Philosophy in eighteenth-century Britain was diverse, vibrant, and sophisticated. This was the age of Hume and Berkeley and Reid, of Hutcheson and Kames and Smith, of Ferguson and Burke and Wollstonecraft. Important and influential works were published in every area of philosophy, from the theory of vision to theories of political resistance, from the philosophy of language to accounts of ways of governing the passions. The philosophers of eighteenth-century Britain were enormously influential, in France, in Italy, in Germany, and in America. Their ideas and arguments remain a powerful presence in philosophy three centuries later.
Jenny Davidson demonstrates how the arguments that define hypocrisy as a moral and political virtue thrived in eighteenth-century Britain's culture of politeness. However, Davidson also concludes that eighteenth-century writers from Locke to Austen believed that the public practice of vice was far more dangerous for society than discrepancies between what people say and what they do in private.
Born in Austria in 1756, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his first piece of music, a minuet, when he was just five years old! Soon after, he was performing for kings and emperors. Although he died at the young age of thirty-five, Mozart left a legacy of more than 600 works. This fascinating biography charts the musician's extraordinary career and personal life while painting a vivid cultural history of eighteenth-century Europe. Black-and-white illustrations on every spread explore such topics as the history of opera and the evolution of musical instruments. There is also a timeline and a bibliography.
The Little Republic: Masculinity and Domestic Authority in Eighteenth-Century Britain
The relationship between men and the domestic in eighteenth-century Britain has been obscured by two well-established historiographical narratives. The first charts changes in domestic patriarchy, founded on political patriarchalism in the early modern period and transformed during the eighteenth century by new types of family relationship rooted in contract theory.
The Encyclopedia of Eighteenth-Century Writers and Writing1660-1789 features coverage of the lives and works of almost 500 notable writers based in the British Isles from the return of the British monarchy in 1660 until the French Revolution of 1789.
Broad coverage of writers and texts presents a new picture of 18th-century British authorship
Takes advantage of newly expanded eighteenth-century canon to include significantly more women writers and labouring-class writers than have traditionally been studied
Draws on the latest scholarship to more accurately reflect the literary achievements of the long eighteenth century
