Flashcards: The Enlightenment Era
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Created by:
HistoryofCrawford on January 17, 2011
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Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Enlightenment | The period when people tried to explain humanity through reason/thinking. |
| Montesquieu | French Enlightenment philosopher who believed in the separation of powers (a.k.a. checks & balances). |
| Voltaire | French Enlightenment philosopher who believed in religious freedom. |
| Rousseau | French Enlightenment philosopher who described a "Social Contract" - people should run the government by majority vote (the "general will"). |
| Baron d'Holbach | First person to publicly argue for atheism. |
| Mary Wollstonecraft | Enlightenment philosopher who believed in women's rights. |
| Adam Smith | Believed that nation's economic power comes from labor. Suggested the "invisible hand." |
| invisible hand | A way of explaining the relationship between supply and demand in an economy. |
| Maria Theresa | Absolutist leader of Austria who reworked the administration of the empire. |
| Seven Years' War | Global war where England gained control of Canada and India. |
| Enlightened Absolutism | AKA Enlightened Despotism. The idea that only an absolutist monarch who believes in the Enlightenment can protect people's rights. |
| Joseph II | Austrian Enlightened Absolutist monarch. Reworked the government, only to have his reforms undone after his death. |
| Frederick William the Great | Prussian Enlightened Absolute monarch. Mostly Enlightened, but he loved warfare too much. |
| Catherine the Great | Russian Enlightened Absolute monarch. Fear of the nobles kept her from being truly Enlightened. |
| Hanoverian dynasty | English kings, mostly Georges, who came from Germany. |