1750-1900

Enlightenment

  • An intellectual movement that applied new ways of understanding, such as rationalism, and empiricist approaches to both the natural world and human relationships

  • The Enlightenment’s emphasis on the rejection of established traditions and new ideas about how political power ought to work played a significant role in each of these great upheavals.

    • Rationalism: Reason, rather than emotion or any external authority, is the most reliable source of true knowledge

    • Empiricism: the idea that true knowledge is gained through the senses, mainly through rigorous experimentation.

New belief systems

  • Deism

    • Exceedingly popular among Enlightenment thinkers

  • Athesim

    • Complete rejection of religious beliefs and any notion of divine being

Political ideas

  • Individualism

    • The most basic element of society was the individual human and not collective groups

  • NAtural rights

    • Individual humans are born with certain rights that cannot be infringed upon by government or any other entity

  • social contract

    • Human societies, endowed with natural rights, must construct a government if they themselves are will protect their natural rights

Enlightenment effects

  • Major Revolutions

    • Including the American, French, Haitian, and Latin American revolutions

  • Expansion of suffrage

    • Suffrage means the right to vote

  • Abolition of slavery

  • End of serfdom

  • Calls for women’s suffrage

    -Olympe de Gouges

Nationalism: a sense of commonality among a people based on shared language, religion, social customs, and often linked with a desire for territory.

Cause for Revelations

  • Nationalism

  • Political dissent

    • Windspread discontent with monarchist and imperial rule

  • New ways of thinking

    • The development of new ideologies and systems of government

New ideologies

  • Popular sovereignty

    • The power of government was in the hands of the people

  • Democracy

    • People have the right to vote and influence the policies of the government

  • Liberalism

    • An economic and political ideology that emphasized the protection of civil rights, representative government, the protection of private property, and economic freedom

Revolutions

  • American Revolution

    • begin in 1776

    • end in 1783

  • french revolution

    • Begin in 1789

  • Haitian Revolution

    • Begin in 1791

  • Latin American revolutions

Industrial revolution

  • Fundamentally changed the word’s balance of political power, reordered societies, and made industrial nations rich.

  • Agr