Renaissance to Revolution History Essay Research Paper

Immanuel Kant dares you to show what you know about early modern Europe. He asks that you focus solely on the materials from this course. Kant freaks out—and you don’t want that--when he reads things taken from random websites or other material not assigned in the course. The idea is to think about the materials specifically from this class.
Kant politely asks that you write at least 550 to 750 words (2+ to 3 pages, typed and double-spaced) on one of the topics below (a little longer is fine too). This is a thought essay but please have a clear thesis and provide specific examples or evidence from course texts where appropriate. Show that you’ve read the online Lessons too!
1. Did life for the “average” person change in fundamental ways between 1400 and 1800? If you took the average man or woman, say a farmer/peasant, craftsperson, small-time merchant, or the women of such households, and compared their lives in 1400 and in 1800 how much do you think their lives had changed? What aspects of life changed the most, and what changed the least? You can think in terms of their everyday lives, their work, their leisure, their homes, their education, occupational opportunities and the like. How might they view things like religion, politics or medicine? Was the average person’s life fundamentally the same or different in important and essential ways?
You can focus on a single “type” or look at more than one but focus has advantages. Be clear about gender, status and profession as you think about this—as well as where the person lived. You can make comparisons to others whose lives might have changed more or less (in the same time period).
2. Beat Kümin and the other authors of the The European World (3rd edition) seek to portray the early modern era “in its own right” (See page 7 for that expression). What do you think Kümin means by this expression, and how does he go about achieving this in the text? How do you think this approach challenges earlier interpretations of the period? Be sure to use some specific examples.
3. How would you say Europe’s relationship to global developments changed over the course of the early modern era (from roughly 1400 or 1450 until 1800)? In what specific ways did the people and polities of Europe influence different parts of the globe in this period? What made European influence possible? What were the limitations of those influences? Please avoid pro or anti-European rants in favor of reasoned arguments seeking to understand historical change.
4. Many of the existing narratives) about early modern Europe focus on how a few great men transformed a backward society. According to this view the humanists, great inventors like Gutenberg, reformers and thinkers like Machiavelli, Luther, and Kant utterly transformed a repressive, overly religious and tradition bound society and institutions, paving the way for greater freedom and individualism. The textbook by Kümin however offers an implicit critique of such narratives, and offers a different approach. Drawing on the textbook by Kümin (and the Lessons) discuss some of the problems with the older narratives? What is emerging in their place?