| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Conservatism | The inclination, especially in politics, to maintain the existing or traditional order |
| Nationalism | Devotion to the interests or culture of one's nation |
| Otto von Bismarck | Prussian statesman, architect of German unity, and eventual elder statesman of Europe, Bismarck is identified with the concept of realpolitik, which for him included a degree of enlightened liberalism |
| Liberalism | A political theory founded on the natural goodness of humans and the autonomy of the individual and favoring civil and political liberties, government by law with the consent of the governed, and protection from arbitrary authority |
| Industrialism | economic and social system based on the development of large-scale industries and marked by the production of large quantities of inexpensive manufactured goods and the concentration of employment in urban factories |
| Socialism | Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy |
| Utopian Socialism | Political and social idea of the mid-19th century. Adapted from such reformers as Robert Owen and Charles Fourier, utopian socialism drew from early communist and socialist ideas |
| Marxism | political and economic philosophy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in which the concept of class struggle plays a central role in understanding society's allegedly inevitable development from bourgeois oppression under capitalism to a socialist and ultimately classless society |
| Karl Marx | Marx rejected the idealism of Hegel and developed a more materialistic theory of history as science, ultimately predicting that the triumph of the working class was inevitable |
| Communist Mannifesto | Pamphlet written in 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to serve as the platform of the Communist League. It argued that industrialization had exacerbated the divide between the capitalist ruling class and the proletariat |
| Proletariat | The class of industrial wage earners who, possessing neither capital nor production means, must earn their living by selling their labor |
| Romanticism | artistic and intellectual movement originating in Europe in the late 18th century and characterized by a heightened interest in nature, emphasis on the individual's expression of emotion and imagination, departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism, and rebellion against established social rules and conventions |
| Darwinism | theory of biological evolution developed by Charles Darwin and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. Also called Darwinian theory |
| Charles Darwin | The naturalist who came up with the theory of evolution |
| Evolution | Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species |
| Revolutions of 1848 | Series of republican revolts against European monarchies. The revolutions began in Sicily and spread to France, the German and Italian states, and the Austrian Empire. In France the revolution established the Second Republic, and in central Europe liberal political reform and national unification appeared likely |
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