History of Western civilization

Western civilization traces its roots back to Europe and the

Mediterranean. It is linked to ancient Greece, the Roman
Empire and with Medieval Western Christendom which
emerged from the Middle Ages to experience such
transformative episodes as the Renaissance, the
Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution,
scientific revolution, and the development of liberal
democracy. The civilizations of Classical Greece and
Ancient Rome are considered seminal periods in Western
history; a few cultural contributions also emerged from the
pagan peoples of pre-Christian Europe, such as the Celts
The School of Athens, a famous fresco by the
and Germans, as well as some significant religious
Italian Renaissance artist Raphael, with Plato
contributions derived from Judaism and Hellenistic Judaism
and Aristotle as the central figures in the scene
stemming back to Second Temple Judea, Galilee, and the
early Jewish diaspora;[1][2][3] and some other Middle
Eastern influences.[4] Western Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization,
which throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture. (There were Christians
outside of the West, such as China, India, Russia, Byzantium and the Middle East).[5][6][7][8][9] Western
civilization has spread to produce the dominant cultures of modern Americas and Oceania, and has had
immense global influence in recent centuries in many ways.

Following the 5th century Fall of Rome, Europe entered the Middle Ages, during which period the Catholic
Church filled the power vacuum left in the West by the fall of the Western Roman Empire, while the Eastern
Roman Empire (or Byzantine Empire) endured in the East for centuries, becoming a Hellenic Eastern contrast
to the Latin West. By the 12th century, Western Europe was experiencing a flowering of art and learning,
propelled by the construction of cathedrals, the establishment of medieval universities, and greater contact with
the medieval Islamic world via Al-Andalus and Sicily, from where Arabic texts on science and philosophy
were translated into Latin. Christian unity was shattered by the Reformation from the 16th century. A merchant
class grew out of city states, initially in the Italian peninsula (see Italian city-states), and Europe experienced
the Renaissance from the 14th to the 17th century, heralding an age of technological and artistic advance and
ushering in the Age of Discovery which saw the rise of such global European Empires as those of Spain and
Portugal.

The Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the 18th century. Under the influence of the Enlightenment, the
Age of Revolution emerged from the United States and France as part of the transformation of the West into its
industrialised, democratised modern form. The lands of North and South America, South Africa, Australia and
New Zealand became first part of European Empires and then home to new Western nations, while Africa and
Asia were largely carved up between Western powers. Laboratories of Western democracy were founded in
Britain's colonies in Australasia from the mid-19th centuries, while South America largely created new
autocracies. In the 20th century, absolute monarchy disappeared from Europe, and despite episodes of Fascism
and Communism, by the close of the century, virtually all of Europe was electing its leaders democratically.
Most Western nations were heavily involved in the First and Second World Wars and protracted Cold War.
World War II saw Fascism defeated in Europe, and the emergence of the United States and Soviet Union as
rival global powers and a new "East-West" political contrast.
Other than in Russia, the European Empires disintegrated after World War II and civil rights movements and
widescale multi-ethnic, multi-faith migrations to Europe, the Americas and Oceania lowered the earlier
predominance of ethnic Europeans in Western culture. European nations moved towards greater economic and
political co-operation through the European Union. The Cold War ended around 1990 with the collapse of
Soviet-imposed Communism in Central and Eastern Europe. In the 21st century, the Western World retains
significant global economic power and influence. The West has contributed a great many technological,
political, philosophical, artistic and religious aspects to modern international culture: having been a crucible of
Catholicism, Protestantism, democracy, industrialisation; the first major civilisation to seek to abolish slavery
during the 19th century, the first to enfranchise women (beginning in Australasia at the end of the 19th
century) and the first to put to use such technologies as steam, electric and nuclear power. The West invented
cinema, television, the personal computer and the Internet; produced artists such as Michelangelo,
Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Bach, and Mozart; developed sports such as soccer, cricket, golf, tennis, rugby and
basketball; and transported humans to an astronomical object for the first time with the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon
Landing.

Contents
Antiquity: before AD 500
The Middle Ages
Early Middle Ages: 500–1000
High Middle Ages: 1000–1300
Late Middle Ages: 1300–1500
Renaissance & Reformation
The Renaissance: 14th to 17th century
The Reformation: 1500–1650
Rise of Western empires: 1500–1800
Enlightenment
Absolutism and the Enlightenment: 1500–1800
Revolution: 1770–1815
Napoleonic Wars
Rise of the English-speaking world: 1815–1870
Industrial Revolution in the English-speaking world
United Kingdom: 1815–1870
British Empire: 1815–1870
Canada: 1815–1870
Australia and New Zealand: 1815-1870
United States: 1815–1870
Continental Europe: 1815–1870
Culture, arts and sciences 1815–1914
New imperialism: 1870–1914
Great powers and the First World War: 1870–1918
United States: 1870–1914
Europe: 1870–1914
British dominions: 1870–1914
New alliances
 World War I
Inter-war years: 1918–1939
United States in the inter-war years
Europe in the inter-war years
British dominions in the inter-war years
Rise of totalitarianism
Second World War and its aftermath: 1939–1950
Fall of the western empires: 1945–1999
Cold War: 1945–1991
Western countries: 1945–1980
United States: 1945–1980
Europe
British Empire and Commonwealth 1945–1980
Britain
Canada
Australia and New Zealand: 1945–1980
Western culture: 1945–1980
Western nations: 1980–present
Western nations and the world
Western society and culture (since 1980)
Historiography
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Antiquity: before AD 500

The Middle Ages

Early Middle Ages: 500–1000

While the Roman Empire and Christian religion survived in an increasingly Hellenised form in the Byzantine
Empire centered at Constantinople in the East, Western civilization suffered a collapse of literacy and
organization following the fall of Rome in AD 476. Gradually however, the Christian religion re-asserted its
influence over Western Europe.

After the Fall of Rome, the papacy served as a source of authority and continuity. In the absence of a magister
militum living in Rome, even the control of military matters fell to the pope. Gregory the Great (c 540–604)
administered the church with strict reform. A trained Roman lawyer and administrator, and a monk, he
represents the shift from the classical to the medieval outlook and was a father of many of the structures of the
later Roman Catholic Church. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he
looked upon Church and State as co-operating to form a united whole, which
acted in two distinct spheres, ecclesiastical and secular, but by the time of his
death, the papacy was the great power in Italy:[10]

Pope Gregory the Great made himself in Italy a power stronger

than emperor or exarch, and established a political influence
which dominated the peninsula for centuries. From this time forth
the varied populations of Italy looked to the pope for guidance,
and Rome as the papal capital continued to be the center of the
Christian world.

The Book of Kells.

According to tradition, it was a Romanized Briton, Saint Patrick who
introduced Christianity to Ireland around the 5th century. Roman legions had
never conquered Ireland, and as the Western Roman Empire collapsed,
Christianity managed to survive there. Monks sought out refuge at the far
fringes of the known world: like Cornwall, Ireland, or the Hebrides.
Disciplined scholarship carried on in isolated outposts like Skellig Michael in
Ireland, where literate monks became some of the last preservers in Western
Europe of the poetic and philosophical works of Western antiquity.[11]

By around 800 they were producing illuminated manuscripts such as the

Book of Kells. The missions of Gaelic monasteries led by monks like St
Columba spread Christianity back into Western Europe during the Middle
Ages, establishing monasteries initially in northern Britain, then through
Anglo-Saxon England and the Frankish Empire during the Middle Ages.
Thomas Cahill, in his 1995 book How the Irish Saved Civilization, credited
Irish Monks with having "saved" Western Civilization during this period.[12]
According to art historian Kenneth Clark, for some five centuries after the fall Danish seamen, painted
of Rome, virtually all men of intellect joined the Church and practically mid-12th century. The Viking
nobody in western Europe outside of monastic settlements had the ability to Age saw Norseman explore,
read or write.[11] raid, conquer and trade
through wide areas of the
Around AD 500, Clovis I, the King of the Franks, became a Christian and West.
united Gaul under his rule. Later in the 6th century, the Byzantine Empire
restored its rule in much of Italy and Spain. Missionaries sent from Ireland by
the Pope helped to convert England to Christianity in the 6th century as well, restoring that faith as the
dominant in Western Europe.

Muhammed, the founder and Prophet of Islam was born in Mecca in AD 570. Working as a trader he
encountered the ideas of Christianity and Judaism on the fringes of the Byzantine Empire, and around 610
began preaching of a new monotheistic religion, Islam, and in 622 became the civil and spiritual leader of
Medina, soon after conquering Mecca in 630. Dying in 632, Muhammed's new creed conquered first the
Arabian tribes, then the great Byzantine cities of Damascus in 635 and Jerusalem in 636. A multiethnic Islamic
empire was established across the formerly Roman Middle East and North Africa. By the early 8th century,
Iberia and Sicily had fallen to the Muslims. By the 9th century, Malta, Cyprus, and Crete had fallen – and for a
time the region of Septimania.[13]

Only in 732 was the Muslim advance into Europe stopped by the Frankish leader Charles Martel, saving Gaul
and the rest of the West from conquest by Islam. From this time, the "West" became synonymous with
Christendom, the territory ruled by Christian powers, as Oriental Christianity fell to dhimmi status under the
Muslim Caliphates. The cause to liberate the "Holy Land" remained a major focus throughout medieval
history, fueling many consecutive crusades, only the first of which was successful (although it resulted in many
atrocities, in Europe as well as elsewhere).

Charlemagne ("Charles the Great" in English) became king of the Franks. He conquered Gaul (modern day
France), northern Spain, Saxony, and northern and central Italy. In 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne
Holy Roman Emperor. Under his rule, his subjects in non-Christian lands like Germany converted to
Christianity.

After his reign, the empire he created broke apart into the
kingdom of France (from Francia meaning "land of the
Franks"), Holy Roman Empire and the kingdom in
between (containing modern day Switzerland, northern-
Italy, Eastern France and the low-countries).

Starting in the late 8th century, the Vikings began

seaborne attacks on the towns and villages of Europe.
Eventually, they turned from raiding to conquest, and
conquered Ireland, most of England, and northern France
(Normandy). These conquests were not long-lasting,
however. In 954 Alfred the Great drove the Vikings out
of England, which he united under his rule, and Viking
rule in Ireland ended as well. In Normandy the Vikings A map showing Charlemagne's additions (in light
adopted French culture and language, became Christians green) to the Frankish Kingdom
and were absorbed into the native population.

By the beginning of the 11th century Scandinavia was divided into three kingdoms, Norway, Sweden, and
Denmark, all of which were Christian and part of Western civilization. Norse explorers reached Iceland,
Greenland, and even North America, however only Iceland was permanently settled by the Norse. A period of
warm temperatures from around 1000–1200 enabled the establishment of a Norse outpost in Greenland in 985,
which survived for some 400 years as the most westerly outpost of Christendom. From here, Norseman
attempted their short-lived European colony in North America, five centuries before Columbus.[13]

In the 10th century another marauding group of warriors swept through Europe, the Magyars. They eventually
settled in what is today Hungary, converted to Christianity and became the ancestors of the Hungarian people.

A West Slavic people, the Poles, formed a unified state by the 10th century and having adopted Christianity
also in the 10th century[14][15] but with pagan rising in the 11th century.

By the start of the second millennium AD, the West had become divided linguistically into three major groups.
The Romance languages, based on Latin, the language of the Romans, the Germanic languages, and the Celtic
languages. The most widely spoken Romance languages were French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Four
widely spoken Germanic languages were English, German, Dutch, and Danish. Irish and Scots Gaelic were
two widely spoken Celtic languages in the British Isles.

High Middle Ages: 1000–1300

Art historian Kenneth Clark wrote that Western Europe's first "great age of civilisation" was ready to begin
around the year 1000. From 1100, he wrote: "every branch of life – action, philosophy, organisation,
technology [experienced an] extraordinary outpouring of energy, an intensification of existence". Upon this
period rests the foundations of many of Europe's subsequent achievements. By Clark's account, the Catholic
Church was very powerful, essentially internationalist and democratic in its structures and run by monastic
organisations generally following the Rule of Saint Benedict. Men of
intelligence usually joined religious orders and those of intellectual,
administrative or diplomatic skill could advance beyond the usual
restraints of society – leading churchmen from faraway lands were
accepted in local bishoprics, linking European thought across wide
distances. Complexes like the Abbey of Cluny became vibrant centres
with dependencies spread throughout Europe. Ordinary people also
treked vast distances on pilgrimages to express their piety and pray at
the site of holy relics. Monumental abbeys and cathedrals were
constructed and decorated with sculptures, hangings, mosaics and
works belonging to one of the greatest epochs of art and providing
stark contrast to the monotonous and cramped conditions of ordinary
living. Abbot Suger of the Abbey of St. Denis is considered an
influential early patron of Gothic architecture and believed that love of
beauty brought people closer to God: "The dull mind rises to truth
through that which is material". Clark calls this "the intellectual
background of all the sublime works of art of the next century and in The Mongol invasion of Rus':
fact has remained the basis of our belief of the value of art until Sacking of Suzdal by Batu Khan
today".[11] (1238). From the medieval Russian
annals.
By the year 1000 feudalism had become the dominant social,
economic and political system. At the top of society was the monarch,
who gave land to nobles in exchange for loyalty. The nobles gave land to vassals, who served as knights to
defend their monarch or noble. Under the vassals were the peasants or serfs. The feudal system thrived as long
as peasants needed protection by the nobility from invasions originating inside and outside of Europe. So as
the 11th century progressed, the feudal system declined along with the threat of invasion.

In 1054, after centuries of strained relations, the Great Schism occurred over
differences in doctrine, splitting the Christian world between the Catholic
Church, centered in Rome and dominant in the West, and the Orthodox
Church, centered in Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. The last
pagan land in Europe was converted to Christianity with the conversion of the
Baltic peoples in the High Middle Ages, bringing them into Western
civilization as well.

As the Medieval period progressed, the aristocratic military ideal of Chivalry

and institution of knighthood based around courtesy and service to others
became culturally important. Large Gothic cathedrals of extraordinary artistic
and architectural intricacy were constructed throughout Europe, including
Canterbury Cathedral in England, Cologne Cathedral in Germany and
Chartres Cathedral in France (called the "epitome of the first great awakening The Abbey of St. Denis,
in European civilisation" by Kenneth Clark[11]). The period produced ever France. Abbot Suger of this
more extravagant art and architecture, but also the virtuous simplicity of such Abbey was an early patron
as St Francis of Assisi (expressed in the Prayer of St Francis) and the epic of the extraordinary artistic
poetry of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. As the Church grew more achievements of the epoch.
powerful and wealthy, many sought reform. The Dominican and Franciscan
Orders were founded, which emphasized poverty and spirituality.

Women were in many respects excluded from political and mercantile life, however, leading churchwomen
were an exception. Medieval abbesses and female superiors of monastic houses were powerful figures whose
influence could rival that of male bishops and abbots: "They treated with kings, bishops, and the greatest lords
on terms of perfect equality;. . . they were present at all great religious and national solemnities, at the
dedication of churches, and even, like the queens, took part in the deliberation of the national
assemblies...".[16] The increasing popularity of devotion to the Virgin Mary
(the mother of Jesus) secured maternal virtue as a central cultural theme of
Catholic Europe. Kenneth Clark wrote that the 'Cult of the Virgin' in the early
12th century "had taught a race of tough and ruthless barbarians the virtues of
tenderness and compassion".[11]

In 1095, Pope Urban II called for a Crusade to re-conquer the Holy Land
from Muslim rule, when the Seljuk Turks prevented Christians from visiting
the holy sites there. For centuries prior to the emergence of Islam, Asia Minor
and much of the Mid East had been a part of the Roman and later Byzantine
Empires. The Crusades were originally launched in response to a call from the
Byzantine Emperor for help to fight the expansion of the Turks into Anatolia.
The First Crusade succeeded in its task, but at a serious cost on the home
front, and the crusaders established rule over the Holy Land. However,
Muslim forces reconquered the land by the 13th century, and subsequent Barons forced King John of
crusades were not very successful. The specific crusades to restore Christian England to sign the Magna
control of the Holy Land were fought over a period of nearly 200 years, Carta laying early
between 1095 and 1291. Other campaigns in Spain and Portugal (the foundations for the evolution
Reconquista), and Northern Crusades continued into the 15th century. The of constitutional monarchy.
Crusades had major far-reaching political, economic, and social impacts on
Europe. They further served to alienate Eastern and Western Christendom
from each other and ultimately failed to prevent the march of the Turks into
Europe through the Balkans and the Caucasus.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, many of the classical Greek texts were
translated into Arabic and preserved in the medieval Islamic world, from
where the Greek classics along with Arabic science and philosophy were
transmitted to Western Europe and translated into Latin during the
Renaissance of the 12th century and 13th century.[17][18][19]

Cathedral schools began in the Early Middle Ages as centers of advanced

education, some of them ultimately evolving into medieval universities. Saint Thomas Aquinas was
During the High Middle Ages, Chartres Cathedral operated the famous and one of the most influential
influential Chartres Cathedral School. The medieval universities of Western scholars of the Medieval
Christendom were well-integrated across all of Western Europe, encouraged period.
freedom of enquiry and produced a great variety of fine scholars and natural
philosophers, including Robert Grosseteste of the University of Oxford, an
early expositor of a systematic method of scientific experimentation;[20] and Saint Albert the Great, a pioneer
of biological field research[21] The Italian University of Bologna is considered the oldest continually operating
university.

Philosophy in the High Middle Ages focused on religious topics. Christian Platonism, which modified Plato's
idea of the separation between the ideal world of the forms and the imperfect world of their physical
manifestations to the Christian division between the imperfect body and the higher soul was at first the
dominant school of thought. However, in the 12th century the works of Aristotle were reintroduced to the
West, which resulted in a new school of inquiry known as scholasticism, which emphasized scientific
observation. Two important philosophers of this period were Saint Anselm and Saint Thomas Aquinas, both of
whom were concerned with proving God's existence through philosophical means. The Summa Theologica by
Aquinas was one of the most influential documents in medieval philosophy and Thomism continues to be
studied today in philosophy classes. Theologian Peter Abelard wrote in 1122 "I must understand in order that I
may believe... by doubting we come to questioning, and by questioning we perceive the truth".[11]
In Normandy, the Vikings adopted French culture and language, mixed with the native population of mostly
Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock and became known as the Normans. They played a major political, military,
and cultural role in medieval Europe and even the Near East. They were famed for their martial spirit and
Christian piety. They quickly adopted the Romance language of the land they settled in, their dialect becoming
known as Norman, an important literary language. The Duchy of Normandy, which they formed by treaty
with the French crown, was one of the great large fiefs of medieval France. The Normans are famed both for
their culture, such as their unique Romanesque architecture, and their musical traditions, as well as for their
military accomplishments and innovations. Norman adventurers established a kingdom in Sicily and southern
Italy by conquest, and a Norman expedition on behalf of their duke led to the Norman Conquest of England.
Norman influence spread from these new centres to the Crusader States in the Near East, to Scotland and
Wales in Great Britain, and to Ireland.

Relations between the major powers in Western society: the nobility, monarchy and clergy, sometimes
produced conflict. If a monarch attempted to challenge church power, condemnation from the church could
mean a total loss of support among the nobles, peasants, and other monarchs. Holy Roman Emperor Henry
IV, one of the most powerful men of the 11th century, stood three days bare-headed in the snow at Canossa in
1077, in order to reverse his excommunication by Pope Gregory VII. As monarchies centralized their power
as the Middle Ages progressed, nobles tried to maintain their own authority. The sophisticated Court of Holy
Roman Emperor Frederick II was based in Sicily, where Norman, Byzantine, and Islamic civilization had
intermingled. His realm stretched through Southern Italy, through Germany and in 1229, he crowned himself
King of Jerusalem. His reign saw tension and rivalry with the Papacy over control of Northern Italy.[22] A
patron of education, Frederick founded the University of Naples.

Plantagenet kings first ruled the Kingdom of England in the 12th century. Henry V left his mark with a famous
victory against larger numbers at the Battle of Agincourt, while Richard the Lionheart, who had earlier
distinguished himself in the Third Crusade, was later romanticised as an iconic figure in English folklore. A
distinctive English culture emerged under the Plantagenets, encouraged by some of the monarchs who were
patrons of the "father of English poetry", Geoffrey Chaucer. The Gothic architecture style was popular during
the time, with buildings such as Westminster Abbey remodelled in that style. King John's sealing of the Magna
Carta was influential in the development of common law and constitutional law. The 1215 Charter required
the King to proclaim certain liberties, and accept that his will was not arbitrary — for example by explicitly
accepting that no "freeman" (non-serf) could be punished except through the law of the land, a right which is
still in existence today. Political institutions such as the Parliament of England and the Model Parliament
originate from the Plantagenet period, as do educational institutions including the universities of Cambridge
and Oxford.

From the 12th century onward inventiveness had re-asserted itself outside of the Viking north and the Islamic
south of Europe. Universities flourished, mining of coal commenced, and crucial technological advances such
as the lock, which enabled sail ships to reach the thriving Belgian city of Bruges via canals, and the deep sea
ship guided by magnetic compass and rudder were invented.[13]

Late Middle Ages: 1300–1500

A cooling in temperatures after about 1150 saw leaner harvests across Europe and consequent shortages of
food and flax material for clothing. Famines increased and in 1316 serious famine gripped Ypres. In 1410, the
last of the Greenland Norseman abandoned their colony to the ice. From Central Asia, Mongol invasions
progressed towards Europe throughout the 13th century, resulting in the vast Mongol Empire which became
the largest empire of history and ruled over almost half of the human population and expanded through the
world by 1300.[13]
The Papacy had its court at Avignon from 1305 to 1378[23] This arose from
the conflict between the Papacy and the French crown. A total of seven popes
reigned at Avignon; all were French, and all were increasingly under the
influence of the French crown. Finally in 1377 Gregory XI, in part because of
the entreaties of the mystic Saint Catherine of Sienna, restored the Holy See to
Rome, officially ending the Avignon papacy.[24] However, in 1378 the
breakdown in relations between the cardinals and Gregory's successor, Urban
VI, gave rise to the Western Schism — which saw another line of Avignon
Popes set up as rivals to Rome (subsequent Catholic history does not grant
them legitimacy).[25] The period helped weaken the prestige of the Papacy in
the buildup to the Protestant Reformation.
Christopher Columbus
In the Later Middle Ages the Black Plague struck Europe, arriving in 1348.
Europe was overwhelmed by the outbreak of bubonic plague, probably
brought to Europe by the Mongols. The fleas hosted by rats carried the
disease and it devastated Europe. Major cities like Paris, Hamburg, Venice
and Florence lost half their population. Around 20 million people – up to a
third of Europe's population – died from the plague before it receded. The
plague periodically returned over the coming centuries.[13]

The last centuries of the Middle Ages saw the waging of the Hundred Years'
War between England and France. The war began in 1337 when the king of
France laid claim to English-ruled Gascony in southern France, and the king
of England claimed to be the rightful king of France. At first, the English
conquered half of France and seemed likely to win the war, until the French
were rallied by a peasant girl, who would later become a saint, Joan of Arc.
Although she was captured and executed by the English, the French fought
on and won the war in 1453. After the war, France gained all of Normandy
excluding the city of Calais, which it gained in 1558. Saint Joan of Arc

Following the Mongols from Central Asia came the Ottoman Turks. By 1400
they had captured most of modern-day Turkey and extended their rule into
Europe through the Balkans and as far as the Danube, surrounding even the
fabled city of Constantinople. Finally, in 1453, one of Europe's greatest cities
fell to the Turks.[13] The Ottomans under the command of Sultan Mehmed II,
fought a vastly outnumbered defending army commanded by Emperor
Constantine XI — the last "Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire" — and
blasted down the ancient walls with the terrifying new weaponry of the
cannon. The Ottoman conquests sent refugee Greek scholars westward,
contributing to the revival of the West's knowledge of the learning of Classical
Antiquity.

Probably the first clock in Europe was installed in a Milan church in 1335,
hinting at the dawning mechanical age.[13] By the 14th century, the middle
class in Europe had grown in influence and number as the feudal system
declined. This spurred the growth of towns and cities in the West and The siege of Constantinople
improved the economy of Europe. This, in turn helped begin a cultural in 1453 (contemporary
movement in the West known as the Renaissance, which began in Italy. Italy miniature)
was dominated by city-states, many of which were nominally part of the Holy
Roman Empire, and were ruled by wealthy aristocrats like the Medicis, or in
some cases, by the pope.
Renaissance & Reformation

The Renaissance: 14th to 17th century

The Renaissance, originating from Italy, ushered in a new age of scientific

and intellectual inquiry and appreciation of ancient Greek and Roman
civilizations. The merchant cities of Florence, Genoa, Ghent, Nuremberg,
Geneva, Zürich, Lisbon and Seville provided patrons of the arts and sciences
and unleashed a flurry of activity.

The Medici became the leading family of Florence and fostered and inspired
the birth of the Italian Renaissance along with other families of Italy, such as
the Visconti and Sforza of Milan, the Este of Ferrara, and the Gonzaga of
Mantua. Greatest artists like Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Da Vinci, Michelangelo,
Giotto, Donatello, Titian and Raphael produced inspired works – their
paintwork was more realistic-looking than had been created by Medieval
artists and their marble statues rivalled and sometimes surpassed those of
The humanist Desiderius Classical Antiquity. Michelangelo carved his masterpiece David from marble
Erasmus who wrote In between 1501 and 1504.
Praise of Folly, one of the
most significant works of Humanist historian Leonardo Bruni, split the history in the antiquity, Middle
Renaissance literature. Ages and modern period.

Churches began being built in the

Romanesque style for the first time in
centuries. While art and architecture
flourished in Italy and then the
Netherlands, religious reformers
flowered in Germany and
Switzerland; printing was
establishing itself in the Rhineland
and navigators were embarking on
extraordinary voyages of discovery
from Portugal and Spain.[13]

Around 1450, Johannes Gutenberg

The printing press. developed a printing press, which Filippo Brunelleschi, one of the key
Gutenberg's invention had a allowed works of literature to spread figures in architecture and the
great impact on social and more quickly. Secular thinkers like founder of the Renaissance.
political developments.
Machiavelli re-examined the history
of Rome to draw lessons for civic
governance. Theologians revisited the works of St Augustine. Important
thinkers of the Renaissance in Northern Europe included the Catholic humanists Desiderius Erasmus, a Dutch
theologian, and the English statesman and philosopher Thomas More, who wrote the seminal work Utopia in
1516. Humanism was an important development to emerge from the Renaissance. It placed importance on the
study of human nature and worldly topics rather than religious ones. Important humanists of the time included
the writers Petrarch and Boccaccio, who wrote in both Latin as had been done in the Middle Ages, as well as
the vernacular, in their case Tuscan Italian.
As the calendar reached the year 1500, Europe was blossoming –
with Leonardo da Vinci painting his Mona Lisa portrait not long after
Christopher Columbus reached the Americas (1492), Amerigo
Vespucci proofed that America is not a part of India and hence the
new world derived from his name, the Portuguese navigator Vasco Da
Gama sailed around Africa into the Indian Ocean and Michelangelo
completed his paintings of Old Testament themes on the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel in Rome (the expense of such artistic exuberance did
much to spur the likes of Martin Luther in Northern Europe in their
protests against the Church of Rome).[13] St. Peter's Basilica from the River
Tiber in Rome, Italy. The dome,
For the first time in European history, events North of the Alps and on completed in 1590, was designed by
the Atlantic Coast were taking centre stage.[13] Important artists of Michelangelo, architect, painter and
this period included Bosch, Dürer, and Breugel. In Spain Miguel de poet.
Cervantes wrote the novel Don Quixote, other important works of
literature in this period were the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey
Chaucer and Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory. The most famous
playwright of the era was the Englishman William Shakespeare whose
sonnets and plays (including Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth) are
considered some of the finest works ever written in the English language.

Meanwhile, the Christian kingdoms of northern Iberia continued their

centuries-long fight to reconquer the peninsula from its Muslim rulers. In
1492, the last Islamic stronghold, Granada, fell, and Iberia was divided
between the Christian kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. Iberia's Jewish and
Muslim minorities were forced to convert to Catholicism or be exiled. The
Portuguese immediately looked to expand outward sending expeditions to
explore the coasts of Africa and engage in trade with the mostly Muslim
powers on the Indian Ocean, making Portugal wealthy. In 1492, a Spanish
Leonardo da Vinci's
expedition of Christopher Columbus found the Americas during an attempt to
Vitruvian Man.
find a western route to East Asia.

From the East, however, the Ottoman Turks under Suleiman the Magnificent
continued their advance into the heart of Christian Europe — besieging
Vienna in 1529.[13]

The 16th century saw the flowering of the Renaissance in the rest of the West.
In the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus
deduced that the geocentric model of the universe was incorrect, and that in
fact the planets revolve around the sun. In the Netherlands, the invention of
the telescope and the microscope resulted in the investigation of the universe
and the microscopic world. The father of modern science Galileo and
Christiaan Huygens developed more advance telescopes and used these in
their scientific research. The father of microbiology, Antonie van
Leeuwenhoek pioneered the use of the microscope in the study of microbes Galileo Galilei, father of
and established microbiology as a scientific discipline. Advances in medicine modern science, physics
and understanding of the human anatomy also increased in this time. and observational
Gerolamo Cardano partially invented several machines and introduced astronomy.
essential mathematics theories. In England, Sir Isaac Newton pioneered the
science of physics. These events led to the so-called scientific revolution,
which emphasized experimentation.
The Reformation: 1500–1650

The other major movement in the West in the 16th century was the
Reformation, which would profoundly change the West and end its religious
unity. The Reformation began in 1517 when the Catholic monk Martin Luther
wrote his 95 Theses, which denounced the wealth and corruption of the
church, as well as many Catholic beliefs, including the institution of the
papacy and the belief that, in addition to faith in Christ, "good works" were
also necessary for salvation. Luther drew on the beliefs of earlier church
critics, like the Bohemian Jan Hus and the Englishman John Wycliffe.
Luther's beliefs eventually ended in his excommunication from the Catholic
Church and the founding of a church based on his teachings: the Lutheran Antonie van Leeuwenhoek,
Church, which became the majority religion in northern Germany. Soon other the father of microbiology,
reformers emerged, and their followers became known as Protestants. In cell biology and
1525, Ducal Prussia became the first Lutheran state. bacteriology.

In the 1540s the Frenchman John Calvin founded a church in Geneva which
forbade alcohol and dancing, and which taught God had selected those
destined to be saved from the beginning of time. His Calvinist Church gained
about half of Switzerland and churches based on his teachings became
dominant in the Netherlands (the Dutch Reformed Church) and Scotland (the
Presbyterian Church). In England, when the Pope failed to grant King Henry
VIII a divorce, he declared himself head of the Church in England (founding
what would evolve into today's Church of England and Anglican
Communion). Some Englishmen felt the church was still too similar to the
Catholic Church and formed the more radical Puritanism. Many other small
Protestant sects were formed, including Zwinglianism, Anabaptism and
Mennonism. Although they were different in many ways, Protestants
generally called their religious leaders ministers instead of priests, and
believed only the Bible, and not Tradition offered divine revelation. Niccolò Machiavelli, founder
of modern political science
Britain and the Dutch Republic allowed Protestant dissenters to migrate to and ethics
their North American colonies – thus the future United States found its early
Protestant ethos – while Protestants were forbidden to migrate to the Spanish
colonies (thus South America retained its Catholic hue). A more democratic
organisational structure within some of the new Protestant movements – as in
the Calvinists of New England – did much also to foster a democratic spirit in
Britain's American colonies.[13]

The Catholic Church responded to the Reformation with the Counter

Reformation. Some of Luther and Calvin's criticisms were heeded: the selling
of indulgences was reined in by the Council of Trent in 1562. But exuberant
baroque architecture and art was embraced as an affirmation of the faith and
new seminaries and orders were established to lead missions to far off
lands.[13] An important leader in this movement was Saint Ignatius of Loyola,
founder of the Society of Jesus (Jesuit Order) which gained many converts
and sent such famous missionaries as Saints Matteo Ricci to China, Francis
Xavier to India and Peter Claver to the Americas.

As princes, kings and emperors chose sides in religious debates and sought
William Shakespeare's First
national unity, religious wars erupted throughout Europe, especially in the Folio
Holy Roman Empire. Emperor Charles V was able to arrange the Peace of
Augsburg between the warring Catholic and Protestant nobility. However, in
1618, the Thirty Years' War began between Protestants and Catholics in the
empire, which eventually involved neighboring countries like France. The
devastating war finally ended in 1648. In the Peace of Westphalia ending the
war, Lutheranism, Catholicism and Calvinism were all granted toleration in
the empire. The two major centers of power in the empire after the war were
Protestant Prussia in the north and Catholic Austria in the south. The Dutch,
who were ruled by the Spanish at the time, revolted and gained independence,
founding a Protestant country. The Elizabethan era is famous above all for the
flourishing of English drama, led by playwrights such as William Shakespeare
and for the seafaring prowess of English adventurers such as Sir Francis
Drake. Her 44 years on the throne provided welcome stability and helped Martin Luther, Protestant
forge a sense of national identity. One of her first moves as queen was to Reformer
support the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she
became the Supreme Governor of what was to become the Church of
England.

By 1650, the religious map of Europe had been redrawn: Scandinavia,

Iceland, north Germany, part of Switzerland, Netherlands and Britain were
Protestant, while the rest of the West remained Catholic. A byproduct of the
Reformation was increasing literacy as Protestant powers pursued an aim of
educating more people to be able to read the Bible.

Rise of Western empires: 1500–1800

From its dawn until modern times, the West had suffered invasions from
Africa, Asia, and non-Western parts of Europe. By 1500 Westerners took Saint Ignatius Loyola,
advantage of their new technologies, sallied forth into unknown waters, founder of the Jesuits and a
expanded their power and the Age of Discovery began, with Western leader of the Counter-
explorers from seafaring nations like Portugal and Castile (later Spain) and Reformation.
later Holland, France and England setting forth from the "Old World" to chart
faraway shipping routes and discover "new worlds".

In 1492, the Genovese born mariner, Christopher Columbus set out under the
auspices of the Crown of Castile (Spain) to seek an oversea route to the East
Indies via the Atlantic Ocean. Rather than Asia, Columbus landed in the
Bahamas, in the Caribbean. Spanish colonization followed and Europe
established Western Civilization in the Americas. The Portuguese explorer
Vasco da Gama led the first sailing expedition directly from Europe to India in
1497–1499, by the Atlantic and Indian oceans, opening up the possibility of Portrait of Elizabeth I of
trade with the East other than via perilous overland routes like the Silk Road. England.
Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer working for the Spanish Crown
(under the Crown of Castile), led an expedition in 1519–1522 which became
the first to sail from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific Ocean and the first to cross the Pacific. The Spanish
explorer Juan Sebastián Elcano completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth (Magellan was killed in the
Philippines).

The Americas were deeply affected by European expansion, due to conquest, sickness, and introduction of
new technologies and ways of life. The Spanish Conquistadors conquered most of the Caribbean islands and
overran the two great New World empires: the Aztec Empire of Mexico and the Inca Empire of Peru. From
there, Spain conquered about half of South America, all of Central America and much of North America.
Portugal also expanded in the Americas, attempting to establish some fishing colonies in northern North
America first (with a relatively limited duration) and conquering half of South America and calling their
 colony Brazil. These Western powers were
aided not only by superior technology like
gunpowder, but also by Old World diseases
which they inadvertently brought with them,
and which wiped out large segments of the
Amerindian population. The native
populations, called Indians by Columbus,
since he originally thought he had landed in
Asia (but often called Amerindians by
scholars today), were converted to
Catholicism and adopted the language of
their rulers, either Spanish or Portuguese.
The discovery of the New
World by Italian explorer
They also adopted much of Western culture. Henry the Navigator was a
Christopher Columbus Many Iberian settlers arrived, and many of key personality in European
them intermarried with the Amerindians exploration in Africa and
resulting in a so-called Mestizo population, Asia.
which became the majority of the population of Spain's American empires.

Other powers to arrive in the Americas were the Swedes, Dutch, English, and
French. The Dutch, English, and French all established colonies in the
Caribbean and each established a small South American colony. The French
established two large colonies in North America, Louisiana in the center of
the continent and New France in the northeast of the continent. The French
were not as intrusive as the Iberians were and had relatively good relations
with the Amerindians, although there were areas of relatively heavy
settlement like New Orleans and Quebec. Many French missionaries were
successful in converting Amerindians to Catholicism. On North America's
Atlantic coast, the Swedes established New Sweden. This colony was
eventually conquered by the nearby Dutch colony of New Netherland
(including New Amsterdam). New Netherland itself was eventually
conquered by England and renamed New York. Although England's
The Portuguese explorer
American empire began in what is today Canada, they soon focused their
Vasco Da Gama unlocked
attention to the south, where they established thirteen colonies on North
the sea route from Europe to
America's Atlantic coast. The English were unique in that rather than
India (1497–1499).
attempting to convert the Amerindians, they simply settled their colonies with
Englishmen and pushed the Amerindians off their lands.

In the Americas, it seems that only the most remote peoples managed to stave
off complete assimilation by Western and Western-fashioned governments.
These include some of the northern peoples (i.e., Inuit), some peoples in the
Yucatán, Amazonian forest dwellers, and various Andean groups. Of these,
the Quechua people, Aymara people, and Maya people are the most The Russian conquest of
numerous- at around 10–11 million, 2 million, and 7 million, respectively. Siberia began in July 1580
Bolivia is the only American country with a majority Amerindian population. when some 540 Cossacks
under Yermak Timofeyevich
Contact between the Old and New Worlds produced the Columbian invaded the territory of the
Exchange, named after Columbus. It involved the transfer of goods unique to Voguls, subjects to Küçüm,
one hemisphere to another. Westerners brought cattle, horses, and sheep to the the Khan of Siberia.
New World, and from the New World Europeans received tobacco, potatoes,
and bananas. Other items becoming important in global trade were the
sugarcane and cotton crops of the Americas, and the gold and silver brought from the Americas not only to
Europe but elsewhere in the Old World.
Much of the land of the Americas was uncultivated, and Western powers
were determined to make use of it. At the same time, tribal West African
rulers were eager to trade their prisoners of war, and even members of their
own tribes as slaves to the West. The West began purchasing slaves in large
numbers and sending them to the Americas. This slavery was unique in world
history for several reasons. Firstly, since only black Africans were enslaved, a
racial component entered into Western slavery which had not existed in any
other society to the extent it did in the West. Another important difference The French navigator
between slavery in the West and slavery elsewhere was the treatment of Samuel de Champlain
slaves. Unlike in some other cultures, slaves in the West were used primarily founded Quebec City, New
as field workers. Western empires differed in how often manumission was France (modern Canada) in
granted to slaves, with it being rather common in Spanish colonies, for 1608.
example, but rare in English ones. Many Westerners did eventually come to
question the morality of slavery. This early anti-slavery movement, mostly
among clergy and political thinkers, was countered by pro-slavery forces by
the introduction of the idea that blacks were inferior to European whites,
mostly because they were non-Christians, and therefore it was acceptable to
treat them without dignity. This idea resulted in racism in the West, as people
began feeling all blacks were inferior to whites, regardless of their religion.
Once in the Americas, blacks adopted much of Western culture and the
languages of their masters. They also converted to Christianity.
The arrival of Jan van
After trading with African rulers for some time, Westerners began establishing Riebeeck, leading the first
colonies in Africa. The Portuguese conquered ports in North, West and East European settlement in
Africa and inland territory in what is today Angola and Mozambique. They South Africa.
also established relations with the Kingdom of Kongo in central Africa
before, and eventually the Kongolese converted to Catholicism. The Dutch
established colonies in modern-day South Africa, which attracted many Dutch
settlers. Western powers also established colonies in West Africa. However,
most of the continent remained unknown to Westerners and their colonies
were restricted to Africa's coasts.

Westerners also expanded in Asia. The Portuguese controlled port cities in the
East Indies, India, Persian Gulf, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and China. During
this time, the Dutch began their colonisation of the Indonesian archipelago,
Robert Clive, 1st Baron
which became the Dutch East Indies in the early 19th century, and gained port
Clive, became the first
cities in Sri Lanka and Malaysia and India. Spain conquered the Philippines British Governor of Bengal
and converted the inhabitants to Catholicism. Missionaries from Iberia and was a key figure in the
(including some from Italy and France) gained many converts in Japan until establishment of British
Christianity was outlawed by Japan's emperor. Some Chinese also became India.
Christian, although most did not. Most of India was divided up between
England and France.

As Western powers expanded they competed for land and resources. In the Caribbean, pirates attacked each
other and the navies and colonial cities of countries, in hopes of stealing gold and other valuables from a ship
or city. This was sometimes supported by governments. For example, England supported the pirate Sir Francis
Drake in raids against the Spanish. Between 1652 and 1678, the three Anglo-Dutch wars were fought, of
which the last two were won by the Dutch. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, England gained New
Netherland (which was traded with Suriname and Dutch South Africa. In 1756, the Seven Years' War, or
French and Indian War began. It involved several powers fighting on several continents. In North America,
English soldiers and colonial troops defeated the French, and in India the French were also defeated by
England. In Europe Prussia defeated Austria. When the war ended in 1763, New France and eastern
 Louisiana were ceded to England, while western Louisiana was given to
Spain. France's lands in India were ceded to England. Prussia was given rule
over more territory in what is today Germany.

The Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon had been the first documented
Westerner to land in Australia in 1606[26][27][28] Another Dutchman, Abel
Tasman later touched mainland Australia, and mapped Tasmania and New
Zealand for the first time, in the 1640s. The English navigator James Cook
became first to map the east coast of Australia in 1770. Cook's extraordinary
seamanship greatly expanded European awareness of far shores and oceans:
his first voyage reported favourably on the prospects of colonisation of
Australia; his second voyage ventured almost to Antarctica (disproving long
The British navigator held European hopes of an undiscovered Great Southern Continent); and his
Captain James Cook led third voyage explored the Pacific coasts of North America and Siberia and
three great voyages of brought him to Hawaii, where an ill-advised return after a lengthy stay saw
discovery in the Pacific, him clubbed to death by natives.[29]
mapping the East Coast of
Australia, sailing into the Europe's period of expansion in early modern times greatly changed the
Antarctic Circle and world. New crops from the Americas improved European diets. This,
becoming the first European combined with an improved economy thanks to Europe's new network of
to reach Hawaii. colonies, led to a demographic revolution in the West, with infant mortality
dropping, and Europeans getting married younger and having more children.
The West became more sophisticated economically, adopting Mercantilism, in
which companies were state-owned and colonies existed for the good of the mother country.

Enlightenment

Absolutism and the Enlightenment: 1500–1800

The West in the early modern era went through great changes as the
traditional balance between monarchy, nobility and clergy shifted. With the
feudal system all but gone, nobles lost their traditional source of power.
Meanwhile, in Protestant countries, the church was now often headed by a
monarch, while in Catholic countries, conflicts between monarchs and the
Church rarely occurred and monarchs were able to wield greater power than
they ever had in Western history. Under the doctrine of the Divine right of
kings, monarchs believed they were only answerable to God: thus giving rise
to absolutism.
Charles V was ruler of the
Holy Roman Empire from At the opening of the 15th century, tensions were still going on between Islam
1519 and, as Charles I, of and Christianity. Europe, dominated by Christians, remained under threat
the Spanish Empire from from the Muslim Ottoman Turks. The Turks had migrated from central to
1516 until his voluntary western Asia and converted to Islam years earlier. Their capture of
abdication in 1556. Constantinople in 1453, thus extinguishing the Eastern Roman Empire, was a
crowning achievement for the new Ottoman Empire. They continued to
expand across the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans. Under the
leadership of the Spanish, a Christian coalition destroyed the Ottoman navy at the battle of Lepanto in 1571
ending their naval control of the Mediterranean. However, the Ottoman threat to Europe was not ended until a
Polish led coalition defeated the Ottoman at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.[30][31] The Turks were driven out of
Buda (the eastern part of Budapest they had occupied for a century), Belgrade, and Athens – though Athens
was to be recaptured and held until 1829.[13]
 The 16th century is often called Spain's Siglo de Oro (golden century). From
its colonies in the Americas it gained large quantities of gold and silver, which
helped make Spain the richest and most powerful country in the world. One
of the greatest Spanish monarchs of the era was Charles I (1516–1556, who
also held the title of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V). His attempt to unite
these lands was thwarted by the divisions caused by the Reformation and
ambitions of local rulers and rival rulers from other countries. Another great
monarch was Philip II (1556–1598), whose reign was marked by several
Reformation conflicts, like the loss of the Netherlands and the Spanish
Armada. These events and an excess of spending would lead to a great
decline in Spanish power and influence by the 17th century.

After Spain began to decline in the 17th century, the Dutch, by virtue of its
Cesare Beccaria was the
most talented jurist of the
sailing ships, became the greatest world power, leading the 17th century to be
Enlightenment and a father
called the Dutch Golden Age. The Dutch followed Portugal and Spain in
of classical criminal theory establishing an overseas colonial empire — often under the corporate
colonialism model of the East India and West India Companies. After the
Anglo-Dutch Wars, France and England
emerged as the two greatest powers in the
18th century.

Louis XIV became king of France in 1643.

His reign was one of the most opulent in
European history. He built a large palace in
the town of Versailles.

The Holy Roman Emperor exerted no great

influence on the lands of the Holy Roman
Empire by the end of the Thirty Years' War.
In the north of the empire, Prussia emerged as
John V of Portugal's reign
a powerful Protestant nation. Under many
saw an exuberant period for gifted rulers, like King Frederick the Great,
Portrait of Peter I of Russia
Portugal, with colonial Prussia expanded its power and defeated its
(1672-1725). Under his
success and domestic rival Austria many times in war. Ruled by the
reign, Russia looked
production. Habsburg dynasty, Austria became a great westward. Heavily
empire, expanding at the expense of the influenced by advisors from
Ottoman Empire and Hungary. Western Europe, he
implemented sweeping
One land where absolutism did not take hold was England, which had trouble reforms aimed at
with revolutionaries. Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry VIII, had left no direct modernizing Russia.
heir to the throne. The rightful heir was actually James VI of Scotland, who
was crowned James I of England. James's son, Charles I resisted the power of
Parliament. When Charles attempted to shut down Parliament, the Parliamentarians rose up and soon all of
England was involved in a civil war. The English Civil War ended in 1649 with the defeat and execution of
Charles I. Parliament declared a kingless Commonwealth but soon appointed the anti-absolutist leader and
staunch Puritan Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector. Cromwell enacted many unpopular Puritan religious laws
in England, like outlawing alcohol and theaters, although religious diversity may have grown. (It was
Cromwell, after all, that invited the Jews back into England after the Edict of Expulsion.) After his death, the
monarchy was restored under Charles's son, who was crowned Charles II. His son, James II succeeded him.
James and his infant son were Catholics. Not wanting to be ruled by a Catholic dynasty, Parliament invited
James's daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange, to rule as co-monarchs. They agreed on the
condition James would not be harmed. Realizing he could not count on the Protestant English army to defend
him, he abdicated following the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Before William III and Mary II were crowned
however, Parliament forced them to sign the English Bill of Rights, which
guaranteed some basic rights to all Englishmen, granted religious freedom to
non-Anglican Protestants, and firmly established the rights of Parliament. In
1707, the Act of Union of 1707 were passed by the parliaments of Scotland
and England, merging Scotland and England into a single Kingdom of Great
Britain, with a single parliament. This new kingdom also controlled Ireland
which had previously been conquered by England. Following the Irish
Rebellion of 1798, in 1801 Ireland was formally merged with Great Britain to
form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Ruled by the
Protestant Ascendancy, Ireland eventually became an English-speaking land,
though the majority population preserved distinct cultural and religious
outlooks, remaining predomininantly Catholic except in parts of Ulster and Voltaire, French
Dublin. By then, the British experience had already contributed to the Enlightenment writer,
American Revolution. philosopher and wit.

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was an important European center for

the development of modern social and political ideas. It was famous for its
rare quasi-democratic political system, praised by philosophers such as
Erasmus; and, during the Counter-Reformation, was known for near-
unparalleled religious tolerance, with peacefully coexisting Catholic, Jewish,
Eastern Orthodox, Protestant and Muslim communities. With its political
system the Commonwealth gave birth to political philosophers such as
Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski (1503–1572), Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki
(1530–1607) and Piotr Skarga (1536–1612). Later, works by Stanisław
Staszic (1755–1826) and Hugo Kołłątaj (1750–1812) helped pave the way
for the Constitution of 3 May 1791, which historian Norman Davies calls "the
first constitution of its kind in Europe".[32] Polish–Lithuanian
Commonwealth's constitution enacted revolutionary political principles for the
first time on the European continent. The Komisja Edukacji Narodowej,
Isaac Newton discovered
Polish for Commission of National Education, formed in 1773, was the universal gravitation and the
world's first national Ministry of Education and an important achievement of laws of motion.
the Polish Enlightenment.

The intellectual
movement called the
Age of Enlightenment
began in this period as
well. Its proponents
opposed the absolute
rule of the monarchs,
and instead emphasized
the equality of all
individuals and the idea
3 May Constitution, by Matejko (1891). King
that governments should
Stanisław August (left) enters St. John's Cathedral,
derive their existence
where deputies will swear to uphold the
Constitution. Background: Warsaw's Royal Castle,
from the consent of the
where it has just been adopted. governed.
Louis XVI of France by
Enlightenment thinkers Antoine-François Callet.
called philosophes
(French for philosophers) idealized Europe's classical heritage. They looked at
Athenian democracy and the Roman republic as ideal governments. They believed reason held the key to
creating an ideal society.
The Englishman Francis Bacon espoused the idea that senses should be the
primary means of knowing, while the Frenchman René Descartes advocated
using reason over the senses. In his works, Descartes was concerned with
using reason to prove his own existence and the existence of the external
world, including God. Another belief system became popular among
philosophes, Deism, which taught that a single god had created but did not
interfere with the world. This belief system never gained popular support and
largely died out by the early 19th century.

Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher, best known today for his work
on political philosophy. His 1651 book Leviathan established the foundation
for most of Western political philosophy from the perspective of social
contract theory.[33] The theory was examined also by John Locke (Second David Hume, an important
figure in the Scottish
Treatise of Government (1689)) and Rousseau (Du contrat social (1762)).
Enlightenment.
Social contract arguments examine the appropriate relationship between
government and the governed and posit that individuals unite into political
societies by a process of mutual consent, agreeing to abide by common rules
and accept corresponding duties to protect themselves and one another from violence and other kinds of harm.

In 1690 John Locke wrote that people have certain natural rights like life, liberty and property and that
governments were created in order to protect these rights. If they did not, according to Locke, the people had a
right to overthrow their government. The French philosopher Voltaire criticized the monarchy and the Church
for what he saw as hypocrisy and for their persecution of people of other faiths. Another Frenchman,
Montesquieu, advocated division of government into executive, legislative and judicial branches. The French
author Rousseau stated in his works that society corrupted individuals. Many monarchs were affected by these
ideas, and they became known to history as the enlightened despots. However, most only supported
Enlightenment ideas that strengthened their own power.

The Scottish Enlightenment was a period in 18th century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of
intellectual and scientific accomplishments. Scotland reaped the benefits of establishing Europe's first public
education system and a growth in trade which followed the Act of Union with England of 1707 and expansion
of the British Empire. Important modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were
developed by the philosopher/historian David Hume. Adam Smith developed and published The Wealth of
Nations, the first work in modern economics. He believed competition and private enterprise could increase
the common good. The celebrated bard Robert Burns is still widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland.

European cities like Paris, London, and Vienna grew into large metropolises in early modern times. France
became the cultural center of the West. The middle class grew even more influential and wealthy. Great artists
of this period included El Greco, Rembrandt, and Caravaggio.

By this time, many around the world wondered how the West had become so advanced, for example, the
Orthodox Christian Russians, who came to power after conquering the Mongols that had conquered Kiev in
the Middle Ages. They began westernizing under Czar Peter the Great, although Russia remained uniquely
part of its own civilization. The Russians became involved in European politics, dividing up the Polish–
Lithuanian Commonwealth with Prussia and Austria.

Revolution: 1770–1815

During the late 18th century and early 19th century, much of the West experienced a series of revolutions that
would change the course of history, resulting in new ideologies and changes in society.
The first of these revolutions began in North America. Britain's 13
American colonies had by this time developed their own sophisticated
economy and culture, largely based on Britain's. The majority of the
population was of British descent, while significant minorities
included people of Irish, Dutch and German descent, as well as some
Amerindians and many black slaves. Most of the population was
Anglican, others were Congregationalist or Puritan, while minorities
included other Protestant churches like the Society of Friends and the
Lutherans, as well as some Roman Catholics and Jews. The colonies
had their own great cities and universities and continually welcomed
new immigrants, mostly from Britain. After the expensive Seven
Years' War, Britain needed to raise revenue, and felt the colonists
should bare the brunt of the new taxation it felt was necessary. The
colonists greatly resented these taxes and protested the fact they could
be taxed by Britain but had no representation in the government.
The U.S. Constitution
After Britain's King George III refused to seriously consider colonial
grievances raised at the first Continental Congress, some colonists
took up arms. Leaders of a new pro-independence movement were
influenced by Enlightenment ideals and hoped to bring an ideal nation
into existence. On 4 July 1776, the colonies declared independence
with the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence.
Drafted primarily by Thomas Jefferson, the document's preamble
eloquently outlines the principles of governance that would come to
increasingly dominate Western thinking over the ensuing century and
a half:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that

all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A
That to secure these rights, Governments are Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
instituted among Men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed,
That whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute new Government.

George Washington led the new Continental Army against the British forces, who had many successes early in
this American Revolution. After years of fighting, the colonists formed an alliance with France and defeated
the British at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781. The treaty ending the war granted independence to the colonies,
which became The United States of America.

The other major Western revolution at the turn of the 19th century was the French Revolution. In 1789 France
faced an economical crisis. The King called, for the first time in more than two centuries, the Estates General,
an assembly of representatives of each estate of the kingdom: the First Estate (the clergy), the Second Estate
(the nobility), and the Third Estate (middle class and peasants); in order to deal with the crisis. As the French
society was gained by the same Enlightenment ideals that led to the American revolution, in which many
Frenchmen, such as Lafayette, took part; representatives of the Third Estate, joined by some representatives of
the lower clergy, created the National Assembly, which, unlike the Estates General, provided the common
people of France with a voice proportionate to their numbers.

The people of Paris feared the King would try to stop the work of the National Assembly and Paris was soon
consumed with riots, anarchy, and widespread looting. The mobs soon had the support of the French Guard,
including arms and trained soldiers, because the royal leadership essentially abandoned the city. On the
fourteenth of July 1789 a mob stormed the Bastille, a prison fortress, which led the King to accept the changes.
On 4 August 1789 the National Constituent Assembly abolished feudalism sweeping away both the
seigneurial rights of the Second Estate and the tithes gathered by the First Estate. It was the first time in
Europe, where feudalism was the norm for centuries, that such a thing happened. In the course of a few hours,
nobles, clergy, towns, provinces, companies, and cities lost their special privileges.

At first, the revolution seemed to be turning France into a constitutional monarchy, but the other continental
Europe powers feared a spread of the revolutionary ideals and eventually went to war with France. In 1792
King Louis XVI was imprisoned after he had been captured fleeing Paris and the Republic was declared. The
Imperial and Prussian armies threatened retaliation on the French population should it resist their advance or
the reinstatement of the monarchy. As a consequence, King Louis was seen as conspiring with the enemies of
France. His execution on 21 January 1793 led to more wars with other European countries. During this period
France effectively became a dictatorship after the parliamentary coup of the radical leaders, the Jacobin. Their
leader, Robespierre oversaw the Reign of Terror, in which thousands of people deemed disloyal to the republic
were executed. Finally, in 1794, Robespierre himself was arrested and executed, and more moderate deputies
took power. This led to a new government, the French Directory. In 1799, a coup overthrew the Directory and
General Napoleon Bonaparte seized power as dictator and even an emperor in 1804.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité (French for "Liberty, equality, fraternity"),[34] now the national motto of France, had
its origins during the French Revolution, though it was only later institutionalised. It remains another iconic
motto of the aspirations of Western governance in the modern world.

Some influential intellectuals came to reject the excesses of the revolutionary movement. Political theorist
Edmund Burke had supported the American Revolution, but turned against the French Revolution and
developed a political theory which opposed governing based on abstract ideas, and preferred 'organic' reform.
He is remembered as a father of modern Anglo-conservatism. In response to such critiques, the American
revolutionary Thomas Paine published his book The Rights of Man in 1791 as a defence of the ideals of the
French Revolution. The spirit of the age also produced early works of feminist philosophy – notably Mary
Wollstonecraft's 1792 book: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of conflicts involving Napoleon's French Empire and changing sets of
European allies by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by
the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionized European armies and played out on an unprecedented
scale, mainly due to the application of modern mass conscription. French power rose quickly, conquering most
of Europe, but collapsed rapidly after France's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. Napoleon's empire
ultimately suffered complete military defeat resulting in the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France.
The wars resulted in the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and sowed the seeds of nascent nationalism in
Germany and Italy that would lead to the two nations' consolidation later in the century. Meanwhile, the
Spanish Empire began to unravel as French occupation of Spain weakened Spain's hold over its colonies,
providing an opening for nationalist revolutions in Spanish America. As a direct result of the Napoleonic wars,
the British Empire became the foremost world power for the next century,[35] thus beginning Pax Britannica.
 France had to fight on multiple battlefronts against the other European
powers. A nationwide conscription was voted to reinforce the old
royal army made of noble officers and professional soldiers. With this
new kind of army, Napoleon was able to beat the European allies and
dominate Europe. The revolutionary ideals, based no more on
feudalism but on the concept of a sovereign nation, spread all over
Europe. When Napoleon eventually lost and the monarchy reinstated
in France these ideals survived and led to the revolutionary waves of
the 19th century that brought democracy to many European countries.

With the success of the American Revolution, the Spanish Empire

also began to crumble as their American colonies sought
independence as well. In 1808, when Joseph Bonaparte was installed
as the Spanish King by the Napoleonic French, the Spanish resistance
resorted to governing Juntas. When the Supreme Central Junta of
Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). Seville fell to the French in 1810, the Spanish American colonies
In 1800 Bonaparte took the French
developed themselves governing Juntas in the name of the deposed
Army across the Alps, eventually
King Ferdinand VII (upon the concept known as "Retroversion of the
defeating the Austrians at Marengo
Sovereignty to the People"). As this process led to open conflicts
between independentists and loyalists, the Spanish American
Independence Wars immediately ensued; resulting, by the 1820s, in
the definitive loss for the Spanish Empire of all its American territories, with the exception of Cuba and Puerto
Rico.

Rise of the English-speaking world: 1815–1870

The years following Britain's victory in the Napoleonic Wars were a period of
expansion for the United Kingdom and its former American colonies, which
now made up the United States. This period of expansion would help
establish Anglicanism as the dominant religion, English as the dominant
language, and English and Anglo-American culture as the dominant culture of
two continents and many other lands outside the British Isles.

Industrial Revolution in the English-speaking world

Possibly the greatest change in the

English-speaking world and the West
as a whole following the Napoleonic
Queen Victoria in her early
Wars was the Industrial Revolution.
twenties, by Franz Xaver
The revolution began in Britain,
Winterhalter
where Thomas Newcomen
developed a steam engine in 1712 to
pump seeping water out of mines. This engine at first was powered by
water, but later other fuels like coal and wood were used. Steam
A Watt steam engine, the steam
power had first been developed by the Ancient Greeks, but it was the
engine fuelled primarily by coal that
British that first learned to use steam power effectively. In 1804, the propelled the Industrial Revolution in
first steam powered railroad locomotive was developed in Britain, Great Britain and the world.
which allowed goods and people to be transported at faster speeds
than ever before in history. Soon, large numbers of goods were being
produced in factories. This resulted in great societal changes, and many people settled in the cities where the
factories were located. Factory work could often be brutal. With no safety regulations, people became sick
from contaminants in the air in textile mills for, example. Many workers were also horribly maimed by
dangerous factory machinery. Since workers relied only on their small wages for sustenance, entire families
were forced to work, including children. These and other problems caused by industrialism resulted in some
reforms by the mid-19th century. The economic model of the West also began to change, with mercantilism
being replaced by capitalism, in which companies, and later, large corporations, were run by individual
investor(s).

New ideological movements began as a result of the Industrial Revolution, including the Luddite movement,
which opposed machinery, feeling it did not benefit the common good, and the socialists, whose beliefs
usually included the elimination of private property and the sharing of industrial wealth. Unions were founded
among industrial workers to help secure better wages and rights. Another result of the revolution was a change
in societal hierarchy, especially in Europe, where nobility still occupied a high level on the social ladder.
Capitalists emerged as a new powerful group, with educated professionals like doctors and lawyers under
them, and the various industrial workers at the bottom. These changes were often slow however, with Western
society as a whole remaining primarily agricultural for decades.

United Kingdom: 1815–1870

From 1837 until 1901, Queen Victoria reigned over the

United Kingdom and the ever-expanding British Empire.
The Industrial Revolution had begun in Britain and
during the 19th century it became the most powerful
Western nation. Britain also enjoyed relative peace and
stability from 1815 until 1914, this period is often called
the Pax Britannica, from the Latin "British Peace". This
period also saw the evolution of British constitutional
monarchy, with the monarch being more a figurehead
and symbol of national identity than actual head of state,
with that role being taken over by the Prime Minister, the
leader of the ruling party in Parliament. Two dominant
parties emerging in Parliament in this time were the The British Empire in 1897
Conservative Party and the Liberal Party. The Liberal
constituency was made up mostly of businessmen, as
many Liberals supported the idea of a free market. Conservatives were supported by the aristocracy and
farmers. Control of Parliament switched back and forth between the parties during the 19th century, but overall
the century was a period of reform. In 1832 more representation was granted to new industrial cities, and laws
barring Catholics from serving in Parliament were repealed, although discrimination against Catholics,
especially Irish Catholics, continued. Other reforms granted near universal manhood suffrage, and state-
supported elementary education for all Britons. More rights were granted to workers as well.

Ireland had been ruled from London since the Middle Ages. After the Protestant Reformation the British
Establishment began a campaign of discrimination against Roman Catholic and Presbyterian Irish, who lacked
many rights under the Penal Laws, and the majority of the agricultural land was owned by the Protestant
Ascendancy. Great Britain and Ireland had become a single nation ruled from London without the
autonomous Parliament of Ireland after the Act of Union of 1800 was passed, creating the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland. In the mid-19th century, Ireland suffered a devastating famine, which killed 10% of
the population[36] and led to massive emigration: see Irish diaspora.

British Empire: 1815–1870

Throughout the 19th century, Britain's power grew enormously and
the sun quite literally "never set" on the British Empire, for it had
outposts on every occupied continent. It consolidated control over
such far flung territories as Canada and British Guiana in the
Americas, Australia and New Zealand in Oceania; Malaya, Hong
Kong and Singapore in the Far East and a line of colonial possessions
from Egypt to the Cape of Good Hope through Africa. All of India
was under British rule by 1870.

In 1804, the Shah of the declining Mughal Empire had formally

accepted the protection of the British East India Company. Many The British Raj.
Britons settled in India, establishing a ruling class. They then
expanded into neighbouring Burma. Among the British born in India
were the immensely influential writers Rudyard Kipling (1865) and George Orwell (1903).

In the Far East, Britain went to war with the ruling Qing Dynasty of China when it tried to stop Britain from
selling the dangerous drug opium to the Chinese people. The First Opium War (1840–1842), ended in a
British victory, and China was forced to remove barriers to British trade and cede several ports and the island
of Hong Kong to Britain. Soon, other powers sought these same privileges with China and China was forced
to agree, ending Chinese isolation from the rest of the world. In 1853 an American expedition opened up
Japan to trade with first the U.S., and then the rest of the world.

In 1833 Britain outlawed slavery throughout its empire after a successful campaign by abolitionists, and
Britain had a great deal of success attempting to get other powers to outlaw the practice as well.

As British settlement of southern Africa continued, the descendants of the Dutch in southern Africa, called the
Boers or Afrikaners, whom Britain had ruled since the Anglo-Dutch Wars, migrated northward, disliking
British rule. Explorers and missionaries like David Livingstone became national heroes. Cecil Rhodes founded
Rhodesia and a British army under Lord Kitchener secured control of Sudan in the 1898 Battle of Omdurman.

Canada: 1815–1870

Following the American Revolution, many Loyalists to Britain fled

north to what is today Canada (where they were called United Empire
Loyalists). Joined by mostly British colonists, they helped establish
early colonies like Ontario and New Brunswick. British settlement in
North America increased, and soon there were several colonies both
north and west of the early ones in the northeast of the continent,
these new ones included British Columbia and Prince Edward Island.
Rebellions broke out against British rule in 1837, but Britain appeased
the rebels' supporters in 1867 by confederating the colonies into
Canada, with its own prime minister. Although Canada was still
firmly within the British Empire, its people now enjoyed a great Historical territorial expansion of
degree of self-rule. Canada was unique in the British Empire in that it Canada
had a French-speaking province, Quebec, which Britain had gained
rule over in the Seven Years' War.

Australia and New Zealand: 1815-1870

The First Fleet of British convicts arrived at New South Wales, Australia in 1788 and established a British
outpost and penal colony at Sydney Cove. These convicts were often petty 'criminals', and represented the
population spill-over of Britain's Industrial Revolution, as a result of the rapid urbanisation and dire crowding
 of British cities. Other convicts were political dissidents, particularly
from Ireland. The establishment of a wool industry and the
enlightened governorship of Lachlan Macquarie were instrumental in
transforming New South Wales from a notorious prison outpost into a
budding civil society. Further colonies were established around the
perimeter of the continent and European explorers ventured deep
inland. A free colony was established at South Australia in 1836 with
a vision for a province of the British Empire with political and
religious freedoms. The colony became a cradle of democratic reform.
The Australian gold rushes increased prosperity and cultural diversity
and autonomous democratic parliaments began to be established from
the 1850s onward.[37]
Territorial expansion of Australia.
The native inhabitants of Australia, called the Aborigines, lived as
hunter gatherers before European arrival. The population, never large,
was largely dispossessed without treaty agreements nor compensations through the 19th century by the
expansion of European agriculture, and, as had occurred when Europeans arrived in North and South
America, faced superior European weaponry and suffered greatly from exposure to old world diseases such as
smallpox, to which they had no biological immunity.

From the early 19th century, New Zealand was being visited by explorers, sailors, missionaries, traders and
adventurers and was administered by Britain from the nearby colony at New South Wales. In 1840 Britain
signed the Treaty of Waitangi with the natives of New Zealand, the Māori, in which Britain gained sovereignty
over the archipelago. As British settlers arrived, clashes resulted and the British fought several wars before
defeating the Māori. By 1870, New Zealand had a population made up mostly of Britons and their
descendants.

United States: 1815–1870

Following independence from Britain, the United States began

expanding westward, and soon a number of new states had joined the
union. In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory
from France, whose emperor, Napoleon I, had regained it from Spain.
Soon, America's growing population was settling the Louisiana
Territory, which geographically doubled the size of the country. At the
same time, a series of revolutions and independence movements in
Spain and Portugal's American empires resulted in the liberation of
nearly all of Latin America, as the region composed of South Historical territorial expansion of the
America, most of the Caribbean, and North America from Mexico United States
south became known. At first Spain and its allies seemed ready to try
to reconquer the colonies, but the U.S. and Britain opposed this, and
the reconquest never took place. From 1821 on, the U.S. bordered the newly independent nation of Mexico.
An early problem faced by the Mexican republic was what to do with its sparsely populated northern
territories, which today make up a large part of the American West. The government decided to try to attract
Americans looking for land. Americans arrived in such large numbers that both the provinces of Texas and
California had majority white, English-speaking populations. This led to a culture clash between these
provinces and the rest of Mexico. When Mexico became a dictatorship under General Antonio López de Santa
Anna, the Texans declared independence. After several battles, Texas gained independence from Mexico,
although Mexico later claimed it still had a right to Texas. After existing as a republic modeled after the U.S.
for several years, Texas joined the United States in 1845. This led to border disputes between the U.S. and
Mexico, resulting in the Mexican–American War. The war ended with an American victory, and Mexico had
to cede all its northern territories to the United States, and recognize the independence of California, which had
revolted against Mexico during the war. In 1850, California joined the United
States. In 1848, the U.S. and Britain resolved a border dispute over territory
on the Pacific coast, called the Oregon Country by giving Britain the northern
part and the U.S. the southern part. In 1867, the U.S. expanded again,
purchasing the Russian colony of Alaska, in northwestern North America.

Politically, the U.S. became more democratic with the abolishment of property
requirements in voting, although voting remained restricted to white males.
By the mid-19th century, the most important issue was slavery. The Northern
states generally had outlawed the practice, while the Southern states not only
had kept it legal but came to feel it was essential to their way of life. As new
states joined the union, lawmakers clashed over whether they should be slave
states or free states. In 1860, the anti-slavery candidate Abraham Lincoln was
President Abraham Lincoln
elected president. Fearing he would try to outlaw slavery in the whole
country, several southern states seceded, forming the Confederate States of
America, electing their own president and raising their own army. Lincoln
countered that secession was illegal and raised an army to crush the rebel government, thus the advent of the
American Civil War (1861–65). The Confederates had a skilled military that even succeeded in invading the
northern state of Pennsylvania. However, the war began to turn around, with the defeat of Confederates at
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and at Vicksburg, which gave the Union control of the important Mississippi River.
Union forces invaded deep into the South, and the Confederacy's greatest general, Robert E. Lee, surrendered
to Ulysses S. Grant of the Union in 1865. After that, the south came under Union occupation, ending the
American Civil War. Lincoln was tragically assassinated in 1865, but his dream of ending slavery, exhibited in
the wartime Emancipation Proclamation, was carried out by his Republican Party, which outlawed slavery,
granted blacks equality and black males voting rights via constitutional amendments. However, although the
abolishment of slavery would not be challenged, equal treatment for blacks would be.

The Gettysburg Address, Lincoln's most famous speech and one of the most quoted political speeches in
United States history, was delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania on 19 November 1863, during the Civil War, four and a half months after the Battle of
Gettysburg. Describing America as a "nation conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all
men are created equal", Lincoln famously called on those gathered:

[We here] highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain;that this nation, under God,
shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth.

Continental Europe: 1815–1870

The years following the Napoleonic Wars were a time of change in Europe. The Industrial Revolution,
nationalism, and several political revolutions transformed the continent.

Industrial technology was imported from Britain. The first lands affected by this were France, the Low
Countries, and western Germany. Eventually the Industrial Revolution spread to other parts of Europe. Many
people in the countryside migrated to major cities like Paris, Berlin, and Amsterdam, which were connected
like never before by railroads. Europe soon had its own class of wealthy industrialists, and large numbers of
industrial workers. New ideologies emerged as a reaction against perceived abuses of industrial society.
Among these ideologies were socialism and the more radical communism, created by the German Karl Marx.
According to communism, history was a series of class struggles, and at the time industrial workers were pitted
against their employers. Inevitably the workers would rise up in a
worldwide revolution and abolish private property, according to
Marx. Communism was also atheistic, since, according to Marx,
religion was simply a tool used by the dominant class to keep the
oppressed class docile.

Several revolutions occurred

in Europe following the
Napoleonic Wars. The goal
The Duke of Wellington at the Battle
of most of these revolutions
of Waterloo, the battle which brought
was to establish some form of an end to the Napoleonic wars
democracy in a particular
nation. Many were successful
for a time, but their effects were often eventually reversed. Examples
of this occurred in Spain, Italy, and Austria. Several European nations
After the Napoleonic Wars, many
stood steadfastly against revolution and democracy, including Austria
years of turmoil took Portugal, which
and Russia. Two successful revolts of the era were the Greek and
built up to colonial decline and the
Liberal Wars.
Serbian wars of independence, which freed those nations from
Ottoman rule. Another successful revolution occurred in the Low
Countries. After the Napoleonic Wars, the Netherlands was given
control of modern-day Belgium, which had been part of the Holy Roman Empire. The Dutch found it hard to
rule the Belgians, due to their Catholic religion and French language. In the 1830s, the Belgians successfully
overthrew Dutch rule, establishing the Kingdom of Belgium. In 1848 a series of revolutions occurred in
Prussia, Austria, and France. In France, the king, Louis-Philippe, was overthrown and a republic was
declared. Louis Napoleon, nephew of Napoleon I was elected the republic's first president. Extremely popular,
Napoleon was made Napoleon III (since Napoleon I's son had been crowned Napoleon II during his reign),
Emperor of the French, by a vote of the French people, ending France's Second Republic. Revolutionaries in
Prussia and Italy focused more on nationalism, and most advocated the establishment of unified German and
Italian states, respectively.

In the city-states of Italy, many argued for a unification of all the

Italian kingdoms into a single nation. Obstacles to this included the
many Italian dialects spoken by the people of Italy, and the Austrian
presence in the north of the peninsula. Unification of the peninsula
began in 1859. The powerful Kingdom of Sardinia (also called Savoy
or Piedmont) formed an alliance with France and went to war with
Austria in that year. The war ended with a Sardinian victory, and
Austrian forces left Italy. Plebiscites were held in several cities, and
the majority of people voted for union with Sardinia, creating the Victor Emmanuel II meets Garibaldi
Kingdom of Italy under Victor Emmanuel II. In 1860, the Italian near Teano. The Italian Risorgimento
nationalist Garibaldi led revolutionaries in an overthrow of the saw Italy unite as one kingdom.
government of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. A plebiscite held
there resulted in a unification of that kingdom with Italy. Italian forces
seized the eastern Papal States in 1861. In 1866 Venetia became part of Italy after Italy's ally, Prussia, defeated
that kingdom's rulers, the Austrians, in the Austro-Prussian War. In 1870, Italian troops conquered the Papal
States, completing unification. Pope Pius IX refused to recognize the Italian government or negotiate
settlement for the loss of Church land.

Prussia in the middle and late parts of the 19th century was ruled by its king, Wilhelm I, and its skilled
chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. In 1864, Prussia went to war with Denmark and gained several German-
speaking lands as a result. In 1866, Prussia went to war with the Austrian Empire and won, and created a
confederation of it and several German states, called the North German Confederation, setting the stage for the
1871 formation of the German Empire.
After years of dealing with Hungarian revolutionaries, whose kingdom Austria had conquered centuries
earlier, the Austrian emperor, Franz Joseph agreed to divide the empire into two parts: Austria and Hungary,
and rule as both Emperor of Austria and king of Hungary. The new Austro-Hungarian Empire was created in
1867. The two peoples were united in loyalty to the monarch and Catholicism.

There were changes throughout the West in science, religion and culture between 1815 and 1870. Europe in
1870 differed greatly from its state in 1815. Most Western European nations had some degree of democracy,
and two new national states had been created, Italy and Germany. Political parties were formed throughout the
continent and with the spread of industrialism, Europe's economy was transformed, although it remained very
agricultural.

Culture, arts and sciences 1815–1914

The 19th and early 20th centuries saw
important contributions to the process of
modernisation of Western art and Literature
and the continuing evolution in the role of
religion in Western societies.

Napoleon re-established the Catholic Church

in France through the Concordat of 1801.[38]
The end of the Napoleonic wars, signaled by
the Congress of Vienna, brought Catholic
revival and the return of the Papal States.[39]
In 1801, a new political entity was formed,
English writer Charles
Dickens at his desk in 1858
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Self portrait by influential
Ireland, which merged the kingdoms of Great
Dutch painter Vincent van
Britain and Ireland, thus increasing the Gogh.
number of Catholics in the new state. Pressure for abolition of anti-Catholic
laws grew and in 1829 Parliament passed the Roman Catholic Relief Act
1829, giving Catholics almost equal civil rights, including the right to vote
and to hold most public offices. While remaining a minority religion in the
British Empire, a steady stream of new Catholics would continue to convert
from the Church of England and Ireland, notably John Henry Newman and
the poets Gerard Manley Hopkins and Oscar Wilde. The Anglo-Catholic
movement began, emphasizing the Catholic traditions of the Anglican
Church. New churches like the Methodist, Unitarian, and LDS Churches
were founded. Many Westerners became less religious in this period, although
a majority of people still held traditional Christian beliefs.

The 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species, by the English naturalist

Charles Darwin, provided an alternative hypothesis for the development,
diversification, and design of human life to the traditional poetic scriptural Russian composer Pyotr
explanation known as Creationism. According to Darwin, only the organisms Tchaikovsky.
most able to adapt to their environment survived while others became extinct.
Adaptations resulted in changes in certain populations of organisms which
could eventually cause the creation of new species. Modern genetics started with Gregor Johann Mendel, a
German-Czech Augustinian monk who studied the nature of inheritance in plants. In his 1865 paper
"Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden" ("Experiments on Plant Hybridization"), Mendel traced the inheritance
patterns of certain traits in pea plants and described them mathematically.[40] Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister
made discoveries about bacteria and its effects on humans. Geologists at the time made discoveries indicating
the world was far older than most believed it to be. Early batteries were invented and a telegraph system was
also invented, allowing global communication. In 1869 Russian chemist
Dmitri Mendeleev published his Periodic table. The success of Mendeleev's
table came from two decisions he made: The first was to leave gaps in the
table when it seemed that the corresponding element had not yet been
discovered. The second decision was to occasionally ignore the order
suggested by the atomic weights and switch adjacent elements, such as cobalt
and nickel, to better classify them into chemical families. At the end of the
19th century, a number of discoveries were made in physics which paved the
way for the development of modern physics – including Maria Skłodowska-
Curie's work on radioactivity.

In Europe by the 19th century, fashion had shifted away from such artistic
styles as Mannerism, Baroque and Rococo and sought to revert to the earlier, French writer Victor Hugo.
simpler art of the Renaissance by creating Neoclassicism. Neoclassicism
complemented the intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment, which
was similarly idealistic. Ingres, Canova, and Jacques-Louis David are among
the best-known neoclassicists.[41]

Just as Mannerism rejected Classicism, so did Romanticism reject the ideas of

the Enlightenment and the aesthetic of the Neoclassicists. Romanticism
emphasized emotion and nature, and idealized the Middle Ages. Important
musicians were Franz Schubert, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Richard Wagner,
Fryderyk Chopin, and John Constable. Romantic art focused on the use of
color and motion in order to portray emotion, but like classicism used Greek
and Roman mythology and tradition as an important source of symbolism.
Another important aspect of Romanticism was its emphasis on nature and
portraying the power and beauty of the natural world. Romanticism was also
a large literary movement, especially in poetry. Among the greatest Romantic
artists were Eugène Delacroix, Francisco Goya, Karl Bryullov, J.M.W. Polish–French physicist–
Turner, John Constable, Caspar David Friedrich, Ivan Aivazovsky, Thomas chemist Marie Curie,
famous for her pioneering
Cole, and William Blake.[41] Romantic poetry emerged as a significant genre,
research on radioactivity.
particularly during the Victorian Era with leading exponents including
William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Burns, Edgar Allan
Poe and John Keats. Other Romantic writers included Sir Walter Scott, Lord
Byron, Alexander Pushkin, Victor Hugo, and Goethe.

Some of the best regarded poets of the era were women. Mary Wollstonecraft
had written one of the first works of feminist philosophy, A Vindication of the
Rights of Woman which called for equal education for women in 1792 and
her daughter, Mary Shelley became an accomplished author best known for
her 1818 novel Frankenstein, which examined some of the frightening
potential of the rapid advances of science.

In early 19th-century Europe, in response to industrialization, the movement

of Realism emerged. Realism sought to accurately portray the conditions and
hardships of the poor in the hopes of changing society. In contrast with
The British naturalist,
Romanticism, which was essentially optimistic about mankind, Realism Charles Darwin.
offered a stark vision of poverty and despair. Similarly, while Romanticism
glorified nature, Realism portrayed life in the depths of an urban wasteland.
Like Romanticism, Realism was a literary as well as an artistic movement. The great Realist painters include
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Gustave Courbet, Jean-François Millet, Camille Corot, Honoré Daumier,
Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas (both considered as Impressionists), Ilya Repin, and Thomas Eakins, among
others.
Writers also sought to come to terms with the new industrial age. The works of the Englishman Charles
Dickens (including his novels Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol) and the Frenchman Victor Hugo
(including Les Miserables) remain among the best known and widely influential. The first great Russian
novelist was Nikolai Gogol (Dead Souls). Then came Ivan Goncharov, Nikolai Leskov and Ivan Turgenev.
Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace, Anna Karenina) and Fyodor Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment, The Idiot,
The Brothers Karamazov) soon became internationally renowned to the point that many scholars such as F. R.
Leavis have described one or the other as the greatest novelist ever. In the second half of the century Anton
Chekhov excelled in writing short stories and became perhaps the leading dramatist internationally of his
period. American literature also progressed with the development of a distinct voice: Mark Twain produced his
masterpieces Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In Irish Literature, the Anglo-Irish tradition
produced Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde writing in English and a Gaelic Revival had emerged by the end of
the 19th century. The poetry of William Butler Yeats prefigured the emergence of the 20th-century Irish literary
giants James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Patrick Kavanagh. In Britain's Australian colonies, bush balladeers
such as Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson brought the character of a new continent to the pages of world
literature.

The response of architecture to industrialisation, in stark contrast to the other arts, was to veer towards
historicism. The railway stations built during this period are often called "the cathedrals of the age".
Architecture during the Industrial Age witnessed revivals of styles from the distant past, such as the Gothic
Revival—in which style the iconic Palace of Westminster in London was re-built to house the mother
parliament of the British Empire. Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral in Paris was also restored in the Gothic style,
following its desecration during the French Revolution.

Out of the naturalist ethic of Realism grew a major artistic movement, Impressionism. The Impressionists
pioneered the use of light in painting as they attempted to capture light as seen from the human eye. Edgar
Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, were all involved in the
Impressionist movement. As a direct outgrowth of Impressionism came the development of Post-
Impressionism. Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat are the best known Post-
Impressionists. In Australia the Heidelberg School was expressing the light and colour of Australian landscape
with a new insight and vigour.

The Industrial Revolution which began in Britain in the 18th century brought increased leisure time, leading to
more time for citizens to attend and follow spectator sports, greater participation in athletic activities, and
increased accessibility. The bat and ball sport of cricket was first played in England during the 16th century
and was exported around the globe via the British Empire. A number of popular modern sports were devised
or codified in Britain during the 19th century and obtained global prominence – these include Ping
Pong,[42][43] modern tennis,[44] Association Football, Netball and Rugby. The United States also developed
popular international sports during this period. English migrants took antecedents of baseball to America
during the colonial period. American football resulted from several major divergences from rugby, most
notably the rule changes instituted by Walter Camp. Basketball was invented in 1891 by James Naismith, a
Canadian physical education instructor working in Springfield, Massachusetts in the United States. Baron
Pierre de Coubertin, a Frenchman, instigated the modern revival of the Olympic Games, with the first modern
Olympics being held in Athens in 1896.

New imperialism: 1870–1914

The years between 1870 and 1914 saw the expansion of Western power. By 1914, the Western and some
Asian and Eurasian empires like the Empire of Japan, Russian Empire, Ottoman Empire, and Qing China
dominated the entire planet. The major Western players in this New Imperialism were Britain, Russia, France,
Germany, Italy, and the United States. The Empire of Japan was the only non-Western power involved in this
new era of imperialism.
Although the West had had a presence in Africa for
centuries, its colonies were limited mostly to Africa's
coast. Europeans, including the Britons Mungo Park and
David Livingstone, the German Johannes Rebmann, and
the Frenchman René Caillié, explored the interior of the
continent, allowing greater European expansion in the
later 19th century. The period between 1870 and 1914 is
often called the Scramble for Africa, due to the
competition between European nations for control of
Africa. In 1830, France occupied Algeria in North
Africa. Many Frenchman settled on Algeria's
Mediterranean coast. In 1882 Britain annexed Egypt.
France eventually conquered most of Morocco and
Tunisia as well. Libya was conquered by the Italians. Western empires as they were in 1910
Spain gained a small part of Morocco and modern-day
Western Sahara. West Africa was dominated by France,
although Britain ruled several smaller West African colonies. Germany also established two colonies in West
Africa, and Portugal had one as well. Central Africa was dominated by the Belgian Congo. At first the colony
was ruled by Belgium's king, Leopold II, however his regime was so brutal the Belgian government took over
the colony. The Germans and French also established colonies in Central Africa. The British and Italians were
the two dominant powers in East Africa, although France also had a colony there. Southern Africa was
dominated by Britain. Tensions between the British Empire and the Boer republics led to the Boer Wars,
fought on and off between the 1880s and 1902, ending in a British victory. In 1910 Britain united its South
African colonies with the former Boer republics and established the Union of South Africa, a dominion of the
British Empire. The British established several other colonies in Southern Africa. The Portuguese and
Germans also established a presence in Southern Africa. The French conquered the island of Madagascar. By
1914, Africa had only two independent nations, Liberia, a nation founded in West Africa by free black
Americans earlier in the 19th century, and the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia in East Africa. Many Africans, like
the Zulus, resisted European rule, but in the end Europe succeeded in conquering and transforming the
continent. Missionaries arrived and established schools, while industrialists helped establish rubber, diamond
and gold industries on the continent. Perhaps the most ambitious change by Europeans was the construction of
the Suez Canal in Egypt, allowing ships to travel from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean without having to go
all the way around Africa.

In Asia, China was defeated by Britain in the Opium War and later Britain and France in the Arrow War,
forcing it to open up to trade with the West. Soon every major Western power as well as Russia and Japan had
spheres of influence in China, although the country remained independent. Southeast Asia was divided
between French Indochina and British Burma. One of the few independent nations in this region at the time
was Siam. The Dutch continued to rule their colony of the Dutch East Indies, while Britain and Germany also
established colonies in Oceania. India remained an integral part of the British Empire, with Queen Victoria
being crowned Empress of India. The British even built a new capital in India, New Delhi. The Middle East
remained largely under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and Persia. Britain, however, established a sphere of
influence in Persia and a few small colonies in Arabia and coastal Mesopotamia.

The Pacific islands were conquered by Germany, the U.S., Britain, France, and Belgium. In 1893, the ruling
class of colonists in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy of Queen Liliuokalani and established a
republic. Since most of the leaders of the overthrow were Americans or descendants of Americans, they asked
to be annexed by the United States, which agreed to the annexation in 1898.

Latin America was largely free from foreign rule throughout this period, although the United States and Britain
had a great deal of influence over the region. Britain had two colonies on the Latin American mainland, while
the United States, following 1898, had several in the Caribbean. The U.S. supported the independence of
Cuba and Panama, but gained a small territory in central Panama and
intervened in Cuba several times. Other countries also faced
American interventions from time to time, mostly in the Caribbean
and southern North America.

Competition over control of overseas colonies sometimes led to war

between Western powers, and between Western powers and non-
Westerners. At the turn of the 20th century, Britain fought several
wars with Afghanistan to prevent it from falling under the influence of
Russia, which ruled all of Central Asia excluding Afghanistan. Britain
and France nearly went to war over control of Africa. In 1898, the
United States and Spain went to war after an American naval ship
was sunk in the Caribbean. Although today it is generally held that
the sinking was an accident, at the time the U.S. held Spain
responsible and soon American and Spanish forces clashed
everywhere from Cuba to the Philippines. The U.S. won the war and
gained several Caribbean colonies including Puerto Rico and several The Rhodes Colossus, a caricature
Pacific islands, including Guam and the Philippines. Important of Cecil Rhodes after announcing
resistance movements to Western Imperialism included the Boxer plans for a telegraph line from Cape
Rebellion, fought against the colonial powers in China, and the Town to Cairo. European countries
Philippine–American War, fought against the United States, both of were engaged in a Scramble for
Africa.
which failed.

The Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) left the Ottoman Empire little

more than an empty shell, but the failing empire was able to hang on into the 20th century, until its final
partition, which left the British and French colonial empires in control of much of the former Ottoman ruled
Arab countries of the Middle East (British Mandate of Palestine, British Mandate of Mesopotamia, French
Mandate of Syria, French Mandate of Lebanon, in addition to the British occupation of Egypt from 1882).
Even though this happened centuries after the West had given up its futile attempts to conquer the "Holy
Land" under religious pretexts, this fueled resentment against the "Crusaders" in the Islamic world, which
along with the nationalisms hatched under Ottoman rule, contributed to the development of Islamism.

The expanding Western powers greatly changed the societies they conquered. Many connected their empires
via railroad and telegraph and constructed churches, schools, and factories.

Great powers and the First World War: 1870–1918

By the late 19th century, the world was dominated by a few great powers, including Great Britain, the United
States, and Germany. France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Italy were also great powers.

Western inventors and industrialists transformed the West in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The
American Thomas Edison pioneered electricity and motion picture technology. Other American inventors, the
Wright brothers, completed the first successful airplane flight in 1903. The first automobiles were also invented
in this period. Petroleum became an important commodity after the discovery it could be used to power
machines. Steel was developed in Britain by Henry Bessemer. This very strong metal, combined with the
invention of elevators, allowed people to construct very tall buildings, called skyscrapers. In the late 19th
century, the Italian Guglielmo Marconi was able to communicate across distances using radio. In 1876, the first
telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell, a British expatriate living in America. Many became very
wealthy from this Second Industrial Revolution, including the American entrepreneurs Andrew Carnegie and
John D. Rockefeller. Unions continued to fight for the rights of workers, and by 1914 laws limiting working
hours and outlawing child labor had been passed in many Western countries.
Culturally, the English-speaking nations were in the midst of the Victorian
Era, named for Britain's queen. In France, this period is called the Belle
Epoque, a period of many artistic and cultural achievements. The suffragette
movement began in this period, which sought to gain voting rights for
women, with New Zealand and Australian parliaments granting women's
suffrage in the 1890s. However, by 1914, only a dozen U.S. states had given
women this right, although women were treated more and more as equals of
men before the law in many countries.

Cities grew as never before between 1870 and 1914. This led at first to
unsanitary and crowded living conditions, especially for the poor. However,
by 1914, municipal governments were providing police and fire departments
and garbage removal services to their citizens, leading to a drop in death rates.
Unfortunately, pollution from burning coal and wastes left by thousands of
horses that crowded the streets worsened the quality of life in many urban
areas. Paris, lit up by gas and electric light, and containing the tallest structure Cousins Kaiser Wilhelm II of
in the world at the time, the Eiffel Tower, was often looked to as an ideal Germany with Nicholas II of
modern city, and served as a model for city planners around the world. Russia in 1905, each in the
military uniform of the other
nation.
United States: 1870–1914

Following the American Civil War, great changes occurred in the

United States. After the war, the former Confederate States were put
under federal occupation and federal lawmakers attempted to gain
equality for blacks by outlawing slavery and giving them citizenship.
After several years, however, Southern states began rejoining the
Union as their populations pledged loyalty to the United States
government, and in 1877 Reconstruction as this period was called,
came to an end. After being re-admitted to the Union, Southern
lawmakers passed segregation laws and laws preventing blacks from Immigrants at Ellis Island, New York
voting, resulting in blacks being regarded as second-class citizens for Harbor, 1902
decades to come.

Another great change beginning in the 1870s was the settlement of the western territories by Americans. The
population growth in the American West led to the creation of many new western states, and by 1912 all the
land of the contiguous U.S. was part of a state, bringing the total to 48. As whites settled the West, however,
conflicts occurred with the Amerindians. After several Indian Wars, the Amerindians were forcibly relocated
to small reservations throughout the West and by 1914 whites were the dominant ethnic group in the American
West. As the farming and cattle industries of the American West matured and new technology allowed goods
to be refrigerated and brought to other parts of the country and overseas, people's diets greatly improved and
contributed to increased population growth throughout the West.

America's population greatly increased between 1870 and 1914, due largely to immigration. The U.S. had
been receiving immigrants for decades but at the turn of the 20th century, the numbers greatly increased due
partly to large population growth in Europe. Immigrants often faced discrimination, because many differed
from most Americans in religion and culture. Despite this, most immigrants found work and enjoyed a greater
degree of freedom than in their home countries. Major immigrant groups included the Irish, Italians, Russians,
Scandinavians, Germans, Poles and Diaspora Jews. The vast majority, at least by the second generation,
learned English, and adopted American culture, while at the same time contributing to that culture by, for
example, introducing the celebration of ethnic holidays and foreign cuisine to America. These new groups also
changed America's religious landscape. Although it remained mostly Protestant, Catholics especially, as well
as Jews and Orthodox Christians, increased in number.
The U.S. became a major military and industrial power during this time, gaining a colonial empire from Spain
and surpassing Britain and Germany to become the world's major industrial power by 1900. Despite this, most
Americans were reluctant to get involved in world affairs, and American presidents generally tried to keep the
U.S. out of foreign entanglement.

Europe: 1870–1914

The years between 1870 and 1914 saw the rise of Germany as the
dominant power in Europe. By the late 19th century, Germany had
surpassed Britain to become the world's greatest industrial power. It
also had the mightiest army in Europe. From 1870 to 1871, Prussia
was at war with France. Prussia won the war and gained two border
territories, Alsace and Lorraine, from France. After the war, Wilhelm
took the title kaiser from the Roman title caesar, proclaimed the
German Empire, and all the German states other than Austria united
with this new nation, under the leadership of Prussian Chancellor Otto
After the Unification of Germany,
von Bismarck. William I was proclaimed the first
German Emperor.
After the Franco-Prussian War, Napoleon III was dethroned and
France was proclaimed a republic. During this time, France was
increasingly divided between Catholics and monarchists and
anticlerical and republican forces. In 1900, church and state were officially separated in France, although the
majority of the population remained Catholic. France also found itself weakened industrially following its war
with Prussia due to its loss of iron and coal mines following the war. In addition, France's population was
smaller than Germany's and was hardly growing. Despite all this, France's strong sense of nationhood, among
other things, kept the country together.

Between 1870 and 1914, Britain continued to peacefully switch between Liberal and Conservative
governments, and maintained its vast empire, the largest in world history. Two problems faced by Britain in
this period were the resentment of British rule in Ireland and Britain's falling behind Germany and the United
States in industrial production.

British dominions: 1870–1914

The European populations of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South

Africa all continued to grow and thrive in this period and evolved democratic
Westminster system parliaments.

Canada united as a dominion of the British Empire under the Constitution

Act, 1867 (British North America Acts). The colony of New Zealand gained
its own parliament (called a "general assembly") and home rule in 1852.[45]
and in 1907 was proclaimed the Dominion of New Zealand.[46] Britain began
to grant its Australian colonies autonomy beginning in the 1850s and during
the 1890s, the colonies of Australia voted to unite. In 1901 they were
federated as an independent nation under the British Crown, known as the
Commonwealth of Australia, with a wholly elected bicameral parliament. The
South Australian suffragette Constitution of Australia had been drafted in Australia and approved by
Catherine Helen Spence. popular consent. Thus Australia is one of the few countries established by a
popular vote.[47] The Second Boer War (1899–1902) ended with the
conversion of the Boer republics of South Africa into British colonies and
these colonies later formed part of the Union of South Africa in 1910.
From the 1850s, Canada, Australia and New Zealand had become laboratories of democracy. By the 1870s,
they had already granted voting rights to their citizens in advance of most other Western nations. In 1893, New
Zealand became the first self-governing nation to extend the right to vote to women and, in 1895, the women
of South Australia also became the first to obtain the right to stand for Parliament.

During the 1890s Australia also saw such milestones as the invention of the secret ballot, the introduction of a
minimum wage and the election of the world's first Labor Party government, prefiguring the emergence of
Social Democratic governments in Europe. The old age pension was established in Australia and New
Zealand by 1900.[13]

From the 1880s, the Heidelberg School of art adapted Western painting techniques to Australian conditions,
while writers like Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson introduced the character of a new continent into English
literature and antipodean artists such as the opera singer Dame Nellie Melba began to influence the European
arts.

New alliances

The late 19th century saw the creation of several

alliances in Europe. Germany, Italy, and Austria-
Hungary formed a secret defensive alliance called the
Triple Alliance. France and Russia also developed strong
relations with one another, due to the financing of
Russia's Industrial Revolution by French capitalists.
Although it did not have a formal alliance, Russia
supported the Slavic Orthodox nations of the Balkans
and the Caucasus, which had been created in the 19th
century after several wars and revolutions against the European military alliances prior to the outbreak of
Ottoman Empire, which by now was in decline and ruled war. The Central Powers are depicted in olive, the
only parts of the southern Balkan Peninsula. This Triple Entente in dark green and neutral countries
Russian policy, called Pan-Slavism, led to conflicts with in beige.
the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, which had
many Slavic subjects. Franco-German relations were also
tense in this period due to France's defeat and loss of land at the hands of Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War.
Also in this period, Britain ended its policy of isolation from the European continent and formed an alliance
with France, called the Entente Cordiale. Rather than achieve greater security for the nations of Europe,
however, these alliances increased the chances of a general European war breaking out. Other factors that
would eventually lead to World War I were the competition for overseas colonies, the military buildups of the
period, most notably Germany's, and the feeling of intense nationalism throughout the continent.

World War I

When the war broke out, much of the fighting was between Western powers, and the immediate casus belli
was an assassination. The victim was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand, and he was
assassinated on 28 June 1914 by a Yugoslav nationalist named Gavrilo Princip in the city of Sarajevo, at the
time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although Serbia agreed to all but one point of the Austrian
ultimatum (it did not take responsibility in planning the assassination but was ready to hand over any subject
involved on its territory), Austria-Hungary was more than eager to declare war, attacked Serbia and effectively
began World War I. Fearing the conquest of a fellow Slavic Orthodox nation, Russia declared war on Austria-
Hungary. Germany responded by declaring war on Russia as well as France, which it feared would ally with
Russia. To reach France, Germany invaded neutral Belgium in August, leading Britain to declare war on
Germany. The war quickly stalemated, with trenches being dug from the North Sea to Switzerland. The war
 also made use of new and relatively new technology and weapons, including
machine guns, airplanes, tanks, battleships, and submarines. Even chemical
weapons were used at one point. The war also involved other nations, with
Romania and Greece joining the British Empire and France and Bulgaria and
the Ottoman Empire joining Germany. The war spread throughout the globe
with colonial armies clashing in Africa and Pacific nations such as Japan and
Australia, allied with Britain, attacking German colonies in the Pacific. In the
Middle East, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed at Gallipoli
in 1915 in a failed bid to support an Anglo-French capture of the Ottoman
capital of Istanbul. Unable to secure an early victory in 1915, British Empire
forces later attacked from further south after the beginning of the Arab revolt
and conquered Mesopotamia and Palestine from the Ottomans with the
support of local Arab rebels. The British Empire also supported an Arab
Australian troops at the revolt against the Ottomans that was centered in the Arabian Peninsula.
Battle of Passchendaele in
1917. 1916 saw some of the most ferocious fighting in human history with the
Somme Offensive on the Western Front alone resulting in 500,000 German
casualties, 420,000 British and Dominion casualties, and 200,000 French
casualties.[48]

1917 was a crucial year in the war. The United States had followed a policy of neutrality in the war, feeling it
was a European conflict. However, during the course of the war many Americans had died on board British
ocean liners sunk by the Germans, leading to anti-German feelings in the U.S. There had also been incidents
of sabotage on American soil, including the Black Tom explosion. What finally led to American involvement
in the war, however, was the discovery of the Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany offered to help
Mexico conquer part of the United States if it formed an alliance with Germany. In April, the U.S. declared
war on Germany. The same year the U.S. entered the war, Russia withdrew. After the deaths of many Russian
soldiers and hunger in Russia, a revolution occurred against the Czar, Nicholas II. Nicholas abdicated and a
Liberal provisional government was set up. In October, Russian communists, led by Vladimir Lenin rose up
against the government, resulting in a civil war. Eventually, the communists won and Lenin became premier.
Feeling World War I was a capitalist conflict, Lenin signed a peace treaty with Germany in which it gave up a
great deal of its Central and Eastern European lands.

Although Germany and its allies no longer had to focus on Russia, the
large numbers of American troops and weapons reaching Europe
turned the tide against Germany, and after more than a year of
fighting, Germany surrendered.

The treaties which ended the war, including the famous Versailles
Treaty dealt harshly with Germany and its former allies. The Austro-
Hungarian Empire were completely abolished and Germany was
greatly reduced in size. Many nations regained their independence,
including Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. The last Austro-
A typical village war memorial to
Hungarian emperor abdicated, and two new republics, Austria and
soldiers killed in World War I
Hungary, were created. The last Ottoman sultan was overthrown by
the Turkish nationalist revolutionary named Atatürk and the Ottoman
homeland of Turkey was declared a republic. Germany's kaiser also
abdicated and Germany was declared a republic. Germany was also forced to give up the lands it had gained
in the Franco-Prussian War to France, accept responsibility for the war, reduce its military and pay reparations
to Britain and France.
In the Middle East, Britain gained Palestine, Transjordan (modern-day Jordan), and Mesopotamia as colonies.
France gained Syria and Lebanon. An independent kingdom consisting of most of the Arabian peninsula,
Saudi Arabia, was also established. Germany's colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific were divided between
the British and French Empires.

The war had cost millions of lives and led many in the West to develop a strong distaste for war. Few were
satisfied with, and many despised the agreements made at the end of the war. Japanese and Italians were angry
that they had not been given any new colonies after the war, and many Americans felt the war had been a
mistake. Germans were outraged at the state of their country following the war. Also, unlike many in the
United States had hoped for, democracy did not flourish in the world in the post-war period. The League of
Nations, an international organization proposed by American president Woodrow Wilson to prevent another
great war from breaking out, proved ineffective, especially because the isolationist United States ended up not
joining.

Inter-war years: 1918–1939

United States in the inter-war years

After World War I, most Americans regretted getting involved in

world affairs and desired a "return to normalcy". The 1920s were a
period of economic prosperity in the United States. Many Americans
bought cars, radios, and other appliances with the help of installment
payments. Also, many Americans invested in the stock market as a
source of income. Movie theaters sprang up throughout the country,
although at first they did not have sound. Alcoholic beverages were
outlawed in the United States and women were granted the right to
vote. Although the United States was arguably the most powerful
nation in the post-war period, Americans remained isolationist and Construction on the Empire State
elected several conservative presidents during this period. Building was a symbol of U.S.
economic growth after the First
In October 1929 the New York stock market crashed, leading to the World War.
Great Depression. Many lost their life's savings and the resulting
decline in consumer spending led millions to lose their jobs as banks
and businesses closed. In the Midwestern United States, a severe drought destroyed many farmers' livelihoods.
In 1932, Americans elected Franklin D. Roosevelt president. Roosevelt followed a series of policies which
regulated the stock market and banks, and created many public works programs aimed at providing the
unemployed with work. Roosevelt's policies helped alleviate the worst effects of the Depression, although by
1941 the Great Depression was still ongoing. Roosevelt also instituted pensions for the elderly and provided
money to those who were unemployed. Roosevelt was also one of the most popular presidents in U.S. history,
earning re-election in 1936, and also in 1940 and 1944, becoming the only U.S. president to serve more than
two terms.

Europe in the inter-war years

Europe was relatively unstable following World War I. Although many prospered in the 1920s, Germany was
in a deep financial and economic crisis. Also, France and Britain owed the U.S. a great deal of money. When
the United States went into Depression, so did Europe. There were perhaps 30 million people around the
world unemployed following the Depression. Many governments helped to alleviate the suffering of their
citizens and by 1937 the economy had improved
although the lingering effects of the Depression
remained. Also, the Depression led to the spread of
radical left-wing and right-wing ideologies, like
Communism and Fascism.

In 1919-1921 Polish-Soviet War took place. After the

Russian Revolution of 1917 Russia sought to spread
communism to the rest of Europe. This is evidenced by
the well-known daily order by marshal Tukhachevsky to
his troops: "Over the corpse of Poland leads the road to
the world's fire. Towards Wilno, Minsk, Warsaw go!".
Map of territorial changes in Europe after World
Poland, whose statehood had just been re-established by
War I (as of 1923)
the Treaty of Versailles following the Partitions of Poland
in the late 18th century achieved an unexpected and
decisive victory at the Battle of Warsaw. In the wake of
the Polish advance eastward, the Soviets sued for peace and the war ended with a ceasefire in October 1920.
A formal peace treaty, the Peace of Riga, was signed on 18 March 1921. According to the British historian
A.J.P. Taylor, the Polish–Soviet War "largely determined the course of European history for the next twenty
years or more. [...] Unavowedly and almost unconsciously, Soviet leaders abandoned the cause of international
revolution." It would be twenty years before the Bolsheviks would send their armies abroad to 'make
revolution'. According to American sociologist Alexander Gella "the Polish victory had gained twenty years
of independence not only for Poland, but at least for an entire central part of Europe.

In 1916, militant Irish republicans staged a rising and proclaimed a republic. The rising was suppressed after
six days with leaders of the rising being executed. This was followed by the Irish War of Independence in
1919–1921 and the Irish Civil War (1922–1923). After the civil war, the island was divided. Northern Ireland
remained part of the United Kingdom, while the rest of the island became the Irish Free State. In 1927, the
United Kingdom renamed itself the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

In the 1920s, the UK granted the right to vote to women.

British dominions in the inter-war years

The relationship between Britain and its Empire evolved significantly over the period. In 1919, the British
Empire was represented at the all-important Versailles Peace Conference by delegates from its dominions who
had each suffered large casualties during the War.[49] The Balfour Declaration at the 1926 Imperial
Conference, stated that Britain and its dominions were "equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another
in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by common allegiance to the Crown, and
freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations". These aspects to the relationship were
eventually formalised by the Statute of Westminster in 1931 – a British law which, at the request and with the
consent of the dominion parliaments clarified the independent powers of the dominion parliaments, and
granted the former colonies full legal freedom except areas where they chose to remain subordinate. Previously
the British Parliament had had residual ill-defined powers, and overriding authority, over dominion
legislation.[50] It applied to the six dominions which existed in 1931: Canada, Australia, the Irish Free State,
the Dominion of Newfoundland, New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa. Each of the dominions
remained within the British Commonwealth and retained close political and cultural ties with Britain and
continued to recognize the British monarch as head of their own independent nations. Australia, New Zealand,
and Newfoundland had to ratify the statute for it to take effect. Australia and New Zealand did so in 1942 and
1947 respectively. Newfoundland united with Canada in 1949 and the Irish Free State came to an end in 1937,
when the citizens voted by referendum to replace its 1922 constitution. It was succeeded by the entirely
sovereign modern state of Ireland.
 Rise of totalitarianism

The Inter-war years saw the

establishment of the first totalitarian
regimes in world history. The first
was established in Russia following
the revolution of 1917. The Russian
Empire was renamed the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics, or
Soviet Union. The government
1926 Imperial Conference: King controlled every aspect of its
George V and the prime ministers of citizens' lives, from maintaining
the Commonwealth. Clockwise from
loyalty to the Communist Party to
centre front: George V, Baldwin
persecuting religion. Lenin helped
(United Kingdom), Monroe
to establish this state but it was
(Newfoundland), Coates (New
Zealand), Bruce (Australia), Hertzog
brought to a new level of brutality
(South Africa), Cosgrave (Irish Free
under his successor, Joseph Stalin.
Benito Mussolini (left) and
State), King (Canada).
The first totalitarian state in the Adolf Hitler (right)
West was established in Italy.
Unlike the Soviet Union however,
this would be a Fascist rather than a Communist state. Fascism is a less
organized ideology than Communism, but generally it is characterized by a
total rejection of humanism and liberal democracy, as well as very intense
nationalism, with a government headed by a single all-powerful dictator. The
Italian politician Benito Mussolini established the Fascist Party (from which
Fascism derives its name) following World War I. Fascists won the support of
many disillusioned Italians, who were angry over Italy's treatment following
World War I. They also employed violence and intimidation against their
political enemies. In 1922, Mussolini seized power by threatening to lead his
followers on a march on Rome if he was not named prime minister. Although
he had to share some power with the monarchy, Mussolini ruled as a dictator.
The rise of Fascism in Under his rule, Italy's military was built up and democracy became a thing of
Europe the past. One important diplomatic achievement of his reign, however, was
the Lateran Treaty, between Italy and the Pope, in which a small part of Rome
where St. Peter's Basilica and other Church property was located was given
independence as Vatican City and the Pope was reimbursed for lost Church property. In exchange, the Pope
recognized the Italian government.

Another Fascist party, the Nazis, would take power in Germany. The Nazis were similar to Mussolini's
Fascists but held many views of their own. Nazis were obsessed with racial theory, believing Germans to be
part of a master race, destined to dominate the inferior races of the world. The Nazis were especially hateful of
Jews. Another unique aspect of Nazism was its connection with a small movement that supported a return to
ancient Germanic paganism. Adolf Hitler, a World War I veteran, became leader of the party in 1921. Gaining
support from many disillusioned Germans, and by using intimidation against its enemies, the Nazi party had
gained a great deal of power by the early 1930s. In 1933, Hitler was named Chancellor, and seized dictatorial
power. Hitler built up Germany's military in violation of the Versailles Treaty and stripped Jews of all rights in
Germany. Eventually, the regime Hitler created would lead to the Second World War.

In Spain, a republic had been set up following the abdication of the king. After a series of elections, a coalition
of republicans, socialists, Marxists, and anticlericals were brought to power. The army, joined by Spanish
Conservatives rose up against the republic. In 1939 the Spanish Civil War ended, and General Francisco
Franco became dictator. Franco supported the governments of Italy and Germany, although he was not as
strongly committed to Fascism as they were and instead focused more on restoring traditionalism and
Catholicism to dominance in Spain.

Second World War and its aftermath: 1939–1950

The late 1930s saw a series of
violations of the Versailles Treaty by
Germany, however, France and
Britain refused to act. In 1938, Hitler
annexed Austria in an attempt to
unite all German-speakers under his
rule. Next, he annexed a German-
speaking area of Czechoslovakia.
Britain and France agreed to
recognize his rule over that land and
in exchange Hitler agreed not to
German occupation of continental expand his empire further. In a matter
Europe and northern Africa. of months, however, Hitler broke the
pledge and annexed the rest of Hitler in Paris, 30 July 1940
Czechoslovakia. Despite this, the
British and French chose to do nothing, wanting to avoid war at any cost.
Hitler then formed a secret non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, despite the fact that the Soviet Union
was Communist and Germany was Nazi. Also in the 1930s, Italy conquered Ethiopia. The Soviets too began
annexing neighboring countries. Japan began taking aggressive actions towards China. After Japan opened
itself to trade with the West in the mid-19th century, its leaders learned to take advantage of Western
technology and industrialized their country by the end of the century. By the 1930s, Japan's government was
under the control of militarists who wanted to establish an empire in the Asia-Pacific region. In 1937, Japan
invaded China.

In 1939, German forces invaded Poland, and soon the country was divided
between the Soviet Union and Germany. France and Britain declared war on
Germany, World War II had begun. The war featured the use of new
technologies and improvements on existing ones. Airplanes called bombers
were capable of travelling great distances and dropping bombs on targets.
Submarine, tank and battleship technology also improved. Most soldiers were
equipped with hand-held machine guns and armies were more mobile than
Netherlands and Australian
ever before. Also, the British invention of radar would revolutionize tactics.
PoWs of the Empire of
German forces invaded and conquered the Low Countries and by June had
Japan in 1943. The Fall of
even conquered France. In 1940 Germany, Italy and Japan formed an alliance Singapore to Japan marked
and became known as the Axis Powers. Germany next turned its attention to the greatest defeat in British
Britain. Hitler attempted to defeat the British using only air power. In the military history.
Battle of Britain, German bombers destroyed much of the British air force and
many British cities. Led by their prime minister, the defiant Winston Churchill,
the British refused to give up and launched air attacks on Germany. Eventually, Hitler turned his attention from
Britain to the Soviet Union. In June 1941, German forces invaded the Soviet Union and soon reached deep
into Russia, surrounding Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad. Hitler's invasion came as a total surprise to
Stalin; however, Hitler had always believed sooner or later Soviet Communism and what he believed were the
"inferior" Slavic peoples had to be wiped out.
The United States attempted to remain neutral early in the war. However, a
growing number feared the consequences of a Fascist victory. President
Roosevelt began sending weapons and support to the British, Chinese, and
Soviets. Also, the U.S. placed an embargo against the Japanese, as they
continued their war with China and conquered many colonies formerly ruled
by the French and Dutch, who were now under German rule. In 1941, Japan
launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, an American naval base in
Hawaii. The U.S. responded by declaring war on Japan. The next day, Britain's World War II Prime
Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. The United States, the Minister Winston Churchill
British Commonwealth, and the Soviet Union now constituted the Allies, (seated centre) with the
dedicated to destroying the Axis Powers. Other allied nations included Prime Ministers of the
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and China. Commonwealth of Nations
at the 1944 Commonwealth
In the Pacific War, British, Indian and Australian troops made a disorganised Prime Ministers'
last stand at Singapore, before surrendering on 15 February 1942. The defeat Conference.
was the worst in British military history. Around 15,000 Australian soldiers
alone became prisoners of war. Allied prisoners died in their thousands
interned at Changi Prison or working as slave labourers on such projects as
the infamous Burma Railway and the Sandakan Death Marches. Australian
cities and bases – notably Darwin suffered air raids and Sydney suffered
naval attack. U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, based in Melbourne,
Australia became "Supreme Allied Commander of the South West Pacific"
and the foundations of the post war Australia-New Zealand-United States
Alliance were laid. In May 1942, the Royal Australian Navy and U.S. Navy
engaged the Japanese in the Battle of the Coral Sea and halted the Japanese
fleet headed for Australian waters. The Battle of Midway in June effectively
defeated the Japanese navy. In August 1942, Australian forces inflicted the
first land defeat on advancing Japanese forces at the Battle of Milne Bay in
the Australian Territory of New Guinea.[51] The Atomic bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki by
By 1942, German and Italian armies ruled Norway, the Low Countries, the U.S. Air Force brought
France, the Balkans, Central Europe, part of Russia, and most of North the Second World War to an
Africa. Japan by this year ruled much of China, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, end.
the Philippines, and many Pacific Islands. Life in these empires was cruel –
especially in Germany, where the Holocaust was perpetrated. Eleven million
people – six million of them Jews – were systematically murdered by the German Nazis by 1945.

From 1943 on, the Allies gained the upper hand. American and British troops first liberated North Africa from
the Germans and Italians. Next they invaded Italy, where Mussolini was deposed by the king and later was
killed by Italian partisans. Italy surrendered and came under Allied occupation. After the liberation of Italy,
American, British, and Canadian troops crossed the English Channel and liberated Normandy, France, from
German rule after great loss of life. The Western Allies were then able to liberate the rest of France and move
towards Germany. During these campaigns in Africa and Western Europe, the Soviets fought off the Germans,
pushing them out of the Soviet Union altogether and driving them out of Eastern and East-Central Europe. In
1945 the Western Allies and Soviets invaded Germany itself. The Soviets captured Berlin and Hitler
committed suicide. Germany surrendered unconditionally and came under Allied occupation. The war against
Japan continued however. American forces from 1943 on had worked their way across the Pacific, liberating
territory from the Japanese. The British also fought the Japanese in such places as Burma. By 1945, the U.S.
had surrounded Japan, however the Japanese refused to surrender. Fearing a land invasion would cost one
million American lives, the U.S. used a new weapon against Japan, the atomic bomb, developed after years of
work by an international team including Germans, in the United States. These atomic bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki combined with a Soviet invasion of many of Japan's occupied territories in the east, led Japan to
surrender.
After the war the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union attempted to cooperate. German and Japanese military
leaders responsible for atrocities in their regimes were put on trial and many were executed. The international
organization the United Nations was created. Its goal was to prevent wars from breaking out as well as provide
the people of the world with security, justice and rights. The period of post-war cooperation ended, however,
when the Soviet Union rigged elections in the occupied nations of Central and Eastern Europe to allow for
Communist victories. Soon, all of Eastern and much of Central Europe had become a series of Communist
dictatorships, all staunchly allied with the Soviet Union. Germany following the war had been occupied by
British, American, French, and Soviet forces. Unable to agree on a new government, the country was divided
into a democratic west and Communist east. Berlin itself was also divided, with West Berlin becoming part of
West Germany and East Berlin becoming part of East Germany. Meanwhile, the former Axis nations soon had
their sovereignty restored, with Italy and Japan regaining independence following the war.

World War II had cost millions of lives and devastated many others. Entire cities lay in ruins and economies
were in shambles. However, in the Allied countries, the people were filled with pride at having stopped
Fascism from dominating the globe, and after the war, Fascism was all but extinct as an ideology. The world's
balance of power also shifted, with the United States and Soviet Union being the world's two superpowers.

Fall of the western empires: 1945–1999

Following World War II, the great colonial empires established by the
Western powers beginning in early modern times began to collapse.
There were several reasons for this. Firstly, World War II had
devastated European economies and had forced governments to spend
great deals of money, making the price of colonial administration
The Portuguese Empire in the 20th increasingly hard to manage. Secondly, the two new superpowers
century. From origins in 1415, the following the war, the United States and Soviet Union were both
Portuguese Empire became a Global opposed to imperialism, so the now weakened European Empires
Empire and lasted to the close of the could generally not look to the outside for help. Thirdly, Westerners
20th century, making it the longest increasingly were not interested in maintaining and even opposed the
lived of the modern European existence of empires. The fourth reason was the rise of independence
colonial Empires. movements following the war. The future leaders of these movements
had often been educated at colonial schools run by Westerners where
they adopted Western ideas like freedom, equality, self-determination
and nationalism, and which turned them against their colonial rulers.

The first colonies to gain independence were in Asia. In 1946, the U.S. granted independence to the
Philippines, its only large overseas colony. In British India, Mahatma Gandhi led his followers in non-violent
resistance to British rule. By the late 1940s Britain found itself unable to work with Indians in ruling the
colony, this, combined with sympathy around the world for Gandhi's non-violent movement, led Britain to
grant independence to India, dividing it into the largely Hindu country of India and the smaller, largely Muslim
nation of Pakistan in 1947. In 1948 Burma gained independence from Britain, and in 1945 Indonesian
nationalists declared Indonesian independence, which the Netherlands recognised in 1949 after a four-year
armed and diplomatic struggle. Independence for French Indochina came only after a great conflict. After the
withdrawal of Japanese forces from the colony following World War II, France regained control but found it
had to contend with an independence movement that had fought against the Japanese. The movement was led
by the Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Vietnamese Communists. Because of this, the U.S. supplied
France with arms and support, fearing Communists would dominate South-east Asia. In the end though,
France gave in and granted independence, creating Laos, Cambodia, Communist North Vietnam, and South
Vietnam.
In the Middle East, following World War II, Britain had granted
independence to the formerly Ottoman territories of Mesopotamia,
which became Iraq, Kuwait, and Transjordan, which became Jordan.
France also granted independence to Syria and Lebanon. British
Palestine, however, presented a unique challenge. Following World
War I, when Britain gained the colony, Jewish and Arab national
aspirations conflicted, followed by a proposal of the UN to divided
Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Arabs
objected, Britain withdrew and the Zionists declared the state of Israel
on 14 May 1948.

The other major center of colonial power, Africa, was freed from
colonial rule following World War II as well. Egypt gained
independence from Britain and this was soon followed by Ghana and
Tunisia. One violent independence movement of the time was fought
in Algeria, in which Algerian rebels went so far as to kill innocent The French Foreign Legion on patrol
Frenchmen. In 1962, however, Algeria gained independence from during the First Indochina War, 1954.
France. By the 1970s the entire continent had become independent of
European rule, although a few southern countries remained under the
rule of white colonial minorities.

By the close of the 20th century, the European colonial Empires had ceased to exist as significant global
entities. Sunset for the British Empire came when Britain's lease on the great trading port of Hong Kong was
brought to end, and political control was transferred to the People's Republic of China in 1997. Soon after, in
1999 Transfer of sovereignty over Macau was concluded between Portugal and China, bringing to a close six
centuries of Portuguese colonialism. Britain remained culturally linked to its former empire through the
voluntary association of the Commonwealth of Nations, and 14 British Overseas Territories remained
(formerly known as Crown colonies), consisting mainly of scattered island outposts. Currently, 16 independent
Commonwealth realms retain the British monarch as their head of state. Canada, Australia and New Zealand
emerged as vibrant and prosperous migrant nations. The once vast French colonial empire had lost its major
possessions though a scattered territories remained as Overseas departments and territories of France. The
shrunken Dutch Empire retained a few Caribbean islands as constituent countries of the Kingdom of the
Netherlands. Spain had lost its overseas possessions, but its legacy was vast – with Latin culture remaining
throughout South and Central America. Along with Portugal and France, Spain had made Catholicism a
global religion.

Of Europe's empires, only the Russian Empire

remained a significant geo-political force into the
late 20th century, having morphed into the Soviet
Union and Warsaw Pact, which, drawing on the
writings of the German Karl Marx, established a
socialist economic model under Communist
dictatorship, which ultimately collapsed in the early
1990s. Adaptations of Marxism continued as the
stated inspiration for Governments in Central Western European colonial empires in Asia and Africa
America and Asia into the 21st century – though all collapsed in the years after 1945
only a handful survived the end of the Cold War.

The end of the Western Empires greatly changed the

world. Although many newly independent nations attempted to become democracies, many slipped into
military and autocratic rule. Amid power vacuums and newly determined national borders, civil war also
became a problem, especially in Africa, where the introduction of firearms to ancient tribal rivalries
exacerbated problems.
The loss of overseas colonies partly also led many Western nations, particularly in continental Europe, to focus
more on European, rather than global, politics as the European Union rose as an important entity. Though
gone, the colonial empires left a formidable cultural and political legacy, with English, French, Spanish,
Portuguese, Russian and Dutch being spoken by peoples across far flung corners of the globe. European
technologies were now global technologies – religions like Catholicism and Anglicanism, founded in the West,
were booming in post colonial Africa and Asia. Parliamentary (or presidential) democracies, as well as rival
Communist style one party states invented in the West had replaced traditional monarchies and tribal
government models across the globe. Modernity, for many, was equated with Westernisation.

Cold War: 1945–1991

From the end of World War II almost until the start of the
21st century, Western and world politics were dominated
by the state of tensions and conflict between the world's
two Superpowers, the United States and the Soviet
Union. In the years following World War II, the Soviets
established satellite states throughout Central and Eastern
Europe, including historically and culturally Western
nations like Poland and Hungary. Following the division
of Germany, the East Germans constructed the Berlin Spheres of influence between the Western world
Wall, to prevent East Berliners from escaping to the and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
"freedom" of West Berlin. The Berlin Wall would come
to represent the Cold War around the world.

Rather than revert to isolationism, the United States took an active role in global politics following World War
II to halt Communist expansion. After the war, Communist parties in Western Europe increased in prestige and
number, especially in Italy and France, leading many to fear the whole of Europe would become Communist.
The U.S. responded to this with the Marshall Plan, in which the U.S. financed the rebuilding of Western
Europe and poured money into its economy. The Plan was a huge success and soon Europe was prosperous
again, with many Europeans enjoying a standard of living close that in the U.S (following World War II, the
U.S. became very prosperous and Americans enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world). National
rivalries ended in Europe and most Germans and Italians, for example, were happy to be living under
democratic rule, regretting their Fascist pasts. In 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed, creating the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO. The treaty was signed by the United States, Canada, the Low
Countries, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Portugal, Italy, France, and Britain. NATO members agreed that if any
one of them were attacked, they would all consider themselves attacked and retaliate. NATO would expand as
the years went on, other nations joined, including Greece, Turkey, and West Germany. The Soviets responded
with the Warsaw Pact, an alliance which bound Central and Eastern Europe to fight with the United States and
its allies in the event of war.

One of the first actual conflicts of the Cold War took place in China. Following the withdrawal of Japanese
troops after World War II, China was plunged into civil war, pitting Chinese Communists against Nationalists,
who opposed Communism. The Soviets supported the Communists while the Americans supported the
Nationalists. In 1949, the Communists were victorious, proclaiming the People's Republic of China. However,
the Nationalists continued to rule the island of Taiwan off the coast. With American guarantees of protection
for Taiwan, China did not make an attempt to take over the island. A major political change in East Asia in this
period was Japan's becoming a tolerant, democratic society and an ally of the United States. In 1950, another
conflict broke out in Asia, this time in Korea. The peninsula had been divided between a Communist North
and non-Communist South in 1948 following the withdrawal of American and Soviet troops. In 1950, the
North Koreans invaded South Korea, wanting to united the land under Communism. The UN condemned the
action, and, because the Soviets were boycotting the organization at the time and therefore had no influence on
it, the UN sent forces to liberate South Korea. Many nations sent troops, but most were from America. UN
forces were able to liberate the South and even attempted to conquer
the North. However, fearing the loss of North Korea, Communist
China sent troops to the North. The U.S. did not retaliate against
China, fearing war with the Soviet Union, so the war stalemated. In
1953 the two sides agreed to a return to the pre-war borders and a de-
militarization of the border area.

The world lived in the constant fear of World War III in the Cold War.
Seemingly any conflict involving Communism might lead to a conflict
between the Warsaw pact countries and the NATO countries. The
prospect of a third world war was made even more frightening by the
fact that it would almost certainly be a nuclear war. In 1949 the
Soviets developed their first atomic bomb, and soon both the United
The United States reached the moon
States and Soviet Union had enough to destroy the world several
in 1969—a symbolic milestone in the
times over. With the development of missile technology, the stakes
space race.
were raised as either country could launch weapons from great
distances across the globe to their targets. Eventually, Britain, France,
and China would also develop nuclear weapons. It is believed that
Israel developed nuclear weapons as well.

One major event that nearly brought the world to the brink of war was the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the 1950s a
revolution in Cuba had brought the only Communist regime in the Western Hemisphere to power. In 1962, the
Soviets began constructing missile sites in Cuba and sending nuclear missiles. Because of its close proximity to
the U.S., the U.S. demanded the Soviets withdraw missiles from Cuba. The U.S. and Soviet Union came very
close to attacking one another, but in the end came to a secret agreement in which the NATO withdrew
missiles in exchange for a Soviet withdrawal of missiles from Cuba.

The next great Cold War conflict occurred in Southeast Asia. In the
1960s, North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam, hoping to unite all of
Vietnam under Communist rule. The U.S. responded by supporting
the South Vietnamese. In 1964, American troops were sent to "save"
South Vietnam from conquest, which many Americans feared would
lead to Communist dominance in the entire region. The Vietnam War
lasted many years, but most Americans felt the North Vietnamese
would be defeated in time. Despite American technological and
military superiority, by 1968, the war showed no signs of ending and
most Americans wanted U.S. forces to end their involvement. The
U.S. undercut support for the North by getting the Soviets and
Chinese to stop supporting North Vietnam, in exchange for
recognition of the legitimacy of mainland China's Communist
government, and began withdrawing troops from Vietnam. In 1972,
the last American troops left Vietnam and in 1975 South Vietnam fell
President Ronald Reagan and to the North. In the following years Communism took power in
Margaret Thatcher at Camp David in neighboring Laos and Cambodia.
1986.
By the 1970s global politics were becoming more complex. For
example, France's president proclaimed France was a great power in
and of itself. However, France did not seriously threaten the U.S. for supremacy in the world or even Western
Europe. In the Communist world, there was also division, with the Soviets and Chinese differing over how
Communist societies should be run. Soviet and Chinese troops even engaged in border skirmishes, although
full-scale war never occurred.
The last great armed conflict of the Cold War took place in Afghanistan. In 1979, Soviet forces invaded that
country, hoping to establish Communism. Muslims from throughout the Islamic World travelled to Afghanistan
to defend that Muslim nation from conquest, calling it a Jihad, or Holy War. The U.S. supported the Jihadists
and Afghan resisters, despite the fact that the Jihadists were vehemently anti-Western. By 1989 Soviet forces
were forced to withdraw and Afghanistan fell into civil war, with an Islamic fundamentalist government, the
Taliban taking over much of the country.

The late 1970s had seen a lessening of tensions between the U.S. and
Soviet Union, called Détente. However, by the 1980s Détente had
ended with the invasion of Afghanistan. In 1981, Ronald Reagan
became President of the United States and sought to defeat the USSR
by leveraging the United States capitalist economic system to
outproduce the communist Russians. The United States military was
in a state of low moral after its loss in the Vietnam War, and President
Reagan began a huge effort to out-produce the Soviets in military
production and technology. In 1985, a new Soviet leader, Mikhail
Gorbachev took power. Gorbachev, knowing that the Soviet Union
The Fall of the Berlin Wall brought an
could no longer compete economically with the United States, end to the Cold War.
implemented a number of reforms granting his citizens freedom of
speech and introducing some capitalist reforms. Gorbachev and
America's staunch anti-Communist president Ronald Reagan were even able to negotiate treaties limiting each
side's nuclear weapons. Gorbachev also ended the policy of imposing Communism in Central and Eastern
Europe. In the past Soviet troops had crushed attempts at reform in places like Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
Now, however, Eastern Europe was freed from Soviet domination. In Poland the Round Table Talks between
the government and the Solidarity-led opposition led to semi-free elections in 1989 elections in Poland where
anti-communist candidates won a striking victory sparked off a succession of peaceful anti-communist
revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe known as the Revolutions of 1989. Soon, Communist regimes
throughout Europe collapsed. In Germany, after calls from Reagan to Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall,
the people of East and West Berlin tore down the wall and East Germany's Communist government was voted
out. East and West Germany unified to create the country of Germany, with its capital in the reunified Berlin.
The changes in Central and Eastern Europe led to calls for reform in the Soviet Union itself. A failed coup by
hard-liners led to greater instability in the Soviet Union, and the Soviet legislature, long subservient to the
Communist Party, voted to abolish the Soviet Union in 1991. What had been the Soviet Union was divided
into many republics. Although many slipped into authoritarianism, most became democracies. These new
republics included Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. By the early 1990s, the West and Europe as a whole was
finally free from Communism.

Following the end of the Cold War, Communism largely died out as a major political movement. After the fall
of USSR, the United States became the world's only superpower.

Western countries: 1945–1980

United States: 1945–1980

Following World War II, there was an unprecedented period of prosperity in the United States. The majority of
Americans entered the middle class and moved from the cities into surrounding suburbs, buying homes of their
own. Most American households owned at least one car, as well as the relatively new invention, the television.
Also, the American population greatly increased as part of the so-called "baby boom" following the war. For
the first time following the war, large of numbers of non-wealthy Americans were able to attend college.
Following the war, black Americans started what has become known as the
Civil Rights Movement in the United States. After roughly a century of
second-class citizenship following the abolition of slavery, blacks began
seeking full equality. This was helped by the 1954 decision by the Supreme
Court, outlawing segregation in schools, which was common in the South.
Martin Luther King Jr., a black minister from the South led many blacks and
whites who supported their cause in non-violent protests against
discrimination. Eventually, the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were
passed in 1964, banning measures that had prevented blacks from voting and
outlawing segregation and discrimination in the U.S.

In politics, the Democratic and

Republican parties remained
U.S. President John F.
dominant. In 1945, the Democratic Kennedy
party relied on Southerners, whose
support went back to the days when
Democrats defended a state's right to own slaves, and Northeasterners
and industrial Mid-Westerners, who supported the pro-labor and pro-
immigrant policies of the Democrats. Republicans tended to rely on
middle-class Protestants from elsewhere in the country. As the
President Lyndon B. Johnson
Democrats began championing civil rights, however, Southern
(centre) with Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr. and other Civil Rights leaders in
Democrats felt betrayed, began voting Republican. Presidents from
1964.
this period were Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F.
Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy
Carter. The years 1945–1980 saw the expansion of federal power and
the establishment of programs to help the elderly and poor pay for medical expenses.

By 1980, many Americans had become pessimistic about their country. Despite its status as one of only two
superpowers, the Vietnam War as well as the social upheavals of the 1960s and an economic downturn in the
1970s led America to become a much-less confident nation.

Europe

At the close of the war, much of Europe lay in ruins with millions of
homeless refugees. A souring of relations between the Western Allies
and the Soviet Union then saw Europe split by an Iron Curtain,
dividing the continent between West and East. In Western Europe,
democracy had survived the challenge of Fascism and began a period
of intense rivalry with Eastern Communism, which was to continue
into the 1980s. France and Britain secured themselves permanent
positions on the newly formed United Nations Security Council, but
Western European Empires did not long survive the war, and no one
Western European nation would ever again be the paramount power
in world affairs.[52]
The formation of the European Union
Despite these immense challenges however, Western Europe again
rose as an economic and cultural powerhouse. Assisted first by the
Marshall Plan of financial aid from the United States, and later
through closer economic integration through the European Common Market, Western Europe quickly re-
emerged as a global economic power house. The vanquished nations of Italy and West Germany became
leading economies and allies of the United States. So marked was their recovery that historians refer to an
Italian economic miracle and in the case of West Germany and Austria the Wirtschaftswunder (German for
economic miracle).

Facing a new power balance between the Soviet East and American
West, Western European nations moved closer together. In 1957,
Belgium, France, the Netherlands, West Germany, Italy and
Luxembourg signed the landmark Treaty of Rome, creating the
European Economic Community, free of customs duties and tariffs,
and allowing the rise of a new European geo-political force.[52]
Eventually, this organization was renamed the European Union or
(EU), and many other nations joined, including Britain, Ireland, and
Denmark. The EU worked toward economic and political cooperation
among European nations. The Volkswagen Beetle was an icon
of West German reconstruction, the
Between 1945 and 1980, Europe became increasingly socialist. Most Wirtschaftswunder, or "economic
European countries became welfare states, in which governments miracle".
provided a large number of services to their people through taxation.
By 1980, most of Europe had universal healthcare and pensions for
the elderly. The unemployed were also guaranteed income from the government, and European workers were
guaranteed long vacation time. Many other entitlements were established, leading many Europeans to enjoy a
very high standard of living. By the 1980s, however, the economic problems of the welfare state were
beginning to emerge.

Europe had many important political leaders during this time. Charles de Gaulle, leader of the French
government in exile during World War II, served as France's president for many years. He sought to carve out
for France a great power status in the world.

Although Europe as a whole was relatively peaceful in this period, both Britain and Spain suffered from acts
of terrorism. In Britain, The Troubles saw Irish republicans battle Unionists loyal to Britain. In Spain, ETA, a
Basque separatist group, began committing acts of terror against Spaniards, hoping to gain independence for
the Basques, an ethnic minority in north-eastern Spain. Both these terrorist campaigns failed, however.

For Greece, Spain and Portugal, ideological battles between left and right continued and the emergence of
parliamentary democracy was troubled. Greece experienced Civil War, coup and counter-coup into the 1970s.
Portugal, since the 1930s under a quasi-Fascist regime and among the poorest nations in Europe, fought a
rearguard action against independence movements in its empire, until a 1974 coup. The last authoritarian
dictatorship in Western Europe fell in 1975, when Francisco Franco, dictator of Spain, died. Franco had
helped to modernize the country and improve the economy. His successor, King Juan Carlos, transformed the
country into a constitutional monarchy. By 1980, all Western European nations were democracies.

British Empire and Commonwealth 1945–1980

Between 1945 and 1980, the British Empire was transformed from its centuries old position as a global
colonial power, to a voluntary association known as the Commonwealth of Nations – only some of which
retained any formal political links to Britain or its monarchy. Some former British colonies or protectorates
disassociated themselves entirely from Britain.

Britain
 The popular war time leader Winston Churchill was swept from
office at the 1945 election and the Labour Government of
Clement Attlee introduced a program of nationalisation of
industry and introduced wide-ranging social welfare. Britain's
finances had been ravaged by the war and John Maynard Keynes
was sent to Washington to negotiate the massive Anglo-
American loan on which Britain relied to fund its post-war
reconstruction.[53]

India was granted Independence in 1947 and Britain's global

Queen Elizabeth II and Commonwealth
influence rapidly declined as decolonisation proceeded. Though
leaders, at the 1960 Commonwealth Prime
the USSR and United States now stood as the post war super
Ministers' Conference, Windsor Castle. powers, Britain and France launched the ill-fated Suez
intervention in the 1950s, and Britain committed to the Korean
War.

From the 1960s The Troubles afflicted Northern Ireland, as British Unionist and Irish Republican
paramilitaries conducted campaigns of violence in support of their political goals. The conflict at times spilled
into Ireland and England and continental Europe. Paramilitaries such as the IRA (Irish Republican Army)
wanted union with the Republic of Ireland while the UDA (Ulster Defence Association) were supporters of
Northern Ireland remaining within the United Kingdom.

In 1973, Britain entered the European Common Market, stepping away from imperial and commonwealth
trade ties. Inflation and unemployment contributed to a growing sense of economic decline – partly offset by
the exploitation of North Sea Oil from 1974. In 1979, the electorate turned to Conservative Party leader
Margaret Thatcher, who became Britain's first female prime minister. Thatcher launched a radical program of
economic reform and remained in power for over a decade. In 1982, Thatcher dispatched a British fleet to the
Falkland Islands which successfully repelled an Argentine invasion of the British Territory, demonstrating that
Britain could still project power across the globe.[52]

Canada

Canada continued to evolve its own national identity in the post-war period. Although it was an independent
nation, it remained part of the British Commonwealth and recognized the British monarch as the Canadian
monarch as well. Following the war, French and English were recognized as co-equal official languages in
Canada, and French became the only official language in the French-speaking province of Quebec. Referenda
were held in both 1980 and 1995 in which Quebecers, however, voted not to secede from the union. Other
cultural changes Canada faced were similar to those in the United States. Racism and discrimination largely
disappeared in the post-war years, and dual-income families became the norm. Also, there was a rejection of
traditional Western values by many in Canada. The government also established universal health care for its
citizens following the war.

Australia and New Zealand: 1945–1980

Following World War II, Australia and New Zealand enjoyed a great deal of prosperity along with the rest of
the West. Both countries remained constitutional monarchies within the evolving Commonwealth of Nations
and continued to recognise British monarchs as head of their own independent Parliaments. However,
following British defeats by the Japanese in World War II, the post-war decline of the British Empire, and
entry of Britain into the European Economic Community in 1973, the two nations re-calibrated defence and
trade relations with the rest of the world. Following the Fall of Singapore in 1941, Australia turned to the
United States for military aid against the Japanese Empire and Australia and New Zealand joined the United
States in the ANZUS military alliance in the early 1950s and contributed troops to anti-communist conflicts in
South-East Asia in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The two nations also
established multicultural immigration programs with waves of
economic and refugee migrants establishing bases for large Southern
European, East Asian, Middle Eastern, and South Pacific islander
communities. Trade integration with Asia expanded, particularly
through good post-war relations with Japan. The Maori and
Australian Aborigines had been largely dispossessed and
disenfranchised during the 19th and early 20th centuries, but relations The Sydney Opera House opened in
between the descendants of European settlers and the Indigenous 1973
peoples of Australia and New Zealand began to improve through
legislative and social reform over the post-war period corresponding
with the civil rights movement in North America. 1970s Australia was a vocal critic of white-minority rule in
the former British colonies of South Africa and Rhodesia.

The arts also diversified and flourished over the period – with Australian cinema, literature and musical artists
expanding their nation's profile internationally. The iconic Sydney Opera House opened in 1973 and
Australian Aboriginal Art began to find international recognition and influence.

Western culture: 1945–1980

The West went through a series of great cultural and social changes between
1945 and 1980. Mass media created a global culture that could ignore national
frontiers. Literacy became almost universal, encouraging the growth of books,
magazines and newspapers. The influence of cinema and radio remained,
while televisions became near essentials in every home. A new pop culture
also emerged with rock n roll and pop stars at its heart.

Religious observance declined in most of the West. Protestant churches began Scene from the 1962 film To
focusing more on social gospel rather than doctrine, and the ecumenist Kill a Mockingbird. American
movement, which supported co-operation among Christian Churches. The cinema was one of the most
Catholic Church changed many of its practices in the Second Vatican influential artforms of the
post-war period.
Council, including allowing masses to be said in the vernacular rather than
Latin. The counterculture of the 1960s (and early 1970s)[54] began in the
United States as a reaction against the
conservative government, social norms of the
1950s, the political conservatism (and
perceived social repression) of the Cold War
period, and the US government's extensive
military intervention in Vietnam.[55][56]

With the abolition of laws treating most non-

whites as second-class citizens, overt
institutional racism largely disappeared from
the West. Although the United States failed to The Beatles were a highly
secure the legal equality of women with men successful and innovative
Elvis Presley helped (by the failure of Congress to ratify the Equal British rock and roll band.
popularise rock and roll Rights Amendment), women continued
music. working outside the home, and by 1980 the
double-income family became commonplace in Western society. Beginning in
the 1960s, many began rejecting traditional Western values and there was a
decline in emphasis on church and the family.
Rock and roll music and the spread of technological innovations such as television dramatically altered the
cultural landscape of western civilisation. The influential artists of the 20th century often belonged to the new
technology artforms.

Rock and roll emerged from the United States from the 1950s to become a quintessential 20th-century art
form. Artists such as Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash and, later, The Beach Boys developed the
new genre in the Southern United States. Cash became an icon of the also newly emerging popular genre of
country music. British rock and roll emerged later, with bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones rising
to unparalleled success during the 1960s. From Australia emerged the mega pop band The Bee Gees and hard
rock band AC/DC, who carried the genre in new directions through the 1970s. These musical artists were
icons of radical social changes which saw many traditional notions of western culture alter dramatically.

Hollywood, California became synonymous with film during the 20th century and American Cinema
continued a period of immense global influence in the West after World War II. American cinema played a role
in adjusting community attitudes through the 1940s to 1980 with seminal works like John Ford's 1956 Western
The Searchers, starring John Wayne, providing a sympathetic view of the Native American experience; and
1962's To Kill a Mockingbird, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee and starring Gregory
Peck, challenging racial prejudice. The advent of television challenged the status of cinema and the artform
evolved dramatically from the 1940s through the age of glamorous icons like Marilyn Monroe and directors
like Alfred Hitchcock to the emergence of such directors as Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas and Steven
Spielberg, whose body of work reflected the emerging Space Age and immense technological and social
change.

Western nations: 1980–present

The 1980s were a period of economic growth in the West, though the
1987 Stock Market Crash saw much of the West enter the 1990s in a
downturn. The 1990s and turn of the century in turn saw a period of
prosperity throughout the West. The World Trade Organization was
formed to assist in the organisation of world trade. Following the
collapse of Soviet Communism, Central and Eastern Europe began a
difficult readjustment towards market economies and parliamentary
democracy. In the post Cold War environment, new co-operation
emerged between the West and former rivals like Russia and China,
World Economic Forum, 1992: F. W. but Islamism declared itself a mortal enemy of the West, and wars
de Klerk (the last white minority were launched in Afghanistan and the mid-East in response. The
president of South Africa) shakes economic cycle turned again with the 2008 Global Financial Crisis,
hands with Nelson Mandela (who but amidst a new economic paradigm, the effect on the West was
later became the first freely elected uneven, with Europe and United States suffering deep recession, but
black president). Pacific economies like Australia and Canada, largely avoiding the
downturn – benefitting from a combination of rising trade with Asia,
good fiscal management and banking regulation.[57][58] In the early
21st century, Brasil, Russia, Indian and China (the BRIC nations) were re-emerging as drivers of economic
growth from outside North America and Western Europe.

In the early stages after the Cold War, Russian president Boris Yeltsin stared down an attempted restoration of
Sovietism in Russia, and pursued closer relations with the West. Amid economic turmoil a class of oligarchs
emerged at the summit of the Russian economy. Yeltsin's chosen successor, the former spy, Vladimir Putin,
tightened the reins on political opposition, opposed separatist movements within the Russian Federation, and
battled pro-Western neighbour states like Georgia, contributing to a challenging climate of relations with
Europe and America. Former Soviet satellites joined NATO and the European Union, leaving Russia again
isolated in the East.[59] Under Putin's long reign, the Russian
economy profited from a resource boom in the global economy, and
the political and economic instability of the Yeltsin era was brought to
an end.[60]

Elsewhere, both within and without the West, democracy and

capitalism were in the ascendant – even Communist holdouts like
mainland China and (to a lesser extent) Cuba and Vietnam, while
retaining one party government, experimented with market
liberalisation, a process which accelerated after the fall of European
The September 11 attacks and the
Communism, enabling the re-emergence of China as an alternative
War on Terrorism.
centre of economic and political power standing outside the West.

Free trade agreements were signed by many countries. The European

nations broke down trade barriers with one another in the EU, and the
United States, Canada, and Mexico signed the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Although free trade has helped
businesses and consumers, it has had the unintended consequence of
leading companies to outsource jobs to areas where labor is cheapest.
Today, the West's economy is largely service and information-based,
with most of the factories closing and relocating to China and India.

European countries have had very good relations with each other
since 1980. The European Union has become increasingly powerful,
taking on roles traditionally reserved for the nation-state. Although
real power still exists in the individual member states, one major
achievement of the Union was the introduction of the Euro, a
currency adopted by most EU countries.

Australia and New Zealand continued their large multi-ethnic

immigration programs and became more integrated in the Asia Pacific U.S. President George W. Bush and
region. While remaining constitutional monarchies within the Russian President Vladimir Putin at
Commonwealth, distance has grown between them and Britain, the 33rd G8 summit, June 2007. The
spurred on by Britain's entry into the European Common Market. end of the Cold War allowed new co-
Australia and New Zealand have integrated their own economies via operation between Russia and the
a free trade agreement. While political and cultural ties with North West, but tensions remained.
America and Europe remain strong, economic reform and
commodities trade with the booming economies of Asia have set the
South Pacific nations on a new economic trajectory with Australia largely avoiding a downturn in the
Financial crisis of 2007–2008 which unleashed severe economic loss through North America and Western
Europe.[61]

Today Canada remains part of the Commonwealth, and relations between French and English Canada have
continued to present problems. A referendum was held in Quebec, however, in 1980, in which Quebecers
voted to remain part of Canada.

In 1990, the white-minority government of the Republic of South Africa, led by F.W. de Klerk, began
negotiations to dismantle its racist apartheid legislation and the former British colony held its first universal
elections in 1994, which the African National Congress Party of Nelson Mandela won by an overwhelming
majority. The country has rejoined the Commonwealth of Nations.
Since 1991, the United States has been regarded as the world's only
superpower.[62] Politically, the United States is dominated by the
Republican and Democratic parties. Presidents of the United States
between 1980 and 2006 have been Ronald Reagan, George H.W.
Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Since 1980, Americans
have become far more optimistic about their country than they were in
the 1970s. Since the 1960s, a large number of immigrants have been
coming into the U.S., mostly from Asia and Latin America, with the
largest single group being Mexicans. Large numbers from those areas
Australia's second longest serving
have also been coming illegally, and the solution to this problem has
Prime Minister, John Howard. In the
produced much debate in the U.S. early 21st century, Australia stood as
the best performing economy among
On 11 September 2001, the United States suffered the worst terrorist
Western nations amid continuing
attack in its history. Four planes were hijacked by Islamic extremists close ties to Europe and North
and crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in America and booming trade with
Pennsylvania. Asia.

The late-2000s financial crisis, considered by many economists to be

the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, was
triggered by a liquidity shortfall in the United States banking
system,[63] and has resulted in the collapse of large financial
institutions, the bailout of banks by national governments, and
downturns in stock markets throughout much of the West. The United
States and Britain faced serious downturn, while Portugal, Greece,
Ireland and Iceland faced major debt crises.[64] Almost uniquely
among Western nations, Australia avoided recession off the back of
strong Asian trade and 25 years of economic reform and low levels of Rathaus in Baden-Baden, Germany,
government debt. 2009: Barack Obama (the first
African American president of the
Evidence of the major demographic and social shifts which have United States), and his wife are
taken place within Western society since World War II can be found welcomed by Angela Merkel (the first
with the elections of national level leaders: United States (Barack woman Chancellor of Germany) and
Obama was elected president in 2009, becoming the first African- her husband.
American to hold that office), France (Nicolas Sarkozy, a president of
France of Hungarian descent), Germany (Angela Merkel, the first
female leader of that nation), and Australia (Julia Gillard, also the first female leader of that nation).

Western nations and the world

Following 1991, Western

nations provided troops and
aid to many war-torn areas of
the world. Some of these
missions were unsuccessful,
like the attempt by the United
States to provide relief in
Somalia in the early 1990s. A
Jacques Chirac, George W. Bush, Australian soldiers on patrol as part
very successful peace-making
Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi. of the UN's International Force for
They are considered the symbolic
operation was conducted in
East Timor in 2000.
leaders of 2000s.
the Balkans in the late 1990s,
however. After the Cold War,
Yugoslavia broke up into
several countries along ethnic lines, and soon countries and ethnic
groups within countries of the former Yugoslavia began fighting one
another. Eventually, NATO troops arrived in 1999 and ended the
conflict. Australian led a United Nations mission into East Timor in
1999 (INTERFET) to restore order during that nation's transition to
democracy and independence from Indonesia.

The greatest war fought by the West in the 1990s, however, was the
Persian Gulf War. In 1990, the Middle Eastern nation of Iraq, under
Rock star Bono with former U.S.
its brutal dictator Saddam Hussein, invaded the much smaller
Vice President Al Gore at the World
neighbouring country of Kuwait. After refusing to withdraw troops,
Economic Forum in 2008.
the United Nations condemned Iraq and sent troops to liberate
Kuwait. American, British, French, Egyptian and Syrian troops all
took part in the liberation. The war ended in 1991, with the
withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait and Iraq's agreement to allow
United Nations inspectors to search for weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq.

The West had become increasingly unpopular in the Middle East

following World War II. The Arab states greatly disliked the West's
support for Israel. Many soon had a special hatred towards the United
States, Israel's greatest ally. Also, partly to ensure stability on the
Protesters in Washington calling for
region and a steady supply of the oil the world economy needed, the
a military intervention in Libya in
United States supported many corrupt dictatorships in the Middle
2011.
East. In 1979, an Islamic revolution in Iran overthrew the pro-Western
Shah and established an anti-Western Shiite Islamic theocracy.
Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, most of
the country came under the rule of a Sunni Islamic theocracy, the Taliban. The Taliban offered shelter to the
Islamic terrorist group Al-Qaeda, founded by the extremist Saudi Arabian exile Osama Bin Laden. Al-Qaeda
launched a series of attacks on United States overseas interests in the 1990s and 2000. Following the
September 11 attacks, however, the United States overthrew the Taliban government and captured or killed
many Al Qaeda leaders, including Bin Laden. In 2003, the United States led a controversial war in Iraq,
because Saddam had never accounted for all his weapons of mass destruction. By May of that year, American,
British, Polish and troops from other countries had defeated and occupied Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction
however, were never found afterwards. In both Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States and its allies
established democratic governments. Following the Iraq war, however, an insurgency made up of a number of
domestic and foreign factions has cost many lives and made establishing a government very hard.

In March 2011, a multi-state coalition led by NATO began a military intervention in Libya to implement
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, which was taken in response to threat made by the
government of Muammar Gaddafi against the civilian population of Libya during the 2011 Libyan civil
war.[65]

Western society and culture (since 1980)

In general, Western culture has become increasingly secular in Northern Europe, North America, Australia and
New Zealand. Nevertheless, in a sign of the continuing status of the ancient Western institution of the Papacy
in the early 21st century, the Funeral of Pope John Paul II brought together the single largest gathering in
history of heads of state outside the United Nations.[66] It is likely to have been the largest single gathering of
Christianity in history, with numbers estimated in excess of four million mourners gathering in
Rome.[67][68][69] He was followed by another non-Italian Benedict
XVI, whose near-unprecedented resignation from the papacy in 2013
ushered in the election of the Argentine Pope Francis – the first pope
from the Americas, the new demographic heartland of
Catholicism.[70]

Personal computers emerged from the West as a new society changing

phenomenon during this period. In the 1960s, experiment began on
networks linking computers and from these experiments grew the
World Wide Web.[71] The internet revolutionised global IBM 5150, released in 1981
communications through the late 1990s and into the early 21st century
and permitted the rise of new social media with profound
consequences, linking the world as never before. In the West, the internet allowed free access to vast amounts
of information, while outside the democratic West, as in China and in Middle Eastern nations, a range of
censorship and monitoring measures were instigated, providing a new socio-political contrast between east and
west.

Historiography
Chicago historian William H. McNeill wrote The Rise of the West (1965) to show how the separate
civilizations of Eurasia interacted from the very beginning of their history, borrowing critical skills from one
another, and thus precipitating still further change as adjustment between traditional old and borrowed new
knowledge and practice became necessary. He then discusses the dramatic effect of Western civilization on
others in the past 500 years of history. McNeill took a broad approach organized around the interactions of
peoples across the globe. Such interactions have become both more numerous and more continual and
substantial in recent times. Before about 1500, the network of communication between cultures was that of
Eurasia. The term for these areas of interaction differ from one world historian to another and include world-
system and ecumene. His emphasis on cultural fusions influenced historical theory significantly.[72]

See also
Outline of the history of Western civilization
Role of the Catholic Church in Western civilization
Great Divergence, about the era of dominance of Western Civilization
Colonial empire
Western culture
Western world
Culture of Europe
History of Europe
Eurocentrism

Media

Civilization: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark (TV Series), BBC TV, 1969
The Ascent of Man (TV series), BBC TV, 1973

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Further reading
Bavaj, Riccardo: "The West": A Conceptual Exploration (http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:015
9-2011112107), European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved:
28 November 2011.
Cole, Joshua and Carol Symes. Western Civilizations (Brief Fifth Edition) (2 vol 2020)
Kishlansky, Mark A. et al. A brief history of western civilization : the unfinished legacy (2 vol
2007) vol 1 online (https://archive.org/details/briefhistoryofwe01kish/page/n5/mode/2up); also
vol 2 online (https://archive.org/details/briefhistoryofwe00kish)
Perry, Marvin Myrna Chase, et al. Western Civilization: Ideas, Politics, and Society (2015)
Rand McNally. Atlas of western civilization (2006) online (https://archive.org/details/atlasofwest
ernci0000rand)
Spielvogel, Jackson J. Western Civilization (10th ed. 2017_
Bruce Thornton Greek Ways: How the Greeks Created Western Civilization Encounter Books,
2002

External links
textbooks--online free to borrow (https://archive.org/search.php?query=title%3A%28%22Wester
n%20civilization%22%29)

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