The Shortest History of Europe

The Magyars of Hungary had made themselves such a threat to Austria that it agreed in 1867 to share power with them in a joint monarchy under the name Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Marx taught that communist revolution would happen first in advanced capitalist countries

It is when ruling classes are disunited that revolutionaries have their chance.

By 1800 the proportion of people in the countryside in western Europe might have fallen to 85 per cent, slightly lower than in the Roman Empire. There was very little movement over such a long time. The one exception is England, where by 1800 the rural proportion was falling rapidly as cities boomed; by 1850, half the population of England was in cities.

The mayor and council, elected bodies, ruling their own city within a kingdom, is a European invention. Strong monarchs don’t allow rival power centres to develop; they put their own men in charge of cities. In Europe, as merchants, bankers and manufacturers increased their wealth, they were the more powerful because of their semi-independent status. In their battle to control the great lords of the countryside, monarchs came to rely on them and their wealth

The medieval monarchs were so weak that when towns developed they did not try to govern them directly; they allowed the towns to govern themselves in return for their allegiance and the payment of taxes and levies.

In England the clergy, who were represented by the archbishops and bishops, and the nobility met together in the House of Lords; the commoners had their House of Commons.

All men potentially at least participated, but the rich had the predominant voice.

When Rome began its expansion, it was a republic but not a democracy. There were popular assemblies which began, like those in the Greek states, as a group of armed men.

Athens and all the other little Greek states lost their independence when Alexander the Great, the ruler of Macedonia in northern Greece, took them over early in the fourth century BC. Democracy was lost, but not the Greek culture that had flourished in Athens.