History 4403

Study Questions 7
Jacob, The Enlightenment, 65-72.

1. What caused Diderot and Rousseau, by the 1770s bitter enemies, both to reach the conclusion that democracy was necessary for all the world's peoples?

2.  What was one of the concrete responses of northern states in the fledgling U.S. to the Enlightenment debate over democracy?

3. What connections did Irish activists make between Joseph Priestly being attacked by a pro-church, pro-king mob in  Birmingham and slavery in the Americas?

4. To what extent did Enlightenment ideals transfer to European colonies in the Americas?

5. What was the punishment for killing a slave in the British West Indies?

6.  What was the thrust of the Code Noir (Black Code) in the French West Indies (first introducted in 1685!)?

7. In what ways did the French Revolution focus opposition to slavery in the Atlantic world?

8.  What critiques of the Enlightenment did British observers give in the wake of the French Revolution and its repercussions?

9.  What societies led political change in the late-18th-century Dutch Republic and what were their aims?

10.  What was the religion of nature?


Back to the Syllabus