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Chapter 18
The Eighteenth Century:
European States, International Wars, and Social Change
Outline:
I. The European States
A. Enlightened Absolutism
B. The Atlantic Seaboard States
1. France: The rule of Louis XV and Louis XVI
2. Great Britain: King and Parliament
C. Absolutism in Central and Eatern Europe
1. Prussia: the Army and the Bureaucracy
2. The Ausrian Empire of the Habsburg
3. Russia under Catherine the Great
D. Enlightened Absolutism Revised
II. Wars and Diplomacy
A. The Seven Years' War
III. Economic Expansion and Social Change
A. Population and Food
B. Family, Marriage, and Birhtrate Patterns
C. New Methods of Finance and Industry
IV. The Social Order of the Eighteenth Century
A. The Peasants
B. The Nobility
C. The Inhabitants of Towns and Cities
V. Conclusion
Key Terms and People:
- William Pitt
- Frederick II or Frederick the Great
- Joseph II
- Catherine the Great
- Enlightened Absolutism
- Taxes
- French Indian War
- Peace of Hubertusburg
- Bubonic plague
- Family
- Peasantry
- Nobility
- cottage industry
- Plague
Chapter Summary:
While Europe experienced the scientific and intellectual revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
its various states moved from early modern absolutism to the verge of republican revolution. Across the continent the Old
Regimes experienced the last set of crises in what can now be seen as preparation for the convulsions that ushered in the
modern age.
It was a time of what has been called "enlightened absolutism," although how enlightened the rulers were
depends on the nation under consideration. Britain and Holland, while retaining their monarchies, moved toward representative
government, even if those being represented were the upper classes. In France and Eastern Europe, various forms of absolutism
continued. In Prussia, for example, the Hohenzollerns gave their people efficiency and military glory without granting them
civil rights, while in Austria the Emperor Joseph II tried to make liberal Philosophy his lawmaker—but in the end believed
he had failed. In Russia a peasant uprising curtailed Catherine’s intended reforms.
Warfare became much more
efficient during the eighteenth century; and wars determined the future even more than they had in the century before. Prussia
took its place in the ranks of the strong nation-states with its successes in the War of the Austrian Succession. Britain
won the war for overseas empire with its victories over France in the Seven Years’ War.
Populations in most
of the nations continued to grow, and improvements in agriculture production and the riches of overseas colonies increased
national prosperity generally. Yet the gap between rich and poor grew ever more pronounced, and poverty virtually overwhelmed
organizations and governments that tried to do something to remedy it. The stage was set for social revolution and the military
strife that accompanies it.
Focus Questions:
- What do historians mean by the term Enlightened Absolutism, and what degree did the eighteenth Century Prussia,
Austria, and Russia exhibit its characteristics?
- What were the causes and th results of the Seven Years' War?
- What changes occurred in agriculture, finance, and industry during the Eighteenth Century, and How did the
conditions in which they lived differ both between groups and between different parts of Europe?
- What was the relationship among political, economic, and social changes in the Eighteenth Century?
Chapter 19
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