La Belle Epoque 1871-1914
Materialism Inner Zone = Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, N. Italy & W. Austria Outer Zone = Ireland, Iberian Peninsula, Most of Italy & Central and Eastern Europe Demographic Change Urbanization Population Explosion Migration 1850-1940 = 60 million people leave Europe
Economic Changes Industrialization creates corporate society Free Trade & Globalization Advance of democracy Expanded voting rights Birth of the welfare state New Developments in Science, Philosophy
Social Structure Increased standard of living across the board Upper Middle Class Banking; industry; large-scale commerce Middle Class Industrialists; merchants; doctors; lawyers Lower Middle Class Shopkeepers; small traders; clerks Lower Class (80% of population) Highly skilled= foremen; skilled machinests Semi-skilled = craftspeople Low skilled = day laborers; domestic servants
Social Structure Increased Life Expectancy Public Health Initiatives Sanitation; Pollution control Germ Theory & Antiseptics Infant mortality decreases
Social Structure Marriage and Family Love triumphs over all Fewer children Children viewed as objects of affection Lower class children less dependent on their parents than middle class Illegitimacy decreases Economic concerns Men marry later Increased prostitution
Social Structure Cult of Domesticity Sign of prosperity if your wife & children could stay at home Sexual double standard Adultery was grounds for divorce for men but not for women Women began organizing
Science The nineteenth century saw an explosive growth in scientific studies and theory Thermodynamics Conservation of Energy Atomic weight Periodic Table (Dmitri Mendeleev) Electrical energy Quantum Physics Theory of Relativity Union of careful experiment and abstract theory = only reliable route to truth
Charles Darwin & Natural Selection Science On the Origin of Species by the Means of Natural Selection (1859) Built off the evolutionary ideas of Jean Baptiste Lamarck Newton of Biology Ideas reshape European thought
Science Social Darwinism Herbert Spencer = human society progresses through competition Eugenics Francis Galton
The New Sciences Tried to apply the objective methods of science to the study of society Auguste Comte (Positivism) All intellectual activity progresses through predictable stages Applying scientific method to social study would reveal the eternal laws of human relations Sigmund Freud (Psychology) Role of unconscious thoughts & motives Interpretation of Dreams Anthropology; Archaeology
Philosophy Agnosticism (Thomas Henry Huxley) We do not possess the requisite knowledge to either prove or disprove the existence of a deity Nihilism (Friedrich Nietzsche) Emptying the world and human existence of purpose, meaning and truth God is dead. We killed him Ubermensche (super man) = free spirit the deconstruction of the values of society BY constructing your own values (active nihilism) Irrationalism Instinct, feeling and free will over rationality Reaction to the Age of Reason
Religion Intellectual Skepticism Historiography = questions the historical legitimacy of Jesus & the Bible Political Manifesto? Science = questions the concept of Creation as outlined in the Bible Geology the Earth is older than believed Darwin Evolution from primordial sludge Philosophy = questions the intolerant God presented in the Old Testament
Religion Conflict Between Church and State Syllabus of Errors (1864) = Catholic Church officially disavows modern science, philosophy & politics Papal Infallibility (1869) = Pope can not be wrong on matters of morality or faith Pius IX & First Vatican Council Centralized Papal authority Rerum Novarum (1891) Leo XIII Condemns Socialism (but supports unions & workers) Promotes medieval social organization
Religion Emancipation of the Jews (circa 1848) Varying degrees of equal citizenship in Western Europe Relaxation of discriminatory legislation Rise of Anti-Semitism Economic stagnation of 1870 s blamed on Jews Organized Anti-Semitism in France & Germany by 1880 s Pogroms in Eastern Europe Zionism (Theodor Herzl) Reestablishment of a Jewish National State in the lands of Palestine Sponsored migration of European Jews to Palestine to form settlements