The Life of William Robertson

Jeffrey R. Smitten

ISBN 10: 0748646108 / ISBN 13: 9780748646104

Published by Edinburgh University Press, GB, 2016

About this Item

This is the first biography to see William Robertson as both a man and an intellectual figure at the centre of the Scottish Enlightenment. William Robertson differed from his contemporaries, such as Voltaire, Hume and Gibbon, because he used the critical tools of the Enlightenment to strengthen religion, not to attack it. As an historian, he helped shape eighteenth-century historiography. As a minister of the Church of Scotland, he sought to make the church fit for a polite age. And, as principal of the University of Edinburgh, he presided over a flourishing of intellectual inquiry in the midst of the Enlightenment. But despite his European fame, he was a controversial figure.

Seller Inventory # LU-9780748646104

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Life of William Robertson
• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, GB
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0748646108
• ISBN 13: 9780748646104
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

This is the first biography to see William Robertson as both a man and an intellectual figure at the centre of the Scottish Enlightenment. William Robertson differed from his contemporaries, such as Voltaire, Hume and Gibbon, because he used the critical tools of the Enlightenment to strengthen religion, not to attack it. As an historian, he helped shape eighteenth-century historiography. As a minister of the Church of Scotland, he sought to make the church fit for a polite age. And, as principal of the University of Edinburgh, he presided over a flourishing of intellectual inquiry in the midst of the Enlightenment. But despite his European fame, he was a controversial figure.

About the Author

Jeffrey R. Smitten is Professor Emeritus of English at Utah State University. He is the author of The Life of William Robertson: Minister, Historian, and Principle. He co-edited Scotland and America in the Age of the Enlightenment and with Richard Sher and Nicholas Phillipson, an edition of Robertson’s Works. He also served as Executive Secretary of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.