Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness: Moral Discourse and Cultural Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century England

The third earl of Shaftesbury was a pivotal figure in eighteenth-century thought and culture. Professor Klein’s new study is the first to examine the extensive Shaftesbury manuscripts and offer an interpretation that relates his ideas about philosophy, morals, religion and the arts to his social and political goals. Through politeness, Shaftesbury conceptualized a new kind of public and critical culture, and greatly influenced the philosophical and cultural models associated with the European Enlightenment.