Transcript Document

England
to 1970
English 1057
The Origins of England
The decline of Rome was mostly due to the impossibility of defending
such a large land area. As the empire struggled to find enough Roman
soldiers to staff its armies, it began to contract German barbarian
mercenaries. While the system initially worked well, gradually land
pressures, corruption, and cultural differences caused the German
chieftains and settlers to break away from the empire. With no legions to
enforce its edicts, central authority withered and Europe broke up into
petty kingdoms.
One of these kingdoms was England. After Roman soldiers abandoned it
around 400, Germanic Anglo-Saxon chieftains took control.
Medieval England
The First Wave:
Agriculture
The middle ages cannot be understood without understanding feudalism. Feudalism is
an economic and cultural system in which the king holds land, which is assigned to
aristocrats, church officials, and other lords. These lords fight as knights in the king’s
army and, in turn, rent their land to peasants, who work the land and provide taxes and
services to their lord. Medieval literature and culture presents this relationship as one
of love and duty, with the ideal warrior fighting to the death for his lord.
Medieval England
Feudalism became increasingly obsolete by the 1400s with the growth of cities, trade,
and technology. By this time the rising urban middle class was often richer than the
knightly class and grew increasingly powerful. As trade and capitalism gradually
became more valuable than farmland, as labor shortages led to better farming
technology, as new humanist ideas reduced the control of church and aristocracy, and
as gunpowder made knights on horses useless, feudalism declined into the beginnings
of a modern capitalist economy—the society Shakespeare is born into in 1565.
Key Developments of the second wave: Industrialism
1. The economic development of industrial production through
capitalism, as opposed to land production. The labor shortages of the
1300s along with the growth of international trade brought new wealth
and power into cities. Here also grew banking, investment, and new
forms of business. All this caused a decline in the relative importance of
land and agriculture, and as well spelled the death of the old feudal
system based on military or personal ties of loyalty. Royal courts fell in
prestige when the real money was elsewhere.
Key Developments
2. The growth of international trade and colonization. Improved sea
technology and better ships and navigation equipment allowed a huge
expansion in markets and colonies as the European countries raced to
claim foreign lands in North and South America and Africa and Asia.
3. The expansion of industrialized war. Medieval war was actually
infrequent and small-scale because war was incredibly expensive. New
technologies drove the mechanization of modern, permanent armies and
new, deadly weaponry such as cannons, rifles, warships, and machine
guns. This made war far bloodier and easier to wage.
Key Developments
4. The growth of nationalism, opposed to older religious or folk traditions
of identity. The growth of countries based on language or land
boundaries instead of on ethnic markings solidified Europe as fixed and
competing countries as the Holy Roman Empire broke apart. Nationalism
often supported the growth of democracy and voting rights.
5. The growth of humanism and science. Originally the new renaissance
philosophies were not hostile to Christianity. But over time the concept
of truth as being revealed or reasoned was in competition with the idea
of empirical truth, information derived from observation or
experimentation— the growth of modern science.
Victorian England 1837-1901
Beloved Queen Victoria reigned over the
height of the British Empire in the
nineteenth century, when its huge
wealth, trade, and industrial power ruled
the world. Along with Elizabethan
England, it was a sort of second golden
age of English wealth, culture, arts, and
literature.
Storm Clouds
1. The decline of belief in man as rational. Freud’s studies begin to suggest that
people’s mental states are unreliable and subject to neuroses. Bergson writes on the
perception of time as unstable and subjective. John Watson studies behaviorism,
suggesting that people can be conditioned into different behaviors. Werner
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle (1928) argues that matter itself is unpredictable.
2. The decline in belief of man as divinely special. Darwin wasn’t an atheist until late
in life, and he believed that evolutionary theory wasn’t necessarily in conflict with
Christianity—many European churches believed that the Genesis story of creation
wasn’t meant literally anyway. But as evolutionary theory and the scientific process
became more hostile to traditional concepts of man as created by God and having a
special identity, the picture of man as having a higher moral spirit is challenged.
War Becomes Deadly
The First World War is caused by an assassination, but it is really only the
trigger for a huge European civil war caused by the buildup of
professional standing armies and the growth of antagonistic alliances in
Europe caused by nationalist sentiments. Soon Europe and its colonies
are drawn in. The war begins as a popular, Romantic movement until its
unprecedented level of death and destruction become felt. The Ottoman
and Austrian empires collapse.
War Becomes Deadly
The growing deadliness of war technology. Twentieth century war was
mechanized with tanks, railroads, poison gas, machine guns, and toward
the war’s end, airplanes. The bloody medieval Battle of Agincourt (1415)
resulted in about 8,000 deaths. Compare this to the Battle of the Somme
in 1916, which saw over one million casualties. At the end of the war
much of Europe was damaged or in ruins, and its younger generation of
men depopulated. Europe suffered some 40 million deaths.
Consequences of war
The decline of belief in unending progress: Science in the Victorian era
had seen itself as a means to a better humanity and better world, once
freed from the old burdens of religion and superstition. Scientists were
now often seen as “agents of death” for creating inventions that had
nearly destroyed the world. The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 not only
caused many deaths but symbolized the failure of technological and
scientific arrogance.
Consequences of war
The early rise of globalization. Technological innovations in
communications, such as telegraphs and then telephones, and movies
and radio and early television broadcasts, allowed progressively faster
and easier communications. The growth of cars and railroads and
advanced shipbuilding allowed trade and travel to become easier and
more efficient. The American love affair with “the great god CAR” led to
the growth of suburbs and highway systems.
Consequences of war
Fascism and communism. Post-war Europe decided to punish Germany
heavily for its instigation of the war. This pushed Germany into such ruin
that strongmen came to power—the beginnings of Hitler and National
Socialism. Partly inspired by German Romanticism, Darwinian evolution
of the fittest, and economic socialism, Hitler used the new tools of
propaganda to build a terror state. In Russia communist rebels
established a totalitarian state, The Soviet Union, also managed by the
repressive use of industrial technologies.
England at 1945:
Rebuilding
Although the war is won in April
1945, England sustained heavy
damage and loss of life from
German bombings. J.K. Rowling lost
her mother and disliked her father,
but it’s not surprising that being
orphaned is a literary theme in
postwar British literature.
The Rise of Popular Culture in England (1950s)
English culture, 1960s
Despite its actual ‘empire’ shrinking,
England recovered by the 1960s to
become an affluent nation and a
fashion, music, and cultural trendsetter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=tBq7icqGxB4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kiax2s5F0D4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH0kvxCfvG8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpah10dIXrs&feature=youtu.be