World History: Patterns of Interaction: Chapters 24–25

Conservative: usually wealthy property owners and nobility. They argued for protecting the traditional monarchies of Europe.

Liberal: mostly middle-class business leaders and merchants. They wanted to give more power to elected parliaments, but only the educated and the landowners would vote.

Radical: favored drastic change to extend democracy to all people. They believed that governments should practice the ideals of the French Revolution—liberty, equality, and brotherhood.

Nationalism is the belief that people’s greatest loyalty should not be to a king or an empire but to a nation of people who share a common culture and history.

Bismarck was a master of what came to be known as realpolitik. This German term means “the politics of reality.” The term is used to describe tough power politics with no room for idealism.

On January 18, 1871, at the captured French palace of Versailles, King Wilhelm I of Prussia was crowned kaiser, or emperor.

In literature and the visual arts, realism tried to show life as it was, not as it should be.

Beginning in the 1860s, a group of painters in Paris reacted against the realist style. Instead of showing life “as it really was,” they tried to show their impression of a subject or a moment in time. For this reason, their style of art came to be known as impressionism.

The Industrial Revolution refers to the greatly increased output of machine-made goods that began in England in the middle 1700s.

Within these larger fields, called enclosures, landowners experimented with more productive seeding and harvesting methods to boost crop yields.

Industrialization, which is the process of developing machine production of goods, required such resources.

Wealthy textile merchants set up the machines in large buildings called factories.

Boulton was an entrepreneur, a person who organizes, manages, and takes on the risks of a business.

This period was one of urbanization—city building and the movement of people to cities.

Most of this new money belonged to factory owners, shippers, and merchants. These people were part of a growing middle class, a social class made up of skilled workers, professionals, businesspeople, and wealthy farmers.

To raise the money, entrepreneurs sold shares of stock, or certain rights of ownership.

A corporation is a business owned by stockholders who share in its profits but are not personally responsible for its debts.

The term laissez faire refers to the economic policy of letting owners of industry and business set working conditions without interference. This policy favors a free market unregulated by the government. The term is French for “let do,” and by extension, “let people do as they please.”

Capitalism is an economic system in which the factors of
production are privately owned and money is invested in business ventures to make a profit.

In the late 1700s, Bentham introduced the philosophy of utilitarianism....According to Bentham’s theory, people should judge ideas, institutions, and actions on the basis of their utility, or usefulness.

In socialism, the factors of production are owned by the public and operate for the welfare of all.

Marx described communism as a form of complete socialism in which the means of production—all land, mines, factories, railroads, and businesses—would be owned by the people.

To press for reforms, workers joined together in voluntary
labor associations called unions. Unions engaged in collective bargaining, negotiations between workers and their employers.

They bargained for better working conditions and higher pay. If factory owners refused these demands, union members could strike, or refuse to work.