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MODERN HISTORY SOURCEBOOK

Reading Guide

Early French Revolution

[Note: Reading Guides are meant as review aids for a particular text. They do indicate some of the questions a text raises.]

Answer the questions below.

Find your information from the sourcebook itself, or from your textbook.
You may use other sources, but indicate what they are is this is the basis of submitted class work.

Emmanuel Sieyès: What is the Third Estate?

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

Olympe de Gouges: On the Rights of Woman

  1. Who was Emmanuel Sieyès? What were his qualifications for writing? Who was he writing for? What kind (genre) of literature is this?
  2. Summarize in three sentences Sieyès' argument.
  3. Suggest at least three differences between the US Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
  4. The thoughts of various earlier political philosophers can be seen in the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
    Which philosophers and in which articles?
  5. Who was Olympe de Gouge? What light does it cast on the Declaration of the Rights of Man?


Know the Meanings of these phrases/words