Lesson Plans

The Western Heritage ©2000

by Kagan, Ozment, and Turner

Focus Lesson 8

Chapter 16: "Society and Economy Under the Old Regime in the Eighteenth Century"

AP* Course Description

1. Intellectual and Cultural History
   • Scientific and technological developments and their consequences
   • Intellectual and cultural developments and their relationship to social values and political events
   • Developments in social, economic, and political thought
   • Changes in elite and popular culture, such as the development of new attitudes toward religion, the family, work, and ritual
2. Political and Diplomatic History
   • The extension and limitation of rights and liberties (personal, civic, economic, and political); majority and minority; political persecutions
   • Forms of political protest, reform, and revolution
3. Social and Economic History
   • The role of urbanization in transforming cultural values and social relationships
   • The shift in social structures from hierarchical orders to modern social classes: the changing distribution of wealth and poverty
   • The influence of sanitation and health care practices on society; food supply, diet, famine, disease, and their impact
   • The development of commercial practices and their economic and social impact
   • The origins, development, and consequences of industrialization
   • Changes in the demographic structure of Europe, their causes and consequences
   • Gender roles and their influence on work, social structure, family structure, and interest group formation
   • The growth of competition and interdependence in national and world markets
   • Private and state roles in economic activity
   • Development of racial and ethnic group identities

Key Components

• Instructor's Manual: pp. 32–33
• Study Guide and Workbook, Vol. II: pp. 29–38
• Test Item File: pp. 84–89

Key Web Sites

• Industrial Revolution of the Eighteenth Century
• Modern Western Civilization: Causes of the Industrial Revolution

Key Words and Terms

Suggested Pacing

Test Strategy

Key Concepts

• Impacts of the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions
  Although the developments of the Agricultural Revolution did not send people to the cities as ready-made workers for the emerging Industrial Revolution, as some historians have suggested, it did prepare the way for the growth of business and industry. Agricultural innovations resulted in a healthier population and increased life expectancy. The middle class grew tremendously during this time, encouraging social mobility and an easier life for many. (In France, the new middle class, discontented with the lack of social mobility because of the hold of the nobility on high-ranking jobs, supported the French Revolution.) The cities of the Industrial Revolution grew quickly, too, and with this growth came problems of poverty, unemployment, lack of food in times of poor harvests, lack of sanitation, lack of medical care, and so on. (Paris is an example of how ordinary citizens reacted to what they considered the corruption and bad faith of their royal government and brought down the monarchy.)

Summing Up Student Understanding

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

• Aspects of Western Civilization, Vol. II, edited by Rogers—Chapter 3, Section 1
• Sources of the West, Vol. II, edited by Kishlausky—Part IV, "The French Revolution"