The Age of Enlightenment 1700-1789

Disintegration of traditional feudal loyalists, rise of powerful monarchies, and collapse of a single religious doctrine caused European intellectuals to think about new ways of unifying and governing nation-states.

-Exploration of new ideas in the “Age of Reason” was encouraged by the scientific revolution.

• Philosophy influenced by the Age of Reason

  • Christianity and church principles were questioned

  • Proper function of government was defined by Voltaire, Montesquieu, Locke, and Rousseau.

    • Ideas led to philosophical bases of the French and American revolutions

  • In economics, “laissez faire” stood in opposition to regulated trade

    • letting things take their own course without interfering

  • Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nation in 1776, and advocated for manufacturing as the true source of the nations’s wealth

• Enlightened despotism (single entity rules with absolute power) grew out of Louis XIV and Peter the Great, advocated limited responsibility to God and the church.

• Culture of the 18th century was dominated by Neoclassicism

  • attempt to revive the classic style and form of ancient Greece and Rome

  • Literature, novel was the outcome.

  • Architecture, Rococo style was dominant

  • Music, Haydn and Mozart emphasized classical era’s symmetrical structures, simple rhythms, and tuneful melodies.

    • Beethoven influenced both the classical and romantic periods.