Long 19th century

According to Eric Hobsbawm, the long 19th century is understood as the phase from 1789 to 1914. In the French Revolution , the bourgeoisie broke through the domination of the nobility . The end of the long 19th century results from the political upheavals in the wake of the First World War , which were reflected in democratization or popularization . Hobsbawm did not use the term as a book title, but did mention in 1987 that he had dealt with "that 'long 19th century'" in his three-volume work on this period. In a posthumous new edition in 2017, the term was made the title of the trilogy.

The path to modernity is characteristic of this epoch, which is reflected in historical progress thinking as well as in secularization and rationalization, nation building and democratization. It finds its theoretical basis in the Enlightenment , which finally took on political and social shape. The 19th century rests on the cornerstones of industrialization , demographic change (emigration, internal migration and urbanization are mass phenomena), the implementation of the nation-state principle and the bourgeoisisation of society. Science and education gained recognition and were made available to a broader class.

For the non-European world, the subjugation, colonization and, in some cases, settlement of large parts of Africa , Asia and Australia by the major European powers, especially in the phase of imperialism from 1885 to 1914, while in America, mostly dominated by European elites, new republics emerged .

Since the epoch, which is regarded as characteristic of the 19th century, spans around 125 years, the 19th century seems to be around 25 years "too long". Analogously, the period from 1914 to 1989 is also understood as a unit and speaks of the “ short 20th century ”. These two centuries are separated by what is known as the “ great catastrophe of the 20th century ” - the First World War.

See also

• Belle Époque

German edition

• The long 19th century , Konrad Theiss Verlag, Darmstadt, ISBN 978-3-8062-3641-5 (3 volumes).

literature

• Franz J. Bauer : The “long” 19th century (1789–1917). Profile of an era . Reclam, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-15-017043-5
• Jürgen Kocka : The long 19th century. Work, nation and civil society (= Gebhardt. Handbook of German History ; Vol. 13). 10., completely reworked. Ed., Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-608-60013-2
• Buchner's College History ISBN 3-7661-4642-4
• Michael Stolleis : The long farewell to the 19th century: the turning point of 1914 from a legal historical perspective . de Gruyter, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-11-015688-1
• Nils Freytag, Dominik Petzold (Ed.): The “long” 19th century. Old questions and new perspectives . Herbert Utz Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-8316-0725-9 .
• Jürgen Osterhammel : In search of a 19th century . In: Sebastian Conrad (Ed.): Global history: Theories, approaches, topics . Campus, Frankfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38333-0
• Jürgen Osterhammel: The Transformation of the World: A History of the 19th Century . Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-58283-7
• Klaus-Werner Haupt: The fascination of the Orient in the long 19th century . Weimarer Verlagsgesellschaft / Imprint of the publishing house Römerweg Wiesbaden 2015. ISBN 978-3-7374-0220-0
• Matthias von Hellfeld: The long 19th century. Between Revolution and War 1776 - 1914. Dietz-Verlag, Bonn 2015, ISBN 978-3-8012-0468-6

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hobsbawm: The Imperial Age, Frankfurt a. M. 1989, p. 15. He leaves the exact beginning of the period open and gives p. 18 "about 1776".

Web links

• Long 19th century in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna