The Enlightenment: History of an Idea: History of an Idea - Updated Edition - Softcover

Ferrone, Vincenzo; Tarantino, Elisabetta

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691175764 ISBN 13: 9780691175768

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2017

Synopsis

In this concise and powerful book, one of the world's leading historians of the Enlightenment provides a bracing and clarifying new interpretation of this watershed period. Arguing that philosophical and historical interpretations of the era have long been hopelessly confused, Vincenzo Ferrone makes the case that it is only by separating these views and taking an approach grounded in social and cultural history that we can begin to grasp what the Enlightenment was--and why it is still relevant today. Ferrone explains why the Enlightenment was a profound and wide-ranging cultural revolution that reshaped Western identity, reformed politics through the invention of human rights, and redefined knowledge by creating a critical culture. These new ways of thinking gave birth to new values that spread throughout society and changed how everyday life was lived and understood. Featuring an illuminating afterword describing how his argument challenges the work of Anglophone interpreters including Jonathan Israel, The Enlightenment provides a fascinating reevaluation of the true nature and legacy of one of the most important and contested periods in Western history. The translation of this work has been funded by SEPS--Segretariato Europeo per le Pubblicazioni Scientifiche.

About this title

About the Author

Vincenzo Ferrone is professor of modern history at the University of Turin. He has been a visiting scholar at the College de France and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

From the Back Cover

"Ferrone's compelling and courageous effort to disentangle the conceptions of the Enlightenment advanced by historians and philosophers since the eighteenth century results in a volume indispensable to historians and philosophers alike--and especially all those interested in how the late Enlightenment's 'laboratory of modernity' gave rise to and continues to shape our understanding of humanism today."--Ryan Patrick Hanley, author of Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue

"There will probably never be any agreement over the Enlightenment--whether it was a philosophical project, social movement, or both, and how it changed, if it did, our ways of thinking. But, as Vincenzo Ferrone shows, the struggle to answer these questions has long dominated the intellectual agenda of the West. His book, the first exhaustive account of the idea of Enlightenment itself, is both a history and a critical reflection on how the indisputable origin of the modern world has been conceived, defended, and abused over the centuries. It is both enlightening and enlightened."--Anthony Pagden, author of The Enlightenment: And Why It Still Matters

"This book shines. A fine and concise work by a highly respected scholar, it puts a lifetime of learning and a pan-European sweep into comparatively few pages, and offers nicely turned set pieces--about the Enlightenment's relationship to the French Revolution, for example--in addition to its original insights and reflections."--Darrin M. McMahon, author of Enemies of the Enlightenment

"Highly recommended."--Choice

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691175764
• ISBN 13: 9780691175768
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232