13:Revolution, Nationalism and Liberalism in the long 19th century Flashcards
explain ideology as a concept
-systems of belief
-a set of ideas regulating moral, political and social action
who is associated with the term “long 19th century”?
Eric Hobsbawm
British Marxist Historian
explain the Long 19th century
-starts in 1789 with the French Revolution and ends with the outbreak of WW1
-century of defining characteristics and chronological signposts
-century of revolutionary ideologies: liberalism, nationalism, socialism
-a eurocentric approach to world history?
the Ancien Regime
-social and political system dominant in france from the 15th century to the French Revolution
-rigidly hierarchical, dominated by conservative forces in the interest of the aristocracy and the church
Hierarchy in the Ancien Regime
-absolute monarchs ruled by divine right
-first estate: the church
-second estate: the nobility
-third estate: the commoners
split into wealthy bourgeoisie and urban proletariat
rise of liberalism
-Influential 18th century thinkers developed new, liberal
ideas about war and peace
-Wars, they claimed, were
unnatural, arising from the
vested interests of the ruling aristocratic and religious
classes against those of the Third Estate
what was the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens”
August 1789
-core statement of the values of the French Revolution
-Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: “Men are
born and remain free and equal in rights”
-“These rights are liberty, property,
security, and resistance to oppression”
Revolution and media
-Newspapers, pamphlets, architecture, art
and music were mobilized behind the effort
to create a new society and a new citizen
-Declaration of the Rights of Man was
addressed to all mankind – the Revolution
would be exported
how did Benedict Anderson describe the ‘nation’ in 1983?
as an “imagined political community- and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign”
explain Anderson’s vision of the nation
-“imagined”: no member can know all other members, common ties exist in the mind
-“limited” nation is finite, has borders
-“sovereign”: political power exercised within the borders
how did the French Revolution imagine the nation?
As a community of citizens with legally defined rights
Explain the modernism perspective of nationalism
-nations are phenomena of the 19th & 20th centuries
-produced by the specific modern conditions of capitalism, industrialism, bureaucracy, mass communications and secularism
Explain the Perennialism perspective of nationalism
-nations have existed throughout history
-nations are the product of deep-rooted ethnicities and
traditions of language, folklore, customs, culture and history
How do nationalist political movements present the timeless nation ideal?
-construction of patriotic histories
-the use of rural national metaphors
-nationalist archaeology
explain Liberal Nationalism
-French Revolutionary idea of the nation-state as
the guarantor of liberty, equality and fraternity
-Demands for more representative forms of
government, press freedoms, and for limiting
the power of the Church and aristocracy within
newly constituted nation-states
