Armed with the insights of the scientific revolution, the men of the Enlightenment set out to free mankind from its age-old cocoon of pessimism and superstition and establish a more reasonable world of experiment and progress. Yet by the 1760s, this optimism about man and society had almost evaporated. In the works of Rousseau, Kant and Goethe, there was discernible a new inner voice, and an awareness of individual uniqueness which had eluded their more self-confident predecessors. The stage was set for the revolutionary crisis and the rise of Romanticism. In this book, Norman Hampson follows through certain dominant themes in the Enlightenment, and describes the contemporary social and political climate, in which ideas could travel from the salons of Paris to the court of Catherine the Great - but less easily from a master to his servant. On such vexed issues as the role of ideas in the "rise of the middle class" he provides a new and realistic approach linking intellectual and social history.

The Enlightenment

History

HAMPSON, Norman

Americas

Penguin??Books

The Enlightenment: An Evaluation of its Assumptions, Attitudes, and Values, Vol. 4 (History of European Thought)

The period that separates the War of American Independence from the defeat of Napoleon has been studied by generations of historians with remarkable erudition and a no less remarkable inclination to disagree with each other's views. Contents Include:Preface I. The Intellectual Climate II. The Political and Social Environment III. The French Revolution and the European Reaction IV. The Indian Summer of Enlightened Despotism V. The Victory of Reaction

The First European Revolution, 1776-1815

Europe

Harcourt

The period that separates the War of American Independence from the defeat of Napoleon has been studied by generations of historians with remarkable erudition and a no less remarkable inclination to disagree with each other's views. Contents Include: Preface I. The Intellectual Climate II. The Political and Social Environment III. The French Revolution and the European Reaction IV. The Indian Summer of Enlightened Despotism V. The Victory of Reaction

First European Revolution 1776 - 1815 (Library of World Civilization)

W.W.Norton&Company

A Social History of the French Revolution

The Revolution was the product of social tensions that developed throughout France in the second half of the 18th century. Hampson analyzes the nature of these social conflicts within their political framework.

Reference

Routledge

First published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A Social History of The French Revolution (Volume 2)

A Social History of The French Revolution (Studies in Social History)

Physical description; 215 p : ill(some col), 22cm. Subject; Europe - Intellectual life - 18th century.

The first European revolution, 1776-1815 (Library of European civilization)

Thames&Hudson

The beginning of the French Revolution in the spring of 1789 seemed to offer a promise of national regeneration that caught the imagination of the whole of Europe. In this extraordinary outburst of altruism and hope, the men elected to the National Assembly saw themselves as drafting a new social contract between the king and his people that would re-establish the French state on a new moral foundation. Within two years everything had gone sour, with the country now facing civil war and several of its former leaders plotting to invade France at the head of a foreign army. This book, by one of the most distinguished historians of the French Revolution, seeks to discover what went wrong. Focusing on the National Assembly, where the revolutionaries clashed passionately on ideals, principles, policies and personalities, Norman Hampson provides a graphic account of events in Paris from 1789-1791. He examines why the members of the Assembly, who shared a common lifestyle and aspirations, came to hate and distrust each other. He shows convincingly how these deputies were the victims of a millenarian ideology that confused politics with ethics and turned political differences into holy wars. At the same time, he argues, they found themselves confronted by political problems which they were unable to resolve - foremost among them, whether to treat the king as a potential ally in the transformation of France, or as an irreconcilable enemy. Disagreement bred suspicion and what came to separate the protagonists was not so much their actual policies as the myths that they created about each other. By the time that the Assembly dissolved, in the autumn of 1791, France was already heading for the Terror.

Prelude to Terror: The Constituent Assembly and the Failure of Consensus, 1789-1791

Blackwell Pub.

Danton

As a tale of espionage, passion, corruption, bravery, high politics and low intrigue set against a momentous background of revolutionary turmoil, "Danton" rivals the best historical novels for pace and excitement. Danton, the most charismatic of the French Revolution leaders was thirty in 1789 and had only five more years to live. In 1792 he was unquestionably the hero of France following his successful leadership of the French Army against Prussian invasion. He was irresistibly drawn into intrigue and was paid by Royalists as a double agent. In 1795 he was guillotined following a machiavellian plot against him.

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