Enlightenment Context Timeline By 21sr0574 Period: 1618 to 1648 The Thirty Years war Period: 1639 to 1639 Rene Descartes publishes his philosophical Meditations Period: 1642 to 1651 The English Civil War Period: 1651 to 1651 Thomas Hobbes Leviathan Period: 1668 to 1669 John Locke's Two Treatises of Government Period: 1748 to 1748 Baron Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws Period: 1756 to 1756 Voltaire's "Essay on Customs" Period: 1756 to 1763 The Seven Years War Period: 1762 to 1762 Rousseau's Social Contract Period: 1771 to 1771 Diderot's Encyclopedia Period: 1784 to 1784 Kant's "What is the Enlightenment" Period: 1798 to 1798 Thomas Malthus "Essay on the Principle of Population"