Multiple Choice Practice (15 questions)

1. "Government has no other end but the preservation of property... whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people... they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience."

This passage is most consistent with the views of:

• (A) Thomas Hobbes
• (B) John Locke
• (C) Otto von Bismarck
• (D) Klemens von Metternich

2. Which of the following best describes Montesquieu's central contribution to political thought?

• (A) The right of revolution against tyrannical government
• (B) The general will as the basis of legitimate government
• (C) Separation of powers among branches of government
• (D) The need for an absolute sovereign to prevent civil war

3. Which factor was a long-term cause of the French Revolution?

• (A) The bad harvest of 1788
• (B) Inequality among the three estates
• (C) The calling of the Estates-General
• (D) Napoleon's coup of 18 Brumaire

4. During which phase of the French Revolution did the Committee of Public Safety operate?

• (A) The Storming of the Bastille
• (B) The moderate constitutional monarchy (1789-1791)
• (C) The Reign of Terror
• (D) The Directory

5. Which of the following best describes the most lasting effect of the Napoleonic Code?

• (A) Spread of the heliocentric model

• (B) Restoration of feudal privileges in conquered territories

• (C) Spread of legal principles of equality before the law and end of feudal privilege

• (D) Establishment of representative democracy across Europe

6. The Congress of Vienna sought primarily to:

• (A) Spread Enlightenment ideas across Europe
• (B) Restore pre-revolutionary monarchies and maintain a balance of power
• (C) Unify Italy and Germany
• (D) Abolish slavery in the Americas

7. "The great questions of the day will not be settled by speeches and majority decisions, but by blood and iron."

This statement was made by:

• (A) Napoleon Bonaparte
• (B) Otto von Bismarck
• (C) Camillo di Cavour
• (D) Giuseppe Garibaldi

8. Which of the following was a direct cause of the Haitian Revolution?

• (A) Spanish invasion of Saint-Domingue
• (B) Inspiration from the French Revolution combined with the brutality of slavery
• (C) The Congress of Vienna
• (D) The Napoleonic Code

9. Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is best understood as:

• (A) An argument that women are intellectually inferior to men
• (B) An extension of Enlightenment principles of natural rights to women
• (C) A rejection of the French Revolution
• (D) A defense of traditional gender hierarchies

10. Simón Bolívar is best known for:

• (A) Leading Mexican independence
• (B) Liberating much of northern South America from Spanish rule
• (C) Unifying Italy under one king
• (D) Drafting the Napoleonic Code

11. Which of the following best describes the relationship between Enlightenment ideas and absolutism?

• (A) Enlightenment ideas reinforced the divine right of kings

• (B) Enlightenment ideas challenged the legitimacy of absolutist rule

• (C) Enlightenment thinkers all supported absolute monarchy

• (D) Enlightenment ideas had no influence on political systems

12. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) most directly reflected the ideas of:

• (A) Hobbes and Bacon
• (B) Locke and Rousseau
• (C) Metternich and Bismarck
• (D) Aristotle and Aquinas

13. Italian unification was achieved primarily under the leadership of:

• (A) The Kingdom of Sardinia
• (B) The Papal States
• (C) The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
• (D) The Austrian Empire

14. Which of the following best describes the consequences of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871)?

• (A) French annexation of Alsace-Lorraine
• (B) The proclamation of the German Empire and a permanent French grievance
• (C) The restoration of Napoleon to the French throne
• (D) The unification of Italy

15. A creole in Spanish colonial Latin America was:

• (A) Spanish-born administrator
• (B) American-born of Spanish descent
• (C) Person of mixed European and indigenous ancestry
• (D) Enslaved African on a Caribbean plantation