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John Locke's Political Legacy Explored

Prithvi Ranjan wrote a process paper about creating an individual website project for the National History Day competition. They chose to research John Locke and his political legacy because Locke had a large influence but may not be a popular topic. Through researching primary sources and Locke's works, Prithvi focused on comparing Locke's Two Treatises of Government to the ideas in Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. Prithvi created pages on Locke's biography, the two documents, comparisons between them including historian quotes, and included an annotated bibliography and process paper. They believe the project fits the leadership and legacy theme through examining Locke's influence and how his legacy should include being credited with ideas in the Declaration of Independence

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Tom Riddle
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6 views3 pages

John Locke's Political Legacy Explored

Prithvi Ranjan wrote a process paper about creating an individual website project for the National History Day competition. They chose to research John Locke and his political legacy because Locke had a large influence but may not be a popular topic. Through researching primary sources and Locke's works, Prithvi focused on comparing Locke's Two Treatises of Government to the ideas in Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. Prithvi created pages on Locke's biography, the two documents, comparisons between them including historian quotes, and included an annotated bibliography and process paper. They believe the project fits the leadership and legacy theme through examining Locke's influence and how his legacy should include being credited with ideas in the Declaration of Independence

Uploaded by

Tom Riddle
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

John Locke:

A Legacy Stolen?

Prithvi Ranjan
Senior Division
Individual Website

Process Paper
My first challenge during the project was selecting a topic to
research. I wanted to research a historical figure who had a large
legacy, but also someone who wasnt likely to be researched by many
other competitors. I thought about my own interests in order to find a
figure that I could relate to, and came up with John Locke and Isaac
Newton because of their economical and scientific influences.
Eventually, I selected Locke because I, without researching anything
yet, felt like he had a larger legacy than Newton.
One benefit about choosing to research John Lock was that I was
able to find many primary sources online. After learning about Lockes
life as an overview from credible historical websites, I focused on
Lockes works to understand some of his thoughts, ideas, and
influences. I skimmed through Lockes papers on politics, economics,
education, religious toleration, and metaphysics, and decided to settle
on Lockes political legacy. Although he wasnt much of a leader during
his time, I was able to find enormous stores of information regarding
his legacy. I created an early version of my thesis at this point,
comparing Lockes Two Treatises of Government to Jeffersons
Declaration of Independence. From here, I really focused on those two
documents, as well as what historians had to say regarding the issue.
I chose to create a website because I felt like it was the best way
to present my research. Using technology to create things has always
been a talent of mine. I had created several websites in the past, but
nothing close to the scope and necessary clarity that this project
required. The process of actually creating the website was quite
difficult mainly because of the need to find precise quotes that clearly
supported my thesis. My plan was to create a home, context, and
biography page to account for the basic information. The Two Treatises
of Government and Declaration of Independence pages were mainly
for providing quotes about each document and explaining what the
main ideas were. The Comparison pages were where I showed
specific similarity between the documents (by putting the important
quotes side-by-side, as well as providing quotes from historians who
studied the issue in-depth, as well as quotes from the Founding
Fathers). The final pages were dedicated to my annotated bibliography
and process paper.
I believe that my project clearly related to the NHD theme of
Leadership and Legacy. My thesis focused on John Lockes legacy and
how it should include the Declaration of Independence. My biography
page focused on how Locke grew up, and the influence that other

leaders had on him during his life. In that same page, it also explained
how Locke had an impact in other subjects (economics, metaphysics,
religious toleration, education). John Locke was one of the most
influential philosophers of the era, and my goal was to capture as big a
part of his vast legacy that I could and present it in my website
according to the NHD theme.
Word Count: 499

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