1. Societies at Crossroads
CHAPTER 32 OVERVIEW

2. Global Context
Dramatic economic expansion of western Europe and the United States
Ottoman Empire, Qing dynasty, Russian Empire, and Tokugawa shogunate had become isolated and backward.
By 1900, all four had been challenged and changed profoundly.

3. Conservative Autocratic Regimes.
Did not share the liberal ideals of the Enlightenment or the revolutionary era.
Rulers were absolute
Individuals had few rights
Dissent was viewed as dangerous.

4. Military Unpreparedness
Regimes failed to modernize
Outgunned by western powers
Humiliating defeats
The loss of Egypt for the Ottomans
The Opium War for China
The Crimean War for Russia
The unequal treaty forced on Japan by the United States.
Restructuring of the military.

8. Weak Economies Lacked the basic elements for industrialization:
capital, free workers, and infrastructure.
China and Japan
closed economies
little contact with the outside world.
The Ottoman and Russian empires
agricultural societies
large unskilled peasant populations.

9. Imperial Pressures Need to fight off the imperialistic encroachments
Qing dynasty was the least successful
lost control of its economy and much of its territorial sovereignty by end of 19th century
Japan- most successful in competing economically and militarily with west.

10. Reform From the Top Down
Change came at discretion of rulers
Japan
a written constitution would give credibility to their new state
emperor "gave" a constitution to the people
retained all power to the emperor.
The Russian tsar granted, then rescinded, an elected legislature after the Revolution of 1905.

11. Assignment
Read the section on the Ottoman Empire and answer the following questions in paragraph form.
What factors led to the territorial decline of the Ottoman Empire over the course of the nineteenth century? What territories were lost?
Compare the reforms of the Tanzimat era with the program of the Young Turks.