Coffeehouse Culture in the Atlantic World, 1650-1789


Book Description

This book argues that coffeehouses and the coffee trade were central to the making of the Atlantic world in the century leading up to the American Revolution. Fostering international finance and commerce, spreading transatlantic news, building military might, determining political fortunes and promoting status and consumption, coffeehouses created a web of social networks stretching from Britain to its colonies in North America. As polite alternatives to taverns, coffeehouses have been hailed as 'penny universities'; a place for political discussion by the educated and elite. Reynolds shows that they were much more than this. Coffeehouse Culture in the Atlantic World 1650-1789, reveals that they simultaneously created a network for marine insurance and naval protection, led to calls for a free press, built tension between trade lobbyists and the East India Company, and raised questions about gender, respectability and the polite middling class. It demonstrates how coffeehouses served to create transatlantic connections between metropole Britain and her North American colonies and played an important role in the revolution and protest movements that followed.







English-Language Dictionaries, 1604-1900


Book Description

This is a catalog of more than 2,300 pre-1900 English-language dictionary titles in the Warren N. and Suzanne B. Cordell Collection of Dictionaries at Indiana State University in Terre Haute. The most comprehensive collection of Western language dictionaries in the world, the Cordell Collection was begun in 1961 by the late Warren N. Cordell, a marketing research executive with a deep love for and appreciation of the study of words. From the beginning, however, old English-language dictionaries formed the core of the Cordell collection, and this catalog documents the comprehensive nature of these holdings. The collection aims at completeness, with every variant copy of interest included. The format of the entries consists of seven basic parts: main entry, title, publication statement, collation, notes, provenance, and references. A subject index is provided for those interested in dictionaries for particular topics.




The New World


Book Description







Philosophical Letters


Book Description

The voice of the Age of Reason remarks on English religion and politics during the early 18th century: Quakers, Church of England, Presbyterians, Anti-Trinitarians, Parliament, government, commerce, plus essays on Locke, Descartes, and Newton.




Candide


Book Description

Candide is a French satire by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. It begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism (or simply Optimism) by his mentor, Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this lifestyle, followed by Candide's slow, painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes with Candide, if not rejecting optimism outright, advocating a deeply practical precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds". Candide is characterized by its sarcastic tone, as well as by its erratic, fantastical and fast-moving plot. A picaresque novel it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is mordantly matter-of-fact. Still, the events discussed are often based on historical happenings, such as the Seven Years' War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the problem of evil, so too does Candide in this short novel, albeit more directly and humorously. Voltaire ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and philosophers through allegory; most conspicuously, he assaults Leibniz and his optimism. As expected by Voltaire, Candide has enjoyed both great success and great scandal. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naïveté. However, with its sharp wit and insightful portrayal of the human condition, the novel has since inspired many later authors and artists to mimic and adapt it. Today, Candide is recognized as Voltaire's magnum opus and is often listed as part of the Western canon; it is arguably taught more than any other work of French literature. It was listed as one of The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written.




Curiosities of Literature


Book Description