Age of Revolutions and Nationalism
Questions to be answered (in groups):
1.
What were the shared principles of the Atlantic revolutions? What
explains their similarities? What were the underlying definitions of
human nature and the characteristics of a good government?
2.
What differences existed in the statements of rights and liberties?
3.
How does the Haitian Revolution reflect the revolutionary process
more generally? What were some of its distinctive features?
4.
How did the social aspects of the French and Haitian Revolutions
relate to the political goals? Were they entirely consistent, or could
they raise some complications with statements of rights and
liberties?
5.
What kinds of objections were raised to the revolutionary principles?
Did the critics reject the revolutionary principles themselves or
merely the disruption and violence of the revolutionary process?
How did Burke begin to define a new kind of conservatism?
For Further Discussion (with the rest of the class):
1.
Some historians have argued that the American Revolution is best
interpreted as an independence war, not a real revolution at all, if
the French revolution is used as the standard. What
was "unrevolutionary" about the American revolution?
2.
Why did the revolutionary principles, which spread so quickly in
Europe and the Americas, not spread more widely, to other parts of
the globe, during the same period?
