Enlightenment Virtue, 1680-1794. Ed. James Fowler and Marine Ganofsky
Submitted by ccarlin on 14 March 2020 - 7:28pmOxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, 2020. ISBN 978-1-789-62041-2. 296 p. £65.
In a speech delivered in 1794, roughly one year after the execution of Louis XVI, Robespierre boldly declared Terror to be an ‘emanation of virtue’. In adapting the concept of virtue to Republican ends, Robespierre was drawing on traditions associated with ancient Greece and Rome. But Republican tradition formed only one of many strands in debates concerning virtue in France and elsewhere in Europe, from 1680 to the Revolution.