New Balance of Power Social and International

1. New Balance of PowerSocial and International Social Impacts of Industrialization and growth of Nations including Japan

2. What were the origins and goals of labor movements and socialist politics in the late nineteenth century? • A combination of industrialization and revolutionary ideology produced both the labor movement and socialism. • Both movements were reactions to social changes created by industrialization and urbanization, and both sought to improve conditions for the working masses—though primarily the male working masses. • Laws in Europe and America increasingly allowed workers to form groups of mutual assistance, which were most often known as unions. • Workers used these labor organizations to demand better pay, conditions, and hours, as well as vacations, pensions, and insurance against illness and disability. • Socialism began as an intellectual movement and is perhaps best illustrated by Karl Marx. • Marx argued against the capitalist system and decried employers who extracted “surplus value,” which was the difference between workers’ wages and the value of the goods they produced. • Socialists believed that workers created value through their labor—labor that was exploited by the wealthy (idle) class. Labor organizations and socialists both established their own political parties throughout Europe and the United States with varying degrees of success. • These groups, along with traditional political parties, strove to address workers’ needs, especially after universal male suffrage became a reality in the 1870s and 1880s. • Ultimately, most workers supported the existing political system, rather than trying to overthrow it.

3. Why did the populations of Euro-American cities grow so fast between 1850 and 1914, and how did technological transformation in those cities affect urban life? • The populations of Europe and America grew faster between 1850 and 1914 than at any other time. • Population increased primarily because of a dramatic decrease in the death rate, which was due in large part to technological innovations in agriculture, medicine, and sanitation. • Because of the burgeoning population, between 1850 and 1900 each year 400,000 Europeans migrated overseas; between 1900 and 1914, the number exceeded 1 million each year. • North America received many of those emigrants, resulting in a population increase from 7 million to 82 million. • Within both European and American nations, industrialization caused a population shift from the countryside to cities. • Cities grew larger, taking up more space, and the mushrooming of suburbs adjacent to cities added to the size of metropolitan areas. • Piped water systems and sewerage, along with electric streetcars and subways, electric and gas lighting, and central heating, improved living conditions in cities. Innovations such as police and fire departments, health inspection, public parks and libraries, schools, and garbage removal all made cities safer and more desirable places to inhabit.

4. Describe the role of nationalism (both liberal and conservative nationalism) in the creation of Germany, both before and after 1871. • The basic tenet of nationalist ideology was that people were not the subjects of a sovereign but citizens of a nation, bound by a common government, territory, and culture. • Language was crucial in linking together different groups of people. • It was particularly significant in the German case, as German-speaking peoples were spread through the Prussian state, the Austrian Empire, France, and throughout northern Europe. • These connected Germanic peoples had the issue of Greater Germany vs. Lesser Germany to settle prior to unification. (Grosse Deutschland vs. Kleine Deutschland) • Germany reorganized itself under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck, and between 1864 and 1871 fought wars against Denmark, the Austrian Empire, and France. • Superior technology and tactics contributed to resounding German victories. • By 1871, German power was solidified, and the territory of the modern German state defined. • After 1871, nationalism came to be qualified as either liberal or conservative. • Liberal states, which included Britain and France, were governed by an ideology that asserted the sovereignty of the people under a constitution and required a popularly elected representative government. • On the other hand, conservative nationalist states, such as Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia, used nationalism to maintain older and more hierarchical forms of government. As Europe approached World War I, nationalism proved more divisive than unifying.

5. If the German, British, and French peoples were strengthened by the forces of nationalism, why did nationalism weaken Russia and Austria-Hungary? • The underlying explanation is that Russia and Austria-Hungary were far more divided socially and ethnically than the German, British, or French peoples. • In Russia, there had been one ineffective attempt by Tsar Alexander II to improve conditions for the Russian masses: the emancipation of the peasants from serfdom. • That proved to be only a gesture, however, and the Russian people remained uneducated and subordinate. • As the Russian middle class was negligible, wealthy aristocrats continued to dominate Russian society, economy, and politics. Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 led to popular protest and some temporary reforms, which destabilized the aristocratic class. • Ethnic groups that were under Russian domination rebelled; they included Poles, Estonians, Lithuanians, as well as Muslims from Central Asia. • Russia also had the largest Jewish population in Europe, and the Russian government’s anti-Semitism created a further impediment to national unity. • Because only 45 percent of all those within the Russian Empire spoke Russian, language could not be used as a unifying element. Language was also a problem in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. • That empire’s diverse population included Czechs, Slovaks, and Poles, as well as the peoples of the Balkans—an area referred to as the “tinderbox of Europe” for its volatility. • Ethnic differences, combined with differences in religions, made it impossible to forge unity based on a national consciousness.

6. New technologies in the latter half of the nineteenth century revolutionized everyday life and transformed the world’s economy. What were some of those new technologies, and how did they affect society? • After 1850, the industrialization that had begun in Britain spread to other parts of the world, especially Germany and the United States. • Railroads boomed after 1850, and many thousands of miles of new track were laid each year. • Steel ships made transport quick and inexpensive, and telegraph cables made worldwide communication almost instantaneous. • The innovations of Henry Bessemer and others made steel cheap and readily available. • This led not only to more steamships and expanded railroads, but also to larger bridges, buildings, ships, and weapons, and even to the proliferation of the humble “tin” can. • The chemical industry was responsible for many new inventions and innovations, such as chemical dyes (which impoverished the nations that harvested vegetable dyes), powerful explosives, which revolutionized war. • Electricity powered the next generation of factories, as well as lit homes and public ways. • Electric streetcars and subways relieved cities of congestion. • Sanitation problems caused by horse-drawn trolleys and steam locomotives were also alleviated. • Far-flung corners of the world were brought into the global economy as a result of electricity. • The world was drawn into an increasingly global economy, at an unprecedented scale and rate.

7. What were the immediate and the long-term results of the Tokugawa Shogunate’s response to the threat of Euro-American invasions? • Like the Qing and Ottoman Empires, Tokugawa Japan tried to strengthen its finances and military. • However, because of the decentralized nature of Tokugawa government and the growing power of regional leaders estranged from Tokugawa favor and control, the Tokugawa government crumbled. • When the shogunate agreed to sign an unequal treaty with the United States in 1858, many regional governors became opposed to the Tokugawa and began to plan the overthrow of the shogunate. • Under the leadership of the domains of Choshu and Satsuma, the rebel governors overthrew Tokugawa government, “restored” Emperor Mutsuhito, and created a strong central government, which completed the political, economic, and industrial transformation of Japan. • Within decades, Japan became a world naval power.

8. Describe the lives of upper-, middle-, and working-class women in English-speaking countries between 1850 and 1914. • Women in English-speaking countries were subjected to the rules of behavior and ideology of the Victorian Age. Upper- and middle-class women were supposed to occupy a sphere separate from men. They were supposed to refrain from wage work, improve the family’s social status, maintain the household, and rear the children. As household technology improved, women were held to increasingly higher standards of cleanliness. The only education available for those women—usually music, drawing, and embroidery—was intended to make them better prospects for marriage and to showcase their social talents. At the end of the nineteenth century, women began to be accepted in some professions, most notably teaching. Working-class women, however, had almost no prospects for higher education or entrance into the professions; they remained in low-paid and menial jobs. Furthermore, they were restricted by arcane Victorian codes to jobs that were deemed within women’s proper sphere. Such jobs, particularly those in domestic service and in the textile trades, also paid the least. In addition, Victorian morality controlled married women with children, forcing them to remain home with their families. Yet these women still had to contribute to the family income, most often by taking in boarders or piecework. Piecework was often shared by children, thereby perpetuating in the home some of the worst abuses of the factory system.

9. Compare and contrast the influence of Europe and the United States on China and Japan between 1850 and 1914. • Western influence on China and Japan was completely opposite. China resisted the West and became weak and dependent, whereas Japan adopted Western industrial and military structures, becoming independent and strong. The Chinese government under Empress Dowager Cixi was hostile to modern technology and encouraged the Chinese people to attack and destroy Western influences. By refusing to adopt Western technology and learning, China lost the opportunity to compete with Europe and America. The unequal treaties imposed on China kept the Chinese people in a dependent and weak position. Japan, on the other hand, used Western contact to rapidly industrialize and militarize. It established new educational institutions to teach the Japanese people how to apply Western technological and military innovations, thus strengthening the nation and winning independence from Western control. As a result, Europe and the United States ended the unequal treaties with Japan. Japan’s defeat of Russia and China at the beginning of the twentieth century demonstrated the effects of rapid industrialization and militarization.