Chapter+21+(Reaction,+Revolution,+and+Romanticism,+1815-1850)


 * __Chapter 21: Reaction, Revolution, and Romanticism, 1815-1850__**

//PS: This is taken STRAIGHT from the study guide.//

The Congress of Vienna, which made peace at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, restored the Old Order and its "legitimate" rulers. It established a conservative system, with a balance of power, that the members hoped would give Europe peace as far as they could see into the future. Their scheme succeeded-- for a time. The Conservative system was installed, but beneath a tranquil surface the barely suppressed ideals of liberty continued to stir up both hope and trouble. When combined with a rising call for independance and unification in nations long dependant and divided, it became a powerful agent of revolt and reform. Greece and the countries of Latin America threw off foreign masters. Revolts simmered and erupted finally in Russia, France, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Poland, and Italy. Some of them were successful, some were not; but together they made the first half of the 19th century a volatile time. Intellectuals responded to the time with various theories about human society. Edmund Burke defended conservatism as the best system to preserve the institutions that give society order and security, while John Stuart Mill argued that real order comes through the extension of individual freedom and while Louis Blanc held that governments should control the economy for the benefit of citizens. Some welcomed the continent - wide results of 1848, while some feared that political disintegration would soon follow, and perhaps both were surprised when the revolts ledto more conservative regimes almost everywhere. Yet reform did come, if not economic reform, certainly social. Police forces were created in major cities to keep order, and there were positive examples of prison reform. The reform movement had its cultural side, Romaticism, which brought forth a new generation of writers, artists, and musicians, all of them dedicated to a freedom previously unknown.