Research Catalog

Three deaths and Enlightenment thought : Hume, Johnson, Marat

Title: Three deaths and Enlightenment thought : Hume, Johnson, Marat / Stephen Miller.
Author: Miller, Stephen, 1941-
Publication: Lewisburg, Pa. : Bucknell University Press ; London ; Cranbury, NJ : Associated University Presses, 2001.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan Not available - Please for assistance.	Text	Use in library	B1302.E65 M55 2001	Off-site

Details

Description

219 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"In recent years there has been an extended debate about Enlightenment thought. Though many scholars have concluded that there were several "Enlightenments," some continue to make generalizations about the Enlightenment and some speak about "the Enlightenment agenda." After discussing the cult of the deathbed scene in eighteenth-century Britain and France, the author looks at three currents of Enlightenment thought implicit in the deathbed "projects" of David Hume, Samuel Johnson, and Jean Paul Marat. Although Hume and Johnson told profoundly different views of religion, their political thinking has much in common.
Their reformist thought differs radically from what might be called the transformist thought of Marat, who hoped the French would become disinterested citizens whose civil religion was patriotism."
"The book also looks at the response of James Boswell, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, and Edward Gibbon to the deathbed projects of Hume and Johnson, and it discusses how their political thought differs from Johnson's and Hume's. It also considers the complex relations between reformist and transformist thought in Britain during the last three decades of the century, showing how the views of the two reformist groups and of such transformist writers as Richard Price, Joseph Priestley, and Thomas Paine were affected by a number of political events, from the Wilkes crisis to the French Revolution.
Though the book focuses on Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment thought, it often refers to the French Enlightenment, and the chapter on Marat looks at the connection between transformist thought in Britain and France."--Jacket.

Subject

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. 179-210) and index.

Contents

The cult of the deathbed scene -- The death of Hume -- The death of Johnson -- The death of Marat -- The varieties of enlightenment thought.

ISBN

0838754813
9780838754818

LCCN

2001018421

OCLC

ocm45841550
45841550
SCSB-9479709

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library