In what countries did the middle classes succeed in their economic, social, and political aspirations?
The course of European civilization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been driven by the search for order at least since the French and Industrial Revolutions. Based on what you have learned in this course, write an essay highlighting the important turning points in this story. If you disagree with this assessment, explain why.
In order to answer this question, consider the following:Generally, what ideologies best represented the goals and strategies of Europe’s different classes during the 19th century?
How did relations among Europe’s great classes change from the first half to the second half of the 19th century?
What were some of the key events and individuals that brought about those changes?
By the end of the 19th century, in what countries, and to what extent, were Europe’s old elites able to maintain their hold on power?
In what countries did the middle classes succeed in their economic, social, and political aspirations?
What were conditions like for Europe’s working classes?
What were their goals and to what extent did they achieve their goals?
How did World War I represent a crisis of the European order?How did the dictatorships of the 1930s/1940s represent attempts to reconstruct European societies after the Great War?
How were these efforts different from or similar to each other, and to the 19th-century order?
How did the experiments in dictatorship turn out?
