H6C-p1

History 6C

De Anza College

Paper Assignment #1: The Age of Revolutions

Cahiers of the Third Estate of Versailles, 1789

Second Continental Congress Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms July 6 1775

For your first paper you will write an essay comparing the origins of the American and French Revolutions. In construction your essay, you might want to think about the following questions:

In what ways were the origins of the revolutions in France and America similar? How were they different? Examine the complaints in both the Second Continental Congress’s “Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms,” as well as the cahiers of the Third Estate of Versailles. What complaints seem to be common to them? What are the common philosophical ideas behind them? To what extent can one identify a particular social class behind the complaints in the cahiers? Is the same true in the Continental Congress’s Declaration? What effect did the American Revolution have on the French Revolution?

Using these two documents, your textbook, and knowledge gained from lectures, write an essay on the age of revolution in Europe and America in the late 18^th century

You must cite your sources, and list them at the end of your paper as a List of Works Cited.

Typed, double-spaced, with one-inch margins on all sides (this is usually the default for most word processing programs), formatted according to MLA guidelines, approximately 800-1000 words, to be submitted to the Canvas website. (See instructions below.) The paper must be submitted by 11:59 pm on the date due. . Note: before sending the assignment, you must rename the file in the following format: LastnameFirstname-papernumber. Example: JacksonChristopher-paper1. If the file is not properly named, it will not be accepted. Please do not “borrow” material from the web without providing proper citations and enclosing direct quotations in quotation marks. Otherwise, it will be considered plagiarism, and the penalties will be severe.

For help with MLA formatting, consult the Purdue Owl (on-line writing lab).