Late Modernity Period

The Late Modernity Period or Contemporary Age (in French and Spanish) is the name given to the historical period between the Declaration of Independence of the United States, the French Revolution or the Spanish-American Wars of Independence, and the present day. It comprises, if its beginning in the French Revolution is considered, of a total of 233 years, between 1789 and the present. In this period, humanity underwent a demographic transition, completed for the most advanced societies (the so-called first world) and still ongoing for the majority (underdeveloped and newly industrialized countries), which has taken its growth beyond the limits historically imposed by nature, achieving the generalization of the consumption of all kinds of products,​

The events of this time have been marked by accelerated transformations in the economy, society and technology that have earned the name of the Industrial Revolution, while the pre-industrial society was destroyed and a class society presided over by a bourgeoisie was built. it saw the decline of its traditional antagonists (the privileged) and the birth and development of a new one (the labor movement), in the name of which different alternatives to capitalism were put forward. Even more spectacular were the political and ideological transformations (Liberal Revolution, nationalism, totalitarianism); as well as the mutations of the world political map and the greatest wars known to mankind.

Science and culture enter a period of extraordinary development and fertility; while contemporary art and contemporary literature (liberated by romanticism from academic restraints and open to an ever-widening public and market) have been subjected to the impact of the new mass media (both written and audiovisuals), which caused them a true identity crisis that began with impressionism and the avant-garde and has not yet been overcome.

In each of the main planes of historical evolution (economic, social and political), it can be questioned whether the Contemporary Age is an overcoming of the guiding forces of modernity or rather means the period in which they triumph and reach their full potential of development of the economic and social forces that were slowly developing during the Modern Age: capitalism and the bourgeoisie; and the political entities that did it in parallel: the nation and the State.

In the 19th century, these elements came together to form the historical social formation of the classical European liberal state, which emerged after the crisis of the Ancien Régime. The Ancien Régime had been undermined ideologically by the intellectual onslaught of the Enlightenment (L'Encyclopédie, 1751) to everything that is not justified in the light of reason no matter how much it is based on tradition, such as privileges contrary to equality (that of legal conditions, not socio-economic) or the moral economy contrary to freedom (the market one, the one advocated by Adam Smith - The Wealth of Nations, 1776). But despite the spectacular nature of the revolutions and the inspiration of their ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity (with the very significant addition of the term property), a perceptive observer like Lampedusa could understand them as the need for something to change so that business as usual: the New Regime was governed by a ruling class (not homogeneous, but very varied in composition) which, together with the old aristocracy, included for the first time the thriving bourgeoisie responsible for the accumulation of capital. This, after coming to power, went from revolutionary to conservative,aware of the precariousness of their situation at the top of a pyramid whose base was the great mass of proletarians, compartmentalized by the borders of national states of dimensions compatible with national markets that in turn controlled an external space available for their colonial expansion.

In the 20th century, this unstable balance began to break down, sometimes through violent cataclysms (beginning with the terrible years of the First World War, 1914-1918), and at other levels through gradual changes (for example, the economic, social and women's politics). On the one hand, in the most developed countries, the emergence of a powerful middle class, largely thanks to the development of the welfare state or social state (understood as a pactist concession to the challenge of the most radical expressions of the labor movement, or as a conviction of social reformism) tended to fill the abyss predicted by Marx and that should lead to the inevitable confrontation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. On the other hand, capitalism was harshly combated, albeit with rather limited success, by itsclass enemies, facing each other: anarchism and socialism (divided in turn between communism and social democracy). In the field of economic science, the presuppositions of classical liberalism were overcome (neoclassical economics, Keynesianism -incentives for consumption and public investment to face the inability of the free market to respond to the 1929 crisis- or game theory -strategies of cooperation against the individualism of the invisible hand -). Liberal democracy was subjected during the interwar period to the double challenge of Stalinist and fascist totalitarianism (especially by the expansionism of Nazi Germany, which led to World War II).

As for the national states, after the spring of the peoples(denomination given to the 1848 revolution) and the period presided over by the German and Italian unification (1848-1871), became the predominant actor in international relations, in a process that became generalized with the fall of the great multinational empires (Spanish from 1808 to 1976, Portuguese from 1821 to 1975; Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian and Turkish in 1918, after their collapse in the First World War) and that of the colonial empires (British, French, Dutch and Belgian after the Second). Although many nations gained independence during the 19th and 20th centuries, they were not always viable, and many were plunged into terrible civil, religious or tribal conflicts, sometimes caused by the arbitrary fixing of borders, which reproduced those of the previous ones. colonial empires. In any case, the national states, after the Second World War, became increasingly less relevant actors on the political map, replaced by the politics of blocs led by the United States and the Soviet Union. The supranational integration of Europe (European Union) has not been successfully reproduced in other areas of the world, while international organizations, especially the UN, depend for their operation on the unsteady will of their components.

The disappearance of the communist bloc has given way to the current world of the 21st century, in which the traditional ruling forces witness the double challenge posed by both the trend towards globalization and the emergence or resurgence of all kinds of identities, personal or individual, collective or group, often competitive with each other (religious, sexual, age, national, cultural, ethnic, aesthetic,educational, sports, or generated by an attitude -pacifism, environmentalism, alter-globalization- or by any type of condition, including problems -disabilities, dysfunctions, consumption patterns-). In particular, consumption defines in such an important way the image that individuals and groups make of themselves that the term consumer society has become synonymous with contemporary society.

Modernity: rupture and continuity

The denomination «Contemporary Age» is a recent addition to the traditional historical periodization of Cristóbal Celarius, who used a tripartite division into Ancient Age, Middle Age and Modern Age; and it is due to the strong impact that the transformations after the French Revolution had on continental European historiography (specifically French, Spanish and Portuguese), which prompted them to propose a different name for what they understood as antagonistic structures: those of the Old Regime before and those of the New Regime after. However, this discontinuity does not seem so marked for the rest of the historians, such as the Anglo-Saxons who prefer to use the term Later or Late Modern Times or Age("Last Modern Times", "Late Modern Age" or "Post Modern Age"), contrasting it with the term Early Modern Times or Age ("Early Modern Times", "Early Modern Age" or "Previous Modern Age") since they still use the Celarius periodization; while they restrict the use of Contemporary Age to the 20th century, especially its second half.

The question of whether there was more continuity or more rupture between the Modern Age and the Contemporary depends, therefore, on the perspective. If modernity is defined as the development of a worldview with features derived from the values ​​of anthropocentrism as opposed to those of medieval theocentrism (concepts of the world centered on man or God, respectively): the idea of ​​social progress, individual freedom, knowledge through scientific research, etc.; then it is clear that the Contemporary Age is a continuation and intensification of all these concepts. Its origin was in Western Europe at the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century, where Humanism, the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation emerged; and were accentuated during the so-called crisis of European conscience at the end of the 17th century, which included the Scientific Revolution and preluded the Enlightenment. The revolutions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth can be understood as the culmination of trends started in the preceding period. Confidence in human beings and in scientific and technological progress was reflected from then on in a very characteristic philosophy: positivism; and in the various religious approaches that range from secularism to agnosticism, atheism or anticlericalism. Its ideological manifestations were very disparate, from nationalism to Marxism through social Darwinism and totalitarianism of the opposite sign; although the political and economic formulations of liberalism were the dominant ones, notably including the doctrine of human rights which, developed from earlier elements,Democracy in America, 1835-) to become the most universally accepted ideal of a form of government, with notable exceptions.

However, it was the evidence of the triumph of the forces of modernity that led precisely in the Contemporary Age to develop a parallel discourse of criticism of modernity, which in its most radical aspect led to nihilism. It is possible to follow the thread of this critique of modernity in romanticism and its search for the historical roots of peoples; in the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche and later movements (irrationalism, vitalism, existentialism, Frankfurt School);​ en los rasgos más experimentales del arte contemporáneo y la literatura contemporánea que, no obstante, reivindican para sí la condición de literatura o arte moderno (expresionismo, surrealismo, teatro del absurdo); en concepciones teóricas como la postmodernidad; y en la violenta resistencia que, tanto desde el movimiento obrero como desde posturas radicalmente conservadoras, se opuso a la gran transformación​ de economía y sociedad. Superar el ideal ilustrado de progreso y confianza optimista en las capacidades del ser humano, implicaba una noción progresista y de confianza en la capacidad del ser humano que efectúa esa crítica, por lo que esas «superaciones de la modernidad» fueron de hecho nuevas variantes del discurso moderno.​

La «Era de la Revolución» (1776-1848)

En los años finales del siglo XVIII y los primeros del siglo XIX se derrumba el Antiguo Régimen de una forma que fue percibida por los contemporáneos como una aceleración del ritmo temporal de la historia, que trajo cambios trascendentales conseguidos tras vencer de forma violenta la oposición de las fuerzas interesadas en mantener el pasado: todos ellos requisitos para poder hablar de una revolución, y de lo que para Eric Hobsbawm es La Era de la Revolución.​ Suele hablarse de tres planos en el mismo proceso revolucionario: el económico, caracterizado por el triunfo del capitalismo industrial que supera la fase mercantilista y acaba con el predominio del sector primario (Revolución industrial); el social, caracterizado por el triunfo de la burguesía y su concepto de sociedad de clases basada en el mérito y la ética del trabajo, frente a la sociedad estamental dominada por los privilegiados desde el nacimiento (Revolución burguesa); y el político e ideológico, por el que se sustituyen las monarquías absolutas por sistemas representativos, con constituciones, parlamentos y división de poderes, justificados por la ideología liberal (Revolución liberal).

Revolución industrial

La Revolución industrial es la segunda de las transformaciones productivas verdaderamente decisivas que ha sufrido la humanidad, siendo la primera la Revolución Neolítica que transformó la humanidad paleolítica cazadora y recolectora en el mundo de aldeas agrícolas y tribus ganaderas que caracterizó desde entonces los siguientes milenios de prehistoria e historia.

La transformación de la sociedad preindustrial agropecuaria y rural en una sociedad industrial y urbana se inició propiamente con una nueva y decisiva transformación del mundo agrario, la llamada revolución agrícola que aumentó de forma importante los bajísimos rendimientos propios de la agricultura tradicional gracias a mejoras técnicas como la rotación de cultivos, la introducción de abonos y nuevos productos (especialmente la introducción en Europa de dos plantas americanas: el maíz y la papa). En todos los periodos anteriores, tanto en los imperios hidráulicos (Egipto, Mesopotamia, India o China antiguas), como en la Grecia y Roma esclavistas o la Europa feudal y del Antiguo Régimen, incluso en las sociedades más involucradas en las transformaciones del capitalismo comercial del moderno sistema mundial,​ era necesario que la gran mayoría de la fuerza de trabajo produjera alimentos, quedando una exigua minoría para la vida urbana y el escaso trabajo industrial, a un nivel tecnológico artesanal, con altos costes de producción. A partir de entonces, empieza a ser posible que los sustanciales excedentes agrícolas alimenten a una población creciente (inicio de la transición demográfica, por la disminución de la mortalidad y el mantenimiento de la natalidad en niveles altos) que está disponible para el trabajo industrial, primero en las propias casas de los campesinos (domestic system, putting-out system) y enseguida en grandes complejos fabriles (factory system) que permiten la división del trabajo que conduce al imparable proceso de especialización, tecnificación y mecanización. La mano de obra se proletariza al perder su sabiduría artesanal en beneficio de una máquina que realiza rápida e incansablemente el trabajo descompuesto en movimientos sencillos y repetitivos, en un proceso que llevará a la producción en serie y, más adelante (en el siglo XX, durante la Segunda revolución industrial), al fordismo, el taylorismo y la cadena de montaje. Si el producto es menos bello y deshumanizado (crítica de los partidarios del mundo preindustrial, como John Ruskin y William Morris), no es menos útil y sobre todo, es mucho más beneficioso para el empresario que lo consigue lanzar al mercado. Los costos de producción disminuyeron ostensiblemente, en parte porque al fabricarse de manera más rápida se invertía menos tiempo en su elaboración, y en parte porque las propias materias primas, al ser también explotadas por medios industriales, bajaron su coste. La estandarización de la producción reemplazó la exclusividad y escasez de los productos antiguos por la abundancia y el anonimato de los productos nuevos, todos iguales unos a otros.

La Revolución industrial iniciada en Inglaterra a mediados del siglo XVIII se extendió sucesivamente al resto del mundo mediante la difusión tecnológica (transferencia tecnológica), primero a Europa Noroccidental y después, en lo que se denominó Segunda revolución industrial (finales del siglo XIX), al resto de los posteriormente denominados países desarrollados (especialmente y con gran rapidez a Alemania, Estados Unidos y Japón; pero también, más lentamente, a Europa Meridional y a Europa Oriental). A finales del siglo XX, en el contexto de la denominada Tercera revolución industrial, los NIC o nuevos países industrializados (especialmente China) iniciaron un rápido crecimiento industrial. No obstante, la influencia de la revolución industrial, desde su mismo inicio se extendió al resto del mundo mucho antes de que se produjera la industrialización de cada uno de los países, dado el decisivo impacto que tuvo la posibilidad de adquirir grandes cantidades de productos industriales cada vez más baratos y diversificados. El mundo se dividió entre los que producían bienes manufacturados y los que tenían que conformarse con intercambiarlos por las materias primas, que no aportaban prácticamente valor añadido al lugar del que se extraían: las colonias y neocolonias (África, Asia y América Latina, tanto antes como después de los procesos de independencia de los siglos XIX y XX).

Motivos por los cuales la Revolución industrial surgió en Inglaterra

La Revolución industrial se originó en Inglaterra a causa de diversos factores, cuya elucidación es uno de los temas historiográficos más trascendentes.

Como factores técnicos, era uno de los países con mayor disponibilidad de las materias primas esenciales, sobre todo el carbón, mineral indispensable para alimentar la máquina de vapor que fue el gran motor de la Revolución industrial temprana, así como los altos hornos de la siderurgia, sector principal desde mediados del siglo XIX. Su ventaja frente a la madera, el combustible tradicional, no es tanto su poder calorífico como la mera posibilidad en la continuidad de suministro (la madera, a pesar de ser fuente renovable, está limitada por la deforestación; mientras que el carbón, combustible fósil y por tanto no renovable, solo lo está por el agotamiento de las reservas, cuya extensión se amplía con el precio y las posibilidades técnicas de extracción).

Como factores ideológicos, políticos y sociales, la sociedad inglesa había atravesado la llamada crisis del siglo XVII de una manera particular: mientras la Europa Meridional y Oriental se refeudalizaba y establecía monarquías absolutas, la guerra civil inglesa (1642-1651) y la posterior revolución gloriosa (1688) determinaron el establecimiento de una monarquía parlamentaria (definida ideológicamente por el liberalismo de John Locke) basada en la división de poderes, la libertad individual y un nivel de seguridad jurídica que proporcionaba suficientes garantías para el empresario privado; muchos de ellos surgidos de entre activas minorías de disidentes religiosos que en otras naciones no se hubieran consentido (la tesis de Max Weber vincula explícitamente La ética protestante y el espíritu del capitalismo). Síntoma importante fue el espectacular desarrollo del sistema de patentes industriales.

Como factor geoestratégico, durante el siglo XVIII Inglaterra (que tras las firmas del Acta de Unión con Escocia en 1707 y del Acta de Unión con Irlanda en 1800, después de la derrota de la rebelión irlandesa de 1798, consiguieron la unión con Escocia e Irlanda, formando el Reino Unido de Gran Bretaña e Irlanda) construyó una flota naval que la convirtió (desde el tratado de Utrecht, 1714, y de forma indiscutible desde la batalla de Trafalgar, 1805) en una verdadera talasocracia dueña de los mares y de un extensísimo imperio colonial. A pesar de la pérdida de las Trece Colonias, emancipadas en la Guerra de Independencia de Estados Unidos (1776-1781), controlaba, entre otros, los territorios del subcontinente indio, fuente importante de materias primas para su industria, destacadamente el algodón que alimentaba la industria textil, así como mercado cautivo para los productos de la metrópolis. La canción patriótica Rule Britannia (1740) explicitly stated: rule the waves.

The steam engine, coal, cotton and iron

The experimentation of the steam boiler was an ancient practice (the Greek Heron of Alexandria) that was resumed in the 16th century (the Spaniards Blasco de Garay and Jerónimo de Ayanz) and that at the end of the 17th century had produced encouraging results, although still technologically untapped (Denis Papin and Thomas Savery). In 1705 Thomas Newcomen had developed a steam engine efficient enough to pump water out of flooded mines. After successive improvements, in 1782 James Watt incorporated a feedback system that decisively increased its efficiency, which made it possible to apply it to other fields. First to the textile industry, which had previously developed a textile revolution applied to cotton threads and fabrics with the flying shuttle (John Kay, 1733) and the mechanical spinning machine (James Hargreaves' spinning Jenny -1764-, Richard Arkwright's hydraulic spinning machine -1769, moved by hydraulic power, applied at Cromford Mill from 1771- and Samuel Crompton's spinning mule, 1779); and that it was ripe for the application of steam to the mechanical loom (Edmund Cartwright's power loom, 1784) and other innovations demanded by the bottleneckswhich were forced into the successively affected subsectors, putting the English textile industry at the head of world cloth production. Then to transport: the steamboat (Robert Fulton, 1807) and later the railway (George Stephenson, 1829), whose development was hampered by the social misgivings it aroused; but that allowed extracting all the potential of the railways for mining use and animal and human traction that had been used extensively with Coalbrookdale iron melted with coke (Abraham Darby I, 1709; Iron Bridge, 1781). Steam, coal and iron were applied to all production processes susceptible to mechanization. Watt's invention had represented the decisive leap towards industrialization, and England, the first to do so, becamethe workshop of the world.

Opposition to changes

These novelties were not always well received. The replacement of human labor by machines condemned traditional crafts workers to unemployment if they did not adapt to the new working conditions or the loss of control of the production process if they did. Resistance against it led in some cases to the physical destruction of the new mechanized industries (Luddism). The new employers, freed from trade union restrictions, succeeded in outlawing any form of association for the defense of labor interests, leaving the negotiation of working conditions and salary solely to the individual contract and the free market. Symmetrically, the association of entrepreneurs was not allowed either, as it violated the principle of free competition,The Wealth of Nations, 1776). The historiographic debate on whether industrialization was a more or less detrimental process for the living conditions of the lower classes has been one of the most active, and it is not resolved. Jobs did not decrease, on the contrary, they increased, making necessary the arrival in the overcrowded working-class neighborhoods of the north of England (Manchester, Liverpool) of masses of emigrants from the countryside (from where they were expelled by the poor laws -laws of the poor- and the enclosures -enclosures-). On the contrary, the liberalization of the price of basic foodstuffs had to wait until the middle of the 19th century for the abolition of the Corn Laws.(Corn Laws, in force between 1815 and 1846) that defended the protectionist interests of British landowners, disproportionately represented in Parliament and fought by the pressure group of Manchester capitalism. The reduction in the salary level (which David Ricardo justified as an expression of an economic need, the bronze law), the long hours in unhealthy jobs and the generalized social degradation, led to pauperism (the harsh social conditions were portrayed in the novels of the time, such as Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, or Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens); while also creating the conditions for the emergence of a class consciousnessand the beginning of the labor movement. They also had political expression in the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, bourgeois in their social qualification, but with a strong working-class role, particularly in France; as well as British Chartism.

Demographic revolution

Other predictions, those of Thomas Malthus (Essay on the Principle of Population, 1798), warned pessimistically of the impossibility of maintaining the unusual population growth that England was experiencing, the first to undergo the transformations typical of the transition from the old to the new demographic regime. As they industrialized, other nations joined the same process, which involved decreasing mortality (two of the main causes of catastrophic mortality - famines and epidemics - had been substantially mitigated) while keeping birth rates high (there were neither effective contraceptive methods nor the social transformations that would make a decrease in the number of children desirable to families in the future).

One of the effects of all these changes, as well as an escape valve for social pressure, was the increase in emigration, the so-called white explosion.(Because it is the phase of the demographic revolution carried out by Europe and other areas with a predominantly European population). Ruined peasants and workers with nothing to lose, they were encouraged to leave Europe and try their luck in settlement colonies (Canada or Australia for the English, Algeria for the French) or in independent nations receiving immigrants (such as the United States or Argentina).); members of the upper classes were also incorporated as the ruling elite in exploitative colonies (such as India, Southeast Asia, or sub-Saharan Africa). Explicitly, the defenders of British imperialism, such as Cecil Rhodes, saw in immigration to the colonies the solution to social problems and a way to avoid class struggle. Marxist theorists interpreted it in a similar way,One of the largest national emigrations occurred after the Great Irish Famine of 1845–1849, which depopulated the island, both through mortality and through massive population transfer, which turned entire cities on the East Coast of the United States into ghettos. Irish (where they suffered discrimination from the dominant WASP, whose acronym stands for White Anglo-Saxon Protestants in Spanish). Other later waves were carried out by Nordic, German, Italian and Eastern European immigrants (especially the massive departures, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, of the Jews subjected to the pogroms).

Liberal revolutions

Social, political and ideological context

Even before the transformations linked to the English industrial revolution affected other countries in a notable way, the growing economic power of the bourgeoisie collided in the societies of the Old Regime (almost all the other European ones, with the exception of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands).) with the privileges of the two privileged estates that retained their medieval prerogatives (clergy and nobility). The absolute monarchy, like its predecessor the authoritarian monarchy, had already begun to dispense with the aristocrats for the government, calling as ministers members of the lower nobility, lawyersand even people from the bourgeoisie, such as Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the finance minister of Louis XIV. The crisis of the Old Regime that took place during the 18th century made the bourgeoisie become aware of their own power, and they found ideological expression in the ideals of the Enlightenment, notably disclosed with L'Encyclopédie (1751-1772). With greater or lesser depth, several absolute monarchs adopted some ideas of enlightened reformism (Joseph II of Austria, Frederick II of Prussia, Charles III of Spain), the so-called enlightened despots to whom different variants of the expression all for the people are attributed, but without the people.The insufficiency of these lukewarm reforms was evidenced every time the most radical ones were mitigated, postponed or rejected, which affected structural aspects of the economic and social system (disentailment, disengagement, market freedom, abolition of jurisdictions, privileges, guilds, monopolies and internal customs, legal equality); while the untouchable political questions, which would imply questioning the very essence of absolutism, were rarely raised beyond theoretical exercises. The resistance of the structures of the Old Regime could only be overcome with popular-based revolutionary movements, which in the colonial territories were expressed in wars of independence.

Two closely related philosophical and legal notions played an important role in the ideology of these revolutions: the theory of human rights and constitutionalism. The idea that there are certain rights inherent to human beings is ancient (Cicero or scholasticism), but it was associated with the supramundane order. The enlightened (John Locke or Jean-Jacques Rousseau) defended the idea that these human rights are inherent to all human beings alike, by the mere fact of being rational beings, and therefore they are neither concessions from the State, nor do they derive from of any religious status (such as being "sons of God"). The secularization of politics did not necessarily imply the agnosticism or atheism of the enlightened, many of whom were sincere Christians, while others identified with pantheistic positions close to Freemasonry. The principle of religious tolerance was defended with vehemence and personal commitment by Voltaire, whose departure from the Catholic Church made him the most controversial figure of the time.

These rights are "natural rights", they are conceived as prior to the law of the State as opposed to the "positive rights" established by the different legal systems. The "rights of man" are collected in a Constitution ("constitutional rights") but not created by it. The constitutions or the declarations of rights explicitly declare that such rights belong to man with a universal character, and not by virtue of any fact of his own or others, or due to a particular condition (nationality, place or family of birth, religion, etc.).​

Attributing to the State the inevitable tendency to overwhelm these rights (due to the corruption inherent in the exercise of power), the Enlightenment conceived of guaranteeing individual freedom by limiting it through a "Political Constitution", preferring the rule of law to the king's government. Although they could differ on their preferences regarding the definition of the political system, from the highest authority of the king to the principle of separation of powers (Montesquieu, The spirit of the laws, 1748) and, at its extreme, the principle of general will, national sovereignty and popular sovereignty (Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762), understood that it should be governed by a Supreme Law that would meet the demands of reason and provide morepublic happiness (or rather would allow the pursuit of happinessindividual to each individual). Such a constitution, in its most radical interpretation, should be generated by the people and not by the monarchy or the ruler, since it is an expression of the sovereignty that resides in the nation and in the citizens (not in the monarch, as preached by the defenders of absolutism since the 17th century: Thomas Hobbes or Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet). To guarantee the balance of powers, the judiciary would have to be independent, and the legislative power would have to be exercised by a parliament that represents the nation and is elected by the people, or at least on their behalf, by an electoral body whose representativeness could be understood as more or less extensive or restricted. These formulations, based on the practice of British parliamentarism after the Glorious Revolutionof 1688, became the doctrinal body of political liberalism.

The influence that this example had on the political theorists of the Enlightenment, recognized in the writings of Voltaire or Montesquieu, was transcendental. Also the Constitution of the United States of America (1787), is strongly imbued in the British customary legal tradition. The choice for a written rather than a customary constitution is explained both by the influence of Enlightenment ideology on American constituents and by the fact that the British legal process had occurred over the span of some 600 years, while its American equivalent was produced in just a decade. The written text became indispensable to create a whole new political system from scratch, contrary to the British case, that had evolved with successive additions and decanted with over the centuries. It was reflected in the prestige of various legal texts (some medieval, such as theMagna Carta of 1215, other modern ones such as the Bill of Rights of 1689), the jurisprudence of courts with independent judges and juries and political uses, which implied a balance of powers between the Crown and Parliament (elected by unequal constituencies and restricted suffrage), to which His Majesty's Government responded. The first constitutions written in Europe were the Polish (May 3, 1791) and the French (September 3, 1791). However, the first modern legal document of its kind (rather a theoretical and utopian exercise that was not applied) was the Draft Constitution for Corsica that Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote for the short-lived Corsican Republic (1755-1769).The first Spanish ones appeared as a consequence of the Peninsular War: the one drawn up in Bayonne by the Frenchified (July 8, 1808) and the one drawn up by their rivals from the patriot side in the Cortes of Cádiz (March 12, 1812, popularly called Pepa)., taken as a model by others in Europe. In Latin America, the first constitutions were created between 1811 and 1812, as a consequence of the juntista movement, which was the first phase of the Hispano-American independence movement causing the colonial wars. The Congress of Angostura, with the inspiration of Simón Bolívar, drafted the Constitution of Cúcuta (or Gran Colombia).which included present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela) in 1819 and which the Congress of Cúcuta would end up officially proclaiming in 1821. All these movements would form part of what would be known as the Atlantic revolutions or the Atlantic cycle.

United States independence

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants

The tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.Thomas Jefferson, 1787.

The English had settled in the Thirteen Colonies on the northwestern American coast since the 17th century. During the great colonial war between the United Kingdom and France (1756-1763), which was the American correlate of the European Seven Years' War, the American colonists became aware of the extent to which their interests diverged from those of the metropolis (impossibility to receive a balanced treatment, or to be promoted in the army), as well as the limits of its capacity and its own power. In the following years, faced with pressing fiscal needs, an attempt was made to increase the extraction of resources from the colonies by imposing taxes without any type of local control or representation in their discussion, such as the Sugar Law and the Seal Law. After the progressive cooling of relations, the settlers and theRedcoats (British troops named for the color of their uniform) had their first skirmishes in minor incidents whose importance was magnified into symbolic ones (Boston Massacre, 1770; Tea Party, 1773; Battles of Lexington and Concord, 1775). In 1776, at a Continental Congress meeting in the city of Philadelphia, representatives sent by the local parliaments of the Thirteen Colonies proclaimed independence. The war, led by George Washington on the colonial side, which received international support from France and Spain, ended with the complete defeat of the British at the Battle of Yorktown (1781). In the Treaty of Paris of 1783, the independence of the United States was recognized by the British Empire.

During the first years there were doubts among the founding fatherswhether the Thirteen Colonies would each go their own way like so many other independent nations, or whether they would form a single nation. In a new congress held again in Philadelphia (1787), they finally agreed on an intermediate solution, forming a federal state with a complex distribution of functions between the Federation and the member states, under the mandate of a single fundamental charter: the Constitution of 1787 The Federation, called the United States of America, was inspired for its creation and for the drafting of its Magna Carta (especially the numerous amendments that had to be added progressively to the seven initial articles) in the fundamental principles promoted by the Enlightenment, as well as in the political practice of local self-government experienced for more than a century,The political system was based on strong individualism and respect for human rights (although in its political culture they were expressed as civil rights), among which the greatest guarantees never existed in any legal system prior to the neutrality of the state. in matters pertaining to private life and respect for public liberties (conscience, expression, press, assembly and political participation, possession of weapons) and specifically private property as a vehicle for the pursuit of happiness (Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness).The construction of democracy, in many of its implications, such as universal suffrage, was not quickly achieved, especially regarding the problems of slavery, which differentiated the northern and southern states; and the relationship with the indigenous nations, through whose territories they expanded. The notions of republic and independence became two symbolic referents of the new nation, and for a long time, almost exclusive characteristics compared to the rest of the world.

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Quentin de la Tour, 1753) is the intellectual father of the revolutions of the late eighteenth century. He sees fewer values ​​in the corrupt society of the Old Regime than in the good savage (advanced in his Discours sur les Sciences et les Arts -«Discourse on the sciences and the arts»- and popularized with the novel Emilio). His doctrine of the Social Contract, based on this concept of the natural goodness of man, will lead to the search for national sovereignty, and later, for democracy, but it is also at the intellectual origin of the uniformizing and totalitarian state of the dictatorships of the 20th century. XX.
• John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence, 1817. Submission to the Continental Congress by the "Five Men" Commission of the proposed United States Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776). They appear among others Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and James Wilson. In this text, the values ​​of the Enlightenment were applied to the construction of the first contemporary political system. The reception of this experience in Europe, mainly in France, was a mixture of sympathy and paternalism: the myth of the noble savagecontributed to this, and also the diplomatic skill of Franklin himself, ambassador to Paris. The Americans presented themselves as resistant to tyranny, with neoclassical references to the ancient Roman Republic, of which they will see heirs from then on (New Rome)
• General and first President George Washington fires French nobleman and fellow General Gilbert de La Fayette (1784). At the head of troops from the French monarchy, he had supported the independence of the Thirteen Colonies from England, as did the Spanish governor of Louisiana Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid and the French soldier Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur de Rochambeau, in an adjustment of accounts from the previous Seven Years' War. La Fayette, influenced by his American experience, advocated moderate reforms and a constitutional monarchy during the subsequent revolutionary events in France.
• The British Thomas Paine had a vital trajectory linked to the American and French revolutions. Expelled from England, he too had problems with the period of Robespierre's Terror, and ended his life on American soil. He was the author of three important books: the liberal Common Sense in which he defends independence from the United States, the controversial The Rights of Man in response to the attack on France's revolutionary excesses by Edmund Burke (who, on the contrary, had defended the Americana, although with more conservative arguments than Paine's radicals); and the anticlerical and Voltairean The Age of Reason (The age of reason).

Revolución francesa e Imperio napoleónico

Qu'est-ce que le tiers état? Tout. Qu'a-t-il été jusqu'à présent dans l’ordre politique? Rien. Que demande-t-il? À y devenir quelque chose.

¿Qué es el tercer estado? Todo. ¿Qué ha sido hasta el presente en el orden político? Nada. ¿Qué demanda? Llegar a ser algo.

Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, ¿Qué es el tercer estado?, 1789.

Francia había apoyado activamente a las Trece Colonias contra el Reino Unido, con tropas comandadas por el Marqués de La Fayette; pero aunque la intervención fue exitosa militarmente, le costó cara a la monarquía francesa, y no solo en términos monetarios. Sumada a la deuda cuyos intereses ya se llevaban la mayor parte del presupuesto, y en medio de una crisis económica, llevó a la monarquía al borde de la quiebra financiera. Las deposiciones sucesivas de Charles Alexandre de Calonne, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot y Jacques Necker, los ministros que proponían reformas más profundas, hicieron al gobierno de Luis XVI y María Antonieta aún más impopular. El rey, sin apoyo entre la aristocracia que controlaba las instituciones (negativa de la Asamblea de notables de 1787), aceptó como mejor salida convocar a los Estados Generales, parlamento de origen medieval en el que estaban representados los tres estamentos, y que no se reunía desde hacía más de cien años. Durante la elección de los diputados, se habían de redactar cuadernos de quejas, peticiones que representaban el pulso de la opinión de cada parte del país. Siguiendo el argumentario ilustrado, las del Tercer Estado (el pueblo llano o los no privilegiados, cuyo portavoz era la burguesía urbana) pedían que los estamentos privilegiados (clero y nobleza) pagaran impuestos como el resto de los súbditos de la corona francesa, entre otras profundas transformaciones sociales, económicas y políticas. Una vez reunidos, no hubo acuerdo sobre el sistema de votación (el tradicional, por brazos, daba un voto a cada uno, mientras que el individual favorecía al Tercer Estado, que había obtenido previamente la convocatoria de un número mayor de estos). Finalmente, los diputados del Tercer Estado, a los que se sumaron un buen número de nobles y eclesiásticos próximos ideológicamente a ellos, se reunió por separado para formar una autodenominada Asamblea Nacional.

El 14 de julio de 1789 el pueblo de París, en un movimiento espontáneo, tomó la fortaleza de La Bastilla, símbolo de la autoridad real. El rey, sorprendido por los acontecimientos, hizo concesiones a los revolucionarios, que tras la Declaración de Derechos del Hombre y del Ciudadano y la eliminación de las cargas feudales, en lo relativo a la forma de gobierno solo aspiraban a establecer una monarquía limitada como la británica, pero con una Constitución escrita. La Constitución de 1791 confería el poder a una Asamblea Legislativa que quedó en manos de los más radicales (los miembros de la Constituyente aceptaron no poder ser reelegidos) y profundizó las transformaciones revolucionarias. Tras el intento de fuga del rey, este quedó prisionero, y en 1792 la Francia revolucionaria tubo de rechazar la invasión de una coalición de potencias europeas, decididas a aplastar el movimiento revolucionario antes de que el ejemplo se contagiase a sus territorios. La eficacia del ejército revolucionario, motivado por el patriotismo (La Marsellesa, La patrie en danger -La patria en peligro-, Levée en masse -Leva en masa-)​ y la defensa de lo conquistado por el pueblo, frente a los desmotivados ejércitos mercenarios, cuyos oficiales no lo eran por mérito, sino por nobleza, demostró ser suficiente para la victoria. En el interior, la revuelta del 10 de agosto de 1792, protagonizada por los sans culottes (la plebe urbana de París) forzó a la Asamblea a sustituir al rey por un Consejo provisional y convocar elecciones por sufragio universal a una Convención Nacional, que dominaron los jacobinos. Su política de supresión de toda oposición, el llamado Terror (1793-1795), eliminó físicamente a la oposición contrarrevolucionaria (muy fuerte en algunas zonas, representada en las Guerras de Vendée y de los Chaunes) así como a los elementos revolucionarios más moderados (girondinos), mientras los que pudieron huir (nobles y clérigos refractarios, que no habían aceptado jurar la constitución civil del clero) salían al exilio. Se estableció un régimen político republicano, que transformó incluso el calendario, establecía un sistema de precios y salarios máximos (ley del máximum general) y controlaba todos los aspectos de la vida pública mediante el Comité de Salud Pública dirigido por Maximilien Robespierre. El número de ejecuciones, por el igualitario método de la guillotina fue muy alto, e incluyó al rey y a la reina, a los girondinos (como Jacques Pierre Brissot y Nicolas de Condorcet), así como a varios de los propios jacobinos, como Georges-Jacques Danton, y a un gran científico, Antoine Lavoisier (en ocasión de su condena, se dijo: la revolución no necesita sabios). Un golpe de estado (conocido como reacción thermidoriana, por el nombre en el nuevo calendario del mes en que se produjo) acabó físicamente con Robespierre y su régimen e instauró un sistema mucho más moderado: el Directorio (1795-1799).

Modelo de proceso revolucionario

La Revolución francesa asentó así un modelo de proceso revolucionario dividido en fases: iniciada con una revuelta de los privilegiados, pasa por una fase moderada y una fase radical o exaltada para acabar con una reacción que propicia la plasmación de un poder personal. Las expresiones, comunes en la historiografía, destacan por su similitud con las fases en que se dividió la Revolución rusa. Georges Lefebvre señala tres fases en la primera parte de la revolución: aristocrática, burguesa y popular. Para Karl Marx (en su estudio comparativo que tituló El 18 Brumario de Luis Bonaparte), el proceso de la revolución de 1789 fue ascendente, mientras que el de la de 1848 fue descendente.​

Para Hannah Arendt, mientras que la Independencia de los Estados Unidos sería un modelo de revolución política, y de ahí su continuidad, la Revolución francesa sería un modelo de revolución social, y de ahí su fracaso, como el de las revoluciones que siguen su modelo (especialmente la rusa); pues (como planteaba ya Alexis de Tocqueville) los logros políticos de la libertad y la democracia solamente se consolidan cuando son el resultado de procesos sociales y económicos anteriores, y no cuando se plantean como requisitos previos para conseguir estos.​

La analogía entre los periodos de la historia de Roma (Monarquía-República-Imperio) y los mucho más efímeros de la Revolución de 1789 (repetidos en la evolución posterior de la historia de Estados Unidos)​ no dejó de ser tenida en cuenta por los propios contemporáneos, que no solo se inspiraban en la antigüedad grecorromana para el arte neoclásico, sino también para su sistema político y sus símbolos (gorro frigio, fasces, águila romana, etc.).

Napoleón Bonaparte

En ese contexto se inició la carrera de Napoleón Bonaparte, un militar proveniente de una familia de provincias que nunca hubiera conseguido ascender en el ejército de la monarquía, y que se convirtió en un héroe popular por sus campañas en Italia​ y en Egipto y Siria. En 1799 se sumó al golpe de estado del 18 de brumario (nombrado por la fecha en que se llevó a cabo el golpe según el calendario republicano francés) que derribó al Directorio e instauró el Consulado, del que fue nombrado primer cónsul para, en 1804, proclamarse Emperador de los franceses (no de Francia, en una sutil diferenciación con el régimen monárquico que pretendía mantener los ideales republicanos y de la revolución). En sus años en el poder (hasta 1814, y luego el breve periodo de los cien días de 1815), Napoleón consiguió dejar un extenso legado. Consciente de que no podía retomar el Derecho del Antiguo Régimen, pero sumergido en el marasmo de la atropellada y caótica legislación revolucionaria, dio la orden de compendiar todo ese legado jurídico en cuerpos legales manejables. Nació así el Código Civil de Francia o Código Napoleónico, inspiración para todos los demás estados liberales, y que contribuyó a propagar la Revolución en cuanto superestructura jurídica que expresaba la sociedad burguesa-capitalista. Le siguieron después un Código de Comercio, un Código Penal y un Código de Instrucción Criminal, este último antecedente del derecho procesal moderno. Emprendió una serie de reformas administrativas y tributarias, que eliminaron privilegios y fueros territoriales a favor de una nación unitaria y centralizada, que concebía como un Estado de Derecho (en sus propias palabras: el hombre más poderoso de Francia es el juez de instrucción). Para sustituir a la antigua nobleza creó la Legión de Honor, la más alta distinción del Estado, que reconocía no el privilegio de cuna o la riqueza, sino el mérito personal. Su círculo de confianza, compuesto por parientes como sus hermanos José o Jerónimo, y generales como Joaquín Murat o Carlos XIV Juan de Berbadotte, terminaron ocupando tronos europeos. Frente a la descristianización emprendida en El Terror, aprovechó la sumisión del papado para la firma de un Concordato que ponía el clero bajo control estatal, pero garantizaba la continuidad del catolicismo como religión de Francia, pretendiendo simbolizar con ello la reconciliación de los franceses.​ El régimen político, jurídico e institucional napoleónico, reconducción en un sentido autoritario de los ideales revolucionarios de 1789, se transformó en modelo para muchos otros por todo el mundo.

• Declaración de los Derechos del Hombre y del Ciudadano, 26 de agosto de 1789. Con una voluntad universalista e ilustrada, supuso una invitación a la extensión de las ideas revolucionarias a las demás naciones.
• Ejecución de Luis XVI, 21 de enero de 1793. La ejecución por su pueblo de un rey que según todo el ideario político de su tiempo, tenía poderes absolutos, causó un impacto enorme, ya con todas las monarquías europeas solidarizaron en guerra contra la Revolución.
• Napoleón cruzando los Alpes de Jacques-Louis David, 1801. Hijo de la Revolución, de ideario igualitarista (se dice que ponía en la mochila de cada soldado el bastón de mariscal), plasmó los ideales revolucionarios en una nueva institucionalidad política, administrativa y jurídica.
• El tres de mayo de 1808 en Madrid, por Francisco de Goya, 1814. La lucha entre las fuerzas napoleónicas y los defensores del Antiguo Régimen obligó a los pueblos europeos a tomar partido no solo militar, sino también ideológico, e ingresar así a la Edad Contemporánea.

Movimiento independentista en América Latina

Rebelión de esclavos en Haití

Con una represión cada vez mayor hacia los mulatos y negros en la colonia francesa de Saint-Domingue, empezó a darse las primeras insurrecciones entre 1748 y 1790. El 14 de agosto de 1791, se celebró la ceremonia de Bois Caïman, organizada por el sacerdote vudú Dutty Boukman, que termina con la orden de levantarse de forma organizada. Esto provocó que pocos días después comenzaran una sangrienta masacre en el norte de la isla. A la muerte de Boukman en noviembre del mismo año, se da la abolición de la esclavitud en 1792 por Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, en parte debido a la búsqueda de aliados para combatir contra las tropas españolas y británicas.

Con la llegada del general Toussaint Louverture al mando de un puñado de soldados, logró retener a las tropas británicas e invadir la parte española de la isla, consiguiendo el poder de la colonia. Esto llevó a que Napoleón enviara a 20.000 efectivos encabezados por Charles Leclerc a restablecer su dominio en la isla (1801). Toussaint respondió a la reconquista francesa con la quema de tierra y empezando una guerra de guerrillas. En 1802, el revolucionario le ofrece su capitulación con la condición de quedar libre y de que sus tropas se integraran en el Ejército francés. Leclerc logra capturar a Toussaint y lo envía a Francia para ser aprisionado. Pese a que este fue capturado, Jean-Jacques Dessalines dirigió la rebelión, iniciando una ofensiva que termina con la decisiva batalla de Vertières (1803), cuya victoria termina con la proclamación de la independencia del país (1804), proclamándose como el Imperio de Haití y declarando a Dessalines como Jacques I of Haiti.

Brazil: from colony to independent empire

After the exile of the Portuguese Court due to the invasion of the French troops led by Napoleon I (1807), settling in Rio de Janeiro, Juan VI, in replacement of his incapacitated mother Maria I, decided to raise Brazil from a colony to a kingdom (1808), forming the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarve (1815).

In 1820, when the Liberal Revolution broke out in Portugal, the Portuguese Cortes forced the Portuguese royal family to return to Lisbon. However, before leaving, King John VI appointed his eldest son, Pedro de Alcántara Bragança, known as Pedro IV, as Prince Regent of Brazil (1821). The Portuguese Courts tried to transform Brazil into a colony once again, depriving it of the rights it had had since 1808, provoking the rejection of the Brazilians. The main leader of the Portuguese official, General Jorge Avilés, forced the prince to resign but he refused because of his position in favor of the Brazilian cause. After Pedro's decision to defy the Cortes, close to two thousand men led by Jorge Avilés himself mutinied before focusing on Monte Castelo, which was soon surrounded by 10,000 armed Brazilians, led by the Royal Police Guard. The radical liberals remained active: at the initiative of Joaquim Gonçalves Ledo, a representation was addressed to Pedro to expose the advisability of convening a Constituent Assembly. The prince decreed his summons on June 13, 1822. Popular pressure would carry the summons forward. José Bonifácio resisted the idea of ​​convening the Constituent Assembly, but was forced to accept it. He tried to discredit it, proposing direct elections, which ended up prevailing against the will of the radical liberals, who defended indirect elections. After this, José Bonifácio was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom. Bonifácio established a friendly relationship with Pedro,

Pedro left for São Paulo to ensure the loyalty of the province to the Brazilian cause. He arrived in his capital on August 25 and stayed there until September 5. When he returned to Rio de Janeiro on September 7, he received two letters, one from José Bonifácio, who advised Dom Pedro to break with the metropolis, and another from his wife, María Leopoldina, who supported the proclamation of independence.. The prince learned that the Cortes had annulled all the acts of the cabinet and withdrawn the remaining power that he still had. Pedro turned to his companions and with the phrase "Independence or death!" (event known as the Cry of Ipiranga), broke political ties with Portugal. On October 12, 1822, in Campo de Santana, Prince Pedro was proclaimed as Pedro I, constitutional emperor and Perpetual Defender of Brazil.

Once the process was consolidated in the southeastern region of Brazil, the independence of the other regions of Portuguese America was achieved relatively quickly. He contributed to this diplomatic and financial support from Great Britain. Without an army and without a Navy, it became necessary to recruit foreign mercenaries and officers. Thus the Portuguese fortress in the provinces of Bahia, Maranhão, Piauí and Pará was drowned. The military process was completed in 1823, leaving behind the diplomatic negotiation of the recognition of the independence of the European monarchies. Brazil negotiated with Britain and agreed to pay £2 million in damages to Portugal in an agreement known as the Treaty of Rio de Janeiro. And so Brazilian independence was definitively maintained.

• Pedro I, first emperor of the Empire of Brazil.
• José Bonifácio, one of the most important figures during the Brazilian independence process.

Hispanic American Independence

The part of America subjected to Spanish colonial rule since the 16th century and that between the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th had gone through a critical situation of external lack of control (the activity of corsairs, generalized smuggling and the intervention of other European powers, notably England) while a certain local self-government was established in internal matters; by the middle of the 18th century it had already stabilized. The social structure was that of a pyramid of castes in which, above the vast majority of indigenous, mestizo, mulatto and black people (whose opinion did not count, and did not count in the process of independence), a prosperous class of Spanish landowners and merchants born in Latin America (the criollos), who increasingly endured the numerous administrative, legal,peninsularappointed in the distant Court. The Creoles sought not so much to emancipate themselves as to change power relations for their benefit; only an ideologized minority of exalted, a large part grouped in Masonic lodges such as the Lautarina Lodge, had independence as one of their purposes. The enlightened reforms that since Carlos III were relaxing the trade monopoly of Cadiz for the benefit of other peninsular ports or neutral countries (Decrees of freedom of trade with the American colonies, 1765, 1778 and 1797), were not considered sufficiently attractive. Other more radical proposals, which sought a restructuring of the viceroyalty system giving the American viceroyalties a certain degree of autonomy, were not taken into account by the power structures of the monarchy.

La independencia no se inició a partir de rebeliones indigenistas, como la promovida por Túpac Amaru II en Perú (1780-1782); sino que el desencadenante del proceso fue el cautiverio de Fernando VII al inicio de la Guerra de Independencia Española (1808). Napoleón Bonaparte envió emisarios a Hispanoamérica para exigir el reconocimiento de su hermano José I Bonaparte como rey de España después de las Abdicaciones de Bayona. Las autoridades locales se negaron a someterse, por razones tanto externas como internas. Externamente era evidente la debilidad de la posición francesa en ese continente (fracasos de Napoleón en retener la Luisiana, vendida a Estados Unidos en 1803, y Haití, independizado en 1804) frente a la más efectiva presencia británica (invasiones inglesas en el Río de la Plata, 1806-1807) que gracias a su predominio naval y económico, y a la habilidad con que dosificó su apoyo político a las nuevas repúblicas, terminó convirtiéndose en la potencia neocolonial de toda la zona, y de hecho el principal beneficiario de la disgregación del Imperio español. Internamente existía la presión de una movilización popular muy similar a la que simultáneamente estaba produciéndose en la Península, a la que se añadía en este caso el sentimiento independentista (primero minoritario pero cada vez más extendido entre los criollos). El movimiento juntista, en nombre del rey cautivo o invocando el poder nacional soberano (en consonancia con la ideología liberal) organizó Juntas de Gobierno convocadas en cada capital de gobernación o virreinato, aprovechando la ocasión para introducir reformas económicas, incluyendo la libertad de comercio o la libertad de vientres. Las Juntas hispanoamericanas no tuvieron una integración, como sí las peninsulares, en las nuevas instituciones que se formaron en Cádiz (Regencia y Cortes de Cádiz), y las autoridades enviadas por estas para restablecer la normalidad institucional en América no fueron recibidas con normalidad. Los elementos más fidelistas o realistas se enfrentaron a los juntistas, mediante maniobras políticas (arresto del virrey José de Iturrigaray en México) o incluso abiertamente y por mano militar (enfrentamiento entre Francisco de Miranda y Domingo de Monteverde en Venezuela o José Gervasio Artigas y Francisco Javier de Elío en la Banda Oriental), sobre todo tras la victoria del bando patriota en la Guerra de Independencia Española, que trajo como consecuencia la reposición en el trono de Fernando VII (1814). En consonancia con la política de restauración absolutista emprendida en la Península, se inició una movilización militar para abatir el movimiento insurgente de las colonias, cada vez más emancipadas de hecho. Los patriotas hispanoamericanos quedaron definitivamente abocados a luchar inequívocamente por la independencia, al ser evidente que tanto la libertad política como la económica estaba vinculada a ella y no podría conseguirse como concesión del gobierno absolutista de Fernando VII. Se formaron ejércitos, y en campañas militares de varios años, los caudillos libertadores consiguieron acabar con la presencia española en el continente, muy debilitada y no eficazmente renovada (el cuerpo expedicionario reunido en Cádiz en 1820 no embarcó a su destino, sino que se utilizó por el militar liberal Rafael de Riego para forzar al rey a someterse a la Constitución durante el llamado trienio liberal). La independencia hispanoamericana fue así, a la vez, tanto una de las principales consecuencias como una de las principales causas de la crisis final del Antiguo Régimen en España.​

La Revolución de Mayo (1810) derrocó al último virrey en las actuales Argentina y Uruguay (que se unió a la revolución con el Grito de Asencio, 1811), y en plena guerra, se declara independiente (1816). Más tarde y a pesar de no tener el apoyo del gobierno de Buenos Aires, José de San Martín invadió Chile a través de los Andes (1817), y desde allí, con el apoyo del gobierno de Bernardo O'Higgins y del militar británico Thomas Cochrane, se embarcó rumbo a Perú (1820), conectándose con las fuerzas dirigidas por Simón Bolívar. Bolívar había desarrollado previamente exitosas campañas (batallas de Carabobo, 1814 y Boyacá, 1819) por la zona que pasó a denominarse Gran Colombia (conformadas por las actuales Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador y Panamá); aunque no logró el triunfo decisivo hasta que uno de sus lugartenientes, el Mariscal José de Sucre derrotó al último bastión realista enclavado en la zona de Perú y Bolivia (denominada así en su honor) en las batallas de Pichincha (1822) y Ayacucho (1824). Paralelamente, en México se desarrolló un movimiento revolucionario propio, que con el debatido Grito de Dolores (1810), desencadenó levantamientos armados dirigidos por José María Morelos y Vicente Guerrero que llevó a la proclamación de la independencia por Agustín de Iturbide, nombrado Emperador (1821), título derivado de la posibilidad, ofrecida a Fernando VII y rechazada por este, de restablecer la monarquía española en América del Norte de una manera pactada, con un título imperial y sin competencias efectivas. También San Martín había propuesto una solución semejante (cuyo título hubiera derivado en un descendiente inca con la propuesta rioplatense del Plan del Inca), a la que renunció ante la radical oposición de Bolívar, firme partidario del republicanismo y de la total desvinculación de cualquier lazo con España (Entrevista de Guayaquil, 26 de julio de 1822).​

A pesar de los ideales panamericanos de Simón Bolívar, que aspiraba a reunir a todas las repúblicas a semejanza de las Trece Colonias, estas no solo no se reunieron, sino que siguieron disgregándose. La Gran Colombia se disolvió en 1830 por la separación de Venezuela y Ecuador, quedando formado la República de la Nueva Granada. Por su parte Uruguay, provincia oriental de las Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata y provincia Cisplatina durante la ocupación luso-brasileña, se independizó de su núcleo central, Argentina y del Imperio del Brasil en 1828 (Convención Preliminar de Paz), quedando consolidado en 1830. La independencia de Bolivia lo desvinculó tanto de Argentina, que previamente había aceptado la no incorporación de Potosí, que estaba prevista, y de Perú al declararse la República de Bolívar (1825). Años después, en un intento por crear una Confederación Perú-Boliviana (1836-1839), terminó con su derrota militar a manos de las tropas chilenas y de los restauradores peruanos, provocando la disolución de la confederación. Las Provincias Unidas del Centro de América (independizadas pacíficamente de España en 1821, anexadas a México en 1822) se independizaron del Primer Imperio mexicano al transformarse este en república (1823) para formar la República Federal de Centroamérica, que a su vez se disolvió en las actuales Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala y Nicaragua entre 1838 y 1840, años después de la guerra civil de 1826-1829. El Haití Español (actual República Dominicana), independizado en 1821 y que pretendía quedar incorporada a la Gran Colombia, terminó anexada por fuerzas haitianas en 1822, independizándose de Haití en 1844. Paraguay, que había iniciado su andadura independiente en 1811 sin oposición efectiva tras fracasar el intento rioplatense de incorporarlo (Tratado confederal entre las juntas de Asunción y Buenos Aires, 1811), permaneció ajeno a esas unificaciones y divisiones, al igual que Chile.

Hispanic-American republicanism did not build democratic political options, and equality was seen (in terms similar to those of Tocqueville) as a threat to the social balance of a citizenry in precarious construction. Internal struggles between federalists and centralists characterized the first decades of the 19th century, followed by those that divided liberals and conservatives.

• The priest Hidalgo, precursor of the independence of Mexico.
• Simón Bolívar, the most decisive of the liberators in Latin America.
• José de San Martín, from Argentina, played a role of similar importance.

Other revolutionary movements and cycles

The so-called Age of Revolutions extended the American and French example. In some cases, simultaneously with these and with greater or lesser success, as occurred in some autonomous cities of Europe (Liège in 1791, for example). In the first half of the 19th century, a series of revolutionary cycles have been determined, named by the year they began (1820, 1830 and 1848).

Revolution of 1820

The Revolution of 1820 or the Mediterranean cycle began in Spain (Rafael de Riego's uprising or pronouncement against the expeditionary force that was going to embark for America, January 1, 1820) and spread, on the one hand, to Portugal, which in the called Liberal Wars-Oporto Revolution-, on August 24, 1820, the Portuguese government was forced to return from Brazil in a civil war in which, unlike in the case of Latin American independence, it was in the metropolis where the most liberal elements controlled the situation to the detriment of the most traditionalist branch of the dynasty; and on the other to Italy where secret societies, such as the Carbonari, initiate nationalist uprisings against the Austrian monarchies in the north and the Bourbon monarchies in the south, proposing the Spanish Constitution of Cadiz as an applicable text for themselves. In a less linked way, the uprising of the Greeks that began in 1821, who emancipated themselves from the Ottoman Empire in 1829 with the decisive support of the European powers (mainly France, England and Russia), is also located chronologically close. proclaiming the Greek State. Significantly, it was the same powers (with the exception of England and the addition of Austria and Prussia) who actively staged the counter-revolution to jointly put down, through theHoly Alliance revolutionary outbreaks that could threaten the continuity of absolute monarchies, and continued to do so until 1848.

Revolution of 1830

The revolution of 1830, which began with the three glorious days in Paris in which the barricades brought Louis Philippe d'Orléans to the throne, spread across the European continent with the independence of Belgium and less successful movements in Germany, Italy and Poland. In England, on the other hand, the beginning of the Chartist movement opted for the reformist strategy, which with successive expansions of the electoral base managed to slowly increase the representativeness of the political system, although universal male suffrage was not achieved until the 20th century. Doctrinalism was the ideology that expressed that moderation of liberalism.

Revolution of 1848. The "spring of the peoples" and nationalism

The era of the revolution will close with the revolution of 1848 or spring of the peoples. It was the most widespread throughout the continent (also started in Paris and spread through Italy and all of Central Europe with amazing speed, only explainable by the revolution in transport and communications), and initially the most successful (within a few months the most of the affected governments). But, in reality, these revolutionary movements did not lead to the formation of regimes of a radical or democratic nature that would achieve sufficient continuity, and in all cases the political situation quickly returned to moderation. In the case of France, an insurrection managed to overthrow the reigning monarchy, giving way to the Second Republic, which would last until the coup d'état of 1851, from which the Second Empire would be established with Napoleon III (1852-1870); while in Italy, after the outbreak of the First War of Italian Independence, it gave way to the beginning of the unification of the country, which would not culminate until 1870; On the other hand, in Germany the revolution lasted until 1849, and despite its partial failure, it was the direct precedent of the eventual dissolution of the Germanic Confederation (1866), which opened the debate on how to carry out the process of German unification (question German).

From this key moment, located in the mid-nineteenth century and that Eric Hobsbawm calls the era of capital, the historical forces change trend: the bourgeoisie goes from revolutionary to conservative and the labor movement begins to organize itself; although without a doubt the most capable of mobilizing the populations will be the nationalist movements.

Revolutions outside Europe

Outside the Western world, although one cannot speak of revolutionary movements unleashed by similar socioeconomic causes (bourgeois revolution), the term revolutions is sometimes used to designate one or another of the different Westernizing or modernizing movements that were implanted with greater or lesser less successful in one country or another, and that were more or less distantly inspired by the idea of ​​progress, the Enlightenment, or some more or less explicit reference to one of the ideals of 1789. Generally, in the absence of a social base, they were promoted from power or circles close to it, and they explicitly condemned whatever disorder or destabilization the revolutionary term could have: Meiji era in Japan (1868), the failed Sepoy Rebellion in India (1857), the so-called Young Ottomans and Young Turks in the Ottoman Empire (1871 and 1908), rebellions such as the Taiping (1850) and the Boxer (1900-1901) demonstrated the social discontent that later triggered the Wuchang uprising in 1911 that abolished the Chinese Empire (Xinhai Revolution), various reform initiatives of the Russian Empire (such as the abolition of serfdom in 1861) etc.; and that they arrived chronologically until the First World War.

Reaction against the Enlightenment: Romanticism

Romanticism is the overcoming of reason as a method of knowledge, for the benefit of intuition and shared feeling (endopathy). Instead of the individual subject of universal rights, he conceives of singular persons, linked in natural communities: the peoples (a cultural concept typical of German romanticism - volk, people, and volkgeist, spirit of the people-) and nations (as understood by the French liberals, the political community based on the will). If the Enlightenment understood that the meeting of men originates society, romanticism inverts the terms, denying the existence of a man in a state of nature. Romantic are both reactionary traditionalism and revolutionary nationalism. The first (Louis de Bonald, Joseph de Maistre) conceive the town as a historical reality, anchored in the past and whose living members cannot decide their destiny or claim rightsthat they do not have, such as making decisions against their institutions, customs and values. The latter (Giuseppe Mazzini) dare to change the world and remove secular borders as long as they include individuals from a single people, which must be sovereign, independent of any authority that does not emanate from itself, and free to decide its destiny.

Pre-romanticism had emerged in the second half of the 18th century (Goethe 's The Misadventures of Young Werther, or Horace Walpole's Gothic novel), coinciding with the predominance of neoclassicism, so that although one is a reaction against the other, there are those who affirm that they are two phases of the same intellectual movement. The revolution was identified with the heroic virtues of classical antiquity expressed pictorially in the neoclassicism of Jacques-Louis David (Oath of the Horatii, portraits of Napoleon).

The literature of Romanticism was filled with literary types tormented by passions, in constant struggle against a society that refuses to give freedom to the individual. The English Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley represented the romantic ideal not only in literature, but in their stormy lives and early deaths. Other romantic authors were the French Victor Hugo (who provoked a true pitched battle between the romantics and the classics at the premiere of Hernani), the Russian Aleksandr Pushkin, the Italian Alessandro Manzoni, the Spanish Mariano José de Larra or the American Edgar Allan Poe. The exploration of ancient popular traditions (folklore) produced collections of tales such as that of the Brothers Grimm, or the definitive version of the mythological cycle of Finland in the modern Kalevala compiled by Elias Lönnrot.

Born from the gloomy evolution of the last stage of Francisco de Goya, romantic painting was inaugurated in France with the scandal of The Raft of the Medusa (Théodore Géricault, 1822), due not only to its technique, but also because it was interpreted as a metaphor of the collapse of France under the government of Charles X. Liberty leading the people, by Eugène Delacroix provided the iconic emblem of the revolution. Romantic music, starting with the latest works by Ludwig van Beethoven, is found in Héctor Berlioz, Nicolás Paganini, Fryderyk Chopin or Robert Schumann, who went beyond the conventions of musical classicism with greater compositional freedoms and accentuating musical effects over form. Giuseppe Verdi or Richard Wagner took advantage of the enormous possibilities of music, and above all of opera as a total spectacle, to move collective emotions with musical nationalism.

The rationalist and enlightened idealism of Kantian criticism will be led to romanticism by the so-called German idealism of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel (who will identify the absolute spirit with the Prussian State). Its expression in law was the Historical School of Law of Friedrich Karl von Savigny, who advocated the need to find the true German Law, expurgating the foreign and intrusive Roman Law in his opinion.

European balance

The European balance sought from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) to the Treaty of Utrecht (1714) characterized the international relations of the 18th century; The era of Spanish (1521-1648) and French (1648-1714) hegemonies had passed. While England consolidated its naval supremacy (which allowed it to acquire a network of strategic enclaves on islands and safe ports in all the oceans, in addition to its gradual territorial penetration in India), on the European continent, which it proudly preferred to ignore when it was possible, it tried to maintain the balance between the possible blocs of powers that threatened to impose themselves on the others. The most obvious, formed by Spain, France and the Italian kingdoms of the house of Bourbon (linked by the Family Pacts), was not always effective. In Central Europe, the rivalry between Austria and Prussia neutralized each other; while the rise of the Russian Empire benefited both in the so-called partitions of Poland. The Ottoman Empire, after the failure of the second siege of Vienna (1683), ceased to be a threat to Central Europe and throughout the eighteenth century it became a declining power (the sick man of Europe), which gradually lost control effective on its outlying provinces.

The most prominent conflicts that occurred on the European continent were the War of the Austrian Succession, the War of the Polish Succession, and the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). In the overseas colonies, wars or peace in Europe only represented a distant framework for constant competition, which only in some cases found restricted and temporary diplomatic channels (agreements between Spain and Portugal on the territory of Misiones).

• 1748, the Europe of equilibrium after the Treaty of Utrecht.
• 1812, the Europe of the continental blockade, maximum expansion of the Napoleonic Empire.

Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars

The French Revolution was seen by the monarchies (both absolute and parliamentary) as a contagious focus to be extirpated, especially after Louis XVI's escape attempt (1791) and the arrival of the emigrants fleeing the Terror. The Brunswick manifesto (1792) unleashed the revolutionary wars: until 1815, seven coalitions were successively defeated by the French revolutionary army, which imposed a new way of waging war: total war, based on the national mobilization of huge masses of men spurred on by patriotism they moved quickly; and in the imposition of trade blockades. Initially, France limited itself to defending itself, but after the battle of Valmy (1792) it decisively began to use war as an instrument of revolutionary ideological expansion against reaction.

The rise of Napoleon Bonaparte definitively unbalanced the status quocontinent for the benefit of a clear French hegemony. In a decade of warfare, from the Italian campaign (1796-1797, 1799-1800) to the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine (1806), he conquered all the surviving petty towns, lordships, and kingdoms in Germany and Italy, and decisively defeated to Austria (battle of Austerlitz, 1805), which becomes an ally, as was Spain since the Treaty of San Ildefonso (1796). Simultaneously, the battle of Trafalgar prevented the Spanish-French control of the seas, necessary for the invasion of England, which could not take place due to the defeat against Horace Nelson's fleet. In 1807 an agreement was reached with Russia (Tilsit Treaty) in what could be understood as a precedent for dividing Europe into two spheres of influence. Napoleon tried to economically destroy England with the continental blockade, to prevent the products of the Industrial Revolution from reaching the continent; but the weak points of the project were one at each end of Europe: Portugal (opposed from the beginning) and Russia (which reopened its ports in 1810). The Franco-Spanish invasion of Portugal turned into a prolonged military occupation in Spain (Spanish War of Independence or Peninsular War, 1808-1814) at a high cost. The Russian campaign of 1812 was even more disastrous because, although Moscow was occupied in the Battle of Borodino, the impossibility of maintaining the supply lines and the subsequent burning of Moscow forced a retreat in dire conditions and marked by defeats (Battle of Leipzig, 1813) that led to the abdication of the Emperor,

Congress of Vienna

At the Congress of Vienna (1815), efforts were made to restore European balance with legitimist criteria, replacing the monarchs of the traditional houses on their thrones, although the status quo prior to 1789 was never recovered. Even the return of the Bourbons to the throne of Paris was threatened during the hundred days of 1815 when Napoleon resumed command and tried to challenge the coalition powers again in the battle of Waterloo, which meant his final defeat and his confinement in the city. island of Saint Helena. The mistrust towards France was intended to ward off with the reinforcement of buffer stateson its borders: the Kingdom of Sardinia (seed of Italian unity) and the Kingdom of Holland (created by Napoleon, to which Belgium was incorporated until its independence in 1830).

Splendid isolation, Santa Alianza and Sistema Metternich

England consolidated its world dominance combined with its policy of isolation in European affairs, while Russia became the gendarme of Europe. The Metternich system, designed by the Austrian chancellor and based on the coincidence of interests of the powers of the Holy Alliance (Catholic Austria, Lutheran Prussia and Orthodox Russia, which invoked the Holy Trinity at the beginning of its founding document), maintained the continental balance until 1848, by calling congresses: Congress of Aachen (1818), Troppau (1820), Ljubljana (1821) and Verona (1822); based on the principle of intervention to quell and prevent the spread of any revolutionary outbreak. England, a parliamentary monarchy, did not join the Holy Alliance, but a Quadruple Alliance that France later joined.

Opening of “virgin” continental spaces

Although the era of imperialism did not arrive until the last quarter of the 19th century (distributions of Africa and Asia), from the beginning of the 19th century there was an expansive pressure, whose origin is the demographic revolution, on the virgin continental spaces of the boreal zone. (British Canada, American West, Russian East) and Southern (Cape Colony, Dutch until British conquest in 1806; Australia, part of which became a penal colony; New Zealand, British colony since signing of the Treaty of Waitangi (1840); the Argentine and Chilean Patagonia, the Brazilian, Colombian and Peruvian Amazon, etc.).

The virginity attributed to these spaces, despite their evident demographic emptiness compared to the saturated European urban zones, was not really a human and cultural emptiness. The Australian aborigines, Maori, Zulu, Xhosa, Patagonian, Mapuche, Qom, Tupi, Sioux, Shoshoni, Apache, Lapp, Buryat, Chukchi, Inuit and a whole constellation of indigenous peoples whose relationship with the land responded to logics that were not only pre-industrial, but often pre-Neolithic, they were ignored as inhabitants and their possible values ​​despised as primitive.

In other contexts, on highly populated areas whose civilization could not be ignored, the pressure of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia on the Ottoman Balkans and the beginning of the French colonization of Algeria (1830) responded to the same logic. British penetration in India came as early as the eighteenth century.

Expansion of the United States

Go West, young man, go West.

Go West, boy, go West.Horace Greeley, 1833.

The strength of American independence rested firmly on its territorial immensity. Due to the great tensions caused by the naval blockade that the British undertook to prevent the Americans from trading with France and the American claims to annex Canada, it led to the War of 1812, from which the capital Washington D. C. was burned in 1814, and which after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent (1814) and the late Battle of New Orleans (1815) led to the Good Feeling Era (1815-1825) that established national unity. The United States had incorporated the French colonies of Louisiana (Louisiana Purchase, 1803) and the Spanish colonies of Florida (Adams-Onís Treaty, 1819), acquiring a seafront to the south. However, its main territorial extension, through conflicts against Mexico (the last being the invasion of this country), were the territories from Texas (independent in 1836, incorporated in 1845) to California (Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848). In addition, there was the immense continental interior, which had been explored by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in an expedition to the Pacific coast (1804-1806). the epic ofWild West gradually formed a national identity based on the individualism of the frontier settler, who after traversing the prairie in a wagon, erected his log cabin and appropriated as much land as he could farm and defend from Native Americans. Their relationship with the land had nothing to do with the liberal concept of property that was imposed by colonization; deprived of it, they were forced into seclusion in reserves, not without a fight (Indian Wars). Another mythologized figure was that of the miners who attended the successive gold rushes in California (1849 -the fortyniners-) and Alaska (purchased from Russia in 1867, and affected by the Klondike gold rush in 1897 -described by Jack London in White Fang-). Hawaii's annexation (incorporated in 1898) was the last in which an organized organized territory would gain statehood (1959).

President James Monroe enunciated in 1823 the so- called Monroe Doctrine (America for Americans), which promoted continental isolation: neither the United States would intervene in the political affairs of Europe, nor would it allow Europe to do the same in the United States. It was understood that the context, the key moment in the Spanish-American wars of independence, included a kind of extension of the declaration to the entire continent. The Monroe doctrine, initially defensive, was later accompanied by the complementary doctrine of Manifest Destiny(it is the destiny of the United States, decided by God, to bring freedom and democracy to the rest of the nations of the globe), in a true «right of intervention» on the rest of the continent, which was more explicitly expressed as the Big Stick Policy (“Policy of the Big Stick”) decisively applied by Theodore Roosevelt (president between 1901 and 1908, with his Roosevelt Corollary policy), especially in the processes of Cuban and Philippine independence (Spanish-American War, 1898) and in the Independence of Panama, as a consequence of the construction of the canal (1903).

The strong process of industrialization affected the North (liberal and dynamic, recipient of large contingents of emigrants) and the South (conservative and elitist, based on slave agriculture) differently. The tension reached its peak with the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, and in 1861 civil war broke out, in which the North prevailed.

American culture was combining the Western tradition with the autochthonous values ​​of the "border country", between the construction of an epic of national identity (James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans; Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass), and the European influence (Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne).

Formation and expansion of Latin American states

Freedom as a means, order as a basis, and progress as an end.Gabino Barreda, 1867.

After their emancipation process, the young republics of Latin America had to face the task of creating their own organization, the great Pan-American projects having failed (Gran Colombia, the Peru-Bolivian Confederation). Politically, the common hallmark was the oscillation between political instability and authoritarianism. In some cases, in imitation of the Napoleonic Empire, an imperial political form was given, such as the Empire of Brazil (1822-1889) or the Mexican Empire (1821-1823). In others, prolonged dictatorships, such as those of Juan Manuel de Rosas in Argentina or Antonio López de Santa Anna in Mexico. There were dense civil wars in which local political interests were aired and which political doctrine to choose to govern (federalism or centralism). Many wars were territorial in nature,

A pesar de la enfática declaración de la doctrina Monroe (que Estados Unidos no estuvieron en condiciones de sostener eficazmente hasta finales del siglo XIX) hubo intentos de reconstruir la presencia imperialista europea en Latinoamérica. En 1865 España envió una expedición naval contra Chile y Perú (Guerra hispano-sudamericana, 1865-1866), mientras que en 1864, y bajo pretexto de cobrarse la deuda externa de México, fue Francia la que realizó una intervención militar que impuso la entronización de un emperador títere (Maximiliano de Austria, 1864-1867). El expansionismo estadounidense frente a México ya había significado la anexión de todo sus territorios septentrionales (Texas, Nuevo México y California). Cuando los Estados Unidos estuvieron en posición de intervenir más al sur con base en su presencia en Cuba (en plena guerra de independencia, 1895-1898) y Puerto Rico, del cual derivó en la Guerra hispano-americana (1898), se convirtieron ellos mismos en la principal potencia imperialista de la región: intervención en la crisis de Panamá de 1885; ocupación militar de Cuba después de la guerra contra España (1898) hasta su plena independencia (1902); imposición a Colombia de la separación de Panamá por Theodore Roosevelt después de la guerra de los mil días, 1903; intervención en Nicaragua 1909, contra la que se levantó Augusto Sandino; apoyo a las actividades de la United Fruit Company en las denominadas repúblicas bananeras, etc.

La poderosa oligarquía de comerciantes y hacendados desarrolló una imagen de sí misma como élite ilustrada y europeizada. Fue en el siglo XIX, y no en la época colonial anterior, cuando se produjeron: la más decisiva expansión del idioma español en Hispanoamérica (Andrés Bello) y del idioma portugués en Brasil (Joaquim Machado de Assis); y el control sobre los indígenas que habitaban territorios que el Imperio español apenas nominalmente pretendía poseer (como en la Patagonia, Ocupación de la Araucanía en Chile y Conquista del Desierto en Argentina respectivamente). Esa élite, en las grandes naciones sudamericanas, también intentó llevar a cabo la industrialización, atrayendo para ello las inversiones de capitales procedentes de Europa, sobre todo de Inglaterra, verdadera potencia neocolonial durante todo el siglo XIX. El protagonismo exterior perpetuó la dependencia económica y la inclusión de la región en la división internacional del trabajo como productora de materias primas y mercado importador de productos manufacturados. Lo limitado del progreso económico no impidió la importación de los problemas de la era industrial, creando también en Latinoamérica una a social issue that in his case was exacerbated by the multi-ethnicity of Latin America (indigenous, European and African).

In the second half of the 19th century, Latin American literature was limited to the experiments derived from European realism, and at the beginning of the 20th, to those of the avant-garde. The indigenous claim would come later, associating with the political left. The dominant intellectual movement was positivism, the philosophical current with the most significant influence in the region after the colonial Portuguese-Hispanic scholasticism, and which in political terms was more decisive than liberalism itself (Melchor Ocampo, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Honório Carneiro Leão, etc).

• Juan Manuel de Rosas, main leader of the Argentine Confederation (1835-1852).
• Pedro II, last emperor of the Empire of Brazil (1831-1889).
• Benito Juárez, president of Mexico, of radical tendency (1867-1872).

Russian expansion

Alexander I, after the defeat of Napoleon, tried to avoid any possible new revolution in Europe, while in his own territory he had to face the Decembrist Revolt (1825), easily repressed. Both he and Nicholas I (nicknamed the gendarme of Europe) strove to entrench the tsarist autocracy and prevent the economic modernization of Russia from bringing about social or political changes. Alexander II, on the other hand, undertook a series of liberalizing reforms, such as the emancipation of the serfs (1861). His reformist policy, similar to the approaches of the enlightened despotism of the 18th century, was not accepted by the supporters of radical transformations (nihilism), who opted for violence through various assassination attempts, until the final one in 1881.

The Russian Empire became the dominant territorial power in Eurasia, expanding its southern border from the Danube and the Caucasus to Central Asia, the Northwest Frontier of British India, and the far reaches of the Chinese Empire; while through the North Pacific it reached Alaska. The vast expanse of Siberia was subject to intermittent colonization. At the end of the 19th century, its isolated cores were connected to the Trans-Siberian railway between Moscow and Vladivostok (a Pacific port founded in 1860 after the Annexation of Amur).

The search for outlets to ice-free seas (its great geostrategic weakness) characterized Russian policy throughout the period, and continued to do so after the Soviet Revolution of 1917. Regarding the Balkans, these territorial interests were expressed ideologically in the Pan-Slavism, with which he sponsored the independence movements against the Ottoman Empire, a determining point of friction for European stability that was called the Eastern Question.

The British "Victorian Era"

British society moved from the Georgian era, covering the 18th century and the first third of the 19th, to the Victorian era (the exceptionally long reign of Victoria I, 1837-1901, followed without interruption by the Edwardian era of her son, the eternal Prince of Wales, Edward VII, 1901-1910). Converted by its leading role in the industrial revolution in the workshop of the world, naval supremacy made the United Kingdom the gendarme of the seas. His imperial rule was justified with a paternalistic ideology (abolition of slavery, freedom of activities for missionaries, extension of progress and scientific knowledge through geographical exploration and the benefits of free trade, etc.). The extraordinary mail network allowed the young naturalist Charles Darwin to maintain regular two-way contact with his family and teachers during his voyage on the Beagle (1831-1836).

British parliamentarism demonstrated sufficient flexibility to welcome gradual expansions of the electoral body while maintaining traditional characteristics, such as the aristocratic House of Lords and the inequality of territorial representation (industrial cities without deputies versus rotten boroughs - «rotten boroughs», constituencies of very few voters-). The majority system implied the turn in power of Tory prime ministers (conservatives, like Benjamin Disraeli, who represented the interests of the gentry or landed class) and Whigs (liberals, like William Gladstone, who represented the commercial and financial interests of the City).); although what was truly characteristic of the British political system was that instead of polarizing, both parties converged on essentials, with the Conservatives often leading the most far-reaching reforms. However, the reception of social demands was very uneven: the Chartist movement was only partially successful and eventually saw some of its labor and political demands met; while the Irish home rule movement saw its claims to self-government constantly rebuffed, and even desperate pleas for help during Ireland's great famine (1845-1849) ignored in the name of economic freedom, leading to the conviction that only radical independence would achieve results.

The "Age of Capital" and the "Age of Empire" (1848-1914)

Lenin defined imperialism as the highest stage of development of capitalism (1905); and John A. Hobson (1902) studied its relationship with population growth and the decline in the rate of profit in European countries, a phenomenon for which emigration and colonial empires served as an escape valve to reduce social tensions, whose outbreak otherwise it would have been difficult to avoid according to his study. The second half of the 19th century was undoubtedly the Age of Capital, not only for that, but also because of the appearance of Capitalby Karl Marx (1867, completed posthumously in 1885 and 1894). Tensions, however, continued to mount, however optimistic and unconcerned public opinion at the end of the 19th century trusted indefinite progress (while showing the proclivity of the nascent mass society to manipulate its most low passions and their latent violence -social resentment, class struggle, ultra-nationalism, anti-Semitism, revenge, chauvinism, jingoism, white supremacism-). After the deceitful period of peace between the great powers that lasted between 1871 and 1914 (known as the Belle Époque), the inviability of the continuity of the structures was violently revealed by the outbreak of the First World War and its far-reaching consequences.

Cuestión de Oriente, levantamientos nacionalistas y Sistema Bismarck

En la segunda mitad del siglo, la Cuestión de Oriente, las unificaciones italiana y alemana y la competencia por los repartos coloniales fueron los principales motivos de conflicto internacional, que encontraron su cauce en una nueva red de alianzas y congresos conocida como sistema Bismarck.

El complejo problema internacional de los Balcanes se remontaba a la década de 1820 con la independencia griega, que se sustanció gracias al apoyo de las potencias occidentales. A partir de entonces, la delicada situación en que quedó el Imperio otomano frente a las multiétnicas poblaciones locales fomentó los expansionismos rivales ruso y austríaco. En su búsqueda del mantenimiento del statu quo (que resultaría gravemente alterado sobre todo en el caso de que Rusia consiguiera abrirse paso hasta el Mediterráneo), Inglaterra se identificó con los intereses turcos, organizando una coalición internacional en su apoyo en la Guerra de Crimea (1853-1863). La situación no se estabilizó, y se repitieron periódicamente los conflictos: Guerra ruso-turca (1877-1878) y Guerras de los Balcanes (1912-1913); y las mediaciones internacionales (Congreso de Berlín de 1878, que recondujo el Tratado de San Stefano, muy favorable a Rusia).

Los movimientos nacionalistas se generalizaron por toda Europa Central y Oriental, en algunos casos a partir de las organizaciones surgidas en la emigración a América, de donde surgirán sus cuadros dirigentes.​

Tras de la derrota austriaca en la Guerra austro-prusiana (1867), los húngaros, que previamente se habían sublevado en 1848, se encontraron en situación de exigir al Emperador el denominado Compromiso Austrohúngaro por el que se constituyó una dúplice monarquía conocida como Imperio austrohúngaro, encauzado como expresión de la tradicional visión multinacional de los Habsburgo.

• Los Balcanes en 1899. En verde los territorios aún pertenecientes al Imperio turco.
• Distribución étnica del territorio europeo del Imperio turco hacia 1876.
• Territorios sucesivamente incorporados al Reino de Italia. En anaranjado pálido, el Reino de Piamonte-Cerdeña, fue el núcleo a partir del cual se incorporan los territorios austriacos (en verde) de Lombardía (1859) y Véneto (1866), el Reino de Nápoles (1860, en gris), los territorios de Italia central (1860, varios colores) y por último, los Estados Pontificios en torno a Roma (1870).
• El Imperio alemán unificado de 1871. En azul, el Reino de Prusia, ya había incorporado los ducados daneses de Schleswig-Holstein (1864-66). Los distintos reinos, especialmente en el sur (Reino de Baviera) mantuvieron su personalidad. Los departamentos franceses anexionados formaron el Territorio imperial de Alsacia y Lorena.

Unificaciones de Alemania e Italia

Previamente, en 1864, se había iniciado una serie de guerras, cuidadosamente diseñadas desde la cancillería prusiana por Otto von Bismarck, que impuso su visión de una pequeña Alemania frente a la posibilidad alternativa: una gran Alemania que incluyera a su rival, la monarquía austriaca. La fuerte personalidad del canciller de hierro era expresión de los intereses sociales de la clase terrateniente prusiana (junkers), comprometida con el peculiar desarrollo industrializador y la unidad de mercado que se venían desarrollando desde la Zollverein (unión aduanera de 1834) y la extensión de los ferrocarriles. Con la victoria de la coalición de estados alemanes en la Guerra franco-prusiana (1871) se llegó a la proclamación del Segundo Reich con el rey de Prusia Guillermo I como káiser.

En 1859 se había iniciado un diseño unificador similar para Italia desde el Reino de Piamonte-Cerdeña, en el que destacaron las iniciativas del Conde de Cavour, Víctor Manuel II y el decisivo apoyo francés frente a Austria. Las románticas campañas de Giuseppe Garibaldi plantearon una dimensión popular que fue neutralizada por las élites dirigentes (la burguesía industrial y financiera del norte en la Segunda Guerra de la Independencia Italiana, 1859, y la aristocracia terrateniente del sur en la Expedición de los Mil, 1860). Para 1866, tras la Tercera Guerra de la Independencia Italiana, solo quedaba la ciudad de Roma, último reducto de los Estados Pontificios cuya continuidad quedaba garantizada por el compromiso personal de Napoleón III de Francia. La caída de este en 1870 permitió la anexión final, convirtiendo al Papa Pío IX en el prisionero del Vaticano. El papado, que había condenado al liberalismo como pecado,​ mantuvo esa incómoda situación (Cuestión romana) con el Reino de Italia y la Casa de Saboya (considerada la más liberal de las casas reinantes en Europa) hasta el Tratado de Letrán, negociado con la Italia fascista de Benito Mussolini en 1929.

• Francisco José I de Austria, heredó el imperio de los Habsburgo en el momento crítico de la revolución de 1848. Su entidad multinacional le hacía el principal obstáculo tanto para la unificación alemana como para la italiana. Logradas ambas, la vocación de la dúplice monarquía (austrohúngara) fue el control de la zona danubiana y los balcanes, frente a la descomposición del Imperio otomano y el expansionismo del ruso.
• Giuseppe Garibaldi y los camisas rojas simbolizaron el sentimiento popular que llevó a la unificación italiana o risorgimento, aunque su tendencia política radical fue reconducida en beneficio de la burguesía industrial del norte y la monarquía de los Saboya.
• Richard Wagner representa estilísticamente el paso del romanticismo al nacionalismo musical, y un proceso ideológico y vital similar. Su tetralogía de óperas El anillo del nibelungo (1848-1878) recrea la mitología nórdica en beneficio de la construcción de la identidad nacional alemana. El mecenazgo del excéntrico rey Luis II de Baviera construyó para gloria suya el Teatro de la Ópera de Bayreuth. Todas las ciudades importantes del mundo civilizado construyeron edificios más o menos costosos, incluso en sitios tan alejados de Europa como Manaus o Iquitos (durante la fiebre del caucho, como se reflejó en la película Fitzcarraldo).
• Giuseppe Verdi cumplió un papel semejante en Italia. Alguna pieza de sus óperas como el Coro de los esclavos (Va, pensiero de Nabucco, 1842) se extendió popularmente como himno revolucionario. De hecho, vitorear su propio nombre (¡Viva V.E.R.D.I.!) se utilizaba clandestinamente como acrónimo de Vittorio Emmanuele Rege di Italia.

El reparto colonial

La Revolución industrial permitió a las naciones europeas un salto gigante en el arte de la guerra. El antiguo barco a vela fue superado por las naves impulsadas por carbón primero, y por petróleo después. A comienzos del siglo XIX los barcos a vapor eran una curiosidad; apenas medio siglo después se botaba al mar el primer acorazado (1856). El barco de hierro e impulsado por carbón se transformó en símbolo del Nuevo Imperialismo, hasta el punto que la política europea de imponerse por la vía directa del ultimátum militar pasó a ser motejada como diplomacia de cañonero. Los progresos de la guerra en tierra no fueron menores (ametralladora, pólvora sin humo, fusil de retrocarga). El sistema de reclutamiento del Antiguo Régimen fue sustituido por el servicio militar obligatorio, inspirado por el más puro sentido democrático de que todos los habitantes de la República deben contribuir a su defensa, lo que permitió a las naciones europeas poner en pie de guerra a ejércitos de literalmente millones de hombres, por primera vez.

El sistema internacional impulsaba a la creación de imperios. En los siglos XVI y XVII, a diferencia de la colonización de América, y la presencia en África y el Pacífico (limitada a bases costeras), la intervención europea en el continente asiático se había visto obstaculizada por grandes potencias que les impedían el paso (Imperio otomano, Gran Mogol de la India, Imperio chino e Imperio del Japón). En el siglo XVIII, varios de ellos manifestaban una franca declinación, y las potencias europeas más audaces se aprovecharon para obtener ventaja de ello. La penetración paulatina en la India sustituyó a los poderes locales con gobernantes de facto, manteniendo el Raj Mogol una autoridad puramente nominal, hasta su derrocamiento definitivo en 1857.

A estos vacíos geoestratégicos que las potencias coloniales se apresuraban a llenar fuera de Europa, se correspondía en el continente la gestión de un delicado equilibrio de poderes (Nuevo Imperialismo), que después del Congreso de Viena procuraba evitar la posibilidad de reconstruir la hegemonía de ninguna potencia con capacidad de abatir a todas sus rivales. Los nuevos territorios de ultramar significaban el acceso a nuevas fuentes de materias primas demandadas por el proceso industrializador.

Benefiting from the results of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), which expelled France from India and Canada (Franco-Indian War and Carnatic Wars), the British were able to maintain their lead in the race for world empire. At the end of the 19th century, the British Empire covered about a quarter of all land area, including many parts of Africa (Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt, South Africa, Rhodesia, etc.), India, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, Singapore and a strong influence in China. France had followed him closely; after the colonization of Algeria (1830) the colonization of Indochina began and the consolidation of its already acquired colonies (French Morocco, Madagascar, French West Africa, French Equatorial Africa, etc.). The Netherlands established their rule over Indonesia, the Caribbean and Suriname after their loss of influence in Africa. Spain lost a large part of its empire, keeping only Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines (lost to the United States in the Spanish-American War, 1898), and only managed to gain access to a small portion of the distribution of Africa (Equatorial Guinea, the Spanish Sahara and Spanish Morocco). Portugal managed to acquire Angola and Mozambique, and retain Portuguese Guinea, Macao, and Timor after the loss of its colonies in South America. Italy and Germany, belatedly unified, failed to generate large colonial empires, having to settle for domination of some islands in Polynesia and some African territories (Libya and Somalia for the Italians; Cameroon and Tanganyika for the Germans). the Caribbean and Suriname after its loss of influence in Africa. Spain lost a large part of its empire, keeping only Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines (lost to the United States in the Spanish-American War, 1898), and only managed to gain access to a small portion of the distribution of Africa (Equatorial Guinea, the Spanish Sahara and Spanish Morocco). Portugal managed to acquire Angola and Mozambique, and retain Portuguese Guinea, Macao, and Timor after the loss of its colonies in South America. Italy and Germany, belatedly unified, failed to generate large colonial empires, having to settle for domination of some islands in Polynesia and some African territories (Libya and Somalia for the Italians; Cameroon and Tanganyika for the Germans). the Caribbean and Suriname after its loss of influence in Africa. Spain lost a large part of its empire, keeping only Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines (lost to the United States in the Spanish-American War, 1898), and only managed to gain access to a small portion of the distribution of Africa (Equatorial Guinea, the Spanish Sahara and Spanish Morocco). Portugal managed to acquire Angola and Mozambique, and retain Portuguese Guinea, Macao, and Timor after the loss of its colonies in South America. Italy and Germany, belatedly unified, failed to generate large colonial empires, having to settle for domination of some islands in Polynesia and some African territories (Libya and Somalia for the Italians; Cameroon and Tanganyika for the Germans). Spain lost a large part of its empire, keeping only Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines (lost to the United States in the Spanish-American War, 1898), and only managed to gain access to a small portion of the distribution of Africa (Equatorial Guinea, the Spanish Sahara and Spanish Morocco). Portugal managed to acquire Angola and Mozambique, and retain Portuguese Guinea, Macao, and Timor after the loss of its colonies in South America. Italy and Germany, belatedly unified, did not manage to generate large colonial empires, having to settle for domination of some islands in Polynesia and some African territories (Libya and Somalia for the Italians; Cameroon and Tanganyika for the Germans). Spain lost a large part of its empire, keeping only Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines (lost to the United States in the Spanish-American War, 1898), and only managed to gain access to a small portion of the distribution of Africa (Equatorial Guinea, the Spanish Sahara and Spanish Morocco). Portugal managed to acquire Angola and Mozambique, and retain Portuguese Guinea, Macao, and Timor after the loss of its colonies in South America. Italy and Germany, belatedly unified, failed to generate large colonial empires, having to settle for domination of some islands in Polynesia and some African territories (Libya and Somalia for the Italians; Cameroon and Tanganyika for the Germans). and only managed to access a small portion of the distribution of Africa (Equatorial Guinea, the Spanish Sahara and Spanish Morocco). Portugal managed to acquire Angola and Mozambique, and retain Portuguese Guinea, Macao, and Timor after the loss of its colonies in South America. Italy and Germany, belatedly unified, failed to generate large colonial empires, having to settle for domination of some islands in Polynesia and some African territories (Libya and Somalia for the Italians; Cameroon and Tanganyika for the Germans). and only managed to access a small portion of the distribution of Africa (Equatorial Guinea, the Spanish Sahara and Spanish Morocco). Portugal managed to acquire Angola and Mozambique, and retain Portuguese Guinea, Macao, and Timor after the loss of its colonies in South America. Italy and Germany, belatedly unified, failed to generate large colonial empires, having to settle for domination of some islands in Polynesia and some African territories (Libya and Somalia for the Italians; Cameroon and Tanganyika for the Germans).

Africa was a continent almost unexplored by the European powers, and the work of colonization was preceded by diligent exploration companies; at the end of the 19th century only Liberia, Orange, Transvaal and Abyssinia remained as independent nations, each for different reasons. The great beneficiary of the African partition was Leopold II of Belgium, who, basing himself on a philanthropic reputation (which in practice meant the most atrocious exploitation techniques) managed to acquire a large empire in the Congo that he bequeathed to the Belgian people. France and England competed for a continuous empire (from coast to coast) for which they collided in the Fashoda incident (Sudan, 1898), the possibility of building it corresponding to the British after the German defeat in the First World War,

In India there was a massive popular uprising against the British presence (Rebellion of India or Rebellion of the Sepoys in 1857), which led to the dissolution of the East India Company and its direct annexation to the Crown as the Raj or Empire of India. India. The penetration attempts in Afghanistan, in the midst of the great game against the Russians for territorial control of what was defined as the pivot areaof Eurasia were ineffective, making Afghanistan a buffer state. Siam (now Thailand) also managed to retain its independence as a buffer state between the UK and France in Southeast Asia. The expansion of Burma triggered the Anglo-Burmese Wars, which resulted in its annexation by the British Empire under the name of British Burma. In China, the Opium Wars meant the effective colonial submission of the Celestial Empire, weakened internally (to a large extent, due to the very consumption of opium whose attempted prohibition caused the war, in the name of free trade) as well as the loss of territory (Hong Kong in the First Opium War and Kowloon in the Second Opium War). In 1853 an American squadron commanded by Commodore Matthew Perry reached Yedo Bay and wrested from the Tokugawa Shogunate a treaty by which the Japanese were forced to open up to international trade (Treaty of Kanagawa, 1854) which triggered the Boshin War and the later Meiji Restoration. In his case, instead of condemning them to colonialism, it meant a nationalist revulsion that led to the Meiji Era and modernization.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the entire world was ruled from Europe or the United States. In 1885, the Berlin Conference divided the world among the European powers without those distributed having a voice or a vote.

Racism was a widely held intellectual stance. It was even claimed that the conquest of the inhabited world was the "sacred mission of the white man", to bring civilization to the savages. For the 19th century European it was natural to think that other races were by nature inferior (white supremacy). Ironically, Darwinism came to provide new arguments for this position, since the white man was very seriously considered by some to be the pinnacle of human evolution. The epitome of this ideology was the belief in the intrinsic superiority of the 'Nordic race', which would end up having stark consequences in the next century.

Positivism and "eternal progress"

From the middle of the 19th century, intellectual life shifted again, from the idealistic position typical of romanticism, to an objectivist one linked to scientific development. The success of the European imperialist powers in spreading over the planet led to the conviction that European culture was the epitome of civilization. Science and technology were reaching a level of development and feedback that has subsequently been defined as the interdependence of science, technology and society. Immense faith was placed in science. It was thought that the progress of humanity was unstoppable, and that with time, science would solve all economic and social problems. This philosophical dogma was called positivism (Auguste Comte, Course in Positive Philosophy, 1830-1842).

Confidence in the Newtonian paradigm was answered with the discovery of the planet Neptune (1846) or the predictive elegance of the periodic table of elements (Dmitri Mendeléyev, 1869). If thermodynamics owed more to the steam engine than the other way around,The same could no longer be said for the Bessemer converter, photography, the internal combustion engine, or the various applications of electricity. If the smallpox vaccine was the successful application of an ancient rural tradition, Louis Pasteur's vaccines (anthrax, 1881, rabies, 1885) were the fruit of conscious microbiology. Georges Cuvier, James Clerk Maxwell or Lord Kelvin, like many other great scientists, were as publicly admired as the Renaissance artists had been. Alfred Nobel's will (1896), the confessed fruit of his bad conscience for a life dedicated to explosives (he invented dynamite), responded precisely to that spirit with the institution of the Nobel Prizes, which are still the world benchmark of scientific excellence.

In 1859, after more than two decades of reflection that he only dared to interrupt at the spur of being advanced by Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. Although evolutionary ideas were already present in the scientific debate (Linnaeus, Buffon, Lamarck), the idea of ​​natural selection as a mechanism was the key to its explanatory power. The controversy that it generated has not yet ceased to produce consequences (nothing makes sense in biology if it is not in the light of evolution). The so-called social Darwinism, which used a biased reading of evolutionism, saw in concepts such as the struggle for life and survival of the fittestthe justification of prejudices disguised as social-scientific theories (Herbert Spencer).

Jules Verne's early novels, using the background of the adventure story, are a glorification of science and technology (Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, From the Earth to the Moon, Around the World in eighty days). The later Verne wrote much darker accounts, emphasizing the dangers of uncontrolled science (The Begun's Five Hundred Million, The Barsac Mission), while his contemporary Herbert George Wells did something similar (The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The Island of Doctor Moureau orThe Time Machine). Also on the flip side of optimism, literary realism and, above all, naturalism reacted against the sentimental excesses of late romanticism by constructing a supposedly scientific and objective literature, which studied the social problems of the time (Émile Zola and his denunciation of the injustices of industrialization: Naná, Germinal, etc.).

The settlement of the liberal revolution

Industrial and financial capitalism. second industrial revolution

The free trade policy replaced, at least in part, the protectionism of the mercantilist era, although international trade exchanges were mainly governed by the so-called colonial pact that reserved the colonies as a captive market for their respective metropolises. Even so, the barriers to trade and investment on a planetary scale were substantially lower than at any previous time. Successful entrepreneurs were no longer limited by the national market when it came to investing and seeking profit.

Industrialization and the development of new techniques entered in the last third of the 19th century in a second phase of the industrial revolution that opened new markets for resources that until then had no use, such as oil and rubber. In certain cases, the extraordinary demand generated real fevers (saltpeter fever in the north of Chile, after the War of the Pacific, rubber feverin the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon). The entire world thus became a huge and vast global market, thus creating for the first time an international trade network on a literally global scale, not only because of its geographical scope, but also because of the interconnection between the different products that were traded throughout the world. across the planet, serving some as raw materials for others and lengthening production chains, making them more intricate and interdependent.

The legal figures of companies became more sophisticated, allowing the dissolution of the individual liability of the entrepreneur in liability limited to his capital contribution (in the United Kingdom since 1855, in France since 1863), allowing the accumulation of numerous private capitals in public limited companies that were constituted in large industrial, mercantile, railway, shipping, financial corporations, etc. that exceeded the capacity of any family fortune, even the fabulous amassed by the Barings, the Grosvenors, the Rothschilds, the Pereires, the Vanderbilts, etc. The concentration of companies took sophisticated forms (cartel, trust, holding) that increasingly distanced ownership from management (entrusted to executives accountable to members of the board of directors) and from direct production.

The industrial powers of Western Europe began to experience competition from a later, but much more accelerated, industrialization space: Germany (unified economically since the Zollverein of 1834 and politically since 1870). A similar behavior had Japan (since the Meiji restoration, 1866) and the United States (since the victory of the North in the American Civil War, 1865). Southern and Eastern Europe had a slower and more localized industrialization in isolated pockets (Lombardy in Italy, the Basque Country and Catalonia in Spain, Bohemia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and various nuclei in the vast Russia).

The individualist ideology and the limits to political power configured the United States, in continuous territorial and demographic expansion, as the most suitable place for the development of industrial and financial capitalism, despite its greater mistrust of the constitution of the legal figures developed in Europe. Despite this, the great fortunes that emerged in the oil and steel industries (David Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie) managed to constitute true monopolies. Other powerful business groups emerged in the tertiary sector: the journalistic empire of William Randolph Hearst or the first film studios (the most prominent being those located in Hollywood). The need for technological scientific innovation demanded the overcoming of inventions as an inspiration or individualistic genius:invention workshop in which the common research project mattered, not the figure of the inventor. The fear that monopolies would destroy the ideal of free enterprise (individual private entrepreneurs in the framework of a free market) was widely shared. The idea of ​​concentration of economic power was as threatening as that of concentration of political power, and monopoly was associated with tyranny. Antitrust laws were enacted, and even Rockefeller was put on trial. His firm, the Standard Oil Company (Esso), was sentenced to break up in 1911. However, these actions did not prevent capital from concentrating in the hands of a select club of billionaires during the 19th to 20th centuries, and modern transnationals were created.

The workforce of the leading sectors could no longer be the undifferentiated proletariat without professional qualifications of the mature sectors (which remained in the majority until much later). Henry Ford had to pay workers on his assembly line wages far higher than those in the rest of the industry; argued that it was the best way to convert them into customers who could buy a car, the typical consumer good of the second industrial revolution (the Benz prototype appeared in 1886 and the Ford T began to be produced in 1908 - until 1927, more than 15 million units-).

The application of electricity to all aspects of daily life, from the telephone to lighting, even changed the shape and size of cities. Two new forms of movement: the vertical elevator and the horizontal electric tram (both due in part to Frank Julian Sprague, 1887 and 1892), allowed homes to move away from workplaces, buildings to rise to unsuspected heights (the businesses and homes of the wealthy were no longer limited to the first floorand penthouses, previously reserved for the poor, became the most valued) and neighborhoods became socially diversified. Chicago was the first city to experience the new model, thanks to its reconstruction after the fire of 1871. The London Underground (inaugurated in 1863) was electrified from 1890, and from then on this model of urban mobility spread throughout the largest cities of the world. The construction of the Suez Canal was a milestone in engineering as it was the first modern artificial route to link two seas (the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea), shortening the journey between Europe and Asia. The way of supplying the electric fluid unleashed a war of currentsbetween Westinghouse (Nikola Tesla) and General Electric (Thomas Edison), one of whose most morbid episodes was Edison's sponsorship of the electric chair (1890) to demonstrate the dangers of alternating current generated by his competitor.

The social question and the labor movement

Socialism and anarchism

The serious social crisis found a response at the doctrinal level in alternative ideologies to liberalism.

One group of those responses were those identifiable with the term anarchism (Greek for 'no bosses'). The anarchists preached that the coercive rules in themselves were disastrous, and that they should be abolished completely, in particular the State, which would be sustained by coercion and thus manages to impose a monopolistic bourgeois economy, to derive a society where human beings regulate themselves by way of entirely private contracts. It was divided into several aspects, basically the evolutionary and the revolutionary.. One of them, of a pacifist nature, embodied among others by Leo Tolstoy, argued that anarchist society should be reached by non-violent means (pacifist anarchism), and tried to create exemplary communities of this model of society. Another aspect, advocated by Mijaíl Bakunin or Piotr Kropotkin (anarcho-communism), held that governments should be overthrown by force, making insurrectionary methods a method of fighting against the oppression of governments, having greater implantation in Southern and Eastern Europe. (mainly in Spain, France and Russia) in the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th. The use of violence by individuals or small terrorist groups justified by the rhetoric of direct action andpropaganda for the fact gave rise to numerous assassinations and attacks against employers, and served in turn to justify the harsh repressive response against all kinds of labor organizations (violent or not) by the states. The mainstream of the anarchist movement focused on trade union strategy (anarcho-syndicalism).

Otras fueron las distintas modalidades del socialismo. A comienzos del siglo XIX, una serie de pensadores o activistas políticos imaginaron utopías sociales para la redistribución de los bienes o diferentes prácticas de producción comunitaria para evitar la diferenciación social (Henri de Saint-Simon, Robert Owen, Charles Fourier, Louis Blanc, Louis Auguste Blanqui, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, etc.). Karl Marx los calificó despectivamente de socialistas utópicos, por sostener que sus modelos no eran sostenibles en la realidad, en contraposición a sus propias ideas, a las que calificó de socialismo científico. Marx también despreciaba la función intelectual del filósofo (los filósofos han interpretado el mundo de diferentes maneras, pero de lo que se trata es de transformarlo),and sought social commitment with the organizations of the labor movement, with which he identified. His famous motto From him Workers of the world, unite! , within the Communist Manifesto that he wrote together with Friedrich Engels, was published in London on the same day that the 1848 Revolution broke out in Paris.

Despite the initial failure of the movement, he continued with the activities of forming the First International (1864) in collaboration with Bakunin, from whom he would finally end up separating due to his deep ideological and political discrepancies. Intellectually he worked continuously on his key work, Capital, of which he published a first part and left the second unfinished. Marxism, from a critical intellectual analysis of the political economy of classical liberalism and inspired philosophically by German idealism (Friedrich Hegel's dialectic), and socially by the social criticism of the utopians and by the practice of the labor movement's struggle; He arrived at a conception of history (historical materialism) that included a strategic design of action and an ambitious plan for the future (simplified in the vulgarizations spread by propagandists such as Paul Lafargue and later systematized in Soviet dialectical materialism): It would begin with the taking of consciousness on the part of the proletariat (class consciousness) that only he himself could be the protagonist of his own emancipation, and that this could only come from the class struggle against the owners of the means of production (the owners of capital or capitalists: the bourgeoisie). A historical determinism would inevitably lead to the intensification of the contradictions inherent in capitalism, so that the workers would impose themselves through a proletarian revolution that would give them power. That political power, together with the economic power that the expropriation of the means of production would give them, would be used to transform society through the dictatorship of the proletariat, a phase prior to the complete abolition of the State and the construction of a communist society, without classes. social, in which a A historical determinism would inevitably lead to the intensification of the contradictions inherent in capitalism, so that the workers would impose themselves through a proletarian revolution that would give them power. That political power, together with the economic power that the expropriation of the means of production would give them, would be used to transform society through the dictatorship of the proletariat, a phase prior to the complete abolition of the State and the construction of a communist society, without classes. social, in which a A historical determinism would inevitably lead to the intensification of the contradictions inherent in capitalism, so that the workers would impose themselves through a proletarian revolution that would give them power. That political power, together with the economic power that the expropriation of the means of production would give them, would be used to transform society through the dictatorship of the proletariat, a phase prior to the complete abolition of the State and the construction of a communist society, without classes. social, in which anew man.

After the renewal of the International in 1889 (Second International), Marxist ideas were adapted by numerous political actors from two opposing approaches: the revolutionaries (Rosa Luxemburg in Germany, Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Russia, later called Soviet Communists), who proposed the need to go towards the proletarian revolution through an insurrectionary strategy designed by a leading minority (the party) that would act as a revolutionary vanguard; and the revisionists (Eduard Bernstein) who understood that political participation, without an immediate perspective of proletarian revolution, could lead to the improvement of social conditions for the benefit of the working class. In Germany, as a response to the regime of Otto von Bismarck, German Social Democracy arose, channeled into parliamentary channels. In France, with the alternation between the monarchical and republican movements, the latter formed the so-called moderate republicans, of which they would be the base of the French left. In England, from similar moderate approaches, the Fabian Society and the unions (Trade Unions) would make up Labour.

• Proudhon and his sons, by Gustave Courbet (1865). He was one of those considered utopian socialists by later, self-styled scientists. However, scientific observation versus romantic daydreams was one of Proudhon's postulates.
• Karl Marx, who for his ideas on politics and economics, which was the ideological basis of the socialist movements in the world, became the highest reference of communism.
• Mijaíl Bakunin, one of the most outstanding person among those who raised the application of anarchism.
• William Morris, artist and intellectual, without linking himself ideologically or organically to Marxism or anarchism, approaches the labor movement like many other social reformers.

Social question and social laws

The social question, that is, the awareness of the serious situation of the lower classes, and their perception as a threat by the middle and upper classes, had become a topic. The scarce palliative means of traditional charity, the paternalism of many businessmen and the calls for social justice by religious institutions or other types of humanitarian associations, did not seem sufficient given the magnitude of the masses degraded to the condition of the lumpenproletariat.. Even from bourgeois political positions(conservative, reformist or liberal) the need for laws (labour law) was raised to protect workers from the most serious consequences of pauperism and social degradation, despite the fact that such a thing was incompatible with the concept of a minimal liberal state or with respect to the literal nature of the proposals of classical economics. From dates as early as 1830, albeit sporadically and inorganically, child labor was prohibited or limited; and much later, different types of sanitary controls or occupational safety and labor inspection were established. With the same logic, breaks were established on Sundays and holidays, maximum working hours,minimum wages and all types of social insurance: disability, illness, old age and unemployment; as well as policies of social content such as compulsory schooling. In many countries, trade union activity, the prohibition of which was a requirement of free contracting necessary for the free market, was gradually being allowed to become legal (right of association, right to strike), in the same way that the prohibitions on business associations. In any case, both of them had been welcomed in other institutions (montepíos, clubs of all kinds, chambers of commerce, etc.).

The first organic body of protective laws for workers was introduced in Germany between 1870 and 1880 at the initiative of Otto von Bismarck, who despite his social origin in the Prussian aristocracy and his support among the capitalist bourgeoisie, understood the need to politically combat the socialists by depriving them of their main causes for complaint and achieving social stability and national cohesion of the new unified state, which like all Europeans and Americans, was implementing universal suffrage. A state that recognizes the poorest the same capacity for political decision as the richest, for his own safety is forced to ensure that he too can exercise his freedom in minimal conditions of human dignity. It is the so-called social state,

Mass society

The nineteenth century, as a product of industrialization, saw the emergence of modern mass society, as opposed to the old division between a small aristocratic elite and the great mass of the lower people. This happened because the costs of production of merchandise fell, leaving production available to new social actors, the middle class, with new economic means from the liberal professions, and who were therefore able to ascend socially. The new inventions would have an unprecedented impact on society, such as the packaging of food in cans (initially developed by Nicolás Appert for the Napoleonic army), which allowed new social classes to access new sources of food, or the cinematograph of Auguste and Louis Lumiere,

This was helped by the introduction, throughout the 19th century, of the compulsory primary education system, which tended to drastically reduce illiteracy rates in Europe (although not eradicate it). The greater number of reading public encouraged the development of the written press, including phenomena such as the yellow press. Modern printing methods, meanwhile, allowed book production to increase. At the beginning of the 19th century, the book of poems El corsarioby Lord Byron became the first book in history with an initial print run of over 10,000 copies. A new form of popular literature also developed, the feuilleton, a hybrid between the written press and the old novel, which was published in installments in newspapers. Through the serial, works such as The Mysteries of Paris by Eugène Sue, The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, Les Miserables by Víctor Hugo or David Copperfield and Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens were released. At the end of the century, at the initiative of the aforementioned Victor Hugo, the first international conventions on copyright emerged.

All these new events, of course, covered only European society, and to a lesser extent that of America. In the rest of the world, subjected to European colonial rule, the new living conditions reached only the European social class, while the natives continued to live the meager lifestyle they had inherited from long ago.

Victorian morals, invented traditions and imagined communities

The most notorious characteristic of the social mores of the time was moral puritanism, whose maximum symbol was embodied in Queen Victoria (according to Lytton Strachey, this trait was only accentuated after the death of her husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, in 1861), characterized by an exacerbation of moral principles, and in the systematic repression of passions, particularly those of a sexual nature.

Any behavioral deviation was qualified as licentiousness, whose social presence was also notorious: this is the case of Oscar Wilde, who paid for his literary and personal defiance of social conventions with a prison sentence. Moral purity as a social ideal hid an evident hypocrisy or double standard, denounced by Strachey himself (Eminent Victorians) and by the founder of psychoanalysis, the Austrian Sigmund Freud, who interpreted mental illness and neurosis as stemming from sexual repression. The real figure of Jack the Ripper shows to what extent the sordidness of the world of prostitution in port alleys was not alien to the characters of London's high society. In the world of fiction, the same dual reality is brilliantly represented with The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde, 1890), The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (RL Stevenson, 1886) or Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897).

In France, theoretically much more relaxed customs, Gustave Flaubert and Charles Baudelaire had to face legal proceedings against Madame Bovary and The Flowers of Evil (both from 1857). The apparent joie de vivre and the vaudeville atmosphere in the libertine Paris of Naná (Émile Zola, 1889) did not fail to also present a dark side that pushed the search for The artificial paradises (Charles Baudelaire, 1860) by The poets cursed (Paul Verlaine, 1888).

Paradoxically, the traditions in the name of whose values ​​moral or political censorship was exercised, and the national identities of all countries were built, were largely invented, and the communities themselves, imagined. Such a condition did not detract from their effectiveness, quite the contrary, it demanded great social energy and the application of ideological mechanisms of all kinds, such as the great monumental programs that immortalized national glories and examples of virtuous life in stone and bronze.

Abolition of slavery

At the beginning of the 19th century, slavery was an institution in decline in the Western world, as a logical corollary of the enlightened and revolutionary principle of equality before the law of all human beings without exception. Following the initiative of the United Kingdom (1807-1834), motivated by its interest in becoming guardian of the oceans, many nations joined the campaign to abolish slavery, through the prohibition of the slave trade, the intermediate step called freedom of the womb (the children of slaves would be born free, with which slavery would become extinct over the years), or total abolition.

United States Civil War

The greatest resistance against the abolitionist movement occurred in the United States, whose southern states were dominated by a ruling class based on slave-oriented plantation agriculture for the export of cotton; while the northern states had begun industrialization. Although it can be argued whether abolitionism was the fundamental cause of the war or a pretext, the truth is that the abolitionist flag was hoisted by the North during the United States Civil War (1861-1865), and rejected by the states of the South., who sought to create the union of the Confederate States of America. After this war, slavery was abolished (Emancipation Proclamation, enacted in 1863 and entered into force in 1865), although racial discrimination persisted, through a segregation in institutional practice (primarily in the defeated states) and everyday life that did not begin to be decisively overcome until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. As a situation of social inequality, it is still present even with the first black president Barack Obama, elected in 2008.

• General Robert E. Lee formally surrenders to General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865, ending the Confederate States of America.
• Signing of the Slave Emancipation Act by President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War (painting by Francis Bicknell Carpenter, 1864).
• Despite the abolition, the situation of blacks, especially in the southern states, was not equal, both due to social practices and the promulgation of segregationist laws. Still from the film The Birth of a Nation (DW Griffith, 1915), where the antagonists are blacks and abolitionists, and the protagonists are the ladies and gentlemen of the South, who to defend themselves against an infamous Yankee oppression form the Ku Klux Klan.

Abolition in other countries

Spain was the last of the advanced countries to abolish slavery, a fundamental part of the economic and social structure of its colonies in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, which underwent an independence process in the last third of the 19th century. The Moret or free wombs law is from 1870, and the definitive abolition of slavery occurred in 1886.

In Russia, where there were no slaves, there was the institution of serfdom, which was abolished by the Emancipatory Reform of 1861 (Tsar Alexander II), not without problems and resistance.

In Brazil, when slavery was abolished through the Golden Law (1888), presented by the daughter of Pedro II, Isabel I de Bragança, it had a strong opposition that contributed to the fact that republican groups under the command of Deodoro da Fonseca decided to overthrow the monarchy, ending with the Proclamation of the Republic of Brazil (1889).

The emancipation of women

Demographic changes and production needs reserved for women in industrial society a much more active social role than in pre-industrial society. However, during the 19th century, her traditional role persisted, relegated to the world of the home and the intimacy of the family, and her public visibility was limited to being a bargaining chip in marriage alliances or a luxury vehicle for rich husbands; while lower-class women only had access to jobs of lesser consideration than those of men, and their conjugal submission was even more degrading. The possibility of a female adult life outside of marriage was still reserved almost exclusively for nuns and prostitutes.

Already at the end of the 18th century there were women who advocated female emancipation, such as the English writer Mary Wollstonecraft, or the French revolutionary Olimpia de Gougues (she proposed a Declaration of the Rights of Women and of the Citizen as a complement to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen). But they were isolated and marginal cases, even intensely combated: the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein) had to escape from the United Kingdom in order to live her romance with Percy Shelley. The women who wanted to publish (George Sand, Emily Brontë, Fernán Caballero) had to hide their feminine condition under masculine pseudonyms; like the first university students, who had to cross-dress.

A finales del siglo XIX, surgió un intenso movimiento social a favor de la equiparación de derechos entre hombres y mujeres, que encontró su bandera en la conquista del derecho a voto (sufragismo). A partir de 1902 se admitió el derecho a voto femenino en Nueva Zelanda, y luego en otras naciones, sobre todo tras la Primera Guerra Mundial, cuando el movimiento de emancipación femenina cobró verdadera fuerza, al haberse evidenciado su papel clave en el mantenimiento del esfuerzo bélico sustituyendo la mano de obra masculina. No obstante, la defensa de los derechos de la mujer, o su planteamiento literario, por intelectuales progresistas como Bertrand Russell, Bernard Shaw o August Strindberg seguía siendo ácidamente criticada desde la postura social mayoritaria (incluso entre la mayoría de las mujeres). La época en que hombres y mujeres pudieran relacionarse en pie de igualdad comenzaba a vislumbrarse solo entre muy reducidas minorías intelectuales (Virginia Woolf y el Círculo de Bloomsbury).

Descristianización y renovación del cristianismo

Gott ist tot

Dios ha muerto.

Frase original de Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, fue popularizada por Friedrich Nietzsche en Así hablaba Zaratustra, 1883.

En el siglo XVIII, la Iglesia católica había combatido fuertemente a la Ilustración, censurando la Enciclopedia, la totalidad de la obra de Voltaire y otras que se incluyeron en el Index Librorum Prohibitorum (índice de libros prohibidos). La relación con la Revolución francesa fue aún más violenta. En el siglo XIX, el catolicismo se significó como fuerza conservadora (ultramontana), condenando el liberalismo, el racionalismo y otras doctrinas y usos del mundo contemporáneo, del que mostraba distante, proponiéndose como su alternativa mediante el mantenimiento de la tradición. Se definieron como dogma de fe las doctrinas de la infalibilidad del Papa (Concilio Vaticano I, 1869) y la Inmaculada Concepción (1854). La opción por la fe y los milagros quedó manifiesta con el apoyo vaticano a las apariciones de la Virgen de Lourdes (1858, aprobadas en 1862).

Los nuevos descubrimientos científicos que parecían contradecir a las Sagradas Escrituras, como la teoría darwinista (El origen de las especies, 1859; El origen del hombre, 1871), tuvieron gran repercusión, y en este caso fueron mucho más combatidos en el ámbito religioso anglicano y protestante que en el católico; donde no hubo pronunciamiento oficial alguno, e incluso en algunos casos permitió explorar las perspectivas que abrían, aunque no sin problemas (caso del jesuita Teilhard de Chardin). Otro caso de ambigua relación entre ciencia y fe fue la polémica sobre la generación espontánea, paradigma biológico de lo que científicos católicos como Pasteur consideraban como ciencia orientada a la justificación del agnosticismo y cuestionaron con éxito.​

En los países católicos del sur de Europa, la desamortización (1836, en España) privó del poder económico a la Iglesia. El movimiento nacionalista italiano finalmente consiguió que los Estados Pontificios desaparecieran para formar parte de una Italia unificada (1870). En Alemania, el Papa estimuló el duro enfrentamiento de los católicos del sur (organizados políticamente en el Zentrum) contra la Kulturkampf dirigida por el prusiano Otto von Bismarck. En Francia, la polarización de la opinión pública en los temas de la separación Iglesia-Estado (ley de 1905) y el antisemitismo del Caso Dreyfus (1894-1906) llevó a una parte considerable de grupos católicos a convertirse en fuerzas de extrema derecha (Action française).

Movimientos religiosos disidentes, muchos de ellos vehículos del activismo social o de la identificación grupal, (metodismo, cuáqueros, mormones, etc.) se extendieron por la cristiandad protestante, cuya unidad nunca había sido monolítica, pero cuyas confesiones mayoritarias se habían institucionalizado como iglesias nacionales identificadas con el poder político y las clases dominantes (episcopalianismo).

En la cristiandad ortodoxa, especialmente en Rusia, también sometida a las dudas de fe de los intelectuales (Fiódor Dostoyevski) y a la difusión entre el pueblo del anticlericalismo del movimiento obrero, los movimientos místicos y milenaristas de antiguo origen (viejos creyentes, jlystý) mantenían su capacidad de movilización popular frente a la mayoritaria Iglesia oficial controlada por el zar, y en alguna ocasión produjeron fenómenos de gran repercusión (Grigori Rasputín).

Aunque el siglo XIX marcó uno de los momentos más débiles del papado, la causa de la religión católica estaba muy lejos de haber sido derrotada, y lo mismo puede decirse de las distintas confesiones protestantes, que también se enfrentaban a los desafíos del materialismo dominante en la sociedad industrial. Más allá de una minoría intelectual de entre los profesionales liberales o de los obreros con conciencia de clase, la gran mayoría de la sociedad, desde las clases dirigentes hasta las clases bajas, pasando por las clases medias, estaban muy lejos de considerarse ateas. Un ingrediente clave de la moral victoriana fue su sustrato religioso, imprescindible para la cohesión social, extremo del que era consciente el propio Marx, autor de la expresión opio del pueblo con la que motejaba a la religión. Incluso se ha argumentado que la religión, como fuerza conservadora, cumplía un papel que vital en la resistencia a la gran transformación que supuso la embestida del mercado contra las instituciones tradicionales.​ No solo las tradicionales instituciones de caridad, sino la organización del sindicalismo católico y la doctrina social de la Iglesia (Rerum novarum, 1891) se presentaron como una alternativa tanto al capitalismo liberal como al movimiento obrero revolucionario.

Even European imperialist expansion was justified as a way of bringing civilization to the savages, an extension of the evangelizing enterprise and similar to that used by the just titles of Spanish rule in Latin America. Such an argument was used in the opposite direction from the resistance to the sending of recruits to Morocco in the War of Melilla during the Tragic Week in Barcelona, ​​which degenerated into the burning of churches due to the strong anticlerical nature of the movement (1909):Against the sending to war of citizens useful for production and, in general, indifferent to the triumph of the cross over the crescent, when regiments of priests and friars could be formed who, in addition to being interested in the success of religion Catholic, they have no family, no home, nor are they of any use to the country.

Armed peace and the Belle Époque

The end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 initiated a realignment of political forces in Europe. England and France, enemies since Napoleonic times and rivals in the colonial race, had joined forces, in particular since the end of the Crimean War in 1856, to support the Ottoman Empire and prevent Russia from leaving the Mediterranean Sea. To counteract this and prevent French revenge, Otto von Bismarck, the Chancellor of Germany, forged ties with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which he had defeated in 1866. When Italy was included in the system in 1881, the so-called Triple Alliance was born. Bismarck managed to make the game of alliances based on secret diplomacy, together with the frequent convening of international congresses and all kinds of contacts, make it impossible for the Western powers to approach Russia, with the risk for Germany of a war on two fronts. This so-calledThe Bismarck system broke down at the end of the century, after the chancellor lost the confidence of the new kaiser, William II, who was in favor of more energetic actions in foreign policy, even at the risk of provoking the suspicion of the United Kingdom, whose naval superiority he began to challenge. The Triple Entente between France, the United Kingdom and Russia was established from 1904 (Entente Cordiale) and 1907 (Anglo-Russian Entente, after reaching an agreement of areas of influence in Central Asia). This was essentially the configuration of the two blocs that in a few years would face each other in the First World War.

The colonial empires had reached their maximum expansion for lack of new lands to conquer. Any attempt to impose itself on rival powers was to crush them in a total war. Between 1871 and 1914, with the exception of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), Europe lived in a peace known as the armed peace. A fast arms race not only increased the human troops mobilized and in reserve, the number and tonnage of warships or the arsenals of traditional weapons and equipment, but also developed new technological applications (machine gun, barbed wire, toxic gases), which made the next war very different from, and much more devastating than, the Napoleonic-type wars that European generals were accustomed to playing in their strategy rooms. The Great War from 1914 to 1918 ended definitively, not only with the Bismarck system, but also with the European balance stemming from the Congress of Vienna and with all the other partial survivals of the Old Regime.(...) it happened that the accumulation of wars of the seventh decade of the nineteenth century was followed, like the general war of 1792-1815, by half a century of peace, also general, only interrupted by some local wars of a semi-colonial nature: the Russo- Turkish of 1877-1878, the Spanish-American of 1898; the South African from 1899-1902; the Russian-Japanese of 1904-1905. These last wars at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th did not allow us to discern the general tendency of the war in the Western world at the time, because each one of them was fought between only two belligerents and none in regions close to the center of the Western world.. Hence the terrible transformation in the character of war brought about by the introduction of the new driving force of industrialism and democracy took our generation by surprise in 1914.

study of history

The "Thirty Years Crisis" (1914-1945)

Such denomination, due to the historian Arno Mayer (paraphrasing the title of a study by EH Carr practically contemporary to the facts),It refers to the three critical decades that include the two world wars and the convulsive period between the wars, with the decomposition of the Austro-Hungarian, Turkish and Russian Empires; the exacerbation of social tensions that led to armed conflicts such as the Mexican and Russian revolutions and the so-called Spanish Revolution simultaneously with the Civil War, and internal wars such as the Anglo-Irish War, whose ceasefire triggered a civil war in Ireland after of having obtained independence; the crisis of the capitalist system manifested from the Black Thursday of 1929; and the rise of fascism and authoritarian political systems; At the same time that the first Social States of Law were developed, such as the Weimar Republic, social pact practices such as the Matignon Agreements, and the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes (divergent from classical liberalism) are applied in the interventionist programs of the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The corresponding intellectual crisis became manifest in the revolutionary changes of scientific paradigms and in the aesthetic revolution of the avant-gardes. The awareness of having entered a radically new world spread, in which the traditional social order had been subverted forever, and characterized by the protagonism of the masses before which the elites sought new forms of control (concept of The corresponding intellectual crisis became manifest in the revolutionary changes of scientific paradigms and in the aesthetic revolution of the avant-gardes. The awareness of having entered a radically new world spread, in which the traditional social order had been subverted forever, and characterized by the protagonism of the masses before which the elites sought new forms of control (concept of The corresponding intellectual crisis became manifest in the revolutionary changes of scientific paradigms and in the aesthetic revolution of the avant-gardes. The awareness of having entered a radically new world spread, in which the traditional social order had been subverted forever, and characterized by the protagonism of the masses before which the elites sought new forms of control (concept ofManufacturing consent by journalist Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays, Freud's nephew, who applied the techniques of psychoanalysis to advertising and public relations in dynamic American society; works of great intellectual height, such as The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler or The Revolt of the Masses by José Ortega y Gasset).

The First World War and its consequences

On June 28, 1914, a minor international incident, the Sarajevo bombing (the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria), provoked a crisis that gave the Austro-Hungarian Empire a pretext to pressure Serbia through an ultimatum that triggered the activation of a complex network of defensive pacts: Serbia had it with Russia in the event of a war against Austria-Hungary, this with Germany in the event of a war against Russia, and this in turn with the United Kingdom and France in the event of a war with Germany. Within a few days, the major powers were immersed in a general war that was not limited to Europe, but involved all the inhabited continents and lasted until 1918.

A pesar de lo autodestructivo que el episodio resultó para todos los agentes implicados, la guerra, largamente preparada y en algunos casos deseada, fue ampliamente popular en su inicio, no resultando difícil la movilización de enormes contingentes de soldados, que acudían al frente en medio de un ambiente festivo. Incluso buena parte del movimiento obrero, doctrinalmente pacifista e internacionalista, se fragmentó siguiendo las fronteras nacionales, apoyando cada partido socialista local a su correspondiente gobierno en el esfuerzo de guerra, y en muchos casos participando activamente en las tareas que les fueron encomendadas bajo gobiernos de concentración. Solo avanzado el conflicto, ante la magnitud de la destrucción física y moral de generaciones enteras de jóvenes (16 millones de muertos, a los que se añadieron los de la llamada gripe española) y un impresionante número de mutilados, además de la desorientación vital, social e intelectual a la que se enfrentaron los supervivientes marcados por tan penosa experiencia, pasó a considerarse la Gran Guerra como la mayor catástrofe sufrida hasta entonces por la humanidad.

El Imperio alemán se jugó la baza del Plan Schlieffen, que implicaba una maniobra de tenazas que acorralara en el frente occidental a los franceses (como había ocurrido en la batalla de Sedán de 1870), después de lo cual podrían volverse para repeler a los rusos en el frente oriental. La invasión de la neutral Bélgica se cumplió con rapidez, pero la penetración en territorio francés quedó frenada por la eficaz resistencia franco-británica (el llamado milagro del Marne, septiembre de 1914). A pesar de que la artillería alemana llegó a bombardear París (los Pariser Kanonen o Gran Berta) el frente quedó estacionario en una desgastante guerra de trincheras cuya puntual intensificación careció siempre de resultados decisivos (batalla de Verdún, diciembre de 1916).

Italia no se consideró obligada a responder a su vinculación a la Triple Alianza, y de hecho un año más tarde declaró la guerra a los Imperios Centrales (denominación del bando formado por Alemania, Austria-Hungría, Bulgaria y el Imperio otomano) en la confianza de obtener algún tipo de incorporación territorial en el frente italiano.

En el frente oriental, el inicial avance ruso fue espectacularmente replicado, en medio de gravísimas dificultades internas que llevaron al estallido de la Revolución rusa de 1917. A pesar de que inicialmente no supusieron la salida de Rusia de la guerra (periodo de Kérenski), se impuso como inevitable en el periodo siguiente (la petición de pan, paz y todo el poder a los soviets era el lema bolchevique, y el propio Lenin había conseguido entrar en Rusia gracias al apoyo alemán, que le permitió cruzar su territorio en un vagón sellado).

The advantage obtained with the suppression of the eastern front was not decisive, because from the same year 1917 the United States had entered the conflict in support of its commercial allies (France and especially the United Kingdom), with the argument of responding to the submarine warfare. Germany could not continue with the war effort and, once the western front was broken in Belgium, it decided to surrender (November 11, 1918) before the war affected its own territory or a revolution similar to the Soviet one triumphed (the failed Spartacist uprising that ended the November Revolution). Austria-Hungary, whose capacity to resist was even less, was dissolved into independent national entities.

In another key scenario, the Great War led to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, with the British achieving the mobilization of Arab nationalism (Lawrence of Arabia), a contradictory position with the simultaneous support offered to the Zionists (Balfour Declaration) and with the interests they had with the French to divide up the area (Sykes-Picot Agreement), which will pose one of the most important points of international tension for the future, especially because of its oil wealth.

• Europe in 1914.
• Europe in 1929.

Treaty of Versailles and failure of the League of Nations

The Treaty of Versailles (1919) and the others negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference after the armistice, were not on an equal footing, but since the evident defeat of the Central Powers (Second German Reich, Austro-Hungarian Empire and Ottoman Empire), which in fact had disappeared as such political entities. The reduction to the territorial minimum of the new republics of Austria and Turkey made it impossible for them to face the demand for responsibilities (including heavy compensation) that characterized the position of the victors (especially that of France), with which the attribution of blameand therefore of the compensation fell mainly to Germany, which had survived as a state, despite the loss of the colonies, the territorial cut (losses of Alsace and Lorraine and Poland, including the Danzig corridor, which left East Prussia isolated) and the strict disarmament that required it. The imposition was perceived as a diktat (dictation), and its harsh conditions contributed to the economic and political chaos of the newly created Weimar Republic.

It was intended to have waged the war that would end wars, creating a new international order based on the principle of nationality (identification of nation and state), an issue that should be resolved with plebiscites wherever that identity was questionable (which happened in practice whole of Europe, although it was only applied in a small number of border cases). It was intended that the new nations, lacking territorial ambitions, renounce war as a method of conflict resolution(explicit purpose that was reflected even in national constitutions such as the Constitution of the Spanish Republic of 1931). Peace would be guaranteed by the principle of collective security, administered by an international organization: the League of Nations, whose headquarters were set in Geneva. The exclusion of Germany and the Soviet Union, plus the rejection by the United States Congress of their inclusion, severely limited its effectiveness. Even among its own members, the null capacity to enforce its decisions to the states that did not do so voluntarily (cases of Japan in Manchuria or Italy in Abyssinia) demonstrated its practical ineffectiveness in serious matters, although in other fields it did develop more or less important (International Labor Organization and other agencies).

Bilateral and multilateral diplomacy continued to be the main sphere of international relations, although it was certainly influenced, especially initially, by the new climate of trust. The ban on secret diplomacy was not actually enforced. The Treaty of Rapallo (1922), the Treaties of Locarno (1925) and the Briand-Kellogg Pact (1928) marked different formations of alliances or declarations of good intentions that did not manage to dispel mistrust between the powers, which increased dramatically after the crisis of 1929 that projected the internal tensions of each country to the international arena. Its most serious manifestation was German expansionism and rearmament (Anschluss -annexation of Austria, 1934-, Rhineland crisis -1936-, Sudetenland crisis -1938-). The failure of the appeasement policy (Munich agreements, 1938), more fearful of the communist danger than of the fascist one (Rome-Berlin Axis, October 1936) was repeated in the failure of the policy of non-intervention with which it was intended to palliate the effects of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). the definitive onesTurns towards war became inevitable when, a few months after the war ended, Hitler and Stalin sealed the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact (August 23, 1939) or the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact.

• Caricature of French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau (the Tiger) in the trenches. He was the Allied statesman who was most in favor of harsh treatment of Germany in the Treaty of Versailles.
• Three of the main European statesmen of the most pacifist phase of the interwar period: the German Gustav Stresemann, the British Austen Chamberlain and the French Aristide Briand, meeting in Locarno in October 1925.
• Haile Selassie, the negus of Ethiopia, was dethroned by the invasion of fascist Italy (1936), in what was the last European colonialist annexation in Africa and the first great failure of the League of Nations.

Rise of totalitarianism

Свобода для чего?

Freedom for what?Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov,

Lenin.The only possible guarantee of democracy is a gun on the shoulder of every worker. That is what we must tell Kerensky when he speaks to us about "democracy"!Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov,

Lenin.

Russian Revolution

The February Revolution of 1917 overthrew the tsarist government of Nicholas II, whose management of the war was catastrophic, and which had lost the mystical prestige with which the tsar presented himself as a fatherfrom town. A group of conservative, liberal and social democratic parties (Mensheviks, Eserites, etc.) led by Aleksandr Kérenski tried to build a democratic state that would maintain the war effort together with the Western allies (Russian Provisional Government). The war, economic and social situation only worsened in the following months. The bizarre arrival of Lenin initiated the Bolshevik insurrectionary strategy that came to power with the October Revolution (Assault on the Winter Palace, October 25 according to the Orthodox calendar). A few months later, in January 1918, the new Bolshevik government dissolved the Russian Constituent Assembly, democratically elected in November 1917. The Soviet power ignored electoral representation and freedoms, despised bybourgeois for the benefit of the assemblies of soldiers and workers who took over the factories and military units.

El Tratado de Brest-Litovsk (3 de marzo de 1918) supuso el final de la guerra con las potencias centrales y la renuncia a una gran extensión de territorio (Polonia, Ucrania, el Báltico, Finlandia), pero no trajo la paz, puesto que continuaron las hostilidades, ahora como Guerra civil rusa (1917-1923) entre el ejército rojo, liderado por Trotski y el ejército blanco, controlado por oficiales zaristas y tras el final de la Gran Guerra financiado por las potencias vencedoras; el asesinato de la familia Romanov impidió un posible regreso del zar Nicolás II o cualquier familiar suyo al poder. Al mismo tiempo se fue implementando el programa social y económico del comunismo de guerra, que suponía la colectivización de tierras y fábricas, que pasaron a ser controladas por instituciones del nuevo gobierno (cuyos nombres pasaron a convertirse en míticos para el imaginario obrero de todo el mundo: soviet, koljós, sovjós, etc.) teóricamente asamblearias pero fuertemente controladas desde la cúspide por el Partido (que pasará a llamarse comunista, y el estado República Socialista Federativa Soviética de Rusia en 1917 y Unión de Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas en 1922). Al igual que había ocurrido durante la fase más exaltada de la Revolución francesa, se produjeron matanzas masivas (por ejecuciones o como consecuencia de las deportaciones según lo estipulado en el Art. 58 del Código Penal) y la salida al extranjero de un gran número de exiliados.

The victory of the red army even achieved the recovery of much of the territory ceded in Brest-Litovsk (Polish-Soviet War, 1919-1921). With the settlement of the borders, a phase of moderation of the revolutionary process began, led by Lenin himself (New Economic Policy, NEP) in which the reconstruction of private companies and the recovery of the figure of the enriched peasant (kulak) were allowed.

After the signing of the Treaty for the Creation of the USSR (1922), the power struggles between Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin, the former in favor of extending the revolutionary process to other countries (permanent revolution) and the latter in the construction and consolidation of a proletarian state (socialism in one country), began during the agony of Lenin (1924) and ended five years later with the victory of Stalin, which began a time of purges (Great Purge) with the elimination of the Trotskyists (XV Congress, 1927), in an intensification of political repression that ended all opposition or criticism of his personal power (Nikolai Bukharin, right-wing opposition), originating a true cult of personality within a totalitarian system: Stalinism. Collectivization received a definitive boost, substituting the liberalization of the NEP for five-year plans in charge of a Gosplán that centralized the entire production process without market intervention, bureaucratically deciding what should be produced, where and by whom, and where and by whom. consume it. Voluntary work was encouraged through emulation (Stakhanovism), postponing any demand for better living or working conditions for the workers in whose name they claimed to be building the communist society, and relegating the production of consumer goods to the benefit of heavy industry. The Third International (Cominternor communist international, which had been created in 1919) used the disciplined work of the communist parties of all the countries of the world according to the interests of the Soviet regime. Any detected deviationism, even the most improbable and imaginary (from gentrification to betrayal), was warned to the affected person, who was forced to exercise self-criticism on himself and accept the sanction of revolutionary justice.

Fascism

In most countries, the loss of prestige of traditional liberal politics and the fear of communism gave rise to inter-class and ultra-nationalist political movements, characterized by charismatic leadership and some type of aggressive or paramilitary symbolic paraphernalia (among which the use of shirts of certain colors). Their obvious similarity and the depth of the common features with Italian fascism has allowed historiography to qualify them as fascists., despite the diversity of names and local characteristics. Only in Germany, Southern Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece) and Eastern Europe (Romania, Hungary, Poland) were dictatorships established endogenously in the 1920s and 1930s, which are commonly called fascist regimes, or else the description of totalitarian (if they managed to put an end to all kinds of discrepancies) or authoritarian (if they allowed a minimum degree of pluralism within themselves). During the years of the Second World War even in Western Europe collaborationist governments were established in which the presence of local fascists or the implementation of fascist-type political measures was less decisive than German military control.

Rise of fascism in Italy

In Italy, frustrated in its irredentist ambitions by the Treaty of Versailles, the discontent was channeled by Benito Mussolini's Fasci italiani di combattimento (a former socialist, who had evolved into an anti-liberal, anti-communist, ultra-nationalist, irrationalist discourse that extolled violence) against any pre-revolutionary or simply strike or vindictive movement of the left-wing parties and unions (especially through paramilitary groups, squadrismo), taking advantage of the fear of a large part of the population that a socialist revolution similar to the Russian one will break out in the country (red biennium, 1919-1920). With the March on Rome (1922), spearheaded by the Blackshirt movement, got King Victor Emmanuel III to give him the government outside parliamentary channels, and started a de facto dictatorship. He proposed overcoming political divisions with a single party and class struggle through a corporatist economic policy. He achieved mutual recognition with the Pope in the Lateran Pacts. The need for foreign expansion led him to military campaigns in Ethiopia and Albania, which put him in difficulty in the League of Nations.

Germany and Nazism

Germany, after the November Revolution (1918-1919), had experienced the construction of a social state of law with the Weimar Republic (1918-1933), but economic and social instability did not allow its consolidation in its early years. The radicalization of the most extreme positions, violently confronted, led the fearful and impoverished middle class to opt for the solution most opposed to the communist revolution.

After a frustrated coup d'état (Munich Putsch, 1923) and his time in prison, where he developed his program in Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler managed to come to power through elections after the decree of the Reichstag fire (1933), at the time that the Nazi or National Socialist party, initially a minority party characterized by its clashes in the street fight against leftist groups, was occupying more and more public and private spaces, restricting freedoms and annihilating any opposition or manifestation of individualism (Gleichschaltung) and pluralism (including that of their own ranks -night of the long knives, 1934-). The goal of Nazi propaganda, effectively used by Joseph Goebbels (repeat a lie a thousand times and it will end up becoming the truth), he focused obsessively on holding the Jews responsible for all the ills of the common people (reaching its peak with bloody pogroms -night of broken glass, 1938-), which He ended up convincing himself that he belonged to the group of true Germans, those of the Aryan race, whose particular interests should be subordinated to the greatness of Germany. Such greatness was to be recovered by expansion through a living space that included not only the scattered areas inhabited by German-speaking peoples, but also Eastern Europe inhabited by the Slavs, presented as yet another inferior race.

The appeasement policy that France and the United Kingdom maintained until the Munich agreements allowed Hitler to fulfill the initial part of his expansive program and rearm a Greater Germany, converted into the Third Reich.

From the Second Spanish Republic to the Franco regime

After the failed Jaca uprising (1930) against the dictatorshipof Dámaso Berenguer, the legitimacy of King Alfonso XIII was questioned, and in order to avoid a possible armed conflict between monarchists and republicans, he called elections that only increased tensions, and after the king's resignation, the proclamation was determined. of the Second Spanish Republic (1931-1939). The Second Republic was a brief experiment in modernization carried out by a minority of intellectuals who sought to support themselves between the base of the labor movement and the liberal-conservative movement, and which, due to the great political instability, ended tragically in a civil war after the attempt to coup d'état of 1936, during which a social revolution took place in the republican rearguard. In the foreign intervention in the Spanish Civil War, The support of the Soviet Union for the republican government of the Popular Front and that of the fascist powers for the military rebels contrasted with the maintenance of a policy of non-intervention by Western democracies (Non-Intervention Committee). The victory of the rebel side established the Francoist regime (which incorporated, in addition to elements similar to the fascism of the Spanish Falange -national unionism-, other traditionalists, conservatives, militarists and Catholics -national Catholicism-). Looking to the immediate future of Europe, this in addition to the elements similar to the fascism of the Spanish Falange -national syndicalism-, other traditionalists, conservatives, militarists and Catholics -national Catholicism-). Looking to the immediate future of Europe, this in addition to the elements similar to the fascism of the Spanish Falange -national syndicalism-, other traditionalists, conservatives, militarists and Catholics -national Catholicism-). Looking to the immediate future of Europe, thisThe first battle of the Second World War (demonstrated in the bombing of Guernica, 1937) stimulated Hitler's plans, in an already clearly pre-war context for all nations.

• Józef Piłsudski, one of the generals who participated in the battle of Warsaw against the Soviets in the Polish-Soviet War, wielded dictatorial power in interwar Poland, between Soviet and German threats.
• General Francisco Franco maintained in Spain one of the longest lasting European dictatorships, originally fascist (Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939), which evolved into National Catholicism, the pact with the United States (in this photo from 1959 he appears with the President Dwight D. Eisenhower, also a general) and the developmentalist technocracy, until his death in 1975.
• The Japanese emperor Hiro Hito physically dwarfed by General Douglas MacArthur, already stripped of his formal divinity after the defeat in 1945. Japanese militarist expansionism had not had an ideological identification with European fascism, but rather a strategic relationship due to the convergence of interests.

Crisis of 1929 and the Welfare State

Como una reacción a los cambios económicos y políticos en torno a la Primera Guerra Mundial, se sentaron las bases del estado del bienestar. Durante el siglo XIX, el liberalismo económico había concebido al Estado como un mero garante del orden público, sin legitimidad para intervenir en la actividad económica de la nación (estado mínimo). Sin embargo, de manera progresiva, el Estado había tenido que intervenir en la regulación de las condiciones de trabajo, a través de las leyes sociales, creando el moderno Derecho del Trabajo, como una manera de responder a los apremiantes problemas derivados del industrialismo y desactivar la bomba de tiempo que representaban las aspiraciones del movimiento obrero.

Sin embargo, fue después de la Primera Guerra Mundial cuando se produjo el cambio teórico fundamental. El economista John Maynard Keynes observó que la oferta económica es reflejo de la demanda (no al revés, como planteaba clásicamente la ley de Say), y por ende, la manera de levantar una economía deprimida (fase baja del ciclo económico cuya misma existencia era discutida por los teóricos del libre mercado) era subsidiando la demanda a través de una fuerte intervención estatal. Consciente de las consecuencias negativas de las cláusulas económicas del Tratado de Versalles, había predicho que los pagos a que se obligaba a Alemania, junto con el endeudamiento (tanto de esta como de las potencias vencedoras) con Estados Unidos, provocaría un desorden financiero internacional con consecuencias funestas. No obstante, los años veinte fueron los felices años veinte, propicios a la especulación, la compra a crédito y el consumismo, al menos en Estados Unidos (un pollo en cada cazuela y dos coches en cada garaje, era el eslogan electoral de Herbert Hoover), que solo parecía deslucirse por la ley seca y el gansterismo. La crisis de posguerra, fruto de la desmovilización, no tuvo consecuencias muy graves en las economías, a excepción de la alemana, sometida a una terrible hiperinflación. Los consejos de Keynes fueron desoidos, y no se acogieron por parte de los gobiernos hasta después de que la Gran Depresión posterior al crack de 1929 (momento en que estalló la burbuja de especulación financiera) literalmente arrasó el mercado de valores, y tras él el sistema productivo y el mercado laboral generando un pavoroso paro masivo. El recurso generalizado al proteccionismo deprimió aún más el comercio internacional y acentuó la depresión económica.

En la década de 1930, regímenes políticos muy diferentes entre sí emprendieron, como salida a la Gran Depresión, políticas keynesianas, es decir, intervencionistas, de estímulo de la demanda a través de las obras públicas, subsidios sociales y aumento extraordinario del gasto público, con abundante recurso a la deuda pública. La llegada a la presidencia estadounidense del demócrata Franklin Delano Roosevelt emprendió esas medidas con la denominación de New Deal (Nuevo acuerdo o Nuevo reparto de cartas). La economía dirigida del corporativismo fascista podía considerarse hasta cierto punto similar, y concretamente el rearme alemán proporcionaba una solución tanto al ejército de parados como a la industria pesada. La Unión Soviética de Stalin ya era una economía planificada desde el Estado, y su sistema económico no capitalista, aislado del circuito financiero, la hacía inmune a los efectos del Crack de 1929.

Empequeñecimiento de Europa y protagonismo de nuevos continentes

The adoption by the non-European world of ideas, technologies, political and socio-economic systems originating in Europe, led to the paradox that Europe itself was reduced in size and importance in the world concert. From then on, he had to settle for being just another actor on a geopolitical stage that had become much larger.

Kemalism in Turkey

The final period of the Ottoman Empire was already ruled by a Westernizing elite (the Young Turks, who came to power in the Young Turk Revolution in 1908). The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was designed in the diplomatic talks of the Paris Conference (1919) that culminated in the Treaty of Sèvres, in the midst of a strategic scenario that even threatened to make the continuity of any Turkish nation unfeasible, or to recognize others. states that were not finally consolidated, such as Wilsonian Armenia, an attempt to define an Armenian nation after the traumatic events that decimated its people during the First World War, with a controversial name in Turkey itself - Armenian genocide.

The nationalist reaction led by Mustafa Kemal (called Atatürk or father of the Turks) militarily expanded the borders of the residual state that the new Republic of Turkey had become (Turkish War of Independence, 1919-1923). The westernizing program that he promoted from that moment included the substitution of the Arabic alphabet for the Latin one and that of the traditional costume for a fashion comparable to that seen on the streets of Paris or London. Its political system (Kemalism), which never ceased to be authoritarian, was explicitly constructed in imitation of the Europeans in an eclecticism that sought to bring together elements of such different and opposing origins as liberal democracy, the social state, and fascist and Soviet totalitarianism..

From the Meiji Restoration to Japanese Militarism

The possibility of a non-Christian and ethnically non-European civilization developing had been demonstrated by contemporary Japanese history since the so-called Meiji Restoration. The Tokugawa Shogunate had been overthrown in 1869 in the Boshin War, and from the Meiji Era the successive emperors promoted a profound westernization (Meiji Constitution), which by 1905 had managed to surpass the Russian Empire in effectiveness (Russian-Japanese War, 1904- 1905). In the First World War they made their position in favor of the Triple Entente profitable by seizing several German colonies in the Pacific that they retained after the conflict. Despite the experimentation of mechanisms typical of democratic liberalism (during the Taishō Era, 1912-1926), political life, social and economic was dominated by the so-called Japanese militarism, with armed forces built from the end of the 19th century on the Prussian model. Japanese expansionism was projected in China, not limited to the occasional concessions that had characterized the Western presence, but through a massive military presence and territorial conquests, which from Manchuria (Japanese invasion of Manchuria, 1931) extended south through eastern China (Sino-Japanese wars, the first in 1894-95 and the second in 1937-45, already in the Shōwa Era). The attempt to displace the but through a massive military presence and territorial conquests, which from Manchuria (Japanese invasion of Manchuria, 1931) spread south through eastern China (Sino-Japanese wars, the first in 1894-95 and the second in 1937-45, already in the Shōwa Era). The attempt to displace the but through a massive military presence and territorial conquests, which from Manchuria (Japanese invasion of Manchuria, 1931) spread south through eastern China (Sino-Japanese wars, the first in 1894-95 and the second in 1937-45, already in the Shōwa Era). The attempt to displace thewhites (British, French, Dutch and American) as colonizers of Asia came to develop ideologically (Asia for Asians), in a claim that seemed solidly based on economic growth only limited by the scarcity of raw materials that characterized Japanese soil. The need for that living space(in Nazi terminology) pushed Japan into the alliance with Germany and would lead to World War II in an unprecedented scenario in war history: the Pacific War (1937-1945). The responsibility in Japanese politics of a complex network of political, industrial and military interests, headed by General Hideki Tōjō, diluted that of Emperor Hiro Hito himself, which allowed him to continue on the throne after the American occupation (which considered him key to maintaining Japanese social cohesion) until his death in 1989.

Chinese revolution

The Qing dynasty led by Emperor Puyi was overthrown in 1911 after a long period of civil wars that spelled the end of an ancient empire. Sun Yat-Sen undertook a process of westernizing modernization of the Republic of China, which was made impossible both by external intervention (mainly Japanese) and by strong internal divisions, with entire areas becoming independent in practice and governed by warlords and the growing communist presence among the urban and peasant masses. The Shanghai massacre against opponents of the government began the Chinese civil war, which lasted from 1927 to 1950. The war included the period of World War II and the mythical Long Marchstarring the communist leader Mao Zedong, who ended up proclaiming the People's Republic of China in 1949, while the nationalist Chiang Kai-shek resisted in Taiwan protected by the US fleet.

Violence and non-violence in India

The Indian independence movement had earlier precedents, such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak's declaration of swaraj (self-government) as a right, but it was not until after the First World War, and under the leadership of Mohandas Gandhi (nicknamed Mahatma or "great soul") in Sanskrit) and his proposal for non-violent resistance (ahimsa), which the nationalists grew stronger and stronger. After the Amritsar Massacre (1919) the British were forced to start a slow process of negotiations (Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms), which despite the fact that the repression continued (whose Indian resistance was strengthened in protests such as the March of salt), culminated in its independence after the new parenthesis of the Second World War.

The non-European Anglo-Saxon world

The British dominions of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, increasingly independent in fact, dramatically increased their economy and population.

The United States emerged as a great world power after World War I. However, when Woodrow Wilson submitted to Congress the approval of joining the League of Nations (one of his own ideas for peace - Wilson's fourteen points -), it was widely rejected, the American political class preferring the traditional policy of isolationism. However, the intimate connection of American industrial, commercial and financial capitalism with the rest of the world made it impossible to maintain this position in the 1940s.

Latin America in the world

Some Latin American nations, especially the areas with large European emigration (Argentina and Brazil, and to a lesser extent Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela), also became active international agents despite not intervening in the First World War, neutrality that even benefited them, due to the increase in demand for raw materials and all kinds of products during the war period. Mexico, on the other hand, experienced a special historical conjuncture.

Mexican Revolution

In Mexico, strong tensions between a positivist oligarchy (Porfirio Díaz) and a large unprotected peasant base eventually led to the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), in which peasant leaders such as Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa and opposition politicians such as Francisco I. Madero rebelled and put the old order in check. In the midst of this process, the 1917 Constitution was promulgated, which was a pioneer among documents of its kind in the world, for incorporating various social guarantees for the population into its articles. In any case, the reestablishment of social peace was difficult, and the new institutionality can only be considered established and consolidated under the Presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940).

WWII

Stalin's collaboration guaranteed by the German-Soviet Pact, Hitler decided (September 1, 1939) to incorporate one of his most delicate expansionist claims: the Danzig corridor, which involved the invasion of the western half of Poland; the eastern half, together with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union, while Finland managed to maintain its independence from the Soviets (Winter War). The UK and France declared war on Germany, which they expected as a repeat of trench warfare (Prank War) for which they had taken all sorts of precautions (Maginot Line) which proved to be utterly useless. The spectacular maneuvers of the blitzkrieg(lightning war) gave Germany control of Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and France itself in a few months, while the British army fled in extremis from the beaches of Dunkirk during the Battle of France. Most of the European continent was occupied by the German army or by its allies, among which fascist Italy stood out, whose military contribution was not very significant (Battle of the Alps, Greco-Italian War).

The Battle of Britain, the first completely aerial battle in history, maintained during the following period the pressure on the new government of Winston Churchill, determined to resist (blood, sweat and tears) and that finally won, among other things thanks to a technological innovation (RADAR) and decisive US support, which he negotiated in several interviews with Franklin D. Roosevelt (Atlantic Charter, August 14, 1941).

In 1941 the strategic need to occupy the oil fields of the Caucasus led to the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), initially successful, but stalled in the battle of Moscow and the sieges of Leningrad and Stalingrad. At the same time, Japan in its drive to expand into Asia (beginning with hostilities with China that led to the Second Sino-Japanese War, beginning in 1937 and seen as a prelude to World War II in Asia, and continuing with the invasion of Indochina, in 1940) and in revenge for the economic embargo that the US government imposed on them, they attacked Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941), causing the United States to enter the war. Few months later, The Battle of Midway (July 1942) marked a turning point in the Pacific War as Japan's combat capabilities against the Americans weakened. In North Africa, the British stopped the advance of theGerman Afrika Korps from Libya to Egypt at the Battle of El Alamein (1942), after the Italian invasion of the Suez Canal (1940).

The final period of the war was characterized by the complex operations necessary for the Allied landings in Europe (Sicily; in July 1943, Anzio; in January 1944, Normandy, in June 1944) and the collapse of the eastern front in which the most massive tank operations in history took place (Kursk, especially at Prokhorovka, July 1943), while on the Western Front the Germans experimented with highly technologically developed weapons (V-1, V-2), and endured destructive bombing raids on its cities on a scale never seen before (the bombing of Dresden, in February 1945) and the total destruction of its capital (battle of Berlin, between April and May 1945).

On the Pacific Front, the Americans had to dislodge the Japanese from island to island, both in the South Pacific (Guadalcanal, in August 1942) and in the Philippines (Manila, in February 1945), leading to the largest naval battles of the history (Battle of the Coral Sea, in May 1942; Battle of Leyte Gulf, in October 1944), until reaching Japanese lands (Iwo Jima, in February 1945 and Okinawa, in April 1945), culminating with the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

Unlike the First World War, the surrender (both the Japanese and the German) took place by total defeat, without any kind of negotiation being possible. The decisive talks were those that proposed the division of Europe into zones of influence between the allies, and which were negotiated in successive summits (Teheran conference, on December 1, 1943, Yalta conference, in February 1945, Potsdam conference, in July 1945).

Scientific and aesthetic revolutions

The first half of the 20th century also saw a series of unprecedented scientific revolutions, which marked a fundamental paradigm shift in scientific thought.

At the beginning of the century, Gregor Mendel's work on genetic inheritance, which at the time of its publication had gone unnoticed, was rediscovered; subsequent biochemical investigations led to the discovery of the structure and function of DNA for the genetic code in the 1950s. The discovery of blood groups made possible the generalization of blood transfusion and the advances in surgery that led to the era of transplants. The investigations of Santiago Ramón y Cajal paved the way for neuroscience; while the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming (1928) and its subsequent difficult elaboration (it was not possible until the 1940s) led to the development of the first antibiotics.

The history of electricity entered a decisive period for its involvement in all kinds of production processes. For its part, organic chemistry and the production of plastics meant a revolution in the available materials.

A series of findings, initially controversial and exposed to all kinds of fraud (acceptance of the veracity of the Altamira paintings, 1879-1902, verification of the falsity of the Piltdown Man, 1912-1953), allowed paleontologists to begin to glimpse roughly the complex tree of human evolution (Spy Man, 1886, Java Man, 1891, Mauer's Jaw, 1907, La Chapelle-aux-Saints Man, 1908, Peking Man, 1921, Australopithecus, 1924). While an important group of practitioners of physical anthropology was involved in a drift towards racism, cultural anthropology sophisticated its methodology with the contributions of James Frazer (The Golden Bough, 1890-1922) or Bronisław Malinowski (The Argonauts of the Western Pacific, 1922).

Relativistic revolution

The greatest of the revolutions of that period occurred in the field of Physics. During the 19th century, challenges had accumulated to the continuity of the scientific paradigm of Newtonian mechanics, which was forced to adapt to the observed data with increasingly artificial resources, such as the theory of the aether.

In 1900, the physicist Max Planck established that light could not travel in any quantity, but only in "packets" of a small size, but determined and indivisible: the quanta. The subsequent spectacular development of quantum physics began, demanding concepts that were impossible to fit into the traditional way of perceiving and understanding nature (for example, the dual identity of the photon, as a wave and as a particle at the same time). The conception of the intimate structure of matter changed rapidly, with the proposal of various atomic models (Niels Bohr, Ernest Rutherford, etc.) that reproduced an increasingly complex intimate structure that could be studied experimentally (from the production of the electron in cathode rays to the study of radioactivity -Curie spouses (Marie and Pierre Curie)- and atomic reactors -Enrico Fermi-). The enunciation of the uncertainty principle (Werner Heisenberg, 1927), together with other formulations of indeterminacy,relativistic revolution, which had begun with the five articles that the young physicist Albert Einstein published in 1905. Isaac Newton's mechanistic physics, with its absolute concepts of space and time, was restricted to a particular case (although the most applicable in everyday human experience) of relativistic physics that identified time and space (relative depending on the observer), matter and energy (with the popularized formula E=mc²). The position of man in an expanding universe (Hubble's Law, 1929), populated by innumerable galaxies, was diminished and relativized; At the same time, the possibility of using a capacity for destruction whose ethical consequences he might not be in a position to assess was placed in his hands.

Artistic and literary vanguards

A roaring automobile, which sows to run its mitraglia, is the beautiful one of the Victory of Samothrace.

A roaring car, which seems to run on shrapnel, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, 1908

The rebellion of independent art in the second half of the 19th century, which led to the pictorial revolution of Impressionism, exalted the artist's individual freedom in the face of academic conventions. The constant desire to seek originality and provocation in the face of a changing world was reflected in the rapid succession of the avant- garde. Even architecture, the most conservative art due to its stable nature and its economic and functional dimension, underwent a transformation radical in the first third of the 20th century.

Finding a value in social incomprehension, the artists' curse tended towards increasingly elaborate and elitist forms (decadentism, symbolism, etc.). Marinetti (Futurist Manifesto, 1908) saw technical and social innovations as worthy of artistic and literary material as ancient or classical subjects. Marcel Proust (In Search of Lost Time, 1908-1923), intended to capture reality in its smallest details, not with the political commitment or contact with the social reality of nineteenth-century literary realism and naturalism, exhausted prosaic ways to avant- garde writers. George Orwell (Animal Farm), 1945), denounced in a very satirical way the authoritarianism applied after how a group obtained power and how that affected the population for which it was said to fight. James Joyce, inspired by Homer's Odyssey, summed up experimental literary techniques (stream of consciousness or interior monologue) in his Ulysses (1922), a novel that came to be banned for being pornographic.

Popular literature continued with the fascination for the feuilleton, of romantic tradition. The foundations were laid, among other genres, for the modern police novel and crime novel. Despite reflecting in its bizarre and morbid theme the tensions typical of the period and not lacking in formal innovations, it was much more conservative; above all due to the imposition of the kitsch taste of the public to which it was addressed, the masses, while experimental literature was addressed to a select and enlightened elite.

The «immediate history» of the «current world»: towards globalization

The different methodological labels to designate the history of the current world, of the present or immediate time, have not reached an academic consensus on its milestone of origin, although the end of the Second World War, with the spectacular beginning of the atomic age and the bloc politics of the Cold War, was considered, at least until the end of the 20th century, as the matrix of the present time.

Denominations that refer to the technological, energetic and material transformations typical of the third industrial revolution are also in use; and that they baptize as the nuclear age the one that follows the age of electricity or the oil age (typical of the second industrial revolution, as the era of steam was of the first), despite the fact that fossil fuels continued to be the dominant, even after the energy crisis of 1973. The era of plastic,What had begun with the innovations in organic chemistry at the turn of the century effectively materialized in its middle decades (cellophane, Plexiglas, nylon, etc.). The contraceptive pill (1960) revolutionized demography and society; at the same time that the green revolution seemed to have found the solution to the Malthusian dilemma of the growth gap between population and resources.

The limits to development and consumerism appeared in the form of energy and environmental crises (pollution of soil, water and atmosphere, thinning of the ozone layer, global warming), while waste management became a serious problem and the problems traditional health problems, linked to hunger and a low standard of living, were added those derived from obesity and other eating disorders, stress, traffic derived from intense motorization and the increasing presence of toxic and carcinogenic of all kinds in food and the environment. The same antibiotics, in widespread use since the 1950s, which seemed to have provided medicine with the definitive weapon against infections, proved to be only a temporary remedy whose abuse degenerated into bacterial resistance.

The information age, with its stultifying correlate (society of the spectacle and other concepts linked to television and its gigantic cultural and social impact) and its enriching correlate (the evolution towards the so-called knowledge economy and the digital age arising from the Digital Revolution) mark a level of even more decisive socioeconomic innovations of a world that is increasingly outsourced and integrated after the successive phases of the globalization process, especially those produced with the institutionalization of the international economy by the Bretton Woods agreements (1944 -1946), with the opening of the large areas previously restricted to colonial trade (decolonization around 1960), and finally with the transition to capitalism of the socialist bloc (around 1990).

The ideological rivalry between the blocs was not as irreconcilable as it appeared from the rhetorical declarations, even during the detente (Nikita Khrushchev argued that the mission of communism was to wait to be the undertaker of capitalism). Some theorists, such as Maurice Duverger, even detected the convergence of both around different degrees of development of a planning state and the expansion of individual rights; points that were also those that marked the field of discrepancy of the economic paradigms in which the social democrats and the liberal-conservatives moved within the West, especially in the Member States of the European Union.The pragmatic evolution of China towards a market economy is usually interpreted in a similar sense, although its gigantic dimensions and the maintenance of its political system pose unresolved questions. The most optimistic interpretation is the one that sees this evolution as the end of history (Francis Fukuyama). The most pessimistic interpretation foresees an inevitable clash of civilizations (Samuel Huntington), especially between the Western and the Islamic. The world panorama is completed with the rise of other previously underdeveloped spaces: the Asian tigers and other NICs (new industrialized countries), among which Brazil and India stand out, in addition to the new post-communist Russia (the so-called BRICS).). The resistance to globalization (alterglobalism) denounces the deepening of the development gap between rich and poor countries, especially evident in the continuing tragedy of black Africa, and in the fourth world of poverty in the first world, entrenched in marginalization and immigration (whether illegal or not).

The world after World War II (1945-1973)

The Superpowers and the Balance of Terror: The Cold War

On the ruins of the Second World War, a new world order was defined in which the old European powers, badly damaged, even the victorious ones, had to give up the maintenance of their vast empires in which decolonization was imposed, which increased the number of world political actors from fifty to approximately two hundred, in less than half a century.

However, this process did not mean that the new countries acquired real independence, being able to speak of neo-colonialism; and a general alignment in two blocks each led by a superpower. Both the United States and the Soviet Union had emerged from the war in a position to dispute world supremacy; race in which the United States started with a clear advantage.

Their confrontation was not only due to questions of international balance, but also to their opposing economic, social and political structures, and their divergent ideology and propaganda: the United States identified with political and economic liberalism, which defined itself as the leader of the free world and champion of democracy; while the Soviet Union was presented as the totalitarian communist alternative (Stalinism, Warsaw Pact, Cominform, KGB), aggressive and expansionist, which imposed single-party regimes subject to democratic centralism through political repression and with a rigid economic system that denied power. economic freedom. The Soviet Union, for its part, exhibited itself as the really existing socialismcharacterized by collectivization and state planning, facilitating the revolutionary extension of popular democracies that would overcome, through collaboration and proletarian internationalism, submission to the old powers or to the new incarnation of imperialism: the United States, presented as an entity militaristic, racist and oppressive (McCarthyism, racial discrimination), and projected abroad by dark institutions (NATO, the CIA, the trilateral).

Iron curtain, McCarthyism and espionage

An Iron Curtain (metaphor due to Winston Churchill) divided Europe, and by extension the world, separating it into two blocks, between which were located several disputed zones of influence and which became points of international friction. Fearing of provoking crises that would threaten to unleash a direct confrontation, as might have happened during the Berlin blockade (1949) or the Cuban missile crisis (1962); the logic of the Cold War raised conflicts in peripheral areas, of great violence, but which did not mean a direct clash between the two superpowers, such as the Korean War (1950-1953) and the Vietnam War (1958-1975). However, the successive enlargements of the area of ​​Soviet influence (victory of the communist side in the Chinese Civil War, 1949, Cuban Revolution, 1959, African decolonization) was viewed with concern from the Western bloc (domino theory), which justified the need to intervene in all kinds of conflicts where the possibility of Soviet advance was identified (Truman doctrine). In fact, the obsession withCommunist infiltration was applied to the interior of the United States, where between 1950 and 1956 a witch hunt (McCarthyism) was unleashed among politicians, scientists, artists and intellectuals. Propaganda and counter-propaganda, intoxication or disinformation, espionage and counter-espionage (both military and political or industrial intelligence), the figures of the undercover agent and the double agent, were an essential part of the diplomacy of the time (KGB, CIA, UKUSA, Echelon, NSA etc). Spy novels and movies became a popular genre (The Third Man, Carol Reed, 1949; Ian Fleming and his James Bond character, etc.).

Space race and arms race

The rivalry between the superpowers unleashed an arms race centered on the possession of nuclear weapons, which the United States developed in the last year of World War II through the Manhattan Project (1945) and later shared with the British (1952). The Soviet atomic bomb project culminated in 1949 (thanks in part to espionage). France developed its own atomic weapon in 1960 and China in 1964. The signing of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in 1968 limited the incorporation of new members to the select nuclear club, to which they were only added, with an effort that suffered its economic development., India in 1974 and Pakistan in 1998 (to the traditional cannons or butter, attributed to Woodrow Wilson, thewe shall eat grass, attributed to Benazir Bhutto). While all these countries openly declared their status as nuclear powers, as an essential part of the strategic deterrent effect that such a weapon has; Other countries, on the other hand, have opted for ambiguity in this field, such as Israel and the Republic of South Africa, which possibly obtained nuclear weapons in the 1970s (Négev Nuclear Research Center, Vela Incident).

The possession of nuclear capacity in both blocs as well as effective vectors to almost instantly reach the heart of the enemy's territory (ballistic missile, super-bomber and nuclear submarine) made it impossible for even the aggressor to survive the first attack, assumed to be automatic retaliation. This Mutual Assured Destruction was given a darkly humorous acronym: MAD, creating a "balance of terror" that piqued the interest of mathematicians who were creating game theory (John Forbes Nash, who posited the advantages of collaboration even with the rival -prisoner's dilemma-, and John von Neumann, supporter of a radically aggressive strategy, represented as Dr. Strangelove in the filmDr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, by Stanley Kubrick, 1964).

Simultaneously, a frantic competition took place, no less threatening in appearance, although its manifestation before world public opinion was almost sporting: the space race; in which the initial Soviet successes were answered by a gigantic US budgetary effort, whose economic superiority made it possible to win Kennedy's bet: to put a man on the Moon before 1970. The technological return of the space adventure allowed spectacular advances in multiple productive fields.

For both careers (military and space), the initial contribution of the German engineers responsible for the main ballistic innovation of the time (the V2) who were captured at the end of World War II was essential: Wernher von Braun in the United States (NASA) and Helmut Gröttrup in the Soviet Union, although the Soviet space program was mainly in charge of Sergei Korolev.

• Laika, the first living being launched into space, on Sputnik 2, 1957. Sputnik 1 had been the first artificial satellite, launched into orbit a month earlier.
• Capsule and suit with which Yuri Gagarin made the first manned space flight by a human (Vostok 1, April 12, 1961).
• Edward Higgins White II taking a spacewalk on Gemini 4 in 1965; Aleksei Leonov had been the first man to do so, on Voskhod 2 two months earlier.
• 1:02Neil Armstrong, the first man to reach the lunar surface, on Apollo XI, 1969.

Really Existing Socialism, the Marshall Plan, and the European "Economic Miracle"

Europe, divided by the Iron Curtain into mutually recognized zones of influence of the two superpowers, fulfilled the role of a showcase where its two systems competed, antagonistic in all aspects (ideological, political, social and economic). Post-war reconstruction was very different in each case.

The United States launched the Marshall Plan (1947-1951), an economic aid package for European reconstruction that the countries of the Soviet orbit rejected, arguing that it would mean falling into dependency. As an alternative, they founded the COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance), which regulated exchanges under criteria of planned economy and Soviet leadership; in a similar way to how politically the local communist parties established regimes called popular democracies (people's republics or democratic republics) that, although nominally authorized some non-worker party (such as peasant parties) were in fact single-party regimes. Popular resistance to Soviet domination, exercised directly or through puppet governments, erupted into harshly suppressed revolts (1953 uprising in East Germany, 1956 Hungarian revolution, 1956 Poznań protests, 1968 Prague Spring, Law Martial in Poland from 1981); or alternatively, channeled in periods of greater tolerance (Polish October, velvet revolution, legalization of the Solidarność union) coinciding with certain signals issued by the Kremlin itself (de-Stalinization, détente, and finally perestroika).

The rapidity of the development of West Germany and Italy justified the use of the expressions German miracle and Italian miracle, comparable only to the Japanese miracle. In fact, the defeated powers experienced fewer difficulties than France or the United Kingdom, winners, but subjected to traumatic and prolonged processes of independence in their overseas colonies. The enormous accumulated differential (in production levels and especially consumption) with the communist countries of Eastern Europe was decisive for the fall of these regimes after 1989.

Common Market and European Union

The European Union had already had in 1949 the successful precedent of the Benelux (commercial union of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg), a model that was applied to the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), Euratom and the European Economic Community. of the 1957 Rome treaty (those three small countries plus three large: France, Germany and Italy), successively expanded to nine (United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark, 1973), twelve (Greece, 1980, Spain and Portugal, 1982) and fifteen countries (Sweden, Austria and Finland, 1995). The European Economic Area (EEA) was proposed as a free trader and integrator towards the interior, as the best way to guarantee the convergence of living standards and the community of interests that would prevent new wars (especially between France and Germany, protagonists of repeated confrontations since 1870), while abroad it was strongly protectionist, especially in a surplus-generating agriculture that guaranteed the stability of the rural population.

The primitive economic community created a germ of political unity, with the election of a European Parliament since 1979, with gradually expanded powers from the Single European Act of 1986 and the Maastrich Treaty of 1992 to the Lisbon Treaty of 2007. The incorporation of countries in transition to capitalism was done in two phases: first, the most developed and stable (in 2004: Poland, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic -previously united in Czechoslovakia-, Hungary, the former Yugoslav Slovenia and the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, -along with the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus and Malta-), and then Romania and Bulgaria, the latest addition being Croatia (2013). The integration of Norway, negotiated on several occasions, has been postponed on each of them due to internal opposition in that country, which has natural resources whose autonomous exploitation could be compromised. Iceland's, for similar reasons (the so-calledCod Wars of the 1950s and 1970s) had not been seriously considered until the very serious crisis that affected that country between 2008 and 2009. Turkey's candidacy, raised since 1963 and repeatedly postponed, is the subject of strong discrepancies on the possibility of that its status as a Muslim country, its large population and its differential development affect the very personality of the Union.

The main economic challenge of the 21st century has been to intensify integration, which included the adoption of the euro as a common currency; to which not all the countries have joined, notably, among the most reticent was the United Kingdom, a country that left the union in 2020, where they opposed most of the integrating policies and where the euroscepticism in preference to its "transatlantic" relationship with the American superpower. The failure to approve the European Constitution has forced the most ambitious projects to increase the political dimension of the Union to be reformulated on several occasions.

Other European integration institutions, such as the European Free Trade Association and the Council of Europe, have lost significance as a result of the success of the community institutions, which are an example of a supranational organization imitated by other economic integration projects in the world.

The new international organizations

Given the failure of the League of Nations to prevent World War II, the San Francisco Conference (1945) replaced this body with the United Nations Organization (UN), which in 1948 proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Strongly sovereign international law evolved to embrace these new trends, which include notions such as the principle of universal justice and respect for human rights over national jurisdictions.

In addition to maintaining an outstanding political performance as a world forum of nations, the UN developed a series of parallel organizations that tended to improve living conditions throughout the world. To the already founded International Labor Organization (ILO), now absorbed by the UN, were added UNESCO, FAO, the World Health Organization (WHO), etc.

Decolonization

Nationalism, which emerged in 19th century Europe and was imposed as a principle of nationality, one of the main inspirations of international relations based on Wilson's fourteen points, spread to the rest of the world: throughout the vast colonial empires, more than a hundred traditional ethnic communities or mere circumstantial aggregates resulting from the artificial drawing of colonial borders were identified as nations by conscientious autochthonous elites who began to actively seek independence.

In 1947, the British Empire left India in the midst of a bloody internal conflict, which led to the creation of three states: one with a Hindu majority (India), another with a Buddhist majority (Sri Lanka) and another with a Muslim majority (Pakistan), from which the eastern enclave later became independent (Bangla Desh, 1971). In 1948, Zionism saw the time to impose the founding of the State of Israel in part of the British Mandate of Palestine after the civil war, starting a long-lasting conflict with the local Arab population (Palestinian people) and neighboring Arab states.. Indonesia became independent from the Netherlands due to international pressure generated by the Dutch attempt at reoccupation after the Japanese invasion (1945-1949). The Philippines, which had gained independence from Spain in 1898, it did not gain full sovereignty until 1946 with the signing of the Manila Treaty which ended nearly half a century of US rule. French Indochina began a war of independence that, through the Geneva Conference (1954), gave rise to the divided state of Vietnam (North Vietnam, 1955-1976; and South Vietnam, 1955-1975), which continued in civil war and with foreign intervention, in which the Americans replaced the French (Vietnam War). The only surviving European colonies in Asia were the small enclaves of Hong Kong and Macau (handed over to China in the late 20th century). originated the divided state of Vietnam (North Vietnam, 1955-1976; and South Vietnam, 1955-1975), which continued in civil war and with foreign intervention, in which the Americans replaced the French (Vietnam War). The only surviving European colonies in Asia were the small enclaves of Hong Kong and Macau (handed over to China in the late 20th century). originated the divided state of Vietnam (North Vietnam, 1955-1976; and South Vietnam, 1955-1975), which continued in civil war and with foreign intervention, in which the Americans replaced the French (Vietnam War). The only surviving European colonies in Asia were the small enclaves of Hong Kong and Macau (handed over to China in the late 20th century).

In Africa, the colonial empires were abandoned, sometimes with agreed independence, such as that of Ghana (1957), Nigeria (1960), Mali and Senegal (independent as a single country and separated in 1960), and others in the midst of bloody wars, such as the Algerian War against France (1954-1962), the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya (Jomo Kenyatta and the Mau Mau) against the United Kingdom (1952-1960, independent in 1963), or the wars of independence of Angola and Mozambique against Portugal (Portuguese colonial war, 1961-1974). In South Africa it was agreed that the European settlers would vote in a referendum (1960), after the victory of independence the apartheid segregationist policy intensified(which had been approved after the general elections of 1948) that provoked an armed conflict between the white minority government and peaceful demonstrators and paramilitary groups of the black majorities and other ethnic groups that would last until 1994 with the elections of that year in which he was elected the pacifist Nelson Mandela. The decolonization of the Spanish Sahara gave rise to a new conflict between the new occupier (since 1975 the kingdom of Morocco, which had previously gained independence from Spain and France in 1956) and the Polisario Front. The last territory abandoned by a European power was French Somalia (Djibouti, 1977),

Huge political problems arose. The principle of uti possidetis to delineate the new states could not hide that the borders of the colonial domains had been drawn for the convenience of the European empires, separating or joining ethnic groups and nations in a completely arbitrary manner. The new states soon fell into political instability or iron dictatorships, which caused social catastrophes, the genocide of minority ethnic groups and massive displacement of refugees. Poverty worsened over the already precarious level of the colonial past, and famines and epidemics broke out.

• Sukarno led the independence of Indonesia and hosted the Bandung conference, the beginning of the Non-Aligned Movement or Third Worldism.
• Another Third World leader, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, one of the soldiers who led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 that put an end to the pro-British monarchy of Faruq I, along with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, who supported financially and technically the construction of the Aswan High Dam. Previously the Soviet Union had also supported the nationalization of the Suez Canal during the so-called Suez crisis.
• Patrice Lumumba, leader of the independence of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whose attempts to maintain a non-aligned policy or get closer to the Soviet Union were frustrated between coups and secessionist attempts (Crisis in the Congo). Responsibility for his murder is still unclear.
• Three generations of Indian leaders: Mohandas Gandhi marches leaning on Sri Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. The latter was not the only woman who came to lead one of the newly independent countries in Asia (Golda Meir in Israel), before the developed countries where women's liberation was more advanced.

Third worldism

The new nations, although economically and socially underdeveloped, represented the majority of the Earth's population, and their large number allowed them to control the General Assembly of the United Nations (a body that was not really decisive). The Bandung conference (1955) tried to articulate the non-aligned or third world countries outside the will of the superpowers, an expression with which they wanted to be compared with the revolutionary role of the Third Estate in 1789 and which ended up being equivalent to the from poor countriesor underdeveloped. The Asian and African countries that were originally part of the movement were joined by Latin American and even some European countries: the communist Yugoslavia (whose leader Josip Broz Tito had broken ties with the Soviet bloc in experimentation with the so-called self-managed socialism after of the Tito-Stalin Rupture) and the capitalist Sweden (traditionally neutral and highly developed economically).

For regional integration purposes, the Organization for African Unity (1963) and the Andean Pact (1967) were founded.

Latin American populism and Cuban revolution

With the controversial label of populism, various Latin American regimes and political parties of the mid-20th century are usually designated (Juan Domingo Perón in Argentina, Getúlio Vargas in Brazil, the so-called Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forcesin Peru -but also one of its opposition forces: APRA-, etc.) including notably the prolonged exercise of power by the Mexican PRI and the alternation of power between liberals and conservatives in Colombia. Beyond certain similarities with features of the most opposed ideologies (fascism and communism), it radically differs from them due to its pragmatism and its clear option for reformism. Its character as a nationalist movement and resistance against neocolonialism, a more rhetorical than effective anti-capitalism, popular mobilization, mistrust of the traditional system of political parties, the constitution of charismatic leaderships and state interventionism, which tried to overcome economic dependency through accelerated industrialization.​

After a guerrilla war against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, in 1959 a group of revolutionaries with a confused ideology came to power in Cuba, led by Fidel Castro and the internationalist Che Guevara. The hostile policy of the United States, linked economically and politically to the previous regime and refuge for an ever-increasing number of Cuban exiles, as well as the internal dynamics of the new regime, led it to an ever-increasing rapprochement with the Soviet Union and the definition of the revolution as Marxist-Leninist, led by the Communist Party of Cuba.

• Getúlio Vargas, populist president of Brazil, with US president Franklin D. Roosevelt (1936)
• The leader of the Cuban revolution Fidel Castro, initially a populist who evolved into communism, on the podium at an event in East Berlin in 1972, with leaders of the German Democratic Republic.

Middle East and oil

The most active conflict zone throughout the period was the Middle East. The immense oil reserves of the Persian Gulf made it strategically decisive in oil geopolitics. The disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War subjected it to an atomization into areas of French (Syria and Lebanon) and British (Jordan and Iraq) colonization that became independent after the Second World War. Both the new nations such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran were pressured for their political alignment and the maintenance of the economic presence of the oil multinationals, in which it even reached the point that covert operations were organized against the governments of those countries., as in the coup in Iran in 1953.

Arab nationalism found its main enemy in Zionism, which since the Balfour Declaration had initiated Jewish emigration to the British protectorate of Palestine with the clear aim of obtaining a Jewish National State, and despite the Arab revolt of 1936-1939 that demonstrated local discontent, it was unilaterally proclaimed in 1948. Until 1973, Israel and the Arab world waged four open wars (the one resulting from decolonization in 1948, the one caused by the Anglo-French invasion of the Suez Canal in 1956, the Six-Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973) which substantially increased the territory controlled by the Jewish state and caused the departure of a large contingent of Palestinian refugees (Nakba).The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was organized as a resistance movement, within which several rival armed groups described as terrorists emerged.

The dominance of the Arab countries in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) turned it into an instrument of international political pressure for their benefit, coordinating their production to control market prices, and even withdrawing supply to the allies. of Israel, which was at the origin of the 1973 crisis. The enrichment of the leading minorities of the Gulf monarchies did not lead to internal development of the area, but rather the export of capital (petrodollars) to developed countries.

• David Ben-Gurion formally declares the constitution of the State of Israel (1948).
• Palestinian civilians being expelled from Ramla after the capture of the city by Israeli soldiers (1948).
• Jordanian King Abdullah I behind the Church of the Holy Sepulcher during the Battle of Jerusalem (1948).
• Moshe Dayan, the main Israeli strategist in the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, along with other Israeli soldiers in 1955.

Counterculture and youth response. New social movements. The 1968 protests

Simultaneously with the escalation of global political tension, the 1950s were characterized in Western daily life by material prosperity and a certain updating of traditional values, identified with the nuclear family (the misleading of that term, identifiable with the threat atomic, was the subject of some reflection) protagonist of the baby boom phenomenon. The end of World War II and post-war hardships included the massive introduction of home appliances and television.

The idealized images conveyed by Hollywood television serials and movie comedies did not really mean that confidence in the future was widespread. That decade had its pessimistic side in the popularization of existentialism and the beatnik movement, more aesthetic than socially leftist critiques of capitalism, imperialism and the American way of life. The fears present at that time (the Age of Fear, according to Albert Camus) were expressed in B-series cinema (with products ranging from Godzilla -1954- to Night of the Living Dead-1968-). An increasingly large select minority of young people in search of self-knowledge (on many occasions clearly self-destructive) embarked on the path of trips that provided them with life on the road (bikers, backpackers, hitchhiking), free love and drugs, imitating Jack Kerouac (On the Road, 1957) or inspired by the works of Aldous Huxley (Brave New World, 1932; The Doors of Perception, 1954). The generation gap that opened between them and their parents actually caused greater repression and puritanism compared to the 1940s, as evidenced by the crusade against comics since the publication of Seduction of the Innocentsby Fredric Werthham (1954). The youth rebellion sought to reject the conservative and traditional world of adults, and was identified in products that, paradoxically, were offered by the film industry itself, such as James Dean (Rebel Without a Cause, 1955). Young people in the 1950s and 1960s perceived reading books like The Catcher in the Rye as a generational challenge and going to screenings of art -house films (Nouvelle vagueFrench); or provocative to write experimental literature or carry out happenings and other manifestations of contemporary art; transgressions that were available to everyone, regardless of their intellectual sophistication, just by reading Marvel and DC comics or listening to increasingly sophisticated forms of rock and roll (from Bill Haley to Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Doors or The Who).

The accumulation of social pressure from the new generations erupted in true revolts in the sixties, marked by the counterculture of the hippie movement, based on ideals such as the return to nature, vital simplification, pacifism and the rejection of materialism. and consumerism in the name of a spiritualism based on the East (Maharishi Mahesh Yogi), American Indian (Carlos Castaneda) or African (Marcus Garvey and the Rastafarians) more or less genuine; which, however, ended up being assimilated as pseudo-values ​​that could be integrated by the very system they intended to subvert. The so-called flower revolution or flower powerhe left his mark on movements such as the Woodstock mega-concert (1969), psychedelia and very diverse sects, communes and other experiments of greater or lesser projection.

Political activism, the other side of the hippie or psychedelic demobilization coin, also characterized much of the youth of the time. The mobilization against the Vietnam War, widespread in Western countries, was especially strong among American youth, simultaneously with the civil rights movement, led by African-Americans, but of an interracial nature (Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, John and Robert Kennedy, all of them assassinated between 1963 and 1968). The student mobilizations of 1968, which began in French May and spread throughout Western Europe (West Germany, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Sweden, etc.) and America (United States, Mexico, Jamaica, Brazil, etc.),

The youth protest and the new social agents generated new social movements that surpassed the traditional social movements, such as the labor movement. Among them were environmentalism and awareness of the limits of growth (Silent Spring, Rachel Carson -1962-, Club of Rome report advocating zero growth -1970-, Greenpeace -1971-), the anti-nuclear movement, the movement for consumer rights (Insecure at any speed, 1965, Ralph Nader), feminism and other movements related to the sexual revolution (LGBT movement), the educational revolution or renewal (Red Book of School, 1969),anti-psychiatry, disability rights and independent living (Ed Roberts), and many others often opposed to each other, ranging from the peace movement to terrorism and other forms of violence (Charles Manson, Patricia Hearst).

Update of the Catholic Church

Not even the Catholic Church remained immune to youth fever. The need for aggiornamento (updating) demanded by the so-called Christian base communities was evidenced by the crisis of vocations that emptied the seminaries, while a growing minority of priests approached different movements of contestation of authority, such as married priests or the worker priests. The brief pontificate of John XXIII opened the opportunity for the most open partyof the ecclesiastical hierarchy, including the Society of Jesus, imposed its theses at the Second Vatican Council. Doctrinal issues that are difficult to translate into practice, such as ecumenism, were accompanied by others that were much more visual and close to youth sensibilities, such as the mass in the vernacular or the encouragement of the use of modern music in worship. The relationship between science and faith, which had distanced Catholicism from modernity since the time of Galileo, received a notable boost, which in fact surpassed the most suspicious position of most of the Protestant confessions on a key point such as evolutionism.

The succession of Paul VI continued with the same parameters, but limited the expectations of the most radical groups by condemning the use of contraceptive methods and not softening Catholic sexual morality in the face of the challenge posed by the social generalization of premarital relations and divorce.. While a minority of the most traditionalist clergymen even threatened schism (Marcel Lefebvre), progressive theologians such as Hans Küng, Hélder Câmara or Leonardo Boff deepened the implication of Christian thought in social reality from a commitment very different from that represented by the Christian Democracy, located in the political center-right. In Latin America, the so-called preferential option for the poorof Liberation Theology brought many clergymen closer to leftist movements, even seeing the case of guerrilla priests.

The end of the Cold War (1973-1989)

不管白猫黑猫, 捉住老鼠就是好猫

It doesn't matter if it's a white cat or a black cat, as long as it catches mice, it's a good cat.Deng Xiaoping

After conflicts such as the 1961 Berlin Crisis or the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which had brought humanity to the brink of World War III, the United States and the Soviet Union sought more conciliatory ways of handling world politics., including the famous red telephone. The result was the so-called distension. Henry Kissinger, President Richard Nixon's Secretary of State, initiated various intervention maneuvers without direct use of the US Army to counteract Soviet influence with a reorientation of its international policy in a pragmatic sense; highlighting the sponsorship of military dictatorships in Latin America, Asia and Africa and the rapprochement with Mao Zedong's communist China (ping-pong diplomacy). The Vietnam War (the war hated by his own youth) was ended in what meant the acceptance of a true military defeat (signing of the Paris Peace Agreements of 1973). Detente with the Soviet Union, whose bilateral side consisted of slow nuclear disarmament negotiations, collaboration in space and incentives for trade (Soviet food became largely dependent on US cereal surpluses); included a multi-tiered initiative: the Helsinki conference (1973-1975), which on the one hand confirmed the borders and spheres of influence that emerged from Yalta, but which over time proved to be an effective internal solvent for the Soviet bloc, since another of its pillars was respect for human rights,Gulag Archipelago). Around the same time, the communist parties in Western Europe distanced themselves from their former dependency on the Soviet Union, in what was called Eurocommunism.

Faced with the distancing from religion that had characterized the Contemporary Age until then, and that had reached its peak with the counterculture and the movements that emerged from the 1968 protests, opposite symptoms were beginning to be observed. André Malraux had predicted the 21st century will be religious or it will not be. In addition to the spread of religious fundamentalism in very different areas and religions; there was a conservative reaction or a rise of conservative movements throughout the world, which in one way or another seek a return or an update of the traditional values ​​that should be imposed socially, by the will of a moral majority, existing or to be built, that would propitiate it. His political, economic, social and ideological model for Western countries was developed in the UK between 1979 and 1990: Thatcherism. Margaret Thatcher (Tory leader, the first woman to serve as Prime Minister, known as the Iron Lady) undertook a clearly liberal policy in economics and contrary to what she considered the excesses of the welfare state and the strong influence of trade unions (who responded with strike mobilizations that failed), building a new social reality baptized as a market society, based intellectually on the formulations of philosophers and economists such as Karl Popper, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. To designate this political movement, the apparently contradictory labels of neoliberalism and neoconservatism were used. The new vital ideal of broad social layers became not the young long-haired hippie of 1968, but the young yuppie with a tie of the 1980s. There is talk of a postmodern era that Gilles Lipovetsky defines as the Era of the Void linked to the crisis, characterized by an individualism (existence a la carte, narcissism,explosion of the social, dissolution of the political) that eludes the rebellion and dissent characteristic of the years of expansion, transforming the manifestations of violence.

1973 crisis and third industrial revolution

The 1973 crisis, triggered by the use of oil as a political weapon by OPEC in the Arab-Israeli conflict, marked the beginning of a cycle of economic difficulties for Western countries (the so-called stagflation: inflation simultaneous to a stagnation in production, with high unemployment figures), which worsened in the early eighties. Keynesianism, the dominant economic paradigm since the Great Depression, came to be questioned by so-called neoliberal alternatives (Milton Friedman and the Chicago School), which proposed as a solution the reduction of the role of the state in the economy and the recovery of the priority role of the private initiative and the free market without interference or planning.

The industrial revolution had entered a third phase or scientific-technical revolution. Although oil continued to be the dominant source of energy, the crisis (a recurrent energy crisis that manifested itself according to the political situation, as the 1980 Iran-Iraq War and the 1990 Gulf War demonstrated) highlighted the need to replace it with alternative sources. of alternative energy, some renewable and others non-renewable, such as nuclear energy (very much rejected by the environmental movement, which some countries developed intensively to achieve energy self-sufficiency -France-). For others, the rise in oil prices had the effect of exploiting previously uneconomic reserves (offshore platforms in the North Sea for the United Kingdom and Norway).

The most obsolete industrial structures, especially the most labor-intensive ones, were undergoing a process of relocation to what were then called developing countries and by the end of the century will be called new industrial countries, while the old industrialized countries are advancing in a process of outsourcing, in which the application of new technologies based on telecommunications, information technology, robotics and the so-called knowledge economy had more and more weight.

Fall of the European Mediterranean dictatorships and coups in Latin America

The coup by the Greek colonels (1967) had added that country to the two dictatorships in southern Europe that had lasted since the fascist era: Oliveira Salazar's Portugal and Francisco Franco's Spain. During the so-called years of lead, it seemed that even Italian democracy was in danger of regressing.

The trend was reversed with the Portuguese Carnation Revolution (1974), in which the colonial army, faced with the futility of its sacrifice in the wars of independence in Angola and Mozambique, gave way to a multi-party regime that, after a few initial years of social upheaval, it was channeled as a democracy comparable to the European ones. The Spanish transition from the death of Franco, succeeded by Juan Carlos I (1975), had a more stable course led by the centrism of Adolfo Suárez (1976-1981). Also in Greece democratic restoration took place after violent revolts (1974). In all three cases, incorporation into the European Common Market sanctioned the consolidation of democracy.

En cuanto a Turquía, involucrada bélicamente en la guerra civil de Chipre que estalló tras el golpe militar contra el Gobierno de Makarios III (1974), el predominio de los militares en la vida pública siguió siendo decisivo; teniendo un revés después de sufrir su tercer golpe de estado que la sumergió en una dictadura(1980-1989). Los regímenes del Mediterráneo árabe (de Egipto a Marruecos) tampoco se vieron afectados por transformaciones políticas decisivas, variando su grado de alineación o enemistad con Occidente o la retórica panarabista o árabe socialista, pero desde sistemas esencialmente autoritarios.

In the South American Southern Cone, there was a general recourse to authoritarianism to avoid the possibility of the establishment of leftist governments such as the Chilean government of Salvador Allende, contrary to the interests of the ruling classes and the United States (which supported coups d'état and even theoretically trained its protagonists in the School of the Americas). To the already existing military dictatorships (the Paraguayan, 1954-1989, the Brazilian, 1964-1985, and the Bolivian, 1964-1982) were added the Uruguayan (1973-1985), the Chilean of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) and the Argentina (1976-1983).

• Painted allusive to April 25, 1974, the Carnation Revolution in Portugal.
• A demonstration by the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo for the appearance of their children and grandchildren during the Argentine dictatorship, 1982.
• Monument to the Martyrs of Atocha, a violent episode of the Spanish transition.

America after Watergate

In the United States, after the Watergate scandal that removed Richard Nixon from the presidency (1974), the mandate of Democrat Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) was characterized by suffering the most painful effects of the crisis that began in 1973, by a setback of influence in Latin America (Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua) and other areas of the Third World (Cambodia, South Yemen, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique, Somalia, Congo, etc.) and by significant international humiliations (hostage crisis in Iran, 1979-1981). Faced with what they considered the loss of traditional values, excesses of permissiveness and social anomie, a powerful pressure group was organized, made visible by religious televangelists and the so-called moral majority., who won two consecutive Republican presidencies (three terms: those of Ronald Reagan, 1981-1988, and Bush Sr., 1989-1992). With an openly aggressive policy towards the Soviet Union, which he called the " Evil Empire ", Reagan proposed a victorious end to the Cold War through a cooling of bilateral relations and the initiation of investigations for a possible future establishment in outer space. of a ballistic missile interception system, the so-called Strategic Defense Initiative (baptized by the press as « Star Wars» alluding to the contemporary series of films by George Lucas) and a more specific deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe (Euromissiles, in response to a similar Soviet initiative -SS-20-), in a reactivation of the nuclear race that the Soviets were not in a position to follow. In Latin America, after the cycle of military coups in the 1970s (Chile and Uruguay, 1973; Argentina 1976), from the time of Carter the official aim was to support nominally democratic regimes, which in the Reagan era materialized in the intensification of the support of the allied governments against the leftist guerrillas and the veiled support for the movements hostile to the inauspicious governments (such as the contraNicaraguan), reaching direct intervention (invasion of Granada -1983-, invasion of Panama -1989-).

• Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan led the neoconservative reaction of the 1980s, neoliberal in economics and aggressive both at home (cuts to the welfare state) and in foreign policy (Malvinas War, deployment of Euromissiles, etc).
• Mikhail Gorbachev (last leader of the Soviet Union and aware of its impossibility to maintain the arms race) and US President Reagan reached points of agreement that meant the end of the Cold War. In the photo, the signing of the INF treaty (June 1, 1988)
• The American president Jimmy Carter, the Egyptian Anwar el Sadat and the Israeli Menájem Beguín in the Camp David agreements (1978), which brought peace between Israel and Egypt.

Catholic conservative reaction

In the Catholic Church there was a strengthening of the conservative tendency from John Paul II, who revised the most progressive approaches of the Second Vatican Council and the previous pontificates (John XXIII, Paul VI, and the ephemeral John Paul I), repressed liberation theology, very active in Latin America (its discomfort with the entry of the priest Ernesto Cardenal into the Sandinista government of Nicaragua was very evident) and supported by conservative movements such as Opus Dei (whose founder, Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer beatified and canonized very quickly) against the previous preference for the Society of Jesus (among whose ranks were Ignacio Ellacuría and the others assassinated in El Salvador in 1989).

Islamic revolution

From the Iranian Revolution (overthrow of the pro-American Shah Reza Pahlavi, by a fundamentalist movement led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, 1979) it took place throughout the Islamic world (both among the Shiites and among the Sunni majority), and among the numerous colonies of Islamic immigrants in Europe, the so-called Islamic awakening or Islamic revolution, closing the cycle that since decolonization identified the Arab cause with left-wing or Third World nationalism. The governments and ruling classes of the Muslim countries had to opt for three possible strategies: stop the movement (as in Algeria, which annulled the elections that the Islamists were going to win, unleashing a very violent armed reaction in 1991); coexist in a precarious balance (the so-called countriesmoderates, the staunchest allies of the United States, such as the Gulf monarchies -led by Saudi Arabia, which managed to contain an armed uprising in the Great Mosque Incident-, Egypt, Morocco or Turkey -whose official secularism has coexisted since 2003 with the presence in power of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a moderate Islamist, and the most populous and distant countries of the Arab world: Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia); or join it (Sudan, 1983).

US support for the Afghan Taliban for the expulsion of the Soviets from Afghanistan (1979-1989) after the Saur Revolution (1978) ended up turning this country into the clearest refuge of the so-called Islamic terrorism, and originating the conflicts at the beginning of the XXI century. Another of the Western maneuvers to try to contain Islamic extremism, the use of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein against Iran (Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988) also had totally counterproductive results for that strategy: it intensified Iranian fundamentalism and led to an anti-Western drift of the Iraqi dictator, which also caused new wars in the following period. The key to the Islamist confrontation against the West continued to be the persistence of the Arab-Israeli conflict,

Glasnost and Perestroika

In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev was appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in a generational renewal of the leadership that led to the liquidation of the Cold War and liberalizing reforms within the Soviet regime, which received the names of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness or transparency). The 1987 disarmament treaty spelled the end of the arms race. Meanwhile, internal agitation increased, unleashed both by the resistance of those in favor of keeping Stalinist practices intact (nostalgic or conservative) as well as the impatience of the former dissidents and opportunists who saw the time had come to opt for radical changes (which for some would be limited to the establishment of a democratic socialism and for others should mean the transition to a liberal-capitalist system homologous with the West). The timid economic reforms did not solve the traditional problems of supply and increased the discontent of the population, which was no longer hidden as in previous times of greater hardship. In the countries of the communist orbit, the loss of confidence between the local regimes and the new Soviet leaders stimulated the increasingly daring movements of the underground opposition.

Revolutions of 1989

In 1989, the accumulation of energies reached the point necessary for the revolutionary outbreak. In East Germany, the evident loss of Soviet support for the local communist leaders confronted them with a popular mobilization that, unlike previous occasions, was not suppressed, and whose media force, symbolized in the hammer blows of the festive crowd demolishing the Wall from Berlin reached television receivers around the world (Die Wende). The most violent events took place in Romania (Romanian Revolution of 1989), where the repression was harsher due to the resistance to abandon power by Nicolae Ceaușescu (the most autonomous leader of the Eastern bloc, who until then enjoyed a special mediator considerationto Westerners) who was summarily shot in what were likewise other worldwide images.

Relations between the two blocs evidenced the end of the Cold War due to the victory of the Western bloc, with milestones such as the Malta Summit (December 2-3, 1989) and the Paris Charter (November 19-21, 1990).​

Dissolution of the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union itself was heading towards its dissolution, becoming increasingly clear that the new visualization spaces for Soviet dissidence (symbolized by Andrei Sakharov) did not function as support for the reform of the system, but as a dissolving force, above all those of the non-Russian Soviet republics; while those in favor of a return to Stalinist practices. After the referendum in the Soviet Union in 1991, and during a coup attempt promoted against Gorbachev to prevent the signing of the New Union Treaty, a radical reformist, Boris Yeltsin, managed to seize power and promoted a deep process of liberal reforms, including the dissolution of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Baltic republics had already achieved de facto independence;nuclear superpowers. The communist regime thus ended up collapsing in the midst of economic chaos in which the vast majority of the population fell into poverty and the properties and companies socialized or built since the Revolution were privatized (each citizen received a kind of voucher that they could sell at the free market), while the former leaders of the nomenklatura and the KGB formed formal or informal economic groups (some even criminal, the so-called Russian mafia) that entrenched themselves in economic and political control of the new Russia, whose institutional name became the Russian Federation after the signing of the Belavezha Treaty. Many other features of the Tsarist past that Communism had boasted of eliminating, such as nationalism and the Orthodox religion, developed again.

"End of History" or "Clash of Civilizations"? (1989-present)

New order after the fall of the Berlin Wall

The fall of the communist or Eastern bloc caused a reorganization of the international system. The most spectacular of the changes occurred in Europe, where the status quo maintained since Yalta broke down, and which to many observers, including a good part of the statesmen (notably Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand), seemed immovable or less than inconvenient violation. Within its own sphere, the rigidity of the communist political system and the internalization of repression had concealed the persistence of ethnic and religious problems, which from then on were expressed in all their dimensions.

German reunification

The fall of the Berlin Wall was the turning point that weakened the East German government led by Egon Krenz (who came to power after the resignation of Erich Honecker). The Die Wendethe Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and France renounced their rights to sovereignty in German territory. With the entry into force of the German Unification Treaty on October 3 of the same year, the reunification of the two Germanies was formalized.

Yugoslav wars

Paradoxically, it was the European states with the least ties to the Soviet Union that suffered most violently from the fall of the wall. The most isolated communist system in the world, Albania, disintegrated amid anarchy, while Yugoslavia, ignoring half-hearted calls for unity from the international community, fragmented into the republics that made up its confederation (the right to secede was recognized in its constitution). The most decidedly separatist were Slovenia and Croatia, Catholic and avowedly pro-Western (explicitly seeking decisive German support), while Serbia (Orthodox and pro-Russian).) intended the continuity of a Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (since 1992) under the leadership of the communist Slobodan Milošević, with an increasingly Serbian nationalist stance. The most serious conflicts arose in Bosnia-Herzegovina (with a highly mixed ethnic composition between Bosnian-Serbs, Bosnian-Croats and Bosnian-Muslims) and the Serb province of Kosovo (majority populated by Albanians). The international intervention, led by the United States, sanctioned the Serbian defeat in both conflicts (War in Bosnia and War in Kosovo).

The former Soviet republics

The separation of the Baltic republics was radical, and led to their integration into the West (NATO and the European Union), while that of the Central Asian republics was not so radical, remaining strong links with the reorganized Russian Federation. The same thing happened in Belarus, where an authoritarian regime was established. Ukraine, especially after the orange revolution (2004-2005), has maintained a difficult balance, not without conflicts of an economic nature, such as the so-called gas wars. In the Caucasus area the independence of the southern republics (Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia) took place, while the north remained within the Russian Federation. The most violent clashes have taken place in this environment, such as the one in Chechnya (First and Second Chechen War, 1994-1996 and 1999-2009 respectively), harshly repressed by Russian nationalists. Russia spent its first years as a democratic country with political instability, reaching its critical point with the constitutional crisis of 1993 and the financial crisis of 1998, in which after the latter and with the resignation of Boris Yeltsin (1999) began the period of the government of Vladimir Putin (2000). Certain institutional links between the former Soviet republics have been maintained in a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS),

Chinese awakening

Napoleon is credited with the phrase " let China sleep, when China wakes... the world will tremble. " XX, and under criteria very different from those of Maoism. The People's Republic had been transforming from the process to the so-called gang of four that followed the death of Mao Zedong (1976). There was an opening in the Chinese communist regime, which under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping and his one country, two systems policy, attempted to generate a market economy without sacrificing the one-party communist political regime, whose totalitarian character was evidenced by the suppression of the Tian'anmen Square protests of 1989. Continued economic growth has made China a power of increasing importance. Chinese products are increasingly present in international trade, as well as their investments, oriented above all to the search for raw materials and energy resources throughout the world; although its role in the international financial and monetary system is much smaller. Chinese technology has made it possible to place its own taikonaut in orbit(Yang Liwei in the Shenzhou 5 mission, 2003). The scope of his growing military capacity is a mystery that has not yet been put to the test, but his presence in the international concert has been clearly evidenced since the recovery of Hong Kong (1997) and Macao (1999).

The European Union after German reunification

The reunification of the two Germanies, the transformation of the European Communities into the European Union and its expansion towards the Eastern countries in transition to capitalism, turned Europe, now without the adjective Western, into an «economic giant», whose currency, the euro, effectively balanced the dollar's previous monopoly on international money markets. However, difficulties among the member states of the Union in deepening the non-economic parts of the union, which present a challenge to supporters of the strategic autonomy of the organization,and the lack of external coordination left it as a "political dwarf", despite its bureaucratic and institutional growth (Lisbon Treaty, 2007). The initiative in international forums and in military interventions continued to be left in the hands of the United States, at best coordinated through NATO, even for conflicts in the very heart of the continent, such as the Yugoslav wars.

In the absence of a single common authority, the so-called Franco-German axis, maintained by the leaders of both nations beyond the people or parties that succeeded one another in power, functioned as the most obvious nucleus of decision-making power in the Union. Thus, both countries lead the refoundation of the European Union, a project started in 2017 that seeks its institutional reform. The initiative began within the context created after the referendum on the permanence of the United Kingdom in the EU —which after several years of uncertainty led to the exit of said country from the EU in 2020—and the dynamics consequent to the position of relative rupture proposed by the US government of Donald Trump with respect to the EU and the member states of the organization.However, as of 2020, the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic became the main catalyst that drove a series of changes of considerable magnitude in the community bloc.

America's "soft power"

The victory in the Cold War left the United States as the only superpower, not only in the military, but in the so-called soft power that takes shape in the dissemination of its cultural and technological products (notably those linked to computers and the Internet) and the universalization of the particular ideology, identified with the American way of life that considers political and economic freedom indivisible (democratic capitalism). The presidency passed from the Republicans (Ronald Reagan, 1981-89 and Bush Sr., 1989-93) to the Democrats during the terms of Bill Clinton (1993-2001), to return to the Republicans with Bush Jr. (2001-2009).

Despite its undisputed continuity at the height of economic wealth, military power and ideological dominance, or precisely because of the frustration of the expectations raised by it; The most common interpretation of the international system usually speaks of a decline of the United States, even a failure in terms of managing its leadership in the face of world problems: global warming (refusal to sign the Kyoto protocol), nuclear proliferation (problematic response to the nuclear challenges of North Korea and Iran, after the use of the argument of weapons of mass destructionto justify the Iraq War), terrorism, inability to respond to the growing demands for conflict resolution in failed states or humanitarian crises (especially in Africa, where the failed intervention in Somalia -1993- led to non-intervention in the Genocide of Rwanda -1994- or in the Darfur Conflict -2003-); and a worsening of its international image (anti-Americanism). Its own internal public opinion was characterized (at least until 9/11) by a double and contradictory demand: that of intervening abroad to solve all kinds of world problems, and the intolerance of assuming the risk of loss of life not only own, but also the enemy.

The internal conflicts within the United States, once the most combative phase of the struggle for civil rights had passed, were expressed in an increase in the activity of ultra-conservative groups and a worrying spread of group or individual violence (Los Angeles riots in 1992, Waco Branch Davidians massacre and World Trade Center bombing -1993-, Oklahoma City bombing -1995-, Unabomber anti-technological attacks -until 1996-, Columbine High School massacre -1999-) denounced by a famous documentary by Michael Moore.

Democratization of Latin America

The disappearance of the Soviet Union broke any possible link between local leftist movements in Latin America (the FARC in Colombia, Sendero Luminoso in Peru, etc.) and any superpower hostile to the United States; which had been the main cause for their support of the military dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s. The last US interventions, with the open use of armed force, were the invasion of Grenada in 1983 and that of Panama in 1989. Cuba was subjected to rigorous international isolation and an economic crisis (Special Period), accentuated by a trade embargo by of the United States that failed to weaken Fidel Castro's regime inside despite the large demonstrations that were unleashed against the government in 1994, called Maleconazo. In the Southern Cone (Brazil,transitions to democracy (for example, the corralito during the Argentine crisis of 2001).

Globalization and anti-globalization

The media, especially the mass media (press, cinema, radio, television) had allowed since the beginning of the 20th century the global diffusion of the soft power of American culture (Americanization) in all its contents, both the ideology underlying all kinds of information, cultural, anecdotal or stultifying, or the same publicity, having a direct impact on popular culture. The computer revolution, mobile telephony and the Internet have taken the process to its extreme in the final decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century (blogosphere, web 2.0, etc.).

The intensification of migratory movements (whose need, repression or control is the subject of intense debate), the technological improvement in the transport of goods (logistics, normalization of containers), the increasingly free movement of capital and the fall or liberalization of trade barriers due to the end of the blocs and the successive rounds of the GATT and the World Trade Organization; they have brought the old world-economy of the 16th century to a degree of integration never before known.

The homogenization of lifestyles seems to have confirmed the hypothesis of Marshall MacLuhan, who spoke of the global village in the sixties. The decentralization implied by the concept of the network makes alternative content to the dominant one more and more common (Arabic television Al Jazeera and Russian RTas competition from the American CNN, BBC documentaries, Bollywood movies or Japanese manga). The acceleration in the rate of change of fashions, trends and cultural references makes them ephemeral and difficult to follow outside of each urban tribe identified with one of them. In multiple fields, unsuspected effects are generated from the application of the concept of simultaneity made possible by the massive exchange of information in real time. Traditional social movements are being transformed in a decisive way, even the calls for demonstrations and protests have stopped being made by traditional means to be carried out autonomously and spontaneously by the dynamics generated in social networks. The scientific community (in which theWorld Wide Web as a collaboration mechanism between research groups) has carried out programs of unsuspected power, such as the Human Genome Project (1984-2000) and advances in genetic engineering, which could question the very concept of being human (transhumanism).).

Supporters of globalization argue that it facilitates the free exchange of ideas, individual expression, and respect for people's rights, as well as being inevitable, as is technological progress. Its detractors denounce that globalization is unilateral and promotes the predominance of a particular culture (the American) that would end up imposing itself on the entire planet, ending cultural, linguistic and religious minorities, and that the defenders of globalization actually defend their own interests. economic, such as the submission of states to a suicidal competition for relocation, social dumping and ecological dumping.

There is no unity of interests or expression in these movements, which range from the defense of agrarian protectionism (José Bové) to the most classic social protests previously expressed in the labor movement, environmentalism and pacifism. Paradoxically, the response to globalization has been organized around dynamic social networks allowed by the globalization process itself, with the so-called anti-globalization or alter -globalization movement., initiated more or less spontaneously in the Seattle demonstrations (1999) in response to the IMF meeting and the G8 Counter-Summit in Genoa (2001) and institutionalized around the Porto Alegre World Social Forum (organized alternatively to the same and to the elitist encounters of the so-called Man of Davos). They have generated the motto another world is possible.

The world after 9/11

The attacks carried out by Al Qaeda (an Islamist terrorist network founded and organized by Osama bin Laden) against the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. on September 11, 2001, and the subsequent US reaction (war against terrorism), led by President George W. Bush (Afghanistan War and Iraq War), evidenced the existence of a new type of global conflict that Samuel Huntington had previously called with the term clash of civilizations (a theory built in controversy with Francis Fukuyama, who had proclaimed, at the time of the fall of the Soviet Union, that history was inescapably tending towards liberal systems, and that when these were achieved, we were facing theEnd of Story). The attacks showed the vulnerability of the Western system to groups willing to use against it the possibilities that an open society allowed them, and the contradiction of reacting with the restriction of freedoms (Patriotic Act) or the social criminalization of Islamic minorities., practices that had been taken to an extreme would have been the clearest success of the aggressors. The foreign reaction, beyond its relative success or failure, demonstrated the gigantic response capacity of the United States and the solidity of its alliance with a large number of countries (NATO, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Mexico, Israel, governments of so-called moderate Islamic countries-monarchies of the Persian Gulf, Morocco, Jordan, Pakistan-), while Russia and China avoid committing themselves and some countries of the so-called axis of evil made approaches to the West (Libya, Syria).

However, the existing divisions in the vast pro-Western coalition were expressed in the different attitude of each of the countries allied with the United States: divergence between public opinion and governments, especially in Muslim countries (which after years -in early 2011- led to the outbreak of simultaneous revolts in Arab countries questioning the stability of a large number of authoritarian regimes that Western countries considered valuable against radical Islamism); resistance of France and Germany (called old Europe against the new europeof the staunchest allies of the United States -the former communist countries of Eastern Europe, the Spain of José María Aznar and the Italy of Silvio Berlusconi-) to get involved in the Iraq War, or the departure of the Spanish troops (after the attack of March 11, 2004 and the immediate electoral victory of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero). Even within the United States itself, the positions were not unanimous, especially after not finding the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein had been claimed to possess (a fact that had been adduced as casus belli for the preventive attack, something characteristic of the Bush Doctrine) and other scandals (torture in the Abu Ghraib prison and detention without term or trial of the so-called illegal combatantsin the Guantánamo detention center, which Barack Obama - the first black president of the United States, 2009 - had promised to close). One of the country's finest achievements during his tenure was a US Army-led mission that resulted in the death of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the city of Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011.

The predominance of the United States, the only superpower on the international scene after the disappearance of the Soviet Union, is contested, at least nominally, by declarations in favor of a multipolar world instead of a unipolar one. very different terms, from the common position of the foreign policy of the European Union to the most aggressive of the Iran of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (an expression of radical Islamism) and the Venezuela of Hugo Chávez (and other Latin American leaders who in some cases are called indigenists -Evo Morales in Bolivia-), or the cautious Russia of Vladimir Putin and China of Xi Jinping.

The economic crisis of 2008 (known as the Great Recession), which arose as a result of the bursting of a financial-real estate bubble, has called into question the foundations of the international financial system and unleashed the fear of a deep recession that would question the continuity of the capitalist system. and the democratic system itself, both identified in what has come to be called democratic capitalism; and not only from the concept of the national State, questioned for some time, but also from that of supranational integration, evidenced by the serious vulnerability of the Eurozone to the crisis 2010 Monetary,Aggravated in the following months with the successive crises of the sovereign debt of the peripheral countries, the most affected countries being Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland. During 2011, as a result of the Tunisian revolution, popular revolts with innovative characteristics took place in the Arab countries (Arab Spring), simultaneously with the emergence of new social movements in the most developed countries (outraged in Spain, occupying Wall Street in the United States States, etc.); all of them characterized by their viral impact on social networks and the media together with the physical occupation of emblematic public spaces.

The outbreak of the war against the Islamic State worsened political instability in much of the Arab world (Arab Winter), with its epicenter in the areas where the Islamic State began the conflict due to the armed conflicts that those countries suffered (Syria and Iraq).. The Syrian civil war altered the international balance to the benefit of Turkey (despite the fact that it suffered a coup attempt that failed to weaken Erdoğan's power and triggered massacres against opponents) and Russia (which, on the other hand, is expanding at the expense of Ukraine -annexation of Crimea, 2014 and support for secessionists during the Donbass War- while facing a severe political conflict -Ukrainian crisis-); and led to a refugee crisis that upset the very stability of the European Union. Simultaneously David Cameron,Brexit, 2016-) that, like others celebrated in other parts of Europe and the world (peace agreements in Colombia and the constitutional reform in Italy) regardless of their result, evidenced a strange situation of estrangement between the electoral bodies and what is had been considering as «political correctness» in the traditional media, and that has been designated with the neologism «post-truth», also applied to the Cuban thaw (2014-2016), the arrival of the extravagant Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States (2017)​ or the devastating Coronavirus crisis.

• Workers protests in Greece (2011) over the economic austerity measures taken by their government, as well as other governments, to try to deal with the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2008.
• Faces of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and the historical figure Simón Bolívar during the former's funeral (2013): Chávez had created the Bolivarian Revolution, a socialist and nationalist movement related to 21st century Socialism that sought a post-Soviet transformation of the left.
• President-elect Donald Trump and then-President Barack Obama (2016), Trump's coming to power meant discontent with traditional politics in the United States, as well as the growth of the alternative right-wing populist movement.
• Yazidis protesting the genocide against them by the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (2019), a terrorist organization independent of Al Qaeda, urinated at the failure of the Arab spring in some countries such as Iraq, Syria, Libya, among others known as the Arab winter, the terrorist organization persecuted minorities such as Christians, Copts, and Druze (religious); Kurds and Yazidis (ethnic) and Shiites (other Muslim branches). Likewise, the liberation of Mosul (2017) from terrorist hands represented a great blow to the Islamic State in the Middle East.

The passage of time will show whether future historiography understands the historical evolution of the last or coming years (the fall of the Soviet Union, the attack on the Twin Towers, or other events that are about to take place) as the development of the same characteristics of all the Contemporary Age, or as a completely different new era that justifies a new periodization of history or a methodological renewal; although while the facts and processes are ongoing, such tasks do not correspond to historiography, but to prospective.