Synopses & Reviews
Candide, Voltaires biting portrayal of eighteenth-century European society, is a central text of the Enlightenment and essential reading for history students today. Preserving the texts provocative nature, Daniel Gordons new translation enhances Candides read-ability and highlights the texts wit and satire for twentieth-century readers. The introduction places the work and its author in historical context, showing students how the complexities of Voltaires life relate to the events, philosophy, and characters of Candide. A related documents section — with personal correspondence to and from Voltaire — gives students another lens through which to view this influential thinker. Helpful editorial features include explanatory notes throughout the text and a chronology of Voltaires life.
About the Author
Daniel Gordon (Ph.D. University of Chicago) is associate professor of history at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and has also taught at Harvard University and Stanford University. He has served on the editorial staff of The Journal of the History of Ideas and Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture. His publications, including Citizens without Sovereignty (1994), deal with the Enlightenment and the history of Enlightenment scholarship in the twentieth century.
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