Western Civilization - HIST 102 Resource Guide

Covering the years from the end of the French Revolution to the zenith of Napoleonic power in 1806, this program opens windows of insight into life under Napoleon through the stories of a merchant apprentice, a young nobleman, a beer brewer, a draft dodger, and a war widow. They tell of industrialization, municipal improvements, the standardization of measurements, the new power of mayors to conduct marriages and authorize divorces, and the body of laws known as the Napoleonic Code-as well as of crippling taxation, compulsory military service, strict censorship of newspapers, and the pitiless auctioning of monasteries-as the self-proclaimed emperor traveled from victory to victory.

This was a period when wars and revolutions were coming thick and fast. Industrialization, the French Revolution, Romanticism-all these are reflected in the simplification of dress, the disappearance of lace and ruffles and the kind of ostentation that bespoke aristocracy. The growth of the English woolen industry led to the displacement of silk by wool. The same love of Orientalism and archaism that pervades the literature of the period appears in the Turkish turbans and Grecian waistlines and hairdos. Among other things, we learn from this program the origin of the term "guinea pig" and Beau Brummel's rules for tying a cravat.

This program examines how the French and Industrial Revolutions altered Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. The French Revolution spread anti-royalty sentiment and increased awareness of the ideals of democracy throughout the continent. The Industrial Revolution promoted the middle class and turned Europe into an urbanized, industrial society. Karl Marx published his Communist Manifesto, and in doing so laid the groundwork for the Russian Revolution, and the later European socialist movement.