These ideals stemmed from the Enlightenment, the intellectual product of the right of the bourgeoisie emphasizing the link between various factors which ultimately led to the outbreak of the French Revolution. ... Conversely, post revisionist interpretations focus more closely on culture and language, shifting away from the socio economic factors which provide the basis for the Marxist outlook which they so heavily critique.12 This approach includes notable historians like Furet asserting that the Revolution was centred on the impact of the new Enlightenment thinking.13 By emphasizing how a ...

• Word Count: 3440
• Approx Pages: 14
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In response to the new thinking that was sparked by the Enlightenment, Romanticism, the Industrial Revolution and other changes in society, bloody and peaceful revolutions took place all over Europe. ... This document showed the romantic views of French-Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as well as the Enlightenment's rationalism. ... A child of the Enlightenment and advanced in the ranks by the revolution, Napoleon strove to create a meritocracy, a domestic system based on skill and talent rather than artificial and inherited worth like the aristocracy. ... Before the French R...

• Word Count: 4395
• Approx Pages: 18
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Napoleon Bonaparte: The Legacy of the French Revolution The debate over Napoleon's role in the French Revolution is an incredibly fierce one. On one side you have people who claim he was a tyrannical despot who destroyed civil liberties. These people argue that he crowned himself emperor, made a mockery of attempts at democracy and that he signed a concordat with the church - all of which went against revolutionary ideal. The other side of the debate that historians argue that he rescued the revolution from failure. These people cite the Napoleonic Code, the...

• Word Count: 3218
• Approx Pages: 13

In a way, it might have begun with the Age of Enlightenment and its drive toward a mastery of nature and society, with human reason at the center of everything, since which rationality had been considered the key to justice, morality, control, organization, understanding and happiness. ...

• Word Count: 2695
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

During this time in Europe and especially in France, state-making the emergence of nationalism and the increase in secular political institutions transformed the European continent. Napoleon Bonaparte helped to overthrow the Directory, which held power from 1794-1799, and he helped transform France into an empire. The French revolution was the beginning of the end to the Monarchy and absolute rule. The revolution came about for a number of reasons. The economic conditions in the previous two decades, the growing discourse with the social privileges of the few fueled what many say was inev...

• Word Count: 2705
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: High School