4.7Meanwhile, elsewhere (1791–1824)

These decades were dominated by the French Revolution and Napoleon, whose wars engulfed Europe until his final defeat at Waterloo (1815). The victorious powers redrew the map at the Congress of Vienna, seeking to restore order and suppress revolution. The Industrial Revolution, meanwhile, was transforming Britain and beginning to spread.

Across Latin America, the age of revolution bore fruit: leaders such as Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín led wars of independence that freed most of Spanish America by the 1820s. In 1823, the United States responded with the Monroe Doctrine, warning European powers against further colonization in the hemisphere—an early claim to a role beyond its borders.