Description
Book SynopsisThe Time of Enlightenment investigates how a new idea of the future emerged with the development of modern practices in France from 1750 to Year One, the first year of the Republican calendar that marked the Revolutionary caesura in time.
Trade Review“Scholars interested in the growing literature on the history of time, progress, and the future will find this book valuable reading. It is a careful but clear work on intellectual history, one with particular relevance for understanding the significance of the French Revolution.” -- Meghan K. Roberts, Bowdoin College *
H-France Review *
“In this insightful, richly researched, and theoretically astute work, William Max Nelson views the Enlightenment not as era, movement, or project, but as ‘attempts to develop new ways of being in the world that could come to grips with the erosion of traditional notions of God and legitimating narratives of political authority and social hierarchy.’ … This book is a valuable and thought-provoking contribution to that process.” -- Daniel Brewer, University of Minnesota *
French Studies *
“This wide-ranging book makes a valuable contribution to a still fragmentary field of historical time studies.” -- Sanja Perovic, King’s College London *
American Historical Review *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Making Time Different: Historical Change and the Laws of Nature 2. Living the Future: Ideas of Progress and Uncanny Temporality 3. “The Explosion of Light”: The Economic Order and the Scientific Revelation of the Future 4. Generating Time: Buffon and the Biological Instruments of Futurity 5. The Time of Regeneration: Renewal, Rupture, and Beginning Anew in the French Revolution Conclusion: Colonizing the Future Notes Index
