Roy Porter's
The Creation of the Modern World: The Untold Story of the British Enlightenment
Reviewed by D. L. Denham of the Weekly Historian
The British enlightenment
was just as relevant and influential as that of the French and the German enlightenments.
Often unrealized, here in Roy Porter’s labored work, the English enlightenment
is unveiled and stands more successful as the others in that it was less radical. The first half of the work
explains that the British enlightenment existed using an extensive analysis of
biography. Men and even women such as John Locke, David Hume, and Mary
Wollstonecraft play a central role in telling how the enlightenment shaped the
upper social classes, which established a new philosophical, scientific, and political
framework for the country. While France was more radical, Porter argues that
English society was much more subtle due to the absence of absolute monarchy
and their already “more conservative” tendencies. England had experienced its
radical movements with Charles I, and religious toleration already existed
since under William of Orange.
In
the second half of his work, Porter examines the effects of the enlightenment.
The position of women was relatively stable and “good” compared to other
European countries at the time. Education became more prominent and encouraged
throughout England and its domains as a means to better the quality of life of
its people, although it wouldn’t become a central focus until the nineteenth
century. The eighteenth century was one of revolutions, leading to major
changes, which reshaped the modern age. Britain’s American colonies broke away
from the mother country on the grounds of wanting better representation and
government. The French also broke away from their crown for similar purposes,
although less successful in the long run. Both of these major revolutions
impacted England’s enlightenment. Some in England wanted the same
“revolutionary” changes as seen in the other countries while others in England
wanted to continue reshaping British society gradually.
Roy
Porter is a British historian who unfortunately died a year after the
publication of his major work The
Creation of the Modern World: The Untold story of the British Enlightenment.
He was known previous to its publication as an expert in the field of historical
studies on medicine. Prior to his death, he was the director of the Wellcome
Institute for the History of Medicine at the University College in London.
Roy
Porter takes a “British fleets” worth of facts and skillfully works it into his
argument that Britain’s enlightenment is just as important for study, his work
is five hundred pages with extensive end notes, as that of the French. This is
his bias but it works to his advantage. Porter is a fan boy for his home country and it shows in every defensive
commentary and in every analysis of the people, places, events, and times.
Often
tedious and exhausting, the amount of facts included yet briefly mentioned then
only replaced with the next set of information does bog the reader down. There
are entire sections in his work that could have been developed into separate
chapters. But it does work effectively to prompt its reader to search out more
information on the score of historical figures mentioned.
Porter
writes effectively and his prose is stunning. His use of primary and secondary
sources listed among his Notes is worth a reading in themselves. The entire writing
and thinking process can be seen played out in the section. A highly effective
piece of history that does exactly what Porter intended: the English
enlightenment holds equal weight to intellectual revolutions of the French,
German and even America.
D. L. Denham
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