A Smaller Yet Vastly Different World

The 1780s presented a paradox—a world both smaller and larger than our modern globe. Geographically, it was smaller in the sense that even the most educated Europeans, like Alexander von Humboldt, understood only fragments of Earth’s surface. Vast swaths of Africa, Asia, and the Americas remained uncharted or misunderstood. For most people—whether Sicilian peasants or Burmese hill farmers—their “known world” rarely extended beyond their immediate surroundings.

Demographically, Earth’s population was sparse, likely no more than a third of today’s figures. Asia and Africa held greater proportions of humanity than today, while Europe and the Americas were far less populated. Human settlements were scattered, constrained by climate, disease (like malaria in Italy’s coastal plains), and primitive agricultural practices. Even in Europe, vast stretches of land lay fallow or were dominated by forests and marshes.

Physically, people were smaller—European soldiers averaged under 1.5 meters in height—yet possessed remarkable endurance. Travel was arduous; while mail coaches improved connectivity, most goods moved at a glacial pace. Waterways, not roads, were the true highways of the era, linking distant ports more efficiently than neighboring inland villages. News traveled unpredictably: word of the Bastille’s fall reached Madrid in 13 days but took 28 days to reach Peronne, just 133 kilometers from Paris.

The Overwhelmingly Rural Fabric of Society

The late 18th century was fundamentally a rural world. Outside a handful of commercial hubs, over 80% of Europeans lived in the countryside. Even in regions with strong urban traditions—like Lombardy or Venice—agricultural populations dominated. True metropolises were rare: only London and Paris boasted populations over 100,000. Most “urban” dwellers inhabited small market towns, where the rhythms of agrarian life still dictated economics.

These provincial towns were microcosms of urban-rural interdependence. Artisans served local farmers; lawyers managed noble estates; merchants traded grain and textiles. Yet these communities were insular, clinging to medieval privileges amid economic decline. From such unassuming places emerged revolutionaries like Robespierre (Arras) and Napoleon (Ajaccio), their ambitions fueled by the contrast between rural stagnation and Enlightenment ideals.

The Agrarian Question: Land, Lords, and Labor

Agriculture was the era’s defining economic activity, and land ownership dictated social hierarchies. Europe’s rural systems fell into three broad categories:

1. Colonial Plantations: In the Americas, enslaved Africans and coerced Indigenous peoples labored on cash-crop estates (sugar, tobacco, cotton). These export-oriented economies were tightly integrated with European markets.
2. Serfdom East of the Elbe: From Prussia to Russia, nobles commanded vast estates worked by serfs—bound to the land and often sold like chattel. Baltic grain fed Western Europe, making this a quasi-colonial periphery.
3. Western European Smallholders: West of the Elbe, peasants were legally free but burdened by feudal remnants. A mix of tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and small proprietors worked the land, though capitalist agriculture was emerging in England and the Low Countries.

Technologically, farming remained traditional outside a few progressive regions. Staple crops like rye and wheat dominated; potatoes were just gaining ground. Despite population growth—Belgium’s rural population surged 44% from 1755–1784—agricultural productivity lagged, constrained by outdated methods and institutional barriers.

Commerce, Industry, and the Enlightenment’s Promise

While agriculture stagnated, commerce and early industry thrived. The Atlantic trade triangle—European goods to Africa, enslaved Africans to the Americas, colonial commodities back to Europe—fueled unprecedented wealth. Merchant princes rebuilt Bordeaux and Liverpool; colonial “nabobs” returned with fortunes dwarfing old-world aristocrats.

Manufacturing was still largely cottage-based, controlled by merchant capitalists who supplied materials and marketed finished goods. Yet mechanization was stirring—figures like Josiah Wedgwood (pottery) and James Watt (steam engines) heralded industrialization. Scientific progress, particularly in chemistry, began intersecting with production needs.

This economic dynamism underpinned the Enlightenment’s optimism. Thinkers like Diderot championed reason, progress, and individualism, seeing in commerce and science the keys to human liberation. Middle-class societies—from Masonic lodges to Birmingham’s Lunar Society—became hubs of innovation, uniting industrialists, scientists, and reformers.

The Crumbling Old Order: Monarchy Under Strain

Enlightened absolutism—the marriage of monarchical power and reformist rhetoric—dominated continental Europe. Rulers like Austria’s Joseph II (1780–1790) flirted with abolishing serfdom and modernizing administrations, but their dependence on noble elites thwarted meaningful change.

Tensions erupted where central authority was weakest:
– Belgium: Joseph II’s reforms sparked revolts in 1789, merging with revolutionary currents from France.
– Colonies: White settler discontents boiled over—most dramatically in the American Revolution (1776–1783), which bankrupted France and set the stage for its own revolution.

International conflicts exposed systemic weaknesses. France, despite its size, repeatedly lost to Britain’s fiscally resilient parliamentary system. The Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) stripped France of colonies; aiding the American rebels (1778–1783) brought victory but financial ruin. By 1789, the Bourbon monarchy teetered on collapse.

Global Prelude to European Dominance

Beyond Europe, great civilizations still held their own. Qing China was at its zenith; the Ottoman Empire remained formidable. Yet European capitalism was destabilizing older orders:
– Africa: The slave trade reached its horrific peak.
– India: The British East India Company transitioned from trader to ruler, seizing Bengal in 1757.
– Americas: Creole elites chafed under imperial restrictions.

The “Vasco da Gama era” of European expansion was entering its apex. The dual revolutions—industrial in Britain, political in France—would soon make Europe’s global hegemony unchallengeable, even as they sowed the seeds of anti-colonial resistance.

Legacy: The 1780s as a Turning Point

The 1780s were a decade of latent transformation. Beneath the surface of agrarian societies and absolutist regimes, forces of capitalism, nationalism, and technological change gathered strength. When the French Revolution erupted in 1789, it did not emerge from a vacuum but from this world of contradictions—a world both constrained by feudal remnants and pulsating with bourgeois ambition. The old order’s inability to reconcile these tensions would reshape continents, setting the stage for the modern era.