95 theses The 95 propositions or challenges to official Church theology posted by Martin Luther on the door of Wittenberg castle in the autumn of 1517.
absolutism A theory of government that contends that a rightful ruler rules with absolute power over his or her subjects.
almanacs Popular, eighteenth-century texts which incorporated much of the new scientific and rational knowledge of the Enlightenment.
Anabaptists A sect of radical Protestant reformers prevalent in Europe in the sixteenth century who considered true Protestant faith to require social reform.
anarchism The nineteenth-century ideology which saw the modern state and its institutions as the enemy of individual freedom, and recommended terrorism as a way to disrupt the machinery of government.
Ancien Régime (also Old Regime) Term that refers to the traditional social and political hierarchy of eighteenth-century France.
Anglican Church The state Church of England, established by Henry VIII in the early sixteenth century when he decided to break from the Church in Rome.
Anschluss The annexation, in March of 1938, of Austria by Nazi Germany.
antisemitism The singling out of Jews as culturally, and sometimes racially, different for the purpose of discriminating against them.
appeasement Britain’s policy, 1936-1939, of acquiescing to Hitler’s demands in return for his promise of no further aggression.
Atlantic Charter A document, drawn up in August of 1941, setting forth Anglo-American aims in World War II. It rejected any territorial aggrandizement for either Britain or the United States, and it affirmed the right of all peoples to choose their own form of government.
August Decrees Decrees passed by the National Assembly of France in August of 1789 renouncing and abolishing most of the traditional privileges of the nobility and the clergy.
Austro-Prussian War of 1866 Engineered by Bismarck as part of his master plan to unify Germany under the Prussian monarchy. Prussian troops surprised and
overwhelmed a larger Austrian force, winning victory in only seven weeks. The result was that Austria was expelled from the old German Confederation and a new North German Confederation, completely under the control of Prussia, was created.
Bastille The prison-fortress of eighteenth-century Paris which symbolized the despotic power of the Ancien Régime. It was stormed by a revolutionary crowd on 14 July 1789.
Battle of Tannenberg A German victory over Russian troops in August of 1914 which led to the liberation of East Prussia and began a slow, steady German advance eastward.
Battle of the Somme (July to November 1916) World War I British offensive that produced enormous casualties: 400,000 British, 200,000 French, and 500,000 Germans soldiers perished.
Battle of Trafalgar The naval battle in which Great Britain’s fleet, led by Lord Nelson, defeated the combined French and Spanish fleets on 21 October 1805, making Britain virtually unconquerable.
Battle of Verdun (February 1916) World War I battle in which French troops, led by Marshall Petain, repulsed a German offensive; 700,000 men were killed.
Battle of Waterloo Napoleon’s last stand in 1815; he was defeated in Belgium by a coalition of forces led by Britain’s Duke of Wellington.
Berlin Airlift The U.S.-sponsored airlift, from June 1948 to May 1949, which brought supplies to West Berlin; it was a response to Soviet troops cutting off all land traffic from the West into Berlin in an attempt to take control of the whole city.
Berlin Conference of 1885 A conference of the European powers to establish guidelines for the partitioning of Africa.
Bessemer Process A process, invented in the 1850s by the English engineer Henry Bessemer, that allowed steel to be produced more cheaply and in larger quantities.
Black Death A plague that first appeared in Europe in 1347 and recurred numerous times until it disappeared in 1352. It is estimated that between one- quarter and one-third of the population of Europe died during the plague years.
Blackshirts (also squadristi) Italian fascist paramilitary groups, largely recruited from disgruntled war veterans, commanded by Mussolini and increasingly relied upon to keep order by the Italian government in the 1920s.
Bolsheviks A party of revolutionary Marxists, led by Lenin, who seized power in Russia in November 1917.
Boulanger Affair An attempted coup by the French General George Boulanger in the early 1880s; it underscored the fragility of French democracy and the volatility of mass politics in France.
bourgeoisie In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France, a term for the merchant and commercial classes. In Marxist social critique, the class that owns the means of production and exploits wage-laborers.
Boxer Rebellion (1899-1900) An attempted rebellion by Chinese Nationalists which aimed at overthrowing the Western-dependent Manchu dynasty; it was suppressed by European powers.
cahiers The official concerns and grievances of the three Estates that composed the political orders of eighteenth-century France. Members representing each of the three Estates met in the Estates General to hear the problems of the realm and to hear pleas for new taxes. In return, they were allowed to present their cahiers.
Candide Voltaire’s sprawling satire of European culture, penned in 1759; the classic example of Enlightenment period satire.
Carbonari Secret groups of Italian nationalists active in the early part of the nineteenth century; in 1820, the Carbonari briefly succeeded in organizing an uprising that forced King Ferdinand I of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to grant a constitution and a new Parliament. Cartel des Gauches A coalition of socialist parties, swept into power in France in the elections of 1924; caused an ultranationalist reaction in France.
cash crops Crops grown for sale and export in the market-oriented approach that replaced the manorial system during the Agricultural Revolution of the eighteenth century.
celestial realm The realm, in the Aristotelian view of the cosmos, above the orbit of the moon.
Chartism (1837-1842) A movement in Britain in support of the People’s Charter, a petition that called for: universal manhood suffrage; annual Parliaments; voting by secret ballot; equal electoral districts; abolition of property qualifications for Members of Parliament; and payment of Members of Parliament.
city-states The independent cities of the Italian Peninsula that were ruled by powerful merchant families; the unique political structure of the Italian peninsula that was a crucial factor in the advent of the Renaissance.
Civic Forum A movement in Czechoslovakia and East Germany in the 1980s, which sought to rebuild notions of citizenship and civic life that had been destroyed by the Soviet system; became an organizational and inspirational rallying point for opposition to Soviet domination.
Civil Constitution of the Clergy Legislation passed by the National Assembly of France in September of 1791 that turned clergymen into employees of the government and turned Church property into property of the state.
civil society The society formed when free men come together and surrender some of their individual power in return for greater protection.
class consciousness The sense of belonging to a “working class” that developed among European workers during the Second Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century; a result of their working together in factories and living together in isolated slums.
collectivization of agriculture As an extension of the his Five Year Plan (initiated in 1928), Stalin pursued a policy of destroying the culture of the peasant village and replacing it with one organized around huge collective farms. The peasants resisted and were killed, starved, or driven into Siberia in numbers that can only be estimated but which may have been as high as eight million.
Colloquies Dialogues written (beginning in 1519) by the most important and influential of the northern humanists, Desiderius Erasmus, for the purpose of teaching his students both the Latin language and how to live a good life.
Committee of Public Safety A 12-man committee created in the summer of1793 and invested with almost total power in order that it might secure the fragile French Republic from its enemies.
Commonwealth, The (1649-1660) The period where England was ruled without a monarch, following the victory of the Parliamentary forces in the English Civil War and the subsequent execution of Charles I.
communism The ideology dedicated to the creation of a class-free society through the abolition of private property.
Compromise of 1867 The Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph’s attempt, in 1866, to deal with the demands for greater autonomy from the ethnic minorities within the Hapsburg Empire. The compromise set up a dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, where Franz Joseph served as the ruler of both Austria and Hungary, each of which had its own parliament. Concert of Europe The alliance created in November of1815 that required important diplomatic decisions to be made by all four great powers—Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Great Britain—“in concert” with one another.
Conciliar Movement A fifteenth-century movement, composed of various councils of cardinals, which attempted to reform, reunite, and reinvigorate the Christian Church of Europe.
Concordat of 1801 An agreement signed by Napoleon Bonaparte and the Catholic Church of Rome, reconciling France with the Catholic Church by stipulating that French clergy would be chosen and paid by the state but consecrated by the pope.
Congress of Vienna Representatives from the four major powers that had combined to defeat Napoleon—Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria—met in Paris in November of 1814 to forge a peace settlement. conservatism The nineteenth-century ideology which held that tradition was the only trustworthy guide to social and political action.
constitutional monarchy A theory of government that contends that a rightful ruler’s power is limited by an agreement with his or her subjects.
Consulate A three-man executive body, established immediately following Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup d’etat in November of 1799. In 1802, Napoleon was acknowledged as the sole executive officer and given the title “first consul for life.”
Continental System Established by Napoleon in order to weaken Britain, the system forbade the Continental European states and kingdoms under French control from trading with Britain.
Copernicanism The theory, following Nicolas Copernicus, that the Sun is at the center of the cosmos and that the Earth is the third planet from the sun. cottage industry (also putting-out system) A system in which rural peasants engaged in small-scale textile manufacturing that developed in the eighteenth century to allow merchants, faced with an ever-expanding demand for textiles, to get around the guild system. cotton gin Machine invented in 1793 by an American, Eli Whitney, that efficiently removed seed from raw cotton, thereby increasing the speed with which it could be processed and sent to the spinners.
Council for Mutual Economic Assistance The Soviet Union’s response to the Marshall Plan, whereby the Soviet Union offered economic aid packages for Eastern European countries.
Council of Trent Reform council of the Catholic Church which began its deliberations in 1545. Despite its reformist aims, it continued to insist that the Catholic Church was the final arbiter in all matters of faith.
Court of the Star Chamber A judicial innovation of Henry VII (r. 1485-1509) of England, designed to curb the independence of the nobility, whereby criminal charges brought against the nobility were judged by a court of the king’s own councilors.
“Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” A declaration adopted by the National Assembly of France on 27 August 1789, espousing individual rights and liberties for all citizens.
Deism The belief that the complexity, order, and natural laws exhibited by the universe were reasonable proofs that it had been created by a God who was no longer active.
Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World Galileo’s treatise of 1632, where he dismantled the arguments in favor of the traditional, Aristotelian view of the cosmos, and presented the Copernican system as the only alternative for reasonable people.
Diplomatic Revolution The mid-eighteenth-century shift in European alliances, whereby the expansionist aims of Frederick II of Prussia caused old enemies to become allies. Specifically, Prussia, fearful of being isolated by its enemies, forged an alliance in 1756 with its former enemy Great Britain; and Austria and France, previously antagonistic towards one another, responded by forging an alliance of their own.
Directory A five-man board created to handle the executive functions of the government during Thermidor, the third and final phase of the French Revolution (1794-1799).
Discourse on Method Rene Descartes’s treatise of 1637, where he established a method of philosophical inquiry based on radical skepticism.
dissenters The collective name for Protestant groups and sects who refused to join the Anglican Church in England.
Divine Right of Kings The theory that contended that monarchs received their right to rule directly from God.
division of labor A technique whereby formerly complex tasks that required knowledge and skill were broken down into a series of simple tasks, aided by machines.
doge The Italian word that refers to the military strongmen who ruled some of the Italian city-states, such as Venice, during the Renaissance.
Dreyfuss Affair The protracted prosecution, beginning in 1894, of a young Jewish officer in the French Army, Alfred Dreyfuss, for treason. His numerous trials divided the French nation, illustrating how strongly ultranationalist and antisemitic feelings were in the French establishment.
Edict of Nantes Royal edict which established the principle of religious toleration in France; proclaimed in 1598 and revoked in 1685.
elect, the The name given in Calvinist theology to the group of people who have been predestined by God for salvation.
elements The basic components of matter in Aristotelian physics; there were five: earth, water, air, fire, and aether.
Ems Telegram A diplomatic correspondence between Napoleon III of France and William I of Prussia, edited by Bismarck to make it seem like they had insulted one another. An example of Realpolitik.
enclosure The building of hedges, fences, and walls to deny the peasantry access to traditional farming plots and common lands which were now converted to fields for cash crops during the Agricultural Revolution of the eighteenth century.
Encyclopedia (1751-1772) Produced by the tireless efforts of its co-editors Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert, the entries of the Encyclopedia championed a scientific approach to knowledge and labeled anything not based on reason as superstition.
English Civil War (1642-1646) Forces loyal to King Charles I fought to defend the power of the monarchy, the official Church of England, and the privileges and prerogatives of the nobility; forces supporting Parliament fought to uphold the rights of Parliament, to bring an end to the notion of an official state Church, and for notions of individual liberty and the rule of law.
enlightened despotism The hope shared by many philosophies that the powerful monarchs of European civilization, once educated in the ideals of the Enlightenment, would use their power to reform and rationalize society.
Essay Concerning Human Understanding John Locke’s treatise of 1689-1690, which argued that humans are born tabula rasa (a blank slate), contradicting the traditional Christian notion that humans are born corrupt and sinful, and implying that what humans become is purely a result of what they experience.
Estates General The representative body of eighteenth- century France. Members representing each of the three Estates met to hear the problems of the realm and to hear pleas for new taxes. In return, they were allowed to present a list of their own concerns and proposals, called cahiers, to the Crown.
eugenics a notion, first developed in the nineteenth century, that a progressive, scientific nation should plan and manage the biological reproduction of its population.
Fabian Society The socialist organization in Britain, beginning in the late nineteenth century, that counseled against revolution but argued that the cause of the working classes could be furthered through political solutions.
factory system A system of production created in order to better supervise labor. In the factory system, workers came to a central location and worked with the machines under the supervision of managers.
First Battle of Marne (6 September 1914) A victory won by French troops that stopped the initial German advance in World War I.
First Battle of Ypres (October and November of 1914) Allied troops ended all hopes of a German advance, leading to a stalemate and the beginning of trench warfare.
five-year plans A series of plans initiated by Stalin, beginning in 1928, which rejected all notions of private enterprise and initiated the building of state- owned factories and power stations throughout the Soviet Union.
flight to Varennes Louis XVI’s attempt to flee Paris in June of 1791 and head north to rally supporters.
Florentine Academy An informal gathering of humanists devoted to the revival and teachings of Plato, founded in 1462 under the leadership of Marsilio Ficino and the patronage of Cosimo de Medici.
flying shuttle Machine invented in 1733 by John Kay that doubled the speed at which cloth could be woven on a loom, creating a need to find a way to produce greater amounts of thread faster.
Frankfort Assembly Legislative body formed during the brief success of liberal reformers in Germany in 1848; they failed in their attempt to form a German nation.
Freikorps Regiments of German World War I veterans, commanded by old imperial army officers, that were used by the government of the Weimar Republic to defeat Marxist revolutionaries in the 1920s.
fresco Paintings done either on wet or dry plaster; an important medium of art during the Renaissance.
geocentric Earth-centered; the Aristotelian model of the cosmos.
Girondins Faction within the National Convention of France, during the French Revolution, whose membership tended to come from the wealthiest of the bourgeoisie; they opposed the execution of Louis XVI.
glasnost Russian term that refers to a new “openness” that Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev believed was required for the survival of the Soviet Union. Introduced in 1985, the concept of glasnost (along with perestroika or “restructuring”) quickly fanned the fires of reform and autonomy throughout the Soviet Union and its satellite states.
globalization A term that refers to the increasing integration and interdependence of the economic, social, cultural, and even ecological aspects of life in the late- twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries. The term not only refers to way in which the economies of the world affect one another, but also to the way that the experience of everyday life is increasingly standardized by the spread of technologies which carry with them social and cultural norms.
Glorious Revolution, The (1688) The quick, nearly bloodless uprising that coordinated Parliament-led uprisings in England with the invasion of a Protestant fleet and army from the Netherlands, and which led to the expulsion of James II and the institution of a constitutional monarchy in England under William and Mary.
Grand Alliance The Alliance between Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States to oppose the Axis powers of Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan. Hitler’s decision to attack the Soviet Union in June of 1941 forged the first link, allying Britain and the Soviet Union; the United States joined following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941.
Grand Army The 600,000-strong army of conscripts assembled by Napoleon to invade Russia in June of 1812; 500,000 of them perished in the effort.
Great Depression A total collapse of the economies of Europe and the United States, triggered by the American stock market crash in 1929 and lasting most of the decade of the 1930s.
Great Fear, the Atmosphere of fear created in Paris in the summer of 1789 by the violence occurring in the countryside, as peasants raided granaries to ensure that they had affordable bread and attacked the chateaus of the local nobility in order to burn debt records. Guernica (1937) Pablo Picasso’s 25-foot long mural depicting the bombing of the town of Guernica by German planes in 1937, poignantly illustrating the nature of the mismatch between the German- supported Spanish fascist troops and the rag-tag brigades of volunteers defending the Spanish Republic. guilds Exclusive organizations that monopolized the skilled trades in Europe from the medieval period until they were broken by the development of cottage industry in the eighteenth century. gulags Work camps where Stalin sent Soviet citizens whom he considered to be enemies of the state. haciendas the large, landed estates which produced food and leather goods for the mining areas and urban centers of the Spanish Empire in the New World. heliocentric Sun-centered; the model of the cosmos proposed by Nicolas Copernicus in 1534. Hermeticism A tradition of knowledge which taught that the world was infused with a single spirit that could be explored through mathematics as well as through magic.
Historical and Critical Dictionary A dictionary compiled by Pierre Bayle in 1697; it included entries for numerous religious beliefs, illustrating why they did not, in his opinion, stand the test of reason.
Holy Roman Emperor The nominal ruler of the German states who, from 1356, was elected by a seven-member council consisting of the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne, the Duke of Saxony, the Margrave of Brandenburg, the Count Palatine, and the King of Bohemia.
Huguenots The sixteenth- and seventeenth-century term for Protestants living in France. humanism In the Renaissance, both a belief in the value of, and an educational program based on, Classical Greek and Roman languages and values.
Hundred Years War A dynastic conflict begun in 1337, pitting the armies and resources of the Norman kings of England and the Capetian kings of France against one another.
Indian National Congress An organization of Hindu elites in India, established in 1885 to promote the notion of a free and independent India. indulgences Certificates of absolution sold by the Church forgiving people for their sins, sometimes even before they committed them, in return for a monetary contribution; the selling of indulgences was one of the practices objected to by Martin Luther.
industrial socialism A variety of nineteenth-century utopian socialism which argued that it was possible to have a productive, profitable industrial enterprise without exploiting workers. Its leading advocate was a Scottish textile manufacture, Robert Owen.
Inquisition An institution within the Catholic Church, created in 1479 to enforce the conversion of Muslims and Jews in Spain; it was revived and expanded during the Reformation to combat all perceived threats to orthodoxy and the Church’s authority.
intendent An administrative bureaucrat in Absolutist France of the seventeenth century, usually chosen from the middle class, who owed his position and, therefore, his loyalty directly to the state.
internal combustion engine Developed in 1886 by two German engineers, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz, it burned petroleum as fuel and, when mounted on a carriage, was used to create the automobile.
International Congress of the Rights of Women (1878) Meeting, in Paris, of the political groups which campaign for women’s rights.
International Working Men's Association Founded in 1864, it was a loose coalition of unions and political parties whose aim was an international strategy for the advancement of working-class issues; the First International fell apart in the 1870s, but was replaced by the Second International in 1889.
invisible hand A phrase, penned by Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations (1776), to denote the way in which natural economic laws guided the economy.
Iron Curtain A phrase (first uttered by Winston Churchill in a speech given in the United States in1946) that referred to the line which stretched from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Adriatic Sea in the south and divided Europe between a communist East and a capitalist West.
iron law of wages A theory promoted by nineteenth- century, liberal economic thinkers which argued that competition between workers for jobs would always, in the long run, force wages to sink to subsistence levels.
Jacobins A faction within the National Convention of France, during the French Revolution, whose members came from the lower strata of the bourgeoisie; they were adamant proponents of the execution of Louis XVI.
July Ordinances Issued by Charles X of France in1830, the ordinances dissolved part of the legislative branch of the government and revoked the voting privileges of the bourgeoisie. The result was a rebellion by the bourgeoisie, students, and workers that forced Charles X to abdicate.
Junkers A powerful class of landed aristocrats in nineteenth-century Prussia who supported Bismarck’s plan for the unification of Germany.
Kepler's laws Three laws of planetary motion developed by Johannes Kepler between 1609 and 1619.
Kulturkampf Bismarck’s legislative assault, in the 1870s, on the religious freedom of Catholics in Germany.
laissez-faire The notion, promoted in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776), that governments should not try to interfere with the natural workings of an economy; a notion that became one of the basic tenets of liberalism in the nineteenth century.
Law Code of 1649 Legislation in Russia that converted the legal status of groups as varied as peasants and slaves into that of a single class of serfs.
Law of the Maximum Law passed by the National Convention of France in the summer of 1793 to cap the price of bread and other essentials.
lay piety A tradition in the smaller, independent German provinces, flourishing in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, whereby organized groups promoted pious behavior and learning outside the bureaucracy of the Church.
Leviathan Thomas Hobbes’s treatise of 1651, which asserted that self-interest motivated nearly all human behavior and concluded that “without a common power to keep them in awe,” the natural state of man was one of war.
liberalism The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ideology which asserted that the task of government was to promote individual liberty.
Maastricht Treaty The treaty, signed in 1992, creating the European Union, the world’s largest trading bloc, and moving to adopt a common currency (the Euro).
Maginot Line A vast complex of tank traps, fixed artillery sites, subterranean railways, and living quarters built by the French, which paralleled the FrancoGerman border but failed to protect the border between France and Belgium.
manorial system The traditional economic system of Europe, developed in the medieval period, in which land-owning elites (lords of the manor) held vast estates divided into small plots of arable land farmed by peasants for local consumption.
March to Versailles, the Following riots in Paris on 5 October 1789, a contingent of Parisian women organized an 11-mile march from Paris to the king’s palace at Versailles. Along the way, they were joined by the Paris Guards, a citizen militia, and together they forced their way into the palace and insisted that Louis accompany them back to Paris.
Marshall Plan The plan, named after U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall, launched in 1947 which provided billions of dollars of aid to help the western European powers rebuild their infrastructures and economies.
Masonic Lodges Secret meeting places established and run by Freemasons whose origins dated back to the medieval guilds of the stonemasons. By the eighteenth- century, the lodges were fraternities of aristocratic and middle-class men (and occasionally women) who gathered to discuss alternatives to traditional beliefs.
Meiji Restoration A successful rebellion by Japanese modernizers who were determined to preserve Japanese independence; it restored power to the emperor and reorganized Japanese society along western lines.
Metropolis (1925) Film by Fritz Lang that depicts a world in which humans are dwarfed by an impersonal world of their own creation; illustrates the alienation and anxiety that permeated European culture in the 1920s.
Michelangelo's David Sculpted by Michelangelo Buonarroti (completed in 1504), this sculpture of the biblical hero is characteristic of the last and most heroic phase of Renaissance art; sculpted from a single piece of marble, it is larger than life and offers a vision of the human body and spirit that is more dramatic than real life, an effect that Michelangelo produced by making the head and hands deliberately too large for the torso.
Middle Passage, The The leg of the triangle of trade in which African slaves were transported in brutal conditions across the Atlantic on European trade ships.
Midlothian Campaign (1879) Generally acknowledged to be the first modern political campaign; British liberal candidate for Prime Minister, William Gladstone, rode the railway to small towns throughout his district (Midlothia) to give speeches and win votes.
millenarianism The belief that one is living in the last days of the world and that the judgment day is at hand (originally tied to the belief that the end would come in the year 1,000 A.D.).
monarchs The hereditary rulers of traditional European society.
Munich Agreement The agreement of September of 1938 whereby Britain and France allowed Hitler to take the Sudentenland, an area of Czechoslovakia populated primarily by German speakers, over the objections of the Czechoslovakian government, in exchange for his promise that there would be no further aggression; in March of 1939, Hitler broke the Munich Agreement by invading Czechoslovakia.
Napoleonic Code (also known as the Civil Code of 1804) A system of uniform law and administrative policy Napoleon created for the Empire he was building in Europe.
National Assembly Name taken by the representatives of the Third Estate on 17 June 1789, declaring themselves to be the legislative body of France; often seen as the beginning of the French Revolution’s moderate phase.
nationalism The nineteenth-century ideology which asserted that a nation was a natural, organic entity whose people shared a cultural identity and a historical destiny.
nationalities problem The name given to the conflict between the 10 distinct linguistic and ethnic groups that lived within the borders of Austria-Hungary and their German-speaking rulers.
National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP, or the Nazi Party) German political party that began as a small right-wing group and one of the more than 70 extremist paramilitary organizations that sprang up in postwar Germany. It was neither socialist nor did it attract many workers; it was a party initially made up of war veterans and misfits. The man responsible for its rise to power in Germany was Adolf Hitler.
National Trade Unions Congress The late-nineteenth- century British organization that joined all the labor unions of the country together for political action, and which supported the newly formed Labour Party, a political party that ran working-class candidates in British elections.
National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies An organization, headed by Millicent Garrett Fawcett, that campaigned vigorously for women’s voting rights in Britain during the period 1905-1914.
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) A military alliance, formed in 1949, uniting the Western powers against the Soviet Union.
Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact The agreement, reached on 23 August of 1939, guaranteeing Soviet neutrality in World War II in return for parts of Poland.
neoplatonism In the Renaissance and Early-Modern period, a philosophy based on that of Plato which contended that reality was located in a changeless world of forms and which, accordingly, spurred the study of mathematics.
New Economic Plan (NEP) A plan instituted by Lenin in the early 1920s which allowed rural peasants and small business operators to manage their own land and businesses and to sell their products; a temporary compromise with capitalism that worked well enough to get the Russian economy functioning again.
New Spain The name given to the area in Mexico controlled by the Spanish upon conquering the Aztec Empire in 1521.
nobility Originally the warrior class, the class of privileged landowners in traditional European society.
Opium War (1839-1942) A war launched by the British when the Chinese government tried to prevent the British from trading opium grown in India to Chinese dealers in exchange for tea, silk, and other goods that were highly prized in Britain. The victorious British forced the Chinese to sign the Treaty of Nanking which ceded Hong Kong to Britain, established several tariff-free zones for foreign trade, and exempted foreigners from Chinese law.
Oration on the Dignity of Man The best articulation of the belief in the dignity and potential of man that characterized Renaissance humanism; authored by Pico della Mirandola in 1486.
Papal States A kingdom in central Italy, ruled directly by the pope until Italian unification (1866-1870).
Paris Commune Working class uprising in Paris, in February and March of 1871; having defended the city against a German invasion, the Parisian working class refused to accept the results of an election won by monarchists (who had deserted the city at the first sight of Germans). They ruled the city for two months before being crushed by the French Army.
Peace of Augsburg Signed in 1555, it established the principle of “whoever rules; his religion” and signaled Rome that the German princes would not go to war with each other over religion.
peasantry The class of rural, agricultural laborers in traditional European society.
perestroika Russian term that refers to a “restructuring” that Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev believed was required for the survival of the Soviet Union. Introduced in 1985, the concept ofperestroika (along with glasnost or “openness”) quickly fanned the fires of reform and autonomy throughout the Soviet Union and its satellite states.
philosophe Public intellectuals of the French Enlightenment who believed that society should be reformed on the basis of natural law and reason.
philosophical texts The underground book trade’s code name for banned books that included some versions of philosophical treatises, and bawdy, popularized versions of the philosophies’ critique of the Church and the ruling classes.
plantations the large, landed estates in the West Indies, which produced sugar for export to Europe.
Platonic-Pythagorean tradition A tradition of philosophy that developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which embraced the works of Plato and Pythagoras, and which had as its goal the identification of the fundamental mathematical laws of nature.
Pragmatic Sanction The document that guaranteed the right of Maria Theresa to ascend to the throne of Austria, but which was challenged in 1740 by Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia.
Prague Spring An episode in 1968, when Czechoslovakian communists, led by Alexander Dubcek, embarked on a process of liberalization. Under Dubcek’s leadership, the reformers declared that they intended to create “socialism with a human face.” Dubcek tried to proceed by balancing reforms with reassurances to the Soviet Union, but on 21 August, Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops invaded and occupied the major cities of Czechoslovakia; it was the largest military operation in Europe since World War II.
predestination Calvinist belief that asserts that God has predetermined which people will be saved and which will be damned.
priesthood of all believers One of the central tenets of Martin Luther’s theology; the belief that all who have true faith are “priests,” that is, they are competent to read and understand scripture.
Prince, The The book, by Niccolo Machiavelli (1513), which marks the shift from a “civic ideal” to a “princely ideal” in Renaissance humanism; the princely ideal is focused on the qualities and strategies necessary for attaining and holding social and political power.
Principia Mathematica Isaac Newton’s treatise of 1687, which became the model for the scientific approach to investigating the natural world.
proletariat A term in the Marxist critique of society that refers to the class of industrial wage-laborers.
psychological socialism A variety of nineteenth- century utopian socialism which saw a conflict between the structure of society and the natural needs and tendencies of human beings. Its leading advocate was Charles Fourier, who argued that the ideal society was one organized on a smaller, more human scale.
purges Stalin’s systematic elimination, between 1935 and 1939, of all centers of independent thought and action within the Communist Party and the government in the Soviet Union. Somewhere between seven and eight million Soviet citizens were arrested; at least a million of those were executed, while the rest were sent to work camps known as gulags. putting-out system (also cottage industry) A system in which rural peasants engaged in small-scale textile manufacturing that developed in the eighteenth century to allow merchants, faced with an ever-expanding demand for textiles, to get around the guild system. qualities A term, in Aristotelian physics, for the tendencies of matter; that is, earth sinks; air floats, etc.
Race for the Sea A series of local engagements aimed at outflanking the enemy in November 1914, which extended the front line of battle on the Western Front until it reached the English Channel. railway boom The rapid development of a railway system, beginning in Britain in the 1830s. The development of railway systems further spurred the development of heavy industries, as railroads facilitated the speedy transportation of iron and steel while simultaneously consuming large quantities of both. Realpolitik A political theory made fashionable by Bismarck in the nineteenth century, which asserted that the aim of any political policy should be to increase the power of a nation by whatever means and strategies were necessary and useful.
Reform Bill of 1867 British legislation that doubled the number of people eligible to vote and extended the vote to the lower-middle class for the first time. Reform Bill of 1884 British legislation that extended the right to vote to two-thirds of all adult males. Reichstag The legislative body for the German states, created in the fifteenth century as a check to the executive power of the Holy Roman Emperor; it included the seven electors, the remaining princes, and representatives from 65 important free cities in Germany.
Reign of Terror Instituted under Robespierre’s leadership by the Committee of Public Safety during the French Revolution; Robespierre created tribunals in the major cities of France to try anyone suspected of being an enemy of the revolution. During the period of the Terror, between September of 1793 and July of 1794, between 200,000 and 400,000 people were sentenced to prison; between 25,000 and 50, 000 of them are believed to have died either in prison or at the guillotine.
Restoration, The (1660-1688) The period of English history following the Commonwealth and preceding the Glorious Revolution; encompasses the reigns of Charles II (1660-1685) and James II (1685-1688). Risorgimento The mid-nineteenth-century Italian nationalist movement composed mostly of intellectuals and university students; from 1834 to 1848, the Risorgimento attempted a series of popular insurrections and briefly established a Roman Republic in 1848.
Romanticism The nineteenth-century ideology which urged the cultivation of sentiment and emotion by reconnecting with nature and with the past.
Russianization Alexander III’s attempt, in 1880s, to make Russian the standard language and the Russian Orthodox Church the standard religion throughout the Russian Empire.
Russo-Japanese War A brief war in 1904 pitting Japan against Russia after they quarreled over influence in China; Japan’s quick victory stunned the world and announced Japan’s arrival as a modern, military, and industrial power.
salons Places where both men and women gathered, in eighteenth-century France, to educate themselves about and discuss the new ideas of the Enlightenment in privacy and safety.
salvation by faith alone One of the central tenets of Martin Luther’s theology; the belief that salvation is a gift from God given to all who possess true faith.
sans-culottes The working people (bakers, shopkeepers, artisans, and manual labors who were characterized by their long working pants—hence, sans-culottes, literally without short pants) who asserted their will in the radical phase of the French Revolution (1791-1794).
Schleswig-Holstein Affair Originally as dispute over the administration of two Danish duchies, Schleswig and Holstein, that had a large German-speaking population, it was used by Bismarck to engineer a war with Austria in 1866; it is a perfect illustration of Realpolitik in action.
Schlieffen Plan The German plan for a two-front war that called for a military thrust westward towards Paris at the first sign of Russian mobilization in the east. Its logic helped to precipitate World War I.
scholasticism A term for the pre-Renaissance system of knowledge characterized by the belief that everything worth knowing was written down in ancient texts.
scientific socialism A variety of socialism based on what its adherents claimed was a scientific analysis of society’s workings. The most influential of the self- proclaimed scientific socialists was the German revolutionary Karl Marx.
scripture alone One of the central tenets of Martin Luther’s theology; the belief that scripture is the only guide to knowledge of God (the Catholic Church holds that there are two guides to knowledge of God: scripture and Church tradition).
Second Industrial Revolution The second phase of industrialization, lasting from roughly 1820 to 1900, was characterized by the advent of large-scale iron and steel production, the application of the steam engine, and the development of a railway system.
Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690) Philosophical treatise by the Englishman John Locke; the primary argument for the establishment of natural limits to governmental authority.
Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 (sometimes known as the Sepoy Mutiny) An organized, anti-British uprising led by military units of Indians who had formerly served the British; it resulted in the British government taking direct control of India and restructuring the Indian economy to produce and consume products that aided the British economy.
Seven Years War (1756-1763) The conflict which pitted France, Austrian, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, and (after 1762) Spain against Prussia, Great Britain, and the German state of Hanover. Land and sea battles were fought in North America (where it is sometimes known as the French and Indian War), Europe, and India. The European hostilities were concluded in 1763 by a peace agreement that essentially reestablished prewar boundaries. The North American conflict, and particularly the fall of Quebec in 1759, shifted the balance of power to the British. The British had similar success in India.
Social Contract, The Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s treatise of 1762, where he wrote: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains,” and where he argued that virtuous citizen should be willing to subordinate his own self-interest to the general good of the community and that the government must be continually responsible to the general will of the people.
social Darwinism The nineteenth-century ideology which asserted that competition was natural and necessary for the evolutionary progress of a society.
Social Democrats By 1914, the most successful socialist party in Germany; the Social Democrats espoused the “revisionist socialism” of Eduard Bernstein, who urged socialist parties to cooperate with bourgeois liberals in order to earn immediate gains for the working class.
socialism The ideology which seeks to reorder society in ways that would end or minimize competition, foster cooperation, and allow the working classes to share in the wealth being produced by industrialization.
socialism in one country Policy adopted by Stalin in the autumn of 1924, in which the notion of a worldwide socialist revolution was abandoned in favor of making the Soviet Union a successful socialist state.
Solidarity (Solidarnos) The name of the Polish labor union, founded in 1980 and led by Lech Walesa, that led the eventually successful opposition to Soviet domination in Poland.
Soviet Constitution of 1923 The constitution created by Lenin for the Soviet Union in July of 1923. On paper it created a Federal State, renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics but, in practice, power continued to emanate from Lenin and the city that he named the capital in 1918, Moscow.
spartacists Marsixt revolutionaries in post-World War I Germany, led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Leibknecht, who were dedicated to bringing a socialist revolution to Germany.
spice trade The importation of spices from the Asia into Europe; revived during the Renaissance, the need to find shorter, more efficient routes gave impetus to the great voyages of exploration of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
spinning jenny Machine invented in the 1760s by James Hargreaves which greatly increased the amount of thread a single spinner could produce from cotton, creating a need to speed up the harvesting of cotton.
Spirit of the Laws The Baron de Montesquieu’s treatise of 1748, which expanded on John Locke’s theory of limited government and outlined a system where government was divided into branches in order to check and balance its power.
Starry Messenger, The Galileo’s treatise of 1610 where he published his celestial observations made with a telescope.
steam engine A power source that burned coal and produced steam pressure. First used in the early eighteenth century to pump water out of coal mines, it came to be used to drive machinery as diverse as the bellows of iron forges, looms for textile manufacture, and mills for grain, and, in the nineteenth century, as a source of locomotive power.
studia humanitas The educational program of the Renaissance, founded on knowledge of the Classical Latin and Greek languages.
Suez Canal A canal, built by a French company with Egyptian labor, that opened in 1869 and which connects the Mediterranean Sea through Egypt to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. In 1875, Great Britain took advantage of the Egyptian ruler’s financial distress and purchased a controlling interest in the canal. The need to control the canal led to British occupation and annexation of Egypt and to further European expansion in Africa.
System of Nature The Baron d’Holbach’s treatise of 1770; it was the first work of Enlightenment philosophy to be openly atheist and materialist.
Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) An attempt to overthrow the Manchu rulers of China whose authority had been undermined by Western interference. To maintain control, the Manchus became even more dependent on Western support.
tax revolts Violent peasant uprisings in response to increased demands for taxes from the monarchs and nobility.
technocratic socialism A variety of nineteenth-century utopian socialism which envisioned a society run by technical experts who managed resources efficiently and in a way that was best for all. The most prominent nineteenth-century advocate of technocratic socialism was a French aristocrat, Henri Comte de Saint-Simon.
Tennis Court Oath The oath taken by the members of the National Assembly when they were locked out of their meeting hall on 20 July 1789; they pushed their way into Louis’s indoor tennis court and vowed that they would not disband until a new constitution had been written for France.
terrestrial realm The realm, in the Aristotelian view of the cosmos, beneath the orbit of the moon.
Thermidor (1794-1799) Third and final phase of the French Revolution, in which the moderate bourgeois faction reasserted itself and concentrated simply on restoring order.
Third of May, 1808, The Francisco de Goya’s painting depicting a French firing squad executing helpless Spanish protestors; representative of growing European resistance to Napoleon’s dominance.
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Peace treaty signed between Russia, under Bolshevik rule, and Germany in March of 1918; Russia surrendered Poland, the Ukraine, Finland, and the Baltic provinces to Germany.
Treaty of Lodi The treaty (1454-1455) which established an internal balance of power by bringing Milan, Naples, and Florence into an alliance to check the power ofVenice and its frequent ally, the Papal States. The balance of power was shattered in 1494, when Naples, supported by both Florence and the pope, prepared to attack Milan.
Treaty of Nanking Signed by the Chinese after their defeat at the hands of Britain in the Opium War (1839-1842). The treaty ceded Hong Kong to Britain, established several tariff-free zones for foreign trade, and exempted foreigners from Chinese law.
Treaty of Rome A treaty, signed by France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands in 1957, establishing the European Economic Community (EEC), sometimes referred to as the Common Market, to begin the process of eliminating tariff barriers and cutting restrictions of the flow of capital and labor.
Treaty of Tilsit Treaty signed by Russia and France on 7 July 1807, in which Russia recognized Napoleon’s claims in Europe.
Treaty of Versailles (also Peace of Paris) The name given to the series of five treaties that made up the overall settlement following World War I.
Treaty of Villafranca The treaty signed by France and Austria in 1859, which temporarily thwarted Cavour’s hopes of unifying Italy.
triangle of trade The system of interconnected trade routes that quadrupled foreign trade in both Britain and France in the eighteenth century.
Triple Alliance A military alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, forged by Bismarck after the unification of Germany 1871.
Triple Entente A military alliance between Britain, France, and Russia which countered the Triple Alliance.
Truman Doctrine The U.S. doctrine (named after President Harry Truman) which established, in 1947, the U.S. system of military and economic aid to countries threatened by communist takeover.
tsars The hereditary monarchs of Russia.
United Nations A 51-member international organization created after World War II to promote international peace and cooperation.
United Socialist Party A coalition of socialist parties in France under the leadership of Jean Jaurès. The fortunes of the United Socialist Party in elections improved steadily in the first years of the twentieth century and by 1914 they were a major power in French politics.
universal gravitation The theory, put forward by Isaac Newton in his Principia Mathematica (1687), postulating that each particle of matter in the universe, no matter how large or small, was drawn to every other piece of matter by a force that could be precisely calculated.
utilitarianism The nineteenth-century ideology, originating with the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham, which argued that all human laws and institutions ought to be judged by their usefulness in promoting “the greatest good for the greatest number” of people.
utopian socialism A form of socialism which envisioned, and sometimes tried to set up, ideal communities (or utopias) where work and its fruit were shared equitably.
V-2 rockets Guided missiles fired from the German Ruhr which rained down on London and other major British cities for seven months beginning in August of 1944.
Velvet Revolution The name for the nearly bloodless overthrow of Soviet communism in Czechoslovakia in 1989.
Versailles The great palace of the French monarchs, 11 miles outside of Paris; the center of court life and political power from 1682 until the French Revolution in 1789.
Vindication of the Rights of Women Mary Wollstonecraft’s treatise of 1792, in which she argued that reason was the basis of moral behavior in all human beings, not just in men.
War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) A war started in 1740 by Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia, whose aim was to extend Prussia into lands controlled by the Hapsburgs. Challenging the right of Maria Theresa to ascend to the throne of Austria (which was a right guaranteed her by a document known as the Pragmatic Sanction), Frederick II marched troops into Silesia. Maria Theresa was able to rally Austrian and Hungarian troops and fight Prussia and its allies, the French, Spanish, Saxons and Bavarians, to a stand-off.
War of the Roses (1455-1485) An internal power struggle between two rival branches of the English royal family, the House of Lancaster and the House of York.
Warsaw Pact The Soviet Union’s response, in 1949, to the formation of NATO, establishing a military alliance of the communist countries of Eastern Europe.
Wasteland, The (1922) T. S. Eliot’s epic poem, depicting a world devoid of purpose or meaning.
Wealth of Nations Adam Smith’s treatise of 1776, which argued that there were laws of human labor, production, and trade that stemmed from the unerring tendency of all humans to seek their own selfinterest.
Weimar Republic The name given to the liberal democratic government established in Germany following World War I.
Women's Social and Political Union An organization led by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia, that campaigned, often violently, for a broad notion of women’s rights in Britain during the period 1905-1914.
World Zionist Organization An organization founded in 1897 and dedicated to making Palestine the Jewish homeland. By 1914, nearly 85,000 Jews, primarily from Eastern Europe, had emigrated to Palestine.
Zionism A movement for the creation of an independent state for Jews, which came into being. in 1896, when Theodor Herzl published The Jewish State, a pamphlet that urged an international movement to make Palestine the Jewish homeland.