Synopses & Reviews
This book examines the French Enlightenment's engagement with the cultural and racial diversity of humankind, considering both the major thinkers usually associated with the Enlightenment and the travelers, officials, missionaries, explorers, and antiquarians whose writings and reports provided the raw materials for their philosophical syntheses. It argues that there was no single 'Enlightenment project' with regard to the non-Western world; on the contrary, eighteenth-century French authors took part in contentious debates on the causes and significance of racial difference, the relative merits of civilization and primitivism, the universality of religious belief, the legitimacy of slavery and colonialism, and the meaning of (and possibility for) human progress.
Review
"…the best overview of the French Enlightenment's engagement with diversity . . . This comprehensive and clear book should be read by everyone as a primer on the role of the Enlightenment in articulating the contours of many of the debates about diversity that still preoccupy us in the workplace, in law, and in the academy." - AHR
"Highly recommended." - CHOICE
Synopsis
This book explores the French Enlightenment's use of cross-cultural comparisons - particularly the figures of the Chinese mandarin and American and Polynesian savage - to praise of critique aspects of European society and to draw general conclusions regarding human nature, natural law, and the rise and decline of civilizations.
About the Author
David Allen Harvey is a professor of History and chair of the Division of Social Sciences at New College of Florida. A specialist in French cultural history, he is the author of Constructing Class and Nationality in Alsace, 1830-1945 (2001) and Beyond Enlightenment: Occultism and Politics in Modern France (2005), as well as numerous articles, essays, and reviews.
Table of Contents
Philosophy in the Seraglio
The Wisdom of the East
The New World and the Noble Savage
The Last Frontiers
The Varieties of Man
An Indelible Stain
The Apotheosis of Europe