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Gradually receiving legal rights from the eighteenth century onwards, Jews in Germany and Austria adapted to their surrounding culture with success but also with increasing strain as antisemitism gathered pace. Ritchie Robertson offers a cogent examination of this dual process and investigates how its tensions were articulated in a range of literary works, by both Jews and Gentile authors, from the Enlightenment to the 1930s.
New essays examine 20th-c. Austrian literature in relation to
history, politics, and popular culture. 20th-century Austrian
literature boasts many outstanding writers: Schnitzler, Musil,
Rilke, Kraus, Celan, Canetti, Bernhard, Jelinek. These and others
feature in broader accounts of German literature, but it is
desirable to see how the Austrian literary scene -- and Austrian
society itself -- shaped their writing. This volume thus surveys
Austrian writers of drama, prose fiction, and lyric poetry; relates
them to the distinctive history of modern Austria,a democratic
republic that was overtaken by civil war and authoritarian rule,
absorbed into Nazi Germany, and re-established as a neutral state;
and examines their response to controversial events such as the
collusion with Nazism, the Waldheim affair, and the rise of Haider
and the extreme right. In addition to confronting controversy in
the relations between literature, history, and politics, the volume
examines popular culture in line with current trends. Contributors:
Judith Beniston, Janet Stewart, Andrew Barker, Murray Hall, Anthony
Bushell, Dagmar Lorenz, Juliane Vogel, Jonathan Long, Joseph
McVeigh, Allyson Fiddler. Katrin Kohl is Lecturer in German and a
Fellow of Jesus College, and Ritchie Robertson is Taylor Professor
of German and a Fellow of The Queen's College, both at the
University of Oxford.
Kafka published two collections of short stories in his lifetime, A
Country Doctor: Little Tales (1919) and A Hunger Artist: Four
Stories (1924). Both collections are included in their entirety in
this edition, which also contains other uncollected stories and a
selection of posthumously published works that have become part of
the Kafka canon. Enigmatic, satirical, often bleakly humorous,
these stories approach human experience at a tangent: a singing
mouse, an ape, an inquisitive dog, and a paranoid burrowing
creature are among the protagonists, as well as the professional
hunger artist. The tales are among Kafka's best-known, haunting and
compelling satires on the human condition, on art and artists, and
on life itself, which complement his major fictions. Translated by
the award-winning Joyce Crick, the book includes an invaluable
introduction, notes, and other editorial material by renowned Kafka
scholar Ritchie Robertson. There is also a Biographical Preface, an
up-to-date bibliography, and a chronology of Kafka's life. This
volume completes an Oxford World's Classics set of five Kafka
works, in distinctive complementary cover designs.
About the Series For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has
made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the
globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to
scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of
other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading
authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date
bibliographies for further study, and much more.
In essays that examine particular non-canonical works and writers
in their wider cultural context, this volume "repopulates" the
German Enlightenment. German literature and thought flourished in
the eighteenth century, when a culture considered a European
backwater came to assert worldwide significance. This was an age in
which repeated attempts to reform German literary and philosophical
culture were made - often only to be overtaken within a few
decades. It ushered in generations of exceptionally gifted poets
and thinkers including Klopstock, Lessing, Goethe, Kant, and
Schiller, whose names still dominate our understanding of the
German Enlightenment. Yet the period also brought with it new means
of accessing and disseminating culture and a rapid increase in
cultural production. The leading lights of eighteenth-century
German culture operated against the backdrop of a yet more diverse
and vivid cast of literary and philosophical figures since
consigned to the second tier of German culture. Through essays that
examine particular non-canonical works and writers in their wider
cultural context, this collection repopulates the German
Enlightenment with these largely forgotten movements, writers, and
literary circles. It offers new insights into the development of
genres such as thenovel, the fable, and the historical drama, and
assesses the dynamics that led to individual authors, circles, and
schools of thought being left behind in their time and passed over
or inadequately understood to this day. Contributors: Johannes
Birgfeld, Stephanie Blum, Julia Bohnengel, Kristin Eichhorn, Sarah
Vandegrift Eldridge, Jonathan Blake Fine, J. C. Lees, Leonard von
Morze, Ellen Pilsworth, Joanna Raisbeck, Ritchie Robertson, Michael
Wood. Michael Wood is British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in German
at the University of Edinburgh. Johannes Birgfeld teaches Modern
German Literature at the University of the Saarland.
Key dimensions of Thomas Mann's writing and life are explored in this collection of specially commissioned essays. In addition to introductory chapters on all the main works of fiction and the essays and diaries, there are four chapters examining Mann's oeuvre in relation to major themes. A final chapter looks at the pitfalls of translating Mann into English. The essays are well supported by supplementary material including a chronology of the period and detailed guides to further reading.
Key dimensions of Thomas Mann's writing and life are explored in this collection of specially commissioned essays. In addition to introductory chapters on all the main works of fiction and the essays and diaries, there are four chapters examining Mann's oeuvre in relation to major themes. A final chapter looks at the pitfalls of translating Mann into English. The essays are well supported by supplementary material including a chronology of the period and detailed guides to further reading.
Hoffmann is among the greatest and most popular of the German
Romantics. This selection, while stressing the variety of his work,
puts in the foreground those tales in which the real and the
supernatural are brought into contact and conflict. The humour of
these tales is a result of the incongruity of supernatural beings
at large in an ostentatiously everyday world. They include The
Golden Pot, recognized as Hoffmann's masterpiece by himself and
posterity; its spine-chilling companion tale, The Sandman, which
Offenbach drew on for his opera Tales of Hoffmann, and which Freud
examines in his essay `The Uncanny'; two longer and more elaborate
fantasies, set respectively in Germany and Italy; and the late
story, My Cousin's Corner Window, which shows the powers of the
imagination being applied to everyday urban life, and marks a
transition in European literature generally from Romanticism to
Realism. Ritchie Robertson's detailed introduction places the
stories in their intellectual and historical context and explores
their compelling narrative complexities. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over
100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest
range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume
reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most
accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including
expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to
clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and
much more.
New, wide-ranging essays on the controversial poet, who was both a
harbinger of Modernism and a critic of modernity. Stefan George
(1868-1933) is along with Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Rainer Maria
Rilke one of the pre-eminent German poets of the twentieth century.
He also had an important, albeit controversial and provocative role
in German cultural history. It is generally agreed that he played a
significant part in the transition of German literature to
Modernism, particularly in poetry. At the same time he was an
outspoken critic of modernity. He believed that only
anall-encompassing cultural renewal could save modern man. Although
George is often linked with the l'art pour l'art movement, and
although his artistic consciousness was formed by European
aestheticism, his poetry and the writings that emerged from the
poets and intellectuals he gathered around him in the George Circle
are above all a scathing commentary on the political, social, and
cultural situation in Germany at the turn of the century. George,
who was imbued with the idea of the poet as a prophet and priest,
saw himself as the Messiah of a New Hellenism and a New Reich led
by an intellectual and aesthetic elite consisting of men who were
bonded together through their allegiance to a charismatic leader.
Some of the values that George proclaimed, among them a
glorification of power, of heroism and self-sacrifice, were seized
upon by the National Socialists, and subsequently his writings
andthose of his circle were considered by some to be proto-fascist.
It did not help his reputation that after the Second World War much
of the criticism of his works was practiced by uncritical,
hagiographic George worshippers. In recent years, however, there
has been a renewed and unbiased interest among scholars and critics
in George and his circle. The wide-ranging and original essays in
this volume explore anew George's poetry and his contribution to
Modernism, the relation between his vision of a New Reich and
fascist ideology, and his importance as a cultural critic. Jens
Rieckmann is Professor of German at the University of California,
Irvine.
New essays by leading scholars on the most perplexing of modern
writers, Franz Kafka. No other 20th-century writer of
German-language literature has been as fully accepted into the
canon of world literature as Franz Kafka. The unsettlingly,
enigmatically surreal world of Kafka's novels and stories continues
to fascinate readers and critics of each new generation, who in
turn continue to find new readings. One thing has become clear:
although all theories attempt to appropriate Kafka, there is no one
key to his work. The challenge to criticshas been to present a
strong point of view while taking account of previous Kafka
research, a challenge that has been met by the contributors to this
volume. Contributors: James Rolleston, Clayton Koelb, Walter H.
Sokel, Judith Ryan, Russel A. Berman, Ritchie Robertson, Henry
Sussman, Stanley Corngold, Bianca Theisen, Rolf J. Goebel, Richard
T. Gray, Ruth V. Gross, Sander L. Gilman, John Zilcosky, Mark
Harman James Rolleston is Professor Emeritus of German at Duke
University.
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Effi Briest (Paperback)
Theodor Fontane; Translated by Mike Mitchell; Introduction by Ritchie Robertson; Notes by Ritchie Robertson
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R270
R220
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'I loathe what I did, but what I loathe even more is your virtue.'
Seventeen-year-old Effi Briest is steered by her parents into
marriage with an ambitious bureaucrat, twenty years her senior. He
takes her from her home to a remote provincial town on the Baltic
coast of Prussia where she is isolated, bored, and prey to
superstitious fears. She drifts into a half-hearted affair with a
manipulative, womanizing officer, which ends when her husband is
transferred to Berlin. Years later, events are triggered that will
have profound consequences for Effi and her family. Effi Briest
(1895) is recognized as one of the masterpieces by Theodor Fontane,
Germany's premier realist novelist, and one of the great novels of
marital relations together with Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina. It
presents life among the conservative Prussian aristocracy with
irony and gentle humour, and opposes the rigid and antiquated
morality of the time by treating its heroine with sympathy and keen
psychological insight. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford
World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature
from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's
commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a
wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions
by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text,
up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
This is a study of mock-epic poetry in English, French, and German
from the 1720s to the 1840s. While mock-heroic poetry is a
parodistic counterpart to serious epic, mock-epic poetry starts by
parodying epic but moves on to much wider and richer literary
explorations; it relies heavily on intertextual allusion to other
works, on narratorial irony, on the sympathetic and sometimes
libertine presentation of sexual relations, and on a range of
satirical devices. It includes well-known texts (Pope's Dunciad,
Byron's Don Juan, Heine's Atta Troll) and others which are little
known (Ratschky's Melchior Striregel, Parny's La Guerre des Dieux).
It owes a marked debt to Italian romance epic (especially Ariosto).
The study places these texts in the literary context of the decline
of serious epic, which helped mock epic to flourish, and of the
'Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes' which questioned the
authority of Homer's and Virgil's epics; and it relates their
substance to contemporary debates about questions of religion and
gender.
Gradually receiving legal rights from the eighteenth century onwards, Jews in Germany and Austria adapted to their surrounding culture with success but also with increasing strain as antisemitism gathered pace. Ritchie Robertson offers a cogent examination of this dual process and investigates how its tensions were articulated in a range of literary works, by both Jews and Gentile authors, from the Enlightenment to the 1930s.
It is one of the most memorable first lines in all of literature:
"When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found
himself transformed into some kind of monstrous vermin." So begins
Kafka's famous short story, The Metamorphosis. Kafka considered
publishing it with two of the stories included here in a volume to
be called Punishments. The Judgment explores an enigmatic power
struggle between a father and son, while In the Penal Colony
examines questions of power, justice, punishment, and the meaning
of pain in a colonial setting. These three stories are flanked by
two very different works. Meditation, the first book Kafka
published, consists of light, whimsical, often poignant
mood-pictures, while the autobiographical Letter to his Father
analyzes his difficult relationship with his father in devastating
detail. This new translation by Joyce Crick pays particular
attention to the nuances of Kafka's style, and the Introduction and
notes by Ritchie Robertson provide guidance to this most enigmatic
and rewarding of writers. There is also a Biographical Preface, an
up-to-date bibliography, and a chronology of Kafka's life.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has
made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the
globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to
scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of
other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading
authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date
bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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Conversations with Goethe (Paperback)
Johann Peter Eckermann; Translated by Allan Blunden; Introduction by Ritchie Robertson
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R405
R335
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A perceptive introduction to the mind of one of German's greatest
writers, in a new translation for the first time in 150 years 'The
best German book there is' Nietzsche By the turn of the nineteenth
century, the poet, novelist and thinker Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
was one of the most famous people in the world. In 1823 he became
friend and mentor to the young writer Johann Eckermann, who, for
the last nine years of Goethe's life, recorded their wide-ranging
conversations on art, literature, science and philosophy. This rich
portrait of Germany's literary elder statesman, now in its first
new translation for over 150 years, gives a fascinating glimpse
into a great mind as well as 'many insights and invaluable lessons
about life.' Translated by Allan Blunden with an Introduction by
Ritchie Robertson
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The Trial (Paperback)
Franz Kafka; Translated by Mike Mitchell; Edited by Ritchie Robertson
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R267
R217
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'Someone must have been telling tales about Josef K. for one
morning, without having done anything wrong, he was arrested.' A
successful professional man wakes up one morning to find himself
under arrest for an offence which is never explained. The
mysterious court which conducts his trial is outwardly
co-operative, but capable of horrific violence. Faced with this
ambiguous authority, Josef K. gradually succumbs to its
psychological pressure. He consults various advisers without
escaping his fate. Was there some way out that he failed to see?
Kafka's unfinished novel has been read as a study of political
power, a pessimistic religious parable, or a crime novel where the
accused man is himself the problem. One of the iconic figures of
modern world literature, Kafka writes about universal problems of
guilt, responsibility, and freedom; he offers no solutions, but
provokes his readers to arrive at meanings of their own. This new
edition includes the fragmentary chapters that were omitted from
the main text, in a translation that is both natural and exact, and
an introduction that illuminates the novel and its author. ABOUT
THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made
available the widest range of literature from around the globe.
Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship,
providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable
features, including expert introductions by leading authorities,
helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for
further study, and much more.
In this concise yet comprehensive critical biography, Ritchie
Robertson examines the work of Friedrich Nietzsche within the
context of his life. The book traces Nietzsche’s development from
outstanding classical scholar to cultural critic, who measured
Imperial Germany by the standards of ancient Greece. It follows him
thence to prophet (in the persona of Zarathustra) and savage
polemicist against modern liberal values, offering a ‘philosophy
of the future’. Robertson argues that Nietzsche’s middle-period
writings offer a subtle and searching analysis of his culture, more
rewarding than the strident and often-controversial later works.
The book also assesses Nietzsche’s claim to be continuing the
Enlightenment, and shows that he valued reason, evidence and fact,
without which his historical case against Christianity would make
no sense.
Entering New York harbor, the young immigrant Karl Rossmann sees
the Statue of Liberty, "her arm with the sword stretched upward."
This forbidding introduction sets the tone for Kafka's narrative
about an innocent European astray in an ultra-modern America that
is both a fantasy and an object of social satire. Full of incident
and blackly humorous, Kafka's first novel portrays American
civilization with horrified fascination, in a biting satire which
gives fresh meaning to the term "Kafkaesque." Ritchie Robertson's
sensitive and natural translation is both faithful to Kafka's style
and highly readable. Moreover, this is the only edition to provide
a full introduction and explanatory notes. The introduction
explains why Kafka set the novel in America, a country he had never
visited, what his sources of information were, and how he distorts
his fictional America for satirical purposes. The notes incorporate
the most recent Kafka scholarship to illuminate difficult parts of
the text. In addition, a Biographical Preface provides an account
of Kafka's life. The book also includes an up-to-date bibliography
and a chronology.
About the Series For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has
made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the
globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to
scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of
other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading
authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date
bibliographies for further study, and much more.
One hundred years ago Sigmund Freud published The Interpretations
of Dreams, a book that, like Darwin's The Origin of Species,
revolutionized our understanding of human nature. Now this
groundbreaking new translation--the first to be based on the
original text published in November 1899--brings us a more
readable, more accurate, and more coherent picture of Freud's
masterpiece.
The first edition of The Interpretation of Dreams is much shorter
than its subsequent editions; each time the text was reissued, from
1909 onwards, Freud added to it. The most significant, and in many
ways the most unfortunate addition, is a 50-page section devoted to
the kind of mechanical reading of dream symbolism--long objects
equal male genitalia, etc.--that has gained popular currency and
partially obscured Freud's more profound insights into dreams. In
the original version presented here, Freud's emphasis falls more
clearly on the use of words in dreams and on the difficulty of
deciphering them. Without the strata of later additions, readers
will find here a clearer development of Freud's central ideas--of
dream as wish-fulfillment, of the dream's manifest and latent
content, of the retelling of dreams as a continuation of the
dreamwork, and much more. Joyce Crick's translation is lighter and
faster-moving than previous versions, enhancing the sense of
dialogue with the reader, one of Freud's stylistic strengths, and
allowing us to follow Freud's theory as it evolved through
difficult cases, apparently intractable counter-examples, and
fascinating analyses of Freud's own dreams.
The restoration of Freud's classic is a major event, giving us in
a sense a new work by one of this century' most startling,
original, and influential thinkers.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has
made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the
globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to
scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of
other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading
authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date
bibliographies for further study, and much more.
Kafka wrote Das Urteil, his first major work of literature, in a
single night in the autumn of 1912. It was for him a breakthrough,
and closely connected with it was the awakening of his interest in
Jewish culture. This is a general study of Kafka, which explores
the literary and historical context of his writings, and links them
with his emergent sense of Jewish identity. What is emphasized
throughout is Kafka's concern with contemporary society - his
distrust of its secular, humanitarian ideals - and his desire for a
new kind of community, based on religion.
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The Castle (Paperback, Critical)
Franz Kafka, Anthea Bell; Edited by Ritchie Robertson
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R272
R222
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Kafka's last novel, The Castle is set in a remote village covered
almost permanently in snow and dominated by a castle and its staff
of dictatorial, sexually predatory bureaucrats. The novel breaks
new ground in exploring the relation between the individual and
power, asking why the villagers so readily submit to an authority
which may exist only in their collective imagination. Published
only after Kafka's death, The Castle appeared in the same decade as
modernist masterpieces by Eliot, Joyce, Woolf, Mann and Proust, and
is among the central works of modern literature. This new
translation by prize-winning translator Anthea Bell follows the
German text established by critical scholarship, and mentions
manuscript variants in the notes. The detailed introduction by
Ritchie Robertson, a leading Kafka scholar, explores the many
meanings of this famously enigmatic novel, providing guidance
without reducing the reader's freedom to make sense of this
fascinating novel. In addition, the edition includes a Biographical
Preface which places Kafka within the context of his time, plus an
up-to-date bibliography and chronology of Kafka's life.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has
made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the
globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to
scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of
other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading
authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date
bibliographies for further study, and much more.
In 1878 the Victorian critic Matthew Arnold wrote: 'Goethe is the
greatest poet of modern times... because having a very considerable
gift for poetry, he was at the same time, in the width, depth, and
richness of his criticism of life, by far our greatest modern man.'
In this Very Short Introduction Ritchie Robertson covers the life
and work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832): scientist,
administrator, artist, art critic and supreme literary writer in a
vast variety of genres. Looking at Goethe's poetry, novels and
drama pieces, as well as his travel writing, autobiography, and
essays on art and aesthetics, Robertson analyses some of the key
themes in his works: love, nature, religion and tragedy. Dispelling
the misconception of Goethe as a sedate Victorian sage, Robertson
shows how much of his art was rooted in turbulent personal
conflicts, and draws on recent research to present a complete
portrait of the scientific work and political activity which
accompanied Goethe's writings. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short
Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds
of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books
are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our
expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and
enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly
readable.
Isaiah Berlin (1909-97) was recognized as Britain's most
distinguished historian of ideas. Many of his essays discussed
thinkers of what this book calls the 'long Enlightenment' (from
Vico in the eighteenth century to Marx and Mill in the nineteenth,
with Machiavelli as a precursor). Yet he is particularly associated
with the concept of the 'Counter-Enlightenment', comprising those
thinkers (Herder, Hamann, and even Kant) who in Berlin's view
reacted against the Enlightenment's naive rationalism, scientism
and progressivism, its assumption that human beings were basically
homogeneous and could be rendered happy by the remorseless
application of scientific reason. Berlin's 'Counter-Enlightenment'
has received critical attention, but no-one has yet analysed the
understanding of the Enlightenment on which it rests. Isaiah Berlin
and the Enlightenment explores the development of Berlin's
conception of the Enlightenment, noting its curious narrowness, its
ambivalence, and its indebtedness to a specific German intellectual
tradition. Contributors to the book examine his comments on
individual writers, showing how they were inflected by his
questionable assumptions, and arguing that some of the writers he
assigned to the 'Counter-Enlightenment' have closer affinities to
the Enlightenment than he recognized. By locating Berlin in the
history of Enlightenment studies, this book also makes a
contribution to defining the historical place of his work and to
evaluating his intellectual legacy.
'The best single-volume study of the Enlightenment that we have'
Literary Review The Enlightenment is one of the formative periods
of Western history, yet more than 300 years after it began, it
remains controversial. It is often seen as the fountainhead of
modern values such as human rights, religious toleration, freedom
of thought, scientific thought as an exemplary form of reasoning,
and rationality and evidence-based argument. Others accuse the
Enlightenment of putting forward a scientific rationality which
ignores the complexity and variety of human beings, propagates
shallow atheism, and aims to subjugate nature to so-called
technical progress. Answering the question 'what is Enlightenment?'
Kant famously urged men and women above all to 'have the courage to
use your own understanding'. Robertson shows how the thinkers of
the Enlightenment did just that, seeking a rounded understanding of
humanity in which reason was balanced with emotion and sensibility.
His book goes behind the controversies about the Enlightenment to
return to its original texts and to show that above all it sought
to increase human happiness in this world by promoting scientific
inquiry and reasoned argument. His book overturns many received
opinions - for example, that enlightenment necessarily implied
hostility to religion (though it did challenge the authority
traditionally assumed by the Churches). It is a master-class in
'big picture' history, about one of the foundational epochs of
modern times.
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