Anglo-French Attitudes: Comparisons and Transfers Between English and French Intellectuals Since the Eighteenth Century

This collection of essays continues a favourite game of Anglo-French intellectual life since the eighteenth century: the game of cultural transfers and comparisons between English and French intellectuals themselves. The contributions, which have been written by scholars from a variety of disciplines, address a broad range of issues, including the international circulation of economic, political and literary ideas, the translation and reception of authors in various contexts, and the contest for ‘Englishness’ or ‘Frenchness’ both at home and abroad. The Anglo-French relationship is used here as an entry into the conflicting demands that intellectual life should be trans-national and cosmopolitan, and that intellectuals should be the representatives of the national mind. The conversations, disputes and silences between English and French intellectuals were once believed to be at the centre of the international republic of letters. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the rise of new cultural powers re-shaped Anglo-French intellectual attitudes. Anglo-French attitudes will be read by scholars working in the areas of cultural history, intellectual history, gender studies, the social history of intellectuals, history of science, and literature.

Table of Contents:
CONTRIBUTORS TABLE OF FIGURES ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1. INTRODUCTION: NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE HISTORY OF INTELLECTUALS IN BRITAIN AND FRANCE - JULIEN VINCENT PART ONE: TOWARDS A REFLEXIVE HISTORY OF INTELLECTUALS 2. THE INTELLECTUALS: A PREHISTORY - JEAN-PHILIPPE GENET 3.BRITISH EXCEPTIONALISM RE-CONSIDERED - STEFAN COLLINI PART TWO: AN ANGLO-FRENCH REPUBLIC OF LETTERS ? 4. THE ROYAL SOCIETY AND THE ACADEMIE DES SCIENCES IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 18TH CENTURY - PASCAL BRIOIST 5. THE ENGLISH IN PARIS - DANIEL ROCHE 6. THE FRENCH REPUBLIC OF LETTERS AND ENGLISH CULTURE, 1750-1790’ - LAWRENCE W. B. BROCKLISS PART THREE: CULTURAL TRANSFERS 7. RECONSTRUCTING RUINS AND REVOLUTION: TOWARDS A HISTORY OF THE VOLNEY VOGUE IN ENGLAND - ALEXANDER COOK 8. MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY ‘MORAL SCIENCES’ BETWEEN PARIS AND CAMBRIDGE - DAVID PALFREY PART FOUR: THE INTERNATIONALISATION OF INTELLECTUAL LIFE 9. LITERARY IMPORT INTO FRANCE AND BRITAIN AROUND 1900: A COMPARATIVE STUDY - BLAISE WILFERT 10. THE COMMERCE OF IDEAS: Protectionism And Free Trade in the International Circulation Of Economic Ideas In Britain And France around 1900 - JULIEN VINCENT 11. THE IBSEN BATTLE. A Comparative Analysis of the introduction of Henrik Ibsen in France, England and Ireland - PASCALE CASANOVA PART FIVE: INTELLECTUALS, NATIONAL MODELS AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE 12. FRENCH INTELLECTUALS AND THE IMPOSSIBLE ENGLISH MODEL AT THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY - CHRISTOPHE CHARLE 13. AN ENGLISH CRISIS IN FRENCH THOUGHT ? French Intellectuals Confront England at the Time of Fashoda and the Boer War - CHRISTOPHE PROCHASSON 14. HOMOSEXUAL NETWORKS AND ACTIVIST STRATEGIES FROM THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY TO 1939 - FLORENCE TAMAGNE 15. IRONIES OF WAR: INTELLECTUAL STYLES AND RESPONSES TO THE GREAT WAR IN BRITAIN AND FRANCE - JAY WINTER 16. CONCLUSIONS AND PERSPECTIVES - CHRISTOPHE CHARLE

About the Author :
Christophe Charle is Professor of Modern History at the University Paris-I-Panthéon-Sorbonne (Chair of Comparative History of European Societies) and Head of the Institut d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine (CNRS/ENS). Julien Vincent is a Junior Research Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge and an Associate Research Fellow of the Institut d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine (CNRS/ENS). Jay Winter is Charles J. Stille Professor of History at Yale University