Purchase
Two Great Thinkers at War in the Age of Enlightenment
Ecco
March 2006
352 pages
ISBN: 0060744901
Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Fiction | Literature and Fiction
In 1766 Jean-Jacques Rousseau -- philosopher, novelist,
composer, educational and political provocateur -- was on
the run from intolerance, persecution, and enemies who
decried him as a madman, dangerous to society. David Hume,
now recognized as the foremost philosopher in the English
language, was universally lauded as a paragon of decency.
Having willingly put himself under Hume's protection,
Rousseau, with his beloved dog, Sultan, took refuge in
England, where he would find safety and freedom. Yet within
months, the exile had accused Hume of plotting to dishonor
him. The violence of Hume's response was totally out of
character, and the resulting furor involved leading figures
in British and French society, and became the talk of
intellectual Europe. In Rousseau's Dog, David Edmonds and John Eidinow bring
their engaging style and probing analysis to the bitter and
very public quarrel that turned these two giants, the most
influential thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment, into the
deadliest of foes. The result is a story of celebrity and
its price, of shameless spin, of destroyed reputations and
shattered friendships. It is a story of two men whose
writings would forever shape our world but whose
personalities and ideas could scarcely have had less in
common. It is also the story of reason and skepticism, as
epitomized by Hume, colliding with the emotionalism and
highly personalized confessional style pioneered by Rousseau. As brilliantly researched as it is briskly paced, Rousseau's
Dog traces the path from the Age of Enlightenment to our own
Age of Celebrity and, at its core, tells a most human tale
of compassion, treachery, anger, and revenge.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
| 
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy