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The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments
In an elegant, eminently readable work, one of our most distinguished intellectual historians gives us a brilliant revisionist history. The Roads to Modernity reclaims the Enlightenment–an extraordinary time bursting with new ideas about human nature, politics, society, and religion--from historians who have downgraded its importance and from scholars who have given preeminence to the Enlightenment in France over concurrent movements in England and America. Contrasting the Enlightenments in the three nations, Himmelfarb demonstrates the primacy and wisdom of the British, exemplified in such thinkers as Adam Smith, David Hume, and Edmund Burke, as well as the unique and enduring contributions of the American Founders. It is their Enlightenments, she argues, that created a social ethic–humane, compassionate, and realistic–that still resonates strongly today, in America perhaps even more than in Europe. The Roads to Modernity is a remarkable and illuminating contribution to the history of ideas.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
55 people are currently reading
1047 people want to read
About the author
Gertrude Himmelfarb
57 books44 followersGertrude Himmelfarb, also known as Bea Kristol, was an American historian. She was a leader and conservative interpretations of history and historiography. She wrote extensively on intellectual history, with a focus on Britain and the Victorian era, as well as on contemporary society and culture.
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April 13, 2012
A NeoConservative view of the Enlightenment. In a nutshell she argues that the British and American limited vesions of the Enlightenment are good and the Nasty Radical French version of it is bad.
May 30, 2021
In this book, Himmelfarb sets out to “reclaim” the Enlightenment from two factions: historians who have downgraded its importance; and scholars who have given its pre-eminence to the French. Regarding the former, Himmelfarb believes that the Enlightenment is alive and well, with resonances for many of us today. She develops her main theme, however, by extending and differently-qualifying what she means by “the enlightenment”. To this end, she is concerned to expand on the contributions of the British (and this part occupies the first half of this book, and uses up some 121 pages of text); the second part is devoted to the French (38 pages) and the third part to the American (35 pages). The bias here is obviously towards the British side.
It also allows her to differentiate between three different types of “enlightenment” — the British is termed The Sociology of Virtue; the French isThe Ideology of Reason; and the American is The Politics of Liberty.
An astute reader would note that this method of dividing up concepts and further sub-dividing them into dual aspects apparently peculiar to each of the three original divisions, then researching elements of each of these six sub-divisions (more extensively in the case of Britain), the groundwork is laid out whereby each “issue” can be presented more or less objectively within its limits (by presenting references to written comments about them, and in many cases also presenting objections to those comments) and then in effect cherry-picking all those elements which reinforce the original selection and divisions. Further, the cherry-picking technique tends to flick between differing times and events during the period in question. This permits “arguments” to be developed which are used to further reinforce Himmelfarb’s preferences.
This also creates a befuddlement of the original issues involved. The result seems to be a confusion of battling concepts which in toto might very well be reflected in contemporary complex Western issues, but which are hardly exclusive to our times. It is all very well to argue that the British contribution was based on “social” philosophical issues, which incorporated “virtues” such as “compassion” and “benevolence”, but one does need to emphasise that these words as used in the mid 18th-c in England did not have the same meanings or connotations they might have to a 21st-c Western reader. As a rule, virtue, compassion and benevolence in mid 18th-c England meant compliance with the status quo, whether political or religious: there was no virtue in questioning the political or religious system, and no compassion or benevolence towards those who might upset the applecart, as it were, in these matters. It’s all very relative!
Thus it seems particularly odd that Himmelfarb singles out John Wesley and his Methodists (the development of his special schools, and the subsequent efflorescence of Evangelicalism throughout the world) as a source of “something like an Enlightenment for the common man” by the end of the 19th-c. The split between the Methodist Church and the Anglican Church happened after Wesley’s death in 1791; but the antipathy and persecution of him and his church by the Anglicans had begun from 1739 onwards. So much for virtue, compassion and benevolence. So much for a “British Enlightenment”.
The “relativity” question extends itself to the six sub-divisions as well: each of the six of them can be understood as being applicable to every other sub-division. Himmelfarb has used these as defining differences; I prefer to see them as arbitrary distinctions which can be used in any combination one might wish. For example, one can see “virtue” in sociology, as an ideology, as rational, as political and as a quality of liberty; and the same applies to each “distinction” — they’re not so distinct after all…
Himmelfarb presents her “three enlightenments” as following three main courses: first the British, then the French, then the American. This is, of course, misleading. Whatever might be claimed as British influences cannot be excluded from other countries in Europe. England, France and America were all in the throes of disturbing and unsettling political developments. In a sense they all contributed to the intellectual ferment of the times in Europe. To argue that just these three countries each had its own “enlightenment” is merely elaborating the fact that each dealt with its own problems in ways coloured by the differing realities surrounding them.
As I understand it, the Enlightenment was a European intellectual movement which individual countries made use of as they saw fit. It is not easy to simplify the situation by saying one came “first” followed by others. One, thing, however, is clear: neither England nor America was in a position to claim ownership of the Enlightenment movement, although both countries could admit being “influenced” by its ideas. If there is one place where the movement did find a home, it was in Baron d’Holbach’s salon and the philosophes who attended it in the mid 18th-c. Here all interested parties were welcomed from whatever country, and their ideas discussed in an open-minded environment; and this home was in France.
If there is one thing the Enlightenment stands for, it is the insistence on Reason as the philosophical basis for any real progress for humanity in all its endeavours. Human Nature can very readily be described as an emotional animal, and appears more than anything to act and react emotionally, whether on a personal, tribal, social or national level. These emotions are often and too readily based on bias, ignorance, superstition and fear. These qualities are well known as the cause of much grief and suffering in the world. It is only by subjecting these emotional factors to the light of Reason that we can hope to transcend them and help liberate ourselves from their clutches. Correlated with this concept are the ideas of individual freedom and liberty. Reason thus allows a person to question all accepted controlling forces and authorities and provide (hopefully better) alternatives to them. Thus it is intrinsically “inimical” to the power of the State and the power of Religion.
Himmelfarb seems to be accepting of the potential for Reason to undermine the power of the traditional State (the American War of Independence relies on this, allowing it to set up its anti-monarchical nation) but is less enthusiastic about the matter of Religion. She tends to give short shrift to the Atheists of the time (they are essentially dismissed as “rebels”), is ambivalent towards Deists, and most accommodating towards Theists. By removing the element of atheism she seeks to bolster the British and American sides of her new equation, and removes a major component of true Enlightenment. From this perspective, she misses the point about the Enlightenment. Himmelfarb wants to have her cake and eat it as well; in the end, it results in more of a mishmash of selected truisms and bits and pieces: lots of crumbs, but very little cake is left. Disappointing.
It also allows her to differentiate between three different types of “enlightenment” — the British is termed The Sociology of Virtue; the French isThe Ideology of Reason; and the American is The Politics of Liberty.
An astute reader would note that this method of dividing up concepts and further sub-dividing them into dual aspects apparently peculiar to each of the three original divisions, then researching elements of each of these six sub-divisions (more extensively in the case of Britain), the groundwork is laid out whereby each “issue” can be presented more or less objectively within its limits (by presenting references to written comments about them, and in many cases also presenting objections to those comments) and then in effect cherry-picking all those elements which reinforce the original selection and divisions. Further, the cherry-picking technique tends to flick between differing times and events during the period in question. This permits “arguments” to be developed which are used to further reinforce Himmelfarb’s preferences.
This also creates a befuddlement of the original issues involved. The result seems to be a confusion of battling concepts which in toto might very well be reflected in contemporary complex Western issues, but which are hardly exclusive to our times. It is all very well to argue that the British contribution was based on “social” philosophical issues, which incorporated “virtues” such as “compassion” and “benevolence”, but one does need to emphasise that these words as used in the mid 18th-c in England did not have the same meanings or connotations they might have to a 21st-c Western reader. As a rule, virtue, compassion and benevolence in mid 18th-c England meant compliance with the status quo, whether political or religious: there was no virtue in questioning the political or religious system, and no compassion or benevolence towards those who might upset the applecart, as it were, in these matters. It’s all very relative!
Thus it seems particularly odd that Himmelfarb singles out John Wesley and his Methodists (the development of his special schools, and the subsequent efflorescence of Evangelicalism throughout the world) as a source of “something like an Enlightenment for the common man” by the end of the 19th-c. The split between the Methodist Church and the Anglican Church happened after Wesley’s death in 1791; but the antipathy and persecution of him and his church by the Anglicans had begun from 1739 onwards. So much for virtue, compassion and benevolence. So much for a “British Enlightenment”.
The “relativity” question extends itself to the six sub-divisions as well: each of the six of them can be understood as being applicable to every other sub-division. Himmelfarb has used these as defining differences; I prefer to see them as arbitrary distinctions which can be used in any combination one might wish. For example, one can see “virtue” in sociology, as an ideology, as rational, as political and as a quality of liberty; and the same applies to each “distinction” — they’re not so distinct after all…
Himmelfarb presents her “three enlightenments” as following three main courses: first the British, then the French, then the American. This is, of course, misleading. Whatever might be claimed as British influences cannot be excluded from other countries in Europe. England, France and America were all in the throes of disturbing and unsettling political developments. In a sense they all contributed to the intellectual ferment of the times in Europe. To argue that just these three countries each had its own “enlightenment” is merely elaborating the fact that each dealt with its own problems in ways coloured by the differing realities surrounding them.
As I understand it, the Enlightenment was a European intellectual movement which individual countries made use of as they saw fit. It is not easy to simplify the situation by saying one came “first” followed by others. One, thing, however, is clear: neither England nor America was in a position to claim ownership of the Enlightenment movement, although both countries could admit being “influenced” by its ideas. If there is one place where the movement did find a home, it was in Baron d’Holbach’s salon and the philosophes who attended it in the mid 18th-c. Here all interested parties were welcomed from whatever country, and their ideas discussed in an open-minded environment; and this home was in France.
If there is one thing the Enlightenment stands for, it is the insistence on Reason as the philosophical basis for any real progress for humanity in all its endeavours. Human Nature can very readily be described as an emotional animal, and appears more than anything to act and react emotionally, whether on a personal, tribal, social or national level. These emotions are often and too readily based on bias, ignorance, superstition and fear. These qualities are well known as the cause of much grief and suffering in the world. It is only by subjecting these emotional factors to the light of Reason that we can hope to transcend them and help liberate ourselves from their clutches. Correlated with this concept are the ideas of individual freedom and liberty. Reason thus allows a person to question all accepted controlling forces and authorities and provide (hopefully better) alternatives to them. Thus it is intrinsically “inimical” to the power of the State and the power of Religion.
Himmelfarb seems to be accepting of the potential for Reason to undermine the power of the traditional State (the American War of Independence relies on this, allowing it to set up its anti-monarchical nation) but is less enthusiastic about the matter of Religion. She tends to give short shrift to the Atheists of the time (they are essentially dismissed as “rebels”), is ambivalent towards Deists, and most accommodating towards Theists. By removing the element of atheism she seeks to bolster the British and American sides of her new equation, and removes a major component of true Enlightenment. From this perspective, she misses the point about the Enlightenment. Himmelfarb wants to have her cake and eat it as well; in the end, it results in more of a mishmash of selected truisms and bits and pieces: lots of crumbs, but very little cake is left. Disappointing.
August 19, 2018
يعد هذا الكتاب بمثابة جولة سريعة على ثلاثة تيارات فكرية شكلت منعطفا تاريخيا هاما عرف في ما بعد بالحداثة. ففي حين يصر الفرنسيون على إحتكار التنوير و نسبه بالكلية لفلاسفتهم المقدسين للعقل حد الدوغمائية و المصابين برهاب كل ما هو ديني ، نجد الكاتبة تحلل نموذجا آخر للتنوير هو النموذج البريطاني الذي إهتم ببناء المجتمع أكثر من إهتمامه بالسلطة نفسها و المستند على الأخلاق التي استمدها الفلاسفة البريطانيون من الدين (و ان لم يكونوا مؤمنين في أحيان كثيرة) ساعين بذلك لإيجاد نموذج إجتماعي خيّر، لذلك أطلق على تنويرهم هذا "سوسيولوجيا الفضيلة".
و قد تناول الكتاب أيضا نموذجا آخر للتنوير ربما هو الأكثر براغماتية حيث نهل "من أيديولوجيا العقل" لدى الفرنسيين في نظرته لمؤسسات الدولة و أخذ عن البريطانيين "سوسيولوجيا الفضيلة" فجاء ما سمي "علم سياسة الحرية" الذي إعتمده الأباء المؤسسون للولايات المتحدة الأمريكية.
الجدير بالذكر أن لكل نموذج من نماذج التنوير هذه مساويء جلية بانت بشكل لا يقبل الجدال في أدبيات روادها كمعاداة السامية/عدم التشجيع على الأعمال الخيرية لدى بعض المفكرين الفرنسيين، نظرة المؤسسين للولايات المتحدة للعبودية… إلخ
ختاما قد يكون الكتاب مقتضبا جدا و لم يشرح بقدر كاف عدة أفكار و مصطلحات وردت هنا وهناك يجهلها القاريء الغير مطلع على تلك الحقبات التاريخية (عصر الإرهاب في فرنسا على سبيل الذكر لا الحصر) و لكنه جيد من ناحية المقارنة بين ثلاثة طرق أدت لنشأة مفهوم الحداثة و إن تباينت أسسها أو حادت عن ثوابتها.
تمت
18/08/2018
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January 10, 2012الكتاب بنسخته الالكترونية
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June 30, 2025
Himmelfarb. What a name.
August 14, 2017
Tentativa de trazer o Iluminismo para os ingleses, a quem a autora atribui suas origens, e para os americanos; fugindo um pouco daquele confinamento dado aos franceses. Interessante ponto de vista, principalmente porque o desenrolar dessas ideias, o que o próprio livro desenvolve, tiveram muito mais sucesso e frutos nos Estados Unidos e na Inglaterra que na França. Leitura não é difícil, praticamente um apanhado sobre filosofia do século XVIII em que a autora tenta concatenar para explicar suas ideias.
August 7, 2024
W KOŃCU, dobiłam do brzegu tyłu okładki i przyznam szczerze, odczuwam zawód. opracowanie jest wnikliwe i wartościowe, jednak przesycone przywołaniami, a nie konkluzjami, treściwością merytoryczną. jestem może zbyt przystosowana do swojego ulubionego typu prezentowania toków myślowych i badawczych, ale naprawdę, obiektywnie brakuje mi tu jakiejś globalnej, szerszej refleksji
December 3, 2016
A Wonderful read –– I learnt differences among British, French Philosophers in Enlightenment.
I learnt more on John Wesley, And how Methodism influenced lower class in British Society.
As, I knew earlier –– Man is a religious animal, And Religion helps, contributes so much to society.
I was surprised to read Jefferson saying, "No Nation has ever been existed or governed without a religion."
I would recommend this book to someone, who wants to understand more about Enlightenment.
--Deus Vult
Gottfried
I learnt more on John Wesley, And how Methodism influenced lower class in British Society.
As, I knew earlier –– Man is a religious animal, And Religion helps, contributes so much to society.
I was surprised to read Jefferson saying, "No Nation has ever been existed or governed without a religion."
I would recommend this book to someone, who wants to understand more about Enlightenment.
--Deus Vult
Gottfried
June 10, 2015
يتناول الكتاب ثلاث نماذج مختلفة من التنوير شكلت بمجموعها الحداثة..
١- التنوير البرطاني والذي كانت سمته الأساسية هي سيكوليجية الفضيلة.
٢- التنوير الفرنسي الذي كانت دعامته الأساسية تقديس العقل.
٣- التنوير الأمريكي الذي سعى لبناء علم سياسة الحرية
ما لم يعجبني بالكتاب هو اهماله لبلدان كان لها تأثير كبير في عملية الأنتقال إلى الحداثة -كهولندا وسويسرا وألمانيا.. بالاضافة إلى محاولاتها التقليل من شأن التنوير الفرنسي..
١- التنوير البرطاني والذي كانت سمته الأساسية هي سيكوليجية الفضيلة.
٢- التنوير الفرنسي الذي كانت دعامته الأساسية تقديس العقل.
٣- التنوير الأمريكي الذي سعى لبناء علم سياسة الحرية
ما لم يعجبني بالكتاب هو اهماله لبلدان كان لها تأثير كبير في عملية الأنتقال إلى الحداثة -كهولندا وسويسرا وألمانيا.. بالاضافة إلى محاولاتها التقليل من شأن التنوير الفرنسي..
September 30, 2025
I liked this book even though I found it's premise absurd, then I found out her last name is Kristol, as in wife of Irving Kristol of the neocon movement.
Her premise is that the English, French, and American Enlightenments had different central ideas. The English was about the social ethic of sympathy and promoting virtue, the French was an ideology of reason reaching for Utopia, and the American was on political liberty. She believed what had sustained the American revolution was that it adopted the English Enlightenment and synthesized them in "compassionate conservatism" which makes me puke since it translates to "Bloody antihuman Empire with a kind face".
This premise does have some validity as there were differences in the different countries but it's also absurd to think that the English or American were a great gift to mankind. The Enlightenment means reason supplants religion and tradition as the guiding authority and so even though the American and English Enlightenments turned out better initially they have all ended in catastrophe.
I found the book interesting even if I suspect it might have been cherry picked some references. If you forget the major premise and theme though her discussion of the different thinkers was interesting.
It was shocking to learn that Paine and Jefferson both liked the idea of permanent revolution and we all know how that has turned out in communist countries. And that each generation should conform the laws to their own needs which is valid at some levels of analysis but as we see today extremely detrimental in others.
One thing that struck me while reading this is that America's insanity might have originated at it's founding. American's have an extreme talent to be able to hold two contradictory things together without ever having a problem about it. Such as "we are fighting for our freedoms by invading Iraq" how soilless and brainwashed does a people have to be to buy this? I wonder if it originated when the founders said all men are created equal while half the country owned slaves? Sure they didn't like slavery and thought it would end very soon but in our founding lies a massive irrational contradiction that seems to have spawned the most insane series of irrational contradictions in human history.
Overall this is a silly book with lot's of little interesting insights so make of that what you will.
Her premise is that the English, French, and American Enlightenments had different central ideas. The English was about the social ethic of sympathy and promoting virtue, the French was an ideology of reason reaching for Utopia, and the American was on political liberty. She believed what had sustained the American revolution was that it adopted the English Enlightenment and synthesized them in "compassionate conservatism" which makes me puke since it translates to "Bloody antihuman Empire with a kind face".
This premise does have some validity as there were differences in the different countries but it's also absurd to think that the English or American were a great gift to mankind. The Enlightenment means reason supplants religion and tradition as the guiding authority and so even though the American and English Enlightenments turned out better initially they have all ended in catastrophe.
I found the book interesting even if I suspect it might have been cherry picked some references. If you forget the major premise and theme though her discussion of the different thinkers was interesting.
It was shocking to learn that Paine and Jefferson both liked the idea of permanent revolution and we all know how that has turned out in communist countries. And that each generation should conform the laws to their own needs which is valid at some levels of analysis but as we see today extremely detrimental in others.
One thing that struck me while reading this is that America's insanity might have originated at it's founding. American's have an extreme talent to be able to hold two contradictory things together without ever having a problem about it. Such as "we are fighting for our freedoms by invading Iraq" how soilless and brainwashed does a people have to be to buy this? I wonder if it originated when the founders said all men are created equal while half the country owned slaves? Sure they didn't like slavery and thought it would end very soon but in our founding lies a massive irrational contradiction that seems to have spawned the most insane series of irrational contradictions in human history.
Overall this is a silly book with lot's of little interesting insights so make of that what you will.
January 5, 2021
This is an engaging, easy reading, book chock full of information. Some of the information challenges some of our contemporary thinking. For example, the author states that what Thomas Jefferson meant by his "wall of separation between church and state" may not be what many take it to mean today, and she provides an example of Jefferson's religious practice during his presidency. The author is careful to write "may;" thus, leaving room for further study or debate on this.
This book is an excellent survey of The Enlightenment, one that serves the reader well by breaking the study into three groups, French, English, & American. Ms. Himmelfarb devotes much of the book to the English version of the Enlightenment. The reader finds there are considerable differences between the three, particularly with how religion is treated by the thinkers of the Enlightenment period. The French version where religious belief falls to reason is not the prevailing direction in England and America.
I found the section on the American Enlightenment, "The Politics of Libery," the most interesting, along with two chapters in the British Enlightenment section, "Radical Dissenters" and 'Methodism: "A Social Religion."' New, thoughtful, and challenging information for me here.
The author makes a strong case that the Enlightenment is still ongoing in the U.S., and what makes America exceptional is because America "has inherited and preserved aspects of the British Enlightenment that the British themselves have discarded and that other countries (France most notably) have never adopted." With this book, I think Ms. Himmelfarb offers quite a bit of insight to understanding of the American ethos.
This book is an excellent survey of The Enlightenment, one that serves the reader well by breaking the study into three groups, French, English, & American. Ms. Himmelfarb devotes much of the book to the English version of the Enlightenment. The reader finds there are considerable differences between the three, particularly with how religion is treated by the thinkers of the Enlightenment period. The French version where religious belief falls to reason is not the prevailing direction in England and America.
I found the section on the American Enlightenment, "The Politics of Libery," the most interesting, along with two chapters in the British Enlightenment section, "Radical Dissenters" and 'Methodism: "A Social Religion."' New, thoughtful, and challenging information for me here.
The author makes a strong case that the Enlightenment is still ongoing in the U.S., and what makes America exceptional is because America "has inherited and preserved aspects of the British Enlightenment that the British themselves have discarded and that other countries (France most notably) have never adopted." With this book, I think Ms. Himmelfarb offers quite a bit of insight to understanding of the American ethos.
February 5, 2024
Good stuff, very thorough with names. Himmelfarb and I disagree about the state of America but she wasn’t adamant enough about her argument for me to disagree with her. The tiny conclusion at the end felt weirdly like a thesis statement for an argument that she never explicitly stated, but that could just be me missing something. Knowledge gained, 3/5 stars.
April 18, 2023
At its core, this is another of those “the Brits were too respectful of religion to ever have a bloody revolution like those crazy atheist French, and THUS had a greater influence on pious America” books. For starts, this is a hackneyed stereotype constantly propounded by the Christian right today. France still has a lower percentage of atheists (22.8%) than America (26%) per surveys.
This crusade also conveniently forgets the English beheading of their own king Charles I the previous century, and the far bloodier rampage of Cromwell’s Puritans, massacring a half million Catholics in Ireland, among other bloodbaths. It was “the most hated regime in British history” according to Churchill in his History of the English-Speaking People, and it lasted ten years - vs “The Terror” period of the French Revolution she evokes constantly - which lasted all of one year. (And, Oh, the horror! The French Revolutionaries confiscated church property! Exactly like King Henry VIII of England had done two centuries earlier.)
This holier-than-thou “no revolution in England” stance also omits the fact that the Americans revolted against THEM - one reason for which was, as Thomas Paine said in Common Sense, that only a third of the American colonials were English to begin with. And the “superior compassion” for the poor she claims for England was indeed very well belied by Hogarth’s depictions of the era (not to mention by Dickens not much later – at the same time Daumier was depicting similar scenes in France once “the unholy alliance of church and state” was restored after the Revolution.)
Books like this depend completely on the utter lack of knowledge about history these same groups have been depriving American students of for decades, exposed in Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen in 1995, among other books (though for this particular topic, you have to read his footnotes, sadly.)
What truly sticks in the craw of these “conservatives” is that The Enlightenment, as most of the world knows, finally won freedom of beliefs, and an end to 1000 years of religious persecutions, Inquisitions, and massacres – primarily through Voltaire’s écrasez l’infâme campaign, followed by Thomas Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom - which America’s founding generation, not just The Founders, insisted on including in the First Amendment. (This is why I prefer the term, “reactionaries” to “conservatives” since they are not “conserving” our real history but busily re-writing it.)
And hence, Himmelfarb’s most ferocious smears are directed at Voltaire and Jefferson. Her leitmotif, announced on pgs. 5-6, is that “reason” was the leading rallying cry of the French, with virtue “conspicuously absent” – which “took precedence” in the “British Enlightenment” no one had ever heard of (including the British) till this book posited it. On the contrary, most contemporaries knew that Voltaire’s leading theme was “tolerance” and that “reason” was a term mainly used in opposition to “superstition” by nearly all of The Enlightenment writers.
Furthermore, her predictable ravings against the appalling Voltaire, Diderot and d’Holbach laughably omits the fact that they all borrowed, sometimes extensively, from a previous century’s worth of English Deists. They too are omitted from her narrative of the “far more moral’ English, apart from Shaftesbury, for whom “virtue derived not from religion” but from an innate moral “sense of right and wrong” (p.27) This happens to be one of Voltaire’s constantly repeated deistic arguments for tolerance as well. “Morals, which come from God, are the same everywhere, whether you read Confucius, Jesus, Mahomet or Marcus Aurelius. Religions, which come from men, differ everywhere.” Trenchard and Irish freethinker John Toland get a footnote on p. 9, only to be immediately dismissed. But the fact is that all these English Deists and Voltaire exposed the myriad aspects and ploys “priestcraft” used to hold people in submission to themselves. And NONE of them were atheists. Even a few of strident atheist d’Holbach’s tracts were also largely just translations of English Deist writings. His collection of them was far fuller than Voltaire’s, according to Norman Torrey’s "Voltaire and the English Deists", p. 18 (an excellent source for the views of the Deists, though some of his conjectures about Voltaire have been corrected since 1963 by later research).
In fact, one can’t help wondering whether she’s read much of Voltaire at all, since her “sources” in the notes are very rarely direct citations of Voltaire. She mainly cites other authors on the same mission, such as Hertzberg, whose rabid “citations” (which I have yet to find in any writings by Voltaire), are hellbent on proving Voltaire’s “antisemitism”. She further claims (with no evidence) that Voltaire’s contemporaries “were well aware of” of this “fact”. (p. 157). On the contrary. what his contemporaries were “well aware of” were tracts he wrote like "The Sermon of Rabbi Akib", a searing attack on antisemitism; his sections on the Jews in the "Treatise on Tolerance" and in "Letters on Rabelais and other Authors Accused of Writing Against the Christian Religion." The Treatise was heavily quoted in 18th century American periodicals, as demonstrated by Mary Margaret Barr’s study of Voltaire in America. And Howard Mumford Jones’ classic "America and French Culture; 1750-1848" provides a very different picture of the era from Himmelfarb’s culled from well-nigh 600 American periodicals, sermons and memoirs. (One of her favorite “sources”, Henry May, tried to nullify it with a “study” his own in 1976, seeking to disprove the “supposed” influence of French Enlightenment writers in America, and brazenly claimed it was the “first serious study ever done” on the subject.)
When she occasionally does cite honest 18th century scholars, such as Peter Gay or Bernard Bailyn, she omits everything that contradicts her clichés – like Gay explaining in "Voltaire’s Politics" how Voltaire's “If God didn’t exist, we’d have to invent Him” quote is deliberately divorced from context to misconstrue it (exactly like she misconstrues it) or his well-substantiated arguments that Voltaire was NOT enamored of “enlightened despots”, nor did he “despise the masses”. Tropes she nevertheless repeats endlessly. (Apparently she does not even know that 'canaille' does not mean ‘poor people’. It designates “dishonest scoundrels”.) There’s an entire chapter claiming the French philosophes ALL despised the canaille (lol), and never did a single thing to help improve their lives - unlike the “moral” English. So naturally, not a word about Voltaire’s building schools, churches and hundreds of houses for French Protestant refugees in Ferney, while funding cottage industries to help them earn a living. They erected a statue there thanking him for all of that, along with “feeding them throughout the famine.” I’m not sure what the moneyless D’Alembert or Diderot were meant to do, but passim, as she loves to say.
She also omits Bailyn’s conclusions from his sweeping study of American revolutionary pamphlets, reprinted in "The Idealogical Origins of the American Revolution" although she cites this book several times. Bailyn was surprised to learn that the “leading secular thinkers, reformers and social critics like Voltaire, Rousseau and Beccaria… were quoted everywhere in the colonies, by everyone”, and on both sides of the political aisle “as authoritative”. “Almost no one, Whig and Tory, disputed them.” These findings are revealed pp 26-28, but somehow she didn't see them - right?
So much for her right-wing insistence that the Methodist’s “Great Awakening” was America’s biggest influence. But if in doubt, you can also read John Adams’ views on Whitefield in a letter to Jefferson in Founders.online, May 18, 1817, or The Journal of Rev. Francis Asbury, their first American bishop – preaching in fields because churches wouldn’t have him, railing against all the ‘atheists and deists’ he’s encountering everywhere (bearing in mind that every non-Methodist was an atheist in his and Whitefield’s views) and even having to flee to Delaware with his cohorts at one point.
I might’ve given this book 2 stars at the halfway point because I did learn a few interesting things, even though the agenda was obvious from the start. (Her hero is Burke, whose Francophobic "Reflections on the Revolution in France", shocked many Americans, and some Brits, at the time.) But by the time I’d finished reading all the lies, distortions and contradictions nearly every page abounds with in the second half, I was no longer sure I could trust anything she said. Spare yourself a lot of cherry-picked reactionary propaganda. There are reasons France and America were the first two countries to enact freedom of beliefs in 1791, and you can find them principally in reading Voltaire and Jefferson.
This crusade also conveniently forgets the English beheading of their own king Charles I the previous century, and the far bloodier rampage of Cromwell’s Puritans, massacring a half million Catholics in Ireland, among other bloodbaths. It was “the most hated regime in British history” according to Churchill in his History of the English-Speaking People, and it lasted ten years - vs “The Terror” period of the French Revolution she evokes constantly - which lasted all of one year. (And, Oh, the horror! The French Revolutionaries confiscated church property! Exactly like King Henry VIII of England had done two centuries earlier.)
This holier-than-thou “no revolution in England” stance also omits the fact that the Americans revolted against THEM - one reason for which was, as Thomas Paine said in Common Sense, that only a third of the American colonials were English to begin with. And the “superior compassion” for the poor she claims for England was indeed very well belied by Hogarth’s depictions of the era (not to mention by Dickens not much later – at the same time Daumier was depicting similar scenes in France once “the unholy alliance of church and state” was restored after the Revolution.)
Books like this depend completely on the utter lack of knowledge about history these same groups have been depriving American students of for decades, exposed in Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen in 1995, among other books (though for this particular topic, you have to read his footnotes, sadly.)
What truly sticks in the craw of these “conservatives” is that The Enlightenment, as most of the world knows, finally won freedom of beliefs, and an end to 1000 years of religious persecutions, Inquisitions, and massacres – primarily through Voltaire’s écrasez l’infâme campaign, followed by Thomas Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom - which America’s founding generation, not just The Founders, insisted on including in the First Amendment. (This is why I prefer the term, “reactionaries” to “conservatives” since they are not “conserving” our real history but busily re-writing it.)
And hence, Himmelfarb’s most ferocious smears are directed at Voltaire and Jefferson. Her leitmotif, announced on pgs. 5-6, is that “reason” was the leading rallying cry of the French, with virtue “conspicuously absent” – which “took precedence” in the “British Enlightenment” no one had ever heard of (including the British) till this book posited it. On the contrary, most contemporaries knew that Voltaire’s leading theme was “tolerance” and that “reason” was a term mainly used in opposition to “superstition” by nearly all of The Enlightenment writers.
Furthermore, her predictable ravings against the appalling Voltaire, Diderot and d’Holbach laughably omits the fact that they all borrowed, sometimes extensively, from a previous century’s worth of English Deists. They too are omitted from her narrative of the “far more moral’ English, apart from Shaftesbury, for whom “virtue derived not from religion” but from an innate moral “sense of right and wrong” (p.27) This happens to be one of Voltaire’s constantly repeated deistic arguments for tolerance as well. “Morals, which come from God, are the same everywhere, whether you read Confucius, Jesus, Mahomet or Marcus Aurelius. Religions, which come from men, differ everywhere.” Trenchard and Irish freethinker John Toland get a footnote on p. 9, only to be immediately dismissed. But the fact is that all these English Deists and Voltaire exposed the myriad aspects and ploys “priestcraft” used to hold people in submission to themselves. And NONE of them were atheists. Even a few of strident atheist d’Holbach’s tracts were also largely just translations of English Deist writings. His collection of them was far fuller than Voltaire’s, according to Norman Torrey’s "Voltaire and the English Deists", p. 18 (an excellent source for the views of the Deists, though some of his conjectures about Voltaire have been corrected since 1963 by later research).
In fact, one can’t help wondering whether she’s read much of Voltaire at all, since her “sources” in the notes are very rarely direct citations of Voltaire. She mainly cites other authors on the same mission, such as Hertzberg, whose rabid “citations” (which I have yet to find in any writings by Voltaire), are hellbent on proving Voltaire’s “antisemitism”. She further claims (with no evidence) that Voltaire’s contemporaries “were well aware of” of this “fact”. (p. 157). On the contrary. what his contemporaries were “well aware of” were tracts he wrote like "The Sermon of Rabbi Akib", a searing attack on antisemitism; his sections on the Jews in the "Treatise on Tolerance" and in "Letters on Rabelais and other Authors Accused of Writing Against the Christian Religion." The Treatise was heavily quoted in 18th century American periodicals, as demonstrated by Mary Margaret Barr’s study of Voltaire in America. And Howard Mumford Jones’ classic "America and French Culture; 1750-1848" provides a very different picture of the era from Himmelfarb’s culled from well-nigh 600 American periodicals, sermons and memoirs. (One of her favorite “sources”, Henry May, tried to nullify it with a “study” his own in 1976, seeking to disprove the “supposed” influence of French Enlightenment writers in America, and brazenly claimed it was the “first serious study ever done” on the subject.)
When she occasionally does cite honest 18th century scholars, such as Peter Gay or Bernard Bailyn, she omits everything that contradicts her clichés – like Gay explaining in "Voltaire’s Politics" how Voltaire's “If God didn’t exist, we’d have to invent Him” quote is deliberately divorced from context to misconstrue it (exactly like she misconstrues it) or his well-substantiated arguments that Voltaire was NOT enamored of “enlightened despots”, nor did he “despise the masses”. Tropes she nevertheless repeats endlessly. (Apparently she does not even know that 'canaille' does not mean ‘poor people’. It designates “dishonest scoundrels”.) There’s an entire chapter claiming the French philosophes ALL despised the canaille (lol), and never did a single thing to help improve their lives - unlike the “moral” English. So naturally, not a word about Voltaire’s building schools, churches and hundreds of houses for French Protestant refugees in Ferney, while funding cottage industries to help them earn a living. They erected a statue there thanking him for all of that, along with “feeding them throughout the famine.” I’m not sure what the moneyless D’Alembert or Diderot were meant to do, but passim, as she loves to say.
She also omits Bailyn’s conclusions from his sweeping study of American revolutionary pamphlets, reprinted in "The Idealogical Origins of the American Revolution" although she cites this book several times. Bailyn was surprised to learn that the “leading secular thinkers, reformers and social critics like Voltaire, Rousseau and Beccaria… were quoted everywhere in the colonies, by everyone”, and on both sides of the political aisle “as authoritative”. “Almost no one, Whig and Tory, disputed them.” These findings are revealed pp 26-28, but somehow she didn't see them - right?
So much for her right-wing insistence that the Methodist’s “Great Awakening” was America’s biggest influence. But if in doubt, you can also read John Adams’ views on Whitefield in a letter to Jefferson in Founders.online, May 18, 1817, or The Journal of Rev. Francis Asbury, their first American bishop – preaching in fields because churches wouldn’t have him, railing against all the ‘atheists and deists’ he’s encountering everywhere (bearing in mind that every non-Methodist was an atheist in his and Whitefield’s views) and even having to flee to Delaware with his cohorts at one point.
I might’ve given this book 2 stars at the halfway point because I did learn a few interesting things, even though the agenda was obvious from the start. (Her hero is Burke, whose Francophobic "Reflections on the Revolution in France", shocked many Americans, and some Brits, at the time.) But by the time I’d finished reading all the lies, distortions and contradictions nearly every page abounds with in the second half, I was no longer sure I could trust anything she said. Spare yourself a lot of cherry-picked reactionary propaganda. There are reasons France and America were the first two countries to enact freedom of beliefs in 1791, and you can find them principally in reading Voltaire and Jefferson.
February 23, 2010
This is a good overview of the British, French and American Enlightenments. I particularly enjoyed the discussion of the British Enlightenment as it was the most thorough and also the Enlightenment itself was the most interesting, the most original and seemed to be driven by philosophers looking to discover truth rather than push an agenda (as were the French philosophes). However, Himmelfarb displays in the end a most irrational conclusion often reached by neo-conservatives: that the experiment worked, that the Constitution was successful and that we are living in the vision of the Founders. Further, the implication is that our success is a result of the atmosphere and actions of the US Government not despite it. Overinvestment in industry and infrastructure resulting from government distortions will ultimately lead to our downfall; the government itself is a tyranny much more oppressive than the English was to the American colonies; and the Anti-Federalists were right not the Federalists--why don't neo-conservatives see this? The neo-conservatives' misguided acceptance of the status quo--the government is thus, use it for good--is the reason traditional, Libertarian conservativism seems to have lost its voice in this country.
Read
February 5, 2009Reclaiming the Enlightenment would be an ambitious challenge for any historian, but it is perhaps even more daunting for one so closely identified with a particular brand of politics (neoconservatism). No one questions Himmelfarb's credentials for tackling the job: she is professor emeritus at the City University of New York and the author of nine books. But she takes some hard lumps for attempting to link the Enlightenment to the current American political scene (one reviewer dubbed her "an apologist for the Bush administration"; another accused her of knowingly "reading her own political agenda into the text of the past"). Is it any wonder that the more conservative critics provided raves and liberals gave sharp critique? Detractors felt Himmelfarb ignored historical facts inconvenient to her viewpoint. Ultimately, as its mixed reviews illustrate, The Roads to Modernity succeeds in at least one area: inspiring impassioned debate about a controversial new idea.
This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
February 28, 2008
I would have preferred a history of the Enlightenment rather than this survey of different issues of that period. One complaint I have is despite the subtitle of the book, about 120 pages are devoted to trying to argue for including England in the Enlightenment (which I agree with) and only 38 pages to the French and 35 pages to the American Enlightenments. While I agree that the English and American revolutions were certainly more successful (and less bloody) than the French Revolution, I find Himmelfarb too disparaging of the French philosophes. She clearly has a bias for the religious movements of the 18th century. She plays up various quotes from the Founding Fathers that favor religion while not mentioning at all the anti-religious sentiments by those very same figures (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Paine, Franklin). So the book is well written and interesting, but I disagree with some of the viewpoints.
August 21, 2015
بإمكان من يريد التعرف على التنوير أن يجد كتباً أفضل من هذا الكتاب الذي يتناول ثلاثة نماذج من التنوير فقط، بأسلوب معقد لا يناسب سوى المختصين..
بالإضافة إلى التعقيد والافتقار إلى التنظيم، لم يعجبني انحياز الكاتبة للتنوير البريطاني ضد التنوير الفرنسي بشكل صريح وصل حد الطعن بفلاسفة فرنسا وتنويرها، هذا برأيي أسلوب يضع موضوعية الكاتب على المحك، ويفقده ثقة القارئ.
بالإضافة إلى التعقيد والافتقار إلى التنظيم، لم يعجبني انحياز الكاتبة للتنوير البريطاني ضد التنوير الفرنسي بشكل صريح وصل حد الطعن بفلاسفة فرنسا وتنويرها، هذا برأيي أسلوب يضع موضوعية الكاتب على المحك، ويفقده ثقة القارئ.
July 27, 2016
رغم تحيز الكاتبة للتنوير الانجليزي وضد التنوير الفرنسي ورفضها لاحتكار الفرنسيين للتنوير، إلا انها تقدم صورة بانورامية شاملة للتنوير بشكل عام سواء الفرنسي الذي تسمية ايديولوجيا العقل او الانجليزي الذي تطلق علية سوسيولوجيا الفضيلة والامريكي الذي تلقبة بعلم سياسة الحرية
وفقا لطريقة كل منهم في السير نحو الحداثة
وفقا لطريقة كل منهم في السير نحو الحداثة
July 15, 2014
التنوير البريطانى والفضيلة
وقادة الفكر آدم سميث وجون لوك وديفيد هيوم وصمويل جونسون
التنير الفرنسى وايدلوجييا العقل
جان جاك روسو وفولتير
والتنوير الامريكى والحرية
وقادة الفكر آدم سميث وجون لوك وديفيد هيوم وصمويل جونسون
التنير الفرنسى وايدلوجييا العقل
جان جاك روسو وفولتير
والتنوير الامريكى والحرية
May 9, 2020
I got interested in this book after reading Steven Pinker's "Enlightenment Now" and Ben Shapiro's "The Right Side of History". Pinker's excellent book praised enlightenment values and humanism by pointing out the excellent outcomes in most aspects of existence, mostly denied by the postmodernists. Shapiro praised Pinker's book, but cogently pointed out that in Pinker's total reliance on reason as the fount of virtue, he completely ignored the Robespierre and the Terror of the French Revolution. Himmelfarb pointed out ten years before those two excellent books were written why this difference is important.
Himmelfarb discusses the enlightenment from the French, British and American historical experience. The French enlightenment, often considered the most important, had a particularly nasty anti-religious streak. Voltaire was a Deist throughout his life, but he railed against the institutions of the Catholic Church in France, and had to flee the country because of his scathing critique. d'Alembert, Diderot and Rousseau likewise were extremely anti-religious. Although Himmelfarb refuses to blame the Terror specifically on this belief in reason as the supreme virtue, she clearly places it front and center and invites the reader to refute the idea. Only Montesquieu refrained from attacks on Christian morality.
The British enlightenment, without the "big names" of the French, still had historian Edward Gibbon and Adam Smith. Gibbon was irreligious, but Smith was quite the moral philosopher. She went through several lesser know British writers who mirrored the French (to some extent Thomas Paine), but pointed out the "sociology of virtue" that became the prevalent attitude of the British. Many benevolent societies appeared in the late eighteenth century and became a part of life. Contrasting David Hume with John Wesley, she brilliantly lays out how this view developed across the British social fabric.
Likewise, the American enlightenment was primarily laid out in The Federalist (Hamilton, Madison, and Jay) and became the 'bible" of American political and sociological thought. It did not become the standard of religious thought, mainly because these men did not meld government and religion. As De Tocqueville pointed out repeatedly in Democracy in America, this was a profoundly religious country where the vast majority of the populace were believers. Individuals professed a multitude of modes of worship, but essentially settled on one morality. This "politics of liberty" concerning economics as well as religion, was the equivalent of the "sociology of virtue" of Britain. She ends by pointing out as Britain becomes more tied to Europe, America becomes the last bastion of that love of virtue of Smith, Hume and Wesley.
Not for everybody. A "wonky" history of philosophy, but good for the history nerds!
Himmelfarb discusses the enlightenment from the French, British and American historical experience. The French enlightenment, often considered the most important, had a particularly nasty anti-religious streak. Voltaire was a Deist throughout his life, but he railed against the institutions of the Catholic Church in France, and had to flee the country because of his scathing critique. d'Alembert, Diderot and Rousseau likewise were extremely anti-religious. Although Himmelfarb refuses to blame the Terror specifically on this belief in reason as the supreme virtue, she clearly places it front and center and invites the reader to refute the idea. Only Montesquieu refrained from attacks on Christian morality.
The British enlightenment, without the "big names" of the French, still had historian Edward Gibbon and Adam Smith. Gibbon was irreligious, but Smith was quite the moral philosopher. She went through several lesser know British writers who mirrored the French (to some extent Thomas Paine), but pointed out the "sociology of virtue" that became the prevalent attitude of the British. Many benevolent societies appeared in the late eighteenth century and became a part of life. Contrasting David Hume with John Wesley, she brilliantly lays out how this view developed across the British social fabric.
Likewise, the American enlightenment was primarily laid out in The Federalist (Hamilton, Madison, and Jay) and became the 'bible" of American political and sociological thought. It did not become the standard of religious thought, mainly because these men did not meld government and religion. As De Tocqueville pointed out repeatedly in Democracy in America, this was a profoundly religious country where the vast majority of the populace were believers. Individuals professed a multitude of modes of worship, but essentially settled on one morality. This "politics of liberty" concerning economics as well as religion, was the equivalent of the "sociology of virtue" of Britain. She ends by pointing out as Britain becomes more tied to Europe, America becomes the last bastion of that love of virtue of Smith, Hume and Wesley.
Not for everybody. A "wonky" history of philosophy, but good for the history nerds!
August 29, 2020
A proposta da autora é devolver o Iluminismo aos britânicos através do contraste entre as tradições iluministas francesa (racionalista), britânica (virtudes sociais) e norte-americana (liberdade política).
A autora contesta a tese que associa o Iluminismo ao racionalismo francês e diz que "todos compartilharam [ingleses, franceses e americanos modernos] alguns traços comuns: um respeito pela razão e pela liberdade, pela ciência e indústria, justiça e bem-estar. Mas essas ideias assumiram formas significativamente diferentes e foram perseguidas por diferentes caminhos em cada país" (p. 41).
A importância da obra se dá por mostrar que não existe só um projeto de modernidade racionalista (que tanto influenciou a sociedade e instituições brasileiras). A tradição anglo-americana tem um fundamento originário não racionalista que preserva a liberdade por meio do cultivo de virtudes, com forte influência religiosa.
A autora divide o livro em três partes:
1. iluminismo britânico: tem por característica a valorização da virtude. Todo ser humano tem um senso moral inato e natural que lhe dá liberdade política, civil, religiosa. A autora trata do pensamento de Adam Smith e Burke e os contrasta com o radicalismo racionalista inglês em Paine, Price e Priestley. Em seguida, mostra a importância do avivamento metodista e como no século XVIII, a Inglaterra foi permeada por um sentimento romântico de filantropia e benevolência.
Crítica: a autora é bem pouco crítica à tradição inglesa, algo que enfraquece a escrita romântica e conservadora da autora. Não existe uma tradição tão boa assim, permeada só por notáveis. Ademais, seus intercursos teológicos falham por falta de precisão nas definições, como quando trata do livre arbítrio no metodismo.
2. iluminismo francês: elevação da razão e da liberdade, rejeição da religião, governo de filósofos iluminados sobre as massas, vontade geral que se sobrepõe à vontade individual. Esse segundo tópico é essencial para sair do senso comum que permeia a tradição intelectual racionalista brasileira e também por ajudar a entender que a Revolução Francesa sempre esteve fadada ao fracasso devido a seu racionalismo.
3. iluminismo americano: elevação da liberdade política e religiosa que se consagraram na constituição e na vida cível do país.
É uma excelente introdução à percepção que essas tradições se distinguem, mas o livro não é tão bem organizado na separação das ideias de cada autor sendo necessário um bom conhecimento prévio dos principais personagens dessas tradições para poder melhor apreender seu conteúdo.
A autora contesta a tese que associa o Iluminismo ao racionalismo francês e diz que "todos compartilharam [ingleses, franceses e americanos modernos] alguns traços comuns: um respeito pela razão e pela liberdade, pela ciência e indústria, justiça e bem-estar. Mas essas ideias assumiram formas significativamente diferentes e foram perseguidas por diferentes caminhos em cada país" (p. 41).
A importância da obra se dá por mostrar que não existe só um projeto de modernidade racionalista (que tanto influenciou a sociedade e instituições brasileiras). A tradição anglo-americana tem um fundamento originário não racionalista que preserva a liberdade por meio do cultivo de virtudes, com forte influência religiosa.
A autora divide o livro em três partes:
1. iluminismo britânico: tem por característica a valorização da virtude. Todo ser humano tem um senso moral inato e natural que lhe dá liberdade política, civil, religiosa. A autora trata do pensamento de Adam Smith e Burke e os contrasta com o radicalismo racionalista inglês em Paine, Price e Priestley. Em seguida, mostra a importância do avivamento metodista e como no século XVIII, a Inglaterra foi permeada por um sentimento romântico de filantropia e benevolência.
Crítica: a autora é bem pouco crítica à tradição inglesa, algo que enfraquece a escrita romântica e conservadora da autora. Não existe uma tradição tão boa assim, permeada só por notáveis. Ademais, seus intercursos teológicos falham por falta de precisão nas definições, como quando trata do livre arbítrio no metodismo.
2. iluminismo francês: elevação da razão e da liberdade, rejeição da religião, governo de filósofos iluminados sobre as massas, vontade geral que se sobrepõe à vontade individual. Esse segundo tópico é essencial para sair do senso comum que permeia a tradição intelectual racionalista brasileira e também por ajudar a entender que a Revolução Francesa sempre esteve fadada ao fracasso devido a seu racionalismo.
3. iluminismo americano: elevação da liberdade política e religiosa que se consagraram na constituição e na vida cível do país.
É uma excelente introdução à percepção que essas tradições se distinguem, mas o livro não é tão bem organizado na separação das ideias de cada autor sendo necessário um bom conhecimento prévio dos principais personagens dessas tradições para poder melhor apreender seu conteúdo.
November 7, 2022
كتاب الطرق إلى الحداثة التنوير البريطاني والتنوير الفرنسي والتنوير الأمريكي غيرترود هيملفارب PDF هذا الكتاب هو محاولة طموح لتخليص التنوير من النقاد الذين انتقدوه بقسوة، ومن المدافعين الذين هللوا وصفقوا له من غير نظرة نقدية إليه، ومن مفكري ما بعد الحداثة الذين أنكروا وجوده، ومن المؤرخين الذين قللوا من شأنه، أو حطوا من قدره، وفضلا عن ذلك من الفرنسيين الذين تحكموا فيه، واستولوا عليه عنوة، ولتخليص التنوير من هؤلاء، فإن المؤلفة تعيده، في جزء منه، إلى البريطانيين الذين أعانوا على إيجاد تنوير يختلف عن تنوير الفرنسيين أتم الاختلاف.
يقدم الكتاب بشكل مختصر صنوف التنوير الثلاثة، وبذلك فإن التنوير البريطاني يمثل “سوسيولوجيا الفضيلة”، ويمثل التنوير الفرنسي “أيديولوجيا العقل”، ويمثل التنوير الأمريكي “علم سياسة الحرية”. فلقد كان فلاسفة الأخلاق البريطانيون علماء اجتماع، كما كانوا فلاسفة، واهتموا بالإنسان في علاقته بالمجتمع، ونظروا إلى الفضائل الاجتماعية من أجل بناء مجتمع سليم وإنساني. وكانت لدى الفرنسيين رسالة أكثر سموا هي: جعل العقل المبدأ الذي يحكم المجتمع، وكذلك الذهن، وذلك لـ “عقلنة” العالم، إذا جاز هذا التعبير. وحاول الأمريكيون، بصورة أكثر تواضعا، أن يخلقوا “علما جديدا للسياسة” يقيم الجمهورية الجديدة على أساس سليم للحرية.
يقدم الكتاب بشكل مختصر صنوف التنوير الثلاثة، وبذلك فإن التنوير البريطاني يمثل “سوسيولوجيا الفضيلة”، ويمثل التنوير الفرنسي “أيديولوجيا العقل”، ويمثل التنوير الأمريكي “علم سياسة الحرية”. فلقد كان فلاسفة الأخلاق البريطانيون علماء اجتماع، كما كانوا فلاسفة، واهتموا بالإنسان في علاقته بالمجتمع، ونظروا إلى الفضائل الاجتماعية من أجل بناء مجتمع سليم وإنساني. وكانت لدى الفرنسيين رسالة أكثر سموا هي: جعل العقل المبدأ الذي يحكم المجتمع، وكذلك الذهن، وذلك لـ “عقلنة” العالم، إذا جاز هذا التعبير. وحاول الأمريكيون، بصورة أكثر تواضعا، أن يخلقوا “علما جديدا للسياسة” يقيم الجمهورية الجديدة على أساس سليم للحرية.
August 8, 2018
A fascinating look at the British, French and American enlightenments. I found the account of the British enlightenment most interesting, with its emphasis on social morality and explaining why the British are so passionate about compassion. Himmelfarb contents that the British enlightenment as well as the American one which emphasized liberty were far more influential than the French enlightenment with its emphasis on reason alone, and which inexorably led to terror and dictatorship.
May 6, 2020
A autora faz uma boa análise sobre os Iluminismos (sim, ela os trata como três) na França, Inglaterra e Estados Unidos. Contesta a primazia dos franceses pelas idéias iluministas e credita aos ingleses méritos que julga desconsiderados. Os Estados Unidos também participam da análise histórica. Estava pesquisando sobre a Revolução Industrial e foi inevitável chegar ao livro da reconhecida historiadora Norte Americana.
October 1, 2017
"On a moving personal note, [Washington] told [the Cherokee] that just as he was about to retire from public life, so he was asking them to retire as a nation."
WHAT DO YOU MEAN A MOVING PERSONAL NOTE
WHAT DO YOU MEAN A MOVING PERSONAL NOTE
September 22, 2018
A good book focusing on British side of enlightenment story, also identifying three underlying strands for analysis - the sociology of virtue in Britain, the ideology of reason in France, and the politics of liberty in US.
January 6, 2018
Found the author very pretentious, lots of "so-and-so said this, but they were wrong".
August 19, 2018
Quick overview of the enlightenment in 3 distinct varieties of French, American, and British and how these differed. Would be good to read further on each now.
May 21, 2019
A thorough analysis of the origins of the Enlightenment and why it took different forms in different nations.
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