Age of Revolutions: Key Terms

Classical Liberalism

A way of ordering society that, in Zakaria’s words, “is typically understood to mean individual rights and liberties at home, freedom of religion, open trade and market economics, and international cooperation within a rules-based order.” Later, Zakaria adds to this mix the principle that all human beings are created equal. Still later, he adds that a classically liberal state does not try to decide what makes people happy but instead sets up conditions that allow its citizens to pursue happiness however they define it.

The Gilded Age

In the United States, the closing decades of the 19th century, characterized by rapid industrialization. It was also a time of rising wealth inequality, when families like the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, and the Vanderbilts became famously powerful. The expression “the Gilded Age” comes from the title of a Mark Twain novel.

The Glorious Revolution

The 1688 deposition of the Roman Catholic James II, king of England and Scotland, by the Protestant stateman William of Orange and his wife Mary, James’s daughter. The largely nonviolent coup was instigated by a group of English nobles in the name of Britain’s majority-Protestant population.

Illiberalism

The opposite of classical liberalism. Where liberalism represents, in Zakaria’s words, “progress, growth, disruption, revolution in the sense of radical advance,” illiberalism represents “regression, restriction, nostalgia, revolution in the sense of returning to the past.”

The Industrial Revolution

The rise of urban, machine-powered industry, starting in Great Britain in the middle of the 18th century and soon spreading to the rest of Europe and to the Americas. This revolution brought dramatic improvements in many people’s living standards but also created new problems, including harsh working conditions for industrial workers.

Pax Americana

Pax is the Latin word for peace. The term Pax Americana may refer to any period when the world is more or less at peace because the United States, as the world’s only superpower, has the ability to impose global order. Zakaria uses the term to refer to the 30 years or so after the fall of the Soviet Union. With the rise of China and recent moves by Russia to regain some of its former status, the Pax Americana is (Zakaria believes) coming to an end.

Populism

A form of politics that comes in left-wing and right-wing forms, but in either form sides with the masses and against elites. It is characterized, Zakaria says, by “dismissive attitudes toward norms and practices like free speech, parliamentary procedures, and independent institutions.” In its extreme form, populism is willing to subvert democratic processes in order to win elections and achieve policy goals. Thus described, populism is automatically illiberal.

Tory

Originally, in British politics, the monarchist, traditionalist party of the landed aristocracy, which resisted free-market capitalism. Today, to be a “Tory,” i.e., a Conservative, is to be traditionalist but pro-capitalism.

Whig

Once, in British politics, the pro-modernization, pro-capitalist party of the merchant class and industrial interests. As the Whig party's positions evolved, it renamed itself the Liberal party. A version of this party still exists, but the leading British party of the Left today is Labour, which tends to side with workers against corporate employers and favors activist government.

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