Good history of enlightenment and revolutionary era radical thought

August 16, 2019 12:23 PM

Political and philosophical history friends! I am curious about the outlier thinkers of the enlightenment and revolutionary eras (mainly 18th c. into the early 19th) and can't seem to find a good single volume to go over them.

I was reading about Thomas Paine and Richard Carlile — a little late to be considered enlightenment to be sure, but they were obviously influenced by the skepticism and rational inquiry of the 18th century and took them to logical and (sometimes literally) revolutionary ends.

What I'm looking for in particular are people whose writings were considered inflammatory or radical but which in retrospect were outliers of forward thinking. I'm not quite ready to dive into primary sources (apart from a few essays perhaps) so I would love to hear your recommendations for books or other media that illuminate these figures. Thanks in advance!

posted by BlackLeotardFront to Religion & Philosophy (8 answers total)

By coincidence, I saw an 18th C. lit scholar post their syllabus on "The Postmodern Enlightenment" this week--it has a few unusual selections. But it sounds like you're interested more specifically in neglected strains of thought in the Scottish-American Enlightenment, so you might have fun going down the Libertarian rabbit-hole of Ninth Amendment scholarship often citing Francis Hutcheson on natural rights. I'm not, like, recommending it as a position, but it's worth knowing about if you're on this path.
posted by Wobbuffet at 1:05 PM on August 16, 2019 [1 favorite]

To the extent you're interested in thinkers considered radical at the time, probably he most accessible way into this topic IMO is the (buildup to) the French Revolution. Episode 2 of The Age of Napoleon podcast explicitly covers this topic (although you may as well listen to the first one too, and if you enjoy it stick with it, it's great!)
posted by caek at 1:07 PM on August 16, 2019

It's not a source, but characters in Ken Macleod's sci-fi talk about this a bit, so you may get into him once you've read up on the history.
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:58 PM on August 16, 2019

Israel's Radical Enlightment is the shit. A great resource for this topic.
posted by dis_integration at 2:37 PM on August 16, 2019 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: This is a good start I think! Thanks everyone.

dis_integration, I notice Israel has several books covering the same area and timeframe. Is Radical Enlightenment the one I want?
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 6:45 PM on August 17, 2019

Peter Gay's work on the Enlightenment is considered classic.
posted by bertran at 7:40 PM on August 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

dis_integration, I notice Israel has several books covering the same area and timeframe. Is Radical Enlightenment the one I want?

They cover different periods of time, so if you find Radical Enlightenment is ... enlightening, then keep going!
posted by dis_integration at 7:58 AM on August 20, 2019

Israel's A Revolution of the Mind is a sort of summary of his big Radical Enlightenment trilogy, I recall reading.
posted by JonJacky at 4:44 PM on August 21, 2019