Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment

Larry Wolff

ISBN 10: 0804727023 / ISBN 13: 9780804727020

Published by Stanford University Press, 1994

Befriedigend/Good: Durchschnittlich erhaltenes Buch bzw. Schutzumschlag mit Gebrauchsspuren, aber vollständigen Seiten. / Describes the average WORN book or dust jacket that has all the pages present. Seller Inventory # M00804727023-G

Synopsis:

This is a wide-ranging intellectual history of how, in the 18th century, Europe came to be conceived as divided into "Western Europe" and "Eastern Europe". The author argues that this conceptual reorientation from the previously accepted "Northern" and "Southern" was a work of cultural construction and intellectual artifice created by the philosophes of the Enlightenment. He shows how the philosophers viewed the continent from the perspective of Paris and deliberately cultivated an idea of the backwardness of "Eastern Europe" the more readily to affirm the importance of "Western Europe".

From the Back Cover: “Thought-provoking and well written, . . . Wolff’s book provides a valuable treatment of the ways in which ‘Enlightened’ thinkers conceive of the lands east of the Elbe. . . . A very welcome contribution to both the history of the Enlightenment and the Western understanding of Eastern Europe.” —The Russian Review
“The distinction between East and West Europe is a seemingly immemorial cliché that desperately needs dismantling, and Wolff does it with erudition and a lively dramatic sense.”—Voice Literary Supplement

Bibliographic Details

Title: Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of ...
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Publication Date: 1994
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: good