The Cambridge Companion to the French Enlightenment

The Enlightenment has long been seen as synonymous with the beginnings of modern Western intellectual and political culture. As a set of ideas and a social movement, this historical moment, the 'age of reason' of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, is marked by attempts to place knowledge on new foundations. The Cambridge Companion to the French Enlightenment brings together essays by leading scholars representing disciplines ranging from philosophy, religion and literature, to art, medicine, anthropology and architecture, to analyse the French Enlightenment. Each essay presents a concise view of an important aspect of the French Enlightenment, discussing its defining characteristics, internal dynamics and historical transformations. The Companion discusses the most influential reinterpretations of the Enlightenment that have taken place during the last two decades, reinterpretations that both reflect and have contributed to important re-evaluations of received ideas about the Enlightenment and the early modern period more generally.

Author: Daniel Brewer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 10/27/2014
Pages: 265
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9781107626140

About the Author
Brewer, Daniel: - Daniel Brewer, Department of French and Italian, University of Minnesota, has published widely in the area of eighteenth-century French literature and culture. He is author of The Enlightenment Past: Reconstructing Eighteenth-Century French Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and co-editor of L'esprit créateur, an international journal of French and Francophone literature and culture.