In this book, Morgan Golf-French offers a new interpretation of late Enlightenment German historiography in relation to ideas about race, culture, and politics. By paying close attention to the institutions within which these ideas were articulated, Golf-French reveals their complex and idiosyncratic development in the work of the prominent—and controversial—historians August Ludwig Schlözer, Christoph Meiners, Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, and Charles de Villers. As the book shows, these ideas and their authors not only shaped the major controversies of the time, from the rise of abolitionism to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, but produced tropes and arguments of lasting significance in European thought.

The book argues that the ideas about race and culture which emerged in the years preceding the French Revolution were crucial in shaping German responses to the crises years of 1789–1815. Readers will discover both the contemporary significance of these ideas in early modern Germany and important insights into their long-term impact. As the book argues, the Enlightenment should be understood on its own terms, as an important phase in European intellectual history ultimately bound to the world of ancien régime^R Europe.