Abbe Gregoire and the French Revolution - The Making of Modern Universalism

1. Auflage 2005
ISBN: 978-0-520-24180-0
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 354 Seiten, Cloth Over Boards, Format (B × H): 163 mm x 237 mm, Gewicht: 626 g

In this age of globalization, the eighteenth-century priest and abolitionist Henri Grégoire has often been called a man ahead of his time. An icon of antiracism, a hero to people from Ho Chi Minh to French Jews, Grégoire has been particularly celebrated since 1989, when the French government placed him in the Pantheon as a model of ideals of universalism and human rights. In this beautifully written biography, based on newly discovered and previously overlooked material, we gain access for the first time to the full complexity of Grégoire's intellectual and political universe as well as the compelling nature of his persona. His life offers an extraordinary vantage from which to view large issues in European and world history in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and provides provocative insights into many of the prevailing tensions, ideals, and paradoxes of the twenty-first century. Focusing on Grégoire's idea of "regeneration," that people could literally be made anew, Sepinwall argues that revolutionary universalism was more complicated than it appeared. Tracing the Revolution's long-term legacy, she suggests that while it spread concepts of equality and liberation throughout the world, its ideals also helped to justify colonialism and conquest.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sepinwall, Alyssa Goldstein

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Kirchengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Geschichte der Revolutionen Französische Revolution
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations
Prologue. Regenerating Biography, or In Search of Universalism

PART ONE. GRÉGOIRE’S EARLY YEARS: ENLIGHTENMENT AND RELIGION IN FRANCE, 1750–1789

1. From Tailor’s Son to Enlightened Abbé: A Provincial Journey
2. The “Bon Curé” of Emberménil
3. A Physical, Moral, and Political Regeneration of the Jews

PART TWO. GRÉGOIRE IN PARIS: REVOLUTION AND REGENERATION, 1789–1801

4. Creating a French Nation
5. A Religious Revolution? Regeneration Transformed
6. Overcoming the Terror, Rebuilding the Empire

PART THREE. KEEPING THE FAITH: GRÉGOIRE, REGENERATION, AND THE REVOLUTION’S GLOBAL LEGACY, 1801–1831

7. The Joys and Frustrations of the Atlantic Republican Network: Grégoire and the Americas
8. Exporting the Revolution: The Colonial Laboratory in Haiti
9. Christian Apologetics and the Universal Human Family
Epilogue. Icon Of Universalism: Grégoire’s Life after Death

Acknowledgments
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall is Professor of History at California State University, San Marcos.