# Historical context

An overview of the main changes in 19th century

Since the late 18th century through all the 19th century, Western societies experienced a significant transformation with the so called Bourgeois Revolutions.

The Industrial Revolution implied the transition to a new manufacturing system and the development of capitalism, stimulating the growth of population and urban life.

On both shores of the Atlantic Ocean, the American and the French Revolutions and the subsequent revolutionary waves (1820, 1830 and 1848) meant the decline of the Old Regime with the gradual establishment of Liberalism.

Those processes made clear the dynamism of the middle classes, that succeded in getting the economic and political control, and the oppressed situation of a new industrial working class that started to fight through labour movements for better working conditions. It was the end of a society of privileges but the consolidation of an unequal class society.

Regarding the new International political system, “the Spring of Nations” that culminated with the unification process of Germany and Italy, the prosperity of many powers because of the Second Industrial Revolution and the Imperialistic rivalry carried out a new tense European order that led to the outbreak of the First World War (1914 –1918)

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