Description
Voltaire's historical works reflect his own changing roles and preoccupations from conteur to campaigner. His groundbreaking historical output of thirty-eight texts, composed throughout his long career as a writer, is now receiving renewed critical attention. In the first study to explore thewhole range of Voltaire's writings in this domain, Siofra Pierse looks at the irreducible ambiguity of the term histoire, both factual truth and the way it is represented - "history" and "story". She discusses how Voltaire's theories of history interact with other, more literary considerations, andanalyses how a search for truth overlaps with a desire to create a compelling narrative that engages the reader in a deeper, collaborative, and polemical project. In Voltaire historiographer: narrative paradigms, Siofra Pierse brings to light how the philosophe exploits the potential of history notsimply to record the past, but to influence the present and shape the future.… (more)