POCOCK, J. G. A. - Barbarism and Religion. Volumes I–II (2001)

Volume I: The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon, 1737–1764
Volume II: Narratives of Civil Government

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Two paperback volumes.

A two-volume opening to Pocock’s major study of Edward Gibbon, Enlightenment historiography and the intellectual world behind The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Volume I follows Gibbon’s intellectual formation from his early years and Swiss exile through to the conception of the Decline and Fall. Volume II broadens the context to the major Enlightenment historians and thinkers who shaped eighteenth-century historical writing, including Voltaire, Hume, Robertson, Ferguson and Adam Smith. Together, the two volumes examine how political thought, religion, civil society and historical narrative informed Gibbon’s work. Volume I was first published in 1999, while this paperback issue appeared in 2001; Volume II was published in 2001.

Both volumes in very good used condition, with light shelf wear and minor rubbing to the covers and extremities. Bindings square and firm; pages appear clean and unmarked.

A useful paired set of the first two volumes in Pocock’s six-volume Barbarism and Religion sequence, particularly relevant to readers of Gibbon, Enlightenment history and the history of political thought.