Places the central intellectual and religious debates of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England in a refreshing transnational perspective.
Between 1650 and 1750 the intellectual and religious landscape of England underwent profound transformations, shaped by an unprecedented engagement with Dutch and French books and ideas. Works by Descartes, Grotius, Spinoza, Bayle and others introduced new modes of thought, prompting English thinkers to reimagine the relationship between scripture, reason, ethics and scholarship. These texts, circulating in Latin, French and English, challenged traditional authority and invited scholars to reconcile Christianity with history, philosophy and the emerging natural sciences.
Marco Barducci presents a detailed exploration of how these imported ideas catalysed key conceptual shifts. This book shows how scripture was read as a cultural artifact; metaphysics was disentangled from natural philosophy; the church’s role was reframed to prioritize social cohesion; and human agency was increasingly viewed through a worldly lens. By viewing these changes as part of a transnational framework of writers, the book highlights how intellectual exchanges between England and the Continent shaped English responses to crises of faith, scholarship, and epistemology.
Combining intellectual and book history, this study not only reframes the notion of an ‘English Enlightenment’ but also interrogates broader questions of secularization and modernity. It offers fresh insights into the interplay of ideas, books, and society, while examining how England adapted-and transformed – Continental thought.
Table of Content
Introduction: Approaching intellectual change in England and Europe
1. Circulation of European texts and perceptions of the crisis
2. Understanding the origins and nature of the crisis
3. Reason: triumph or demise?
4. Reading God’s two books (i): Nature
5. God and the immortality of the soul
6. Reading God’s two books (ii): Scripture
7. Debating Church Authority
8. Debating the powers and limits of human agency
Conclusion: Crisis, Enlightenment and secularization
About the author
Marco Barducci is Associate Professor of the History of Political Thought at the University of Pavia. He has published widely on political and intellectual history from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.
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