French Revolution - starting point of Modern Age?

Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Ages are merely labels we give to describing various periods in history and they do not refer to hard-and-fast time periods. When we talk of the end of the Middle Ages and beginning of the Modern Age we are thinking purely in Western terms, as opposed to, say, Chinese terminology. Here we are thinking of epochal events that occurred around the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These events include, say, the Renaissance (increased study of modern art and increased interest in learning) and the Reformation, which ended the dominance of Catholicism and gave birth to Protestantism. We also think of the newly discovered sea routes between Europe and the Far East, weapons with gunpowder, the rising printing press, and the burgeoning wealth of the merchant classes.

We also think of states that have become so big being ruled by kings who crushed feudal independence to the extent that these states, such as Britain or France, had become truly national.

In the past two hundred years, the world has seen more change, and more dramatic change, than in the previous two thousand years. History is a continuous process, and is broken up into sections only for the purpose of study.

It is often said that a single event cannot create an epochal change. However, a series of events can bring about fundamental change with one often thinking of such events as the dawn of an error.

The French Revolution is often seen as the beginning of the Modern Age. However, its ideals were prevalent in the writers of the early 18th century - and as a force for fighting for democratic principles, its ideals are all too prevalent in the American Independence 1775-83 - the war of thirteen British colonies against the government of George III.

The French Revolution was just one event that made the succeeding period very different from the preceeding one. It probably altered mens lives less than the Industrial Revolution in Britain, which led to an explosion in machinery, factories and towns. The system of government under which man lives, and citizen rights (the French Revolution) may be less important than the output of material things (the Industrial Revolution). However, the two revolutions helped to transform an agricultural Europe of the 18th century into an industrialised one of the 19th century.

Even up to 1905-6 French politics was divided by issues such as the relation between Church and state, which had divided Frenchmen since the 1790s. But another important factor was the effect the French Revolution had on the rest of Europe. Mainly by influencing revolution, the French Revolutionaries and their heir apparent Napoleon Bonaparte influenced most of Europe, South America and the West Indies.

Popular and liberal movements tried to overthrow aristocratic governments, and aristocratic governments tried to suppress popular and liberal movements. This dual-role of the two pillars played itself out from the French Revolution onwards. This, for example, can be seen with the Bolshevik fight for power in the Russian Revolution of 1917.