Mod West Civ: the legacy continues

Themes and things to bear in mind

The individual and the community: the relationship between the rights of the individual and the power of the state. This includes political theories, human rights, and revolution.

Humanity and nature: people learn to view nature in different ways, which is evident in art, music,science and society.

Economy and technology: Industrial Revolution, international trade and trading blocs, economic theories, post-industrial technological change

Values: Why do events happen? How has history affected today’s values?

The arts and society: Art reflects values, views and social trends.

History is written by the victors. Women and minorities are often forgotten.

Primary sources are important, as we learn from Fernand Braudel, founder of the annales school of history. Incidentally, he is the same man who came up with the olive definition of “Mediterranean”. When studying a primary source, remember these five questions:

  1. Who is speaking? With what background? With what point of view?

  2. Why was this written? Is is personal or supposed to be persuasive?

  3. Are there any other contradictory viewpoints?

  4. Was this written during crisis or stability?

  5. What were the prevailing social/political/economic attitudes of the time?

Recognize bias and consider the implications.

Modern Western civilization really starts in the year 1492, not only because that was when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, but because that was when the middle class (bourgeoisie) was expelled from Spain. Western civilization is all about the success of the middle class: capitalism.

The term “bourgeoisie” is a French term, meaning people from Strasbourg. The German version, “burgher”, means people from Hamburg. Cities are very important.

The turning point of modern western civilization was the French Revolution in 1789.

The postmodern era begins in 1989 when the Berlin wall falls, representing the fall of communism and the reign of capitalism.

The origins of western civilization

Two key events were a major influence on western civilization, and both occurred at around 1250 BCE:

The Gropper Thesis:

The birth of western civilization occurred in the 8th century BCE.

The contributions of the Greeks

The Greeks contributed many concepts that are fundamental to western civilization:

Influencing the Middle Ages

The Church, the Romans, and the Germanic tribes all contributed to form the Middle Ages. The Germanic tribes taught them feudalism, Parliamentary government and common law.

Feudalism included the idea of primogeniture: the first born male gets everything.

Parliamentary government was pursued in 1215 with the Magna Carta signed by King John.

Common law meant compurgation (oath taking), started by Henry II. It is now today’s jury when they swear that someone is innocent or guilty.

The impact of the Middle Ages

The Middle Ages were controlled by three forces: the Church (controlling religion, law and commerce), the bicameral government (representation and Parliamentary), and economics (capitalism and the stock market).

The Middle Ages were not a very impressive period of time. It was a bunch of little warring estates under a feudal system. They were having economic problems because the population was increasing but productivity was falling. They only reached a period of stability in 1000 CE, when the invasions by Germanic tribes, then Moors, then Vikings stopped.

These economic problems were temporarily alleviated by the Crusades against the Turkish Muslims at intervals between 1096 and 1272; the Crusades gave the restless masses something to do with their time, and it sent away a whole bunch of people for a little while to alleviate overcrowding and improve the standard of living in Europe. Cities like Venice prospered, because their ports transported armies to Constantinople. There the stock market and banks were born, and the concept of double-ledger bookkeeping (having a book for gains and a book for losses) was developed. The first crusade was invoked by Pope Urban II.

The Crusades had a long-term benefit too, by bringing back classical concepts that had been preserved by the Muslims. They reopened trade to the east, bringing home luxury items. When land routes closed, the exposure to luxury items caused Europe’s bourgeoisie to explore the seas in search of other places to trade. Thus they found the New World.

Moving into the modern period:

Cities grew. Increased trade led to markets, which led to a skilled working class. Overseas commerce built ports. All these things combined formed the new merchant class called bourgeoisie.

Europe turns its weaknesses into strengths

At first glance, Europe looks really disadvantaged. It had no central authority. It was all small countries that could be picked off one by one. Northern Europe was icebound most of the year. There were no natural barriers between civilized Europe and the plains “barbarians”. Their technology and art (Romanesque, then Gothic) and music and mathematics and engineering and industry and navigation stunk compared to the rest of the civilized world, namely Asia.

However, Europe was on the rise when the Ottoman Empire, Northern India and Ming China had reached their peak and were on the decline. The small countries were forced to compete with each other for progress. The lack of central government meant no oppressive force discouraging innovation. The nations were forced to depend on each other for trade, so that led to complex commerce. The icy north Atlantic forced them to build sturdier boats. The Battle of Lepanto in 1571 between the Spanish and the Ottomans was the last major naval battle using galleys (ships propelled by manpower/oars). The galleys were replaced by wind-powered caravels. That battle also marked the end of the Mediterranean’s primary significance, as focus shifted to the North Atlantic as the geographic centre of Western civilization. An arms race in the 1500’s accelerated development of weapons until they were far beyond anyone else.

Gunpowder put an end to feudalism by encouraging standard, professional armies of musketeers. They had to keep their cool in a battle, and go through the laborious process of reloading while a screaming horde of charging knights were headed right for you.

One great invention of Europe was the printing press, which led to the Reformation when bibles became accessible to everyone.

The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was a revolution of the way we see nature. It questioned everything that had been taken for granted, including political principles and religious values. This questioning, of course, led to a revolt against the established order.

They discovered natural laws. They began to question what our natural state was before the intervention of government. They began to ask why we have government at all. They began to try to figure out what human rights are.

They concluded that the government is not doing a good job, and restructuring was necessary: revolution! French Revolution! Later, Napoleon spreads these ideas across Europe.

The United States was founded on these principles.

Absolutism

In the 16th and 17th centuries, fundamental aspects of modern Western civilizatioin emerged: secularization and the domination of science over religion; capitalism, later maturing with the Industrial Revolution; the evolution of democracy and parliamentary government; nationalism. This transition took place from the Renaissance to the French Revolution.

Nationalism came into being when small feudal kingdoms fused together into nation-states when their rulers got together by marriage/inheritance/war. These nation-states were ruled by a member of a single family: the absolute monarch.

The absolute monarch

The absolute monarch possessed divine right: he represented God on Earth. There was no constitution to keep him in check. He dominated the Church and the aristocracy. He owned both the land and the population.

Funnily enough, England had a constitutioinal monarchy this whole time.

Primary source:

The Divine Right of Kings: James I, 1609

James I was the son of Mary Queen of Scots. He came to power after the reign of the Tudors, who had ruled by love of their subjects. He turned this concept into a doctrine of the divine right of kings. He said that kings are “God’s lieutenants on Earth”, called gods even by God, and called gods in scripture. Kings have the same powers as God: to create/destroy, give life/kill, judge, and raise/lower people in status. He said that kings deserve their subjects’ affection and loyalty.

France and its absolute monarchs

From 1550–1598 there was a civil war in France between the Catholics and the Protestants. In 1598, Henri of Navarre, a Huguenot (French protestant), converted to Catholicism in order to become King Henri IV — an unusual move for a time when people were killing each other over religion. He later proclaimed the Edict of Nantes to give the Huguenots toleration. He rebuilt France and its economy with the help of the Duke of Sully. His wife, Catherine de Medici, was the daughter of an extremely wealthy Florence family. His chief advisor/minister was the notorious Cardinal Richelieu.

Cardinal Richelieu had three goals: to curb the power of the Protestants, to curb the power of the nobles, and to make France supreme in Europe. The last goal was the most important to him, as evidenced by the Thirty Years’ War in 1628; France sided with the Protestants against Spain. This was a strategic move because it took out Europe’s greatest power of the time.

In 1614, Henri IV was assassinated by a crazed schoolteacher who dropped a flowerpot on his head. The Parisian mob was so infuriated that they tore the man to shreds.

Cardinal Richelieu became chief minister to Louis XIII, who was only ten years old when he became king.

Louis XIV ruled from 1638–1715 in France: the longest reign in French history. He continued in the direction of Cardinal Richelieu. He kept the Estates General out of as much decision-making as he could, and took away the power of the nobility. His bureaucracy was made of six ministers: the chancellor (minister of justice), the controller-general of finance, and four secretaries of state. Underneath these six were 34 intendants who administered provinces but really had little influence on a municipal level, due to the lack of transportation.

Jean-Baptiste Colbert was the controller-general of finance from 1619–1683. He was super. He reformed taxation, limiting abuse and making it more uniform. He employed many mercantilist policies: encouraging industry, regulating quality, granting monopolies, revising tariffs. He expanded the navy and encouraged the building of merchant vessels. All these things doubled revenue within ten years.

Unfortunately, Colbert clashed a lot with Louis XIV, so he lost some of his effectiveness. Colbert wanted to use funds to further economic development, while Louis XIV preferred to spend money on wars with other European countries, or luxuries.

In 1685, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes put in place by Henri IV. Most Huguenots left for Germany, Holland and South Africa. One man named D’Isnay went to the New World. (Disney?!)

Louis de Rouvroy was the Duke of Saint-Simon from 1675–1755. He watched the events of Louis XIV’s court with a critical eye, and was eventually kicked out. Then he wrote his Memoirs, that give us an inside story on Louis XIV’s court, including how he spied on everyone and read everyone’s mail.

Primary Source:

The Court of the Sun King: Saint-Simon, 1700

According to Louis de Rouvroy, Louis XIV projected grandeur in his mere presence and manner. He hated possessors of intellect, education, nobility or high principle, and his hate grew in him as he aged. He wanted to reign on his own and guarded his throne jealously. He chose ignorant and incompetant ministers. He was pleased by empty heads and smiles. Due to his brainless administration, his kingdom decayed.

When Louis XIV was in power, France’s goals were to expand. They wanted their borders to expand to the Rhine, the Alps and the Pyrenees. So they fought a series of wars:

These wars did succeed in gaining France a lot of territory, but they also made the rest of Europe hate them.

Versailles

Louis XIV decided to use taxes to build a magnificent court. French court had always moved from place to place. Now it would always be at Versailles.

He spent loads of money and got Europe’s greatest artists to make this place. Louis XIV started calling himself “Le Roi Soleil”.

They started building it in 1661 and finished it in 1708, but Louis XV and Louis XVI continued adding to it during their reigns. It was designed by Louis Le Vau and Jules Hardouin-Mansart. It served as a residence and seat of government. The best part of it was the Hall of Mirrors.

Its gardens were designed by André le Nôtre. There were fountains, statues, terraces and arbors. There was even a little building called Marie Antoinette’s Hamlet, where she would run off and pretend to be a shepherdess.

Versailles was such an expensive building that its cost may have contributed to the French Revolution.

Versailles was a place of entertainment. All the courtiers moved down there and had to loiter around Versailles all day to score in with Louis XIV. Alongside the courtiers were the greatest writers, painters, sculptors and musicians. In Versailles, French creativity and culture met its pinnacle. All of Europe became jealous. French became the classy language of the time.

Louis XIV understood the power of hype. He hyped himself up like no other. He made nobles surround him from the moment he woke up to dress him. They would follow him around all day, taking them on his walks outside, billiards, music and dancing in the evening, and then they’d put him to bed at night. He would host parties called divertissements, where there would be plays, mock battles, boating, music, fireworks and dancing.

Versailles existed so that Louis XIV could keep an eye on the nobles. He engaged them in frivolous ceremonies to turn them into lapdogs.



The economy of a nation-state

The monarchy got more and more involved in the economy. Taxes paid for the army, roads, canals, bridges, clearing land and draining marshes. A standard currency and method of measurement had to be instated. The monarchy had to get more and more involved when there was colonization and the Commercial Revolution. By the 17th century, people got used to the monarchy’s involvement.

Mercantilism

Mercantilism was a protectionist method of economics. It links national prosperity to international trade. It was theorized by men like Thomas Mun (1571–1641). The key was to sell more to other countries than one buys. This got permanently tied in with colonies, as mother countries learned to use the colonies resources to improve themselves at any cost. The colonies would provide the raw materials, which would be shipped back to the mother countries to be formed into goods, which would be sold back to the colonies and then to other countries. This strategy added to the proliferation of slavery, because the colonies needed a lot of manual labour to provide the raw materials.

Holland had a distinct advantage because it had tons of well-placed colonies: New York, then called New Amsterdam, northeast Brazil, and the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. It had the majority of all merchant ships in Europe.

Each country and its colonies specialized in certain materials. England specialized in wool. France specialized in paper and textiles, and later silk. However, both of those countries could really use more colonies. They both set down in North America, the Caribbean and India, and competed for these locations until the Seven Years’ War from 1756–1763. The English won that war, so they scored North America and India and gained the biggest empire since Rome.

The colonies’ sole purpose was to benefit the home country. England came up with the English Navigation Acts in 1651, 1663 and 1670, which stated that colonies were forbidden to buy goods from anyone but their home country. That way, the colony would be able to produce without costing the economy anything.

Primary Source:

England’s Treasure by Foreign Trade: Thomas Mun, 1630

Thomas Mun was a successful mercantilist merchant. He did PR for the East India Company. He believed that trade is the best way to increase national wealth, for worldwide production and trade would yield more than isolated pockets thereof.

He said that the goal is to sell more to other countries than one consumes. A country’s wealth can be “natural” wealth (its own goods) or “artificial” wealth (trade with other countries). To get richer, countries should try to manufacture that which had usually been imported. Laws should be introduced to discourage use of foreign goods. Goods should be shipped with your own ships so that you can charge for merchants’ fees, cost of entry into the other country, freight, etc. You should be more careful within your own country, for is less is used within the country, more can be exported. (Clearly he doesn’t care all that much about standard of living, which is what money should be used for anyway, stoopid.) Certain imported items can be re-sold to other countries that need it. Items manufactured in distant colonies have more value than local goods. Artisans should be encouraged, because skills mean wealth.

Mercantilism slowly declined in France, as they lost their colonial empire. Mercantilism had been only a short-term reaction to economic crisis anyway. Taxes and government intervention had been stifling the merchants and industrialists anyway, and it had reached the point of being counter-productive.

Free Trade

French economists called physiocrats started thinking about different ways to run an economy. They decided that economics are governed by natural laws, and the government should not interfere: laissez-faire. Some famous physiocrats were François Quesnay (1694–1774) and Jean Vincent, Sieur de Gournay (1712–1759).

The most important physiocrat was Adam Smith who wrote Wealth of Nations in 1776. He advocated free trade over mercantilism. He said that wealth isn’t a favourable balance of trade, like the mercantilists said. Nor is it based on land, like the other physiocrats said. Value comes from labour, so free trade and competition creates wealth! The government should be restricted, and commerce should be guided by the invisible hand of supply and demand. The government should only supply national security, justice, public works and institutions.

Adam Smith brought economics into the Enlightenment.

If his book had come out a few years earlier, there wouldn’t have been an American Revolution, because one of America’s main complaints was that they didn’t like mercantilism.

Primary Source:

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: Adam Smith, 1776

He said that consumption is the purpose of production, so the producer’s focus should be on the satisfaction of the consumer. Mercantilism concentrates on the benefits of the producer, which is stoopid. Laws that deter imports are entirely for the sake of the producer. That’s also stoopid. Mercantilism puts all the expenses of maintaining the empire on its own people. Stoopid.

Louis XIV’s contribution

He increased borders, enemies, arts, and his own personal glory. He decreased funds and ignored the population. After his death, the nobles snapped up all the power, producing conflict and setting up the French Revolution.

Art

The arts are pre-civilization. They make us human. We’ve been painting on caves since waaaaay before we can remember. That’s why we’re glad we found the cave in Lascaux with 30,000 year old paintings. Cave paintings were sympathetic magic; we believed that making a likeness gave us power over the animal in the hunt.

The Greeks changed everything about art. They made art about beauty, not about magic or likeness. They appreciated the beauty of the body. Our concept of beauty is Greek: mathematical and geometrical. It’s all about the application of the Golden Mean: the ratio found in our faces. We also like ovals (the shape of our faces). We admire the chins that we have and that Homo neanderthalensis didn’t.

In the postmodern period, Pablo Picasso finally broke the rules that the Greeks gave us.

Art in the age of absolutism

The age of absolutism was a period of stability. Politics were centralized and the economy was stable. More time could be spent on art.

Baroque art reinforced religious and political statements. The church and state highly censored all art, so all criticism was very subtle and indirect.

The middle class was on the rise, so there was new demand for art. Art shaped itself to appeal to the middle class, opening public theatres, opera houses and museums.

Literacy was on the rise, to magazines and popular literature increased. Literature replaced visual arts as the standard means to convey ideas, because printing was cheaper and more available. In this way, ideas spread farther and faster. Europe had become more cosmopolitan, so ideas crossed borders more easily, especially after the French Revolution.

Art may have been regulated, but it was the only way to criticize the absolutist regimes.

The 17th century was all about baroque painters like Rembrandt.

By the 18th century, painting goes all frivolous, so emphasis shifts to music, like Handel. Architecture also flourishes with cathedrals like St. Paul’s in London, and palaces like Versailles and the Residenz. The architectural style supports the absolutist style of government.

Then the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum renews interest in classics, creating neoclassicism. A step later was the emotional romanticism.

Painting and Sculpture

“Baroque” originally meant “absurd” or “grotesque”, but now it means the stylistic period between mannerism and rococo. Baroque was about naturalism and unity, balance and wholeness, light and emotion and contrasts, all to create drama. It was perfect for propaganda. This contrast of light and dark — chiaroscuro — was developed by Carravaggio of the late 16th century. The concept goes back to the Dead Sea Scrolls’ apocalyptic battle of good versus evil, which goes even further back to the origins of dualism in Persia. Dualism (good/light versus evil/darkness) would be adopted by the Jews and passed on to the Christians.

Baroque painting started in Italy in 1585. Its life can be divided into Early, High, and Late Baroque. The style spread to Flanders, Holland, and Spain, and less so to England, Germany, Austria and France. The leading Italian Baroque painter was Pietro da Cortona (1596–1669), who did The Rape of Sabines and The Allegory of Divine Providence and Berberini Power which now adorns the ceiling of the Barberini Palace in Bologna.

The leading Italian baroque sculptor was Giovanni Bernini (1598–1680). He did David and Vision of the Ecstasy of St. Theresa, part of the Cornaro Chapel. He fused sculpture and architecture to create a very spiritual effect which was the epitome of counter-Reformation Catholicism.

Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) from Belgium studied baroque in Italy, then brought it home with him. He is probably responsible for spreading baroque outside of Italy.

Rembrandt von Rijn (1606–1669) from Holland also spread baroque painting. He did The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp and The Night Watch, both of which I fucking saw in Amsterdam, fuck yeah!!

One of the greatest portraits in existance was done by the Spanish Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (1599–1660). It was a portrait of Pope Innocent X.

England and France were mainly uninfluenced by baroque. British painting was all about comic-history and satire. It was developed by William Hogarth (1697–1764), who did The Rake’s Progress and Marriage à la Mode.

Versailles, as a sample of French art, combined architecture, landscape, painting, sculpture, furniture and metal work into one work of art. Instead of baroque, it was more classical, combining the two styles into something uniquely French. This style was cultivated by Nicolas Poussin (1593–1665).

After Louis XIV died, French returned to Baroque style in the form of rococo. Rococo was colourful, fragile, pastoral, and dreamlike — nothing like classicism. It was very aristocratic and superficial. Some great rococo painters were Jean Antoine Watteau, François Boucher and Jean Honoré Fragonard.

By the mid-18th century, everyone rejected the aristocracy, so no one wanted rococo anymore. Pompeii and Herculaneum (yeah baby!!) were discovered, and interest returned to the classical world. Greek standards like harmony, unity, universal standards, and ideals rather than pettiness returned to the mainstream as neoclassicism.
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