Overview
In what ways were the revolutions, expanded literacy, and political ideas linked? (The Earth and Its Peoples, 581)
The revolutions of the late 18th and early 19th centuries were directly influenced by political ideas of Enlightenment intellectuals and their students. New ideas were developed by, and extrapolated from, individuals such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, and Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet). A growing literacy amongst the people of Europe and the greater western world led to increased questioning of government, the communication and discussion of ideas in public venues, and ultimately said revolution. The scientific method was applied used to dissect the trappings of society, government, and the human mind.
The debt incurred from foreign wars by Great Britain, France and the Netherlands earlier in the century set the stage for the European and American revolutions later. After the Seven Years war, Britain had amassed about £137 million in war debt. These obligations had to be fulfilled somehow, however, the minds of awaiting public now held new ideas, which made them wary of new taxes, and question the very purpose of government and its role in society. In the old rule, or “Ancien Regime” as it was known in France, aristocrats, monarchs, and the Church dictated the structure of society and the aspirations of the state. Now, it was up to the individual to determine his/her own destiny, by choosing free will, and by teaching oneself about the arts, sciences, and anything else that could benefit oneself or society.
The expansion of literacy in the 18th century, stemming from the Enlightenment movement, shaped Europe and the world in a great and lasting manner. Without the invention, adoption...
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...uld be evenly distributed among all citizens of the state. The nobility would lose special hunting rights. These equalities are windowed in the “Legislation” section, with the statement “Their [the laws] perfection is to be humane and just, clear, and general, […] to protect every order and every class equally […]” (The Human Record, 187) The Estates General, essentially representatives of the people, would maintain a larger role in the management of the state. This would include establishment and maintenance of a constitution, the establishment of civic honorary awards (as opposed to hereditary), management of taxes, and involvement in the trial of criminals.
Works Cited
Zinn, Howard. "Untold Truths About the American Revolution." Progressive. Jul 2009. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. .
The Earth and Its Peoples. Bulliet et al.
Stokesbury, James L. A short History of the American Revolution. New York. William Morrow and Company, Inc. 1991.
2. Alden, John. A History of the American Revolution. New York: Da Capo Press, 1969. (accessed November 7, 2013).
Between the years 1775 and 1800, the American nation fought a war for independence from Great-Britain and the war was called the Revolutionary War. Despite its name, Howard Zinn argues that the war did little to help the situation of the underrepresented and kept the wealthy in power. Considering Zinn’s argument, the wealthy did stay in control of the government and the economic hierarchy in the new nation remained. However, there was an increased accommodation to the underrepresented groups like the poor and working class in America.
The ideas of change in the French Revolution came from Jean- Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau, from his book, Discourse on the Moral Effect of the Arts and Sciences, had the idea that civilization corrupted people and had once said “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains”. His ideas were the beginning of socialism. He believed in the common good. More extremely, there was Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) who fueled ideas for the Russian Revolution. He was the Father of Communism, a more radical form of socialism. Those who followed Rousseau’s and Marx’s ideas felt that the...
Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States Volume 1: American Beginnings to Reconstruction. New York: The New Press, 2003. Book.
This essay will explore parallels between the ideas of the scientific revolution and the enlightenment. The scientific revolution describes a time when great changes occurred in the way the universe was viewed, d through the advances of sciences during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The enlightenment refers to a movement that grew out of the new scientific ideas of the revolution that occurred in the late seventeenth to eighteenth century. Although both the scientific revolution and enlightenment encapsulate different ideas, the scientific revolution laid the underlying ideological foundations for the enlightenment movement. A number of parallels exist between the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment; there was a decrease in the belief in authority, there was an increased belief in Darwinism, The importance of science grew as beneficial to society, the ideas of society as better off without scientific and knowledge. The parallels between the scientific revolution and the enlightenment will be explored throughout this essay.
Joyce, Appleby, et al. "The American Revolution." The American Vision. New York: McGraw Hill Glencoe, 2005. 114-126. Print.
During the Age of enlightenment people began to reform society using reason, challenge ideas of tyranny and of the Roman Catholic Curch. People for the first time started advancing knowledge through the use of the scientific method. Enlightenment type thinking has had a huge impact on the culture, politics, and g...
The English Bill of Rights (1689) and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789) are roughly around the same period, in that it is possible to think the both documents share similar ideologies. To the thought’s dismay, it is not. Even if both documents start from the same question of taxation, the outputs vary enormously in that each has different aims: the English Bill of Rights (shortened as the English Bill from now on) only changes the crown and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man (shortened as the French Declaration) changes the whole society. However, they are similar in that both strived for the representation of the masses.
Historians Mora Ozouf and Keith Baker have both discussed the significance of the emergence of the public sphere during this period which gave rise to hundreds of political satires, pamphlets and cartoons which were used to devastating effect to decry the lack of influence the Third Estate was able to exert. Through these mediums, the commons began to question the legitimacy of a strictly hierarchical society and, even more troublingly as far the upper estates were concerned, started to suggest that the Third Estate, by virtue of their labours, were the only true citizens of the French Nation, as articulated in Father Sieyes pamphlet ‘What is the Third Estate.’ It seems that instead of engaging with these issues, the king ‘surrendered to reactionary elements at court’, most noticeably the Princes of the Blood who, in December of 1788 had issued a memorandum denouncing the various reform proposals put forward by the Third Estate in anticipation of the Estates General.
Gordon S. Wood. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Vintage; Reprint edition. March 2, 1993
Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, radical and controversial ideas were created in what would become a time period of great advances. The Scientific Revolution began with a spark of inspiration that spread a wild fire of ideas through Europe and America. The new radical ideas affected everything that had been established and proven through religious views. "The scientific revolution was more radical and innovative than any of the political revolutions of the seventeenth century."1 All of the advances that were made during this revolutionary time can be attributed to the founders of the Scientific Revolution.
The French Revolution was spread over the ten year period between 1789 and 1799. The primary cause of the revolution was the disputes over the peoples' differing ideas of reform. Before the beginning of the Revolution, only moderate reforms were wanted by the people. An example of why they wanted this was because of king Louis XIV's actions. At the end of the seventeenth century, King Louis XIV's wars began decreasing the royal finances dramatically. This worsened during the eighteenth century. The use of the money by Louis XIV angered the people and they wanted a new system of government. The writings of the philosophes such as Voltaire and Diderot, were critical of the government.
In conclusion, the scientific revolution brought dramatic change in the way people lived their lives, and it certainly influenced eighteenth century free-thinking. The scientific method was comprehensively utilized during the eighteenth century to study human behavior and societies. It enabled scientist and scholars alike to exercise their freedom of rationality so they could come to their own conclusions about religion and humanity as a whole. They could finally do so without having to defer to the dictates of established authorities.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, several European countries experimented with new types of government, one of the most popular ones being constitutional monarchy. Constitutional monarchy is a system of government in which a monarch shares power with a constitutionally organized government (ILASS 2, Unit 3, Constitutional Monarchy). The monarch is known as the king or queen, and their job is to maintain the order of their kingdom, making sure all its people see justice. The monarch must remain politically neutral so that he or she does not unjustly cater to only one party’s needs but to every party’s needs. Although the monarch has a lot of power, the ability to make and pass legislation resides with an elected parliament to give the government a check and balance so the country is at no one person’s disposal. Most were content with this type of government but it did not satisfy everyone, some did not feel it was justified morall...