cf either The Newtonians and the English Revolution (1976) or The Radical Englightment: Pantheists, Freemasons and Republics (1981); I've read neither nor J. Isreal.

The crucial distinction between Enlightenment and Radical Enlightenment teleology which politicized institutional norms was all things French. 1660 to 1770 was a period of great economic expansion, technical and empirical validation, and concentration of political power among Europe's monarchal families from which the Bourbons emerged um golden.

Following the aftermath of the 30 Years War, Bernal identifies four literary "forces" that reconstructed power centers among the antagonists' elite, philosophers: (i) Christian hostility toward pagan and neo-platonic civilizations (Casaubon, Bruno, Bentley); (ii) primacy of "progress" or modernity, justified by dating knowledge (Banier); (iii) racism (Locke, Hume, Toland); and (iv) Hellenism (Napoleon). The reign of Louis XIV, the "New Rome," is said to glorify the alchemical past while symbolizing the antithesis of post-war German "identity" as elaborated by, say, Leibniz, Goethe.

Göttingen can well be considered the embryo of all later, modern, diversified and professional universities. It was established in 1734 by George II, King of England and Elector of Hanover, was well endowed, and as a new foundation was able to escape many of the medieval religious and acholastic constraints that persisted in other universities. With its British connections it was a conduit of Scottish Romanticism as well as for the philosophical and political ideas of Locke and Hume ... It is true to say that while exclusive professionalism was the distinctive form of Göttingen scholarship, the chief unifying principle of its content was ethnicity and racism. This, of course, was the result not merely of the English scholarly contacts but, much more importantly, of prevailing opinion in German cultivated society as a whole. [1987:215]

So you may need to get out your Weber as well to given Calvinism its due in promulation of (g).


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

I do not know the professional or vocational leanings of many contributors to the site, but I would warn anyone considering a dip into the bottomless depths of British history against doing so as an amateur, for one is almost guaranteed to look like a fool.