Why did human and civil rights gain a foothold at the time they did?
Upvote:1
The turning point was not the French revolution but American revolution which happened 13 years earlier. The Declaration of Independence (1776) is the first official political document where these rights (for all) are mentioned. The idea should probably be credited to French philosophers of 1700s.
Human rights (in the sense of the rights of ALL humans) evolved slowly from the rights of nobility. Magna Carta is an early example of a document which fixed certain rights - not for all, but for nobility. In Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth there was a numerous nobility (10% of population!) which enjoyed very broad set of rights (called "liberties"). The idea that rights can be extended to all white males appeared in 1700s. Gradually the recognition of equal rights spread to wider and wider set of humans, first including people of other races,and then, finally, women.
I recall that women's rights as equal to men's rights were recognized in most of Europe only in 1900s.
Why it started in 1700s? Because of the bourgeois revolutions, as Cochise stated correctly. Full rights of women were widely recognized after WWI, because of their increasing role in the economy.
Upvote:3
In a rather simplistic answer, because of bourgeoisie. The French Revolution was a commons revolt, but we need to remember that not all "commons" where poor. Bourgeois where commons, in the third estate. As they are rich, they are stronger political and ideological players that could patronage thinkers and artists that supports the overthrow of society based in estates.* Without the support of rich bourgeois to mobilize and arm white guards and humanitarian and republican thinkers the revolution could not successes not in ideological neither in material aspects.
*How you say "estamental society" in English? The society with rigid stratus like the pre revolution France, with three states.
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