Enlightenment happened
The Enlightenment As Reading Project
David Wootton | The Critic | 15th February 2023
What we can learn about the 18C Enlightenment by studying not only the content of books by Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire et al, but also how these books were received by readers of the day. "I hope no future historian of ideas will write about a book printed before the Industrial Revolution without asking how many copies were printed, how much they cost, and who actually owned them" (1,500 words)
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What Happened At The Crossroads?
Ted Gioia | Honest Broker | 15th February 2023
Investigation into the legendary meeting between Robert Johnson and the Devil at a crossroads in Mississipi, treating the tale neither as fact nor as fiction but as myth — a myth with many ancient variants in Western and African-American folklore. “The most common reason people made a deal with the Devil, according to these accounts, was the desire to play a musical instrument.” (5,200 words)