Chapter 22: Significant People

Karl Marx

In 1848 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto, which would become the 'bible of socialism'. Marxism, or Socialism, was a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. Marx believed that throughout history, one class was always being exploited by another. So he proposed that a sort of equal playing field was the way to go, and that society as a whole would be better off if people worked together instead of against each other. His writing introduced communism to the world, and that would be a huge influence to Lenin and Stalin. Without him, the concept of communism might never have been developed and the world would be a completely different place.

Giuseppe Mazzini

Mazzini wrote "Duties Towards Your Country", a Nationalistic piece that encouraged ideas that would work under a politically independent nation-state. His works would ultimately lead to the unification of Italy. Mazzini believed that Italian unification could only be achieved through a popular uprising. He relentlessly agitated the Italian populace to revolt, and encouraged, initiated, and organized numerous small and large revolts from his exile in England.

Prince Klemens von Metternich

Klemens von Metternich was an Austrian politician, perhaps the most important diplomat of his era. He was a major figure in the negotiations leading to the Congress and Treaty of Vienna and is considered a major figure on the development of diplomacy. Metternich favored traditional, even autocratic, institutions over democratic systems. He believed that liberalism was responsible for a generation of war with untold bloodshed and suffering, and blamed liberal middle-class revolutionaries for stirring up the lower classes which he believed desired nothing more than peace and quite.