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Unit 2 Overview
Unit 2 Overview
Increasing global connections spread new ideas about sovereignty and rights, and this generated concepts like democracy, human rights, citizenship, and the nation-state.
As this video progresses, key ideas will be introduced to invoke discussion.
Think about the following questions as you watch the video
What, according to the video, is sovereignty?
Before 1750, who could participate in the government of most states around the world?
How would you describe the big political changes that began in this period?
What did the inhabitants of Saint Louis think of the French Revolution?
What does the evidence suggest about the spread of democracy around the world since 1750?
: Okay, so I think we should
: completely change how we do these overview videos.
: - But, it's only the second one.
: - Yes, but it's time to revolutionize the system.
: - I see what you did there.
: - Yeah.
: Hi, I'm Kim Lochner,
: and along with Colby Burnett, we're introducing Unit 2:
: Liberal and National Revolutions.
: We live in a world of nation-states,
: of countries where the people largely share
: both a political status and a government.
: Unlike most of our ancestors
: who lived before the "long 19th century,"
: from 1750 to 1914,
: we expect to-- we and our neighbors,
: have the right to participate politically
: in a state that represents and governs us
: as a community of people, or citizens.
: This is the very definition of a nation-state.
: As we look around the world, we see that almost everyone
: is a citizen of a nation-state.
: We are Australians, or Americans,
: or Russians, or Paraguayans,
: or Nigerians-- both by law and in terms
: of the identities we claim.
: Many of the rights we have are civil rights:
: guaranteed mostly by our governments,
: whether through a constitution, or laws, or just practice.
: There are also some kinds of rights--
: what we call human rights--
: that we believe apply to everyone,
: no matter their government.
: All of these ideas are tied together
: by the idea of sovereignty-- the right to govern.
: In our modern world,
: the nation-state has political sovereignty--
: the right to govern a country.
: But we also believe that individuals
: have personal sovereignty--
: the right to govern their own bodies and minds.
: These ideas are expressed most often through democracy--
: the system of government in which all or many people
: participate in governing their state
: or electing people to represent them in government.
: In fact, for most people in 1750,
: the community most present in their lives
: was not the state or government, but their religion.
: Everyday life in a neighborhood
: was often centered around a church, temple, or mosque.
: Religion gave people many of the rules by which they lived.
: In many cases, religion played the role of a government.
: In other cases, religion and government were tied together;
: many religious leaders played a key role
: in the organization of the state.
: While religion was present
: on a daily basis in most peoples' lives,
: however, government was usually quite distant--
: something that only a small group
: of wealthy, important people participated in.
: Beginning soon after 1750, however,
: ideas about the rights of the governed,
: and who had the right to govern, began to change.
: The growth of trade in the 18th century
: circulated ideas around the world
: and led to the development of new ideas.
: These ideas found just the right conditions
: to ripen into political revolutions
: that gave birth to both the nation-state
: and modern ideas about citizenship and rights,
: as well as the division between religion and the state,
: which we call secularization.
: Of course, such changes had their limits,
: and in many cases, the new kinds of governments
: and new ideas about individual sovereignty
: did not extend to everyone.
: Nevertheless, they marked a giant transformation
: in the way the world worked.
: So how were these ideas about
: political identity and political experience
: transformed by the liberal and democratic revolutions
: that created nationalism and nation-states?
: What were the limits of these transformations?
: To answer these questions,
: we must look at revolutionary change
: in the long 19th century from several perspectives--
: not only the great revolutionary cities of the age,
: such as Port-au-Prince, Paris, and Philadelphia,
: but also other locations around the world
: that participated in this age of revolutions in different ways.
: One of these was the port town
: of Saint-Louis, in West Africa.
: Often ignored by world histories of this period,
: this city was connected both to the African interior
: and the Atlantic world.
: COLBY BURNETT: Legally governed by France
: when the French Revolution began in 1789,
: Saint-Louis's leading citizens
: often spoke both French and local languages.
: They were mostly Muslims, although some were Catholics.
: Their religions played a large part in their lives,
: and in many cases connected them to trading partners
: in distant parts of Africa or Europe
: who were of the same faiths.
: But their differences in religion
: didn't stop them from being able to work together
: or to think of themselves as French subjects.
: Most of the leading citizens of Saint-Louis
: were also merchants by trade.
: They were involved in trade
: between the African interior and France,
: competing for business and profits with a French company
: that was associated with the French king,
: and got special privileges from that king.
: When the French Revolution broke out in 1789,
: these merchants of Saint-Louis, Senegal,
: quickly embraced the language of rights
: and "the nation of citizens"
: that was a hallmark of revolutionary France
: thousands of miles to the north,
: but connected to Saint-Louis by ties of trade and migration.
: These French-speaking African merchants saw themselves
: as natural allies of the revolutionaries in France
: seeking to overthrow a king
: and hoped that they could overthrow
: the French company they competed with as well.
: They also hoped to be allowed
: to govern themselves through an elected mayor
: and to be represented in the new National Assembly--
: the first attempt at democracy in France.
: Quickly, they wrote to the French revolutionaries,
: calling them brothers.
: Despite differences in skin color, they wrote,
: "We are all French, and no people
: show more patriotism and courage than we do."
: But despite this spirit and claim to citizenship,
: there were limits to French political revolution.
: The merchants of Saint-Louis were not invited
: to join the National Assembly,
: and it was only in 1916,
: more than 120 years later,
: that they would get representation.
: By then, West Africa was embarking
: on a 50-year pathway
: to independence from the French empire.
: In 1959, 170 years after the French Revolution,
: the people of Saint-Louis would become citizens of their own,
: independent, West African country of Senegal.
: The story of Saint-Louis
: stretches across the long history
: of the spread of the nation-state
: and democracy around the world.
: This spread was not inevitable.
: It was the result of 250 years of hard work
: by people and populations around the world.
: This chart shows time across the x-axis
: and measures the number of democratic states on the y-axis.
: As it shows, more and more democratic countries
: have been created over time--
: gradually in the 19th century,
: more rapidly in the late 20th century.
: There have been times, like the late 1930s,
: when the number of democracies diminished
: and some countries went back to rule
: by an individual or a few people.
: But overall, the trend has been towards democracy.
: This chart shows something similar.
: It shows that the number and percentage of people
: living under democracies
: has grown substantially over time,
: from less than half a billion in 1816,
: to almost four billion today.
: But this conclusion may obscure the fact that
: many struggles for democracy and the rights of citizenship
: have not succeeded.
: Like the inhabitants of Saint-Louis, Senegal,
: people in many parts of the world
: tried to gain political rights during this era,
: only to be denied.
: Indeed, as this chart shows,
: many people still do not live
: in states considered democracies.
: We have no proof that
: the trend to democracy is continuing,
: or will continue in the future.
: Although it was gradual and uneven,
: the political transformation of the long 19th century
: revolutionized how we think of ourselves and our rights,
: and it was an important element
: in creating the world in which we live today.
: That doesn't mean that the nation-state, or citizenship,
: or even democracy is the last transformation we'll see.
: There are probably a lot of political innovations to come.
: But the liberal and national revolutions
: of the long 19th century
: definitely played an important role
: in creating the world in which we live today.
: We can't understand our world,
: or orient ourselves to it,
: unless we know where these revolutions came from,
: and what their legacy is to us.
: Countries almost seem like teams sometimes.
: Like, why do people feel the need
: to sort themselves into competing sides?
: - Oh, I swear if you start talking
: about Gryffindor and Slytherin again...
: - It's a perfect analogy.