The Virtues of Abandon - by Charly Coleman (Paperback)

About the Book

The Virtues of Abandon explores how eighteenth-century debates over the self's relationship to property gave rise to a previously unexamined anti-individualist tradition of thought and action that informed the work of mystics, materialists, and radical political thinkers during the French Enlightenment and the Revolution.

Book Synopsis

The Virtues of Abandon explores how eighteenth-century debates over the self's relationship to property gave rise to a previously unexamined anti-individualist tradition of thought and action that informed the work of mystics, materialists, and radical political thinkers during the French Enlightenment and the Revolution.

Review Quotes

"An excellent work of remarkable originality."--Helena Rosenblatt, The Graduate Center "CUNY"

"As his subtitle suggests, historian Coleman offers an original framework for the reimagining of the intellectual history of France during the long 18th century . . . Recommended."--D. A. Harvey "CHOICE"

"Charly Coleman has written an elegant and wide-ranging book of originality and learning. It is carefully researched and freshly thought, and is unafraid to draw connections across seemingly disparate bodies of material, tacking against the winds of prevailing scholarly assumptions . . . [I]t is undoubtedly a book to make one think. It announces Coleman as a creative and insightful young scholar of considerable promise."--Darrin M. McMahon "H-France Review"

"Charly Coleman's The Virtues of Abandon will transform the way we think about the Enlightenment and its relationship to the Revolution. Ranging across a very wide range of intellectual fields and forms of social practice, Coleman uncovers a religious, mystical strain of thinking which runs in fruitful counterpoint with the more familiar, secularising Enlightenment narratives."--Colin Jones, Queen Mary "University of London"

"Coleman has produced an ambitious and insightful first book."--Jeffrey Merrick "New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century"

"Coleman's most original contribution to the understanding of the French Enlightenment is to have provided a coherent, synthetic, and nuanced account of the challenge that was posed to this 'culture of self-ownership' . . . Coleman encourages the reader to understand the plurality of views on selfhood as part of an overall struggle to define the relationship between personhood and property."--Jay Caplan "American Historical Review"

"Thoughtful, meticulous, and supporting its points with extensive notes, The Virtues of Abandon is a welcome addition to college library world history shelves."--Midwest Book Review

About the Author

Charly Coleman is Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University.