The Age of Enlightenment: Volume One: v. 1 - Softcover

Eliot, Simon; Stern, Beverley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0706239210 ISBN 13: 9780706239218

Publisher: Ward Lock Educational Co Ltd, 1979

Synopsis

Although The Age of Enlightenment was specifically designed as a combined course reader and anthology for the Open University Course A204 The Enlightenment, it should be of considerable interest both to other students of the period and to the general reader wanting to get to grips with this fascinating age, not secondhand through a history textbook, but directly through the actual writing of the time. In this, students of the eighteenth century are particularly fortunate, for many of its greatest thinkers and controversialists were also outstanding stylists whose writings are as entertaining as they are important. The Age of Enlightenment exploits this attractive characteristic by including a considerable quantity of material from such figures as Gibbon, Hume, Adam Smith, Johnson, Voltaire, Buffon, Diderot and D'Alembert. To give the reader an idea of the intellectual context in which these writers worked, the major texts are backed up by a wealth of additional material (much of it no longer easily available) which reflects the wide range of issues and styles characteristic of the eighteenth century. Although not rigidly sub-divided into sections the excerpts have been selected to illustrate certain major themes; the concept of the 'classic' in literature, religion and the debate about Providence; political and economic matters; the Roman Empire and its legacy; architecture; interior decoration and painting; systematic knowledge and science; the problem of patronage. To make this anthology even more accessible each excerpt has its own introduction and is accompanied, where necessary, by explanatory footnotes.

About this title

From the Publisher

Get to grips with the period through the actual writing of the time.

Synopsis

This book should be of considerable interest both to readers of the period and to the general reader wanting to get to grips with this fascinating age, the eighteenth century.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ward Lock Educational Co Ltd
• Publication date: 1979
• ISBN 10: 0706239210
• ISBN 13: 9780706239218
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352