Chapter 16: Part Two

The second part of this chapter focuses on some of the repercussions of the Atlantic revolutions which reverberated far beyond their places of origin and persisted long after those upheavals were concluded.  The most significant of these repercussions were three major movements that arose to challenge continuing patterns of oppression and exclusion.  These movements were abolitionism, which aimed to end slavery, nationalism, which aimed to foster unity and independence from foreign rule, and feminism, which challenged male dominance.  Each of these movements bore the marks of the Atlantic revolutions, and each came to have a global significance in the following centuries.

It's quite remarkable that the practice of slavery, widely practiced and little condemned since at least the beginning of human civilization, lost its legitimacy and was largely ended in little more than a century, from 1780 to 1890.  In the abolition movement, the ideas and practices of the Atlantic revolutions played a key role.  In way this movement towards abolishing slavery can be seen as a natural manifestation of Enlightenment ideals, with slavery coming to be seen as a violation of the natural rights of every person, in a very obvious way.  This thinking was bolstered by an increasingly vociferous religious opposition to the practice, particularly in Britain and the United States.  Furthermore, contrary to much earlier thinking, slavery began to be seen as not essential for economic progress, as both England and New England were among the most prosperous regions in the Western world at that time, and both were based on free labor.  As a result, moral virtue and economic success were joined.  These various strands of thinking came together in abolitionist movements.

Although the idea that humankind is divided into separate nations with distinct culture and territory deserving of independent political life is so widespread nowadays it may seem natural and timeless, it for most of human history states didn't usually coincide with the culture of a particular people, and most governments ruled over very diverse societies.  During the 19th century, however, nationalism proved to be an infinitely flexible and enormously powerful idea, not just in Europe, but elsewhere as well. For example, it inspired the establishment of Germany and Italy, as well as groups within vast empires to seek independence, but it also exacerbated existing rivalries among nations, which helped set the stage for World War I.