Enlightenment Thinkers
This Enlightenment thinker believed all people are born with natural rights to life, liberty, and property.
Who is John Locke?
This Enlightenment idea states that the government should protect people’s rights in exchange for their loyalty and obedience.
What is the Social Contract?
This invention by Johannes Gutenberg helped spread ideas by making books cheaper and easier to produce.
What is the printing press?
This group of people in 19th and 20th century England wanted the right to vote and believed laws should not be made without their input. What were they fighting for?
Who are women fighting for suffrage?
This empire was known for using gunpowder to expand into parts of Persia and Iraq, and made Shia Islam its official religion.
What is the Safavid Empire?
This thinker believed people were naturally selfish and needed an absolute monarch to keep them in check.
Who is Thomas Hobbes?
According to Voltaire, people should have this freedom, even if others disagree with their views
What is freedom of speech?
Thanks to this rising skill, more people could read and think for themselves during the Enlightenment.
What is literacy?
This Enlightenment thinker inspired women to demand political rights by promoting ideas about natural rights and government by consent.
Who is John Locke?
This empire welcomed English merchants with open arms, allowing them to trade freely and travel through its cities.
What is the Mughal Empire?
This Enlightenment thinker believed in separating powers into three branches of government to avoid tyranny.
Who is Baron de Montesquieu?
Montesquieu’s idea that ‘power should be a check to power’ led to this modern government structure.
What is the separation of powers (into three branches)?
In the 1700s, these two types of places became popular gathering spots for intellectuals to share Enlightenment ideas over a cup of coffee.
What are saloons?
Catherine the Great was an absolute monarch who was influenced by Mary Wollstonecraft and John Locke. What was she known as?
What is an enlightened despot?
This government issued the Edict of 1635, banning foreign travel and punishing those who attempted to return from abroad
What is the Tokugawa Shogunate?
This Enlightenment thinker believed the government and people enter into a ‘Social Contract’ where all should have equal rights.
Who is Jean-Jacques Rousseau?
According to Rousseau, this is the agreement that creates equality by giving all people the same rights and responsibilities.
What is the Social Contract?
These rulers punished dissent and ruled with total control, which pushed people to start questioning authority and inspired Enlightenment thinking.
What are absolute monarchs?
This Russian ruler called herself a 'philosopher on the throne,' supported Enlightenment ideas in education, but still ruled like an absolute monarch.
Who is Catherine the Great?
This empire, though founded by outsiders from Manchuria, respected local cultures like Mongolian and Muslim customs and ruled through the Court of Colonial Affairs.
What is the Qing Dynasty?
This Enlightenment woman argued that women should be educated so they can raise virtuous citizens and have power over themselves.
Who is Mary Wollstonecraft?
Wollstonecraft believed women should have this in order to help advance knowledge, virtue, and society as a whole.
What is education?
This English scientist laid the foundation for Enlightenment thought by showing the universe was governed by physical laws, not divine will.
Who is Isaac Newton?
Inspired by John Locke’s belief in natural rights and human equality, this movement in 18th century England fought to end an inhumane system that denied Africans their freedom. What were they fighting for?
What is the abolition of slavery?
One of these empires closed off contact with foreigners to preserve internal control, while the other encouraged trade and diplomatic relationships to grow its influence.
What are the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Mughal Empire?