Governments typically had been either unitary or confederated. Or another way to say that is that they either focused on centralized power (in someone like a king) or particularized power -- the power in the parts of a kingdom rather than at the center.
So, for instance, in France (prior to its Revolution), all the power in the kingdom centered in the hands of the king. For 175 years, they didn't even have a meeting of the Estates General which was their version of a representative body. And the power of nobles on their lands was reduced while the king's power grew.
Meanwhile, in the German territories, there was a loose confederation called the Holy Roman Empire. One of the kings or princes held the title of "emperor," but he really had no imperial power. The confederated German states retained control over their own kingdoms or territories.
The American experiment mixed something of the best of both approaches. There would be strong central power in the federal government, but putting checks and balances on that power by retaining certain aspects of control in the hands of the states within the union.
• In terms of parallel developments, both Confucianism and Buddhism developed traditions during the early modern period that bore some similarity to the thinking of Martin Luther in Europe in that they promoted a moral or religious individualism that encouraged individuals to seek enlightenment on their own.
• As in Christian Europe, challenges to established orthodoxies emerged as commercial and urban life, as well as political change, fostered new thinking.
• In Chinese elite culture, there emerged a movement known as kaozheng, or "research based on evidence," which bears some comparison to the genuinely scientific approach to knowledge sponsored by Western Europe.
• In terms of differences, despite the similarity of kaozheng to the Western scientific approach, in China it was applied more to the study of the past than to the natural world, as occurred in Western Europe.
• Cultural change in China was less dramatic than in Europe.
• Confucian culture did not spread as widely as Christianity.
On 28 August 1963, more than 200,000 demonstrators took part in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in the nation's capital. The march was successful in pressuring the administration of John F. Kennedy to initiate a strong federal civil rights bill in Congress.
Answer: Creating a centralized government
