Books, philosophy, enlightenment

    Research output: Chapter in Book / Conference PaperChapter

    Abstract

    Those who experienced the trauma and exhilaration of revolution tended to attribute an explosive power to ideas, particularly those commonly associated with the Enlightenment philosophy of the eighteenth century. Even Jacques Mallet du Pan, one of the most sober and judicious of contemporary commentators, accused the philosophes of 'having shaken all that time, experience and wholesome philosophy had consecrated, and of having thus prepared public anarchy by the anarchy of the mind'. Many historians have likewise attributed significant influence to enlightenment philosophie. Books -as the main vehicle by which enlightened ideas were communicated – therefore enjoy a privileged position in many understandings of the enlightenment and its links to revolutionary causation. However, when it comes to delineating those links in detail, historians have been considerably less successful. A number of theoretical models have been propounded, but they often struggle, faced with the accumulated evidence of empirical studies, including mine. Conversely, those propounding empirically-based understanding have often been rightly criticized for the naivety of the mechanisms that they use to link texts and reading to the beliefs, practices, and actions of historical actors. The bridge connecting enlightenment and revolution remains as elusive as ever. This chapter certainly cannot resolve every dilemma suggested by this preliminary analysis. What it will attempt is to establish a juste milieu between the theoretical models and empirical rigour, reviewing the historiographical possibilities in the light of the freshest evidence, to establish the place of the book in enlightenment and Revolutionary print culture and politics.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationThe Oxford Handbook of the French Revolution
    EditorsDavid Andress
    Place of PublicationU.K.
    PublisherOxford University Press
    Pages74-91
    Number of pages18
    ISBN (Print)9780199639748
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2015

    Keywords

    • philosophy
    • enlightenment
    • books
    • revolution

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