STUDY GUIDE FOR CHAPTER 18:

 

THE BALANCE OF POWER IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EUROPE

 

 

 

TERMS, PEOPLE, AND EVENTS

 

Great Northern War

Treaty of Nystad

Leopold I

Treaty of Utrecht

Treaty of Passarowitz

Peter the Great

poll tax

Senate

czar

Table of Ranks

Catherine the Great

Charles VI

Charter of the Nobility

Pugachev's revolt

Peter III

Joseph II

Frederick William, the Great Elector 

Poltava

Frederick William I

Frederick II (the Great)

George I

Pragmatic Sanction

Joseph II

John Wilkes

Maria Theresa

War of the Austrian Succession

Diet

Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle

Kunersdorf

mixed government

partitions of Poland

placemen

Stamp Act

Whigs

Tories

Boston Tea Party

George III

Sugar Act

William and Mary

Seven Years' War

Declaratory Act

 

Peace of Paris (1763)

James III

 

 

 

KEY GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATIONS

 

New France

Mexico

Estonia

Central America

Charleston

Galicia

Great Lakes

Ohio River

Duchy of Bar

Mississippi River

Gulf of Mexico

Dunkirk

Flanders

Livonia

Archangel

Philippines

Silesia

Stettin

Norway

Flanders

New Orleans

Lille

St. Petersburg

Pomerania

Potsdam

Moravia

Java Sea

Gulf of Finland

Spice Islands

Georgia

Brandenburg-Prussia

Saint Lawrence River

 

New France

Riga

 

Magdeburg

Minorca

 

Kazan

Maine

 

Ural Mountains

Louisiana

 

 

 

 

 

 

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

 

1.         Peter the Great's death inaugurated a period in Russia known as "the emancipation of the nobility."  Why is it called that?  How did the status of Russia’s nobles change from Peter's reign to that of Catherine the Great? 

 

2.         Why was Catherine the Great considered "great"?  Which of the era’s “great” monarchs do you think was greatest—Peter, Frederick II or Catherine II?  Why?

 

3.         Consider the approaches to government taken by Louis XIV and Frederick the Great.  Did the two monarchs differ fundamentally in their visions for their realms and their techniques of rule?  If so, how?

 

4.         What changes affected peasant life in eastern Europe in the eighteenth century?   How did the life of Russian peasants differ from that of Austrian peasants in 1700?  In 1790?  In what ways was peasant life more or less unchanged?

 

5.         What were the “mixed constitution” and the “King-in-Parliament”?  How does the British Constitution succeed in the age of absolute monarchs?

 

6.         What role did alliances play in creating and maintaining a European balance of power?