Voltaire's Revolution

Voltaire's Revolution PDF Author: Voltaire
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1633880389
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Get Book Here

Book Description
Voltaire, the pen name of Franpois-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), was one of the most influential leaders of the French Enlightenment. His defense of individual freedom of conscience and his criticisms of religious fanaticism and oppressive orthodoxy had a telling effect on Western history, inspiring several leading founders of America's new laws. This is the first English translation of many of his key texts from his famous pamphlet war for tolerance, written from 1750 to 1768, originally published under pseudonyms to avoid imprisonment and to educate the average citizen. Included are oThe Sermon of Rabbi Akibo (a searing attack on anti-Semitism),aaoPrayer to Godo (from the famousaTreatise on Tolerance), the hugely popular oCatechism of the Honest Man,o "The Dinner at Count Boulainvillier's," and other witty, sometimes acerbic pieces that point out the errors in the Bible, the corruption of the clergy, and the religiously-inspired persecutions, both of his day and across the ages. Many of these pamphlets were burned in a losing battle by the authorities. With a lengthy introduction and copious notes by the editor and translator, plus an appendix including first-hand accounts of the battle by noted mathematician and French revolutionary Condorcet, Frederick the Great, Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith, and others, this excellent compilation will be a welcome addition to the libraries of anyone with an interest in human rights and freedom of thought.

Voltaire's Revolution

Voltaire's Revolution PDF Author: Voltaire
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1633880389
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Get Book Here

Book Description
Voltaire, the pen name of Franpois-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), was one of the most influential leaders of the French Enlightenment. His defense of individual freedom of conscience and his criticisms of religious fanaticism and oppressive orthodoxy had a telling effect on Western history, inspiring several leading founders of America's new laws. This is the first English translation of many of his key texts from his famous pamphlet war for tolerance, written from 1750 to 1768, originally published under pseudonyms to avoid imprisonment and to educate the average citizen. Included are oThe Sermon of Rabbi Akibo (a searing attack on anti-Semitism),aaoPrayer to Godo (from the famousaTreatise on Tolerance), the hugely popular oCatechism of the Honest Man,o "The Dinner at Count Boulainvillier's," and other witty, sometimes acerbic pieces that point out the errors in the Bible, the corruption of the clergy, and the religiously-inspired persecutions, both of his day and across the ages. Many of these pamphlets were burned in a losing battle by the authorities. With a lengthy introduction and copious notes by the editor and translator, plus an appendix including first-hand accounts of the battle by noted mathematician and French revolutionary Condorcet, Frederick the Great, Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith, and others, this excellent compilation will be a welcome addition to the libraries of anyone with an interest in human rights and freedom of thought.

Voltaire's Revolution

Voltaire's Revolution PDF Author: G.K. Noyer
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1633880397
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Get Book Here

Book Description
Voltaire, the pen name of François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), was one of the most influential leaders of the French Enlightenment. His defense of individual freedom of conscience and his criticisms of religious fanaticism and oppressive orthodoxy had a telling effect on Western history, inspiring several leading founders of America's new laws. This is the first English translation of many of his key texts from his famous pamphlet war for tolerance, written from 1750 to 1768, originally published under pseudonyms to avoid imprisonment and to educate the average citizen. Included are “The Sermon of Rabbi Akib” (a searing attack on anti-Semitism), “Prayer to God” (from the famous Treatise on Tolerance), the hugely popular “Catechism of the Honest Man,” "The Dinner at Count Boulainvillier's," and other witty, sometimes acerbic pieces that point out the errors in the Bible, the corruption of the clergy, and the religiously-inspired persecutions, both of his day and across the ages. Many of these pamphlets were burned in a losing battle by the authorities. With a lengthy introduction and copious notes by the editor and translator, plus an appendix including first-hand accounts of the battle by noted mathematician and French revolutionary Condorcet, Frederick the Great, Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith, and others, this excellent compilation will be a welcome addition to the libraries of anyone with an interest in human rights and freedom of thought.

The Darnton Debate

The Darnton Debate PDF Author: Voltaire Foundation
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Get Book Here

Book Description
Ever since Professor Robert Darnton aroused the interest of all Enlightenment scholars with the publication of 'The High Enlightenment and the low-life literature in pre-revolutionary France' in 1971, he has been in the forefront of debate about that period and the French Revolution which followed it. His work has long been an indispensable study for all those who ponder on the nature and evolution of these great movements. By the mid 1990s, however, it was apparent that Darnton's far-reaching conclusions on the relationship of the Enlightenment to the Revolution, together with his historical accounts of printed works and the mentalités of the eighteenth century, merited a comprehensive debate on his whole uvre. The present collection sparks off that debate. The contributors to this volume were invited freely to address any particular aspect of Robert Darnton's researches or to discuss the whole trust of his thinking about the past. Darnton readily agreed to this proposal, encouraging the editor to send invitations to long-standing critics just as much as to more sympathetic readers. The essays collected here respond to the original request, in diverse ways. Taking up a whole spectrum of positions about Darnton's work, they attempt an answer based on deep reflection or assiduous source-research or both. In a coda to the volume Robert Darnton responds robustly to the various readings of his work. In places he seeks to rescue it from what he considers to be false interpretations and to set the record straight. But his essay is not just a rebuttal. It moves the debate on, bringing new insights and information not previously published. His conclusion are as flexible open-ended as one could wish, and in line with which they have been richly plumbed in his writings. The threads running through the various essays are drawn together by a comprehensive index of eighteenth-century persons and writings.

The French Revolution

The French Revolution PDF Author: David Andress
Publisher: Apollo
ISBN: 1788540085
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this miraculously compressed, incisive book David Andress argues that it was the peasantry of France who made and defended the Revolution of 1789. That the peasant revolution benefitted far more people, in more far reaching ways, than the revolution of lawyerly elites and urban radicals that has dominated our view of the revolutionary period. History has paid more attention to Robespierre, Danton and Bonaparte than it has to the millions of French peasants who were the first to rise up in 1789, and the most ardent in defending changes in land ownership and political rights. 'Those furthest from the center rarely get their fair share of the light', Andress writes, and the peasants were patronized, reviled and often persecuted by urban elites for not following their lead. Andress's book reveals a rural world of conscious, hard-working people and their struggles to defend their ways of life and improve the lives of their children and communities.

David, Voltaire, "Brutus", and the French Revolution

David, Voltaire, Author: Robert L. Herbert
Publisher: Lane, Allen
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 170

Get Book Here

Book Description


A Philosophical Dictionary

A Philosophical Dictionary PDF Author: Voltaire
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 454

Get Book Here

Book Description


Voltaire's Bastards

Voltaire's Bastards PDF Author: John Ralston Saul
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476718938
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 657

Get Book Here

Book Description
With a new Introduction by the author, this “erudite and brilliantly readable book” (The Observer, London) expertly dissects the political, economic, and social origins of Western civilization to reveal a culture cripplingly enslaved to crude notions of rationality and expertise. With a new introduction by the author, this “erudite and brilliantly readable book” (The Observer, London) astutely dissects the political, economic and social origins of Western civilization to reveal a culture cripplingly enslaved to crude notions of rationality and expertise. The Western world is full of paradoxes. We talk endlessly of individual freedom, yet we’ve never been under more pressure to conform. Our business leaders describe themselves as capitalists, yet most are corporate employees and financial speculators. We call our governments democracies, yet few of us participate in politics. We complain about invasive government, yet our legal, educational, financial, social, cultural and legislative systems are deteriorating. All these problems, John Ralston Saul argues, are largely the result of our blind faith in the value of reason. Over the past 400 years, our “rational elites” have turned the modern West into a vast, incomprehensible, directionless machine, run by process-minded experts—“Voltaire’s bastards”—whose cult of scientific management is empty of both sense and morality. Whether in politics, art, business, the military, entertain­ment, science, finance, academia or journalism, these experts share the same outlook and methods. The result, Saul maintains, is a civilization of immense technological power whose ordinary citizens are increasingly excluded from the decision-making process. In this wide-ranging anatomy of modern society and its origins—whose “pages explode with insight, style and intellectual rigor” (Camille Paglia, The Washington Post)—Saul presents a shattering critique of the political, economic and cultural estab­lishments of the West.

Voltaire

Voltaire PDF Author: Jason Porterfield
Publisher: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc
ISBN: 9781404204232
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 120

Get Book Here

Book Description
Presents the life of the French philosopher, discussing his literary and philosophical writings, his tumultuous relationships with some of the rulers and thinkers of his day, and his lasting influence on French culture.

Voltaire in Love

Voltaire in Love PDF Author: Nancy Mitford
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590175786
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 281

Get Book Here

Book Description
The inimitable Nancy Mitford’s account of Voltaire’s fifteen-year relationship with the Marquise du Châtelet—the renowned mathematician who introduced Isaac Newton’s revolutionary new physics to France—is a spirited romp in the company of two extraordinary individuals as well as an erudite and gossipy guide to French high society during the Enlightenment. Mitford’s story is as delicious as it is complicated. The marquise was in love with another mathematician, Maupertuis, while she had an unexpected rival for Voltaire’s affections in the future Frederick the Great of Prussia (and later in the philosophe’s own niece). There was, at least, no jealous husband to contend with: the Marquis du Châtelet, Mitford assures us, behaved perfectly. The beau monde of Paris was, however, distraught at the idea of the lovers’ brilliant conversation going to waste on the windswept hills of Champagne, site of the Château de Cirey, where experimental laboratories, a darkroom, and a library of more than twenty-one thousand volumes enabled them to pursue their amours philosophiques. From time to time the threat of impending arrest would send Voltaire scurrying across the border into Holland, but his irrepressible charm—and the interventions of powerful friends—always made it possible for him resume his studies with the cherished marquise.

Voltaire: A Very Short Introduction

Voltaire: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Nicholas Cronk
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191512761
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Get Book Here

Book Description
Voltaire (1694-1778), best remembered as the author of Candide, is one of the central actors -- arguably the defining personality -- of the European Enlightenment. In this Very Short Introduction, Nicholas Cronk explores Voltaire's remarkable career and demonstrates how his thinking is pivotal to our notion and understanding of the Enlightenment. In a fresh and modern examination of his writings, Cronk examines the nature of Voltaire's literary celebrity, demonstrating the extent to which his work was reactive and practical, and therefore made sense within the broader context of the debates to which he responded. The most famous living author in Europe in the 18th century, Cronk emphasises Voltaire's skills of 'performance' as a writer and his continued relevance today. He concludes by looking not only at Voltaire's impact in literature and philosophy, but also his influence on French political values and modern French politics. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.