Week 6-7

I offer you to to respond to one of the two questions posed below:

1. The Revolutions of 1848-1849 shook Europe, leaving, however, but few marks of change in their wake. No new state had emerged and of the new regimes brought to power as a result of revolutionary turmoil only that in France merits mention. So, how shall one then evaluate 1848? Could one judge it as success from the perspective of the revolutionary participants, or was it, on the contrary, a triumph for the forces of order? Then again, perhaps the categories of failure and success do not capture the event and its spirit? Be that as it may, I would like to hear your opinion on that subject.

2. Both the unification of Italy and the creation of Germany passed within a short period of time and with a relative ease (especially the Italian unification). That might compel one to reflect over the question of why, given that ease, neither of the processes had taken place before. Did both the Italians and the Germans simply ripen for the national sovereignty? Were the geopolitical conditions auspicious for the execution of such designs? Or is one mistaken appraising the said events as swift and easy, being as they were far from accomplished?

Week 5 Birth of Ideologies

The parallel upheavals in the domains of politics, economics and social life running from the last third of the eighteenth century well into the nineteenth left a number of unresolved quandaries in their wake. Having revealed the power of a human being in shaping his own affairs, the Revolutions - both the French and the Industrial - stopped short of elucidating the relationship between the collective and the individual in an unambiguous fashion. That question constitutes one of the central intellectual legacies of Modernity at its birth.

The new ideologies represented then tentative answers to the aforementioned dilemma. I offer you then to take a closer look at the three texts assigned for this week (de Maistre, Hobhouse and Marx) to show where each of the authors - ideologues - locates the crucible of social creativity. In other words, how does each of the authors understand "agency"? What is the mainspring of historical action? In your answer you might proceed by comparing/contrasting visions represented in your texts.

Week 4 Industrial Revolution

The riddle posed by the Industrial Revolution is nearly inscrutable. How could we account for the sudden flourishing of that acquisitive instinct that, long dormant, seized upon novel socio-economic contingencies and fortuitous inventions to transform the landscape of the Continent beyond recognition?

Stemming from obscure origins, the Industrial Revolution left highly dubious fruits - at least in its very immediate wake, before being tempered by the aggrieved public reaction.

My question to you then is to evaluate the immediate consequences of the Industrial Revolution. Looking at the glowing account of mechanization presented by Andrew Ure and the exceedingly grim stories of exploitation and mistreatment offered by the early factory workers, one cannot help wondering about the possibility of ever reconciling these views. To attempt to do justice to both of them is the task for you.