If the economy of the nineteenth-century world was
formed mainly under the influence of the British Industrial
Revolution, its politics and ideology were formed mainly
by the French. Britain provided the model for its railways
[5] and factories, the economic explosive which cracked open
the traditional economic and social structures of the
non-European world; but France made its revolutions and
gave them their ideas, to the point where a tricolour flag of
some kind became the emblem of virtually every emerging
[10] nation, and European (or indeed world) politics between
1789 and 1917 were largely the struggle for and against
the principles of 1789.
France provided the vocabulary and the issues of
liberal and radical-democratic politics for most of the
[15] world. France provided the first great example, the concept
and the vocabulary of nationalism. France provided the
codes of law, the model of scientific and technical
organization, the metric system of measurement for most
countries. The ideology of the modern world first
[20] penetrated the ancient civilizations which had until then
resisted European ideas through French influence. This
was the work of the French Revolution.
Eric Hobsbawm. The age of revolution: 1789-1848. Abacus: London, 2007, p. 73-4 (adapted).
Judge the following based on the text above
The French Revolution changed not only political structures but also the language used to refer to politics.