Research Catalog

The party of humanity : essays in the French enlightenment

Title

The party of humanity : essays in the French enlightenment / by Peter Gay.

Author

Gay, Peter, 1923-2015

Publication

New York : Knopf, 1964.
[©1963].

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Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	6121.381	Off-site

Details

Description

xiii, 289, viii pages; 22 cm

Summary

“Often the target of uninformed or hostile criticism, the Enlightenment has been characterized as “shallow and pretentious intellectualism” and “unreasonable contempt for authority and tradition.” In this provocative book-at once a scholarly study and a vigorous polemic-Peter Gay sets out to shatter old myths, to sort out illusions from reality, and to restore the men of the Enlightenment-Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot-to the esteem they deserve. The nine related essays in The Party of Humanity fall into three divisions: three are on Voltaire, presenting the great philosophe as a tough-minded, realistic man of letters who tried to reshape his world, rather than as a merely brittle and shallow wit. Then, three essays discuss the French Enlightenment as a whole and seek for the unity underlying the diversity of tempers and attitudes among its leaders. The last three, which include Mr. Gay’s well-known critique of Carl Becker’s The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers, challenge some widely accepted views of the Enlightenment. The longest chapter here is a detailed examination of Rousseau and his reputation among his interpreters. What all nine essays have in common, apart from their portrayal of the philosophes as serious and engaged partisans of humanity, is that they are essays in the social history of ideas; they all treat ideas as inseparable from the specific social and cultural setting from which they emerge, and which they affect.”- Publisher

Series Statement

Borzoi book

Uniform Title

Borzoi book

Alternative Title

Essays in the French enlightenment.

Subject

Genre/Form

Aufsatzsammlung.

Bibliography (note)

Bibliographical footnotes.

Contents

pt. 1. Voltaire: The philosophe in his dictionary: The man in his book ; The book in its culture -- Voltaire's Idées republicaines: from detection to interpretation -- Voltaire's anti-Semitism -- pt. 2. Toward synthesis: The unity of the French Enlightenment -- Three stages on love's way: Rousseau, Laclos, Diderot -- Rhetoric and politics in the French Revolution -- pt. 3. Unfinished business: Carl Becker's heavenly city -- Reading about Rousseau: A survey of the literature ; A blueprint for a biography -- The party of humanity.

LCCN

63020835

OCLC

ocm00372290
372290
SCSB-179815

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library