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  • acc. PHILLIPS
  • America
    • I: Early America
      • Course Info
      • 1492-1763
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    • II: Modern America
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  • acc. PHILLIPS
  • America
    • I: Early America
      • Course Info
      • 1492-1763
      • 1763-1783
      • 1783-1789
      • 1789-1815
      • 1815-1849
      • 1850-1865
      • 1865-1877
    • II: Modern America
      • Course Info
      • 1865-1890
        • The Western Frontier
        • The Gilded Age
      • 1890-1920
        • Progressivism
        • Imperialism & the First World War
      • 1920-1941
        • The Roaring Twenties
        • The Great Depression
      • 1941-1962
        • The Second World War
        • The Early Cold War
      • 1950-1975
        • The Great Society
        • The Vietnam War
      • 1968-1991
        • The Late Cold War
        • Pop Culture
      • 1991-Today
        • The Culture Wars
        • The War on Terror
  • Europe
    • Course Info
    • 1200-1450
    • 1450-1648
      • Renaissance
      • Reformation
      • Exploration
      • Links
      • Assignments
      • Videos
        • John Green Videos
        • Tom Richey Videos
        • Rick Steves Videos
        • Assorted Videos
      • Slideshows
    • 1648-1815
      • Sovereignty
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      • Reason
      • Society
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The Age of Reason,
​c. 1648-c. 1815

Picture
A gathering in the salon of Madame Geoffrin, 1755
Belief in progress, along with improved social and economic conditions, spurred significant gains in literacy and education as well as the creation of a new culture of the printed word — including novels, newspapers, periodicals, and such reference works as Diderot’s Encyclopédie — ​for a growing educated audience.

The Age of Reason,
c. 1648-1815

During the 16th and 17th centuries, Europeans developed new approaches to and methods for looking at the natural world in what historians have called the Scientific Revolution. Aristotle’s classical cosmology and Ptolemy’s astronomical system came under increasing scrutiny from natural philosophers (later called scientists) such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. The philosophers Francis Bacon and René Descartes articulated comprehensive theories of inductive and deductive reasoning to give the emerging scientific method a sound foundation. Bacon urged the collection and analysis of data about the world and spurred the development of an international community of natural philosophers dedicated to the vast enterprise of what came to be called natural science. In medicine, the new approach to knowledge led physicians such as William Harvey to undertake observations that produced new explanations of anatomy and physiology and to challenge the traditional theory of health and disease (the four humors) espoused by Galen in the second century.
​
The articulation of natural laws, often expressed mathematically, became the goal of science, especially after the Europeans’ encounters with the Western Hemisphere. The explorations produced new knowledge of geography and the world’s peoples through direct observation, and this seemed to give credence to new approaches to knowledge more generally. Yet while they developed inquiry-based epistemologies, Europeans also continued to draw upon longstanding explanations of the natural world.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, Europeans applied the methods of the new science—such as empiricism, mathematics, and skepticism—to human affairs. During the Enlightenment, intellectuals such as Rousseau, Voltaire, and Diderot aimed to replace faith in divine revelation with faith in human reason and classical values. In economics and politics, liberal theorists such as John Locke and Adam Smith questioned absolutism and mercantilism by arguing for the authority of natural law and the market. Belief in progress, along with improved social and economic conditions, spurred significant gains in literacy and education as well as the creation of a new culture of the printed word—including novels, newspapers, periodicals, and such reference works as Diderot’s Encyclopédie—for a growing educated audience.
 
Alongside several movements of religious revival that occurred during the 18th century, European elite culture embraced skepticism, secularism, and atheism for the first time in European history. From the beginning of this period, Protestants and Catholics grudgingly tolerated each other following the religious warfare of the previous two centuries. By 1800, most governments had extended toleration to Christian minorities and in some states even to Jews. Religion was viewed increasingly as a matter of private rather than public concern.
 
The new rationalism did not sweep all before it; in fact, it coexisted with a revival of sentimentalism and emotionalism. Until about 1750, Baroque art and music glorified religious feeling and drama as well as the grandiose pretensions of absolute monarchs. During the French Revolution, romanticism and nationalism implicitly challenged what some saw as the Enlightenment’s overemphasis on reason. These Counter-Enlightenment views laid the foundations for new cultural and political values in the 19th century. Overall, intellectual and cultural developments reflected a new worldview in which rationalism, skepticism, scientific investigation, and a belief in progress generally dominated. At the same time, other worldviews stemming from religion, nationalism, and romanticism remained influential.


Source: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-european-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf

The Scientific Revolution

Picture
Tycho Brahe's body has been exhumed twice for study, in 1901 and 2010. He likely died of burst bladder and his artificial nose was probably made of brass rather gold, as some believed in his time.
Terms:
  • scientific method
  • experimentation
  • inductive reasoning
  • deductive reasoning
  • Ptolemaic geocentric model
  • heliocentric theory
  • laws of planetary motion
  • laws of motion
  • law of universal gravitation
  • Newtonian classical mechanics
​
People:
  • Francis Bacon (New Atlantis, 1627)
  • René Descartes (Meditations, 1641)
  • The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge
  • Robert Boyle (Sceptical Chymist, 1661)
  • Margaret Cavendish (Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, Blazing World)
  • Nicholas Copernicus (On the Revolution of Celestial Spheres, 1543)
  • Tycho Brahe
  • Johannes Kepler
  • Galileo Galilei
  • Paracelsus
  • Andreas Vesalius (On the Fabric of the Human Body, 1543)
  • William Harvey
  • Juan Luis Vives
  • Isaac Newton (Principia Mathematica, 1687)
  • Gottfried Leibniz 

The Social Contract

Picture
The cover artwork to Leviathan (1651) reflects Thomas Hobbes' political philosophy.
  • Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan (1651)
  • social contract
  • John Locke - Two Treatises of Government (1689)
  • consent of the governed
  • natural rights to life, liberty, and private property
  • English Bill of Rights (1689)
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract (1762)
  • popular sovereignty
  • general will
  • American Declaration of Independence

Enlightenment Philosophes

Picture
The satire Candide (1759) epitomizes Enlightenment criticism of humanity's most callous institutions. Voltaire mocks the cruelty of war, the extremism of the brutal Catholic Inquisition, the harsh violence of slavery, the hypocrisy of religious and political leaders, and general indifference to others' suffering.  In this illustration, the main character Candide flees from a war-ravaged village.
  • philosophes
  • Baruch Spinoza - Ethics (1677)
  • Bernard de Fontenelle - Plurality of Worlds (1686)
  • John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) and Two Treatises of Government (1689)
  • tabula rasa
  • Pierre Bayle - Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697)
  • skepticism
  • Baron de Montesquieu - Persian Letters (1721) and Spirit of the Laws (1748)
  • separation of powers
  • due process of law
  • David Hume - Human Nature (1738–1740)
  • Encyclopédie (1751–1772) - Denis Diderot, Jean-Baptiste le Rond D’Alembert, and Louis de Jaucort
  • Voltaire - Candide (1759)
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Inequality (1755), Emile, or On Education (1762), and The Social Contract (1762)
  • noble savages
  • popular sovereignty
  • general will of the people
  • Cesare Beccaria - On Crimes and Punishments (1764)
  • Baron Paul d’Holbach - System of Nature (1770)
  • Edward Gibbon - Decline and Fall of Roman Empire (1776–1789)
  • Immanuel Kant - Critique of Pure Reason (1781), “What Is Enlightenment?” (1784), and Perpetual Peace (1795)
  • Moses Mendelssohn - Jerusalem (1783)
  • Jewish emancipation
  • Edmund Burke - Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
  • Marquis de Condorcet - For the Admission of the Rights of Citizenship for Women (1790) and Progress of the Human Mind (1793)
  • Olympe de Gouges - Declaration of the Rights of Woman (1791)
  • Mary Wollstonecraft - A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) 

Enlightenment Institutions

Picture
Picture
Freemasons, whose members included Voltaire, John Locke, Haydn, Mozart, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin, espoused Enlightenment ideals. This secret society was often misunderstood and persecuted, especially by the Catholic Church.  
  • salons
  • Madame Geoffrin
  • Madame Necker
  • coffeehouses
  • academies
  • Leopoldina
  • Prussian Academy of Arts
  • Académie française
  • Royal Society of London
  • École Militaire
  • lending libraries
  • Bodleian (1598)
  • Bibliothèque Mazarine (1648)
  • Österreichische Nationalbibliothek
  • Freemasonry
  • Grand Lodge of England
  • Masonic lodges
  • Republic of Letters/general (literate) public
  • Johann Carolus - Relation of Strasbourg (1605)
  • Elizabeth Mallet – daily newspaper (1702)
  • Erbauliche Monaths Unterredungen (1663) - literary periodical
  • Gentleman’s Magazine (1731) - general interest periodical
  • Libelles (pamphlets)
  • censorship
  • freedom of press

Representations of Non-Europeans

From Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa (1799) by Mungo Park
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Discourse on Inequality (1755)
  • James Adair - History of the American Indians (1775)
  • noble savages
  • Comte de Buffon - Histoire Naturelle (1749–1804)
  • Louis-Antoine de Bougainville - A Voyage Around the World (1771)
  • Johann and Georg Forster - Voyage Round the World (1778)
  • Mungo Park - Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa (1799)
  • human zoos
  • "Hottentot Venus" Saartjie Baartman
  • Orientalists
  • William Jones
  • Charles Wilkins
  • Abraham Anquetil-Duperron
  • Joseph de Guignes
  • Chinese “Oriental Despotism” 

Natural Religion

Picture
French Revolutionary leaders tried to replace Catholicism first with the atheistic Cult of Reason and then the deistic ​Cult of the Supreme Being. A Festival of the Supreme Being was led by Robespierre at the zenith of power.  Jacques-Louis David designed a plaster-and cardboard mountain topped with a liberty tree from which Robespierre descended. Jacques-Alexis Thuriot was heard saying "Look at the bugger; it’s not enough for him to be master, he has to be God".
  • natural religion
  • Matthias Knutzen
  • atheism
  • John Toland - Christianity Not Mysterious (1694)
  • Deism
  • John Wesley
  • Methodism
  • David Hume - Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) and Natural History of Religion (1757)
  • Baron d'Holbach - Christianity Unveiled (1766) and System of Nature (1770)
  • William Palley - Natural Theology (1802)
  • divine watchmaker
  • Anglican dissenter groups--Levelers, Diggers, Quakers, Seekers, and Ranters
  • Jansenism
  • Gotthold Lessing - Nathan the Wise (1779)
  • Cult of Reason
  • ​Cult of the Supreme Being
  • ​Festival of the Supreme Being

Rococo

  • Antoine Watteau - Pilgrimage to Cythera (1717), the island of Venus
  • François Boucher - Madame de Pompadour (1759)
  • Jean-Honoré Fragonard - The Swing (1766)
  • Thomas Gainsborough - Mr. and Mrs. Andrews (1750)
  • Balthasar Neumann - Residenz in Bavaria
  • Matthäus Pöppelmann - Zwinger in Saxony

Neoclassical Art and Classical Music

  • discovery of Heraculeum (1738) and Pompeii (1748)
  • Jacques-Louis David - Oath of Horatii (1785), Death of Marat (1793), and Coronation of Napoleon (1806)
  • Antonio Canova - Perseus with Head of Medusa (c. 1799) and Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker (1806)
  • Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres - Napoleon I Upon His Throne (1806) and Jupiter and Thetis (1813)
  • Elgin Marbles
  • Arc de Triomphe (1806–1836)
  • Baroque music (c. 1600–c. 1750)
  • Pachelbel - Canon in D, c. 1680
  • J.S. Bach - Brandenburg Concertos, 1721
  • Vivaldi - Four Seasons, 1725
  • Handel - Messiah, 1742
  • Classical music (c. 1750–c. 1820)
  • C.P.E. Bach - Symphony in E Minor, 1756
  • Salieri - Fair of Venice, 1772
  • Mozart - Marriage of Figaro, 1786
  • Haydn - Surprise Symphony, 1791
  • Romantic music (c. 1804–c. 1910)
  • Beethoven - Fifth Symphony, 1808
  • Rossini - Barber of Seville, 1816
  • von Weber - Der Freischütz, 1821
  • Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique, 1830
Classical Music Spotify Playlist

18th Century Literature

  • Daniel Dafoe - Robinson Crusoe (1719)
  • Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels (1726)
  • Samuel Richardson - Pamela (1740) and Clarissa (1748)
  • Henry Fielding - History of Tom Jones (1749)
  • Laurence Stern - Tristram Shandy (1759)
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Julie (1761)
  • Horace Walpole - Castle of Otranto (1764)
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) and Faust (Part 1, 1808; Part 2, 1832)
  • Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress)
  • William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Lyrical Ballads (1798)
  • Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility (1811) and Pride and Prejudice (1813)

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  • acc. PHILLIPS
  • America
    • I: Early America
      • Course Info
      • 1492-1763
      • 1763-1783
      • 1783-1789
      • 1789-1815
      • 1815-1849
      • 1850-1865
      • 1865-1877
    • II: Modern America
      • Course Info
      • 1865-1890
        • The Western Frontier
        • The Gilded Age
      • 1890-1920
        • Progressivism
        • Imperialism & the First World War
      • 1920-1941
        • The Roaring Twenties
        • The Great Depression
      • 1941-1962
        • The Second World War
        • The Early Cold War
      • 1950-1975
        • The Great Society
        • The Vietnam War
      • 1968-1991
        • The Late Cold War
        • Pop Culture
      • 1991-Today
        • The Culture Wars
        • The War on Terror
  • Europe
    • Course Info
    • 1200-1450
    • 1450-1648
      • Renaissance
      • Reformation
      • Exploration
      • Links
      • Assignments
      • Videos
        • John Green Videos
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        • Themes
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        • Exam
      • 1200-1450
        • Asia
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        • Videos
      • 1450-1750
        • Discovery
        • Maritime Empires
        • Land Empires
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      • 1900-Today
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  • Research
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