American Women Demand Equality

It's interesting to me that every time a new class of society pushes for new freedoms, the push results in another feminist push. After the Haitian Revolution, the abolitionist cause gets a huge push, and this eventually results in the abolition of slavery by law in the entire western hemisphere by 1888. Incidentally, as I've mentioned before, because many of your abolitionists were women (Harriet Beecher Stowe anyone?), a feminist movement was launched alongside the abolitionist movement, but it did not meet with much success. In the late 19th century, we begin to see a big socialist-driven push to secure worker's rights, and, you guessed it, a new wave of feminism is launched alongside it. In 1850, two years after the first U.S. women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York, a group of Ohio women met in Salem, in eastern Ohio, to draw up resolutions on the status of women for submission to a forthcoming convention that was to consider amendments to the state constitution. The Salem meeting has a special place in the history of feminist movements because, although men attended, they were not allowed to speak, vote, or make proposals. At the close of the meeting the men in attendance organized their own association, and as their first act, voted to endorse the resolutions the women had just approved. The resolutions were received less favorably at the constitutional convention, where the delegates, all men, ignored them. You can read the resolutions passed at the Salem meeting by clicking here.

After you have read the resolutions, I would like you to consider and discuss the following: What specific demands do the resolutions make in the areas of education, the family, politics, and employment? For the authors of the resolution, dependency is a key concept in their views of women’s place in society. What do they mean by this term, and what social and political practices contribute to it? What specific demands do the resolutions make in the areas of political rights, employment, education, and the family? The authors admit that not all women share their views. How do they view women who are content to accept their “idle lives” and “sterile submission?” How do they explain these women’s indifference to women’s plight? Your thoughts…

IMPORTANT CORRECTION TO THE NEXT THREE READING ASSIGNMENTS

Folks, as I was going over tomorrow's lesson, I noticed that the assigned pages on the calender is not quite correct.

Here are the CORRECT page assignments: Thursday, Feb 5th- pgs. 909-919; Friday, Feb 6th- pgs. 919-925; and Monday, Feb 9th- pgs. 927-938.

I apologize for this error on our part, and, in the interest of fairness, I'll refrain from giving a reading quiz tomorrow for those that did not get this message. However, be prepared for a reading quiz over pgs. 909-925 on Friday.

The Marxist Critique of Industrial Capitalism

Karl Marx was born in Trier, a German city on the Rhine River that had been occupied by Napoleon in 1803 and assigned to the Kingdom of Prussia by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Marx’s parents both came from long lines of Jewish rabbis, but in 1817 his father, Herschel Levi, converted the family to Christianity and changed its name to Marx to protect his career as a lawyer. Young Marx studied law at the University of Bonn before enrolling at the University of Berlin, where he was influenced by the thought of the famous philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, especially his theory that history unfolded toward a specific goal in an ongoing process driven by the clash and resolution of antagonistic ideas. After losing his job as a journalist for a Cologne newspaper because of his political views, in 1844 Marx moved to Paris, where he argued doctrine with other radicals and would-be revolutionaries and continued his studies of economics and history. He also made the acquaintance of another German, Friedrich Engels, an ardent critic of capitalism despite the fortune he amassed from managing a textile mill in Manchester, England. In 1847, Marx and Engels joined the Communist League, a revolutionary society dominated by German political exiles in France and England. In 1848, a year of revolution in France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Italy, the two men wrote The Communist Manifesto to publicize the League’s program. It soon became the most widely read socialist tract in history (you can read excerpts from it by clicking here).

After 1848, Marx and Engels remained friends, with Engels giving the impoverished Marx enough money to continue his writing and political activities while living in London. Both men continued to write on behalf of socialism, but Marx’s works, especially his masterpiece, Das Kapital (Capitalism), assumed the far greater role in shaping modern socialist thought. Furthermore, Marx’s views of history, human behavior, and social conflict have influenced not only politics but also philosophy, religion, literature, and all the social sciences.

After you are finished reading the document, I would like you to reflect on and discuss the following: How do Marx and Engels define class, and what do they mean by the “class struggle?” According to Marx and Engels, how does the class struggle in nineteenth-century Europe differ from class struggles in previous eras? According to Marx and Engels, what are the characteristics of the bourgeoisie? Marx and Engels believe that bourgeois society is doomed and that the bourgeoisie will be the cause of their own destruction? Why? The authors dismiss the importance of ideas as a force in human affairs. On what grounds? Ultimately, what is the cause of historical change in their view? What may explain the popularity of The Communist Manifesto among workers and those who sympathized with their plight? How does The Communist Manifesto’s vision of the past and future resemble that of Condorcet’s Sketch of the Progress of the Human Mind? How does is differ? How would Marx and Engels have responded to the point of view represented by Samuel Smiles in Self-Help and Thrift? Your thoughts…

Middle-Class Success and How to Achieve It

No writer expressed the hopes, fears, expectations, and values of nineteenth-century Europe’s middle class more faithfully and successfully than the Scottish-born biographer, essayist, and businessman Samuel Smiles. Born into the family of a papermaker and shopkeeper, Smiles received a medical degree, worked as a journalist in Leeds, and held several managerial posts in the railroad industry. He wrote biographies, histories, and travel narratives, and achieved worldwide fame through his inspirational books on morality and personal behavior. Although it had been rejected by six publishers, his book Self-Help (1859) became a bestseller that went through dozens of editions and was translated into seventeen languages, including Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese. With an upbeat message that hard work, discipline, and high moral standards guaranteed success, Self-Help was followed by Character (1871), Thrift (1875), and Duty (1880). With his life spanning the century that saw the triumph of the middle-class values he championed, he died in 1904 at the age of ninety-three.

In the document excerpts I would like you to read, the first two sections, “Self-Help and Individualism” and “Habits of a Successful Men” are from Self-Help; the third section, “Faults of the Poor,” is from Thrift (you can read all of the sections by clicking here).

After you finish reading the document excerpts, I would like you to think about and discuss the following: Why does Smiles consider government incapable of solving the social and economic problems confronting early industrial England? In his view what should be government’s proper role and function? How would Smiles define the word individualism? What are the components of the “middle-class ethic” discussed by Smiles? According to Smiles, who is responsible for the poverty in England? In his view, what can be done about it? If given a chance to testify before one of the parliamentary committees about the effects of industrialization on the working class, what might Smiles have said? How do Smile’s views resemble and differ from those of Adam Smith The Wealth of Nations? Your thoughts...

The Principles of Darwinism

After pursuing his university education at Edinburgh and Cambridge, Charles Darwin spent five years on the HMS Beagle as chief naturalist on a scientific expedition that explored the South Pacific and the western coast of South America. Darwin observed the bewildering variety of nature and began to speculate on how millions of species of plants and animals had come into existence. On his return to England, he developed his theory of evolution, basing his hypothesis on his own formidable biological knowledge, recent discoveries in geology, work on the selective breeding of plants and animals, and the suggestion of several authors that competition was the norm for all living things. In 1859, he published his theories in On the Origin of Species, followed in 1871 by The Descent of Man (you can read excerpts from both by clicking here).

Once you have read the documents, I would like you to think about and discuss the following: What does Darwin mean by the terms struggle for existence and natural selection? How does Darwin defend himself from religiously motivated attacks on his work? What were some implications of Darwin’s work for nineteenth-century views of progress? Of nature? Of human nature? Defenders of laissez-faire capitalism sometimes drew upon Darwinian concepts in their arguments against socialism. Which concepts might they have used? Similarly, Darwinian concepts were used to defend militarism and late-nineteenth-century Western imperialism (empire building and domination). Which of Darwin’s theories might have proved useful in such a defense? Your thoughts…

Industrialization, Nationalism, and Internationalism in 19th-Century Sports

One unexpected but powerful result the Industrial Revolution and of growing trade connections and cultural interchange in the 19th century was the beginning of a globalization of athletics—a process that has continued vigorously to the present day. The sports involved were Western in origin, soccer football heading the list. Their dissemination was a function of Western power and prestige. Western businessmen and diplomats played their familiar games on foreign soil—colonies and non-colonies alike—and gradually local residents sought to emulate what seemed to be part of a superior, or at least very attractive, way of life.

Sports history in 19th-century Western Europe and the United States was itself a vital development. At the beginning of the century few organized sports existed. Village games and individual athletic pastimes abounded, but overall patterns were haphazard. Industrialization spurred a set of changes in sports. First, many urban people began to see the need to exercise to make up for sedentary jobs, and they also valued the social contact sports provided. Middle-class and working-class teams developed on this basis. Schools seized on sports as a diversion but also as building character: Upper-class schools first trumpeted the glories of sports, but lower-class education soon followed their lead. In this context, by the 1850s and 1860s, entrepreneurs saw new ways to make money from sports. There was new equipment to sell, much of it based on the vulcanization of rubber. There were commercial teams to organize, to draw spectators into new stadiums (which would be reached by equally novel tramways). Initial professional teams emerged in English soccer and American baseball. All these developments gave sports an unprecedented importance in modern life. They also changed sports: Athletics became more regulated, with standardized rules of play enforced by a new monitor, the official; consciousness of speed and recordkeeping increased; specialization affected sports, with different team members assigned distinct responsibilities.

The internationalization of sports brought some of the same qualities occurring in the West to a variety of other societies—starting with tremendous enthusiasm among young athletes and a wide range of spectators. Teams built by imitation and contact included a range of Latin American soccer groups, formed initially on the example of local British players. The first Buenos Aires football club, copied from British residents in the city, was founded in 1867, and a national network of teams had fanned out by the 1890s. Argentine soccer style was more exuberant and individualistic than the European version, showing a kind of cultural fusion even as imitation occurred. Japanese students began playing baseball by the 1890s and in 1896 proudly defeated a team of American sailors. At the same time, not all sports spread equally wide. The United States remained addicted to some parochial interests, like American football, not widely shared elsewhere. South Asians were interested in more individual sports, such as badminton and tennis, rather than team sports, with the exception of polo and cricket. Nevertheless, the rapid dissemination of sports as international currency constitutes a major development in world history.

The first document I would like you to read (you can read both documents by clicking here) picks up a formal aspect of sport internationalization: the revival of the Olympics in the 1890s, under the leadership of a French nobleman, Baron de Coubertin. An educational reformer, Coubertin had seen the importance of sports in American and British schools. He formed an International Olympic Congress 1894 to push for a revival of the old Greek games, but now on an international basis: His hope was that sports would transcend national conflicts. On his death he ordered that his heart be sent to Greece and buried on Mt. Olympus. His comments in the document reflect on the first modern games, held in Athens in 1896. Obviously, the movement he launched has become a major reflection of and spur to sports internationalism, although some of the initial reliance on amateurism and avoidance of nationalistic rivalries has not proved durable. At the same time some of the limitations of Coubertin’s vision have lifted as well: His statement reflects a transition in sports internationalism that hardly embraced most of the world directly. Progressively in the 20th century, but particularly after World War II, the Olympics would do steadily better as a genuinely global assemblage.

The second document I would like you to read (well, pair of documents) conveys the initial atmosphere of the introduction of soccer into Latin America. One document describes the setting for one of the first matches in which Latin Americans were confident enough to invite a British team to play against them. Elite Buenos Aires society turned out, including General Julio Roca, the president of the Republic (football had just been introduced to the Argentine army). The British team, Southampton, savaged the Argentine team and several others during the visit. The other document is from a poem by Ana Amélia (entitled “The Leap”) to the goalie of the Brazilian team, Fluminense, around 1910, again suggesting the early days of Latin American soccer in which young men from good families displayed their masculine qualities to admiring young women of the same class. The subject of her poem, Marcos de Mendonça, played for the Brazilian national team in 1919 and also became a prominent banker and industrialist. He married Ana Amélia.

Finally, I’d like you to take a moment to study the picture above (you can enlarge it by clicking on it). This sketch appeared in newspaper accounts of the Games. Along with Pierre de Coubertin’s account of the first Games, it helps determine what the organizers of the games sought to convey about the purposes of the new international competition. The parade is headed by a Greek evzone, a soldier dressed in traditional (though not ancient) Greek garb. This sketch also invites comparisons with the way Olympic Games have evolved over the ensuing century-plus. Some aspects of the Games have remained remarkably constant, but many others have changed greatly. You might want to search out a website picture of a more recent Olympic parade (the 2006 Winter Games were held in Torino, Italy and the 2008 Summer Games were held in Beijing, China) for comparison.

Once you have read and studied the documents, I would like you to reflect on and discuss the following: What was Coubertin’s idea of internationalism? What problems did he encounter in trying to internationalize sports, and how did he handle them? What “world” was represented at the first Olympics? Why might a European find the representation an impressive demonstration of internationalism, in the context of the 1890s? How did Coubertin suggest a belief that sports might be a particularly European strength? What did Coubertin think the results of international sports might be in Greece? What does his approach suggest about belief in the larger meaning of modern sports? Why were British sports popular in Argentina? What kinds of Argentineans were first interested, and why? Are there any connections with the motivations involved in the revival of the Olympics? Can the chronology of the international spread of football organizations be explained in terms of patterns of European influence? Why have sports become such an important part of modern global culture? In reference to the picture above, is this sketch meant to favor or criticize the first modern Olympics? How can you tell? How does the representation compare with de Coubertin’s glowing description? How did the Games conceive of internationalism? What does this sketch suggest about the social characteristics of the first Games? How did the first Games compare with contemporary Olympic meets? What are the main differences? Are there any continuities? Your thoughts…

The Great Boom and Indentured Servitude in Latin America

During the period of 1870-1914, many regions of Latin America became fully integrated into the world economy. Exports of raw materials, including minerals, oil, food products, and fibers, bound Latin America to the industrialized nations. Latin American nations became dependent on the industrial world’s manufactured goods, markets for the export of raw materials, transportation, and credit.

The development of these economies altered patterns of work in the areas they affected. In Cuba, sugar plantations expanded production to supply the growing populations of Europe and North America. Although processing and transportation became mechanized, sugar planting and harvesting remained handwork. The first document I would like you to read (you can read all of the documents by clicking here), taken from the transcription of an oral history of a runaway slave, reveals the social conditions among the workers on the Cuban sugar plantations after the abolition of slavery in 1886. The Spanish government granted abolition after a violent upheaval in Cuba known as the Ten Years War (1868-1878) followed by intense pressure from foreign powers, especially Great Britain and the United States.

The second selection describes conditions on the henequen plantations of Yucatan. Demand for henequen (a cactus-like plant) fibers was directly related to the mechanization of agriculture in the United States. In 1878, Cyrus McCormick added a new knotting mechanism for grain binding to his mechanical reaper. The subsequent search for a strong binder twine led directly to henequen in Yucatan. McCormick imported hundreds of thousands of tons of henequen during the late 19th century. Exports from Yucatan increased from 40,000 bales in 1875 to 600,000 in 1910. In 1902, the same year that McCormick merged with other harvesting machine companies to form International Harvester, he also secretly negotiated lower prices for henequen with the governor of Yucatan in return for steady purchases from the governor’s export companies. With that agreement, International Harvester established its “informal empire” in Yucatan. The company neither needed to own its own land nor produce henequen directly. Production was left in the hands of local landowners and merchants, who became fabulously wealthy and who also controlled the Yucatecan state government.

The expansion of henequen production also affected land tenure and labor relations. When henequen became king, new plantations absorbed native communal land and imposed on their workers a much stricter regime of work. Seedlings and young plants required constant attention until they matured in seven years and harvesting the leaves was done by hand. The need for labor on henequen left little time for traditional cultivation of the Mayan workers’ plots of corn (milpas). Labor shortages also resulted in the importation of Yaqui Indians captured in Northern Mexico and Puerto Rican and Korean workers. But most of all, owners relied on the local Mayan campesinos, whether they wanted to work on the plantation or not.

Once you have read the documents, I would like you to think about and discuss the following: How did the Cuban plantation workers’ conditions change (or stay the same) after the abolition of slavery in 1886? Identify the different types of workers on the sugar plantation. What were the relations among them? What do the narrator’s attitudes toward women and children suggest about family life on the plantation? What are the ties that bound the peon to the henequen hacienda in Yucatan? When and why did henequen become a valuable export product? Describe the moral tone expressed by the Englishmen who wrote the document on Yucatan. What does this suggest about their attitudes toward Latin American civilization in general? How did labor conditions in Latin America compare with those in other parts of the world in the 19th century? How did they compare with European industrial factories for example? Your thoughts…

English Workers in the Early Industrial Revolution

A key to England’s early industrial growth was the large pool of workers willing to accept low wages for long hours of labor in factories and mines. Many of these workers were displaced farmers or farm workers, forced from rural areas because of land shortages caused by population growth and the consolidation of small farms into large estates by wealthy landowners. Rural families moved to cities or coal-mining towns, where they provided the workforce for the early Industrial Revolution. Few avoided poverty, crowed housing, and poor health.

Eventually, the British government responded by passing laws to protect factory workers and miners, especially children, from exploitation. When considering legislation, parliamentary committees held hearings to gather testimony from workers, employers, physicians, clergy, and local officials. Their statements, some of which are included in the following documents (that you can read by clicking here), present a vivid picture of working-class conditions in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Section 1 includes testimony from the records of the Sadler Committee, chaired by Michael Thomas Sadler in 1831 and charged with investigating child labor in cotton and linen factories. Section 2 includes testimony taken by a parliamentary commission appointed in 1833 to investigate working conditions in other textile industries (incidentally, this is the same year the British government abolished slavery). Section 3 presents evidence taken in 1842 by a committee investigating conditions in coal mines.

Once you have read the documents, I would like you to think about and discuss the following: What differences were there between working conditions in the mines and in the cotton factories? As revealed by the questions they asked, what did the committee members consider the worst abuses of working conditions in the factories and mines? What does the testimony of Hannah Richardson and George Armitage reveal about the economic circumstances of working-class families and attitudes of working-class families toward their children? Consider the testimony of the workers themselves. Do the workers express anger? Do they demand changes? What might explain their attitudes? For what reasons do William Harter and Thomas Wilson oppose factory laws? In what ways do their views reflect the economic philosophy of Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations? Your thoughts…

Work and Workers in the Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was one of the greatest changes in Western and ultimately world history. Taking shape toward the end of the 18th century in Great Britain, industrialization dominated the 19th century in Western Europe and North America. Based on radically new technologies, including the use of fossil fuels for power, industrialization revolutionized the production and transportation of goods. It sustained rapid population growth in the West and created growing material abundance as well. This industrialization transformed a social structure once based on the land into divisions based on urban wealth and property. It fostered large organizations and a growing state capable of using new technologies and communication and marshaling large amounts of capital and large numbers of goods and people. It challenged family life by taking work out of the home and redefining the roles of many women and children. It was, in sum, as basic a change in human history as had occurred since the advent of settled agriculture.

One of the many areas altered by industrialization was the nature of work, particularly for those people who labored in the proliferating mines and factories. Some features of industrialization benefited work: Machines could lighten labor, factories could provide social stimulation, and some jobs that demanded new technical expertise became unusually interesting. But many workers found industrial working conditions a strain because they challenged a number of traditional values and habits. Certainly, changes in work provide one way of measuring the human impact of the vast industrialization process—some would say, of measuring human degradation.

The documents I would like you to read focus on three aspects of industrial work during the 19th centuries (you can read all of the documents by clicking here). The first document comes from a parliamentary inquiry on child labor, conducted in Britain in the early 1830s and ultimately the source of laws restricting children’s work. Child labor was not in fact new, so one question to ask is what aspects of the factory system made it seem newly shocking. A second, related feature of industrial work—and one that persisted far longer than child labor—was the attempt to bring new discipline to the labor force. In the second document, shop rules—in this case, from a French factory in the late 1840s—did battle with a number of customary impulses in an effort to make work more predictable, less casual. Finally, new working conditions provoked direct comment by workers through protest and individual statements. The comment offered in the third document, by an unusually sensitive German miner around 1900—among other things, an ardent socialist—is not typical, but it does express some widely shared grievances. All three documents suggest the tensions that changes in work could bring. A basic feature of Western life in the 19th century, this strain spread with industrialization to other societies later. How could workers modify or adapt to new work habits? How might changes in work affect other aspects of their lives, in the family, politics, or culture?

I would also like you to consider and discuss the following when you have finished reading the three documents: What features of child labor seemed newly objectionable in the context of the factory industry? What were the main goals of factory work rules? What problems did they address? What innovations did they particularly suggest, compared with more traditional work patterns? What does Max Lotz see as the primary problems of mine work? Were work conditions getting better or worse by 1900 in highly industrialized societies like Germany? Why might some workers disagree with Lotz’s assessment? Do problems of work in 19th-century Europe suggest that industrialization deteriorated the quality of human life? What other factors need to be taken into account? How did workers and others deal with the issues identified in these documents? Your thoughts…

"Slumdog Millionaire" Wins Again, This Time the Top Prize from the Director's Guild of America

And the winner for the DGA's awards for OUTSTANDING DIRECTORIAL ACHIEVEMENT IN FEATURE FILM is...

DANNY BOYLE

Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures)

Mr. Boyle’s Directorial Team:

Unit Production Manager: Sanjay Kumar

First Assistant Director: Raj Acharya

Second Assistant Director: Avani Batra

Second Second Assistant Director: Sonia Nemawarkar

Well folks, Slumdog Millionaire is officially that rare film that is simply too big to ignore. It is literally steamrolling and winning EVERYTHING! I'm yet to talk to someone (whether it be adults or my own students) that has not absolutely loved this film (I myself have seen in twice and consider it a rare masterpiece). The critics also have mostly overwhelmingly loved the film as well (it is currently at 94% on the "Tomatometer" on rottentomatoes.com). Slumdog Millionaire is, therefore, that rare film that the industry embraces, critics adore, and mainstream audiences warm up to as well. The last film I can remember that was able to achieve this was Lord of the Rings: Return of the King back in 2003. That film, by the way, was only the second film in history to win every award it was nominated for, including Best Picture (the first film to do that was The Last Emperor back in 1987) so get ready for a "Slumdog Night" at the Oscars later this month. At any rate, congratulations to Danny Boyle for this achievement. Mr. Boyle has been putting impressive work out there for several years now, so I'm glad he's finally being recognized as one of the great directors working currently.

Next up: The Writer's Guild Awards are next Saturday, February 7th.

Jewish Nationalism and the Birth of Zionism

Zionism, which officially began at the World Zionist Congress held in Basel, Switzerland, in 1897, was the last nationalist movement to appear in nineteenth-century Europe. It was also the most ambitious. Jews had not had their own state since 586 B.C.E., when the Kingdom of Judah in Palestine had been conquered by the Babylonians, and from the time of their expulsion from their homeland by the Romans in the first century C.E., they had come to live in communities scattered across the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and the Americas. During the many centuries of their dispersal Jews held fast to the dream of returning to their homeland in Palestine, the Land of Zion, which according to Hebrew Scriptures, was theirs by virtue of their covenant with God. This pious hope, expressed in traditional Jewish prayers and religious writings, in the twentieth century became a highly organized political movement that in 1949 resulted in the foundation of the modern state of Israel (but more on that in Season 5).

Zionism originated in Europe, where in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many discriminatory laws against Jews were lifted and Jews gained the freedom to participate fully in their nation’s economic, political, and cultural life. Old anti-Jewish prejudices were difficult to eradicate, however, and in an atmosphere of rapid social change, growing nationalism, new racial theories, and simple jealousy of the many successful Jewish physicians, businessmen, journalists, and academics, anti-Semitism intensified in the late 1800s. In France, the trial, conviction, and ultimate exoneration of the Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus for treason dragged on from 1894 to 1906 and revealed the depths of anti-Jewish feeling in what was supposedly Europe’s most tolerant and liberal state. German politicians routinely attacked the Jews, and in 1895 voters in Vienna elected Karl Lüger, an outspoken anti-Semite, as their mayor. Russia’s tsarist government issued new anti-Jewish laws, and to divert attention away from its own failures, encouraged mob attacks (pogroms) on Jewish communities in Russia itself and in Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania, three regions that were part of its empire and the home of the vast majority of Europe’s Jews.

The founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, was born into the family of a wealthy businessman in Budapest in 1860. At age eighteen he and his family moved to Vienna, where he attended the University of Vienna and earned his doctorate in law. Spurning a legal career, he spent several years writing plays and fiction before accepting a job as a correspondent for the Neue Freie Presse, a Viennese newspaper. Although not deeply religious, during the 1880s Herzl became increasingly troubled by growing signs of anti-Semitism in Europe, and in the 1890s he became convinced by the Dreyfus affair and the election of Lüger that Jews had no future unless they had a state of their own outside of Europe. After publishing Der Judenstaat (The Jews’ State or as it is also translated The Jewish State) in 1896, he organized the first World Zionist Congress in Basel (you can read excerpts from that document by clicking here). Until his death in 1904 he worked tirelessly to strengthen Zionism by lecturing, organizing, writing books and articles, and seeking the support of wealthy philanthropists and important political leaders. In 1949, forty-five years after his death, his remains were flown from Vienna to Jerusalem, where they were reburied in the new state of Israel.

After you have read the excerpts from Herzl’s document, I would like you all to reflect on and discuss the following: Herzl states at the outset that the Jews “are a people, one people.” In his view why have the Jews maintained this unity despite living in communities scattered across several continents? According to Herzl, what are the concrete signs of continuing anti-Semitism in late-nineteenth-century Europe? How does Herzl explain the persistence of anti-Semitism? According to Herzl, why are “staying put” and “assimilation” not viable options for Europe’s Jews? According to Herzl, why is a Jewish state the only means for the Jews to escape their predicament in Europe? What role does religion play in Herzl’s arguments? What role, according to Herzl, should it play in the future Jewish state? Your thoughts…

Racism, Militarism, and the New Nationalism

As nationalism grew in nineteenth-century Europe, it also changed. In the first half of the century, when nationalists saw conservative monarchical governments as the main obstacle to national self-determination, nationalism was linked to republicanism and liberalism. During the middle of the century, especially in Germany and Italy, nationalism was championed by pragmatic and moderate leaders who believed that hard-headed politics, not romantic gestures and lofty republican ideals, would bring about national unification and independence from foreign rule. By century’s end nationalism was increasingly associated with conservative if not reactionary groups that used it to justify large military outlays, imperialism, and aggressive foreign policies. It also would lure the masses away from socialism and democracy.

The German historian Heinrich von Treitschke represents this later link between nationalism and militarism, racism, and authoritarianism. The son of a Prussian general, Treitschke taught history at several universities, including the prestigious University of Berlin. He also was a member of the German representative assembly, the Reichstag, from 1871 to 1884. His best-known work is his seven-volume History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century. In this and his numerous other writings, lectures, and speeches, Treitschke acclaimed militarism, authoritarianism, and war as the path to German greatness (you can read excerpts from this document by clicking here). His views struck a responsive chord among many Germans who feared socialism and democracy and yearned for the day when Germany would be recognized as the world’s most powerful nation.

After you finish reading the document, I would like you to think about and discuss the following: What, according to Treitschke, is the relationship between the state and the individual? Why, according to Treitschke, is monarchy superior to democracy? What qualities of Germans set them apart from other peoples, especially the English and the Jews, according to Treitschke? Early nineteenth-century nationalists believed that all nations had a contribution to make to human progress. What is Treitschke’s view? What, according to Treitschke, is the value of war for a nation? Your thoughts…

Independence and Consolidation of New States in Latin America

The wars of independence (1791-1825), the unstable aftermath of independence (1825-1870) and national consolidation (1870-1910) marked the political transformation of Latin America during the “long 19th century.” The wars of independence led to the political separation of most of Latin America from their former colonial rulers: Spain, Portugal, and France. Often described as civil wars because they involved violent class and racial conflict, the wars of independence resulted in, not only the formation of 17 independent states, but also widespread economic devastation, social disruption, and decades of political instability. From the 1820s to the 1870s, generals, who had led the struggle for independence, recruited personal armies and fought with one another incessantly over who should rule. By the 1870s, instability gradually ended and national consolidation began. Emerging from the American born upper class, newly wealthy oligarchs, associated with the export economy (coffee, metals, oil, wheat, and beef) and foreign capital overthrew the old style caudillos and established new regimes. Based on “democracy for the few,” the oligarchs, during the last quarter of the 19th century, centralized governmental functions and formed national armies and police forces that solidified their control.

The wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon precipitated Latin America’s independence movement. This was particularly true of the Haitian slave revolt from 1791 to 1804. When news of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen spread to the French sugar plantation colony of Saint-Domingue, the mulatto population sought equality with whites. But mulatto demands prompted a rebellion for freedom among the slaves. On January 1, 1804, after 13 years of war, the former slaves officially declared Haitian Independence. Black army leaders, Toussaint L’Ouverture and Jean Jaques Desallines, defeated in succession the French colonial regime, a British invasion force and a Napoleonic invasion. The loss of life during Haiti’s struggle for independence was far greater than in the other parts of the Americas. More than one-third of the black population died. Of the 400,000 or so former slaves (the estimates are rough on the slave population, many estimates say 500,000) only 250,000 remained. Black armies killed or drove out the white population and many of the mulattoes. British and French invaders each lost approximately 50,000 men. They succumbed to the violence of war and to yellow fever. Revolutionary leaders also perished. L’Ouverture died in a French prison in 1803 and Desallines was assassinated in 1806. In the first document that I would like you to read, General Desallines “informally” announced independence on November 29, 1803, the day that Napoleon’s army withdrew. He reveals the animosities generated by slavery and 13 years of racial war and hatred (you can read the document by clicking here).

In contrast to Haiti, the least violent independence movement occurred in Portuguese America. When Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 1807, the Portuguese King escaped to Brazil on an English ship. While there, the Portuguese King established Brazil as an independent Kingdom. When the monarch returned to Portugal in 1820, the King’s son, Pedro I, declared Brazil’s independence in 1822 to prevent the Portuguese Parliament from reestablishing colonial rule.

In Spanish America, Napoleon presented a different problem. By imprisoning the Spanish King in 1808, Napoleon undermined the legitimacy of the Spanish colonial government. As the Spanish-American upper class argued over who had the right to rule, lower class rebellions of Indians, mestizos and mulattoes, especially in Mexico and Venezuela, shaped the political future of Spanish America. Upper class creoles, the descendents of Spaniards born in America, organized armies that accomplished two purposes; they smashed lower class rebellions by 1815 and eventually achieved independence by 1825.

Simón Bolívar, the liberator of northern South America, Peru, and Bolivia, came from this creole class. His political ideas clearly expressed the biases of his social origins. He mistrusted the lower classes and advocated elite-run governments. In the second document I would like you to read, these prejudices are clearly shown in Bolívar’s advice to the legislators gathered at Angostura in 1819 to discuss the proposed constitution for the new state of Venezuela (you can read the document by clicking here).

Mexican President, Porfirio Diaz, who governed with an iron hand from 1876 to 1910, exemplified the transition to oligarchic rule. Although he was a rough mestizo military leader, Diaz enjoyed the support of the Mexican oligarchs and their articulate spokesmen. With the oligarchy’s help, he ended 50 years of civil war. Through concessions to foreign investors, particularly in mining, railroads, and oil, Diaz presided over an impressive economic boom in exports to the United States. To maintain economic growth, the oligarchy sought stability, and Diaz provided. The third document I would like you to read is from an interview given by Porfirio Diaz in 1908 to the American reporter James Creelman (you can read some of the interview by clicking here, please read pg. 236 paragraph 3 - pg. 245 paragraph 3 [it's not actually 9 pages, there are very large pictures throughout as it's a magazine article]). Diaz candidly revealed how he achieved order.

Once you have read the documents, I would like you all to reflect on discuss the following: Desallines claimed that cruelty is sometimes necessary to achieve important political ends. What is your view of this proposition? Is it a universal claim crossing all cultures? What is Bolívar’s view of the common people of Venezuela? What types of institutions does he recommend to rule these people? Why are these types needed? What role should the liberators (the leaders of the independence armies) play in the new government proposed by Bolívar? What was the relationship between the Haitian revolution and the principles of the French revolution of 1789? How did this compare with the relationship of Bolívar’s independence movement—was all of this a common part of a single age of Atlantic revolution? In what way did Porfirio Diaz, as ruler of Mexico, fulfill the ideas of Bolívar? How did Diaz view the common people? What kind of government did he establish? In what ways did his policies relate to the economy? What was Diaz’s goal for education? Using these documents together: What were some of the key issues in Latin American politics in the 19th century? Your thoughts…

Bolívar’s Dreams for Latin America

Simón Bolívar, the most renowned leader of the Latin American independence movement, was born to a wealthy Venezuelan landowning family in 1783. Orphaned at an early age, he was educated by a private tutor who inspired in his pupil an enthusiasm for the principles of the Enlightenment and republicanism. After spending three years in Europe, Bolívar returned to New Spain in 1803, where the death of his new bride plunged him into grief and caused his return to France and Italy. In 1805, in Rome, he took a vow to dedicate his life to the liberation of his native land. On his return he became a leading member of the republican-minded group in Caracas that in 1808 began to agitate for independence and in 1810 deposed the colonial governor. Until his death in 1830, Bolívar dedicated himself to the Latin American independence movement as a publicist, diplomat, theoretician, and statesman. His greatest contribution was as the general who led the armies that defeated the Spaniards and liberated the northern regions of South America.

The so-called Jamaica Latter was written in 1815 during a self imposed exile in Jamaica (you can read it by clicking here). It was addressed to “an English gentleman,” probably the island’s governor, the Duke of Manchester. The Venezuelan Republic had collapsed in May as a result of a viciously fought Spanish counteroffensive, divisions among the revolutionaries, and opposition form many Indians, blacks, and mulattoes, who viewed the Creole landowners, not the Spaniards, as their oppressors. The letter was written in response to a request from the Englishman for Bolívar’s thoughts about the background and prospects of the liberation movement.

Once you have read the letter, I would like you all to think about and discuss the following: Why does Bolívar believe that Spain’s efforts to hold on to its American territories are doomed? What Spanish policies, according to Bolívar, made Spanish rule odious to him and other revolutionaries? In Bolívar’s view, what complicates the task of predicting Spanish America’s political future? Does Bolívar’s letter reveal concern for the economic and social condition of South America’s nonwhite population? What are some of the implications of Bolívar’s attitudes? Finally, based on your reading of Bolívar, what guesses can you make about the reasons why the new nations of South America found it difficult to achieve stable republican governments? Your thoughts…

Toussaint L’Ouverture—“The Liberator Hero”

Well ladies and gentlemen, isn’t the Haitian Revolution everything I pumped it up to be? And more! At the moment, I want to focus on the most notable figure of the revolution, Toussaint L’Ouverture. François-Dominique Toussaint à Bréda was born on May 20, 1743, on the Bréda plantation in Saint-Domingue. The oldest of eight children, Toussaint’s father had been born in Africa, captured in a war, and sold into slavery in the New World. Taught to read and write by a Roman Catholic priest, Toussaint was given more and more responsibility on the plantation until he was made coachman and livestock steward; the plantation’s overseer (the owner lived in Paris) gave him forty acres and thirteen slaves to manage. Permitted to marry (a rarity for slaves in Saint-Domingue), Toussaint wed Suzanne Simone Baptiste, and the union produced two sons. Therefore, although Toussaint was technically a slave and no manumission papers ever were drawn up, essentially he was looked upon and treated as a free man (affranchi).

When the slave rebellion first broke out in August 1791, Toussaint played only a minor role and was believed to be conservative in his thinking (he had helped his plantation’s white factor, or agent, escape from a mob of ex-slaves). Gradually his powerful and articulate speeches to the troops (Toussaint spoke both the Creole patois and his father’s African tribal language, in addition to French) and his charisma, tactical genius, and emphasis on training and discipline lifted him to the position of commander of the rebellion.

Seeing an opportunity to drive the French from Saint-Domingue, Toussaint briefly sided with the Spanish. It was at this time that he wrote a letter to blacks and signed it Toussaint L’Ouverture, which means the opening. “I thought it was a good name for bravery,” Toussaint reflected. But when he learned that the National Convention in Paris had abolished slavery (in February 1794), he switched sides and led his army against the Spanish and the British invaders, both of whom gave up the fight. In 1796, Toussaint was named lieutenant governor of Saint-Domingue, in 1800 he put down an uprising of the mulattoes, and in 1801 he issued a constitution for the republic.

And yet Toussaint believed that Haiti’s economic future was tied to that of France. In 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte revived French ambitions for an empire in the Western Hemisphere. Intending to reap enormous profits from the sugar and coffee trade and determined to restore slavery in order to do it, Napoleon sent a French invading army to the island in 1802. When the French army invaded the island in 1802, Toussaint, foolishly, was prepared to welcome it. His two sons were being educated in France (they were received by the Empress Josephine) and he had tried to convince the ex-slaves to adopt French ways (he criticized the low necklines of Haitian women’s dresses).

Tricked into surrendering, Toussaint was hustled off to a prison in France (Fort de Joux), where he died on April 7, 1803. His entreaties to meet with Napoleon had gone unheeded. Yet the Haitians ultimately won their independence from the French, and Toussaint L’Ouverture became the symbol of the revolution, the liberator-hero.

The French army, decimated by yellow fever, was forced to withdraw from Haiti, ending Napoleon’s dreams of an American empire. It was at that point that he offered to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States. The Republic of Haiti (so named in 1804) had secured its independence, but the instability and terror of the revolution did not cease for decades.
No formal eulogy of Toussaint L’Ouverture is known to exist, and, since he died in a French prison, it is possible that none ever was delivered. The document I would like you to read, however, part of an 1814 manifesto written by Henri Christophe, is quite close to a eulogy (you can read it by clicking here, just read "Note C," pg. 326-329). A follower of Toussaint, Christophe was born in the British West Indies (either Grenada or St. Kitts), was taken to the French colony of Saint-Domingue, was sold to a free black who owned a stable, was permitted to purchase his freedom, and became a waiter in a hotel. In 1811, eight years after Toussaint’s death, Christophe proclaimed himself Henri I, King of Haiti. His 1814 manifesto was intended to rally Haitians to repulse a threatened French invasion of the island. What lessons did Christophe intend that his readers learn from the life of Toussaint? Toussaint attempted to create a Haiti in which whites, blacks, and mulattoes could live in freedom and relative equality (although the majority of former slaves wanted all whites out, which is largely what occured). What did Christophe think of Toussaint’s goal? Finally, what does Christophe see as the true meaning of the Haitian Revolution? Your thoughts...

The French Revolution and Its Aftermath

The French Revolution burst forth in the summer of 1789. It lasted for 10 years, and was followed by consolidations and conquests under Napoleon’s Empire. Napoleon’s defeat in 1815 led to a rollback of some of the revolutionary measures, but most of these would return during the political changes of the 19th century. The Revolution, in sum, was something of a blueprint for the constitutions of the modern state.

The Revolution was guided by many of the philosophical ideas developed in the 18th-century Enlightenment. The American Revolution and the constitutions it engendered were direct inspirations as well. The Revolution was also a massive social protest, as peasants and workers articulated the grievances they had developed during the Old Regime.

The Revolution was French, but it had European and, soon, world impact. French conquests spread many of the principles of the Revolution to most of Western Europe. Wars of independence in Latin America were inspired in part by French revolutionary principles. So was liberal-nationalist agitation in Eastern Europe, for example in the Balkans against the Ottoman Empire. Revolutionary ideas show up in other revolutions in the 20th century, and in proclamations of human rights such as the United Nations charter.

There were vital disagreements within the Revolution, as in all complex events—quite apart from the outright resistance the Revolution generated among conservatives. The first three years of the Revolution emphasized liberal principles, but then the Revolution turned more radical, for example instituting universal suffrage for all adult males for the first time, although briefly.

There are five documents in connection with this topic that I would like you to take a look at. The first three illustrate different aspects of the Revolution itself. The final two involve additional complexities—in goals not sought and in a conservative reaction that followed the Revolution itself.

The first three documents I would like you to read are classics from the Revolution. The first two emerged quickly in August 1789, as the revolutionary legislature attempted to define basic political and social principles. The third document, the first two verses of La Marseillaise (the French national anthem), represent the more radical phase, when revolutionary leaders were guiding armies to fight opposition at home and abroad.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (you can read it by clicking here) was a fundamental statement of human rights, inspired in part by American revolutionary documents. It was intended to guide the new political constitution the revolutionary legislature decided was essential. The Declaration invites analysis to determine what its main principles were and why. In the context of the old regime, they were revolutionary. Note that not all the principles were fully followed up by the liberal constitution of 1791, which most notably did not establish universal suffrage.

The second document (you can read it by clicking here) enacted on August 11, 1789, details the abolition of the feudal and manorial system in France. This act, spurred by peasant revolts against their noble landlords in many parts of the country, was the basic social measure of the Revolution, and it was never really reversed. Here, analysis should focus again on what the main principles were—including the relationship to the Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen. Equally important were the wider implications: Given what was now abolished, what new systems would result? The document had massive implications for an extension of government services, for new conflicts between the state and the Catholic Church, and for the control of landed property.

The third document, La Marseillaise (you can read it by clicking here) reflects the Revolution at war. It was composed in April 1792, on the French front against German and Austrian forces, and it spread quickly as a battle song. La Marseillaise was, essentially, the first national anthem ever written, adopted as a “national song” in 1795 and then as an anthem in 1879. The anthem was written by Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle, an army captain and, otherwise, a fairly mediocre musical composer.

Document four was written by Olympe de Gouges (you can read it by clicking here), a self-educated butcher’s daughter who used the French Revolution to call attention to aspects of French society the revolutionaries were leaving untouched. Her work is an example of the extent to which revolutionary ideologies can extend beyond what the revolutionaries themselves seem to want, and of the extent to which any revolution, even as thorough-going as the French, confirms certain existing social traditions despite high-sounding rhetoric. De Gouges was guillotined as a counter-revolutionary and “unnatural” woman. Later legislation, under Napoleon, actually weakened women’s rights within the family.

Document five deals with hostile reactions to the Revolution after the revolutionary period ended in 1815 (you can read it by clicking here). Many European countries warred against the French Revolution and then Napoleon—ultimately because of Napoleon’s ambitions for conquest, but more consistently because of a desire to defend key institutions of the old, prerevolutionary regimes. When the coalition finally defeated Napoleon in 1815, a new, anti-revolutionary conservatism seized center stage for over a decade. But agitation continued, and in 1819 the Austrian conservative leader, Prince Metternich, pressed the separate German states to pass the Carlsbad decrees. These decrees summed up key aspects of the new conservative approach. Formal conservatism was yet another result of the French Revolution, and while this version was not permanent, elements of the approach have informed Western conservatism since that time.

After you have read the documents, I would like you to think about and discuss the following: What are the main principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the abolition of feudalism? Are the two documents entirely consistent? What was revolutionary about each of the documents? In what sense did the French Revolution translate the principles of the Enlightenment into political life? What principles did it add to mainstream Enlightenment thinking? What was the role of ideas, as opposed to other factors, in causing and shaping the Revolution? What were the implications of the abolition of feudalism for relations with the king? What were the implications for property rights? In what ways did the abolition of feudalism imply an expansion of government functions? What were the implications of both the Declaration and the abolition of feudalism for relations with the Catholic Church? What were the implications of both documents for the lives of ordinary people? Would their lives be “revolutionized?” What were the main themes of La Marseillaise verses? What new elements in the Revolution do they suggest? How does La Marseillaise suggest the radicalization of the Revolution? Taking the three documents together, what did the Revolution suggest about the nature and meaning of citizenship in a modern state? In what sense was Olympe de Gouges’ feminism consistent with the principles of the French Revolution and Enlightenment? Is her argument no more than an application of these principles to women’s conditions, or does it add further elements? Why did mainstream French revolutionaries ignore or reject these arguments and keep women legally and politically subordinate? What was the relationship, in substance and historical linkage, between French revolutionary feminism and 20th-century feminism? How did the Carlsbad decrees react to the French Revolution? How would their conservative supporters phrase and justify their reaction to the Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen? What was novel about this conservatism? In your opinion, why did French revolutionary ideas, extensions and reactions have such wide global influence during the 19th and 20th centuries? Your thoughts…

"Slumdog Millionaire" Takes the Producers Guild Award and the top Screen Actors Guild Award This Weekend

Well all I have to say is that you can't stop a freight train when it's coming, and Slumdog Millionaire is this year's freight train. Anything short of a Best Picture Oscar for this film would be considered a huge upset. This is a film that the industry has gotten behind, critics have gotten behind, and general populace audiences have begun to embrace (it just broke into the top 5 for weekend box office this weekend for the first time since its release, a sign of phenomenal word of mouth). In fact, the film just opened in Mumbai last week to huge crowds. At any rate, here are the results of the PGA and SAG Awards over the weekend...

Producers Guild Awards

Best Feature Film- Slumdog Millionaire

Best Animated Feature- Wall-E

Best Documentary Feature- Man on Wire

Oh and just for the record, even though I don't really track the television awards here, a big congratulations is in order for John Adams winning best Best Production Long-Form Television (that would be a movie or miniseries made for television)!

Screen Actors Guild Awards

Ensemble Cast: Slumdog Millionaire

Lead Actress: Meryl Streep, Doubt

Lead Actor: Sean Penn, Milk

Supporting Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader

Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

Up Next: Directors Guild Awards on Saturday.

Politics and Privilege in France before and after the French Revolution

Political cartoons and caricatures first became popular in eighteenth-century England, where parliamentary government and lax censorship laws created an environment in which artists had free rein to express their political views. Their biting commentary on political issues and frequently scurrilous portrayals of politicians ranged from elaborately allegorical engravings to crude woodcuts, some of which were black-and-white and some colored with water-based paints. Such cartoons and caricatures were sold in bookstores and print shops (the technology did not exist to print them in newspapers) and provoked laugher and arguments in countless aristocratic clubs, taverns, and private homes. Cartoonists such as James Gilray, who produced many hundreds of political cartoons, became nationally known figures whose new works were eagerly anticipated.

Political cartoons and caricatures did not exist in France until 1787 and 1788, when censorship laws were eased during the nationwide political debate in the months leading up to the meeting of the Estates General in the spring of 1789. Once the revolution began, political excitement grew, and so did the market for inexpensive engravings that provided portraits of revolutionary leaders, depictions of events such as the swearing of the Tennis Court Oath and the fall of the Bastille, and above all, satire. Between 1789 and 1792, hundreds of political cartoons, mostly sympathetic to the revolution and many with biting messages, appeared. After 1793 their numbers declined, as censorship laws were reinstated by the radical Jacobins, the moderate Directory, and the regime of Napoleon, all of which appreciated the power of satire to shape public opinion (with saw it recently in this country with Tina Fey’s impersonations of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live).

The six cartoons that I would like you to look at (you can look at all of them by clicking here)—a mere sampling of the numerous political cartoons produced between 1787 and early 1793—are all anonymous works that focus on the three estates of prerevolutionary France and their fate during the revolution. Legal categories rather than social classes, the three estates were the First Estate, the clergy; the Second Estate, the nobility; and the Third Estate, everyone else from poor peasants to wealthy businessmen. Membership in the first two estates brought with it privileges, including exemption from many taxes, preferential judicial treatment, and for members of the nobility, a monopoly on high offices in church and estate. One of the first acts of France’s revolutionary leaders was to abolish the first two estates’ privileges and establish equality before the law.

The first pair of engravings, “The Past” and “The Present,” appeared in many versions in 1790 and 1791. “The Past” shows a peasant carrying a clergyman and a nobleman on his back. The clergyman holds a moneybag entitled “the tithe,” which was a tax paid by members of the Third Estate to the Church. In the nobleman’s pockets are slips of paper on which are written the names of other taxes paid by peasants—the taille, a tax on land; the corvée, required labor on the lord’s land; and various sales taxes. At the peasant’s feet his crops are being devoured by rabbits and pigeons, two of many animals that were protected so they could be hunted by nobles. The nobleman’s sword is inscribed with the words “reddened with blood.” In contrast the peasant is keeping his balance by leaning on a tool, a pickaxe, labeled as representing “goodness.” “The Present” engraving is of course quite different. The peasant is literally in the driver’s seat, riding a nobleman who is being pulled along by a clergyman. The clergyman is carrying a small scale, representing justice. The paper on the left side of the scale has the words “the benefit of the people,” while the paper on the right has “liberty and equality.” The peasant is carrying a slip of paper with the inscription “peace and concord” while singing “Ca ira, Ca ira,” the refrain from the popular revolutionary song usually translated as “it will go” or “it’s speeding along.”

The next pair of engravings presents a female version of the same theme. The first engraving, simply entitled “A Tenant Farmer in Drudgery,” shows a noblewoman and a nun riding on the back of a peasant woman, who is holding a distaff used when spinning wool or flax. The second engraving of the pair is entitled “I Really Knew We Would Have Our Turn” with the inscription below, “Long Live the King, Long Live the Nation.”

The final two cartoons continue the same themes. The fifth print, entitled “The Press,” or in other versions, “The Fat Press,” appeared after the revolutionary regime had confiscated church property in the summer of 1789 and used it as the basis for issuing a new paper currency, the assignats. In it a citizen and a soldier lead clergymen to a press that squeezes money from them into a treasure chest. The sixth print, “The Present,” is based on Jesus’ teaching that in the Kingdom of God “the first shall be last.” The cartoon depicts a world literally turned upside down, with the figure representing the Third Estate bearing a sword and giving orders to a nobleman and a clergyman. The nobleman is dressed as an infantry soldier warily standing at attention, while the poor priest has literally been worked to the bone by his labors.

Once you have had the opportunity to study the cartoons, I would like you all to discuss the following: In their portrayal of social relationships of prerevolutionary France, how do the artists depict the clergy and the nobility? How do they depict members of the Third Estate? What similarities and differences do you see in the way men and women are treated in the first two pairs of prints? What conclusions can be drawn about the status of French women on the basis of your comparisons? What specific grievances of the Third Estate are represented in the various cartoons? According to the cartoonists, what changed in French society as a result of the early events of the revolution? How many themes in the Cahier of the Third Estate of the City of Paris and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen can you see represented in these political cartoons? Your thoughts…

A Program for Revolutionary Change in France

The French Revolution began because of a problem that has plagued rulers since the beginning of organized government—King Louis XVI and his ministers could not balance their budget. Having exhausted every other solution, in 1788 the king agreed to convene a meeting of the Estates General, France’s representative assembly, which had last met in 1614. He hoped it would solve the government’s fiscal plight by approving new taxes. The nobility, having fended off every effort to curtail its tax exemptions and privileges, saw the convening of the Estates General as an opportunity to increase its power at the expense of the monarchy. For both king and nobility the calling of the Estates General had unexpected results: The nobility lost its privileges, and the king lost most of his power and, in 1793, having been judged a traitor to the Revolution, his head.

Neither Louis nor the nobles had comprehended the French people’s disgust with royal absolutism and aristocratic privilege. Nor had they sensed the degree to which the Enlightenment and the English and American revolutions had committed the people to fundamental change. Having convened in May 1789, within months the Estates General transformed itself into a National Assembly, dismantled the laws and institutions of the Old Regime, and set about creating a new political order based on constitutionalism, equality, and natural rights.

Even before the Estates General met, the French populace was in a high pitch of political excitement as a result of the procedures adopted for choosing delegates. The delegates representing the three orders of French society—the First Estate, or clergy; the Second Estate, or nobility; and the Third Estate, everyone else from peasants to wealthy city dwellers—were chosen in a complicated process that began with village and neighborhood and ended at the level of baillages, larger districts based on divisions in the French judicial system. At each electoral meeting those attending were encouraged to draw up a cahier de doléances, a memorandum of grievances, in which all kinds of ideas on local and national affairs could be expressed. These were then passed on to editorial committees at the baillage level, whose members sifted through them and integrated them into final cahiers that were sent on to Versailles, where the Estates General would meet.

I would like you to read some excerpts from the cahier of the Third Estate of the city of Paris (you can read it by clicking here). A document largely created by lawyers and businessmen, it presents a fair sampling of the grievances and expectations of urban, upper-middle-class Frenchmen on the eve of the French Revolution.

Once you have read the document, I would like you to think about and discuss the following: What view of monarchy is expressed in the cahier? How does it compare with the view of monarchy expressed in the English Bill of Rights? What views are expressed in the cahier about the position of the nobility and clergy in the French society? It has been said that the French Revolution was about legal privilege, not monarchy. Do the thoughts expressed in this cahier bear this out? What solutions does the cahier offer for the government’s fiscal crisis? In what ways does this document represent the interests of the urban middle class? To what extent does it show concern for other groups in society? What kind of government does the cahier envision for France? Your thoughts…

“Simple Facts, Plain Arguments, and Common Sense”

After more than a decade of growing tensions over taxes, British imperial policy, the power of colonial legislatures, and a host of other emotionally charged issues, in April 1775 the American Revolution began with the clash between British regulars and American militiamen at the Battle of Lexington and Concord. In May, the Green Mountain Boys under Ethan Allen took Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain, and in June the British defeated colonial troops in the Battle of Bunker Hill outside of Boston at the cost of more than a thousand casualties.

Despite these events, in the summer and fall of 1775 most Americans still supported compromise and reconciliation with Great Britain. They were convinced that evil ministers, not the king, were responsible for British policy and that views of conciliatory British politicians such as Edmund Burke would prevail. Then in January 1776 there appeared in Philadelphia a thirty-five page pamphlet entitled Common Sense, written by Thomas Paine, a bankrupt one-time corset-maker, sailor, tobacconist, and minor customs official, who had immigrated to Pennsylvania from England only fourteen months earlier to escape debtor’s prison. Despite his background, Paine produced what was far and away the most brilliant political pamphlet written during the American Revolution, and perhaps ever in the English language.

In three months Common Sense sold more than 100,000 copies, one for every eight or ten adults in the colonies. It “burst from the press,” wrote Benjamin Rush, the Pennsylvania physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence, “with an effect which has rarely been produced in any age or country.” Written with passion and vivid imagery, Paine’s pamphlet brought into focus American reservations about England and expressed American aspirations for creating a newer, freer, more open society as an independent nation. It accelerated the move toward the events of July 2, 1776, when the delegates to the Second Continental Congress created the United States of America, and of July 4, when they signed the Declaration of Independence.

During the Revolutionary War, Paine fought in Washington’s army and composed pamphlets to bolster American spirits. In the late 1780s, he returned to England but in 1792 was forced to flee to France after his public support of the French Revolution led to his indictment for sedition. Chosen as a delegate to the French National Convention (although he knew no French), Paine was later imprisoned for ten months during the Reign of Terror, and on his release resided with James Monroe, the American ambassador to France. While in France, he attacked Christianity in his pamphlet The Age of Reason, the notoriety of which was such that on his return to the United States in 1802 he was vilified as an atheist. Impoverished and disgraced, he died unheralded in New York City in 1809 (heck of a little known biography isn’t it?).

You can read excerpts from Paine’s Common Sense by clicking here. After you are finished reading the document, I would like you all to consider and discuss the following: What are Paine’s views of the origins and defects of monarchy as a form of government and hereditary succession as a principle of government? What are his views of King George III? What characteristics does Paine ascribe to Great Britain in general and the British government in particular? How might his background explain his negative views? How does Paine counter the arguments of Americans who still sought reconciliation with Great Britain? Despite Paine’s rejection of the British government, do his ideas in Common Sense owe a debt to principles of the English Bill of Rights? What is there about the pamphlet’s language, tone, and arguments that might explain its enormous popularity? Your thoughts…

"The Curious Case of Benjamin" Leads Oscar Nominations with 13, "Slumdog Millionaire" Looks Strong with 10, "The Dark Knight" Denied Best Picture Nod

Well folks, it's official now, this morning the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced their nominees for the best in film in 2008. Keep in mind that the Academy is the most prestigious organization in film, and to win an Oscar is the highest honor any film can achieve, so these nominations hold quite a bit of weight. As expected, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, because it is a technical acheivement as well as a solid acheivement artistically, scored the most Oscar nominations with 13, putting it in elite company with films like Gone With the Wind, From Here to Eternity, All About Eve, Mary Poppins, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Forrest Gump, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and Chicago as the only films in history to score 13 or more Oscar nominations. Seven of the 10 went on to actually win Best Picture. Slumdog Millionaire did very well with 10 nominations. This is especially remarkable considering it's not a special effects vehicle and was largely shot with a hand-held digital camera. All things considered, Slumdog Millionaire remains the front runner for the win. The other big story is that although The Dark Knight earned 8 nominations, only one was in a major category (Best Supporting Actor- Heath Ledger). It just goes to show that there still exists "genre-bias" on the part of the Academy in their snub of a film that they likely saw as a "comic book film." In the mind of this blogger, it really transcended that genre (despite a slightly shaky third act) and became something so much more than a comic book movie, a genre I personally don't particularly care for. Instead of The Dark Knight getting a Best Picture nomination, the late-surging Stephen Daldry film The Reader starring Kate Winslet in the lead role (yes lead, not supporting, I'm glad the Academy at least got that right) scored 5 nominations including the coveted Best Picture nod. This film has been threatening for a while, and in the end it got in. It should be an interesting night, and I'm going to go ahead and call a Slumdog Millionaire win, but I will also say that with Kate Winslet's 6th nomination at just 33 years old, the Academy is ready to finally honor her work with an Oscar for her performance in The Reader, a film that obviously the Academy supports. It should be an interesting race going down the stretch. Below is the run-down of all of the nominations...

Best picture
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Best director
Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry - The Reader
David Fincher - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard - Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant - Milk

Best actor
Richard Jenkins - The Visitor
Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn - Milk
Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

Best actress
Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie - Changeling
Melissa Leo - Frozen River
Meryl Streep - Doubt
Kate Winslet - The Reader

Best supporting actress
Amy Adams - Doubt
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis - Doubt
Taraji P Henson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler

Best supporting actor
Josh Brolin - Milk
Robert Downey Jr - Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon - Revolutionary Road

Best foreign language film
Revanche - Austria
The Class - France
The Baader Meinhof Complex - Germany
Departures - Japan
Waltz With Bashir - Israel

Best animated feature film
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
Wall-E

Best adapted screenplay
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Best original screenplay
Happy-Go-Lucky
Milk
Wall-E
In Bruges
Frozen River

Best original score
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Defiance
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E

Best original song
Down To Earth - Wall-E
Jai Ho - Slumdog Millionaire
O Saya - Slumdog Millionaire

Art direction
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Changeling
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road

Cinematography
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Changeling
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
The Reader

Costume design
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Australia
Milk
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road

Best documentary feature
The Betrayal
Encounters at the End of the World
The Garden
Man on Wire
Trouble The Water

Film editing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire

Make-up
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Sound editing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Iron Man
Wanted
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E

Sound mixing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Wanted
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E

Visual effects
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man

So there it is. In terms of nomination tallies, below are the leaders in nominations...

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button- 13
Slumdog Millionaire- 10
The Dark Knight- 8
Milk- 8
Wall-E- 6
Doubt-5
Frost/Nixon- 5
The Reader- 5

The winners will be announced at the Oscar ceremony on February 22nd at 8pm on ABC. Up next: the Screen Actors Guild awards their nominees on Sunday. In the meantime, check out the BBC's coverage of Oscars 2009 by clicking here. Their coverage of the awards is always excellent.