New forms of thinking

• Enlightenment thinkers

  • Used reason and observation, critically analyzed reality
  • Believed that reason and science would bring progress and happiness
  • Believed in education, in teaching citizens to think and giving them skills
• Triangular trade


  1. Europe imported raw materials (e.g. cotton) from colonies and sold products (e.g. fabrica)

  2. Slaves were taken from traffickers in Africa in exchange for weapons, tools, etc., and sold to American plantations
• 140 experts in various fields helped to write the Encyclopédie
• Triangular trade

  Based on the enslavement of millions of Africans who were forced to work under inhumane conditions in a new country
• The Encyclopédie represented their desire to educate people, as well as their confidence in reason
• The monarchy and Church strongly opposed the Encyclopédie's criticism of tradition and intolerance and censured it
• The Enlightenment emerged from rationalism in the 18th century as a new intellectual movement in Europe, particularly in France
• Triangular trade components

  • Europe
  • Africa
  • America
• The Encyclopédie was directed by Diderot and D'Alembert and published between 1751 and 1772
• The triangular trade made European traders and shareholders rich