Unit 5: Revolutions

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss-French philosopher, *The Social Contract*, 1762

"If then we take from the social compact everything which is not essential to it, we shall find it reduced to the following terms: 'Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.' At once, in place of the individual personality of each contracting party, this act of association creates a moral and collective body, composed of as many members as the assembly contains votes, and receiving from this act its unity, its common identity, its life, and its will."

Which of the following best explains how the political philosophy expressed in the passage contributed to the radical phase of the French Revolution, in contrast to the American Revolution?

Source: Olympe de Gouges, French playwright and political activist, "Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen," 1791.

"Mothers, daughters, sisters, female representatives of the nation, ask to be constituted as a national assembly. Considering that ignorance, neglect, or contempt for the rights of woman are the sole causes of public misfortunes and governmental corruption, they have resolved to set forth in a solemn declaration these natural, inalienable, and sacred rights... Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights. Social distinctions can only be founded on common utility. The purpose of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of Woman and Man: these rights are liberty, property, security, and especially resistance to oppression."

The ideas expressed in the passage are best understood as a direct response to which of the following aspects of the French Revolution?

Giuseppe Mazzini, an Italian nationalist leader, wrote the following in his essay *The Duties of Man* (1858):

"Your Country is the token of the mission which God has given you to fulfill in humanity. The faculties, the strength of all the individual members of a Country, must be associated for the realization of this mission... In laboring for our own Country on the right principle, we labor for Humanity. Our Country is the fulcrum of the lever which we have to wield for the common good. If we give up this fulcrum, we run the risk of becoming useless to our Country and to Humanity."

The cooperative and civic-minded vision of nationalism described in the passage contrasts most directly with which of the following late nineteenth-century historical developments?

"The prospects of Social Democracy do not depend on the imminence of a grand revolutionary crash, but on the steady progress of legislative and economic reform. The modern wage-earners are not the homogenous mass, devoid of property and family, that the Communist Manifesto described. In all advanced countries, we see the privileges of the capitalist bourgeoisie yielding step by step to democratic institutions. The growth of trade unions, the success of cooperative societies, and the extension of municipal and legislative voting rights are all working to democratize the state and socialize the economy without the necessity of a violent cataclysm."
— Eduard Bernstein, German socialist theorist, *Evolutionary Socialism*, 1899

The passage most directly reflects which of the following historical developments in late-nineteenth-century Europe?

"Contending for the rights of woman, my main argument is built on this simple principle, that if she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue; for truth must be common to all, or it will be inoperative with respect to its influence on general practice... If children are to be educated to understand the true principle of patriotism, their mother must be a patriot; but the education and situation of woman, at present, shuts her out from such investigations."

—Mary Wollstonecraft, *A Vindication of the Rights of Woman*, 1792

Wollstonecraft's argument in the passage is best understood as an attempt to resolve which of the following tensions within Enlightenment-era social contract theories?

Source: Adapted from Malachy Postlethwayt, British economic writer, *The African Trade the Great Pillar and Support of the British Plantation Empire*, pamphlet, 1745.

"The transatlantic trade is the foundation of our wealth and power. It is this commerce which supporteth our navigation, employeth our landholders, and provides constant occupation for our manufacturers. The immense riches annually imported from our plantations, arising from the labor of enslaved Africans, are not merely consumed in luxury; rather, they return to the mother country as capital. This accumulated wealth is circulating through our banks, improving our agricultural lands, cutting canals, and giving life to new domestic industries. Without the secure possession of these colonial markets and the wealth they yield, our domestic manufactures would languish for want of capital and demand."

Which of the following best explains how the commercial developments described in the passage acted as a key socio-economic precondition for the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain?

"In the manufacturing districts of Lille, of Mulhouse, and of Lyon, the lodging of the workpeople is generally miserable. The rooms where they sleep are narrow, low, and ill-ventilated. In many places, the father, mother, and children sleep in the same room, often in the same bed, without regard to age or sex. Exposed to the humidity of cellar dwellings, the working-class populations of these manufacturing centers show an alarming rate of physical degradation compared to agricultural workers of the same regions."

— Louis-René Villermé, French physician and social reformer, Tableau de l'état physique et moral des ouvriers (Table of the Physical and Moral State of Workers), 1840

Which of the following nineteenth-century developments was the most direct cause of the conditions described in the passage?

Source: Report of an Ottoman government commission investigating the state of imperial trade, Istanbul, 1856.

"In former times, the workshops of Istanbul, Damascus, and Cairo supplied the provinces of our Empire with cloth, hardware, and leather goods of excellent quality. Today, however, our markets are flooded with cheap textiles from British steam-looms and metalwares from Belgian factories. Our local artisans, bound by traditional guild regulations and unable to match the prices of foreign steam-powered production, are abandoning their crafts. The wealth of the Empire is being drained to pay for these foreign fabrications, while our own manufacturing capacity decays."

Which of the following historical developments in the mid-to-late nineteenth century was most directly a response to the economic challenges described in the passage?

Source: José María Morelos, Mexican revolutionary priest, *Sentimientos de la Nación* (Sentiments of the Nation), 1813.

"1. That America is free and independent of Spain and of any other Nation, Government, or Monarchy...
5. That sovereignty resides originally in the People...
15. That slavery is forever forbidden, as is the distinction of castes, leaving everyone equal, and only vice and virtue will distinguish one American from another...
22. That the tribute, which weighs upon us, and the sales tax, be abolished..."

Which of the following best explains how Morelos's goals in the passage compare to the goals of the American Revolution?

Source: Venezuelan Congress, *Act of Independence*, July 5, 1811.

'We, the representatives of the United Provinces of Venezuela... considering the fully demonstrated and verified state of decay, ruin, and despair to which the nation has been reduced by the cumulative disasters, failures, and misfortunes of Spain... declare solemnly to the world that these United Provinces are, and ought to be, from this day, in fact and of right, free, sovereign, and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to and dependency on the Crown of Spain... and that, as a free and independent State, she has full power to take the form of government which may conform to the will of her peoples... and to do all other acts which sovereign nations have a right to do.'

Based on the passage and your knowledge of world history, which of the following best explains how the political objectives of the Venezuelan declaration differed from the socio-political goals of the radical phase of the French Revolution?

Source: Petition of the weavers of Dacca (Dhaka), Bengal, to the British Board of Trade, 1828.

"Our courts are now cold and our looms are silent. In former times, the cotton goods manufactured by the petitioners were exported to England and sold there, providing a livelihood for many thousands of families in Bengal. But of late years, the importation of British machine-made cotton yarn and cloth into India has increased to such an extent that the local markets are flooded with cheap British goods. The petitioners can no longer sell their hand-woven cloth at a price that allows them to survive. We are reduced to the deepest distress, and many of us face starvation."

The developments described in the petition best illustrate which of the following global economic transitions during the nineteenth century?

Source: Tanaka Shōzō, member of the Japanese parliament (Diet), appeal to the Meiji Emperor regarding the environmental and social impacts of the Ashio Copper Mine, 1901:

"The Ashio Copper Mine... discharges poisonous water and mud into the Watarase River... The fertile fields of several provinces are ruined, and hundreds of thousands of people are deprived of their livelihood. The government, in its haste to increase national wealth and military strength, has ignored the suffering of its own citizens. To destroy the land and destroy the lives of the people for the sake of industrial profit is to violate the mandate of heaven and subvert the very purpose of government."

Which of the following historical developments in late-nineteenth-century Japan is best illustrated by the concerns expressed in the passage?

Source: Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, speech to the German Reichstag, 1881

"I have set it as my goal to resolve the social question... If the state will show a little more solicitude for the workingman, then I believe that the social democrats will pipe their song in vain, and that their support will melt away as soon as the people see that the government and the parliament are genuinely concerned with improving their lot. The anxiety of the workingman regarding his livelihood in old age or in case of injury is the primary source of his susceptibility to revolutionary ideas. By providing him with a state-sponsored pension and disability insurance, we can bind him to the state and foster a spirit of conservative loyalty."

Which of the following best explains the primary historical objective of the social policies advocated by Bismarck in the passage?

Source: Adam Smith, Scottish economist, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776.

"As by means of water-carriage a more extensive market is opened to every sort of industry than what land-carriage alone can afford it, so it is upon the sea-coast, and along the banks of navigable rivers, that industry of every kind begins to subdivide and improve itself, and it is frequently not till a long time after that those improvements extend themselves to the inland parts of the country... Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expense of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level with those in the neighbourhood of the town."

Based on the passage and your knowledge of world history, which of the following best explains how the geographical factors described by Smith contributed to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain?

"Germany is not looking to Prussia’s liberalism, but to its power; Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden may indulge in liberalism, and for that reason no one will assign them Prussia’s role. Prussia must coalesce and concentrate its power for the opportune moment, which has already been missed several times... The great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and majority decisions—that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849—but by iron and blood."
—Otto von Bismarck, speech to the Prussian Landtag, 1862

Which of the following best explains how Bismarck's political strategy as described in the passage reflects a shift in the nature of nineteenth-century European nationalism?

Source: Sun Yat-sen, leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang), *The Three Principles of the People*, 1924

"The Principle of Livelihood is socialism; it is communism; it is Utopianism. But we must analyze the social problems of the West. The Industrial Revolution in Europe and America brought about a sudden increase in the productive power of mankind, but it also created a wide gulf between the rich and the poor, leading to intense class struggle. Karl Marx sought to resolve these conflicts through class warfare and the overthrow of the capitalist state. However, China’s primary economic problem is not unequal wealth but general poverty. Since we do not yet have a highly developed capitalist class, we can prevent the evils of Western industrial capitalism before they take root. We must do this by regulating capital, nationalizing key transport and utility industries, and equalizing land ownership, thereby allowing the state to guide industrialization for the welfare of all citizens."

Which of the following best describes how Sun Yat-sen’s proposed approach to industrialization, as expressed in the passage, differs from the revolutionary communist perspective of Karl Marx?

"The government of Costa Rica grants to the concessionaire the exclusive right to construct, maintain, and exploit a railway from the Atlantic coast to the capital... The government also grants to the concessionaire eight hundred thousand acres of public lands, which may be selected in any part of the republic... These lands shall be exempt from all national or municipal taxes for a period of twenty years, and the concessionaire shall have the right to import free of all customs duties all machinery, tools, and materials necessary for the construction and operation of the railway."
— Contract between the Government of Costa Rica and Minor C. Keith (founder of the United Fruit Company), 1884

The concessions described in the passage best illustrate which of the following global economic trends in the late nineteenth century?

"If we look at the countries of Europe and America, they have attained their present wealth and power through the development of industry, trade, and technology. If Japan wishes to preserve its independence and stand equal among the nations of the world, we must actively learn from the West and establish our own factories, railways, and modern army under the guidance of the Emperor."

— Okubo Toshimichi, Japanese statesman, memo on industrialization, 1874

The modernization efforts described in the passage were most directly motivated by Japan's desire to achieve which of the following goals?

The Pasha [Muhammad Ali] has introduced many manufactures, but they are all of them monopolies in his own hands. The machinery has been imported from Europe at a great expense, and the directors of the factories are generally Europeans. The native population is forced to work in these factories at wages fixed by the government... The cotton mills are the most extensive of these establishments... but the lack of coal, the dry and dusty atmosphere, and the resistance of the peasantry, who prefer agricultural labor, have proved major obstacles to their success.

—John Bowring, British diplomat, Report on Egypt and Candia, 1840

Which of the following developments in the nineteenth century most directly motivated the state-sponsored modernization policies described in the passage?

Source: Adapted from Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond, French mineralogist and traveler, *Travels in England, Scotland, and the Hebrides*, 1784.

'The abundance of coal, which is found in almost every part of Great Britain, is a source of wealth and industry which cannot be too highly appreciated... In France, we have many iron mines, but they are often distant from the forests necessary to smelt them, whereas in England, the coal and iron are found in the same field, and frequently in the same strata. This happy combination allows the English to manufacture iron at a cost that no other nation can match, and to power their steam engines with a fuel that is both cheap and inexhaustible.'

Which of the following best explains why the environmental preconditions described in the passage gave Great Britain an advantage over continental European powers like France?