The Enlightenment Era: Difference between revisions

[https://www.gilderlehrman.org/masters-degree-american-history/courses/american-enlightenment-intellectual-history-1787 by The Enlightenment]

  The Enlightenment is often associated with Europe, but in this course, we will explore how the specific conditions of eighteenth-century North America—slavery, the presence of large numbers of Indigenous peoples, a colonial political context, and even local animals, rocks, and plants—also shaped the major questions and conversations of the time. We will examine how Enlightenment ideas directly influenced the American Revolution’s commitment to liberty, natural rights, separation of powers, and the pursuit of happiness—and how those ideas crept into almost every other area of American life as well.