This paper aims at presenting an overview of the Enlightenment as it took place in eighteenth-century Britain. Throughout the text, this movement will be shown not only in terms of its philosophical aspects, but also considering the work of scientists and literati in general. The picture that will emerge from this will be that of a period concerned not only with rationality, but also with innovation, guided by a knowledge with strongly experimental overtones. Considerations will be presented not only about (...) relevant authors and scientists, but also about the society of the time, and the way in which practice influenced scientific and intellectual discoveries and vice-versa. (shrink)

This ambitious book explores the relationship between time and history and shows how an appreciation of long-term time helps to make sense of the past. The book is devoted to a wide-ranging analysis of the way different societies have conceived and interpreted time, and it develops a theory of the threefold roles of continuity, gradual change, and revolution which together form a "braided" history. Linking the interpretative chapters are intriguing brief expositions on time travel, time cycles, time lines, and time (...) pieces, showing the different ways in which human history has been located in time. In its global approach the book is part of the new shift toward “big history,” in which traditional period divisions are challenged in favor of looking at the entire past of the world from start to end. The approach is thematic. The result is a view of world history in which outcomes are shown to be explicable, once they happen, but not necessarily predictable before they do. This book will inform the work of historians of all periods and at all levels, and contributes to the current reconsideration of traditional period divisions (such as Modernity and Postmodernity), which the author finds outmoded. (shrink)

How did humans respond to the eighteenth-century discovery of countless new species of animals? This book explores the gamut of human-animal interactions: from love to cultural identifications, moral reflections, philosophical debates, classification systems, mechanical copies, insults and literary creativity.