The Enlightenment Past
Subtitle: Reconstructing Eighteenth-Century French Thought
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: March 31, 2008
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9780521879446
Subjects: History of ideas, intellectual history; Literary studies: 16th to 18th centuries; Europe; Literary Collections / Continental European; European - General; Literary Criticism; French
Description: "Over the last two hundred years the theories and ideals of the Enlightenment have come to be viewed as the foundation of modern Western political and intellectual culture. Particularly in France they have played a fundamental role in the development of national identity. In a series of richly contextualised readings Daniel Brewer examines the cultural construction of the Enlightenment in France from the eighteenth century to the present day. He examines a range of important Enlightenment texts, explores the ways in which they defined their modernising project, and analyses the cultural and political uses to which they have been put by scholars, writers and intellectuals. This book presents a significant advance in the field of Enlightenment studies, in an important and timely reassessment of the heritage and continued relevance of Enlightenment ideals."--Jacket.