Describe the political and social revolutions that occurred in the Atlantic world between 1750 and 1850 and the ideas that inspired these changes.

The century
between 1750 and 1850 was a revolutionary period that included the American Revolution, the
French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution of 1791, the Batavian Revolution of 1795, the Spanish
American Wars of Independence that began with Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1809-10, and the
various revolts that spread across Europe in 1848.

While some of the
revolutions, such as the American, Haitian, and Spanish American, were revolts against a
colonizing power and a bid for independence, all the revolutions shared similar underlying
themes. The ideas that motivated all these revolutions were republicanism, democracy, and
equality.

All three of these ideas may seem normal and pedestrian to us,
especially if we live in the United States, but these concepts were radical, and to the power
elites, frightening, in the 1750-1850 period. For almost 2,000 years, top-down monarchical
governments had been the norm. A hereditary monarch or prince ruled with the backing of a small
cohort. The...