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Article: The Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists: The Discourse of Scepticism, 1680-1750.(Review)
- Article from:
- Criticism
- Article date:
- September 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Wayne State University Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists: The Discourse of Scepticism, 1680-1750 by James Herrick. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1997. Pp. 254. $29.95.
This is a bold work that sets out to underscore the importance of radical anti-Christian discourses to the history of freedom in eighteenth-century English debate. Key to its argument is the suggestion that a "virulent sceptical movement"--Deism--took hold in "British Cities and Universities" in the period (6). Addressed to an audience of "urban, literate working people with only tentative ties to the Church" (205) and "prone to riot, both physical and mental" (70), the radical rhetoric of ...