AP European History AMSCO Guided Notes
3.1: Contextualizing State Building
AMSCO Guided Notes
AP European History Guided Notes
AMSCO 3.1 - Contextualizing State Building
I. Contextualizing State Building
1. How did religious reformations and economic changes in the 16th century create conditions for new forms of political power?
2. What role did the shift from religious to secular systems of law play in redistributing political power?
A. Struggles Against Political Centralization
1. What conflicts emerged in 17th-century Europe between absolute monarchs and other groups seeking power?
2. How did the Agricultural Revolution shift the balance of power away from landowning nobles?
3. How did the Peace of Westphalia and advances in warfare prevent any single state from dominating Europe?
B. Differing Sovereignty Models
1. What was the concept of divine right and how did Enlightenment ideas challenge it?
2. What is a social contract and how did this concept change the relationship between rulers and subjects?
3. How did constitutional monarchy and oligarchy represent different solutions to the challenge of absolute monarchy?