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This volume surveys the burst of political imagination that created
multiple Enlightenment cultures in an era widely understood as an
age of democratic revolutions. Enlightenment as precursor to
liberal democratic modernity was once secular catechism for
generations of readers. Yet democracy did not elicit much
enthusiasm among contemporaries, while democracy as a political
system remained virtually nonexistent through much of the period.
If seventeenth- and eighteenth-century ideas did underwrite the
democracies of succeeding centuries, they were often inheritances
from monarchical governments that had encouraged plural structures
of power competition. But in revolutions across France, Britain,
and North America, the republican integration of constitutional
principle and popular will established rational hope for public
happiness. Nevertheless, the tragic clashes of principle and will
in fraught revolutionary projects were also democratic legacies.
Each chapter focuses on a distinct theme: sovereignty; liberty and
the rule of law; the "common good"; economic and social democracy;
religion and the principles of political obligation; citizenship
and gender; ethnicity, race, and nationalism; democratic crises,
revolutions, and civil resistance; international relations; and the
transformations of sovereignty-a synoptic survey of the cultural
entanglements of "enlightenment" and "democracy."
This volume surveys the burst of political imagination that created
multiple Enlightenment cultures in an era widely understood as an
age of democratic revolutions. Enlightenment as precursor to
liberal democratic modernity was once secular catechism for
generations of readers. Yet democracy did not elicit much
enthusiasm among contemporaries, while democracy as a political
system remained virtually nonexistent through much of the period.
If seventeenth- and eighteenth-century ideas did underwrite the
democracies of succeeding centuries, they were often inheritances
from monarchical governments that had encouraged plural structures
of power competition. But in revolutions across France, Britain,
and North America, the republican integration of constitutional
principle and popular will established rational hope for public
happiness. Nevertheless, the tragic clashes of principle and will
in fraught revolutionary projects were also democratic legacies.
Each chapter focuses on a distinct theme: sovereignty; liberty and
the rule of law; the “common good”; economic and social
democracy; religion and the principles of political obligation;
citizenship and gender; ethnicity, race, and nationalism;
democratic crises, revolutions, and civil resistance; international
relations; and the transformations of sovereignty—a synoptic
survey of the cultural entanglements of “enlightenment” and
“democracy.”
Historians of ideas have traditionally discussed the significance
of the French Revolution through the prism of several major
interpretations, including the commentaries of Burke, Tocqueville
and Marx. This book argues that the Scottish Enlightenment offered
an alternative and equally powerful interpretative framework for
the Revolution, which focused on the transformation of the polite,
civilised moeurs that had defined the 'modernity' analysed by Hume
and Smith in the eighteenth century. The Scots observed what they
understood as a military- and democracy-led transformation of
European modern morals and concluded that the real historical
significance of the Revolution lay in the transformation of
warfare, national feelings and relations between states, war and
commerce that characterised the post-revolutionary international
order. This book recovers the Scottish philosophers' powerful
discussion of the nature of post-revolutionary modernity and shows
that it is essential to our understanding of nineteenth-century
political thought.
Historians of ideas have traditionally discussed the significance
of the French Revolution through the prism of several major
interpretations, including the commentaries of Burke, Tocqueville
and Marx. This book argues that the Scottish Enlightenment offered
an alternative and equally powerful interpretative framework for
the Revolution, which focused on the transformation of the polite,
civilised moeurs that had defined the 'modernity' analysed by Hume
and Smith in the eighteenth century. The Scots observed what they
understood as a military- and democracy-led transformation of
European modern morals and concluded that the real historical
significance of the Revolution lay in the transformation of
warfare, national feelings and relations between states, war and
commerce that characterised the post-revolutionary international
order. This book recovers the Scottish philosophers' powerful
discussion of the nature of post-revolutionary modernity and shows
that it is essential to our understanding of nineteenth-century
political thought.
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