Introduction - Liberal Values and the Modern World
The term “modern” when used to describe Modern History involves a lot of ideas about how the human societies in the world work today compared to how they worked in the past. A good place to begin in understanding modern world history is to think of the ideas that most people use to define what makes the modern world “modern”. Two principal ideas that stand out in defining the modern world are personal freedom and the nation-state. The idea that individual people should have large amounts of personal freedom and that governments represent and rule for the benefit of the people of a country are historically new ideas that would have been inconceivable to most people for most of human history. Modern world history studies the process by which these ideas became the norm throughout most of the world.
Most historians consider the events of the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution to be the starting point of the modern world. The rise of absolute monarchs in Europe, political revolution in Britain and the ideas of the Enlightenment unleashed the forces that led to the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, and the formation of the modern world. The rise of the absolute monarchs involved building nations under the rule of a single powerful leader. The political revolution in Britain was a conflict over how much the government should represent the people of a nation. The Enlightenment developed the idea that a society based on personal freedom would be happier, more successful and wealthier. The combination and conflicts between these ideas would set the modern world in motion.
Key Terms for Unit
Personal Freedom
Nation-state
Sovereignty
Rule of Law
Social Contract
Natural Rights
Agency
Civil Society
Absolute Monarch
Louis XIV
Sun King
Thomas Hobbes
Intendants
Balance of Power
Limited Monarchy
Magna Carta
Parliament
Charles I
Oliver Cromwell
Glorious Revolution
Bill of Rights
Edict of Nantes
Enlightenment
Scientific Revolution
Rational World View
Inductive Reasoning
Deductive Reasoning
Isaac Newton
John Locke
Voltaire
Montesquieu
Republic of Letters
Salons
Denis Diderot
Encyclopedia
Democratic Republic
Core Concepts - There are several big ideas that are important to this unit about how the modern world. The idea of the modern world is defined by ideas that shape how societies work. The core concepts described blew are central to the history covered in this unit and will be used throughout the rest of this course.
Unit Skill - Using Reasoning to Choose and Organize Evidence - Reasoning is the core part of any argument - it is the connection between the thesis of the argument and the evidence that support the argument. There are basically three types of reasoning: cause and effect, comparison and generalization. An important part of developing the critical thinking skills used in developing arguments is being able to identify these different types of reasoning. The chart below explains each type of reasoning, how to identify the reasoning with key words and questions to use in evaluating the reasoning. In this activity, you will be practicing the process of identifying the different types of reasoning.
Link to Assignment Sheet - click here