Armitage and Subrahmanyam Flashcards
Discuss the periodisation that Armitage and Subrahmanyam define for the age of revolutions. Why do they choose these periodical boundaries? What existing periodisations do they reject and what alternative periodisations would have been possible for their book?
Armitage and Subrahmanyam define the periodization for the age of revolutions as spanning from the Seven Years War (1756-63) to the beginning of the Anglo-Chinese Opium War (1839-42). They choose these periodical boundaries in order to encompass the major events and changes that occurred during this time, including the American and French Revolutions, the Industrial Revolution, and the collapse of the Iberian empires in the Atlantic world. These boundaries allow them to examine the global connections, causations, and comparisons of the revolutionary changes that took place during this period.
In their book, they reject existing periodizations that are Eurocentric or narrowly focused on specific events or regions. They aim to present a more expansive and interconnected view of the age of revolutions, encompassing a wide range of geographical areas and political, social, and economic changes.
Alternative periodizations that could have been possible for their book include focusing on specific revolutions or movements, such as the American Revolution, the French Revolution, or the Industrial Revolution, and their global impacts. However, Armitage and Subrahmanyam’s choice to define the age of revolutions as spanning from the Seven Years War to the beginning of the Anglo-Chinese Opium War allows for a more comprehensive and inclusive examination of the interconnected global changes that occurred during this transformative period.
How do Armitage and Subrahmanyam conceive of the relationship between political and economic change in the period they study?
Armitage and Subrahmanyam conceive the relationship between political and economic change in their study period as interconnected and mutually influential. They emphasise the contingent nature of processes in the Age of Revolutions, highlighting the diverse dimensions of political change and the heterogeneous nature of economic transformations during this period.
They argue that political revolutions produced dramatic changes in regimes in many parts of Western Europe, the Mediterranean, South Asia, and the Atlantic world. However, they also note that these political revolutions affected vast areas such as Qing China, Tokugawa Japan, Tsarist Russia, and Habsburg Central Europe less directly. This suggests that the relationship between political and economic change was not uniform across different regions.
Furthermore, they stress the field of the ‘political’ as an opening into a field of interdisciplinary exploration, indicating that political and economic questions are linked causally. They also discuss the influence of political ideology and practice in the second half of the eighteenth century, highlighting how the American Revolution set off a wave of radical, even utopian, thinking wherever the waters of the Atlantic tumbled ashore.
Overall, Armitage and Subrahmanyam’s conception of the relationship between political and economic change in the Age of Revolutions is characterized by complexity, contingency, and the interplay of diverse regional and global factors.
