The Genesis and Evolution of The Modern Concept of Civilisation in The Eighteenth And Nineteenth Century Europe
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31436/ijrcs.v2i1.54Keywords:
The Concept of Civilisation, Enlightenment, Civility, Historical Progress, Civilisation.Abstract
This article discusses the historical emergence and transformation of the modern concept of civilisation in the eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe. It demonstrates how the concept gradually emerged out of the earlymodern notion of civility in the second half of the eighteenth century. This emergence, it argues, needs to be understood in the context of the Enlightenment belief in progress. Some eighteenth century writers who promoted or believed in the progressive history of humanity saw ‘civilisation’ as a useful concept. Unlike ‘civility’ that merely refers to a static condition and lacks processual connotation, ‘civilisation’ articulates the dynamic process of human history. It enabled writers to show in a more effective way the gradual transformation of human society from barbarism to a more developed stage.
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Peltonen, Markku. (2003). ‘Civilised with death’: Civility, duelling and Honour in Elizabethan England. In Jennifer Richards (Ed.), Early Modern Civil Discourses (pp. 51-67). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
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Sonenscher, Michael. (2016). Barbarism and Civilisation. In Richard Whatmore & Brian Young (Eds.), A Companion to Intellectual History (pp. 288-302). West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell.
Spafadora, David. (1990). The Idea of Progress in Eighteenth-Century Britain. London: Yale University Press.
Spengler, Oswald. (1926). The Decline of the West, volume 1. Translated by Charles Francis Atkinson. New York: Alfred A Knopf.
The Man of Manners: Or, Plebeian Polish’d. London, 1737.
The Rules of Civility; or the Maxims of Genteel Behaviour. London, 1703.
Thompson, Edward. P. (1972). Anthropology and the Discipline of Historical Context. Midland History, 1:3, 41-55.
Bornstein, Thorston Botz. (2012). What is the difference between culture and civilisation? Two hundred fifty years of confusion. Comparative Civilisations Review, 66, 10-28.
Boswell, James. (1847). Life of Samuel Johnson. London: n. p.
Bowden, Brett. (2009). Civilisation the Evolution of an Imperial Idea. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Braudel, Fernand. (1994). A History of Civilisation. Translated by Richard Mayne. New York: Allen Lane.
Brunt, Richard J. (1983). The Influence of the French Language on the German Vocabulary (1649-1735). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Cohen, Michele. (1992). The Grand Tour: Constructing the English Gentleman in Eighteenth-Century France. History of Education, 21:3, 241-257.
Colley, Linda. (2003). Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837. London: Pimlico.
Droysen, Johann Gustav. (1988). The Investigation of Origins. In Kurt Mueller-Vollmer (Ed.), The Hermeneutics Reader: Texts of the German Tradition from the Enlightenment to the Present (pp. 124-125). New York: Continuum.
Eagles, Robin. (2000). Francophilia in English Society 1748-1815. London: Macmillan Press LTD.
Elias, Norbert. (1994). Civilising Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Ferguson, Adam. (1782). An Essay on the History of Civil Society, 5th edition. London: n.p.
Gillingham, John. (2002). From Civilitas to Civility: Codes of Manners in Medieval and Early Modern England. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 12, 267-289.
Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, volume 13. London, 1833.
Johnson, Samuel. (1755). A Dictionary of the English Language. London: n.p.
Koselleck, Reinhart. (2002). The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Mazlish, Bruce. (2004). Civilisation and its Contents. California: Stanford University Press.
Pella, John Anthony, (2015). Jr. Africa and the Expansion of International Society. New York: Routledge.
Peltonen, Markku. (2003). ‘Civilised with death’: Civility, duelling and Honour in Elizabethan England. In Jennifer Richards (Ed.), Early Modern Civil Discourses (pp. 51-67). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pons, Alain. (2014). Civilta. In Barbara Cassin (Ed.), Dictionary of Untranslatables: Philosophical Lexicon (pp. 139-141). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Rothblatt, Sheldon. (1976). Tradition and Change in English Liberal Education: An Essay on History and Culture. London: Faber and Faber.
Schaebler, Birgit. (2004). Civilising Others. In Bergit Schaebler & Leif Stenber (Eds.), Globalisation and the Muslim World: Culture, Religion and Modernity (pp. 3-31). New York: Syracuse University Press.
Sheridan, Thomas. (1789). A Complete Dictionary of the English Language, both with regard to Sound and Meaning. London: n.p.
Sonenscher, Michael. (2016). Barbarism and Civilisation. In Richard Whatmore & Brian Young (Eds.), A Companion to Intellectual History (pp. 288-302). West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell.
Spafadora, David. (1990). The Idea of Progress in Eighteenth-Century Britain. London: Yale University Press.
Spengler, Oswald. (1926). The Decline of the West, volume 1. Translated by Charles Francis Atkinson. New York: Alfred A Knopf.
The Man of Manners: Or, Plebeian Polish’d. London, 1737.
The Rules of Civility; or the Maxims of Genteel Behaviour. London, 1703.
Thompson, Edward. P. (1972). Anthropology and the Discipline of Historical Context. Midland History, 1:3, 41-55.
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Published
2019-06-24
How to Cite
Mohd Sobri, M. H. (2019). The Genesis and Evolution of The Modern Concept of Civilisation in The Eighteenth And Nineteenth Century Europe. IIUM Journal of Religion and Civilisational Studies, 2(1), 8–23. https://doi.org/10.31436/ijrcs.v2i1.54
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