Enlightenment · 1748-1784

The Enlightenment: reason, rights and the Encyclopédie

In Paris salons, Edinburgh clubs and coffee houses across Europe, writers ask whether reason can improve society. Students meet Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Beccaria and Kant, follow the Encyclopédie and ask which of their ideas still shape our laws.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
50 minutes
Ages
13–16
On the map
3 steps, AD 1760
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

In Paris salons, Edinburgh clubs and coffee houses across Europe, writers ask whether reason can improve society. Students meet Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Beccaria and Kant, follow the Encyclopédie and ask which of their ideas still shape our laws.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Explain the central idea of the Enlightenment: that reason and evidence can improve society.
  • Match four thinkers with one idea each and the place where they worked.
  • Explain how one Enlightenment idea, such as the separation of powers, still shapes laws today.
2

Explore the map

15 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

AD 1760

Paris, city of ideas

Open the map in 1760, turn on the Cities layer and find Paris, then London. Why might big cities full of printers, cafés and salons become centres of new ideas?

Open this view on the map
b

AD 1760

On the border

Zoom in on Lake Geneva. Voltaire lived at Ferney, in France but only a few kilometres from Geneva. Why might a writer who often angered the authorities choose a home right next to a border?

Open this view on the map
c

AD 1760

A Europe of thinkers

Zoom out over Europe. Find Edinburgh, Milan and Königsberg on the Baltic, where Adam Smith, Cesare Beccaria and Immanuel Kant wrote. Why was this a Europe-wide movement, not only a French one?

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

15 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Kant said the motto of the Enlightenment was "Dare to know". What does it mean to you?
  2. Montesquieu argued that power should be split between those who make laws, carry them out and judge. Why?
  3. Beccaria called torture and the death penalty cruel and useless. Why were these ideas shocking in 1764?
  4. Rousseau wrote that "man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains". What chains did he mean?
  5. Many Enlightenment thinkers spoke of the rights of "man" but left out women and enslaved people. How should we judge that?
4

Game round

10 min

Play a round of Rule History as Catherine the Great, who wrote letters to Voltaire and bought Diderot's library while letting him keep it. Discuss: can an all-powerful ruler also be a ruler of the Enlightenment?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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