Katie Felton

Mr. Haskell

World History

4 November 2004

 

Chapter 18 Outline

 

A World of Progress and Reason

            A.  The Enlightenment grew out of the Scientific Revolution

            B.  Scientific success created confidence in the power of reason

            C.  Natural laws are the laws that govern human nature

Two Views of the Social Contract

A.    Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were two English thinkers of the 1600s

B.     Hobbes believed in a social contract is an agreement by which they gave up the state of nature for an organized society.

C.     Locke believed in natural rights or rights that belonged to all humans from birth.

Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws

A.    He wrote The Spirit of the Laws which discussed governments throughout history

B.     Montesquieu felt that Britain should have the three branches of government: legislature. executive and judiciary

C.     Montesquieu felt that each branch should check on the other two

The World of the Philosophes

A.    In France Enlightenment thinkers were called Philosophes which meant lovers of wisdom

B.     The most famous philosophe was François-Marie Arouet or also called Voltaire

C.     Denis Diderot developed the Encyclopedia

Limited “Natural Rights” for Women

A.    The women still had the same natural rights as men but they were more limited

B.     In the mid-1700s a small group of women protested against this view

C.     Wollstonecraft was the best known of the female critics

New Economic Thinking

A.    Physiocrats focused on economic reforms

B.     Physiocrats urged a policy of laissez faire or allowing business to operate with little of no government interference.

C.     Adam Smith argued that the free market or the natural forces of supply and demand should be allowed to operate and regulate business.

The Challenge of New Ideas

A.    As the Enlightenment spread more people saw the need for reform to achieve a  just society

B.      The government and the church waged a war of censorship, they banned and burned books and imprisoned writers

C.     Writers sometimes disguised their ideas I works of fiction

Salons

A.    Salons were informal social gatherings at which writers, artists, philosophers and others exchanged ideas

B.     Salons started when noblewomen in Paris began  inviting a few of their friends over to their homes for poetry readings

C.     By the 1700s middle-class women started holding salons

The Salon in the Rue Saint Honoré

A.    In 1714 Marie-Thérèse married François Geoffrin

B.     By 1750 Madame Geoffrin was a leading saloniére

C.     Even monarchs came to visit the house

Enlightenment Despots

A.    Monarchs that accepted Enlightenment ideas were known as enlightened despots or absolute rulers housed their power to bring about political and social change

B.     Frederick II saw himself as the “first servant of the state” and admired Voltaire

C.     Catherine the Great also followed the ideas of Voltaire and
Diderot

The Arts and Literature

A.    Baroque became the courtly art of the age of Louis XIV, they were large, colorful paintings full of excitement and usually glorified historic battles or the lives of saints

B.     Middle-class people liked pictures of family life or realistic town or country scenes

C.     Operas and plays set to music were very popular and opera houses reached form Italy to England

Lives of the Majority

A.    Most Europeans were peasants that lived in small rural villages

B.     Villages in Western Europe were relatively more prosperous than those of Eastern Europe

C.     By 1700s ideas about equality and social justice seeped into peasant villages

Global Expansion

A.    From tiny settlements in the West Indies, North America and India England would eventually build a global empire

B.     In the 1700s Britain was generally in the winning side of European conflicts

C.     England offered a more favorable climate for trade and commerce than its European rivals

Growth of Constitutional Government

A.    A constitutional government is a government that is defined and limited by law

B.     Two political parties emerged from England in the 1600s: the Tories and the Whigs

C.     The head of the cabinet was the prime minister

 

 

 

Politics and Society  

 

A.    The age of Walpole was a time of peace and prosperity

B.     Landowning aristocrats were seen as “natural” ruling class

C.     In the 1700s wealthy landowners bought up farms and evicted tenant farmers and small landowners; these people moved to small towns where they faced harsh existence

George III Reasserts Royal Power

A.    George III has a 60 year reign

B.     In 1775 the costs for the colonists own defense and the harsh laws that enforced them triggered the Revolutionary War

C.     British came to see that the Prime minister was their real political leader after the losses of long wars

The 13 English Colonies

A.    By 1750 13 English colonies spread across the coast of North America

B.     In the 1600 Parliament passed the Navigation Acts to regulate colonial trade and manufacturing

C.     By the mid-century the colonies were home to diverse religions and ethnic groups

Growing Discontent

A.    After 1763 relations between Britain and the 13 colonies grew strained

B.     In April of 1775 the Revolutionary War began

C.     On July 4, 1776 the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence from Britain

The American Revolution

A.    A third of the colonists were Loyalists who supported Britain

B.     Continental Congress had few military resources and little money to pay the soldiers

C.     The Americans allied themselves with the French and won the war

A New Constitution

A.  The framers of the Constitution had gotten ideas from Locke, Montesquieu 

       and Rousseau

B.     The Constitution divided power between the federal government and the states

C.     In 1789 the Constitution became law