History of the World

1. History of the World Part I

2. The Medieval Period • From the collapse of the Roman empire to the Renaissance – roughly the seventh century to the middle of the 15th century • Strictly hierarchical and static society • Strong Roman Catholic Church • Man in a fallen state • Education conducted in Latin, mostly to create clerics.

3. The Renaissance • Roughly the fifteenth through the seventeenth century • Humanism • The Protestant Reformation • The invention of moveable type and the publication of the Bible in the vernacular

4. The Enlightenment and the Age of Reason • Roughly the late 17th and 18th centuries • Politics: the social contract and the concept of natural rights • Increasing prestige of and progress in the natural sciences, especially in the work of Sir Isaac Newton • Using reason, humans could discover the truth of nature beneath the corruptions introduced by religion, social structure, and convention • Belief in progress

5. The Age of Revolution • The American Revolution of 1776 • The French Revolution of 1789