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date: 18 February 2025

French Revolution. 

Source:
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World
Author(s):
Jack R. CenserJack R. Censer

Although liberty and legal equality—ideas associated with the Enlightenment—had caused considerable political turbulence in the eighteenth century, most notably during the American Revolution, the French Revolution catapulted these ideas into public consciousness in an unprecedented way. Because France had a social and political system more like that of other counties and was also the West's most populous country, its turn toward these new ideas had far greater immediate impact than any of the other eighteenth-century experiments. Furthermore, as the Revolution wore on, the wars that followed led to the direct export of these ideas.... ...

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