Narratives of Enlightenment
Cosmopolitan History from Voltaire to Gibbon
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Cambridge University Press
Published:5th Jun '97
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
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- Paperback£36.99(9780521619448)
A reappraisal of the work of five major narrative historians (Voltaire, Hume, Robertson, Gibbon and Ramsay) in eighteenth-century Europe and America.
Narratives of Enlightenment reappraises the work of five of the most important narrative historians of the eighteenth century - Voltaire, David Hume, William Robertson, Edward Gibbon, and the historian of the American Revolution, David Ramsay - and reveals the development of cosmopolitan ways of thinking beyond national issues.Narratives of Enlightenment is an interdisciplinary study of cosmopolitan approaches to the past. It reappraises the work of five of the most important narrative historians of the century - Voltaire, David Hume, William Robertson, Edward Gibbon and the historian of the American Revolution, David Ramsay - in the context of political and national debates in France, Scotland, England and America; and it investigates the nature and degree of their intellectual investment in the idea of a common European civilisation. Karen O'Brien combines the methodologies of literary criticism and intellectual history to explore debates about Enlightenments and the political uses of narrative. Where previous studies have emphasised the growth of nationalism in eighteenth-century literature, she reveals the development of cosmopolitan ways of thinking beyond national cultural issues.
'Compellingly lucid and elegant.' Sir Tony Wrigley, President of the British Academy
- Winner of Rose Mary Crawshay Prize 1999
ISBN: 9780521465335
Dimensions: 236mm x 160mm x 24mm
Weight: 580g
268 pages