Political revolutions, including an independence movement, had occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Western Europe developed a common political culture in the Middle Ages. This chapter discusses the conflict among the monarchies, and the revolutions that took place in America, France and Haiti. During the eighteenth century, the British monarchy waged war against the Spanish and French monarchies for control of the Atlantic world. The US war of independence, with few exceptions, was characterized by traditional military engagements. The American Revolution was a limited revolution that really fully applied, immediately, only to adult white men. The French Revolution abolished seigniorial institutions and was characterized by mass politics, and influenced the nature and process of the Haitian Revolution. At the end of the eighteenth century, the Spanish monarchy's possessions in America constituted one of the world's most imposing political structures. Regional economic variations in Spanish America contributed to social diversity.