Sources:

• textbook:  pg. 556  to mid-pg. 562.    [8th ed. --> pp. 668 - mid-pg. 675]
• document packet:  "The Enlightenment - 1"
• PowerPoint:  "The Age of Reason & The Enlightenment" 

Questions:

1. What were some of the major intellectual changes that led to the Enlightenment?
2. How was the spirit of the 18^c Enlightenment drawn from the scientific and intellectual revolution of the 17^c?
3. Make an extensive list of the major themes/characteristics of Enlightenment thinking.
4. Create a CHART which compares the ideas and contributions made by the major personalities of the period.  Be sure to include a list of their written works and the themes of these works.
5. How did the Enlightenment influence the growing popularity of history?  How did Edward Gibbon reflect this change?
6. What was the problem that many thinkers like Voltaire had with Christianity?  How did Enlightenment thinking diminish the authority of religion?
7. Identify the major beliefs of deism.  What was the hope of the deists in regard to Christianity?
8. Who were the philosophes? 
9. What was the role of the philosophes during the Enlightenment?  How were they different from the great thinkers of the earlier centuries?
10. Why did the philosophes look to the paganism of ancient Greek and Rome and ridicule the Middle Ages?
11. Why did Immanuel Kant, when asked "What is the Enlightenment?" respond, "Dare to know!"?  [document excerpt on pg. 561].
12. What is relativism?  How did Montesquieu apply the concept to government?
13. Why did Montesquieu admire the structure of Britain's government?  What was inaccurate about his view?
14. What political role did the philosophes feel the aristocracy should play in any government?
15. List some of the beliefs of the physiocrats.  How were they a reflection of the larger intellectual trends of the Enlightenment?

Sources:

• textbook:  mid-pg. 562 to top of pg. 566.    [8th ed. --> mid-pg. 675 - mid-pg. 680]
• document packet:  "The Enlightenment - 2"

Questions:

1. What were the themes of Diderot's earlier works?
2. What contributions did The Encyclopédie made to the development of new ideas during the Enlightenment?
3. What did Rousseau claim was wrong with the culture and society of his day?
4. What were the views of Paul d' Holbach?   Why did they shock may of his intellectual contemporaries?
5. What were Condorcert's views on slavery and human progress? 
6. Identify the major ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau [add them to the chart created above].  In what ways were his ideas unique, differing dramatically from his predecessors? 
7. Why could Rousseau be claimed as an intellectual soul mate of both the liberal strain and the despotic/totalitarian tendencies in Western political thinking?
8. What arguments could be made for supporting the following statement?:  The Enlightenment substituted "the religion of science" for the "religion of Christianity."
9. How can the Enlightenment be described as basically an urban phenomenon?

10. To what extent did the ideals of freedom and egalitarianism present in the Enlightenment apply to women?

Sources:

• textbook:  pg. 582 to top of pg. 586.    [8th ed. --> pg. 700 - mid-pg. 705]
• document packet:  "The Enlightenment - 3"

Questions:

1. Why did 19^c German historians describe the Prussians and Habsburg monarchies of the 18^c as "enlightened" absolute monarchs?  Why was this view misleading?
2. What reforms did Catherine the Great attempt to initiate in Russia?  Why did she change her attitude toward reform later on in her reign?
3. How did Catherine the Great deal with the Pugachev Rebellion?
4. How did 18c German writers depict the state?   explain the "command-obedience chain" of governing?   describe the concept of Rechtsstaat?
5. Why was Joseph II considered to be the only real "enlightened" absolute monarch of the 18^c?
6. Why did Joseph II's agrarian reforms provoke such fierce opposition from the landowning nobility?  Why were they unsuccessful?
7. What were the limits to what these supposedly absolute rulers could do?
8. Identify the numbers of each "estate" in most Western European countries.
9. Why were monarchs and the nobility natural rivals?
10. Which groups in England society supported parliamentary reform?
11. How was the American Revolution different from comparable movements in Europe?

Quizzes:

1. Textbook Quiz --> chapter 19
2. Other Quizzes:  A   B 

Outlines / Lecture Notes:

1. "1300-1815" (Mr. Mercado)
2. "Enlightenment: Literature & Philosophy" (Paul Halsall, Fordham University)
3. "Rococo and Enlightened Despots" (Paul Halsall, Fordham University)

Review Sheets:

1. Mine
2. Giant EHAP Review Sheet by a student from the class of '04, Horace Greeley HS
3. chart --> "Social History Study Guide" (Mr. Mercado)
4. chart --> "The Rise of Constitutionalism and Liberalism" (Mr. Mercado)

Ten Commandments of Good Historical Writing

College Board A. P. European History Course Description (.pdf file)