21H.433
The Age of Reason: Europe from the 17th to the Early 19th Centuries
Spring 2011
This course asks students to consider the ways in which social theorists, institutional reformers, and political revolutionaries in the 17th through 19th centuries seized upon insights developed in the natural sciences and mathematics to change themselves and the society in which they lived. Students study trials, art, literature and music to understand developments in Europe and its colonies in these two centuries. Covers works by Newton, Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, Marx, and Darwin.
Readings
- [E&S] = Edwards, Kathryn A., and Susie Speakman Sutch, eds. Leonarde’s Ghost: Popular Piety and the Appearance of a Spirit in 1628. Truman State University Press, 2008. ISBN: 9781931112796.
- [D&J] = Dobbs, Betty Jo Teeter, and Margaret C. Jacob. Newton and the Culture of Newtonianism. Humanity Books, 1994. ISBN: 9781573925457.
- [HUNT] = Hunt, Lynn, et al. The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures, Vol. II: Since 1340. Bedford/St Martin’s, 2010. ISBN: 9780312439460.
- Ruggiero, Guido, ed. “Witchcraft and Magic.” In A Companion to the Worlds of the Renaissance. Wiley-Blackwell, 2006, pp. 475-90. ISBN: 9781405157834.
- Cochrane, Eric, Charles M. Gray, and Mark Kishlansky, eds. University of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization Volume 6, Early Modern Europe: Crisis of Authority. Chicago, 1987, pp. 342-49. ISBN: 9780226069487
- Pincus, Steven C. A., ed. England’s Glorious Revolution, 1688-1689: A Brief History With Documents. Bedford/St Martin’s, 2005, pp. 69-71. ISBN: 9780312167141.
- Temple, Sir William. “The United Provinces: A Description and an Analysis.” The Low Countries in Early Modern Times: A Documentary History. In Herbert H. Rowen, ed. Walker & Company, 1972, pp. 213-23. ISBN: 9780802720351.
- Alpers, Svetlana. “With a Sincere Hand and a Faithful Eye: The Craft of Representation.” In The Art of Describing: Dutch Seventeenth-Century Art. University of Chicago Press, 1984, pp. 72-118. ISBN: 9780226015132.
- Jonathan Israel, and Michael Silverthrone, eds. Theological-Political Treatise. Cambridge University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780521530972.
- Montesquieu, Charles –Louis de Secondat. “Letters 1-4, 11-14, 24-35, 147-161.” In The Persian Letters. Translated by C. J. Betts. Penguin Classics, 1973. ISBN: 9780140442816.
- 16 · Encyclopédie I: The Structure of Knowledge
- Schwab, Richard N., and Walter E. Rex, trans. The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d’Alembert Collaborative Translation Project . MPublishing, University of Michigan Library, 2009.
- The Frontpiece to The Encyclopedia.
- “Documents on the Terror.” In The French Revolution: A Document Collection . Edited by Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo. Wadsworth Publishing, 1998, pp. 225-43. ISBN: 9780669417807.
- Kafker, Frank A., James M. Laux, and Darline Gay Levy, eds. “Why Terror in 1793-1794?” In The French Revolution: Conflicting Interpretations . 5th ed. Krieger, 2002, pp. 185-226. ISBN: 9781575240923.
- Boffa, Massimo. “Counter-Revolution.” In A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution . Edited by François Furet and Mona Ozouf. Harvard, 1989, pp. 640-8. ISBN: 9780674177284.
- 24 · What is Enlightenment? (1784 & 1984)
- Foucault, Michel. “What is Enlightenment? (1984)” In A Michel Foucault Reader . Edited by Paul Rabinow. Pantheon, 1984, pp. 32-50. ISBN: 9780394713403.
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗Historical OpenCourseWare
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.