CHAPTER 21

WHAT IS A NATION? TERRITORIES,STATE,AND

CITIZEN, 1848-1879
Nationalism and Revolutions in 1848
 The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries
as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Spring of
Nations, were a series of political
upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It remains the
most widespread revolutionary wave in European
history
Building the Nation-state
After the revolution in 1848, a new nation-state was
created by former critics of
nationalism. Since the French Revolution of 1789,
conservative politicians have associated
nationalism with liberalism: a constitution, reforms, a new
political community. However,
during the second half of the century, the political ground
shifted dramatically.
 GIUSEPPE MAZZINI.
The leadership it held in Roman times and during world
powers. The emperor's most
emblematic ambition was the transformation of the nation's
capital.
 France under Napoleon III

As emperor, he controlled state finances, soldiers and

foreign affairs. The Napoleonic regime
aimed to weaken the traditional French elite by expanding
the bureaucracy and forging new
relationships with the people.
 Victorian Britain and the Second Reform Bill (1867).
Less affected by the revolutionary wave of 1848, Great
Britain was able to chart a significant direction for social
and political reforms,continuing the process that began in
1832 with the First Reform Bill.
 Italian Unification: Cavour and Garibaldi

After the failure of the unification of Italy in 1848,

the nationalists in Italy faced a choice between two
strategies to achieve statehood
Competing Viewpoints
Building the Italian Nation: Three Views Giuseppe
Mazzini's charismatic Three Views of Revolutionary left
over fifty volumes of memoirs and writings.

 Mazzini and Romantic Nationalism

Rome in a missionary union of the Republic,
terminated by Caesar, heaven, [law] and duty ;, and utter,
from the religion of progress and has emerged to surrender
the previous world not to individuals but to peoples,
fraternities.
Count Cavour as Leader
Count Cavour is undeniably ranked third among
European statesmen after Lord Palmer.
 The Unification of Germany: Realpolitik

In 1853, the former revolutionary August Ludwig von

Rochau wrote a short
book with the long title: Realpolitical Principles Applied to
German Conditions.
Interpreting visual evidence
 THE NEW GERMAN NATION
Nationalists in Germany sought to create a vision of
German history that made unification the natural outcome
of a deep historical process that had begun hundreds of
years before.
NATION AND STATE BUILDING IN
RUSSIA AND THE UNITED STATES
1. Territory, the State, and Serfdom: Russia
● Abolishing serfdom project of building Russia as a
modern nation.
● The emancipation decree of 1861
- Massive in scope, limited in change
- Granted legal rights to 22 million serfs
- Gave former serfs title to a portion of the land
- Required the state to compensate landowners
- Newly liberated serfs hard to pay installments for their
land
- Law granted land to the peasant commune (mir), not
individual serfs
2. Territory and the Nation: The United States
● The Jeffersonian revolution
- Combined democratic aspirations with
national expansion
- Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809)
- The independence of the yeoman farmer
● Territorial expansion
- Added millions of acres of prime cotton land
- Extended the empire of slavery
3. The Politics of Slavery in the West
● The legality of slavery
- Southern United States, Brazil, Cuba, most
of Africa, parts of India and the Islamic world
● Slavery and the Enlightenment
- Slavery contradicted natural law and natural freedom
- Slavery as metaphor for everything that was bad
- England and the abolition of the slave trade
▪ William Wilberforce and the immorality of the
slave trade
▪ Parliament passes a bill prohibiting English ships to
participate in the slave trade (1807)
4. The American Civil War, 1861-1865
● Consequences of the Civil War
- The abolition of slavery
- Established the preeminence of the national
government over states rights
- The fourteenth amandement
Due process defined by the national not state
government
● War laid the foundations for the modern American
nation-state
“Eastern Question”: Interntional
Relations and the decline of ottoman
power
◦ MEANING
was the issue of the political and economic instability
in the Ottoman Empire from the late 18th to early 20th
centuries
◦BACKGROUND
◦The Eastern Question emerged as the power of the
Ottoman Empire began to decline during the 18th
century.
CONCLUSION
The twenty years between 1850 and 1870 brought
intense anation building in the weastern world. The
unification of germany and italy change the map the
map of europe with imprtant consequence for the
balance power.