Exploring European frontiers : British travellers in the age of Enlightenment / Brian Dolan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dolan, Brian, 1970-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Travelers--Great Britain--History--18th century.

Travelers.

History.

Europe--Description and travel.

Europe.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

xi, 232 pages, 10 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : St. Martin's Press, 2000.

Summary:

The explorations of eighteenth-century British travelers to the "European frontiers" were often geared to define the cultural, political and historical boundaries of "European civilization." In an age when political revolutions shocked nations into reassessing what separated the civilized from the barbaric, how did literary travelers contemplate the characteristics of their continental neighbors? Focusing on the writings of British travelers, we see how a new view of Europe was created, one that attempted to define'modern Europe against a yet unenlightened Europe.

Contents:

1 Preparing the Course: The Death of the Grand Tour and the Making of a Literary Traveller 3

Identity, history and travel 3

The making of a literary traveller 7

Encounters with Clarke 15

Plotting the course 20

2 Northern Frontier: Scandinavia

The Mismeasure of Modernity and the 'Age of Liberty' 27

The state of Scandinavia 28

A land of wood and iron 33

Science and education 38

Population, production and progress 47

The 'borders of civilisation' 57

An alternative Enlightenement? 68

3 Eastern Frontier: Russia and its Frontier

Cultivating Empire and Imitating Enlightenment 73

Bordering a lack of knowledge 73

Anxieties of expansion 80

Peter's progress and Catherine's costly culture 84

Paul: 'The most barbarian among Christians' 97

Warriors in the 'unknown territory' 102

Limits of enlightenment 109

4 Southern Frontier: Greece and the Levant - The Archaeological Appropriation of the Historical Frontier 113

Models of antiquity 115

A Dilettante pursuit 121

Acquiring antiquities Part I: Imperial self-fashioning 129

Acquiring antiquities Part II: The 'Levant lunatics' 135

To patronise or pilfer? 141

Self-styled caretakers of civility 147

5 Coming Home: Displaying and Describing the Trophies of Travels 153

Collections and displays 153

Writing travels 158

Travel and new forms of education 167

Looking at Europe from different perspectives 178.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 208-225) and index.

ISBN:

0312230516

OCLC:

42649705