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1215
Magna Carta
•Meaning “The Great Charter”.
•Issued by King John of England.
•Tried to be a Peace Treaty between the King and the rebel barons.
•Established that everyone including the King was subject to the law.
•Cornerstone of the British constitution.
•39th Clause gave all free men to the right to a fair trial. -
1508
Nicolaus Copernicus
•Born in Poland
•Developed his own celestial model of a heliocentric planetary system.
•Concept that the sun (rather than the earth) is the center of the solar system. -
1517
Martin Luther 95 Theses
•Monk and a scholar
•Wrote a document attacking the Catholic Church’s corrupt practice.
•95 Theses has two beliefs: the Bible is the central religious authority, and that humans reach salvation only by their faith and not their deeds.
•Sparked the Protestant Reformation
•Writings changed the course of religious and cultural history in the West. -
Inclosure Acts
•Series of Acts by Parliament that enclosed open fields and common land in England and in Wales. Thus created legal property rights instead of shared common land.
•Between 1604 and 1914 over 5,200 enclosure acts were passed.
•Before the Acts, the common land was in control of the lord of the manor, often odd pieces of land and misshapen.
•Once the land was enclosed the land became restricted to one owner.
•Considered one of the causes of the British Agricultural Revolution. -
Mayflower Compact
•The first agreement for self-government to be created and enforced in America.
•Created because they landed in Massachusetts instead of Virginia—they were outside of the Virginia charter.
•41 male adults signed the agreement.
•Original document has disappeared. -
Peace of Westphalia
•European settlements that ended the Eight Years War that was between Spain and the Dutch.
•It was also the German phase of the Thirty Years’ War.
•Some people say that these treaties provided the basis of the modern state system as well as the articulation of territorial sovereignty.
•Many countries received territories. -
Committees of Correspondence
•Provincial governments throughout the 13 colonies right before the American Revolution. They were Patriot emergency governments.
•Communication between Patriot leaders.
•The 1st one was formed in Boston. The Boston Committee has to manage the “tea crisis”.
•To deal with important issues between individual colonies and Britain. -
Declaration of Independence
•Adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4th, 1776.
•The 13 American colonies cut their political ties to Great Britain.
•This showed the how strongly the colonies wanted to be independent.
•American colonists confirmed an alliance with France for the war against Great Britain. -
Wealth of Nations
•Book published by Adam Smith.
•Magnum Opus of the Scottish economist and Moral Philosopher
•One theme was that the regulations on commerce were counter-productive. Countries should boost exports.
•“Smith’s radical insight…nation’s wealth is really the stream of goods and services that it creates.”
•Smith believes the government should be limited.
•Had ideas/solutions to economic problems -
Immanuel Kant
•Most influential philosopher in the history of Western philosophy. Contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics.
•Knowledge is constrained by mathematics and the science of the natural world. Does not think that our mind is a blank slate.
•Supreme principle of morality and he referred to it as the Categorical Imperative.
•“Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.” The Golden Rule. -
Federalist Papers
•Series of 85 essays urging the people of NY to ratify the new United States Constitution.
•Written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay.
•Written under the pen name: Publius
•Important for understanding the original intent of the Constitution. -
Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America
•Book was published in two volumes.
•Examines the democratic revolution.
•Spent 9 months traveling the U.S. studying people, and collecting information about American society.
•The purpose was to describe a change in social conditions. Thought that men had become more equal.
•Argues that the collapse of aristocracy lessened the patriarchal rule in the family.
•Analyzed the functional aspects of democracy in the U.S. -
Karl Marx
•German philosopher and revolutionary socialist
•Published The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital—anti-capitalist works that form the basis of Marxism.
•Formed a Communist Correspondence Committee in an attempt to link socialists from around Europe.
•Introduced the concept of socialism as a natural result of the conflicts inherent in the capitalist system. -
Gettysburg Address
•Speech delivered by Abe Lincoln at the dedication of Soldier’s National Cemetery. It was a cemetery for Union soldiers killed at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War.
•Lasted for 2 minutes and is only 272 words long.
•“All men are created equal” which was a radical idea back then.
•Lincoln implied that the Declaration of Independence is what the Founding Fathers really wanted for the U.S. -
Declaration of Sentiments
•Also known as the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments
•Signed by 68 women and 32 men.
•Signed at the first women’s rights convention organized by women.
•Main author was Elizabeth Cady Stanton
•According to Frederick Douglass, the document was the, “grand movement for attaining the civil, social, political, and religious rights of women.” -
Max Weber: The Protestant Ethic
•Book published in 1905 written by a German sociologist, economist, and politician.
•Discussion of Weber’s religious ideas and economics.
•Argues that Puritan ethics and ideas influenced the development of capitalism.
•Writes that the influence of Protestant religious, especially Puritanism…makes individuals compelled to follow a secular vocation with enthusiasm.
•His view is the Protestant ethic was the driving force behind the mass action that led to capitalism. -
John Maynard Keynes
•British economist whose ideas changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics.
•Founder of modern macroeconomics theory...Keynesian economics.
•During the Great Depression Keynes started a revolution in economic thinking. Said that aggregate demand determined the overall level of economic activity. There could be long periods of unemployment.
•Published a book in 1936 called The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.
•Leading Western economies adopted Keynes’s policy before WWII. -
Milton Friedman
•American economist and educator
•Leading proponent of monetarism
•Awarded Nobel Prize for Economics in 1976.
•Opposed Keynesians and said that money does matter, and he promoted the theory that changes in the money supply affect economic activity in the short run and the price level in the long run.
•1957- Income Hypothesis: A household’s consumption and savings decisions are more affected by changes in its permanent income than by income changes that household member perceives as temporary. -
Port Huron Statement
•“A political manifesto of the North American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society.”
•Listed reasons that the current American society was a problem, and wrote about radical visions for a better future.
•Brought the term participatory democracy
•Tom Hayden was the main author
•Term “New Left” associated with liberal, radical, Marxist political movements that took place in the 1960s. -
Eve Sedgwick
•American academic scholar in the fields of gender studies, queer theory, and critical theory.
•Published several books including Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire.
•She claimed that there were homoerotic subplots in writers like Charles Dickens and Henry James.
•Wanted to make people aware of potential queer nuances in literature