Variations on Montesquieu
Raynal and Diderot’s Histoire des deux Indes and the American Revolution
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7864625 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Guillaume Ansart (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 399-420 |
| Publication date | 2009-07-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the History of Ideas (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-5037 • E-ISSN: 1086-3222 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/jhi.0.0049 |
| OpenAlex | W1982046433 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 7 |
This essay discusses an important early French response to the American Revolution, chapters 38-52 in Book 18 of Raynal and Diderot's Histoire des deux Indes (1780), and explores how this reponse was shaped by the influence of Montesquieu. In Raynal and Diderot's conception of political freedom, as in Montesquieu's, universalism is tempered by empiricism. Public opinion must never be ignored, local factors matter: the two philosophes praise the American revolutionaries for their wisdom in this respect. Clearly Montesquieuan in inspiration, the American chapters of the Histoire des deux Indes constitute one of the most significant pre-revolutionary examples of moderate liberalism in France
Art · Art history · Empiricism · Epistemology · Liberalism · Literature · Political science · Politics · Praise · American Constitutional Law and Politics · European Political History Analysis · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence
European encounters with the New World
Habermas and the public sphere
A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies
The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought
Montesquieu's Complex Natural Right and Moderate Liberalism
America as a Model for the Radical French Reformers of 1789
Enlightenment against Empire
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2017 - 2024 (8) |
| Highly cited | No |