The Enlightenment

In the period known as The Enlightenment, Eighteenth-century Europe saw
remarkable cultural changes characterized by a loss of faith in traditional
religious sources of authority and a turn toward human rights, science, and
the replacement of theocracies and autocracies with democratic republics.

One of the influences on the Enlightenment consisted of reports of Catholic
priests in China which served as a model for a secular enlightened despot.

The upheavals of the Enlightenment led directly to the American
Revolutionary War as well as the French Revolution and significantly
influenced the Industrial Revolution. Enlightenment ideas were also strongly
influential in the Constitution of the United States.

The Enlightenment was also marked by the rise of capitalism and the wide
availability of printed materials. The French encyclopedia (L'Encyclopˇdie)
combined free-thinking articles with technological information.

One important response to the Enlightenment within the European Jewish
community was the Haskalah movement.

The concept of a single, Europe-wide movement may of course be challenged in
detail: it reflects a cultural dominance of French thought. One may also
pursue the German, Scottish and other national movements.

Important figures of the Enlightenment era include:

   * Jean Le Rond d'Alembert
   * Denis Diderot
   * Edward Gibbon
   * David Hume
   * Thomas Jefferson
   * Gotthold Lessing
   * John Locke
   * Montesquieu
   * Isaac Newton
   * Adam Smith
   * Benedict Spinoza
   * Voltaire

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