Our World from the Renaissance to the Second World War is a set of lectures for the second semester of a world history course covering Europe, Africa, and Asia during the modern era. Although it is customary to use the term “modern” to designate the entire period since 1350, the volume ends in 1945 because the Second World War represents the boundary between the declining modern and rising post modern eras.
The fourteenth and twentieth centuries were times of crisis caused by the transition between historical periods. While the battlefield casualties of the Hundred Years War (1328-1453) were the highest in Western Europe since antiquity, the first half of the twentieth century saw the two bloodiest conflicts in history, the First and Second World Wars. Jean Froissart’s comment about the unprecedented bloodshed of Agincourt in 1415 could be applied to the Somme in 1916, where eighty thousand soldiers perished in an eight hour battle. The plague of the 1300s had its counterpart in the influenza outbreak of 1918 and the tragedy of AIDs. Both centuries saw a crisis of faith in traditional institutions. The rise of Protestantism was an effect of the Babylonian Captivity and Great Schism that undermined the prestige and authority of the Roman Catholic Church. As the older institutions of the twentieth century failed to adapt to modern society, mass revolutionary movements replaced the aristocracy and middle class.
Several themes have been prominent during the six hundred years that form the boundaries of the modern age. One is secularism. Medieval man relied on the Bible and other ancient texts (source credibility) to find religious explanations for most phenomena; modern man uses observation and experimentation (the scientific method) to gain new knowledge and understanding of the world. The spirit of modern secularism is most important in the changing view of kingship. To a medieval king, reigning “by the Grace of God” meant responsibility for putting God’s plans for mankind into effect, for history was the unfolding of God’s will. To later rulers, kingship was a secular profession; the monarch used his expertise to preserve and defend the state, for history was the product of statesmen exercising their free will (great man thesis).
Nationalism and the development of the nation-state is another important theme. The wars of the modern era stimulated the rise of nationalism, consciousness of belonging to a nation sharing a common language, culture and history. The experience of fighting foreign soldiers on battlefields of France in the Hundred Years War convinced the French that they were a separate nation that deserved a native born Frenchman. Several centuries later the Napoleonic Wars convinced the Italians and Germans that they were nations deserving their own national governments. A century later the rise of nationalism inspired the Africans and Asians to assume their rightful place in the society of free nations.
Nationalism could be a powerful force for disintegration as well as integration. If it could bring separate states sharing a common language and culture together into a nation-state, it could also destroy old multinational empires. In the twentieth century Slavic nationalism would break up the Austro-Hungarian monarchy while Arab nationalism would reduce the Ottoman Empire to its Turkish heartland. Only states (Russia, e.g.) that conceded varying degrees of autonomy to their ethnic minorities managed to survive.
Modernization is the most important theme of these lectures. Political modernization brought democracy promoted by the examples of the British parliamentary monarchy and the French Republic. Socioeconomic modernization witnessed the rise of the urban middle class (bourgeoisie) and the emergence of the working class in the Industrial Revolution. The failure of policy makers to understand these developments led to revolution and one-party totalitarian regimes. During the First World War Nicholas II’s failure to work with the parliamentary institutions (Duma and State Council) created after the Revolution of 1905 plunged Russia into a violent revolution that ended in more than seven decades of Communist dictatorship.
Technological modernization raised the standard of living of millions of people and led to the modern affluent society. Unfortunately, it also increased the gap between the more advanced societies and the rest of the planet. The traditional societies who modernized defended their sovereignty and preserved their culture. Ultimately technological advances in transportation and communications would bring the planet closer together, but not before seventy years of colonialism had passed. Today the independent nations of Africa and Asia work with their former colonial rulers as equal partners in the United Nations, Commonwealth, and Francophonie.
Technology’s impact on warfare is an important theme of these lectures. The bows and arrows of the fourteenth century yielded to the muskets of seventeenth and machine guns of the twentieth centuries. Technology has advanced from Mohammed II’s cannons to more powerful atomic weapons than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Modern warfare has made the search for mechanisms to maintain the balance of power and prevent war the prerequisite for the continuation of our civilization. The creation of the United Nations and development of regional communities recognizes the obsolescence of a fragmented world incapable of sustained cooperation on the regional and international levels. As the modern era recedes, hopefully future historians will recall the first century of the postmodern era as the time when international cooperation under the auspices of the United Nations and regional integration eliminated terror, rendered war obsolete, and bridged the gap between the modernized and modernizing countries. Then Our World will become One World.
Doubovitski, Roman (1979-). B.A in History and Sociology, M.A. and Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology, Moscow State Pedagogical University. Instructor, Sociology, Moscow State Pedagogical University. Participant in academic exchange between MSPU and UCA. Author of “The History of Hospitality Management in Moscow.” Also author of “Ivan the Terrible: Autocrat or Lunactic?” in V. Hammond, Russia from the Rise of Moscow to the Revolution of 1917 (2003), “Management: Russian and European Mentalities,” in Philosophical Sciences Magazine, #4 (2004) and “The Human Being as a Business Factor” in Philosophical Sciences Magazine, #2 (2003).
