FROM THE ENLIGHTENMENT TO THE TERROR: NEW GENEALOGIES

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-162
Author(s):  
ANNELIEN DE DIJN
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Stanford University ◽  
Prolific Author ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The University ◽  
University Of Chicago Press

Dan Edelstein is a prolific author. In less than two years he has produced not one but two books. His first, The Terror of Natural Right: Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution, was published by The University of Chicago Press in October 2009. Its Irish twin, The Enlightenment: A Genealogy, appeared with the same press in the fall of 2010. Each of these books deals with a much-studied subject—respectively the Terror and the Enlightenment—the kind of subject, in other words, about which even the most recent literature alone can fill entire libraries. Yet in both cases, Edelstein manages to make a contribution of startling originality and importance. It is clear that this literary scholar—Edelstein is a professor of French and Italian at Stanford University—is one of the most important new voices in the field of eighteenth-century French intellectual history. In this review, I will start by discussing both of his books separately. I will then conclude with some reflections on what Edelstein's work contributes to our understanding of eighteenth-century intellectual history when read as a whole.

Liberty, Property and Popular Politics

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
British History ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Thomas Paine ◽  
Parliamentary History ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century ◽  
Scottish History ◽  
The University

Few scholars can claim to have shaped the historical study of the long eighteenth century more profoundly than Professor H. T. Dickinson, who, until his retirement in 2006, held the Sir Richard Lodge Chair of British History at the University of Edinburgh. This volume, based on contributions from Dickinson's students, friends and colleagues from around the world, offers a range of perspectives on eighteenth-century Britain and provides a tribute to a remarkable scholarly career. Dickinson's work and career provides the ideal lens through which to take a detailed snapshot of current research in a number of areas. The book includes contributions from scholars working in intellectual history, political and parliamentary history, ecclesiastical and naval history; discussions of major themes such as Jacobitism, the French Revolution, popular radicalism and conservatism; and essays on prominent individuals in English and Scottish history, including Edmund Burke, Thomas Muir, Thomas Paine and Thomas Spence. The result is a uniquely rich and detailed collection with an impressive breadth of coverage.

A Constituição de 1822 uma Filosofia Política Intempestiva

1998 ◽  
Vol 6 (11) ◽  
pp. 39-47
Author(s):  
Viriato Soromenho-Marques ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Restoration Age ◽  
Portuguese Society ◽  
The French Revolution

In this paper the philosophical foundations of the first Portuguese Constitution are submitted to critical analysis. Drafted in the aftermath of the 1820 Revolution, the Constitution of 1822 is deeply determined by contradictory tensions and forces. We may see in it the trace of the freedom trends developed in the Enlightenment period and led to practical terms in the dramatic battleground of the French Revolution. Nevertheless, the Portuguese Constitution of 1822 reflect also the energetic resistance from the conservative sectors and values of the Portuguese society and also the coming influence of the Restoration Age political philosophy, aimed to fight the rationalistic paradigm of natural right constitutional theories.

Projecting the Enlightenment

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wokler ◽  
Christopher Brooke
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Intellectual Tradition ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Enlightenment Project ◽  
History Of

This chapter retraces Alasdair MacIntyre's own construal of the Enlightenment Project's trajectory in order to show how his interpretation of an intellectual tradition depends above all on his assessment of its impact. It argues that MacIntyre's Enlightenment Project is largely unreconstructed, unredeemed, and undiminished in its failure, even after substantial embellishment. His three principal works comprise an extraordinary indictment of the theoretical and practical legacy of eighteenth-century philosophy. His account projects the Enlightenment's implications and influence as they stem from its aims. He holds it to blame for some of the most sinister aspects of a morally vacuous civilization, cursed by the malediction of unlicenced Reason. His intellectual history of the period forms one of the mainsprings of his own philosophy.

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