The Enlightenment (Studies in European History)

Rating:
Summary: Impressive
Review: 130 pages of endnotes in fine print for under 500 pages of text, plus another 77 pages (again in fine print) of bibliography, and then a full index - this book is a scholar's dream. Yet its easy style is aimed at a wide readership too.

Who can doubt the seminal role of Britain in the Enlightenment? The French may have started it. But Britain carried the movement forward. I'm impressed by the evidence.

Porter gives prominent place to the roles of Hume, Locke, and especially Priestley, with justice. Also mentioned are Gibbon, Swift, Malthus, and Samuel Johnson, and of course Adam Smith. Ben Franklin was a giant of the Enlightenment, but not of BRITISH Enlightenment, although he spent many adult years living in London, and knew many of these men. (Indeed Franklin brought Priestley over to America.) So Franklin is not covered in depth here. He was American.

This is the kind of book I'd love to read on the couch in many a long Canadian winter night. I also recommend Jenny Uglow's "The Lunar Men," which covers similar but not the same ground (and has much to say about Priestley too, who was also a "Lunar Man")

Rating:
Summary: Impressive
Review: 130 pages of endnotes in fine print for under 500 pages of text, plus another 77 pages (again in fine print) of bibliography, and then a full index - this book is a scholar's dream. Yet its easy style is aimed at a wide readership too.

Who can doubt the seminal role of Britain in the Enlightenment? The French may have started it. But Britain carried the movement forward. I'm impressed by the evidence.

Porter gives prominent place to the roles of Hume, Locke, and especially Priestley, with justice. Also mentioned are Gibbon, Swift, Malthus, and Samuel Johnson, and of course Adam Smith. Ben Franklin was a giant of the Enlightenment, but not of BRITISH Enlightenment, although he spent many adult years living in London, and knew many of these men. (Indeed Franklin brought Priestley over to America.) So Franklin is not covered in depth here. He was American.

This is the kind of book I'd love to read on the couch in many a long Canadian winter night. I also recommend Jenny Uglow's "The Lunar Men," which covers similar but not the same ground (and has much to say about Priestley too, who was also a "Lunar Man")

Rating:
Summary: Impressive, but...
Review: It appears that Roy Porter has a full-length book on British Enlightenment published by Penguin, and my review refers to that book and not this one, although both have the same title.