This up-to-date introduction to the French Enlightenment corrects the view that the writers of the period were a mere stopover to modernity. It discusses current debates that A-level and first-year students need to know today. Voltaire agonised over the fact that his 'age of critique' followed Louis XIV's much more important 'age of genius'.Church religion was dispensed with, but not religion itself. Enlightenment was a fierce battle that lacked a predetermined outcome. The book covers key exam literature, in particular Voltaire, Diderot, d'Alembert, Rousseau, Montesquieu and also Rivarol,...
This up-to-date introduction to the French Enlightenment corrects the view that the writers of the period were a mere stopover to modernity. It dis...
The monarchs of seventeenth-century Europe put a surprisingly high priority on the abolition of dueling, seeing its eradication as an important step from barbarism toward a rational state monopoly on justice. But it was one thing to ban dueling and another to stop it. Duelists continued to kill each other with swords or pistols in significant numbers deep into the nineteenth century. In 1883 Maupassant called dueling "the last of our unreasonable customs." As a dramatic and forbidden ritual from another age, the duel retained a powerful hold on the public mind and, in particular, the...
The monarchs of seventeenth-century Europe put a surprisingly high priority on the abolition of dueling, seeing its eradication as an important ste...
