Mankind and its histories: William Robertson, Georg Forster, and a late eighteenth-century German debate

László Kontler*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

The Scottish historian William Robertson's works on European encounter with non-European civilizations (History of America, 1777; Historical Disquisition [.] of India, 1791) received a great deal of attention in contemporary Germany. Through correspondence with Robertson, as well as by reviewing and translating his texts, Johann Reinhold Forster and his son Georg took an active part in this process. The younger Forster also became simultaneously involved in a debate which was unfolding on the German intellectual scene concerning the different or equal "value" (Wert) of the various "races of mankind" (Menschenrassen), engaging especially the relevant views advanced by the Göttingen historian Christoph Meiners and Immanuel Kant. The debate was firmly embedded in the context of an emerging science of man in the German Enlightenment, to which Forster contributed an almost incomparable richness of empirical knowledge as well as theoretical sophistication. Forster's direct engagement with Robertson's work during the same period (mid-1780s to the early 1790s) creates a context through which the Wissenschaft vom Menschen in the Aufklärung and the Scottish version of the science of man-built on the neighbour disciplines to which Robertson's historiography was crucially indebted-is set in an interesting comparative light. This paper, part of a comprehensive project tracing the German reception of Robertson as an instance of inter-cultural exchange in the Enlightenment, will exploit the opportunities presented by one particular and documented case for a general comparison of enlightened sciences of man.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)411-429
Number of pages19
JournalIntellectual History Review
Volume23
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Sep 2013

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Mankind and its histories: William Robertson, Georg Forster, and a late eighteenth-century German debate'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this