Unit 3
 Monarchs controlled the 2 upper classes
 Aristocracy and nobility
 Protestant Reformation
 Thought the only way to preserve their country’s peace
and tranquility was to rule absolutely
 Belief of “Divine Right of Kings”
 Divine Right to rule is the belief that God has chosen
you as king/queen
 Monarchs and the pope used to rule; after the
Protestant Reformation, kings believed they were an
extension of God
 If you question the king, you question God!
 Kings became more powerful than ever, contrlling all
parts of society
 Finance
 Religion
 Economy
 Absolutism= monarchy
 All power rests with crown
 Divine right to rule
 Direct connection to God/ God’s will to be king
 King Charles V
 Philip II
 Louis XIV
 James I
 Peter the Great
 Catherine the Great
 From Spain (1516)
 Ruled 2 empires
 Spanish & Holy Roman Empire
 Pg. 143 map in book
 Divided the empire in 2 parts
 Went crazy
 Entered monastery to become a priest
 Spain
 Made Spanish empire the most powerful in the world
 Spanish colonies in the Americas
 Absolute monarch
 All power given to him, divine right
 Lived as a monk; hard worker
 France
 5 years old when given crown
 Divine right to rule
 Expanded bureaucracy and hired attendants
 Kept nobles in check & middle class happy
 Used merchantilism to improve economy
 Export more than import
 Many costly wars to expand borders
 Palace of Vercailles
 England
 Ruled as monarchs (divine right), but also works with
Parliament
 Clashed over $ and foreign affairs
 He wanted war and lavish things
 Dissolved Parliament
 Kicked Puritans out of England
 Set up England for Civil War
 Russia
 Came to throne at 10 years old
 Westernized Russia
 Manufacturing, technology, education
 Expanded Territory
 Immense Army & Navy
 Wanted a warm-water port, never got it
 Outcome: Although there is a
monarchy, it is no longer absolute
 The king and queen must answer to
Parliament, meaning they can no
longer declare war, persecute religious
factions, or run the economy of their
country alone
 First time the king has to answer to
representatives of the population,
even though they are still all rich
 Sound familiar?
Unit 3
 Thomas Hobbes
 John Locke
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
 Baron de Montesquieu
 Voltaire
 Denis Diderot
 Mary Wollstonecraft
 Adam Smith
 A period after of time during and after the Age of
Absolutism
 Free thinkers flourished because of the repression of
ideas from absolute monarchs (like Louis XIV)
 The ideas from the Enlightenment philosophers
sparked revolutions throughout the world
 In nature, people are cruel, greedy, and
selfish
 To escape this, people would enter into
a social contract: They would give up
their freedom in return for the safety
and order of an organized society
 Hobbes bevleived that a powerful
government like an absolute
monarchy was best for society
 His most famous work was
called the Leviathan
 The state that the best
government is one that
keeps order and obedience
 Argued for the use of
absolute monarchy
 Believed in natural laws and natural rights
 At birth, the mind is a blank tablet.
Everything we know comes from the
experience of the senses
 We are born with rights because they are a
part of nature, of our very existence
 At birth, people have the right to life,
liberty, and property
 If a government fails in its obligation to
protect natural rights, the people have the
right to overthrow that government
 People are basically good, but
become corrupted by society
 For Rousseau, the social contract
was the path to freedom; people
should do what is best for their
community
 The general will (of the people)
should direct the state toward the
common good. Hence, the good of
the community is more important
than individual interests
 He strongly criticized absolute
monarchy and was a voice for
democracy.
 Separation of Powers- the best way
to protect liberty is to divide the
powers of government into 3
branches: Legislative, Executive, &
Judicial
 Checks & Balances: each branch of
government should check (limit) the
power of the other branches. Thus,
power would be balanced (even) and
no branch would be too powerful.
 Advocated freedom of thought,
speech, politics, and religion
 Fought against intolerance, injustice,
inequality, ignorance, and
superstition
 Attacked idle aristocrats, corrupt
government officials, religious
prejudice, and the slave trade
 He was imprisoned in Paris and exiled
because of his attacks on the French
government and Catholic Church
 This philosophe worker 25 years
to produce a 28 volume
encyclopedia- the first one
 The Encyclopedia was not just a
collection of article on human
knowledge, it was intended to
change the way people thought
 20,000 copies were printed
between 1751 – 1789, despite
efforts to ban the Encyclopedia
 She argued that women had not
been included in the
Enlightenment slogan “free and
equal.” Women had been
excluded from the social
contract
 Many Enlightenment thinkers
said women had natural rights,
but they were limited to the
home and family
 Wollstonecraft was a British
feminist
 Smith was a Scottish economist who
has been called “The Father of
Capitalism”
 He was an advocate of French laissez
faire (french for let do, let go, let
pass)
 Laissez faire was a theory of the
“natural” laws of economics:
businesses should operate with little
or no government interference
 Smith did believe that government
had a duty to protect society and to
provide justice and public works