European civilization and the “emulation of the nations”

Histories of Europe from the Enlightenment to Guizot

Bibliographic Data

ID11348590
AuthorsMarcello Verga (0000-0002-2740-4510, a Dipartimento di Studi sullo Stato, Facoltà di Scienze Politiche “Cesare Alfieri” , Università di Firenze , via delle Pandette 21, 50127 Firenze, Italy, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume34
Issue4
Pages353-360
Publication date2008-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory of European Ideas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0191-6599 • E-ISSN: 1873-541X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2008.07.007
OpenAlexW2067703881
LanguageEN
Citations received4

This paper discusses the paradigms of European history and of European civilisation defined in the main histories of Europe written from the Enlightenment to Guizot. Voltaire, Robertson, Gibbon, and Guizot consolidated a model of the history of Europe which has its origins in the fall of the western Roman Empire and the invasions of the Barbarians. The other main steps of this history were the Christianisation, the creation of a vital economic centre in western and northern Europe, the development of the cities, the rediscovery of Roman law, the creation of a complex system of states, the colonial expansion and again the birth of a society of “good manners”. A common civilisation which did not ignore the differences which existed between one country and another – the “national characters”, discussed by David Hume in 1748. Instead the different national characters – the variety of Europe as Guizot wrote – represented an important element of the European civilisation. Keywords: VoltaireWilliam RobertsonEdward GibbonFrançois Guizot Notes 1 P. Hazard, The European Mind, 1680-1715 (London, 1953). 2 L. Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe. The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1994); G. Cecere, “L’ Oriente d’Euroopa. Una idea in movimento (sec. XVIII)”, Chromos 8 (2003), 1–25. 3 D. Hume, Of National Characters, in Essays Moral, Polical and Literaty, ed. E. F. Miller (Liberty Fund. Inc., Indianapolis, 1987), 187–215. 4 Cf. D. Peabody, National Characteristics, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985). For Voltaire the reference is to the Essai sur les mœurs ... (on which cf. the main text); for Mably the reference is to the Esprit of 1758; for Kant the reference is to his not systematic notes on the national characters on which cf. G. Tonelli, “Kant e i caratteri della nazione” Quaderni della Biblioteca Filosofica di Torino, 51 (1974), 129–38. 5 On these themes of the Esprit des lois and of the whole work of Montesquieu see the essays collected in the volume L’Europe de Montesquieu, ed. A. Postigliola, M. G. Bottari (Liguori, Naples, 1995). 6 Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws, ed. A. M. Colher, B. C Miller, H. S. Stone (Cambridge Uniervsity Press, 1989), 283. 7 Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV (London, 1779), 7. 8 Voltaire, Essai sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations et sur les principaux faits de l’histoire depuis Charlemagne jusqu’à Louis XIII, (Paris, 1990, vols. 2), vol. I: 904. 9 Voltaire, Essai sur les moeurs ... vol. I, 309–19. 10 Voltaire, Essai sur les moeurs ... vol. I, 336. 11 Voltaire, Essai sur les moeurs ... vol. I, 384. 12 Voltaire, Essai sur les moeurs ... vol. II, Supplément 906. 13 Voltaire, Essai sur les moeurs ... vol. II, Supplément 804. 14 L. Febvre, L’Europe: genése d’une civilisation (Paris, 1999). 15 Essay on National Pride, (1771); orginal german edition: Von dem Nationalstolze, Zuerich, 1758). 16 England und Italien (Leipzig, 1784). 17 See H. E. Boedeker, «“Europe” in the Discourse of the Sciences of State in 18th Century Germany» Chromos 8 (2003), 1–14. 18 An Essay on the History of Civil Society, by Adam Ferguson, LL.DD:, professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh (1767). 19 An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Part III, sect. I, 165. 20 An Essay on the History of Civil Society, 89. 21 Mably, De la manière d’écrire l’histoire (Paris, 1784). 22 A. M. Battista, La Germania di Tacito nella Francia illuministica (Urbino, 1999). 23 Ragione e immaginazione. Edward Gibbon e la storiografia europea del Settecento, ed. G. Imbruglia (Napoli, 1996). 24 E. Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. III, General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West (I quoted from edition in six volumes, Philadelphia 1878, 639). 25 Mably, before quoted. 26 See G. Ricuperati, “Universal History: storia di un progetto europeo. Impostori, storici ed eruditi nella Ancient Part”; e G. Abbatista, “The Literary Mill”: per una storia editoriale della Universal History (1736–1765)”, Studi settecenteschi I (1981), n. 2, 7–91 and 93–133. 27 Repertorium ueber die vom Jahre 1800. Bis zum Jahre 1850. in Akademischen Abhandlungen, Gesellschaftsschriften und Wissenschaftslichen Journalen auf dem Gebiete der Geschichte und ihre huelfswissenschaften, von Dr. W. Koner (Berlin, 1852). 28 W. Robertson, Storia del regno dell’imperatore Carlo V (Nicola Bettoni, Milano, 1824); S. de Simondi, Storia dei Francesi (Nicolo Bettoni, Milano, vol. 5). 29 I quote Guizot's History from the 3th american edition : General History of Civilization in Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire to the French Revolution, by M. Guizot (New York, 1869), 16–8. 30 General History of Civilization in Europe, 37–8. 31 A. Saitta, Introduzione to F. Guizot, Storia della civiltà in Europa (Milano, 1973), 59

Ancient history · Archaeology · Civilization · Economic history · Empire · Enlightenment · Political science · Theology · Western culture · Classics · European Political History Analysis · Historical and Literary Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence

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