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In this monumental study of the Enlightenment in England, Scotland, France, Germany, and the United States from c. 1650 to the present, J. C. D. Clark shows that the Enlightenment was not a
thing, but rather a historiographical
concept.
List of contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: Why is the Enlightenment a Problem?
- Part I: Absences
- 1: Was the Enlightenment a Social Practice?
- 2: Was the Enlightenment Invented in France?
- 3: What Was English Discourse?
- 4: Did Anglophone Philosophers Design 'the Enlightenment'?
- 5: Why Could Even Leading Reformers in the Age of Revolution Not Conceptualize 'the Enlightenment'?
- Paart II: Anticipations?
- 6: Was the Enlightenment Invented in America?
- 7: Was British Empiricism the Framework of Common Sense?
- 8: Did Liberals Recognize the Enlightenment?
- 9: Did Socialists Recognize the Enlightenment?
- Part III: Achievements?
- 10: Was 'the Enlightenment' Invented in Germany?
- 11: Was There an 'Enlightenment Project'?
- 12: How Did Different Nationalities Construct Their Enlightenment?
- Conclusion: The Enlightenment, the History of Ideas, and Modernism
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
J. C. D. Clark was educated at Cambridge, where he was a Fellow of Peterhouse. At Oxford, he was a Fellow of All Souls College; at Chicago, he held a Visiting Professorship at the Committee on Social Thought; he has held visiting posts elsewhere. Latterly he was Hall Distinguished Professor of British History at the University of Kansas. He lives now in Northumberland. His interests are primarily in intellectual history, philosophy, social history, literature, and historiography, especially in the 'long eighteenth century', 1660-1832.
Summary
In this monumental study of the Enlightenment in England, Scotland, France, Germany, and the United States from c. 1650 to the present, J. C. D. Clark shows that the Enlightenment was not a thing, but rather a historiographical concept.
Additional text
A magnificent sweep of intellectual history over the long eighteenth century 1660 to 1832 and into the modern era.
