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

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

b) Explain ONE development from the period of the Atlantic Revolutions that grounded “social relations for the first time on the principle of formal equality” as claimed in the second paragraph of Source 1.

c) Identify ONE way in which empires in the nineteenth century (other than those mentioned in the passage) successfully resisted revolutionary change, as suggested in Source 2.

Answer 1

a)Political revolutions were started by both economic and social issues. The issues contributing to the political arguments of the first global age formed a sort of chain reaction; as one political party fell or grew, it affected the other areas of politics. Hobbes, for example, was seen as a modern philosopher, however, he believes that the people of a nation should only rebel against a political structure in self-defense. Many people of this age rallied behind philosophers like Hobbes, and they were seen (by most) as a refreshing new vessel of knowledge.

b)One development that was vital to the principle of equality was the American and French revolutionaries not conforming to traditional ways of life. For example, the revolutionaries expanded the “whole horizon of age.” This allowed more people to conform to their own agendas and not be suffocated by the “royal charisma.”

c)France is an example of an empire in the 19th century that resisted revolutionary change. However, the French government was still met with resistance. Many of its new laws and developments didn’t last long.

Step-by-step explanation:

The other answer is completly crediable and they did a great job, this is just another point of view on some of the questions

Answer 2

a)

In the first passage, the author argues that the political revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth century had no parallel in history when it came to revolutionary impact. The author argues that such revolutions forever changed the global political order. On the other hand, the second passage argues that their impact was a lot less significant. While these revolutions were driven by extremely powerful ideas, the practical changes they caused were not as big as we often assume.

b)

One of the ways in which the principle of formal equality was influential in social relations was through the adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a document written in 1789 during the French Revolution. The document established that all people were equal, and deserved the same basic rights.

c)

An example of an empire which resisted revolutionary change was France. France was the location of the most significant of these revolutions. It was also the first one to experiment with a modern political system based on ideals of equality and democracy. However, the government still encountered great resistance, and many of this developments were not permanent, as evidenced by Napoleon's mandate as emperor of the French.