This book attempts to defend the use of the term 'English Enlightenment' by using late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Cambridge as an illustration of the widespread diffusion of some of the chief characteristics of the Enlightenment within the Church of England and the English 'Establishment' more generally. It also seeks to provide a social context for the dissemination of such ideas by indicating how the political and ecclesiastical consequences of such events as the Restoration, the Glorious Revolution and the French Revolution helped either to facilitate or to impede that linkage...

Joseph Banks's name is attached to various plant species around the world; he was President of the Royal Society, a Privy Councillor and adviser to the English government on a range of scientific and imperial issues. He was a driving force in the establishment of a penal colony at Botany Bay. Yet there are few monuments to him, and while he has been the subject of a number of biographies, these have been focused on his personal career rather than his relations to some of the movements of the period. This book places the work of Joseph Banks in the context of the Enlightenment. Banks's...

This book surveys some of the key intellectual influences in the formation of Australian society by emphasizing the impact of the Enlightenment, with its commitment to rational inquiry and progress. The first part analyzes the political and religious background of the period from the First Fleet (1788) to the mid-nineteenth century. The second demonstrates the pervasiveness of ideas of improvement across a range of human endeavors, from agriculture to education, penal discipline and race relations. Throughout, the book highlights the extent to which developments in Australia can be compared...

This book examines Sir Joseph Banks' role in promoting "imperial science," in the context of the consolidation of the British State during a time of extraordinary upheaval. Under pressure from the American, French and Industrial revolutions, the State became interested in the possible uses of science for economic and strategic gain. Banks became its principal adviser in scientific matters, and Gascoigne shows how he used personal networks and patronage to integrate scientific concerns into the complex machinery of government.

Recent years have witnessed an intensification in the debate at the European level regarding the regulation of gambling. This publication, following a conference hosted in Leuven in November 2009, tracks these developments following two parallels: in terms of European and national developments, and legal and political ones. Attention is directed to the ever expanding case-law and Opinions of the Advocates General of the Court of Justice in Luxembourg and how debate at the European level is influencing national regulatory regimes in terms of online and offline gambling. Belgium, France,...