Jonathan Clark has sent me a copy of his new book on the Enlightenment. It provides a magnificent sweep of intellectual history over the long eighteenth century 1660 to 1832 and into the modern era. It considers the thought of England, Scotland, France, Germany and the USA.
Its central conclusion is that the term The Enlightenment is one invented by twentieth century historians. There was no Enlightenment movement, and there were considerable variations of thought and intellectual interests over the decades studied and in the varied European and US geographies. When I wrote about some of the thinkers described here I tried to follow their views of what they thought and how they wished to describe their world. Jonathan does that brilliantly based on a fount of knowledge and scholarship for a wider group.
Those interpretations of our past which saw a progressive movement from superstition Ā to science, from belief to secular rationalism, Ā from feudal agriculture to the industrial and agrarian revolutions, Ā from Ā executive monarchy to democracy, sought to downplay other characteristics of the complex literature, natural philosophy and political debate of the period.
āEnlightenmentā figures usually Ā placed themselves on the side of belief in their ageās struggle against atheism. They often sided with those who opposed widening the franchise and looked for sponsorship from landed wealth rather than from the new manufacturers.
It is still possible for historians to write golden thread history where England battles her way to great industrial wealth, scientific and technical advances, a better welfare system Ā and a democratic constitution with a full adult franchise. Ā All that is true, and today too often derided or taken for granted. It is important scholars like Jonathan reveal the complexity of the process and remind us most of the intellectuals along this carefully selected journey did not see it like that and did not belong to any modernising or Enlightenment movement. The great natural philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries often wrote extensively Ā about religious matters or dabbled with alchemy as well as producing important breakthroughs we now call scientific.
August 20, 2024
Progress is usually accidental.
Politicians and leaders do not have the foresight for it to be anything else, they are too often covering there backs or following their incomplete doctrines.
August 20, 2024
The clever trick in all this enlightenment and advance would have been to see a wiser distrubution of the resultant wealth it produced. The people still require a stake and a sense of involvement if we are to achieve the best outcomes. In the UK the Quakers were the only ones to realise this as I recall. Does this make me a closet socialist or an enlightened conservative.
August 20, 2024
It makes you a Mormon or a Quaker. I wonder why, if that system whereby you āearn what you needā is not more widespread if itās so good? Of course those societies are very closed, not only are they genetically intact but mentally too. You donāt get the benefit unless you are a Mormon.
Socialism never works, it redistributes wealth to those who donāt earn it and donāt know what to do with it. So they spend it, on tattoos (see Beckham, who is a nice chap) instead of investing it and creating more wealth. All of these WOkE ācomicsā who stand on the stage demanding wealth distribution have much more than their share, which is why we are all poorer – because they have an consume so much. Therefore there is incrementally less wealth and we all end up poor.
August 21, 2024
Frankly Lynn I know nothing of the Mormons, beyond believing theg are based in Utah. The Quakers I was thinking of were the chocolate ones of Bournville and York. They realised that a happy well housed workforce was better for their business than an enslaved one. That to my mind was a Christian form of socialism, very far from the something for nothing, politics of envy that current socialism has evolved into. Even Christianity whose monastic and nunnery practices could be interpreted as pure socialism , is not free of the conquest of nations, the theft of their wealth, or the subjugation of people. So in reality I have been reluctant to sign up for any of the “Isms” on offer, preferring to pick and mix my choices in life.
August 20, 2024
Iād suggest an enlightened conservative. We can count there legacy in the number of libraries, roads and great institutions and democratic culture. However just look how weāve neglected and abandoned that knowledge & wealth ā¦.is it enlightening to destroy & throw a statue into a dock ā¦and is it enlightening for our politcians to allow it to happen
August 20, 2024
Thanks I will read it.
August 20, 2024
Thank you for this review, Sir John.
I’ve now put that book on my ‘wish to read’ list, for the winter months, since it’s not only rather pricey – well deserved for the author as it is, it is also over 900 pages long … so just right for the long winter evenings.
Please do continue with reviews of books you have found interesting!
August 20, 2024
Thank you very much, Sir John. I had been wondering what to read on my forthcoming holiday in France!
August 20, 2024
However, after a period of enlightenment; like rome, bureaucracy & the civil service remain
August 20, 2024
If we think about the “Enlightenment” using the dictum I was told by a Historian that “History is written by the winners” then who were the winners do you think Sir John?
August 20, 2024
Leave Isaac Newton alone. He had more influence on the way we think about the world than anyone before or since. His Principia Mathematica is the most important book ever written as it established the most important science, Physics, from which the modern world derives.
August 20, 2024
Relying on Newton only we wouldnāt have had transistors/semiconductors/integrated circuits (and the rest of electronics including computers), we would not be able to launch satellites like the Voyagers, nor to understand blackbody radiation or the photoelectric effect, nor being able to build lasers, LEDs, MRI, GPS (for its use of atomic clocks) or even USB drives, nor ā¦
Interestingly enough, quantum physics has been shown to simplify back to Newtonian physics at large scales. So nothing lost.
And even better thanks to quantum physics we have both William Happer and Steven Koonin (both non-Newtonian physicists) to let us know that thereās no reason to be āunsettledā ā¢ļø by climate change.
August 20, 2024
I said Newton founded Physics. If you want to refer to more recent influences on science, I would suggest Michael Faraday whose work in Electricity and Magnetism was crucial to the discoveries you berate Newton for not having made.
August 21, 2024
Enlightenment is taught as a whole new approach to life,including musical styles which could reach out to all people of all classes.
August 21, 2024
Your review confirms what I have read about this and it is now in my amazon basket.