This book explores the origins of the influential view of modern society that places a "middle class" at its center, as it developed in Britain during the so-called "Industrial Revolution." Using a wider variety of sources and closer methods of textual analysis than previous studies of languages of class, the author develops a nuanced model for the interplay of social reality and social language. He demonstrates that a "middle class"-based language of social description did not simply reflect changes in social structure, but was rather the outcome of political circumstances in a period of radical political change.

A masterful deciphering of an extraordinary art object, illuminating some of the biggest questions of the eighteenth century The Throne of the Great Mogul (1701–8) is a unique work of European decorative art: an intricate miniature of the court of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb depicted during the emperor’s birthday celebrations. It was created by the jeweler Johann Melchior Dinglinger in Dresden and purchased by the Saxon prince Augustus the Strong for an enormous sum. Constructed like a theatrical set made of gold, silver, thousands of gemstones, and amazing enamel work, it consists of 164 pieces that together tell a detailed story. Why did Dinglinger invest so much time and effort in making this piece? Why did Augustus, in the midst of a political and financial crisis, purchase it? And why did the jeweler secrete in it messages wholly unrelated to the prince or to the Great Mogul? In answering these questions, Dror Wahrman, while shifting scales from microhistory to global history, opens a window onto major historical themes of the period: the nature of European absolutism, the princely politics of the Holy Roman Empire, the changing meaning of art in the West, the surprising emergence of a cross-continental lexicon of rulership shared across the Eastern Hemisphere, and the enactment in jewels and gold of quirky contemporary theories about the global history of religion.

A synthesis of eighteenth-century intellectual and cultural developments that offers an original explanation of how Enlightenment thought grappled with the problem of divine agency. Why is the world orderly, and how does this order come to be? Human beings inhabit a multitude of apparently ordered systems-natural, social, political, economic, cognitive, and others-whose origins and purposes are often obscure. In the eighteenth century, older certainties about such orders, rooted in either divine providence or the mechanical operations of nature, began to fall away. In their place arose a new appreciation for the complexity of things, a new recognition of the world's disorder and randomness, new doubts about simple relations of cause and effect-but with them also a new ability to imagine the world's orders, whether natural or manmade, as self-organizing. If large systems are left to their own devices, eighteenth-century Europeans increasingly came to believe, order will emerge on its own without any need for external design or direction. In Invisible Hands, Jonathan Sheehan and Dror Wahrman trace the many appearances of the language of self-organization in the eighteenth-century West. Across an array of domains, including religion, society, philosophy, science, politics, economy, and law, they show how and why this way of thinking came into the public view, then grew in prominence and arrived at the threshold of the nineteenth century in versatile, multifarious, and often surprising forms. Offering a new synthesis of intellectual and cultural developments, Invisible Hands is a landmark contribution to the history of the Enlightenment and eighteenth-century culture.

Why and how did the British people come to see themselves as living in a society centred around a middle class? The answer provided by Professor Wahrman challenges most prevalent historical narratives: the key to understanding changes in conceptualizations of society, the author argues, lies not in underlying transformations of social structure, in this case industrialization, which supposedly created and empowered the middle class, but rather in changing political configurations. Firmly grounded in a close reading of an extensive array of sources, and supported by comparative perspectives on France and America, the book offers a nuanced model for the interplay between social reality, politics, and the languages of class. For all those interested in the question whether class is best seen as a category of special and economic history or as an artefact of political discourse, this book should be useful reading.

For 300 years, a unique and complex artistic puzzle has been hidden, the solution of which reveals an extraordinary critique of what can be described as the first modern media revolution. The mind behind this puzzle was a Dutch/British still-life painter named Edward Collier. Working around 1700, Collier has been neglected, even forgotten, precisely because his secret messages have never been noticed, let alone understood. Until now. In this book, Dror Wahrman recovers the tale of an extraordinary illusionist artist who engaged in a wholly original way with a major transformation of his generation: an unprecedented explosion in cheap print - newspapers, pamphlets, informational publications, artistic prints - that was produced for immediate release and far-flung circulation faster and in larger quantities that ever before. Edward Collier developed a secret language within his still-life paintings - replete with minutely coded messages, witty games, intricate allusions, and private jokes - in order to draw attention to the potential and the pitfalls of this new information age, uncannily prefiguring the modern perspectives of the media-savvy 21st century. This heretofore obscure artist embedded in his paintings an ingenious commentary on the media revolution of his period, on the birth of modern politics, and on art itself.

Why is the world orderly, and how does order occur? Humans inhabit many systems - natural, social, political, economic, cognitive, and others - with seemingly obscure origins. In the eighteenth century, older certainties, rooted in divine providence or mechanistic explanations, began to fall away. In their place arose a new appreciation for complexity and randomness along with an ability to see the world's orders - whether natural or manmade - as self-organizing. If large systems were left to their own devices, eighteenth-century Europeans came to believe, order would emerge on its own without any need for external design or direction. In Invisible Hands, Jonathan Sheehan and Dror Wahrman trace the versatile language of self-organization in the eighteenth-century West. Across an array of domains, including religion, philosophy, science, politics, economy, and law, they show how and why this way of thinking entered the public view and then spread in diverse and often surprising forms. Offering a new synthesis of intellectual and cultural developments, Invisible Hands is a landmark contribution to the history of the Enlightenment.

In this vanguard collection, a stellar group of internationally known scholars explores a key period in the making of the modern West. Although the long-standing notion of "dual revolutions," economic in Britain and political in France, has been vigorously challenged in recent years, these authors find that "revolutionary" is an apt description of the important cultural transformations that took place in both France and Britain at the onset of modernity.
The essays, by social and cultural historians as well as by literary scholars, range over many critical themes within this cross-cultural revolution: class, politics, and the nature of social change; gender and identity; race and imperialism; and the reach of the cultural imaginary. Combining primary research with theoretical reflection, each chapter makes a fresh and compelling contribution to the rethinking of these crucial years in world history. "The Age of Cultural Revolutions, " a superb distillation of the interdisciplinary perspectives of culturally sensitive experts, is revolutionary in itself and will be a valuable model for scholars and students interested in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain and France, European cultural history, and historical method.

Toward the end of the eighteenth century, a radical change occurred in notions of self and personal identity. This was a sudden transformation, says Dror Wahrman, and nothing short of a revolution in the understanding of selfhood and of identity categories including race, gender, and class. In this pathbreaking book, he offers a fundamentally new interpretation of this critical turning point in Western history.
Wahrman demonstrates this transformation with a fascinating variety of cultural evidence from eighteenth-century England, from theater to beekeeping, fashion to philosophy, art to travel and translations of the classics. He discusses notions of self in the earlier 1700s--what he terms the ancien regime of identity--that seem bizarre, even incomprehensible, to present-day readers. He then examines how this peculiar world came to an abrupt end, and the far-reaching consequences of that change. This unrecognized cultural revolution, the author argues, set the scene for the array of new departures that signaled the onset of Western modernity.