What Is “Western Civilization”?

An Incomplete Reading List: Some Sources for My Current Research

Filling in the gaps from the Early Modern era to the Enlightenment(s)

The first draft of my chapter on the discourse of “civilization” during the American Enlightenments—to borrow Caroline Winterer’s designation—is finished and I have received editorial feedback on that.

Logically, the next thing to do would be to move forward and trace the uses of “civilization” during the Early Republic and through the Era of Good Feelings (LOL) to the Age of Jackson.

But the logic of argumentation and the logic of composition are two different things. Completing the Enlightenment chapter left me with the sense that before moving forward in time, I need to back up and look more closely at the Early Modern and Renaissance eras in Western Europe. For England, Spain, and France, that’s 1492–1600s. Viewing the Restoration Era separately in English literature gets me to the beginnings of the long 18th century, which of course includes “the Enlightenment.”

This Early Modern to Renaissance era arc deserves closer scrutiny because 1) it is a great pleasure to revisit the literatures from this time period and, 2) it is the “moment” when the long-established…