Book contents
- Conflict and Enlightenment
- Conflict and Enlightenment
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Print, Production, Authors and Readers
- 2 Instability and Politicisation (1630–77)
- 3 Subversive Print in the Early Enlightenment
- 4 Translation and Transmission across Cultural Borders
- 5 High Enlightenment, Political Texts and Reform 1748–89
- 6 Revolution: Democracy and Loyalism in Print 1789–95
- Conclusions
- Select Bibliography (Works Published after 1800)
- Index
2 - Instability and Politicisation (1630–77)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2019
- Conflict and Enlightenment
- Conflict and Enlightenment
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Print, Production, Authors and Readers
- 2 Instability and Politicisation (1630–77)
- 3 Subversive Print in the Early Enlightenment
- 4 Translation and Transmission across Cultural Borders
- 5 High Enlightenment, Political Texts and Reform 1748–89
- 6 Revolution: Democracy and Loyalism in Print 1789–95
- Conclusions
- Select Bibliography (Works Published after 1800)
- Index
Summary
This chapter explores the reasons behind the dramatic fluctuations in print output noted in Chapter 1 and analyses the precise context for a wide range of publications, many of which have not become part of the canon of major texts. During the English civil wars, drastic changes occurred in the popular dissemination of new types of political writing. Radical and first-time authors gave English readers access to a wholly unprecedented range of publications, suggesting that the scope for creative political thinking in England in the 1640s, continuing into the 1650s, was greater than anywhere else in Europe and far more visible than either before or after these turbulent years. By comparison, pamphlets from the French Fronde were more limited in political range and seem to have had less radical impact on contemporary readers and wider public opinion. The Netherlands had very different political structures and a more decentralised printing industry during the critical upheavals of 1650 and 1672.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Conflict and EnlightenmentPrint and Political Culture in Europe, 1635–1795, pp. 71 - 127Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019