Chapter 25 The Age of

Nationalism, 1850–1914

The flash and glitter of unprecedented prosperity in the Second Empire come alive in this vibrant contemporary painting. Writers and intellectuals chat with elegant women and trade witticisms with financiers and government officials at the Café Tortoni, a favorite rendezvous for fashionable society. Horse-drawn omnibuses with open top decks mingle with cabs and private carriages on the broad new boulevard.

Paris in the Second Empire

Lauros/Giraudon/ The Bridgeman Art Library

The Unification of Italy, 1859–1870

The Unification of Italy, 1859–1870

This map shows how Prussia expanded and a new German empire was created through two wars, the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the Franco- Prussian War of 1870–1871. It deserves careful study because it highlights how central Europe was remade and the power of Prussia-Germany was greatly increased.•1 What were the results of the Austro-Prussian War? Specifically, how did Prussia treat its neighbors in the north, such as Hanover and Saxony?•2 What losses did Austria experience in 1866?•3 What were the results of the Franco-Prussian War for France and for the predominately Catholic states of southern Germany, such as Bavaria and Württemberg?

The Unification of Germany, 1866–1871

This map illustrates the nation on the eve of the Civil War. Although many issues contributed to the developing opposition between North and South, slavery was the fundamental, enduring force that underlay all others. Lincoln’s prediction, “I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free,” tragically proved correct.

Slavery in the United States, 1860

Carol Berkin et al., Making America: A History of the United States, 2d ed., p. 322. Copyright © 1999 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Reprinted with permission.

In the late 1870s a small group of revolutionaries believed that killing the tsar could destroy the Russian state. Succeeding in blowing up the reforming Alexander II after several near misses, the five assassins, including one woman, were quickly caught and hanged. Russia entered an era of reaction and harsh authoritarian rule.

The Fruits of Terrorism, 1881

Visual Connection Archive

As this painting suggests, Ottoman leaders became well versed in European languages and culture. They also mastered the game of power politics, playing one European state off against another and securing the Ottoman Empire’s survival. The black servants on the right may be slaves from Sudan.

Pasha Halim Receiving Archduke Maximilian of Austria

Miramare Palace Trieste/Dagli Orti/The Art Archive)

The long-simmering campaign for women’s suffrage in England came to a rapid boil after 1903, as militants took to the streets, disrupted political meetings, and tried to storm Parliament. Manhandled by the police and often jailed, some activists responded by damaging public property and going on hunger strikes in prison. This 1908 illustration shows demonstrators giving a hero’s welcome to Mary Leigh, the first suffragette imprisoned for property damage after she threw rocks through the windows of the prime minister’s house.

“Votes for Women!”

The Illustrated London News Picture Library

Born into the French branch of modern Europe’s most famous banking family, Baron Edmond de Rothschild played an important role in early Jewish settlements in the Ottoman province of Palestine. Beginning in the 1880s, Rothschild purchased large tracts of land from Arab landowners, and on several occasions he visited the Jewish colonists that he continued to support. Seen here in a long coat on a Turkish train, he is flanked by Ottoman officials.

Edmond de Rothschild Visits Palestine

Courtesy, Central Zionist Archive, Jerusalem

Theodor Herzl.Theodor Herzl.

Library of Congress

1890 engraving of a meeting of workers in Berlin.

1890 engraving of a meeting of workers in Berlin.

Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY