Ukraine 8 клас World History
Chapters: 8
1. Introduction: the early modern period
Early modern era
- Periodisation: How Historians Divide Time into Periods – Periodisation means cutting the long line of time into named periods so we can study it. Years are counted BCE (before) and CE (after) year 1, and grouped into centuries. A common scheme has four great periods: Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the early modern period and the modern/contemporary period, separated by turning points such as 476, 1453 or 1492, and 1789. Other schemes use dynasties, technology ages or regional divisions. Periods are useful tools chosen by historians, not natural facts.
2. Great geographical discoveries; rise of capitalism
Discoveries and encounter of civilisations · Emergence of capitalist relations
- The Age of Exploration (c. 1400–1600) – Between about 1400 and 1600, sailors from Portugal and Spain, and later other European countries, opened new sea routes across the world's oceans. They wanted spices and gold without paying many middlemen, they wanted to spread Christianity, and they wanted fame. New ships (the caravel), the compass, the astrolabe and better maps made long trips possible. Dias reached the southern tip of Africa (1488), Columbus reached the Americas (1492), da Gama reached India (1498) and Magellan's fleet sailed round the world (1519–22). Earlier, Zheng He of China had led huge fleets to Africa (1405–33). The voyages linked the whole world for the first time. They brought trade, new foods and wealth to Europe, but also conquest, deadly disease and the Atlantic slave trade.
3. World of ideas: Renaissance, Reformation, Baroque
Humanism and High Renaissance · Reformation and Counter-Reformation · Baroque culture
- Changing Cultural Traditions: Renaissance, Reformation and Science – From the 14th to the 17th century, rich Italian trading cities led a new interest in Greek and Roman learning called humanism. Artists aimed for realism, using perspective and the study of the body; architects built great domes. Printing spread ideas. Some educated women wrote and ruled. Luther's challenge in 1517 split the Western Church into Catholic and Protestant groups, and the Catholic Church reformed itself. Copernicus, Galileo and Newton changed how people saw the universe, and sailors found sea routes to the Americas and India.
- The Reformation and Catholic Reform: Causes and Effects – In the 1500s the single Western Christian church split. People were angry about the sale of indulgences and corruption, printing spread new ideas fast, and rulers wanted more power. Luther (1517), Calvin and the English crown created Protestant churches. The Catholic Church answered with its own reform (Council of Trent, Jesuits). Wars followed, then treaties that let rulers choose their state's religion.
- The Baroque: Art in Motion (c. 1600–1750) – Baroque is the European style of about 1600 to 1750 in painting, sculpture, architecture, music and literature. It grew in Rome after the Reformation, when the Catholic Church and kings used art to move and impress people. Its marks are motion, contrast and emotion: diagonals, dramatic light (chiaroscuro and tenebrism), curving walls and domes, gold and illusion ceilings, music with a basso continuo and many weaving voices, and writing full of contrasts, surprising metaphors and the theme of passing time. Key names: Caravaggio, Bernini, Rubens, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Borromini, Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Góngora, Donne. Classicism answered it with order, reason and calm.
4. Western and Central Europe, 16th–18th c.
Absolutism and the Habsburgs · England in the 16th–18th c. · Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth · Thirty Years' War
- Absolutism: When One Ruler Held All the Power – Absolutism (about 1600–1789) was a way of ruling in which one monarch held almost all power. The ruler made the laws, carried them out and was the highest judge. Rulers said their power came from God (divine right of kings), so nobody could question them. To control the country they built a standing army, hired paid officials, collected taxes everywhere and kept great nobles busy at court. Louis XIV of France, the 'Sun King', is the classic example, with his palace at Versailles. Peter the Great of Russia and the Habsburg rulers of Austria and Spain also ruled this way. Absolute rulers often followed mercantilism: sell more abroad than you buy, to bring gold home. In England and the Dutch Republic, parliaments and rich town leaders limited the ruler instead, leading to constitutional monarchy after 1689. Enlightenment ideas and the French Revolution of 1789 finally weakened absolutism.
- The Early Modern Period: How the World Changed from 1450 to 1800 – The early modern period runs from about 1450 to 1800, between the Middle Ages and the modern age. Printing spread ideas fast. Ocean voyages joined the continents through trade and colonies. The Reformation split Western Christianity. Big empires and new kinds of states grew. The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment changed how people thought about nature, rulers and rights.
5. Ottoman Empire and Eastern Europe, 16th–18th c.
Ottoman Empire and Crimean Khanate · Muscovite state and Russian Empire
- The Early Modern Period: How the World Changed from 1450 to 1800 – The early modern period runs from about 1450 to 1800, between the Middle Ages and the modern age. Printing spread ideas fast. Ocean voyages joined the continents through trade and colonies. The Reformation split Western Christianity. Big empires and new kinds of states grew. The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment changed how people thought about nature, rulers and rights.
6. Enlightenment and the beginning of modernisation
Industrial revolution · Enlightenment and enlightened absolutism · Formation of the USA
- The Industrial Revolution: Causes, Effects and Reform (1760–1914) – Between about 1760 and 1914 work moved from hand tools at home to machines in factories. A first wave (about 1760–1840) began in Britain with coal, iron, steam power and cotton mills. A second wave (about 1870–1914) brought steel, electricity, chemicals and oil, and spread to Western Europe, the United States, Japan and Russia. Towns grew fast; workers faced long hours, child labour and dirty housing. Workers organised in unions, new ideas (liberalism, socialism, conservatism) argued about what to do, and governments slowly passed factory, health and voting reforms.
- The Enlightenment – The Enlightenment (about 1680–1800) was a movement in Europe that said people should use reason and evidence, not only tradition, to understand the world and to run society. It grew out of the Scientific Revolution. Thinkers such as Locke, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant and Mary Wollstonecraft argued for natural rights, separation of powers, freedom of speech and religion, and government by consent. Ideas spread through books, newspapers, salons and the Encyclopédie. Some monarchs tried reforms (enlightened absolutism); the ideas also fed the American (1776) and French (1789) revolutions and later movements everywhere, including reformers in India.
- The American Revolution (1763–1791) – Thirteen British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America broke away from Britain and formed the United States. After the Seven Years' War (1756–63), Britain was deeply in debt and tried to tighten control: the Proclamation of 1763 limited westward settlement, and new taxes (Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Townshend Acts, Tea Act) were passed by a Parliament in which the colonists had no members. Colonists protested with the slogan "no taxation without representation", boycotts, the Sons of Liberty and the Boston Tea Party. Britain replied with the Coercive ("Intolerable") Acts, and fighting began at Lexington and Concord in 1775. Enlightenment ideas of natural rights and government by consent, spread by Thomas Paine's Common Sense, led to the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776. With help from France, Spain and the Dutch Republic, the Continental Army under George Washington won at Saratoga and Yorktown, and the Treaty of Paris (1783) recognised independence. The weak Articles of Confederation were replaced by the Constitution of 1787, with separation of powers, checks and balances and federalism, plus the Bill of Rights (1791). The new republic under Washington and Adams saw the first political parties. The Revolution inspired others, but rights were limited: slavery continued, Native nations lost land and women could not vote.
7. Eastern civilisations, 16th–18th c. (overview)
India, China, Japan and Persia
- Asian Civilisations: Persia, India, China and Japan (1500–1900) – Between 1500 and 1800 four Asian lands were strong and rich: Safavid Persia, Mughal India, Ming and Qing China, and Tokugawa Japan. Each had its own faith, art and rulers. European traders arrived; India and Persia stayed open, China allowed one port, and Japan closed its doors. In the late 1800s Asia awoke: Japan modernised fast under the Meiji, and Persia, India and China began reform and freedom movements.
8. Conclusion
Summary of the early modern period
- Periodisation: How Historians Divide Time into Periods – Periodisation means cutting the long line of time into named periods so we can study it. Years are counted BCE (before) and CE (after) year 1, and grouped into centuries. A common scheme has four great periods: Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the early modern period and the modern/contemporary period, separated by turning points such as 476, 1453 or 1492, and 1789. Other schemes use dynasties, technology ages or regional divisions. Periods are useful tools chosen by historians, not natural facts.