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Suggested reading and resources
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Note: Titles which are underlined may be purchased at Amazon.com by clicking on the title. A percentage of each purchase (or any other purchase made through these links) helps fund Humanities West programs.
Many of these books are also available
at local bookstores including Cody's
Books and Keplers, or at your local library. |
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Voltaire was a popular and prolific writer whose output would fill 100 volumes, but for the modern reader his short satirical novella, Candide, is by far the most widely read of his works. It is available in many different editions, but we would recommend a version that supplements the bare text with additional material providing some of the historical and cultural context for his biting humor. Two good choices are Candide (Enriched Classics Series) (Mass Market Paperback) by Voltaire (Author) or Candide (A Norton Critical Edition) (Paperback) by Voltaire (Author), Robert M. Adams (Editor, Translator). For those who prefer listening to their literature, Candide is also available as an audio book: Candide (Unabridged Classics) [AUDIOBOOK] [CD] (Audio CD) by Voltaire (Author), Tom Whitworth (Narrator). If you would like a broader sampling of Voltaire’s work, try The Portable Voltaire (The Viking Portable Library) (Paperback).
The Extended Bibliography below lists many excellent books on the broader topic of the French and European Enlightenment, but it is not easy to find a short, readable overview aimed at the general reader. A good starting point is The Enlightenment (Studies in European History) (Paperback) by Roy Porter, a 70-page summary that provides historical context as well as a review of how attitudes and perspectives about the Enlightenment have changed over the years. The book also includes an extensive annotated bibliography. A short overview, Age of Enlightenment (Great Ages of Man) , Time-Life Books, 1966) by leading Enlightenment scholar, Peter Gay, was part of a popular Time-Life series, and may still be found.
Three of our speakers in the upcoming program have published books that might interest attendees. David Bodanis has written Passionate Minds: The Great Love Affair of the Enlightenment, Featuring the Scientist Émilie du Châtelet, the Poet Voltaire, Sword Fights, Book Burnings, Assorted Kings (Hardcover), the fascinating story of Voltaire and his mistress, the brilliant Émilie du Châtelet, and their joint intellectual projects. (Note that the paperback edition , with a more subdued subtitle, is scheduled for release on October 2, 2007, may be pre-ordered on Amazon, and will be offered for sale during the program break.) Roger Hahn has published Pierre Simon Laplace, 1749-1827: A Determined Scientist (Hardcover), a biography of a prominent Enlightenment scientist. Keith Baker’s Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Ideas in Context) (Paperback) is a collection of essays exploring the ideological origins of the French Revolution.
—Chuck Sieloff, PhD |
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—compiled by Judith Workman
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Ayer, A.J. Voltaire. New York: Random House, 1986
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Baker, Keith Michael. Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990
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Bates, David W. Enlightenment Aberrations: Error and Revolution in France. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002.
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Bird, Stephen. Reinventing Voltaire: The Politics of Commemoration in Nineteenth-century France. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2000.
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Bodanis, David. Passionate Minds: Émilie du Châtelet, Voltaire and the Great Love Affair of the Enlightenment. New York: Random House, October 2007.
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Bodanis, David. Passionate Minds: The Great Love Affair of the Enlightenment, Featuring the Scientist Émilie du Châtelet, the Poet Voltaire, Sword Fights, Book Burnings, Assorted Kings. New York: Crown Publishing, 2006.
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Bottiglia, William F., ed. Voltaire: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1968. |
Censer, Jack R. The French Press in the Age of Enlightenment. London and New York: Routledge, 1994. |
Charlton, D. G. New Images of the Natural in France: A Study of European Cultural History 1750-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. |
Crow, Thomas E. Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. |
Diderot (ed). L’ Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers 1751-80. |
Diderot, Denis, Tr. Tancock, Leonard. Rameau’s Nephew and D’Alembert’s Dream. New York: Penguin Group, 1976. |
Gay, Peter. Age of Enlightenment. New York: Time Life Books, 1966. |
Gay, Peter. The Enlightenment: An Interpretation. The Rise of Modern Paganism. New York: WW Norton, 1977 |
Gay, Peter. Enlightenment: An Interpretation: The Science of Freedom. New York: WW Norton, 1977. |
Gay, Peter. Voltaire’s Politics: The Poet as Realist. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959. Second edition; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988. |
Goodman, Dena. The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994. |
Gordon, Susan. Montesquieu: The French Philosopher Who Shaped Modern Government. New York: Rosen Publishing Group, 2005. |
Hahn, Roger. Pierre Simon Laplace, 1749-1827: A Determined Scientist. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005. |
Hahn, Roger. The Anatomy of a Scientific Institution. The Paris Academy of Sciences, 1666 -1803. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971. |
Hazard, P. The European Mind: The Critical Years, 1690–1715, tr. 1953, repr. 1963. European Thought in the Eighteenth Century, tr. 1954, repr. 1963. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953. |
Hesse, Carla Alison. Publishing and Cultural Politics in Revolutionary Paris. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991. |
Hesse, Carla Alison. The Other Enlightenment; How French Women Became Modern. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001. |
Kavanagh, Thomas M. Esthetic of the Moment: Literature and Art in the French Enlightenment. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996. |
Kors, Alan Charles. ed. Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, Oxford: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2002. |
Lanson, Gustave. Voltaire. 1906. Tr. Robert Waggoner; introduction by Peter Gay. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 1966. |
Mason, Hayden. Voltaire: A Biography, Baltimore: The John’s Hopkins Press, 1981. |
Maza, Sarah. Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes Celebres of Prerevolutionary France. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993. |
Mitford, Nancy. Voltaire in Love. New York: Harper, 1957. Paperback edition: New York: Carroll and Graff, 1999. |
Roche, Daniel. France in the Enlightenment, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. |
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (compiled by John Hope Mason). The Indispensible Rousseau: Inequality. London, Melbourne and New York: Quarter Books, 1979. |
Sheriff, Mary D. Exceptional Women: Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun and the Cultural Politics of Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. |
Torrey, Norman. The Spirit of Voltaire. New York: Columbia University Press, 1938. Reprint: New York: Russell and Russell, 1968. |
Verba, Cynthia. Music and the French Enlightenment: Reconstruction of a Dialogue, 1750-1764. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. |
Zinsser, Judith P. La Dame d' Esprit: A Biography of Marquise Du Chatelet. New York: Penguin Group (USA), November, 2006. |
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