Consequências da exportação da revolução

Confesso que nunca tinha visto as invasões francesas sob este prisma.

"First the French Revolutionary Armies and then Napoleon invaded large parts of continental Europe, and in almost all the areas they invaded, the existing institutions were remnants of medieval
times, empowering kings, princes, and nobility and restricting trade both in cities and the countryside. Serfdom and feudalism were much more important in many of these areas than in France itself.
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The guilds regulating all kinds of economic activity in the cities were also typically stronger in these places than in France.
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The leaders of the French Revolution and, subsequently, Napoleon exported the revolution to these lands, destroying absolutism, ending feudal land relations, abolishing guilds, and imposing equality before the law—the all-important notion of rule of law, ... The French Revolution thus prepared not only France but much of the rest of Europe for inclusive institutions and the economic growth that these would spur.
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The French revolutionary armies quickly started carrying out a radical process of reform in the lands they’d conquered, abolishing the remaining vestiges of serfdom and feudal land relations and imposing equality before the law. The clergy were stripped of their special status and power, and the guilds in urban areas were stamped out or at the very least much weakened.
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he codified the Roman law and the ideas of equality before the law into a legal system that became known as the Code Napoleon. Napoleon saw this code as his greatest legacy and wished to impose it in every territory he controlled.
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All in all, French armies wrought much suffering in Europe, but they also radically changed the lay of the land. In much of Europe, gone were feudal relations; the power of the guilds; the absolutist control of monarchs and princes; the grip of the clergy on economic, social, and political power; and the foundation of ancien régime, which treated different people unequally based on their birth status. These changes created the type of inclusive economic institutions that would then allow industrialization to take root in these places."

Eu, que nunca suportei Napoleão, sinto que nunca mais o vou encarar da mesma maneira.

Trechos retirados de "Why Nations Fail" de Daron Acemoglu e J. Robinson.