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8. Atlantic Revolutions, Global Echos

Global context

World crisis

early 18th to mid-19th
expensive wars, weakening states, destabilization
1730s: Safavid dynasty (Persia) for several century completely collapsed
Mughal Empire (India) fragmented
⁠
Wahhabi movement
⁠
(India) threatened Ottoman Empire → political upheavals in Central Asia, elsewhere
Russian Empire under Catherine the Great experienced peasant uprisings
China hosted popular yet unsuccessful rebellions—prelude to Taiping revolution
Islamic revolutions (West Africa)
mfecane (breaking/crushing) wars/migrations (southern Africa) led to creation of new states

Distinction

the wars that strained European imperial states were global, not regional
Seven Years’ War (1754-63)
Britain and France joined battle in North America, Caribbean, West Africa, South Asia
costs of conflict
British levied additional taxes on North American colonies
French monarchy sought new revenue from landowners
contributed to launching of North American and French revolutions
closely connected to one another
Thomas Jefferson (American) was the US ambassador to France during the French Revolution
Simón Bolívar (Spanish American independence leader) visited Haiti and received military aid from first Black government in Americas

Ideas

Common

Atlantic basin became world of intellectual, cultural exchange
derived from European Enlightenment
heart: human political and social arrangements could be engineered and improved upon by human action
long-held beliefs came under attack
divine right of kings
state control of trade
aristocratic privilege
authority of single church
new ideas emerged
liberty
equality
free trade
religious tolerance
republicanism
human rationality
“popular sovereignty”: authority to govern derived from the people, not God or established tradition
“social contract” between ruler and ruled should last only as long as it served the people well (John Locke, English)
18th/19th: ideas largely limited to Atlantic world
in Asia and Middle East, republican political systems were virtually inconceivable until later

Controversies

were liberty and equality compatible?
what kind of government (unitary/centralized, federal/decentralized) best ensured freedom?
how far should liberty be extended?
chief beneficiaries of revolutions were mostly propertied middle-class white men (except in Haiti)
women, slaves, Native Americans, men without property did not gain much from revolutions
ideas sparked future
democratic revolutions: goal is to extend political rights further than ever before

Impact

extended well beyond Atlantic world
revolutionary French armies invaded Egypt, Germany, Poland, Russia
inspired many other countries
abolish slavery
extend right to vote
develop constitutions
grant greater equality to women
human equality later in feminism, socialism, communism
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted by UN in 1948)
echoed/amplified principles of revolutions
basis for more protests against oppression, tyranny, deprivation

World crisis
Distinction
Ideas
Common
Controversies
Impact
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