Enlightenment and Absolutism — ideas emerge and their era
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Flip to reveal answersWhat three intellectual traditions fed into the emergence of Enlightenment ideas?
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Question
What three intellectual traditions fed into the emergence of Enlightenment ideas?
Answer
Ancient ideas (Greek/Roman reason), the Renaissance (humanism), and the Scientific Revolution (Copernicus, Galileo, Newton).
Question
What did Newton's Principia Mathematica (1687) prove, and why did it matter to the Enlightenment?
Answer
It proved mathematics and observation could uncover universal laws of nature — giving Enlightenment thinkers a model for applying reason to society and government.
Question
How did the Reformation help cause the Enlightenment, even though it happened a century earlier?
Answer
It showed that a single religious authority (the Catholic Church) could be successfully challenged, setting a precedent for later dissent against political and religious authority.
Question
What role did political conditions like Louis XIV's absolutism play in causing the Enlightenment?
Answer
Heavy taxation, costly wars and unchecked royal power gave writers a concrete target and motive to question the basis of a ruler's authority.
Question
Name the four key Enlightenment individuals and their core ideas.
Answer
Locke (social contract), Voltaire (religious toleration/free speech), Montesquieu (separation of powers), Rousseau (the general will).
Question
Define 'social contract' (Locke).
Answer
The idea that government exists by an agreement with the people, and rulers who break that agreement can legitimately be resisted.
Question
What economic changes occurred during the Enlightenment era?
Answer
Growth of colonial trade and banking (e.g. Bank of England, 1694), and Adam Smith's 1776 critique of mercantilism in favour of free markets.
Question
How did the growth of cities support the spread of Enlightenment ideas?
Answer
Cities produced salons, coffee houses and printing shops where a growing literate middle class (bourgeoisie) could read, discuss and debate new ideas.
Question
Name two scientific/technological developments of the Enlightenment era.
Answer
The Royal Society and Academy of Sciences (formal institutions for science), and Diderot's Encyclopédie (1751), which popularized knowledge widely.
Question
What agricultural changes helped transform 18th-century Europe?
Answer
New crop rotation methods (e.g. the Norfolk four-course rotation) and the enclosure of common land, which raised food output and supported population growth.
Question
Compare the 'science was the main driver' view with the 'other factors mattered equally' view of the Enlightenment's emergence.
Answer
Science view: Newton's method of reason + evidence was directly copied by Enlightenment writers. Other-factors view: political grievance, religious precedent, and urban social change were equally necessary to spread and motivate the ideas.
Question
What is the four-step structure for a Paper 3 'to what extent' essay?
Answer
1) Understand the claim, 2) Argument for, 3) Argument against, 4) Reach a substantiated judgement — never end on a fence-sit.
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Topic 13.3 hub
Enlightenment and Absolutism (1600-1800)
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