Mid-19th Challenge
Posted: Wed Mar 24, 2010 12:01 pm
Great site, brilliant. How can GD Theory be reconciled with the fact that Great Britain experienced no apparent Crisis War between the Napoleonic Wars and WWII?
Generational theory, international history and current events
https://www.gdxforum.com/forum/
We've discussed this question in the past. The following posting contains a summary:Tom Acre wrote:Great site, brilliant. How can GD Theory be reconciled with the fact that Great Britain experienced no apparent Crisis War between the Napoleonic Wars and WWII?
Am I missing something or did you put up the wrong link? The link provided links to a financial topics discussion.John wrote:We've discussed this question in the past. The following posting contains a summary:
http://generationaldynamics.com/forum/v ... t=100#p238
John
Look at the bottom portion of the posting.thomasglee wrote:Am I missing something or did you put up the wrong link? The link provided links to a financial topics discussion.
Thanks
There are a handful of cases where a country appears to have eitherTom Acre wrote: > Interesting, I think I see what you're driving at; however it
> still seems like a loose end
catfishncod wrote: > 1873 was the near the end of the Fourth Turning here in America
> (I'm sorry, Mr. Howe and ghost-of-Mr.-Strauss, but the Fourth
> Turning did not end at Appomattox. Southerners know this deep in
> their bones. It ended in 1876-7 when Reconstruction died and the
> country was unified by the completion of the transcontinental
> railroad.) but it was near the beginning in Europe. (If anyone has
> good evidence of 4T in Europe before the events of 1870-71, let me
> know.) What was Europe like in 1874-1884? THAT may be where we are
> headed...
John wrote: America's Fourth Turning did indeed end in 1865. The Reconstruction
Era was a First Turning, a Recovery Era. It may have been hideously
painful for the South, but it was no Crisis Era.
On the continent, the crisis wars were the wars of German
unification, the Franco-Prussian war, and the Paris Commune.
The real puzzle is to identify England's crisis war. There was a
long discussion of this a couple of years ago, concluding that
England's crisis war was the American civil war.
I went to books.google.com , and searched for free books on "history
of england." I ended up reviewing three of them, although the first
had the most comprehensive coverage of the American Civil War, and the
other two basically confirmed the first, although in briefer
form.
* British History in the Nineteenth Century (1782-1901)
By George Macaulay Trevelyan, 1922, pp. 329-338
http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC0 ... #PPA329,M1
* A Short History of England, Edward Potts Cheyney, 1904, pp. 653-655
http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC2 ... 4-PA653,M1
* A History of England from the Earliest Times to the Death of Queen
Victoria, Benjamin Stites Terry, 1908, pp. 1033-1035
http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC0 ... -PA1035,M1
I summarized the situation as follows:
* Just prior to the American Civil War, there was almost a war with
France caused by panic.
* England's upper classes favored the South, who were most similar
to England's upper classes.
* England's lower classes favored the North, who were most similar
to England's lower classes.
* The British government remained officially neutral, though they
favored the South.
* The northern blockade of Southern ports, preventing the export of
cotton, inflicted great hardship on Lancashire's cotton mills, which
depended on the cotton for work
* The British government was tempted to break the blockade, but
decided to stay neutral.
This was the opposite situation from the Napoleonic wars, where
England had blockaded Europe's ports, and America began the War of
1812 to break the blockade.
* Even Britain's neutrality was resented by Northerners, who felt
it indirectly supported the South.
* The South didn't like it much either, since they wanted real help
from the English.
* When Northern Captain Wilkes boarded an British ship and removed
two Confederate envoys, the incident caused Britain to start
preparing for war against the North. It was averted only because the
North backed down, freed the envoys, and apologized.
* The Confederacy purchased a ship, the CSS Alabama, from Britain
through France as an intermediary, to the embarrassment of Britain
when the ship was launched. Later, an international tribunal awarded
America damages from Britain for violating neutrality.
There are a few examples of a country going through a crisis era
preparing for war, but never going to war, such as Switzerland and
Iceland in WW II. This is another example.
John wrote:Another question is: What does it mean to participate in a crisis war?
For example, we might ask why Kansas hasn't had a crisis war for a
long time. Is there a significant difference between Kansas and
Iceland in WW II? It's an interesting question that needs further
thought and research.
The way I look at it is it that each of these situations is unique in
many ways, and I try to find the commonalities. Sometimes they're
obvious and sometimes they're not, but they're usually out there
somewhere.
John
A mass migration or relocation of an entire population destroys thethomasglee wrote: > Could it be due to mass movements of people or changes in culture
> due to migration/immigration? During the period discussed, Great
> Britain's Empire was still expanding and therefore, there were
> those from different "generations" entering and leaving GB as they
> left for or returned from colonial outposts all over the world.
> That would also apply to the US as after the civil war people
> really began moving more easily from state to state and that in
> many ways somewhat interfered with the generational cycles and
> prevented states like Texas from having their own cycles within
> the US cycle.
> I've asked before, but never saw a reply, on how you feel
> immigration/migration affects generational cycles, but one would
> assume there has to be an affect in some form or another.