The Enlightenment by Dan Edelstein, Paperback, 9780226184494 | Buy online at The Nile
Departments
 Free Returns*

The Enlightenment

A Genealogy

Author: Dan Edelstein  

Paperback

What was the Enlightenment? Seeking to recover where, when, and how the concept of 'the Enlightenment' first emerged, this title departs from genealogies that trace it back to political and philosophical developments in England and the Dutch Republic.

Read more
$67.93
Or pay later with
Check delivery options
Paperback

PRODUCT INFORMATION

Summary

What was the Enlightenment? Seeking to recover where, when, and how the concept of 'the Enlightenment' first emerged, this title departs from genealogies that trace it back to political and philosophical developments in England and the Dutch Republic.

Read more

Description

What was the Enlightenment? Though many scholars have attempted to solve this riddle, none has made as much use of contemporary answers as Dan Edelstein does here. In seeking to recover where, when, and how the concept of “the Enlightenment” first emerged, Edelstein departs from genealogies that trace it back to political and philosophical developments in England and the Dutch Republic. According to Edelstein, by the 1720s scholars and authors in France were already employing a constellation of terms—such as l’esprit philosophique—to describe what we would today call the Enlightenment. But Edelstein argues that it was within the French Academies, and in the context of the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, that the key definition, concepts, and historical narratives of the Enlightenment were crafted.

A necessary corrective to many of our contemporary ideas about the Enlightenment, Edelstein’s book turns conventional thinking about the period on its head. Concise, clear, and contrarian, The Enlightenment will be welcomed by all teachers and students of the period.

Read more

Critic Reviews

“"This study articulates a resolutely innovative argument for a narrative as opposed to a epistemological understanding of the Enlightenment.”

"In this crisply written and remarkably wide-ranging and learned book, Dan Edelstein encourages us to rethink our conventional understanding of the Enlightenment and its origins. Teeming with intellectual vitality, this short book returns to readers a bounty of insight and creative thought." - J. B. Shank, author of The Newton Wars and the Beginning of the French Enlightenment"

Read more

About the Author

Dan Edelstein is assistant professor of French at Stanford University and the author of The Terror of Natural Right: Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution.

Read more

Product Details

Publisher
The University of Chicago Press | University of Chicago Press
Published
15th December 2010
Pages
224
ISBN
9780226184494

Returns

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.

$67.93
Or pay later with
Check delivery options