The Scottish Enlightenment: Race, Gender, and the Limits of Progress
- ISBN-10
- 0230114911
- ISBN-13
- 9780230114913
- Series
- The Scottish Enlightenment
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 272
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2013-02-21
- Publisher
- Palgrave Macmillan
- Author
- Silvia Sebastiani
Description
The Scottish Enlightenment shaped a new conception of history as a gradual and universal progress from savagery to civil society. Whereas women emancipated themselves from the yoke of male-masters, men in turn acquired polite manners and became civilized. Such a conception, however, presents problematic questions: why were the Americans still savage? Why was it that the Europeans only had completed all the stages of the historic process? Could modern societies escape the destiny of earlier empires and avoid decadence? Was there a limit beyond which women's influence might result in dehumanization? The Scottish Enlightenment's legacy for modernity emerges here as a two-faced Janus, an unresolved tension between universalism and hierarchy, progress and the limits of progress.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2013-02-20
- 269 pages
- Ebook
- Springer
-
- 2007
- 240 pages
- Paperback
- Birlinn
Similar books
-
The Scottish Enlightenment: The Historical Age of the Historical Nation
By Alexander BroadieThe Scottish Enlightenment was one of the truly great intellectual and cultural movements of the world. Its achievements in science, philosophy, history, economics, and other disciplines also, were immense; and...
-
Origins of the Scottish Enlightenment, 1707-76
By J. RendallOrigins of the Scottish Enlightenment, 1707-76
-
The Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment
By Craig Smith, Alexander BroadieProvides a comprehensive introduction to the full range of achievements of the Scottish thinkers who so profoundly influenced western culture.
-
Character, Self, and Sociability in the Scottish Enlightenment
By T. AhnertWhilst the main focus of the book is the Scottish Enlightenment, contributors also employ a transatlantic scope by considering parallel developments in Europe, and America.
-
The Scottish Enlightenment: Essays in Reinterpretation
By Paul WoodThis volume thus enriches our picture not only of the Scottish Enlightenment, but of the Enlightenment in general.
-
Studies in the Philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment
By Michael Alexander StewartThis collection of new papers on Scottish philosophy in the age of Hutcheson and Hume pays close attention to the study of context and the use of original historical sources as a key to philosophical interpretation.
-
Social Theory of the Scottish Enlightenment
By Christopher BerryBy taking human sociality as their premise, the book shows how they produced important analyses of historical change, politics and morality, together with an assessment of their own commercial society.
-
The Scottish Enlightenment and Early Victorian English Society
By Anand C. ChitnisOriginally published in 1986, this book creates a vivid portrait of the interaction of Scottish ideas and early Victorian English society over 50 years, illuminated by detail and substantial in its range.
-
Agreeable Connexions: Scottish Enlightenment Links with France
By Alexander BroadieThis book shows that the links with France stretch back deep into the Middle Ages, and continue without a break into the eighteenth century, the Age of Enlightenment.
-
The Scottish Enlightenment: An Introduction
By David DaichesThe Scottish Enlightenment: An Introduction