The German Enlightenment and the Rise of Historicism
by: Peter H. Reill

Softcover. Berkeley CA, California University Press, reprint, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 308 pages. The German Enlightenment and the Rise of Historicism traces the thought of a large and neglected group of German thinkers and their encounter with the ideas and ideal of the Enlightenment from 1740 to 1790. Concentrating on the nature of their historical consciousness, Peter Hanns Reill addresses two basic issues in the interpretation of the Enlightenment: to what degree can one speak of the unity of the Enlightenment and to what extent can the Enlightenment be characterized as "modern"? Reill attempts to revise the traditional interpretation of the Enlightenment as an age insensitive to the postulates of modern historical thought and to dissolve the alleged opposition of the Enlightenment to later intellectual developments such as Idealism. He argues that German Enlightened thinkers generated the general presuppositions upon which modern historical thought is founded. Bright, clean copy.