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Course: World History Project AP® > Unit 5
Lesson 1: 5.0—An Era of RevolutionsWATCH: Unit 5 Overview – Revolutions
This video focuses on revolutions from 1750 to 1900 including the political and industrial revolutions that swept across the world in the long nineteenth century. These revolutions transformed human life, leading to dramatic changes across all the AP® themes. New types of constitutional governments were formed and new economic systems like socialism and communism grew in popularity. As economies changed, new social classes emerged. And as new technologies allowed more people to travel, cultural practices were exchanged across borders. The use of fossil fuels to power new technologies also impacted the environment in negative ways. Like what you see? This video is part of a comprehensive social studies curriculum from OER Project, a family of free, online social studies courses. OER Project aims to empower teachers by offering free and fully supported social studies courses for middle- and high-school students. Your account is the key to accessing our standards-aligned courses that are designed with built-in supports like leveled readings, audio recordings of texts, video transcripts, and more. Register today at oerproject.com!
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Website: https://www.oerproject.com/AP-World-History
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OERProject
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/oerproject. Created by World History Project.
Video transcript
In May of 1905, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was
playing tennis. An aide handed him a telegram informing the tsar that his pacific fleet had
been defeated and surrendered to the Japanese. It was a disaster that ended Russia's
imperial ambitions in the Pacific Ocean. Without emotion, Nicholas stuck
the telegram in his pocket and asked for his racket. Despite the tsar's apathy,
this news shook the foundations of global power. The Russo-Japanese war started in 1904 as both
countries competed to expand their empires in Asia. Tsar Nicholas had ordered an entire fleet to sail
to Japan, a difficult six-month voyage in which they... mistakenly shot British fishing boats, picked
up crocodiles and snakes as mascots in Madagascar to become the world's largest floating zoo, blew
up one of their own cruisers during a funeral, and... almost ran out of ammunition before they finally
found and engaged the Japanese Navy. What followed is known as the Battle of Tsushima. There, the
highly disciplined and modern Japanese fleet won victories over the Russian ships, which
were mostly either sunk or surrendered. For the first time in history, an Asian country
had defeated an industrialized European empire. This turn of events was particularly
shocking, given that just 50 years earlier Japan had a feudal government, had isolated
itself from most foreign countries, had no standing national army, and Japanese soldiers
were more often equipped with swords and spears than modern firearms. Japan's victory sent
shockwaves around the world and led many colonized people to question European claims
of superiority. It also caused unrest in Russia, contributing to a revolution that would
depose and kill Tsar Nicholas 12 years later. So...how did Japan transform from an isolated
feudalist country to a great imperial power in just a few decades? For that answer, we need
to examine a stunning period of revolution known as the Meiji Restoration. Now, the
Meiji Restoration (I said it twice on purpose) was when Japan capitalized on the
revolutions of the long 19th century. Hi, I'm Rachel Hansen, and this
is Unit 5 Revolutions 1750-1900. You'll remember that the formation of
trans-oceanic connections kicked off massive changes as people moved and new empires
emerged. In this unit, we're going to explore some of the consequences of those developments:
revolutions that would create the modern world. Historians have identified at least two
major types of revolutions produced by the long 19th century: political and industrial. They
started in only a few places at first, but they were ultimately global revolutions destined to
remake human societies in every part of our world. The first type of revolutions were political
revolutions. The world in 1750 was a world of empires and of kings, one thing almost all
humans shared in 1750 (whether they lived in a small community or a large empire) was an
understanding that they were somebody's subjects. They shared a sense of not really having much
political authority or standing of their own. Rather, they owed their allegiance to a chief or
prince or ruler of some sort. That ruler had the right, or at least the power, to make decisions for
their subjects. But the world of 1750 was about to become a revolutionary world. A world where, some
people in some places, were ready to shrug off the title of subject, first in the Atlantic world
and then beyond. Political revolutionaries rejected the authority of kings, emperors, and religious
leaders, embracing new ideas about government, people's rights, and more. At the same time,
the Industrial Revolution began. Centered first in Britain, this revolution happened when
people learned to harness a new form of energy: coal. Coal-powered machines quickly came to do
much of the work involved in manufacturing and transportation and this had a huge effect on how
people lived, worked, ate, and even how they thought. Industrialization, which was happening quickly
in some places and more gradually in others, reshaped life everywhere, creating the world we
live in today. These two revolutions combined to create an era of great change. Yet, not
everyone shared equally in these revolutions. Even after revolutions created the first nation
states in France, Haiti, the United States, and Latin America, the new freedoms spread gradually and
unevenly, at first enjoyed only by a privileged few. It was the labor of the working class,
colonized people, and enslaved people that drove the economic engines of industry, but these
classes of people rarely shared in the profits. As a result, one of the ways to study this
period is through social hierarchies, the ways industrial societies organize
themselves unevenly and unequally. In Unit 4, you explored some of the new social
hierarchies created by trans-oceanic empires. In this unit, you'll see how enlightenment thinkers
challenged traditional hierarchies and authority. These ideas provided the ideological
basis for many of the revolutions that are discussed in this unit. Two ideas in
particular reshaped governance in this period: they are... national sovereignty, the idea that
people—together—have the right to make political decisions and exercise leadership, and nationalism,
the belief that a people governing themselves have the right to a homeland. These ideas helped create
a new form of governance called the nation-state. A nation is a self-governing group of people. A
state is a legal unit and a piece of territory. When a state coincides with a nation—boom. You
have a nation-state. New ideas also helped propel industrialization. This was an era of innovation in
technology. New technologies created new economic ideas about how to organize and use labor and
money. The resulting changes in how people lived and worked also helped people move farther and
communicate faster, accelerating change. Of course, all of these new technologies also let people
change their environments more than ever before, not always with positive results. Together,
these revolutions in politics and technology allowed some countries to become very powerful.
Nationalism, and the concept of the nation-state, allowed states to better motivate and mobilize
their citizens. Industrialization, meanwhile, helped states control larger and more distant
territory and produce new deadlier weapons. Which brings us back to the Meiji Restoration in
Japan, and the reason I keep saying it. The Meiji Restoration is, in many ways, the perfect example
of how some states harnessed the power of these two revolutions. In the middle of the long 19th
century, Japan was decentralized, unindustrialized, and governed by a military dictator, the Shogun.
By the end of the 19th century, Japan was one of the most industrialized nations on Earth, with
an economy and military that could challenge some of the world's greatest empires. This
transformation was based on some gradual changes in Japanese society that had been going on for a
century, but they were given a kickstart in 1852. In that year, a fleet of American warships sailed
into Edo Bay, seeking to sign a treaty and open Japanese ports to American trade. The site of these
industrial modern ships sent a shockwave through Japanese society by highlighting how far behind
Japanese technology had lagged compared to that of the western imperialist nations. This realization
created discontent and a group of revolutionaries launched the—say it with me—Meiji Restoration. This
was aimed at restoring the Japanese emperor to power, industrializing the economy, and reforming
the government. Civil war followed, but the supporters of the emperor prevailed, and beginning
in 1868, launched a series of reforms intended to modernize Japan's industry and military enough
that it could match the European model while still retaining Japanese culture. The leaders
of the Meiji Restoration sent representatives abroad to Europe and the United States to
learn western methods and create connections. These experts helped the government centralize state
power, establish a constitution, institute public education, modernize the military, and industrialize
the economy. Industrialization increased Japan's economic production which in turn allowed the
nation to emerge as a major military power. Then, in 1895, Japan began an imperial expansion
in East Asia and the pacific. The Japanese Empire engaged in colonization strategies that were just
as unequal and exploitative as those practiced by European empires. That's when many of those empires
like Russia began to recognize Japan as a major rival. New political ideas allowed the Japanese
revolutionaries to build a powerful nation-state. With that political power, they were able
to direct the course of industrialization, channeling national resources into industries that
would further empower the state and enrich the economy, including the state-of-the-art warships
that sunk Tzar Nicholas's fleet. Game, set, match.