Modern European history has been marked by two overarching transformations--the economic transformation brought about through industrialization and the political transformation following the French Revolution. With modern technology the newly forged nations of Europe launched two world wars and assembled the largest empires the world has ever seen.
Modern European history has been defined by the lasting legacy of two fundamental transformations that began roughly during the late 1700s--the economic and social restructuring of society during the Industrial Revolution and the move towards liberal democratic government following the French Revolution.
This convinced a number of European statesmen that their peace, prosperity, and position in the world could be safeguarded only if Europeans united. For much of the period after 1945, Europe remained divided between East and West, and it was only in the West that unity began to be practicable.
At OSU, the study and teaching of early-modern Europe is the full-time interest of five senior professors. Their interests range from political, social, and military revolutions to the birth or rebirth of science, magic, and religion.
Modern European history has been marked by two overarching transformations--the economic transformation brought about through industrialization and the political transformation following the French Revolution.
Regardless of the precise dates used to define its beginning and end points, the early modern period is generally agreed to have comprised the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment.
Answer. The early modern period was characterized by profound changes in many realms of human endeavor. Among the most important include the development of science as a formalized practice, increasingly rapid technological progress, and the establishment of secularized civic politics, law courts and the nation state.
Topics may include:World War I and its legacy.The Russian Revolution.The Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations.The Great Depression.Fascism and totalitarian movements.World War II and the Holocaust.20th-century cultural reactions.
Modern history is the history of the world beginning after the Middle Ages. Generally the term "modern history" refers to the history of the world since the advent of the Age of Reason and the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
The Modern Age. The Modern Age, or modernity, is the postmedieval era, a wide span of time marked in part by technological innovations, urbanization, scientific discoveries, and globalization. The Modern Age is generally split into two parts: the early and the late modern periods.
What factors in the early modern era led to a European-dominated world system? The Europeans enlightenment ideals and imperialistic expeditions allowed them to lead a European-dominated world system.
8 Major Events in European Historyof 08. The Renaissance. The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel. ... of 08. Colonialism and Imperialism. ... of 08. The Reformation. ... of 08. The Enlightenment. ... of 08. The French Revolution. ... of 08. The Industrial Revolution. ... of 08. The Russian Revolutions. ... of 08. Interwar Germany.
The culture of Europe is rooted in its art, architecture, film, different types of music, economics, literature, and philosophy. European culture is largely rooted in what is often referred to as its "common cultural heritage".
Its historical importance is hard to miss: it is the source of many — arguably most — of the ideas that have shaped the United States and our world; the nation-state, capitalism, industrialization, democracy, not to mention the printing press, the railroad, and the fundamental laws of physics.
The two wars, of 1914–18 and 1939–45, brought the old Europe of the balance of power to the brink of destruction. Europeans were thenceforth spectators at or minor actors in the global balance of terror between the United States and the U.S.S.R.
“If it works, it’s obsolete.” First reported in or about 1950, the saying neatly expressed that period’s sense of the headlong speed at which technology was changing. But equally rapid change is the hallmark of many aspects of life since 1914, and nowhere has it been more apparent than in Europe. Photographs from 1914 preserve a period appearance ever more archaic: statesmen in frock coats and top hats; early automobiles that fit their contemporary description as “horseless carriages”; biplane “flying machines” with open cockpits; long, voluminous bathing costumes. The young 20th century, its advent celebrated in such enterprises as The New Century Library—pocket editions of classics recently out of copyright—appears in such images more and more like a mere continuation of the century before.
The most cataclysmic were the two world wars. The second of these resulted from the rise of dictatorship in Italy and Germany; but the period also saw dictatorships in Spain and Portugal, as well as in the U.S.S.R., where the 1917 revolution was followed by the totalitarian rule of Joseph Stalin.
For much of the period after 1945, Europe remained divided between East and West, and it was only in the West that unity began to be practicable. At length, however, political changes in central and eastern Europe gradually revived old hopes of “Paneuropa.”.
The 16th century was a period of vigorous economic expansion. This expansion in turn played a major role in the many other transformations—social, political, and cultural—of the early modern age.
Merchants, entrepreneurs, and bankers accumulated and manipulated capital in unprecedented volume. Most historians locate in the 16th century the beginning, or at least the maturing, of Western capitalism.
Financial crashes were common; the Spanish crown, the heaviest borrower in Europe, suffered repeated bankruptcies (in 1557, 1575–77, 1596, 1607, 1627, and 1647). The poor and destitute in society became, if not more numerous, at least more visible.
Arguably, the two most fundamental components of Western society are scienceand liberal democracy (see Enlightenment, History of Science, History of Democracy). The unprecedented average quality of lifethroughout the Western world may be primarily attributed to these two "pillars of the West".
Most famously, he instituted a national civil law code(the Napoleonic Code, which became the model for the modern legal systems of Continental Europe ) and nationalized the education system.5,8. Pax Britannica.
The Pax Britannica(ca. 1815-1914) was an age of relative peace, due largely to Britain's overwhelming global naval supremacy. This period marks the height of European dominance over the Old World(see European Colonialism).
Franco came to power following the Spanish Civil Warof the late 1930s, in which conservative rebelsfought to overthrow the democratically elected left-wing government. The rebels consisted largely of the old order(nobility and clergy), whose power and wealth were being eroded by left-wing government reforms.
1800-present), societies were predominantly rural(with most of the population devoted to farming) and economieswere based chiefly on agriculture, manufacture of goods by hand, and trade.
The 1990s fracturingof this region into small states constitutes the bloodiest European conflict of the post-Cold War era . The fighting (which principally involved Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians) took place along both politicaland ethniclines, and was especially fierce in the region of Bosnia.
Austria, initially governed by a home-grown fascist party, was swiftly annexedby Nazi Germany. Spain was taken by Francisco Franco, Portugal by Antonio Salazar. While democracywas restored in West Germany, Austria, and Italy after WWII, Spain and Portugal would not become democratic until the 1970s.
And in 1992, the EC became a full-fledged economic and political union, known as the European Union (EU). The Maastricht Treaty, which created the EU, laid the groundwork for a common European currency, the euro—the culmination of European economic integration.
European leaders knew that in order to build a peaceful Europe and forge a united front against the Soviet Union, they had to reintegrate West Germany economically. But given the enduring trauma of World War II, a strong Germany still inspired fear, especially in its next door neighbor and historical rival, France.
Four European empires—Ottoman, Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian —collapsed, creating a number of fledgling countries with new, sometimes arbitrary borders and unstable economies. The exhausted survivors had an overwhelming sense that this war, surely, was “the war to end all wars.”.
Empires including the British, Dutch, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish controlled territory across every region of the world.
In response, the Soviet Union created its own regional alliance, the Warsaw Pact, which included the Soviet satellite states in Eastern Europe. In practice, this divided Europe between an American, nuclear-backed security guarantee (a “nuclear umbrella”) in the west and a Soviet one in the east.
The nuclear-armed United States agreed to create a collective defense alliance, resulting in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), between the United States, Canada, and ten European countries, in 1949.
In fact, from 1492, when a Spanish expedition landed in the Americas, to the start of World War I, Europe, accounting for just 8 percent of global land mass, controlled more than 80 percent of the world.
The history of Europe concerns itself with the discovery and collection, the study, organization and presentation and the interpretation of past events and affairs of the people of Europe since the beginning of written records. During the Neolithic era and the time of the Indo-European migrations, Europe saw human inflows from east and southeast and subsequent important cultural and material exchange. The period known as classical antiquity began with the emergence of the city-states of ancient Greece. Later, the Roman Empire came to dominate the entire Mediterranean basin. The fall of the Roman Empire in AD 476 traditionally marks the start of the Middle Ages. Beginning in the 14th century a Renaissance of knowledge challenged traditional doctrines in science and theology. Simultaneously, the Protestant Reformation set up Protestant churches primarily in Germany, Scandinavia and England. After 1800, the Industrial Revolution brought prosperity to Britain and Western Europe. The main European powers set up colonies in most of the Americas and Africa, and parts of Asia. In the 20th century, World War I and World War II resulted in massive numbers of deaths. The Cold War dominated European geo-politics from 1947 to 1989. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the European countries grew together.
The European Constitution was rejected in France and the Netherlands, and then (as the Treaty of Lisbon) in Ireland, although a second vote passed in Ireland in 2009. The financial crisis of 2007–08 affected Europe, and government responded with austerity measures.
By 300 AD the Roman Empire was divided into the Western and Eastern empires. During the 4th and 5th centuries, the Germanic peoples of Northern Europe, pressed by the Huns, grew in strength and led repeated attacks that resulted in the Fall of the Western Roman Empire.
The period known as classical antiquity began with the emergence of the city-states of ancient Greece.
Map depicting the earliest human migration in prehistoric Europe. Homo erectus migrated from Africa to Europe before the emergence of modern humans. Homo erectus georgicus, which lived roughly 1.8 million years ago in Georgia, is the earliest hominid to have been discovered in Europe.
The Western empire's collapse in AD 476 traditionally marks the end of the classical period and the start of the Middle Ages . In Western Europe, Germanic peoples became more powerful in the remnants of the former Western Roman Empire and established kingdoms and empires of their own.
During the Neolithic era (starting at c. 7000 BC.) and the time of the Indo-European migrations (starting at c. 4000 BC.) Europe saw massive migrations from east and southeast which also brought agriculture, new technologies, and the Indo-European languages, primarily through the areas of the Balkan peninsula and the Black sea region.
Europe is known not only for its revolutions and wars but also for its sociocultural changes, including the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and colonialism.
The second half of the 18th century saw scientific and technological changes that would radically change the world. The first "industrial revolution" began around the 1760s and ended sometime in the 1840s. During this time, mechanization and factories altered the nature of economics and society.
Quite often, it is called the start of the modern era. The revolution began with a financial crisis and a monarchy that had overtaxed and overburdened its people.
The Protestant Reformation was both a spiritual and political revolution that led to a number of reform churches. It helped shape modern government and religious institutions and how those two interact. 04.
The 15th century saw the first settlements in the Americas and this extended into the 19th century. At the same time, the English, Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and other European countries explored and colonized Africa, India, Asia, and the continent that would become Australia.
It introduced Protestantism to the world and created a major division which lasts to this day. It all began in Germany in 1517 with the ideals of Martin Luther.
The Renaissance got its start in Italy but soon encompassed all of Europe. This was the time of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael.