Unit 3: Religious, Intellectual, and Political
Revolutions in the 1600s-1800s
The 1600s and 1700s were a time of profound religious,
intellectual, and political turmoil across the globe. In
Europe, the Protestant Reformation, which challenged the
religious and political power of the Catholic Church, led to
the Thirty Years’ War in the early 1600s. The Thirty Years’
War devastated much of Central Europe and led to
profound divisions between Catholic and Protestant political
states. In Africa and Asia, Islam continued to spread
southward and eastward through trade networks,
population migrations, and the activities of missionaries.
The Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Church’s
declining religious and political power led to a period of
great intellectual fervor across Europe in the 1600s and
1700s. Known as the Enlightenment, this period witnessed
the development of intellectual movements promoting
reason, democracy, political freedom, and rational inquiry.
Enlightenment thinkers questioned civil authorities and
developed new ideas about the relationship between a
nation’s governments and its people. These ideas gave rise
to a period of political revolutions intended to overthrow
monarchical rule and to install democratically elected
governments in the late 1700s. The French Revolution in
1789 followed the American Revolution in 1776 and
encouraged other revolutions throughout the Americas and
parts of Europe.
In this unit, we will examine the interaction between
religious and political beliefs in the 1600s and 1700s and
look at how these ideas reshaped political, economic, and
social life throughout the world by the beginning of the
1800s. We will also look at how political revolutions in the
Americas had a global impact on political institutions and
reshaped networks of trade and commerce throughout the
world.
Unit 3 Time Advisory
This unit will take you 24.25 hours to complete.
☐Unit 3 Pre-reading: 7 hours
☐Subunit 3.1: 3.5 hours
☐Subunit 3.2: 3 hours
☐Subunit 3.3: 5 hours
☐Subunit 3.4:4.75 hours
☐Unit 3 Assessments: 1 hour
Unit 3 Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this unit, the student will
be able to:

Describe and analyze the Protestant Reformation,
and identify the origins of the movement, the various
inflections of the Reformation across Europe, and
the Catholic Counter Reformation.

Describe the rise of the prophet Muhammad and his
monotheistic religion, Islam; describe its spread in
Africa and South Asia.

Compare and contrast the Umayyad and Abbasid
Empires.

Identify the origins of the European Enlightenment,
and assess how this movement altered the social,
political, and religious fabric of Europe and the
world.

Describe and assess the origins, main events,
consequences, and historical legacies of the French
and American Revolutions.