Modern history

Modern Age redirects here.

Modern Age (disambiguation).

For other uses, see had access to the divine. Tradition was sacred to ancient cultures and was unchanging and the social order
of ceremony and morals in a culture could be strictly
[9][10][11][12]
Modern history, also referred to as the modern period enforced.
or the modern era, is the historiographical approach to
the timeframe after the post-classical era (known as the
Middle Ages).[1][2] Modern history can be further broken down into the early modern period and the late modern period after the French Revolution and the Industrial
Revolution. Contemporary history is the span of historic
events that are immediately relevant to the present time.
The modern era began approximately in the 16th century.[3][4]

See also: Ancient history and Medieval history

1.2.2 Modern

In contrast to the pre-modern era, Western civilization made a gradual transition from premodernity to
modernity when scientic methods were developed which
led many to believe that the use of science would lead to
all knowledge, thus throwing back the shroud of myth
under which pre-modern peoples lived. New informa1 The study of modern history
tion about the world was discovered via empirical observation,[13] versus the historic use of reason and innate
Some events, while not without precedent, show a new knowledge.
way of perceiving the world. The concept of modernity The term modern was coined shortly before 1585 to
interprets the general meaning of these events and seeks describe the beginning of a new era.[4] The European
explanations for major developments.
Renaissance (about 14201630) is an important transi-

1.1

tion period beginning between the Late Middle Ages and

Early Modern Times, which started in Italy.

Source text

The term Early Modern was introduced in the English

language in the 1930s.[14] to distinguish the time between
what we call Middle Ages and time of the late Enlightenment (1800) (when the meaning of the term Modern Ages
was developing its contemporary form). It is important to
note that these terms stem from European History. In usage in other parts of the world, such as in Asia, and in
Muslim countries, the terms are applied in a very dierent way, but often in the context with their contact with
European culture in the Age of Discoveries.[15]

Main articles: Historical method and Source text

The fundamental diculty of studying modern history is
the fact that a plethora of it has been documented up to
the present day. It is imperative to consider the reliability
of the information obtained from these records.
Further information: Historiography and Philosophy of
history

1.2
1.2.1

2 Modern era

Terminology and usage

2.1 Signicant developments

Pre-Modern

The modern period has been a period of signicant development in the elds of science, politics, warfare, and
technology. It has also been an age of discovery and
globalization. During this time, the European powers and
later their colonies, began a political, economic, and cultural colonization of the rest of the world.

In the Pre-Modern era, many peoples sense of self and

purpose was often expressed via a faith in some form
of deity, be that in a single God or in many gods.[5]
Pre-modern cultures have not been thought of creating a
sense of distinct individuality,[6][7][8] though. Religious
ocials, who often held positions of power, were the
spiritual intermediaries to the common person. It was
only through these intermediaries that the general masses

By the late 19th and 20th centuries, modernist art, politics, science and culture has come to dominate not only
1

Western Europe and North America, but almost every

civilized area on the globe, including movements thought
of as opposed to the west and globalization. The modern era is closely associated with the development of
individualism,[16] capitalism,[17] urbanization[16] and a
belief in the possibilities of technological and political
progress.[18][19]
The brutal wars and other problems of this era, many
of which come from the eects of rapid change, and
the connected loss of strength of traditional religious
and ethical norms, have led to many reactions against
modern development.[20][21] Optimism and belief in constant progress has been most recently criticized by
postmodernism while the dominance of Western Europe
and Anglo-America over other continents has been criticized by postcolonial theory.

2.2

Modern as post-medieval

One common conception of modernity is the condition of

Western history since the mid-15th century, or roughly
the European development of movable type[22] and the
printing press.[23] In this context the modern society
is said to develop over many periods, and to be inuenced by important events that represent breaks in the
continuity.[24][25][26]
2.2.1

MODERN ERA

The Age of Reason

The Enlightenment
the Romantic era
the Victorian era
As an Age of Revolutions dawned, beginning with those
revolts in America and France, political changes were
then pushed forward in other countries partly as a result
of upheavals of the Napoleonic Wars and their impact on
thought and thinking, from concepts from nationalism to
organizing armies.[29][30][31]
The early period ended in a time of political and economic change as a result of mechanization in society, the
American Revolution, the rst French Revolution; other
factors included the redrawing of the map of Europe by
the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna[32] and the peace
established by Second Treaty of Paris which ended the
Napoleonic Wars.[33]
2.2.2 Late modern period
As a result of the Industrial Revolution and the earlier political revolutions, the worldviews of Modernism
emerged. The industrialization of many nations was initiated with the industrialization of Britain. Particular facets
of the late modernity period include:

Early modern period

Main article: Early modern period

The modern era includes the early period, called the early
modern period, which lasted from c. 1500 to around c.
1800 (most often 1815). Particular facets of early modernity include:
The Renaissance
The Reformation and Counter Reformation.
The Age of Discovery
Rise of capitalism
Important events in the early modern period include:
The invention of the printing press
The English Civil War
The American Revolution
The French Revolution
This combination of epoch events totally changed thinking and thought in the early modern period, and so their
dates serve as well as any to separate the old from the new
modes.[27] Particular ways to categorize early modernity
include:

Increasing role of science and technology

Mass literacy and proliferation of mass media
Spread of social movements
Institution of representative democracy
Individualism
Industrialization
Urbanization
Other important events in the development of the Late
modern period include:
The Revolutions of 1848
The Russian Revolution
The First World War and the Second World War
Our most recent eraModern Timesbegins with the
end of these revolutions in the 19th century,[34] and includes the World Wars era[35] (encompassing World War
I and World War II) and the emergence of socialist countries that led to the Cold War. The contemporary era
follows shortly afterward with the explosion of research
and increase of knowledge known as the Information Age
in the latter 20th and the early 21st century. Todays
Postmodern era is seen in widespread digitality.[36]

3.1

Asia

Early modern period

3
1800

Main article: Early modern period

Historians consider the early modern period to be apUnited Kingdom
France
Portugal
Spain
Netherlands
United States
Russian Empire
Ottoman Empire

Colonial empires in 1800

Southeastern Europe, and parts of the Middle East and

North Africa.[38] Russia took possession in Eastern Europe, Asia, and North America.
Waldseemller map with joint sheets, 1507

3.1 Asia

proximately between 1500 and 1800. It follows the Late

Main articles: Qing Dynasty, Mughal Empire, Maratha
Middle Ages period and is marked by the rst European
Empire and Tokugawa shogunate
colonies, the rise of strong centralized governments, and
the beginnings of recognizable nation-states that are the
direct antecedents of todays states.
In Africa and the Ottoman Empire, the Muslim expansion 3.1.1 China
took place in North and East Africa. In West Africa, various native nations existed. The Indian Empires and civ- In China, urbanization increased as the population grew
ilizations of Southeast Asia were a vital link in the spice and as the division of labor grew more complex. Large
trade. On the Indian subcontinent, the Great Mughal Em- urban centers, such as Nanjing and Beijing, also conpire existed. The archipelagic empires, the Sultanate of tributed to the growth of private industry. In particuMalacca and later the Sultanate of Johor, controlled the lar, small-scale industries grew up, often specializing in
paper, silk, cotton, and porcelain goods. For the most
southern areas.
part, however, relatively small urban centers with markets
In Asia, various Chinese dynasties and Japanese shogu- proliferated around the country. Town markets mainly
nates controlled the Asian sphere. In Japan, the Edo pe- traded food, with some necessary manufactures such as
riod from 1600 to 1868 is also referred to as the early pins or oil. Despite the xenophobia and intellectual inmodern period. And in Korea, from the rising of Joseon trospection characteristic of the increasingly popular new
Dynasty to the enthronement of King Gojong is referred school of neo-Confucianism, China under the early Ming
to as the early modern period. In the Americas, NaDynasty was not isolated. Foreign trade and other contive Americans had built a large and varied civilization, tacts with the outside world, particularly Japan, increased
including the Aztec Empire and alliance, the Inca civiconsiderably. Chinese merchants explored all of the
lization, the Mayan Empire and cities, and the Chibcha Indian Ocean, reaching East Africa with the voyages of
Confederation. In the west, the European kingdoms and
Zheng He.
movements were in a movement of reformation and expansion. Russia reached the Pacic coast in 1647 and The Qing Dynasty (16441911) was founded after the
consolidated its control over the Russian Far East in the defeat of the Ming, the last Han Chinese dynasty, by
the Manchus. The Manchus were formerly known
19th century.
as the Jurchen. When Beijing was captured by Li
Later religious trends of the period saw the end of the Zicheng's peasant rebels in 1644, the last Ming Emperor
expansion of Muslims and the Muslim world. Christians Chongzhen committed suicide. The Manchu then allied
and Christendom saw the end of the Crusades and end with Ming Dynasty general Wu Sangui and seized conof religious unity under the Roman Catholic Church. It trol of Beijing, which became the new capital of the Qing
was during this time that the Inquisitions and Protestant dynasty. The Manchus adopted the Confucian norms
reformations took place.
of traditional Chinese government in their rule of China
During the early modern period, an age of discovery and proper. Schoppa, the editor of The Columbia Guide to
trade was undertaken by the Western European nations. Modern Chinese History argues, A date around 1780 as
Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom the beginning of modern China is thus closer to what
and France went on a colonial expansion and took pos- we know today as historical 'reality'. It also allows us to
session of lands and set up colonies in Africa, southern have a better baseline to understand the precipitous deAsia, and North and South America.[37] Turkey colonized cline of the Chinese polity in the nineteenth and twentieth

3 EARLY MODERN PERIOD

centuries.[39]

3.1.2

Japan

British and Dutch colonization The development of

New Imperialism saw the conquest of nearly all eastern hemisphere territories by colonial powers. The
commercial colonization of India commenced in 1757,
after the Battle of Plassey, when the Nawab of Bengal surrendered his dominions to the British East India
Company,[43] in 1765, when the Company was granted
the diwani, or the right to collect revenue, in Bengal
and Bihar,[44] or in 1772, when the Company established a capital in Calcutta, appointed its rst GovernorGeneral, Warren Hastings, and became directly involved
in governance.[45]

In pre-modern[40] Japan following the Sengoku Period

of warring states, central government had been largely
reestablished by Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi
during the Azuchi-Momoyama period. After the Battle
of Sekigahara in 1600, central authority fell to Tokugawa
Ieyasu who completed this process and received the title of shogun in 1603. In order to become shogun, one
traditionally was a descendant of the ancient Minamoto The Maratha states, following the Anglo-Maratha wars,
eventually lost to the British East India Company in 1818
clan.
with the Third Anglo-Maratha War. The rule lasted unSociety in the Japanese "Tokugawa period" (Edo socitil 1858, when, after the Indian rebellion of 1857 and
ety), unlike the shogunates before it, was based on the
consequent of the Government of India Act 1858, the
strict class hierarchy originally established by Toyotomi
British government assumed the task of directly adminisHideyoshi. The daimyo, or lords, were at the top, foltering India in the new British Raj.[46] In 1819 Stamford
lowed by the warrior-caste of samurai, with the farmers,
Raes established Singapore as a key trading post for
artisans, and traders ranking below. In some parts of the
Britain in their rivalry with the Dutch. However, their ricountry, particularly smaller regions, daimyo and samuvalry cooled in 1824 when an Anglo-Dutch treaty demarrai were more or less identical, since daimyo might be
cated their respective interests in Southeast Asia. From
trained as samurai, and samurai might act as local lords.
the 1850s onwards, the pace of colonization shifted to a
Otherwise, the largely inexible nature of this social stratsignicantly higher gear.
ication system unleashed disruptive forces over time.
Taxes on the peasantry were set at xed amounts which The Dutch East India Company (1800) and British East
did not account for ination or other changes in monetary India Company (1858) were dissolved by their respective
value. As a result, the tax revenues collected by the samu- governments, who took over the direct administration of
rai landowners were worth less and less over time. This the colonies. Only Thailand was spared the experience of
often led to numerous confrontations between noble but foreign rule, although, Thailand itself was also greatly afimpoverished samurai and well-to-do peasants, ranging fected by the power politics of the Western powers. Colofrom simple local disturbances to much bigger rebellions. nial rule had a profound eect on Southeast Asia. While
None, however, proved compelling enough to seriously the colonial powers proted much from the regions vast
challenge the established order until the arrival of foreign resources and large market, colonial rule did develop the
region to a varying extent.[47]
powers.

3.1.3

India

On the Indian subcontinent, the Mughal Empire ruled

most of India in the early 18th century.[41] The classic period ended with the death and defeat of Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707 by the rising Hindu Maratha
Empire,[42] although the dynasty continued for another
150 years. During this period, the Empire was marked
by a highly centralized administration connecting the different regions. All the signicant monuments of the
Mughals, their most visible legacy, date to this period
which was characterised by the expansion of Persian cultural inuence in the Indian subcontinent, with brilliant
literary, artistic, and architectural results. The Maratha
Empire was located in the south west of present-day India and expanded greatly under the rule of the Peshwas,
the prime ministers of the Maratha empire. In 1761,
the Maratha army lost the Third Battle of Panipat which
halted imperial expansion and the empire was then divided into a confederacy of Maratha states.

3.2 Europe
Many major events caused Europe to change around the
start of the 16th century, starting with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the fall of Muslim Spain and the
discovery of the Americas in 1492, and Martin Luther's
Protestant Reformation in 1517. In England the modern
period is often dated to the start of the Tudor period with
the victory of Henry VII over Richard III at the Battle of
Bosworth in 1485.[48][49] Early modern European history
is usually seen to span from the start of the 15th century,
through the Age of Reason and the Age of Enlightenment
in the 17th and 18th centuries, until the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century.
3.2.1 Tsardom of Russia
Main article: Tsardom of Russia
Russia experienced territorial growth through the 17th

3.2

Europe

century, which was the age of Cossacks. Cossacks were

warriors organized into military communities, resembling pirates and pioneers of the New World. In 1648,
the peasants of Ukraine joined the Zaporozhian Cossacks in rebellion against Poland-Lithuania during the
Khmelnytsky Uprising, because of the social and religious oppression they suered under Polish rule. In 1654
the Ukrainian leader, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, oered to
place Ukraine under the protection of the Russian Tsar,
Aleksey I. Alekseys acceptance of this oer led to another Russo-Polish War (16541667). Finally, Ukraine
was split along the river Dnieper, leaving the western part
(or Right-bank Ukraine) under Polish rule and eastern
part (Left-bank Ukraine and Kiev) under Russian. Later,
in 167071 the Don Cossacks led by Stenka Razin initiated a major uprising in the Volga region, but the Tsars
troops were successful in defeating the rebels. In the east,
the rapid Russian exploration and colonisation of the huge
territories of Siberia was led mostly by Cossacks hunting for valuable furs and ivory. Russian explorers pushed
eastward primarily along the Siberian river routes, and by
the mid-17th century there were Russian settlements in
the Eastern Siberia, on the Chukchi Peninsula, along the
Amur River, and on the Pacic coast. In 1648 the Bering
Strait between Asia and North America was passed for
the rst time by Fedot Popov and Semyon Dezhnyov.
3.2.2

Reason and Enlightenment

Further information: Great Divergence

5
Renaissance humanism took a close study of the Latin
and Greek classical texts, and was antagonistic to the values of scholasticism with its emphasis on the accumulated commentaries; and humanists were involved in the
sciences, philosophies, arts and poetry of classical antiquity. They self-consciously imitated classical Latin and
deprecated the use of medieval Latin. By analogy with
the perceived decline of Latin, they applied the principle
of ad fontes, or back to the sources, across broad areas of
learning.
The quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns was a
literary and artistic quarrel that heated up in the early
1690s and shook the Acadmie franaise. The opposing two sides were, the Ancients (Anciens) who constrain
choice of subjects to those drawn from the literature of
Antiquity and the Moderns (Modernes), who supported
the merits of the authors of the century of Louis XIV.
Fontenelle quickly followed with his Digression sur les anciens et les modernes (1688), in which he took the Modern
side, pressing the argument that modern scholarship allowed modern man to surpass the ancients in knowledge.
3.2.3 Scientic Revolution
Main article: Scientic Revolution
The Scientic Revolution was a period when European
ideas in classical physics, astronomy, biology, human
anatomy, chemistry, and other classical sciences were rejected and led to doctrines supplanting those that had prevailed from Ancient Greece to the Middle Ages which
would lead to a transition to modern science. This period saw a fundamental transformation in scientic ideas
across physics, astronomy, and biology, in institutions
supporting scientic investigation, and in the more widely
held picture of the universe. Individuals started to question all manners of things and it was this questioning that
led to the Scientic Revolution, which in turn formed the
foundations of contemporary sciences and the establishment of several modern scientic elds.

Traditionally, the European intellectual transformation of

and after the Renaissance bridged the Middle Ages and
the Modern era. The Age of Reason in the Western world
is generally regarded as being the start of modern philosophy,[50] and a departure from the medieval approach, especially Scholasticism. Early 17th-century philosophy is
often called the Age of Rationalism and is considered to
succeed Renaissance philosophy and precede the Age of
Enlightenment, but some consider it as the earliest part of
the Enlightenment era in philosophy, extending that era
to two centuries. The 18th century saw the beginning of See also: History of electromagnetism and Science in
secularization in Europe, rising to notability in the wake the Age of Enlightenment
of the French Revolution.
The Age of Enlightenment is a time in Western philosophy and cultural life centered upon the 18th century in
which reason was advocated as the primary source and
legitimacy for authority. Enlightenment gained momentum more or less simultaneously in many parts of Europe and America. Developing during the Enlightenment
era, Renaissance humanism as an intellectual movement
spread across Europe. The basic training of the humanist
was to speak well and write (typically, in the form of a letter). The term umanista comes from the latter part of the
15th century. The people were associated with the studia
humanitatis, a novel curriculum that was competing with
the quadrivium and scholastic logic.[51]

3.2.4 The French Revolutions

Main article: French Revolution
Toward the middle and latter stages of the Age of Revolution, the French political and social revolutions and
radical change saw the French governmental structure,
previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges
for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy transform, changing to forms based on Enlightenment principles of citizenship and inalienable rights. The rst revolution led to

3 EARLY MODERN PERIOD

government by the National Assembly, the second by the that annexed dierent states of the Italian peninsula into
Legislative Assembly, and the third by the Directory.
the single state of Italy in the 19th century. There is a
The changes were accompanied by violent turmoil which lack of consensus on the exact dates for the beginning and
included the trial and execution of the king, vast blood- the end of this period, but many scholars agree that the
shed and repression during the Reign of Terror, and war- process began with the end of Napoleonic rule and the
fare involving every other major European power. Sub- Congress of Vienna in 1815, and approximately ended
sequent events that can be traced to the Revolution in- with the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, though the last
clude the Napoleonic Wars, two separate restorations of citt irredente did not join the Kingdom of Italy until after
World War I.
the monarchy, and two additional revolutions as modern France took shape. In the following century, France
would be governed at one point or another as a republic,
3.2.6 End of the early modern period
constitutional monarchy, and two dierent empires.
National and Legislative Assembly Main articles:
National Assembly (French Revolution) and Legislative
Assembly (France)

Toward the end of the early modern period, Europe was

dominated by the evolving system of mercantile capitalism in its trade and the New Economy. European states
and politics had the characteristic of Absolutism. The
French power and English revolutions dominated the political scene. There eventually evolved an international
balance of power that held at bay a great conagration
until years later.

During the French Revolution, the National Assembly,

which existed from June 17 to July 9 of 1789, was a transitional body between the Estates-General and the NaThe end date of the early modern period is usually astional Constituent Assembly.
sociated with the Industrial Revolution, which began in
The Legislative Assembly was the legislature of France Britain in about 1750. Another signicant date is 1789,
from October 1, 1791 to September 1792. It provided the the beginning of the French Revolution, which drastically
focus of political debate and revolutionary law-making transformed the state of European politics and ushered in
between the periods of the National Constituent Assem- the Prince Edward Era and modern Europe.
bly and of the National Convention.
The Directory and Napoleonic Era
French Directory and Napoleonic Era

Main articles: 3.3

North America

The French and Indian Wars were a series of conicts

in North America that represented the actions there that
accompanied the European dynastic wars. In Quebec, the
wars are generally referred to as the Intercolonial Wars.
While some conicts involved Spanish and Dutch forces,
all pitted Great Britain, its colonies and American Indian
allies on one side and France, its colonies and Indian allies
on the other.

The Executive Directory was a body of ve Directors that

held executive power in France following the Convention
and preceding the Consulate. The period of this regime
(2 November 1795 until 10 November 1799), commonly
known as the Directory (or Directoire) era, constitutes the
second to last stage of the French Revolution. Napoleon,
before seizing the title of Emperor, was elected as First
The expanding French and British colonies were conConsul of the Consulate of France.
tending for control of the western, or interior, territories.
The Napoleonic Era was centered around the campaigns Whenever the European countries went to war, there were
of the French Emperor and General Napoleon Bonaparte. actions within and by these colonies although the dates of
Born on Corsica as the French invaded, and dying sus- the conict did not necessarily exactly coincide with those
piciously on the tiny British Island of St. Helena, this of the larger conicts.
brilliant commander, controlled a French Empire that, at
its height, ruled a large portion of Europe directly from Beginning the Age of Revolution, the American RevoParis, while many of his friends and family ruled coun- lution and the ensuing political upheaval during the last
tries such as Spain, Poland, several parts of Italy and half of the 18th century saw the Thirteen Colonies of
many other Kingdoms Republics and dependencies. The North America overthrow the governance of the ParliaNapoleonic Era changed the face of Europe forever, and ment of Great Britain, and then reject the British monarold Empires and Kingdoms fell apart as a result of the chy itself to become the sovereign United States of America. In this period the colonies rst rejected the authority
mighty and Glorious surge of Republicanism.
of the Parliament to govern them without representation,
and formed self-governing independent states. The Sec3.2.5 Italian unication
ond Continental Congress then joined together against
the British to defend that self-governance in the armed
Italian unication was the political and social movement conict from 1775 to 1783 known as the American Rev-

John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence, showing the veman committee in charge of drafting the Declaration in 1776
as it presents its work to the Second Continental Congress in
Philadelphia

North America 1797

olutionary War (also called American War of Indepen- with a series of revolutions in the late 18th and earlydence).
to-mid-19th centuries. The Spanish American wars of
The American Revolution begun with ghting at Lex- independence were the numerous wars against Spanish
ington and Concord. On July 4, 1776, they issued the rule in Spanish America that took place during the early
Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed their in- 19th century, from 1808 until 1829, directly related to
dependence from Great Britain and their formation of the Napoleonic French invasion of Spain. The conict
a cooperative union. In June 1776, Benjamin Franklin started with short-lived governing juntas established in
was appointed a member of the Committee of Five that Chuquisaca and Quito opposing the composition of the
drafted the Declaration of Independence. Although he Supreme Central Junta of Seville.
was temporarily disabled by gout and unable to attend
most meetings of the Committee, Franklin made several
small changes to the draft sent to him by Thomas Jeerson.
The rebellious states defeated Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War, the rst successful colonial war
of independence. While the states had already rejected
the governance of Parliament, through the Declaration
the new United States now rejected the legitimacy of
the monarchy to demand allegiance. The war raged for
seven years, with eective American victory, followed by
formal British abandonment of any claim to the United
States with the Treaty of Paris.

When the Central Junta fell to the French, numerous new

Juntas appeared all across the Americas, eventually resulting in a chain of newly independent countries stretching from Argentina and Chile in the south, to Mexico in
the north. After the death of the king Ferdinand VII, in
1833, only Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under Spanish rule, until the SpanishAmerican War in 1898. Unlike the Spanish, the Portuguese did not divide their colonial territory in America. The captaincies they created
were subdued to a centralized administration in Salvador
(later relocated to Rio de Janeiro) which reported directly
to the Portuguese Crown until its independence in 1822,
becoming the Empire of Brazil.

The Philadelphia Convention set up the current United See also: Latin American wars of independence and
States; the United States Constitution ratication the fol- Timeline of the Spanish American wars of independence
lowing year made the states part of a single republic
with a limited central government. The Bill of Rights,
comprising ten constitutional amendments guaranteeing
many fundamental civil rights and freedoms, was ratied 4 Late modern period
in 1791.

4.1 Modern Age Timeline

3.3.1

Decolonization of North and South Americas

Main articles: Decolonization of the Americas and

Spanish American wars of independence
The decolonization of the Americas was the process by
which the countries in the Americas gained their independence from European rule. Decolonization began

Main article: Timeline of modern history

See also: Early modern timeline

Dates are approximate

range (based upon inuence), consult particular
article for details

LATE MODERN PERIOD

Modern Age Other

change whereby a human group is transformed from a

pre-industrial society into an industrial one. It is a subdivision of a more general modernization process, where
4.2 Industrial revolutions
social change and economic development are closely related with technological innovation, particularly with the
Main articles: Industrial Revolution and Second Indus- development of large-scale energy and metallurgy protrial Revolution
duction. It is the extensive organization of an economy
The date of the Industrial Revolution is not exact. Eric for the purpose of manufacturing. Industrialization also
introduces a form of philosophical change, where people obtain a dierent attitude towards their perception of
nature.
4.2.2 Revolution in manufacture and power
An economy based on manual labour was replaced by one
dominated by industry and the manufacture of machinery. It began with the mechanization of the textile industries and the development of iron-making techniques,
and trade expansion was enabled by the introduction of
canals, improved roads, and then railways.

A Watt steam engine. The development of the steam engine

started the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain.[52] The steam
engine was created to pump water from coal mines, enabling
them to be deepened beyond groundwater levels.

Hobsbawm held that it 'broke out' in the 1780s and was

not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s,[53] while T.S. Ashton held that it occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830
(in eect the reigns of George III, The Regency, and
George IV).[54] The great changes of centuries before the
19th were more connected with ideas, religion or military
conquest, and technological advance had only made small
changes in the material wealth of ordinary people.

The introduction of steam power (fuelled primarily by

coal) and powered machinery (mainly in textile manufacturing) underpinned the dramatic increases in production
capacity.[55] The development of all-metal machine tools
in the rst two decades of the 19th century facilitated the
manufacture of more production machines for manufacturing in other industries.

The modern petroleum industry started in 1846 with

the discovery of the process of rening kerosene from
coal by Nova Scotian Abraham Pineo Gesner. Ignacy
ukasiewicz improved Gesners method to develop a
means of rening kerosene from the more readily available rock oil (petr-oleum) seeps in 1852 and the rst
rock oil mine was built in Bbrka, near Krosno in Galicia
in the following year. In 1854, Benjamin Silliman, a sciThe rst Industrial Revolution merged into the Second Inence professor at Yale University in New Haven, was the
dustrial Revolution around 1850, when technological and
rst to fractionate petroleum by distillation. These diseconomic progress gained momentum with the developcoveries rapidly spread around the world.
ment of steam-powered ships and railways, and later in
the 19th century with the internal combustion engine and
electric power generation. The Second Industrial Revo- 4.2.3 Notable engineers
lution was a phase of the Industrial Revolution; labeled as
the separate Technical Revolution. From a technological Engineering achievements of the revolution ranged from
and a social point of view there is no clean break between electrication to developments in materials science. The
the two. Major innovations during the period occurred advancements made a great contribution to the quality of
in the chemical, electrical, petroleum, and steel indus- life. In the rst revolution, Lewis Paul was the original
tries. Specic advancements included the introduction inventor of roller spinning, the basis of the water frame
of oil red steam turbine and internal combustion driven for spinning cotton in a cotton mill. Matthew Boulton and
steel ships, the development of the airplane, the practical James Watt's improvements to the steam engine were funcommercialization of the automobile, mass production of damental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revoluconsumer goods, the perfection of canning, mechanical tion in both the Kingdom of Great Britain and the world.
refrigeration and other food preservation techniques, and
In the latter part of the second revolution, Thomas Alva
the invention of the telephone.
Edison developed many devices that greatly inuenced
life around the world and is often credited with the creation of the rst industrial research laboratory. In 1882,
4.2.1 Industrialization
Edison switched on the worlds rst large-scale electrical
Industrialization is the process of social and economic supply network that provided 110 volts direct current to

4.2

Industrial revolutions

9
the French Revolution of 1848, soon spread to the rest
of Europe.[58][59] Although most of the revolutions were
quickly put down, there was a signicant amount of violence in many areas, with tens of thousands of people
tortured and killed. While the immediate political eects
of the revolutions were reversed, the long-term reverberations of the events were far-reaching.

Industrial age reformism Industrial age reform

movements began the gradual change of society rather
than with episodes of rapid fundamental changes. The
reformists ideas were often grounded in liberalism, although they also possessed aspects of utopian, socialist or
religious concepts. The Radical movement campaigned
for electoral reform, a reform of the Poor Laws, free
trade, educational reform, postal reform, prison reform,
and public sanitation.
Following the Enlightenments ideas, the reformers
looked to the Scientic Revolution and industrial progress
to solve the social problems which arose with the IndusNikola Tesla sits in front of the spiral coil of his high-frequency trial Revolution. Newtons natural philosophy combined
transformer at East Houston Street, New York.
a mathematics of axiomatic proof with the mechanics of
physical observation, yielding a coherent system of veriable predictions and replacing a previous reliance on revfty-nine customers in lower Manhattan. Also toward elation and inspired truth. Applied to public life, this apthe end of the second industrial revolution, Nikola Tesla proach yielded several successful campaigns for changes
made many contributions in the eld of electricity and in social policy.
magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

4.2.4

Social eects and classes

The Industrial Revolutions were major technological,

socioeconomic, and cultural changes in late 18th and
early 19th centuries that began in Britain and spread
throughout the world. The eects spread throughout
Western Europe and North America during the 19th
century, eventually aecting the majority of the world.
The impact of this change on society was enormous
and is often compared to the Neolithic revolution, when
mankind developed agriculture and gave up its nomadic
lifestyle.[56]
It has been argued that GDP per capita was much more
stable and progressed at a much slower rate until the
industrial revolution and the emergence of the modern
capitalist economy, and that it has since increased rapidly
in capitalist countries.[57]

Mid-19th-century European revolts The European

Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the
Spring of Nations or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout the European continent. Described as a revolutionary wave, the period of
unrest began in France and then, further propelled by

4.2.5 Imperial Russia

Main article: Russian Empire
Under Peter I (the Great), Russia was proclaimed an Empire in 1721 and became recognized as a world power.
Ruling from 1682 to 1725, Peter defeated Sweden in the
Great Northern War, forcing it to cede West Karelia and
Ingria (two regions lost by Russia in the Time of Troubles),[60] as well as Estland and Livland, securing Russias access to the sea and sea trade.[61] On the Baltic
Sea Peter founded a new capital called Saint Petersburg,
later known as Russias Window to Europe. Peter the
Greats reforms brought considerable Western European
cultural inuences to Russia. Catherine II (the Great),
who ruled in 176296, extended Russian political control over the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and incorporated most of its territories into Russia during the
Partitions of Poland, pushing the Russian frontier westward into Central Europe. In the south, after successful Russo-Turkish Wars against the Ottoman Empire,
Catherine advanced Russias boundary to the Black Sea,
defeating the Crimean khanate.

10

4.3

LATE MODERN PERIOD

European dominance and the 19th cen- Electricity, steel, and petroleum enabled Germany to become a great international power that raced to create emtury

pires of its own.

Main articles: 19th century and International relations The Meiji Restoration was a chain of events that led to
(18141919)
enormous changes in Japans political and social structure
Historians dene the 19th century historical era as that was taking a rm hold at the beginning of the Meiji
Era which coincided the opening of Japan by the arrival
of the Black Ships of Commodore Matthew Perry and
made Imperial Japan a great power.
Russia and Qing Dynasty China failed to keep pace with
the other world powers which led to massive social unrest in both empires. The Qing Dynastys military power
weakened during the 19th century, and faced with international pressure, massive rebellions and defeats in wars,
the dynasty declined after the mid-19th century.
The Worlds Sovereigns, 1889.

European powers controlled parts of Oceania, with

French New Caledonia from 1853 and French Polynesia from 1889; the Germans established colonies in New
Guinea in 1884, and Samoa in 1900.

stretching from 1815 (the Congress of Vienna) to 1914

(the outbreak of the First World War); alternatively, Eric
Hobsbawm dened the Long Nineteenth Century as The United States expanded into the Pacic with Hawaii
becoming a U.S. territory from 1898.
spanning the years 1789 to 1914.
Disagreements between the US, Germany and UK over
Samoa led to the Tripartite Convention of 1899.
4.3.1 Imperialism and empires
See also: Chronology of colonialism
Main article: Imperialism
In the 1800s and early 1900s, once great and powerful
4.3.2 British Victorian era
Empires such as Spain, Ottoman Turkey, the Mughal Empire, and the Kingdom of Portugal began to break apart.
Main articles: British Empire and Victorian era
Spain, which was at one time unrivaled in Europe, had
The Victorian era of the United Kingdom was the pebeen declining for a long time when it was crippled by
Napoleon Bonapartes invasion. Sensing the time was
right, Spains vast colonies in South America began a series of rebellions that ended with almost all of the Spanish
territories gaining their independence.
The once mighty Ottoman Empire was wracked with a
series of revolutions, resulting with the Ottomans only
holding a small region that surrounded the capital, Istanbul.
The Mughal empire, which was descended from the Mongol Khanate, was bested by the upcoming Maratha Confederacy. All was going well for the Marathas until the
British took an interest in the riches of India and the
British ended up ruling not just the boundaries of Modern
India, but also Pakistan, Burma, Nepal, Bangladesh and
some Southern Regions of Afghanistan.
The King of Portugals vast territory of Brazil reformed
into the independent Empire of Brazil.

National ag of the United Kingdom.

riod of Queen Victoria's reign from June 1837 to January

1901. This was a long period of prosperity for the British
people, as prots gained from the overseas British Empire, as well as from industrial improvements at home,
allowed a large, educated middle class to develop. Some
scholars would extend the beginning of the periodas
dened by a variety of sensibilities and political games
that have come to be associated with the Victorians
back ve years to the passage of the Reform Act 1832.

With the defeat of Napoleonic France, Britain became

undoubtedly the most powerful country in the world, and
by the end of the First World War controlled a Quarter of
the worlds population and a third of its surface. However, In Britains imperial century,[62] victory over Napoleon
the power of the British Empire did not end on land, since left Britain without any serious international rival, other
than Russia in central Asia. Unchallenged at sea, Britain
it had the greatest navy on the planet.

4.3

European dominance and the 19th century

11
France.

The British Empire in 1897, marked in the traditional colour for

imperial British dominions on maps

adopted the role of global policeman, a state of aairs

later known as the Pax Britannica, and a foreign policy
of "splendid isolation". Alongside the formal control it
exerted over its own colonies, Britains dominant position in world trade meant that it eectively controlled
the economies of many nominally independent countries,
such as China, Argentina and Siam, which has been generally characterized as "informal empire".[63] Of note
during this time was the Anglo-Zulu War, which was
fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu
Empire.
British imperial strength was underpinned by the
steamship and the telegraph, new technologies invented
in the second half of the 19th century, allowing it to control and defend the Empire. By 1902, the British Empire was linked together by a network of telegraph cables,
the so-called All Red Line. Growing until 1922, around
13,000,000 square miles (34,000,000 km2 ) of territory
and roughly 458 million people were added to the British
Empire.[64][65] The British established colonies in Australia in 1788, New Zealand in 1840 and Fiji in 1872,
with much of Oceania becoming part of the British Empire.

Napoleon III and Bismarck after the Battle of Sedan

The Franco-Prussian War was a conict between France

and Prussia, while Prussia was backed up by the North
German Confederation, of which it was a member, and
the South German states of Baden, Wrttemberg and
Bavaria. The complete Prussian and German victory
brought about the nal unication of Germany under
King Wilhelm I of Prussia. It also marked the downfall of
Napoleon III and the end of the Second French Empire,
which was replaced by the Third Republic. As part of the
settlement, almost all of the territory of Alsace-Lorraine
was taken by Prussia to become a part of Germany, which
it would retain until the end of World War I.
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France between the end of the Second French
Empire following the defeat of Louis-Napolon in the
Franco-Prussian war in 1870 and the Vichy Regime after the invasion of France by the German Third Reich in
1940. The Third Republic endured seventy years, making it the most long-lasting regime in France since the
collapse of the Ancien Rgime in the French Revolution
of 1789.
4.3.4 Slavery and abolition
Main article: Abolitionism

4.3.3

French governments and conicts

The Bourbon Restoration followed the ousting of

Napoleon I of France in 1814. The Allies restored the
Bourbon Dynasty to the French throne. The ensuing period is called the Restoration, following French usage,
and is characterized by a sharp conservative reaction and
the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic Church as a
power in French politics. The July Monarchy was a period of liberal constitutional monarchy in France under
King Louis-Philippe starting with the July Revolution (or
Three Glorious Days) of 1830 and ending with the Revolution of 1848. The Second Empire was the Imperial
Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870,
between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in

Slavery was greatly reduced around the world in the 19th

century. Following a successful slave revolt in Haiti,
Britain forced the Barbary pirates to halt their practice
of kidnapping and enslaving Europeans, banned slavery
throughout its domain, and charged its navy with ending the global slave trade. Slavery was then abolished in
Russia, America, and Brazil.
4.3.5 African colonization
Following the abolition of the slave trade, and propelled
by economic exploitation, the Scramble for Africa was
initiated formally at the Berlin West Africa Conference in
18841885. All the major European powers laid claim

12

to the areas of Africa where they could exhibit a sphere

of inuence over the area. These claims did not have to
have any substantial land holdings or treaties to be legitimate. The French gained major ground in West Africa,
the British in East Africa, and the Portuguese and Spanish at various points throughout the continent, while King
Leopold was able to retain his personal efdom, Congo.

LATE MODERN PERIOD

Akita,[68] William Beasley, James B. Crowley, John

W. Dower, Peter Duus, Carol Gluck, Norman Herbert,
John W. Hall, Mikiso Hane, Akira Iriye, Marius Jansen,
Edwin O. Reischauer, George B. Sansom, Bernard
Silberman, Richard Storry, Karel van Wolfram, and Ezra
Vogel.[69][70]

4.4 United States

4.3.6

Meiji Japan

Around the end of the 19th century and into the 20th
century, the Meiji era was marked by the reign of the
Meiji Emperor. During this time, Japan started its modernization and rose to world power status. This era name
means Enlightened Rule. In Japan, the Meiji Restoration started in the 1860s, marking the rapid modernization by the Japanese themselves along European lines.
Much research has focused on the issues of discontinuity
versus continuity with the previous Tokugawa Period.[66]
In the 1960s younger Japanese scholars led by Irokawa
Daikichi, reacted against the bureaucratic superstate, and
began searching for the historic role of the common people . They avoided the elite, and focused not on political
events but on social forces and attitudes. They rejected
both Marxism and modernization theory as alien and conning. They stressed the importance of popular energies
in the development of modern Japan. They enlarged history by using the methods of social history.[67] It was not
until the beginning of the Meiji Era that the Japanese government began taking modernization seriously. Japan expanded its military production base by opening arsenals
in various locations. The hyobusho (war oce) was replaced with a War Department and a Naval Department.
The samurai class suered great disappointment the following years.
Laws were instituted that required every able-bodied
male Japanese citizen, regardless of class, to serve a
mandatory term of three years with the rst reserves and
two additional years with the second reserves. This action, the deathblow for the samurai warriors and their
daimyo feudal lords, initially met resistance from both the
peasant and warrior alike. The peasant class interpreted
the term for military service, ketsu-eki (blood tax) literally, and attempted to avoid service by any means necessary. The Japanese government began modelling their
ground forces after the French military. The French government contributed greatly to the training of Japanese
ocers. Many were employed at the military academy
in Kyoto, and many more still were feverishly translating
French eld manuals for use in the Japanese ranks.

Main article: History of the United States (18651918)

Further information: Territorial evolution of North
America since 1763
See also: Colonial history of the United States and
American Indian Wars

See also: 19th-century North American Natives

4.4.1 Antebellum expansion
The Antebellum Age was a period of increasing division in the country based on the growth of slavery in the
American South and in the western territories of Kansas
and Nebraska that eventually lead to the Civil War in
1861. The Antebellum Period is often considered to have
begun with the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, although
it may have begun as early as 1812. This period is also
signicant because it marked the transition of American
manufacturing to the industrial revolution.

American westward expansion is idealized in Emanuel Leutze's

famous painting Westward the Course of Empire Takes its Way
(1861).

"Manifest Destiny" was the territorial expansion of the

United States from to 1848. Manifest Destiny incorpoAfter the death of the Meiji Emperor, the Taish Em- rated the belief that the United States was destined, to
peror took the throne, thus beginning the Taish pe- expand across the North American continent, from the
riod. A key foreign observer of the remarkable and rapid Atlantic seaboard to the Pacic Ocean. During this time,
changes in Japanese society in this period was Ernest Ma- the United States expanded to the Pacic Ocean"from
son Satow.
sea to shining sealargely dening the borders of the
Representative Western scholars include George contiguous United States as they are today.

4.5

Science and Philosophy

13

See also: American frontier and Territorial changes of absorbed or destroyed most of its competition.
the United States
The creation of a modern industrial economy took place.
With the creation of a transportation and communication infrastructure, the corporation became the dominant
form
of business organization and a managerial revolu4.4.2 Civil War and Reconstruction
tion transformed business operations. In 1890, Congress
Main articles: American Civil War and Reconstruction passed the Sherman Antitrust Actthe source of all
American anti-monopoly laws. The law forbade every
era of the United States
contract, scheme, deal, or conspiracy to restrain trade,
though the phrase restraint of trade remained subjecThe American Civil War came when seven (later eleven) tive. By the beginning of the 20th century, per capita
Southern slave states declared their secession from the income and industrial production in the United States exU.S. and formed the Confederate States of America ceeded that of any other country except Britain. Long
(the Confederacy). Led by Jeerson Davis, they fought hours and hazardous working conditions led many workagainst the U.S. federal government (the Union) under ers to attempt to form labor unions despite strong oppoPresident Abraham Lincoln, which was supported by all sition from industrialists and the courts. But the courts
the free states and the ve border slave states in the north. did protect the marketplace, declaring the Standard Oil
Northern leaders agreed that victory would require more group to be an unreasonable monopoly under the Sherthan the end of ghting. Secession and Confederate na- man Antitrust Act in 1911. It ordered Standard to break
tionalism had to be totally repudiated and all forms of up into 34 independent companies with dierent boards
slavery or quasi-slavery had to be eliminated. Lincoln of directors.[71]
proved eective in mobilizing support for the war goals,
raising large armies and supplying them, avoiding foreign interference, and making the end of slavery a war 4.5 Science and Philosophy
goal. The Confederacy had a larger area than it could
defend, and it failed to keep its ports open and its rivers Replacing the classical physics in use since the end of the
clear. The North kept up the pressure as the South could scientic revolution, modern physics arose in the early
[72]
barely feed and clothe its soldiers. Its soldiers, especially 20th century with the advent of quantum physics,
those in the East under the command of General Robert substituting mathematical studies for experimental studexamining equations to build a theoretical strucE. Lee proved highly resourceful until they nally were ies and
[73]
ture.
The old quantum theory was a collection of
overwhelmed by Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William
results
which
predate modern quantum mechanics, but
T. Sherman in 1864-65, The Reconstruction Era (1863
were
never
complete
or self-consistent.[74] The collection
77) began with the Emancipation proclamation in 1863,
were
and included freedom, full citizenship and the vote for of heuristic prescriptions for quantum mechanics
[74][75]
the
rst
corrections
to
classical
mechanics.
Outthe Southern blacks. It was followed by a reaction that
side
the
realm
of
quantum
physics,
the
various
aether
left the blacks in a second class status legally, politically,
theories in classical physics, which supposed a "fth elesocially and economically until the 1960s.
ment" such as the Luminiferous aether,[76] were nullied
by the Michelson-Morley experimentan attempt to detect the motion of earth through the aether. In biology,
4.4.3 The Gilded Age and legacy
Darwinism gained acceptance, promoting the concept of
Main article: Gilded Age
adaptation in the theory of natural selection. The elds of
geology, astronomy and psychology also made strides and
During the Gilded Age, there was substantial growth in gained new insights. In medicine, there were advances in
population in the United States and extravagant displays medical theory and treatments.
of wealth and excess of Americas upper-class during the
post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction era, in the late
19th century. The wealth polarization derived primarily
from industrial and population expansion. The businessmen of the Second Industrial Revolution created industrial towns and cities in the Northeast with new factories,
and contributed to the creation of an ethnically diverse industrial working class which produced the wealth owned
by rising super-rich industrialists and nanciers called the
robber barons. An example is the company of John
D. Rockefeller, who was an important gure in shaping
the new oil industry. Using highly eective tactics and
aggressive practices, later widely criticized, Standard Oil

The assertions of Chinese philosophy[77] began to integrate concepts of Western philosophy, as steps toward
modernization. By the time of the Xinhai Revolution
in 1911, there were many calls, such as the May Fourth
Movement, to completely abolish the old imperial institutions and practices of China. There were attempts to
incorporate democracy, republicanism, and industrialism
into Chinese philosophy, notably by Sun Yat-Sen (Sn y
xin, in one Mandarin form of the name) at the beginning
of the 20th century. Mao Zedong (Mo z dng) added
Marxist-Leninist thought. When the Communist Party of
China took over power, previous schools of thought, excepting notably Legalism, were denounced as backward,

14

LATE MODERN PERIOD

lution of the paradox of specic heats, and his connection of uctuations and dissipation. Despite his reservations about its interpretation, Einstein also made contributions to quantum mechanics and, indirectly, quantum
eld theory, primarily through his theoretical studies of
the photon.
4.5.2 Social Darwinism
At the end of the 19th century, Social Darwinism was
promoted and included the various ideologies based on a
Xinhai Revolution in Shanghai; Chen Qimei organized Shang- concept that competition among all individuals, groups,
hainese civilians to start the uprising and was successful. The nations, or ideas was a natural framework for social evopicture above is Nanjing Road after the uprising, hung with the lution in human societies. In this view, societys advanceFive Races Under One Union Flags then used by the revolution- ment is dependent on the "survival of the ttest", the term
aries.
was in fact coined by Herbert Spencer and referred to in
"The Gospel of Wealth" written by Andrew Carnegie.
and later even purged during the Cultural Revolution.
Starting one-hundred years before the 20th century, the 4.5.3 Marxist society
enlightenment spiritual philosophy was challenged in various quarters around the 1900s.[78][79][80][81][82][83] Developed from earlier secular traditions,[84] modern Humanist
ethical philosophies armed the dignity and worth of
all people, based on the ability to determine right and
wrong by appealing to universal human qualities, particularly rationality, without resorting to the supernatural or
alleged divine authority from religious texts.[85][86] For
liberal humanists such as Rousseau and Kant, the universal law of reason guided the way toward total emancipation from any kind of tyranny. These ideas were challenged, for example by the young Karl Marx, who criticized the project of political emancipation (embodied
in the form of human rights), asserting it to be symptomatic of the very dehumanization it was supposed to
oppose. For Friedrich Nietzsche, humanism was nothing
more than a secular version of theism. In his Genealogy
of Morals, he argues that human rights exist as a means
for the weak to collectively constrain the strong. On this
view, such rights do not facilitate emancipation of life,
but rather deny it. In the 20th century, the notion that
human beings are rationally autonomous was challenged
by the concept that humans were driven by unconscious
irrational desires.
4.5.1

Notable persons

Sigmund Freud is renowned for his redenition of sexual

desire as the primary motivational energy of human life,
as well as his therapeutic techniques, including the use of
free association, his theory of transference in the therapeutic relationship, and the interpretation of dreams as
sources of insight into unconscious desires.
The Communist Manifesto
Albert Einstein is known for his theories of special relativity and general relativity. He also made impor- Karl Marx summarized his approach to history and politant contributions to statistical mechanics, especially his tics in the opening line of the rst chapter of The Commathematical treatment of Brownian motion, his reso- munist Manifesto (1848). He wrote:

4.6

European decline and the 20th century

The history of all hitherto existing society is the
history of class struggles.[87]

The Manifesto went through a number of editions from

1872 to 1890; notable new prefaces were written by Marx
and Engels for the 1872 German edition, the 1882 Russian edition, the 1883 German edition, and the 1888 English edition. In general, Marxism identied ve (and one
transitional) successive stages of development in Western
Europe.[88]

15
failures and discontent, the Qing Imperial Court did attempt to reform the government in various ways, such as
the decision to draft a constitution in 1906, the establishment of provincial legislatures in 1909, and the preparation for a national parliament in 1910. However, many of
these measures were opposed by the conservatives of the
Qing Court, and many reformers were either imprisoned
or executed outright. The failures of the Imperial Court
to enact such reforming measures of political liberalization and modernization caused the reformists to steer toward the road of revolution.

1. Primitive Communism: as seen in cooperative tribal In 1912, the Republic of China was established and
Sun Yat-sen was inaugurated in Nanjing as the rst
societies.
Provisional President. But power in Beijing already had
2. Slave Society: which develops when the tribe be- passed to Yuan Shikai, who had eective control of the
comes a city-state. Aristocracy is born.
Beiyang Army, the most powerful military force in China
at the time. To prevent civil war and possible foreign in3. Feudalism: aristocracy is the ruling class. Mertervention from undermining the infant republic, leaders
chants develop into capitalists.
agreed to Armys demand that China be united under a
4. Capitalism: capitalists are the ruling class, who cre- Beijing government. On March 10, in Beijing, Shikai
was sworn in as the second Provisional President of the
ate and employ the true working class.
Republic of China.
5. Dictatorship of the proletariat: workers gain class
After the early 20th century revolutions, shifting alliances
consciousness, overthrow the capitalists and take
of Chinas regional warlords waged war for control of the
control over the state.
Beijing government. Despite the fact that various warlords gained control of the government in Beijing during
6. Communism: a classless and stateless society.
the warlord era, this did not constitute a new era of control
or governance, because other warlords did not acknowl4.6 European decline and the 20th century edge the transitory governments in this period and were
a law unto themselves. These military-dominated govMain article: 20th century
ernments were collectively known as the Beiyang government. The warlord era ended around 1927.[90]
Major political developments saw the former British Empire lose most of its remaining political power over
4.6.3 World Wars era
commonwealth countries.[89] The Trans-Siberian Railway, crossing Asia by train, was complete by 1916. Other
See also: Timeline of modern history, Timeline of World
events include the IsraeliPalestinian conict, two world
War I and Timeline of World War II
wars, and the Cold War.
4.6.1

Australian Constitution

In 1901, the Federation of Australia was the process

by which the six separate British self-governing colonies
of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia,
Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia formed one nation. They kept the systems of government that they had
developed as separate colonies but also would have a federal government that was responsible for matters concerning the whole nation. When the Constitution of Australia
came into force, the colonies collectively became states
of the Commonwealth of Australia.
4.6.2

Eastern warlords

The last days of the Qing Dynasty were marked by civil

unrest and foreign invasions. Responding to these civil

Start of the 20th century Four years into the 20th

century saw the Russo-Japanese War with the Battle of
Port Arthur establishing the Empire of Japan as a world
power. The Russians were in constant pursuit of a warm
water port on the Pacic Ocean, for their navy as well
as for maritime trade. The Manchurian Campaign of
the Russian Empire was fought against the Japanese over
Manchuria and Korea. The major theatres of operations
were Southern Manchuria, specically the area around
the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden, and the seas around
Korea, Japan, and the Yellow Sea. The resulting campaigns, in which the edgling Japanese military consistently attained victory over the Russian forces arrayed
against them, were unexpected by world observers. These
victories, as time transpired, would dramatically transform the distribution of power in East Asia, resulting
in a reassessment of Japans recent entry onto the world

16

LATE MODERN PERIOD

stage. The embarrassing string of defeats increased Rus- sination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.
sian popular dissatisfaction with the inecient and cor- However, the crisis did not exist in a void; it came after a
rupt Tsarist government.
long series of diplomatic clashes between the Great PowThe Russian Revolution of 1905 was a wave of mass ers over European and colonial issues in the decade prior
political unrest through vast areas of the Russian Em- to 1914 which had left tensions high. The diplomatic
pire. Some of it was directed against the govern- clashes can be traced to changes in the balance of power
ment, while some was undirected. It included terrorism, in Europe since 1870. An example is the Baghdad Railworker strikes, peasant unrests, and military mutinies. way which was planned to connect the Ottoman Empire
It led to the establishment of the limited constitutional cities of Konya and Baghdad with a line through modernmonarchy,[91] the establishment of State Duma of the day Turkey, Syria and Iraq. The railway became a source
Russian Empire, and the multi-party system.
of international disputes during the years immediately
In China, the Qing Dynasty was overthrown following the preceding World War I. Although it has been argued that
Xinhai Revolution. The Xinhai Revolution began with they were resolved in 1914 before the war began, it has
that the railroad was a cause of the First
the Wuchang Uprising on October 10, 1911 and ended also been argued
[92]
World
War.
Fundamentally
the war was sparked by
with the abdication of Emperor Puyi on February 12,
tensions
over
territory
in
the
Balkans.
Austria-Hungary
1912. The primary parties to the conict were the Impecompeted
with
Serbia
and
Russia
for
territory
and inurial forces of the Qing Dynasty (16441911), and the revence
in
the
region
and
they
pulled
the
rest
of
the great
olutionary forces of the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance
powers
into
the
conict
through
their
various
alliances
(Tongmenghui).
and treaties. The Balkan Wars were two wars in Southeastern Europe in 19121913 in the course of which the
Edwardian Britain The Edwardian era in the United Balkan League (Bulgaria, Montenegro, Greece, and SerKingdom is the period spanning the reign of King Ed- bia) rst captured Ottoman-held remaining part of Thesward VII up to the end of the First World War, includ- saly, Macedonia, Epirus, Albania and most of Thrace and
ing the years surrounding the sinking of the RMS Ti- then fell out over the division of the spoils, with incorpotanic. In the early years of the period, the Second Boer ration of Romania this time.
War in South Africa split the country into anti- and prowar factions. The imperial policies of the Conservatives
eventually proved unpopular and in the general election
of 1906 the Liberals won a huge landslide. The Liberal
government was unable to proceed with all of its radical
programme without the support of the House of Lords,
which was largely Conservative. Conict between the two
Houses of Parliament over the Peoples Budget led to a reduction in the power of the peers in 1910. The general
election in January that year returned a hung parliament
with the balance of power held by Labour and Irish Na- Various periods of World War I; 1914.07.28 (Tsar Nicholas II of
Russia orders a partial mobilization against Austria-Hungary),
tionalist members.
World War I Main article: World War I
The causes of World War I included many factors, including the conicts and antagonisms of the four decades
leading up to the war. The Triple Entente was the name
given to the loose alignment between the United Kingdom, France, and Russia after the signing of the AngloRussian Entente in 1907. The alignment of the three
powers, supplemented by various agreements with Japan,
the United States, and Spain, constituted a powerful counterweight to the Triple Alliance of Germany, AustriaHungary, and Italy, the third having concluded an additional secret agreement with France eectively nullifying
her Alliance commitments. Militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism played major roles in the conict. The immediate origins of the war lay in the decisions
taken by statesmen and generals during the July Crisis of
1914, the spark (or casus belli) for which was the assas-

1914.08.01 (Germany declares war on Russia), 1914.08.03

(Germany declares war on Russias ally France), 1914.08.04
(Britain declares war on Germany), 1914.12 (British and German Christmas truce), 1915.12 (French and German Christmas
truce), 1916.12 (Battle of Magdhaba), 1917.12 (British troops
take Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire), and 1918.11.11
(World War I ends: Germany signs an armistice agreement with
the Allies). ---- Allies and Central Powers in the First World War
Allied powers and areas
Central powers and colonies or occupied territory
Neutral countries

The First World War began in 1914 and lasted to the nal Armistice in 1918. The Allied Powers, led by the
British Empire, France, Russia until March 1918, Japan
and the United States after 1917, defeated the Central
Powers, led by the German Empire, Austro-Hungarian
Empire and the Ottoman Empire. The war caused the
disintegration of four empiresthe Austro-Hungarian,
German, Ottoman, and Russian onesas well as radical
change in the European and Middle Eastern maps. The

4.6

European decline and the 20th century

17

Allied powers before 1917 are referred to as the Triple

Entente, and the Central Powers are referred to as the
Triple Alliance.
Much of the ghting in World War I took place along
the Western Front, within a system of opposing manned
trenches and fortications (separated by a "No mans
land") running from the North Sea to the border of
Switzerland. On the Eastern Front, the vast eastern plains
and limited rail network prevented a trench warfare stalemate from developing, although the scale of the conict
was just as large. Hostilities also occurred on and under the sea andfor the rst timefrom the air. More
than 9 million soldiers died on the various battleelds,
and nearly that many more in the participating countries
home fronts on account of food shortages and genocide
committed under the cover of various civil wars and internal conicts. Notably, more people died of the worldwide
inuenza outbreak at the end of the war and shortly after than died in the hostilities. The unsanitary conditions
engendered by the war, severe overcrowding in barracks,
wartime propaganda interfering with public health warnings, and migration of so many soldiers around the world
helped the outbreak become a pandemic.[93]
Ultimately, World War I created a decisive break with the
old world order that had emerged after the Napoleonic
Wars, which was modied by the mid-19th centurys
nationalistic revolutions. The results of World War I
would be important factors in the development of World
War II approximately 20 years later. More immediate to the time, the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire
was a political event that redrew the political boundaries of the Middle East. The huge conglomeration
of territories and peoples formerly ruled by the Sultan
of the Ottoman Empire was divided into several new
nations.[94] The partitioning brought the creation of the
modern Arab world and the Republic of Turkey. The
League of Nations granted France mandates over Syria
and Lebanon and granted the United Kingdom mandates
over Mesopotamia and Palestine (which was later divided
into two regions: Palestine and Transjordan). Parts of the
Ottoman Empire on the Arabian Peninsula became parts
of what are today Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Revolutions and war Main articles: Russian Revolution (1917) and Russian Civil War
The Russian Revolution is the series of revolutions in
Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy
and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. Following
the abdication of Nicholas II of Russia, the Russian Provisional Government was established. In October 1917, a
red faction revolution occurred in which the Red Guard,
armed groups of workers and deserting soldiers directed
by the Bolshevik Party, seized control of Saint Petersburg (then known as Petrograd) and began an immediate
armed takeover of cities and villages throughout the former Russian Empire.

National ag of the Soviet Union.

Another action in 1917 that is of note was the armistice

signed between Russia and the Central Powers at BrestLitovsk.[95] As a condition for peace, the treaty by the
Central Powers conceded huge portions of the former
Russian Empire to Imperial Germany and the Ottoman
Empire, greatly upsetting nationalists and conservatives.
The Bolsheviks made peace with the German Empire and
the Central Powers, as they had promised the Russian
people prior to the Revolution. Vladimir Lenins decision
has been attributed to his sponsorship by the foreign ofce of Wilhelm II, German Emperor, oered by the latter
in hopes that with a revolution, Russia would withdraw
from World War I. This suspicion was bolstered by the
German Foreign Ministrys sponsorship of Lenins return
to Petrograd. The Western Allies expressed their dismay
at the Bolsheviks, upset at:
1. the withdrawal of Russia from the war eort,
2. worried about a possible Russo-German alliance,
and
3. galvanized by the prospect of the Bolsheviks making
good their threats to assume no responsibility for,
and so default on, Imperial Russias massive foreign
loans.[96]
In addition, there was a concern, shared by many Central
Powers as well, that the socialist revolutionary ideas
would spread to the West. Hence, many of these countries
expressed their support for the Whites, including the provision of troops and supplies. Winston Churchill declared
that Bolshevism must be strangled in its cradle.[97]
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that
occurred within the former Russian Empire after the
Russian provisional government collapsed and the Soviets
under the domination of the Bolshevik party assumed
power, rst in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) and then in
other places. In the wake of the October Revolution,
the old Russian Imperial Army had been demobilized;
the volunteer-based Red Guard was the Bolsheviks main
military force, augmented by an armed military component of the Cheka, the Bolshevik state security apparatus. There was an instituted mandatory conscription of the rural peasantry into the Red Army.[98] Opposition of rural Russians to Red Army conscription

18

LATE MODERN PERIOD

units was overcome by taking hostages and shooting them

when necessary in order to force compliance.[99] Former Tsarist ocers were utilized as military specialists (voenspetsy),[100] taking their families hostage in order to ensure loyalty.[101] At the start of the war, threefourths of the Red Army ocer corps was composed of
former Tsarist ocers.[101] By its end, 83% of all Red
Army divisional and corps commanders were ex-Tsarist
soldiers.[102]
The principal ghting occurred between the Bolshevik
Red Army and the forces of the White Army. Many foreign armies warred against the Red Army, notably the
Allied Forces, yet many volunteer foreigners fought in
both sides of the Russian Civil War. Other nationalist and regional political groups also participated in the
war, including the Ukrainian nationalist Green Army,
the Ukrainian anarchist Black Army and Black Guards,
and warlords such as Ungern von Sternberg. The most
intense ghting took place from 1918 to 1920. Major
military operations ended on 25 October 1922 when the
Red Army occupied Vladivostok, previously held by the
Provisional Priamur Government. The last enclave of the
White Forces was the Ayano-Maysky District on the Pacic coast. The majority of the ghting ended in 1920
with the defeat of General Pyotr Wrangel in the Crimea,
but a notable resistance in certain areas continued until 1923 (e.g., Kronstadt Uprising, Tambov Rebellion,
Basmachi Revolt, and the nal resistance of the White
movement in the Far East).
In 1917, China declared war on Germany in the hope of
recovering its lost province, then under Japanese control.
The New Culture Movement occupied the period from
1917 to 1923. Chinese representatives refused to sign
the Treaty of Versailles, due to intense pressure from the
student protesters and public opinion alike.
The May Fourth Movement helped to rekindle the thenfading cause of republican revolution. In 1917 Sun Yatsen had become commander-in-chief of a rival military
government in Guangzhou in collaboration with southern warlords. Suns eorts to obtain aid from the Western democracies were ignored, however, and in 1920 he
turned to the Soviet Union, which had recently achieved
its own revolution. The Soviets sought to befriend the
Chinese revolutionists by oering scathing attacks on
Western imperialism. But for political expediency, the
Soviet leadership initiated a dual policy of support for
both Sun and the newly established Chinese Communist
Party (CCP).

The ag of the Kuomintang, one canton of the ag of the Republic of China.

work for the Comintern).

In early 1927, the Kuomintang-CCP rivalry led to a split
in the revolutionary ranks. The CCP and the left wing
of the Kuomintang had decided to move the seat of the
Nationalist government from Guangzhou to Wuhan. But
Chiang Kai-shek, whose Northern Expedition was proving successful, set his forces to destroying the Shanghai
CCP apparatus and established an anti-Communist government at Nanjing in April 1927.
The 1920s and the Depression Main articles:
Interwar period, Roaring Twenties and Great Depression
The interwar period was the period between the end of
the First World War and the beginning of the Second
World War. This period was marked by turmoil in much
of the world, as Europe struggled to recover from the devastation of the First World War.
In North America, especially the rst half of this period,
people experienced considerable prosperity in the Roaring Twenties. The social and societal upheaval known as
the Roaring Twenties began in North America and spread
to Europe in the aftermath of World War I. The Roaring
Twenties, often called "The Jazz Age", saw an exposition
of social, artistic, and cultural dynamism. 'Normalcy' returned to politics, jazz music blossomed, the apper redened modern womanhood, Art Deco peaked. The spirit
of the Roaring Twenties was marked by a general feeling of discontinuity associated with modernity, a break
with traditions. Everything seemed to be feasible through
modern technology. New technologies, especially automobiles, movies and radio proliferated 'modernity' to a
large part of the population. The 1920s saw the general
favor of practicality, in architecture as well as in daily
life. The 1920s was further distinguished by several inventions and discoveries, extensive industrial growth and
the rise in consumer demand and aspirations, and significant changes in lifestyle.

The policy of working with the Kuomintang and Chiang

Kai-shek had been recommended by the Dutch Communist Henk Sneevliet, chosen in 1923 to be the Comintern
representative in China due to his revolutionary experience in the Dutch Indies, where he had a major role in
founding the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI) - and who
felt that the Chinese party was too small and weak to undertake a major eort on its own (see Henk Sneevliets Europe spent these years rebuilding and coming to terms
with the vast human cost of the conict. The econ-

Swed
e

22

Ireland
United
Kingdom 18

Denm

19
17

an

Fr

PO

RT
U

GA
L

21

SPAIN
24

Estonia
Latvia

9
7

25

Au

13

Tunisia, Algeria and French Marocco

Union of Socialist
Soviet Republics
(USSR)

slova
kia
ia
str
ary
ng
u
Y H
Romania

16

19

d
lan

y
an Pol
an
rm
e
G
d
Czec
ho

14
20

Fin

ark

15

ce

23

European decline and the 20th century

No
rw
ay

4.6

11

ug

os

y
12

Legend: Europe 1929-1938

lav

ria
lga

ia

10

Bu

TUR

26
5

KEY

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t
da

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M ria
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Americas Great Depression ended in 1941 with Americas entry into World War II.[110] The majority of countries set up relief programs, and most underwent some
sort of political upheaval, pushing them to the left or right.
In some world states, the desperate citizens turned toward
nationalist demagoguesthe most infamous being Adolf
Hitlersetting the stage for the next era of war. The convulsion brought on by the worldwide depression resulted
in the rise of Nazism. In Asia, Japan became an ever
more assertive power, especially with regards to China.

27

Nanjing period Main article: Nanjing decade

The Nanjing Decade of 1928-37 was one of con-

Europe between 1920 and 1938.

omy of the United States became increasingly intertwined

with that of Europe. In Germany, the Weimar Republic gave way to episodes of political and economic turmoil, which culminated with the German hyperination
of 1923 and the failed Beer Hall Putsch of that same year.
When Germany could no longer aord war payments,
Wall Street invested heavily in European debts to keep
the European economy aoat as a large consumer market
for American mass-produced goods. By the middle of
the decade, economic development soared in Europe, and
the Roaring Twenties broke out in Germany, Britain and
France, the second half of the decade becoming known
as the "Golden Twenties". In France and francophone With Sino-German cooperation until 1941, Chinese industry and
Canada, they were also called the "annes folles" (Crazy military was improved just prior to the war against Japan.
Years).[103]
solidation and accomplishment under the leadership of
Worldwide prosperity changed dramatically with the onthe Nationalists, with a mixed but generally positive
set of the Great Depression in 1929. The Wall Street
record in the economy, social progress, development of
Crash of 1929 served to punctuate the end of the predemocracy, and cultural creativity. Some of the harsh asvious era, as The Great Depression set in. The Great Depects of foreign concessions and privileges in China were
pression was a worldwide economic downturn starting in
moderated through diplomacy.
most places in 1929 and ending at dierent times in the
1930s or early 1940s for dierent countries.[104] It was See also: Sino-German cooperation until 1941, National
the largest and most important economic depression in Resources Commission and Chinese Civil War
the 20th century, and is used in the 21st century as an
example of how far the worlds economy can fall.[105]
The depression had devastating eects in virtually every country, rich or poor. International trade plunged by
half to two-thirds, as did personal income, tax revenue,
prices and prots. Cities all around the world were hit
hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming and rural areas suered as crop prices fell by roughly
60 percent.[106][107][108] Facing plummeting demand with
few alternate sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary
sector industries suered the most.

The League and crises The interwar period was also

marked by a radical change in the international order,
away from the balance of power that had dominated pre
World War I Europe. One main institution that was
meant to bring stability was the League of Nations, which
was created after the First World War with the intention
of maintaining world security and peace and encouraging economic growth between member countries. The
League was undermined by the bellicosity of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, the Soviet Union, and Mussolinis
The Great Depression ended at dierent times in dier- Italy, and by the non-participation of the United States,
ent countries with the eect lasting into the next era.[109] leading many to question its eectiveness and legitimacy.

20

LATE MODERN PERIOD

A series of international crises strained the League to its

limits, the earliest being the invasion of Manchuria by
Japan and the Abyssinian crisis of 1935/36 in which Italy
invaded Abyssinia, one of the only free African nations
at that time. The League tried to enforce economic sanctions upon Italy, but to no avail. The incident highlighted
French and British weakness, exemplied by their reluctance to alienate Italy and lose her as their ally. The limited actions taken by the Western powers pushed Mussolinis Italy towards alliance with Hitlers Germany anyway. The Abyssinian war showed Hitler how weak the
League was and encouraged the remilitarization of the
National ag of the Third Reich (Nazi Germany).
Rhineland in agrant disregard of the Treaty of Versailles. This was the rst in a series of provocative acts
culminating in the invasion of Poland in September 1939 war in history, culminating in the Holocaust and ending
and the beginning of the Second World War.
with the dropping of the atom bomb.
Few Chinese had any illusions about Japanese designs on Even though Japan had been ghting in China since 1937,
China. Hungry for raw materials and pressed by a grow- the conventional view is that the war began on Septeming population, Japan initiated the seizure of Manchuria ber 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the
in September 1931 and established ex-Qing emperor Drang nach Osten. Within two days the United Kingdom
Puyi as head of the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932. and France declared war on Germany, even though the
During the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), the loss of ghting was conned to Poland. Pursuant to a then-secret
Manchuria, and its vast potential for industrial devel- provision of its non-aggression Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact,
opment and war industries, was a blow to the Kuom- the Soviet Union joined with Germany on September 17,
intang economy. The League of Nations, established at 1939, to conquer Poland and to divide Eastern Europe.
the end of World War I, was unable to act in the face
of the Japanese deance. After 1940, conicts between The Allies were initially made up of Poland, the United
the Kuomintang and Communists became more frequent Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada, New Zealand,
in the areas not under Japanese control. The Com- South Africa, as well as British Commonwealth counmunists expanded their inuence wherever opportunities tries which were controlled directly by the UK, such as
presented themselves through mass organizations, admin- the Indian Empire. All of these countries declared war
istrative reforms, and the land- and tax-reform measures on Germany in September 1939.
favoring the peasantswhile the Kuomintang attempted Following the lull in ghting, known as the "Phoney War",
to neutralize the spread of Communist inuence.
Germany invaded western Europe in May 1940. Six
weeks later, France, in the mean time attacked by Italy
as well, surrendered to Germany, which then tried unTripartite Pact The Second Sino-Japanese War had successfully to conquer Britain. On September 27, Gerseen tensions rise between Imperial Japan and the United many, Italy, and Japan signed a mutual defense agreeStates; events such as the Panay incident and the Nanking ment, the Tripartite Pact, and were known as the Axis
Massacre turned American public opinion against Japan. Powers.
With the occupation of French Indochina in the years
of 194041, and with the continuing war in China, the
United States placed embargoes on Japan of strategic materials such as scrap metal and oil, which were vitally
needed for the war eort. The Japanese were faced with
the option of either withdrawing from China and losing
face or seizing and securing new sources of raw materials in the resource-rich, European-controlled colonies
of South East Asiaspecically British Malaya and the
Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia). In 1940, Imperial Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
World War II

Main article: World War II

Ensign of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

The Second World War was a global military conict that Nine months later, on June 22, 1941, Germany launched
took place in 19391945. It was the largest and deadliest a massive invasion of the Soviet Union, which promptly

4.6

European decline and the 20th century

joined the Allies. Germany was now engaged in ghting a war on two fronts. This proved to be a mistake by
Germany - Germany had not successfully carried out the
invasion of Britain and the war turned against the Axis.
On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the United States
at Pearl Harbor, bringing it too into the war on the Allied
side. China also joined the Allies, as eventually did most
of the rest of the world. China was in turmoil at the time,
and attacked Japanese armies through guerilla-type warfare. By the beginning of 1942, the major combatants
were aligned as follows: the British Commonwealth, the
United States, and the Soviet Union were ghting Germany and Italy; and the British Commonwealth, China,
and the United States were ghting Japan. The United
Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union and China
were referred as a trusteeship of the powerful during
the World War II [111] and were recognized as the Allied
Big Four in Declaration by United Nations[112] These
four countries were considered as the "Four Policemen"
or Four Sheris of the Allies power and primary victors
of World War II.[113] From then through August 1945,
battles raged across all of Europe, in the North Atlantic
Ocean, across North Africa, throughout Southeast Asia,
throughout China, across the Pacic Ocean and in the air
over Japan.

21
the deliberate and systematic murder of millions of Jews
and other unwanted during World War II by the Nazi
regime in Germany. Several diering views exist regarding whether it was intended to occur from the wars beginning, or if the plans for it came about later. Regardless, persecution of Jews extended well before the war
even started, such as in the Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass). The Nazis used propaganda to great eect to
stir up anti-Semitic feelings within ordinary Germans.
After World War II, Europe was informally split into
Western and Soviet spheres of inuence. Western Europe
later aligned as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) and Eastern Europe as the Warsaw Pact. There
was a shift in power from Western Europe and the British
Empire to the two new superpowers, the United States
and the Soviet Union. These two rivals would later face
o in the Cold War. In Asia, the defeat of Japan led to its
democratization. Chinas civil war continued through and
after the war, resulting eventually in the establishment of
the Peoples Republic of China. The former colonies of
the European powers began their road to independence.
4.6.4 Post-1945 world

Italy surrendered in September 1943 and was split into a

northern Germany-occupied puppet state and an Alliesfriendly state in the South; Germany surrendered in May
1945. Following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, Japan surrendered, marking the end of the war
on September 2, 1945.
It is possible that around 62 million people died in the
war; estimates vary greatly. About 60% of all casualties
were civilians, who died as a result of disease, starvation, genocide (in particular, the Holocaust), and aerial
bombing. The former Soviet Union and China suered
the most casualties. Estimates place deaths in the Soviet
Union at around 23 million, while China suered about
10 million. No country lost a greater portion of its population than Poland: approximately 5.6 million, or 16%,
of its pre-war population of 34.8 million died.

The Earth seen from Apollo 17. The second half of the 20th
century saw an increase of interest in both space exploration and
the environmental movement.

The mid-20th century is distinguished from most of human history in that its most signicant changes were directly or indirectly economic and technological in nature. Economic development was the force behind vast
changes in everyday life, to a degree which was unprecedented in human history.
Over the course of the 20th century, the worlds percapita gross domestic product grew by a factor of ve,[114]
Flag of the Italian Empire.
much more than all earlier centuries combined (includThe Holocaust (which roughly means burnt whole) was ing the 19th with its Industrial Revolution). Many

22

LATE MODERN PERIOD

economists make the case that this understates the magnitude of growth, as many of the goods and services consumed at the end of the 20th century, such as improved
medicine (causing world life expectancy to increase by
more than two decades) and communications technologies, were not available at any price at its beginning. HowBorders of NATO (blue) and Warsaw Pact (red) states during the
ever, the gulf between the worlds rich and poor grew
Cold war era.
wider,[115] and the majority of the global population remained in the poor side of the divide.[116]
The Soviet Union created the Eastern Bloc of counStill, advancing technology and medicine has had a great
tries that it occupied, annexing some as Soviet Socialist
impact even in the Global South. Large-scale indusRepublics and maintaining others as satellite states that
try and more centralized media made brutal dictatorwould later form the Warsaw Pact. The United States
ships possible on an unprecedented scale in the middle
and various western European countries began a policy
of the century, leading to wars that were also unpreceof "containment" of communism and forged myriad aldented. However, the increased communications conliances to this end, including NATO. Several of these
tributed to democratization. Technological developments
western countries also coordinated eorts regarding the
included the development of airplanes and space explorebuilding of western Europe, including western Gerration, nuclear technology, advancement in genetics, and
many, which the Soviets opposed. In other regions of the
the dawning of the Information Age.
world, such as Latin America and Southeast Asia, the Soviet Union fostered communist revolutionary movements,
which the United States and many of its allies opposed
American Peace Main article: Pax Americana
Pax Americana is an appellation applied to the historical and, in some cases, attempted to "roll back". Many countries were prompted to align themselves with the nations
that would later form either NATO or the Warsaw Pact,
though other movements would also emerge.
The Cold War saw periods of both heightened tension
and relative calm. International crises arose, such as the
Berlin Blockade (19481949), the Korean War (1950
1953), the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Vietnam War
(19591975), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the Soviet
war in Afghanistan (19791989) and NATO exercises in
November 1983. There were also periods of reduced tension as both sides sought dtente. Direct military attacks
National ag of the United States.
on adversaries were deterred by the potential for mutual
assured destruction using deliverable nuclear weapons. In
concept of relative liberal peace in the Western world, the Cold War era, the Generation of Love and the rise
resulting from the preponderance of power enjoyed by the of computers changed society in very dierent, complex
United States of America starting around the start of the ways, including higher social and local mobility.
20th century. Although the term nds its primary utility
in the latter half of the 20th century, it has been used in The Cold War drew to a close in the late 1980s and the
various places and eras. Its modern connotations concern early 1990s. The United States under President Ronald
the peace established after the end of World War II in Reagan increased diplomatic, military, and economic
pressure on the Soviet Union, which was already suering
1945.
from severe economic stagnation. In the second half of
For more details on this topic, see American Century.
the 1980s, newly appointed Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the perestroika and glasnost reforms.
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, leaving the United
States as the dominant military power, though Russia reCold War era Main article: Cold War
tained much of the massive Soviet nuclear arsenal.
The Cold War began in the mid-1940s and lasted into
the early 1990s. Throughout this period, the conict
was expressed through military coalitions, espionage,
weapons development, invasions, propaganda, and competitive technological development. The conict included costly defense spending, a massive conventional
and nuclear arms race, and numerous proxy wars; the two
superpowers never fought one another directly.

Latin America polarization In Latin America in the

1970s, leftists acquired a signicant political inuence
which prompted the right-wing, ecclesiastical authorities
and a large portion of the individual countrys upper class
to support coup d'tats to avoid what they perceived as
a communist threat. This was further fueled by Cuban
and United States intervention which led to a political

4.7

Contemporary era

polarization. Most South American countries were in

some periods ruled by military dictatorships that were
supported by the United States of America. Around the
1970s, the regimes of the Southern Cone collaborated
in Operation Condor killing many leftist dissidents, including some urban guerrillas.[117] However, by the early
1990s all countries had restored their democracies.

23

4.7 Contemporary era

Main article: Contemporary history
In the Contemporary era, there were various sociotechnological trends. Regarding the 21st century and the
late modern world, the Information age and computers
were forefront in use, not completely ubiquitous but often
present in daily life. The development of Eastern powers
was of note, with China and India becoming more powerful. In the Eurasian theater, the European Union and
Russian Federation were two forces recently developed.
A concern for Western world, if not the whole world, was
the late modern form of terrorism and the warfare that has
resulted from the contemporary terrorist acts.

5 Modern history education and

schools
The humanities are academic disciplines which study
the human condition, using methods that are primarily
analytic, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the
mainly empirical approaches of the natural and social sciences. Although many of the subjects of modern history coincide with that of standard history, the subject
is taught independently by various systems of education
in the world.
This high-resolution image of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field includes galaxies of various ages, sizes, shapes, and colors. The
smallest, reddest galaxies, are some of the most distant galaxies
to have been imaged by an optical telescope

5.1 British education

Students can choose the subject at university. The material covered includes from the mid-18th century, to analysis of the present day. Virtually all colleges and sixth
Space Age The Space Age is a period encompassing forms that do teach modern history do it alongside stanthe activities related to the Space Race, space exploration, dard history; very few teach the subject exclusively.
space technology, and the cultural developments inuenced by these events. The Space Age began with the development of several technologies that culminated with 5.2 Universities
the launch of Sputnik 1 by the Soviet Union. This was
the worlds rst articial satellite, orbiting the Earth in At the University of Oxford 'Modern History' has a some98.1 minutes and weighing in at 83 kg. The launch of what dierent meaning. The contrast is not with the MidSputnik 1 ushered a new era of political, scientic and dle Ages but with Antiquity. The earliest period that can
technological achievements that became known as the be studied in the Final Honour School of Modern History
Space Age. The Space Age was characterized by rapid begins in 285.[118]
development of new technology in a close race mostly
between the United States and the Soviet Union. The
Space Age brought the rst human spaceight during the
Vostok programme and reached its peak with the Apollo 6 See also
program which captured the imagination of much of the
worlds population. The landing of Apollo 11 was an
List of World Map changes
event watched by over 500 million people around the
world and is widely recognized as one of the dening mo History of modern literature
ments of the 20th century. Since then and with the end of
Modernism
Framework:
Premodernity,
the space race due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union,
public attention has largely moved to other areas.
Modernism, Postmodernism

24

Further reading

21st-century sources
Boyd, Andrew, Joshua Comenetz. An atlas of world
aairs. Routledge, 2007. ISBN 0-415-39169-5
Black, Edwin. Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and
Derailed the Alternatives. New York: St. Martins
Press, 2006.
Briggs, Asa, and Peter Burke. A Social History of the
Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet. Cambridge:
Polity, 2002.

REFERENCES

Palat, Madhavan K., History of Civilizations of

Central Asia, ed. , vol. 6, Towards the Contemporary Period: From The Mid-Nineteenth Century
To The End Of The Twentieth Century, UNESCO,
Paris 2005.
Robinson, James Harvey, and Charles Austin Beard.
Readings in Modern European History; A Collection
of Extracts from the Sources Chosen with the Purpose
of Illustrating Some of the Chief Phases of Development of Europe During the Last Two Hundred Years.
Boston: Ginn & Co, 1908.

8 References

Barzun, Jacques. From Dawn to Decadence: 500

Years of Western Cultural Life : 1500 to the Present. General information
New York: HarperCollins, 2001.
Books
20th-century sources
Burke, Peter. A Social History of Knowledge: From
Gutenberg to Diderot. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2000.
CBS News. People of the century. Simon and Schuster, 1999. ISBN 0-684-87093-2
Wang, Ke-wen. Modern China: an encyclopedia of
history, culture, and nationalism. Taylor & Francis,
1998. ISBN 0-8153-0720-9
Human, James L. Modern Japan: an encyclopedia
of history, culture, and nationalism. Taylor & Francis, 1998. ISBN 0-8153-2525-8
Schlesinger, Arthur M. New Viewpoints in American
History. New York: Macmillan, 1922.
Nock, Albert Jay. The Myth of a Guilty Nation.
B.W. Huebsch, Incorporated, 1922.

Earle, Edward Mead. An Outline of Modern History;

A Syllabus with Map Studies. New York: Macmillan
Co, 1921.
Grosvenor, Edwin A. Contemporary History of the
World. New York and Boston: T.Y. Crowell & Co,
1899.
Taylor, William Cooke, Charles Duke Yonge, and
G. W. Cox. The Students Manual of Modern History; Containing the Rise and Progress of the Principal European Nations, Their Political History, and
the Changes in Their Social Condition; with a History
of the Colonies Founded by Europeans. 1880.
Bryant, Arthur (1950). The age of elegance 2. New
York and Boston. p. 54. Retrieved 2010-04-29.
ISSN 1476-3324

Bakeless, John Edwin. The Economic Causes of Websites

Modern War; A Study of the Period: 1878-1918.
New York: Printed for the Department of political
Internet Modern History Sourcebook, fordham.edu
science of Williams college, by Moat, Yard and
Co, 1921
Footnotes
Day, Clive. A History of Commerce. New York
[etc.]: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1921.
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Moore, Edward Caldwell. The Spread of Christianity in the Modern World. Chicago, Ill: University of
Chicago Press, 1919.
Muir, Ramsay. The Expansion of Europe; The Culmination of Modern History. Boston: Houghton
Miin Company, 1917.
Palat, Madhavan K., Social Identities in Revolutionary Russia, ed. (Macmillan, Palgrave, UK, and St
Martins Press, New York, 2001).

reference to history) a period that is opposed to either ancient or medievalmodern history comprising the history
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[2] The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, Page 3814
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[4] modern. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000

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[5] Tirosh-Samuelson, H. (2003). Happiness in premodern

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in constructive postmodern thought. Albany: State University of New York Press.
[9] Maine, H. S., & Dwight, T. W. (1888). Ancient law: Its
connection with the early history of society and its relation
to modern ideas. New York: H. Holt and Co.
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[14] New Dictionary of the History of ideas, Volume 5, Detroit
2005. Modernism and Modern
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Grosvenor
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[39] R. Keith Schoppa (2000). The Columbia Guide to Modern
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[19] A companion to the philosophy of technology by Jan-Kyrre

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[43] Bose & Jalal 2003, p. 76

[22] Early European History by Henry Kitchell Webster

[23] The European Reformations by Carter Lindberg
[24] The new Cambridge modern history: Companion volume
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[25] Plains Indian History and Culture: Essays on Continuity
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[44] Brown 1994, p. 46, Peers 2006, p. 30

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26

[50] For example, Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds offered an explanation of the heliocentric model of the Universe.
[51] Paul Oskar Kristeller, Humanism, pp. 113-4, in Charles
B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner (editors), The Cambridge
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[52] Watt steam engine image: located in the lobby of into the
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[71] See generally Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United
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[72] F.K Richtmyer, E.H Kennard, T. Lauristen (1955). Introduction. Introduction to Modern Physics (5th edition
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[57] Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis essay retrieved

March 11, 2006

[76] a substance in early physics considered to be the medium

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[58] Cayley, E. S. (1856). The European revolutions of 1848.

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[77] The Chinese Enlightenment. By Vera Schwarcz. p4.

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[79] Enlightenment Contested. By Jonathan I. Israel. p765

[80] Modern Christian Thought: The twentieth century, Volume 2. By James C. Livingston, Francis Schssler
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[83] See also: Counter-Enlightenment, Max Weber, and mile
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[84] Known as continental philosophy.
[85] Compact Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University
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divine or supernatural matters. 2 a Renaissance cultural
movement that turned away from medieval scholastic-ism
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Typically, abridgments of this denition omit all senses
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p. 177.

27

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28

EXTERNAL LINKS

[115] Morrison, Wayne. Theoretical criminology: from modernity to post-modernism. Page 53.

USA vs USSR Fight! The Cold War: Crash Course

World History #39 - YouTube

[116] Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Program). Ecosystems and Human Well-Being. The Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment series. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2005.
Page 12

Decolonization and Nationalism Triumphant: Crash

Course World History #40 - YouTube

[117] Victor Flores Olea. Editoriales - El Universal - 10 de

abril 2006 : Operacion Condor. El Universal (in Spanish). Mexico. Retrieved 2009-03-24.
[118] history.ox.ac.uk

External links

General
Vistorica - Timelines of European modern history
Journal of Contemporary History. SAGE Publications. ISSN 1461-7250 (Print ISSN 0022-0094)
Contemporary History Institute (CHI). ohiou.edu
(ed., Analyzes the contemporary period in world
aairsthe period from World War II to the
presentfrom an interdisciplinary historical perspective.)
China and Europe, 15002000 and Beyond: What
is Modern?. Columbia University
Videos
The French Revolution: Crash Course World History #29 - YouTube
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#30 - YouTube
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History #31 - YouTube
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Crash Course World History #37 - YouTube
World War II: Crash Course World History #38 YouTube

29

10
10.1

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Text

Modern history Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_history?oldid=676523080 Contributors: Leandrod, Edward, Michael

Hardy, Dominus, Timwi, Reddi, Stone, Tpbradbury, Joy, Mackensen, Robbot, PBS, Vespristiano, Binadot, Slyguy, Beland, DragonySixtyseven, Soman, Jbinder, The stuart, Jayjg, Discospinster, Brutannica, Vsmith, Dbachmann, Treris, Kwamikagami, AllyUnion, Polocrunch,
Maurreen, Gary, Atlant, Ahruman, Sligocki, Batmanand, Hu, Velella, *Kat*, Embryomystic, Blaxthos, Woohookitty, PatGallacher, WadeSimMiser, MrSomeone, Qwertyus, Marasama, Sdornan, Liquidmojo, Ground Zero, Arctic.gnome, Russavia, Erp, Benlisquare, RussBot,
Fabartus, KaRoLuS, Aeusoes1, Grafen, Holycharly, Welsh, Rjensen, Saric, Rushyo, NielsenGW, Serendipodous, CIreland, True Pagan
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Stevenmitchell, Ryan Roos, Risssa, Yohan euan o4, KenFehling, Minna Sora no Shita, Dicklyon, David~enwiki, Novangelis, Skapur, RekishiEJ, CmdrObot, Flammingo, Oxonian2006, Kozuch, Epbr123, Barticus88, Missvain, Frank, Kraken7, Nick Number, KrakatoaKatie,
Guy Macon, Fayenatic london, JAnDbot, The Transhumanist, Michig, Acroterion, Magioladitis, Mahoney.93, VoABot II, Jerome Kohl, L
Trezise, KConWiki, ClovisPt, Adrian J. Hunter, Gun Powder Ma, Adriaan, Kiore, Anaxial, CommonsDelinker, J.delanoy, Nigholith, Janus
Shadowsong, Fountains of Bryn Mawr, Jevansen, TheNewPhobia, Squids and Chips, 28bytes, Lynxmb, Thatsgold, K157, Mandot, Gibson
Flying V, Lejarrag, Andy Dingley, Leefranrou, StAnselm, Nihil novi, Yintan, Ex-User17, Bentogoa, Dante6, Oxymoron83, The Stickler,
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DragonBot, Excirial, Rhododendrites, SchreiberBike, Thingg, Aitias, Lpcardoso, MasterOfHisOwnDomain, Doc9871, Addbot, Some jerk
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Aussie-no-scoping, Pinethicket, Lesath, Loyalist Cannons, A8UDI, Moonraker, PuppyOnTheRadio, Foobarnix, Tb240904, 2012WorldPeace, Full-date unlinking bot, Lissajous, Ohioartdude2, Steve2011, Nbydeley, Maegil, Jerd10, Suusion of Yellow, Minimac, Chargee,
NerdyScienceDude, Polylepsis, Mistercontributer, EmausBot, Immunize, Gfoley4, Wormald, RA0808, Maypigeon of Liberty, NGPriest,
TyA, Coasterlover1994, CatholicScholar, Ashishldh, Unionin, Donner60, Sunshine4921, Ethmyster, ClueBot NG, MelbourneStar, Joefromrandb, Booklung, Widr, Firedragon35, MerlIwBot, Helpful Pixie Bot, Andrew Gwilliam, Gob Lofa, Mgokuda, Marcocapelle, Cold
Season, Mark Arsten, Acmkes, Leejoe55, Oct13, MattMauler, Denis1325, BattyBot, Pratyya Ghosh, Biggs Pli, Nick.mon, Soulbust,
Khazar2, Mogism, John Russell Herbert, Isarra (HG), Melonkelon, Jodosma, Silver gasman, DavidLeighEllis, Ashleyleia, Yfhua, Quenhitran, Jianhui67, Gts-tg, Demoniccathandler, Jurisdicta, TaqPol, Quaesitor veritatis and Anonymous: 215

10.2

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