The Enlightenment Era: Difference between revisions
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[https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-history-of-the-age-of-atlantic-revolutions/enlightenment-and-the-american-revolution/2AC61696FC382E722B55674AC367ED27 by Cambridge University Press 20/10/23] | [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-history-of-the-age-of-atlantic-revolutions/enlightenment-and-the-american-revolution/2AC61696FC382E722B55674AC367ED27 by Cambridge University Press 20/10/23] | ||
The transatlantic intellectual movement today called “the Enlightenment” took particular forms in British North America during the American Revolution. This essay explores four interlocking Enlightenment concepts as used by eighteenth-century Americans to describe their political revolt against British monarchical rule: nature, progress, reason, and revolution. Americans appealed to nature to delegitimize claims to authority that rested on history, custom, divine access, and lineage. | The transatlantic intellectual movement today called “the Enlightenment” took particular forms in British North America during the American Revolution. This essay explores four interlocking Enlightenment concepts as used by eighteenth-century Americans to describe their political revolt against British monarchical rule: nature, progress, reason, and revolution. Americans appealed to nature to delegitimize claims to authority that rested on history, custom, divine access, and lineage. | ||
=====Enlightenment and Revolution===== | |||
[https://hwpi.harvard.edu/files/pluralism/files/enlightenment_and_revolution_0.pdf by The Pluralism Project] | |||
The Enlightenment was a 17th and 18th century international movement in ideas and sensibilities, | |||
emphasizing the exercise of critical reason as opposed to religious dogmatism or unthinking faith. It | |||
developed along with the rise of scientific thinking independent of religious thought and stressed the | |||
importance of nature and the natural order as a source of knowledge. In reaction to the religious wars of | |||
Europe, Enlightenment thinkers defended religious tolerance and religious freedom. Their emphasis on | |||
intellectual freedom and human rights led to a conflict between the advocates of these new ideas and the | |||
political and religious establishments in Europe, most dramatically in France. | |||
