Discusses eighteenth-century views of natural portents and disasters, mainly in the thought of Edward Gibbon and Adam Smith, and claims, vis-à-vis Jonathan Israel’s thesis regarding the Radical Enlightenment, that in fact the Moderate Enlightenment inadvertently promoted radical ideals.

Wolloch, Nathaniel

“Natural Disasters and the Debate on the Unity or Plurality of Enlightenments,” The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation, 57.3 (2016), 325-42.

Article

English