Introduction for Chapter 17

17 The Expansion of Europe

1650–1800

Absolutism and aristocracy, a combination of raw power and elegant refinement, were a world apart from the common people. For most people in the eighteenth century, life remained a struggle with poverty and uncertainty, with the landlord and the tax collector. In 1700 peasants on the land and artisans in their shops lived little better than had their ancestors in the Middle Ages, primarily because European societies still could not produce very much as measured by modern standards. Despite the hard work of ordinary men and women, there was seldom enough good food, warm clothing, and decent housing. The idea of progress, of substantial improvement in the lives of great numbers of people, was still the dream of only a small elite in fashionable salons.

Yet the economic basis of European life was beginning to change. In the course of the eighteenth century, the European economy emerged from the long crisis of the seventeenth century, responded to challenges, and began to expand once again. Population resumed its growth, while colonial empires extended and developed. Some areas were more fortunate than others. The rising Atlantic powers — the Dutch Republic, France, and above all England — and their colonies led the way. The expansion of agriculture, industry, trade, and population marked the beginning of a surge comparable to that of the eleventh- and twelfth-century springtime of European civilization. But this time, broadly based expansion was not cut short by plague and famine. This time the response to new challenges led toward one of the most influential developments in human history, the Industrial Revolution, considered in Chapter 20.

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Life in the Expanding Europe of the Eighteenth Century. The activities of the bustling cosmopolitan port of Marseilles were common to ports across Europe in the eighteenth century. Here a wealthy Frenchwoman greets a group of foreign merchants, while dockhands struggle to shift their heavy loads. (Gianni Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY)

CHAPTER PREVIEW

Working the Land

What important developments led to increased agricultural production, and how did these changes affect peasants?

The Beginning of the Population Explosion

Why did the European population rise dramatically in the eighteenth century?

The Growth of Rural Industry

How and why did rural industry intensify in the eighteenth century?

The Debate over Urban Guilds

What were guilds, and why did they become controversial in the eighteenth century?

The Atlantic World and Global Trade

How did colonial markets boost Europe’s economic and social development, and what conflicts and adversity did world trade entail?

Chronology

1600–1850 Growth in agriculture, pioneered by the Dutch Republic and England
1651–1663 British Navigation Acts
1652–1674 Anglo-Dutch wars
1700–1790 Height of Atlantic slave trade; expansion of rural industry in Europe
1701–1763 British and French mercantilist wars of empire
1720–1722 Last outbreak of bubonic plague in Europe
1720–1789 Growth of European population
1756–1763 Seven Years’ War
1760–1815 Height of parliamentary enclosure in England
1763 Treaty of Paris; France cedes its possessions in India and North America
1770 James Cook claims the east coast of Australia for England
1776 Adam Smith publishes An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
1805 British takeover of India complete
1807 British slave trade abolished