In the late 1800s, Europe and America were seeing rapid changes in their societies. Industrialization and urbanization led to an increase in manufacturing jobs, often requiring large numbers of workers to complete a task at once. Workers wanted more say in how they worked, with demands for fair wages and working conditions, and better worker protections. At the same time, there was a rise in demand for basic education to allow workers to participate fully in society, as well as a decrease in religious belief among many workers.
These factors caused a crisis of faith in existing political systems, leading to revolutions across the continent. Political philosophies developed to address the problems facing citizens in these countries, including the United States, Germany, and Russia. In the United States, the ideas of Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin provided the intellectual justification for reformist movements. American thinkers like Alexis de Tocqueville, meanwhile, continued to write on the ethics and politics of democracy, particularly concerning issues of government funding and separation of church and state.
The Russian Revolution inspired Vladimir Lenin, who believed that the proletariat could not achieve freedom until they controlled both the means of production and state machinery. British thinkers, on the other hand, focused more on moral and political philosophy building on social contract theory which later took a radical turn under the influence of John Stuart Mill.
