Question

In your response, be sure to address all parts of the question. Use complete sentences; an outline or bulleted list alone is not acceptable.

Use the passages below to answer all parts of the question that follows.

Source 1

"More than in any other era, politics in the [late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries] was revolutionary politics. It did not defend ‘age-old rights’ but, looking ahead to the future, elevated particular interests such as those of a class or a class coalition into the interests of a nation or even of humanity as a whole. . . . New political orders came into being, with new bases of legitimacy. Any return to the world as it had been previously was barred; nowhere were prerevolutionary conditions restored. . . .

Whereas previous violent overthrows had merely led to external modifications of the status quo, the American and French revolutionaries expanded the whole horizon of the age, opening a path of linear progress, grounding social relations for the first time on the principle of formal equality, lifting the weight of tradition and royal charisma, and instituting a system of rules that made those in political authority accountable to a community of citizens. These two revolutions . . ., however different from each other in their aims, signaled the onset of political modernity. From then on, defenders of the existing order bore the mark of the old and obsolete."

Jürgen Osterhammel, German historian, The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century, 2014

Source 2

"The French revolution and those in North and South America have been transformed into founding myths in their respective countries and are thought to mark the emergence of citizenship, of national economies, of the very idea of the nation. But in their own time, the revolutions’ lessons were inconclusive. . . . The revolutions of the Americas began by drawing on ideas of [liberty and citizenship] . . . to redefine sovereignty and power within imperial polities but ended up producing new states that shared world space with reconfigured empires. The secession of states from the British, French, and Spanish empires did not produce nations of equivalent citizens any more than it produced a world of equivalent nations. . . . Popular sovereignty was far from the accepted norm in western Europe and within empires’ spaces overseas it was unclear whether the idea of [individual rights] would be a contagious proposition or one [restricted to] a select few. . . . The nation had become an imaginable possibility in world politics. But the leaders of [empires] did not want to limit their political compass to national boundaries."

Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper, historians, Empires in World History, 2010

Explain ONE difference in the arguments expressed in the two sources regarding the effect of revolutions on the global political order.

Answer 1

Source 1 views the American and French revolutions as heralding a clear-cut shift to political modernity with lasting changes, while Source 2 sees the outcomes as more complex and less conclusive in establishing uniformity in citizenship and nationhood.

Step-by-step explanation:

One difference in the arguments expressed in the two sources regarding the effect of revolutions on the global political order is that Source 1 by Jürgen Osterhammel portrays the American and French revolutions as pivotal shifts towards a more modern political landscape, marking a permanent change from the old order. It emphasizes the emergence of political modernity, formal equality, and the accountability of those in authority to a community of citizens.

In contrast, Source 2 by Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper suggests that while these revolutions were significant, the formation of new states and the concept of popular sovereignty did not uniformly lead to nations of equivalent citizens or a world of equivalent nations. This source points to a more complex and inconclusive impact of the revolutions, where sovereignty and individual rights were not necessarily becoming global norms.