BiblioVault - Books about 18th Century

Emanuel Swedenborg

Visionary Savant in the Age of Reason

ERNST BENZ

Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, 2002

Originally written more than fifty years ago by eminent scholar Ernst Benz, this volume stands as one of the most comprehensive biographies of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) ever published.

Benz examines Swedenborg’s life through the lens of the intellectual atmosphere of the eighteenth century. Growing up at a time when the classical view of the world was being challenged by the new philosophers and scientists of the Enlightenment, Swedenborg was deeply immersed both in the religious teachings of the Lutheran church and the explorations of rational science. His quest for understanding eventually led to his spiritual awakening and the unique insights that continue to inspire seekers and thinkers today.

Now available for the first time in paperback, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke’s eminently readable translation shines a new light on the Swedish seer.

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front cover of Emanuel Swedenborg--Exploring a

Emanuel Swedenborg--Exploring a "World Memory"

Context, Content, Contribution

Karl Grandin

Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, 2013

In 2010, a scholarly conference on Emanuel Swedenborg’s ideas and influence was held at the Center for the History of Science at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. The conference was a celebration a recently completed digital catalog of the academy’s Swedenborg archive, which in 2006 was designated as part of UNESCO’s World Memory program. This was the first time that an academic conference on Swedenborg was hosted by a non-Swedenborgian institution.

The conference attracted presenters from all over the world, including some top scholars. Papers were divided into three categories. “Content” describes Swedenborg’s thought, from his use of spheres in his scientific writings to his views on sexuality and marriage to analyses of his theological writings. “Context” explores his times, putting Swedenborg in the context of eighteenth-century philosophy and looking at the organization of the earliest Swedenborgian church. “Contribution” looks at Swedenborg’s influence on philosophy and the arts, from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Czeslaw Milocz to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and William James.

These papers present a rare insight into Swedenborg. Although only a limited number of attendees were invited to the conference, now the research is available to all.

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Empires to Nations

Expansion in America, 1713-1824

Max Savelle

University of Minnesota Press, 1976

Empires to Nations was first published in 1974. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

This history traces the growth of the Euroamerican societies in the Western Hemisphere during the eighteenth-century period of European expansion. Professor Savelle reviews the continuation and completion of the exploration of the American continent and describes the evolution of the New World empires of the English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch, He devotes separate chapters to the development of the political structures of the colonies and the rivalries, wars, and diplomatic exchanges among the empires. He also reviews and analyzes the economic history of the colonial societies in their three-way relationships – with their mother countries, with each other, and within themselves as regional or local entities. Final chapters are devoted to the birth and growth of national self-consciousness among the new societies.

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The Enlightenment's Animals

Changing Conceptions of Animals in the Long Eighteenth Century

Nathaniel Wolloch

Amsterdam University Press, 2019

In The Enlightenment’s Animals Nathaniel Wolloch takes a broad view of changing conceptions of animals in European culture during the long eighteenth century. Combining discussions of intellectual history, the history of science, the history of historiography, the history of economic thought, and, not least, art history, this book describes how animals were discussed and conceived in different intellectual and artistic contexts underwent a dramatic shift during this period. While in the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century the main focus was on the sensory and cognitive characteristics of animals, during the late Enlightenment a new outlook emerged, emphasizing their conception as economic resources. Focusing particularly on seventeenth-century Dutch culture, and on the Scottish Enlightenment, Wolloch discusses developments in other countries as well, presenting a new look at a topic of increasing importance in modern scholarship.

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