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Political clubs during the French Revolution [ Politics & Society / Clubs & Societies ]

… and delegitimised them to much of the public. Those factors include ideology, circumstances and the weakness of the state. The inability and, in some instances, unwillingness of the state to assert its authority in key domains, such as taxation, calumnious speech and the grain trade, created a vacuum … to fill. Lacking the constitutional legitimacy to do so, however, the clubs were accused of undermining and usurping state power. Practices > Politics & Society Places > Clubs & Societies Keywords Politics French Revolution Gender …

Jacques Necker (and public opinion) [ Politics / Publicity ]

… and a fraudulent charlatan by his enemies, Necker well understood the importance of public opinion in affairs of state. Under the Old Regime, he worked hard to defend both his reputation and that of his ministry. But when the … form of political sociability in French politics. People > Politics Concepts > Publicity Keywords Public opinion Third Estate French Revolution Public sphere revolutionary politics Political sociability Jacques Necker, a protestant banker from the city-state of Geneva, was best known for his role as director general of finances to the French Crown under Louis XVI, serving …

Solitude [ Feelings & Emotions ]

… in writings from the long-eighteenth century. There was no vocabulary for loneliness in this period, but solitude was a state often associated with melancholy and thus frequently employed in a negative sense. A range of eighteenth-century … Latin solitudo was most often employed in a negative sense. It denoted a place or condition and thus a physical state of isolation that stood at odds with the ideal of civilisation that brought with it the benefits of mutual support … barely distinguishable in meaning from ‘solitary’. 2  People were alone, but this was a physical rather than emotional state. Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (1755) emphasised the physical dimensions of solitude: living a ‘lonely life’, being …

Sovereignty (in Hobbes's philosophy) [ Political & Moral philosophy / Philosophy ]

… Abstract Thomas Hobbes’ rejection of the social nature of man is the foundation of his philosophy on the origin of State, and provides a rationale for his theory of absolute sovereignty. The refutation of natural sociability had … core, was neither that of goodwill towards others nor of solitude, but one of violent sociality: men were in a constant state of conflict and competition, in confrontation even unto death. Men were natural ‘competitors’ and viewed each of … in a creature that was not ‘solitary’, was not the same as the proclivity for political relationships. As Hobbes stated in chapter 1, paragraph 2 of De cive : Man was not a creature ‘born fit for society.’ Civil society (i.e., …

Saratoga Springs (as a North American iteration of spa sociability) [ Sports & Leisure ]

… century, Saratoga had grown into a thriving centre for fashion and sociability among elites from across the young United States. Sociability here was not simply an attempt to mimic the English model, but rather a reinterpretation of elements … across the continent, to the periphery of British North America in what would by the end of the century be the United States. The eighteenth century witnessed a rash of ‘discovery’ of mineral springs by settlers in the young colonies of … comme dans tout le reste des Etats-Unis.’ 7  Tocqueville, eagerly and often cited by scholars of the early United States, had indeed planned to visit Saratoga on his travels, using a French translation of a contemporary popular …

Robinson’s and Friday’s Island [ Nature ]

… the jus g entium , the right common to all peoples, beyond their single historicity. While regressing to an uncivilized state of nature, Robinson can speculate in complete solitude, and later establish sociable relationships with the natives … using fragments of a pre-existing world (namely the tools stowed in the wrecked ship). Moreover, Robinson himself states: ‘I improved myself in this time in all the mecanick exercises which my necessities put me upon applying my self … there together perfectly and compleatly happy, if any such Thing as compleat Happiness can be form’d in a sublunary State. The Savage was now a good Christian, a much better than I; though I have reason to hope, and bless God for it, …