(a) What was "enlightened" about the Age of Enlightenment? (20 marks) (b) What were the causes and consequences of the…

(a) What was enlightened about the Age of Enlightenment

The Enlightenment (roughly 1680–1789) was enlightened in its confidence in reason and observation against authority, tradition and superstition. Newton's laws and Locke's empiricism showed that nature and mind could be understood by reason, and thinkers applied this to society.

In politics, Locke argued for natural rights and government by consent, Montesquieu for separation of powers, and Rousseau for popular sovereignty and the social contract. In religion, Voltaire attacked intolerance and the Church's power and advanced toleration, while deists replaced revelation by natural religion. In law, Beccaria argued for humane punishment and against torture. In economics, Adam Smith and the physiocrats argued for free trade and freedom of enterprise. The Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert spread knowledge, and the salons, journals and coffee houses created a public sphere. The idea of progress, a belief that human society could improve, was central.

It was also limited. Women were largely excluded; Rousseau and others held conventional views of their role. Slavery and colonialism were questioned by some but not removed, and many philosophes backed enlightened despots like Frederick II, Catherine II and Joseph II, who reformed from above. Even so, its ideas supplied the vocabulary of the American and French revolutions.

(b) The revolutionary upsurge of the 1840s

Causes: the post-1815 conservative order of Metternich suppressed liberal and national aspirations. An economic crisis of 1845–47, with failed harvests, the potato blight and an industrial slump, caused hunger, unemployment and unrest. The middle classes wanted political rights, workers wanted relief and socialist ideas were spreading, while nationalists in Italy, Germany and the Habsburg lands sought unity or autonomy. In France, the July Monarchy's narrow franchise and corruption alienated many.

Events began in Paris in February 1848, where Louis Philippe fell and the Second Republic was proclaimed, and the revolution spread to Vienna, Hungary, Prague, the Italian states and the German states, where the Frankfurt Parliament met.

Consequences: Metternich fled, serfdom was abolished in the Habsburg lands and several states received constitutions. But divisions among liberals, nationalists and radicals, and the return of conservative armies, defeated the revolutions by 1849. Louis Napoleon rose to power in France. In the long term, the unification of Italy and Germany and wider suffrage were later achieved, though the revolutions failed in their time.

(c) Ending apartheid in South Africa

The end came through a combination of internal and external pressure. The ANC and others resisted through the Defiance Campaign, Sharpeville (1960), armed struggle and the Soweto uprising (1976); mass movements such as the United Democratic Front in the 1980s made the country ungovernable. International sanctions, arms embargoes, disinvestment and sporting isolation raised the cost.

President F. W. de Klerk legalised the ANC and freed Nelson Mandela in February 1990. Negotiations at CODESA (1991–93) produced the interim constitution, a Transitional Executive Council and the first non-racial elections in April 1994, after which a Government of National Unity under Mandela governed. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (1995) addressed the past, and the 1996 Constitution entrenched equal rights.