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Impacts of enlightenment era on europe
Impacts of enlightenment era on europe
What particular ideas from the enlightenment made an impact on the french revolution
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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.
Gordon S. Wood. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Vintage; Reprint edition. March 2, 1993
If there’s one thing that Howard Zinn’s shows us, is that America is not as great as portrayed and some of our great American heroes are quite monstrous and supports Mary Elizabeth Lease’s opinion that “this is a nation of inconsistencies”. Works Cited Declaration of the independence of the United States. 1776, July 4. Retrieved from http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html. Zinn, H. (1980).
Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States Volume 1: American Beginnings to Reconstruction. New York: The New Press, 2003. Book.
... Bobrick, Benson. Fight for Freedom: The American Revolutionary War. New York: Atheneum, 2004. Print.
Kwass, M. (2000). Privilege and the politics of taxation in eighteenth-century france. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Of all the long term causes of the French Revolution, the Ancien Régime was perhaps the most deeply-rooted. The Ancien Régime was the old system of government, the old order of things, before the Revolution, and it divided French society up into three ``estates'': the nobles, the clergy, and the common people (ie. everyone else, which included both peasants and the middle classes). The first and second estates were privileged in that they paid no tax at all, and for this reason, the monarch did not have a problem with their support: they were, in effect, propping up the Ancien Régime. The first and second estates also owned the larger proportion of land: although there were only 300 000 of them out of a total population of 25 million, they owned three fifths of the land in France.
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.
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.
A History of the American Revolution. New York: Da Capo Press, 1969. accessed November 7, 2013. 3.
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...
Zinn, Howard. A Peoples History of the United States. New York: HaperCollins Publisher Inc., 1999. 25-33.
“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to death your right to say it,” were the famous words of Francois Marie Arouet, more commonly known under the pen name of Voltaire. He was known for being very outspoken and rebellious, which got him into trouble with the authorities for most of his life. Voltaire advocated the French bourgeoisie as being ineffective, the aristocracy as being corrupt, and the commoners as being too superstitious. Voltaire’s beliefs on freedom and reason are what ultimately led to the French Revolution, the United States Bill of Rights, and the decrease in the power of the Catholic Church, which have all affected modern western society. The French Revolution was a period of upheaval in France, during which the French governmental structure and Catholic clergy underwent a large change due to Enlightenment ideas.
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.
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...