Historians have often either ignored Anacharsis Cloots (1755–1794) or considered him deranged because he claimed to be the ‘orator of the human race’ and devised a ‘universal republic’ based on the ...‘sovereignty of the human race’. This book is the first comprehensive study of the entire body of Cloots’s written works and political actions. By contextualizing them, the book non only rehabilitates Cloots as a political thinker worthy of consideration, but also argues that his political thought constitutes a specific branch of republicanism in the age of Atlantic revolutions: cosmopolitan republicanism. The introduction suggests how 18th-century French cosmopolitanism was a new philosophical tradition, but was composed of several themes, which the book then analyses in Cloots’s writings. The first chapter provides a brief overview of his life. The second chapter explains why he called himself orator and wrote pamphlets, and why contemporary readers should not discard this as non-philosophical. Having established Cloots’s writings as constituting a philosophical system, the following chapters explores it through the themes laid out in the introduction. First, the concept of reason and his understanding of science. Second, the paradigm of natural law and the role of nature in moral and political thought. Third, the conception of humanity and individuals in nature and society. Finally, republicanism and its principles. The last chapter summarizes the elements of Cloots’s cosmopolitan republicanism and opens a research programme to other political thinkers in the age of Atlantic revolutions for historians and political theorists. ; Historians have often either ignored Anacharsis Cloots (1755–1794) or considered him deranged because he claimed to be the ‘orator of the human race’ and devised a ‘universal republic’ based on the ‘sovereignty of the human race’. This book is the first comprehensive study of the entire body of Cloots’s written works and political actions. By contextualizing them, the book non only rehabilitates Cloots as a political thinker worthy of consideration, but also argues that his political thought constitutes a specific branch of republicanism in the age of Atlantic revolutions: cosmopolitan republicanism. The introduction suggests how 18th-century French cosmopolitanism was a new philosophical tradition, but was composed of several themes, which the book then analyses in Cloots’s writings. The first chapter provides a brief overview of his life. The second chapter explains why he called himself orator and wrote pamphlets, and why contemporary readers should not discard this as non-philosophical. Having established Cloots’s writings as constituting a philosophical system, the following chapters explores it through the themes laid out in the introduction. First, the concept of reason and his understanding of science. Second, the paradigm of natural law and the role of nature in moral and political thought. Third, the conception of humanity and individuals in nature and society. Finally, republicanism and its principles. The last chapter summarizes the elements of Cloots’s cosmopolitan republicanism and opens a research programme to other political thinkers in the age of Atlantic revolutions for historians and political theorists.
The Modernist Anthropocene examines how modernist writers forged new and innovative ways of responding to rapidly changing planetary conditions and emergent ideas about nonhuman life, environmental ...change and the human species. Drawing on ecocritical analysis, posthumanist theory, archival research and environmental history, this book resituates key works of modernist fiction within the ecological moment of the early twentieth century, a period in which new configurations of the relationship between human life and the natural world were migrating between the sciences, philosophy and literary culture. The author makes the case that the early twentieth century is pivotal in our understanding of the Anthropocene both as a planetary epoch and a critical concept. In doing so, he positions James Joyce, Djuna Barnes and Virginia Woolf as theorists of the modernist Anthropocene, showing how their oeuvres are shaped by, and actively respond to, changing ideas about the nonhuman that continue to reverberate today.
Martha Ullman West illustrates how American ballet developed
over the course of the twentieth century from an aesthetic
originating in the courts of Europe into a stylistically diverse
expression of ...a democratic culture. West places at center stage two
artists who were instrumental to this story: Todd Bolender and
Janet Reed.
Lifelong friends, Bolender (1914-2006) and Reed (1916-2000) were
part of a generation of dancers who navigated the Great Depression,
World War II, and the vibrant cultural scene of postwar New York
City. They danced in the works of choreographers Lew and Willam
Christensen, Eugene Loring, Agnes de Mille, Catherine Littlefield,
Ruthanna Boris, and others who West argues were just as responsible
for the direction of American ballet as the legendary George
Balanchine and Jerome Robbins.
The stories of Bolender, Reed, and their contemporaries also
demonstrate that the flowering of American ballet was not simply a
New York phenomenon. West includes little-known details about how
Bolender and Reed laid the foundations for Seattle's Pacific
Northwest Ballet in the 1970s and how Bolender transformed the
Kansas City Ballet into a highly respected professional company
soon after.
Passionate in their desire to dance and create dances, Bolender
and Reed committed their lives to passing along their hard-won
knowledge, training, and work. This book celebrates two unsung
trailblazers who were pivotal to the establishment of ballet in
America from one coast to the other.
Maria Theresa Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger
2022, 2022-01-18
eBook
A major new biography of the iconic Austrian empress that challenges the many myths about her life and rule Maria Theresa (1717–1780) was once the most powerful woman in Europe. At the age of ...twenty-three, she ascended to the throne of the Habsburg Empire, a far-flung realm composed of diverse ethnicities and languages, beset on all sides by enemies and rivals. Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger provides the definitive biography of Maria Theresa, situating this exceptional empress within her time while dispelling the myths surrounding her.Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence, Stollberg-Rilinger examines all facets of eighteenth-century society, from piety and patronage to sexuality and childcare, ceremonial life at court, diplomacy, and the everyday indignities of warfare. She challenges the idealized image of Maria Theresa as an enlightened reformer and mother of her lands who embodied both feminine beauty and virile bellicosity, showing how she despised the ideas of the Enlightenment, treated her children with relentless austerity, and mercilessly persecuted Protestants and Jews. Work, consistent physical and mental discipline, and fear of God were the principles Maria Theresa lived by, and she demanded the same from her family, her court, and her subjects.A panoramic work of scholarship that brings Europe's age of empire spectacularly to life, Maria Theresa paints an unforgettable portrait of the uncompromising yet singularly charismatic woman who left her enduring mark on the era in which she lived and reigned.
An entertaining mathematical exploration of the heat equation and its role in the triumphant development of the trans-Atlantic telegraph cable Heat, like gravity, shapes nearly every aspect of our ...world and universe, from how milk dissolves in coffee to how molten planets cool. The heat equation, a cornerstone of modern physics, demystifies such processes, painting a mathematical picture of the way heat diffuses through matter. Presenting the mathematics and history behind the heat equation, Hot Molecules, Cold Electrons tells the remarkable story of how this foundational idea brought about one of the greatest technological advancements of the modern era.Paul Nahin vividly recounts the heat equation's tremendous influence on society, showing how French mathematical physicist Joseph Fourier discovered, derived, and solved the equation in the early nineteenth century. Nahin then follows Scottish physicist William Thomson, whose further analysis of Fourier's explorations led to the pioneering trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. This feat of engineering reduced the time it took to send a message across the ocean from weeks to minutes. Readers also learn that Thomson used Fourier's solutions to calculate the age of the earth, and, in a bit of colorful lore, that writer Charles Dickens relied on the trans-Atlantic cable to save himself from a career-damaging scandal. The book's mathematical and scientific explorations can be easily understood by anyone with a basic knowledge of high school calculus and physics, and MATLAB code is included to aid readers who would like to solve the heat equation themselves.A testament to the intricate links between mathematics and physics, Hot Molecules, Cold Electrons offers a fascinating glimpse into the relationship between a formative equation and one of the most important developments in the history of human communication.
What does it mean to say that the European Union has a constitution—theoretically, but more importantly, practically? What sort of possibilities such assertion opens for various actors—politicians, ...legal professionals, or the general public? And what is the role of constitutional thinkers in establishing constitutional discourse as the dominant way in which European law is (or was) conceived after 1989? This volume seeks to answer such questions, with a special emphasis on the last one. ‘European Constitutional Imaginaries’ are the central focus of the book. These are sets of ideas and beliefs that help to motivate and at the same time justify the practice of government and collective self-rule established by the constitution (written or unwritten). Such imaginaries are as important as institutions and office-holders. They provide political action with an overarching sense and purpose recognized by those governed as legitimate. The book brings together reflections by lawyers, philosophers, sociologists, or political economists, who shed light on various constitutional imaginaries of Europe. They provide critical intellectual histories of particular legal approaches to European integration, and look behind the language of law to reach deeper insights into the contested history and political economy of Europe. They ask us to think about European law differently.
A new assessment of baron d'Holbach (1723-1789), his works, his circle and his legacy, gathering together generations of d'Holbach scholars to analyse multiple aspects of his diverse intellectual ...commitment from fresh perspectives.
