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MODERN HISTORY SOURCEBOOK

CRIB SHEET

[Note: Crib Sheets are meant as review aids for a particular period/theme. They are not complete overviews!]

The French Enlightenment

Ideals

• Reason
• Toleration
• Natural Law
• Change and Progress as good things
• Deism.
  

English Precursors

• John Locke
• Sir Isaac Newton

Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet) 1694-1778

• Ecrasez L'infame - anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism
• Letters on the English 1733
• Lettres Philosophiques 1734
• Elements of the Philosophy of Newton 1738
• Candide 1759
• Dictionnaire Philosophique 1764,
  

Denis Diderot 1713-84

Jean le Rond d'Alembert 1717-83

• The Encyclopedia 1751-72 17 Vols
  
  

English Political Thinkers

Thomas Hobbes 1588-1662

• Leviathan 1651, (cf. Machiavelli 1469-1527)
• "the life of man is nasty, brutish, and short"
  

John Locke 1632-1704

• An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 1690
• Two Treatises of Civil Government 1690
• A Letter Concerning Toleration 1689
  

Adam Smith 1723-90 (Scottish)

• The Wealth of Nations 1776
• Laissez-faire economics
  
  

French Political Thinkers

Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu 1689-1755

• Persian Letters 1721
• The Spirit of the Laws (De l'esprit des lois) 1748
• Idea of climate and political form
• Theory of separation of powers
  

Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712-78

• Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences 1750
  -opposes idea of progress!
• Discourse on the Origin of Inequality 1755
  -caused by property
• Emile 1762

• -love your child
  • On the Social Contract (Du Contrat Social) 1762
    Ideas of
    SOCIAL CONTRACT - between people not between people and government.
    GENERAL WILL - the basis of political decisions - not the same a majority opinion
    SOVEREIGN POWER - basis of the right to govern.
    
    

Enlightened Despotism

• Austria: Maria Theresa 1740-1780, Joseph II 1780-1790
• Prussia: Frederick the Great 1740-1789
• Russia : Catherine the Great 1762-96
  
• Division of Poland:
  these monarchs divided Poland between them in 1772,1793,1795.
  

© 1997, Paul Halsall, halsall@murray.fordham.edu