1. some absolute monarchs, such as louis xiv and peter the great, consolidated their power by

a. focusing mainly on artistic and literary achievement in their countries

b. weakening the nobility and taking control of most aspects of government

c. using enlightenment ideas to reform their societies

d. creating constitutions to protect rights of their citizens

2. the english bill of rights, drafted by the parliament, limited the power of the monarchy in all of the following ways except:

a. preventing the monarch from levying taxes without parliamentary approval

b. preventing the monarch from making military decisions without approval from the people

c. allowing parliament free speech

d. allowing citizens to petition the monarch about grievances

in the 1800s, chinese workers migrated to the united states, first to work in the gold mines, but also to take agricultural jobs, and factory work, especially in the garment industry. chinese immigrants were particularly instrumental in building railroads in the american west, and as chinese laborers grew successful in the united states, a number of them became entrepreneurs in their own right. as the numbers of chinese laborers increased, so did the strength of anti-chinese sentiment among other workers in the american economy. this finally resulted in legislation that aimed to limit future immigration of chinese workers to the united states, and threatened to sour diplomatic relations between the united states and china.

from thales, who is often considered the first western philosopher, to the stoics and skeptics, ancient greek philosophy opened the doors to a particular way of thinking that provided the roots for the western intellectual tradition. here, there is often an explicit preference for the life of reason and rational thought. we find proto-scientific explanations of the natural world in the milesian thinkers, and we hear democritus posit atoms—indivisible and invisible units—as the basic stuff of all matter. with socrates comes a sustained inquiry into ethical matters—an orientation towards human living and the best life for human beings. with plato comes one of the most creative and flexible ways of doing philosophy, which some have since attempted to imitate by writing philosophical dialogues covering topics still of interest today in ethics, political thought, metaphysics, and epistemology. plato’s student, aristotle, was one of the most prolific of ancient authors. he wrote treatises on each of these topics, as well as on the investigation of the natural world, including the composition of animals. the hellenists—epicurus, the cynics, the stoics, and the skeptics—developed schools or movements devoted to distinct philosophical lifestyles, each with reason at its foundation.

with this preference for reason came a critique of traditional ways of living, believing, and thinking, which sometimes caused political trouble for the philosophers themselves. xenophanes directly challenged the traditional anthropomorphic depiction of the gods, and socrates was put to death for allegedly inventing new gods and not believing in the gods mandated by the city of athens. after the fall of alexander the great, and because of aristotle’s ties with alexander and his court, aristotle escaped the same fate as socrates by fleeing athens. epicurus, like xenophanes, claimed that the mass of people is impious, since the people conceive of the gods as little more than superhumans, even though human characteristics cannot appropriately be ascribed to the gods. in short, not only did ancient greek philosophy pave the way for the western intellectual tradition, including modern science, but it also shook cultural foundations in its own time.