The political revolutions, what we might think of in
America as the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence and all that.
In Europe, they might think of the French Revolution.
Liberty, equality, fraternity, those ideals and their spread.
These are all developments that convulse the European world in the
late 1700s, but then they become part of a global political vocabulary.
Either people accepting it or rejecting it, but they're reacting to it.
It's changing the conversation.
Yet another break is cultural.
In the traditional world, there seemed to be finite
limits on everything: on how much food could be
grown, on the availability of energy, limits on how
much you can even understand the world around you.
With all kinds of breakthroughs in
science and the development of technology
in the late 1700s and 1800s,
the sense of human mastery over the environment,
human ability to create new sources of energy, has enormous cultural effects.
Just the whole beliefs people have, about their relation to the world,
change.
Their sense of not just limits, but also possibilities, the way
in which they get to know or perceive other kinds of humans.
The way they identify themselves.
Who are we? To what community do we belong?
How do we define our status?
In what ways do we try to get income and assure our prosperity?
How do we protect ourselves?
All of these things are undergoing enormous change.
We'll talk some more about those different belief systems next time,
delving more into what we mean by the traditional and the modern.
See you then.