Encyclopédie noire

By Sara E. Johnson,

Book cover of Encyclopédie noire

Book description

If you peer closely into the bookstores, salons, and diplomatic circles of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world, sooner or later Mederic Louis Elie Moreau de Saint-Mery is bound to appear. As a lawyer, philosophe, and Enlightenment polymath, Moreau created and compiled an immense archive that remains a vital window into the…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Encyclopédie noire as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is an original, exciting entry into the world of a French nobleman in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti): a polymath and a slave owner. Johnson puts his world back together by returning enslaved people to it, demonstrating how their knowledge made his intellect possible. The best kind of academic book, it stretches your brain and teaches you something truly new.

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