Daniel Defoe
Subtitle: The Whole Frame of Nature, Time and Providence
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: October 16, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9780333971369
Subjects: Novels, other prose & writers: 16th to 18th centuries; Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731; Special Subjects In Literature; Literary Criticism; Literature - Classics / Criticism; English; British Isles; English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Literary Criticism & Collections / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; 1661?-1731; Defoe, Daniel,; Political and social views; Religion
Description: This book offers a truly comprehensive analysis of Daniel Defoe's oeuvre from the perspective of an intellectual historian. Katherine Clark presents a new vision of Defoe by recovering the theological basis of his most important intellectual commitments. By charting Defoe's defence of these commitments over four decades of public debate, the book also sheds light on the changing cultural landscape of eighteenth-century Britainches The misidentification of Defoe as a Lockeian acolyte and celebrator of 'modernity' has obscured the theological underpinnings of his political and socio-economic thought. Equally, his fame as a journalist and novelist has overshadowed his role as a historical thinker. This study establishes Defoe as a crucial figure between James Harrington and David Hume in the evolution of theories about war and property, conquest and commerce, religious toleration and civil society.