Argumentative Essay On The Enlightenment

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his is a very complex question and depends heavily on the time period. I presume you're referring to the Enlightenment era of the late 1600s-1700s. There's no servicable short answer, so Athena is right that you'll definitely need to do more research on your own. But I can offer a nutshell overview to get you going...

Spain: Declining absolute monarchy, Catholic. The throne lapsed into uncertain inheritance in the early 1700s (sparking the "War of Spanish Succession" in which Louis XIV installed a Bourbon claimant) and never wholly recovered its power. The Spanish monarchy resisted most reforms and innovations associated with the Enlightenment.

France: Strong absolute monarchy, Catholic (Bourbon Dynasty). Louis XIV and Louis XV reigned during most of this period and built up centralized royal power, greatly diminishing the strength and independence of the nobility. Enlightenment culture and philosophy were celebrated and even supported in France, but there was no serious effort at instituting political reforms until the 1770s-80s under Louis XVI, under whom the French Revolution started (at least partly in reaction against the disruption caused by free-market "physiocratic" economic reforms). …show more content…

After 1688, attempts at absolute monarchy in England were stopped. Elective Parliaments (dominated by the landowning classes) increasingly ruled the state under a Prime Minister (starting with Walpole in the early 1700s). After the death of the last Stuart monarch (Queen Anne) in the early 1700s, the crown passed to the German House of Hanover (bringing the long-reigning George I, George II, and George III). George III and his Tory supporters tried to strengthen royal authority, but George's defeat in the Americas followed by a decades-long debilitating illness left England a firmly constitutional monarchy with a powerful and often independent

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