World History

Unit 5: Industrialism and Nationalism

Chapter 21: The Age of Reform

Mon, Feb 17, 2014

44. Tue, Feb 18, 2014

"Reform," according to our encyclopedia of record, means "to put or change into an improved form or condition." With that in mind, we may well ask why this chapter is called "the Age of Reform." Admittedly that term was invented prior to the book being written, but the book doesn't seem to give much justification for the title.

Take the United States. We won't go into it much, but the changes offered are 1) the expansion of the country, 2) the expansion of the electorate, 3) the abolition of slavery, and 4) an influx of immigrants. Of the four, abolishing slavery is pretty uncontested these days as a good thing, but the Plains Indians might wonder if the expansion of the US really counts as "an improved form or condition," immigration was attacked in those days as much as it's attacked now, and the expansion of the electorate was not always considered praiseworthy either, particularly when it expanded to include women. So was this truly the Age of Reform in the US? (For a more full treatment of these issues, particularly abolition, see my US History course.)

Consider also Latin America. This section is remarkably non-specific on quite a few particulars, but the overall story seems clear: led by a few heroic leaders, the oppressed peoples of Latin America rose up, threw off their chains, tried to unite, failed, and usually wound up as military dictatorships which "provided stability" but only for as long as the dictator lasted — in what may be a case of the book contradicting itself from one end of a sentence to the other. Freedom from Spain could certainly be considered a reform, although the examples of the British Commonwealth indicate there could have been other ways. Beyond that… what?

Then there's France, where it seems the various monarchs followed the same pattern each time: increasing repression and autocracy, followed by a violent overthrow, followed by a new monarch who did the same thing. The Second Republic is blink-and-you'll miss-it, and the Third Republic, the book says, had loads of problems "but gave France a period of relative political stability between 1899 and 1905." If six years is considered stable, this is damning with faint praise indeed. Was this reform?

Many would say it was, however: messy and complicated, but reform. Plus there's Britain, which continues its trend of being a bit exceptional by keeping the violence to a minimum and, in what warms a history teacher's heart, seems to have learned from the mistakes of the past. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are essentially granted independence in exchange for a measure of loyalty, a partnership which has stood both the United Kingdom and its former colonies in good stead many times since. But Ireland… wasn't.

Basically what we have here is a study in contrasts in methods of reform. In Britain we see a gradualist approach, with incremental changes to representation in Parliament, which in turn led to reforms such as the repeal of the Corn Laws. In France, and to an extent in the United States, we see a more abrupt (some would say catastrophic) method: revolution and war.

• It is easy to approve of the gradualist approach for not coming violently, but how did gradual reform work? What happened in Britain that didn't happen in France? Is there anything to recommend the more abrupt approach?
• We also have a contrast when it comes to British possessions overseas: Canada was treated carefully and granted freedoms so that, according to the text, the Canadians didn't rebel like the Americans had. (As an aside, it was a long-running dream in the US to conquer Canada or incite a revolt there.) Australia and New Zealand were similarly granted considerable freedom and autonomy. Ireland was not. Why do you think this was?
• The Paris Commune gets a few paragraphs here, which is more than some topics do. What isn't altogether made clear, however, is what it was, and how long a shadow it cast. The Commune, as we can learn from its name, was somewhat communist. Private property was generally respected, but for the duration of the Commune the government was in the hands of the people, with not a few socialist aspects. The Commune was more incompetent than dictatorial, as one might expect of a group thrown together in the middle of a war… but it cast a long shadow. Governments, thinkers, and people of many stripes feared the Commune's red banner long after the revolt was crushed. (Lenin was buried in a flag from the Commune.) Considering that private property was unmolested, why would the idea of a socialist/worker's republic be so terrifying to so many?

A further note: page 555 deserves particular dishonorable mention. The title is "Major Civil War Battles," but a) they are missing a few key engagements, b) several of the battles that are shown were spectacularly minor, and c) the arrows drawn on the map don't really connect the engagements — or, for that matter, reflect the actual events. Essential movements are omitted, trivial movements are lionizedA few of the lines seem to have been added just because corners of the map looked empty. The Battle of Mobile Bay has the wrong year given, as well. But the crown jewel is the sentence down at the bottom: "Learning from Maps The North and the South lost more than 600,000 lives during the Civil War." How, precisely, were you to learn that from the map? How were you to learn anything from the map at all? At best you might grasp the vague notion that the Civil War consisted of red and blue arrows chasing each other across a yellow background. One can learn a lot from maps… but not from that one.

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