in proper behavior.
Some philosophes rejected outright the idea of
gender equality. Chief among them was Rousseau.
Resurrecting old ideas about womens inferiority,
Rousseau argued that women were irrational. Above
all, they should play no public role in society as salon
hostesses or commentators in the realm of public
opinion. Their actual roles in this regard were simply another symptom of civilizations corrupting effect. Women belonged at home, breast-feeding their
children and obeying their husbands. As creatures of
feeling, they played a central role in training children.
Men alone, however, should carry on rational discussion and engage in politics.
A growing body of medical literature seemed to
support Rousseaus denial of womens equality to
Cartesian dualism Descartes idea of the radical difference between material human bodies and nonmaterial human minds.
Mary Wollstonecraft (17591797) English writer and
feminist who rejected the idea that women were physically and mentally inferior to men.
Summary
Review Questions
What were the basic differences between traditional
Christianity and the New Science on views of God,
the natural world, and the human world?
How did the Enlightenment draw on and expand the
method and findings of the Scientific Revolution?
How did Enlightenment debates reshape Europeans
sense of identity?
Summary
503
504
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Coffeehouses
Coffeehouses were a central Enlightenment institution. They soon came to specialize in certain areas of discussion and information, some offering commercial or political news and others concentrating on reviews of
recent plays, poems, and books. Still others were simply places where you could be seen. The famous British
insurance company Lloyds of London began in a coffeehouse. Also in London, by the end of the eighteenth
century, some coffeehouses had begun to charge dues for membership, gradually becoming private clubs.
On the continent, public coffeehouses also underwent change. By the late nineteenth century, they were
no longer meeting places for men only; whole families would now go to them for coffee and sweets. One
of the grandest nineteenth-century coffeehouses was the Caf Sacher in Vienna, which offered patrons
slices of its famous sacher torte, a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and an apricot filling, topped with
whipped cream. In the twentieth century, two Paris coffeehouses, Les Deux Magots and its rival next door,
the Caf de Flore, became meeting places for famous writers such as the American Ernest Hemingway, the
French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, and the French feminist Simone de Beauvoir. People still throng their
sidewalk tables, trying to recapture something of the earlier intellectual atmosphere.
Today coffeehouses have been rediscovered and are booming throughout the world. Starbucks, which
started in Seattle, can now be found across the United States as well as in London and Hong Kong. Independent owners challenge the large franchise chains, and some advertise particular specialtiesorganic
coffee, or fair-trade coffee, or coffee in a Christian atmosphere. Recently, the English magazine The Economist suggested that the Internet was a new version of the coffeehouse, serving as a virtual meeting place
for the exchange of information, opinion, and gossip. Since the Internet is available in Internet cafs, the
old coffeehouse and the virtual one sometimes occupy the same space.
Suggested Readings
Black, Jeremy, and Roy Porter, eds. The Penguin Dictionary of
Eighteenth-Century History. New York: Penguin, 2001. A useful one-volume handbook.
Gay, Peter. The Enlightenment: An Interpretation. 2 vols. New
York: Knopf, 19661969. A classic interpretation written in a
very engaging style.
Henry, John. The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of
Modern Science. 2nd ed. New York: Palgrave, 2002. A recent introductory account.
Jacob, Margaret C. The Cultural Meaning of the Scientific Revolution. New York: Knopf, 1988. An account placing the Scientific Revolution in its larger European cultural context.
______. The Enlightenment: A Brief History with Documents.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2001. A recent introduction.
Shapin, Steven. The Scientific Revolution. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1996. An excellent recent analysis.
Voltaire, Candide. Edited by Daniel Gordon. Boston: Bedford/
St. Martins, 1999. A recent edition of Voltaires best-known
novel.
Websites
A useful site for the New Science , Scientific Revolution,
at http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/rhatch/pages/03-Sci-Rev/
SCI-REV-Home
Another site for the New Science, Scientific Revolution, at
www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook09.html
A site for the philosophes, Enlightenment, at www.fordham
.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook10.html
506
CHAPTER
Trade and Empire,
17001800
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Samuel Gamble Sets Out from
London on a Slaving Voyage
Introduction
Economic Recovery
The Expanding Population of Europe
The World of Work
Changing Notions of Wealth
The Consumer Revolution
London
The Atlantic World
The Atlantic Economy
1000 B.C.E.
1713
Spain cedes
asiento to Britain
1700
1710
1500 B.C.E.
Suggested Readings
Websites
500 B.C.E.
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
1720
Last plague epidemic
breaks out in France
1720
1730
1740
1750
Great Britain
France
ARCTIC
OCEAN
Portugal
S ilks, spices
Netherlands
NORTH
AMERICA
, p orc e
ili p p i n
lain
e s)
Spain
Hudson
Bay
MEXICO
pp
LOUISIANA
Mi
s si
ss
NEW FRANCE
QUEBEC
Veracruz
Acapulco
NEWFOUNDLAND
(To Gr. Br., 1713)
FLORIDA
Tob
acc
Havana
CUBA
JAMAICA
SAINT
DOMINGUE
(Fr.)
cts
Colonial produ
u
Man
fac
SPAIN
(Fr.)
BARBADOS
(Gr. Br.)
DUTCH
GUIANA
FRENCH
GUIANA
Sugar
azo
Manufactur
ed g
ood
s
Gold
CANARY IS.
NORTH
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
MARTINIQUE
Lima
PORTUGAL
(Fr.)
Am
FRANCE
od
d go
ture
SANTO DOMINGO
(Sp.)
NEW GRANADA
EUROPE
NETHERLANDS
GUADELOUPE
PERU
GREAT
BRITAIN
Fur
s
Sugar
HISPANIOLA
Silver
Silv
Porto
Bello
NOVA SCOTIA
(ACADIA)
(To Gr. Br., 1713)
(Spain)
AFRICA
Cape
Verde
SOUTH
AMERICA
GOLD
COAST
SLAVE
COAST
Silve
r
Slaves
BRAZIL
Buenos Aires
500 C.E.
1760s
Industrial Revolution
begins in Britain
1760
ANGOLA
SOUTH
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
1000 C.E.
1776
Smith publishes The Wealth of Nations
American Revolution begins
1500 C.E.
1780
Gordon Riots attack Catholics in London
1783
American
independence
is won
1763
France loses its empire
in North America
1770
2000 C.E.
1780
1791
Prussian General
Code becomes law
1790
1800
507
508
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Samuel Gamble Sets Out from
London on a Slaving Voyage
Samuel Gamble
Samuel Gamble was a ships
captain who contracted with
British merchants to carry
slaves from Africa to the
Caribbean and return home
with New World goods for
the European market. Profit
was foremost in his mind and
the minds of those who
backed him. In 1793, he set
sail from London to buy
slaves in Africa for the West
Indian market. On this trip,
things did not go as well as
he had hoped. (Visual Connection Archive)
Economic Recovery
unplanned stop in Barbados to take on more. There sixteen crew members abandoned ship and hired lawyers to get their back wages from Gamble. With the
lawyers demanding the removal of Sandowns sails and rudder to prevent it from
leaving, Gamble sneaked out of port before daybreak and limped into Kingston,
Jamaica, with a crew of five.
Yellow fever awaited him there. It had swirled across the Atlantic on other
ships, disrupting the Jamaican slave markets and leaving Kingstons harbor
crowded with earlier arrivals from Africa. In any case, Gamble had arrived too late
to take advantage of high prices at the beginning of the cane-cutting season.
Slaves complaining of pains in their Bowells, he wrote glumly in his journal on
May 25. The next days entry read, Slaves as before, they go off very slow (Market
glutted). After taking on provisions and a new cargo, probably of sugar and rum,
the Sandown joined an armed convoy for the return trip to London, arriving there
on October 11, 1794, a year and a half after the outbound voyage.
Gamble and his backers were disappointed in their profits. In a trade economy
that pitted high gain against high risk, they had lost.
Introduction
Economic Recovery
Gamble saw slaves as one trade gooda very lucrative onein the bustling transatlantic economy that
was fueling Europes economic growth. During the
eighteenth century, Europe once again experienced
population growth, which in turn stimulated economic production and a rise in consumption of goods
and services at all levels of society as people bought
more clothing, household items, and food. Increased
economic activity led European thinkers to explore
the reasons for economic growth and to lay the foundations for the modern discipline of economics.
These new economists viewed people primarily as
rational beings who exercised individual choice as
consumers of the goods available in the marketplace.
The Atlantic economy also reshaped the European
empires that had been formed in the Western Hemisphere beginning in the sixteenth century. Portugal,
founder of the first overseas empire, relied more and
more on the riches of Brazil for its continuing prosperity. The Spanish and French Empires declined as the
British Empire rose, outstripping all others in vitality
and prosperity and making London the commercial
center of Europe. Britains leading role in the Atlantic
economy stimulated manufacturing and early forms
of industrialization, thus laying the foundations for
the modern economic world. But for the British as for
every other New World empire, commerce and wealth
depended on the labor of enslaved Africans.
Prosperity in Europe was accompanied by changes
in upper- and middle-class behavior, as the well-todo, influenced by Enlightenment ideas, began to ex-
pect greater privacy and comfort in the home and indulged in more spontaneous displays of affection
among family members. The poor continued to live
more tradition-bound lives, and the social and cultural gap between them and the rich widened. Government officials developed new theories about the causes
of poverty and new institutions to eliminate them,
while the poor took action by rioting. Food shortages
and unacceptable working conditions could provoke
popular rioting. So could long-simmering religious
hatred. Europeans also began to rethink the basic
nature of society, rejecting traditional ideas that emphasized group membership more than individual
autonomy. Some people argued that wealth, not birth,
was the proper basis for social ranking, while others
maintained that society was made up of individual
citizens bound together in a unified nation.
509
510
Chronology
1665
1768
1666
1769
1711
1771
1713
1776
1720
1778
1721
1780
1733
1750
1780s
1793
1760s
the laws that made the economic world function. Europeans also began to consume a greater variety of
products than ever before, thus further stimulating
the economy.
Other killers, like smallpox, dysentery, and typhoid fever, periodically exploded into epidemics,
but their effects were moderated by a growing interest in community and personal hygiene. Recognizing
that filth bred disease, urban governments launched
campaigns to clear out the garbage and human waste
from the cities. In the eighteenth century, Europeans
also began to bathe regularly. Bathing had been common in the Middle Ages, at least in towns with communal baths. After the Black Death, however, many
cities closed their baths, thinking that they spread the
disease. Later, Protestant and Catholic reformers
campaigned to shut them down, arguing that baths
promoted lewdness and sexual license. As a result,
Europeans became dirtier and smellier than their medieval ancestors. By the eighteenth century, doctors
had started to prescribe cold baths to build up the
body, and the resumption of bathing improved hygiene and reduced disease.
Changing patterns of European warfare also encouraged population growth. The religious wars of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries devastated
the civilian population where they were fought. Armies
were huge breeding grounds for disease, which spread
beyond their own quarters. Battle also disrupted agriculture and brought on food shortages in a population already straining Europes agricultural resources.
Shortages, in turn, weakened peoples resistance to
disease. In the eighteenth century, Europe fought some
of its wars elsewherein the Western Hemisphere and
in Asiaand those fought in Europe were shorter
Economic Recovery
Edinburgh
Linen
IRELAND
Se
Textile production
Wool
Danzig
Metal production
la
Dublin
Hamburg
Birmingham
Norwich
Wool
Wool
London
Bristol
POLAND
Berlin
Leipzig
Cologne
Breslau
Lige
Frankfurt
Cotton
Rouen
ei
ne
Wool
Paris
Silk
Warsaw
O der
HOLY ROMAN
EMPIRE
Antwerp
Ghent
Linen Brussels
Wool
Lille
PRUSSIA
E
e
lb
ENGLAND
THE
NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam
Linen Wool
V istu
Wool
DENMARK
ic
alt
Linen
Wool
SILESIA
Wool
Wool
Linen
Prague
Cracow
Nuremberg
in e
Linen
Rh
Linen
Strasbourg
Nantes
Loire
Vienna
Pest
Buda
SWITZ.
HUNGARY
D rava
Lyon
Silk
Bordeaux
Grenoble
ne
Rhne
Ga
on
Milan
Turin
Wool
Toulouse
Wool
SPAIN
AUSTRIA
nub
e
Wool
Cotton
FRANCE
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
Da
Augsburg
Po
Wool
Genoa
D a nube
S ava
Silk Venice
Bologna
Silk
OTTOMAN
EMPIRE
Florence
Marseille
Leghorn
0
0
75
150 Km.
75
150 Mi.
MAP 18.1
Industry and Population in Eighteenth-Century Europe In the eighteenth century most
people lived in the countryside and many manufacturing processes, like textile weaving, were concentrated there in the putting out system. Metal production, especially iron and copper, were also located in
the countryside.
and therefore less disruptive that earlier wars. Moreover, troops were better fed, better supplied, and better
disciplined than they had been, making their presence
less dangerous to the surrounding civilian population.
Finally, improvements in Europeans diets encouraged population growth. Better climatological conditions gradually set in after 1700 as the Little Ice Age
ended and harvests improved. In addition, some farmers kept up with rising demand by changing the agricultural practices in what has been described as an
agricultural revolution. The changes developed first
in the Rhineland and the Netherlands and then spread
to England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Traditionally, farmers had let fields lie fallow, or
uncultivated, to restore their fertility. Beginning in
511
512
had fine wool coats. Growing herds meant nitrogenrich manure that could be spread on fields to further
increase their productivity. With fallowing eliminated and more manure available as fertilizer, land
could be kept in continual production, thus greatly
increasing the yield.
Increased yields created surpluses; so did a reorganization of farmland for agricultural production that
ended the open-field system. In the past, cropland
was usually divided into individually owned plots
that were small but had no barriers between them.
Sometimes people owned plots separated from each
other by other owners land. This exposed and fragmented pattern of landholding worked as long as the
farming community operated as a single unit, planting and harvesting crops in the same sequence and at
the same time. Village councils or the local landlord
usually regulated planting and harvesting. After harvest, the communitys livestock was allowed to range
freely over the fields, grazing on what was left in
them. This system discouraged experimentation with
new crops and agricultural techniques.
Beginning in the middle of the eighteenth century,
Britains Parliament encouraged more efficient and
productive use of farmland by passing laws permitting
enclosure in a given area. Single strips were bought or
traded to create large, consolidated blocs of land that
were fenced off. Enclosure allowed for economies of
scale in agricultural production and made experimentation with different crops and crop rotations possible.
New land was also brought under cultivation and improved with new techniques. Underground drainage
systems were installed in waterlogged fields, and
heavy clays were lightened by working in crushed
limestone. Improvements in crops, land organization,
and soil quality also greatly increased yields. During
the eighteenth century, improvements in agriculture
spared Europeans from the devastating famines of
earlier centuries, like the ones that struck France during the reign of Louis XIV.
Enclosure increased agricultural productivity, but
it came at a social cost. Small-scale owners and poor
squatters were forced off their plots, and traditional
rights to common grazing after harvest were eclipsed.
As the rural poor lost even the chance to maintain
livestock, many became landless wageworkers on enclosed farms.
Nevertheless, the decline in epidemic diseases,
coupled with improvements in military behavior,
peoples diet, and agricultural production, reduced
mortality rates. During the eighteenth century, more
people could count on their children surviving infancy and then living longer, healthier lives. In addition, people had more children because they were
putting-out system System whereby workers manufactured consumer goods for a merchant who supplied
them with raw material.
piecework Work paid for by the number of pieces
produced.
Economic Recovery
At the bottom of the urban world were the underemployed. These were men and women who passed
in and out of work. Men looked for odd jobs, hauling
water or carrying messages across town. Women
washed clothes, or took up prostitution when nothing else was available. All of them eked out a life
through begging, petty thievery, and occasional work,
depending on what seemed the best opportunity
from day to day. With Europes population rising, their
numbers probably grew over the century.
513
514
Economic Recovery
Attitudes toward manual work were also changing during the eighteenth century. Traditionally, manual labor was held in contempt because it involved
working with material things like dirt, wood, or animal skins. The material world was thought to be lower
than the spiritual world, and, following the story of
Adam in Genesis, manual labor was believed to be
punishment for sin. But when the philosophes rejected
traditional Christian ideas about human beings inherent wickedness, they also cast aside the idea of
work as punishment. No one did this more forcefully
than Denis Diderot. His Encyclopdie extolled the social usefulness of crafts that depended on working
with ones hands and presented readers with detailed
articles, accompanied by engravings, of manufacturing processes.
Thus Smiths idea that people could increase their
productivity through division of labor was coupled
with Diderots celebration of the workers who produced goods for consumption. Throughout the eighteenth century, a surge in consumer demand across
all economic groups created new employment opportunities in a wide range of firms manufacturing consumer products. New attitudes help to explain why
the manufacturing sector of the European economy
grew so dynamically during the eighteenth century.
but not a qualitative increase in conspicuous consumption. The real change over the century occurred
among the middle and lower economic groups in European society; now, for the first time, they bought
many of the same items, copying the tastes of the rich.
The change is reflected in wills and lists from estate
sales. Now a merchant would have a set of razors for
shaving, along with porcelain shaving mugs and
washbowls, all of which sat on a wooden stand made
of fine wood in the latest fashion. His wife would
have several changes of clothes, hung in a new
wooden clothes closet set against a wall. Chamber
pots placed in toilet chairs became a common feature
of their well-appointed bedroom. By the end of the
consumer revolution Term used for the eighteenthcentury rise in consumer demand that stimulated the
economy, especially in northwestern Europe.
515
516
London
On September 2, 1666, a fire in London destroyed
more than thirteen thousand homes and eighty-seven
churches, including the medieval Cathedral of Saint
Paul. As the city recovered from the disaster of what
was called the Great Fire, new building codes required the use of brick instead of wood for dwellings.
The architect Christopher Wren designed a new Saint
Pauls Cathedral as the citys centerpiece. By 1801,
London had a population of about 1 million, making
it the largest city in Europe. This overgrown monster,
as one Londoner called it, was covered with soot and
engulfed in smog that came from the smoke of coal
fires that heated everything from St. Pauls Cathedral
to the dingy rooms of the citys slums. When the smoke
mixed with river fog, it created the citys notorious
pea soup atmosphere that persisted well into the
twentieth century. In this densely packed, polluted environment, only one in four babies could expect to
survive to adulthood. The citys population could not
replace itself, so it depended on migration; over threequarters of its population was not London-born.
From everywhere in Britain, people came. Despite
Londons unhealthy environment, outsiders plunged
into the city to make money and seek excitement. Tens
of thousands toiled away in the citys shipyards, textile manufacturers, and breweries. Thousands more
worked on the docks that bordered the Thames, where
over a thousand ships at any given time were unloading cargo from Asia, Africa, and the Americas or
loading goods destined for the Atlantic world. Stalls
in the citys huge markets were tended by thousands
more. The city also teemed with government employees, lawyers, bankers, and stockbrokers, all engaged
in the business of running the commercial, financial,
and legal business of Britain and its empire. Physicians,
surgeons, and clergymen attended to the physical
and spiritual well-being of the populace. The building trades boomed throughout the city as its growing
population clamored for more accommodations.
pawnshops Institutions that lend money to persons
who deposit goods there as security against the loan.
Economic Recovery
Leicester Square in London, shown here in an engraving by William Henry Prior, was in the fashionable western part of the eighteenth-century city. The houses, built from a common plan, open onto a large, clean square,
where people ride or stroll. (Mary Evans Picture Library/The Image Works)
517
518
How did the Atlantic trade link Europe, Africa, and the
Americas in an integrated economy?
What explains Britains leading role in this trade?
George Fredrick Handel (16851759) German composer who resided in England and wrote operas and
oratorios, including The Messiah.
Vauxhall and Ranelagh Pleasure gardens open to the
paying public where people could stroll, eat, listen to
music, and watch fireworks.
Tower of London Medieval fortress on the banks of
the Thames that became a popular tourist attraction in
the eighteenth century.
Middle Passage Slave ships weeks-long voyage
across the Atlantic from West Africa to the Caribbean.
ARCTIC OCEAN
Wheat
Timber
Fur
Tar
Pitch
Fish
Pottery
Amsterdam
NETHERLANDS
Tripoli
Alexandria Cairo
sses
Mola
PUERTO RICO
CAPE
VERDE
Panama
Equator
Sugar
Sil
Cartagena
SPANISH
MAIN
GUIANA
NEW
GRANADA
ASANTE, DAHOMEY
Sla
Slav
Lima
PERU
OCEAN
Mombasa
es
Luanda
Slaves
SOUTH Bahia
A MERICA
ANGOLA
Homeward
Trade
BRAZIL
Mozambique
Sofala
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
s
ice s
ice
Sp
Sp
Buenos Aires
Cape of
Good Hope
GUJARAT
CHINA Ningbo
Porcelain
Silk
Nagasaki
Arabian Goa
s Sea
lave h
Slav
S
es
lo t
ld,
Go er, C MALDIVES
Ceylon
p
p
Pe
l ls
e
sh
Malacca
ie
wr
Co Slaves
SUMATRA
Silver
Manila
Aden
INDIAN
OCEAN
Sunda
Strait
Silk
PHILIPPINES
PACIFIC
OCEAN
BORNEO
INDONESIA L
JAVA
NEW
GUINEA
MADAGASCAR
MAURITIUS
(Neth.)
Rio de Janeiro
Santiago
ARABIA
es
av
Sl
AFRICA
ves
Quito
PACIFIC
Slaves
Red
Sea
Basra
Muscat
AS
Silk,
PERSIA
Rugs and
Killims
CC
HAITI
JAPAN
Silver
Istanbul
n Se
a
Acapulco
um,
r, R
Suga
n ea
AS IA
ry
,
CUBA
Vera Cruz
M editerra
Seville
Slaves
Ivo
Mexico
City
Silver
Slav
es
Madrid
Lisbon
OCEAN
Slaves
FLORIDA
NEW
SPAIN
Venice
ves
Charleston
New
Orleans
SPAIN
Tools
Cloth
Sla
Silk
PORTUGAL
Tools
Cloth
ves
ATLANTIC
EUROPE
Sla
NO R TH
A M ER IC A
Cape
Town
es
Slav
Strait of Magellan
Cape Horn
3000 Km.
1500
3000 Mi.
Portuguese control
Spanish control
Dutch control
MAP 18.2
The Worldwide Slave Trade In the eighteenth century, slave trading out of Africa went in
many directions. Africans from central Africa were taken north to Muslim ports on the Mediterranean,
while the Arab-controlled slave trade east from Mozambique to Asia also flourished. Most slaves bound for
the New World were taken from Mozambique and from the central and southern west African coast.
1500
519
520
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Olaudah Equiano Describes Passage
on a Slave Ship
In 1789,Olaudah Equiano, a freed slave, published The Interesting Narrative of the
Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. He claimed that his account was based on his own memories as an African boy of ten taken aboard a
slave ship. The claim is currently disputed, but there is no doubt that Equianos
narrative, whether fact or fiction, helped to gain support in England for the abolition of the slave trade.
fully that he died in consequence of it; and they tossed him over the side as they
would have done to a brute. . . .
The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was . . . intolerably loathsome. . . . The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the
number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn
himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the
air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and
brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims
to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the
children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The
shrieks of the women and the groans of the dying,
Does this act of
rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivkindness lessen or
able. Happily perhaps for myself I was soon reduced
sharpen the horrors
so low here that it was thought necessary to keep me
of Equianos
on deck; and from my extreme youth I was not put
account?
in fetters.
Source: Olaudah Equiano Describes Passage on a Slave Ship from Northrup, David, ed., The Atlantic Slave
Trade, 2nd edition. Copyright 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Reprinted with permission.
521
522
523
524
carrying trade Shipping enterprise that moved commodities from one part of the empire to another.
How did European ideas of home life change in the eighteenth century?
What caused Europeans to rethink the nature of society?
The consumer revolution coincided with a new emphasis on privacy, comfort, and displays of affection.
As population rose, governments began to rethink
the problem of poverty, but the poor were not simply
an object of study. They also took matters into their
own hands through rioting. New ways of thinking
about society challenged traditional views emphasizing group membership more than individual autonomy. At the same time, many Europeans also started
to think of themselves as members of distinct nations.
525
526
Michel Barthlemy Ollivers, Supper at the Prince of Contis Residence in the Temple (1766) shows the prince and his
guests enjoying supper in an informal atmosphere. Some people talk while others read or listen to the harpist.
Conti belonged to a junior branch of the French royal family. (Runion des Muses Nationaux/Art Resource, NY)
ladies-in-waiting dressed in country clothes and pretended to be milkmaids. Rousseaus rejection of corrupt civilization and his call for people to live closer
to nature inspired Le Hameau. So did the enthusiasm
for the natural natives of the South Pacific pictured
in the travel reports of James Cook and Louis-Antoine
de Bougainville. But the new standards for simpler
living also shaped it.
Some historians attribute the new privacy to a
growing sense of individualism fostered by the Enlightenments emphasis on each person as an autonomous rational being. Others look to Protestant
and Catholic reformers, who called for more modesty
in peoples daily lives. These reformers also preached
that Christians should be bound together by love,
thus encouraging an open affection within the family
and the idea that affection should take precedence
over financial considerations or social advancement
when it came to marriage and children. The new emphasis on privacy, comfort, and family affection represented a profound shift in peoples sense of how
they should relate to others.
In France, Louis XVs government ordered a workhouse for each province. Their inmates either engaged
in unskilled work, spinning wool and unwinding silk
cocoons, or were drafted to do roadwork.
During the eighteenth century, the problem of
poverty began to be looked at in new ways. When
church reformers of the sixteenth century had called
on the state to administer poverty programs, they
had argued that it was the governments duty to care
for the poor just as a father cared for his needy children. By the eighteenth century, the view that the
state had a fatherly obligation toward the poor was
giving way to the argument that poverty relief was a
right that human beings could demand. The idea of
the rights of the poor was stimulated by the Enlightenment notion that human beings were endowed
with natural rights that society had to acknowledge.
People who accepted this view sometimes argued
that poor relief should be supplemented by old-age
and medical insurance for the needy. Although insurance programs were never implemented and policymakers concentrated solely on relief or forced work,
the idea of a comprehensive state-sponsored welfare
system had entered European thought about society.
The Enlightenment also lay behind another new
aspect of thought about the poor. Previously, Europeans believed that poverty was the result of human
sin, which made the rich greedy and the poor lazy.
Programs to eliminate poverty aimed, therefore, to
reform the sinner. In the eighteenth century, a more
secular approach developed. The Englishman Gregory King and the Frenchman Sbastien de Vauban
signaled the change when they called for a careful
count of the number of poor people. Once the magnitude of the problem had been established, the state
could determine its causes and develop rational policies to deal with it. The Enlightenment idea that people
were naturally good undermined the notion that human sinfulness lay at the root of poverty. Now people
looked for social and economic causes and argued
that poverty resulted from such things as the rise in
the cost of living, shifts in the demand for workers,
and problems of overpopulation. On the European
continent, the central state took direct control of poverty programs, while in England the state turned
the problem over to local government and ordered
parishes in the kingdom to undertake the care of the
poor. Overall, government-sponsored poor relief was
confined to western and central Europe. Farther east,
527
528
In 1780, anti-Catholic
sentiment in London
exploded in a week of
violence known as the
Gordon Riots. Rioters
destroyed Catholic establishments and homes. In
this engraving, they set
fire to Londons notorious
Newgate Prison after
freeing the inmates. Attacks on public buildings,
including prisons, were
common in eighteenthcentury riots. (Guildhall
Library, City of London/The
Bridgeman Art Library)
529
530
social standing. Wealth bought noble titles for commoners and opened the doors to the best schools for
the sons and daughters of the rich, whether noble or
not. The consumer revolution, with its emphasis on
people as buyers of products, fostered plutocratic
conceptions of society, and the increasing importance
of money in determining social standing broke down
traditional ideas that birth determined ones place in
society. In addition, the choices the consumer revolution gave to individuals also undermined the idea
that peoples identity was largely determined by
membership in group-based orders.
The Nation
By the middle years of the eighteenth century, yet another way of thinking about society emerged in which
people now argued that a primary component of a persons identity derived from being a citizen of a distinct
nation. The idea of the nation emerged in both the
plutocratic society of Britain and the more traditional
society of France. The world wars of the mid-eighteenth
century between these two peoples fed a growing
sense of national unity on each side. For the British,
their common identity was rooted in the belief that
they were a unique island race united behind a
Protestant monarchy and church. The king fostered
the sense of national unity by traveling throughout
his realm and appearing at carefully staged events
that brought rich and poor and men and women together. For many Britons, war with France was a war
between antagonistic religious communities. Britons,
as defenders of Protestantism, were a free, peaceful,
righteous nation, while the French were slaves who
groveled before a tyrannical monarchy and an oppressive Catholic Church.
The French took an equally dim view of the British.
They saw themselves as the defenders of enlightened
civilization, while the British were addicted to a vulgar materialism that concentrated simply on trade
and making money. Hadnt Adam Smith himself referred to them as a nation of shopkeepers? French
losses in the Seven Years War fueled the notion that
Britain was bent on world domination. The conflict
had not been one of king against king, or Protestant
against Catholic, but of nation against nation. Thus,
by midcentury, the French had forged a new sense of
collective identity as they embraced the ideal of a
united nation fighting a wicked foreign enemy whose
culture and values were incompatible with their own.
The French monarchy, like that of the British, fostered
this sense of national identity in the face of a dangerous enemy. But religious concerns were less prominent in the French concept of the nation. While the
British thought that Protestantism had united the English, Welsh, and Scots into a single nation, the French
thought that the nation was a purely human construction that the French people themselves had willed into
existence. Its task was to resist British power and arrogance. In both France and Britain, people thought that
each individual had an active role to play in protecting the nation from enemy outsiders. This sense of individual engagement, along with the rising political
importance of public opinion, contributed to a growing popular interest in politics and a desire to participate more directly in the political process.
The Beginning of
Industrial Production
As antagonism between the French and British increased over trade and empire, the beginning of industrialization in Great Britain gave the British the
upper hand. At the same time, industrialization had a
radical impact on Britons everyday life, altering the
living habits and psychology of people touched by
itsometimes positively, often negatively, but in all
cases unavoidably and without any possibility of returning to an earlier, less complicated era.
Mechanization and
Mass Production
Increased international trade and rising consumer
demand had fueled growth in British manufacturing
under the putting-out system. During the second half
of the eighteenth century, continuing increases in
population and trade created a need for innovations
that would increase productivity, standardize quality,
and lower the cost of products. These innovations altered British manufacturing.
Cotton cloth weaving was one of the first areas to
see radical changes in production. In 1733, the flying
shuttle doubled the speed at which a weaver could
work. The quicker looms demanded more thread,
leading James Hargreaves to invent the spinning
jenny in the 1760s. Previously, spinners produced
only one thread at a time; with one person operating
Hargreavess jenny, eight to eleven threads could be
spun simultaneously, although the thread produced
was unevenly strong. The spinning jenny was further
improved by Richard Arkwright, the son of a tailor
and a one-time barber, wigmaker, and tavern owner
who invented the water frame, which produced a
uniformly strong thread, thereby standardizing quality. Unlike the hand-powered spinning jenny, the water frame relied on a water mill for power. Its size and
complexity required construction of a special building, the factory. Now spinners had to leave their cottages and report to a workplace where their work was
supervised, regulated, and timed. Arkwright set up his
first factory in 1771, employing nearly six hundred
spinners. In 1785, Samuel Crompton patented the
spinning mule, which combined the best qualities of
the jenny and water frame and produced a thread
that was both strong and fine. Weavers now could
make high-priced, thin cotton cloth as well as cheaper,
coarser cloth. Improvements in thread production,
however, outstripped the ability of weavers using
hand looms to convert thread into cloth, creating a bottleneck in production. In 1785, Edmund Cartwright,
an Anglican clergyman, invented the steam-driven
power loom, eliminating this bottleneck. The power
loom also required weavers to leave their homes for
spinning jenny Hand-operated spinning device invented by James Hargreaves in 1768 that allowed
multiple strands of yarn (or thread) to be spun at the
same time.
water frame Water-operated spinning device invented
by Richard Arkwright in 1769 that improved the spinning jenny by producing a uniformly strong thread.
factory Building or series of buildings where workers
in a particular industry are gathered together to increase the speed and volume of production.
spinning mule Spinning device invented by Samuel
Crompton in 1785 that combined features of the jenny
and water frame.
power loom Steam-driven loom invented by Edmund
Cartwright in 1785 that doubled the speed of weaving.
531
532
Why Britain?
Britain was the first country in the world to experience the Industrial Revolution. Six important factors
made industrialization possible: high levels of agricultural productivity, available skilled workers, ease
of transportation, natural resources, political stability,
and capital for industry. Before industrialization can
take place anywhere, that areas agriculture must be
efficient enough to be able to spare workers to leave
agriculture for industry. Britains agricultural revolution had fulfilled that condition, freeing up surplus
labor in the countryside that would be absorbed into
the industrial working class.
Another precondition for industrialization was the
availability of skilled workers. In Britain this precondition was also present. The growth of the puttingout system, stimulated by Britains leading role in the
Atlantic economy, increased the number of merchant
entrepreneurs as well as the pool of workers who
had mastered many basic processes in the production
of goods. Industrialization would build on this basis
by using the existing skills of both entrepreneurs and
workers. Water and steam power also supplemented
human and animal muscles.
Geography also helped Britain to industrialize. Because Britain was an island country with many navigable rivers and a well-developed canal system, British
industry could transport both raw materials and finished products more economically than its continental
competitors. Before the development of the railroad,
transporting bulk materials such as coal, wool, or cotton by land was very expensive. Mass industrial production demanded that these materials either be
located near the factory (as in the case of coal) or that
they be transported cheaplythat is, by water.
Britain was also blessed by nature with a large supply of the raw material that fueled the early Industrial
Revolution: coal. The coal belt that extends across Europe from northern England to southern Poland was
first exploited in Britain, particularly in such early industrial cities as Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow,
and Sheffield. Because of their endless appetite for
coal, the first factories were usually built on top of or
next to existing coal fields. Britain was also lucky in
that the coal deposits lay relatively close to the surface, allowing easy exploitation of this fuel source.
Political factors were no less important. Since the
Glorious Revolution of 1688, England had enjoyed
Calico Act (1721) British act that limited the importation of cotton cloth (calico) from India.
533
Summary
Review Questions
How did changes in overseas empires and trading
networks contribute to Europes economic development in the eighteenth century?
How did Enlightenment thinking influence Europes
economic and social development?
What new forms of individual and collective identity
emerged?
Europes eighteenth-century population growth stimulated economic growth and led to new forms of work,
especially in manufacturing. As a result, some theorists began to argue that economies were capable of
ongoing expansion, and they searched for the laws
that made growth possible, founding the modern discipline of economics. As the consumer revolution
took root, some economists began to praise all forms
of work equally, repudiating the older view that the
mental work of philosophers or theologians was superior to manual labor.
Trading networks across the Atlantic, which had
formed during the sixteenth century, reached their
fullest development in the eighteenth century and
also fueled European economic growth, as the French
and then the British Empire overtook the older Spanish and Portuguese Empires. Because of their populous colonies in North America and their sugar islands
in the Caribbean, the British developed the most farreaching and profitable Atlantic trading networks,
making London the commercial center of Europe. African slaves made possible the commercial exchanges
of the Atlantic trading system. They were forcibly imported by the millions to labor in the plantations of
the New World, where they cultivated the crops and
534
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Trafficking in Human Beings
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Europeans ended the African slave trade and then abolished
slavery. Britain banned the international trade in 1807, the United States in 1808. The abolition of slavery
took more time. France abolished it in the 1790s but reintroduced it under Napoleon Bonaparte; perma-
Websites
nent abolition had to wait until 1848. Britains abolition came in 1833. In the United States it came after a
civil war, in 1865. Spain did not abolish slavery in all its Caribbean territories until 1886. In 1888, Brazil was
the last New World country to end slavery. In the eastern Mediterranean, where it had been practiced since
ancient times, slavery ended in the 1890s.
In the nineteenth century, the term slave was sometimes used for people who were neither African nor
legally classified as slaves. Early in the century, U.S. Marines landed in the North African state of Tripoli to
stop its rulers practice of seizing American seamen and selling them into slavery. By mid-century Southern
defenders of the U.S. slave system described factory workers as wage slaves. Working girls in a London
match factory were described as white slaves because of their low wages and hazardous working conditions. Women forced into prostitution were also called white slaves. The charge of white slavery was
particularly horrifying to Americans and Europeans because it inverted the usual racial equation of white
master/black slave.
Today various forms of slavery are still practiced, despite global condemnation. Exploitation of some kind is
always involved. After the fall of the Soviet Union, traffickers used false papers and promises of work to lure
young women to western Europe. Their papers were then seized, and they were forced to work in sweatshops or brothels. In Southeast Asia, impoverished parents sometimes sell their children into slavery or are
tricked into turning them over to traffickers, who use them for a child sex industry that attracts pedophiles
from around the world. In Haiti, poor parents sometimes give their children to well-to-do families, who use
them for household work. As many as 12 million children globally may serve as child laborers under abusive
conditions, 2 million of them in Europe. And traditional forms of slavery are still with usCNN and the BBC
have recently reported on a flourishing slave trade in the war-torn regions of Sudan. Sadly, wherever people
are desperate and profits are to be made in the traffic of humans, slavery persists.
Suggested Readings
Bell, David A. The Cult of the Nation in France: Inventing Nationalism, 16801800. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 2001. An important recent study.
Black, Jeremy, and Roy Porter, eds. The Penguin Dictionary of
Eighteenth-Century History. New York: Penguin Books, 1994.
Brief entries with bibliographies on important persons, events,
and economic and social developments.
Cameron, Euan, ed. Early Modern Europe: An Oxford History.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Chapters on various
topics, including an excellent one by James C. Riley titled A
Widening Market in Consumer Goods.
Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation, 17071837. 2nd ed.
New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005. The standard
account.
Rud, George. The Crowd in History: A Study of Popular Disturbances in France and England, 17301848. New York: Wiley,
1964. A classic account of popular social protest.
Sarti, Raffaella. Europe at Home: Family and Material Culture,
15001800. Translated by Allan Cameron. New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press, 2002. A good introduction to domestic
life in early modern Europe.
Willcox, William B., and Walter L. Arnstein. The Age of Aristocracy, 16881830. 8th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. A
lively and readable history of eighteenth-century Britain.
Websites
Information on eighteenth-century economy and society plus
much more, Modern History Source Book: The Early Modern
West, at www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook1.html
Many images related to the slave trade, The Atlantic Slave
Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record, at
http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery
535
536
CHAPTER
Revolutionary France
and Napoleonic Europe,
17751815
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Olympe de Gouges Becomes a
Revolutionary
Introduction
From Crisis to Constitution, 17751789
The French Monarchy in Crisis
The Estates-General
Trouble in Paris, Trouble in the
Countryside, Trouble in Versailles
The Constitutional Monarchy, 17891792
The New Constitution
Voice: Olympe de Gouges Asserts the
Rights of Women
The Break with the Catholic Church
Foreign Intervention
Suggested Readings
Websites
1500 B.C.E.
1000 B.C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
1792
French Republic proclaimed
1789
French
Revolution
begins
1776
American
Revolution begins
1775
1780
1785
1790
1793
Louis XVI is executed
1794
Reign of Terror ends
1795
Europe in 1789
In 1789, France was only one of Europes great powers. Compare its size here to
what it became by 1810 (see map on page 561). What other changes had France
brought to the continent of Europe by this time?
S W E D E N
A TLANTI C
OCEAN
St. Petersburg
Christiania
KINGDOM
Stockholm
OF
SCOTLAND
ESTONIA
DENMARK
AND
North
S e a NORWAY
GREAT BRITAIN
Riga
Baltic
Sea
IRELAND
London
P R U SS IA
V is
HANOVER
BRANDENBURG
Amsterdam Utrecht
Prussia
Berlin
tu l
POLAND
R hi
SAXONY
Cologne
SILESIA
Se
D n ie
ne
AUSTRIAN
NETHERLANDS
Great Britain
Dn
in
e Varennes
Russian Empire
Versailles Paris
Ottoman Empire
L oire
BOHEMIA
AUSTRIA
LORRAINE
BAVARIA
VENDE
AL
Avignon
R
Venice
LA E P
Po
UB
N
LI
C
OF
GENOA
TUSCANY PAPAL
STATES
NI
dr
BE
Pest
SS
AR
AB
IA
MOLDAVIA
HUNGARY
at
Corsica
Lisbon
BOSNIA
CE
SERBIA
Madrid
ic
Se
Rome
Minorca
(Gr. Br.)
SPAIN
i e st
er
CRIMEA
Balearic Is.
rr
TUNIS
ea
Constantinople
A N
E M
P I R E
GREECE
CRETE
n
Se
te s
te
O
ALBANIA
hra
di
BULGARIA
E up
Me
GILBRALTAR
(Gr. Br.)
KINGDOM
OF
NAPLES
AND
SICILY
SARDINIA
Black Sea
WALLACHIA
VE
Tagus
per
SAVOY M
I
ro
Duero
UG
TYROL
Lyons
nn
Eb
r
Buda
SWITZERLAND
Rhne
Ga
Da
n u be
Vienna
FRANCE
RT
D on
Warsaw
Antwerp
PO
RUS S IAN
E MPIRE
LITHUANIA
DUTCH
REPUBLIC
ENGLAND
e
lb
France
Vo l
Moscow
LIVONIA
CYPRUS
200
400 Km.
200
400 Mi.
TRIPOLI
O T T O M A N
E M P I R E
Ni
l
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
1500 C.E.
2000 C.E.
1814
Congress of Vienna opens
1799
Napoleon
seizes power
1800
1812
Napoleon
invades
Russia
1804
Napoleon
becomes emperor
1805
1810
1815
Napoleon is finally
defeated at Waterloo
1815
1820
537
ga
538
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Olympe de Gouges Becomes
a Revolutionary
Olympe de
Gouges
Olympe de Gouges was a
playwright and political pamphleteer who pursued a
career as an independent
woman of letters. Caught up
in the French Revolution, she
became an outspoken advocate of womens rights. She
was executed by the revolutionary government in 1793.
(Muse de la Ville de Paris,
Muse Carnavalet, Paris,
France/The Bridgeman Art
Library)
monarchy. She did her best to save the king, even offering to defend him in
the trial that led to his execution. For this, she herself was executed. Olympe
de Gougess life was caught up in many of the forces that shaped revolutionary
Franceresentment at aristocratic privilege, anger at social injustice,
excitement over the possibility of fundamental change, and anxiety over the
violence that so often accompanied revolutionary action. Most of all, her defense
of womens rights raised issues that remained at the center of political debate
long after her death.
Introduction
539
540
Chronology
1775
1795
Directory is created
1776
1799
1788
1800
1801
1789
Estates-General meets;
National Assembly is formed
1802
1804
1806
1812
1814
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
The Estates-General
The Estates-General had not met in 175 years, and no
one in 1788 had a clear idea how it should be organized. In September, the Parlement of Paris resolved
the question by ordering the Estates-General to convene as it had in 1614, in three orders, corresponding
to the three estates of the realm. The First Estate was
the clergy and religious orders, and the Second Estate
was the nobility; together they stood at the top of
Frances society of orders and accounted for about 3
percent of Frances population. The Third Estate was
everyone elsethe 97 percent of the French population that included merchants, lawyers, shopkeepers,
urban workers, landowning peasants, and rural laborers. The estates would meet separately, and each
would have one vote, though the Crown allowed the
Third Estate to elect as many delegates as the First
and Second Estates combined.
At this very moment, the Crown also decided to
suspend the old system of royal press censorship. Hun-
541
542
Table 19.1
The Revolution Unfolds in 1789
JanuaryApril
May
June
July
JulyAugust
August
Elections to Estates-General
Estates-General meets
National Assembly formed
Tennis Court Oath
Storming of the Bastille
Great Fear
Night of August 4
Declaration of the Rights of Man
and the Citizen (Late August)
October Days
patriots People who rejected absolutism and supported revolutionary reform of France.
National Assembly First French revolutionary legislature, in session from 1789 to 1791.
This painting of the Tennis Court Oath, based on an unfinished painting of Jacques-Louis David, enshrines the
moment in French collective memory. Here representatives of the revolutionary nation stretch out their hands
to swear that they will not disband until they have written a constitution. Notice the curtains billowing in the
fresh air and the shaft of light shining directly upon the figure in the center who is reading the oath. (Runion
des Muses Nationaux/Art Resource, NY)
543
544
Claude Cholat, one of the conquerors of the Bastille, painted this picture, thereby enshrining another moment
in the collective memory of the French people. The awkward perspective indicates that Cholat was not trained
in an art academy, but the work captures the drama of the moment as Cholat remembered it. (Runion des
Muses Nationaux/Art Resource, NY)
545
546
tionaries goal of creating efficient administrative districts and implemented the Enlightenment ideal that
good government should be based on rational principles. Rationality also lay behind the introduction of
Jacobin Club Most important French revolutionary
political club, whose members were called Jacobins.
DEPARTMENTS, 1789
AN
D
ARTOIS ERS
LE DE
FRANCE
H
NC
ORLANAIS
DAUPHINY
GUIENNE
GASCONY
VENAISSIN
LANGUEDOC
PROVENCE
BARN
0
100
200 Km.
FOIX
ROUSSILLON
100
200 Mi.
E
N
RH
IRE
LO
ANJOU
FRANCHE
TOURAINE
NIVERNAIS
COMT
BERRY
POITOU
BOURBONAIS
BURGUNDY
AUNIS
MARCHE
LIM
SAINTONGE
LYONNAIS
ANGOUMOIS OUSIN
AUVERGNE
EN
CHAMPAGNE
MAINE
ALSA
LORRAINE
BRITTANY
CE
NORMANDY
MA
PICARDY
PA
CA S D N
LA E O
IS
RD
SOMME
SEINE
AISNE
INFRIEURE
ARDENNES
OISE
MOSELLE
CALVADOS
MEUSE
EURE SIENE
ET SIENE MARNE
ORNE
MEURTHE BAS
OISE ET
FINISTRE CTES
RHIN
EURE
DU NORD
MARNE
ET
ILLE ET
AUBE HAUT VOSGES
LOIRE
VILAINE
MARNE
SARTHE
HAUT
MORBIHAN
LOIRET
YONNE
HAUTE RHIN
LOIRE
SANE
LOIRE MAINE INDRE ET
CTE
ET
INFRIEURE
ET CHER
DOUBS
NIVRE D'OR
LOIRE
LOIRE
CHER
VENDE
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MAP 19.1
The Ratonalization of French Administration, 1789 and 1790 These maps show the reorganization of French territory. The map on the left shows the traditional provinces of the monarchy as
they were in 1789. Note that they are very unequal in size. The map on the right shows the new departments, uniform in size and named after geographical features of the French landscape. They were created in 1790.
547
548
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Olympe de Gouges Asserts the Rights of
Women
In September 1791, just before the Constitution of 1791 went into effect, Olympe
de Gouges published her most famous pamphlet, The Rights of Woman. In it she
demanded equality for both men and women in the new revolutionary regime
and asked the outgoing legislature, or the new one created by the constitution, to
enact this program. Her decision to model her demands on the Declaration of the
Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789, often following that text word for word
while adding the word women, revealed the omissions in that earlier document. She
was thus attempting to use the ideals of the Revolution for the benefit of women.
Mothers, daughters, sisters, female representatives of the nation, ask to be constituted as a national assembly. Considering that ignorance, neglect, or contempt for
the rights of women are the sole causes for public misfortune and governmental
corruption of Governments, they have resolved to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, inalienable, and sacred rights of woman. . . .
In consequence, the sex that is superior in beauty as in courage, needed in
maternal sufferings, recognizes and declares in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of woman and the citizeness:
1. Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights. Social distinctions
may be based only on common utility.
2. The purpose of all political association is the preservation of the natural and
imprescriptable rights of woman and man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and, especially, resistance to oppression.
3. The principle of all sovereignty rests essentially in the nation, which is but
the reuniting of woman and man. No body and no individual may exercise authority which does not emanate expressly from the nation.
4. Liberty and justice consist in restoring all that belongs to another; hence the
exercise of the natural rights of woman has no other limits than those that the
perpetual tyranny of man opposes to them; these limits must be reformed according to the laws of nature and reason. . . .
6. The law should be the expression of the general will. All citizenesses and
citizens should take part, in person or by their representatives, in its formation.
It must be the same for everyone. All citizenesses and citizens, being equal in its
eyes, should be equally admissible to all public dignities, offices, and
employments, according to their ability, and with no other distinction than that of
their virtues and talents.
549
550
Foreign Intervention
On June 20, 1791, Louis XVI and his family, shocked
by the rupture between the new regime and the
Catholic Church and fearing for their personal safety,
attempted to flee France. The next day they were
caught east of Paris, in the town of Varennes. People
had recognized the king along the way, but it was the
postmaster at Varennes who claimed public credit for
What measures did Frances new republican government take to secure the Revolution??
By 1795, how far had the Revolution traveled since the
Estates-General was called to initiate tax reform?
The National Convention, which met in Paris in September 1792, served as Frances government until
October 1795. These years saw the proclamation of a
republic and the execution of Louis XVI. At the same
time, revolutionary France faced both the ongoing
foreign war and a new civil war that broke out in 1793.
In the end, the republic triumphed, but at a terrible
cost, when the Convention created a revolutionary dictatorship that ruthlessly pursued its enemies by means
of state-controlled terror. The dictatorships repression
set in motion the forces of its own destruction.
551
552
In this engraving of Louis XVIs execution, the executioner displays the kings
head to the soldiers and citizens witnessing the event. The kings body still
lies on the plank of the guillotine. A
basket beside it will receive the head
and the body after a priest prays for
Louiss soul. (Dagli Orti/Bibliothque des
Arts Dcoratifs, Paris/The Art Archive)
Europe had ever seen. It was also Europes first citizen army, in which volunteers or draftees replaced
the professional soldiers of the Old Regime. The new
army also offered career advancement on the basis of
talent, not birth or wealth, fulfilling one of the principles of 1789. After 1793, many of Frances best generals
rose up from the rank and file on the basis of ability,
and many soldiers were fired up with revolutionary
patriotism. As one put it, The war which we are
fighting is not a war between king and king or nation
and nation. It is the war of liberty against despotism.
There can be no doubt that we shall be victorious. A
nation that is just and free is invincible. Over the
next two years, this new revolutionary army launched
mass assaults that crushed opponents and drove enemy troops from French soil, thus ending the foreign
threat, and then carried the war outside of France by
invading the Dutch Republic and northern Italy.
If the reorganization of the army saved the Revolution in the long run, it also created dangerous shortterm problems. In March 1793, when the draft was
imposed on peasant communities in western France,
the Vende burst into open insurrection against the
National Convention. In 1789, peasants throughout
France had supported the Revolution, but after the
Great Fear ended feudal payments to their landlords,
many turned conservative and resisted further change.
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554
to the Committee of Public Safety in July 1793, Robespierre and the other committee members moved to
crush opposition to the Revolution at home, just as the
republics reorganized armies were crushing Frances
foreign enemies. In early September, the Convention
declared that terror is the order of the day: enemies
of the Revolution would be ruthlessly suppressed by
force. Robespierre saw terror as necessary for the establishment of a truly virtuous republican regime: If
the mainspring of popular government in time of
peace is virtue, the mainspring of popular government in time of revolution is both virtue and terror.
Terror is nothing but justice, prompt, severe, and inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue. In practice, the Reign of Terror meant government control of
the economy and the execution of those deemed
counterrevolutionaries. New laws greatly expanded
offenses against the Revolution. Now people the committee identified as high-profile counterrevolutionaries
were tried and guillotined, including the imprisoned
Girondins, Marie-Antoinette, and Olympe de Gouges.
Their public beheadings attracted huge crowds. In the
provinces, the committee moved against the rebels in
the Vende, where the army crushed opposition, as
self-styled revolutionary columns from hell burned,
looted, and killed indiscriminately. Tens of thousands
of people, mostly peasants, died. The army also besieged Lyon, and when the city surrendered, more executions followed. Lyon no longer exists, wrote the
triumphant agent of the Committee. What remained
of the city after the siege was renamed Freed City.
A crisis mentality seized the revolutionaries as they
moved to defeat their enemies at home and abroad,
and everything took on political meaning. Now revolutionaries scrutinized how people dressed, looking
to see if they wore the sans-culottes long trousers and
no longer powdered their hair as men of means had
done before 1789. They listened to how people spoke,
making sure they treated each other as equals, using
Citizen, instead of Monsieur and Madame, and
addressing each other with tu, the familiar French
form for you, instead of the polite form vous. They
looked to see if people ate and drank from plates and
cups with revolutionary slogans on them. They formed
processions and marched to the singing of revolutionary songs like the Marseillaiseto this day the
national anthem of France. This politicization of all
facets of everyday life was one of the most striking
features of the Reign of Terror, and one of the most
threatening, since it narrowed choices down to two
those who were united with the revolutionaries 100
percent and those who werent. The revolutionary ideal
of fraternity had now taken on a grimly exclusive
meaning.
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556
French Expansion
The restoration of free-market conditions following
the collapse of the Committee of Public Safety had
dire consequences for many sans-culottes. The fall
harvest of 1794 proved one of the worst of the decade,
creating economic hard times in the capital as the
price of bread once again soared. By spring 1795,
hardship had provoked two sans-culotte uprisings,
which were put down by the army. From then on, a
new Ministry of Police kept a sharp eye on sansculotte leaders and periodically rounded them up for
preventive detention in the citys prisons. Both the
Terror and the Thermidorian reaction used coercion
to control political enemies, and both whittled away
at the human rights proclaimed in the Declaration of
the Rights of Man and the Citizen.
In October 1795, the National Convention installed
a new regime, which consisted of a two-house legislature and a five-man executive committee, the Directory. In another retreat from the Revolution, only men
owning property could vote and hold public office.
The Directory skillfully alternated in supporting republicans and royalists, who reemerged after the dismantling of the Terror. The Directory tried to keep
either from dominating, but the result was permanent political instability and increasing cynicism
about a government that stifled dissent.
Yet during this time, the French achieved significant
gains in the foreign war. In 1795, Prussia, preoccupied
once again with Poland, dropped out of the coalition,
as did an exhausted Spain. For France, the next four
years saw spectacular military victories and territorial
expansion, as the Directory pursued a high-minded
desire to create a ring of republics around France and
a hard-headed aim to make France the leading power
in western Europe. French generals, eager for increased
military and political power, also drove the conquests.
The most ambitious was Napoleon Bonaparte.
Bonaparte was born to a minor noble family on the
island of Corsica, which France had annexed in 1768.
Sent to a French military school at age ten, he was a
good student but a loner, hazed by his classmates because of his odd name and modest origins. In 1789,
the year the Revolution began, Napoleon was twenty
and a lieutenant in the royal army. The Revolution
gave him his great chance when it opened careers to
talent. Bonaparte sided with the revolutionaries, and
by 1793, he had risen to the rank of general. In 1795,
his role in putting down a royalist uprising in Paris
led to his appointment as commander of the Army of
Italy. In that same year he married Josephine de
Beauharnais, the widow of a French nobleman who
had been executed during the Terror. Napoleon was
One of Napoleons biggest problems was the continuing crisis in state finances, which had been the
immediate cause of the Revolution in the first place.
Each revolutionary regime since 1789 had assumed
the debts of the old monarchy, but by the late 1790s,
these debts had become intolerable. To stabilize the
states finances, Napoleon instituted a standardized
system of taxation that fell on all citizens in accordance with the revolutionary principle of equality.
Remembering what had happened to the monarchy
in 1788, he refused to put his government at the
mercy of financiers who could indirectly dictate policy by their lending strategies.
In 1801 and 1802, peace returned to Europe as
Napoleon signed treaties with the Austrians and the
British, confirming Frances territorial gains and acknowledging the sister republics. Another peace,
which proved more lasting than the others, was
signed with the Catholic Church in the form of a new
concordat between Napoleon and Pius VII, elected
pope in 1800. The Concordat of 1801 established
French Catholics right to worship publicly, but it did
not renew the ancient connection between church
and state. Catholicism was simply recognized as the
religion of the majority of the French, and the state
remained separate from the church. Napoleon himself was a nominal Catholic who thought of religion
as a tool for maintaining social and political order. He
believed that religious toleration for Catholics was a
way to end the political headache caused by the Civil
Constitution of the Clergy and de-Christianization.
But the Concordat also gave the state tight control
over church activities, including the regulation of
seminaries. A new national catechism for religious instruction secured church endorsement of the regime.
Many French people returned to Catholic worship
with fervor, especially in the countryside, where
women led the revival, demanding the return of
priests and urging neighbors to join once again in
communal worship.
Protestants also benefited from Napoleons religious policies, since they, too, were allowed to worship openly without harassment. The fate of the Jews,
557
558
however, was somewhat different. Like the revolutionaries, Napoleon wanted to integrate Jews into society. But he also wanted to place them under state
supervision. Although Jews were granted freedom of
worship, laws put limits on their economic activities
and increased their military obligations. The government assumed control of Jewish moneylending, forbade foreign Jews from settling in France, and ordered
Jewish men serving in the army to obey all military
rules and regulations, even if these conflicted with
Jewish religious observance.
While French Jews received limited benefits from
Napoleons regime, another group saw its condition
worsen catastrophically. These were the ex-slaves in
the Caribbean. In 1801, Toussaint LOuverture, who
had led black resistance to French rule a decade earlier, conquered the Spanish half of Santo Domingo
and proclaimed himself president of the united island. Initially, LOuverture had French support, but
in 1802, Napoleon turned against him and sent an
army to Santo Domingo. It captured and executed
LOuverture yet was unable to reassert French control
over the former colony, now called Haiti. In the course
of the campaign, however, Napoleon restored slavery
in Martinique and Guadeloupe, Frances other Caribbean possessions. Thus France, which had been the
first European state to abolish slavery in 1794, reinstituted it in 1802. It was not finally abolished until 1848.
This act was Napoleons clearest repudiation of the
revolutionary heritage. In 1803, he sold Louisiana,
which France had received back from a defeated Spain,
to the United States. His failure to retake Haiti convinced him that there was no hope for reestablishing
a French empire on the North American continent.
Jacques-Louis David painted this official representation of Napoleons coronation as emperor. Having crowned
himself, Napoleon now crowns his wife Josephine. Pope Pius VII, seated, is simply one of the spectators. The
painting emphasizes two of Napoleons governing principles: the separation of church and state and the subordination of women to men. (Runion des Muses Nationaux/Art Resource, NY)
ular victories on the continent, crushing Austria, Prussia, and Russia and occupying most of Germany. Conquered territories were added to the ever-expanding
French Empire. In 1807, when he controlled Europe
from the Atlantic to Russia, Napoleon attempted the
economic ruin of his sole remaining enemy, Great
Britain. But his policy of closing this vast territory to
British manufactured goods stirred up resistance. In
1812, Napoleon invaded Russia, a disaster from which
he never recovered. In 1814, a renewed coalition defeated Napoleon and drove him from his throne. Napoleons empire was short lived, but it had a lasting
impact.
In 1805, continental war broke out again when Austria and Russia joined Great Britain, at war with
France since 1803. Austria was soon defeated for the
third time, and the Holy Roman Empire formally
came to an end when Napoleon decreed its demise.
What did Napoleon demand from the men who administered his empire and its satellite states?
What impact did Napoleons rule have on Europeans
outside of France?
From 1803 until 1815, France was again at war with the
rest of Europe. Beginning in 1805, France won spectac-
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560
St. Petersburg
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MAP 19.2
Napoleonic Europe, 1810 By 1810, France was an empire whose boundaries had absorbed many small states to its east. Other states were French allies or dependencies. In all of Europe only
Britain, Portugal, Sardinia, Sicily, and the Ottoman Empire remained independent. Napoleons domination of Europe rivaled Charlemagnes empire and the empire of ancient Rome.
Athens
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Waterloo
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Friedland 1807
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French Empire
Knigsberg
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August 1812
si t
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London
Borodino
September 1812
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562
In 1810, the Spanish artist Francisco Goya produced The Disasters of War, a series of etchings
in the tradition of Jacques Callot. This brutal
scene of an execution of Spaniards by French
solders is titled And It Cannot Be Changed,
thus echoing Callots pessimism about ending the
horrors of war. (Foto Marburg/Art Resource, NY)
drawn from twenty countries. It was the largest single army in the field that Europe had ever seen.
Throughout the summer, French troops marched
farther and farther into Russia, as the Russians withdrew, since their army numbered only about 200,000.
In August, they fought Napoleon at Smolensk, and
in early September, they fought again at Borodino,
seventy-five miles west of Moscow. These were the
bloodiest battles of the revolutionary and Napoleonic
wars. After Smolensk, wagons were piled high with
amputated arms and legs. Wounded and survivors
alike crumpled as food supplies ran out, while hundreds of men died by the roadside from exposure as
they slipped into vodka-induced comas. Battle dead
and wounded from both sides at Borodino stood at
75,000, including 47 French generals.
Technically, the French won at Borodino, and the
road to Moscow lay open. When Napoleon arrived
there in mid-September, however, he found the city
practically deserted; once again the Russians had retreated. The French stayed in Moscow for six weeks,
waiting for Alexander to sue for peace. But the tsar, in
his palace in St. Petersburg, refused. In the meantime,
a fire, perhaps started by the Russians, destroyed
most of Moscow. With his army exhausted and badly
depleted, and with no hope of adequate winter quarters in a burned-out city, Napoleon ordered a retreat
to Germany. What happened next is the stuff of legends: the troops stumbled westward, harassed continuously by Russian units and frozen by the bitter
winter that arrived in November. Only 15 percent of
Napoleons army made it back to Germany. For Napoleon, defeat in Russia was the beginning of the end.
563
Summary
Review Questions
From 1789 to 1815, what changed and what remained
the same in French political, social, and religious life?
How did revolutionaries and opponents of the Revolution in France define their collective identities and
those of their enemies?
What was the impact of revolutionary France and
Napoleonic rule on Europe?
by revolutionaries like Olympe de Gouges, were to remain central to political debate in the years after 1815.
Second, the old society of orders and estates based
on privilege, abolished first in France and then in
Napoleonic Europe, never really returned. The inhabitants of a country were constituted as citizens of a
nation. Even Napoleons reintroduction of nobility
did little to alter this new form of society. The notables ignored the old distinctions between commoners
and nobles, and the revolutionary ideal of careers
open to talent, which had so benefited Napoleon
himself in the 1790s, persisted. In the end, the occupied peoples adopted the nationalist ideals of France
and then turned them against the French.
Finally, the states power had grown enormously.
The abolition of orders and estates had swept away
institutions like the Parlement of Paris that had stood
between the state and its subjects. The state had also
freed itself from its attachment to the Catholic Church.
The process of centralized state control, begun by the
Committee of Public Safety, was continued after 1799.
Both at home and abroad, Napoleon used the reorganization of France into standardized units to extend the
states reach into ordinary peoples lives. The chief sign
of the states expanded power was conscription. The
ideals of the Revolutionbroad political participation,
the end of privilege and the beginning of merit-based
advancement, and the increased power of the state
have had repercussions throughout the world.
564
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Left and Right
Today when we speak about the political left and right, we use terms that originated accidentally in
the early years of the French Revolution. When the deputies to the Estates-General assembled at Versailles,
the king and his court sat on a platform at one end of the meeting room. The orders of the clergy and the
nobility sat directly in front of the royal party, while the Third Estate was crammed into a space at the back
Websites
end of the hall, separated by a low railing from everyone else. This organization of the meeting space symbolized the kings belief in a hierarchically arranged society of estates and orders.
After the Third Estate became the National Assembly, the meeting hall was rearranged to eliminate the separation of the three estates. Now the room had benches placed in an oval so there could be no more front
for privileged people and back for commoners. Nevertheless, a new politically charged use of this space
quickly developed. In the middle of the oval was the desk of the Assemblys president. The patriots, who had
created the National Assembly, wanted to be in contact with each other, so they sat as a group on benches
to the left of the president. The patriots opponents symbolized their political differences by sitting to the
presidents right. Political preference, in combination with the configuration of the meeting space, led to the
accidental identification of left (of the president) as the place for liberals who favored thoroughgoing
revolutionary change and right (of the president) as the place for conservatives who wanted less change.
When the National Assembly moved to Paris, the deputies met in a converted indoor riding stable. This
space was long and narrow. The desks of the president and his assistants were placed in the middle of the
hall, where they took up almost all available room. This meant that the only places where deputies could sit
were either on the presidents left or his right. Once again, the patriots sat on the left, while their opponents gravitated to the right.
When the National Convention convened, the radical Jacobins occupied the upper rows of benches, again
to the left of the president, and became the Mountain. Noncommitted deputies occupied lower rows and
became the Swamp. Here was a new configuration with potential political meaninghigh seats for
thoroughgoing revolutionaries and low ones for moderates. But high and low never replaced left
and right as political markers. These have lasted to this day.
Suggested Readings
Censer, Jack R., and Lynn Hunt. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity:
Exploring the French Revolution. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001. A recent introduction.
Holtman, Robert B. The Napoleonic Revolution. Philadelphia:
J. B.Lippincott Company, 1967. A clear account of Napoleons
reorganization of France.
Hufton, Olwyn. Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the
French Revolution. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992.
A recent study of womens gains and losses during the revolutionary decade.
McManners, John. The French Revolution and the Church. New
York: Harper and Row, 1969. A short but masterful history of
the relations between French Catholics and the Revolution.
Websites
A useful site with much information, Internet Modern History
Sourcebook: IV, American and French Revolutions, at www
.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook2.html#revol18c
Another useful site, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring
the French Revolution, at www.chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/
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CHAPTER
Restoration and
Reform: Conservative
and Liberal Europe,
18141847
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: The Grimm Brothers Begin Work
on Their German Dictionary
Introduction
Summary
1500 B.C.E.
1000 B.C.E.
Echo: Frankenstein
Suggested Readings
Websites
500 B.C.E.
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
1815
Napoleon is finally
defeated at Waterloo
1814
Congress of
Vienna opens
1810
1817
Wartburg Festival celebrates
German history, life, and culture
1815
1820
1825
Helsinki
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Riga
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NETHERLANDS HANOVER
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568
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
The Grimm Brothers Begin Work
on Their German Dictionary
The Grimm
Brothers
For Americans, the Grimm
brothers are most famous for
their collection of fairy tales.
But their role in helping
create a standardized German
language went far beyond
editing volumes of childrens
stories. Together they helped
define the grammar and
vocabulary of the standard
German spoken todaya
pioneering feat of linguistic
standardization that would
be copied in other countries
and equal in significance to
Martin Luthers translating
the New Testament into
German three centuries
earlier. (akg-images)
aimed not just to compile definitions of German words but to document the history of the German language and the changing usage of words from late medieval
times to the present day. Their Deutsches Wrterbuch (German Dictionary) was a
monumental undertaking. The work went forward slowly, and the first volume (A
to Biermolke) was published after sixteen years of work. Wilhelm died in 1859,
a year before the second volume appeared. The third volume (E to Forsche) appeared in 1862, one year before Jacobs death. The massive project started by the
Grimm brothers was continued by their students and was not completed until the
early 1970s. In the twenty-first century, this enormous historical dictionary remains
one of the marvels of nineteenth-century philology and a valuable research tool
for specialists in German language and literature.
Introduction
In the decades after Napoleons final defeat, Europeans like the Grimms lived in the shadow of the
French Revolution and its ideologies. In 1815, it appeared that the French Revolution had failed. Monarchs held fast to power throughout Europe, from
London to St. Petersburg and even in Paris, where a
successor to the Bourbons occupied the throne. The
peace conference ending the Napoleonic Wars, held
in Vienna, established a conservative political system
aimed specifically at preventing the spread of liberal
and revolutionary ideas. However, appearances were
deceiving, as the French Revolution had changed European politics forever. The revolutionary ideals of
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity continued to inspire
active political participation. These ideas dominated
the development of political ideologies during these
decades.
These ideologies were conservatism, liberalism,
and nationalism. Conservatives aimed to retain the
power of monarchs, despite the fact that few still believed in the divine right of kings. Liberals called for
parliaments, constitutionalism, civil rights, the rule of
law, and a withdrawal of the state from economic
matters. Nationalists denounced kings and princes,
naming the nationthat is, the entire peopleas the
ultimate authority in politics. Until 1848, liberals and
nationalists often joined forces; most liberals were
nationalists. Nationalist movements in the Balkan
Peninsula attempted to gain independence from Ottoman rule, and the Greeks succeeded. In central Europe, German and Italian nationalists sought to bring
together existing small states into large, unified nationstates. Later in the century they would succeed.
Paralleling and crisscrossing these national movements was a literary and artistic movement known as
Romanticism, which championed the individual hu-
man spirit. The Romantics rejected the cold rationality of the Enlightenment and looked back in longing
to the preindustrial, deeply religious world of the
Middle Ages. They celebrated the strong and dynamic individual wholike Napoleoncould change
the world. Romantic thinkers and artists also challenged social conventions of the day, openly calling
for more freedom in love and sexuality, even as they
experimented with new forms of artistic and poetic
expression. The Romantics mystical brand of Christianity clashed with conventional religious institutions and dogmas.
While most governments in the post-Napoleonic
period were conservative, the ideas of the French
Revolution continued to influence politics and culture. A series of uprisings in 1830 realized some national and constitutional ambitions, while in Great
Britain political reform was achieved through a series
of parliamentary acts. Even in conservative-dominated
central Europe, liberal and nationalist ideas were
spreading and gaining in strength. In 1848, these new
ideologies would burst forth in a wave of revolutionary uprisings across the European continent.
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Chronology
18141815
1832
1833
1815
1817
Wartburg Festival
1837
1818
1838
1838
1819
1821
1823
1825
1828
1829
1830
18451849
settlement. Presided over by the Austrian prime minister Prince Clemens von Metternich, this would be a
conservative peace, guided by the principle of legitimacy. The Congress of Vienna restored prerevolutionary rulers and drew borders that lasted into the
twentieth century. Metternich wanted to restore, as
much as possible, the preindustrial, absolutist social
and political order of the eighteenth century, but he
was realistic enough to recognize that he could not set
the political clock back to 1788. Instead, he aimed
to prevent revolutionary outbreaks and to suppress
the new ideologies of liberalism and nationalism by
strengthening traditional rulers and the landowning
nobility. Even as he did this, however, the new cultural and artistic movement called Romanticism was
challenging the conventions of this conservative world.
1846
1847
1848
In this painting from the early 1820s, Metternich gazes haughtily past the viewer, his rich clothing and self-assured posture
reflecting the power he exerted in Austria and throughout
Europe. The papers he holds in his left hand suggest that even
while sitting for a painting he was engaged in important state
business. (The Royal Collection, 2004 Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II)
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MAP 20.1
Kingdom of Poland, 1815 The Kingdom
of Poland was created at the Congress of Vienna and attached to the Russian Empire; the Russian tsar was also the
king of Poland. The kingdom was ruled by a viceroy and a
parliament in the capital, Warsaw. While most Poles lived
in this so-called Congress Kingdom, millions continued to
live under Austrian and Prussian rule.
From the start, however, there were serious practical problems with the Congress System. When the
Greeks rebelled against their Ottoman rulers in 1821,
setting off the Greek War of Independence, their
cause was championed by Tsar Alexander of Russia,
but Metternich and Castlereagh opposed any measures that could increase Russian power. The strain
between British insular interests and the obligations
of the Congress System proved too much for the already unstable Castlereagh; he took his own life in
the midst of the Greek crisis. In the end, Metternichs
savvy diplomacy prevented Russia from declaring
war on the Ottoman Empire, and the Greeks had to
wait another decade for independence.
Castlereaghs suicide pointed to a fundamental
contradiction between British interests and European
unity in the form of the Congress System. Following
more than twenty years of warfare on the continent,
the British were extremely reluctant to get involved in
European affairs, especially in military action. When,
in 1823, France intervened against a more liberal order in Spain, Britain openly broke with the alliance.
Across the Atlantic, the United States also sought to
guard against European intervention. President James
Monroe issued what became known as the Monroe
Doctrine, declaring that European meddling in the
Western Hemisphere would not be tolerated. Alexander I died two years later, and his successor, Tsar
Nicholas I, was much less interested in European affairs than his elder brother had been. From this point
on, the Congress System became little more than a
weapon in the hands of Metternich to suppress nationalist and revolutionary movements in central Europe and Italy.
with God. The Romantics also rejected Enlightenment ideals such as parliamentarianism and codified
legal systems. Their rejection of fundamental liberal
politics, combined with religious mysticism, was
probably one reason that many of them who did not
die young ended up as extreme conservatives, as did
William Wordsworth.
The Romantics saw God in nature, as Wordsworth
conveyed in his poetry and Caspar David Friedrich
expressed in his starkly beautiful landscapes. Wordsworth would wander lonely through Englands Lake
District and return to his cottage to write poems about
the glories of natureand the deeply felt sense of
Gods majesty in such things as daffodils, clouds, or
landscapes. The German poet Friedrich von Hardenberg, better known as Novalis, portrayed man, woman,
nature, and God as merged in an infinite unity. Romantic art also sought out exotic localities, tempestuous nature, and common people as its subjects. In
France, Eugne Delacroixs paintings showed exotic
scenes (especially in northern Africa and the Muslim
world), stormy seas, and his most famous painting of
alla bare-breasted Liberty leading the people to victory over their oppressors. One common aspect of
nearly all Romantic art is a burning desire to overcome feelings of personal loneliness and alienation,
to submerge individual identity in a cosmic whole
combining human, natural, and divine elements.
The Romanticsand it is not by chance that most
of these were poets or painters, not stockbrokers or
college professorsrejected the Enlightenments mechanical universe and its method of seeking the truth
through studied observation, experimentation, and
reason. They were profoundly disturbed by the idea
of a clockwork universe in which human beings were
just a cog. The most important aspects of life, they
contended, cannot be understood by rational scientific
experimentation. Rather, the irrationalpowerful
emotions, the sense of beauty, the ecstasy of love
makes us human. In The Tables Turned, Wordsworth called on a friend to quit your books, Our
Nicholas I (r. 18251855) Russian tsar noted for conservatism and his hatred for the political ideals of the
French Revolution.
Romanticism Literary and artistic movement of the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that
extolled artistic genius and opposed many traditional
social conventions.
Caspar David Friedrich (17741840) German artist
whose landscapes often featured craggy mountains,
mighty forests, and Romantic ruins that overwhelmed
small human figures.
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574
Caspar David Friedrichs paintings exemplify the romantic sensibility. Often, as in his Wanderer
Above a Sea of Fog (1818) to the
left, the lone human figures are
overwhelmed by the rough and
beautiful natural world. In Abbey
Surrounded by Oak Trees (1809)
to the right, the eerie image of
craggy oak trees surrounding the
ruins of a monastery in winter
reflects the Romantic obsession
with death and religion. (left:
Preussischer Kunstbesitz/Art
Resource, NY; right: Galerie der
Romantik, Berlin/akg-images)
rich Schlegel praised sexual love even outside marriage in his poem Lucinde. Novaliss Hymns to the
Night were inspired by a teenaged girl, though it is
clear that his feelings for her were more spiritually
exalted than physical. Intellectual women figured
prominently in the Romantic movement as organizers of salons where Romantic writers gathered as well
as writing themselves. Women like Dorothea (Veit)
Schlegel and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (daughter
of the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft) worked as
equal partners with their writer-husbands and published works of their own. In their artand sometimes
in their personal livesthe Romantics created a world
where man and woman interacted in full equality, the
female and the male principles supplementing and
inspiring each other. The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who had been a great influence on
the Romantics, had concluded his epic poem, Faust:
The eternally feminine leads us forward. At the
same time, the Romantics conception of artistic genius took for granted that most people would not be
able to understand or appreciate himor her! The
image of the starving and alienated artist so familiar
to us today took on modern form with the Romantics.
Romanticism was an all-embracing philosophy of
life that emphasized unity, organic growth, inspiration,
and creative genius. While Romantics often combined
their mystical longings for the unity of all nature and
humanity with religious sentiments, they were rarely
Christians in any conventional sense. Furthermore,
their emphasis on creative genius bordered on blasphemy: geniuses became in their own way gods, creating new worlds. The established churches could
hardly embrace such ideas, even from individuals
who opposed the anticlerical Enlightenment. The Romantics were fundamentally utopianvisionaries
who believed perfectibility was possible in human relationships and societies. But they lacked the detachment and willingness to compromise that are essential
to achieving reform in the political arena. Even those
Romantic figures like Friedrich Schlegel who wrote
on political subjects were not successful in influencing contemporary politics.
Despite its fundamentally utopian nature, Romanticism had an important impact on future politics
through its influence of nationalism. Nationalists, embracing the Romantic spirit, rejected universalism and
glorified the individualin this case, the individual
language, culture, and nation. Like the Romantics,
nationalists in the early nineteenth century rejected
existing institutions and looked forward to a golden
age in which not just French and German but also
languages like Czech, Lithuanian, and Serbian would
utopian (from Greek, no place) Consisting of unrealistic attempts at reforming human life.
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576
Pole who cannot recite the poems first lines: Lithuania [for Mickiewicz, a province of Poland], my homeland! You are like health; only he who has lost you
can appreciate your true worth. Chopin was born in
Warsaw but, like Mickiewicz, spent most of his life in
France. His most famous works used traditional Polish folk melodies and musical forms. Both Chopin
and Mickiewicz exemplify a fusing of Romanticism
and nationalism. Among Russian writers, Pushkin
exhibits Romantic strains, and even more typically
Romantic are Mikhail Lermontovs rousing stories
and poems of dashing young soldiers, beautiful maidens, unrequited love, and exotic locales along the
Black Sea and in the Caucasus Mountains.
The Beginnings of
Modern Ideology
Conservatism
Conservatism is often understood as the political ideology that opposes change. In fact, conservatives recognize that some degree of change in human society is
inevitable. In these years, they did, however, oppose
the rapid and thoroughgoing change advocated by the
French Revolution. Most conservatives were not so
much ideological as practical: they saw that change
threatened their own position. Metternich is a good example. He believed that the people were not capable
of choosing their government or governing themselves. Only royalty or the nobility were legitimate
rulers, and they would direct change from above,
based on existing traditions and institutions. For conservatives, religion and the Catholic Church played a
fundamental role in maintaining respect for established
rules of conduct and obedience to authority. The people
themselves are not to be trusted. Conservatives have a
pessimistic view of human nature and believe the
people must be held in check and told how to behave.
Perhaps the greatest ideological conservative was
the Irish philosopher, political theorist, and member of
Parliament Edmund Burke. When the French Revolution broke out, he was almost sixty, and his most famous book, Reflections on the Revolution in France, was
published in 1790. Burke argued that the French Revolution was doomed to descend into violence and anarchy because it was based on abstract principles instead
of firmly rooted institutions. Having swept away the
kings legitimacy, Burke warned, the revolutionaries
had nothing to put in its place except the abstraction of
popular rule that would mean a despotism far worse
than Louis XVIs bumbling. Burke did not reject change
out of hand but insisted that it must be organicthat
is, growing naturally out of existing ideas, institutions,
and individuals. This metaphor of organic change was
to become very common among conservatives.
Burke was certainly no admirer of absolutism. After all, he had defended the American colonists in
their revolt against the British monarch. He valued
highly the rights enjoyed by British men of his class,
talents, and education. He did reject, however, the idea
that all men should be treated as equal and should
participate on an equal footing in politics. This, he argued, was a recipe for disaster and the worst kind of
tyranny. Describing the National Assembly in Paris,
Burke wrote, Their liberty is not liberal. Their science is presumptuous ignorance. Their humanity is
savage and brutal. Burke did not reject the ideal of
political liberty but insisted that most menignorant,
lazy, and undisciplinedwere not yet ready to appreciate this lofty sentiment. By eliminating the political
and moral institutions that helped keep the masses of
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578
pure Russian Orthodox religious values and a rejection of foreignspecifically westerninfluences. The
Slavophiles demanded the abolition of Tsar Peter the
Greats Europeanizing reforms in order to restore
Russias inner harmony and religious purity. The
Slavophiles rejected representative government, institutionalized democracy, and industrial development, arguing in a Romantic vein that such rational
western institutions were alien to the Russian soul. At
the same time, they argued for the abolition of serfdom, but from a uniquely conservative point of view.
By ending serfdom, the tsar could reestablish the
mystical unity that had existed between the Russian
people (that is, the peasantry) and himself. The Slavophiles central principle was sobornost, a word that
has no equivalent in English and that connects religiosity (sobor = cathedral), collectivity (sobrat = to
collect), and a unifying mysticism. Like the Romantics in other parts of Europe, the Slavophiles yearned
for mystical unity while championing the uniqueness
of their own Russian historical and religious experience. While Slavophilism had little effect on Russian
governmental policy, the Slavophiles demonstrated
that one could oppose the Russian status quo not
only from a left-wing, radical perspective but also out
of conservative conviction and religious belief.
The era 18151847 was in most respects a conservative, even reactionary one. It is remarkable that this
conservatism owed very little to the thinkers discussed here and much more to Metternichs practical
politics. These thinkers did, however, share with Metternich many fundamental attitudes. All rejected the
legitimacy of written constitutions, representative government, and political change based on abstract rights
and reasoning. In this way conservatism both in theory and in practice lined itself up directly against the
most important traditions of the Enlightenment.
Liberalism
Where conservatism rejected the Enlightenment, liberalism embraced it wholeheartedly. Liberalism enthusiastically took up the Enlightenments call to dare
to know, to transform knowledge into practical measures that improve the world. Classical liberalism, like
the Enlightenment, put the individual at the center
of its political ideology. Unlike conservatism (and socialism), liberalism emphasized above all constitutionalism and civil rights, including the right to own
property, express ones opinions freely, and profess
any religionor no religion at all. The abstractions of
law and constitutions so despised by the conservatives lay at the very center of liberal politics. Only
through the impersonal rule of law could true liberty
Nationalism
Like liberalism, nationalism underwent profound
changes as a political philosophy in the course of the
nineteenth century. Before 1848, nationalism was
generally associated with liberalism and democracy.
In the second half of the century, nationalism became
more and more closely aligned with conservative
forces. The realignment of nationalism after 1848 reflects its triumph, and our present-day acceptance of
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Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Jacob Grimm Writes a Foreword to the
German Dictionary
Before the mid-nineteenth century, the German language suffered from an inferiority complex. Even the celebrated Prussian king Frederick the Great had preferred
speaking French over his native German. Most educated Europeans knew little
about German literature and culture. And even Germans themselves were not
always certain about the correct usage and pronunciation of their language
indeed, often there was no single standard language to guide them, only dozens
of dialects. The Grimm brothers set out to change this situation. They worked to
establish a standardized form of German that everyone could accept as correct.
Part of this enterprise was the publishing of a mammoth dictionary. The dictionary
would have two main purposes: to document the richness of the German tongue
and to standardize usage and spelling of German words. This text is taken from
the foreword to the Grimm brothers German Dictionary.
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582
tion as the king of Prussia would have been completely incomprehensible to these people. Nationalists set out to change this mindset.
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the German brothers
who studied the German language and folk culture,
were nationalists with these aims (see Choice). So was
Johann Gottfried von Herder, a German who spent
much of his life in Riga on the Baltic. Herder wrote
widely on the philosophy of history, language, and
literature and insisted that all cultures and languages
have something to add to world culture and world
history. All ethnic groups, Herder argued, should develop their own culture, enrich their own language,
and create their own literature. Just as Herder demanded that the German language be treated on an
equal footing with French or English, later in the
nineteenth century, young Lithuanians would refuse
to use Polish, Czechs would reject German, and Jews
would insist on using Yiddish or, even more radically,
Hebrew in daily life. In his own way, Herder was an
individualist Romantic challenging the universalist
assumptions of the Enlightenment. He was both a nationalist and a democrat, arguing for equal rights and
respect not just for individuals, but for entire cultures.
Nationalism contained in its very essence a strong
democratic element. For nationalists, the legitimacy
of the state arose out of its unity with the nation. The
term nation-state describes this unity. Hence politics
must be influenced by the sentiments of the nation as
a whole. Obviously, very few of those in power in the
early nineteenth century could accept such an ideology. Kings might claim to rule for the good of their
people, but they rarely welcomed the peoples interference in their policies. Nationalists and liberals thus
shared an interest in breaking down the royal status
quo. Conversely, kings and conservatives like Metternich saw in nationalism one of their greatest enemies.
Political Pressures on
the Continent
These new political ideologies of conservatism, liberalism, and nationalism had a direct impact on politics
in continental Europe. Conservatism was the driving
principle at the Congress of Vienna, but even where
monarchs were restored, concessions were made to
liberalism in the form of constitutions and elected
legislatures. In France, the restored Bourbon king was
overthrown by a middle-class revolt in 1830. In Russia, Tsar Nicholas Is conservative regime refused
to allow any kind of political reform. But even there
and in the Ottoman Empire, nationalist movements
challenged the authority of the tsar and sultan by
demanding political and cultural rights for specific
nations. Across the continent, the growing attraction
of liberal and nationalist ideas caused kings and emperors to sit uncomfortably on their thrones.
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The liberal Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini (left) dedicated his life to the cause of Italian nationalism. Compare his middle-class attire and scholarly expression to the excitingly unconventional dress of his contemporary
Giuseppe Garibaldi (right). Mazzini was the thinker most responsible for the resurgence of Italian national feeling while Garibaldi was the fighter who helped put Mazzinis ideals into practice. (left: The Granger Collection,
New York; right: Alinari Archives/The Image Works)
form Young Italya brotherhood of Italians who believe in a law of progress and duty, and are convinced
that Italy is destined to become one nation. His writings inspired the Risorgimento, a movement calling
for a renewal of Italian culture and nationalism. Mazzini organized Young Italy throughout the Italian peninsula, often in dangerous circumstances, and gathered
funds for the cause from wealthy supporters. Though
Mazzinis supporters often had to operate in secret
to avoid arrest, even in the 1830s the membership of
Young Italy was estimated at more than fifty thousand people.
One of those inspired by Mazzinis Young Italy was
Giuseppe Garibaldi. Garibaldi and Mazzini shared
more than a first name. They were both born in northern Italy, barely two years apart. Both dedicated their
lives to the Italian nation and were key figures in the
unification of Italy. But there were also significant differences between the two men. While Mazzini was of
Uruguay to Europe in hopes of destroying the conservative order set down at the Congress of Vienna.
Garibaldi and Mazzini helped pave the way for future upheavals, but during the 1830s and up to 1848,
politics in the Italian principalities remained firmly in
the hands of conservatives and clericals.
Like supporters of Mazzini and Garibaldi in Italy,
young educated Germans opposed the existing political order, calling for a liberal united Germany. German universities were hotbeds of nationalist thought
and agitation. There young men (no women would
enter German universities until the twentieth century)
gathered together in fraternities to discuss politics
over beer. After the patriotic fervor of the Napoleonic
Warsin German known as the Wars of Liberation
(reflecting French influence)they found it difficult
to accept the conservative and antinationalist Congress System. Liberal nationalists called the first allGerman gathering in October 1817 at the Wartburg,
the castle where Luther had translated the New Testament into German. At this Wartburg Festival they
celebrated German history, life, and cultureLuthers
challenge to the pope in 1517, the German victory
over Napoleon at Leipzig in 1814, and the beauty of
the German language. Speeches called on Germans to
transcend the political boundaries that divided them.
But transforming speeches into political reality proved
difficult. When the somewhat addled young patriot
Karl Sand assassinated the reactionary poet August
von Kotzebue in 1819, the German authorities moved
to restrict the activities of the nationalists. The Carlsbad Decrees of 1819 put severe restrictions on freedom of expression in the press and especially in the
universities, which were known for their strong support of nationalist and liberal ideals.
Yet they would not be suppressed. In 1832, at the
ruins of a medieval castle in southwest Germany,
some twenty to thirty thousand young people gathered
and marched, carrying the national black-red-gold
national banner. At the Hambach Festival, named after the castle where they gathered, German patriotic
youth called for national liberation: both from foreign
influencesfrom French culturebut even more importantly from the conservative policies of Metternich.
As in Italy, these young radicals organized themselves
into a group loosely called Young Germany. And as in
the Italian case, Metternich worried over the ideas
and appeal of these liberal nationalist groups and set
his police to gather information about their subversive actions. It was in this repressive atmosphere that
the Grimm brothers, who shared many of the ideals
of Young Germany, were harassed and ultimately dismissed from their jobs.
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Autocracy in Russia
While liberal and nationalist ideologies blossomed in
much of Europe, Russias rulers did what they could
to insulate their empire from such ideas. After Napoleons invasion of Russia, Tsar Alexander I became
mystical and suspicious of change. Meanwhile, Russian societyat least at the educated upper levels
did not stagnate. Young Russian officers who had
participated in the campaign against Napoleon returned home from Paris with new liberal ideas. They
desired a greater voice in the affairs of their native
land. Some even spoke of constitutions and legislatures, though censorship prevented open discussion
of such revolutionary ideas. When Alexander I died
in 1825, the conspirators decided it was time to act,
especially as the question of who should replace
Alexander on the throne was confusing. He had left
no male heirs, and by law his eldest brother, Constantine, should have succeeded him. But Constantine
had given up his right to be tsar when he married a
nonroyal woman, though his renunciation of the
throne had never been made public. Most Russians
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Conservative Domination
and Reform
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, political
participation in Great Britain was limited to an extremely small group of men (women would continue
to be shut out for another century). Both political partiesthe conservative Tories and the more liberal
Whigswere dominated by the aristocracy, but the
Whigs were more sympathetic to opening the political system to wealthy middle-class men. King George
III was still on the throne, though his off-and-on insanity meant that his son, crowned George IV in 1820,
often carried out his fathers duties. Ruling in his
own right, George IV discredited the Crown (and
thereby played into the hands of political reformers)
by his immoral behavior, including his notorious attempt to divorce his estranged wife, Caroline, and his
unwillingness to allow her to be crowned queen.
The first decade after 1815 was dominated by the
Tories, who set a very conservative course by passing
the Corn Laws. These laws, which for all practical
purposes prevented the import of cheap grain (corn)
into Great Britain, were designed to reduce British
dependence on foreign foodstuffs, but they had a disastrous effect on the poor. By keeping the price of
grainand thus breadhigh, they impoverished
working people, who had to spend most of their tiny
wages on food. In Manchester, which tripled in size
between 1801 and 1831 (to a population of 238,000) as
peasants from the countryside took jobs in new textile factories, a series of public meetings culminated
in 1819 with the notorious Peterloo Massacre. A cavalry charge dispersing the more than sixty thousand
people gathered to petition Parliament for political
representation and repeal of the Corn Laws ended
with eleven dead and hundreds injured. The governments answer to the public uproar after Peterloo was
to restrict civil liberties and free speech. In 1824, however, Parliament repealed the Combination Acts,
which had forbidden workers from forming unions.
Strikes were still illegal, but the important right of labor to organize had been won.
The Tory administration also took an important
step toward fulfilling the liberal principle that religion should not bar an individual from full participation in political and social life. In 1829, with the
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Summary
Review Questions
In what ways did the Congress of Vienna help shape
Europe and European politics?
What were the major demands of nationalists? Which
governments felt particularly threatened by such
demands?
In what ways did national identity expand and deepen
in this period? What effect did Romanticism have on
this process?
592
Websites
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Frankenstein
The story of a man-made monster who turns on his creator is both a nightmare and a metaphor for the
destructive potential of human creativity. An early version is a sixteenth-century story in which Rabbi Loew
of Prague creates a servant for himself out of clay. He breathes life into itwith the help of a few strategically placed Hebrew letters. As with the later and more famous Frankenstein, Rabbi Loews creation gets out
of hand and has to be destroyed.
The famous Frankenstein comes from a novel by the English writer Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, daughter
of the writer and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and wife of the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary
Shelley was only eighteen years old when, one night, the poet Lord Byron challenged his guests to come
up with a ghost story. In response, Mary Shelley wrote her masterpiece, Frankenstein; or, The Modern
Prometheus (1818). It tells of a Swiss chemist, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, who in his anatomical research discovers the secret of life. Working secretly at night, the scientist stitches together a human form to which he
gives life. Dr. Frankensteins pride in his creation turns to horror when the monster escapes and carries
out a series of murders. But who is to blame? Confronting his creation on a mountain glacier, Dr. Frankenstein reproaches the monster, who retorts that it is not his fault that he is not Adama good manbut
the fallen angel, seeking joy but forever shut out and persecuted. Unfortunately, the good Dr. Frankensteins efforts to redeem his creation and friend (as he calls the monster) come to nothing. After more
(implied) sex and (explicit) violence, the guilt-wracked creature destroys himself.
Mary Shelleys story reflects both its own time and ours. The Romantics of the early nineteenth century
were deeply troubled by a world in which religion and spirituality seemed to be losing ground to crass materialism and cold scientific rationality. In their own poetic works, they extravagantly compared themselves
to God: they, too, were creating new worlds. Dr. Frankensteins creation is motivated by the same kind of
search for knowledge, but the outcome of his experiment is tragic for all concerned. In our time, too, we
both enjoy and mistrust the consequences of scientific research. Looking at the mushroom cloud of the first
successful atomic bomb test in 1945, the physicist Robert Oppenheimer recalled a phrase from the Bhagavad Gita: I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
Suggested Readings
Blum, Jerome. In the BeginningThe Advent of the Modern
Age: Europe in the 1840s. New York: Scribners, 1994. An account arguing that modernity begins in the 1840s; excellent
on political and intellectual history, with many fascinating anecdotes.
Chapman, Tim. The Congress of Vienna: Origins, Processes and
Results. London and New York: Routledge, 1998. Very clear and
concise discussion of the congress itself and diplomacy to 1848.
Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1983. A challenging and extremely influential
theoretical work.
Websites
Web resources on Romanticism, Prometheus Unplugged, at
http://prometheus.cc.emory.edu/library.html
The Austrian statesman and his place in history, Graf Clemens
Wenzel Lothar Metternich, at www.aeiou.at/aeiou.encyclop
.m/m583439.htm
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CHAPTER
Industrialization and
Society, 18001850
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Friedrich Engels Denounces
Capitalist Exploitation
Introduction
The Spread of Industrialization
Industrialization on the Continent
The Revolution in Transportation
The Social Impacts of Industrialization
Voice: Friedrich Engels Describes the
Condition of the Working Class in
England
1500 B.C.E.
Summary
Suggested Readings
Websites
1000 B.C.E.
1805
Critics of Industrialization
Poverty in Industrial Societies
Early Socialists
Karl Marx
1810s
Luddite revolts protest
industrialization in
England
1800
Working Classes
Diversity Within the Working Class
Working Families
Working-Class Consciousness and Trade
Unionism
1810
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1815
Napoleon is
finally defeated
at Waterloo
1815
1820s
Industrialization
begins in
Belgium and
northern France
1820
1824
British
Combination
Acts are
repealed
1825
KINGDOM OF
SWEDEN AND
NORWAY
St. Petersburg
Oslo
ATLANTI C
OCEA N
Stockholm
Moscow
Riga
North
Newcastle S e a
UNITED KINGDOM
OF GREAT BRITAIN
AND IRELAND
Dublin
Liverpool
IRELAND
Manchester
DENMARK
Leeds
Birmingham
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Amsterdam
London
Coalfields
Lige
Mulhouse
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Lyons
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Dn
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Pest
Milan
Turin
Po Venice
Black
Sea
Danube
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Elba
Corsica
(Fr.)
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Belgrade
Med
ite
ia
ti
Se
Rome
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OF THE
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Istanbul
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1835
1500 C.E.
200
400 Km.
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2000 C.E.
1848
Political uprisings sweep Europe
Marx publishes the Communist Manifesto
1840s
Industrialization
begins in
central Europe
1840
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P I R E
Sicily
Malta
(Gr. Br.)
MOROCCO
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per
Buda
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Vienna
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SPAIN
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Marseilles
Madrid
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Cracow
Prague
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Kiev
Zurich
Rhne
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SAXONY
Frankfurt
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Le Creusot
Vis
tu l
Gttingen
Cologne
Luxembourg
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OF P
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Berlin
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Se
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R hi
Railroads
Antwerp
Essen
RUSSIAN
EMPIRE
Danzig
be
KINGDOM OF THE
NETHERLANDS
Industrial areas
Baltic
Sea
Copenhagen
1851
Half of English population
lives in cities
1845
1850
1855
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400 Mi.
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Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Friedrich Engels Denounces
Capitalist Exploitation
Friedrich Engels
The impact of industrialization was dramatic and in
many ways appalling.
Friedrich Engels (18201895)
came from Germany to England as a young man to work
at his fathers textile plant in
Manchester. What he saw
there made him condemn
industrial capitalism as cruel
and inhumane. His first major
work, The Condition of the
Working-Class in England in
1844, revealed the miserable
conditions of industrial workers and became a classic of
socialist literature.
(Bettmann/Corbis)
Friedrich Engels was just twenty-two when his father sent him away from
home to keep him out of trouble. Home was Barmen (now Wuppertal),
Germany, where the family owned textile mills. The trouble was
Friedrichs interest in philosophy, which caused him to reject his fathers
stern brand of Christianity. Hoping to distract his son from such irreligious
studies, the elder Engels sent young Friedrich to manage a textile mill outside Manchester, England, in which the family had an interest.
Once in Manchester, young Engels was appalled by what he saw: overcrowded housing; entire districts lacking sewers and clean drinking water;
families competing for foul, half-rotten food. The horrifying conditions in
which the working people of Manchester lived changed Engelss life, causing him to dedicate his life to exposing the misery caused by industrial
capitalism and to helping workers organize to improve their lives. Engels
decided to write a book. Though he represented his fathers interests at the
mill during the day, at night he roamed the slums of Manchester, gathering material for what would be published as The Condition of the Working Class in England
in 1844.
Engels documented entire families living in a single room, sleeping together in
a single bed that was alive with lice and vermin. He recorded the physical effects
of grueling work, poor nutrition, and lack of hygiene. These terrible living conditions meant that the majority of industrial workers died before they reached the
age of twenty. Even as he gathered his data, Engels was asking himself more
fundamental questions: What factors cause such poverty? How could factories
that were so efficient at increasing production make the lives of their workers
so miserable? In short, Engels wanted to understand the workings of industrial
capitalism.
In 1844, Engels returned home to Germany, stopping on the way in Paris to
meet Karl Marx. Within two years, the two young men (Marx was only two years
older than Engels) would be calling themselves communists and calling for an
overthrow of the present economic and political order. But for now Engels went
home to write his book. It was published the next year in German, but its dedication was in English: To the Working Classes of Great-Britain. Engels praised English workers, dedicated his book to them, and urged them to fight for their rights
against the middle classes [who] intend to enrich themselves by your labour.
This was more than a documented report; it was a political manifesto, and Engels called on Englands workers to take control of their own destiny. Scholars at
the time and later complained that Engels exaggerated the misery wrought by
industrialization, provided a one-sided picture of life in Manchester, and based his
sweeping accusations against the middle class on his own narrow experience in
Barmen and Manchester. These criticisms are reasonable, but on another level they
miss the point. Engels was not writing a scholarly analysis; he was trying to change
the world. His conclusion was a warning: The war of the poor against the rich will
Introduction
be the most bloodthirsty the world has ever seen. This war would be a revolution, he claimed, that would usher in a world of justice and dignity for all.
In 1848, only three years after the books publication, revolutions did sweep the
European continent, including Germany. In the same year, Marx and Engels published the famous Communist Manifesto, in which they argued that a workers
revolution would soon put an end to capitalism. The workers revolution did not
come in 1848. For political reasons, both Marx and Engels had to flee their native
Germany and live in permanent exile in England. There they maintained a fruitful
partnership and friendship that lasted until Marxs death in 1883.
While Engelss Conditions of the Working Class in England made him famous
among German radicals, it was not published in England until 1891. Still, the
books impact was enormous. For some young Russian socialists, Engelss descriptions of the degradations of industrial capitalism made them hope to avoid industrialism altogetheran aim that Marx and Engels firmly rejected as impossible and
undesirable. Instead, Engels argued, radicals needed to harness industrializations
wealth-generating power for the good of all workers and all society. In a sense
Engels did this himself as an individual: he worked all his life as a businessman and
manufacturer, devoting much of his income to radical causes and supporting the
ever-impoverished Marx family. Ironically, industrial capitalism made Engels a radical and also financed his quest to destroy it.
Introduction
Like many other radicals, Engels was reacting to the
rapid and far-reaching changes in European society
and everyday life that occurred during the first half of
the nineteenth centuryall of them the consequences
of industrialization. Populations grew rapidly, economies boomed, and millions of people migrated from
the countryside to the city in search of factory employment. Industrialization, starting first in Great Britain,
soon took the continent by storm, affecting all segments
of society, transforming every aspect of life. Skilled
artisans and craftsmen found their jobs threatened by
mass production in factories, where dozens and even
hundreds of workers labored side by side, doing
repetitive and monotonous tasks in dangerous conditions. At the same time, the economic power of the
middle classes, from factory owners to professional
people, grew rapidly, increasing their political power.
The Industrial Revolution transformed Europe on
various levels. On a physical level, the coal mines,
coal-burning factories, and railroad tracks and trestles
altered the European landscape. Soot and pollution
literally blanketed industrial cities and their outskirts.
Other effects were more subtle. Middle-class people
came to think of themselves as self-madethat is,
they perceived their identity as derived from their
work, accomplishments, or training. The thousands
of men and women congregated in factories also be-
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Chronology
17991800
1801
1810s
1834
1835
1838
1839
1840s
1847
1848
1859
1851
1815
1815
1824
1820s
1829
1830searly 1840s
1831
1831
The Spread of
Industrialization
of industrialization were evidentan increase in affordable consumer goods, the growth of middle-class
prosperity, and, in some cases, even higher wages
for industrial workers. Thus, in just half a century, industrialization altered both lifestyles and attitudes,
sometimes positively, often negatively, but always
permanently. After industrialization, there was no returning to an earlier, less complicated time.
SCOTLAND
Exposed coalfields
Industrial areas
Principal railroads
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Machinery
Iron
Bradford
North
Leeds
Irish Sea
Sea
Sheffield
Liverpool
Manchester
Iron
Hardware
Birmingham
WALES
Iron
Iron
Machinery
Pottery
London
Bristol
Machinery
Consumer goods
anne
English Ch
MAP 21.1
Industrialization in England, ca. 1859 By
the middle of the nineteenth century, England was heavily
industrialized. Most industrial regions were close to the
sea or other waterways and near coal fields. Locate Manchester on the map. What about its location made it a
prime industrial site?
industrial take-off The point at which industrialization continues to grow on its ownthat is, becomes
self-perpetuating.
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600
Founded in the late eighteenth century by an English entrepreneur, the Le Creusot ironworks in the Burgundy
region to the southeast of Paris became one of the most advanced in France. The company would later develop
into Frances largest arms manufacturer. The enormous amount of pollution generated by the ironworks is
evident in this image. (Roger-Viollet/The Image Works)
ways took a much more active role in regulating relations between capitalists and industrial workers. They
also protected their new industries through high tariffs that discouraged the consumption of imported
goods by increasing their price. Many argued that
Britains great head start in industrialization made it
necessary to shield developing industry from a flood
of cheap British manufactures. Britain, in contrast, had
long been a promoter of free tradethat is, British
trade.
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602
ficient. In 1838, two iron steamships, the Great Western and the Sirius, raced across the Atlantic to New
York, making the journey in a record-breaking fifteen
days. Rapidly, wooden sailing vessels were retired,
no longer able to compete.
Industrialization spurred improvements in roads
and overland transport as well. At the beginning of
the century, roads in most parts of Europe were worse
than they had been during the Roman Empire eighteen
centuries earlier. But by 1850, significant improvements had been made, partly in connection with the
creation of a European-wide postal system. Post roads
with stations where horses could be changed were established along major trade routes from England to
Russia. In Britain, by 1830 more than a thousand private turnpike trusts had built roads and were then
charging tolls to recover their investment. John McAdam, surveyor for the Bristol Turnpike Trust, developed a method of road construction that improved
foundations and drainage. His method, using gravel
and broken rock, formed a hard surface that was
more durable and less muddy than dirt roads. Soon
similar roads were being built throughout Europe,
called in many different languages macadam.
Water transport was also important for transporting raw materials and manufactured goods. Though
the Bridgewater Canal, built in 1761 to carry coal by
John McAdam (17561836) Scottish engineer who
developed a technique for a harder, less muddy road
surface known as macadam in various languages.
barge to Manchester, was hard pressed by competition from the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad, the
canals success in generating an entire network of
canals around Manchester inspired the Erie Canal in
New York State. This canals completion in 1825, connecting the Hudson River and Lake Erie, opened the
American interior to overseas commerce. Even backward Russia improved its canal system, in 1808
rebuilding the Moscow-Petersburg canal first constructed by Peter the Great, and linking the Vistula,
Bug, and Dnieper Rivers by canal in 1841 to allow the
passage of goods by water from the Baltic to the Black
Sea. Many smaller canals throughout Europe connected industry with raw materials and markets, increasingly working together with railroads.
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Friedrich Engels Describes the Condition of
the Working Class in England
Friedrich Engels, the son of a German textile manufacturer, saw the impact of
industrialization in England firsthand when his father sent him to work in a familyowned textile mill there. The conditions in which working-class people labored in
England appalled Engels, compelling him to write his first book, The Condition of
the Working Class in England in 1844. Engels was only twenty-five when the book
was published. It gained widespread attention and favorably impressed young
Karl Marx, who soon became Engelss friend and collaborator.
603
604
Sixty, eighty years ago, England was a country like every other, with small towns,
few and simple industries, and a thin but proportionally large agricultural population. Today it is a country like no other; with a capital of two and a half million
inhabitants; with vast manufacturing cities; with an industry that supplies the
world and produces almost everything by means of the most complex machinery;
with an industrious, intelligent, dense population, of
which two-thirds are employed in trade and commerce,
What does Engels
and composed of classes wholly different; forming,
mean when he claims
in fact, with other customs and other needs, a different
that England is comnation from the England of those days. The Industrial
posed of classes
Revolution is of the same importance for England as
wholly different and
the political revolution for France.
a different nation in
A manufacturing establishment requires many work1844 than it had been
ers employed together in a single building, living near
sixty years earlier?
each other and forming a village of themselves in the
case of a good-sized factory. They have needs for
satisfying which other people are necessary; handicraftsmen, shoemakers, tailors, bakers, carpenters,
stonemasons, settle at hand. The inhabitants of the
Describe the steps
by which a factory
village, especially the younger generation, accustom
town becomes an
themselves to factory work, grow skilful in it, and when
industrial city, acthe first mill can no longer employ them all, wages fall,
cording to Engels.
and the immigration of fresh manufacturers is the
consequence. So the village grows into a small town,
and the small town into a large one.
Londoners have been forced to sacrifice the best qualities of their human
nature, to bring to pass all the marvels of civilisation which crowd their
city. . . . What is true of London, is true of Manchester,
Birmingham, Leeds, is true of all great towns. The
Why do you think
dwellings of the workers are everywhere badly planned,
that workers housing,
badly built, and kept in the worst condition, badly
clothing, and food
ventilated, damp, and unwholesome. The inhabitants
was of such bad
are confined to the smallest possible space, and at least
quality?
one family usually sleeps in each room. . . . The clothing
of the workers, too, is generally scanty, and that of
great multitudes is in rags. The food is in general, bad.
This painting of the industrial city of Manchester in 1851 graphically depicts the enormous impact of industrialization with the dozens of smokestacks pouring pollution into the air, rendering the citys air hazy and difficult
to breath. The stunted trees in the foreground suggest the impact of industrialization on nature.
(The Royal Collection, 2004 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)
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606
and they did. Inexpensive fares in third-class carriages made possible travel on a scale hitherto unheard of: in 1844, 27.7 million railroad journeys were
taken in Britain. Cheap fares encouraged the migration of impoverished rural people into the growing
industrial cities, further accelerating their growth. By
midcentury, more-distant journeys to America and
Australia usually began with a train ride to the port,
where emigrants boarded a steamship. Thus, the
transportation revolution wrought by industrialization had a major impact not just on Europe but on
the world.
One of the most far-reaching effects of the Industrial Revolution was the creation of social categories
based on economic, not legal, status. Until industrialization, most people identified themselves by the social category of their birthpeasant, noble, artisan,
merchant. These were legal, not merely economic,
categories. It was quite possible for nobles to be poor
and even (though more rarely) for peasants to be
wealthy. Industrial societies, however, are ordered
along class lines. Ones class derives primarily from
ones economic position in society, or as Karl Marx
would later describe it, ones relation to the means of
production. The factory owner controlled the means
of production (the factory) and derived profit from it;
the workers were an element in the means of production, much like the machine they tended.
The idea of class also implies a feeling of belonging
together, or class consciousness. This consciousness
was new in the early Industrial Revolution. Nobles
had long distinguished themselves from commoners
by dress, manners, and luxurious lifestyle. Now the
growing middle classes, or bourgeoisie, differentiated themselves from nobles by their emphasis on the
dignity of work and self-improvement, and from the
working class by their accent, clean clothes, and soft
hands. Workers, crammed together on factory floors
and tenement houses, began to recognize their shared
interests, too. With the coming of industrialization,
society was no longer divided into three estatesthe
nobles, clergy, and peasants of Franceor the lords
and commoners of England. Now it was divided into
capitalists, who had wealth available to invest in the
means of production, and workers, the proletariat,
who had no source of income other than their labor.
Industrialization also enhanced the possibility for
social mobility. An intelligent, hardworking peasant
boy could go to work in the city and hope to rise into
the lower middle class or, if not he, then at least his
children. To be sure, most of those born poor died
that wayand died much earlier than their middleand upper-class contemporaries. But the possibility
of becoming a self-made man and rising above the
Middle-Class Culture
While some of the self-made men in the
new middle classes had limited school-
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608
morality derive rather from Protestant Christian traditions. Young people were admonished to avoid the
temptations not only of sexual intercourse before
marriage but even of sexual thoughts or masturbation. Many manuals and self-help books for parents
and young people warned that self-abuse would
lead to bad eyesight, insanity, and other misfortunes,
including death. Ideally, men and women were to
find sexual pleasure only within the bounds of marriage. Sexual love between members of the same sex
was literally unspeakable: the word homosexuality
was not coined until 1869. It is not by chance that later
generations would use the word Victorianreferring
to the reign of British queen Victoriato mean preachy,
sexually repressed, hypocritical, and narrow minded.
Still, this characterization is at best one sided. Middleclass ideology in the nineteenth century did have its
humorless, self-righteous aspects, but its grinding emphasis on work reflected a desire to validate middleclass identity and to assert that individual dignity
should be gauged not by birth but by service to society.
As members of a largely new and growing social
grouping, middle-class people felt keenly the need to
establish and augment their prestige and respectability,
often by promoting their values of self-improvement,
education, and sobriety among the less fortunate.
Smiles argued that only by adopting middle-class values and habits could workers lift themselves out of
poverty. Many middle-class women, especially, engaged actively in charity work, sometimes alienating
those they intended to help with their strident selfrighteousness. The temperance movement, for example, was a middle-class reform directed mainly at the
working class. Alcoholism was a problem, but workers were often put off by the well-dressed preachy
women who scolded them for their drinking habits.
The middle-class belief in hard work as the key to
success implied that poverty was something that
those who would not work hard enough brought on
themselves. Thus, the structural causes of poverty, unleashed by industrialization, were obscured. The historian Franois Guizot, who dominated French politics
in the 1840s, believed that the opportunity for riches
was open to all and that failure to achieve wealth reflected an individuals own limitations and weaknesses. Rather than blaming society for their misery,
Guizot argued, the poor had only themselves to blame.
If they would stay sober, work hard, and live frugally,
they would better their social condition. Many middleclass liberals would have agreed, pointing to their
own success as proof that hard work alone brought
prosperity and social status.
Middle-class respectability involved both selfcontrol and self-righteousnessoverall, an avoidance
of extremes. In their churches, the middle classes
avoided ostentatious ceremonies, mysticism, and
overly emotional displays of devotion. The Church of
England and the official Protestant churches in central Europe and Scandinavia reprimanded clergy who
showed excessive enthusiasm or religious fervor,
and pastors who pressed their middle-class parishioners too strongly about their sins might find themselves snubbed by the parish. But some Protestants
found worship without ceremony and emotion arid
and devoid of profound religious meaning. A few left
the Church of England for dissenting chapels, and at
Oxford, a group of prominent Anglican clergymen
who sought to revive certain Roman Catholic rituals
drew much attention, particularly when some of
them converted to Catholicism.
As Jews began to assimilate into the middle class,
dressing and speaking like other members of that
class, they also sought to reform their religious practices. The traditional long caftan of the rabbi was
exchanged for a sober outfit resembling that of a
Protestant pastor. Within the synagogue, a more orderly religious service was inaugurated, sometimes
even with choirs and organs, which were quite foreign to Jewish religious traditions. While generally
remaining true to their religious laws, avoiding certain foods and keeping the Sabbath (Saturday) holy,
these middle-class Jews attempted in all other ways
to resemble their Gentile neighbors. Their Reform Judaism was strongest in German areas, but even
among the overwhelmingly traditional and Orthodox Polish Jews in Warsaw and Lww, Reform synagogues were opened in the 1840s. More traditional
Jews saw these innovations as the first step to conversion to Christianity, and in their own way, they were
right. Later Reform Judaism was to significantly relax
the strict requirements to eat only kosher food, to abstain from work on Saturdays, and to orient ones life
around prayer, worship, and study. Moreover, many
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610
The first line of Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice reflects this fact: It is a truth universally acknowledged,
that a single man in possession of a good fortune must
be in want of a wife. Founding a family was of vital
importance, but first of all, a middle-class man had to
establish himself in businessin effect, earn his fortune. Men were typically older than the women they
married and were expected to guide and train their
wives as well as to love them. The husband had to earn
a sufficient amount to pay for a middle-class home
and servants andof courseto allow his wife to devote herself exclusively to her family with needing to
earn money.
Middle-class girls were raised to see marriage as
their main purpose in life. Not making a suitable marriage was also feared, as it might mean an unpleasant
dependency on wealthier relations or a meager livelihood as a genteel ladys maid or governess. Once
she was married, a middle-class womans role included running the household, supervising servants,
educating her children, and in some cases helping her
husband in his professional or scientific endeavors.
Outside the home, it was considered proper for a
middle-class woman to be active in charitable and religious organizations. Women did not have careers,
though they might make their own way as teachers,
seamstresses, or millinersthe latter two professions
perilously near working class. Nineteenth-century
novels often examine the dilemmas of bright and sensitive young women of marriageable age. Their authors
were themselves women who were trying to make
their way as writersCharlotte Bront, author of Jane
Eyre, is one example. She and her sister Emily published under male names, as did George Sand (Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin) in France and George
Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) in England. By publishing
under male names, these pioneering women writers
aimed to force readers to take their writing more seriously, and they also sought to avoid criticism by their
own middle-class families about earning money with
their pen. While some women publishedat times
with great successunder their own (female) names,
they often found that their work was considered by
male critics a mere pastime, not real literature.
Middle-class women were not supposed to earn
moneyjust to spend it. While servants usually did
the shopping, it was the lady of the house who
ordered goods, checked prices, kept accounts, and
made sure that neither servants nor merchants were
cheating her. Even when she had a housekeeper to
perform most of these duties, she was expected by
her husband to make sure that all of these activities
were carried out properly. The middle-class woman
also had to purchase clothes for herself and her fam-
ily and to furnish her home tastefully. To help homemakers make choices in their selection of furnishings
and clothing, entrepreneurs began to publish books
and periodicals devoted to proper, respectable fashions, such as The Englishwomans Domestic Magazine,
which began appearing in 1852.
Charlotte and Emily Bront (18161855, 18181848)
English novelists and poets, authors of novels including Jane Eyre (Charlotte) and Wuthering Heights
(Emily).
George Sand (18041876) French female author of
more than eighty novels who took a mans name and
dressed in male attire to protest the treatment of
women.
George Eliot (18191880) Major English novelist, born
Mary Ann Evans, whose novels portrayed social and
moral problems of the lower middle class.
Working Classes
Working Classes
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612
Realist artist Vasily Perov portrays the misery of the Russian serfs and the indifference
of a respectable Russian Orthodox clergyman
in this bitter painting, Tea Drinking at
Mytishchi near Moscow (1862). Juxtaposing
impoverished peasants or workers and unfeeling middle- and upper-class people was a
common means by which realist artists conveyed a message. (Tretjakov Gallery, Moscow/
akg-images)
Working Families
On farms and in farming villages, families worked together; in artisan shops, families were often productive units. Early factories transferred this pattern to a
new location. Men, women, and children continued
to work side by side. The heavier physical work, such
as operating looms, was usually carried out by men.
Women predominated among spinners and in other
tasks that required less heavy work, as they were assumed to have more manual dexterity than men. And
children worked at a variety of light jobs, handling
small spools of thread and reaching into places where
adult hands could not fit. Even as industry developed,
parents often chose to bring their children along with
them to work rather than leave them alone at home.
Long before the factory system, women had worked
alongside their menfolk in the putting-out system.
Spinning wool (later, cotton) into yarn was an almost
exclusively female occupation. Factory owners also
liked to hire entire families as a means of reducing individual wages. Sometimes men and women would
work in the same factory but in different workshops.
Men always predominated in metalworking and
mining. Children also worked in coal mines, where
Working Classes
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614
Working-Class Consciousness
and Trade Unionism
Industrialization brought workers together in densely
packed spaces. Most did not enjoy the work. Their
lives were constricted by factory rules and hours, and
whatever independence they might have formerly
enjoyed as farmers or artisans was gone. So was pride
in their craft and in the products they made: many
early mass-produced goods were less durable and attractive than items produced by skilled artisans.
Moreover, in the factory no one worker made something from start to finish. In a textile factory, for example, spinners spun the thread and weavers wove it
into cloth. In a garment factory, one person cut the
cloth, another stitched only sleeves, another finished
buttonholes. This division of labor was efficient, but
it made work repetitive and monotonous. Workers
often felt like they were cogs in a machine. Without
any control over their work, they sensed they had lost
a part of their humanity. Karl Marx would later attribute this sense to what he described as factory workers alienation from the product of their labor.
Critics of Industrialization
Critics of Industrialization
615
616
of the difficulty of obtaining reliable credit, businesses often went bankrupt, throwing all their employees out of work. Sometimes, as in the U.S. Panic
of 1819, overproduction caused a general depression
throughout the economy as one factory after another
was forced to close down. But one very great difference between poverty before and after the Industrial
Revolution must be noted. Previously, poverty meant
being on the edge of starvation, and the periodic
famines that swept Europe killed thousands. After industrialization, such famines no longer occurred. England and Ireland offer an example; both experienced
bad harvests in the early 1840s, but industrialized England did not experience famine, while agricultural
Ireland, also beset by the potato blight, did.
The criticisms of industrialization focused less on
absolute poverty than on the sharp difference in conditions of life between factory owners and their
workers. These critics pointed out the inequitable distribution of wealth in a capitalist system, though they
did not generally use that word. Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are
privately owned and operated by individuals for a
profit and in which the market plays a dominant role.
Modern capitalism developed alongside industrialization, increasing the efficiency of production, extending markets around the world, but also bringing
with it new social problems.
Early Socialists
The liberal response to the poverty caused by industrialization was to promote a free market that would,
liberals believed, eventually increase prosperity for
all. Middle-class liberals extolled individual rights,
property, and rule by the most competent. They were
inherently elitist in their insistence that wealthier
and better-educated segments of society dominate in
politics but at the same time potentially egalitarian in
their emphasis on self-help, education, and hard work
as the means for improving ones own economic and
social condition. Other political thinkers held that the
economic and political system itself made it impossible for workers to improve their lives. The discrepancy between the egalitarian ideals of middle-class
liberalism and its elitism in practice fueled political
radicalism, in particular in the form of socialism.
Many early socialist writers and leaders were themselves from middle-class backgrounds, most famous
among them Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
While liberalism championed the individuals right
to property, socialism put the primary emphasis on
the welfare of society as a whole. Socialists disagreed
on the status and morality of private property, but all
Critics of Industrialization
617
618
Karl Marx
Like most socialist thinkers, Karl Marx was middle
class, not working class. His father was a lawyer of
Jewish origin who converted to Christianity when
Karl was a young boy, growing up in western Germany. Marx attended university in Bonn and Berlin,
where he studied philosophy under G. W. F. Hegel,
whose systematic thought would prove an important
source for Marxs own ideas. Marxs passionate personality, which gained him many friends and many
bitter enemies. developed early. As a university stukibbutzim Collective agricultural settlements set up
by Jewish settlers in what is now Israel in the late
nineteenth century and continuing to the present.
consumer cooperatives Organizations of consumers
who band together to obtain better prices from producers and share any profits derived from sales.
G. W. F. Hegel (17701831) Important philosopher of
the nineteenth century whose philosophy of historical
progress was crucial for Marx.
Critics of Industrialization
619
Summary
Review Questions
What were the most important economic and social
effects of industrialization?
Describe the rise of class consciousness in diverging
middle-class and working-class identities.
Compare and contrast the remedies proposed by
reformers and socialists.
made of their lives. They emphasized education, sobriety, intelligence, and hard work to justify their increasing wealth and political power.
Industrialization also created a working class of
mainly impoverished factory laborers who worked
and lived in dangerous conditions. Crowded together
in the unhygienic, polluted new industrial cities,
workers began to develop their own consciousness
that is, an identity of belonging together and sharing
common goals, often in direct opposition to the goals
of the middle class. Some radical workers organized
to improve working and living conditions. But they
faced severe legal and practical limits on their efforts
to unionize or to gain political rights.
Industrial capitalism created both enormous wealth
and great poverty. Liberal reformers sought improvements in legislated incremental steps. Socialists argued
that the current economic and social order should be
restructured so that wealth created by industrialization could improve life for all. The utopian socialists
believed that the benefits of industrialization could
be better distributed throughout society if only the
will existed to make that choice. Karl Marx, on the
other hand, insisted that only violent revolution could
bring about an end to class-based inequality. The vision of the future held by middle-class liberal reformers, utopian socialists, and Marxists had much in
commona prosperous, just, and humane society
but the methods they proposed for achieving this vision differed enormously and are still argued in
contemporary political debates.
620
Compare the society that industrialization created with working and living conditions in societies that preceded it.
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Standardized Time
What time is it? The question is for us simple and natural, but our sense of time is historically new. The idea
of time as preciseregistering minutes and seconds around the globederives from the needs of industrialization. In traditional agricultural societies, there was no need for precise time. People followed the natural rhythms of sunrise and sunset, working longer during the longer daylight hours of summer than during
the shorter daylight hours of winter. And if the church tower clock in one village said 12:30 while the clock
in the village two miles down the road said 12:40, it did not matter.
Websites
New industrial factories, however, demanded more precise timekeeping. Expensive machines could not be
left idle for even a few minutes, so it was crucial that workers arrive on time to start their shifts. Anyone
arriving late was subject to stiff penaltiesloss of an hours pay, or even a half days wages, for a minutes
tardiness. Working families now had to have a clock in their dwelling, and often the father carried a small
onecalled a watchin his pocket (not on his wrist, as this was seen as effeminate).
Even more than factories, however, railroads required timekeeping to be precise and standardized. Differences in village church clocks could not be tolerated, because a difference of even a minute could mean
catching, or missing, a train. Rail lines announced their timetables, and the village clocks had to comply.
Following some confusion when different rail lines themselves used different times, a nationwide uniform
time was established in Britain. By 1850, all clocks showed the same timeat least in theory.
For large countries such as India, Russia, and the United States, however, a single time zone was impractical. This problem was solved by the creation of time zones in 1883 and the establishment of Greenwich
(after the Naval Observatory outside London located on the prime meridian, or 0 degrees longitude) Mean
Time (GMT) a year later. From then on, time anywhere on the globe could be calculated by GMT plus or
minus any number of hours: New York is GMT minus five hours; New Zealand, GMT plus twelve hours. At
first, the French set their standard based on Paris rather than Greenwich, but by the early twentieth century,
they, too, had accepted GMT. Today we take standardized times for granted, and atomic clocks are accurate
to one second in 20 million yearsprecise enough to catch any train.
Suggested Readings
Chamberlin, E. R. The Awakening Giant: Britain in the Industrial Revolution. London: Batsford, 1976. An engaging illustrated study.
Henderson, W. O. Britain and Industrial Europe, 17501870.
Leicester, England: Leicester University Press, 1972. And account of how British techniques and entrepreneurs helped industrialize the continent.
Kolokowski, Leszek. Main Currents of Marxism. 3 vols. New
York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2005. Everything you ever wanted
to know, from Marxs philosophical sources to post-Stalinism.
Pollard, Sidney. Peaceful Conquest: The Industrialization of
Europe, 17601970. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981. Sophisticated explanation of how Europe industrialized.
Websites
Huge amount of information on Marx, Engels, and company,
with a definite political agenda, Marxists Internet Archive, at
www.marxists.org
All about the Industrial Revolution in Britain, from inventors
to places to workers, Cotton Times, at www.cottontimes.co.uk
621
622
CHAPTER
The Triumph
of the Nation-State,
18481900
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Theodor Herzl Creates Modern
Zionism
Introduction
1500 B.C.E.
1000 B.C.E.
1810s
Luddite revolts protest
industrialization in
England
1800
1805
1810
Summary
Echo: National Anthems and National
Identity
Suggested Readings
Websites
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1815
Napoleon is
finally defeated
at Waterloo
1815
1820s
Industrialization
begins in
Belgium and
northern France
1820
1824
British
Combination
Acts are
repealed
1825
FINLAND
KINGDOM OF
SWEDEN AND
NORWAY
St. Petersburg
Oslo
Stockholm
Pale of Settlement
ESTONIANS
SCOTLAND
Moscow
LATVIANS
UNITED KINGDOM
OF GREAT BRITAIN
AND IRELAND
Dublin
Riga
North
Sea
DENMARK
IRELAND
Copenhagen
Baltic
Sea
RUSSIAN EMPIRE
SCHLESWIG
HOLSTEIN
El
NETHERLANDS
ENGLAND
Danzig
Vis
tu l
G E RMAN E MP I RE
Amsterdam
Warsaw
KINGDOM OF
POLAND
(Russia)
BELGIUM
R hi
Cologne
Kiev
D n ie
ne
Se
ne
Luxembourg
Paris
Frankfurt
LUX.
Prague CZECHS
ALSACELORRAINE
AT
IA
Rhne
dr
ti
Rome
IA
ROMANIA
Belgrade
SERBIA
HERZEGOVINA
BULGARIA
ALBANIA
Istanbul
(Sp.)
Med
GILBRALTAR
(Gr. Br.)
Algiers
ite
A N
GREECE
rra
Tunis
ALGERIA
ne
TUNIS
Athens
an
Se
CRETE
(France)
1000 C.E.
E M
P I R E
Sicily
Malta
(Gr. Br.)
(France)
Black
Sea
WALLACHIA
Danube
MONTENEGRO
Se
Naples
Sardinia
Baleric Is.
BOSNIA
LM
ia
Elba
Corsica
(Fr.)
500 C.E.
IA
DA
ne
Marseilles
SPAIN
MOROCCO
AV
TRANSYLVANIA
CROATIA
Po Venice
ITALY
Madrid
Tangier
AB
HUNGARY
OL
Milan
Eb
r
AL
Pest
AR
Buda
SS
ro
UKRAINIANS
BE
Zurich
SWITZERLAND
1500 C.E.
200
400 Km.
200
2000 C.E.
1870
Franco-Prussian
War begins
1871
Germany is unified
1870
1875
per
iest
er
Vienna
Lyons
Ga
Dn
Munich
FRANCE
Cracow
GALICIA
SLOVAKS
L o ire
UG
Berlin
ATLANTI C
OCEAN
RT
BELARUSIANS
be
AL
ES
Manchester
London
PO
LITHUANIANS
1896
Herzl publishes
The Jewish State
1878
Bulgaria
gains autonomy
1880
1885
1890
1895
1900
623
400 Mi.
624
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Theodor Herzl Creates Modern Zionism
Theodor Herzl
Theodor Herzl, here depicted
in a poster announcing the
fifty-year anniversary of the
Histadrut Zionist trade union,
proclaimed a proud new
Jewish identity. Herzls Zionism insisted that Jews were
not just a religious group but
a nation and that they could
never live in freedom until
they obtained their own
state. His dignified bearing
symbolized the demand that
Jews be treated with respect.
(Library of Congress)
In 1895 journalist Theodor Herzl was in Paris covering the trial of Captain
Alfred Dreyfus, who had been accused of spying for the Germans. Like Herzl
himself, Dreyfus was an assimilated, Europeanized Jew. The trial was held
more than a century after the French Revolution had promised equal rights
to Jewish citizens. But the trial was unfair: Dreyfuss Jewish background was
held against him. In the streets crowds shouted Death to the Jews! Herzl
was shocked, and he wrote in his diary, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to combat antisemitism. He concluded that Jews would always
be outsiders in the European countries in which they dwelled. They would be
exilesas Hebrew teachings phrased ituntil they had their own Jewish
state. Jews were not just a religious group; they were a nation.
Herzl had experienced antisemitism. As a student at the University of Vienna
in the early 1880s, he had been denied admission into a prestigious fraternity
because of his Jewish origins. He had been furious, for he felt himself Austrian
by culture, upbringing, and language, and more patriotic than most. Being
Jewish was just a personal religious matter. But the young Herzl learned a hard
lesson: for a Jew, no matter how assimilated, wealthy, and intelligent, some avenues
were closed. Herzl graduated and became a well-known playwright and journalist in
Vienna, indistinguishable from other middle-class Viennese, with an unhappy marriage, a lifestyle that outstripped his income, and a love for wit and culture.
Vienna was a thriving center for German Jewish culture, with such
distinguished writers as Stefan Zweig and Arthur Schnitzler, composers like Alban
Berg and Arnold Schoenberg, and of course the renowned psychiatrist Sigmund
Freud. In this environment, surrounded by other Jews like himGerman speaking,
cultured, successfulHerzl tried to believe that Jews could retain their religion
and still live in harmony with their Christian neighbors. But that was before he
covered what became known as the Dreyfus affair.
Despite the absurdity of the accusation and the flimsy evidence against him,
Dreyfus was court-martialed and exiled to Devils Island off the coast of South America. It was later discovered that the army had manipulated and forged evidence
against him. By that time, Herzl was already a Jewish nationalist, a Zionist. In 1896
he published a small book entitled The Jewish State, which proposed a political
solution to what Europeans called the Jewish questionthe proper relation between Jews and the states where they lived. Once Jews had their own state, Herzl
argued, the other nations of the world would respect them. Other central and eastern European Jewish thinkers had reached similar conclusions before Herzlin part,
in reaction to the shock of the 1881 wave of anti-Jewish violence in the Russian
Empirebut he apparently did not know any of them. Even the term Zionism had
been used before Herzl, but he gave the movement new political force and vigor.
In 1897, Herzl summoned a symbolic parliament of European Jews to the
Swiss city of Basel. At this First Zionist Congress he issued a call for all Jews to unite
to create a Jewish state. Though he did not specify where that state would be
founded, the obvious place was Palestinefor Jews, Eretz Israel (land of Israel),
an Ottoman province between Egypt and Syria. After all, Jews prayed every year
at Passover to meet again next year in Jerusalem. Most Jews in western Europe
did not respond to Herzls call. Feeling secure and patriotic in France, Britain, and
Germany, they firmly rejected the idea of a Jewish nation and feared that Zionism
could worsen anti-Jewish feelings. But in eastern Europe, particularly in the Russian Empire, Herzls call was received with joy. Visiting Russia in 1903, Herzl was
lauded as king of the Jews in towns throughout the Pale of Settlement, where
Russian Jews were forced to reside.
Herzl did not live to see his ideal realized. When he died in 1904, very few
people believed that Zionism could succeedthe political, economic, and religious
obstacles seemed too great. But, as Herzl once remarked, If you believe it, it is
not a dream. Forty-four years after Herzls death, two thousand years after the
Jewish people were sent into exile, the state of Israel declared its independence.
The Jewish people had their own state.
Introduction
In 1848, revolutions across Europe ended the conservative, antiliberal, and antinational period initiated at the
Congress of Vienna and symbolized by the Austrian
625
626
Chronology
1848
18481849
1852
18701871
1875
18541856
18771878
1859
1861
18611865
1878
1894
1896
1897
1901
1901
1863
1866
1867
prime minister Clemens von Metternich. While different circumstances in each capital city and region
sparked the uprisings, all demanded a broadening of
political rights and recognition of nationalist concerns. In the short run, all were unsuccessful. The
Prussian king and Austrian emperor were threatened
but remained on their thrones. In France, the newly
elected president, Louis Napoleon, declared himself
Emperor Napoleon III and crushed political opposition. Still, the failure of 1848 helped pave the way
for the triumph of national ideasthough not of
liberalismsome twenty years later, when the nationstates of Italy and Germany were created. Similarly,
while the constitutions granted in 1848 were not always respected, the precedent of constitutional rule
had been established and would gain political authority in subsequent decades.
627
628
During 1848, revolutionaries built barricades in the streets of many cities, as in this image of a barricade built
during the March 1848 uprising in Berlin. The rebels fly the black-red-gold tricolor of German liberalism and
fight for a united, liberal Germany against the Prussian kings troops. (Landesarchiv, Berlin/akg-images)
629
630
promoted liberal ideas, only to find themselves opposed by other liberal nationalists who remained
loyal to traditional authority. In central Europe, nationalist slogans combined with liberal ideas and proposals. Socialist ideas were also discussed, though
the actual influence of socialism in 1848 was small.
Liberalism was certainly the most important political ideology in 1848. The revolutionaries called
for constitutions, popular representation, and an end
to censorship. In Paris, liberalism momentarily triumphed, then was challenged from the left. In central
Europe, middle-class liberals learned that the masses
of workers and peasants were not always willing to
follow their lead, especially if liberal policies did not
also promote low bread prices, decent wages, and
employment opportunities.
Marx and Engelss Communist Manifesto, published
in 1848, had been written before the revolutionary
outbreaks, and its influence was small, in part because it was available only in German. Socialist ideas
such as the abolition of inheritance and landed property, state control of credit and transportation, and
free education had not yet gained broad support.
Only in Paris did avowed socialists like Louis Blanc,
father of the national workshops, play a significant
part in the revolutions. On the whole, however, rebelling workers and peasants in 1848 knew nothing
about socialism. Their demands were more tangible:
lower taxes, cheaper food, jobs. Only later in the nineteenth century would Marxs pamphlet become basic
reading for a mass audience.
Nationalism played a very visible role in 1848,
though it scored few victories. Neither Germany nor
Italy was united, the Hungarian attempt to secure autonomy and national rights was put down by Vienna,
and the Slavic Congress in Prague was dissolved. In
most parts of Europe, most people did not yet think in
national terms. People spoke local dialects that were
often far from standard written forms of, say, the German language that the Grimm brothers were working
so hard to define. People identified themselves more
often as inhabitants of a village, as Catholics, or as
Jews than as Hungarians or Czechs or Germans. But
nationalist movements in 1848 helped popularize the
idea that languages like Czech, Ukrainian, Romanian,
Slovak, and Croatian deserved respectand rights.
Crucially, the central idea of nationalismthat a state
must defend the values of a nationwas expressed by
revolutionaries from Paris to Berlin, from Palermo to
Budapest. While the revolutions of 1848 did not establish nation-states in central Europe, they helped spread
the ideals of nationalism.
After 1848, the political center shifted significantly
to the left. Few thinking Europeans continued to defend divine-right monarchy, and increasing numbers
of educated middle-class people embraced political
liberalism or even socialism as solutions to societys
problems. The liberals are particularly interesting in
this context. Before 1848, they constituted a small minority in the politics of every European country save
Britain. After midcentury, liberal ideas and liberal figures took on new importance not only in Britain,
France, and other western European countries, but
even in Russia, the Habsburg lands (after 1867,
Austria-Hungary), and southern Europe. Thus, the
liberals who were defeated in 1848 had by 1900 become an importantin some cases, a predominant
part of the political landscape. And by this time they
recognized that the greatest challenge to liberalism
came not from conservatives but from the growing
socialist movement.
Yet conservatism was not dead. The peasant unrest
of 1848 convinced rulers to abolish the last vestiges of
serfdom in Europe, except in Russia. After 1848, the
peasantry in western and central Europe became a
bulwark of conservative and religious forces. The
Catholic Church, badly shaken by the years events,
which had temporarily forced Pope Pius IX to flee
from Rome, turned away from any kind of liberal reform. Until nearly the end of the century, the Catholic
Church would be a solid bulwark of traditional authority, condemning constitutions, nationalism, and
popular representation in government.
Many of the rejected national demands of 1848
were resurrected a generation or so later. Italian unification took place in the 1860s, partly through Garibaldis continued efforts. The Hungarian demands to
Vienna in 1848 were granted two decades later in the
Compromise of 1867, which gave the Hungarians
domestic autonomy in the empire. The Slavic Congress
of 1848 can be seen as a precursor of the Pan-Slav
movement of the 1870s that aimed to unite all Slavic
peoples from the Adriatic to the Pacific under the Romanovs. Thus, immediate failures of 1848 masked future triumphs.
Pius IX (r. 18461878) Pope who became a staunch conservative, refusing to acknowledge Italian unification
and condemning all forms of modernity.
Compromise of 1867 Agreement between Austria and
Hungary dividing the country into two autonomous
parts, linked by a common budget, military, and foreign policy.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, nationalists translated their ideas into political realities. The
greatest triumph of the national principle was the creation of two large, unified states in the middle of
Europe: Italy and Germany. Both had conservative
constitutions under powerful monarchs (the Prussian
king took on the title of Kaiser (emperor), to the disappointment of liberal nationalists. Norway and Bulgaria
also became independent states in this era. Nations
lacking states stressed ethnic unity and linguistic
solidarity. Throughout Europe, nationalism became
exclusionary. Across the Atlantic, the United States
experienced a mass immigration of European peoples.
Camille Cavour (18101861) Prime minister and adviser to the King of Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel II, who
in 1861 became the first king of united Italy.
Vatican Seat of the Catholic Church and the popes
residence, in central Rome on the Tiber River.
631
NORWAY
Stockholm
North
IRELAND
SWEDEN
Sea
GREAT
Tipperary
DENMARK
SCHLESWIG
BRITAIN
RUSSIAN
HOLSTEIN
KINGDOM
OF THE
NETHERLANDS
ATLANTIC
MECKLENBURG
HANOVER
BELGIUM
Dresden
HESSE
Paris
BADEN
Prague
Cracow
BAVARIA
WRTTEMBERG
AUSTRIAN EMPIRE
Pressburg
Pest
Munich
Vienna
SWITZERLAND
Lyons
Posen
POLAND
SAXONY
Stuttgart
FRANCE
EMPIRE
I A
S Berlin
Frankfurt
OCEAN
AUSTRIA
Buda
PI
Novara
Piedmont
Custozza
Venice
Milan
Turin
CROATIA
Parma
Modena
SPAIN
TUSCANY PAPAL
STATES
nean
Sea
WALLACHIA
Bucharest
SERBIA
MONTENEGRO
KINGDOM
Naples
Sardinia
Mediterra
TRANSYLVANIA
Rome
Corsica
(France)
MOLDAVIA
OF
GDOM
KIN
T AND SARDINIA
MON
Florence
Jassy
Koloszvar
HUNGARY
BOSNIA
ED
PO
RT
UG
AL
632
A N
OF THE
Palermo
E M
P I R
E
TWO SICILIES
GREECE
Sicily
Uprisings
Peaceful reforms
250
500 Km.
250
500 Mi.
Crete
Revolutions of 1848 During 1848 uprisings occurred throughout the continent, with the
major exceptions of England and Russia.
MAP 22.1
twentieth century. In 1870, most subjects of King Victor Emmanuel spoke not standard Italian, but dialects, and retained strong regional identities. As one
statesman put it, We have made Italy; now we must
make Italians.
Otto von Bismarck (18151898) Prominent conservative Prussian statesman, chancellor (prime minister)
and architect of German unification in 1871.
AUSTRIAN EMPIRE
SWITZERLAND
(From Austria)
Magenta
Trieste
Villafranca
Solferino
Po
PIEDMONT
PARMA
OD
Genoa
Venice
ROMAGNA
Bologna
EN
FRANCE
NICE
I N
Nice
LUCCA
Pisa
Florence
AR
CH
ES
T i be r
dr
ia
Elba
PAPAL STATES
ti
Se
(1870)
N T - S A R D I N I A
P I E D M O
Medit
O F
SARDINIA
OTTOMAN EMPIRE
M
TUSCANY
M
D O
CORSICA
(France)
Marseilles
Milan
Turin
Major battles
VENETO
LOMBARDY
SAVOY
(To France 1860)
err
Rome
Bari
Naples
Taranto
Tyrrhenian Sea
KINGDOM OF
THE TWO SICILIES
ane
Palermo
an
Se
SICILY
Strait of
Messina
0
0
50
100 Km.
50
100 Mi.
Unification of Italy In the decade between 1860 and 1870, Italy was united. This process
brought together regions of great economic and social diversity under the rule of Rome, which officially
became the capital of the newly united Italy in 1871.
MAP 22.2
633
634
635
636
637
638
50
50
SWEDEN
100 Km.
DENMARK
100 Mi.
N ema n
Baltic Sea
Knigsberg
SCHLESWIG
Danzig
Kiel
HOLSTEIN
Lbeck
Hamburg
Bremen
Leipzig
Weimar
Bonn
Frankfurt
Sedan
1870
Rh
Karlsruhe
Stuttgart
SILESIA
Cracow
Prague
BOHEMIA
Olmtz
Nuremberg
MORAVIA
BAVARIA
WRTTEMBERG
Strasbourg
ALSA
CE
Dresden
a
tav
Vl
LORRAINE
Nancy
ar
eck
i ne
POLAND
Oder
Sadowa
1866
Luxembourg
Verdun
RUSSIAN EMPIRE
SAXONY
Mai
n
os
ell
e
RHINE
PROVINCE
Warsaw
POSEN
BELGIUM
Antwerp
Vistul
a
Wa
rta
lde
Mu
WESTPHALIA
Essen
Ru
hr
Cologne
A
BRANDENBURG
Berlin
Hanover
NETHERLANDS
WEST PRUSSIA
Elb
e
HANOVER
Amsterdam
POMERANIA
MECKLENBURG
Mo
ra
va
OLDENBURG
EAST PRUSSIA
North Sea
Munich
Da n u b e
Inn
Vienna
BADEN
FRANCE
Innsbruck
SWITZERLAND
A U
N
Buda
Pest
ITALY
MAP 22.3
Unification of Germany, 1871 Germany was unified in great part through the efforts of
Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. The creation of this large German state in central Europe put
severe strains on the diplomatic balance of power existing in Europe since the Congress of Vienna.
African Americans, Du Bois helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP) in 1909. Asians who had migrated
to the United States West Coast in large numbers
beginning in the mid-nineteenth century were also
subject to discrimination. Congress ended Chinese
immigration in 1882, and a diplomatic arrangement
639
640
After 1848, political participation increased throughout Europe. By the end of the century, almost all males
in Britain and France could vote, as they also could in
newly united Italy and Germany. In the stateless nations in the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires, agitation
for political rights strengthened. Everywhere leaders
used education as a means of influencing citizens to
identify with the state, its culture, and its interests.
States also intruded into the economy to encourage
local industry and keep out foreign competition.
Across Europe, the role of the state in citizens lives
expanded.
The impact of this expanding political participation was enormous. With mass political participation
came the need for governments to respond to public
opinion. Some governments used secret subsidies to
influence the opinions newspapers expressed. For example, it was an open secret that the Russian government paid large sums to the Belgian daily Le Nord,
which then gave favorable coverage of Russian affairs. Governments also paid editors to print favorable news and suppress embarrassing information.
Most governments attempted to limit the information
reaching their citizens through censorship, but as the
amount of information freely available to citizens
grew, politics could no longer remain confined to a
few wealthy families.
The new political power of peasant and workingclass men changed the agendas of political parties.
Conservative parties attempted to gain peasant support by appealing to Christian (often Catholic) values
and denouncing godless urban socialists and, in
some cases, the Jews. Liberal parties increasingly
modified their laissez-faire attitudes to support limits
Third Republic (18701940) Longest continuous republic in French history, beginning with the defeat in
the Franco-Prussian war and ending with military
defeat by Hitler.
Duma Russian legislature, granted by Tsar Nicholas II
in 1906 and lasting until the Revolution of 1917.
641
642
nized the importance of schools for forming the population into well-trained workers and patriotic citizens.
Everywhere, literacy improved, though at unequal
rates. At midcentury, more than 70 percent of the
population in Scandinavia, Germany, Scotland, and
the United States was literate; by 1913, the figure was
over 90 percent, not only in those countries but also in
Great Britain (including Ireland), Australia, New
Zealand, Austria, and France. Even in backward Russia,
nearly half of the population was literate by this time.
Generally, literacy rates were higher in urban than rural areas, among men than women, and in Protestant
countries than in Catholic countries, probably because of Protestantisms emphasis on Bible reading.
The spread of mandatory elementary education,
though not rapid, was steady. From the late eighteenth
century onward, Prussia obliged parents to send their
children to school. In France, a law promising free,
compulsory, and universal elementary education was
passed in the wake of the 1848 revolution, though it
took several decades to be implemented. Great Britain
instituted universal primary education in 1871, and
this system grew rapidly in the next few decades. Even
in Russia, where the spread of literacy was hampered
by poverty and the governments distrust of teachers,
who were suspected of revolutionary sympathies, the
numbers of primary schools increased significantly in
the decades up to 1914, and plans were under way to
introduce free and universal primary education.
The nature and philosophy of education changed
radically, with its practicalrather than moral or
religiousaspects getting more attention. In Prussia,
traditional classical high schools, or Gymnasien, that
emphasized Latin and Greek were supplemented by
more practical secondary schools teaching mathematics and science to prepare workers for a new industrial
economy. New institutions of higher learningin
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644
Nationalism and
its Opponents
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Theodor Herzl Speculates on the Impact of
Jewish Immigration to Palestine
When Theodor Herzl proposed the creation of a Jewish state in 1896, he focused
not on a location or an exact form of government but on the simple fact that Jews
should have their own state to shelter them from persecution and to foster their
national pride. In his writings, however, he envisioned an economically modern
state that would be liberal and democratic in its politics. He also envisioned good
relations between Jews and Arabs. In this passage from Old-New Land, a fictional
English visitor speaks with an Arab landowner about the impact of Jewish immigration to Palestine.
Kingscourt comment on
Reschids European education? Which culture does
Kingscourt see as superior?
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646
A pair of French cartoons illustrates the bitter controversy caused by the Dreyfus Affair within French society
and even within individual families. The first cartoon reads Above all lets not talk about the Dreyfus Affair;
the secondThey talked about it. (Archives Charmet/The Bridgeman Art Library)
Strains in the
Multinational Empires
While Jews felt directly threatened by the new aggressive nationalism, the conservative multinational empires of eastern and central Europe were indirectly
threatened. The Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary,
and Russia were all defined by dynastic loyalties and
contained within their borders a wide diversity of
groups increasingly conscious of their national and
ethnic identities. Their demands for cultural and political rights undermined the stability of these empires.
The Ottoman Empire was a kaleidoscope of ethnic
diversity, including, at midcentury, Slavs, Albanians,
Arabs, and othersit was not a Turkish state. Sultan
scientific racism Nineteenth-century biological theory
that claimed humanity is divided into three races with
different physical, mental, and sexual capacities.
antisemitism Anti-Jewish political movement arising
in Germany in the 1870s and spreading to many countries, in particular in eastern Europe.
Wilhelm Marr (18191904) German writer who coined
the word antisemitism, arguing that Jews posed a major
threat to European peoples and culture.
Aryan Designation for non-Jews, implying that Jews
belonged in a specific semitic race, while other white
Europeans belonged to the Aryan race.
Theodor Herzl (18601904) Viennese journalist who
founded modern Zionism.
Dreyfus affair Series of trials between 1894 and 1906
involving the false accusation of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer on the French general staff, of
spying for the Germans.
Zionism View that Jews were not merely a religious
community, but a nation; also a movement advocating
the formation of a modern Jewish state in Palestine.
pogrom In Russia in 1881 and later, organized attacks
on Jews and Jewish property.
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648
Armenians Christian ethnic group living in the Russian and Ottoman Empires, subject to violent attacks
under Sultan Abdul Hamid II.
the Russian Empire in the early twentieth century, nationalism was one of the most threatening.
Whereas the Russian Empire adopted a policy of russification and repression, Austria-Hungary attempted
reconciliation. After the Compromise of 1867 divided
the empire into two separate halves, Austria and
Hungary ran their own domestic affairs separately,
sharing military and diplomatic affairs. They also
shared, of course, a ruler: Francis Joseph was emperor
(Kaiser) in Vienna, but king (kirly) in Budapest. The
rights of minority nationalities were assured by law
throughout Austria-Hungary, but in practice the
Hungarians tried to impose their language on the
Slovaks and Romanians who lived in Hungary. Anyone wishing to gain an education and rise socially
would have to master the difficult Hungarian language. Rather like in Russia, this harsh policy had the
opposite effect of what Budapest hoped for. Slovak
and Romanian peasants were easily propagandized
by nationalists, who pointed out that they would
have better economic, cultural, and educational opportunities in their own national states.
In Austria, the national issue was a source of constant political complications. Among the larger nonGerman groups were Czechs, Poles, and Ukrainians
(Ruthenians). Poles were given broad autonomy in
the eastern region of Galicia, where they lived in
large numbers. Somewhat later, the Ukrainians of
eastern Galicia were granted special language rights.
Little by little, Czechs also made significant gains,
such as being able to use their language in schools
and state offices. The 1882 split of Prague University
into German and Czech institutions was also a major
achievement for the Czechs. These concessions served
to embolden rather than pacify the nationalists. At
the same time, German nationalism was on the rise,
and in Vienna it was difficult to piece together a lasting government coalition from the various battling
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parties. Some were already predicting that the Habsburg Empire would not survive the death of its elderly ruler, Francis Joseph, who had been on the
throne since 1848.
Internationalism in Politics
Socialists were even more opposed to nationalism
than the Catholic Church. In 1864 socialists set up the
International, bringing together socialists from different countries. In particular the Second Socialist
Pope Pius IX started his papacy as a liberal, but the Revolutions of 1848 transformed him into a staunch conservative. He
opposed liberalism, socialism, and nationalismincluding
the unification of Italy. His rejection of Italian unification led
to tensions between the Catholic Church and the Italian
nation-state that were not resolved until the twentieth century. (Hulton Deutsch Collection/Corbis)
Summary
Summary
Review Questions
Why were the revolutions of 1848 so important for
political and national histories in Europe?
How was nationalism transformed as an ideology
from the early to late nineteenth century?
How did European national and religious identities
change during this period?
European history in the nineteenth century is traditionally divided at 1848. In that year, people across
651
among their subjects through policies such as russification, these multinational empires could not subdue
the nationalist movements that aimed to split up the
empires. The political and national identities of these
empires ruling classes increasingly diverged from
those of the empires subject masses.
Socialists, pacifists, and even the Catholic Church
also criticized nationalism as an aggressive and divisive movement. Still, the idea that every culture
deserves respect and perhaps even political rights
was gaining ground. At the same time, more and
more Europeans came to see their own nation as superior to others and proclaimed the right of superior
nations to dominate the inferior. Such conceptions,
transferred from the national to the racial sphere, also
influenced the course of European imperialism.
652
How do you imagine that early liberal nationalists such as the Grimm brothers viewed the
actual shape nationalism took during and after
the unification of Germany?
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
National Anthems and National Identity
We take national anthems for granted, but they are largely nineteenth-century inventions. France led the
way during the Revolution, when La Marseillaise was sung during the march on Paris in 1792 and decreed the national anthem in 1795. Its stirring phrases about defending the homeland against the forces of
tyranny, whose impure blood should water our fields, led Emperor Napoleon to ban it during his time.
Authorized after the July Revolution of 1830, it was again banned by Napoleon III and not reinstated until
1879. The German national anthem, a poem written in 1841 and sung to the music of Joseph Haydn,
originally began with the words Deutschland, Deutschland, ber alles / ber alles in der Welt (Germany,
Germany above all / Above everything in the world). By this the poet expressed a longing for German
unity and a German identity above all local identities. But during the Nazi era, the words were taken to
express an aim of German world domination, and at the end of World War II, the Allies banned this verse,
which also cited German boundaries along rivers that were now solidly in France, Germany, Italy, and the
Soviet Union. Today only the poems third verse is sung on occasions when a national anthem is called for.
Thus, national anthems reflect not only national identity but national history. The Polish national anthem,
written after Poland was partitioned, portrays a spirit undaunted: Poland is not lost, as long as we are
alive. Swedens anthem praises the old, free, and mountainous northeven though many of the mountains were lost to Norway in 1905. Israels Ha-Tikva (The Hope), written in 1878, expresses the twothousand-year-old hope for a return to Zion and Jerusalem. Czechoslovakia had two quite distinct national
anthems, both sung to the same melody. The Czech anthem stated, Czech land is my fatherland! while
the Slovak version declared, Slovaks are awakening. After the Russian revolution, the new Soviet Union
Websites
took The Internationale of the world socialist movement as its anthem. Only later was a Soviet anthem
written, praising the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a bulwark of peace and harmony led by the party
of V. I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin. After Stalins death, the text underwent some revision.
Americans are generally more emotional about their national anthem than are Europeans. Typically Europeans stand silently when their anthems are played, while Americans stand with their hands over their
hearts, sometime even joining along in song.
Suggested Readings
Brubaker, Rogers. Citizenship and Nationhood in France and
Germany. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992.
A well-documented presentation of two opposing concepts of
nationhood.
Hobsbawm, Eric J. Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1992. A well-argued synthesis that combines
theory and history.
Lindemann, Albert S. Esaus Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and
the Rise of the Jews. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000. An argument for the close connection between
social change and the rise of antisemitism.
Websites
On the history of anarchism, with a definite political agenda,
Anarchist History, at http://struggle.ws/history.html
An encyclopedia of people, places, and events of the 1848 revolutions, Encyclopedia of Revolutions of 1848, at www.ohiou
.edu/~Chastain/contents.htm
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CHAPTER
The Culture of
Industrial Europe,
18501914
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Marie Curie-Sklodowska
Chooses to Study Physics
Introduction
The Second Industrial Revolution
New Materials, New Industries, New
Technologies
Communications and Transportation
Networks
New Places and Patterns of Work
The New Concept of Leisure
Mass Society
Mass Consumption
Public Health
Families and Feminism
Summary
Echo: Tourism
Suggested Readings
1500 B.C.E.
1000 B.C.E.
1851
Crystal Palace Exhibition
opens in London
Half of English population
lives in cities
1850
Websites
1855
1860
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1867
Nobel patents
dynamite
1869
Suez Canal
opens
in Egypt
1865
1870
1872
Nietzsche
publishes
The Birth of
Tragedy
1875
1879
Edison
invents the
electric
lightbulb
1880
Railroads, 1870
St. Petersburg
Helsinki
Railroads, 1914
Stockholm
Vo l
Boundaries, 1914
Belfast
Newcastle
Riga
North
Sea
DENMARK
GREAT
BRITAIN
Dublin
El
Danzig
Hamburg
be
NETHERLANDS
Lodz
Brussels
Kiev
R hi
Cologne
Lege
Dn ie
ne
Se
ne
LUX.
Luxembourg
Frankfurt
Prague
Cracow
Paris
Stuttgart
L oi
re
D on
RUSSIA
Warsaw
Berlin
Antwerp
BELGIUM
Vis
tul
a
GERMANY
Amsterdam
ATLAN T I C
O C EAN
Baltic
Sea
Copenhagen
Manchester
Birmingham
London
ga
Moscow
Edinburgh
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
Munich
Zurich
Dn
per
iest
er
Vienna
Budapest
SWITZERLAND
Lyons
AL
UG
Genoa
Po
Belgrade
Marseilles
Florence
ITALY
Elba
Madrid
Corsica
Lisbon
ROMANIA
Venice
ia
dr
SPAIN
Milan
Turin
RT
FRANCE
o
br
PO
ro
ne
Bilbao
Rhne
Ga
Oviedo
ti
SERBIA
Se
Tangier
GILBRALTAR
(Gr. Br.)
ite
rra
ne
Tunis
ALGERIA
O T T O M A
N
E M
P I
R E
Athens
Sicily
an
Malta
(France)
MOROCCO
Istanbul
ALBANIA
GREECE
Med
Algiers
BULGARIA
Naples
Sardinia
Black
Sea
MONTENEGRO
Rome
Baleric Is.
Bucharest
Danube
Se
(France)
Crete
Cyprus
TUNISIA
(France)
lllll
Suez Canal
1869
l
l ll
200
400 Km.
200
400 Mi.
LIBYA
EGYPT
(Italy)
(Gr. Br .)
Red
Sea
Ni
le
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
1500 C.E.
2000 C.E.
1907
Bakelite, first plastic, is invented
1885
First skyscraper
is completed
1885
1900
Planck formulates
quantum theory
1890
1895
1900
1908
Ford Motor Company
produces first Model T
1905
1910
1915
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Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Marie Curie-Sklodowska Chooses
to Study Physics
Marie Curie
Maria Curie-Sklodowska,
known as Madame Curie,
was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in
Physics and the first person
to receive the Nobel Prize
twice (the second time in
chemistry). Her important
discoveries in the field of
radioactivity are remembered
in the name of two elements,
polonium (after Poland, her
native land) and curium (for
Curie) One of the largest
universities in Poland, in the
eastern city of Lublin, also
bears her name. (Bettmann/
Corbis)
1911. At this time she was named to the faculty of the prestigious Sorbonne in
Paris, the first woman to be so honored. Under her leadership, research in chemistry and physics blossomed there. Her daughter Irne Joliot-Curie also became a
distinguished scientist. Marie Curie died in 1934, one year before Irne and her
husband Frdric were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Marie Curies discoveries advanced scientific knowledge of radioactivity that
would be later expanded on to produce both nuclear power and atomic arms. But
her choice to dedicate her life to science had other important consequences. Her
dedication to science challenged conventional views of national minorities and the
capabilities of women. After Marie Curie, young women could more easily envision their own place as scientists, professors, and even Nobel Prize winners.
Introduction
The Second
Industrial Revolution
Marie Curies life and work reflect the vast and rapid
changes throughout Europe in the three generations
after 1850. Scientific advances challenged old modes
of understanding and even social norms. Science
quickened the pace of industrialization, which by the
end of the century had spread across the continent,
from northern Spain to Sweden to Russia. Industrialization generated profound shifts in social, political,
and cultural ideas. New technological advances from
the telegraph to the bicycle radically changed the
rhythm of everyday life. No less radical were new intellectual movements that rejected religion and attempted to apply the scientific method to all realms of
human experience, from social relations to the body
and sex. Artists and musicians challenged accepted
modes of expression, creating works of art that shocked
and enraged conservative critics. Womenlike Marie
Curiesought a more visible place in society, even
demanding political rights. The clash between traditional social and cultural expectations and new ways
of experiencing the world led some to fear that the
old and the new could never be reconciled.
New technology and the spread of industrial production had a broad impact on the population, helping
to create what we know as mass society. Significant
numbers of workers and peasants came to enjoy a
certain level of political freedom, comfort, and leisure
time. Despite economic differences and class prejudices, increasing numbers of people came to expect
that their children would be better educated, healthier, and better off materially than they had been. The
idea of progress gained broad support. Yet not everyone enjoyed social advancement, political participation, and cultural development, especially those in
central and eastern Europe. And not everyone welcomed the leveling effect on culture that the growth
In the second half of the nineteenth century, in particular after 1870, industrial and technological changes so
profoundly altered European life that the era is called
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Chronology
1851
1888
1859
1891
1862
1892
1863
1899
1867
1900
1867
1903
1869
1904
1872
1905
1907
1908
1876
1879
1885
tionized steel production. In 1861, before these innovations had begun to spread throughout Europe, the
total steel output in Britain, France, Germany, and
Belgium was around 125,000 tons. By 1871, production
had more than tripled and in 1913 topped 30 million
tonsover eighty times the figure of 1871. This massive output went into rails, railroad engines and cars,
steamships, and increasingly sophisticated weaponry.
Steel also allowed new forms in architecture: its
strength and flexibility meant that buildings could
expand upward to an unprecedented degree. The
skyscraperan American inventionwas the result.
The ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago
was erected in 1885, but expansion skyward was limited by the need to climb stairs. In 1887, this problem
was solved with the invention of the high-speed ele-
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660
John D. Rockefeller (18391937) Founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the American
petroleum market.
Thomas Edison (18471931) American inventor of the
microphone, record player, and the first commercially
practical light bulb.
Communications and
Transportation Networks
Perhaps no invention symbolized the compression of
time and space during this period better than the telegraph, invented in the United States in the late 1830s.
By the late 1860s, telegraph lines ran from one end of
Europe to the other and were even connected by
transatlantic cable to the United States. By the end of
the century, all continents were connected by underwater cable, meaning that a message could go from
London to Johannesburg to Calcutta to Sydney to
Vancouver in a matter of minutes. Telegrams were
sent using Morse code, a system of dots and dashes
representing letters invented for this purpose, and
flew through wires as electrical impulses. The telegraph required skilled operators who could translate
the dots and dashes into words, offices where individuals could send messages, and messenger boys (in
this period, nearly always male) to bring telegrams
often with bad newsto offices and residences. The
impact on government, industry, and private life was
enormous. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, news could travel no faster than horses or pigeons. By 1900, news traveled at the speed of light
from one corner of the globe to the other. On a practical level, the telegraph enabled, for example, the tsar
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1800
1900
St. Petersburg
Moscow
Copenhagen
Dublin
London
Hamburg
Amsterdam
Berlin
Paris
Warsaw
Vienna
Lyons
Marseilles
Madrid
Lisbon
Valencia
Milan
Barcelona
Venice
Rome
Naples
Istanbul
Palermo
0
0
250
500 Km.
250
500 Mi.
0
0
250
500 Km.
250
500 Mi.
MAP 23.1
European Cities with Populations over 100,000, 1800 and 1900 The rapid growth of
population combined with migration from rural to urban areas in Europe is reflected in the significant
increase in large cities during the course of the nineteenth century, as shown in this map.
Berlin, also opened in Budapest, Milan, and elsewhere. But saving money was also a middle-class
concern; the number of banks increased and, with
them, the number of clerks. Similarly, the number of
lawyers, physicians, and dentists went up markedly,
and these professionals employed even larger numbers as receptionists and assistants. Government bureaucracies also burgeoned as the states role in the
economy and everyday life grew. While most of these
new positions were filled by young men, women were
also able to find employment in banks, department
stores, and professional offices. They were, however,
expected to quit work upon marrying.
In western and central Europe, by the late nineteenth century the average workday had shrunk, partly
because of technological innovations and partly under pressure from organized labor. As fewer workers,
both in offices and in factories, lived adjacent to their
places of work and workdays shrank to ten and even
eight hours, the routine of transport/work/transport
became common. Through all layers of society in the
white-collar Employment that does not involve physical labor, such as that of professionals (lawyers, doctors, teachers) and office workers.
Bon March First department store, opened in Paris in
1852 and catered primarily to middle-class people.
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664
Mass Society
Mass Society
In the second half of the nineteenth century mass production in industry and mass consumption in department stores influenced the social order. High levels of
literacy, political participation, and (relatively speaking) material affluence in western Europe reduced
differences between social classes and expanded opportunities for social advancement. Measured by
these criteria, mass society appeared first in Britain
(excluding Ireland), Scandinavia, France, Belgium,
and the Netherlands. Central and southern Europe,
Russia, and the Balkans lagged behind. By the early
twentieth century, access to education and to some
level of political participation had come to be expected,
increasingly by women as well as men. Greater numbers of people were now able to enjoy better food,
brighter clothes, and a longer life. Advances in the biological sciences led to new medicines and vaccines.
The new opportunities for employment and consumption also influenced womens place in the home
and in society, opening the way for a new movement,
feminism.
Mass Consumption
The benefits of technological innovation came first to
the wealthy, but in the second half of the nineteenth
century, they expanded rapidly to the urban poor and
peasants out in the countryside. Mass production created a mass society in which prosperity spread among
different classes. This heightened affluence and widespread education meant that obvious external differences between high and low, such as clothes and
mass society Modern society characterized by universal legal rights, education, a large middle class, and a
high level of equality among classes.
665
666
blurring of social distinctions outrageous and complained that it was becoming impossible to distinguish people of good family from servants by dress,
and increasingly even by speech and manners.
Public Health
The population of Europe more than doubled between
1800 and 1900 (from around 200 million to 430 million), despite the departure of millions of emigrants
for the Americas. This population explosion can be
explained partly by better nutrition and the lack of
massive epidemics or major wars after 1815, but improvements in medical knowledge and treatment
were also a factor. Medical research paralleled work
in physics: both were searching for invisible causes
for certain phenomena. In physics, these were gamma
rays, x-rays, and radiation; in medical science, the invisible cause was the germ, which was discovered in
the 1880s. But long before that, scientists knew that
something spread diseases, and they devised practical
programs to prevent disease transmission. In the
eighteenth century it had been discovered that using
matter from cowpox pustules created an effective
vaccine against smallpox. Similarly, the connection
between dirty water, rotting waste, and disease had
long been madebut most continued to think that
disease was spread by foul smells.
Around 1820 cholera, a disease spread by unclean
water, spread from India and Central Asia to Russia
and western Europe. Crowded towns with minimal
hygiene and limited access to clean water were an
ideal breeding ground for the disease, which caused
epidemics in a number of cities. In London a major
outbreak in 1854 allowed the physician John Snow to
promote his theory that the disease spread not through
the air but by bad water. Snows data showing that all
the cholera victims had drunk water from a single
source, the Broad Street pump, convinced even his
critics. Snow was also one of the first physicians to
use chloroform and ether to deaden pain. His most
famous patient was Queen Victoria, who was grateful
for his treatments during childbirth.
Around the same time in France, Louis Pasteur
was demonstrating that heating wine to 55 degrees
Mass Society
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668
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Marie Curie Recalls Her Youth
in Russian Poland
In an autobiographical memoir that appeared in 1930, Marie Curie described the
major events and milestones of her life. This memoir was published together with
autobiographical sketches by American activist Jane Addams, Japanese feminist
Sugimoto Etsu Inagaki, and other women. The editor of this volume, Helen Ferris,
wanted to provide young women with positive role models and evidence that
women could make their mark on society. In this passage, Marie Curie recalls
teaching Polish children under repressive Russian rule in the 1880s.
Since my duties with my pupils did not take up all my time, I organized a small
class for the children of the village who could not be educated under the Russian
government. . . . We taught the little children and the girls who wished to come
how to read and write, and we put in circulation Polish books which were appreciated, too, by the parents. Even this innocent work presented danger, as all initiative of this kind was forbidden by the government and
might bring imprisonment or deportation to Siberia.
My evenings I generally devoted to study. I had
How important do
you think the example
heard that a few women had succeeded in following
of other successful
certain courses in Petrograd or in foreign countries,
women was for inspirand I was determined to prepare myself by preliminary
ing Maria to try to
work to follow their example. . . .
find a way to study
My solitary study was beset with difficulties. The
abroad? What do you
scientific education I had received at the lyceum [high
think motivated
school] was very incomplete; it was well under the
Madame Curie to
bachelorship program [high school curriculum] of a
write this short
French lyceum; I tried to add to it in my own way, with
memoir?
the help of books picked up at random. This method
could not be greatly productive, yet it was not without
results. I acquired the habit of independent work, and
learned a few things which were to be used later on.
What does this
I had to modify my plans for the future when my passage reveal about
family responsibilities
eldest sister decided to go to Paris to study medicine.
in this period? How do
We had promised each other mutual aid, but our
they differ from fammeans did not permit our leaving together. So I kept
ily obligations today?
my position for three and a half years, and, having
finished my work with my pupils, I returned to Warsaw,
expensive that few actually used it. In many countries, like Russia, divorce was not a possibility and
men who grew tired of their wives often simply abandoned them, along with their children. Socialists like
Friedrich Engels mocked the morality of middle-class
sexuality and family life, calling it little more than a
legalized form of enslavement and prostitution.
Despite their legal disabilities, women were increasingly literate and active in society. Whether raising children or working in factories, hospitals, or
offices, women were increasingly well informed on
contemporary cultural and scientific subjects. Some,
like Florence Nightingale, chose to forgo marriage to
devote themselves to other causes. Others, like the
middle-class feminist Emmeline Pankhurst, dedicated themselves to achieving equal rights and opportunities for women, including the vote. Pankhurst,
whose daughters Christabel and Sylvia also became
notable feminists, embraced radical tactics such as arson, vandalism (like dumping jam into mailboxes),
and public protests. For these activities Pankhurst
was arrested several times, going on hunger strikes in
jail and being force-fed. While such activities were
controversial, they attracted attention to womens
unequal status before the law and in the economy.
Feminists in other European countries and the United
States did not always agree with these tactics, but they
recognized that such radical actions forced the male
establishment to take women seriously. Feminism
use of the word to refer to the struggle for womens
rights dates from this periodwas mainly a middleclass phenomenon, for women workers and peasants
were usually more concerned with better wages and
work conditions than specific gender-based demands.
Socialists denounced feminism as a bourgeois diversion, arguing that true equal rights for women would
669
670
Ilya Repins works exemplify the realist style in Russian art and often portray the poorest Russians, as in this
painting, Volga Barge-Haulers, 187073. Like other realists, Repin did not intend merely to show a scene from
Russian life: he wanted to shock viewers and remind them of the grinding poverty and social injustice present
in their country. (State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg/The Bridgeman Art Library)
in France all her life. The Spaniard Pablo Picasso arrived in Paris in 1899 and also spent most of his life
there. With its academic traditions, the masses of
young artists rebelling against those traditions, government support for the arts, and a large wealthy and
sophisticated society of art lovers, Paris attracted
thousands of artists from everywhere in Europe and
throughout the world.
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672
673
674
How did science expand and change in the late nineteenth century?
How did new scientific theories challenge religious
ideas, and how did religion accommodate science?
positivism Comtes philosophy of knowledge emphasizing empirical observation and the idea that all natural and human phenomena can be explained in
scientific terms.
mile Durkheim (18581917) French sociologist influenced by positivism who used empirical methods and
statistics to study society.
empiricism Belief that all knowledge can be derived
from scientific observation.
Max Weber (18641920) German sociologist who
considered religious belief, charisma, and bureaucracy
central influences on political and social life.
Charles Darwin (18091882) English scientist who
formulated the theory of natural selection and authored On the Origin of Species (1859).
evolution Biological theory that diverse animal and
plant species developed over time through a combination of genetic mutation and environmental influence.
natural selection Darwins theory that better-adapted
species survive (and reproduce) while others are
eliminated.
Gregor Mendel (18221884) Austrian monk credited
with the discovery of theory of genetic heredity.
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676
thesis that humanity had descended from less advanced primates. Darwins theory described a state of
constant struggle for survival. Thus, even the smallest
genetic advantages, he posited, could favor the survival of one species over another. Darwins notion of
the gradual improvement of species over timethe
less favored individuals dying outwent along with
the eras belief in the progress of human society.
Darwins theories had a huge impact, and not only
on the scientific community. His ideas were broadly
debated by fellow scientists, who compared him with
Galileo and Isaac Newton, and in the popular press,
where he was ridiculed as the monkey-man. The
greatest long-term effect of Darwinism outside of bi-
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Critiques of Reason
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the optimism that came with prosperity, scientific advances,
and the philosophy of positivism began to falter.
Some thinkers saw mass production less as a triumph
than a threat, burying differences and local peculiarities in sterile uniformity. Max Weber warned darkly
about the iron cage of bureaucracy. The German
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called on gifted individuals to resist mass society, which he termed the
Sir Charles Lyell (17971875) English geologist whose
Principles of Geology (18301833) suggested that the
world must be far older than hitherto imagined.
shtetls (in Yiddish, small cities) Towns inhabited
mainly or exclusively by Jews, in particular in eastern
Europe.
Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900) German philosopher
renowned for his demand for a complete revision of
human ethics and who notoriously despised mass
society.
679
Summary
Review Questions
What was the Second Industrial Revolution? What
impact did it have on society and culture?
How did the cultural and scientific changes of the
late nineteenth century affect religious identity?
Describe some of the positive and negative aspects
of mass society.
As industrialization spread, Europe changed irrevocably. Between 1850 and 1914, major technological advances in communications, chemistry, steel, electricity,
and energy transformed the nature of industrialization
itself. The so-called Second Industrial Revolution,
based on electricity, steel, and modern chemistry,
changed Europe, and the world, profoundly. Scientific discoveries were rapidly translated into technological advances that in turn had a great impact on
peoples daily lives. Discoveries in the field of electricity led to the construction of undersea telegraph
cables that by the early twentieth century kept citizens informed of the latest news from around the
world. New technologies producing cheap woodfiber paper translated into cheap newspapers read by
all segments of society. Gains in mass production
considerably increased the material prosperity of the
broad masses, who could now purchase a wide range
of goods from garments to cooking utensils to prints
to hang on their walls. Shorter working hours meant
increased possibilities for various forms of leisure
travel, sports, music, and cinema.
Political and social attitudes changed no less radically. By 1914, nearly every country in Europe allowed some degree of political participation by all
classes, including peasants and workers, and in many
places women demanded political rights equal to
their instinctual drives. But for some neurotics the demands of the superego become so demanding as to
make normal life impossible.
Freuds thought combines the rationalist method of
the later nineteenth century with a recognition of the
limitations of rationality. In his own life, Freud was
very much the model of the positivist scientist, rejecting
the idea of a Supreme Being and insisting on an empirical approach in psychology. But he also recognized
that in human behavior, irrationalor at least subconscious and prerationalelements often prevailed.
680
Websites
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Tourism
In the twenty-first century, tourism is one of the largest and most rapidly growing industries in the world.
But although there have been travelers throughout history, mass tourism is a product of the late nineteenth
century. Starting in the late eighteenth century, wealthy and adventurous individuals traveled to cultural and
historic cities. These Grand Tours, often lasting months, were an integral part of any gentlemansand
even young ladyseducation. Wealthy travelers in Florence and Rome, sketching artwork and rereading
Latin classics, or in Istanbul and Jerusalem, usually with Bible in hand, can be seen as the precursors of
modern tourists. In that age, before the lithograph or photography had been invented, the only way to see
famous paintings or works of architecture was to visit them.
But for tourism to become a mass phenomenon required something more. It was the railroad that allowed
middle-class peopleand even artisans and laborersto become tourists. One man can be fairly called the
father of modern tourism. The devout Baptist Thomas Cook began organizing tours in the hopes of diverting workers from more sinful entertainment, especially of the alcoholic variety. In 1851, Cook organized his
first package tour, a day trip from the central English town of Leicester featuring an eleven-mile journey by
train, musical entertainment, lunch, and temperance speeches. Cooks Tours took thousands to visit the
Crystal Palace Exhibition in London. By the time of his death in 1892, thousands more had traveled on
Cooks Tours to Europe, Africa, Asia, and even around the world. Cook made travel not only more affordable but fun and carefree. By paying one fee, tourists rid themselves of worries about tickets, customs, rude
innkeepers, and inedible restaurant food. Perhaps even more important, Cooks Tours allowed middle-class
people to meet others like themselves and insulated them from encounters with local people. In an age
when strangers did not normally address one another, the organized tour created a kind of tourist community in which travelers felt safe and at home.
The term Cooks tour also entered the English language, defined as a rapid or cursory survey or review.
Even today Cooks Tours offers tens of thousands of package holidays, and competitors like American Express, Wagons-Lits, Neckermann, and Club Med send hundreds of thousands to all corners of the globe.
Suggested Readings
Gay, Peter. The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud. 5 vols.
New York: Norton, 19841998. An ambitious study looking into
various aspects of middle-class life in the nineteenth century.
Himmelfarb, Gertrude. Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996. A well-written, clear narrative.
Kern, Stephen. The Culture of Time and Space, 18801918.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003. A fascinating synthesis of culture, technology, ideas, and everyday life.
Landes, David S. The Unbound Prometheus: Technological
Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from
Websites
Information in French and English about August Comte, the
founder of sociology, Auguste Comte and Positivism, at http://
membres.lycos.fr/clotilde
Detailed chronicle of Friedrich Nietzsches life, Nietzsche
Chronicle, at www.dartmouth.edu/~fnchron
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CHAPTER
The Age
of Imperialism,
18701914
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Cecil Rhodes Creates the
Rhodes Scholarship
Introduction
Motives and Methods of the
New Imperialism
Economic Motivations
Domestic Politics and National Rivalries
Christian Missions
The White Mans Burden
Summary
Echo: Imperialism and the English
Language
Suggested Readings
1500 B.C.E.
Websites
1000 B.C.E.
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1865
Tashkent falls to the Russians
1867
French annex Cochinchina
1857
Sepoy Rebellion
begins
1850
1855
1860
1869
Suez Canal opens in Egypt
1865
1870
1875
1877
Queen Victoria
becomes empress
of India
1880
4000 Km.
2000
1000
2000
3000
4000 Mi.
GREENLAND
(Denmark)
ALASKA
GREAT
BRITAIN
RUSSIA
CANADA
NETH. GERMANY
BELG.
FRANCE
UNITED STATES
SPAIN
PORTUGAL
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
MOROCCO
ALGERIA
RIO
DE
ORO
BAHAMA IS.
Sakhalin
AUSTRIAHUNGARY
KARAFUTO
MANCHURIA
ITALY
OTTOMAN
EMPIRE
TUNISIA
CYPRUS
KOREA
CHINA
AFGHANISTAN
JAPAN
PACIFIC
OCEAN
PERSIA
LIBYA
EGYPT
I NDI A
Taiwan
BURMA
ERITREA
GOLD
COAST
Marshall
Is.
MALAY
STATES
EQ
SP. GUINEA
DU
R.
SOUTH
PACIFIC
OCEAN
NORTHERN
RHODESIA
ANGOLA
NYASALAND
MOZAMBIQUE
SOUTHERN
GERMAN
RHODESIA
SOUTHWEST
MADAGASCAR
AFRICA BECHUANALAND
AMERICA
UNION
OF
SOUTH AFRICA
Mariana Is.
PHILIPPINE IS.
CEYLON
T.
SIERRA
LEONE
NIGERIA
UA
BRITISH GUIANA
DUTCH GUIANA
FRENCH GUIANA
IC A
TOGO
PORT. GUINEA
FRENCH
INDOCHINA
ANGLOHADHRAMAUT
EGYPTIAN
SUDAN
BR. SOMALILAND
FR.
SOMALILAND
KAMERUN
IT.
SOMALILAND
UGANDA
BRITISH
EAST AFRICA
BELGIAN
CONGO
F
GERMAN
EAST AFRICA
GAMBIA
HAWAII
AFR
BR. HONDURAS
Caroline Is.
S
H E
A ST INDIE
PA
PU
Solomon
Is.
New Hebrides
(Gr. Br. and France)
INDIAN OCEAN
AUSTRALIA
SWAZILAND
New
Caledonia
(France)
LESOTHO
NEW
ZEALAND
ANTARCTICA
Russia
Belgium
Italy
France
United States
Netherlands
Spain
Great Britain
Japan
Portugal
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
1884
Congress of Berlin regulates
trade and empire in Africa
2000 C.E.
1899
Boer War begins
1900
Foreign powers crush
Boxer Rebellion in China
1885
Congo Free State
is established
1885
1500 C.E.
1890
1895
1900
1905
1910
1915
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Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Cecil Rhodes Creates the
Rhodes Scholarship
Cecil Rhodes
Cecil Rhodes was one of the
best-known advocates of the
new imperialism of the late
nineteenth century, and he
reflected the mindset of the
age. A cartoon in the English
humor magazine Punch
showed Rhodes as a colossus
whose mighty stride took in
the entire African continent.
It related specifically to
Rhodess pet project of a
railroad running the length of
Africa, from Cairo to the
Cape of Good Hope, a project that was never realized.
(Punch Limited)
For Cecil Rhodes, as for many other young, energetic Europeans of the
late nineteenth century, establishing colonies around the world was not
just an adventure or means of gaining wealth but a moral duty. They
wanted to spread European values and culture around the world.
Born in 1853 into a middle-class family in a country town in England,
Rhodes had been singled out early as an intelligent boy. His adoring and
powerful mother sheltered him in his early years, and he grew up selfconfident, sure of his own destiny. At age of sixteen, he set off for Africa
with his parents blessing. In the 1870s, he divided his time between Africa
and Oxford, earning his degree in 1881. Already by this timebefore his
thirtieth birthdayhe had made a fortune in South African diamonds. His
ambitions helped extend British power far to the north, into a region
named Rhodesia (today Zambia and Zimbabwe) in his honor.
As a businessman and government official, Rhodes was known for
ruthlessness and an authoritarian style that created enemies among his white
contacts and fear among Africans. As prime minister of Cape Colony, he authorized a military excursion that he hoped would unite South Africa as a British
colony. Its failure led the House of Commons to pronounce him guilty of grave
breaches of duty, and he was forced to resign. Rhodes died a rich but embittered
man in 1902, not even fifty years old.
But Rhodes had already made provision for funding the Rhodes Scholarships,
for which he is best known today. Though a businessman and colonial official,
Rhodes was also a visionary who believed that English culture should conquer the
world. Convinced of English superiority, Rhodes maintained that the more the
world came to resemble England, the better. So to preserve and spread English
culture, Rhodes funded scholarships that would allow the most talented men
(women could not enter most British universities at the time) to study in
Englandat the oldest of English universities, Oxford.
At first, Rhodes proposed thirty-six scholarships for young colonials from New
Zealand, Australia, Canada, and South Africa. Later, scholarships were added for
young men from the United States and Germany. In all cases, Rhodess aim was the
same: to produce cultured, educated English gentlemen. Rhodes had little interest
in producing scholars or independent thinkers: among the qualifications he listed
for selecting scholarship winners were manly sports, qualities of manhood,
and moral force of character, as well as literary and scholastic excellence.
Rhodes Scholars, he hoped, would not be mere bookworms but would carry on
his own values and those of upper-class, wealthy Britons dedicated to the good
of the empire.
Rhodes set down that the scholarships would be open to all male candidates,
regardless of race or religious opinions. Rhodes did not mean race as it is understood today; he meant nationality, and by this he intended that the Dutch in South
AfricaBritains rivals for controlshould be eligible. He certainly never expected
Introduction
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Chronology
18361846
18941895
18391842
18531854
1900
1902
1904
1898
18991902
18571858
1865
1867
1869
1877
1882
19051907
18841886
1908
1910
1912
1916
1885
1887
Economic Motivations
The desire for new markets and the need for the raw
materials of industry certainly fueled the new imperialism. Britain looked to India as a market for its textiles and other industrial products. King Leopold II
of Belgium derived huge profits from rubber plantations in the Congo, and Cecil Rhodes (see Choice) became vastly wealthy from exploiting African labor in
the gold and diamond mines of southern Africa. Industrial society demanded rubber for industrial uses,
but also for tires on bicycles and a new invention, the
automobile. Similarly, palm oil was in great demand
as a machine lubricant. Fruits such as bananas and
pineapples were also imported from colonized areas.
control of a large group on Pacific islands, thereby coming into conflict with another young imperial power,
the United States. None of these colonies brought
wealth or significant new markets to the home country. Rather, their main purpose was to satisfy the patriotic fever of Germans and Italians who felt that
without colonies their countries would be secondrate powers. In this way, domestic politics pushed
imperialism, often against the wishes and advice of
the imperialist powers foreign ministers and foreign
policy experts.
Christian Missions
Churches and missionaries also played a vital role in
imperialist expansion. Most often, Christian missionaries had established footholds before official colonial
control was declared. To be sure, missionaries sincerely desired to bring education, healthcare, and
other benefits of European culture to Africans and
Asians. They often built schools and hospitals. Missionaries seldom forced Christianity on the native
peoples, hoping instead to win converts by good example. At the same time, they taught European concepts of sexual morality and gender relations and
often insisted that natives dress in a modest European manner, all of which undermined native cultural values. When local rulers attempted to restrict
or expel missionaries, even without using violence,
the European powers often intervened. Thousands
and eventually millions of Asians and Africans embraced Christianity, but these numbers represented a
grave loss to native cultures and religions.
One well-known missionary was David Livingstone. As a small boy in Scotland, born to a workingclass family in 1813, young David was influenced by
accounts he heard and read of Christian missionaries
in China and the Muslim world. In 1840, he left England for Africa, where he was to spend the rest of his
life spreading the gospel, healing the sick, and fighting
European exploitationincluding enslavementof
Africans. Livingstone became famous for his expedition seeking the source of the Nile River and his discovery of Victoria Falls, now shared by Zimbabwe
and Zambia. His life in the African bush and his dedication to helping Africans, even against other Europeans, made him a controversial figure, however. In
1871, the American reporter Henry Stanley went to
Africa in search of Livingstone, famously greeting
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the context of the Spanish-American War that had begun a year earlier, he addressed these lines to the
United States, urging Americans to join in the imperialist enterprise:
Take up the White Mans burden
Send forth the best ye breed
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
The condescending attitude of the imperialists is
evident here. At the same time, Kipling emphasizes
that imperialism is not a program for exploitation and
self-aggrandizement but a duty: to serve your captives need. He sees imperialism as a civilizing mission that is self-sacrificing. The next stanza describes
it as: To seek anothers profit, / And work anothers
gain. Kipling may be termed a romantic imperialist
who perceived imperialism as an uplifting moral crusade that, while not always so understood by the natives (new-caught, sullen peoples), would in the
end bring about better conditions for their lives.
Rudyard Kipling (18651936) English writer and poet,
born in India, best known for his adventure stories,
which often took place in exotic colonial locations.
white mans burden Phrase taken from a poem by
Rudyard Kipling urging Americansbut implicitly all
white mento spread western civilization.
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Cecil Rhodes Writes His Own
Confession of Faith
From an early age, Cecil Rhodes had a missionto spread British culture, values,
and education. Rhodes never wavered in his belief that the world would be better
off under British rule. In 1877, at age twenty-four, Rhodes set down his ideas in a
Confession of Faith for himself. The document was never published in his lifetime.
I contend that we [English] are the finest race in the world and that the more
of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. Just fancy those parts
that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings
what an alteration there would be if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon influ-
ence, look again at the extra employment a new coun What kind of
try added to our dominions gives. I contend that every
extra employment
acre added to our territory means in the future birth to
do you think Rhodes
some more of the English race who otherwise would
had in mind here?
not be brought into existence. Added to this the abHow did imperialism
sorption of the greater portion of the world under our
increase jobs at
rule simply means the end of all wars. . . .
home?
Why
should
we
not
form
a
secret
society
with
before. Chamberlain praised the work of civilization that British imperialists carried out in India,
Africa, and other lands.
But these attitudes contained within them a contradiction. Even as imperialists claimed that they
brought civilization to colonized peoples, they frequently exploited the labor of those peoples, denying
them the rights and privileges taken for granted by
Europeans. The large gap between the rhetoric of
imperialism and its more brutal reality meant that
sooner or later imperialism would collapse.
Racism certainly played a part in the ideology and
practice of imperialism. By the second half of the
nineteenth century, scientific theories of race had divided humanity into Caucasian, Negroid, and Mongoloid races, which some argued were different species
689
690
and others arranged in a strict hierarchy, with Europeans (Caucasians) on top. European racial theorists
believed it was self-evident that the white, or Caucasian, race had progressed further than the others.
Both the categories and the argumentation revealed
not scientific facts but prejudices and convenient selfjustifications for European dominance. Nonetheless,
these ideas about the races were widely held.
Beaulieu and Chamberlain were not overtly racist,
but their assumption that European culture was superior to that of Asia or Africa was paternalistic. Paternalisms greatest blind spot was its inability to
recognize and respect the humanity of non-Europeans.
Kiplings description of native people as half-devil
and half-child reflects this view. Imperialists did not
understand that their values were not necessarily
universal and that from the colonized peoples point
of view, imperialist efforts to enlighten might well
be experienced as oppression and even as the destruction of time-hallowed traditions. Hypocrisy was
inherent in this system that claimed to protect and
nurture native peoples while in reality privileging
European economic and political interests.
imperial administration. The imperial powers constructed railroads in the colonies, most impressively
in India, which by 1900 had more than twenty-five
thousand miles of railway linesmore than France
or Britain itself. Just as Rhodes dreamed of connecting
British colonies throughout East Africa by a Cairo-toCapetown rail line, German imperialists dreamed of
a Berlin-to-Baghdad railroad that would strengthen
German influence in the Ottoman Empire. Neither
line was completed, but railroads were built in many
African colonies, making the extraction of raw materials and the penetration of European military control
possible. Steamship lines, too, shortened distances.
The trip from England to Australia, which had taken
more than four months in the early nineteenth century, was down to a month by the centurys end.
As Europeans ventured into new climates in Africa
and Asia, they encountered new microbes. In Africa,
particularly, death rates among European explorers
up to the mid-nineteenth century were extremely
high. Among the diseases, malaria was probably the
most devastating. Before the late nineteenth century,
little was understood about germs. The disease was
attributed to bad airin Italian, malariabecause
it was not yet understood that the disease was spread
by germ-carrying mosquitoes. Still, by trial and error,
Europeans came to recognize that constant doses of
the bark of the cinchona tree were effective in staving
off the worst symptoms of malaria. The bark contained quinine, which began to be commercially produced in the 1830s. Quinine became the constant
companion of the imperialist in tropical areas, and
the typical imperialist cocktail, a gin and tonic (containing quinine), became a pleasant means of administering a daily dose. By the end of the century, the
role of germs in sickness was established, and British
scientists made significant advances in studying tropical diseases. For all that, mortality continued to be
high among Europeans serving in tropical regions, in
particular in equatorial Africa.
Political, ideological, economic, and technological
factors all contributed to the new imperialisms massive extension of European power around the globe.
Imperialists saw themselves as the bearers of a superior cultural and political order. At the same time, many
settler colonies Colonies inhabited by settlers of European origin, always located in temperate regions such
as North America, Australia, and South Africa.
African National Congress Organization established
by Africans in 1912 to defend their rights that eventually brought a more democratic order to South Africa.
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692
in the process. African workers were forced to produce quotas of rubber. Failure to do so brought brutal
punishments, including the hacking off of hands and
feet. Though the king and investors grew rich, the
brutality appalled Europeans, and in 1908 European
pressure obliged Leopold to turn over the colony to
the Belgian state, which would rule over the area as
the Belgian Congo until 1960. The cruelty and inhumanity of exploitation in the Congo inspired Joseph
Conrads novella Heart of Darkness.
SPANISH
MOROCCO
Tangier
M e d i
t e
rr
a
Algiers
Casablanca
MADEIRA IS.
(Portugal)
TUNISIA
MOROCCO
e a
n
S e a
Tripoli
Cyrene
IFNI
Cairo
CANARY IS.
(Spain)
ALGERIA
LIBYA
RIO DE ORO
ed
EGYPT
S A H A R A
i le
ARABIA
Se
Omdurman
1898
ERITREA
Khartoum
ANGLO-EGYPTIAN
Adowa
Co
ng
SO
Ubangi
o
BRITISH
EAST AFRICA
L. Victoria
UGANDA
SPANISH GUINEA
FR
AL
IA
BELGIAN CONGO
L. Tanganyika
CABINDA
Mombasa
ZANZIBAR (Gr. Br.)
Herero Revolt
19051907
INDIAN
ANGOLA
L. Nyasa
NORTHERN
RHODESIA
Za
AB
STATES
Egypt
bez
NYASALAND
i
SOUTHERN
RHODESIA
MOZAMBIQUE
MA
DA
GA
GERMAN
SOUTHWEST
AFRICA
BECHUANALAND
S A H A R A
OCEAN
AR
OCEAN
GERMAN
EAST AFRICA
AR
IT
SC
ATLANTIC
RIC
AF
RI
TO
EQ
UA
CAMEROONS
Nile
TOGOLAND
BRITISH
SOMALILAND
ETHIOPIA
ite
AL
GOLD
COAST
IVORY
COAST
Fashoda
Wh
LIBERIA
FRENCH SOMALILAND
Nile
NIGERIA
SIERRA LEONE
B lu
SUDAN
PORTUGUESE
GUINEA
AN
L. Chad
AL
ge
IL
Ni
GAMBIA
AFRICA
WEST
FRENCH
SUDANESE EMPIRES
TRANSVAAL
G
ORANGE
FREE STATE
SWAZILAND
Boer War
18991902
UNION OF
SOUTH AFRICA NAT
ku
NTU
Ki
BA
BASUTOLAND
L
Ibo
LA SWA
N
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U L
A
Ashanti
yu
ANC founded
1912
Cape Town
PEOPLE
S
COLONIAL PRESENCE
IN AFRICA, 1878
Khoisan
(Bushmen)
Hottentots
400
800 Km.
British
Portuguese
French
Belgian
German
Spanish
Independent African
States
Major revolt
Italian
0
400
800 Mi.
Partition of Africa, 18701914 Between 1870 and 1914 nearly all of Africa came under
European colonial rule. As these maps show, British and French colonies predominated, but several other
European powers also participated in the scramble for Africa.
MAP 24.1
693
694
In this missionary school in German East Africa (Dar Es Salaam, now Tanzania), African children learn to read
under the gaze of the German Kaiser and his wife. As the writing on the chalkboard indicates, these children
were learning to read not only in German but also in their own native African language. (Ullstein Bilderdienst/
The Granger Collection, New York)
was widely criticized in Europe. On the whole, German colonies in Africa failed to bring Germany either
economic or political gains.
695
KASHMIR
PUNJAB
Lahore
B rahmaputra
NEP
AL
Delhi
ge
an
G
RAJPUTANA
Jaipur
BHUTAN
OUDH
wa d
Lucknow
dy
SINDH
AJMER
Karachi
Benares
Irra
Ind
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696
BIHAR
CHOTANAGPUR
MANIPUR
BENGAL
Calcutta
BURMA
Surat
BERAR
NAGPUR
Bombay
HYDERABAD
Arabian
Sea
Bay of
Bengal
Goa
(Portuguese)
MYSORE
Madras
Pondicherry
(French)
Calicut
Before 1770
17701800
18001830
18301860
0
0
150
300 Km.
150
Princely states
300 Mi.
CEYLON
MAP 24.2
Growth of British India India was by far the largest and most important British colony
from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century. As this map shows, British Indiawhich included
the present-day countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Burmawas partly under direct British rule
and partly ruled by Indian princes subordinate to the British.
to England in retirement. Some Englishmen, however, remained in India their whole lives. Their children were known as Anglo-Indians, the most famous
of whom was probably the writer Rudyard Kipling.
Even for Anglo-Indians, however, relations with
Indians were seldom on an equal basis. With only a
few exceptions at the highest levels of society, the
English in India knew native people as servants. An
Englishwoman could not be alone with an Indian
man without endangering her reputation. Racial categories and hierarchieswith the Englishman on
topdominated English colonial identity in India as
well as at home. The injustice of this racially defined
colonial rule helped bring about the formation of the
Indian National Congress in 1885, an organization
that would work to free India from British rule.
The allure of India also affected Englishmen
who would never leave home. Visual art, songs, and
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698
races such as the Sikhs and the effeminate Bengalis. Predictably, imperialists equated manliness with
strength, goodness, and progress, while so-called effeminate tendencies bore a negative connotation of
corruption, weakness, and backwardness. The British
ascribed to themselves manly virtues such as bravery,
decisiveness, and energy. The Indian masses, in contrast, were denigrated as passive, backward, and unambitious.
British rule did have some positive aspects for Indians. It united the subcontinent as never before. The
educational system, while still leaving most Indians
illiterate, made significant strides in creating an educated Indian elitethe very class that would be instrumental in challenging and ending British rule in
the twentieth century. By 1857 there were five universities in India, and increasing numbers of young
Indians entered the civil service. In 1900, Calcutta
University, with eight thousand students, was the
largest university in the world. Even earlier, privileged Indians had begun to attend elite British universities. In 1888, Mohandas Gandhi, who would lead
Indias independence movement and preach nonviolent resistance to colonialism, left India to study law
in London.
The English language provided a common means
of communication for educated Indians, who spoke
hundreds of different native languages. As this new
middle class of Indians developed, they could not
help contrasting the liberal British ideals of democracy and equal rights with their own situation. The
most talented Indians, even if trained at Oxford,
could not reach the highest levels in the colonial bureaucracy or in private British firms. Nor could native
Indians join exclusive British associations like the
Bengal Club. The resentment and frustration of the
educated Indian middle class fueled demands for an
end to British colonial rule that would come in the
twentieth century. Economically, British rule in India
brought mixed results. One was a deindustrializing
of the subcontinent, even as railroads and telegraph
lines were built. British manufacturers, particularly
of cheap British cloth, put native industries out of
gendering Considering certain peoples or activities
intrinsically linked with the male or female gender, in
the latter case often with a negative connotation.
Mohandas Gandhi (18691948) Indian political and
spiritual leader who fought for Indian independence
and emphasized nonviolent struggle.
deindustrialization Process of reducing the level of
industry in a country, generally in colonized regions,
especially India.
The Muslim world also felt the impact of the new imperialism, and not only in India. As Russia expanded
its influence in southeastern Europe (the Balkans)
and beyond the Caucasus Mountains on its southern
border, hundreds of thousands of Muslims were affected. Nor could the Ottoman Empire, the only major Muslim state in the world at this time, defend
itself from European imperialists. In northern Africa,
southeast Europe, and elsewhere, Ottoman influence
was replaced by European influence. At the very end
of the nineteenth century, a new challenge to the
Muslim world arosethe Zionist movement, which
called on Jews to return to their ancestral homeland,
Palestine, at the time an Ottoman province. European
successes called forth new movements among Muslims that aimed for new forms of modern, nationalist,
and democratic politics.
Russian Expansion
After the British in India, Russians had more contact
with Muslims than any other Europeans. From the
sixteenth century onward, the tsar had counted among
his subjects Tartars and other Muslim peoples. As
Russia expanded, a variety of religious and national
groups came under Russian rule, including many
Muslims. By 1700, Russia had extended its dominion
over thinly populated Siberia all the way to the Pacific.
A century and a half later, Russian control stretched
across the Bering Strait, over Alaska, and down the
American west coast as far south as present-day California. Amid the Great Reforms of the mid-1860s,
however, Russia abandoned its American territories,
selling Alaska to the United States in 1867. Russian
expansion would now take place not in the New
World but in the heart of the old: Central Asia.
The boundary between southern Siberia and
Central Asia is fluid, and Russian settlers had been
moving gradually into what is now Kazakhstan at
least from around 1800. In the second half of the nineteenth century, however, the Russian Empirealready
the largest on earthtook over vast territories in
699
700
Vasily Vereshchagins artistic works often showed scenes from regions in Central Asia that had recently been
incorporated into the Russian Empire. This 1869 painting of the exquisite tomb in Samarkand of Timur or
Tamerlaine, the Mongol conquerer who died in 1405, combined exoticism with a deep interest and respect for
Central Asian culture. (Tretyakov Gallery, Russia/The Bridgeman Art Library)
n ie
per
SIBERIA
Aral
Sea
1864
Istanbul
1859
Batum
Kars
Baku
PI
R E
1895
1876
CHITRAL
Merv
1895
KASHMIR
1878
1846
Tehran
Russian
Sphere of Influence
1907
pr
at
Eu
es
l
l l l
l l l
Ni
le
PAMIR
BUKHARA
Ashkabad
CHINA
TADJIKS
1868
Krasnovodsk
TURKMEN
1881
Andizhan 1871
Tashkent 1865
Samarkand
1884
Cyprus
EGYPT
1873
Sea
uD
ary
KHIVA
Am
an
1878
s
Tigri
ed
ite
S e r ra n
ean
a
Syr
Da
rya
Kabul
Kushka
Peshawar
AFGHANISTAN
Lahore
Suez
Canal
Chapman
1887
PERSIA
Quetta
KUWAIT
British
Sphere of Influence
1907
r
Pe
1899
sia
1867
QATAR
ul
BAHRAIN
Delhi
1880
BALUCHISTAN
In
du
s
spi
Ca
L. Balkash
KAZAKHS
Bl a ck S e a
T
RUS S IA
CRIMEA
BULGARIA
Don
a
lg
Vo
ROMANIA
1876
INDIA
Karachi
1892
Ottoman Empire
Railroad
200
OMAN
400 Km.
200
1885
400 Mi.
IN D IA N
O CE A N
MAP 24.3
Central Asia The Russian Empire extended its borders southward from the 1860s to
include most of Central Asia. By the late nineteenth century, the Russian Empire extended to border
Afghanistan on the south, causing great concern among British officials in India.
Alaska to the United States. They had had some success in Alaska, as the prevalence of Orthodoxy among
todays Alaska Natives indicates. But efforts by the
government to convert Muslims, mainly Tartars living along the Volga River, had not worked. Few missionaries ventured out into the harsh and sparsely
populated regions of Siberia. Those who did, however, did not attempt to convert the native populations
directly. Instead, they established schools, where they
taught in non-Russian languages as a first step
toward civilizing native peoples. Only a few such
schools were set up, however, and in the late 1860s the
governor-general of Turkestan, Konstantin Kaufman,
banned missionary activity in this huge, newly conquered Russian colony. Instead of gaining converts,
Russian rule in Central Asia indirectly encouraged a
movement for modern Islamic education known as
Jadidism. As in colonized areas elsewhere in the
world, the Russian presence in Central Asia ended up
provoking the development of local nationalisms
aimed against the imperial power.
701
702
Another challenge to the Ottoman Empire and Muslim world was the new Jewish nationalist movement,
Zionism. This movement, led by Theodor Herzl, aimed
at the establishment of a Jewish state in ancient Palestine, or what Jews called Eretz Israel, centered on Jerusalem. In the 1890s, this region was under Ottoman
rule, and although numerous Jews and Christians
lived there, the majority of the population (except in
Jerusalem) was Muslim. The first Zionist settlers arrived in Palestine in the 1880s, and after that, large
groups of Zionist pioneers came from Europe to establish Jewish settlements in this Ottoman province.
Initially, neither local Muslims nor the Ottoman
authorities were concerned about the Zionists. After
all, their numbers were smallaround twenty thousand by 1903and Jews had long lived in the region,
even constituting the majority in Jerusalem. Still, the
Ottoman sultan refused to grant the Zionist leader
Herzl a charter officially sanctioning Zionist settlement, preferring to allow or forbid such activity on a
case-by-case basis.
In the early twentieth century, Arab nationalism
was beginning to take form. At first, however, this
movement was primarily anti-Ottoman, wishing to
foster an Arab identity based primarily on language
and culture and only secondarily on the Muslim religion shared with the Turks. Not until the second
decade of the twentieth century would Arab nation-
Economically, the most important product of Indochina was raw silk, but reports of rich mineral
wealth in the hills of Vietnam also lured French investors and adventurers. A small group of French settlers derived profit from plantations that produced
rubber and teak wood. On the whole, however, French
taxpayers paid a heavy price for Frances colonial
ventures. Few Frenchmen were interested in settling
in the new colony, though many hundreds served
there in administrative and military roles. The French
also set up schools where, by the end of the century,
young Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians were
learning to read and write French from the same textbooks used in Paris. Among the students were future
leaders of Indochinese liberation movements, including Ho Chi Minh.
In India, higher British administrators brought
their wives and raised their families, but French administrators in Indochina generally did not, often
taking wives and mistresses from the local population. So-called native wives and their offspring did
not receive equal political protection. Very often, at
the end of their tour of duty, the men simply returned
to Europe, abandoning their local wives and children.
In contrast to the British colonies, which were often ruled using already-existing political structures and
local rulers, the French had a more ambitious agenda.
At least initially, they hoped to assimilate their colonial
subjects and to make them into genuine Frenchmen.
703
704
traders. The Dutch carried out little missionary activity and, on the whole, left existing native political and
judicial structures and Muslim institutions in place.
At no time did the Dutch attempt to influence the
mainly Muslim Indonesian population to abandon
their faith. Dutch schools for natives aimed primarily
to train minor officials to serve in the local colonial
bureaucracy.
Between 1830 and 1870, the Dutch West Indies produced huge profits for the Netherlands, but only by
exploiting native labor and generating serious local
discontent. After about 1870, Dutch trade with the
Dutch West Indies declined. In contrast to Vietnam,
where French influence may still be discerned a half
century after the end of French colonial rule there,
Dutch colonial control left few traces in Indonesia.
Concessions in China
China, the largest and most populous country in
Asia, had long been a major cultural influence. By the
mid-nineteenth century, however, under the corrupt
and weak Qing dynasty, China could not compete
against the military and economic might of the European imperialists. Chinas defeat in the 1840s by the
British during the Opium Wars revealed its weakness. Subsequently, the Chinese accepted massive imports of opium from British India, enriching British
merchants but weakening Chinese society.
Thus, began the era of unequal treaties. Western
imperialist powers negotiated concessions at treaty
ports that assured them favorable trade arrangements
and a minimum of Chinese interference. As part of
the concessions, the Chinese agreed that the imperialist power could administer its own tax system and
legal system. The British took over Hong Kong and
had a concession in the major city of Shanghai. The
Germans received a concession in the port city of
Qingdao (Tsingtao), establishing a beer factory that
continues in operation today. The French also gained
favored treatment in China. In many areas in China,
foreign businessmen could trade without interference or taxation from the Chinese government. Concessions deprived the Chinese state of much-needed
taxes, while westernersand some well-placed Chinese businessmenreaped huge profits.
Chinas political weakness was also apparent in
foreign policy. Defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of
18941895 forced China to relinquish the island of
Formosa (Taiwan) to Japan. In the early twentieth
century, with Russian and Japanese power growing
in northeast Asia, China lost its influence over Korea.
A few years later, China bowed to Russian pressure,
allowing the Russians to build a railroad across its
In this Japanese print of the Meiji period (ca. 1860), traditionally dressed samurai set out in boats to confront
Commodore Matthew Perrys looming black ships. By signing a treaty in 1854 opening Japan to foreign
trade, the Japanese reversed centuries of isolation and began a rapid process of industrialization and westernization in their country. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum/The Art Archive)
1900 the Boxers attacked foreign missionaries, businessmen, diplomats, Chinese converts to Christianity,
and generally all forms of foreign influence. Their violence alarmed westerners, and the imperialist powers
reacted swiftly to put down the rebellion. Thousands
of German, French, American, British, Japanese, and
Russian troops rushed to Beijing, where they ended a
siege of foreign embassies. Order was restored, but
the prestige of the Qing dynasty was fatally weakened. Young Chinese intellectuals increasingly called
for limitations on foreign influences and the restoration of Chinese sovereignty throughout the entire territory of China.
against the western powers themselves. For the previous two centuries, foreign entry into Japan had
been limited to two small trading posts. Then, in 1853,
the American commodore Matthew Perry arrived in
Tokyo harbor and, after months of negotiation, forced
the Japanese to open up to foreign trade in 1854.
The Japanese were shocked at the foreigners command of new and unfamiliar technology, in particular
modern firearms. Rather than falling under foreign
rule, however, the Japanese under a new emperor
known as Meiji (the enlightened one) carried out
their own administrative, military, and economic reforms. By the end of the century, Japan was rapidly
industrializing. Railroads connected the most important Japanese cities, and the Japanese army had been
705
RUSSIAN EMPIRE
SIBERIA
Sea of
Okhotsk
L. Baikal
Irkutsk
Amur
Chita
AMUR DISTRICT
(1858)
MANCHURIA
TIBET
Nanjing
Wuhan Shanghai
(Gr. Br. 1842)
Chongqing
Lhasa
BHUTAN
i
an g z
BURMA
(1852, 1885)
Hanoi
JA
Pescadores
Fuzhou
(Jap. 1895)
Guangzhou Xiamen
yu
uk
(Gr. Br. 1842)
Ry
Macao
Formosa
(Port. 1557)
Hong Kong (Jap. 1895)
(Gr. Br. 1842)
Zhanjiang
(Fr. 1898)
SIAM
South
(THAILAND) FRENCH
Manila
Bangkok
INDOCHINA
Rangoon
(1859, 1907)
Saigon
Andaman Is.
(Gr. Br.)
East
China
Sea
(1874, 1909)
PHILIPPINE IS.
(U.S.; from Spain 1898)
China
RE
PI
Territories held by
Western powers:
Great Britain
Railroads
Borneo
Celebes
New Guinea
OCEAN
500
Russia
INDIAN
OCEAN
United States
SARAWAK
(1888)
Singapore
(Gr. Br. 1819)
PACIFIC
France
BRITISH
NORTH BORNEO
(1888)
Sumatra
ES
Netherlands
Sea
COCHINCHINA
N
PA
EM
Jiaozhou
(Ger. 1898)
CHINA
MAP 24.4
Asia in
1914 In 1914 one found
both independent countries
(Japan, China, Siam [Thailand]) and a number of
European colonies (British,
French, Dutch) in East Asia.
Japan had also extended its
rule over Korea to the north
and Taiwan to the south.
p.)
He
Shenyang
Vladivostok
(Mukden)
(1860)
KOREA S e a o f
(1905, 1910)
Port Arthur
(Rus. 1898; Jap. 1905) J a p a n
Weihai
Tokyo
(Gr. Br. 1898)
Is
.(
Ja
ow)
Beijing
Tientsin
ell
ng
KARAFUTO
(Jap. 1905)
Harbin
INNER
MONGOLIA
H ua
Sakhalin
Khabarovsk
(1858)
OUTER MONGOLIA
(Y
706
Java
(1619)
(Port. 1859)
Timor
(Neth.)
1000 Km.
500
1000 Mi.
What impact did imperialism have on the global economy and European culture?
Who opposed imperialism in Europe and elsewhere,
and why?
Even as the new imperialism extended European influence throughout the world, it also called forth resistance and condemnation. Its benefits were greatly
unequal, as western powers profited while colonized
regions did not. Ironically, the western ideals of liberty and democracy that the imperial powers boasted
they were bringing to the unenlightened peoples of
the world inspired anticolonial movements among
African and Asian intellectuals. But critics in Europe,
too, argued that imperialism was a capitalist sham,
an attempt to divert attention from injustice and inequality at home. In both negative and positive ways,
imperialism had a profound effect on European politics and culture.
A Global Economy
In the late nineteenth century, European colonial empires did much to link up the world and to create a
single global economy. But the linkage was uneven.
Raw materials like cotton flowed from the colonies to
Europe, and European goods like cloth were purchased by the colonies. British textiles were exported
to Africa and India. The Indian railways used rails
and locomotives that for the most part were imported
from England. Textiles from Russia found a market in
Central and East Asia. Because the European colonizers
had little interest in developing colonial industry, the
colonies became economically dependent on European
industry. In some cases, colonies deindustrialized. So
as profits flowed to Europe, wages and living standards remained very low in nearly all colonial areas.
In addition, colonial economies were reshaped to
meet the needs and desires of western imperialist
powers. Tea, sugar, and chocolate had become staples
in the European diet; in this era even Russian peasants
began to drink tea daily. The plantations that produced
these commodities expanded, and the economies of
entire colonies and tropical nations were built around
a single export. Bananas, which began to appear on
tables in North America and Europe, are only the most
prominent example. The companies that managed
these commodities were western; the laborers were
native peoples. Again, the profits flowed to Europe.
Now guano from Peru and nitrites from Chile enriched the fields of European farmers. Rubber for
tires, belts, and gaskets, indispensable for modern
machinery, had to be extracted from trees that grew
only in tropical regions such as Malaya (a British
colony, now Malaysia), Indochina, and the Belgian
Congo. Palm oil, another tropical commodity, was
used in the manufacture of soapa product then exported back to the colonies. Cinchona trees were also
cultivated to provide the quinine on which the health
of Europeans in tropical regions depended. Copper
was imported from mines in the Belgian Congo; tin
707
708
Indigenous Resistance
As the Sepoy Rebellion and the Boxer Rebellion indicate, colonized peoples in Asia did not simply accept
European colonial domination. In the Battle of Omdurman, too, Africans fought against European colonizers. But native troops, armed with traditional
weapons, were massacred there by British troops using machine guns and other modern weapons. European technological superiority meant that native
peoples needed to seek other means of resistance.
After European colonies had been established, the
colonized had to struggle for their rights within the
existing colonial system. Some resistance assumed a
heroic public form, such as Gandhis organizing of
Indian residents in South Africa to demand their
rights in the 1890s. Other resistance was more subtle.
Indigenous peoples might refuse to carry out the orders of colonial administrators, avoid paying colonial
taxes, or shun European cultural and educational institutions. Some resisters insisted on wearing native
clothing, despite imports from Europe, or on speaking native languages, despite schools that taught
English or French.
The education that colonized peoples received at
colonial schools proved to provide them with the most
effective weapon of resistance. Learning of European
constitutional government and political rights, native
peoples came to challenge the racial hierarchies evident in the colonies. Pointing out the contradictions
of a system that promised civilization and justice but
refused equal rights to native peoples, resistance
leaders exposed the hypocrisy of imperialism and demanded rights for themselves and their peoples. To the
European imperialists they quoted European thinkers
and ideals such as liberty, democracy, and individual
Jean-Lon Grmes The Snake Charmer (1883) reveals an imperialist gaze, combining exoticism, titillation, and
the suggestion of sexual decadence. In this scene from Central Asia, a naked boy with a tame snake dances for
bearded elders. ( Sterling and Francine Clark, Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts)
depicted the land and peoples of Russias newly conquered territory in Central Asia. After French stockbroker Paul Gauguin abandoned his family and went
to live in Tahiti, he painted Tahitians in their own environment. Popular postcards and prints familiarized
Europeans with far-off colonies and spurred interest
in the colonial endeavor. Images in advertising, too,
drew on imperialist themes. In Britain advertisements
extolled Pears Soap as one of the benefits that Britons
could bring to Africa and Asia.
French Academy French cultural institution established in 1635 whose members make judgments on the
proper use of the French language.
Paul Gauguin (18481903) French painter who
painted Tahitian life and culture.
709
710
Many of Paul Gauguins paintings from Tahiti, like Arearea (1892), depict beautiful Tahitian women in an
exotic tropical landscape. Gauguins own biographyabandoning a respectable middle-class profession and
leaving his family to pursue pleasure and painting in the South Seasreflects the lure colonial regions had for
nineteenth-century Europeans. Gauguin rejected photographic realism; his bold colors and broad brushstrokes
were influenced by Tahitian models. (Muse dOrsay, Paris/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library)
Summary
Summary
Review Questions
What were the major causes of the new imperialism?
How did colonial rule work, and how did colonized
peoples resist?
How did imperialism influence European identity in
politics, culture, and everyday life?
In the decades before World War I, European countries established direct colonial rule over huge parts
of the globe. Nearly the entire continent of Africa was
divided up among the European powers. In Asia,
merchants and administrators from Britain, France,
Germany, the Netherlands, and Russia established new
colonies or strengthened existing colonial control. The
imperialism of this period differs from earlier European colonialism. First, few Europeans moved permanently to these new colonies of the late nineteenth
century. While millions left Europe during these years,
most chose a new life in the Americas or Australia,
not in the Congo or India. Second, the scale of imperial rule was quite different from that in earlier periods. The colonial powers came to rule over millions
of non-Europeans, accepting their status as both a
duty and an opportunity. Third, technological advances reduced practical constraints. Steamships radically reduced transit time between Europe and all
corners of the globe. Telegraph lines and undersea cables allowed officials in London and Paris to communicate almost instantly with their colonies in Africa
and Asia. The use of quinine to prevent malaria and
advances in bacteriology and tropical medicine permitted Europeans to venture into tropical regions
where earlier they would have been struck down by
disease.
Imperialism was propelled by feelings of European
superiority, including the false idea that the Caucasian race (a term invented in this period) was superior to other races. Whether they consciously believed
these ideas or not, most Europeans accepted their role
as big brother or parent over the childlike colonized peoples. This paternalist attitude, combined
with the ignorance of Europeans about African and
Asian cultures, created resentment and animosity.
Imperialism also spread European culture, languages,
democratic values, and the Christian religion.
The new imperialism transformed the world in
ways that remain controversial. The brutality of European imperialists produced horrors that devastated
native populations and shocked the European public.
While many European businessmen and missionaries sincerely desired to improve the lives of Africans
and Asians, others were more interested in profits or
adventure. At the same time, the medical advances
and schools that Europeans brought with them had
some positive effects. Ideas of political liberalism,
democracy, and industrial development also arrived
with the imperialists. African, Australian, and Asian
peoples were incorporated more fully into world culture, though their own cultures, religions, and languages suffered as a consequence.
Imperialists claimed to improve conditions in the
colonies, making them and their populations more
like the European homeland. But their undemocratic
rule and failure to create balanced economies made it
711
712
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Imperialism and the English Language
In the early twentieth-first century, more than 500 million people around the world speak English. Some
two-thirds of them are native speakers; the rest learned English as a foreign language. While more people
speak Mandarin (Chinese), Hindi, and even Spanish as a native language, no other language in the world
can compete with English as a language of international communication. Not only do Americans, Canadians, Englishmen, and Australians speak Englishof differing varietiesamong themselves, but English
serves as the principal language of communication between different ethnic and linguistic groups in places
as diverse as Jamaica, Nigeria, and India. And, as any traveler to Helsinki, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Singapore, or any
large city anywhere in the world can attest, an English-speaker is seldom far away. This dominance of English is a product of imperialism.
Early British settlers in North America, South Africa, and Australia took their native tongue with them and
taught itsometimes forciblyto other immigrants and to native peoples. In the late nineteenth century,
English businessmen and administrators spread English in Africa and Asia. From Burma to Botswana, as
people living under British imperial rule went to English-language schools, English became their means of
communication.
In many of these areas, hybrid languages developed, called Pidgin English in Nigeria, India, and the
Caribbean. And English absorbed new words. As the largest British colony, India contributed perhaps the
largest number, including, for example, loot, punch, bungalow, thug, and pajama. From Chinese came
tycoon and kow-tow. From Arabic, old entries into English such as alcohol and algebra were joined by new
words like assassin (a hashish-smoking bandit). The parting words So long are a mangling of the greeting
Salaam (peace), brought home by British soldiers serving in Muslim Malaya.
Today, almost everywhere, a good knowledge of English is considered vital for a successful career. In the
former Soviet Union, where Russian used to be the main second language, young Lithuanians, Estonians,
and Kazakhs are now more likely to speak English. The Internet and global marketing have contributed to
the dominance of English, as terms like XXL (meaning very big), McDrive (attached to European McDonalds restaurants) indicate. Russians recognize such brand names as Uncle Bens and Snickers, and everywhere pilots and air traffic controllers communicate in English. For all its illogic, absurd spellings, and
complex verb system, it seems likely that English dominance in international diplomacy, trade, and culture
is here to stay.
Websites
Suggested Readings
Fieldhouse, D. K. The Colonial Empires: A Comparative Study
from the Eighteenth Century. New York: Delacorte Press, 1967.
An excellent overall introduction.
Headrick, Daniel R. The Tools of Empire. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1981. An examination of links between technology and imperialism.
Hochschild, Adam. King Leopolds Ghost. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1999. A page-turning account of Leopold of Belgiums
Congo colony and the journalists who exposed its horrific
brutalities.
Metcalf, Thomas R. Ideologies of the Raj. New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1997. A concise and well-written introduction to British India.
Mommsen, Wolfgang. Theories of Imperialism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. An investigation of the why
of imperialism.
Poliakov, Leon. The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalist Ideas in Europe. New York: Basic Books, 1974. An examination of the racism that often accompanied imperialism.
Sinha, Mrinalini. Colonial Masculinity. Manchester, England:
Manchester University Press, 1995. A study of gendering in
British imperialism in India.
Websites
Maps, pictures, biographies, discussion room focusing on the
British Empire, The British Empire, at www.britishempire.
co.uk
Information about Cecil J. Rhodes, Rhodes Scholarships, and
Indian Rhodes Scholars, Rhodes Scholarships India, at www
.rhodesindia.com
Sources and information about Islamic history, including imperialism, Internet Islamic Sourcebook, at http://www.fordham
.edu/halsall/islam/islamsbook.html
713
714
CHAPTER
War and Revolution,
19001918
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Leads
the Russian Revolution
Introduction
Summary
Echo: Propaganda and Advertising
1500 B.C.E.
Suggested Readings
Websites
1000 B.C.E.
1905
Tsar Nicholas II
crushes revolt
in Russia
1902
1904
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1906
1908
Austria-Hungary
annexes
Bosnia-Herzegovina
1908
1910
A
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,
March 1918
Farthest Russian
Advance, 1914
Armistice line,
December 1917
Western
Front
SW
Italian
Front
Armenian
massacre,
19151916
Balkan
Front
500 C.E.
1912
First Balkan
War begins
1912
1000 C.E.
1914
Serbian nationalist
assassinates
archduke of Austria
World War I
1915
begins
Italy joins
the Allies
1914
1500 C.E.
1916
Allies suffer
1 million
casualties at
the Battle of
the Somme
Lenin publishes
Imperialism
1916
1917
Tsar Nicholas
II abdicates
Bolsheviks
seize power
in Petrograd
2000 C.E.
1918
Germany
imposes
harsh peace
on Russia
Germany signs
armistice
with Allies
1918
1919
Allies impose
harsh peace
on Germany
1920
715
716
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Leads
the Russian Revolution
Vladimir Ilyich
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin changed
the course of history in the
early twentieth century.
Without him, it is difficult
to imagine the Bolshevik
Revolution in Russia, the
rise of the Soviet Union, and
the spread of world communism. Love him or hate him,
Lenin had an indisputable
impact on his native land and
the entire world when he
chose to dedicate his life
entirely to the fulfillment of
the Marxist revolution.
(Bettmann/Corbis)
When Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known by his pen name Lenin, was just
seventeen, his older brother Alexander was executed for involvement in a
plot to assassinate the Russian tsar. As a grown man and revolutionary, Lenin
would oppose such terrorist tactics as ineffective for achieving revolutionary
goals, but on a more profound level, his life was dedicated to showing that
his brother had not died in vain.
As the brother of a convicted revolutionary, Lenin came to the attention
of the educational authorities while he was in high school in Simbirsk, a
provincial city on the Volga River. He was nearly expelled for reading banned
literature. Later he studied law at Kazan and St. Petersburg Universities,
though he never practiced as a lawyer. In his early twenties, Lenin was already known as starikthe old manmore for his serious dedication to
the revolutionary cause than for his receding hairline.
All political parties were forbidden in Russia before 1905, and the tsarist
secret police were especially vigilant in sniffing out socialist circles. In these
circumstances, it was inevitable that Lenin would be arrested. In 1897, he
was sentenced to three years in Siberia, where he continued his studies and
writing despite his official status as a political exile. In 1890, he returned to
European Russia and soon left for western Europe. He would live abroad
continually, aside from a short visit to Russia in 1905, until the fateful year of
1917. Like Karl Marx, he spent his days in libraries, especially Londons British
Museum, where he read and wrote newspaper articles, commentaries, books,
and letters. In his brochure What Is to Be Done? (1902) he sketched out his belief
that only a small, dedicated revolutionary party could engineer the world revolution that would overthrow capitalism. Whereas other socialists of the period, including Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Trotsky (before 1917) sought broad-based
support, Lenin argued for a narrow but intense cadre who would educate workers, explaining why they should reject material advances such as better pay and
shorter working hours in favor of complete political revolution. Critics said Lenins
cadre would be a socialist party acting in the name of the working class rather
than led by the working class.
By 1917, the world was engulfed in what Lenin hoped was the final, desperate
convulsion of the outdated and doomed capitalist system. He had opposed the
war from the outset, reading and writing and lecturing in Zurich, in neutral
Switzerland, and working to spread revolutionary ideas. Though, in 1916, he
told a meeting of socialists that his own generation might not see the triumph
of revolution, he was shortly to bring it about. In April 1917 he accepted
Germanys offer to transport him, in a sealed train, back to Russia, where the
Germans hoped the presence of this radical would weaken the resolve of the
new liberal government, which had just overthrown the tsar, to continue in
the war. In November, Lenin gambled that support for this new government was
so low that it would fall if attacked by a small but well-organized revolutionary
party. He was right. Four months later, he reasoned that Germany would lose
the war in the end, so the humiliating peace treaty he signed would soon cease
to matter. Again he was right, and taking Russia out of the war gave him the
chance to stabilize his revolution. The cadre of dedicated revolutionaries he
had foreseen two decades before soon forced a new economic, social, and
political order on the worlds largest, and formerly most conservative, empire.
Lenins commitment to a revolution of his own making changed the course
of history.
Introduction
717
718
Chronology
19041905
1915
1905
1916
1908
1917
1912
1913
1914
1918
19181919
by Britain and the other major powers at the time Belgium won independence in 1831. In 1914, this proved
to be a fatal miscalculation.
Rivalries
The alliance system seemed to stabilize the strains in
international relations caused by national pride and
imperial rivalries. For the French, regaining AlsaceLorraine was a matter of pride. For Russia, there was
a worry that the Ottomans were so weak that another
power might seize the Bosporus and Dardanelles
Straits, thereby cutting off Russian access to the Mediterranean Sea. In Africa, German and British interests
came into direct conflict. In the 1890s, Kaiser William II
made matters worse by publicly expressing his support for the anti-British Boers of South Africa.
National identity in Britain was connected closely
with imperial prestige. In central and eastern Europe,
however, nationalism was directed against existing
empiresboth Russia and Austria-Hungary. In Russian lands, Poles and Finns sought concessions or even
independence; Poles, especially, aspired to the resurrection of Poland, which had been partitioned into
oblivion in the eighteenth century. In Austria-Hungary,
Romanians, Serbs, Czechs, and Italians hoped to gain
broader political and cultural rights. Young nationstates in the region, such as Romania, Serbia, and Bulgaria, further encouraged such nationalist agendas.
Russia considered itself the protector of the ethnically
Slavic and religiously Orthodox peoples in the Balkans,
including Bulgarians, Montenegrans, and Serbs. Russian public opinion strongly supported such Pan-Slav
sentiments.
European rivalries were not only political, however. They were also economic. Since 1870, both Germany and Russia had experienced very significant
industrial growth, including the building of railroads
that often served strategic aims. The rapid growth of
Triple Alliance Military alliance concluded in 1882 by
Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.
719
720
100
200 Km.
100
RUSSIA
200 Mi.
Vienna
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
Pr
Budapest
HUNGARIANS
ut
TRANSYLVANIA
HUNGARIANS
BOSNIA
HE
ROMANIA
Bucharest
Belgrade
Sarajevo
RZ
EG
OV
IN
SERBIA
KOSOVO
MONTENEGRO
Black
Sea
BULGARIA
Sofia
Istanbul
ALBANIA
Dardanelles
By the end of the nineteenth century, formerly Ottoman territories on the Balkan Peninsula were now
independent states: Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece,
Montenegro, and Albania. Bosnia-Herzegovina, occupied by Austria-Hungary since 1878, was formally
annexed to that country in 1908. The Russians were
furious, but their army, much weakened following
defeat by Japan, was unable to help their Slavic allies.
Both Russians and Balkan Slavsespecially Serbs
were now convinced that Austria-Hungary harbored
aggressive intentions.
Each of the states in the Balkans had contested borders with its neighbors and significant numbers of
national minorities inside its borders. All were united,
however, in hatred for the Ottoman Empire. Religious
loyalties added to the tensions, as, except for Albania,
which had large numbers of Roman Catholics and
Muslims, the people of the Balkans were Eastern Orthodox, whereas the Ottomans were Muslims. During the First Balkan War of 1912, the Balkan League of
Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Bulgaria attacked
the Ottoman territories of Kosovo and Macedonia
and nearly swept the Ottoman forces out of Europe.
Austria-Hungary, which had significant interests in
the Balkans, prepared for war until the threat of Russian intervention caused it to back down.
OTTOMAN
EMPIRE
GREECE
Ottoman Empire
Bosporus
MACEDONIANS
Crete
To Italy
Mediterranean
Sea
Predominately Romanians
MAP 25.1
Balkans, 19121913 The two Balkan
Wars of 19121913 both weakened the Ottoman Empire
and revealed hostilities among the young Balkan states.
Bulgarias territorial loss to Serbia was one reason Bulgaria
sided with Germany and Austria during World War I.
so harsh that they could not be accepted by a sovereign state. For example, the Austrians demanded not
only that all forms of anti-Austrian propaganda be
stamped out but that this campaign be carried out by
Austro-Hungarian officials. As expected, the Serbians
could not accept all the ultimatums demands, and
on July 28, exactly a month after the assassination,
Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
Russia felt obliged to support its Serbian ally, though
Tsar Nicholas II recognized that military action against
Austria-Hungary would compel its ally, Germany, to
declare war. Yet to abandon Serbia at this moment
would have meant a humiliation for Serbias Great
Power protector, Russia, and so, on July 30, reluctantly, the tsar ordered general mobilization. Now he
hoped to avert a war through a personal appeal to
Kaiser William, his cousin by marriage. Unfortunately,
two days of frantic telegrams between Nicky in St.
Petersburg and Willy in Berlin (the two communicated in English) came to nothing, and on August 1,
Germany declared war on Russia. On August 3, convinced that France was about to attack from the west,
Germany declared war on France and, following the
Schlieffen Plan, marched into neutral Belgium. Technically in defense of Belgium, on August 4, Great
Britain (whose king was also a cousin of Nicky and
Willy) declared war on Germany. The lamps are
going out all over Europe, observed British foreign
minister Sir Edward Grey, We shall not see them lit
again in our lifetime.
Europe quickly divided into two warring camps:
the Allied Powers, led by France, Great Britain, and
Russia; and the Central Powers, Germany and AustriaHungary, joined by Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. Serbia, Romania, and Belgium sided with the
Allies, while Spain, Greece, Switzerland, Holland, and
the Scandinavian countries remained neutral. Italy
infuriated the Central Powers by refusing to honor its
alliance and then, on May 23, 1915, declaring war on
ultimatum Harsh demand requiring an immediate
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War Enthusiasm
Europeans from London to Moscow greeted the outbreak of war in August 1914 with patriotic demonstrations. Huge crowds gathered in the public squares
of cities. In St. Petersburg, Russians attacked and gutted the German Embassy, and it became dangerous to
be heard speaking German. In Munich, a twenty-fiveyear-old Austrian named Adolf Hitler cheered with
the crowds on Odeonsplatz, then returned home and
thanked God that he had lived to see the outbreak of
war. In Paris, men rode to war in train cars marked
To Berlin! In Berlin, Kaiser William II told the Reichstag that he no longer recognized parties, only
Germans.
European men rushed to polling stations to enlist,
while women showered them with flowers. Mothers,
wives, and sweethearts dutifully sent their men off to
war. Patriotism, a longing for adventure, and a desire
for revenge came together in a feverish enthusiasm for
war. The young soldiers expected to be home, triumphant, by Christmas. Military planners, too, expected a quick, mobile war with one or two decisive
battles, like all the smaller wars that had been fought
since Napoleon was finally defeated in 1815.
The war was initially so popular that even pacifists
hesitated to oppose it, and those who did often brought
trouble on themselves. In Russia, the Social-Democrats
who refused to vote to fund the war were promptly
arrested. The Russian socialist Alexandra Kollontai
openly called for resistance to the warfrom the safety
of neutral Scandinavia. Others, following the idea of
the long-time pacifist Bertha von Suttner, who had
recently died, agitated for a peace without victory.
In the summer of 1915, an International Congress of
Women in the neutral Netherlands called on all warring countries to lay down their arms. By that point,
however, none of the warring countries were ready to
compromise and make peace.
As the Schlieffen Plan dictated, the German army
advanced rapidly and by September 1, 1914, threatened Paris. At this point, the French army and the
British Expeditionary Force launched a counteroffensive. This First Battle of the Marne forced the exAlexandra Kollontai (18721952) Russian revolutionary and diplomat, commissar for social welfare
in 1918 and head of the womens section of the Communist Party.
First Battle of the Marne Crucial battle near the Marne
River, just north of Paris, in early September 1914, in
which the French stopped the German advance.
25
25
he
BELGIUM
Sc
Lige
Coblenz
e
eus
elle
Arras
M
GERMANY
LUXEMBOURG
St. Quentin
Somme
Amiens
Sedan
ne
aa
A is
Compinge
ARGONNE
FOREST
Reims
S
os
ARDENNES
Som
me
e in
Cologne
Brussels
lde
Calais
Antwerp
ine
el
50 Mi.
Ostend
FLANDERS
Ghent
Passchendaele
Ypres
MAP 25.2
Western
Front, 19141918 The Western Front remained mainly
stable from autumn 1914 to
spring 1918 with trenches
stretching from the English
Channel to Switzerland. The
horrors of trench warfare
experienced here inspired
literary and artistic works by
soldiers of all nationalities.
r
Ruh
Rh
Dover
Engl
ish C
ha
nn
NETHERLANDS
50 Km.
Verdun
LORRAINE
ChateauThierry
Marne I
Marne II
Paris
AL
S AC
Germany, 1914
Strasbourg
Meuse
FRANCE
Chalons-sur-Marne
Nancy
Mar
n
Neutral nations
Epinal
Mulhouse
Major battle
Basel
Trench Warfare
No one had anticipated that movement on the western front would stop altogether, but by fall 1914 soldiers on both sides had dug in. Across northern
France were hundreds of miles of trenches in which
thousands of men lived, fought, and died in a sea of
mud, blood, rats, and vermin. The great technological
advances in weaponry produced by the armaments
industry were countered by primitive defenses built
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724
725
726
A World at War
Many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European
conflicts had taken place far from Europe, but this
war in Europes heartland affected the entire world.
At the same time, technological advances, such as the
submarine, brought warfare to the high seas. More
than anything else, Europes unprecedented economic
and colonial domination of the world brought nearly
every continent into the conflict and made it difficult
for independent states to remain neutral. Eventually
twenty-four states were drawn in on the Allied side
from the African Republic of Liberia to China, Japan,
and Siam (Thailand) in Asia; Brazil, Cuba, Guatemala,
and Honduras in South and Central America; and,
eventually, the United States. Of the total world pop-
727
728
nomic effects of the war fueled nationalist and anticolonial sentiments after 1918.
against British rule, demanding an independent Ireland. The Easter Uprising was quickly repressed, but
the anxiety of the British government over the Irish
question increased.
Both Allied and Central Powers attempted to incite the minority national groups under enemy rule.
The Russian tsar and German Kaiser, for example,
each sought to gain Polish loyalty by promising the
Poles increased national rights after the war. In the
Ottoman Empire, the British encouraged nationalist
Arabs to revolt against their Turkish overlords as the
young English officer T. E. LawrenceLawrence of
Arabiadressed in Arab garb to lead Arab troops
against Turkish positions. Today the military cemetery at Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, bears witness to the
thousands of British and Arab troops that died in that
conflict. But even before the fighting had ended, the
future of the region had been decided. In 1916 the
British and French negotiated the Sykes-Picot Agreement, dividing up former Ottoman territories in the
Middle East between themselves. When it became
clear that the British government did not intend to
grant the Arabs real independence, Lawrence resigned in disgust. An even more complicated appeal
to a national minority in the region was the Balfour
Declaration of November 1917, in which the British
government indicated its willingness to set up a Jewish national home in Palestine. Support for Zionism, the British thought, would strengthen Jewish
sympathy throughout the world for the Allied cause.
In another part of the Ottoman Empire, the border
region between Russia and Turkey, an unprecedented
attack on a civilian population occurred: the Armenian Massacre. Relations between Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks (and Kurds), never cordial,
had become severely strained by accusations that the
Armenians had been spying for the Russians. During
the winter of 19151916, Ottoman authorities gave
orders to deport Armenians from their native villages
near the front with Russia. In the course of these deportations, Turkish military units killed many unarmed Armenians or allowed them to perish in the
harsh winter. Up to 1.5 million Armenians died in
these operations, which nearly wiped out the Armenian community in Turkey. As an instance of genocide,
the Armenian Massacre stands as a precursor to even
more horrific ethnically based attacks on civilian populations later in the twentieth century.
The participation by colonized people in the European war effort radicalized movements opposing
European rule and weakened the legitimacy of imperialism. If Indians, for example, could shed blood for
the Allied cause, Indian nationalists argued, why could
they not also rule themselves? In Africa, too, the eco-
War Propaganda
Throughout Europe, governments attempted to control what citizens could know about the wars progress.
The German people did not know that German troops
had destroyed the priceless library at Louvain, in Belgium, while the people of England and France did not
know that the Allies had bombed civilians in Karlsruhe, Germany. Propaganda campaigns sought to
keep up morale and convince citizens that right was
on their side. The enemy was always characterized as
vicious, cunning, and hardly human. The Allies por-
trayed German troops as the Hun, murderous creatures bent on looting and destruction. German atrocities in Belgium were said to include bayoneted children
and raped nuns. German propaganda countered with
stories of German prisoners being tortured by Allied
captors, all the while depicting German soldiers as
defenders of culture pitted against effeminate French
decadence and Russian barbarism.
Politicians speeches, press editorials, posters, and
even songs warned citizens to be ever vigilant, to
avoid defeatism, and to work for the war effort. In
729
730
Germany, the poetic hit of the war was Ernst Lissauers Song of Hatred Against England, for which
the author was awarded the Iron Cross, a military
decoration. Postcards bore such gruesome rhymed
inscriptions as Jeder Schuss ein Russ (Every shot,
a Russian) and Jeder Stoss ein Franzos (Every
bayonet thrust, a Frenchman). Similarly, patriotically
minded Russians could send New Years greetings on
cards depicting a Cossack lopping off a German soldiers head and bearing the message, Happy New
Year! A successful blow! French posters called on citizens to save wine for the troops and to support the
war by buying war bonds.
Films also bolstered spirits, and since one-third or
more of the people of Europeat least those in cities
attended the movies at least once a week, their effect
was significant. In Germany, melodramatic war films,
such as How Max Won the Iron Cross, inspired patriotism. Among the Allies, Charlie Chaplins comedies
enjoyed immense popularity, including his rare, unheroic portrayal of a frontline soldier in Shoulder Arms,
produced in 1918. Moviegoers were also treated to
newsreels, which showed a very sanitized and upbeat
version of the weeks military developments.
Propaganda everywhere dealt in half-truths and
some outright lies. In London one could visit a model
trench that, as returning soldiers complained, hardly
resembled the real thing. In fact, soldiers found the
patriotic falsehoods spread at home to be sickening.
Even civilians on the home front grew weary of the
emphasis on the positive and upbeat as news of casualties mounted and food in the cities grew scarce. In
the end, it is doubtful that the large expenditures on
propaganda had any significant effect on the final
outcome of the war.
Besides controlling the flow of information, governments restricted civil rights. Fearing civil unrest immediately after the declaration of war, in August 1914
the British Parliament passed the Defence of the Realm
Act, known as DORA. This act essentially placed
Britain under martial law for the duration of the war,
allowing police to question and arrest individuals
without a warrant and severely restricting freedom of
speech. Individuals like the philosopher Bertrand
Russell who dared to question the war or to advocate
pacifism were harassed and even imprisoned. In Germany, when the radical socialists Karl Liebknecht
and Rosa Luxemburg denounced the war at a May
Day rally in 1916, calling for it to be transformed into
a class war, they were arrested, tried for treason, and
imprisoned. Even in the United States, the declaration of war in 1917 was quickly followed by the Espionage and Sedition Acts, which outlawed agitation
against the war effort or criticism of the government.
Womens Royal Naval Service), in which women carried out office duties and also served as nurses. In
Germany, the military command established the
Womens Home Army to keep up morale and detect spies. Strikingly, Russia formed and trained a
Womens Battalion of Death, a volunteer unit that
also functioned to shame male soldiers whose morale
was low.
Even the most intimate spheres of life were militarized. A French poster showed a newborn baby lamenting Alas! I arrived too late. Another showed a soldier
surrounded by beaming women proclaiming, Lets
do our part for repopulation. In this way, even the
newborn and the unborn were mobilized for the
war effort.
Old family patterns were disrupted by the absence
of fathers at the front. Women assumed new responsibilities that helped break down old stereotypes and
encouraged demands for economic and political
equality. In Britain, greater numbers of women in wage
work outside the home strengthened the arguments
of womens suffrage activists. By wars end, they had
achieved the vote for women. Children, too, became
more independent and self-reliant. Men returning from
the front were sometimes shocked by the new attitudes of their wives, sisters, and children. Entire societies felt the impact of the new social and economic
roles for women that developed during wartime.
731
732
some bread and milk to sell. On March 8, 1917, however, many shops had received no food at all, and
women were turned away empty handed. As they
trudged home, worrying how they would feed their
families, they came upon radical women demonstrating in support of International Womens Day. The
two groups came together, and soon the entire capital
city was in an uproar, with ten thousand women demanding equal rights for women, a Russian republic,
and an end to the wardemands summed up in the
slogan Bread and Peace. As workers went out on
strike and even middle-class professionals took to the
streets, the local chief of police telegraphed news of
the riots to Nicholas. The president of the Duma sent
Petrograd Soviet (in Russian, council) Radical council that represented socialist workers and soldiers and
shared power with the more moderate Provisional
Government.
Bolsheviks Radical wing of the Russian SocialDemocratic Party in 1917 led by Vladimir Lenin,
whose program called for Peace, Land, and Bread.
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Lenin Proposes His April Theses
When V. I. Lenin returned to Petrograd in April 1917, the enthusiasm for the democratic revolution of March had not yet worn off. Even socialist partiesincluding
Lenins own Bolshevikshad agreed to support the Provisional Government until
the war was won. Within days of his return, Lenin shocked his Bolshevik colleagues
with his April Theses, which demanded a far more radical and confrontational
course of action. In any other country at warincluding the United StatesLenin
would have been arrested for his demands to end the war and for revolution. The
fact that he was able to publish these radical comments openly shows that, indeed, as he himself commented, Russia after the March revolution was the freest
country in the world.
[Thesis 1: Against the war]
The war . . . unquestionably remains on Russias part a predatory imperialist
war owing to the capitalist nature of that [provisional] government. . . .
The class-conscious proletariat can give its consent to a revolutionary war. . . .
It is necessary . . . to explain the inseparable connection existing between
capital and the imperialist war, and to prove that without overthrowing capital it
is impossible to end the war by a truly democratic peace. . . .
733
734
sional Government
conservative or antisocialist? What does
Lenin mean by annexations here?
Would peasants
specifically mention
that banks should be
nationalized (he does
not mention any other
kind of business or
industry)?
On the night of November 6, the Bolsheviks executed a carefully planned takeover of Petrograd.
Bridges across the river Neva were occupied, and the
Bolshevik partys Red Guards surrounded the main
railway stations, central post office, and other strategic
buildings. The Provisional Government found itself
trapped inside the Winter Palace, unable to communicate with the outside. Except for a few cadets and
the ill-trained Womens Battalion of Death, no one defended Kerensky and the recognized government of
Russia. Very much like the tsars regime some eight
months earlier, the Provisional Government collapsed.
As Lenin put it later, Power lay on the street; we
merely picked it up. The following day, the Bolsheviks broke into the Winter Palace and arrested the
members of the Provisional Government except for
Kerensky, who, disguised as a woman, escaped in
an American Embassy automobile. Though the Bolsheviks faced stiff opposition and street fighting in
Moscow, in the countryside peasants were far more
concerned with seizing the land they had been promised by the Bolsheviks. By the end of November,
Lenin and his party comrades found themselves unexpectedly in control of the worlds largest country.
The Bolsheviks themselves did not expect their
power to last. They hurried to proclaim Russia the first
socialist state in history and rapidly issued decrees
calling for peace, nationalizing land for peasants, establishing worker control of factories, and affirming
equal rights for all religious and national minorities.
Alexandra Kollontai became commissar for peoples
welfare. To the embarrassment of the Allied Powers,
the Bolsheviks published secret treaties concerning
promises about postwar settlements revealing, among
other things, that Russia was to receive territory from
Turkey after the waragreements that the Allies had
earlier denied. The long-delayed elections to the constituent assembly were allowed to take place, but
when it convened in January 1918, the Bolsheviks shut
Red Guards Troops organized by the Bolsheviks that
were instrumental in their victory in the Russian Revolution of November 1917.
735
736
What events led to the defeat of Germany and the Central Powers?
Why did so many Germans refuse to believe that they
had been defeated?
After two and a half years of war, by early 1917 despair and frustration prevailed on all sides. The ideals
and enthusiasm of the summer of 1914 had been long
forgotten as governments and military leaders desperately cast about for some way of ending the conflict. Two events of 1917 broke this deadlock: the
revolutions in Russia and the decision of the United
States to enter the war on the Allied side. With the arrival of American finances, troops, and equipment,
chances for a victory of the Central Powers faded.
The year 1918 began with German victory on the
eastern front but ended with defeat in the west. Few
Germans realized at the time how crushing this defeat would be. But even the exhausted Allies had little cause for celebration in 1918.
War Exhaustion
Based on the military situation in early 1917, it would
have been difficult to predict World War Is final out-
not see how their interests were involved in the European war and preferred to remain neutral. Even after
the public outrage over the sinking of the Lusitania in
May 1915, President Wilson remained unwilling to
press for American intervention. His election campaign of the following year was conducted under the
slogan He kept us out of war. But just a month after
his second inauguration, Wilson signed a declaration
of war against Germany.
Two foolish actions by the German government
had altered American public opinion. In January
1917, the German foreign minister, Arthur Zimmermann, telegraphed the German ambassador in Mexico, instructing him to offer Mexico the return of
lands lost in the 1840s to the United States if Mexico
would support Germany against the Americans. The
British intercepted the telegram and revealed its contents to the American government. The reaction was
predictably furious, and when the telegram was published in the American press in March, anti-German
war sentiment ran high.
At the beginning of February, the Germans announced the resumption of unrestricted submarine
warfare, disregarding the effect that such a move
would have on American public opinion. The sinking
of several American merchant ships strengthened
calls for intervention. The March revolution in Russia
heightened the contrast between the militarist regime in Berlin and democratic governments in Paris,
London, and now Petrograd. All these factors came
together in Wilsons request on April 2, 1917, for a
declaration of war. Wilson stated that world peace
was the goal: The world must be made safe for
democracy.
The impact of the American entry into the war was
felt first financially. American loans and credits, previously somewhat restrained by considerations of
neutrality, opened up fully for the Allied Powers.
American factories retooled for war production, and
more than 20 million men registered for military service. American soldiers began to arrive in France in
June 1917, though it was not until 1918 that American
troops actually went into battle. Just as in European
countries, the American government intervened in
the economy. The War Industries Board in Washington coordinated production and distribution of essential goods. As American troops and manufactured
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738
goods streamed across the Atlantic, the Central Powers were reaching their last reserves.
German Defeat
In January 1918, Woodrow Wilson issued his famous
Fourteen Pointsa plan of the future peace based
not on revenge but on the liberal principles of freedom, justice, and free trade. Among the most important of the Fourteen Points were the demands for
open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, national
self-determination, an independent Polish state, arms
reduction, free navigation of the seas, and the creation of a postwar international bodythe League of
Nationsthat would regulate relations between states
and prevent future wars. Through private conversations, many Germans and Austrians learned of the
speech despite their governments efforts to suppress
the information. For them, the Fourteen Points appeared to open the possibility of peace negotiations.
Others, however, denounced Wilsons speech as mere
propaganda. As long as there was a chance for military victory, in any case, the German government expressed no interest in Wilsons proposal.
Hoping to win the war quickly, the Germans
launched major offensives on the western front in the
spring of 1918, but they failed, with several hundred
thousand casualties only weakening the Germany
military further. By autumn, even the German High
Command recognized they had lost the war. Thinking that a civilian government could win milder
terms from the Allies, and seeking to evade their own
responsibility for the defeat, the military leadership
persuaded the Kaiser to abdicate. As strikes and political demonstrations rocked German cities, a new
government was formed, dominated by moderate socialists. In this way, the burden of defeat fell not on
generals and the Kaiser but on the fledgling democratic government of Germany.
Under the armistice agreement, the Germans promised to withdraw from Belgium, return Alsace-Lorraine
ceased to exist. Factories were breaking down without proper upkeep and investment. The total cost of
the war is difficult to calculate, but the famous English economist John Maynard Keynes estimated that
it represented Europes entire industrial output of
several years.
From London to Constantinople, from Moscow to
Marseilles, Europeans were poorer in 1918 than in 1914.
Except for Britain, industrial production contracted.
Commercial trade ceased, and the center of international finance shifted from London to New York.
Agriculture also suffered, and food shortages were so
widespread, especially as the naval blockade continued, pending the peace settlement, that millions faced
starvation in the winter of 1918. On the other side of
the world, Japan prospered during the war and increased its influence in the region at the expense of
China. The American economy also boomed as its capital and goods streamed into Europe, further reducing
the European proportion of world economic output.
The war had a permanent effect on the European
psyche. Trench warfare and total war made optimism
about the futureand belief in the pasthollow. The
739
notion of human progress was undone. Disorientation, depression, and rage were the surviving emotions, reflected in the paintings of Paul Nash and
George Grosz and in the highly unmilitary figure of
Jaroslav Haseks Good Soldier Svejk. Literary critic Paul
Fussell has suggested that World War I even altered
Summary
Review Questions
What role did nationalism play in the outbreak and
events of World War I?
How did new technologies make World War I a new
type of war, both at the front and at home?
How did World War I alter the way Europeans sense
of themselves and their world?
To manage this unexpected Great War, states assumed a far greater role in citizens lives than ever before. Governments coordinated the distribution of
raw materials and transformed civilian industry for
military purposes. They brokered agreements between labor and big business to prevent strikes. To finance the war, they ran up large deficits, causing
prices to rise and purchasing power to decline. To ensure loyalty and bolster morale, they restricted free
speech, censored news, and spent large sums on
propaganda. In this first total war, governments demanded that citizens work only for total victory.
While the front experience was almost exclusively
male, the home front was dominated by women, and
it had a major impact on family life. With millions of
men gone from the fields and factories, women took
jobs outside the homemany for the first timein
munitions manufacturing and nursing. Their increasingly public role strengthened their demands for
equal rights and the vote.
On November 11, 1918, the war came to an end.
For most Germans, defeat was a shock, as the German armies had won in the east and in the west still
held French territory. But there were no real victors.
Millions had lost their lives or been crippled. Billions
had been spent, bankrupting European governments.
The north of France was gutted with shell craters, the
earth poisoned. The end of the war was greeted not
with rejoicing but with a dull bewilderment.
740
Websites
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Propaganda and Advertising
Fly to Paris for $99! Speak Arabic in just two hours! Have fuller, sexier hair! We are constantly bombarded with advertising slogans and appeals. On the radio, on television, and inevitably in our e-mail inbox,
we find promises of a better sex life, slimmer hips without hunger, grade-A research papers, and more. We
have come to regard such promises with a great deal of skepticism, knowing well that the ticket to Paris
will end up costing $900, that after two hours we will barely know ten words in Arabic, and that better sex
rarely arrives by e-mail. Similarly, official reports and government statements are no longer accepted as
necessarily trueat least not the entire truth. In 1914, however, people were not yet accustomed to this
steady stream of lies and half-truths.
Propaganda is a Latin word first used by the Catholic Church to refer to the spreading of the faith, without
any negative connotation. When, in 1914, the British set up an agency to keep up public morale and convince
citizens of the moral correctness of the war effort, they called it the War Propaganda Bureau. Famous writers
such as John Galsworthy, Rudyard Kipling, and Arthur Conan Doyle were recruited to write pamphlets praising
British war aims and military leadership, while denouncing German barbarism. Photographers and artists were
also recruited for the war effort. Similarly in America, the Committee on Public Information worked to increase public support and enthusiasm for the war, publishing posters and pamphlets showing the Germans to
be cruel and inhuman, and even creating films with titles such as The Kaiser: The Beast of Berlin.
Advertisers learned a lot from war propaganda. A complete lie is not effective: it is too easily found out.
Much better is to present part of the truth as the whole. Just as propagandists made some German atrocities seem universal, advertisers expand an attractive feature into a life-changing virtue. Everyone knows the
story of the boy who cried wolf, whose jokes got him in trouble when the real wolf arrived. Similarly, the
lies and distortions of war propaganda in World War I convinced many people after 1918 to believe no
claims of atrocities or appeals to patriotism issued by the government. Thus, World War I propaganda
played a role in the creation of a much more skepticalor even cynicalattitude, whether toward government pronouncements or advertisers claims.
Suggested Readings
Ferguson, Niall. The Pity of War. New York: Basic Books, 1999.
Sophisticated and detailed argument against the inevitability
of World War I.
Figes, Orlando. A Peoples Tragedy: The Russian Revolution,
18911924. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. A very detailed account of the causes and events of the revolution.
Fischer, Fritz. Germanys Aims in the First World War. London:
Chatto and Windus, 1967. Controversial and path-breaking
work arguing that Germanys aggressive economic and political policies were primarily to blame for World War I.
Websites
A huge variety of military, diplomatic, and memoir sources,
The World War I Document Archive, at http://net.lib.byu.edu/
~rdh7/wwi
Images, documents, posters, maps, and a wealth of other information, An Internet History of the Great War, at www
.worldwar1.com
Paintings, music, writings, information on the Russian Revolution, Soviet History at http://www.marxists.org/history/
ussr/index.htm
741
742
CHAPTER
A Decade of
Revolutionary
Experiments,
19181929
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Alexandra Kollontai Becomes
a Revolutionary
Introduction
The Search for Stability, 19181924
The Peace Treaties
Revolutionary Upheavals
War Reparations and Economic Crisis
Postwar Political Experiments, 19241929
Politics in Western Europe
Politics in Eastern Europe
Fascism
Social Democracy in Scandinavia
Summary
Echo: Sex Advice Columns in Womens
Magazines
Suggested Readings
1500 B.C.E.
1000 B.C.E.
1918
Russian civil
war begins
1916
Websites
1917
1918
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1919
League of Nations is established
Versailles Treaty imposes a
harsh peace on Germany
1919
1920
1922
Mussolini seizes
power in Italy
1921
1922
NORWAY
Oslo
SWEDEN
Helsinki
Leningrad
(St. Petersburg)
ESTONIA
North
Sea
GREAT
BRITAIN
LATVIA
DENMARK
Free city
of Danzig
El
be
GERMANY
POLISH
CORRIDOR
Vi
ne
VAKIA
ies
ter
BE
Budapest
HUNGARY
Trieste
ISTRIA
ROMANIA
CROATIA
Belgrade
Bucharest
D a n u be
Batum
BULGARIA
Kars
Sofia
MONTENEGRO
(To Yugoslavia 1921)
Tabriz
Istanbul
ALBANIA
Sardinia
Baleric Is.
Me
ALGERIA
dit
er
ne
Tunis
(France)
Ankara
TURKEY
GREECE
ra
an
TUNISIA
(France)
Izmir
(Smyrna)
Aleppo
SYRIA
(French Mandate)
Malta
Se
Crete
200
LEBANON
Cyprus
(French Mandate)
(Gr. Br.)
Beirut
(British Mandate)
lllll
l
(British Mandate)
Basra
l
l lll
(Independent 1922)
(Italy)
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
1923
French occupy the Ruhr
Hitlers Beer Hall Putsch fails
1924
(Gr. Br.)
TRANSJORDAN
(British Mandate)
HEJAZ
1926
1927
NEUTRAL
ZONES
NEJD
(SAUDI ARABIA)
1500 C.E.
1926
Germany is
admitted to the
League of Nations
1925
KUWAIT
Amman
Cairo
EGYPT
LIBYA
Baghdad
IRAQ
(MESOPOTAMIA) Kut el Amara
200
Damascus
400 Km.
PALESTINE
1923
PERSIA
(IRAN)
(Annexed
by Turkey
1939)
Athens
Sicily
pi
Baku
Black Sea
YUGOSLAVIA
SERBIA
as
Zagreb
TRANSYLVANIA
ITALY
Rome
Se
Rhne
Dn
an
Elba
Corsica
AUSTRIA
SAN
MORINO
D n ie
per
GALICIA
IA
AB
e
nn
ro
Locarno
Po Milan
Venice
Genoa
Rapallo
AR
S.
TYROL
MONACO
SPAIN
Do
SS
POLAND
Warsaw
Vienna
Bern
SWITZ.
Boundaries of 1926
Areas controlled under mandates from
the League of Nations, 1920
R hi
Se
C Z Prague
ECH
OSLO
ALSACE
Geneva
la
Demilitarized Zones
Kiev
Frankfurt
LUX.
FRANCE
Wilno
(Vilnius)
Cologne
Weimar
LORRAINE
L oire
st u
RUSSIAN
EMPIRE
LITHUANIA
EAST
PRUSSIA
Moscow
Riga
Baltic
Copenhagen S e a
Berlin
ne
Paris
NETHERLANDS
Amsterdam
Brussels
BELGIUM
2000 C.E.
1928
Kellogg-Briand
Pact outlaws war
Stalin assumes
leadership of
Soviet Union
1928
1929
U.S. stock
market crashes
Great Depression
begins
1929
1930
743
744
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Alexandra Kollontai Becomes
a Revolutionary
Alexandra
Kollontai
Though a role model for
many feminists, Bolshevik
revolutionary Alexandra
Kollontai (18721952) never
saw herself as such. She
considered feminism a product of nineteenth-century
capitalism and a misguided
ideology for women who
wanted liberation. She believed that only by achieving
economic power as wage
earners would women be
able to gain freedom and
social equality. (Sovfoto)
living in free unions and raising children in communal settings, where domestic
chorescleaning, cooking, and child carewould be shared. She lived by her convictions but was unable to inspire others to do the same. Most women were not
ready to abandon the satisfaction and security of marriage and motherhood, and
men resisted her radical ideas. Yet Kollontais choice for freedom and courage to
reshape her identity according to her radical beliefs made her a symbol of revolutionary experiments in politics and social relations that marked the decade after
the Great War.
Introduction
745
746
Chronology
19181922
1919
1921
Comintern is established;
Bolshevik revolution in Hungary creates shortlived Soviet Republic;
League of Nations is established;
Treaty of Versailles officially ends World War I;
Fiume Republic is established
Lenin inaugurates the New Economic Policy
in Russia
1922
1923
own political position at home. The peace negotiations were driven as much by internal as by international considerations. They were also driven by secret
treaties made during the war. As a consequence, the
ideal of national self-determination promoted by U.S.
president Woodrow Wilson stood little chance of success. In the end, the victors were dissatisfied, and the
defeated were humiliated. Even before the ink dried
on the paper of the last peace document (1923), radical movements were undoing the stability of Europe.
19231925
1924
1925
1926
1928
Table 26.1
World War I Peace Treaties
1918 Brest-Litovsk: Germany with Russia
1919 Versailles: Allies with Germany
1919 St. Germain: Allies with Austria
1919 Neuilly-sur-Seine: Allies with Bulgaria
1920 Trianon: Allies with Hungary
1920 Svres: Allies with Turkey
1921 Riga: Poland with Soviet Union
1924 Lausanne: Allies with Turkey and Greece
Empire. The Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916) had promised France and Britain various Ottoman territories in
the Middle East. After the war, contradictory promises
made by some British leaders, such as T. E. Lawrence,
to Arab nationalist groups, and by other British politicians to Jewish Zionist groups (the Balfour Declaration) produced a conflict over Arab and Jewish
747
748
ficking, labor practices, and the treatment of displaced persons. But it did not have the strength to enforce its decisions. Its most severe punishment was to
expel countries that did not comply.
The league did have an important role regarding
the status of colonies, however. Former German colonies in Africa and Asia were transferred to Britain,
France, Japan, and the United States as trust territories
or mandates, and large parts of the former Ottoman
Empire were also placed under British authority.
Through its new mandate system, the league monitored the treatment of the native populations by colonial governments and facilitated cooperation among
colonial powers, which were now also obligated to
report to the league on their colonies. The goal of this
system was to prepare native populations for selfgovernment. One prominent example was the role of
Britain in facilitating the development of modern political institutions and elites in Iraq, which moved
from its protectorate position in 1919 to gaining full
independence in 1932.
In most cases, the league found it difficult to enforce
its supervisory role without a military force. At the
same time, the participation of colonial troops in the
war and the promises of the league had awakened
the hope of self-rule and greater freedom among native peoples, and the league was ineffective in easing
the resulting tensions. Especially in Palestine, another
British mandate, clashes between the local Arab population and resolute Jewish settlers continued into
the 1930s and beyond.
Still, the league represented a major departure from
the system of international relations of the nineteenth
century, in which small states had been virtual clients
of the Great Powers. Some of these uneven power relations continued after the war, but recognition of all
member states as equals allowed small and new states
to carve out a more independent position in international relations. This more democratic and inclusive
setting helped generate a new culture of diplomacy,
in which alliances and negotiations were discussed
openly. Even though the league was ultimately unsuccessful in preventing another world war, it did
Revolutionary Upheavals
The Bolshevik threat also shaped the ultimate outcome
of the peace negotiations. With revolution in Russia
and millions of armed soldiers on their way home to
ruined economies and impoverished families throughout Europe, all states were afraid of revolution. In a
few cases, this fear was real. In Germany, the Communist and Socialist Parties seemed on the rise, and several bloody uprisings took place between November
1918 and January 1919. They were crushed relatively
quickly and violently, with leaders Rosa Luxemburg
and Karl Liebknecht brutally murdered on the spot.
A young corporal, Adolf Hitler, made himself known
in the crushing of the communist uprising in Bavaria.
In Hungary, a Bolshevik revolution in March 1919
helped bring about a short-lived (133 days) Soviet
Republic under the leadership of Bla Kun. The Bolshevik success here owed much to the Hungarians
dissatisfaction with the results of the war. As junior
partners of the Austrians, they had endured great
material and psychological losses. Kuns regime did
not alleviate this suffering, focusing instead on the
brutal suppression of its enemies. In a swift reaction,
the Great Powers allowed Slovak and Romanian forces
to invade the country. The results were disastrous for
Hungary. The Kun regime was crushed, but Romania
and Czechoslovakia extracted large territorial concessions for their role in saving the Hungarian people.
The result was the Treaty of Trianon (1920), which reduced Hungary to one-third its prewar size, with large
groups of Hungarians living outside its borders. The
brief and violent Soviet Republic proved a costly experiment. It rendered Hungary small, landlocked, and
vengeful, eager to revise the peace treaties.
Another short-lived revolutionary experiment was
the Republic of Fiume, the brainchild of Italian poet
Gabriele DAnnunzio. This small Adriatic port was
part of Istria, the area claimed by Italy and Yugoslavia.
South Slavs constituted a majority in Istria, but Fiume
had an Italian majority. Wilson sided with Yugoslavia.
Given the controversy over this city, DAnnunzio decided to take matters into his own hands and seized
municipal institutions in September 1919. The poet
became a military dictator, revered by his followers
and feared by the general public.
Fiume was finally granted to Italy, but its ultimate
fate was less important than the style of rule and
charismatic leadership DAnnunzio modeled for Benito Mussolini, the future fascist leader. DAnnunzios
749
750
War Reparations
and Economic Crisis
While the peace treaties sought political solutions to
Europes turmoil, economic stability proved elusive.
The cost of the war had been enormous in financing
the military effort and rebuilding destroyed lands
and industries. Between the deficits that built up to finance the wars and the overall drop in economic production, all European states emerged from the war
with major deficits, looking toward the United States
for help. The victorious Allies, wanting the Central
Powers to pay these costs, imposed reparations as part
of the peace treaties. By far the largest reparations were
demanded of Germany, both as revenge and as a
means for the political leaders at Versailles to gain popular support at home. Coupled with the treatys war
guilt clause, in which Germany had to admit responsibility for starting the war, and its demand for disarmament, including demilitarization of the Rhineland,
reparations reinforced Germanys humiliation and
aimed to prevent it from becoming a major power
again. The notion of making losers pay for the costs of
armed conflict was not new, but the size of the payments was unprecedented. An international commission set reparations at 132 billion gold marks (today
about $331.79 billion), or two years worth of Germanys gross national product.
The British and French pressed Germany to start
payments immediately, as both needed to repay the
2,000
1,600
1,200
800
400
Mar.
May
July.
Year
Sept.
Nov.
FIGURE 26.1
The Ruhr crisis brought in other mediators, including a commission headed by American statesman and
banker Charles G. Dawes. Its recommendations,
known as the Dawes Plan (1924), set reparation payments at more realistic levels and helped rebuild the
economies of other European countries, including Germanys. The United States loaned money to Germany
to finance its war debt. Germany then paid installments
to France and Britain as part of its reparations. These
payments enabled France and Britain to repay their
war loans back to the United States. By the second half
of the 1920s, Europes economies seemed restabilized.
With inflation under control in Germany and reparations payments steady, a new mood of reconciliation dominated Franco-German relations. In 1925, the
two countries finally accepted their post-1918 common border. The League of Nations, despite the absence of the United States, was active and had a
growing membership that after 1926 included Germany. That same year Aristide Briand, the French
foreign minister, and Gustav Stresemann, his German counterpart, received the Nobel Peace Prize for
0
Jan.
751
752
leadership of the country and preferred instead to manipulate policymaking through indirect threats and
intrigues. Polands failure to build democracy was
typical of most other eastern European states.
In the former Ottoman lands, Greece and Turkey
also aimed for stability and prosperity within their new
borders, often disregarding democratic aspirations.
753
754
Turkey also failed in its attempt to foster democracy. Atatrk focused his entire career as president of
the new republic (19201938) on consolidating parliamentary rule, a secular government, and a new type
of military. He also pursued modernizing social programs, such as compulsory education for all children and many reforms to empower women. Yet his
style of government was not unlike that of Pilsudski,
preaching democratization while practicing heavyhanded authoritarian tactics. Yet, although substantially diminished in terms of size, during the 1920s
Turkey, reshaped by Atatrk, was militarily stronger,
more homogeneous, and effectively secularized.
Fascism
The look of Mussolinis Italian gangs of combat was modeled after Gabriele DAnnunzios paramilitary troops in Fiume. They represented a specific aesthetic vision of force,
order, and physical beauty, intended to awe supporters and
frighten opponents. (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)
755
756
The most radical experiment of the 1920s was the Soviet state. Out of a bloody civil war, the Bolsheviks
were able to create a smaller but stronger country in
which they reinvented the state and reshaped society
according to Marxist-Leninist ideology. The Bolsheviks succeeded because of the unprecedented level of
control imposed on every aspect of public life, rendering the Communist Party all-powerful and individuals fearful of the partys every move. The Bolsheviks
also tried to attract people to the party by promising
a better life for workers and peasants. By 1929, the Soviet Union had consolidated into a stable police state.
757
Entente
fleet
CANADIANS
AMERICANS
Murmansk
BRITISH
FRENCH
CANADIANS
ITALIANS
SERBS
Archangel
BRITISH
FRENCH
D
E
F INLAND
SW
FINNS
(Independent)
1917
Helsinki
Kronstadt
Leningrad
British
fleet
Pskov
LETTS
BOLSHEVIK
lga
Vo
BALTIC
GERMANS
Kazan
NizhniyNovgorod
Moscow
CZECHS
19
LITHUANIA
RUSSIA
9 1 8
LATVIA Riga
ak 1
Se
K ol c h
Ba
c
lti
ESTONIA
GERMANY
(E. PRUSSIA)
Minsk
Samara
LA
u la
Warsaw
ND
is t
Ur
BrestLitovsk
PO
758
POLES
Voronezh
Kiev
CZECHOSL
OV
Denikin
1919
UKRAINE
AK
IA
Dn
Dn
i
ester
ABIA
AR
SS
BE
HUNGARY
ROMANIANS
ROMANIA
al
Don
Kharkov
COSSACKS
191820
Stalingrad
i epe
r
Vo
Rostov-onDon
FRENCH
lg
a
Astrakhan
Odessa
Cossacks
SL A V
GO
YU
CRIMEA
Da n ube
FRENCH
BRITISH
IA
BULGARIA
CAU
CAS
US
BRITISH
Tiflis
Entente
fleet
GEORGIA
GREECE
0
200
400 Km.
200
Baku
BRITISH
TURKEY
Tabriz
BRITISH
191819
400 Mi.
MAP 26.1
The Russian Civil War, 19181922 The Russian Civil War proved to be a second conflict
of attrition after World War I, engulfing large parts of Russia and lasting almost three years. The victory
of the Reds (Bolsheviks) came at a high human and territorial price, as Russia lost many of its western imperial lands.
In December 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) came into being. The ideological and
legal foundations of this state combined the writings
of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels with V. I. Lenins
own ideas. One fundamental principle of the new order was equality, understood very differently from
the definition offered in the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Instead of focusing on equal rights for
pursuing individual goals, the Soviets focused on
economic equality: all people who worked were equally
entitled to the fruits of their labor. This principle also
implied that differences in wealth and class were fundamentally unjust, as they were based on the oppression of one class (the workers) by another (the
bourgeoisie). The Soviet state set out to eliminate
these injustices, first by taking all property and
means of production away from the bourgeoisie and
nobility and then by enabling workers to gain control
over the economy. The proletariat, or workers, the
producers of goods, were to control the fruits of their
labor. By 1922, most of the means of production were
under state control. The system the Bolsheviks imagined was entirely untested. No other country in the
world had attempted such a fundamental transformation of the economic and social system overnight.
The Soviet Union also had to address problems of
political stability and control. The revolution took
place before workers had achieved full consciousness of class conflicts, one of the Marxist prerequisites
for a communist revolution. Lenin made it an important goal for the Bolshevik regime to consolidate political power both by inclusive means, educating the
workers and peasants, and by exclusionary tactics,
eliminating enemies of the Bolsheviks. Propaganda
and a secret police with an extensive network of informants were essential for this effort, and both had
been solidified during the civil war. By 1922, they were
essential in building state institutions and programs.
Finally, the Soviet regime aimed to open opportunities for political participation to people who had lacked
a voice before 1917. This goal was also incorporated
into Soviet propaganda: the party would listen to the
759
760
761
762
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Alexandra Kollontai Advocates a New Type
of Woman
Alexandra Kollontai was one of the most active leaders of the communist movement in Russia before 1917 and also an accomplished writer. Her writings depicted
radically new female heroines, free from old-fashioned notions of emotional dependency and jealousy, acting as powerful movers and shakers. Yet her ideas regarding womens roles in society and marriage made her unpopular with the
communist leadership, so she was sent abroad in 1922. While away from the Soviet Union, Kollontai published other radical writings, including the book from
which the following selection is taken, The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman, first published in Norway in 1926.
But who are they, these single new women? The single
Kollontai uses the
womanshe is a child of the large-scale capitalist ecoterms unfit and
nomic system. There is no place in the ranks of
natural selection to
those earning their own livelihood for the unfit, that
connect capitalism to
is to say, the women of the old type. Here, too, therea certain scientific
fore, a natural selection among the women of the
theory of the ninedifferent social strata is discernible: only the stronger,
teenth century. What
more resistant disciplined natures arrive in the ranks of
is she referring to?
those earning their own livelihood. The weak,
inwardly passive, cling to the family hearth, and when
the insecurity of existence tears them away from the
protection of the family, to catapult them into the stream of life, supinely, they let
themselves be driven by the waves of legal or illegal prostitution: they enter into a
marriage of convenience or they walk the streets.
The influence of women earning their own liveli How do working
hood spreads far beyond their own circle. With their
women revolt against
criticism, they poison the minds of their contempopast truths? Does
raries, they smash old idols, they raise the banner of
Kollontai criticize
revolt against those truths with which women have
or celebrate this
lived for generations. By liberating themselves, the new,
challenge?
single women, earning their own livelihood, also liberate the passive-backward spirit, as this has been molded
down the centuries, of their contemporary sisters.
But whereas with the women of the working class, the struggle for the
assertion of their rights, the strengthening of their personality, coincides with the
interests of the class, the women of other social strata
run into unexpected obstacles: the ideology of their
class is hostile to the transformation of the feminine
Is the womens
type. In the bourgeois milieu, womans rebellion
movement for liberabears a far sharper character, its forms are set in bolder
tion separate, or does
relief, and here the psychological dramas are far
it have to be part of a
sharper, more variegated, and more complicated.
larger working-class
The new type of woman, inwardly self-reliant, indepenmovement?
dent, and free, corresponds with the morality which
the working class is elaborating precisely in the interests of its class. For the working class the accomplishment of its mission does not require that she be a handmaid of the husband, an impersonal domestic creature, endowed with passive,
feminine traits. Rather, it requires a personality rising and rebelling against every
kind of slavery, an active conscious equal member of the community, of the class.
763
764
unable to communicate their suffering to noncombatants. So many soldiers had gruesome injuries that
the sight of a maimed body became commonplace.
Deep psychological and physical scars forced veterans to question their masculinity and often strained
relationships at home; domestic violence increased.
These men yearned to have their old jobs and the
prestige they had enjoyed before the war, but nothing
could go back to the way it had been.
Many women had entered male professions and
jobs during the war. After 1918, both government and
private businesses preferred to rehire men, however,
even for positions in which women had been effective and had accepted lower wages. The idea that
men were breadwinners and women were nurturers
remained strong, but not all women returned to the
home. Many continued to work, but in jobs that were
less secure and worse paid, including domestic and
secretarial work and factory work in the food industry. Women were also increasingly important as consumers, as evidenced by the greater diversity in goods
available at both the low and high ends of the markets.
An aggressive fashion industry focused on working
girls and independent women. The image of the flapper, or new woman, was plastered all over fashion
magazines and movie posters. These changes suggested new identities opening up for women.
Yet little changed for women in the domestic sphere.
They were still considered primarily responsible for
child care, cooking, and tending to the home. Unlike
the Scandinavian welfare experiments and the Bolshevik revolution in womens family responsibilities,
governments in the rest of Europe paid little attention
to child-care questions. Consequently, women found it
difficult to both work and take care of their families, or
they did so with enormous effort and little support.
Still, in the realm of politics women made important gains, achieving voting rights except in France,
Italy, Spain, and the Balkans, where they could vote
only in local elections. The extent of womens suffrage
varied and often included educational, marriage, and
age criteria at a time when universal male suffrage
was the norm. But even as feminists celebrated this
victory, they also wondered how much power women
had really gained. Though women could vote, their
concerns were not necessarily reflected in party platforms, nor were female politicians successful in the
first decade after the war. Traditional parties, even
liberal and socialist ones with pro-women platforms,
were unwilling to put forth female candidates. Questions about womens rights seemed subordinate to
the pressing issues of Bolshevik threat, war debt, inflation, unemployment, and revisionism.
Yet politicians appealed to women as mothers and
Artistic Experiments
Removed due to copyright
permissions restrictions.
Hannah Hchs collage Cut with a Cake Knife (1919) is an example of the dada movement in art that flourished during
and right after World War I. Hchs work explored the contradictions of contemporary society in an aggressively ironic
feminist vein. By placing female heads on male bodies and
vice versa, and including images of politicians in her collages,
Hch forced viewers to confront their own gendered assumptions. The presence of faceless bodies also points toward her
struggle with defining identity in postwar Germany. (Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 2007 Artists Rights Society
[ARS], NY)
765
766
that revolutionized cinema. His techniques in framing, lighting, and composition were stark and expressive, unlike anything that had been seen on the silver
screen before.
Soviet artists were not, however, free of state control. Chagall fell out of favor with the Soviet leadership and had to leave the country in 1923 because of
tensions with the party and increased antisemitism.
Mayakovsky committed suicide in 1930 after his work
was severely criticized by party officials. Eisenstein
was able to pursue his creative work only by making
movies that did not challenge the ideology of the
Communist Party. His prominent films from the 1920s
were, in fact, powerful propaganda for the Soviet
regime. Under Stalins dictatorship, many writers and
artists were silenced, imprisoned, or killed for their art.
Experiments in Architecture
and Design
After the war, some architects and designers sought
to redefine the relationship between the practical and
the artistic by simplifying architectural and interior
design. Grouped around Walter Gropius in Germany,
these designers, artists, and architects became known
as the Bauhaus school, the most influential design
Surrealism Artistic movement of the 1920s and 1930s
that explored the realm of dreams and altered reality to
find the deeper truth of human experience.
Andr Breton (18961966) French writer and founder
of Surrealism.
Salvador Dali (19041989) Spanish-born artist who
became the most famous Surrealist.
Ren Magritte (18981967) Belgian Surrealist painter
famous for his superimposition of photographically
depicted objects in unrelated three-dimensional spaces.
Expressionism Artistic movement that aimed to represent the connection between the inner emotional world
and outer social reality.
Kthe Kollwitz (18671945) German Expressionist
artist who portrayed the plight of working-class
women and children.
Marc Chagall (18871985) Russian Jewish painter
whose art combined romantic images of lovers, nature,
and traditional Jewish symbols with harsh political
commentary.
Sergei Eisenstein (18981948) One of the greatest film
directors of the twentieth century, who used pioneering film techniques as powerful propaganda for the
Bolsheviks.
Bauhaus school Innovative German movement of
architectural and interior design that sought to make
living spaces and furniture designs functional and
affordable.
Popular Entertainment
High art joined popular culture in this amazing
decade to give new status to entertainment, particularly dance and music. Cabarets had been popular
since the 1910s, but after the war they were transformed by new trends, particularly American jazz,
which swept working-class music halls and highclass art gatherings from Paris to Bucharest. Jazz was
electrifying, showcasing improvisation and defying
old classifications in its combinations of African
rhythms and slave songs with popular ragtime and
the blues. Introduced to Europe by African American
The artistic persona of Josephine Baker, the enormously popular African American jazz dancer in Paris, challenged the
aesthetic norms of old Europe and reinforced concepts of race
in European culture. Bakers freedom and eroticism were
depicted as organically tied to her African blood, so that she
appeared as modern and primitive, sophisticated and wild.
(Private Collection DACS/Peter Newark American Pictures/
The Bridgeman Art Library)
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768
Summary
Summary
How did the destruction of the Great War bring about
political and social transformations?
How did the political and cultural experiments of the
1920s challenge the old order and ideas of prewar
Europe?
How did political and social identities shift in the
aftermath of war and the experiments of the 1920s?
their hard lives. These forms of popular entertainment also allowed them the freedom to imagine other
roles for themselvesas famous dancers, actors, or
musicians. The new entertainment styles blurred the
distance between the highly educated and privileged
elites and the lower masses: fame seemed to be something almost anyonein the excitement of the 1920s
could achieve.
tween technology and progress by personifying technology as a female with both enticing and ultimately
destructive characteristics. The movie also presented
the suffering of the lower classes but expressed hope
that technology could overcome social problems.
Listening to jazz, dancing the Charleston, and
watching movies enabled working people, even the
poor, to forget the war and escape the boredom of
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ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Sex Advice Columns in Womens Magazines
Today, glossy magazines promising great tips on how to improve and enjoy sex are commonplace at every
supermarket checkout. But a century ago, any mention of sex in the media was taboo. Before 1918,
womens magazines featured only articles on fashions, home decorations, mothering, and events organized
by high-society ladies.
After 1918, however, womens magazines began to reflect the changes women had experienced in
wartime. Women appeared in work settings. They were photographed driving cars and operating trams. A
radical new feature was the sex advice column. With the rising validity of sexuality as a legitimate area of
physiological and psychological research, the sex advice expert was born. Initially, participating in such public discussions about sexuality was seen as demeaning within the medical profession, and physicians were,
in fact, discouraged from writing for nonprofessional magazines. More often than not, a layperson, who
often sported the title of Dr. without any medical diploma, posed as an expert sexologist. However, as the
popularity of the sex advice column surged, more professional physicians, nurses, and psychologists accepted such positions, opening the door for todays Dr. Ruth and Dr. Phil.
In the first years, the questions and advice were rather prudish, though daring for their time, without direct
references to specific sexual practices. Most of the questions related to sexual fulfillment as a means for
preserving the stability of the marriage and having children. For instance, a woman might ask, How could I
maintain marital bliss after ten years of marriage? Thus, sexuality was discussed only in its direct link to
well-accepted social norms. But the discussion of sex in popular womens magazines signaled to women
that it was normal to consider themselves as sexual beings, to seek enjoyment in the intimate aspects of
their life, and even to talk about it with their partners and with other women.
Today, the variety of sexual practices discussed in womens magazines in open, direct language has grown
tremendously. The endorsement of products like Viagra by respectable politicians is a far cry from the shy
and indirect references in the sex advice columns of the 1920s regarding mens ability to perform sexually.
Likewise, the notion that womens sexual desire is properly expressed only in marriage and only toward the
goal of becoming a mother has also changed dramatically.
Suggested Readings
Berend, Ivan T. Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe
Before World War II. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1998. An excellent overview of political, intellectual, and artistic changes in the 1920s and 1930s, as European countries try to
cope with challenges of modernization.
Bosworth, R. J. B. Mussolini. London: Arnold, 2003. An exhaustive biography of Benito Mussolinis personal and political life.
Marks, Sally. The Illusion of Peace: Europes International Relations, 19181933. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. A
succinct and lucid overview of the international changes and
challenges in the first decade after the peace treaties.
Meier, Charles S. Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilization in
France, Germany and Italy in the Decade After World War I.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998. A comparative analysis of the challenges faced by political elites, liberal
democracy, and economies in France, Germany, and Italy in the
aftermath of the war.
Siegelbaum, Lewis H. Soviet State and Society Between Revolutions, 19181929. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2004. A close look at the transformations in politics
and society in Russia during the first decade of communist
rule, highlighting the compromises made by the political elite
to secure the state.
Stites, Richard. Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and
Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1991. An excellent analysis of the cultural experimentation of the Bolsheviks during the first decade after
the revolution.
Willett, John. Art and Politics in the Weimar Republic: The
New Sobriety, 19171930. New York: Pantheon Books, 1996. A
magisterial analysis of the utopian impulses in the artistic life
of the German Weimar Republic.
Websites
Websites
Links to websites with articles about important events during
the 1920s, cultural movements and personalities, maps, and primary documents, The Inter-War Years, at www.historyteacher
.net/APEuroCourse/WebLinks/WebLinks-Inter-WarYears.htm
Rich, if biased, resource on the most important people, movements, and events linked to the history of communism in the
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CHAPTER
Democracy Under
Siege, 19291945
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: George Orwell Commits Himself
to Socialism
Introduction
Responses to the Great Depression,
19291939
The Great Depression
Democracies Responses
Authoritarian Solutions
The Rise of Nazism
Summary
Suggested Readings
Websites
1500 B.C.E.
1000 B.C.E.
1930
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
1936
Civil war begins
in Spain
Great Purges begin
in Soviet Union
1933
Hitler comes to
power in Germany
1929
Great Depression
begins
1929
500 B.C.E.
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
St ckh
h
R
EL
N
i
Battle of Britain,
JulyOct. 1940
London Blitz,
Sept. 1940May 1941
Operation Barbarossa
June 1941
SW
llll
l
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
1939
Hitler invades
Poland, World
War II begins
1938
1939
1500 C.E.
1941
Hitler invades
the Soviet Union
1940
1941
1942
1943
Soviets win
the Battle
of Stalingrad
1943
2000 C.E.
1944
Allies land
at Normandy
1944
1945
World War II
ends
1945
773
774
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
George Orwell Commits Himself to Socialism
George Orwell
George Orwell was one of
the most powerful voices of
Europe to confront the moral
collapse and hatred that
seemed to engulf the continent in the 1930s and 1940s.
From his exposure of the
harsh working conditions of
miners in England to the
atrocities committed during
the Spanish Civil War, he
criticized those ambitious for
unbounded power and the
lack of tolerance on both the
left and the right. (AP Images)
In 1930, Eric Arthur Blair became George Orwell. It wasnt just about choosing a
pen name but rather about giving up his privileged identity as the son of a
respectable servant of the British Empire in India. Instead of following the path
to easy security and middle-class respectability opened by his family, at age
nineteen Blair turned his back on elite schools to join the imperial police in
India for some adventure. At age twenty-four, disgusted with its racist policies,
he quit to live among the poor.
Having decided to follow his dream of writing, Blair, now Orwell, aimed
high. He wanted nothing less than to become the moral conscience of his country, writing from conviction and experience, unlike many of the pseudobohemian writers of the time who enjoyed material privileges while writing
about the poor. He didnt want just to move his audiences but instead aimed to
challenge and force them to rethink their identities and act on their beliefs.
True to this conviction, Orwell took a job as a dishwasher in Paris and lived in a
poorly heated room for many months. It was during these days of self-imposed
poverty that he began to understand class inequalities and gain sympathy for
socialism as the best direction for democracy.
In his quest to become a good and socially active writer, in 1934 Orwell took on
the assignment of writing about the life of coal miners in northern Britain. The
result, The Road to Wigan Pier (1936), movingly described the appalling conditions
of these workers but received mixed reviews from his left-wing editor. Always
holding on to his aim of being the moral conscience of his peers, Orwell did not
hesitate to criticize British socialists, whom he viewed as armchair critics rather
than active reformers.
To demonstrate his own dedication to the cause of democracy through socialism,
in 1936 Orwell went to Spain, where a civil war was pitting left-wing forces against
a right-wing militarist regime. He arrived as a journalist but couldnt stay away
from the action and joined the left-wing armies. His experiences in Spain reinforced
his commitment to socialism as profoundly democratic but made him wary of the
contribution of the Soviet Union to this cause. Soviet manipulations of the leftwing forces opened his eyes to the controlling and antidemocratic nature of the
Soviet regime. These experiences were penned in Homage to Catalonia (1938).
Still hungry for action and eager to make a difference, Orwell tried to serve in
the British army during World War II but was discharged because of injuries he had
received in Spain. Instead, he worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
as a reporter, a job that revealed to him the nature of wartime propaganda and the
antidemocratic ways in which the British government manipulated information.
Orwells passionate commitment to turn political writing into an art led him
to write his last two and most important books, Animal Farm (1945) and 1984
(1949). Both reflected his desire to remain the moral conscience of Britain. Exposing
the absurdity of sloganeering with expressions such as war is peace and ignorance is strength, he pointed to the deep political corruption, both on the left and
on the right, as the root of the tragedies he had witnessed all over Europe in the
1930s and 1940s. These books also represented an impassioned plea on behalf of
peace and democracy and against totalitarianism, but they were not exclusively
anticommunist, as they came to be depicted later on. Until the end of his life in
1950, Orwell remained committed to his belief in socialism as the most radically
democratic ideology of the times, more progressive than liberalism or communism.
Introduction
George Orwell was one of many Europeans who witnessed with alarm the profound political crisis of the
1930s as Europes democracies plunged into a severe
depression. Some, like Orwell, became more committed
than ever to socialist ideas. Others rejected democracy
itself as the problem and turned toward antidemocratic solutions.
Of the options taken in the 1930s, the dictatorships
in Italy, Germany, and the Soviet Union seemed the
most successful in managing the economic crisis,
eventually restoring full employment and production growth while the democracies struggled. But the
success of the Soviets and the Nazis was due largely
to their oppressive internal policies, which controlled
workers and resources in ways democracies could
not. The Nazis racist ideology and the Stalinist paranoid concept of internal enemies institutionalized terror in both countries. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin
also aimed to undo the international system that had
been developing through the League of Nations. In
particular, Hitlers rearmament and expansionist policies challenged the Versailles Treaty while democratic
states stood idle until it was too late.
Still, faced with Hitlers challenge to European international order in 1939, after 1941 the western
democracies joined forces with the Soviet Union and
by 1945 had defeated Germany and its allies. World
War II, with its unmatched carnage, involvement of
civilians, use of new military technology, and extermination of innocent people, especially the Jews, radically transformed Europe for a second time in less
than a half a century.
775
776
Chronology
19281933
1929
1931
1933
1934
1935
1936
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1945
these businesses started to fire them by the thousands. Even the 1931 American moratorium on war
debts could not reverse the downward spiral, though
it did ease international tensions. Unemployment in
Germany reached 3 million in 1930 and skyrocketed
Table 27.1
The Great Depression
INDICES OF INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION, 19291938, IN MAJOR EUROPEAN COUNTRIES (1937 = 100)
France
Germany
Italy
Great Britain
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
123
79
90
77
123
69
85
74
105
56
77
69
91
48
77
69
94
54
82
73
92
67
80
80
88
79
86
82
95
90
86
94
100
100
100
100
France
Germany
Italy
Great Britain
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
neglig.
1,899
301
1,216
13
3,070
425
1,917
64
4,520
734
2,630
301
5,575
1,006
2,745
305
4,804
1,019
2,521
368
2,718
964
2,159
464
2,151
2,036
470
1,593
1,755
380
912
874
1,484
Source: Stromberg, Roland N., Europe in the Twentieth Century, 4th Edition, 1997. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle
River, NJ.
Democracies Responses
If dependency on American investments and banks
along with deflationary policies were the initial causes
of economic collapse in Europe, the depth and duration
of the Great Depression were also a consequence of
the choices various states made after 1929. Politicians
tried to balance state budgets and avoid expenditures.
Following the lead of the United States, European
governments quickly imposed higher tariffs to protect their own industries. The result was a decline in
gold standard Fiscal policy that pegs national currency to gold reserves.
777
778
Authoritarian Solutions
Most of Europes political elites, however, responded
to the Great Depression by undermining or abandoning democratic institutions. Where such institutions
Pablo Picasso painted Guernica (1937) as a political-aesthetic reaction against the mass killings by right-wing
forces led by Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. Specifically, Guernica, a small town in northern
Spain, was bombed in 1937 by German planes supporting Franco. Though muted in color, the painting became
a dramatic symbol of pacifism. Particularly powerful is the image of the mother with the dead child on the lefthand side, screaming upward toward the bull, a symbol of both Spain and of Picasso himself. (Museo Nacional
Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid/Art Resource, NY, ARS, NY)
779
780
781
782
kulaks Entrepreneurial peasants who enriched themselves during the NEP years.
783
784
racist ideology set out in Mein Kampf. There Hitler argued that the very racial identity of Jews and Slavs
made them a threat to the German nation and its dominant Aryan race, which supposedly had superior intellectual, physical, and moral qualities. To ensure the
purity and well-being of this race, Jewswhom Hitler
considered morally and physically subhuman, materialistic, and physiologically unable to work for the
nations greater goodhad to be eliminated. To this
end, Hitler used some of the popular ideas at that time,
especially eugenics, to suggest swift, scientific ways
to sort out those who were desirable from the rest
and to eliminate the biological threat posed by undesirables. The eugenicist theories adopted by the Nazis
considered the health of an individual as a function
primarily of genetic makeup, implying that it was
impossible to cure or rehabilitate those genetically
deficient. Eugenicist solutions ranged from preventing intermarriage with the healthy population and
denying any social services to the genetically inferior
to outright sterilization and euthanasia. Under the
guise of national reinvigorationcreating a Germany
for GermansHitlers goal was to create a racially
pure state.
This irrational ideology worked because it was
convenient: it offered an easy scapegoat for Germanys
ills and did not force non-Jews to take responsibility
or look for difficult solutions. But, in time, Jewishness
came to be defined in increasingly complicated ways to
include individuals who did not identify themselves
as Jews but rather as Germans. Men and women who
were Catholics, for example, and had Aryan blond hair
and blue eyes, were considered Jewish if the state
could uncover one Jewish grandparent. Thus, the Nazis
forced all people into trying to conform to racial
stereotypes and hide any elements of their identity that
might raise the suspicions of the dreaded Gestapo,
Hitlers secret police.
Hitlers division of people into desirables and undesirables went beyond Aryans and Jews, however.
Based on his racist theories, the category of undesirables broadened throughout the 1930s to include all
Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and Slavs (for example, Poles)
as well as socialists and communists (said to have
joined with Jews in a Judeo-Bolshevik plot again
Germany), homosexuals, members of some religious
denominations (for example, Jehovahs Witnesses),
feminists, disabled persons, and anyone who supposedly suffered from a genetic disease or from tuberculosis, syphilis, or alcoholism.
The policies for dealing with undesirables aimed
to eliminate them. Starting in 1933, the Nazis sterilized Roma and then others deemed unfit to reproduce. Doctors and judges, not the Gestapo, were the
785
786
sic, listeners got a daily dose of antisemitic propaganda through newscasts, speeches, and even humor.
Finally, the Nazis turned to sports, already an important pastime in Europe, and determined to demonstrate the superiority of the Aryan race in the Berlin
Olympics of 1936. Athletes were carefully selected and
trained in a grueling regimen that did produce many
medal winners. But the Nazis also suffered some embarrassments, especially in the resounding victories
of the African American track-and-field athlete Jesse
Owens, whose supposed racial inferiority did not
prevent him from breaking eleven Olympic records.
Intense propaganda was successful in transforming German society. By the late 1930s, educated people
supported the Nazis. Doctors, for example, were willing to go along with sterilization programs and to
pressure those with a good racial pedigree to have
children. By the late 1930s, German industrial power
was second only to that of the United States.
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788
Table 27.2
Nazi Challenges to the
Versailles Treaty
March 1935
March 7, 1936
March 13, 1938
March 1939
August 23, 1939
September 1, 1939
Establishment of German
air force and military
conscription
Occupation of demilitarized
Rhineland
Annexation of Austria
Occupation and dismemberment of Czechoslovakia
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Invasion of Poland
Blum quickly introduced major changes: the fortyhour workweek, the paid two-week vacation, the right
of workers to collective bargaining, and other social
programs. Under Blum, the Bank of France and the
armaments industry were also nationalized. These
changes signaled a major shift in defining government
responsibilities but were not endorsed by everyone.
Blum was attacked by members of his coalition and
by opponents on the right. He resigned in June 1937
but remained an important force in the coalition and
resumed leadership briefly in 1938, in strong support
of the Spanish Republics struggle against Franco.
While politicians tried ineffectively to defend democracy against radical challenges, writers, popular culture stars, and religious leaders tried to address, if not
solve, the crises of the day. The art and literature or
the 1930s became more engaged with current events
than had been the case in the more escapist 1920s.
Writers like the German novelist Thomas Mann made
it a personal quest to salvage the humanist spirit in
Germany and the spirit of tolerance toward Jews. In
Britain, Virginia Woolf confronted womens continued inequalities and militarization in her book Three
Guineas (1938).
But a far more powerful and effective critique of
the social problems of the times and the rise of fascism came from an unlikely source, the silver screen.
Charlie Chaplin effectively depicted social and economic inequalities while offering an amusing and
deeply humane picture of the poor. In Modern Times
(1936), his famous Little Tramp character became a
symbol of humanitys vulnerability in a world run by
machines and obsessed with mechanized progress.
Similarly, The Great Dictator (1940) confronted the
racist irrationality of Nazi Germany through comedy
and farce involving a Jewish barber (the Little Tramp)
standing in for Hitler at a Nazi mass rally.
International boundaries,
1936
Germany in 1933
Tallinn
ESTONIA
Remilitarized in 1936
Annexed in 1938
Satellite states, March 1939
SWEDEN
Conquered by Germany in
September 1939
Riga
LATVIA
Annexed by Germany,
March 1939
Se
DENMARK
Ba
c
ti
Memel
EAST
PRUSSIA
Danzig
Vistu
la
Berlin
NETHERLANDS
Oder
Warsaw
Pinsk
Brest-Litovsk
POLAND
GERMANY
We
se
BELGIUM
Minsk
WHITE RUSSIA
Hamburg
Bremen
Elb
e
RUHR
Cologne
UNION
Vilnius
North Sea
Dunkirk
SOVIET
LITHUANIA
Rhi
SU
e
RHINELAND
DE
TE
AND
Prague
Dn
ies
ter
BOHEMIA SUDETENLAND
LUXEMBOURG
SAAR
Gained by plebiscite,
1935
NL
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Nuremberg
MORAVIA
Da n u b e
SLOVAKIA
Munich
Vienna
FRANCE
RUTHENIA
To Hungary
March 1939
Budapest
AUSTRIA
SWITZERLAND
SS
IA
HUNGARY
ROMANIA
Ad
ITALY
ri
100
YUGOSLAVIA
at
200 Km.
ic
200 Mi.
100
Se
D an u b e
MAP 27.1
The Expansion of Germany Between 1939 and 1942, Nazi Germany aggressively pursued its goals of acquiring Lebensraum for its Aryan German population. Its success would prove to be
short-lived, however, especially as the Axis powers started to overstretch their resources.
Some religious leaders, such as the German Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, attempted both to
criticize the inhuman policies of the Nazis and to
minister to their religious communities. Bonhoeffer
went so far as to establish the underground pacifist
Confession Church, which remained active throughout World War II, at great peril to its leader and his
following. Throughout the 1930s and the war, Bonhoeffer voiced his strong opposition to the Nazis; he
was executed in April 1945 for his role in a plot to assassinate Hitler.
Other prelates, such as Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli,
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790
The fate of the world was sealed during this secret meeting in Moscow on
August 23, 1939. Soviet Foreign Minister
V. M. Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop sign a nonaggression pact, while Joseph Stalin, in
the back second from the right, smiles as
he presides over the proceedings, which
were held in an inconspicuous office.
(Bettmann/Corbis)
Table 27.3
Major Events of World War II
September 1939
May 1940
June 1940
Fall 1940
March 1941
April 1941
June 1941
December 1941
November 1942
February 1943
July 1943
September 1943
June 1944
August 1944
February 1945
May 8, 1945
August 6 and 9, 1945
August 14, 1945
791
792
Between July and October 1940, Britain and Germany engaged in intensive air combat, known as the
Battle of Britain. Initially the Nazis pursued a policy
of strategic bombing of air bases. Their success depended almost exclusively on the strength and versatility of the Luftwaffe, while the British Royal Air
Force (RAF) had a sophisticated system of command
and coordination among its pilots enhanced by a radar
network and good intelligence work in Germany.
These advantages gave the RAF great precision in intercepting enemy planes (over 80 percent at times)
and coordinating aerial attacks. By contrast, though
the Nazis had excellent planes and pilots, they were
often less precise and had to resort to riskier blanket
bombing. In September, the Nazis shifted to a strategy of bombing civilian targets, bent on terrorizing
the population and killing more than 23,000 civilians.
But by October 1940, the RAF had outmaneuvered
the Germans. The Battle of Britain was significant because it was the first time since 1939 that the Nazis
had suffered defeat and it severely weakened the
strength of the Luftwaffe. It also convinced Hitler to
shift his attention to other areas, though the Nazis
continued their attacks on Britain until June 1941.
Churchill also gambled on assistance from the
United States and initially received limited help. But
the heroic resistance of the British galvanized support
from President Roosevelts government, which in
March 1941 passed the Lend-Lease Act, granting all
aid short of war to Britain. Later that year, the two
leaders met to formulate a statement of war aims, the
Atlantic Charter, which announced a commitment to
restoring democracy in Europe. Finally, Churchill
gambled in sending British troops to the Mediterranean to fight Italian forces bent on conquering Egypt
and Greece. This strategy left the British Isles vulnerable but created an important diversion in the south,
as Hitler had to send German reinforcements to a
new battlefront in North Africa and the Balkans. For
the first six months of 1941, German forces concenVichy France Puppet state established by the Nazis in
southern France during World War II, named so for its
capital in Vichy.
Battle of Britain Nazi air campaign against the British
Isles in the fall of 1940 that became Germanys first
major defeat.
Lend-Lease Act U.S. commitment in 1941 to grant
massive financial and military support to the Allies.
Atlantic Charter Agreement between Churchill and
Roosevelt in 1941 stating Allied goals for the war,
including the commitment to restoring democracy in
Europe.
Allied Victory
The Axis had driven across a large portion of the Russian steppe, but the vast distances, harsh climate, and
rudimentary roads proved their greatest obstacles. As
winter arrived, the Germans and their allies were unable to get fresh troops and supplies to the front. In
addition, the Soviets conducted a scorched-earth policy of burning fields, removing livestock, and disassembling industrial enterprises before retreating east.
Blitzkrieg collapsed into a war of attrition. German
troops grew demoralized as temperatures plunged to
minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Many Germans froze to
death, while the Russians went into hiding.
Meanwhile, the British and the Soviets soon had a
Operation Barbarossa Code name for the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.
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794
FINLAND
NORWAY
Helsinki
SWEDEN
Axis-occupied areas
Leningrad
Stockholm
Allied nations
B a lt
GREAT
BRITAIN
Allied advance
Limit of Allied advance, May 1945
Major battle
Berlin
Apr.May 1945
be
El
Cologne
BELG.
Rhine
SPAIN
GIBRALTAR
Odessa
CROATIA
Belgrade
SERBIA
Rome
Anzio
Jan. 1945
(Gr. Br.)
Se
p
94
t. 1
ROMANIA
ALBANIA
Salerno
3
CRIMEA
Yalta
Bucharest
Black Sea
Dan u b e
Sofia
ITALY
Sardinia
Rostov
HUNGARY
Po
Corsica
Kharkov
per
Budapest
Marseilles
Madrid
Lisbon
Stalingrad
Aug. 1942Feb. 1943
Kiev
Vienna
4
194
g.
Au
PORTUGAL
R.
Don
Dnie
SWITZ.
VICHY FRANCE
S.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
Munich
FRANCE
S.
Kursk
July 1943
Warsaw
Aug. 1944Jan. 1945
Prague
Vichy
U.
GERMANY
Apr. 1945
Paris
OCEAN
ic
Minsk
NETH.
Battle of
the Bulge
Dec. 1944
Jan. 1945
Normandy
June 1944
Moscow
Riga
Hamburg
London
ATLANTIC
Allied landings
Nov. 1942
Copenhagen
DENMARK
Volg
Dublin
North
Sea
IRELAND
Se
Neutral nations
BULGARIA
Ankara
TURKEY
GREECE
Algiers
Casablanca
July 1
94
3
Oran
Athens
MOROCCO
Kasserine Pass
Feb. 1943
(Vichy France)
TUNISIA
(Vichy France)
IRAQ
(France)
Cyprus
(Gr. Br.)
Malta
(Gr. Br.)
Mediterranean Sea
(Vichy France)
ALGERIA
SYRIA
Sicily
Tunis
Crete
LEBANON
PALESTINE
Tripoli
(Gr. Br.)
TRANSJORDAN
Alexandria
(Gr. Br.)
0
0
300
El Alamein
Oct.Nov. 1942
600 Km.
300
600 Mi.
LIBYA
(Italy)
MAP 27.2
Allied Victory in Europe Soviet, British, and U.S. troops, supported by numerous resistance movements in Axis-occupied territories, turned the tide of war after 1942. The Soviets bore the
brunt of the effort, both materially and in terms of lost lives.
Cairo
EGYPT
SAUDI
ARABIA
engaged in urban warfare, for which they were inadequately prepared; but at Kursk, they could use
blitzkrieg techniques. At the same time, however, the
Soviets had learned much about Nazi military strategy and been able to upgrade their armaments, especially tank power and antitank guns. Defeated by the
Soviets at their best game, the Nazis were profoundly
demoralized and began to retreat.
In North Africa, German forces had also been
pushed back by the British, now joined by American
troops. By May 1943, the Germans had withdrawn
entirely from the region. With North Africa secured,
the Allies were able to launch an invasion of Sicily, a
steppingstone to the invasion of Italy in September
1943. Mussolini was forced from power but remained
in the hands of the Germans, at the helm of a puppet
republic in northern Italy.
In addition, the Allies pursued a strategy of allout air attacks on Germany. The policy of strategic
bombingattacking important military, industrial,
and transportation centersfailed in its immediate
goals of destroying the military capacity of the Nazis,
but it did cut production. Night bombing afforded
greater protection from anti-aircraft guns but also reduced precision in hitting targets and increased civilian losses. Some 300,000 Germans died and 750,000
were maimed in Allied air raids. But it was clear that
Hitler would be defeated only by an invasion.
On June 6, 1944, Operation Overlord began. In one
of the most intense military operations of the war, the
Allies crossed the English Channel to land more than
2 million soldiers (Americans, British, Poles, Belgians,
Canadians, Norwegians, Dutch, and French) and millions of tons of military equipment in Nazi-occupied
France. Securing the first strip of beach involved
heavy casualties, but months of careful planning paid
off. Now the Germans had to fight a three-front war
east, west, and southand could do little more than
resist while retreating. Paris was liberated by August,
Brussels in September, and that month the first Allied
troops crossed into Germany.
In the east, the Soviets were also advancing steadily.
In January 1945, they liberated the concentration camp
at Auschwitz and took Warsaw; in April, advance
units of the American and Soviet armies met south of
Berlin on the Elbe River. Mussolini met his end on
April 28, killed by Italian partisans while trying to escape. He was then publicly hung so that crowds
could freely abuse his body. Two days later, trying to
avoid the humiliation of capture, Hitler committed
suicide together with his wife, Eva Braun, in his
Berlin bunker. On May 8, the Soviets finally liberated
Berlin and brought the war to an end on the European front. Three months later, the United States used
Operation Overlord Code name for the Allied invasion of France in June 1944.
795
SOVIET UNION
194
5
45
19
5
194
Sakhalin
Island
Attu I.
Aleutian Is.
.)
(U.S
1943
Is
.
194
5
1945
M ANCHURIA
Ku
Beijing
JAPAN
KOREA
NORTH
se
Tokyo
CHINA
ril
te
rri
to
ry
at
su
rre
nd
er
MONGOLIA
PACIFIC
ne
Hiroshima
pa
796
Nagasaki
Ja
OCEAN
Bonin Is.
(Gr. Br.)
Midway I.
June 3, 1942
Okinawa
45
19
INDIA
19
45
Iwo
Jima
BURMA
19
45
5
194
(Gr. Br.)
PHILIPPINE
ISLANDS
THAILAND
FRENCH
INDOCHINA
Hawaiian Is.
(U.S.)
45
19
Hong
Kong
Marcus I.
Wake I.
Mariana Is.
1943
43
19
1944
(U.S.)
Leyte
1944
Pearl
Harbor
Guam
19
45
BRUNEI
MALAYA (Gr. Br.)
(Gr. Br.) SARAWAK
(Gr. Br.)
Singapore
Caroline Is.
N. BORNEO
(Gr. Br.)
Marshall
Is.
194
4
Borneo
Equator
New Guinea
Solomon Is.
Port Moresby
SOUTH PACIFIC
OCEAN
Guadalcanal
Coral Sea
May 4, 1942
Samoa Is.
19
42
INDIAN OCEAN
1943
Farthest advance of
Japanese conquests, 1942
Allied-controlled territory
AUSTRALIA
0
0
500
1000 Km.
500
Allied advances
1000 Mi.
Major battle
MAP 27.3
War in Asia In the war against Japan in the Pacific, the United States bore the brunt of
the effort. Support from Australia and the Soviet Union were ultimately essential for defeating Japan.
would play a major role in the political reconfiguration of Europe after the war.
Mobilization, Collaboration,
and Resistance
The Allies could not have won the war without the
unprecedented mobilization of civilians, who worked
Yalta Conference Meeting of Churchill, Roosevelt, and
Stalin in 1945 to discuss postwar peace.
797
798
MAP 27.4
The Holocaust
Nazi genocidal policies toward
European Jewry resulted in the
murder of more than six million
Jews. Most were from eastern
Europe, where all of the death
camps were located.
FINLAND
7
NORWAY
762
SWEDEN
ESTONIA
2,000
No r t h
Sea
Se
DENMARK
GREAT
BRITAIN
Ba
NETHERLANDS
100,000
E lb
e
Kaunas
SOVIET
UNION
1,000,000
Minsk
Vi
st
Bialystok
Maly Trostinets
ula Treblinka
P r i p ya t '
Warsaw
Chelmno
Sobibor
Lublin
d
BELGIUM GERMANY er
POLAND
141,500
28,900
Cracow
3,000,000
Auschwitz
Belzec
Bogdanovka
LUX.
BOHEMIA
Lww
Mostovoi
& MORAVIA
Da
Majdanek Pechora
nu
78,150
SLOVAKIA
Vapniarka
be
TR
71,000
AN
Dachau Bratislava
SN
IS
AUSTRIA
H
UNG
ARY
T
Budapest
SWITZ.
50,000
Kishinev
569,000
Bergen
Belsen
Bu
e
Rhin
lt
60
LATVIA
71,500
Jungernhof
LITHUANIA
143,000
ein
e
Drancy
Loir e
FRANCE
77,320
A
RI
Bozen
Fossoli
Zagreb
Po
RO MANI A
Iasenovac
CROATIA
Dan u be
SERBIA
60,000
SPAIN
BULG ARI A
ITALY
Odessa
287,000
Belgrade
7,680
Black
Sea
ALBANIA
GREECE
TURKEY
67,000
Extermination camp
Concentration camp
Major ghetto
77,320 Estimated Jewish death toll,
by country
Under Axis control
Allied nations
Me
dite
rran
ean S
ea
Neutral nations
Table 27.4
The Final Solution
March 1933
September 1935
October 1939
October 1941
January 1942
January 27, 1945
April 1945
200
400 Km.
200
400 Mi.
799
800
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
George Orwell Reflects on Nationalism
In May 1945, Europe lay in ruins, beyond recognition. George Orwell had reported
on the war for the BBC and had seen both Nazi racism and British nationalist propaganda take their turn at vilifying the enemy. To Orwell, it seemed hardly suitable to stand proud because the Allies had just won the war in Europe. Instead, he
wrote a sobering reevaluation of the nationalism that had fueled the war effort
on both sides.
By nationalism I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings
can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions
of people can be confidently labeled good or bad. But secondlyand this is
much more importantI mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single national or other unit, its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. By patriotism I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way
of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on
other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally.
Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The
abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige,
not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his
own individuality.
Confronted with a phenomenon like Nazism, which we can observe from
the outside, nearly all of us would say much the same things about it. But here I
must repeat what I said above, that I am only using the word nationalism for
lack of a better. Nationalism includes such movements and tendencies as communism, political Catholicism, Zionism, antisemitism, Trotskyism and Pacifism. It does
not necessarily mean loyalty to a government or a country, still less to ones own
country, and it is not even strictly necessary that the units in which it deals should
actually exist. To name a few obvious examples, Jewry, Islam, Christendom, the
Proletariat and the White Race are all of them objects of passionate nationalistic
feeling: but their existence can be seriously questioned, and there is not definition
of any one of them that would be universally accepted.
It is also worth emphasizing once again that nationalist feeling can be purely
negative. There are, for example, Trotskyists who have become simply enemies of
the USSR without developing a corresponding loyalty to any other unit. . . . A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. . . . He
sees history, especially contemporary history, as the endless rise and decline of great
power units, and every event that happens seems to him a demonstration that his
own side is on the upgrade and some hated rival is on the downgrade. . . . Nationalism is power-hunger tempered by self-deception. Every nationalist is capable
of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is alsosince he is conscious of serving
something bigger than himselfunshakably certain of being in the right.
British troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp at BergenBelsen in April 1945, too late to save young Anne Frank, who
had died there, of typhus, in March, but British food and medical care did help some, such as these starving prisoners, to
survive. Bergen-Belsen, in Germany proper, was initially a
detention and transit camp, but an estimated 50,000 people
died there, largely of disease. Those who survived the camps
were physically, emotionally, and psychologically traumatized,
and had great difficulty adjusting to life in postwar Europe.
Some committed suicide, ridden by guilt for having survived
the camps, while loved ones had perished. (Bettmann/Corbis)
cupied territories, non-Jews were hard pressed to collaborate with the Germans, and some did so more
easily than others. The Allies had detailed knowledge
of concentration camps and atrocities as early as 1942,
but they failed to impede the program by bombing the
camps or the railroads that led to them. Pope Pius XII,
who was aware of antisemitic laws and violence committed by Catholics in Italy, Poland, Germany, and Slovakia, did not condemn these actions, failing in his role
as moral and spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic
Church. The general public in Europe and the United
States was more concerned to defeat Hitler than to
save the Jews. Antisemitism was a mainstream attitude in the western world. Though it did not necessarily translate into support for Hitlers ideas, it meant
that sympathy for the Jews was limited and Jews
themselves, like the American secretary of the treasury
Henry Morgenthau, hesitated to use the example of
the Jewish plight to mobilize support for the war.
Yet individuals and communities also acted courageously to assist Jews and others persecuted by the
Nazis. Towns in France helped Jews escape to Switzerland, and several were wiped out by the Nazis as a
consequence. The Danes and Bulgarians were notable
for their efforts to hide Jews and their refusal to hand
them over to the Germans. But brave acts were rare,
and no effort, it seems, could stop the Nazi intention
to exterminate the Jews of Europe.
Finally, the Jews of Europe were themselves in disbelief about the Final Solution. Many German, Hungarian, Polish, and French citizens of Jewish ancestry
had become culturally integrated into their national
cultures and thought of themselves as part of the nation rather than as a racially defined group. Only under the Nazis were they forced to identify themselves
as Jews. Jewish resistance against the Holocaust developed rather slowly and with limited effect, partly
because of the dangers involved and partly because
Jews were themselves a diverse group.
The failure to stop the Holocaust had significant
consequences in Europe after the end of the war. Although democracy was saved, Europeans and Americans were forced to look within themselves for the
source of this profound failure of western civilization.
Genocide had succeeded in advanced European countries because the technology was available to implement it, and the people generally were willing to use
or allow it.
801
Summary
Review Questions
How did the challenges to democracy from 1929 to
1945 help transform European identity and civilization?
Were the experiments of the Hitler and Stalin an
aberration of western civilization or the product of its
ideas, science, and technology?
At what price did the Allies win the war?
802
Summary
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
in Washington, D.C.
We must draw a veil over all the horrors of the past, concluded Winston Churchill after World War II.
Indeed, for more than two decades few people wanted to talk about the Holocaust. For some, it was an
uncomfortable feeling of guilt for not having done enough; for others, the victims, it was the unbearable
memories of the camps. The word Holocaust did not begin to enter mainstream vocabulary with reference
to the genocide against the Jews until the 1960s. In the next decades, trials of Nazi officials for crimes
against humanity, interest in the stories of survivors, the establishment of Holocaust archives, and the declassification of many World War II archives increased interest in the events of the war years and permitted
details, long hidden or suppressed, to be uncovered.
It was in the spirit of preserving the memory of the victims, educating future generations about this tragedy,
and encouraging individuals to reflect upon the moral and spiritual questions raised by the events of the
Holocaust as well as their own responsibilities as citizens of a democracy that in 1978 U.S. President Jimmy
Carter established the Holocaust Memorial Commission in Washington, D.C., which led to the building of
the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Open since 1993, this museum is a unique presence on the National
Mall, home to the Smithsonian Institution, as it focuses on one historical event that did not take place in
the United States or primarily involve Americans.
The museum houses a permanent exhibit, a number of temporary exhibits such as Nazi Olympics Berlin
1936 (19961997), and a research institute on the history of the Holocaust and genocide. It has had more
than 19 million visitors, of which almost 6 million have been children. The most impressive feature of the
museum is the identity each visitor is asked to assume at the beginning. By following the fate of one real
victim step by step, each visitor is able to feel something of the powerlessness and dehumanization suffered
by innocent women, men, and children. The museum carries the clear message that this could happen to
you, a sobering reflection on the value of democracy.
Suggested Readings
Bartov, Omer, ed. The Holocaust: Origins, Implementation and
Aftermath. New York: Routledge, 2000. A critical study of the
Holocaust that summarizes the state of the field and offers major reinterpretations by leading Holocaust authors.
Dlffer, Jost. Nazi Germany, 19331945: Faith and Annihilation. New York: E. Arnold, 1996. A general introduction to the
Third Reich reflecting the latest research, including the authors,
and emphasizing the preparation for and conduct of the war.
Kindleberger, Charles P. The World in Depression, 19291939.
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986.
A broad comparative look at the impact of the Great Depression.
Payne, Stanley. A History of Fascism, 19141943. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. A classic comparative history of fascism in Europe, from Italy to Romania.
Tucker, Robert. Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above,
19281941. New York: Norton, 1992. A close look at the totalitarian policies of Stalin and the cult of personality before World
War II.
Weinberg, Gerhard. A World at Arms: A Global History of
World War II. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press, 2005. A comprehensive examination of World War II that
looks at grand strategy and diplomacy.
Weintraub, Stanley. The Last Great Cause: The Intellectuals
and the Spanish Civil War. New York: Weybright and Talley,
1975. An illuminating collection of stories about the war.
Websites
A Library of Congress virtual exhibit on politics and daily life
under Soviet control with many interesting documents and
useful links, Soviet Archives Exhibit, at www.ibiblio.org/
expo/soviet.exhibit/entrance.html#tour
Detailed timeline of World War II with related articles, web
links, and good photographs, World War II Timeline, at http://
history.sandiego.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/start.html
Multimedia teaching site of the Simon Wiesenthal Centers online Museum of Tolerance containing brief articles and indepth analyses of controversial questions about the Holocaust
and Nazi Germany, with photographs, documents, bibliographies, and several virtual exhibits, Multimedia Learning Center,
at http://motlc.wiesenthal.com
803
804
CHAPTER
Europe Divided,
19451968
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Ana Pauker Submits to the
Communist Party
State-Controlled Economies
De-Stalinization
Introduction
The Iron Curtain, 19451958
Occupation and De-Nazification
Displaced Persons
Beginnings of the Cold War
International Security
Summary
Suggested Readings
Websites
1500 B.C.E.
1000 B.C.E.
1945
World War II
ends
1946
Cold war
begins
500 B.C.E.
1947
Marshall Plan aids western European recovery
Britain grants India independence
1948
Communist takeovers of eastern Europe are complete
1 B.C.E./1 C.E.
1953
Stalin dies
1949
NATO is founded
1944
1946
1948
1950
1952
1954
1956
Hungarian
Uprising
is crushed
1956
From Fi
1940 1
A
0
DE
E
nco
HU
EAST
GERMANY
French
Sector
British Sector
East
Berlin
West
Berlin
EAST
GERMANY
Soviet
Sector
U.S. Sector
Potsdam
am
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
1500 C.E.
1961
Berlin Wall goes up
1958
European Economic
Community is founded
1958
1960
1968
Martin Luther King Jr.
is assassinated
Students and workers
strike in France
Prague Spring is crushed
1962
French grant Algeria
independence
1962
1964
2000 C.E.
1966
1968
1970
805
806
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Ana Pauker Submits to the
Communist Party
Ana Pauker
Named by Time magazine in
1948 as the most powerful
woman alive, Ana Pauker
was in charge of the Communist Party in Romania
between 1948 and 1953. Yet
she never served as the general secretary of the party, for
as woman and a Jew, she
realized these identities
would hamper her authority
as the official leader. (Time
Life Pictures/Getty Images)
In August 1944, Ana Pauker rode into Bucharest atop a Soviet tank,
returning to the city of her troubled youth as a liberator (or
conqueror). She had traveled a long and difficult path from her
birth to an impoverished Jewish family in northern Romania, at
a time and place where antisemitism was popular and where
women were regarded as second-class citizens. Intelligent and
fearless, she worked hard against this double discrimination and
the roles traditionally assigned to women like her. She first chose
to study Judaism and then went on to join the Communist Party
during World War I, having opposed Romanias entry into the war.
Though she spent some years abroad after the war, she returned
to Romania to lead underground activities against Romanias
unstable governments. During the 1920s and 1930s, she served
several prison sentences, the last one at the same time that her
husband, Marcel Pauker, was imprisoned by the Soviets during
the Great Purges.
Pauker denounced her husband at his 1938 trial in
Moscow. At that moment, she understood clearly that she had to pick one
of her conflicting loyaltiesfamily or the communist revolution. If she
questioned the Moscow party line, she would be betraying her ideological
convictions. She chose ideology. By betraying her husband, she aligned
herself with Moscow and made herself ready to win control in Romania
after the war.
After she returned to Romania in 1944, she retained this all-consuming
loyalty. She willingly gave up leadership of the Communist Party in recognition
that, as a woman and Jew, she was a liability to the party. Only by downplaying
these identities could she be a decision maker in the government. As shadow
leader of the party in the Politburo, she oversaw the purging of the precommunist political leadership and the transformation of the state into one
modeled after Stalins vision. In 1948, Time magazine named her the most
powerful woman alive.
Yet by 1951, Pauker had come into conflict with other Romanian communist
leaders, as well as Stalin, especially over collectivization. Having given so much
of her personal life to the party, Pauker assumed she could independently make
the most important decisions in this aspect of economic reform. She wanted to
collectivize slowly, to ensure that peasants would not come to resent the party.
Though she did not come from a peasant family, she cared about the fate of
peasants, and though she felt deep personal loyalty to Stalin, she also cared
about Romania. Still, many in Romania perceived her as a foreigner because
of her Jewish origins. In an atmosphere of growing antisemitism, Paukers
competitors in the party used this conflict to accuse her of betraying communism. Only her personal friendship with Stalin saved her life. But in 1953
Pauker was forced to denounce herself as a traitor and renounce her membership in the Communist Party. Once more she sacrificed herself for the sake of
the party.
Few people mourned Paukers departure from the party leadership, as her ruthless style was much feared. But, unlike other communists, Pauker seems to have
wanted power not so much for herself but rather in order to carry out her convictions. She passed away two decades later, in anonymity and still much hated by
many Romanians.
Introduction
What conflicts over Europes future paved the way for its
division?
How did international relations change in the first two
postwar decades?
807
808
Chronology
1945
1951
1946
1953
Stalin dies
1954
1947
19471948
1948
1949
19501953
19541962
1955
1956
1958
1958
1961
1962
1968
Displaced Persons
To get on with their lives, however, many Europeans
first had to try to find a home. Entire cities were in
rubble, and many Germans and others had fled West
as the Soviet armies advanced. At the end of the war,
between 11 and 20 million individuals were displaced
persons.
Moreover, entire populations were resettled. At the
Potsdam Conference in July 1945, the western allies
agreed that eastern European governments in Poland
and Czechoslovakia could forcibly remove all Germans from their countries. In Poland, hundreds of
thousands of ethnic Germans were expelled. A similar policy sent hundreds of thousands of Poles from
western Ukraine and Belorussia to Poland. Czechoslovakia also expelled its Germans. There was much
debate over who exactly was a German, as there were
many ethnically mixed marriages and individuals
whose families had long lived in the contested areas.
A Czech woman married to a Sudeten German would
likely become a candidate for expulsion, even though
she and her husband had been born subjects of Czechoslovakia and his family had lived there for genera-
LEBANON
SY
RI
British Mandate of
Palestine, 19201948
Acre
Jordan
Haifa
Mediterranean
Sea
Tulkarm
Nablus
Jericho
Jerusalem
Gaza
Dead
Sea
Hebron
Beersheba
DA
PALESTINE
SINAI PENINSULA
0
0
AN
NEGEV
SJ
OR
EGYPT
TR
50 Km.
50 Mi.
MAP 28.1
UN Mandate for Israel and Palestine,
1947 The UN Mandate, which created the legal framework for international recognition of Israel, left the status
of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine unresolved. The conflict that rages today between Israel and the Arab states
in the Middle East originated with the formation of the
state of Israel in 1948.
809
810
these poles. New identities and allegiances were created in connection with the two superpowers, and
new enmities developed among old neighbors. The
Hungarians, who had been the Austrians partners in
ruling the Habsburg Empire a century earlier, were
now to be their enemies by virtue of the barbed wire
that separated the two countries. East Germans, under Soviet occupation, were to begin thinking of their
West German relatives and friends as imperialist traitors. This division of Europe into East and West came
about as a result of the superpower confrontation.
In the contest over world domination, the two superpowers gave different explanations and used different methods. The Soviet Union had lost more people
(over 30 million by some accounts) and resources than
any other war combatant and wanted to recoup the
economic resources spent fighting the war. In fact,
since Germany had experienced 80 percent of its casualties at the hands of the Soviets, Stalin was not exaggerating when he claimed that Europe owed the
Nazi defeat to his country. To rebuild the Soviet economy, he wanted Soviet troops in the occupied zone to
oversee the production and subsequent transfer of
goods to the Soviet Union. The Soviets also acted out
of fear. Having been attacked by Germany twice in
the twentieth century, they wanted a buffer zone in
eastern Europe, where friendly political regimes and
military resources would protect Soviet security.
The United States, on the other hand, had an overwhelming interest in bringing back democracy and
capitalist markets to the regions it had liberated. One
lesson from World War I was that a punishing peace
could lead to resentment and revenge. This time, the
victors focused on rebuilding a Germany committed to
their ideals. In addition, the Great Depressions costly
economic and political consequences also pointed toward rebuilding markets as a better strategy than exacting high war payments. Strong capitalist economies
would bolster political stability, American strategists
concluded. These goals were not entirely altruistic.
The American economy had grown during the war,
and businesses were looking for new markets. European countries had already become deeply dependent on American goods and dollars, and they were a
good investment.
The means by which the Soviets pursued their
goals in eastern Europe were in keeping with Stalins
personality. He fundamentally distrusted those not
under his control. He sent some of the toughest military leaders and most unquestioning loyalists from
the communist parties in eastern Europe, such as Ana
Pauker (see Choice), to oversee postwar regimes. The
Soviets manipulated the western observers and used
any legal means available, as well as illegal and violent ones, to eliminate all political enemies and place
Soviet pawns in power. Political legitimacy and the
well-being of the populations involved were low on
Stalins agenda.
Stalin had a formidable opponent in U.S. president
Harry Truman, who, as vice president, had never
trusted the Soviet Union. Following President Franklin D. Roosevelts death in April 1945, the simple man
from Missouri brought his common sense to the presidency and his own strong views about the postwar
peace. He followed a careful line of encouraging a
stable international environment through the United
Nations (UN) and an increasingly hard line against
the Soviets.
In Europe, Truman was committed to prosperity
and democracy through positive, though anti-Soviet,
incentives. Instead of sending troops to defend American interests, in March 1947 he issued the Truman
Doctrine, which offered to help countries fighting
communist expansion, specifically Turkey and Greece,
where communist partisans in a civil war were receiving help from Yugoslavia and the Soviets. Greece
was considered key to the political stability in the
Mediterranean and American overseas markets. With
substantial American support, the military establishment defeated the communists and imposed its own
authoritarian rule.
In addition, the 1947 Marshall Plan allocated more
than $13 billion in grants and loans to rebuild Europes economies. This money helped rebuild roads,
industries, and housing. The plan found unprecedented support among Americans and generated a
host of programs that paved the way for the European Union. American aid came with a price, however. The United States encouraged France, Britain,
and Germany to hunt down communist sympathizers who might have infiltrated leftist parties and be
plotting communist takeovers. The Marshall Plan
also served to further separate western from eastern
Europe, where countries occupied by Soviet troops
were never in a position to accept U.S. aid.
In Germany, the Soviets dismantled industrial
plants in their occupation zone and took no interest
in preventing the starvation of German civilians,
which drew the criticism of the West. In response, in
February 1948 the Soviets set up a blockade to isolate
the western zones of Berlin from access by Western
powers. To avert military conflict, the United States
811
812
International Security
The piecemeal peace agreements of the first postwar
years secured a somewhat stable relationship between
the superpowers in Europe. But the most important
step for creating a different international order was
the establishment of the United Nations (UN) in 1945.
Unlike with the League of Nations, which it never
joined, the United States was a founding member of
the UN. This organization was similar to the league
in its aim to facilitate collaboration among all states
by giving all members the same rights regardless of
size, military power, or wealth. But the UN was different from its predecessor in how it achieved these goals.
It included a governing body, the Security Council, on
which China, France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union,
and the United States sat as permanent members, along
with ten rotating members. The UN also acquired financial resources and a military force to take action
when necessary. Its large budget enabled it to manage
international programs for public health, child protection, and cultural exchange, giving states large and
small, poor and rich, access to new opportunities for
peaceful cooperation, such as the successful antimalaria campaigns in Africa and assistance in underdeveloped areas to increase productivity and eradicate
poverty.
The UNs Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(1948) specified unprecedented rights and freedoms,
such as the freedom to move from one location to
another, the right to education, and the right to be
protected from unemployment. Though not legally
binding, the declaration became a powerful means
whereby citizens could hold their governments accountable for human rights abuses in an international
arena. The autonomous International Criminal Court
at The Hague became an important forum for punishing human rights abuses and war crimes. Thus, the
UN revolutionized international relations and brought
The Revival of
Western Europe
250
Percent GNP growth, 19381964
mament production, and when Charles de Gaulle attempted to upgrade Frances nuclear program, he was
hastily rebutted by the Americans and the British.
The power imbalance was even more evident in the
Warsaw Pact, with the Soviets supervising the production and sale of armaments, even when the factories were in Czechoslovakia.
200
150
100
50
0
st
We
e
e
a
a
y
y
y
an ranc Ital ani oland reec vaki ngar
m P
o Hu
F
G
l
o
s
R
o
ech
Cz
Year
rm
Ge
FIGURE 28.1
record of resistance to the Nazis, a commitment to rebuilding capitalist democracy, and a center-right political orientation. An active opponent of Hitler, he
had spent part of the war in a concentration camp,
but he was not a sympathizer of the left. He used his
reputation to push economic recovery and political
distance from East Germany. Under his leadership,
the great German industries and private business were
rebuilt and workers were guaranteed decent wages
and healthcare. The Old Man, as he came to be known,
masterfully developed a new image of Germany that
highlighted the nations industrious and democratic
spirit. His politics gave hope to West Germans and attracted their loyalty, discrediting claims by communist
East Germany that it also represented the German
people. Adenauers Christian Democrats, committed
to economic recovery and social stability, dominated
813
814
Table 28.1
Western Europe
19451946
1946
1947
1949
1951
1955
1958
1958
1961
19621965
1968
Nuremberg Trials
National Health Service Act in Britain
Marshall Plan
Division of Germany; Konrad
Adenauer elected chancellor of West
Germany
European Coal and Steel Community
formed
West Germany Joins NATO
European Community established
Fall of French Republic; de Gaulle
coup and birth of Fifth Republic
1 million Volkswagen Transporters sold
Second Vatican Council
Student movements and national
strike in France
Recovery in France
In France, economic recovery was also remarkable,
but it was not accompanied immediately by political
stability. France had largely escaped physical destruction during the war, and its population had suffered
smaller losses than had most other countries. However, France had experienced great shame and humiliation. Reconstruction thus had much to do with
resurrecting faith in a vigorous France.
Charles de Gaulle overshadowed all other politicians during this period, even though he did not
hold office between 1946 and 1958. Raised in a welleducated Catholic family, de Gaulle embodied some
of the oldest and proudest French traditions. He grew
up among history and philosophy books and in adolescence opted for a military career in which he could
live out his patriotic sentiments. He served in the infantry, almost died at Verdun in 1916, and subsequently
volunteered to fight against the Bolshevik Russians in
19191920. His familys political leanings were monarchist, but de Gaulle became a republican. Still, party
divisions were never to his taste, as he preferred either the strict hierarchy of the army or the direct voice
of the people at the ballot box. Above all, de Gaulle
saw two fundamental traits in his countrymen: The
desire of privilege and the taste of equality are the
dominant and contradictory passions of the French of
all times.
815
816
the state made it possible for record numbers of workers to partake in the consumer culture and enjoy leisure
activities. British workers attended concerts, participated in sports, took paid vacations, and traveled
abroad. Tourism took off, with more than 100 million
people taking trips every year. The working class was
looking like and identifying more with the middle
class, and old stereotypes about national characteristics weakened as people traveled in other countries
and worked together in Common Market projects.
The Restructuring
of Eastern Europe
FINLAND
Warsaw Pact members
NORWAY
Helsinki
SWEDEN
Oslo
NATO members
Stockholm
SCOTLAND
Iron Curtain
East European Stalinism
Belfast
Major prison
IRELAND
a nd
Leningrad
ESTONIA
Moscow
Riga
LITHUANIA
DENMARK
Copenhagen
SOVIET UNION
LE
Labor camp
Finl
LATVIA
North Sea
GREAT
BRITAIN
Dublin
f of
Edinburgh
N. IRELAND
Prison camp
G ul
Minsk
NE
ECH
O SL
Munich
FRANCE
UKRAINE
OVA K
IA
Vienna
AUSTRIA
Bern
Geneva
Kharkov
Prague
CZ
OCEAN
Warsaw
Kiev
WEST
GERMANY
LUXEMBOURG
BELORUSSIA
POLAND
ST
Bonn
Berlin
EA
BELGIUM
Gdansk
AN
Member of
Warsaw Pact
19551990
Brussels
Paris
ATLANTIC
Hamburg
RM
Amsterdam
DS
AN
The Hague
RL
HE
ENGLAND
London
GE
SWITZERLAND
Budapest
HUNGARY
ROMANIA
Belgrade
Bucharest
Crimea
AL
Milan
Marseille
UG
RT
ITALY
SPAIN
Sinope
BULGARIA
Corsica
Barcelona
Sofia
Rome
Istanbul
Tiran
200
ed
ite
rra
Member of
Warsaw Pact
19551968
ne
an
TURKEY
Sea
Athens
400 Km.
200
Aegean
Sicily
MALTA
GREECE
Sea
400 Mi.
CYPRUS
817
MAP 28.2
East European Stalinism Between 1945 and 1953, the Soviet Union consolidated its grip
over the political institutions and economies of its eastern European satellites. Yugoslavia alone remained
a thorn in Stalins side. Source: Magocsi, Paul R., Historical Atlas of East Central Europe, cartographic
design by Geoffrey J. Matthews, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993. Reprinted by permission.
Nicosia
Crete
(Gr. Br.)
Ankara
ALBANIA
Sardinia
GIBRALTAR
Black Sea
YUGOSLAVIA
Madrid
PO
Lisbon
Yalta
818
Edvard Benes (18841948) President of Czechoslovakia after World War II who resented the communist
takeover in 1948 and resigned.
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Jakub Berman Defends the Communist
Takeover in Poland
In an interview conducted by Teresa Toranska, a young Polish journalist, in the
early 1980s, Jakub Berman, one of the main leaders of the Polish communist
regime in the early Stalinist years, staunchly defended the legitimacy of that
regime. Like Ana Pauker, Berman had spent the war in Moscow. He returned to his
native Poland as part of the Soviet liberation of the country but was very much
perceived, again like Pauker, as a foreign occupier, in part because he was Jewish.
This interview reveals the huge gap between Berman and Toranskas generations
in their understanding of communism.
Berman: After all the disasters that had befallen this country, we brought in its
ultimate liberation, because we finally got rid of those Germans. We wanted to
get this country moving, to breathe life into it; all our hopes were tied up with
the new model of Poland, which was the only chance it had had throughout its
thousand years of history. We were bound to succeed, because we were right;
According to Berman,
not in some irrational, dreamed-up way wed plucked out of the air, but
historicallyhistory was on our side. . . .
Toranska: Youre considered the cause of all the evil that has befallen
this nation. . . .
Berman: Thats the result of mental backwardness. . . . Two great powers arose.
We found ourselves in the Soviet sphere of influence, which was lucky for us.
They had to meet with resistance on the part of a population raised on and
accustomed to an entirely different set of ideas. . . . Was it plausible at any
moment to imagine that Poland would be again the country it had been between the wars? . . . You have to be deaf and blind not to see that we, the Polish communists, rescued Poland from the worst. . . . Our efforts were stifled
by the extraordinary pressure of the cold war atmosphere and by a genuine
threat from America. . . . She wanted to invest in Europe (hence the Marshall
Plan) in order to make it dependent on her. . . . For us to break away from the
Soviet Union would have meant losing the recovered territories. Poland would
have become the duchy of Warsaw. . . . The world has changed, cant you see
that? There arent any sovereign states any more, only semisovereign ones. . . .
Poland cant be uprooted from the Soviet bloc. Poland lies on the road between
the Soviet Union and western Europe, and its position is clear: either/or. There
are no half shades, because Poland cant float in the air.
819
820
Anti-Tito Purges
While Tito purged his internal political enemies and
skillfully used his position to advance his interests in
the international arena, other Soviet bloc countries bore
the brunt of the Tito-Stalin split. Stalin took his anger
out on the eastern European regimes, as the Soviet
Union helped orchestrate vast purges of the communist leadership between 1948 and 1953. Many leaders
who had been in Moscow during the war and ruthlessly followed Stalins orders in the early postwar
years were now put on trial for fabricated charges of
collaboration with western imperialist forces against
their own people. In reality, these were sham trials,
staged to satisfy Stalins growing fear of imagined enemies and to reinforce the threat that the communist
police state could eliminate anyone at any time, even
State-Controlled Economies
While implementing these purges, the communist
regimes in eastern Europe also began economic reconstruction with the direct Soviet support. Initially,
the Soviets focused on rebuilding Russia, and they did
so by directly extracting resources from the communist
bloc, from wheat and cattle to entire factories. The Soviets justified these seizures as war reparations. Thus,
there was little economic growth in eastern Europe
during the first few years of communist domination.
Moscow sent observers, usually with military personnel, to oversee economic planning in each country.
Instead of imposing a Soviet-style command economy,
planners required each country to specialize in certain
areas so that the region would collectively achieve
economic growth. This clever plan ensured that no
one state could gain economic autonomy. Thus, East
Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, which were
already more industrialized, were to focus on industrial goods, while Romania, Bulgaria, and, to some
extent, Hungary were to provide raw materials and
agricultural goods to support the industries and consumer needs of the other countries. The Soviets provided energy sources for industrial production in
exchange for finished industrial products, at prices set
by the Soviets. The Committee for Mutual Economic
Assistance coordinated economic exchanges among
these countries, with support from the Soviets, but
in reality the Soviets controlled all the economic exchanges. For instance, the sale of Czech-produced cars
in Poland was subject to Soviet approval.
This formula for economic growth had some payoffs: by 1950, some industrial products, like steel, had
surpassed prewar production. But these successes
came at great cost for both agricultural and consumer
goods. In addition, just as in the Soviet Union, the performance of the economy was judged by production
rather than its value on the open market. For this reason, the quality of goods remained inferior to goods
produced in western Europe.
Although the goals of economic restructuring were
everywhere the same, the processes varied, depending on the relationship of the local communist leadership with Moscow. For instance, the collectivization
of agriculture was pursued aggressively in Romania
but not in Poland. Polish communists viewed collectivization as potentially destabilizing, while the Romanians were more willing to apply violent means to
De-Stalinization
In 1953 Stalin suddenly died. Soviet leaders and the
population at large were petrified: Stalins presence
had been so overwhelming that virtually nobody knew
how to behave in his absence. The funeral became a
performance for anticipating Stalins successor, as he
had not given the issue much thought. Thousands
crowded to see the corpse, laid beside Lenins in the
mausoleum in downtown Moscow. Party members
paid their respects out of loyalty and fear of the unknown future; average people were mostly curious to
see the great man dead. The pallbearers and funeral
speakers were viewed as the potential successors, especially Georgy Malenkov. He was prime minister
and assumed the position of party general secretary.
Georgy Malenkov (19021988) Soviet communist
leader who lost to Nikita Khrushchev in becoming
Stalins successor.
821
822
Table 28.2
Eastern Europe
1947
1948
19481949
1949
1951
1953
1955
1956
1958
1961
1964
1968
Superpower Confrontations
In the 1950s, the United States and Soviet Union became embroiled in Korea in their first direct military
confrontation of the cold war. A postwar settlement
had divided the former Japanese territory into a communist Democratic Peoples Republic in the north
and the Republic of Korea in the south. What started
as a war between the two in 1950 quickly became internationalized in the bipolar world of the cold war.
After the Soviets sent military support to the North,
the Americans went before the UN Security Council to
request a military intervention on behalf of the South.
The Security Council agreed, primarily because the
Soviets, boycotting the UN at the time, were not present to veto the decision. The United States thus sent
in troops under the guise of South Korean requests
823
824
consideration. The British led decolonization by offering colonies independence and a new, autonomous
relationship with Great Britain through the Commonwealth of Nations, which focused on economic relations. India was a relatively successful model. Given
the large population and great variety of traditions
and cultures that existed on the subcontinent, the Indian nationalist movements were remarkably united
in their negotiations with the British. The leadership
of Mohandas Gandhi gave these movements cohesion and a strategy of peaceful resistance to colonial
rule. His protg Jawaharlal Nehru became the first
prime minister of independent India. Both resisted
825
826
NETHERLANDS
BELGIUM
FRANCE
ITALY
PORTUGAL
SPAIN
NORTH KOREA
1948
MOROCCO
1956
ALGERIA
1962
WESTERN SAHARA
(Morocco)
1975
From Spain
MAURITANIA
1960
GUINEA
1958
JORDAN
1946
EGYPT
1922
MALI
1960
NIGER
1960
BURKINA FASO
1960
CHAD
1960
YEMEN
GHANA
1957
TOGO
1960
EQUATORIAL GUINEA
1968 From Spain
DEM. REP.
OF CONGO
1960
GABON
1960
UGANDA
1962
RWANDA
1962
BURUNDI
1962
REPUBLIC OF CONGO
1960
ANGOLA
1975
ATLANTIC
SOUTH AFRICA
(Republic 1961)
500
1000
500
Unified 1974
SOUTH VIETNAM
1954
SRI LANKA
(CEYLON)
1948
INDIAN OCEAN
MOZAMBIQUE
1974
MAURITIUS
1968
From Great Britain
Great Britain
Belgium
France
Portugal
Netherlands
United States
Italy
1500 Mi.
MAP 28.3
BRUNEI 1984
From Great Britain
INDONESIA
1949
MADAGASCAR
1960
1500 Km.
1000
CAMBODIA
1954
PHILIPPINES
1946
MALAYSIA 1963
MALAWI
1964
LESOTHO
1966
PACIFIC
NORTH VIETNAM
1954
SINGAPORE
1965
TANZANIA
1964
ZAMBIA
1964
NAMIBIA 1985
MYANMAR
(BURMA)
1947
KENYA
1963
SWAZILAND
1968
PAKISTAN 1947,
BANGLADESH 1973
SOMALIA
1960
ZIMBABWE
1980
OCEAN
LAOS
1949
INDIA
1947
OMAN 1971
ETHIOPIA
1941
CENTRAL AFRICAN
REPUBLIC 1960
CAMEROON
1960
JAPAN
PAKISTAN
1947
DJIBOUTI
1977
BENIN 1960
NIGERIA
1960
CTE
SIERRA LEONE
D'IVOIRE
1961
1960
LIBERIA
1820s
KUWAIT
1961
BAHRAIN 1971
QATAR 1971
SUDAN
1956
SOUTH KOREA
1948
IRAQ
1932
UNITED ARAB
EMIRATES 1971
SENEGAL 1960
GAMBIA 1965
GUINEA-BISSAU
1974
SYRIA
1944
CYPRUS
1960
LEBANON 1944
ISRAEL 1948
LIBYA
1951
From
Japan
OCEAN
GREAT
BRITAIN
827
828
replaced the British in the area, trying to broker between the newly established state of Israel and its
hostile Arab neighbors while competing with the Soviet Union for alliances with oil-rich Arab leaders.
The development of Arab nationalism was accelerated by the creation of Israel and the failure of the
United Nations to create a Palestinian Arab state. On
the one hand, Israel came to define itself and be viewed
increasingly as a promoter of progressive ideas and of
western civilization. After 1967, it was sturdily on the
side of American interests in the area. On the other
hand, some Arab populations in Palestine and the
rest of the Middle East began to look toward the Soviet Union as a better broker for their interests. After
1964, when the PLO established itself as the foremost
leader in the Palestinian struggle for statehood, the
organization was quickly recognized by and sought
the material support of the Soviet Union and other
communist states, such as Yugoslavia.
Yet neither communism nor capitalism was the
choice of the political leaders of the Middle East. Instead, the region produced a blend of Arab nationalism with strong Muslim influences. Many territories
remained kingdoms, while postcolonial states established authoritarian governments with only a thin veneer of parliamentary life. Political institutions in these
countries often resembled premodern theocracies, and
their oil resources brought great wealth to ruling elites.
Cultural Developments
and Social Protest
829
830
Jean Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were the most celebrated couple in postwar Franceintellectuals committed to
political and social causes. Yet de Beauvoir remained for a
long time in the shadow of Sartre, her feminism viewed as
secondary to his existential philosophy. (RDA/Hulton Archive/
Getty Images)
My Generation. Words and music by Peter Townshend. Copyright 1965 (renewed) Fabulous Music, Ltd., London, England. TRO-Devon Music, Inc.,
New York, controls all publication rights for the U.S.A. and Canada. Used by permission.
831
832
600
500
1968
400
300
200
100
0
1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970
Year
Enrollment Figures for French Universities from 19001968 After World War II western
Europe was fundamentally changed by the great growth
in college attendance. The beneficiaries of this growth
were especially the poor and women. Source: Wilkinson,
James D.; Huges, H. Stuart, Contemporary Europe: A History, 9th Edition, 1998, pp. 425. Reprinted by permission
of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ.
FIGURE 28.2
Lyrics from Bob Dylan, With God on Our Side, from Times They Are A-Changin, Columbia Records, New York, 1964. Reprinted by permission of Bob
Dylan Music Company, Special Rider Music Company.
social policies that would benefit all citizens with policies that would accelerate economic growth. He even
pardoned political prisoners, including religious believers, who had been harshly persecuted in the 1950s.
The reforms in Czechoslovakia proved too radical
for the Soviets, who recalled the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, even though the Czechoslovak movement proposed not to end communist rule but to reform it. In
August 1968, Leonid Brezhnev sent tanks into Czechoslovakia to wipe out all opposition. All Warsaw Pact
members save Romania also sent in troops. The military intervention was out of proportion, given the fact
that Czechoslovak reformers did not put up armed
resistance, and the West came to associate the communist leadership of eastern Europe with this crude
Alexander Dubcek (19211992) Leader of the
Czechoslovak Communist Party during the Prague
Spring who initiated liberalizing reforms but was
forcibly removed from power.
Prague Spring Short-lived period of liberalization in
Czechoslovakia in 1968 that was violently crushed by
the Soviets.
Leonid Brezhnev (19061982) Soviet leader between
1964 and 1983 who oversaw the reversal of the liberalization efforts of the Khrushchev regime.
833
Summary
Review Questions
How did the cold war affect international security?
What were the costs of postwar reconstruction in
western versus eastern Europe?
How did the new polarization of the world into two
superpower-dominated camps and anticolonial independence movements affect Europeans identity?
politics, culture, technology, and commerce, their counterparts in eastern Europe spent years in jail or learned
not to challenge the system. A lucky few escaped into
the West.
egated to the sidelines in the contest between the Soviet Union and the United States.
The relationship between Europe and its colonies
also changed dramatically, as European states shed
their nineteenth-century concerns with empire building. But Europe remained tied culturally, economically,
and politically to the postcolonial world. By 1968,
however, liberation movements in places like Algeria
and Vietnam were also becoming a powerful influence in the opposition movements in Europe.
The experience of the war had a profound impact
on Europeans views of their culture and European
identity. The continent that had fostered Christianity
and the Enlightenment had also produced hateful mass
movements, atrocities, and genocide. Yet few political
leaders were prepared to deal with these moral dilemmas in the first postwar decades, and the wartime
generation focused instead on hard work. It was the
next generation of better-educated, more diverse, and
less traumatized Europeans who forced a new period
of social and political engagement, moral responsibility, and self-sacrifice. The 1968 student protests brought
this generational conflict to a head and prompted Europeans East and West to look back at their past as
well as toward their goals for European development
in the future.
834
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
The Volkswagen Transporter
Todays SUV (sport-utility vehicle), the mark of middle-class America, has as its ancestor a little box on
wheels thought up in 1947 by a Dutch car importer, Ben Pon. At that time, the British controlled the Volkswagen (VW) factory in Wolfsburg, which had been developed under Adolf Hitler to produce affordable
vehicles for all Germans. Pon met with British authorities to suggest building a vehicle that would, like the
Websites
original Volkswagen (peoples car) Beetle, be small and affordable, yet more useful for hauling both
people and goods. German manufacturers liked the idea and created the first prototype by 1949. The
minibus or Transporter, as this hybrid vehicle came to be known, became an instant success, and, though
modest by todays standards, it revolutionized transportation. By 1961, more than 1 million had been sold.
Minibuses became a fixture all over Europe, even behind the Iron Curtain, because of their great versatility,
low price, and great gas mileage. For a small-business owner, the bus could be both workplace and vacation vehicle. It could be easily outfitted with sleeping and eating quarters, becoming the first affordable,
compact camper to hit the European market. In fact, the minibus became more than a vehicle: it represented a lifestyle, providing a new generation with a mobility, freedom, and interconnectedness that contrasted with what they saw as the dull conservatism of their parents.
By the late 1960s, traveling bands of young people could be seen driving minibuses on highways in Europe
and the United States and parked at music festivals, antiwar protests, and vacation spots. The minibus
became the symbol of the flower power generation and continues to be so today. Transporters still travel
the roads of Europe, especially in postcommunist countries, and in the United States they show up at rainbow gatherings and other Dead Head events. But the sons and daughters of the flower children rebelled
against their parents by embracing materialism again and turning to bigger, more powerful descendants of
the minibusthe minivan, the SUV, and more recently the Hummerfor hauling kids and their gear to and
from programmed activities.
Suggested Readings
Caute, David. The Year of the Barricades: A Journey Through
1968. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. A survey of international
political developments in 1968, including the antiwar and civil
rights movements.
Hogan, Michael J. The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and
the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 19471952. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2005. An analysis of how the
Marshall Plan was more than an effort by American officials to
refashion western Europe into a smaller version of the U.S.
capitalist economy.
Mahoney, Daniel J. De Gaulle: Statesmanship, Grandeur, and
Modern Democracy. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2000. A comprehensive study of the thought and actions of Charles de Gaulle.
Naimark, Norman. Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in
Twentieth-Century Europe. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
Websites
Documents and scholarly analyses on the development of the
cold war in the military field, The Parallel History Project on
Cooperative Security, at www.isn.ethz.ch/php
A growing archive of documents pertaining to the cold war,
Cold War International History Project, at wwics.si.edu/index
.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=topics.home
An archive of documents related to the history of European integration from 1930 until today, EU History, at www.eu-history
.leidenuniv.nl/index.php3?m=1&c=3&garb=0.3437423344549452
&session
835
836
CHAPTER
Lifting the Iron
Curtain, 19691991
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Vclav Havel Chooses Dissent
Introduction
Politics in Western Europe
Relaxed Tensions and Renewed
Cooperation
Security and Economic Challenges from
the Middle East
The Transformation of the Left
The Antinuclear and Environmental
Movements
The New Conservatism
Summary
Echo: Peace Protests
Suggested Readings
Websites
1500 B.C.E.
1000 B.C.E.
1972
West Germany recognizes East German border
Antiballistic Missile Treaty is signed
1968
Prague Spring
is crushed
1966
1968
1B.C.E./1 C.E.
500 B.C.E.
1973
Arab oil embargo
begins
1970
1972
1974
1976
1978
Expansion of European
Community
Original members, 1967
New members, 1973
New member, 1981
New member, 1986
FINLAND
Members of CMEA
NORWAY
SWEDEN
Oslo
Lake
Ladoga
Helsinki
R U S S I A
Leningrad
Stockholm
SCOTLAND
NORTHERN
IRELAND
IRELAND
ESTONIA
North
Sea
Dublin
GREAT
BRITAIN
Riga
DENMARK
Copenhagen
NETHERLANDS
WALES
El
b
London
Amsterdam
Brussels
BELGIUM
Warsaw
hin
e
LIECH.
Bern
SWITZ.
Lisbon
Madrid
T ag us
Barcelona
MONACO
Corsica
YUGOSLAVIA
ITALY
(Sp.)
Gibraltar
(U.K.)
Sardinia
VATICAN
CITY
D a nu b e
Yalta
GEORGIA
Black Sea
AZERBAIJAN
ARMENIA
BULGARIA
Sofia
Rome
Balearic
Islands
Bucharest
Belgrade
(Fr.)
SPAI N
Crimea
ROMANIA
Po
Marseilles
ga
MOLDOVA
Budapest
HUNGARY
SAN
MARINO
V ol
Kharkov
D niep
e
VAKI A
Milan
ANDORRA
Kiev
UKR A I NE
H O S LO
Vienna
AUSTRIA
KAZAKHSTAN
ine
CZ E C
U N I O N
BELARUSSIA
Prague
Munich
FRANCE
Geneva
POLAND
Berlin
Luxembourg
R
S O V I E T
Minsk
Bonn
Paris
Se LUX.
Lo i r e
LITHUANIA
istula
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
GERMANY
Moscow
LATVIA
Gdansk
Hamburg
The
Hague
a
olg
ALBANIA
Naples
Istanbul
Tiran
Ankara
TURKEY
(It.)
GREECE
Mediterranean Sea
Athens
MOROCCO
Crete
MALTA
ALGERIA
TUNISIA
(Gr.)
250
IRAQ
CYPRUS
LEBANON
500 Km.
250
SYRIA
Nicosia
ISRAEL
500 Mi.
JORDAN
LYBIA
EGYPT
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
1500 C.E.
2000 C.E.
1979
Thatcher becomes British prime minister
1983
First Green Party
member is elected
to West German
parliament
1980
Polish Solidarity
movement begins
1980
1982
1984
1989
Berlin Wall
falls
1985
Gorbachev
becomes leader
of Soviet Union
1986
1988
1990
1991
Soviet Union
collapses
1992
837
838
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Vclav Havel Chooses Dissent
Vclav Havel
In the 1980s, Vclav Havel
became the face of peaceful
anticommunist dissent in
eastern Europe. His plays,
critical of communism, had
already been staged abroad,
but he became renowned for
his role in the Charter 77
human rights petition, written in Czechoslovakia in
1977, protesting abuses by
the communist regime
against members of a rock
band. In 1989, Havel was
elected the first president of
postcommunist Czechoslovakia. (AP/Wide World Photos)
government to release the members of a rock band who had been imprisoned for
their lyrics and for loud aestheticssupposedly unbecoming of a musical group
in a communist state. Charter 77, and Havel in particular, challenged the regime to
show how it could claim to support freedom of speech and personal movement
while treating people as subjects of a tyranny. For his role in Charter 77, Havel was
imprisoned in 1979 and suffered great abuses. In 1983 he almost died from an
untreated case of pneumonia, and only under great international pressure was he
finally released to recover in a regular hospital. By now he had become a largerthan-life hero of the underground intellectual and civil rights reform movement in
the communist world. In 1989, he emerged as leader of the anticommunist opposition and was soon elected as president of a democratic Czechoslovakia. After Slovakia declared its independence in 1991, he remained the president of the Czech
Republic until his retirement in February 2003.
Introduction
Vclav Havel was one of the many youthful supporters of the 1968 revolt against the pressures for conformity and the lies of governments and politics. The
hopes of these young people for a radical change in
leadership style and for more direct political participation by the people were dashed by the harsh response of the authorities, from Prague to Paris. But the
revolts shook the establishment and put traditional
political parties on the defensive, forcing them to redefine themselves if they were to speak to this younger
generation. These challenges also pushed governments
East and West to learn to live with the idea of permanent threat brought about by the cold war while
achieving internal political stability.
Inside western Europe, the political challenges of
the 1970s and 1980s came not from traditional political organizations but rather from radical new political
formations, like the Greens, feminists, and antinuclear
activists. These groups did not propose choosing between capitalism and communism but rather moving
beyond the cold war divide and recognizing the greater
problems that threatened the well-being of all people,
from nuclear obliteration to gender inequality.
An economic crisis that started with the oil embargo of 1973 and continued into the 1980s complicated the political choices of western Europeans, who
had to contend with economic depression, unemployment, inflation, and a severe slowdown of the postwar economic miracle. The European Community
also became involved in unprecedented global economic connections.
The economic crisis of the 1970s also brought about
radical change in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
Governments looked for new markets and took ad-
839
840
Chronology
1972
1973
1974
1975
19761977
1980
1981
1982
1983
1985
1977
1986
1978
1989
1991
1979
In a symbolic gesture, in December 1970 West German Chancellor Willy Brandt knelt before the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
memorial, asking forgiveness from the Polish people for the
violence of the Nazi regime. The gesture greatly improved
West GermanPolish relations and helped decrease East-West
tensions generally in the 1970s. (Bettmann/Corbis)
841
842
If Ostpolitik and dtente meant relaxation, tolerance, and the willingness to sit down at the negotiating table, they also encouraged greater scrutiny and
manipulation of the flow of information between East
and West. It was a gamble on both sides, and it proved
very costly for Brandt. A few dramatic cases of Soviet
agents in West Germany caught with important German secrets encouraged the perception that western
leaders who promoted dtente were not watchful and
tough enough on communist threats from over the
wall. Brandt became the victim of one such a scandal.
Although he had not been personally responsible for
the actions of a Soviet spy who had infiltrated his
administration, Brandt lost legitimacy at home and finally resigned in 1974. But the policy of dtente continued in the hands of other European leaders and
with the support of U.S. presidents Gerald Ford and
Jimmy Carter.
Brandts policy of opening up trade with the East in
order to improve the quality of life under communism
provided an important starting point for a broader international process of European cooperation, and this
gave birth to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The conference represented the first
attempt to broadly rethink European international relations not only in terms of the cold war superpower
contest, but also in terms of the interests and needs of
the European states. All European states participated,
as well as the United States and Canada. The process
itself, together with the Helsinki Final Act (1975) it
generated, created a new forum for collaboration between East and West, especially in the area of human
rights. All signatories recognized existing European
borders and committed themselves to protecting their
citizens human rights, including freedom of religion,
free speech, freedom to move or travel, and the right to
due process. The Final Act became a guiding principle
for the Carter administrations foreign policy. For Europeans, it represented a new basis for international
relations that went beyond the political interests and
ideologies of the United States and the Soviet Union.
The conference also gave rise to institutions for implementing these agreements. Helsinki Watch became
one of the important nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs) reporting on human rights violations, both in
the West and in the East. As Helsinki Watch and other
NGOs worked with western governments to guide the
implementation of the Final Act, they became new
players in international relations. Often lobbying on
behalf of the powerless, they also worked with western governments to expose abuses by regimes that did
not acknowledge their violations of basic human rights
and to bring international pressure to bear on them.
The United States, for instance, offered reduced tar-
843
844
From the late 1960s to the present, the walls of many urban
neighborhoods in Northern Ireland became a venue for the
Irish Republican Armys quest for legitimacy. This mural,
painted during the 1980s, is critical of Margaret Thatchers
government. (Alain Le Garsmeur/Alamy)
power in 1973, the oil crisis of that same year undermined economic prosperity. Unemployment stayed
high, the economy did not bounce back, and the pound
remained weak. When the party proved incapable of
effective solutions, it lost power in 1979.
The Labour Party also lost support because of its
inability to deal with the rise of protests in Northern
Ireland. In the late 1960s, the Northern Ireland Civil
Rights Association sponsored peaceful street protests
and began documenting the abuses of the Unionist
government against Catholics. The governments violent crackdown led to actions by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) that brought the level of violence to
unprecedented heights. Car bombings in Protestant
communities and assassinations of government loyalists became staple activities of this group. The situation in Ireland soon became a permanent crisis in
Table 29.1
Antinuclear Protests
1971
1972
1978
1981
19811991
1983
March 1983
October 1983
19831984
1987
May 1991
sile Treaty of 1972 as a victory and committed themselves to continuing reductions of the nuclear arsenal.
Yet even as the energy crisis of the early 1970s made
nuclear power attractive to some, fears of a nuclear
disaster gained new dimensions. Table 29.1 summarizes antinuclear protests during this period.
Franois Mitterrand (19161996) French president
from 1982 to 1994, first socialist French president of the
postwar era.
Valry Giscard dEstaing (1926 ) French president
from 1974 until 1982 who pursued centrist policies
supporting business interests and social welfare
services.
Juan Carlos I (r. 1975 ) King of Spain who helped
smooth the transition from the authoritarian Franco
regime to a democratic pluralist government.
845
846
For ten years, thousands of women kept a continuous presence at the Greenham Common military base west of
London. They camped, held vigils, and engaged in various other forms of protest to signal their commitment to
creating a nuclear-free Britain. (The Press Association [PA Photos])
The antiwar and antinuclear/environmental movements were closely connected and drew support from
a wide range of scientists, student activists, housewives, and people of any or no political persuasion.
In Britain, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament,
founded in the 1950s, became the leading organization of the antinuclear movement. It served as a political lobbying force and also a link for people beyond
national boundaries, ideologies, and religious beliefs.
Other environmental NGOs built communities on an
ethic of caring that crossed national borders and promoted a new global identity. Free from the adversities
of the ballot box, these NGOs often acted swiftly and
also across borders, especially in moments of crisis.
The same concern for environmental issues gave
birth to a new left-wing party in Germany, the Green
Party. The party grew from small local groups that
lobbied on behalf of ecological concerns starting in
the early 1970s and attracted voters dissatisfied with
the backbone of the Common Market, producing onethird of its exports in the 1980s.
In Britain, the electorate brought back the Conservatives in 1979 under the leadership of Margaret
Thatcher, the first woman prime minister of Britain.
She dominated politics throughout the 1980s, orchestrating a decisive shift in foreign and domestic politics. Thatcher came to be known as the Iron Lady for
her resolute support for the Reagan administrations
rearmament policies and for her stiff refusal to consider
the social welfare costs of her governments support
for business and industry. Whether people admired
or despised her, Thatcher articulated a new path for
conservative politics. Her years in power and policies
have reshaped the relationship between the traditional
left and right, making Thatcherism an important force
in contemporary politics until today. The focus on individual freedoms rather than social programs and
on encouraging business rather than favoring labor
unions became the trademarks of this movement.
As a woman, Thatcher was an improbable leader
of the Conservatives, a party in which women were
underrepresented and that generally lined up with
areas of political and economic life that were dominated by menfrom the armaments industry to the
landed aristocracy. Most western European women
who entered politics after World War II gravitated
to left-wing parties, which tended to have womanfriendly positions on issues such as child care, healthcare, education, and birth control. But Thatcher was
not one to fit any particular clich of a female politician, and she followed her own path. Born in 1925,
she became interested in politics as a chemistry student at Oxford. In 1953, as a brand-new mother of
twins, she also passed the bar and soon returned to
work as a tax specialist. After she won a seat in Parliament at age thirty-four, she fully dedicated her public
847
848
Despite growing prosperity and opportunities for social advancement in western Europe, the years after
1968 saw challenges from various groups. Women deFalklands War (1982) Conflict won by Great Britain
against Argentina over a small archipelago off
Argentina, the Falkland/Malvinas Islands.
849
850
New Populations
Between 1960 and 1990, the natural population growth
in European Community states declined by threequarters. The birthrate decreased dramatically everywhere in western Europe but most remarkably in
Catholic countries that legalized abortion during this
period. In Spain, for example, the birthrate dropped
from 21.5 per thousand in 1960 to 10.3 per thousand
in 1990. The downturn in the birthrate raised concerns
about a shrinking workforce. At the same time, the
number of elderly people who were entitled to retirement benefits was growing. The average age expectancy for western European men in 1980 was 71, and for
women 77, while retirement ages averaged 60 for men
and 55 for women. Thus, western European states
needed to provide retirement and healthcare benefits
for an average of twelve years for each retired person.
Petra Kelly (19471992) West German feminist who
helped found the Green Party and became the first
Green Party member to serve in the West German
Bundestag.
Overall, it seemed that the number of people contributing to the workforce was going down while the
number of those entitled to social services was rising.
To fill needs in the labor force, western European
governments opened up their borders to guest workers and immigrants. People with skills for critical economic needs were permitted to live temporarily in
European Community states as guest workers. The
needs most often cited were for low-paying, menial
jobs, such as domestic service and janitorial work, and
for hard labor in dangerous settings. The migrants had
the right to work. They had to pay taxes, but they did
not have the right to apply for permanent residency,
nor did they have the same social rights as citizens.
Healthcare, education, pensions, and vacations were
not guaranteed to guest workers. Nor was there any
attempt to acculturate them to the language and customs of the host country. Guest workers remained on
the margins of their host societies.
Yet foreign nationals reshaped the demographic
profile of western Europe. Policies encouraged immigration from the old colonies in Asia, Africa, and the
West Indies, and large numbers of Muslims came to
work in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain,
France, and Britain. At first guest workers seemed
largely invisible, but as their populations grew cultural
differences were exposed. Western European governments were largely unprepared for the presence of
large groups of unassimilated migrants. Moreover,
just as Italians, Danes, and Germans were starting to
identify themselves as Europeans, there were new
populations to define themselves againstnew people
of color and adherents of different religions. Thus new
tensions arose over what it meant to be European.
Tensions also arose as guest workers lived in
poverty while they worked in prosperous settings. A
Turkish worker cleaning toilets in the Frankfurt International Airport, for example, saw the lifestyle available to Germans and knew it would never be possible
for him. The loneliness and resentment of guest workers was compounded as they observed ethnic Germans
repatriated from eastern Europe gaining citizenship
and access to full social services. The significance of
race in eligibility for citizenship was clear. The race line
was a particular problem for children born to guest
workers in the host country: Were they to be tolerated, or could they become citizens with full rights?
As temporary workers lived in host countries for
decades, a new generation of children were exposed
to the possibility of losing their rights if their parents
were deported. And, because they attended European
schools and spoke European languages, they began to
identify themselves as Europeans. Thousands of families struggled with divided identities.
guest workers Citizens of foreign countries temporarily allowed to live and work in western European
countries.
Brezhnev Doctrine Policy of Soviet military intervention to secure the interest of communism in Soviet bloc
countries, established by Leonid Brezhnev in 1968.
851
852
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Vclav Havel Calls on the Power
of the Powerless
This essay, written a year after the founding of Charter 77, is Vclav Havels most
famous piece. It was first published abroad in an English translation and came out
in its original Czech only after 1989; before that, mimeographed copies circulated
in the underground. The parable of the greengrocer has become a legendary
statement of the corrupting power of totalitarian regimes and the apparently
simple, potentially costly, yet fundamentally liberating means of escape from the
vicious circle of living within a lie. Note that in calling people to live in truth by
rejecting the communist regime as fundamentally untruthful, Havel does not embrace capitalism. He sees the consumerism of Western capitalist societies as a coercive conformity, pressuring individuals into other forms of living within a lie.
The manager of a fruit and vegetable shop places in his window, among the
onions and carrots, the slogan: Workers of the world, unite! . . . I think it can
safely be assumed that the overwhelming majority of
shopkeepers never think about the slogans they put in
their windows, nor do they use them to express their
Why does Havel
pick a greengrocer for
real opinions. That poster was delivered to our
this parable?
greengrocer from the enterprise headquarters along
with the onions and carrots. He put them all into the
window simply because that is the way it has to be. If
he were to refuse, there could be trouble. He could be reproached for not having
the proper decoration in his window; someone might even accuse him of disloyalty. He does it because these things must be done if one is to get along in life. It is
one of the thousands of details that guarantee him a relatively tranquil life in
harmony with society, as they say. . . .
We have seen that the real meaning of the greengrocers slogan has nothing to
do with what the text of the slogan actually says. Even so, this real meaning is
quite clear and generally comprehensible because the code is so familiar: the
greengrocer declares his loyalty (and he can do no other if his declaration is to be
accepted) in the only way the regime is capable of hearing; that is, by accepting
the prescribed ritual, by accepting appearances as reality, by accepting the given
rules of the game. In doing so, however, he has himself become a player in the
853
854
game, thus making it possible for the game to go on, for it to exist in the first
place. . . . Because of this, dictatorship of the ritual, however, power becomes
clearly anonymous. . . .
[A] woman who ignored the greengrocers slogan may well have hung a similar
slogan just an hour before in the corridor of the office where she works. She did it
more or less without thinking, just as our greengrocer did, and she could do so
precisely because she was doing it against the background of the general
panorama and with some awareness of it, that is, against the background of the
panorama of which the greengrocers shop window forms a part. . . . The
greengrocer and the office worker have both adapted to the conditions in which
they live, but in doing so, they help to create those
conditions. . . .
Are these two
Let us now imagine that one day something in
forms of noncompliour greengrocer snaps and he stops putting up the
ance acts of opposislogans merely to ingratiate himself. He stops voting in
tion against the
elections he knows are a farce. He begins to say what
regime? What is their
he really thinks at political meetings. And he even finds
meaning and for
the strength in himself to express solidarity with those
whom?
whom his conscience commands him to support. In this
revolt the greengrocer steps out of living within the lie.
He rejects the ritual and breaks the rules of the game.
He discovers once more his suppressed identity and dignity. He gives his freedom a
concrete significance. His revolt is an attempt to live within the truth. . . .
Poles were no longer afraid. Writers expelled from official publications immediately found employment as
teachers and editors in the underground classes set
up in churches and farmhouses. Those who still had
official jobs used their economic resources to help
people in the underground. Virtually everyone in
Poland, including party members, either knew someone who was an underground activist or helped in
such activities.
The Polish dissident movement was unique in
eastern Europe for its long-term worker activism and
the organizational structure of the Workers Defense
Committee and also because of the role of the Catholic Church, which opened its doors to the flying university and Solidarity activists after 1981. In addition,
in 1978, the Catholic Poles gained one of their most
important spokesmen in the international community through the election of Karol Cardinal Wojtyla as
Pope John Paul II. The first Polish pope, John Paul
was an inspiration for all Catholics in Poland and
gave them renewed faith. The pope himself became an
outspoken, if diplomatic, critic of the communist bloc.
Even though there were large groups of Catholics in
Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Croatia, nowhere
else did the Catholic Church provide such a catalyst
for mass dissent in the last decade of communism.
855
856
embraced sexuality as a part of their identity. Intellectuals challenged faith in progress, while many people
turned to new religious practices. In eastern Europe
these shifts did not directly challenge communism,
but they did show the extent to which people no
longer believed in government propaganda and tried
to create alternative identities.
government of Nicolae Ceausescu recriminalized abortion and eliminated all forms of birth control. Women
went overnight from being free to choose any form of
birth control to being forced to undergo monthly gynecological examinations to monitor any pregnancy.
Womens identity shifted from being partners in the
labor force and public life to becoming birthing vessels. Yet mothers were given little assistance by the
state, and the quality of healthcare and child care indicated that the regime was interested primarily in
the number of children born.
Another important aspect of the sexual revolution
was the emerging acceptability of homosexuality as
an identity. Underground gay communities and culture had existed for a long time, but in the late 1960s
and early 1970s politicians began to consider decriminalizing homosexual acts. Sweden had led the way
in 1944. In the 1970s and 1980s, gay rights activists in
the West largely achieved decriminalization and a degree of cultural tolerance. Sexual equality was added
to the list of human rights that most western European governments protected by law. By contrast, in
the communist East homosexuality remained criminalized, and many gay persons were placed in abusive psychiatric wards.
Then, in 1983, the AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) crisis reignited worldwide fears of
sexual promiscuity, especially regarding male homo-
sexuals. Despite medical research indicating that heterosexuals were often as likely as homosexuals to become infected with the AIDS virus and that the
source of infection could be blood transfusions rather
than sexual contact, the myth that AIDS was a homosexual illness or punishment for sexual deviants persists in many places.
These important changes in how sexuality was defined had much to do with social practices, medical
advances, and public policy. But equally important
was the role of popular culture. The emergence of
rock and roll and of youth culture as a product that
could be easily marketed, together with the growth of
television, helped popularize sexual freedom. Rock
stars openly flaunted their sexuality, and their fans
imitated these trends. Movies, television programs,
billboards, and newspaper advertisements promoted
sexually explicit images, reinforcing the notion that
peoples sexual desires and actions were not shameful taboos but integral components of their identity.
Yet popular culture generally did little to challenge
traditional gender and sexual identities. James Bond
movies celebrated masculine sexual promiscuity and
857
858
Religious Revival
In both West and East, the generation coming of age
in the 1970s and 1980s turned away from established
religious traditions. In the West, those who rejected
the increasingly consumerist and materialist society
sought a new spirituality. In the East, many who were
alienated from the ideas of communism and from the
religious institutions that had not opposed communism also became interested in nontraditional religions.
Buddhist and Hindu practices, particularly yoga, offered spiritual fulfillment for some. Following the
trend set by famous stars like the Beatles, some westerners traveled to Asia to immerse themselves in local traditions. People retreated into either private or
highly informal ways of expressing their religious beliefs rather than supporting established religious institutions. Church attendance declined even as interest
in spirituality grew.
Ireland and Poland were exceptions, however, as in
both the Catholic Church became a focus of national
resistance to oppressionimperial in Ireland and communist in Poland. In Northern Ireland, the Catholic
population, whether they supported the IRA or not,
found in the Catholic Church a space in which to cultivate Irish national identity as separate from Protestant
English nationalism. In Poland, there was an upsurge
of religious attendance as young people found the
church a refuge from their bleak political and economic life.
Other developments revived affiliation with traditional religions. In the case of Judaism, antisemitic
policies in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
prompted Jews to reassert their religious identity and
request permission to emigrate to Israel. In Poland the
turning point was 1968, when Jewish students and in-
Postmodernism
While some Europeans experienced new or renewed
religious affiliations, others questioned the essence of
faith in progress and western civilization itself. In the
formulations of French philosopher Michel Foucault,
the most important thinker of the postmodern movement, these two critiques were closely intertwined.
Born in 1926, Foucault was active in the 1968 political
protests. Yet, as a homosexual, he was a closet minority even within that progressive vanguard. In the
1970s he published a series of studies that questioned
the concepts of knowledge and truth, arguing that
both were products of specific ways of thinking and
thus fundamentally subjective. In the postmodernist
universe, action was part of a complex web of relations, and individual ideas and deeds did not have
meaning outside that web. Postmodernists suggested
it was foolish to believe that any political or social
system could be reformed from within. The fundamental injustices were in the imbalances of power between those who had economic and other resources
and those who started from marginal positions. Thus,
it was impossible to pinpoint the causes and conse-
consciously attempted to preserve some distance between their consumption of American popular culture
and material goods, on the one hand, and their identification with their local and regional European culture, on the other.
quences of any action. The theory generated a fundamental dilemma: if there was no way of establishing
a clear relationship between any two actions of even
one individual, then knowledge was nothing more
than an illusion. To know was to insert ones own
beliefs into the interpretation of facts. This critique
did not point to any way out. The only response was
irony and skepticism.
For many intellectuals in both the West and East,
postmodernism expressed the contradictions of their
agethe promises of plenty and the persistence of
poverty, access to education and growing ignorance,
the ideals of freedom and the shackles of consumerism. In particular, the ironic stance proposed by postmodernists was a survival tool for many writers behind
the Iron Curtain. They were themselves caught in a
web of powerlessness vis--vis the political leadership, for political repression made it impossible to be
true to ones calling as a writer and at the same time
the calling compelled them to try to express their ideas.
It is no wonder, then, that some of the most original
and sophisticated thinkers of the postmodern movement came from eastern Europe. For example, the
Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizeks preoccupation
with the ways in which language is shaped by power,
and power by language, was an extension of his experience growing up with a regime in which lies were
the norm.
859
ATLANTIC
EDE
RW
SW
AY
OCEAN
FINLAND
NO
860
North
Sea
Solidarity wins
elections, 1989
Baltic
Sea
DENMARK
UNITED
IRELAND KINGDOM
ESTONIA
Berlin
BELG.
PORTUGAL
CZECH
REP.
AUSTRIA
ITALY
UKRAINE
SLOVAKIA
HUNGARY
ROMANIA
YUGOSLAVIA
Black Sea
GEORGIA
ian
ARMENIA
Se
a
TURKEY
GREECE
UZBEKISTAN
sp
ALBANIA
Aral
Sea
Ca
KAZAKHSTAN
MOLDOVA
BULGARIA
SPAIN
BELARUS
POLAND
GERMANY
FRANCE
Moscow
LATVIA
LITHUANIA
NETH.
SWITZ.
RUSSIA
TURKMENISTAN
AZERBAIJAN
TUNISIA
MALTA
CYPRUS
Mediterranean Sea
0
0
500 Mi.
SYRIA
LEBANON
IRAQ
ISRAEL
ALGERIA
LIBYA
EGYPT
IRAN
JORDAN
MAP 29.1
The Fall of Communism, 19891991 Between 1989 and 1991 most of the communist
states in Europe collapsed, bringing the cold war to an end.
of the glasnost and perestroika policies he had promoted since his arrival in the Kremlin in 1985. The fall
of communism is summarized in Table 29.2.
In eastern Europe, the reversal of the Brezhnev
Doctrine was perceived by most of the older party
leaders as a personal threat to their authority. Reformers moved quickly to secure a peaceful transition to a
younger and more dynamic party leadership. In Poland, Solidarity was the first noncommunist organization to become the engine of change. In early 1989, it
held roundtable talks with communist officials who
hoped to secure a peaceful transition to a regime that
would allow the party to retain some political power.
But free elections resulted in a complete victory for Solidarity and in the peaceful ousting of the communists.
A wave of activism followed. In the summer of
1989, Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians formed a
peaceful human chain more than four hundred miles
long in opposition to Soviet rule. The rest of eastern
Europe awaited Moscows reaction to these political
challenges. Yet nothing happenedno troops crossed
Table 29.2
The Fall of Communism
19761977
1977
1978
19801981
1985
1988
April 1989
June 1989
September 1989
September 11, 1989
November 9, 1989
November 10, 1989
November 17December 29, 1989
December 1621, 1989
December 22, 1989
March 1991
August 1921, 1991
December 1, 1991
December 8, 1991
December 25, 1991
861
862
a viable workers state. The Soviet political and military establishment realized that Gorbachevs reformist
talk had permitted the lawful and peaceful exit of the
eastern European communist bloc states and that even
Soviet Republics no longer wished to be part of the
Union. The Baltic states had already made that clear,
and after Gorbachev pulled troops out of Afghanistan
in 1989, a growing wave of independence movements
swept the republics of Central Asia. Nationalism,
whether secular or strongly Muslim in orientation,
was challenging the authority of communism and the
Russian party elites everywhere.
By August 1991, the party had become sharply divided into two factions: one led by Boris Yeltsin, the
president of the Russian Republic and a young former supporter of Gorbachev, now disappointed with
perestroikas lack of success; the other, a conservative
faction, now led by Gorbachev, which tried to undo
many of the reforms of the 1980s. The unforeseen
consequences of his reforms had pushed Gorbachev
to retreat. He was fundamentally still a supporter of
the communist project and could not embrace the disintegration of the Soviet Union even though he had
provided the means for it. Thus, for a brief period of
time, Gorbachev attempted to rein in the nationalist
independence movements, with strong support from
the military establishment and older party leaders.
Yet Gorbachev was also troubled by his abandonment of the principles of glasnost and perestroika. So,
by early 1991, he returned to his reformist stance and,
under strong international pressure, allowed the independence of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. By August, together with Yeltsin, he had prepared a new treaty
for a looser union with the remaining Soviet Republics.
This treaty set the stage for the creation of a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which offered its
members autonomy in the management of internal
affairs while the CIS would coordinate foreign affairs,
security, and some economic policies, such as trade.
National Salvation Front Emergency government
that came to power in Romania in 1989 after dictator
Nicolae Ceausescu fled.
Ion Iliescu (1930 ) Communist leader of the National
Salvation Front in postcommunist Romania who became the first president of the country after elections
in 1990
Boris Yeltsin (19312007) First president of postcommunist Russia, 19911999, who oversaw the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and privatization of the
economy.
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Alliance of former Soviet republics that oversees some
trade, economic reform, and defense issues.
to stand by protesters. Now, when the party threatened to take over the government, he called on the
people and the lower army ranks to stand by him as a
Russian patriot.
Yeltsin thus became the face of democratic Russia.
As president of the Russian Republic, he shortly
outlawed the Communist Party there, closed down
communist newspapers, and transferred most state
authority from the Soviet Unions federal level of government to his own Russian Republic. On December 1,
Ukraine, the second most populous republic of the
Soviet Union, proclaimed its independence. By Christmas Day, 1991, the Soviet Union had ceased to exist.
The hammer and sickle flag in Red Square was lowered, and the Russian flag raised. The seventy-year
communist experiment had ended, and Russian nationalism was restored.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was surprisingly
more peaceful than its beginnings, and it signaled the
August coup Attempt in August 1991 by communist
hard-liners to bring an end to the reforms of Yeltsin
and Gorbachev that was crushed by a popular
uprising.
863
Summary
Review Questions
What brought down the Iron Curtain?
What were the important challenges to democracy in
western Europe?
How did European identities become more varied
during this period?
Between 1968 and 1991, Europe went from being divided into two ideologically opposed camps to a continent open to the flow of people, ideas, and goods
from all regions. During dtente, the actions of Western and Eastern political leaders helped increase the
exchange of ideas and goods across the cold war divide. Dissidents took advantage of increased visibility to challenge their governments to honor human
rights. Others simply left for the West. And although
tensions between the United States and the Soviet
Union increased after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Gorbachev reversed the Soviet position in eastern Europe. His policy forced the communist regimes
to seek reform or face mass uprisings. By the end of
1991, the communists had lost power everywhere in
eastern Europe except Yugoslavia. It seemed obvious
that the West had won this struggle and that democracy and capitalism had been victorious.
But western Europe was not without its weaknesses,
and some important changes in the 1970s and 1980s
signaled the shift in the meaning of democratic rights,
West had won the cold war, the meaning of this victory for Europeans at large was still to be determined,
as the communist bloc states remained weak economically and politically.
politics, and freedoms. Traditional parties were confronted with new types of activism, from the Greens
to radical nationalist and terrorist movements. Another important challenge came from the decade-long
economic crisis that began in 1973. Western European
governments achieved renewed prosperity and stability in the 1980s, but only through the scaling back
of welfare programs and the privatization of some
economic sectors. Overall, Europe became more vulnerable to shifts in the global economy.
A subtler change took place in the social and cultural outlook of Europeans. Eastern Europeans began
to see themselves more as part of a cultural continuum that defied the East-West divide. While people in
the East looked to the West, some western Europeans
questioned the faith in progress in their societies.
Feminists pointed to persisting gender inequalities,
antinuclear and environmental activists to growing
environmental problems and a growing gap between
governments and their citizens, and nationalists to a
disregard of governments for minorities. Demographic
shifts brought important changes to Europe. Its population was aging and growing more diverse ethnically, religiously, and sexually.
864
Did Europes division during the cold war enhance or diminish the power of the West in the
twentieth century and beyond?
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
Peace Protests
The peace and other street protests of the twenty-first century have a direct link to the antiwar activism that
started in western Europe after World War II and grew to mass proportions in the 1980s. The peace symbol,
now recognized throughout the world, originated as the logo of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, a
British organization, in the early 1960s. This group and many others are the inspiration for contemporary
peace activists.
Websites
The first antiwar and antinuclear activists were scientists, students, politicians, and housewives who were
drawn to these movements for personal or civic reasons. Most learned about them through word of mouth.
Neighbors and friends might post leaflets or chat about peace marches. People acted locally and had few
resources to coordinate more than small-scale actions. In the 1960s, antiwar protests grew to massive proportions, partly because they made use of television publicity and so garnered faraway supporters who
staged similar protests of their own. In the 1980s, when the United States was rebuilding its nuclear arsenal
in Europe, massive peace demonstrations were staged in Britain, Germany, Italy, and other western European countries.
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, when peace protests rose against the military actions in Iraq, they
were organized quite differently from early protests. What were formerly loose coalitions became activated
by new technologies, such as cellular phones and the Internet. Online groups such as Move On had a catalyzing effect, encouraging not only Internet activism but also local street activism, connecting concerned
citizens in specific cities. Activists also became able to respond much more quickly to government actions,
and they could instantly make their positions and activities known around the world. The international
context also became different, as the world is no longer divided by cold war antagonists. During the 1960s,
1970s, and 1980s, peace activists were protesting the actions of both superpowers as well as U.S. and
Soviet nuclear power and the militarization of their societies. After the end of the cold war, the protests
focused more squarely on U.S. attempts to maintain its international role as the sole superpower.
Suggested Readings
Garton Ash, Timothy. The Magic Lantern. The Revolution of
89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague. New
York: Vintage, 1993. An evocative portrait of the revolutions
that swept communism from eastern Europe in 1989.
Hayward, Jack, and Anand Menon, eds. Governing Europe.
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. A comprehensive survey covering all aspects of politics in western
Europe.
Hosking, Geoffrey. The Awakening of the Soviet Union. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991. Illuminates the
social, cultural, and historical developments that created the
needand opennessfor the political and economic changes
that occurred in the late 1980s.
Kaplan, Gisela. Contemporary Western European Feminism.
New York: New York University Press, 1992. A sophisticated
comparative analysis of the feminist movements in western
Europe in the second half of the twentieth century.
Loth, Wilfried. Overcoming the Cold War: A History of Detente, 19501991. New York: Palgrave, 2003. A major new interpretation of the cold war that offers new information taken
from Eastern and Western archives.
McCormick, John, Understanding the European Union: A Concise Introduction. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. A
uniquely broad-ranging but concise introduction to the European Union, covering in one volume all major aspects of European integration.
Tismaneanu, Vladimir. Reinventing Politics: Eastern Europe
from Stalin to Havel. New York: Free Press, 2000. An exciting
comparative analysis of the breakup of the Soviet Unions
outer empire that follows communist governance in each of the
communist bloc countries from postwar Stalinist intervention
to the present.
Websites
Library of Congress online exhibit, archive, and bibliography
on Soviet-U.S. relations, useful for understanding the international context of the cold war, Cold War, at www.ibiblio.org/
expo/soviet.exhibit/coldwar.html
Full text of the Helsinki Final Act, Conference on Security
and Co-operation in Europe: Final Act, at www.osce.org/
documents/mcs/1975/08/4044_en.pdf
865
866
CHAPTER
Europe in a
Globalizing World,
1991 to the Present
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Choice: Jos Bov Plows Down a
McDonalds
Introduction
Eastern Europe After Communism
Russia from Foe to Partner
The Dismemberment of Yugoslavia
Postcommunist Transitions in Eastern
Europe
European Integration
From Community to Union
The European Union in Operation
Nation-States in a New Context
European Security and International
Organizations
Europe and Globalization
Economic Globalization
Summary
Echo: I Want My MTV
Suggested Readings
Websites
Expansion of European
Union
Members, 1989
German reunification, 1990
Faroe Islands
FINLAND
(Den.)
Shetland
Islands
NORWAY
(U.K.)
SWEDEN
Oslo
Helsinki
Stockholm
North
Sea
Dublin
UNITED
KINGDOM
Glasgow
NORTHERN
IRELAND
IRELAND
Geneva
e
h in
SWITZ.
Ljubljana
Lyons
PORTUGAL
SPAIN
Lisbon
Milan
Po
Turin
ANDORRA
Madrid
Tagus
San
Marino
MONACO
Andorra
la Vella
ITALY
Corsica
(Fr.)
Rome
Balearic
Islands
(Sp.)
Gibraltar
(U.K.)
VATICAN
CITY
Sardinia
BOSNIA &
HERZEGOVINA
Sarajevo
D niep
e
Dnepropetrovsk
V ol
MOLDOVA
Chisinau
Odessa
CHECHNYA
ROMANIA
Belgrade
SERBIA
ga
Donetsk
Bucharest
Danube
GEORGIA
Tbilisi
Black Sea
AZERBAIJAN
ARMENIA
BULGARIA
Sofia
Podgorica
Skopje
Istanbul
ALBANIAF.Y.R.
Naples
Tiran
MACEDONIA
Yerevan
MONT.
AZER.
Ankara
TURKEY
(It.)
GREECE
Mediterranean Sea
MOROCCO
Kharkov
UKRAINE
Bratislava
Budapest
HUNGARY
SLOVENIA
Zagreb
CROATIA
SAN
MARINO
Monaco
Barcelona
Vienna
AUSTRIA
Vaduz
Kiev
LIECH.
Zurich
Bern
la
istu
ne
FRANCE
Stuttgart
BELARUS
CZECH
REPUBLIC
SLOVAKIA
Munich
Minsk
Prague
Luxembourg
R
POLAND
Warsaw
FORMER
E. GERMANY
Leipzig
Frankfurt
Sei LUX.
Berlin
GERMANY
Bonn
Paris
Porto
Amsterdam
Moscow
Vilnius
Gdansk
Hamburg
El
b
Brussels
LITHUANIA
(RUSSIA)
NETHERLANDS
BELGIUM
Lo i r
Copenhagen
a
olg
LATVIA
Riga
DENMARK
The
Hague
London
ATLANTIC
OCEAN
Tallinn
ESTONIA
Candidates, 2007
Athens
Sicily
(It.)
Valletta
ALGERIA
Crete
MALTA
(Gr.)
TUNISIA
250
IRAQ
CYPRUS
LEBANON
500 Km.
250
SYRIA
Nicosia
500 Mi.
ISRAEL
JORDAN
LYBIA
EGYPT
500 C.E.
1000 C.E.
2001
Terrorists attack
the United States
2002
Euro
goes into
circulation
2002
2003
Iraq War
begins
1500 C.E.
2000 C.E.
2004
European Union
gains ten new
members
2005
European Union
Constitution is
defeated
2004
2006
2008
2010
867
868
Choice Choice
Choice
Choice
Jos Bov Plows Down a McDonalds
Jos Bov
Jos Bov went from being
an antinuclear activist in the
1970s to becoming a leader
in the environmental
antiglobalization movement
that seeks to end the use of
genetically modified crops.
His activism has often been
illegal and at times damaging
of private property, leading
critics to characterize him as
a terrorist. But Bov has
always carefully staged his
protests against property
only, never against people,
and has always willingly
accepted the legal consequences of his actions. (Serra
Antoine/Corbis Sygma)
One fine summer morning in 1999, Jos Bov woke up early, as farmers
do. Then he stepped behind the wheel of a bulldozer and rolled into
the little town of Millau, France, and straight into a McDonalds. This
particular fast-food restaurant, one of 31,000 worldwide, was due to
open in days. But Bov and other Millau citizens dismantled the building and placed the rubble in front of the town hall as a warning to local
politicians that the voice of the people must be heard. With this bold
action, Bov became an instant celebrity and a symbol, both loved and
despised, of environmental and anticorporate activism.
What drove Bov to destroy property and what his choice means is
the story of grass-roots activism in the era of globalization. The action
wasnt just about McDonalds; it was part of a larger trade war in which
the European Union refused to allow genetically modified beef to be
sold on its markets and the United States responded with a ban on the
import of Roquefort cheese. It was also part of an even larger contest
over the power of multinational corporations and the rights of consumers and
small producers, as well as part of an international debate over food supplies,
poverty and hunger, ecological balance, and what is really good for the earth and
the humans who live on it.
Grass-roots activism was not new for Bov. Born in 1953 to a family of scientists,
he grew up in France, Luxembourg, and Berkeley, California. Like many of his generation, he took the affluence of his parents for granted but questioned their values. In high school, he protested the religious content of French state education
and was expelled for being faithless. At seventeen, he refused to serve in the
military, instead joining other conscientious objectors who occupied lands slated
for military camps and farmed them. With hundreds of local farmers and conscientious objectors, he built a traditional stone sheep barn. The project took almost
two years. This creative pacifist action offered farming as a countermodel to militarizationa peaceful and useful, if difficult, lifestyle. Bov began to raise sheep and
learned to make Roquefort cheese, which became his livelihood as a farmer and
later the springboard for his more aggressive antiglobalization protests.
In the 1980s and 1990s Bov participated in Greenpeace actions, protesting
Frances testing of nuclear weapons in 1995. About the same time, as multinational corporations spread throughout the world and companies like McDonalds
began to bring their products and tastes to Europe, Bov turned his attention to
the effects of this new global economy at the local level. In 1997, he destroyed the
seed production facility of a company known for its genetically modified grain.
But it was the plowing down of the McDonalds at Millau that turned Bov into
an icon of antiglobalization. He was soon a favorite of many around the world
who resented the dominant presence of American companies. He was also condemned for this new kind of violence; some labeled him a terrorist. In 1999,
antiglobalization protesters at a World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle
used his protest model when they destroyed corporate property in full daylight.
Looters followed. Bov himself did not participate in any of these actions. He just
Introduction
Eastern Europe
After Communism
The West won the cold war. By the end of 1991, the
Soviet Union was defunct, and all but one eastern European country had renounced communism. Within
a few years, Russia became a friend and ally of liberal
western Europe, the most remarkable achievement in
politics of the last two decades. In eastern Europe, however, Yugoslavia remained a vestige of the old communist order, now transformed into an ethno-nationalist
dictatorship. As the postcommunist countries claimed
a place in the larger European home, new challenges
arose for countries embarking on democratization. The
only politicians with experience were the communists,
and the most popular ideas uniting the citizenry were
nationalist and often nondemocratic. Eastern European
869
870
Chronology
1991
19911995
1992
1993
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
EU Constitution is defeated
asked the Russian people to protect him and the reformist politicians from the abuses of the communist
leadership. He sounded and looked like a man of the
people, and his wild stunt worked in rousing the
population.
Yet, Yeltsin was not an outsider to Communist
Party politics. He had been handpicked by Mikhail
Gorbachev to pursue perestroika in the mid-1980s as
party chief in the Moscow region. But dutifully following the rules was not Yeltsins way. He was certainly ambitious and wanted to rise high in the party.
But he had been a thrill seeker since childhood, when
he pursued many sports competitively, from volleyball to boxing. As a teenager, he learned the skills of
the construction trade and then in college became an
engineer and joined the party. He soon rose to top
leadership in Sverdlovsk. In 1985 he catapulted into
the Politburo, becoming the youngest member and
Moscow party chief, where he became broadly popular for his tough stand against corruption.
Unceremoniously fired in 1987 for his daring reforms that pushed perestroika and glasnost too far,
Yeltsin returned to a humble job in the construction
industry. But in 1989, Gorbachevs reforms in electoral law enabled the people of Moscow to bring
Yeltsin back to the Duma. With broad popular support, Yeltsin quickly rose to become the most outspoken and trusted reformist of the Communist Party
elite, in 1990 creating a Democratic Platform group
that demanded radical change in the partys leading
role, as well as decentralization of the state structure.
By August 1991, when conservatives attempted a
coup, Yeltsin was the popularly elected president of
Russia. This victory emboldened him to contest the
power of the Soviet federal authorities. In fact, he
swiftly dissolved the Communist Party in Russia and
proceeded to fire officials appointed on the basis of
party loyalty. In all these radical changes, Yeltsin risked
a great deal of personal and professional safety, but it
was in his nature to gamble and think big.
By early 1992, Yeltsin commanded the admiration
of the entire world: the amazingly sudden and peaceful transformation of the Soviet Union from the evil
empire of U.S. president Ronald Reagans rhetoric
into multiparty Russia was one of the most important
developments of the postcold war period. Politicians
in the West celebrated the victory of the United States
over the Soviet Union. The Soviet people themselves
celebrated the end of communist rule as though waking from a bad dream. But these celebrations were
short lived. Within months, the reality of the aftermath of political, social, and economic collapse set in.
Yeltsin continued to rule Russia throughout the
decade, but his popularity and success were never as
high as in 1992. Politically the country became democratic in that the communist monopoly was replaced
by a multitude of political parties, but many of them
were undemocratic. Measures to transform the statecontrolled economy into a market-driven one benefited a narrow stratum of people while most became
impoverished. And in matters of national unity and
international security, Yeltsin satisfied neither die-hard
nationalists nor progressive reformers.
In 1992 the only Russian politicians with experience were communists, and most people who were not
already involved in the party had no desire to participate in politics. Therefore, even though Yeltsins regime
introduced full political freedoms, most political parties represented small groups interested in political
gains rather than voters interests. Most prominent
among these groups were newly enriched businessmen, who were able to gain control over important
economic resources illegally and wanted to protect
their businesses. The oil industry became a particularly powerful force in several parties.
Other groups were motivated by the nationalist
desire to make sure the new Russia served Russians
above other nationalities. These groups grew in the
early 1990s, as they spoke to the electorate in terms the
privatization Replacement of state ownership of property with private ownership in the postcommunist
states.
World Bank International financial organization controlled by developed countries in the West that offers
discounted loans for economic reform to developing
countries.
871
872
Table 30.1
The Dissolution of Yugoslavia
1989
1991
1991
1992
1993
1995
1995
1996
1999
2002
2003
2004
2006
Serbians economic problems on the Croats, Bosnians, and Kosovar Albanians. As president of Serbia,
Milosevic was still a high official in the Communist
Party, but he had already begun his transformation
into a Serbian ultranationalist. By 1991, he had emerged
as the most outspoken proponent of Yugoslavia as the
country of Serbs first and other nationalities second.
With the state fully in control of politics, the media,
and the army, Milosevic embarked on a campaign to
discredit non-Serbians and liberal economic and political reformers. Table 30.1 summarizes the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
Slovenes and Croats reacted by declaring independence in June 1991. While the Slovenes were able to
walk away from the Yugoslav union without any
contest, Croatia and then Bosnia, which declared independence in 1992, became engulfed in civil war.
International Monetary Fund International financial
organization started in 1946 responsible for managing
the global financial system.
Chechnya Region in Central Asia controlled by Russia
since 1859, which has a strong independence movement led by radical Islamists.
Vladimir Putin (1952 ) President of Russia since
2000, popular because of his nationalist credentials and
anticorruption platform.
Slobodan Milosevic (19412006) Socialist dictatorial
president of Serbia and Yugoslavia who was deposed
by popular protests and died while on trial for genocidal war crimes.
Ethnic Majority
CZECH REPUBLIC
Bosnians or
Sandzak Muslims
Albanians
Bulgarians
SLOVAKIA
Romanians
Croatians
Vienna
Bratislava
Serbs
Hungarians
AUSTRIA
Slovenes
Macedonians
Budapest
No majority present
Montenegrins
Former Yugoslavia
Ljubljana
SLOVENIA
Yugoslavia in 1991
HUNGARY
Zagreb
1991
MAP 30.1
The
Breakup of Yugoslavia Between 1991 and 2006 the
federal, multi-ethnic Yugoslavia fragmented into
small and relatively poor independent states. While
Slovenia became a success,
Montenegro is still struggling to become an economically viable state.
CROATIA
Autonomous region
boundaries
VOJVODINA
1991
Novi Sad
Banja Luka
1992
Belgrade
BOSNIA
HERZEGOVINA
ROMANIA
SERBIA
Sarajevo
2006
A
d
i
IT
0
0
ti
MONTENEGRO
2006
ea
Sofia
Prishtina
BULGARIA
KOSOVO
Podgorica
Skopje
MACEDONIA
Tiran
ALBANIA
200 Km.
100
75
1991
GREECE
150 Mi.
was over, and all parties signed the Dayton Agreement, which recognized both an independent MuslimCroat federation and a Serbian Republic in Bosnia,
with a UN peacekeeping force to oversee the postwar
transition. While this agreement offered a peaceful resolution, it also created some important problems. In
particular, it implicitly endorsed the right of the Milosevic government to fight any future pro-independence
movements.
ethnic cleansing Eliminating an enemy ethnic
group by exiling, killing, and raping its members and
destroying or taking away their property.
Geneva Conventions Four international treaties that
forbid the mistreatment of civilians and prisoners of
war during wartime.
sanctions Punitive measures adopted by a country or
group of countries against another state for political
reasons.
Dayton Agreement Peace agreement signed in 1995 that
ended the Bosnian civil war and established the grounds
for an independent Bosnia and a Serbian Republic.
873
874
Albanians were forced to flee their homes, going elsewhere inside Yugoslavia or across the border to Albania, Macedonia, and Greece. This mass exodus raised
international concern.
In February 1999, with one civilian massacre by
the Serb forces confirmed, American, British, and
Russian negotiators attempted a settlement between
the Kosovo Albanians and Serbs. Serbians and their
Russian supporters walked out of the talks, and on
March 24 NATO began air strikes against Serbia. The
Kosovo War lasted just a few months. Its most spectacular featuresthe American bombing of the Chinese Embassy and Serbian hospitalsreceived much
media attention, while the number of casualties was
disputed because few independent observers were
allowed on the ground. The number of Kosovo Albanian refugees skyrocketed to more than 1 million.
When the NATO bombing ended on June 10, it was
not clear who had won. Inside Serbia, Milosevic declared victory. Though his version defied facts by depicting Serbs as victims of a worldwide conspiracy
and U.S. president Bill Clinton as another Hitler, Milosevic gained popularity in Serbia after the war. In-
Kosovo War (MarchJune 1999) Military conflict between NATO forces and Serbia over abuses against
Kosovo Albanians.
Postcommunist Transitions
in Eastern Europe
The transformation of the other eastern European
countries from members of the communist bloc to
875
876
left-wing governments. Overall, Hungary was successful in maintaining a talented labor force, attracting
foreign investments, and improving the quality of life
of its citizens.
Poland saw the return and then departure of Solidarity leader Lech Walesa. While in 1980 Walesa had
been a charismatic unifier of opponents to communism, after 1989 he was ill prepared to assume the responsibilities of governing a democratic regime. He
had neither the vision nor the skills to offer good solutions to the challenges of privatization and to the
increasing activism of the Catholic Church. Still, though
Solidarity lost its initial appeal, it did give rise to numerous other parties and provided the groundwork
for a generation of democratic politicians. Poland was
also fortunate in that it proceeded quickly with privatization and implemented tough reforms that brought
healthy economic growth by the end of the decade.
In social and cultural policies, however, Poland
seemed to cling strongly to the past. Having been a
main force of opposition under communism, the Catholic Church, with the direct support of Pope John
Paul II, proceeded to create its own political following.
The church cultivated socially conservative politicians
who wanted to make abortion illegal and advocated
Catholic family values, pursuing anti-gay propaganda campaigns. The public presence of the church
grew, from television programs to educational institutions. Still, though many in Poland see the Catholic
Church as a privileged institution, it coexists alongside secular social and cultural organizations that
pursue their own agendas and values.
The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland
thus implemented democratic reforms and successfully managed antidemocratic forces. They were also
the first to engage successfully in regional cooperation. Coming together as the Visegrd Four in 1991,
they agreed to coordinate internal reforms from education to the environment, with the goal of joining the
EU. By building regional trade, the four countries
turned their communist economies into competitive
capitalist ones. Key to their success were three factors: agreement among the political leadership, public
support, and economic and administrative infrastructures that were compatible with reform. In addition,
long-standing personal links forged in the communist
era among the underground oppositions in Poland,
Czechosolvakia, and to some extent Hungary fostered
institutional cooperation. Morevoer, both the EU and
the United States regarded the economies of these
four countries as the most advanced of the former
communist states and invested in them both political
hopes and financial resources.
Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia traveled a different
road from direct Soviet control to successful democratization. In these Baltic countries, the legacies of
communist politics and state economies were more
difficult to undo. In Estonia, where a large ethnic Russian population had been brought in, the ethnic antagonism between the two groups ran deep, especially
since positions of power had been occupied overwhelmingly by Russians. While Latvians found it relatively easy to tolerate the presence of the Russians
without any fears of further russification, the Estonians (and to some extent the Lithuanians) saw ethnic
Russians as agents of imperialism even after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Indeed, Russia remained
vocally concerned about the large Russian minority
in Estonia but had little power to act on its behalf. Under the influence of growing nationalism, the Estonians have implemented some policies to diminish the
public presence of the Russian minority, such as mandating a majority of classroom hours in Estonian, even
in towns where only ethnic Russians live. Overall,
however, with unemployment relatively low and new
economic opportunities opening up, the people of the
Baltic states have remained relatively content. All three
countries have stable democracies.
Romania and Bulgaria, however, failed to become
fully functioning democracies. They did hold free
elections in which a multitude of parties competed.
But these parties were closer to the kinds of factions
that developed in Russia under Yeltsin, led by old
Communist Party activists and interested in protecting narrow interests. Political corruption continued
to dominate the electoral process, with few checks
and balances. Corrupt judges protected corrupt legislators, while local law enforcement agencies worked
with administrators to protect each others interests.
In Romania, Ion Iliescu, a disgruntled protg of
Nicolae Ceausescu, won the first presidential election
and then proceeded to win again after a four-year interregnum by a more reform-minded coalition. Most
successful Romanian politicians of this decade espoused some form of nationalism, from mild to radical. There was a short revival of a neofascist party, and
one openly antisemitic and anti-Hungarian party won
20 percent of the vote in the 2000 presidential elections.
Romanias most debilitating problem was that no
government in the 1990s pursued a thorough policy
of privatizing large state enterprises and encouraging
investments in competitive new businesses. Instead,
European Integration
European Integration
Due to these remarkable changes among the postcommunist states, eastern Europe both transformed and was
transformed by the European Union. With the Soviet
threat removed, western Europe perceived the future
differently. The former communist countries became
collaborators in a larger framework of European integration. This process of challenging established divisions and offering new ways of connecting European
states and people created unprecedented opportunities
to redefine Europe as a political, economic, and cultural
community. In the 1990s the Common Market underwent important institutional changes, from a loose
economic union to a fiscal unit, a political institution,
and a cluster of cultural and social institutions that are
today truly multinational and reach into every corner
of the continent. Europeans tackled international security challenges on the basis of cooperation. Yet, internal
political contests and nationalism continued to test the
boundaries of international collaboration. Table 30.2
summarizes the development of the European Union.
Table 30.2
Development of the European Union
1951
1957
1973
1981
1985
1992
1995
2002
2003
2004
2007
877
878
coordination of taxation, interest rates, and other fiscal measures would also help businesses operate across
borders. For example, for an enterprise such as Airbus, with capital and profits in France, to expand its
operations outside of France meant depending on the
willingness of Spain and Britain, for example, to protect its business interests and accept its practices. Since
the inception of the Common Market, such arrangements had developed through bilateral agreements.
By the 1980s, many believed that an international political institution would improve cooperation and
serve the interests of both employers and employees.
The unification of institutions and standardization
of regulations of economic practice, from taxation to
the labeling of agricultural products, was to take place
between 1985 and 1992. The process of ratification was
cumbersome, for the national governments of Common Market members had to individually ratify all
changes. This arrangement respected the sovereignty
of each member state but rendered the process vulnerable to political change in any member country.
At the beginning there was a great deal of enthusiasm for the idea of a single market, increased opportunities for investment, and the unrestricted movement
of workers and goods across borders. But by 1990 the
enthusiasm was largely gone, as politicians, corporations, and consumers began to see that regulations
meant to free up access to markets and goods also had
a restrictive impact. For instance, agricultural producers were to test, package, and label their goods in
accordance with new Common Market regulations.
Smaller organic farmers, like Jos Bov (see Choice),
suffered in the process, as their costs of production and
shipping increased significantly. If they passed these
costs on to consumers through higher prices, they
would make themselves less competitive than multinational corporations, such as McDonalds, which
could produce certified genetically modified products
more cheaply.
At a series of intergovernmental meetings in 1991,
member countries addressed such issues. Achieving a
European Monetary Union demanded a complex plan
of coordinating fiscal policies among members. And
since such a massive fiscal restructuring had never
before been attempted, policymakers and ordinary
people alike worried about potential negative consequences. A policy of moving to one single currency,
the euro (), was outlined, with the ultimate goal of
having one European Bank and the euro in circulation by 1999. That change actually occurred in 2002.
In addition, the question of political integration
raised nationalist fears about the expanded powers of
the European Commission and European Parliament
at the expense of national governments. The formula
European Integration
879
880
By February 2003, eight of the postcommunist countries (the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia,
Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia) had finally
been accepted into the union, along with two other
applicants (Cyprus and Malta), bringing the number
of member states to twenty-five. In May 2004, these
ten countries began to function as members of the
EU. The success or failure of this larger union, now
with two additional members (Bulgaria and Romania),
remains to be seen, especially as the new members prepare for full monetary union. But several issues will
continue to be of concern. The larger union means a
larger bureaucracy. If all the existing rules regarding
governance, balance of power between the Commission and the Parliament, and representation of all languages in the running of the EU are to be maintained,
the daily activities of EU institutions are likely to become more expensive and more cumbersome.
The rejection of the EU constitution by France and
the Netherlands in 2005 indicates that the institutional growth of the EU is likely to come to a halt. The
EU constitution would have given increased powers
to the European Parliament and greater protections
for human rights in some member countries. Though
the French and Dutch broadly support the unions
current policies, they do not wish to see the powers of
their national governments further eroded. Opposition to the EU constitution came from both right-wing
anti-immigration groups concerned about the growing presence of Muslim immigrants, as well as left-wing
groups wanting to maintain specific social policies.
Another important test for the criteria and goals of
EU enlargement has been Turkeys bid for admission.
Turkey was a member of NATO and a functioning
democracy long before any eastern European country
applied for membership. The thorny question here pertains to the very definition of European civilization.
While many in Istanbul consider themselves European by virtue of their geography, political structure,
culture, artistic sensibilities, and lifestyle, many Europeans regard Turkey as a Muslim non-European state.
The growth of militant Islam in Turkey and the recent
pro-religious policies of the government have reinforced the sense of some EU members that Turkey is
turning away from Europe and forging closer ties
with the Middle East. Moreover, if Turkey were to be
admitted, the proportion of Muslims in the EU would
jump from 2.6 percent to around 10 percent. Such
statistics pose policy challenges regarding the rights
and obligations of citizens and governments as
well as broader cultural challenges regarding the
character of European cultures and societies. Many
are not yet prepared to offer Islam a seat at the European table.
European Integration
881
882
Between 2001 and 2006, Italian politics were likewise dominated by a center-right government led by
Silvio Berlusconi, a media mogul turned politician.
Having made millions of dollars in the entertainment
industry, especially television, in the 1990s Berlusconi
developed a party devoted to defeating the communists with a nationalist, business-friendly platform.
Like Chirac, he was involved in several high-profile
corruption scandals but survived them until 2006,
when he lost elections to the center-left coalition of
Romano Prodi, who had been premier in the 1990s.
In Austria, a right-wing coalition dominated by the
charismatic leader of the Freedom Party, Jrg Haider,
won elections in 1999, on the heels of high unemploy-
ment rates and an economic slowdown. Haiders platform was squarely anti-EU and anti-immigration, with
clear elements of antisemitism. He shocked the world
with statements praising the orderliness of the Nazis,
earning Austria a series of economic and political boycotts in the EU and beyond. The center-right coalition
won reelection in 2002. At the same time, though, the
Green Party has grown to a sizable 10 percent in the
parliament.
In the postcommunist countries of eastern Europe,
governments have likewise shifted regularly between center-right and center-left coalitions, as no
single party has been able to rule without an alliance.
Initially, many observers saw this situation as a weakness, retarding necessary economic reforms. But, in
fact, these alliances prompted more moderate ideological platforms and encouraged a political culture
more prone to negotiation than posturing. For instance, radical antisemitic and nationalist parties in
Romania and Hungary have toned down their rhetoric in order to join ruling coalitions. Those that maintain their nationalist radical ideology are marginal.
By contrast, a nationalist authoritarian mood has
been growing in Russia since 2000, when Vladimir
Putin assumed the presidency. Chosen by Yeltsin as
acting president in 1999, Putin easily won election in
2000. Many outside were puzzled by the broad popularity of an ex-agent of the KGB. But Putin seemed to
embody qualities lacking in Yeltsin and much in demand as Russias economic and political stability
floundered. His healthier lifestyle and personal selfrestraint were a powerful contrast to Yeltsins hedonistic outbursts. Putin is a disciplined practitioner of
judo who, unlike his predecessor, does not drink alcohol or join in drinking and dancing at official functions.
Even more important, his devotion to Orthodox
Christianity has bolstered his popularity in Russia,
where church attendance has been growing. Many
communist politicians had trouble making the transition from a staunchly atheistic and anticlerical ideology to embracing the Orthodox Church as an official
religion, but Putin skillfully put his KGB past behind
him, inviting high clergy to and incorporating religious elements into official state functions.
Even those who are not particularly religious have
embraced Putins style as embodying Russian national
Silvio Berlusconi (1936 ) Television mogul, leader of
a center-right coalition, and prime minister of Italy
from 2001 to 2006.
Jrg Haider (1950 ) Leader of the antisemitic Freedom Party and prime minister of Austria from 1999
to 2002.
European Integration
While the EU has successfully met the political challenges of the postcold war period, it has been less effective in international security matters, where the
changing roles of the UN and NATO have also intruded on European states potential for representing
their interests as a bloc. While the UN had been influential in the postcolonial world in security matters
and had tried to mediate between the two superpowers and other states, it had not played an important
security role in Europe. The ethnic-cleansing atrocities
and utter internal chaos of the Yugoslav civil wars,
however, convinced the UN to send a peacekeeping
force. EU members generally supported this idea, and
British, French, and Italian troops figured prominently
among peacekeepers. The UN intervention was framed
not in terms of countering threats to European security but rather as a globally significant means of halting human rights abuses. Thus, the EU remained
marginal in decision making.
The ineffectiveness of UN troops, however, forced
the international community to consider more drastic
measures, and NATO stepped in to oversee a military
intervention against the rebel Serbs in Bosnia. Traditionally, NATO had focused on securing western Europe against threats from the communist East. In the
1990s, however, it transformed itself, partly through
this intervention, into a broader alliance to secure
883
884
Economic Globalization
In the 1990s economic production and trade became
more closely interwoven on an unprecedented global
scale, owing to several developments. New technologies, such as accurate and instant communication of
information, computerized assembly lines, and new
types of large trucks and refrigerated crates, made it
easier to produce and transport more goods anywhere from the United States to Taiwan. Support for
free trade among the most powerful countries in the
world facilitated the exchange of goods across borders. An already high standard of living in the developed countries meant that people expected access to
cheap consumer goods. To feed this process, many
American and European businesses, such as Unilever,
started to look for production sites with low costs,
loose labor and environmental protections, and high
product quality. Postcommunist eastern Europe fit this
profile, as did China, Vietnam, and other places in the
Third World. Evian and Nissan production facilities
sprouted from Hungary to Taiwan.
The most important institutional supporter of
globalization has been the World Trade Organization
(WTO), created 1995 to oversee the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). First signed in
1947, this agreement encouraged free trade in order
to generate economic prosperity in the early postwar
years. There was no institution to oversee the agreement, which remained loosely enforced by individual
countries. For instance, the countries of the Common
Market abided by GATT, but countries in eastern Europe and Latin America were less inclined to allow
cheaper western goods to be introduced on their
Partnership for Peace NATO project to increase cooperation in military matters between its members and
postcommunist states.
World Trade Organization (WTO) International organization created by GATT in 1995 to implement
GATTs free-trade principles.
885
LEBANON
Beirut
Amman
Dead Sea
JORDAN
Suez
P
lf o
fS
SINAI
PENINSULA
ue
z
ARAB-ISRAELI
CONFLICT
Elat
T
aba
Tel Aviv
Jerusalem
of Aq
Sea of Galilee
West
Bank
ISRAEL
Suez
Canal
Cairo
Golan Heights
Haifa
Gaza
Port Said
SYRIA
Damascus
Jordan
M ed i t erra n ea n S ea
Gu
Since the 1990s, a sweeping transformation has occurred in international relations. Though the Americans and western Europeans were partners in winning
the cold war, the United States has largely determined
the international agenda since 1991. Security concerns
in the West changed from the contained fears about
relatively stable communist states to a vague terrorist
threat, largely located in the Middle East and in Muslim communities, but often without a state sponsor
that could be held accountable through the conventional means of international relations. Overall, this
change has reduced the effectiveness of the UN as a
means for peacefully alleviating security threats. Its
function has shifted instead to poverty, AIDS, and
other human rights issues. Though peacekeeping remains one of its functions, the UN has not used its
troops to great effect anywhere in the world since the
1990s, from Bosnia to Rwanda. Instead, the United
States has come to rely primarily on NATO and other
bilateral and broader agreements to further its security interests. Europeans have participated in this
process either as members of NATO or more recently
as individual allies of the United States in the War
on Terrorism.
The most intense site of conflict has remained the
Middle East. In 1991 Iraq, under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait, a country rich in oil resources and with close economic ties to the United
States. The noncompliance of the Iraqi leader with the
UN resolution demanding his withdrawal prompted
an international military response. In the Gulf War, the
United States led a coalition of more than thirty states
that included significant forces from Great Britain,
France, and Egypt. Even the postcommunist countries
sent in specialists to lend logistical support.
This conflict signaled an intensification of tensions
that had been building up in the Middle East since
World War II. Since the inception of Israel in 1948, the
United States, Britain, and other western countries
have been committed to its security as an outpost of
democratic rule and western civilization. These are
Gulf
International Security
and Terrorism
these medicines are too poor to afford them. Likewise, malaria, for which preventive vaccines have existed for more than a generation, still kills millions of
people each year in the poorest areas of the world.
The most effective programs in containing these two
epidemics have been international philanthropic nongovernmental organizations rather than the World
Bank, the UN, or the WTO.
Nil
886
SAUDI ARABIA
Sharm el-Shaikh
R ed S ea
MAP 30.2
precisely the reasons that Arab countries in the Middle East came to view the west with mistrust and Israel as a symbol of western imperialism in the area.
While Jordan remained relatively friendly to the
west, since the mid-1950s, Egypt, Syria, and later Iran
and Iraq became open supporters of Arab nationalist
claims at the expense of Israel, on occasion testing the
strength of this state through military campaigns at
its borders.
War on Terrorism Term used by the George W. Bush
administration to refer to military, political, and legal
actions taken to curb the spread of terrorism since 2001.
Saddam Hussein (19372006) Iraqi president from
1979 to 2003 who fought against the United States
in the 1991 Gulf War and was deposed during the
Iraq War.
Gulf War (1991) War between an international coalition led by the United States against Iraq in response to
Iraqs invasion of Kuwait.
terrorism Violence or other harmful acts against civilians, often by disempowered groups trying to force
political change.
suicide bombers Individuals who carry out terrorist
attacks by setting off explosive devices that also kill
themselves.
Oslo Agreements Agreements signed by Israel and
the PLO in 1993 to establish an independent Palestinian state and subsequently repudiated by both sides.
September 11, 2001 Day on which al-Qaeda terrorists
crashed hijacked passenger planes into the World
Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
Osama bin Laden (1957 ) Militant Saudi Arabian
Islamist who founded al-Qaeda in 1988 and organized
the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
887
888
Instant Communication
and the Internet
Even as they remain divided over international politics, Europeans and Americans have become more
closely connected than ever through new means of
communication, information exchange, and entertainment. The end of the twentieth century brought communications revolutions that have made distances
insignificant and provided instant access to almost
anywhere on earth. The new technologies have brought
people greater freedom to relate to each other and to
become virtually anyone; they have also brought
889
890
The face of the West is likely to become less specifically western in the twenty-first century. Even as
Europeans are holding on to old institutions, from
politics to social relations and culture, they are debating the meaning of these institutions both inside
Europe and beyond. Demographically, with migration on the rise and large birthrate differentials
among various social categories of Europeans, the
face of the west is also likely to change significantly in
the next generation. In the short run, the most important challenges and frictions remain between Christian and Muslim populations. In the long run, it is
not clear whether the primacy of western civilization,
as asserted in the past few thousands years, is likely
to endure.
Voice
VoiceVoiceVoice
Voice
Pope Benedict XVI Speaks of the Future of
Christianity
In August 2006, in preparation for his first trip to his native Bavaria since assuming
the pontificate, Benedict XVI spoke to a Vatican spokesman about his goals for the
trip and more generally about his vision for the role of the Roman Catholic
Church. The popes background as a German growing up in the Third Reich has
made him the object of criticism by both liberal secular intellectuals and nonGerman (and especially non-European) Catholics. Pope Benedict XVI has been an
outspoken advocate for living in strict accordance with Catholic dogma and has
condemned some reformist interpretations of the Second Vatican Council. Regarding relations with other religions, he has spoken about love and reconciliation but
also condemned certain Islamic practices in ways that have brought a strong reaction from Muslim leaders.
ZDF: How do you see the present situation of the Catholic Church in Germany?
Benedict XVI: I would say, first of all, that Germany is part of the West, with its
own characteristic colouring obviously, and that in the Western world today we
are experiencing a wave of new and drastic enlightenment or secularization,
whatever you like to call it. It has become more difficult to believe because the
world in which we find ourselves is completely made up of ourselves, and God,
so to speak, does not appear directly anymore. We do not drink from the
source anymore, but from the vessel which is offered to us already full, and so
on. Humanity has rebuilt the world by itself, and finding God inside this world
has become more difficult. This is not specific to Germany: it is something that
is valid throughout the world, especially in the West. Then again, today the
West is being strongly influenced by other cultures in which the original religious
element is very powerful. These cultures are horrified when they experience the
891
892
Wests coldness towards God. This presence of the sacred in other cultures,
even if often veiled, touches the Western world again, it touches us at the
crossroads of so many cultures. The quest for something bigger wells up
again from the depths of Western people and in Germany. We see how in
young people there is the search for something more, we see how the religious phenomenon is returning, as they say, even if it is a search that is rather
indefinite. But with all this the Church is present once more and faith is offered
as the answer. . . .
BR: Holy Father, Christianity has spread around the world starting from Europe.
Now many people think that the future of the Church is to be found in other
continents. Is that true? Or, in other words, what is the future of Christianity
in Europe, where it looks like it is being reduced to the private affair of a
minority?
Benedict XVI: I would like to introduce a few subtleties. It is true, as we know,
that Christianity began in the Near East. And for a long time its main development continued there. Then it spread in Asia, much more than what we think
today after the changes brought about by Islam. Precisely for this reason its axis
moved noticeably toward the West and Europe. Europewe are proud and
pleased to say sofurther developed Christianity in its broader intellectual and
cultural dimensions. But I think it is important to remind ourselves about the
Eastern Christians because there is the present danger of them emigrating,
these Christians who have always been an important minority living in a fruitful
relationship with the surrounding reality. There is a great danger that these
places where Christianity had its origins will be left without Christians. I think
we need to help them a lot so that they can stay. But getting back to your question: Europe definitely became the centre of Christianity and its missionary
movement. Today, other continents and other cultures play with equal importance in the concert of world history. In this way the number of voices in the
Church grows, and this is a good thing. It is good that different temperaments
can express themselves, the special gifts of Africa, Asia and America, Latin
America in particular. Of course, they are all touched not only by the word of
Christianity, but by the secular message of this world that carries to other continents the disruptive forces we have already experienced. All the Bishops
from different parts of the world say: we still need Europe, even if Europe is
only a part of a greater whole. We still carry the responsibility that comes from
our experience, from the science and technology that was developed here,
from our liturgical experience to our traditions, the ecumenical experiences we
have accumulated: all this is very important for the other continents too. So it is
important that today we do not give up, feeling sorry for ourselves and saying:
Look at us, we are just a minority, let us at least try and preserve our small
number! We have to keep our dynamism alive, open relationships of
exchange, so that new strength for us comes from there.
Source: Benedict XVIs Speech on the Future of Christianity (5 August 2006). Libreria Editrice Vaticana,
2007. Reprinted by permission of Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
Who Is a European?
The reassertion of European leadership in the Catholic Church is part of continued efforts to define who
may be a European and who may not. Thus, just as
Catholic institutions remain essentially tied to Europe,
Muslim institutions remain defined as largely non-
Over the past few years the Muslim population in Europe has
become more assertive about their civil rights and have demanded that their cultural differences be respected in public
institutions and policies. In this image from January 18, 2004,
Muslim French women are protesting in Paris against the
banning of headscarves in public schools. Their banners read:
Sarko [A reference to Nicolas Sarkozy, then the Minister of
Interior, starting in June 2007, the French President], French
Islam Doesnt Need Foreign Interference!; Why, in the
country of the rights of man, women dont have the right to
wear what they want?; and Beloved France, where is my
freedom? (Owen Franken/Corbis)
ance have remained important components of Europeanness, since the 1990s debates over the acceptance
of religious differences, especially with regard to Judaism and Islam, have grown. Antisemitism and
anti-Muslim attitudes are on the rise, especially since
9/11. The recent ban in French schools against the
headscarves that all observant Muslim girls must
wear calls into question the level of religious tolerance in the cradle of modern European democracy.
Turkeys bid for membership in the EU remains an
important test for the question of European definitions of western civilization. If Turkey continues to be
rejected, it means that Europeans are fundamentally
unable to consider Islamic traditions and culture,
even in their most secularized forms, as an integral
part of the west. Yet if Turkey does become an EU
member, its presence will initiate a fundamental redefinitions of who is a European and what core values western civilization can embrace.
893
Summary
Review Questions
What has the end of the cold war meant for Europe?
How has the European Union enhanced the position
of Europe on the globalizing international scene?
How have these recent changes reshaped European
identity?
894
ECHO
ECHO
ECHO ECHO ECHO ECHO
I Want My MTV
Since 1981, when American MTV hit the airwaves, the genre of video music shows hosted by and addressed primarily to young audiences has become a worldwide industry. Starting in the 1990s, the channel
broadcast its New York programs in western Europe, and increasingly in eastern Europe, through cable
Websites
television packages owned and marketed by American companies. Parents were shocked by the violence
and sexuality portrayed in the music videos and came to demonize American culture as superficial and
harmful. But young people loved it and began to buy the products advertised directly and indirectly on that
channel. To some, MTV seemed to be a subversive weapon of international corporations, meant to indoctrinate the younger generation into consumerist culture. But to most viewers, MTV was a form of generational rebellion against the old-fashioned local culture.
Over time, several MTV stations developed in Europe, so that, if one were to watch the channel, say, in
northern Europe, the hosts and studio audience would be Swedish. In eastern Europe, many people got the
channel via its Israeli studios. More recently, globalization has become more sophisticated. In Romania, for
instance, a local MTV studio began broadcasting in 2002, and the programming includes at least 25 percent Romanian music videos by local artists such as Sarmalele Reci (in Romanian, Cold Stuffed Cabbage).
The hosts are also young men and women from Romania. And all the publicity is in Romanian.
Does this mean that globalization has met its matchstopped in its tracks by local cultures and products?
The morphing of MTV into national music channels has certainly meant that American culture is no longer
distributed and accepted wholesale. Both the producers in these local studios and the local musicians have
tried to put their personal and sometimes national imprint on the music, fashions, and other products presented on MTV. But all these subtle changes carry with them reminders of the overwhelming presence of
the American music industry in all genres of this cultural enterprise. As much as young people everywhere
in Europe sometimes try to distance themselves from American influence, they more often than not employ
the vocabulary and cultural symbols of American commercial culture.
Suggested Readings
Bremmer, Ian, and Raymond Taras, eds. New States, New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press, 1996. Comprehensive analysis
of nation building in the states that emerged from the Soviet
collapse.
Cornish, Paul. Partnership in Crisis: The US, Europe and the
Fall and Rise of NATO. London: Cassell, 1997. Excellent background reading for understanding the expansion of NATO after 1991.
Friedman, Thomas. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the
Twenty-First Century. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
2006. A provocative analysis of globalization and its impact on
the twenty-first century.
Glenny, Misha. The Fall of Yugoslavia. New York: Penguin,
Websites
Gateway to the European Unions official website containing
up-to-date information, including an online historical archive,
Europa, at http://europa.eu.int
Website containing documents (video and audio), a portal to
other websites related to the September 11 attacks, The September 11 Digital Archive, at www.911digitalarchive.org
Glossary of terms, documents, and debates regarding globalization, with useful links to websites that focus on international relations, The Globalization Website, at www.emory
.edu/SOC/globalization/index.html
895
Index
Aachen, 252, 253, 254, 280, 472
ABBA, 852
Abbasid Dynasty, 222, 223; fall of, 313
Abbots, 187
Abd-ar-Rahman, 249
Abduction, 308
Abdul Hamid II, Sultan, 648
Abelard, Peter, 289
Abkhazians, slavery and, 285
Abodrites, Charlemagnes conquest of,
236
Abolition Act (1833), 589590
Abortion, 856, 857; decriminalization of,
849. See also birth control
Abraham, 40, 41, 217
Ab-ra-mu (Abraham), 25
Absolution, 387388
Absolutism, in England, 486, 487; in
France, 426, 445450, 451, 486, 540542
Abstract art, 672
Abu Bakr, 220
Abu Ghraib, 439
Abu Nuwas, poetry of, 223
Academy (of Plato), 85
Academy of Painting and Sculpture, 670
Achilles, 62, 64, 65
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome
(AIDS), 320; crisis of, 857; spread of,
885886
Acre, 275
Acropolis, Greek, 64, 82, 83
Actium, Battle of (31 b.c.e.), 140
Active citizens, 547
Act of Supremacy, 396
Act of Union (1707), 466
Addams, Jane, 668
Adenauer, Konrad, 813814, 841
Adobe, 14
Adrianople, Battle of (378), 195, 198
Adultery, in Rome, 124
Advertising: imperialist themes in, 708;
propaganda and, 737
Aegean Islands, 340
Aeneas, 117118
Aeneid (Vergil), 152153, 156, 288
Aeschylus (Athenian writer of tragedy),
83
Aethelbert of Kent, 242243
Atius, 196
Afghanistan: as buffer between Russian
and British spheres of influence, 699;
Soviet invasion of, 843
Albion, 102
Albuquerque, Alfonso de, 367368
Alchemy, 482
Alcohol consumption, 660
Alcuin of York, 252
Aleksandra Fyodorovna, tsarina (1894
1917), 649
Als, Peace of (1629), 427, 430
Alexander I, King of Macedonia, 92
Alexander I, tsar of Russia (r. 1801
1825), 562563, 567; Congress System
and, 572; death of, 573
Alexander II, tsar of Russia, 649; assassination of, 652
Alexander IV, King of Macedonia (323
309 b.c.e.), 98
Alexander Romance, 98
Alexander III (The Great), King of
Macedonia (r. 336323 b.c.e.), 90, 91
98, 175, 220; belief in scientific investigation, 104; death of, 91, 99; disintegration of empire of, 110112; empire
of, 96, 98; mass marriages of, 97;
personality of, 93; rise of Macedonia,
9193; unification of Greece and, 93;
wars of, 9396
Alexander V, 311
Alexander VI, 342, 358, 384, 386
Alexandra, 731
Alexandria, 96, 157; as center of science
and mathematics, 104, 105; foundation of, by Alexander the Great, 100;
importance in Christianity of, 183,
224, 246; Jewish population in, 111
112; library of, 100; lighthouse at, 100
Alexius I Comnenus, Byzantine
emperor (r. 10811118), 272, 273,
274
Algeria: French in, 691; in World War II,
793
Algerian War (19541962), 827
Alhambra, 357
Ali, 220
Alighieri, Dante, 431
Alliance system, as cause of World War
I, 719, 721
Allies: in World War I, 721723, 726727,
729, 730, 732, 735736, 738; in World
War II, 787788
Alphabet, 2526; Etruscan, 119; Phoenician, 69
Alsace, 449; German takeover of, 635
I-1
I-2
Index
Index
I-3
I-4
Index
Bede, 248
Beer Hall Putsch (1923), 752, 780
Beguines, 312
Behn, Aphra, 495, 501
Belarus in World War I, 736, 738
Belgian Congo, colonies in the,
691692
Belgium: German invasion of, 792;
industrialization in, 599; nationalist
movement in, 583585; steel output
in, 659; in World War I, 719
Belgrade, 157
Belisarius, Byzantine general, 206, 208
Bell, Alexander Graham, 661
Bellini, Gentile, 328, 329
Bellini, Jacopo, 328329
Benedict of Nursia, 247
Benedict XI, Pope, 309
Benedict XVI, Pope, 291, 891892
Benefices, 308
Benes, Edvard, 818
Beneventans, Charlemagnes conquest
of, 236
Bengal Club, 698
Bengali babus, 698
Ben-Gurion, David, 810
Benjamin, 45
Bentham, Jeremy, 579
Beowulf, 257258
Berbers, 102, 221
Berengar of Tours, 288
Berenice (Ptolemaic queen), 98
Berg, Alban, 624
Bergson, Henri, 675
Berlin: airlift to, 811; blockade of, 811; life
in, 663; Olympics in, 787; population
of, 664
Berlin Conference (1884), 692, 718
Berlin-Rome Axis, 788
Berlin Wall, 824; construction of (1961),
839; fall of (1989), 858
Berlusconi, Silvio, 882
Berman, Jakub, 818819
Bernard of Clairveaux, Saint, 267, 275
Berossus, 107
Bertha (daughter of a Frankish King),
243
Bethlehem, 164
Bible, 104; interpretation of, 674;
King James Version of, 431;
Luthers study of, 388;
New Testament in, 163165, 166, 183,
188; Old Testament in, 34, 40, 41, 42,
188; printing of Gutenberg, 336;
Vulgate, 188, 252, 334
Bibliophile, 326327
Bicycles, 664, 665
Bildungsbrgertum, 608
Bill of Rights (1689), 464, 465, 491
Bin Laden, Osama, 291, 887888
Biography, in Hellenistic Age, 103
Birmingham, England, 523
Birth control, 847, 849, 856, 857; antibirth control policies, 752. See also
abortion
The Birth of Tragedy (Nietzsche), 679
Birthrate, 667; decline in, 849, 850, 856,
893
Bishop of Rome, 246247
Bishops, 245247
Bismarck, Otto von, 632637, 687, 692,
718
Black Death (13471351), 297298, 320,
325, 351, 352, 354, 510
Black Hand, 721
Black Prince, 301, 302
Black Sea colonies, 69
Blair, Tony, 881
Blanc, Louis, 627, 630
Blanket amnesty, 732
Blitzkrieg, 791
Blood libel, 316
Blood sports, 158
Blue laws, 203
Blue Monday, 614
Blues, 201, 206, 767
Blum, Lon, 788, 845
Boccaccio, Giovanni, 297, 298
Body of Civil Law, 211, 226, 281
Boers, 691
Boer War (18991902), 694, 695, 706
Bohemia, Habsburg victory in, 427428
Bohemians, Charlemagnes conquest of,
236
Boleyn, Anne, 362, 396397
Bologna, 342
Bologna, University of, 281
Bolsheviks (Russian political party),
642, 733736, 737, 738, 757, 759
Bombay, trading posts in, 695
Bonaparte, Joseph, 556, 558
Bonaparte, Josephine, 558559
Bonaparte, Napoleon (17691821), 534,
648; coronation as emperor, 559;
divorce of Josephine, 562; early life
of, 556; escape from Elba, 578; Europes defeat of, 563; exile to Elba,
563; as First Consul, 557; invasion of
Russia by, 562; marriage to Josephine,
556; marriage to Marie-Louise, 562;
religious policies of, 557558
Bondone, Giotto di. See Giotto
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 789
Boniface, Saint, 244245
Index
I-5
I-6
Index
Index
I-7
I-8
Index
Constance, 280
Constance, Council of (1414), 311
Constans II, Byzantine emperor (r. 641
668), 224
Constantine, Donation of, 247, 342
Constantine I (The Great), Roman
emperor (r. 306337), 177, 180, 202,
210; death of, 182; decision to become
Christian, 176177; Late Roman
government and, 181182; rise of,
179180
Constantine VI, Byzantine emperor
(r. 780797), 227, 229
Constantinople, 181, 201, 207, 224, 225
226; capture of, 312313, 315; Crusades and, 276; founding of, 181;
Muslim attempts to capture, 221; as
new Rome, 211213; slave trade in,
285
Constantinople, Council of, 227, 228
Constantius I, Roman emperor (r. 293
306), 179
Constituent assembly, 627
Constitutional monarchy, 445, 465; in
French Revolution, 54551
Constitution of 1791, 546, 548, 551, 563
Consuls, Roman, 125, 127130
Consumer cooperatives, 614
Consumer revolution, 515516, 530
Continent, political pressures on, 582588
Continental System (1807), 560, 562, 563
Contraceptive pill, 856. See also birth
control
Contract, 211
Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, 341
Conversos, 358
Convoy system in World War I, 726
Cook, James, 499, 500
Cook, Thomas, 664, 681
Cooks Tours, 681
Cooni, 189190
Cooperation in Europe (19721975), 842
Copernicus, Nicholas, 481, 482, 483
Copyright protection, 669
Cordoba, 222
Corinth, 64, 69, 73, 157; Persian Wars
and, 78; pottery from, 6970; wealth
of, 71
Corinthian columns, 70, 103, 113
Corinthian vase, 72
Cornelia (daughter of Scipio Africanus),
136
Corn Laws (1815), 589, 605, 614; repeal
of, 590591
Corsica, 131; slavery and, 285
Corts, Hernn, 359, 370, 371, 373, 414
Index
Danuna, 29
Dardanelles Strait, 224
Darius (r. 521486 b.c.e.), 5354, 55, 78
Darius III, King of Persia (r. 338331), 94
Dark Age of Greece (1100776 b.c.e.), 61
68; competition and conflict in, 65;
gender roles in, 6567; religion and
culture, 6768
Darwin, Charles, 674, 675677, 678
Das Kapital (Capital) (Marx), 675
Da-u-dum (David), 25
Daumier, Honor, 670
Dauphin, 302
David, Jacques-Louis, 543, 545, 554, 559
David, King of the Hebrews, 44, 50
Da Vinci, Leonardo, 324325, 329, 341,
343
Dawes, Charles G., 751
Dawes Plan (1924), 751, 775, 781
Dayton Agreement (1995), 873
DDT, 659
Deacons, 167
Death, preoccupation with, in fourteenth
century, 298
Debating clubs, 477, 496
Deborah, 34, 40; victory song of, 4243
The Decameron (Boccaccio), 297
Decapitation, 167
Decembrists, 587
Decemvirs, Roman, 128
De-Christianization, 555, 557
Decimation, 116
Decius, Roman emperor (r. 249251 c.e.),
167
Declaration of Independence (1776), 498,
545
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the
Citizen (1789), 546, 548, 549, 551, 556,
557
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(Gibbon), 197198
Decolonization, Africa and, 827828;
France and, 827; Great Britain and, 825
Decurions, 151, 189
Deductive method, 483
Defence of the Realm Act (DORA), 730
Defenestration of Prague, 427
Deffand, Madame du, 497, 501
Deflationary policies, 777
Degas, Edgar, 671
De Gaulle, Charles, 794, 813, 814, 815, 827
Deindustrialization, 698699
Deism, 491
Delacroix, Eugne, 569
Delators, 155
Delian League (established 478 b.c.e.),
142
I-9
I-10
Index
Index
I-11
I-12
Index
in, 510; post World War I, 746; privileges in, 529; recovery in, 814; rejection of European Union constitution
by, 880; relations with Germany, 717,
718; religious wars in, 425426; reparations and, 750751; resistance
movements in, 794; restoration and
liberal revolt in, 578579; restriction
on British imports by, 598; resurgence
of monarchy in, 426427; revolutionary thought in, 625629; role of public
opinion in politics in, 495496; Second Estate in, 541; Seven Years War
and, 531; socialism in, 788; society in,
526; steel output in, 659; suspension
of royal press censorship by, 537;
under Szarkozy, 881; Third Estate in,
541, 542; Third Republic in, 641; in
1300s, 305306; under Vichy, 792;
workers rights in, 615; in World War
I, 721; in World War II, 792793. See
also French Revolution; Gaul
Franche-Comt, 418
Franciscans, 385
Francis Ferdinand: assassination of, 721
Francis I, King of France (r. 15151547),
342343, 386, 472
Francis II Rkczi (16761735), 426, 431,
453
Francis Joseph, Austrian emperor
(r. 18481916), 629, 649, 661; death of,
650, 736
Francis Xavier, 402403
Franco, Francisco, 778779, 881
Franco-Prussian War (18701871), 634
635, 640641, 687, 718, 725
Frankenstein (Shelley), 593
Frankfurt Assembly (18481849), 627,
629, 634; nationalism in, 627
Frankincense, 102
Franklin, Benjamin: deism and, 491; visit
to France in 1776, 499
Franks, 170, 193, 194, 199200, 238, 239,
249, 251; attacks on Roman Empire,
171; maintenance of Crusader states,
275
Frederick I Barbarossa, King of Germany, Italy, and Burgundy (r. 1155
1190), 280
Frederick II, King of Germany, Italy, and
Burgundy (r. 11971250), 280281, 285
Frederick II, King of Prussia (r. 1740
1786), 454, 457, 467, 469, 474, 491, 498,
551
Frederick William I, King of Prussia
(r. 17131740), 456, 457, 459, 469;
policies of, 498
Index
I-13
I-14
Index
Index
I-15
I-16
Index
Hungary (cont.)
in, 779; Habsburg reconquest of, 452
453; independence of, 629, 636; occupation of, 808; political culture in,
882; post World War I, 743, 745, 749;
uprisings in, 829, 833, 842
Hunger, spread of, in fourteenth century,
295296
Huns, 193194, 196197, 201, 213
Hunter-gatherers, 9
Hus, Jan, 312
Hussein, Saddam, 232, 886, 887, 888
Hussites, 312
Hutter, Jacob, 393
Huxley, Aldous, 761
Hybrid languages, development of, 712
Hydroelectric power, 660
Hygiene, 663
Hyksos, 21, 23, 41
Hypatia, 188
Hyperinflation, 746, 777
Iceland, 102
Iceni, 146
Iconoclasm, 227228
Icons: controversy over, 226227, 229;
restoring use of, 207, 228229
Id, 679680
Ideology, beginnings of modern, 576582
Ides of March (March 15), 139
Ignatius of Loyola, 398399, 402, 404
Iliad (Homer), 29, 6263, 70, 103, 439
Iliescu, Ion, 862
Illuminations, 248
Immigration: Chinese, 639; European,
640; Japanese, 639; Jewish, 645
Impalement, 17
Imperial crisis, 170171
Imperial cult, 151, 161, 162, 179
Imperial Diet, 389
Imperial government, 4849
Imperialism: in Africa, 691695; capitalism and, 710711; economic motivations of, 686687; English language
and, 712; European culture and, 708
709; Far East and, 702707; motives
and methods of new, 685691; Muslim world and, 699702; Ottoman
Empire and, 701702; racism in, 689
690; technology and, 690691; transportation and, 690
Imperialism: A Study (Hobson), 710
Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (Lenin), 711
Imperialist states, 25
Imperial succession, 154, 179180
Imperium, 118119
Impressionism, 671672
Inca Empire, Spanish conquest of, 371372
Income tax, progressive, 619
Indemnity, 131
Indentured servants, 375
Index of Prohibited Books, 399
India: under Alexander the Great, 9596,
101102; Aryan invasion of, 16;
British in, 524, 685690, 695698;
education in, 698; English language
in, 712; French in, 523; Menander s
invasion of, 100; Nationalist movement in, 825, 826; Sepoy Rebellion in,
695697, 708
Indian National Congress (1885), 697
Indigenous people, 497
Indigenous Peoples Day, 378
Indirect taxes, 644
Indochina, French in, 702703
Indo-Europeans, 5, 16
Indonesia, Dutch in, 703704
Inductive method, 481
Indulgences, sale of, 310, 388, 400401
Industrialization: on the Continent, 598
601; critics of, 615619; in Germany,
718, 719; in Great Britain, 654, 718, 719;
impact on art, 665668; initial effects
of, 598; in Russia, 718719; social
impacts of, 603606; spread of, 598606
Industrial production, beginning of,
531534
Industrial Revolution, 532534, 593;
Second, 657665, 686, 690
Industrial societies, poverty in, 615616
Industrial take-off, 599
Infant mortality rates, reduction in, 667
Infidels, 276
Inflation: in Hellenistic Age, 99; in sixteenth century, 416417
Influenza, 297
Innate ideas, 485
Innocent III, Pope (r. 11981216), 268
269, 270, 276, 280
Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the
Wealth of Nations (Smith), 510
Institutes of the Christian Religion
(Calvin), 393, 396
Instituteurs, 643
Integral nationalism, 644647
Intelligentsia, 588
Intendants, 450
Interchangeable parts, 600
International Congress of Women, 722
International Criminal Court, 812
Internationalism in politics, 650651
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
(1946), 872, 885
Index
I-17
I-18
Index
Kulaks, 783
Kulturkampf, 636, 643
Kun, Bla, 745
Kursk, 793
Kuwait, Iraqi attack on, 887
Kyoto Agreement, 885
Labor, child, 613
Labour Party, in Great Britain, 642, 752,
816, 843844
The Ladies Paradise (Zola), 666
Lady of the Wild Things, 27
La Guardia, 358
Laissez-faire, 513514, 551
Laity, 210
La Marseillaise, 652
La Mettrie, Julien Offroy de, 491
Lang, Fritz, 768769
Langlade: agriculture in, 416; rural life
in, 354
Language: Akkadian, 15, 25, 4849;
Arabic, 223; development of hybrid,
712; Aramaic, 38, 54; Babylonian, 15;
Eblaites, 25; English, in India, 698;
Etruscan, 119; Greek, 2728, 103, 134,
200; imperialism and English, 712;
Latin, 118, 135, 161, 199; romance,
199; Sumerian, 25; Turkic, 699; vernacular, 326
Lares, 122
Las Casas, Bartolom de, 350, 357, 368,
374, 377, 402, 499
Last Judgment, 187
Late Antiquity (284527), 174203; Christian Empire in, 182188; late Roman
Empire in, 188193; literary culture
in, 191192; restoration of Roman
Empire in, 174182
Lateran Council (1215), 316
Late Roman Empire, 177193; Constantine and, 181182
Latifundia, 136, 138, 159
Latin comedies, 134
Latin language, 135
Latin literature, 141, 152153; Silver Age
of, 156157
Latins, 118
Latvia: acceptance in European Union,
880; activism in, 860; democratization
in, 876877; dictatorship in, 779; independence of, 862; post World War I,
746; Soviet occupation of, 792
Laud, William, 432, 433
Laudanum, 613
Lausanne, Treaty of (1924), 747
Lawgivers, 73
Law of supply and demand, 579
Index
Lepidus, 139141
Leroy-Beaulieu, Paul, 689
Lesbian activism, 849. See also gay
rights
Les Deux Magots, 504
Levant, 9, 2526, 36; Pauls visits to, 166
Levellers, 434
Leviathan (Hobbes), 486
Liberalism, 570, 578579, 612; classical,
578, 639; economic, 578, 588; importance of, in 1848, 630; political, 579
Liberal parties, 641642
Liberia, in World War I, 721
Libya, 687
Liebknecht, Karl, 730, 749
Lifting of Burdens, 76
Lighthouse, built at Alexandria, 113
Lightning, 500
Linear A, 27
Linear B, 2728
Linear perspective, in painting, 328
Linonians, Charlemagnes conquest of,
236
Linotype machine, invention of, 659
Lister, Joseph, 667
Literacy, spread of, 407
Literature: English, 298; Greek, 7071,
134; Hellenistic, 103104; imperialist
themes of, 708709; Latin, 141, 152
153, 156157; Muslim, 222223; naturalism in, 668669; realism in, 668
669; Roman, 134
Lithography, 659, 669, 673
Lithuania, 344; acceptance in European
Union, 880; activism in, 860; democratization in, 876877; independence
of, 735, 862; Soviet occupation of, 792;
in World War I, 732
Little Ice Age, 296, 417, 449, 507
Litvinov, Maxim, 781782
Liverpool and Manchester Railroad, 603
Livery, 525
The Lives of the Most Eminent Painters,
Sculptors, and Architects (Vasari), 328
Livingstone, David, 687688
Livonian War (15581583), 364
Livy, 103, 135, 153
Lloyd George, David, 752
Lloyds of London, 504
Locke, John, 463, 487, 488, 491, 493, 501,
502
L
d
z, population of, 658
Loew, Rabbi, 593
Logos, 71, 110
Lollards, 312
Lombards, 213; Charlemagnes conquest
of, 236; in Italy, 238, 239240
Lucretius, 141
Luddites, 614
Lusitania, sinking of, 726, 737
Luther, Martin, 383, 387392, 400, 404
406, 406, 421, 487
Luxemburg, Rosa, 663, 716, 730, 736
Luxeuil, 244
Lyceum, 104
Lycurgus, 74
Lydia, 39, 50, 52, 69; invention of
coinage in, 36, 39; Persian Empire
and, 54
Lyell, Charles, 678
Lyon, 157, 241, 245, 269, 553
Lyon, Council of (1274), 313
Lysistrata (Aristophanes), 8384
Maastricht treaty (1992), 879
Maat, 19, 21
Macau, 367368
Macauley, Thomas Babington, 695
Maccabee, Judas, 9091, 111
Maccabees, 111; book of, in Hebrew
Bible, 111; revolt of, 9091
MacDonald, Ramsay, 752, 777, 778
Macedonia, 91; Ottoman territory of,
720; rise of, 9193; Rome and, 131
Macedonians, 9193, 95, 131
Machiavelli, Niccol, 341
Madame Bovary (Flaubert), 672
Madeira, 524
Madras, trading posts in, 695
Madrid, population of, 663
Madrid, Treaty of (1750), 523
Magellan, Ferdinand, 373
Magi, 52
The Magic Flute (Mozart), 497
Magic lantern slide shows, 664
Magna Carta, signing of, 278
Magnates, 454
Magnetic compass, 366367
Magritte, Ren, 762
Magyars, 256, 258
Maimonides, Moses, 289
Mainz, 157
Maistre, Joseph de, 577
Major domus, 249
Malacca, 367
Malaria, 9, 690
Malenkov, Georgy, 821822
Malory, Thomas, 343, 361, 362
Malta, acceptance in European Union,
880
Mamluks, 313
Mammoth, 499
Manchester, 533, 589, 590, 602605, 611,
613, 614
I-19
I-20
Index
Mandane, 5152
Mandates, 748
Manet, Edouard, 670
Manhattan Project, 795
Manifest destiny, 689
Manifesto of the 343, 847
Manila, 522
Manila galleon, 416
Mann, Thomas, 788
Manning, Henry Edward, 678
Manors, 256
Man the Machine (La Mettrie), 491
Man the Plant (La Mettrie), 491
Manuscript, 191; illuminations for, 298
Manutius, Aldus (14491515), 337
Manzikert, Battle of (1071), 230231
Mao Zedong, 811
Mapmaking, 366
Marathon, Battle of (490 b.c.e.), 78
Marcel, Etienne, 306
Marcel, Gabriel, 765
March of the 10,000 (Xenophon), 85
Marconi, Guglielmo, 661, 677
Marduk, 15, 52
Margaret (daughter of Henry VII), 362
Maria (wife of Constantine), 229
Maria Theresa (r. 17401780), 454, 457,
467, 469472
Marie Antoinette (r. 17751792), 526527,
541, 551, 554
Marie-Louise, archduchess of Austria, 562
Marinetti, Filippo, 765
Maritime republics, 340
Marius, 135137, 138, 139
Market economy: growth of, 354; in
Hellenistic Age, 99
Marlowe Christopher, 431
Marne, First Battle of (1914), 722723
Marr, Wilhelm, 647
Marriage: distinctive pattern of, 352353;
middle class and, 609610; Protestant
reforms in, 405406; Roman, 123124;
as sacrament, 405. See also gay marriage
Marseillaise (song), 554
Marseilles, colony of, 69
Marshall Plan (1947), 811, 812, 813, 814,
816
Martel, Charles (686741), 249250
Martial law, 636
Martinique, 558; French in, 523
Martin, Bishop of Tours, 187, 245
Martin V, 311
Martyrs, Christian, 165, 167, 168, 179
Marx, Karl, 596, 603, 606, 609, 614, 615,
616, 618-619, 629, 630, 635, 678, 711,
716, 759, 782
Index
Moctezuma, 414
Moctezuma II, 370371
Moldova, 869
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939), 791
Monarchs, 64; Constitutional, 445, 465;
growth of royal authority of, 277281.
See also specific
Monasteries, wealth of, 266
Monasticism, 243; Christian ascetism
and, 187188; learning and, 247249
Monck, George, 435
Monet, Claude, 671
Mongols, 313; decline of, 351, 363; establishment of khanates, 313
Monks, 187
Monophysites, 201, 206, 221, 226;
churchs condemnation of, 210
Monotheism, 697; defined, 40; Hebrews
and, 3946
Montagu, Mary Wortley, 478, 479, 486,
496
Monte Cassino, 247, 256
Montefiore, Moses, 589
Montenegro, independence of, 720
Montesquieu, Baron de (Charles-Louis
de Secondat), 488, 493, 501, 502
Moratorium, 750
More, Thomas, 387
Morgenthau, Henry, 801
Moriscos, 420; Ferdinand and Isabellas
conquest of, 420
Moro, Aldo, 844845
Morocco, in World War II, 793
Morse code, 661
Mortality rates, 352
Mortimer, Roger, 300
Mosaic, 159
Moscow, 599; population of, 662
Moscow-Petersburg canal, 603
Moses, 34, 41, 43, 51
Mos maiorum, 119, 121
Mosques, 217
Mothers organizations, fascism and,
755756
Mountain, 552, 553, 565
Mount Olympus, 67
Move On, 865
Movies, war propaganda and, 730
Moving pictures, 664
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 495
MTV, 892893
Mucha, Alphonse, 673
Mughal Empire (15261857), 695
Muhammad (c. 570632), 215220, 217;
death of, 216, 219, 220, 221; life of,
215216; religious leadership of, 217
220
Mummies, 3031
Mummification, 21
Munich Conference (1938), 790, 791
Mnster, Anabaptists and, 392393
Muses, 100
Music: blues, 767; globalization, 859, 890,
894895; jazz, 767, 768, 769; MTV,
894895; ragtime, 767; rock and roll,
829830
Muslims: conquest of Black Sea region
by, 299; conquest of Spain by, 221
222; in Denmark, 851; in Europe, 858,
892893; families, 219220; forced
conversion to Christianity in Spain,
358; in France, 851; in Germany, 851;
in Great Britain, 851; imperialism and
world of, 699702; laws of, 219; literature of, 222223; in Netherlands, 851;
Russias efforts to commit to Orthodoxy, 701; in Spain, 851; Zionism and,
702. See also Islam
Mussolini, Benito, 745, 750752, 757, 779,
787, 795
Mustafa, Kara, 452
Mycenaeans, 2728, 61; Dorian Greeks
and, 64
Mystery cults, 108109, 161
Mysticism, 312
Mythology, Greek, 108
Myths, 11
Nagy, Imre, 822823
Nanna (moon god), 12, 15, 49
Nantes, Edict of (1598), 426, 450451, 491
Naples, 363, 418; French claims to, 361
Napoleon, Louis. See Napoleon III
(Louis Napoleon) (r. 18521870)
Napoleonic Code (1804), 558559, 560
Napoleonic Empire, in France, 559563
Napoleonic Wars, 533
Napoleon III (Louis Napoleon) (r. 1852
1870), 626, 628, 631, 634, 635, 640, 652;
foreign policy of, 702
Narmer, first Egyptian pharaoh, 19
Nash, Paul, 724725, 740
Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 829
Nathan, 44
Nation: identity and, 530531, 558; unity
and, 539, 547, 555, 558, 562
National anthems, national identity and,
554, 558, 652653
National Assembly, in France, 542545,
546, 548
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP),
639
National Convention, in France, 551
I-21
I-22
Index
Nehemiah, 52
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 825826
Nelson, Horatio, 556
Neolithic revolution, 89
Neoplatonism, 184, 188, 192
Nergal, 12, 49
Nero, Roman emperor (r. 5468), 146,
154, 155, 167, 188
Nerva, 155
Nestorians, 201
Nestorius, 201
Netherlands, 851; confederation of, 572;
German invasion of, 792; Protestantism in, 396; rejection of European
Union constitution by, 880; revolt in,
420421. See also Dutch Republic;
Holland
Neuilly-sur-Seine, Treaty of (1919), 747
Neustria, 249
Nevsky, Alexander, 319
Nevsky, Daniel, 319
New Amsterdam, 423, 524
New Babylonian Empire, 50
New Christian, 358
The New Christianity (Saint-Simon), 613
Newcomen, Thomas, 532
New Conservatism, 847848
New Economic Policy (NEP), 760, 782
Newgate Prison, 528
New Harmony, Indiana, 618
The New Hlose (Rousseau), 496
New imperialism, 685691
New Kingdom (15701070 b.c.e.), 18, 22
25
New Lanark, 603, 618
New Laws for the Indies (1542), 374
New man, 128
Newman, Barnett, 346
New Orleans, French settlement of, 449
New Persians, 171, 179, 201, 207; attacks
on Roman Empire, 171; in Babylon,
184; Byzantine relations with, 201
Newport, Rhode Island, 524
New Science, 479, 482486, 487, 499
Newspapers, reading, 494496, 497, 640
New Testament, 163164, 166
Newton, Isaac, 482, 483486, 488, 489,
491, 493, 514, 677
New Wave cinema, 830
New World, 359; Spanish exploration of,
359, 432, 505, 518519
New York City: as financial capital of
world, 775; September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on, 887; skyscrapers in,
659
New York stock market, crash of, 775
New Zealand, World War I and, 726, 727
Index
I-23
I-24
Index
Index
I-25
I-26
Index
Ranelagh, 518
Rasputin, Grigory, 731
Rationing, in World War I, 729
Ravenna, 196, 200
Raynal, Abb, 499, 500
Reading, new world of, 494496, 497,
637
Reagan, Ronald Wilson, 843, 847, 848,
859, 871
Realism, 669; in art, 670; in literature,
672673
Reason, critiques of, 678680
Reci, Sarmalele, 895
Reconquista, 276
Red Brigades, 842843
Red Cross, 748
Red Guards, 735
Red Shirts, 631
Reeves, 307
Reflections on the Revolution in France
(Burke), 550, 577
Reform Act (Britain, 1832), 585586, 614
Reform Acts (Britain, 1867 and 1884), 640
Reform Judaism, 609
Regalia, 280
Reichstag (1871), 635636
Reign of Terror, 551555
Relics, 167
Reliefs, Persian, 53
Religio, 121
Religion: battle between science and,
678; Enlightenment and, 491, 492; in
Neolithic period, 9; in Roman Empire, 161169; science and, 485, 486.
See also Catholic Church; Christianity;
gods and goddesses; Islam; Judaism;
specific
Religious orders, reform by, 398399
Religious revival, 858
Religious toleration, 420
Rembrandt van Rijn, 424
Remus, 118, 122
Renaissance, 324345; architecture in,
328329, 330; art in, 324325, 346;
climate of, 325331; clothes in, 331;
English, 376; ideals in transition, 342
345; northern European, 331337;
painting in, 327329
Renoir, Auguste, 671
Repin, Ilya, 670
Repression, theory of, 679
The Republic (Plato), 85
Republic of Fiume, 749
Republic of Virtue, 553555
Restoration in England (16601689), 462
463
Restoration London, 497
Index
I-27
I-28
Index
Index
Cuban Missile Crisis and, 825; development of nuclear weapons by, 811
812; education in, 761; end of, 862
864; five-year plans in, 778; under
Gorbachev, 847, 855856, 858860,
862; Great Purges in, 783; Hitlers rise
to power and, 780; invasion of
Afghanistan, 843; under Khrushchev,
822823; national anthem in, 652;
New Economic Policy in, 760, 761,
782; NKVD in, 783784; organized
religion in, 761; peasants in, 782783;
Politburo in, 760; reform in, 855856;
resistance movements in, 797; under
Stalin, 756757, 780784; women in,
759; under Yeltsin, 862, 863. See also
Russia
Spain: abolition of slavery in, 534; barbarian kingdoms in, 208; break away
from Roman Empire, 171; Carthaginian-controlled, 131; under Charles II,
449; civil war in, 774775, 778, 779;
colonial empire of, 432, 522523, 524,
535; confederation of, 572; drop of
birthrate in, 848; explorations of, 350
351, 368371, 373, 378, 414, 415; expulsion of Jews from, 351, 357358,
435; under Francisco Franco, 881;
Great Depression in, 774; growth of
Muslim population in, 890; under
Joseph Bonaparte, 560; left-wing
governments in, 849, 881; as member
of European Union, 880; Muslim
conquest of, 220, 221222, 222; under
Philip II, 418419; Roman province
in, 135; silver mines of, 415416;
Socialist Workers Party in, 845, 881;
Spanish Armada and, 420421, 431;
terrorism and, 879, 886; trade and,
355356; unification of, 357358;
Visigoths in, 199, 238, 239; war
against Islam in, 419420; in World
War I, 717
Spanish Armada (1588), 420421, 431
Spanish Fury, 420
Spanish Inquisition, 358, 399400
Spanish Jews, 316
Sparta, 61, 68, 69, 7375; Peloponnesian
War and, 71, 8182; war with Athens,
60. See also Greece
Spartacus, revolt of, 116117, 138
Special theory of relativity, 677
Spencer, Herbert, 676
Spenser, Edmund, 431
Spice trade, 415
Spinning jenny, 531
Spinning mule, 531
I-29
I-30
Index
Index
Thera, 27
Thermidorian reaction (17941795), 555
Thermopylae, 79
Thessalonica, 225
Thetes, 77
Thiers, Adolphe, 583
Thinae, 102
Third Estate, 537, 538, 541542
Third Reich, 781, 784-791
Third Republic (18701940), 641
Third World countries, 820
Thirty-nine Articles, 397
Thirty Years War (16181648), 427428,
435, 444, 454, 455, 456, 718
Thompson, Florence, 772
Thrace: conquest of, 313; Persian occupation of, 56
Thucydides, 81, 85
Thule, 102
Thuringians, 244
Thutmose I (r. 15271515 b.c.e.), 22
Thutmose III (r. 14831450 b.c.e.), 23
Tianjin, 700
Tiberius (1437 c.e.), 154, 155
Tiber River, 118, 157
TiglathPilezer III (r. 745727 b.c.e.), 46
47, 49, 50
Tigris River, 9
Timar, 314315
Time: beginning of, 260261; standardized, 605, 620621
Timoclea, 93
Timur, the Tartar (ca. 13701405), 314, 345
Tin, 102
Tiso, Josef, 786
Titanic (ocean liner), sinking of, 661662
Tithe, 135, 246; clergy giving up, 544
545; Night of August 4 (1789) abolishment of, 544545
Tito, Josip Broz, 794, 819820, 870
Titus (7981 c.e.), 155
Tobacco, 432, 520
Togliatti, Palmiro, 844
Togo, German control over, 692
Togoland, 727
Toledo, 222
Toleration Act (1689), 464
Tomyris, 52
Tnnies, Friedrich, 675
Torah, 40, 43, 52
Tordesillas, Treaty of (1494), 368, 519
Tories, 463, 464, 465, 466, 585
Total war, World War I as, 727, 728731,
739
Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de, 671, 673
Tourism, 681
Tours, Battle of (732), 222, 256
I-31
I-32
Index
Varennes, 550
Vasari, Giorgio, 328
Vassals, 21, 254
Vatican, 328, 631
Vauban, Sbastien le Prestre de, 468, 527
Vauxhall, 518
Velvet Revolution (1989), 859862
Vende (1793), 553, 554
Vendettas, 340341
Venetians, trade and, 365
Veneto, 631
Venice, 283, 363; commercial life in, 299;
economic competition between
Genoa and, 340; funding of Crusades
by, 276; humanism in, 333; Jews in,
406; printing shops in, 337; Renaissance in, 331
Venture capital, 533
Verdi, Giuseppe, 708
Verdun, Battle of (1916), 725726
Verdun, Treaty of (843), 253
Vereshchagin, Vasily, 700, 709
Vergil, 152153, 156
Vermeer, Jan, 424
Vernacular language, 326
Verrochio, Andrea del, 324
Versailles, 445, 447, 452, 474
Versailles Treaty, 746747, 780, 784; Nazi
challenges to, 787
The Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry,
332
Vesalius, Andreas, 482
Vespasian, Roman emperor (r. 6979),
154, 155, 157, 162
Vesta, 123
Vestal virgins, 125
Vesuvius, Mount, eruption of, 157, 158
159
Vichy, France, 792
Victor Emmanuel II, 631
Victor Emmanuel III, 755
Victoria, Queen of England (r. 1837
1901), 472, 591, 622, 649, 662, 692, 698
Victoria Falls, discovery of, 687
Victorian Age, 591, 608
Victory of the Jews over the Germans
(Marr), 647
Vienna, 157; population of, 662; siege of,
453
Vietnam War (19591975), 439, 827, 832,
838
Vige-Lebrun, Elisabeth, 501
Vikings, 256258
Villas, 189
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
(Wollstonecraft), 502, 551
Virgil, 248, 288, 325, 431
Index
I-33
I-34
Index