The Enlightenment and the Book: Scottish Authors and Their Publishers in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and America
1/5
()
About this ebook
The late eighteenth century witnessed an explosion of intellectual activity in Scotland by such luminaries as David Hume, Adam Smith, Hugh Blair, William Robertson, Adam Ferguson, James Boswell, and Robert Burns. And the books written by these seminal thinkers made a significant mark during their time in almost every field of polite literature and higher learning throughout Britain, Europe, and the Americas.
In this magisterial history, Richard B. Sher breaks new ground for our understanding of the Enlightenment and the forgotten role of publishing during that period. The Enlightenment and the Book seeks to remedy the common misperception that such classics as The Wealth of Nations and The Life of Samuel Johnson were written by authors who eyed their publishers as minor functionaries in their profession. To the contrary, Sher shows how the process of bookmaking during the late eighteenth-century involved a deeply complex partnership between authors and their publishers, one in which writers saw the book industry not only as pivotal in the dissemination of their ideas, but also as crucial to their dreams of fame and monetary gain. Similarly, Sher demonstrates that publishers were involved in the project of bookmaking in order to advance human knowledge as well as to accumulate profits.
The Enlightenment and the Book explores this tension between creativity and commerce that still exists in scholarly publishing today. Lavishly illustrated and elegantly conceived, it will be must reading for anyone interested in the history of the book or the production and diffusion of Enlightenment thought.
Richard B. Sher
Richard B. Sher, FRHistS, CorrFRSE, is Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus, New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA.
Related to The Enlightenment and the Book
Related ebooks
Association and Enlightenment: Scottish Clubs and Societies, 1700-1830 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Higher World: Scotland 1707–1815 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Britain's lost revolution?: Jacobite Scotland and French grand strategy, 1701–8 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEmpire and Revolution: The Political Life of Edmund Burke Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5From Republic to Restoration: Legacies and departures Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSir Robert Filmer (1588–1653) and the patriotic monarch: Patriarchalism in seventeenth-century political thought Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIreland in crisis: War, politics and religion, 1641–50 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJohn of Salisbury and the medieval Roman renaissance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSidetracks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edmund Burke and the Conservative Logic of Empire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Architectonics of Hope: Violence, Apocalyptic, and the Transformation of Political Theology Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReforming Philosophy: A Victorian Debate on Science and Society Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnlightenment against Empire Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5English literary afterlives: Greene, Sidney, Donne and the evolution of posthumous fame Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilliam Godwin: Philosopher, Novelist, Revolutionary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ruptures in the Everyday: Views of Modern Germany from the Ground Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Natural History of Revolution: Violence and Nature in the French Revolutionary Imagination, 1789–1794 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe illusion of the Burgundian state Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVico, Genealogist of Modernity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGermaine de Staël: A Political Portrait Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One Bold Deed of Open Treason: The Berlin Diary of Roger Casement 1914-1916 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Question of Scotland: Devolution and After Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCivilizing Money: Hume, his Monetary Project, and the Scottish Enlightenment Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTocqueville between Two Worlds: The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Disease, War, and the Imperial State: The Welfare of the British Armed Forces during the Seven Years' War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Doubtful and dangerous: The question of succession in late Elizabethan England Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Light of Another's Word: European Ethnography in the Middle Ages Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Democratic Soul: Spinoza, Tocqueville, and Enlightenment Theology Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInteranimations: Receiving Modern German Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Texts and readers in the Age of Marvell Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
European History For You
Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jane Austen: The Complete Novels Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mein Kampf: English Translation of Mein Kamphf - Mein Kampt - Mein Kamphf Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book: The Script Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Celtic Mythology: A Concise Guide to the Gods, Sagas and Beliefs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Law Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Violent Abuse of Women: In 17th and 18th Century Britain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Psychedelic Gospels: The Secret History of Hallucinogens in Christianity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hitler's Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of English Magic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Very Secret Sex Lives of Medieval Women Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Victorian Lady's Guide to Fashion and Beauty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Enlightenment and the Book
1 rating0 reviews