The French Revolution

The French Revolution essay covers the development of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century and the outbreak and consequences of the French Revolution at the end of the century. 

Answer one of the following prompts. Chose the prompt that you believe will enable you to write the best essay. Essays should include a thesis statement that provides a clear argument for the paper. Strong essays will discuss issues from class meetings, multiple readings, and will carefully analyze primary sources to build thick descriptions of early modern rebellion and revolution. All essays must analyze at least two primary sources.

1. Why did eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers believe that toleration, especially religious toleration, was so important to the development of an enlightened society?
2. How did Enlightenment thinkers begin to think about progress as the goal of society instead of a return or recovery of ancient wisdom? What was the relationship between reason and progress for these thinkers?
3. What was the role of sociability in the Enlightenment and/or the development of the French Revolution? In what ways was the creation of physical and imagined spaces significant to the development of the ideas of the Enlightenment?
4. Why did Edmund Burke, a moderate Whig, and defender of the American rebels against the English crown, react so negatively to the language of rights in The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen that had been praised by Richard Price? Use Burkes text to explain the language of rights used in 1789 and what Burke found so dangerous in it.
5. How did the French Revolution and the language of rights open up possibilities for the extension of rights to new groups of people such as women or people of African descent and slaves? What were the difficulties in extending rights that were said to be natural to these groups of people? Discuss the experience of either women or Africans or compare the experience of the two groups.
6. Discuss the ways that the French Revolution changed the concept of revolution. Make sure to discuss the concept of revolution before the French Revolution, but concentrate on the ideas and practices that made the French Revolution different from revolutions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.