1. The Old Regime  Old Regime refers to the time period, before the turmoil of the French Revolution and its aftermath.  It became customary to refer to the patterns of social, political, and economic relationships that had existed in France before 1789 and aftermath.  Later on, the term Old Regime has come to be applied generally to the social life and institutions of all pre- revolutionary continental Europe.  It politically meant the rule of absolute monarchies with growing bureaucracies and aristocratically led armies.

2.  Economically, it meant food shortages, the predominance of agriculture, slow transport, a low level of iron production, comparatively unsophisticated financial institutions, and in some cases, competitive commercial overseas empires.  It socially meant, men and women saw themselves less as individuals than as members of distinct corporate bodies that possessed certain privileges or rights as a group.  One characteristic of this period is, in fact, not many people outside the political, commercial, and intellectual elite wanted change or innovation.  But, Britain had experienced early industrial development for many reasons.

3. Hierarchy and Privilege  18th century did not enjoy basic human-individual rights.  The medieval sense of hierarchy became more rigid during this century.  There were rights and privileges to the communities or groups more than to the individuals.  The groups or communities might include the village, the nobility, the guild, a university, or the parish.  The range of rights and privileges lays from tax exemption to degrading punishment, from there right to collect the tithe for the church.

4.  The 18 th century was the great age of the aristocracy.  Nobles constituted about 1 to 5 percent of the population of any given country in Europe.  They were obviously wealthiest of all, possessed the widest range of powers and dominated polite society.  Great Britain boasted the smallest, wealthiest, and most socially responsible aristocracy.  Nobles controlled, or had serious influence on politics by controlling parliaments, particularly in England and France.  This way they tried to curtail royal authority.

5. Peasants and Serfs  Land was the economic basis of 18 th century life in Europe as it was throughout the rest of the world.  Well over three-fourths of Europe’s population lived on the land.  Poverty and hardship were felt seriously in this segment of society.  The land lords were dominating the peasants and serfs.  Particularly in Russia, the situation of serfs was not admirable, and in the second half of 18 th century peasant revolted more than 50 times.

6.  Those revolts spreaded to other European countries later on. Family Structures and the Family Economy  In pre-industrial Europe, the household was the basic unit of production and consumption.  There were not many productive establishments that employed more than a handful of people not belonging to the owner’s family.  The economic organization was basically the family economy.  The goal of the family household was to produce or secure through wages enough food to support its members.

7.  While in the country side families usually farmed, in cities and towns, artisan production or working for another person was the usual pattern.  The earnings were for the family, not for individual member.  In the urban version of the family economy, the father was usually a chief craftsman who employed one or more servants and also usually expected his children to work in his shop.  The wife of a merchant also often ran her husband’s business, especially when he traveled to purchase new goods.  The main duty of a woman, in most cases, was bearing and rearing children.

8.  Any other duty would be subordinate to the goal of motherhood.  Usually at the age of 7, a girl was expected to begin to do household work.

9. The Revolution in Agriculture  The stability of local food supply was important for Europeans since a failed harvest could mean death from either outright starvation or protracted debility.  It was not easy to find food in the country side compared to the cities because governments usually stored reserve supplies of grain in the cities.  In 18 th century, grain prices rose because of growing population.  The increasing price of grain encouraged innovation in farm production and began an agricultural revolution in the 18 th century.

10.  There were new crops such as clover and turnips as well as potato that brought from Americas.  Enclosure involved fencing common lands, reclaiming previously untilled waste, and transforming cultivated strips into block fields.  This way new soil came into production, and services subsidiary to farming also expanded.  This advance in food production was necessary for an industrial society to develop.  It ensured adequate food for the cities and freed surplus agricultural labor for industrial production.

11.  Increase in food supply, and the death rate decline due to fewer wars and epidemics led to population increase in Europe.  Hard to talk with exact figures but the best estimates suggest that in 1700 Europe’s population was between 100 million and 120 million people.  By the 1800, the figure had risen to almost 190 million, and by 1850, to 260 million.

12. The 18 th Century Industrial Revolution  Industrialization started with a slow pace in the second half of 18 th century in Europe.  This development, more than any other, distinguished the West from the rest of the world for the next two centuries.  The European industrial revolution of the 18 th century permitted sustained economic growth, despite subsequent downturns and depressions.  At considerable social cost and dislocation, industrialism produced more goods and services than ever before in human history and eventually overcame the economy of scarcity.

13.  As a consequence of industrialization a new wealthy class emerged.  This upset the political and social structure of the Old Regime and led to political and social reforms.  The new industrialist class eventually challenged the political dominance of the aristocracy.  Industrialization also undermined traditional communities and along with the growth of cities, displaced many people.  The consumer products of industrialization encouraged more international trade in which western nations supplied finished goods in exchange for raw materials.

14.  Other areas of the globe became economically dependent on European and American demand.  The wealth achieved through this uneven commerce allowed Europeans to dominate world markets for almost two centuries.  Industrialization spurred technological innovations, technological innovations led to more advanced military forces of both Europe and the United States.  Africa and Latin America became generally dependent economies.  Japan, by the middle of the 19 th century, decided it must imitate the European pattern and did so successfully.

15.  China did not make that decision and became indirectly ruled by Europeans.  The Chinese revolutions of the 20 th century largely represented efforts to achieve real self-direction.  Southeast Asia and the Middle East became drawn into the network of resource supply to the West.  The process of industrialization that started in small factories in 18 th century Europe has changed the world more than any other singe development in the last two centuries.

16. Industrial Leadership of Great Britain  Great Britain remained the industrial leader of Europe and the world until the late 19 th century.  There were several factors that contributed to the early start of industrialization in Britain.  Britain was the single largest free-trade area in Europe, with good roads and waterways and no internal trade barriers.  There were rich deposits of coal and iron ore.  The political structure was stable, and property rights were secure.

17.  Banking and public credit systems created a good investment climate.  Taxation was heavy, but fair.  There was both domestic consumer demand and demand from the North American colonies.  British society was relatively open and allowed people who earned money to rise socially.  There was freedom of press, which allowed commercials.  Textile production inaugurated the industrial revolution.  It started in small peasant family cottages, not in the big factories.

18.  The same peasants who tilled the land in spring and summer often spun thread or wove textiles in winter.  As the demand for textile increased and more people involved in the business, the need for new technologies and means of production emerged.  That led to new types of spinning machines.  But, the critical invention that enabled industrialization to spread from one industry to another was the steam engine.  For the first time in history, human beings were able to tap an unlimited source of inanimate power.

19.  Unlike engines powered by water or wind, the steam engine, fueled by coal, provided a portable steady source of power that could be applied to many industrial and transportation uses.  By the early 19 th century the steam engine had become the prime mover in every industry; from ships to wagons on iron rails.  With industrialization urban population start growing.  Big cities emerged in Europe.  The urban concentration had shifted from southern Mediterranean Europe to the north.

20.  Social structure also changed. In 18 th century, a small group of nobles were at the top of urban social structure.  They were bankers, financiers, clergy and government officials.  The middle class, or bourgeoisie, merchants, tradesmen, bankers, and professional people were the most dynamic element of the urban population.  The middle class had less wealth than most nobles, but more than urban artisans.  Shopkeepers, artisans, and wage earners constituted the single largest group in any city, and they suffered from the grasping of both the middle class and the local nobility.

21.  At this time, although the small Jewish communities of Amsterdam and other western European cities became famous for their intellectual life and financial institutions, most European Jews lived in Eastern Europe.  In the 18 th century, at least 3 million Jews dwelled in Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine.  Jews did not have the same rights as Christians, unless such rights were specifically granted to them by a sympathetic monarch.  Particularly in the Old Regime, Jews lived apart from non- Jews, in separate villages in the countryside or in urban districts called ghettos.

22.  Thus, this period in Jewish history, which may be said to have begun with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, is known as the age of the ghetto.