从1789年到1914年的“漫长的十九世纪”经历了激烈的社会、政治和经济变革，首先拉开序幕的是工业革命、法国大革命和拿破仑战争，随后是欧洲政治版图在1815年的维也纳会议上的重新划分，民族主义的兴起、俄罗斯帝国和大英帝国鼎盛时期的到来，同时伴随着奥斯曼帝国的衰落。最后，德意志帝国和奥匈帝国的崛起引发了一系列事件并在1914年第一次世界大战爆发之时到达最高潮。
The "long nineteenth century", from 1789 to 1914 sees the drastic social, political and economic changes initiated by the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, and following the re-organization of the political map of Europe at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the rise of Nationalism, the rise of the Russian Empire and the peak of the British Empire, paralleled by the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Finally, the rise of the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire initiated the course of events that culminated in the outbreak of World War I in 1914.