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The American Enlightenment, 1750–1820

The American Enlightenment, 1750–1820

Robert A. Ferguson

ISBN 9780674023222

Publication date: 03/25/1997

This concise literary history of the American Enlightenment captures the varied and conflicting voices of religious and political conviction in the decades when the new nation was formed. Robert Ferguson’s trenchant interpretation yields new understanding of this pivotal period for American culture.

Praise

  • [A] learned, highly intelligent study of American revolutionary writing… Ferguson’s chapters on the intellectual and social sources of the revolution, on how the rhetoric of revolutionary writing works now and worked then, politically, and on aspects of the American enlightenment, are masterful: original, challenging, immensely informative.

    —Stephen Fender, Times Literary Supplement

Author

  • Robert A. Ferguson was George Edward Woodberry Professor in Law, Literature, and Criticism at Columbia University.

Book Details

  • 240 pages
  • 6 x 9 inches
  • Harvard University Press

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