Ways of the World Chapter 16 ATLANTIC REVOLUTION, GLOBAL ECHOES

 The 18 th & 19 th centuries were witness to social & political upheaval in many parts of the world  Safavid Empire collapsed by 1730  Mughal Empire was fragmenting  Wahhabi movement  Threatened the Ottoman Empire  Religious ideals were the basis of social uprisings in Central Asia  Russia had a number of peasant uprisings  China was home to a number of unsuccessful smaller rebellions leading up to the huge Taiping revolution  Islamic revolutions in West Africa  Series of wars in southern Africa  Resulted in widespread violence & the creation of new states GLOBAL REVOLUTIONS

 The Atlantic revolutions took place in a larger global context, but were distinctive in several ways compared to rebellions elsewhere.  Costly wars put tremendous stress on the economies of European imperial powers  Britain raised taxes on North American colonies  France had to seek new revenue from landowners  Atlantic revolutions were connected to one another  Atlantic revolutionaries shared common ideals  Atlantic revolutions all eliminated monarchs  Global impact extending far beyond the Atlantic world UNIQUENESS OF ATLANTIC REVOLUTIONS

 Ideals that drove revolution came from the Enlightenment & were shared across the ocean in newspapers, books, & pamphlets  Political & social arrangements could be engineered & improved by human action  Conventional ways of living and thinking came under attack:  Divine right of kings  State control of trade  Aristocratic privilege  Authority of a single church IDEOLOGICAL BASIS FOR REVOLUTION

 New ideas:  Liberty  Equality  Free trade  Religious tolerance  Republicanism  Power of human rationality  Popular sovereignty:  The authority to govern is derived from the people rather than from God or established tradition  John Locke:  The “social contract” between ruler and ruled should only last as long as it served the people well IDEOLOGICAL BASIS FOR REVOLUTION

 Revolutionary in that a decisive political change took place  Not revolutionary in that it sought to preserve existing liberties rather than create new ones  Grew out of a sudden effort by the British government to tighten control of its colonies & extract more revenue from them.  Revolutionary leaders tended to be of elite social status NORTH AMERICAN REVOLUTION

 Revolution accelerated the established democratic tendencies of colonial society  Political authority remained largely in the hands of existing elites who led the revolution  Property requirements for voting lowered  More white men of modest means were elected to state legislatures  No women nor people of color shared in this expansion of political participation  Slavery was gradually abolished in northern states, but was firmly entrenched in the southern states NORTH AMERICAN REVOLUTION

 Began the political dismantling of Europe’s empires in the Americas  The “right of revolution” has inspired revolutionaries ever since  The U.S. Constitution was one of the first efforts to put the political ideas of the Enlightenment into practice  Bill of Rights  Checks and balances  Separation of church and state  Federalism  It has been a model for many other nations, and its ideas were at the core of many other political uprisings in the 19 th century NORTH AMERICAN REVOLUTION

 Driven by deep conflicts rooted in France’s traditional social structure of the estates  Far more violent, far reaching, and radical than the American Revolution  French revolutionaries were attempting to recreate both a political & social structure from scratch  Ideas of the French Revolution were spread across Europe mainly through Napoleon’s conquests FRENCH REVOLUTION

 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen:  Document created by the National Assembly, members of the 3 rd Estate at the Estates General  Declared that “men are born and remain free and equal in rights”  These actions by the National Assembly launched the French Revolution FRENCH REVOLUTION

 France created the world’s largest army through compulsory male service  800,000 men  Led by officers from the middle & lower classes  An army of citizens representing the nation  Raised the question of female political equality far more explicitly than in America  Women were active in the major events of the revolution  In the end French revolutionaries were unwilling to offer any political rights to women, but the revolution itself paved the way for modern feminism  Seemed inappropriate & threatening to men FRENCH REVOLUTION

 General who seized power in a coup d'état  Preserved many gains of the revolution in  Civil equality  Secular legal codes  Religious freedom  Merit based promotion  Spread the ideas & benefits throughout Europe via conquest  Created the largest European empire since Rome  Imposed revolutionary practices in conquered lands  Ending feudalism  Equality of rights  Religious tolerance  Codifying laws  Rationalizing government administration  Many places welcomed the reforms, but resented French domination  Sparked nationalism throughout Europe NAPOLEON BONAPARTE