Age of Enlightenment

During the "long 18th century" (1685-1815), European politics, philosophy, science, and communication were dramatically reoriented as part of a movement known as the Age of Reason, or simply the Age of Enlightenment, by its participants. Enlightenment thinkers including Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Baron de Montesquieu coined revolutionary notions like the social contract, limited government, and regulated consent. Other radical ideas that emerged during the Enlightenment period include the belief that all men are created equal, that the monarch does not have a divine right to rule, and that a leader can only manage a community with the permission of the people he governs.

During the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment was a philosophical and intellectual movement that dominated the world of ideas. Numerous publications, articles, inventions, scientific discoveries, legislation, conflicts, and revolutions were generated during the Age of Enlightenment. The American and French Revolutions were both directly inspired by Enlightenment principles, and they represented the zenith of the movement's dominance and the start of its downfall, respectively. In the nineteenth century, Romanticism gradually replaced the Age of Enlightenment.

Many of the people who went on to lead the American Revolution were well-versed in these revolutionary ideas, and they battled for their rights based on them. Furthermore, revolutionary writers in the United States inspired people to fight for their rights. The most famous of these was Thomas Paine, who published Common Sense (1776), the Revolution's most important treatise. It was written in a straightforward and compelling tone to persuade the colonies to desire British freedom. Nearly every rebel read or at least knew Common Sense, which is proportionally the best-selling American title of all time.