Joseph de Maistre and His European Readers: From Friedrich von Gentz to Isaiah Berlin (Studies in the History of Political Thought, 5) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9004193944 ISBN 13: 9789004193949

Publisher: Brill Academic Pub, 2011

Synopsis

Following the publication of Isaiah Berlin's essay on Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821), the Savoyard philosopher has been known primarily in the English-speaking world as a precursor of fascism. The essays in this volume challenge this view. Disclosing the inaccuracies and limitations of Berlin's account, they illustrate Maistre's colossally diverse European posterity. Far from an inflexible ideologist, Maistre was a versatile and deeply modern thinker who attracted interpreters across the political spectrum.Through the centuries, Maistre's passionate Europeanism has contributed to his popularity from Madrid to Moscow. And in our times, when religion is re-asserting itself as a source of public reason, his theorization of the encounter between tradition and modernity is lending his work ever more urgent relevance. Cover illustration by Matthieu Manche

About this title

About the Author:

Carolina Armenteros is a Rosalind Franklin Fellow at the University of Groningen and a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. She has published on Maistre in the Journal of the History of Ideas and History of Political Thought. With Richard Lebrun, she has co-edited The New enfant du siècle: Joseph de Maistre as a Writer (St Andrews, 2010) and Joseph de Maistre and the Legacy of Enlightenment (Oxford, 2011).Richard Lebrun is Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba. He is the author of two monographs on Maistre, the translator and editor of two volumes of essays on Maistre, and of two other volumes of essays co-edited with Carolina Armenteros. He has published English translations of many of Maistres works.

Review:

Whereas in the past Maistre's legacy has often been monolithically reduced to how he was a forerunner to fascist theories or to what fascists read into his works, this book seeks to break ground for a more nuanced reception study that does justice to the many ways in which Maistre's work has been read and interpreted. [...]
There were two underlying goals. First, to give an impression of the wide diversity of the uses that have been made of his work. Second, to suggest the reasons why it has been read continuously across the centuries. Both goals have been amply and successfully fulfilled, which makes this study exemplary and commendable in many senses. [...]
By taking the diverse readings of Maistre's oeuvre seriously and doing justice to them in their own right, this volume has broken with this distorted legacy and paved the way for similar research that may add to the reception studies of Maistrian thinking which thus far have not been that well developed. [...]
Joseph de Maistre touched the minds of many intellectuals of different (political) views; and that is, at the least, what Joseph de Maistre and his European Readers has shown.
Erik De Bom, History of Political Thought, Vol. 35 (2013), No. 4, p. 745

[E]ine wichtige Bereicherung unseres Wissens über Wahrnehmung und Verarbeitung von de Maistres Gedankengut. [..] Die Beiträge stellen zusammen genommen ein überzeugendes Plädoyer dafür dar, die Rolle de Maistres in der Geschichte des europäischen politischen Denkens weitaus differenzierter zu betrachten. [...]
Das Anliegen, de Maistres Werk für neue Fragestellungen fruchtbar zu machen, ist sehr bedenkenswert. Der vorliegende Band bietet dazu viele Anregungen.
Günther Kronenbitter, Francia-Recensio, April 2012

[...] [T]he authors constitute an interdisciplinary group uniquely situated to offer a solid introduction to the nature and scope of recent Maistrian scholarship.
Steven Kale, H-France Reviews, Volume 12 (July 2012), No. 92, pp. 1-12
Since this review contained so many errors the editors and contributors of the book felt that a reply was necessary. Please read the reply here.

An interview with Carolina Armenteros and Richard Lebrun can be found here.

About this edition

• Publisher: Brill Academic Pub
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 9004193944
• ISBN 13: 9789004193949
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 303
• Editor: Armenteros Carolina, Lebrun Richard A.