Age of Enlightenment: A History From Beginning to End
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About this ebook
From its beginnings as a loosely definable group of philosophical ideas to the culmination of its revolutionary effect on public life in Europe, the Age of Enlightenment is the defining intellectual and cultural movement of the modern world. Using reason as its core value, the Enlightenment believed that progress and the betterment of the human condition was inevitable.
Inside you will read about...
✓ The Great Thinkers of the Enlightenment
✓ Engaging With Religion
✓ Morality in the Age of Enlightenment
✓ Society in the Age of Enlightenment
✓ Science and Political Economy
✓ The Enlightenment and the Public
✓ Print Culture and the Press
Philosophies of the Enlightenment gave birth to the disciplines of political science, economic theory, sociology and anthropology, the disciplines that still form the basis of how we understand life in the 21st century. A bold attack on the Church, the State and the Monarchy, the Age of Enlightenment was a direct challenge to the status quo that sought freedom for all.
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Reviews for Age of Enlightenment
10 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5it's a good book for someone like me who wants to have a general knowledge about that period.
Book preview
Age of Enlightenment - Hourly History
Introduction
The Age of Enlightenment is the defining intellectual and cultural movement of the modern world. In the simplest terms possible, the Enlightenment was born of the idea that all human beings share the same basic needs and as such should enjoy the same rights and privileges. Enlightenment philosophers believed that human reason, rationality, and benevolence would lead to the natural progression of society and the betterment of life on Earth. Intellectually, the Enlightenment gave birth to the disciplines of political science, economic theory, anthropology, sociology, and modern philosophy—disciplines which still form the basis of how we attempt to understand life in the twenty-first century. The Enlightenment can be understood as a direct challenge to the status quo at a time when intolerant and superstitious religious beliefs dominated most people’s lives. Set free from the restraints of the Church, the state, and the monarchy, according to the Enlightenment, human beings would be able to improve society by focusing on developing the quality of material and social life.
Dating a movement is always a challenge and can never be strictly precise. Most historians agree that the Enlightenment began around the 1680s and lasted until the early 1800s. In Britain, the beginnings of enlightened thought can be traced back to the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Over a period of decades that began with the English Civil War, Britain was transformed from an autocracy led by the Stuart monarchy into a more constitutional society where religious tolerance was encouraged. In France, the death of Louis XIV in 1715 is often cited as the starting point of the Enlightenment, with the French Revolution of 1789 marking its end point. For some, the wellspring of enlightened thought can be found even further back in European history, around the 1620s when Europe experienced a surge of scientific inquiry, experimentation, and innovation.
For some historians, the Enlightenment was the direct result of the Renaissance and the Reformation. The Renaissance was the cultural rebirth of Europe. From its beginnings in fourteenth-century Italy, the Renaissance encouraged the revival of classical art, literature, and architecture and forced a massive shift from what we now refer to as medieval times to modern. The Renaissance prepared the western world for the Reformation that would shake the authority of the Church in Europe to its core.
Next came the Scientific Revolution, which would never have taken place had it not been for the philosophical groundwork of the Enlightenment. The final greatest cultural shift of the modern world that can be clearly linked to the Enlightenment was that of Modernity. While the scientific and industrial inventions, social advances, and revolutions in ways of thinking that defined the modern age cannot be traced directly back to the Enlightenment, it was the Enlightenment’s core values that made this eventual shift possible.
The Enlightenment began as a philosophical group of ideas with the common themes of reason and progress. Before it