Volney: ‘The Ruins' and ‘Catechism of Natural Law' - Constantin Volney

Volney: ‘The Ruins' and ‘Catechism of Natural Law'

Buch | Softcover
270 Seiten
2024
Cambridge University Press (Verlag)
978-1-108-71726-7 (ISBN)
32,40 inkl. MwSt
A fresh modern translation of a major French Revolutionary text, whose arguments for popular sovereignty are couched in the form of an Oriental dream-tale. This is a forgotten bestseller in the history of political thought which was translated by Thomas Jefferson and hugely influenced radical poets from Shelley to Whitman.
Volney was once as influential as Tom Paine, and the author of one of the most popular works of the French Revolutionary era. The Ruins of Empires makes an argument for popular sovereignty, couched in the alluring and accessible form of an Oriental dream-tale. A favourite of both Thomas Jefferson, who translated it, and the young Abraham Lincoln, the Ruins advances a scheme of radical, utopian politics premised upon the deconstruction of all the world's religions. It was widely celebrated by radicals in Britain and America, and exercised an enormous influence on poets from Percy Bysshe Shelley to Walt Whitman for its indictments of tyranny and priestcraft. Volney instead advocates a return to natural precepts shorn of superstition, set out in his sequel, the Catechism of Natural Law. These days Volney enjoys a high profile in African-American Studies as a proponent of Black Egyptianism.

Colin Kidd is Wardlaw Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews. Brought up in the west of Scotland, he was educated at Cambridge, Harvard and Oxford, where he was a Fellow of All Souls between 1987 and 1994, and again from 2005 to 2019. He has been a regular contributor to the London Review of Books, New Statesman and Guardian. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and was awarded an OBE in the 2023 New Year Honours List. Lucy Kidd is a former writer, who published three romantic novels, one historical, earlier in her career. Born in the United States, she was educated at Harvard University and the Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier. More recently, she has worked in Scotland in the TEFL/TESL sector. Her interests are in music, literature and modern languages.

Translators' preface; Introduction; Chronology of Volney's life; Further reading; Biographical notes; The Ruins; Catechism of Natural Law; Appendix I. Volney's endnotes and sources; Appendix II. Volney's Black Egyptianist passages; Appendix III. Significant textual variants; Index.

Erscheinungsdatum
Reihe/Serie Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
Übersetzer Colin Kidd, Lucy Kidd
Zusatzinfo Worked examples or Exercises
Verlagsort Cambridge
Sprache englisch
Themenwelt Sonstiges Geschenkbücher
ISBN-10 1-108-71726-8 / 1108717268
ISBN-13 978-1-108-71726-7 / 9781108717267
Zustand Neuware
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