内容简介

Adam Ferguson(1723-1816)was one of the ccntral figures in the Scottish Enlightennent,His Essay on the History of Civil Society(first published i 1767)is a bold and novel attenpt to rechim the tradition of aitizenship and apply it to the modern travel literture,Ferguson offers a complex model of historical advance which challenges both Hume's and Smith's embrace of modernity and the primitivisn of Rousseau.

Ferguaon conbines a subtle analysis of the energence of modern commercial society with a critique of its abandomment of civic and communal virture.Central to Ferguson's theory of Citizenship are the themes of confict,play,political participation and military valour.His fascination with the theory of unintended consequences as a model of historical causalith does not deter him form insisting on the irreplacealbe valur of individual,public-minded members of political society.

FANIA OZ-SALZBERGER is a lecturer in the Department of History at Haifa University.From 1990 to 1993 she was a research fellow at woliton College,Oxford.Her book Translating the Enlightenment was published in 1995 by Oxford University Press.

目录

Introduction

Chronology of Ferguson’s life

Bibliographical guide

A note on the text

Acknowledgements

An Essay on the History of civil Society

List of variants

Index