Au XXIe siecle, l'Europe ne fait plus rever: son modele est conteste, tant sur le plan economique qu'intellectuel et politique. Face a ces desillusions, il est urgent d'interroger les origines de l'idee d'Europe: quand et comment la notion d'Europe s'est-elle definie? L'ouvrage dirige par Antoine Lilti et Celine Spector propose un detour par les Lumieres. Si l'Europe peut s'enorgueillir d'une longue histoire, c'est bien au XVIIIe siecle qu'elle est devenue un enjeu philosophique, historique et politique majeur. De Montesquieu a Kant, de Voltaire a Burke ou a Robertson, l'idee d'Europe est au coeur des controverses sur le droit international comme sur l'economie politique, sur la legitimite de l'expansion coloniale comme sur les espoirs d'un monde pacifie. Veritable enquete collective conduite par des historiens et des philosophes, Penser l'Europe au XVIIIe siecle aborde trois elements majeurs autour desquels gravite le concept naissant d'Europe: l'empire, le commerce et la civilisation. Apres avoir decrit la maniere dont l'ordre europeen a ete concu, les auteurs examinent la question de l'expansion commerciale et coloniale de l'Europe, ainsi que les theories de la civilisation, qui permettent d'interroger le statut de l'exceptionnalisme europeen. Le siecle des Lumieres ne nous presente pas un ideal europeen a ressusciter, mais un champ d'interrogations dont nous ne sommes jamais veritablement sortis.

Celebrity Across the Channel, 1750-1850 is the first book to study and compare the concept of celebrity in France and Britain from 1750 to 1850 as the two countries transformed into the states we recognize today. It offers a transnational perspective by placing in dialogue the growing fields of celebrity studies in the two countries, especially by engaging with Antoine Lilti’s seminal work, The Invention of Celebrity, translated into English in 2017. With contributions from a diverse range of scholarly cultures, the volume has a firmly interdisciplinary scope over the time period 1750 to 1850, which was an era marked by social, political, and cultural upheaval. Bringing together the fields of history, politics, literature, theater studies, and musicology, the volume employs a firmly interdisciplinary scope to explore an era marked by social, political, and cultural upheaval. The organization of the collection allows for new readings of the similarities and differences in the understanding of celebrity in Britain and France. Consequently, the volume builds upon the questions that are currently at the heart of celebrity studies.

The world of the 18th century salon has long been lauded as a meritocratic setting where writers, philosophers, and women created the Enlightenment. Jurgen Habermas' influential theory of the public sphere was largely based on the salon. Based on a thorough study of archival sources and using methodology derived from cultural history, social history, and the history of literature, The World of Salons proposes a completely new reading of salons' sociability in eighteenth-century Paris. It challenges the commonly accepted vision of salons as literary circles that were part of the Republic of Letters. It argues, instead, that salons were institutions of wordly sociability, had helped shape "the world" (le monde) and high society. They have been essential places where the aristocratic elites of the capital met and interacted with literary figures. These interactions based on the mastery of the codes of polite conversation but also on the circulation of news and of personal reputations are the subject of this book. The World of the Salon looks at the way in which eighteenth-century social elites redefined themselves through their practices of worldly sociability. It highlights why some men of letters of the Enlightenment attended the salons. Moving from the salons to worldliness permits taking on some broader debates as well. What relations did worldly sociability maintain with the public sphere? How did the Parisian nobility use the idea of worldly merit and the figure of the man of the world (homme du monde) to preserve its social preeminence? Was the new political culture characterized by an appeal to the public compatible with the monarchical apparatus and with court intrigues? A shortened and revised version of the French edition of this book, The World of the Salons is suitable for an Anglophone audience of early modern European cultural, political, and intellectual historians.

The world of the eighteenth-century salon has long been lauded as a meritocratic setting where writers, philosophers, and women created the Enlightenment. In The World of the Salons, historian Antoine Lilti proposes a fresh interpretation of salons in eighteenth-century Paris. Drawing on cultural history, social history, and the history of literature, he challenges the commonly accepted vision of salons as literary circles that were part of the Republic of Letters. Lilti argues, instead, that salons were institutions of worldly sociability that helped shape "the world" (le monde) and high society. They were essential places where the aristocratic elites of the capital met and interacted with literary figures. Attending them required a mastery of the codes of polite conversation. There news circulated and personal reputations were made and lost. As opposed to the salon being a realm separate from the court at Versailles, it was a site where elites gained enough influence to forge marital alliances, secure government appointments or pensions, and win over royal censors. These discussion circles were part of refined society, not public opinion, and those writers who gained mass appeal were shunned by salon-goers. For those who think they know what the salon meant in early modern European culture, politics, and intellectual circles, Antoine Lilti's The World of the Salons offers an important corrective of what went on behind the closed doors of the French salons.