Enlightenment in Practice

Jeremy L. Caradonna is Associate Professor of History at the University of Alberta.

• Introduction1. The Rebirth of the Concours Académique: Cultural Politics and the Domestication of Letters in the Age of Louis XIV2. la Recherche du Concours Académique3. The Participatory Enlightenment4. Dijon Revisited: Rousseau's First Discourse from the Perspective of the Concours Académique5. The Concours Académique, Political Culture, and the Critical Public Sphere6. The Practical Enlightenment: The Concours Académique, the State, and the Pursuit of Expertise7. Prize Contests in the Revolutionary Crucible: Decline and RegenerationConclusion: The Enlightenment in QuestionAppendixesA. Academies and Societies in France That Held Public Prize Contests from the Fourteenth Century to 1794B. Female Laureates of the Concours Académique, 1671–1790C. Contests founded by the Abbé RaynalD. Contests on Poverty, Begging, and Poor ReliefE. Contests Related to Urban Drinking Water*F. List of Prize Contests Offered by Academies, Scholarly Societies, and Agricultural Societies in Continental France from 1670 to 1794*available at http://www.jeremycaradonna.comNotesWorks CitedIndex

The Enlightenment in Practice is a remarkable achievement. It is a tour de force that will make us think differently about the Enlightenment for a long time to come. The author who has uncovered so much about academic prizes deserves one himself.- Ronald Schechter (Eighteenth-Century Life) At ?rst glance, Jeremy Caradonna's book is a new study about the world of academies in France that follows and complements similar works by Daniel Roche..Readers will enjoy this well-written and well-constructed history, which adds an important piece to the puzzle of the history of the Enlightenment. In addition, the book o?ers a new perspective on modern state building in underlining the rise of public expertise, a path that should be continued in the future.- Jérôme Loiseau (European History Quarterly) This book adds an important dimension to our understanding of the cultural climate in prerevolutionary France. Mobilizing an impressive body of research on the academies and their prize contestants, Cardonna also presents their story in clear, beautifully organized prose.- William Beik (The Journal of Modern History)