Present Books In Favor Of A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment
| Original Title: | A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment |
| ISBN: | 0465014534 (ISBN13: 9780465014538) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Philipp Blom
Hardcover | Pages: 361 pages Rating: 4.09 | 556 Users | 71 Reviews
Relation Concering Books A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment
The flourishing of radical philosophy in Baron Thierry Holbach’s Paris salon from the 1750s to the 1770s stands as a seminal event in Western history. Holbach’s house was an international epicenter of revolutionary ideas and intellectual daring, bringing together such original minds as Denis Diderot, Laurence Sterne, David Hume, Adam Smith, Ferdinando Galiani, Horace Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, Guillaume Raynal, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
In A Wicked Company, acclaimed historian Philipp Blom retraces the fortunes of this exceptional group of friends. All brilliant minds, full of wit, courage, and insight, their thinking created a different and radical French Enlightenment based on atheism, passion, reason, and truly humanist thinking. A startlingly relevant work of narrative history, A Wicked Company forces us to confront with new eyes the foundational debates about modern society and its future.
Mention About Books A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment
| Title | : | A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment |
| Author | : | Philipp Blom |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 361 pages |
| Published | : | November 2nd 2010 by Basic Books (AZ) (first published 2010) |
| Categories | : | History. Philosophy. Nonfiction. Literature. 18th Century. European History |
Rating About Books A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment
Ratings: 4.09 From 556 Users | 71 ReviewsDiscuss About Books A Wicked Company: The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment
This is an excellent book on French enlightenment philosophers, especially Diderot, Holbach, and to a lesser extent Rousseau. The latter is definitely the villain and comes across very poorly. I have read nothing else on Rousseau, so I have to wonder whether this thoroughly negative picture is indeed justified. Still, the book reads very well and is otherwise highly informative.The French radical Enlightenment, centered on Denis Diderot and his friends, especially Baron Paul Thiry dHolbach (1723-1789) (and with a great subplot about David Hume), from a historian's point of view. Veering from lush biography to discussions on the ideas of humaneness, psychology, equality, freedom of thought, resistance to authoritarianism, and atheism, this book is an inspiring and involving discussion. It aims to revivify Diderot and his circle from obscurity, while at the same time
A very out of the blue look at the Enlightenment that takes everything I've been taught so far and turns it on his head. It's dense reading...and I'm not sure I always agree with the author's thesis...but it IS nevertheless very compelling.I appreciate how this new look at the Englightenment compares to the radicals of thought in our current day and age, especially men such as Christopher Hittchens and Richard Dawkins. Agree or disagree, it will leave you with much to contemplate after the
An interesting look at the Enlightenment and the radicalism underlying the ideas of Diderot, d'Hollbach, Voltaire and crew. Engaging for non-fiction, It read like a story, with each chapter focusing on a different philosophe or event, but while retaining a common thread throughout. I think this is an especially important book for those prone to misinterpreting the Enlightenment and its aftermath, as it clearly differentiates Diderot/d'Hollbach/Voltaire/etc from the ideas of Rousseau, whose ideas
I loved this book! The author is clearly receptive to critiques of enlightenment and the cult of the supreme being reason of Catholic robespierre. Nuanced and wonderfully written. The author's excitement for these thinkers comes across to the readers and somehow i am now terribly excited to read Hume's Treatise
I should probably start off by admitting that I didn't read this very carefully. Usually if I get through more than a few pages of something I force myself to read all of it but I had just read this guy's other book on the Enlightenment and found so much overlap between the two that I didn't see the point. I read the first 20 or 30 pages and every word of the last 3 or 4 chapters but basically just skimmed through the rest. Like his other one (Enlightening the World) this is very Diderot
There's some valuable stuff in here, but it feels kind of muddled, since it's such a mix between the intellectual history and the personal stuff. It wasn't clear to me whether I should view it as a.) the story of how Holbach, Diderot, Rousseau and others came to view, argue, and propagate their ideas, with the personal stuff there to flesh out the story or b.) the personal saga of Diderot and the others with the ideas in question as just one component. I felt like maybe it was supposed to be the
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