782 Ch. 19 • Rapid Industrialization and Its Challenges
boulevards, tramways and automobiles now carried passengers. Most Eu
ropeans could now read and write, but they were—at least in Western
Europe—less likely to go to church regularly than earlier generations.
Most people lived longer and better than ever before. At the same time,
economic and social inequalities generated union organization, the growth
of mass political parties—notably a variety of socialist movements—and
waves of social protest. Nationalism became a political force in many
countries during the last three decades of the nineteenth century and the
beginning of the twentieth century, engulfing not only the industrialized
constitutional monarchies and republics of western and southern Europe
but also the empires of central and eastern Europe.
The rapid pace of material progress and scientific and technological
advances generated innovative, complex cultural responses during the
remarkable years that brought the nineteenth century to a close and saw
the dawning of the modern world in the first years of the twentieth century.