The Enlightenment (New Approaches to European History, Series Number 7)

by Dorinda Outram (Author)

5 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0521425346

ISBN-10: 9780521425346

Why is ISBN important?

Other Sellers

from

Other Sellers

See all 2 versions

Used: Very Good | Details

Sold by Open Books

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

$3.99 delivery July 12 - 18. Details

Or fastest delivery July 8 - 13. Details

Select delivery location

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

Ships from and sold by fortbc.

List Price: $20.99 Details

Save: $8.04 (38%)

$3.99 delivery July 11 - 18. Details

Select delivery location

There is a newer edition of this item:

The Enlightenment (New Approaches to European History, Series Number 58)
$22.92
(21)
In Stock.

What was the Enlightenment? Was it a unified body of thought generated by an established canon of 'great thinkers', or were there many areas of contradiction and divergence? How far-reaching were its critiques intended to be? Was it a revolutionary body of thought, or was it merely a catalyst for the revolutionary age which followed it? Did it mean the same for men and for women, for rich and poor, or for European and non-European? In this important new textbook Dorinda Outram addresses these, and other, questions about the 'Enlightenment'. She sets the major debates of the period against the broader social changes such as the onset of industrialisation in Western Europe, the establishment of new colonial empires, and the exploration of hitherto unmapped portions of the world's surface. This unique and accessible synthesis of scholarship will be invaluable to any student of eighteenth-century history.

Book Description

This major new textbook introduces both the concepts and the contexts of the Enlightenment to students of eighteenth-century history.

Book Description

This important textbook examines the major intellectual debates of the eighteenth century against the background of broader social changes. It shows that the 'Enlightenment' was not simply a unified body of thought generated by an established canon of 'great thinkers'. Its various critiques were far-reaching, and their effects different in different parts of Europe.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0521425344
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cambridge University Press (September 29, 1995)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 157 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780521425346
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0521425346
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 0.5 x 6.25 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #5,067,945 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #13,073 in European History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
5 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Dorinda Outram

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

5 star		44%
4 star		43%
3 star		13%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Reid W. Wyatt

An Intelligent and Concise Overview

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2005

Verified Purchase

Most history books tend to either be too long and in-depth on a topic of interest or too brief. This book is neither, which is especially impressive given that it clocks in under 200 pages and covers, essentially, a century.

Outram succeeds in her basic layout of the book and in her lack of "kiddie gloves" in respect to her audience. She opens the book with a discussion of differing interpretations of the Enlightenment, in particular an essay contest in a Berlin newspaper in 1785. Outram begins with a discussion of Kant's response to the question, "What is Enlightenment?" Throughout the book, the scholar responds to shortcomings of other historical analyses of the period and explores, in short, 15-page sections, specific questions regarding the Enlightenment. Outram wastes no time diving into the complex morass of the eighteenth century. Writing in clear, lucid prose with a quick style, Outram brings to light new ideas on the Enightenment while responding to more traditional interpretations in due course.

The history professor who is directing my seminar on Religious Toleration in Renaissance and Reformation Europe recommended this book. When I become a high school teacher, I'm pretty sure this is a text I will use.

22 people found this helpful

Helpful

Brooklynski

A good supplementary text to Enlightenment studies

Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2009

Verified Purchase

I took a college course on the Enlightenment. The Outram book gave a slightly different perspective from the course texts. It was worth it.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

R. Albin

Good with Some Limitations: 3.5

Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2006

Books in this series are supposed to be written as introductions to important topics in European history, accessible to undergraduates or even advanced high school students. This book doesn't really meet these requirements. The Enlightenment is structured as a series of linked essays on important topics related to the Enlightenment. These include the social context of the Enlightenment, government and the Enlightenment, gender and the Enlightenment, etc. There is a short introductory chapter which is primarily devoted to historiography of the Enlightenment. The essays are generally quite good but don't really provide the needed overview or basic narrative to accomplish the stated aims for books in this series. This book is most useful as a series of summaries of recent scholarship on the Enlightenment and can be used most usefully by someone who already has significant knowledge in this area. For teachers, I'd recommend using this book as an ancillary to a basic narrative text or even in conjunction with something like Peter Gay's magisterial overview of the Enlightenment. For general readers, this book is most useful as a review of recent scholarship.

To the extent that this book has a theme, it would be the increasing appreciation of the diversity and complexity of the Enlightenment. Outram takes pains to show Enlightenment positions are being more variable than often presented. Following the work of others, she is concerned with rebutting or undermining what has been regarded as a canonical view derived from scholars like Peter Gay that the Enlightenment can be summarized as a liberal reform program. For Outram, as for others, The Enlightenment as a unitary phenomenon does not exist. She, like others, also objects to the tendency to align the Enlightenment with a relatively small group of French intellectuals. Much of this is well taken, and Outram's individual essays are very informative. The discussions of government and the Enlightenment, religion and the Enlightenment, and science and the Enlightenment are particularly good.

On the other hand, there problems with some of her thematic analysis. While the Enlightenment cannot perhaps be easily summarized, at least not in the way suggested by scholars like Peter Gay, the concept retains considerable power and integrity. This is implicitly acknowledged in the title of this book, which is after all, The Enlightenment, not Enlightenments. Implicit in Outram's discussions are recurrent themes such as the importance of reason, skepticism towards received authority, the desire to use knowledge to improve the human condition, etc., which are stated by people like Gay to be basic unifying features of the Enlightenment. Outram's discussions add nuance to traditional views but don't contradict them, and in some ways implicitly endorse them. I think Outram overstates the extent to which recent scholarship has qualified views of the Enlightenment. The recent emphasis on greater geographic variation of the Enlightenment is an example. Peter Gay himself made a good deal out of American participation in the Enlightenment and he was hardly the first scholar to do so. Smith, several Americans, and Kant have long been considered important figures of the Enlightenment. Since when have Glasgow, tidewater Virginia, and Konigsberg been part of the heartland of Europe. Outram disparages the emphasis on French intellectuals yet her own text repeatedly cites the experience and writings of Voltaire, Diderot, etc., undercutting her explicit point.

While Outram is a careful scholar and writer, she also commits some missteps. Her discussion of Hume's epistemology as part of a critique of 18th century science is somewhat offbase. She presents Hume's views correctly but incompletely. Hume thought of himself as carrying out a Newtonian program of research in human psychology and far from undercutting the validity of scientifically generated knowledge, he placed it in a privileged position. Her discussion of 18th century voyages of exploration and the tendency of European intellectuals to project utopian visions onto Pacific island societies is astute but she overlooks the fact there was probably a significant kernal of truth in reports of the utopian nature of these cultures. Because of their biological isolation, these societies lacked many of the epidemic diseases that plagued the rest of the world. For example, a high percentage of Cook's crew probably had disfiguring smallpox scars, something that would have been unknown in Polynesia prior to contact with Europeans.

35 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

船長

Enlightenment Unveiled

Reviewed in Japan on July 24, 2019

Verified Purchase

「啓蒙」についてのケンブリッジ大の教科書。
この現象はいったい何だったのか、一度しっかりと勉強しなければならないと思っていた。本の選定に時間をかけた甲斐もあって、これは悪くない入門書だった。

「ディドロやダランベールら百科全書派、ルソー、ヴォルテールら17-8世紀のフランス人知識層を主体として、自然に対する科学的詳察とそれらを可能にする理性の力を偶像化し、迷信や因習にもとづく旧来の社会様式に変化を求めた思想潮流」

「啓蒙とは何か」という問いに対する一般的な認識とは、大体このようなものではないだろうか。自分もそんなふうに考えていた。

しかしこの教科書の著者は、その問いに対する歴史学的見解の変遷を紹介したうえで、そうしたクリシェのどれもこれもが今や不可能になってしまったと言う。

かつては自明視されていた啓蒙とフランス革命の因果関係も、研究が進んだ今では、曖昧になっているようだ。そもそも、「フランス革命」という捉え方じたいが、より正しい認識にはミスリーディングである、と。

「啓蒙の時代」についても、著者は16世紀の宗教改革やそれに続く宗教戦争とかなり連続的な経験として捉えていて、「啓蒙とは何か」という命題は、その面でも定義が難しくなっている。

「啓蒙（enlightenment:光を照らすこと）」が光輝のヴェイルを剥がされunveiled、それじたいの「不明さ（ambiguities）」が露出した、というわけか。

「啓蒙とはこういうもののはずだ、こういうものだったはずだ、こうした影響を与えたはずだ」ということを各人各様の時代制約のなかで期待し欲望してきた人間心理そのものへの反省を込めた、新しい歴史学的解釈が生まれるのかもしれない。

もっとも、この本を読んだことですべてが曖昧になったわけではなく、「<他者>の問題、すなわち<差異>に接したとき、啓蒙はつまづいた」とする著者の説明は鮮やかである。

Translate review to English

See all reviews

The Enlightenment (New Approaches to European History, Series Number 7)

Sorry, there was a problem.

Sorry, there was a problem.

Buy used: $1.75

Buy new: $12.95

There is a newer edition of this item:

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

Book Description

Product details

Videos

About the author

Dorinda Outram

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries

Buy used:

$1.75

Buy new:

$12.95