Review by Choice Review
Barnett (Univ. of Kingston-upon-Thames) disputes the traditional scholarly paradigm that writings of an enlightened deist and atheist elite brought about fundamental religious change in the 18th century. Those writings were often not widely influential, and the authors never so numerous as to constitute a movement. "Deist" and "atheist" were polemical terms used to brand typically Christian opponents in a campaign of scaremongering. The philosophes often took credit for initiating new conditions, such as religious toleration, which they were actually only reflecting. The battle was not between the forces of "reason" and "faith." Rather, change emerged from within a thoroughly Christian context, in which broad religious coalitions acted against the pretenses of a state church. Barnett substantiates the argument by considering religious dynamics that scholarship has largely ignored or downplayed, in Great Britain (dissenters against the Anglican Church), France (Jansenists against the Jesuits and Gallican hierarchy), and Italy (Catholic regalists in small principalities against the Roman Curia). This book joins such recent work as Thomas Munck's The Enlightenment (CH, Jan'01) in offering important counterbalance to historiography focused on elite individuals. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through researchers/ faculty. P. S. Spalding Illinois College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
