| A | B |
|---|
| geocentric theory | in the Middle Ages, the earth-centered view of the universe in which scholars believed that the earth was an immovable object located at the center of the universe. |
| Scientific Revolution | a major change in European thought, starting in the mid-1500s, in which the study of the natural world began to be characterized by careful observation and the questioning of accepted beliefs. |
| heliocentric theory | the idea that the earth and the other planets revolve around the sun. |
| Galileo Galilei | scientist who was forced by the Catholic Church to take back scientific ideas that disagreed with the church’s view |
| scientific method | a logical procedure for gathering information about the natural world, in which experimentation and observation are used to test hypotheses. |
| Isaac Newton | scientist who discovered laws of motion and gravity |
| Enlightenment | an 18th-century European movement in which thinkers attempted to apply the principles of reason and the scientific method to all aspects of society. |
| social contract | the agreement by which people define and limit their individual rights, thus creating an organized society or government. |
| John Locke | philosopher who wrote about government |
| philosophe | one of a group of social thinkers in France during the Enlightenment. |
| Voltaire | writer who fought for tolerance, reason, freedom of religious belief, and freedom of speech |
| Montesquieu | French writer concerned with government and political liberty |
| Rousseau | Enlightenment thinker who championed freedom |
| Mary Wollstonecraft | author who wrote about women’s rights |
| salon | a social gathering of intellectuals and artists, like those held in the homes of wealthy women in Paris and other European cities during the Enlightenment. |
| baroque | relating to a grand, ornate style that characterized European painting, music, and architecture in the 1600s and early 1700s. |
| neoclassical | relating to a simple, elegant style (based on ideas and themes from ancient Greece and Rome) that characterized the arts in Europe during the late 1700s. |
| enlightened despot | one of the 18th century European monarchs who was inspired by Enlightenment ideas to rule justly and respect the rights of subjects. |
| Catherine the Great | Russian ruler who took steps to reform and modernize Russia |
