Narratives of Enlightenment: Cosmopolitan History from Voltaire to Gibbon

Narratives of Enlightenment reappraises the work of five of the most important narrative historians of the eighteenth century–Voltaire, David Hume, William Robertson, Edward Gibbon, and the historian of the American Revolution, David Ramsay–in the context of political and national debates in France, Scotland, England and America. Where previous studies have emphasized the growth of nationalism in eighteenth-century literature, Karen O'Brien reveals the development of cosmopolitan ways of thinking beyond national cultural issues.