The protestant movement began to grow as a revolt against the Catholic Church that led to the obligation of a reform. This became known as the Protestant Reformation: the protest for a
After the events of the French revolution and the toppling of the near absolutist monarchy, other nations in Europe also thought about standing up to the absolutist regimes in their countries. This led to the eventual revolutions all over Europe in the 19th century with 2 new states being formed. In the 1860s
Analysis of Protestant Reformation Reasons What were the religious, social, economic, political and cultural reasons of the Reformation? To explain why did the Reformation happen, historians usually start with the impact of Martin Luther’s religious ideas and his effect on the society. However Reformation is something which has to be covered from various aspects, for instance, it can be seen as an economic protest against the Church’s eager to fleece its religious folk, or as a political uprising of the German princes to confine the authority of the Church in their country, as it was regarded as a foreigner institution which was based in Rome. The Reformation was also closely related to cultural reasons such as the notion of nationalism. The Renaissance, which was one of the main catalysts of the Reformation rejected the blind obedience and encouraged innovation, focusing on the potential within every human being.
The Reformation was a religious revolution in the 16th-century that resulted in a schism within Western Christianity between the Roman Catholic Church and the newly established Protestant churches. The likes of Martin Luther and John Calvin, among others, exercised significantly important roles in the Reformation’s development. The Reformation effectively separated the peoples of Western Europe into two opposing religious blocs, Protestants and Catholics. Traditionally, the Reformation has been considered to be a turning-point in history as Europe was plunged into centuries of conflict, disagreement, and violence. Two distinct national traditions offer an analysis of the vast consequences that the Reformation had upon Western Europe; that is,
In the age of modernity, there was a drastic shift in all aspects of society. This shift can be attributed to the new thought that arose out of the Reformation and the Enlightenment periods. With the earlier Reformation, the thought of the conforming away from extensive domain of the Roman Catholic Church emerged with the growing sense of individualism. This concept carried directly over into the next century where the Enlightenment gave new meaning to the individual, shifting even more towards individualistic thought with the the use of reason, moving away from a dependence on religion. These new developments in political, religious, and philosophical thought changed western culture, laying the foundations of today’s free individualistic society.
An emerging interest in human reason posed a threat to the church, which by now favored order, conservatism, and stability. As one author puts it, "Movements suspected of enthusiasm, such as Puritanism, Quietism, and Janesism, fell into disrepute, and the authority exercised by the state in religious affairs became more pronounced. It was an age dominated by Reason, which, until it provoked a reaction in such movements as Pietism and Evangelism, posed a formidable challenge to Christianity. Out of the Age of Reason came renewed interests in art, architecture, and music. The church used these as tools for enhancing worship, affirming faith, teaching, and advancing aesthetics.
Americanization is the act of influence from the Untied States pushed onto other countries ultimately effecting their culture. For the purpose of this essay, I will be analyzing Americanization in Europe in particular since the course is focused on this relationship specifically. It is easy to understand why American cultural influence has and continues to spread throughout Europe so rapidly. In the “Transmission of American Culture” reading from class, the author explains the presence of American culture in Europe as “relentless involvement.” The ideals that America represents, mainly freedom and justice, are applied to European culture through the goods exported from the west. Even though the products from America may just seem like goods to sell and buy, they represent much more than that.
Nationalism was closely tied to liberalism in that exponentials of both ideologies demanded far reaching political change that threatened the state system of Central Europe. Nationalism is the belief that one’s greatest loyalty should not be to a king or empire but to a nation of people who share a common culture language and history .Nationalism touched nearly every country in Europe in the first half of the 19thCentuary but it was not until after 1848 that it really began to At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, representatives from all the allies who had defeated Napoleon Austria, Russia, Prussia and Great Britain came together to try and provide a long term peace plan for Europe. They hoped that by settling the issues that had arouse during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars that they could stop Europe being shaken by further Revolutions. They drew a map of Europe that lasted for several generations. “What became known as the Congress system restored the principle of dynastic legitimacy and the balance of international power in Europe” .
Capitalism was the major transformation that shaped the modern world. The system replaced the traditional way of agrarian methods to more advanced way like production for market of national and international scope (Giddens, 1990 P.11). The modern world brought up with new concepts like, capital, investment, markets, industry and others, these were elaborated as part of the development of modern economic life. Tell the 18th century knowledge about “the creation of the world, about the man’s place in the world, about nature and society and about man’s duties and destiny” all was controlled by the Christian churches (Hall, 1992 ‘p.29’). Philosophers opposed the Christian believe that “the earth is the center of the universe”, they become more away from religion,
The constantly changing mentality was enabled by new political and philosophical thought emerging in the late 17th and early 18th century, with a lot of writings used as a weapon against the church which was associated with injustice and abuses. The main ideas employed, as stated by R.R Palmer in the “The world revolution of the West” study, were: “a demand for self-determination, a sense of autonomy of the personality, a refusal to accept norms laid down outside the self, leading sometimes to profound subjectivity, or an instance on self-expression rather than adjustment to preexisting authoritative standards” . These new ideas gave people hope and expectations regarding changing the system to one that serves the interests of a majority, leading them to attempt to change the monarchic system. Moreover, during this time, people’s individualism grew stronger resulting in a demand of self-regulation because of the fact that the values promoted by the church back then did not suffice anymore the needs, demands and values of the population. This was an immediate consequence of the industrial revolution which created new social classes and categories and enlarged the spectrum of interest that an average citizen could develop in respect to the simultaneous cultural branching triggered by the enlighten phenomenon that