The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought

1984 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald S. Lutz
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Citation Count ◽  
Relative Influence ◽  
Future Research ◽  
American Political Thought ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Surrogate Measure

Drawing upon a comprehensive list of political writings by Americans published between 1760 and 1805, the study uses a citation count drawn from these 916 items as a surrogate measure of the relative influence of European writers upon American political thought during the era. Contrary to the general tendencies in the recent literature, the results here indicate that there was no one European writer, or one tradition of writers, that dominated American political thought. There is evidence for moving beyond the Whig-Enlightenment dichotomy as the basis for textual analysis, and for expanding the set of individual European authors considered to have had an important effect on American thinking. Montesquieu, Blackstone, and Hume are most in need of upgrading in this regard. The patterns of influence apparently varied over the time period from 1760 to 1805, and future research on the relative influence of European thinkers must be more sensitive to this possibility.

The Time of the Trap Door

Killing Times ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 54-86
Author(s):  
David Wills
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Trap Door ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Late Eighteenth

This chapter offers an examination of the refining of the instant of execution that takes place with the introduction of trap door gallows in the seventeenth century and, more spectacularly and explicitly, in the late eighteenth century with the French Revolution and the guillotine. The death penalty is thereby distinguished from torture and a post-Enlightenment conception of punishment is introduced, lasting to the present. But the guillotine is bloody, and that underscores a complex visuality of the death penalty that also obtains during the same time period, playing out across diverse genres such as the execution sermon, political and scientific discourses relating to the guillotine, Supreme Court descriptions of crimes, and practices of an entity such as the Islamic State. What develops concurrent with the guillotine—yet remains constant through all those examples--is a form of realist photographic visuality.

Characteristics of Latin American Political Thought

1966 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D. Martz
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
American Political Thought ◽  
Intellectual Elite ◽  
The World ◽  
Public Responsibility

In few areas of the world are the role and contribution of the intellectual elite more significant than in Latin America. Its membership has historically been in the forefront of major political and social movements, and there has been somewhat less of the distaste for politics and public responsibility than is often found elsewhere. Leading intellectuals are widely respected and nationally prominent, enjoying a degree of prestige that is scarcely exceeded in any other region. The pensador—sometimes likened to the eighteenth-century philosophe— has been intimately involved in major political movements from colonial times to the present.

Learning Conservatism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Jones
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Leisure Time ◽  
English Literature ◽  
General Level ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
New Students

The construction of Burke as the ‘founder of conservatism’ was also a product of developments in education. The increasing study of Burke arose out of several converging movements: in publishing and technology; in philosophical thought; in the increasing disposable income and leisure time of greater portions of the population; and in education movements for men and women at all levels. The popularity of topics such as the French Revolution, Romanticism, and late eighteenth-century history meant that Burke became a feature of lectures and examinations. At university, Burke was of particular interest to philosophical Idealists, English literature professors and students, and a generation of historians who taught increasingly modern courses. By analysing how Burke was studied at this much more popular, general level it is possible to pinpoint how Burke’s ‘conservative’ political thought was taught to swathes of new students—it took more than gentlemanly erudition to establish a scholarly orthodoxy.

scholarly journals The Political Economy of Colonisation: Carl Bernhard Wadström’s Case for Abolition and Civilisation

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Ahlskog
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Classical Political Economy ◽  
Alternative Perspective ◽  
Alternative Reading

<p>This article is an analysis of the Swedish abolitionist and Swedenborgian Carl Bernhard Wadstr&ouml;m&rsquo;s (1746&ndash;1799) writings in the British anti-slavery debate in the years between 1788 and 1795. Previous historical scholarship has seen Wadstr&ouml;m primarily as a Swedenborgian visionary on a quest for religious fulfilment in Africa. An alternative perspective on Wadstr&ouml;m&rsquo;s writings is offered in this article by highlighting his comparatively overlooked polemical publications and Parliamentary testimonies in the British anti-slavery debate. Instead of treating Wadstr&ouml;m&rsquo;s writings and colonial plans as manifestations of his Swedenborgian dreams, they are reassessed as contributions to the contemporary anti-slavery debate. The focus is on how Wadstr&ouml;m participated and argued in this debate in order to show the ideological tenets underlying his views. Wadstr&ouml;m is linked to the Scottish Enlightenment discourse by showing how he uses the concepts of classical political economy in his argumentation for the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. Through this alternative reading of Wadstr&ouml;m&rsquo;s writings, it is possible to gain another entry point into the complex and motley character of late eighteenth-century political thought in Northern Europe.</p>

JOHANN GOTTFRIED HERDER AND ENLIGHTENMENT POLITICAL THOUGHT: FROM THE REFORM OF RUSSIA TO THE ANTHROPOLOGY OFBILDUNG

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
RETO SPECK
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Denis Diderot ◽  
The Political ◽  
Johann Gottfried Herder ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth

This essay revises customary interpretations of Johann Gottfried Herder that stress the non-political or anarchical nature of his philosophy and his opposition to Enlightenment thought. Approaching his politics through the idea ofBildung, it argues that Herder first elaborated on this seminal concept in a series of early texts concerned with the reform of Russia. It analyses Herder's writings on Russia in the context of wider Enlightenment debates about the reform of the empire, and shows thatBildungwas employed as a means to mediate between contrasting models of political action put forward by contemporaries such as Voltaire and Denis Diderot. An outline of the subsequent development ofBildungin his anthropological works reinforces the political intention behind the concept, and situates Herder's political thought firmly within late eighteenth-century controversies.

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