The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe

James Melton's lucid and accessible study examines the rise of 'the public' in eighteenth-century Europe. A work of comparative synthesis focusing on England, France and the German-speaking territories, this is the first book-length, critical reassessment of what Habermas termed the 'bourgeois public sphere'. During the Enlightenment the Public assumed a new significance as governments came to recognise the power of public opinion in political life; the expansion of print culture created new reading publics and transformed how and what people read; authors and authorship acquired new status, while the growth of commercialized theatres transferred monopoly over the stage from the court to the audience; salons, coffeehouses, taverns and Masonic lodges fostered new practices of sociability. Spanning a variety of disciplines, this important addition to New Approaches in European History will be of great interest to students of social and political history, literary studies, political theory, and the history of women.

ISBN 0521469694   Volumes 1 ISBN13 9780521469692 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 440 Publisher Cambridge University Press   Published in Cambridge Imprint Cambridge University Press   Series editor Beik, William (Emory University), Blanning, T. C. W. (University of Cambridge) Format Paperback   Series ISSN 22 Publication date 06 Sep 2001   Series title New Approaches to European History Non-book description xiv, 284 p. ;   Height (mm) 228 Library of Congress D286 .M44 2001   Width (mm) 152 DEWEY 940.25   Spine width (mm) 17 DEWEY edition DC21   Academic level Tertiary education, Professional / Scholarly Pages 300

		List of tables
		Acknowledgments
		Introduction: What is the public sphere?		1
Pt. I		Politics and the rise of "public opinion": the cases of England and France		17
1		The peculiarities of the English		19
2		Opacity and transparency: French political culture in the eighteenth century		45
Pt. II		Readers, writers, and spectators		79
3		Reading publics: transformations of the literary public sphere		81
4		Writing publics: eighteenth-century authorship		123
5		From courts to consumers: theater publics		160
Pt. III		Being sociable		195
6		Women in public: enlightenment salons		197
7		Drinking in public: taverns and coffeehouses		226
8		Freemasonry: toward civil society		252
		Conclusion		273
		Index		277

'Melton's useful new book traces the explosion of public institutions in eighteenth-century England, France and the Germanies ... a rousing and touchingly old-fashioned defence of formal representative institutions.' JES ' ... among the most readable books on Europe's ancien regime to have been published in recent times. Melton is notably thoughtful and deeply considered.' The International History Review 'The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe is a well-written and coherent synthesis of Habermas' argument in the French, English and German contexts and is grounded in an impressive body of international, mainly Anglo-Saxon scholarship ... it will certainly be of vital interest to advanced undergraduate and graduate students ...'. Europa

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