Overview

The rise of atheism and unbelief is a key feature in the development of the modern world, yet it is a topic which has been little explored by historians. This book presents a series of studies of irreligious ideas in various parts of Europe during the two centuries following the Reformation. Atheism was everywhere illegal. The word itself first entered the vernacular languages soon after the Reformation, but it was not until the eighteenth century that the first systematic defences of unbelief began to appear in print. Its history in the intervening two centuries is significant but hitherto obscure. The leading scholars who have contributed to this volume offer a range of approaches and draw on a wide variety of sources to produce a scholarly, original, and fascinating book. Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment will be essential reading for all concerned with the religious, intellectual, and social history of early modern Europe.

Full Product Details

Author:   Michael Hunter (Reader in History, Reader in History, Birkbeck College, London) ,  David Wootton (Professor, Lansdowne Chair in Humanities, Professor, Lansdowne Chair in Humanities, University of Victoria, Canada)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press
Imprint:   Clarendon Press
Dimensions:   Width: 14.60cm , Height: 2.20cm , Length: 22.40cm
Weight:   0.482kg
ISBN:  

9780198227366

ISBN 10:   0198227361
Pages:   314
Publication Date:   03 September 1992
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors; Introduction; 1. New Histories of Atheism; 2. Unbelief and Atheism in Italy 1500-1700; 3. Pierre Charron's 'Scandalous Book'; 4. The 'Christian Atheism' of Thomas Hobbes; 5. The Charge of Atheism and the Language of Radical Speculation 1640-1660; 6. Jewish Anti-Christian Arguments as a Source of Irreligion from the Seventeenth to the Early Nineteenth Century; 7. The First edition of the Traite des trois imposteurs and its Debt to Spinoza's Ethics; 8. 'Aikenhead the Atheist': The Context and Consequences of Articulate Irreligion in the Late Seventeenth Century; 9. Disclaimers as Offence Mechanicms in Charles Blount and John Toland; 10. The Atheism of d'Holbach and Naigeon; Index.

Reviews

An excellent historiographical contribution to a field of inquiry that has only recently flourished, the essays range widely as to chronology, geography, and approach. --Religious Studies Review<br> An important and perhaps essential acquisition for the person seriously interested in atheist and freethought history. --Free Inquiry<br>

An excellent historiographical contribution to a field of inquiry that has only recently flourished, the essays range widely as to chronology, geography, and approach. --Religious Studies Review An important and perhaps essential acquisition for the person seriously interested in atheist and freethought history. --Free Inquiry

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