Origins of Early Modernity: Concepts Flashcards
What is the Key Takeaway for this section?
Ideas of early modern history (and Europe) is full of narratives about what history means.
These narratives are the product of humans making decisions about what to include and what to exclude
What is the west?
*Is it Europe?
*Is it Christianity?
*Is it capitalism?
*Cold War concept?
What is Civilization?
*Advanced forms of agricultural and social technology?
*Civilization is a moral concept
*How much “better” is civilization?
What is hegemony?
“The water we swim in”
Hegemony is the political, economic, and military predominance of one state over other states, either regional or global.
Ex. American cultural influence all over the world
A natural force/system that is so dominant in our lives it becomes almost invisible (Christianity, we use B.C = before Christ)
Explain how morality is applied to the term “civilization”
Civilized = Good
Uncivilized = Bad
Attaching morality to civlization
Explain Fukuyama’s opinion on The American Hegemony?
Liberal democracy as the goal of history (where we are going)
- with the fall of the soviet union= thinks liberal democracy wins forever.
Book: “End of History and the Last Man”
War on terror disproved Fukuyama (ppl flipped to conservatism out of fear of Muslims)
Explain Huntington’s opinion on The American Hegemony?
History is about conflict between Christianity and Islam.
- All of history led up to this, so clearly this was inevitable.
- “still on his bs”
Book “Clash of civilizations”
What is Teological history?
when historians assume that history has a purpose and try to uncover it
What is a Hinge period?
Era between the medieval world and the modern world
What is the invention of the self?
Rise of literacy and vernacular languages = more readers and writers (not just in latin now)
*“Discovery” of the Americas = new opportunities
*Reformation = personal conscience = secular states (kind of?)
Explain the black death periods vs the bubonic plague:
Black Death (The bubonic plague pandemic) ends in the 1350s but bubonic plague remains dangerous in Europe until the 18th century
Name the three dates considered early modernity, and why they are considered that:
(These are different point of views on when early modernity is)
1350-1750 = period where the bubonic plague remained a serious threat to Europeans, includes all of the Renaissance but cuts off midway through the Enlightenment
1450-1789 = European invention of the printing press to the beginning of the French Revolution, excludes the early part of the Renaissance but includes a lot more Enlightenment
1450-1815 = European invention of the printing press to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, excludes part of the Renaissance and goes for quite a while post-French Revolution
Where does the term “early modernity” come from?
Lynn Thorndike (1885-1965) coins the term in 1926 as an alternative to Renaissance
popularized in 1990s (economic historians)
What are the pros and cons of the term “early modernity”?
*Pros: global, internationally comprehensible, not laden with the baggage of “Reformation” or “Renaissance”
*Cons: vague, erases distinctions between Europe and the rest of the world, centers the European experienc
