Assignment:
Emerging European Civilization, Spring 2018
First Section:
Choose ten out of the following fifteen identifications (IDs).
1. Vasco de Gama
2. The Thirty Years War
3. Humanism
4. The Black Death
5. Martin Luther
6. The English Reformation
7. Bartolome de las Casas
8. Calvinism
9. The French Wars of Religion
10. Elizabeth I
11. Louis XIV
12. The Printing Press
13. Conquistadors
14. Galileo Galilei 1
5. Niccolo Machiavelli
Second Section:
You will choose to write on one out of the following three essay choices. You must base your answers on an analysis of the primary source readings we have done in class. While you can use lecture material and textbook readings for background, you will need to use the primary sources from class to build your argument and fully answer the question. When you quote directly from the primary source be sure to use quotation marks and cite your source. (author, page number). The essay should be 3-4 pages in length.
Q1. How did the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution introduce new cultural and intellectual movements as well as new ways of thinking about the world from 1350-1700? Do you see more similarities and/or differences between the Renaissance and medieval world? Why or why not?
Q2. Why did Europeans begin to expand outside their borders into a more global world in the 15th through 18th centuries (1400s-1700s)? How did this new growth impact European society as well as the peoples incorporated into these expanding empires?
Q3. How did Reformation ideas (both Protestant and Catholic) interact with politics to spark the age of religious wars in early modern Europe (1500-1700)? Why did these wars eventually end and how did European states develop new models of political life in their search for order following the wars of religion?
You must choose which primary sources you will use in the essay depending on the essay question that you decide to answer. The strongest essay is one that develops a thesis (or argument) and uses evidence from the primary sources to support that thesis in order to answer the essay question. The following is a list of primary sources that you may choose from to answer the questions:
Primary Sources from class:
Francesco Petrarch, Letters to Cicero
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
Giorgio Vasari, Life of Leonardo da Vinci
Hernando Cortes, Letters to Charles V
Miguel Leon Portilla, An Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico
Bartolome de las Casas, A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies
Desiderius Erasmus, Julius Excluded from Heaven
Martin Luther, Letter to the Archbishop of Mainz
Martin Luther, Treatise on Marriage
The Council of Trent, Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent
Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises
Charlotte d'Arbaleste, Escape from the Massacre
Otto Guericke, The Sack of Madgeburg
English Parliament, The Bill of Rights
Duc de Saint-Simon, The Court of Louis XIV
Galileo Galilei, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina