Essential Questions:
The Renaissance
Reformation
Exploration
The Renaissance
- What does the term Renaissance mean?
- How was the Renaissance manifested in politics, government, and social organization?
- What were the intellectual and artistic hallmarks of the Renaissance?
- Did the Renaissance involve shifts in religious attitudes?
- What developments occurred in the evolution of the nation-state?
Reformation
- What late medieval religious developments paved the way for the adoption and spread of Protestant thought?
- Why did the strictly theological ideas of Martin Luther trigger political, social, and economic reactions?
- What were the consequences of religious schism?
- Do the various reform movements represent revolution or continuity? How?
Exploration
- What were the causes and consequences of the religious wars in France, the Netherlands, and Germany?
- How and why, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, did a relatively small group living on the edge of the Eurasian landmass gain control of the major sea-lanes of the world and establish political and economic influence on distant continents?
- What immediate effect did overseas expansion have on Europe and on the conquered societies?
- How and why did slave labor become the dominant form of labor organization in the New World?
- How did the religious crises of this period affect religious faith, literary and artistic developments, and the status of women?