What new ideologies arose to explain and reshape the industrial world?
Topic 6.7 Ideologies of Change and Reform in the 19th Century: the rise of liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, socialism, Marxism, and other ideologies that competed to interpret and remake industrial society.
A focused answer to AP European History Topic 6.7, on the 19th-century ideologies: liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, romanticism, utopian socialism, and Marxism (scientific socialism), and how each diagnosed and proposed to reshape the new industrial society.
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What this topic is asking
Topic 6.7 asks you to explain the ideologies that arose in the industrial age to interpret and remake society: liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, socialism, Marxism, and related movements. The College Board wants you to define each, see how each responded to the new industrial world, and understand how they competed.
Liberalism and conservatism
Nationalism and romanticism
Socialism and Marxism
Industrialization's harshest effects produced its most radical responses.
Why it mattered
These ideologies are the intellectual framework of the whole period. They drove the revolutions of 1848 (Topic 6.6) and the campaigns for reform (Topic 6.8). Liberalism reshaped governments; nationalism remade the map in Unit 7; socialism and Marxism built the labor movements and revolutionary parties that would, in the 20th century, seize power in Russia and divide the world. Understanding the ideologies lets you explain why people acted as they did, which is what the higher-band essays reward.
Try this
Q1. Name four ideologies of the 19th century and one core idea of each. [Recall]
- Cue. Liberalism (constitutions and rights), conservatism (monarchy and tradition), nationalism (self-rule for peoples), and socialism or Marxism (collective ownership and, for Marx, class struggle and revolution).
Q2. Explain why socialism and Marxism arose when they did. [Short explanation]
- Cue. They arose as responses to the misery of the new industrial working class, offering to remake society through cooperation or, in Marx's scientific socialism, through a workers' revolution against capitalism leading to a classless society.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of College Board exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
AP 2019 (style)3 marksBriefly describe ONE goal of 19th-century liberalism. Briefly describe ONE claim of Marxism. Briefly explain ONE way industrialization shaped these ideologies.Show worked answer →
A Short Answer Question (SAQ), 3 points, one per task.
A. Describe liberalism: constitutions, civil rights, the rule of law, and (in economics) free markets and limited government.
B. Describe Marxism: history is driven by class struggle, and capitalism will be overthrown by the workers in a revolution leading to a classless society.
C. How industrialization shaped them: the new classes and conditions of factory society gave each ideology its problem to solve, from middle-class rights to working-class exploitation.
Markers want a liberal goal, a Marxist claim, and the industrial context.
AP 2021 (style)6 marksEvaluate the extent to which 19th-century ideologies were responses to industrialization in the period c. 1815 to c. 1880.Show worked answer →
A Long Essay Question (LEQ), scored on the 6-point causation rubric.
Thesis (1): "The 19th-century ideologies were largely responses to industrialization, each diagnosing and proposing to remake the new society, though some, like nationalism and conservatism, also drew on older roots."
Contextualization (1): the social effects of industrialization and the new classes.
Evidence (2): liberalism for the middle class; socialism and Marxism for the workers; conservatism and nationalism reshaped by the industrial age.
Analysis (2): argue that the social effects of industry framed the ideological debate, then add complexity by noting deeper roots in the Revolution and Enlightenment.
Related dot points
- Topic 6.4 Social Effects of Industrialization: how the factory and the city transformed social class, the family, gender roles, working conditions, and standards of living in 19th-century Europe.
A focused answer to AP European History Topic 6.4, on the social effects of industrialization: the rise of the industrial middle class and working class, rapid urbanization and its conditions, the transformation of the family and gender roles, and debates over the standard of living.
- Topic 6.6 Reactions and Revolutions: the wave of liberal and national revolutions that swept Europe, above all in 1848, their demands, and the reasons most of them failed.
A focused answer to AP European History Topic 6.6, on the revolutions of the early 19th century and especially 1848: the liberal and national demands that drove them, why they erupted almost everywhere at once, and why most of them collapsed, with lasting effects despite their failure.
- Topic 6.8 19th-Century Social Reform: the reform movements, factory and labor laws, public-health measures, education, and the expanding role of the state and voluntary groups in addressing industrial society's problems.
A focused answer to AP European History Topic 6.8, on 19th-century social reform: factory and labor laws, public-health and sanitary reform, the abolition movement, education, women's reform efforts, and the slow expansion of the state's role in improving industrial society.
- Topic 7.2 Nationalism: the idea of the nation, its romantic and liberal roots, and how it became the dominant political force of the 19th century, uniting some peoples and dividing others.
A focused answer to AP European History Topic 7.2, on 19th-century nationalism: the idea that peoples sharing a language, culture, and history should form their own nation-state, its romantic and liberal roots, and how it both unified peoples (Italy, Germany) and threatened the multinational empires.
- Topic 6.5 The Concert of Europe and European Conservatism: the conservative order built at Vienna, the Concert of Europe's efforts to suppress liberalism and nationalism, and the pressures that strained it.
A focused answer to AP European History Topic 6.5, on the Concert of Europe and conservatism after 1815: how the great powers cooperated to preserve the conservative order and balance of power, suppress liberal and national movements, and contain revolution, and why these efforts came under growing strain.
Sources & how we know this
- AP European History Course and Exam Description — College Board (2020)