Answer to Question #309310 in History for Nonkululeko

Question

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Explain the impact of Enlightenment on European societies and the rest of the world by outlining the main ideas of Locke, Montesquieu and Wolistonecraft

Answer 1

Enlightenment thinkers in Britain, France, and throughout Europe questioned traditional authority and embraced the notion that humanity could be improved through rational change. The Enlightenment produced numerous books, essays, inventions, scientific discoveries, laws, wars, and revolutions. The American and French Revolutions were directly inspired by Enlightenment ideals and respectively marked the peak of its influence and the beginning of its decline. The Enlightenment ultimately gave way to 19th-century Romanticism.  Its roots are usually traced to 1680s England, where in the span of three years Isaac Newton published his “Principia Mathematica” (1686) and John Locke his “Essay Concerning Human Understanding” (1689) two works that provided the scientific, mathematical, and philosophical toolkit for the Enlightenment’s major advances. Locke argued that human nature was mutable and that knowledge was gained through accumulated experience rather than by accessing some sort of outside truth. Newton’s calculus and optical theories provided powerful Enlightenment metaphors for precisely measured change and illumination.