Foundations of the Modern Age
Fall Semester 1999


Study Questions for the Second Exam


1. Drawing upon the works of Hume and Voltaire, explain the philosophes' critique of Christianity and their argument for the intellectual and moral superiority of "deism."

2. What were the origins of the French Revolution (through 1789)?

3. In what ways did Edmund Burke criticize the French Revolutionaries and Liberal philosophes like Thomas Paine? How did Paine respond to Burke's arguments?

4. According to Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, how and why will the proletariat seize power from the bourgeoisie? In what ways will the new proletariat regime differ from the old bourgeois regime? Compare the predictions of Marx and Engels with the the reality of socialist movements as they emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Europe.

5. In what ways did the Liberalism of Thomas Hill Green and W.L. Blease differ from the Liberalism of Edmund Spencer? In what ways, according to Blease, did it differ from democratic socialism? What was Spencer's assessment of the Liberalism of Green and Blease?



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