Europe: Early Modern and Modern
new form of selfhood sentimental (p. 164), and char-
acterizes it as an essential element of the movement
from a social structure dominated by courtly mores to
one that was more democratic. The way this transpired,
according to Voskuhl, was that [c]ivil society, made up
of rational, sensible, and equal citizens, was meant to
replace the traditional estate and court societies and be
held together and sustained by, among other things,
cultivated and shared sentiments (p. 7). These female
automataone that plays a harpsichord and one that
plays a dulcimerreflected and were reflected in this
transition chiefly because of the bodily movements that
were programmed into them by their makers. As
Voskuhl shows in the central chapters of her book,
these bodily movements mapped directly onto methods
for playing instruments prescribed by music manuals of
the time, which in turn descended from the dawning
social and cultural expectations for publicly expressing
sentiment. Furthermore, these automata encapsulated
two particular undercurrents of socio-cultural tension.
First, they epitomized a tension between whether or not
technology and accompanying social changes might
make humans more machine-like (a tension that per-
sists through the centuries to today). Secondand this
is where she suggests her work is different from others
about automata of the early modern periodVoskuhl
sees the automata as reflective of an anxiety specific to
their time: if sentiment could be so well replicated by
these machines, did that belie the reality and reliability
of the formation of this new, modern, sentiment-based
subject?
Voskuhls is the latest bloom in a garden of recent
books that deals with premodern androids, although
only one of two that specifically focuses on them, as
opposed to discussing automata in general. Humanoid
automata of this era have been considered in parts of
other books over the past decade or so, including Gaby
Wood, Living Dolls: A Magical History of the Quest for
Mechanical Life (2002); Scott Lightsey, Manmade Mar-
vels in Medieval Literature and Culture (2007); Jessica
Riskin, Genesis Redux: Essays in the History and Phi-
losophy of Artificial Life (2007); and Minsoo Kang, Sub-
lime Dreams of Living Machines: The Automaton in the
European Imagination (2011). Mine is the only other
book that specifically centers on androids, although I
concentrate on those created before the Enlightenment
(Kevin LaGrandeur, Androids and Intelligent Networks
in Early Modern Literature and Culture: Artificial Slaves
[2013]). All of these books claim, in a nutshell, that au-
tomata reflect prevailing cultural preoccupations, espe-
cially ambivalence toward scientific and technological
change. Where Voskuhl differs is in her focus on au-
tomata not as ambivalent, but as part of the rise of a
specific element of sentimentality, as the essence of a
new sense of modern selfhood.
Given that the title of the book is so broad, it was
somewhat surprising to see that the author chose to
deal with only two of the ten androids we know of from
that period. She claims in her introduction that they
better demonstrate the sentimental motions that she
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
1345
examines, but I was left wondering what Voskuhl might
have said about the other eight. It would have been in-
teresting to know exactly what emotive qualities they
lacked in comparison to the two she chose. Also, given
that she bases her thesis on the rise of sentiment as a
key underpinning of both the art and society of the En-
lightenment, it would have been beneficial to see more
and wider references not just to modern commentators
on this philosophical shift, as Voskuhl gives us in chap-
ter 4, but also to philosophers of the time who discuss
it. In terms of the general artistic philosophy of the
time, for example, she could have noted Friedrich Schil-
lers 1795 essay On Nave and Sentimental Poetry; or
even William Wordsworths preface to the second edi-
tion (1800) of Lyrical Ballads, where he famously cham-
pions poetic art as the spontaneous overflow of pow-
erful feelings. But these reservations do not detract
from the fact that this book is a genuine and important
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addition to extant literature about the history of an-
droids and automata, and a very good read.
KEVIN LAGRANDEUR
New York Institute of Technology
PIERRE BRIANT. Alexandre des Lumieres: Fragments
dhistoire europeenne. (NRF Essais.) Paris: Gallimard,
2012. Pp. 739. 29.00.
Ever since antiquity, Alexander the Great has long re-
mained a fascinating topic for historians, biographers,
political thinkers, and literary authors. In this marvel-
ous book, Pierre Briant uses the history of Alexander
to present a panorama of the European Republic of
Letters in the longer eighteenth century. While the
book focuses primarily on the eighteenth century, the
early chapters explore the seventeenth century, while
the last chapters take the story into the nineteenth cen-
tury.
There are many ways in which one can write the his-
tory of reception and the history of historiography, and
traditionally, when it comes down to the reception of
antiquity, scholars have preferred a chronological ap-
proach focused on a succession of authors and their
views. Briant has chosen an alternative path. He in-
cludes in his account the basis of the debates as well as
discursive and institutional contexts from which En-
lightenment discussions of Alexander originated and
also the consequences of the French Revolution and
the global reactions it engendered for the history of the
books subject. This is an enormous advantage because
it makes it possible to understand how the same author
could present divergent and often mutually exclusive
images of Alexander.
Well into the eighteenth century, discussions of Al-
exander were primarily shaped by the view of history as
magistra vitae : Alexander was a monarchical exemplum,
and historians debated the extent to which he embodied
positive traits or illustrated vices that potentates should
be warned against. Alexander was also an integral part
of sacred history, from his alleged respectful visit to Je-
rusalem, to his position within Daniels scheme of the
OCTOBER 2014
1346 Reviews of Books
four world empires. The historicity of Alexanders visit
to Jerusalem is brilliantly exploited by Briant to present
how textual criticism and debates on the nature and cri-
teria of historical truth ultimately destabilized both the
magistra vitae approach as well as sacred history. Once
these became major issues of discussion, the history of
Alexander provides an important battleground. Not
only is there no contemporary account of Alexander,
since all ancient accounts date from centuries later, but
those accounts also present deeply divergent perspec-
tives. Briant shows how these debates culminated in the
publication of Guillaume-Emmanuel-Joseph-Guilhem
de Clermont-Lodeve, baron de Sainte-Croixs Examen
critique des anciens historiens dAlexandre-le-grand
(1775), the most profound work on Alexander in the
eighteenth century. But Sainte-Croixs work was not
merely a specialists source-critical study; it was also a
contribution to some of the major eighteenth-century
debates on empire, commerce, and civilization.
In these new debates, empire and its destructive vi-
olence could be portrayed as an ancient irrelevance in
the modern world, to be substituted by the peaceful
processes of commerce and by states geared toward the
welfare of their citizens. Alexander could be depicted
as the vainglorious conqueror, in the company of Ta-
merlane and Genghis Khan; but his foundation of Al-
exandria and his exploration of the Indian Ocean could
be described as a revolution in the history of commerce
and used to portray him as a modernizing ruler like Pe-
ter the Great. Briant traces the origins of this image of
Alexander as the promoter of trade and knowledge in
Pierre-Daniel Huets Histoire du commerce et de la nav-
igation des Anciens (1716) and explores how this image
was widely publicized by Montesquieu and extensively
discussed in the course of the longer eighteenth cen-
tury. Alongside the Enlightenment narrative of com-
merce, the long eighteenth century exhibited the cre-
ation of new European empires in Asiain particular
with the British in Indiaand Briant explores the sig-
nificance of this development. Alexander was widely
seen as the pioneer of European conquest of the Ori-
ent; it is remarkable that even late in the eighteenth
century, ancient accounts of Alexanders exploration of
the Indian Ocean coasts were still significant for mod-
ern explorers and colonial agents. The accumulation of
geographical knowledge created new debates: was Al-
exanders destruction of the Persian dams on the Tigris
an Enlightened opening of Mesopotamia to commerce,
or a conquerors destruction of sophisticated irrigation
systems?
Briants presentation of the role of Alexander in the
Enlightenment discourses on Orientalism, empire, and
commerce is a major contribution to modern histori-
ography. While the book largely focuses on these issues,
it also raises important questions regarding the histo-
riography of ancient Greek history. Simon-Nicolas-
Henri Linguets Histoire du siecle dAlexandre (1762) careful cultural archaeology. Most surprisingly, Byrne
was a pioneering attempt to employ the Voltairian his-
toire des moeurs in order to present a world history of
the era of Alexander. Equally important is Briants scat-
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
tered discussion of the role of Alexander in eighteenth-
century narratives of Greek history, the eighteenth-
century prehistory of Johann Gustav Droysens reeval-
uation of Alexander, and the Hellenistic period as a ma-
jor stage of world history. This book should be read
widely not only by historians of Ancient Greece, but
also by anyone interested in eighteenth-century histo-
riography and political thought.
KOSTAS VLASSOPOULOS
University of Nottingham
ANGELA BYRNE. Geographies of the Romantic North: Sci-
ence, Antiquarianism, and Travel, 17901830. (Palgrave
Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History.) New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Pp. xiv, 265. $85.00.
In recent years, there has been an increasing movement
toward seeing the idea of the North as a larger, trans-
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national, transhistorical phenomenon, one that takes
the cultures of all circumpolar peoples as its purview.
This has been, in part, a necessary correction of the ad-
mitted Anglo-centrism of much of the previous schol-
arship in this area, as well as of a desire to frame ques-
tions of the North in terms of modern interdisciplinary
thought rather than the more traditional, compartmen-
talized historiography of earlier work.
While this trend, on the larger scale, is to be lauded,
it has produced some strange shifts in the field: cri-
tiques of imperialism have gone by the wayside, re-
buffed by the claim that, in the North, cultural and eco-
nomic history simply did not fit that mold. At the same
time, quite different culturesthose of Scandinavian
Europe, Russia, and other circumpolar nations and
peopleshave been lumped together somewhat
crudely at times, without much attention to their many
significant differences. Something of that is evident in
the present volume, as it jumps from accounts of Hud-
sons Bay surveyors and George Vancouver to runic
collectors and the Scandi-British idea of the North as
a living museum.
To its credit, Geographies of the Romantic North: Sci-
ence, Antiquarianism, and Travel, 17901830 wants to
make big connections but is hampered in its quest for
historical coherency by its studied avoidance of seeing
things in ideological terms. The title itself is a bit mis-
leading; by using Romantic Angela Byrne does not,
as she makes clear, mean the traditional notion of a
literary and artistic movement that swept Europe at the
turn of the nineteenth century. Following Penny Field-
ing, she wants to resist oversimplifying Romanticism
and highlight its dense and complicated relationship
with scientific discourse. And yet, with references to
Romantic literature and art so scarce, readers may find
themselves in doubt as to whether Romanticism ought
to be seen as a distinct historical force at all. Imperi-
alism, too, is bracketed off as a broad brush unsuited to
seeks to set aside gender. In a section titled, Note on
Gender, she advances the claim that, since everybody
engaged in the specific kinds of work dealt with in her
OCTOBER 2014