Unit 2 Quiz: Revolutions and Modernity
Guide to Responding
This guide is intended to help you evaluate your performance on the “Unit 2 Quiz.” It
lists the most important terms and concepts that should appear in your answers.
Instructions: For each question, check whether the information listed below is included
in your answer. If you find that some of your answers do not have the key concepts and
terms listed here, go back to the relevant subunits (listed with each question) and
review the information by either re-reading the materials or listening to the lectures one
more time.
If your answers include terms and ideas that do not appear here and you are not sure
whether they correctly answer the questions, use the sub-unit cross-references below to
go back to the relevant course materials and check that your additional information is
correct.
1. According to John Merriman, what were the most important characteristics of
absolutism? How would you characterize absolute rule in late seventeenth and
early eighteenth centuries in France?
Absolutism:
• In continental Europe, absolutism was at its height between 1650 and 1750.
• Absolutist monarchs sought to extent their power – both their control over their own
populations and their domains and territories.
• The power of the absolute monarch was greater than the power of any of his or her
subjects – i.e. their subjects could not effectively challenge their rule.
• The rulers of France, Prussia, Russia, Austria, and Sweden sought to establish
absolute rule.
• They wanted loyalty to be owed to them personally, not to the state as an institution.
• Absolute rulers asserted their rights to make laws, levy taxes, and appoint officials.
• They limited municipal privileges and the privileges of the nobility.
• Absolutism was supported by theories of the “divine right of kings,” which posited that
the king was the representative of God’s will on earth, and he was to be a
benevolent father figure for the people.
Absolutism in France:
• Louis XIV, or the Sun King (r.1661-1715), sought to assert absolute rule in France.
• When he was young he witnessed the Fronde, a long and complex insurrection
against the king led by the French nobility.
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• He made the nobles swear allegiance to him and gave them protection and privileges
in return.
• He built a palace Versailles and moved there from Paris.
• Like other absolute monarch, Louis XIV increased the state’s ability to levy taxes and
reformed military administration.
Reference: Sub-subunit 2.1.1.1
2. Professor Merriman argues that absolute rule did not develop in England and
the Dutch Republic because these two states had social structures that were very
different from those in continental European states. How does he characterize
early modern England?
• The English middle class was among the largest in Europe.
• The English aristocracy with noble titles was very small, but there were many wealthy
landlords who were entrepreneurs and invested their wealth in trade.
• London was a hugely important port city, and the English population was among the
most urbanized of European populations.
• The English middle class wanted to protect their rights and privileges.
• England experienced a dramatic shift in industrial and economic activity from the south
to the north of the country.
Reference: Sub-subunit 2.1.2.1
3. What is key question that Jean Jacque Rousseau tries to answer in “The Social
Contract”? What are the two most important elements of his answer?
• Rousseau inquires whether there is any form of rule that can be considered legitimate.
• He answers that rule can be legitimized by the social contract and by the general
will.
Reference: Sub-subunit 2.2.2.1
4. How does Rousseau characterize the “social contract” and the “general will”?
Social contract:
• Rousseau proposes that “in a state of nature,” men are completely free and they are
born free.
• No person has intrinsic authority over another person, and therefore rule by force is
illegitimate.
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• In modern societies, which are complex and people do not live “in a state of nature,”
people need to come together and make an agreement, or a contract, to protect
their safety and their well-being.
• The protection they receive in this way comes at the expense of some of their natural
liberty.
• Individuals in a society agree on a social contract, and can thus create laws that they
agree to obey.
• The social contract gives both the right to rule and the obligation to obey.
General will
• It is the will of the community that is bound together by the social contract.
• The general will is the public interest of all citizens acting as a sovereign legislative
assembly.
• It is directed toward the public good and it can never be wrong, as it is unaffected by
individual interests.
• The general will is different from the ‘will of all,’ which is human and fallible.
Reference: Sub-subunit 2.2.2.1
5. What are the most important arguments made by Marquis de Condorcet in his
1794 essay, “The Future Progress of the Human Mind”?
• The human mind has an unlimited capacity for improvement and perfectibility.
• This is largely because neither the facts nor human methods for dealing with the facts
can ever be exhausted.
• If equality is instituted in education, equality among nations will follow, and there will
be fast progress in the sciences.
• Technological improvements will change the economy and the work environment in
which people function, and they will also make agriculture more efficient.
• Progress in industry and greater prosperity will be accompanied by greater human
happiness, by population growth, and by new developments in culture.
Reference: Sub-subunit 2.2.2.3
6. What are some of the most important characteristics of European modernity?
• Accumulation of capital and changes in production – leading to the Industrial
Revolution.
• The scientific revolution and its consequences – changes in the structure of beliefs
and values, dominance of rational approaches.
• Decline of the dominance of the Judeo-Christian worldview – though not the
disappearance of the importance of religion.
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• Change in how time is understood and experienced – the importance of the clock and
regimentation of everyday life.
• New approaches to history – nineteenth-century historicism.
• Emergence of various ideologies of progress – Marxism, liberalism, Darwinism,
positivism.
• Rationalization of the state, growth of bureaucratic structures, and the emergence of
the state’s “monopoly on violence” (Max Weber).
• Urbanization and explorations of how the city changes human experience and the
human psyche.
• Concerns with possible decline – fears of degeneration, fin-de-siècle decadence.
• Modernist revolt in the arts and literature as a response to modernity.
Reference: Subunit 2.3
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