La Belle Epoque 1871-1914

•  Materialism – Inner Zone = Britain, France, Belgium,

Germany, N. Italy & W. Austria – Outer Zone = Ireland, Iberian Peninsula,

Most of Italy & Central and Eastern Europe

•  Demographic Change – Urbanization – Population Explosion – Migration

•  1850-1940 = 60 million people leave Europe

•  Economic Changes – Industrialization creates corporate

society – Free Trade & Globalization

•  Advance of democracy – Expanded voting rights – Birth of the “welfare state”

•  New Developments in Science, Philosophy

Social Structure •  Increased standard of living across the

board •  Upper Middle Class

– Banking; industry; large-scale commerce •  Middle Class

– Industrialists; merchants; doctors; lawyers •  Lower Middle Class

– Shopkeepers; small traders; clerks •  Lower Class (80% of population)

– Highly skilled= foremen; skilled machinests – Semi-skilled = craftspeople – Low skilled = day laborers; domestic servants

Social Structure •  Increased Life

Expectancy •  Public Health

Initiatives – Sanitation; Pollution

control •  Germ Theory &

Antiseptics •  Infant mortality

decreases

Social Structure Marriage and Family •  Love triumphs over all •  Fewer children

– Children viewed as objects of affection – Lower class children

less dependent on their parents than middle class

–  Illegitimacy decreases •  Economic concerns

– Men marry later •  Increased prostitution

Social Structure Cult of Domesticity •  Sign of prosperity if your wife &

children could stay at home •  Sexual double standard

– Adultery was grounds for divorce for men but not for women

•  Women began organizing

Science •  The nineteenth century saw an explosive

growth in scientific studies and theory – Thermodynamics – Conservation of Energy – Atomic weight – Periodic Table (Dmitri Mendeleev) – Electrical energy – Quantum Physics – Theory of Relativity

•  Union of careful experiment and abstract theory = only reliable route to truth

Science •  Charles Darwin &

Natural Selection •  On the Origin of

Species by the Means of Natural Selection (1859) – Built off the

evolutionary ideas of Jean Baptiste Lamarck

•  “Newton of Biology” –  Ideas reshape

European thought

Science

•  Social Darwinism –  Herbert Spencer =

human society progresses through competition

•  Eugenics –  Francis Galton

The “New” Sciences •  Tried to apply the objective methods of

science to the study of society •  Auguste Comte (Positivism)

– All intellectual activity progresses through predictable stages

– Applying scientific method to social study would reveal the eternal laws of human relations

•  Sigmund Freud (Psychology) – Role of unconscious thoughts & motives – Interpretation of Dreams

•  Anthropology; Archaeology

Philosophy •  Agnosticism (Thomas Henry Huxley)

– We do not possess the requisite knowledge to either prove or disprove the existence of a deity

•  Nihilism (Friedrich Nietzsche) – Emptying the world and human existence of

purpose, meaning and truth •  God is dead. We killed him

– Ubermensche (super man) = “free spirit” the deconstruction of the values of society BY constructing your own values (active nihilism)

•  Irrationalism –  Instinct, feeling and free will over rationality – Reaction to the Age of Reason

Religion •  Intellectual Skepticism

– Historiography = questions the historical legitimacy of Jesus & the Bible

•  Political Manifesto?

– Science = questions the concept of Creation as outlined in the Bible

•  Geology – the Earth is older than believed •  Darwin – Evolution from primordial sludge

– Philosophy = questions the intolerant God presented in the Old Testament

Religion •  Conflict Between Church and State •  Syllabus of Errors (1864) = Catholic Church

officially disavows modern science, philosophy & politics

•  Papal Infallibility (1869) = Pope can not be wrong on matters of morality or faith – Pius IX & First Vatican Council – Centralized Papal authority

•  Rerum Novarum (1891) – Leo XIII – Condemns Socialism (but supports unions &

workers) – Promotes medieval social organization

Religion •  Emancipation of the Jews (circa 1848)

– Varying degrees of equal citizenship in Western Europe

– Relaxation of discriminatory legislation •  Rise of Anti-Semitism

– Economic stagnation of 1870’s blamed on Jews – Organized Anti-Semitism in France & Germany

by 1880’s – Pogroms in Eastern Europe

•  Zionism (Theodor Herzl) – Reestablishment of a Jewish National State in

the lands of Palestine – Sponsored migration of European Jews to

Palestine to form settlements