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.
About the AuthorDan 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.
Reviews"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"
Book InformationISBN 9780226184494
Author Dan EdelsteinFormat Paperback
Page Count 224
Imprint University of Chicago PressPublisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 425g
Dimensions(mm) 22mm * 17mm * 1mm