List of cultural, intellectual, philosophical and technological revolutions

Last updated

A Watt steam engine in Madrid. The development of the steam engine propelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the world. The steam engine was created to pump water from coal mines, enabling them to be deepened beyond groundwater levels. Maquina vapor Watt ETSIIM.jpg
A Watt steam engine in Madrid. The development of the steam engine propelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the world. The steam engine was created to pump water from coal mines, enabling them to be deepened beyond groundwater levels.

The term revolution is used to denote trends which have resulted in great social changes outside the political sphere, such as changes in mores, culture, philosophy or technology. Many have been global, while others have been limited to single countries. Such revolutions include:

See also

Related Research Articles

A cultural movement is a change in the way a number of different disciplines approach their work. This embodies all art forms, the sciences, and philosophies. Historically, different nations or regions of the world have gone through their own independent sequence of movements in culture, but as world communications have accelerated this geographical distinction has become less distinct. When cultural movements go through revolutions from one to the next, genres tend to get attacked and mixed up, and often new genres are generated and old ones fade.: These changes are often reactions against the prior cultural form, which typically has grown stale and repetitive. An obsession emerges among the mainstream with the new movement, and the old one falls into neglect – sometimes it dies out entirely, but often it chugs along favored in a few disciplines and occasionally making reappearances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Industrial Revolution</span> 1760–1840 period of rapid technological change

The Industrial Revolution, also known as the First Industrial Revolution, was a period of global transition of human economy towards more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes that succeeded the Agricultural Revolution, starting from Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going from hand production methods to machines; new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes; the increasing use of water power and steam power; the development of machine tools; and the rise of the mechanized factory system. Output greatly increased, and the result was an unprecedented rise in population and the rate of population growth. The textile industry was the first to use modern production methods, and textiles became the dominant industry in terms of employment, value of output, and capital invested.

In historiography, periodization is the process or study of categorizing the past into discrete, quantified, and named blocks of time for the purpose of study or analysis. This is usually done in order to understand current and historical processes, and the causality that might have linked those events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">20th century</span> Time period between 1 January 1901 and 31 December 2000

The 20th century began on 1 January 1901 (MCMI), and ended on 31 December 2000 (MM). It was the last century of the 2nd millennium and was marked by new models of scientific understanding, unprecedented scopes of warfare, new modes of communication that would operate at nearly instant speeds, and new forms of art and entertainment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British Agricultural Revolution</span> Mid-17th to 19th century revolution centred around agriculture

The British Agricultural Revolution, or Second Agricultural Revolution, was an unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain arising from increases in labour and land productivity between the mid-17th and late 19th centuries. Agricultural output grew faster than the population over the hundred-year period ending in 1770, and thereafter productivity remained among the highest in the world. This increase in the food supply contributed to the rapid growth of population in England and Wales, from 5.5 million in 1700 to over 9 million by 1801, though domestic production gave way increasingly to food imports in the 19th century as the population more than tripled to over 35 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Industrialisation</span> Period of social and economic change from agrarian to industrial society.

Industrialisation (UK) or industrialization (US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive reorganisation of an economy for the purpose of manufacturing. Industrialisation is associated with increase of polluting industries heavily dependent on fossil fuels. With the increasing focus on sustainable development and green industrial policy practices, industrialisation increasingly includes technological leapfrogging, with direct investment in more advanced, cleaner technologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of technology</span>

The history of technology is the history of the invention of tools and techniques and is one of the categories of world history. Technology can refer to methods ranging from as simple as stone tools to the complex genetic engineering and information technology that has emerged since the 1980s. The term technology comes from the Greek word techne, meaning art and craft, and the word logos, meaning word and speech. It was first used to describe applied arts, but it is now used to describe advancements and changes which affect the environment around us.

The early modern period of modern history spans the period after the Late Middle Ages to the beginning of the Age of Revolutions. Although the chronological limits of this period are open to debate, the timeframe is variously demarcated by historians as beginning with the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Renaissance period in Europe and Timurid Central Asia, the end of the Crusades, the Age of Discovery, and ending around the French Revolution in 1789, or Napoleon's rise to power.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Core countries</span> Industrialized capitalist countries

In world systems theory, the core countries are the industrialized capitalist or imperialist countries, which depend on appropriation from peripheral countries and semi-peripheral countries. Core countries control and benefit from the global market. They are usually recognized as wealthy states with a wide variety of resources and are in a favorable location compared to other states. They have strong state institutions, a powerful military and powerful global political alliances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unilineal evolution</span> Social theory

Unilineal evolution, also referred to as classical social evolution, is a 19th-century social theory about the evolution of societies and cultures. It was composed of many competing theories by various anthropologists and sociologists, who believed that Western culture is the contemporary pinnacle of social evolution. Different social status is aligned in a single line that moves from most primitive to most civilized. This theory is now generally considered obsolete in academic circles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golden age (metaphor)</span> A period in a field of endeavor when great tasks were accomplished

A golden age is a period considered the peak in the history of a country or people, a time period when the greatest achievements were made. The term originated from early Greek and Roman poets, who used it to refer to a time when mankind lived in a better time and was pure.

The modern era is the period of human history that succeeds the Middle Ages up to the present. This terminology is a historical periodization that is applied primarily to European and Western history.

Advanced Placement (AP) European History, is a course and examination offered by the College Board through the Advanced Placement Program. This course is for high school students who are interested in a first year university level course in European history. The course surveys European history from between 1300-1450 CE to the present, focusing on religious, social, economic, and political themes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Divergence</span> Period/event in European history

The Great Divergence or European miracle is the socioeconomic shift in which the Western world overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during the 19th century as the most powerful and wealthy world civilizations, eclipsing previously dominant or comparable civilizations from the Middle East and Asia such as the Ottoman Empire, Mughal India, Safavid Iran, Qing China and Tokugawa Japan, among others.

Paleolithic migration prior to end of the Last Glacial Maximum spread anatomically modern humans throughout Afro-Eurasia and to the Americas. During the Holocene climatic optimum, formerly isolated populations began to move and merge, giving rise to the pre-modern distribution of the world's major language families.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western culture</span> Norms, values, customs and political systems of the Western world

Western culture, also known as Western civilization, European civilization, Occidental culture, or Western society, is an umbrella term which refers to the diverse heritages of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems, artifacts and technologies of the Western world. Western civilization, broadly defined, finds its roots in the foundations laid by Greco-Roman civilization, and the tenets of Western Christianity. It has also been substantially influenced by societal influences from Germanic peoples.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Technological revolution</span> Period of rapid technological change

A technological revolution is a period in which one or more technologies is replaced by another novel technology in a short amount of time. It is a time of accelerated technological progress characterized by innovations whose rapid application and diffusion typically cause an abrupt change in society.

In many periodizations of human history, the late modern period followed the early modern period. It began approximately around the year 1800 and depending on the author, either ended with the beginning of contemporary history after World War II in 1945, or includes the contemporary history period up to the present day. Notable historical events in the late 18th century that marked the transition from the early modern period to the late modern period include – the American Revolution (1765–1791), the French Revolution (1789–1799), and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution around 1760.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of Qing dynasty's economic performance</span>

During the Manchu–led Qing dynasty, the economy was significantly developed and markets continued to expand especially in the High Qing era, and imperial China experienced a second commercial revolution in the economic history of China from the mid-16th century to the end of the 18th century. But akin to the other major non-European powers around the world at that time like the Islamic gunpowder empires and Tokugawa Japan, such an economy development did not keep pace with the economies of European countries in the Industrial Revolution occurring by the early 19th century, which resulted in a dramatic change described by the 19th-century Qing official Li Hongzhang as "the biggest change in more than three thousand years" (三千年未有之大變局).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of industrialisation</span> Aspect of history

This article delineates the history of industrialisation.