Translations, histories, enlightenments : William Robertson in Germany, 1760-1795 / László Kontler.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kontler, László, author.

Series:

Palgrave studies in cultural and intellectual history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Robertson, William, 1721-1793.

Robertson, William.

Germany--Intellectual life--18th century.

Germany.

Intellectual life.

Scotland--Intellectual life--18th century.

Scotland.

Europe--Intellectual life--18th century.

Europe.

Enlightenment--Germany.

Enlightenment.

Enlightenment--Scotland.

Enlightenment--Europe.

Physical Description:

x, 261 pages ; 25 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

William Robertson in Germany, 1760-1795

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Summary:

William Robertson-historian, minister, and Principal of the University of Edinburgh-was a central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. In this study of his four major histories (on national, European, and global themes), László Kontler explores how their reception in Germany tested the possibilities and the limits of intellectual transfer through translation within the "republic of letters." Employing a comparative approach to reassess Robertson's status and contribution against a Scottish, German, and European background, the book reinforces and enriches the trend in eighteenth-century studies which emphasizes that besides the approximate unity of questions in the Enlightenment's intellectual agenda, the answers showed significant diversity and were contingent upon local and individual factors. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Politics, Literature, and Science: William Robertson and Historical Discourses in Eighteenth-Century Scotland and Germany 19

Stages, conjectures, narratives: Scottish history and the science of man 20

Varieties of Geschichte, toward Wissenschaft 31

2 Time and Progress, Time as Progress: History by Way of Enlightened Preaching 41

Agency and event, Christian and other times: "progressive revelation" 42

An unnoticed translation 53

Baumgarten and Semler: history and the religious Enlightenment in Germany 56

Lessing: progressive revelation remastered 62

Michaelis: Göttingen and the cultural approach to Christianity 67

3 A Different View of the Progress of Society in Europe 73

Manners and sociocultural dynamics 74

An "exotic" interlude 78

Some interlocutors 81

Sitten and ethnocultural specifics 84

4 Scottish Histories and German Identities 95

Scotland and Charles V: Robertson's making of modern Europe 95

Rendering "national" history 106

German Robertsons? 117

5 Maps of Mankind 125

Robertson's "global histories" 125

America: savages and "imperfectly civilized" 126

India: civilization subdued 140

Translating the history of mankind: terminologies and interlocutors 146

Landlocked gazes at the new worlds and Oriental lures 150

Robertson and Forster: strange bedfellows? 164.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781137371713

1137371714

OCLC:

870285564