Western heritage: Definition of Terms and Concepts - Essay Example

Western heritage: Definition of Terms and Concepts Part Mercantilism: this is the practical creed of hardheaded business people in formal economic theory of the 18th century imperial families. The opponents and critics of the system formulated the term referring to government-regulated trade and commerce with the hope of increment in national wealth. According to economic experts, it is necessary for a nation to adopt a favorable trade balance in terms of gold and silver bullion (p 464). Slave ships: these are vessels mainly used for transporting slaves across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa. The ships measured twenty feet wide and a hundred feet long, a perfect example is brooks (p 475). Plantations: this refers to sugar plantations in the Caribbean countries, mainly owned by European settlers. The white settlers established themselves in the fertile islands, in the hope of making fortunes. The diversity and exploration of the tourist attraction sites in the islands attracted tourists in the countries. The slave workers from African countries worked on the plantations. The settlers diversified their production by moving to rice, tobacco and chocolate respectively (p 465). Asiento: term used to describe the contract struck between Great Britain and the Spaniards in 1713. The contract gave Great Britain the capability to bring slaves from Africa to colonial countries in the Spanish territories. Sugar Act: This act passed by British by the British in 1764, the act used in the drive of revenue under the ministry of George Grenville (1712– 1770). Rigorous tax collection activities ensured that revenues from imports into the colonies required collection. Admiralty courts with no juries tried the people who smuggled right into the Caribbean countries. Stamp Act: this is a measure to put tax on legal documents including journals, newspapers and gazettes (p 482). Charles Townshend (1725– 1767): a finance minister of the British government acted in the role of Chancellor of the Exchequer in the year 1767. The minister led a series of motions in the parliament in passing acts in relation to colonial imports (p 482). Intolerable Acts: this included a number of laws the government passed by the British parliament in 1774. The act led to reorganization of the government of Massachusetts and the closure of Boston port. The act also allowed troops quartering in private homes, and the removal of royal customs officials to England (p 482). George III (r. 1760– 1820): The earl of Bute replaced Pitt policy after the departure of Pitt and quarrel with Bute. George III declared colonies rebellion in the year 1775, because of the stress the colonial masters received from the colonies. The bonds of moral and political allegiance that united the colonies experienced dissolution by the British parliament in conjunction with George III. First Continental Congress: this congress mainly held in September 1774 in Philadelphia and it composed of committees of citizens critical to British policy. The congress attempted to restore the self-government in the colonies and the abandonment of the direct supervision of colonial affairs (p 483). Treaty of Paris (1783): the treaty ensured the end of American Revolution war (p 486) John Wilkes (1725– 1797): A political leader in London who remained radical in his ideas and a member of parliament. The individual contributed to a newspaper in London called The North Briton. Lord Bute’s criticism in the handling of peace negotiations with the French had the criticism found in issue 45. The secretary of state issued a warrant of arrest for Wilkes and the general warrant facilitated his arrest. Wilkes pleaded parliamentarian privileges, and it guaranteed his release. The illegality of the general warrant of arrest remained vague, and it gained overruling by the courts (p 484). East India Company: In 1773, the law allowed the sale of tea. Direct importation of tea into the American colonies allowed by the new legislation provided a wide variety of tea used by the colonies. The key of cheap tea lowered the price of the prevailing tea and retained the tax imposed disregarding the colonists consent (p 482). House of Trade was also known as the Casa de Contratación in Espanola, a common and most influential institution in the Spanish empire. The location of the institution based in Seville and the Spanish commercial self-interests both supported by the new world (p 466). Peninsulares: A term used in the description of Spanish born individuals (p 466) "Euro-African Phenomenon": this term referred to the development of the African economies and the rise in prominence of social feature in the slave communities (p 470). The Atlantic Passage: a route used in the transportation of slaves from Africa to America. The route mainly used by ships carrying the slaves from the African countries. The route was horrific, frightening, and unsafe according to experienced sailors and slave captains (p 474) "Seasoning of slaves: newly arrived African slaves underwent a process that prepared them to familiarize with the laborious work that awaited them. The exercise prepared them psychologically to accept the fact that they lacked freedom. The exercise included a reception of new names, learning the new European language imposed to them, acquisition of new work skills and complete overhaul in their cultural beliefs (p 473). Part 2 Philosophers: the term referred to formal writers and critics flourishing in the expansion of print culture and forged the development of change, reforms, and advocating of tolerance. The philosophers included Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, D’Alembert, Rousseau, Hume, Gibbon, Smith, Lessing, and Kant (p 495). The Spectator: Publications run by Joseph Addison from 1672 to 1719 and Richard Steele in the years from 1672 to 1729. The publication favored the value of polite conversations and reading of books. Denis Diderot (1713– 1784): the heroic editor of encyclopedia published in seventeen volumes. The print ran from l751 and l772. The main ideas were enlightenment of the broader reader audience. Jean Le Rond D’Alembert (1717– 1783): publication of encyclopedia by Diderot Denis served as the greatest monumental value in the enlightenment of the populace and the undertaking of print realm culture. The first volume appeared in 1751 under the heroic leadership of Jean. The volume increased to seventeen and texts and illustrations in the project completed in the year 1772. Voltaire (1694– 1778): this term used to describe the most influential philosophies of François- Marie Arouet. Marie Arouet offended French monarchies in 1720s by the political and poetical plays he wrote. A history of publication of the Russian empire, under Peter the Great that declared the birth of peter and the formation of Russia (p 497). Deism: this represented a set of ideas born through the belief that believing in God is rational. The ideas also implemented the rational worship of God. The Newtonian worldview convinced writers of the rationality of the ideas (p 498). Baron D’Holbach (1723– 1789) and Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709– 1751) are two people who had a positive slant towards atheism and materialism. Baruch Spinoza (1632– 1677): new science influenced the Dutch dweller in the 1650s and he embraced the move from old technology to modern science. As a son of a Jewish merchant of Amsterdam and similar to his counterparts, Hobbes and Descartes viewed the power of human reasoning in the conceptualization of ideas. Spinoza pantheistic approach that everything in the universe is distinct while God is not, brought out the idea of human responsibility (p 501). Moses Mendelssohn (1729– 1786): an individual who lived in Germany and established assimilatory position. Moses worked in synonymy with Spinoza although there were wide differences and similarities in their work (p 501). Cesare Beccaria (1738– 1794): an aristocratic Italian philosopher who published in crimes and punishments in the year 1764. It involved critical analysis of the punishments to achieve a fair and effective system. Capital punishment and torture were the main ideas that Cesare rejected the two modes of criminal punishment. Criminal justice system reluctance in delivery of justice to the criminal and the kind of punishment offered were his key areas of research. Physiocrats: these were economic reformers in France. They had leading spokes representatives namely Pierre Dupont de Nemours (1739-1817) and Francois Quesnay (1694-1774). They believed that the government had a primary role of protecting property and giving permission to the owners to access and utilize it freely. To them agriculture was the point of reference of all economic production in the country. Adam Smith (1723– 1790): he was the designer and architect of the Enlightenment. This was the most significant economic work. Another of his notable works was the Nature and Causes of Wealth of Nations inquiry (1776). He was also a professor at Glasgow University in Scotland for a short time, and believed economic liberty was the basis of a natural, economic system. Charles de Secondat, the Baron de Montesquieu (1689– 1755): he was a member of a provincial parliament, a noble of the robe and a lawyer. He attended the Bordeaux Academy of Science, and later he became a writer of scientific topics. He also published The Persian Letters to satirize contemporary institutions in 1721. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712– 1778): he was a unique and an isolated genius who never felt comfortable with other scholars. His personal lifestyle was not straight. He insisted that man in a primeval state he was a strange, isolated genius who never felt particularly comfortable with the other philosophes. His own life had troubles. He contended that human beings in a natural primeval state had devotion. He doubted the idea of material and intellectual growth and the morality of a society in which industry; commerce and the property rights preservation were considered as among the most essential man related activities. Mary Wollstonecraft (1759– 1797): she brought Rousseau before the judgment of the Enlightenment ideal rationality of growing knowledge considering the Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792. The immediate encouragement for her argument was her opposition to some French Revolution policies, which did not favor women inspired by Rousseau. She argued that to limit women to the differentiated domestic sphere as a result of the supposed drawbacks of their physiology was to make women the sensual, slaves of men. Critics of European Empires: A group of some Enlightenment viewers who criticized the morality of the European empires, especially the Americas European conquest, the African enslavement, and treatment of the Native Americans on the North and South American continent. The most essential contributors of the critics were Immanuel Kant and Johann Gottlieb Herder (German philosophers) and Denis Diderot. Rococo: this was a style that embraced lavishness, somehow a lighthearted decoration majoring on pastel colors and the play of light. It created association with the aristocracies of the Old times. Neoclassical: encompassed a return to architectural and figurative examples drawn from the Renaissance and the olden day world. Neoclassicism recalled olden day’s republican values that implicitly criticized the Ancient regime, and presently the end of the 100 years when it was embraced by Napoleon and the French Revolution. Part 3 Robert Jenkins: he was an English captain with no ear as it was cut off during one of the battles with the Spaniards. Silesia and Frederick II (the Great): Frederick II (r. 1740– 1786) captured the Austrian province of Silesia in eastern German. The capture caused an upset on the continental power balance. The Diplomatic Revolution: this was through Westminster Convention, a collaboration which would have been inconsiderable a few years before was formed, and in May 1756, a defensive collaboration between Austria and France was signed. Kaunitz by then had succeeded in entirely reversing the orientation that French foreign policy had followed since the 16th century. The War of Austrian Succession (1740– 1748): after being king of Prussia for not more than seven months, Frederick had treated Habsburg House simply as another German entity rather than as the most powerful in the region. Silesia itself out did Prussia’s possessions and Frederick had a determination to keep his ill-gotten prize. Seven Years Wars (1756– 1763): Frederick II precipitated this war that extended into a colonial theater. William Pitt (1708– 1778): he was a colossal egoed person and an administrative genius. Although he previously criticized the British involvement with the Continent, as secretary of state commanding the war in 1757, he utilized large sums into Frederick the Great coffers. Treaty of Paris: this treaty of 1763 showed somewhat less victorious than Britain had won during the battle. Britain incorporated all of Canada, the Ohio River valley, and the Mississippi River valley eastern half. Britain then returned the Indian Chandernagore and Pondicerry and the sugar islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique in west India tot eh French. Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748): this treaty stopped the War of the Austrian Succession. It was exceedingly negotiated by France and Britain and was marked by the conquest’s mutual restitution, including Louisbourg fortress to France and Madras to England. Enlightened Absolutism: historians utilized it for the monarchical form of government in which the core absolutist administration was reinforced and rationalized at other’s cost, fewer centers of political power, i.e. the aristocracy, the church, and the parliaments or diets that had survived since the Middle Ages. Maria Theresa (r. 1740– 1780): she placed a series of legal, social and religious reforms that others believed she had originated from suggestions by philosophes’. Frederick the Great (r. 1740– 1786) of Prussia: he made complex relationships with the community of enlightened writers. He was to perform military and diplomatic roles in Europe. Most of the time, he described himself as “the State’s first servant” insisting that his personal and dynastic interests must always come after the good of his subjects. Joseph II (r. 1765– 1790), of Austria: he placed a series of legal, religious and social reform that contemporaries believed he had originated from the philosophical perspectives. He had a determination to perform vital military and diplomatic roles in Europe. Catherine the Great (r. 1762– 1796) of Russia: she had a determination to perform vital military and diplomatic roles in Europe. In a big measure, she assumed Enlightenment policies favoring the rational,social and economic interaction of her realms as these policies also raised her military ability and political power. Promotion through merit: this was Frederick’s strategy under which he cleared the contention that merit rather than the privilege of birth shapes the servant of the Prussian state. Charter of the Nobility: Catherine issued this charter in 1785, and at the same time assured nobles many privileges and rights. Partly, the empress had favors on the nobles as they could overthrow her anytime. In addition, Russia’s intellects were too small to give an independent bureaucracy, and the treasury could not acquire and army specifically loyal to her leadership. Therefore, Catherine wisely decided on a virtue of necessity. She reinforced the stability of her leadership by having convenient friendship with her nobles Pugachev Rebellion (1773-1775): a rebellion experienced in Russia. It was a peasant driven emerging rebellion. Treaty of Kuchui-Kainardil: it provided Russia with a direct outlet on the Black Sea, free movement rights in its waters including movements through the Bosporus. Partition of Poland (1772, 1793, and 1795): this was the callous removal of Poland from the map portrayed 18th century power politics at its most extreme. The country, in the absence of a stable central government, was affected by the strong, absolute kingdoms of central and Eastern Europe. Louis XVI (r. 1774– 1792): he was optimistic but vulnerable and vacillating. He fell from concession to concession until at the end, he lost all power to salvage his throne. Parliament is a French subdivision, which overcame the attempts to make new tax plans that would utilize the wealth of the nobility (Kagan, Ozment and Turner 450). Work Cited Kagan Donald, Steven Ozment and Frank Turner. The Western Heritage. 3rd. Prentice Hall, 2002.Print Read More