7.1 Contextualizing 19th-Century Perspectives and Political Developments

Learning Objective Unit 7.A: Explain the context in which nationalistic and imperialistic sentiments developed in Europe from 1815 to 1914.

• KC-3.4 European states struggled to maintain international stability in an age of nationalism and revolutions.
  • KC-3.4.II The breakdown of the Concert of Europe opened the door for movements of national unification in Italy and Germany as well as liberal reforms elsewhere.
  • KC-3.4.III The unification of Italy and Germany transformed the European balance of power and led to efforts to construct a new diplomatic order.
• KC-3.5 A variety of motives and methods led to the intensification of European global control and increased tensions among the Great Powers.
  • KC-3.5.II Industrial and technological developments (e.g., the second industrial revolution) facilitated European control of global empires.
• KC-3.6 European ideas and culture expressed a tension between objectivity and scientific realism on one hand, and subjectivity and individual expression on the other.
  • KC-3.6.II Following the revolutions of 1848, Europe turned toward a realist and materialist worldview.

7.2 Nationalism

Thematic Focus (NEI): National and European Identity — Definitions and perceptions of regional, cultural, national, and European identity have developed and been challenged over time, with varied and often profound effects on the political, social, and cultural order in Europe.

Learning Objective Unit 7.B: Explain how the development and spread of nationalism affected Europe from 1815 to 1914.

• KC-3.3.I.F Nationalists encouraged loyalty to the nation in a variety of ways, including romantic idealism, liberal reform, political unification, racialism with a concomitant anti-Semitism, and chauvinism justifying national aggrandizement.
• KC-3.3.I.G While during the 19th century western European Jews became more socially and politically acculturated, Zionism, a form of Jewish nationalism, developed late in the century as a response to growing anti-Semitism throughout Europe.
• KC-3.4.II.B A new generation of conservative leaders, including Napoleon III, Cavour, and Bismarck, used popular nationalism to create or strengthen the state.
• KC-3.4.II.C The creation of the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, which recognized the political power of the largest ethnic minority, was an attempt to stabilize the state by reconfiguring national unity.

Illustrative examples:

• Nationalists: §Bullet J. G. Fichte §Bullet Grimm Brothers §Bullet Giuseppe Mazzini §Bullet Pan-Slavists Anti-Semitism: §Bullet Dreyfus affair §Bullet Christian Social Party in Germany §Bullet Karl Lueger, mayor of Vienna Zionists: §Bullet Theodor Herzl

7.3 National Unification and Diplomatic Tensions

Thematic Focus (NEI): National and European Identity — Definitions and perceptions of regional, cultural, national, and European identity have developed and been challenged over time, with varied and often profound effects on the political, social, and cultural order in Europe.

Thematic Focus (SOP): States and Other Institutions of Power — European states and nations developed governmental and civil institutions from 1450 to the present to organize society and consolidate political power, with a variety of social, cultural, and economic effects.

Learning Objective Unit 7.C: Explain the factors that resulted in Italian unification and German unification.

• KC-3.4.II.A The Crimean War demonstrated the weakness of the Ottoman Empire and contributed to the breakdown of the Concert of Europe, thereby creating the conditions in which Italy and Germany could be unified after centuries of fragmentation.
• KC-3.4.III.A Cavour’s diplomatic strategies, combined with the popular Garibaldi’s military campaigns, led to the unification of Italy.
• KC-3.4.III.B Bismarck used Realpolitik, employing diplomacy, industrialized warfare, weaponry, and the manipulation of democratic mechanisms to unify Germany.

Learning Objective Unit 7.D: Explain how nationalist sentiment and political alliances led to tension between and among European powers from 1815 to 1914.

• KC-3.4.III.C After 1871, Bismarck attempted to maintain the balance of power through a complex system of alliances directed at isolating France.
• KC-3.4.III.D Bismarck’s dismissal in 1890 eventually led to a system of mutually antagonistic alliances and heightened international tensions.
• KC-3.4.III.E Nationalist tensions in the Balkans drew the Great Powers into a series of crises, leading up to World War I.

Illustrative examples:

• Bismarck’s alliances: §Bullet Three Emperors’ League §Bullet Triple Alliance §Bullet Reinsurance Treaty Nationalist tensions in the Balkans: §Bullet Congress of Berlin in 1878 §Bullet Growing influence of Serbia §Bullet Bosnia-Herzegovina annexation crisis (1908) §Bullet First Balkan War §Bullet Second Balkan War

7.4 Darwinism, Social Darwinism

Thematic Focus (TSI): Technological and Scientific Innovation — Scientific and technological innovations have increased efficiency, improved daily life, and shaped human development and interactions, having both intended and unintended consequences.

Learning Objective Unit 7.E: Explain how Darwin’s theories influenced scientific and social developments from 1815 to 1914.

• KC-3.6.II.B Charles Darwin provided a scientific and material account of biological change and the development of human beings as a species, and inadvertently, a justification for racialist theories that became known as Social Darwinism.

7.5 The Age of Progress and Modernity

Thematic Focus (TSI): Technological and Scientific Innovation — Scientific and technological innovations have increased efficiency, improved daily life, and shaped human development and interactions, having both intended and unintended consequences.

Learning Objective Unit 7.F: Explain how science and other intellectual disciplines developed and changed throughout the period from 1815 to 1914.

• KC-3.6.II.A Positivism, or the philosophy that science alone provides knowledge, emphasized the rational and scientific analysis of nature and human affairs.
• KC-3.6.III In the later 19th century, a new relativism in values and the loss of confidence in the objectivity of knowledge led to modernism in intellectual and cultural life.
  • KC-3.6.III.A Philosophy largely moved from rational interpretations of nature and human society to an emphasis on irrationality and impulse, a view that contributed to the belief that conflict and struggle led to progress.
  • KC-3.6.III.B Freudian psychology offered a new account of human nature that emphasized the role of the irrational and the struggle between the conscious and subconscious.
  • KC-3.6.III.C Developments in the natural sciences, such as quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of relativity, undermined the primacy of Newtonian physics as an objective description of nature.

Illustrative examples:

• Philosophers who emphasized the irrational: §Bullet Friedrich Nietzsche §Bullet Georges Sorel §Bullet Henri Bergson Scientists who undermined the notion that Newtonian physics provided an objective knowledge of nature: §Bullet Max Planck

7.6 New Imperialism: Motivations and Methods

Thematic Focus (INT): Interaction of Europe and the World — Motivated by a variety of factors, Europe’s interaction with the world led to political, economic, social, and cultural exchanges that influenced both European and non-European societies.

Thematic Focus (TSI): Technological and Scientific Innovation — Scientific and technological innovations have increased efficiency, improved daily life, and shaped human development and interactions, having both intended and unintended consequences.

Learning Objective Unit 7.G: Explain the motivations that led to European imperialism in the period from 1815 to 1914.

• KC-3.5.I European nations were driven by economic, political, and cultural motivations in their new imperial ventures in Asia and Africa.
  • KC-3.5.I.A European national rivalries and strategic concerns fostered imperial expansion and competition for colonies.
  • KC-3.5.I.B The search for raw materials and markets for manufactured goods, as well as strategic and nationalistic considerations, drove Europeans to colonize Africa and Asia, even as European colonies in the Americas broke free politically, if not economically.
  • IKC-3.5.I.C European imperialists justified overseas expansion and rule by claiming cultural and racial superiority.

Learning Objective Unit 7.H: Explain how technological advances enabled European imperialism from 1815 to 1914.

• KC-3.5.II.A The development of advanced weaponry ensured the military advantage of Europeans over colonized areas.
• KC-3.5.II.B Communication and transportation technologies facilitated the creation and expansion of European empires.
• KC-3.5.II.C Advances in medicine enabled European survival in Africa and Asia.

Illustrative examples:

• Ideas of cultural and racial superiority: §Bullet “The White Man’s Burden” §Bullet Mission civilisatrice §Bullet Social Darwinism Advanced weaponry: §Bullet Minié ball (bullet) §Bullet Breech-loading rifle §Bullet Machine gun Communication and transportation technologies: §Bullet Steamships
  • Telegraph
  • Photography
• Advances in medicine: §Bullet Louis Pasteur’s germ theory of disease §Bullet Anesthesia and antiseptics §Bullet Public health projects §Bullet Quinine

7.8 19th-Century Culture and Arts

Thematic Focus (CID): Cultural and Intellectual Developments — The creation and transmission of knowledge, including the relationship between traditional sources of authority and the development of differing world views, had significant political, intellectual, economic, cultural, and social effects on European and world societies.

Learning Objective Unit 7.J: Explain the continuities and changes in European artistic expression from 1815 to 1914.

• KC-3.6.I Romanticism broke with Neoclassical forms of artistic representation and with rationalism, placing more emphasis on intuition and emotion.
• KC-3.6.I.A Romantic artists and composers broke from classical artistic forms to emphasize emotion, nature, individuality, intuition, the supernatural, and national histories in their works.
• KC-3.6.I.B Romantic writers expressed similar themes while responding to the Industrial Revolution and to various political revolutions.
• KC-3.6.II.D Realist and materialist themes and attitudes influenced art and literature as painters and writers depicted the lives of ordinary people and drew attention to social problems.
• KC-3.6.III.D Modern art, including Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Cubism, moved beyond the representational to the subjective, abstract, and expressive and often provoked audiences that believed that art should reflect shared and idealized values, including beauty and patriotism.

Illustrative examples:

• Romantic artists: §Bullet Francisco Goya §Bullet Caspar David Friedrich §Bullet J. M. W. Turner §Bullet John Constable §Bullet Eugène Delacroix Romantic composers: §Bullet Ludwig van Beethoven §Bullet Frédéric Chopin §Bullet Richard Wagner §Bullet Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Romantic writers: §Bullet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe §Bullet William Wordsworth §Bullet Lord Byron §Bullet Percy Shelley §Bullet John Keats §Bullet Mary Shelley §Bullet Victor Hugo Realist artists and authors: §Bullet Honoré de Balzac §Bullet Honoré Daumier §Bullet Charles Dickens §Bullet George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) §Bullet Gustave Courbet §Bullet Fyodor Dostoevsky §Bullet Jean-François Millet §Bullet Leo Tolstoy §Bullet Émile Zola §Bullet Thomas Hardy (CONT’D) Modern artists: §Bullet Claude Monet §Bullet Paul Cézanne §Bullet Henri Matisse §Bullet Edgar Degas §Bullet Pablo Picasso §Bullet Vincent Van Gogh

7.9 Causation in 19th-Century Perspectives and Political Developments

Learning Objective Unit 7.K: Explain the influence of nationalist and imperialist movements on European and global stability.

• KC-3.4 European states struggled to maintain international stability in an age of nationalism and revolutions.
  • KC-3.4.II The breakdown of the Concert of Europe opened the door for movements of national unification in Italy and Germany as well as liberal reforms elsewhere.
  • KC-3.4.III The unification of Italy and Germany transformed the European balance of power and led to efforts to construct a new diplomatic order.
• KC-3.5 A variety of motives and methods led to the intensification of European global control and increased tensions among the Great Powers.
  • KC-3.5.II Industrial and technological developments (e.g., the second industrial revolution) facilitated European control of global empires.
• KC-3.6 European ideas and culture expressed a tension between objectivity and scientific realism on one hand, and subjectivity and individual expression on the other.
  • KC-3.6.II Following the revolutions of 1848, Europe turned toward a realist and materialist worldview.