History, political ideas and institutions at the opening of the sixteenth century, economic and tran-atlantic expansion, intellectual quickening, religious upheaval, predominance of spain and the iabsburgs, predominance of france and the bourbones, conflict in germany and expansion of russia, british expansion, novel intellectual currents, the british and american revolutions, the french revolution, napoleon and the spread of revolutionary principles, conservative reaction against revolutionary liberalism 1815-1830, liberal and nationalist upheavals 1830-1850, era of the second napoleonic empire in western Europe 1848-1870, nationalizing of central Europe and backwardness of eastern Europe 1850-1870 (Topical Term)