Topics: EUROPE - Europe 1601-1788: Enlightenment

Europe 1601-1788: Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment or simply The Enlightenment is a term used to describe a time in Western philosophy and cultural life centered upon the eighteenth century, in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority. Developing more or less simultaneously in Germany, France, Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, and Portugal the movement spread through much of Europe, including the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russia and Scandinavia as well as in America. It could be argued that the signatories of the American Declaration of Independence, the United States Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and the Polish-Lithuanian Constitution of May 3, 1791, were motivated by "Enlightenment" principles.



Source: Wikipedia