Unit 5: Revolutions (1750-1900)

Unit 5 covers political and industrial revolutions. Enlightenment thinkers like Locke, Rousseau, and Montesquieu challenged absolute monarchy and inspired the American, French, Haitian, and Latin American revolutions, along with nationalism and movements to abolish slavery and expand women's rights. The Industrial Revolution began in Britain because of coal and iron, access to capital, colonies, and agricultural improvements, then spread to Western Europe, the U.S., Russia, and Japan. Know the new technologies (steam engine, railroads, telegraph), new economic ideas (capitalism, socialism, communism), state-sponsored industrialization like Japan's Meiji Restoration, and how industry changed social classes, urban life, and gender roles.