Libraries and enlightenment : eighteenth-century Norway and the outer world / Gina Dahl.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dahl, Gina, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Libraries--Norway.

Libraries.

Norway.

Norway--Foreign relations--History--18th century.

Norway--Civilization--18th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (228 pages)

Place of Publication:

Aarhus : Aarhus Universitetsforlag, [2014]

Summary:

During the Enlightenment, other peoples, and also their cultures, were much discussed, with debates often focusing on their value as human beings and the level of tolerance that they were to be granted. Books on 'outer worlds', classified in libraries as historia, were an integral part of these deliberations as they conveyed distinct perceptions of peoples and places to their readers. This book explores how the broader world was presented to a Norwegian audience by means of both statistical analysis of books on 'the other' in Enlightenment libraries and consideration of how peoples were portrayed in bestselling works. Intriguingly, book distribution was very uneven, and the views that the bestsellers promoted were as multifaceted as the Enlightenment itself, with the texts expressing both prejudice and admiration, depending on the identity of the author and thee very context in which they were written. --Provided by publisher.

Contents:

The world in libraries

The idea of history

the art of classification

Inclusions, exclusions and major patterns of book dissemination

Worlds nearby and worlds distant

The world in books

Africa

Asia

Russia

America.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

87-7124-817-X

OCLC:

1108525314