Unit 5: Revolutions (c. 1750 to c. 1900)

Original practice questions written to the published framework for this section. No expert has reviewed them, and they are not taken from any official exam. Try each one before you open the answer.

1. Question 1Foundational

   Which revolution, beginning in 1791 in a French Caribbean colony, became the only large-scale revolt of enslaved people to found an independent state?

   1. AThe Haitian Revolution
   2. BThe French Revolution
   3. CThe American Revolution
   4. DThe Mexican war of independence

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   Answer: A. The Haitian Revolution

   Enslaved people in Saint-Domingue defeated French, British, and Spanish forces and declared independence as Haiti in 1804, abolishing slavery in the process. The French Revolution is the tempting distractor because its language of rights helped inspire the rising, but in France the revolution did not begin as a revolt of enslaved people.

   Key insight: Revolutionary ideas traveled faster than their authors intended, and colonized people took them seriously.

2. Question 2Foundational

   In which country did industrialization begin, aided by accessible coal, capital from overseas trade, and a growing supply of wage labor?

   1. AGreat Britain
   2. BFrance
   3. CGermany
   4. DJapan

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   Answer: A. Great Britain

   Britain combined coal and iron near navigable water, agricultural change that freed workers for wage labor, commercial capital, and laws friendly to enterprise. France is the tempting distractor because it industrialized soon afterward, but it did so more slowly and with far more direct state involvement.

   Key insight: Ask what made industrialization possible in one place first, then ask why it spread differently everywhere else.

3. Question 3Intermediate

   Which 1789 French document proclaimed that men are born free and equal in rights and located sovereignty in the nation?

   1. AThe Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
   2. BThe Declaration of Independence
   3. CThe Napoleonic Code
   4. DMagna Carta

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   Answer: A. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

   The National Assembly's declaration made individual rights and national sovereignty the foundation of law, and reformers across the Atlantic world quoted it for a century. The Napoleonic Code is the tempting distractor because it also came out of the revolution, but it was a civil law code issued in 1804 that in several respects narrowed the legal standing of women.

   Key insight: Enlightenment claims about universal rights were applied selectively, and that gap drove later movements.

4. Question 4Intermediate

   Which program of reforms after 1868 ended samurai privileges, built railroads and factories, and made Japan an industrial power under state direction?

   1. AThe Meiji Restoration
   2. BThe Self-Strengthening Movement
   3. CThe Tanzimat reforms
   4. DThe Great Leap Forward

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   Answer: A. The Meiji Restoration

   Meiji leaders abolished the domains, created a conscript army, sponsored industry, and sent missions abroad to copy Western institutions selectively. The Self-Strengthening Movement is the tempting distractor because it pursued similar goals in Qing China, but it left existing political structures intact and produced far less industrial change.

   Key insight: Late industrializers relied on the state to do what private capital had done first in Britain.

5. Question 5Advanced

   In The Communist Manifesto of 1848, what did Marx and Engels identify as the driving force of all recorded history?

   1. AStruggle between social classes
   2. BThe spread of religious ideas
   3. CCompetition among nation-states
   4. DThe decisions of great individuals

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   Answer: A. Struggle between social classes

   Marx and Engels opened by declaring that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles, and they predicted that industrial workers would overturn the bourgeois order. Competition among nation-states is the tempting distractor because national rivalry did shape the century, but Marx treated it as secondary to conflict between classes.

   Key insight: Socialism and liberalism were rival explanations of the same industrial facts, so learn each one's diagnosis.