Absolutism, Constitutionalism, and Revolution

In many states of Europe, absolutism emerged in the seventeenth century as the solution to economic stagnation and political disorder. Kings in some countries, such as France, Spain, Austria, and Prussia, claimed exclusive, absolute power, though in reality they often worked with nobles to achieve their aims. To meet the demands of running their expanding governments, rulers turned to trusted ministers, though they also asserted that they were responsible to God alone and that no other institution or group had the right to check their power. In central and eastern Europe, some rulers made legal, religious, and economic reforms that they hoped would improve society, inspired by new ideas about reason and progress that emerged with the Enlightenment. A small minority of states adopted a different path, placing sovereignty in the hands of privileged groups rather than the Crown, a form of government historians refer to as “constitutionalism.” In England disputes between the monarch and various elite groups over royal claims to power led to a civil war and ultimately to a constitutional monarchy, while in the Netherlands the Dutch established a republic that saw amazing commercial prosperity.

Conflict among various European powers over both domestic and colonial affairs led to a series of wars, culminating in the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), in which the battlefields stretched from central Europe to India to North America, pitting a new alliance of England and Prussia against France and Austria. In the aftermath of the war, both British and French governments had to raise taxes, which led to a revolt of the British colonies in North America and their eventual independence, and was one of the factors leading to the French Revolution, which toppled the monarchy. France established first a constitutional monarchy, then a radical republic, and finally a new empire under Napoleon, though this event sparked the growth of reactive nationalism, which led to his defeat. French armies violently exported revolution beyond the nation’s borders, and, inspired by revolutionary ideals and by their own experiences and desires, slaves in the French colony of Saint-Domingue rose up, eventually forming the new nation of Haiti. (Pages 464–500, 532–538, 610–645)