World History Critique Essay
Early modern Western Europe faced political changes from 1500-1750. These were based on three main political ideas: monarchy, balance of power, and religious reforms. The main type of government became monarchies, which had one main ruler and a parliament. The parliament was a group of state-elected legislatures, used to represent the citizens. Document five, Political Craft and Craftiness on page 420-421, explains the qualities that Machiavelli thought that a prince should have to be a proper prince.
In the past, empires had one ruler and that was it, which meant that the citizens had no say in what was going on in the government. This made the process of law-making more fair than if just one person were making all of the decisions. Balance of power kept any one European nation from having more power than any of the other European nations. This was done by creating temporary alliances with one another to ensure that nobody would have the chance to gain more power.
The size of King Louis XVI, found in a picture on page 424 (document six), shows just how strong of a ruler he was, and therefore what a strong empire e had. This is because the stronger a king is, the stronger everything that he has control of will. Also, the picture of the Spanish Armada on page 425 (document seven) shows that Spain had a very strong army, which also meant that Spain was a strong empire. These are two examples of why the balance of power would be needed. Finally, the religious reformations, including the Catholic Reformation and Protestant Reformation, meant that the churches lost power.
People were protesting the ways of Christianity and Catholicism, because Martin Luther said that Christian belief must be based on the word of God and what was said in the Bible as opposed to the authority of the pope. This led to a shift in power from the church to the actual ruler of the empire. Document one, a map of religious reform on page 408, shows the spread of Calvinism as well as what religion each area practiced, allows you to tell where religious reformations occurred.
