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The Creation of the Modern World: The British Enlightenment

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Roy Porter's discussion of the British enlightenment may not be an "untold story," but it is an important story that is often underemphasized in the history of the enlightenment. The essence of Porter's argument is that Britain did, in fact, have an enlightenment as vibrant and relevant as those more studied enlightenments in France and Germany.

In the first half of the book, Porter demonstrates the existence of a British enlightenment through a dense, narrative argument that tracks contemporary discussions in various realms of study, such as religion, science, human nature, and politics. The result is an impressive vision of a new environment of intellectual activity in eighteenth century Britain, as thinkers sought to express "new mental and moral values, new canons of taste, styles of sociability and views of human nature."

Meanwhile, across the Channel the French philosophes reacted against religious intolerance with atheism and against the abuses of absolutism with republicanism. English thinkers of the eighteenth century lacked such divisive issues: religious toleration, at least of a rudimentary sort, was established by 1689, and absolutism had died with Charles I in 1649. As a result, the enlightenment in Britain stressed "the drive not to subvert the system, but to secure it so as to achieve individual satisfaction and collective stability." Thus in Britain the eighteenth century, like so many other centuries, was characterized by a reforming gradualism rather than an oppositional radicalism.

In the second half of the book, Porter examines the results of enlightenment. He argues that the overall condition of women did not worsen during the century and tentatively suggests that it improved, citing observations of foreign visitors who noted the relative freedom of women in Britain. Also, he emphasizes the importance British intellectuals placed on education as a means for improvement, foreshadowing the arguments of such nineteenth century liberals as Mill.

Finally, Porter investigates the effects of the revolutions in America and France on the British enlightenment. The revolt of the American colonies served to radicalize the enlightenment in Britain, as intellectuals suddenly saw their enlightened Britain acting an oppressive role across the Atlantic. The initial stages of the French Revolution furthered this effect, as sympathetic organizations sprouted across Britain. However, the Terror divided British intellectuals: most, including Burke, Coleridge and Malthus turned reactionary, while others such as Byron and Hazlitt remained true to their enlightened principles and mourned current events. However, even the Terror did not terminate the British enlightenment, as many of its ideals quickly reemerged in the form Victorian liberalism.

Highly recommended as a foundational text in British history and/or as comparative book for the study of continental enlightenments. Well written with extensive endnotes and bibliography.

The late historian Roy Porter has provided an invaluable addition to studies in the history of the Enlightenment with his book, The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold Story of the British Enlightenment (hereafter CMW). Livelier than any work of intellectual history has a right to be, Porter proves himself a master historian with a sharp pen. Polished in style and scholarship, wit and weightiness, CMW should stand as a watershed in Enlightenment studies. Porter's aim is to change how the importance of the Enlightenment in Britain is viewed, and on that account he succeeds wildly.

It might be better said that Porter's aim is not to change how the British Enlightenment is viewed, but to show that there was such a thing in the first place. The "Enlightenment" can be a somewhat ambiguous term. To cut it down to a crude and insufficient summary, it is often viewed as the movement in western Europe in the late 17th and 18th centuries away from religion and monarchy and toward secularism and democracy. Like all intellectual movements it took place primarily in the upper tiers of society. Porter's argument is simple: what happened in Britain during this time has an equal if not greater claim to the title of "Enlightenment" as what happened on the continent.

Known primarily for his work in the history of medicine, Porter's work is never accused of being boring. CMW is no different. Porter's characteristic buoyancy is evident from the moment he attacks his thesis; it is almost as if he is personally insulted as an Englishman that the British Enlightenment has never been seen as a movement of greater repute. Thus it might be argued that his presupposition is more of a bias. If one is going to go about proving something about which one is biased, it would not hurt to take a lesson from Porter in how it is done.

Porter's approach to history might be called the "over-enthused scholar's" approach. The density with which he fills the pages of CMW with the names of people, places, movements, societies, ideas, relationships, etc. is truly staggering. It is as if he has the ability to draw at will from a lifetime of memorizing arcane facts and data about British history. It is in this sense that it is difficult to argue with the conclusion that Porter has accomplished his aim on an awe-inspiring scale. But there is a difficulty in appropriating this volume of information, especially for the casual reader. There are moments when it seems as if Porter could have backed off a bit, as it were, and given the reader a breather from new facts and information. Here analysis and commentary are so tightly intertwined with the introduction of new data that it can become confusing. But this weakness of CMW is also its strength. Porter may be unmatched for his sheer ability to amass quantities of data in support of his argument.

Although any history of the Enlightenment will in some sense be an intellectual history, Porter manages to turn it into a broader social history as well. He structures the book into chapters that each deal with a different subject - religion, human nature, politics, sexual equality, and the like - and traces the development of changes in that subject. Hovering over all of these changes are certain central figures: Locke, Hume, Wollstonecraft, etc. He uses the popular method of history writing that focuses on mini-biographies of key figures of the period, but not exclusively. Porter is just as likely to introduce an animated commentary on the increased speed of urban life in late eighteenth century London as a commentary on some obscure Jacobin agitator.

But it is in the mini-biographies, the characters in this story of the British Enlightenment, that Porter's thesis comes alive. CMW paints a picture of a network of intellectual relationships and influences that illustrates the British Enlightenment as a movement, a true alteration of the fundamental makeup of eighteenth century British society. The rabid interest Porter takes in these figures translates onto the page into characters that are larger than life, individuals who seemingly obsessed over whatever little corner of this period they laid claim to.

If CMW has a primary weakness it is that Porter is so successful in proving his thesis - that there was such a thing as a British Enlightenment - that he almost entirely fails to point to anything like a counter-Enlightenment on a large scale. He does treat this subject for a few pages here and there, but it seems that any history of an intellectual and social movement would not be complete without a robust treatment of the reaction movement. What, for example, of Methodism? References to Wesley and his followers are few, and those there are tend to downplay the enthusiasm of such religious extremists by showing the unflattering opinion of them held by the Humes and the Godwins.

Perhaps this is unavoidable. A movement such as the Enlightenment is historically important not because it was representative of every member and stratus of society, but because the world was changed by those upon whom it was influential. Indeed, Porter only devotes one chapter to the common folk ("The Vulgar," a term that Porter uses to describe the view of the lower classes by many of his protagonists), and even then it is to show what the main characters thought about them and their role in society. If the ideals of the Enlightenment filtered down to those people that liberalism and freedom were supposed to help, it would not be easy to tell by reading CMW.

But if Porter ignores the lower classes, he does not ignore the changes occurring in the world in which they live. From the proliferation of coffee shops and the printed word to new novelties such as take-away meals on the streets and pleasure gardens, Porter sees the British Enlightenment as something more than an intellectual or political movement: it was the total transformation of a society. Perhaps there is something to criticize here as well. Is the fact that urban life became more fast-paced a characterizing feature of the Enlightenment? In Porter's line of reasoning it certainly is, and perhaps he is in some sense adding his own stamp to the term. If before encountering CMW a reader has a mental image of the Enlightenment as stuffy philosophers or scientists poring over manuscripts in their chambers or of French philosophes prattling on about the evils of religion, then after reading Porter there must certainly be a new mental image: that of an entire society transformed by a new way of looking at life.

If this new definition of Enlightenment is appropriated then Porter's book will be seen as a revelation, for in that case the transformation of British society will stand as the supreme example. Less drastic than the change in French society after the French Revolution, the British Enlightenment will be seen as more successful due to its being more consistent with the ideals of the Enlightenment as a whole. In Porter's hands the drama of human social history in eighteenth century Britain is indeed that: a drama, albeit one written with wit and style, intrigue and humor, and a volume of scholarship with which it will be difficult for anyone in the future to contend.

I'm pretty impressed by the extensive documentation, not just in the bibliography but also in the endnotes. Porter hardly mentioned Ben Franklin, who was after all American. But as a Briton before 1776 Franklin too was part of the British Enlightenment.

Porter placed particular emphasis on the role of Priestley, whom he said is often neglected. I think Porter was exactly right about Priestley, who was probably as important as Hume, Locke or anyone else to the British Enlightenmnt for advocating free inquiry and truth; let inquiry be free and truth be told though Christianity itself may fall, said Priestley, who was a Christian theologian. Those were pretty strong words to come out of a preacher in those days when atheism was a crime.

The British played as big a role in the Enlightenment as the French. Of that there can be no doubt after this book. Americans too made their contribution, as Henry Steele Commager said in his book The Empire of Reason," but until 1776 this was part of British Enlightenment.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Roy Porter's "The Creation of the Modern World." In the actual text of the book, i found Porter to be fair, or as he said on p. xxi of the introduction, that he did not intend the book to be one of "advocacy or apology," ... that "the Enlightenment is not a good thing or a bad thing."

Yet on that same page, he admits that "i find enlightened minds congenial: I savor their pithy prose, and feel more in tune with those warm, witty, clubbable men than with, say, the agrieved Puritans..." Porter goes on to say that "Enlightened thinkers were 'broad-minded,' [surely a compliment?], they espoused pluralism [again, another 20th century compliment] their register was ironic rather than dogmatic." That last clause is what i have the strongest disagreement with. The enlighteners were nothing if not dogmatic. They would brook no opposition. Their counter-attacks were vicious. They were the more dogmatic for not recognizing that they were. Porter goes on, still p. xxi: "Tolerance was central" [to the enlighters}, and yes, they were tolerant to everyone except those who had the audacity to disagree with them. Yet, the remarkable thing about the book is that i did not find many instances of Porter's announced proclivity poisoning his the rest of the book.

One such slip-up can be found on p. 470, where Porter writes "the most striking instance of the retreat into reaction is Thomas Robert Malthus." Retreat into reaction? Both of those words, retreat and reaction, are negative derogatory words, which spoil Porter's objectivity.

On p. 340, Porter states that [John} "Locke held the key", which is one of the lamer puns i've ever encountered in a scholarly book.

Nonetheless, the book does what it set out to do, raise the profile of the British enlightenment, and thus degrade the alleged French monopoly.

Usually it's a case of extracting Scottish history from Anglocentric history books, but in the case of the Enlightenment we have the opposite scenario. This book fills a needed void then. This is also a useful book since many of the people mentioned are underrated or their influence misunderstood. Not only that but some of these people were to influence others who came later in their family - Erasmus Darwin, Wollstonecroft (on the Shelleys- her daughter's Frankenstein being a seminal SF work)...

Despite the protestations of the Little Englander from Hong Kong (Michael Wheatley) below, Britain and England are the same thing (3/4 of the time minimum). He should know, after all he reviewed a Cantonese Chinese dictionary as well and there is no separate word for "Britain" in that language, only England and Scotland. In fact the English have been referring to their country alone as "Britain" since at least the 1300s (William Langland) and the first reference to the "British Empire" is in the 1400s.

This is not the book that Roy Porter should have written. He obviously has a great desire to set the world on its ear and discover great things, which is fine. But the English Enlightenment is not the undiscovered contintent he is looking for. It reminds me of an old saw my professor used to begin his courses with, "Don't worry, I am not here to discover America all over again. That is something that can only be done once, and its been done. "This is not to say that there is not some fine learning in this book. But, "the first history of the forgotten Enlightenment...?" Dismiss the hype and the premise that all other historians are idiots and you have a good study of the English Enlightenment.