Adam Potkay is Professor of English at the College of William and Mary. He is the author of The Passion for Happiness: Samuel Johnson and David Hume, also from Cornell, and coeditor of Black Atlantic Writers of the Eighteenth Century: Living the New Exodus in England and the Americas.

Potkay aspires to reach beyond the groves of academe to a wider reading public. Certainly, the aim of affording readers a glimpse of a less fragmented learned world... is an admirable one, and Potkay's efforts are to be applauded.... Potkay offers a perspective on the Enlightenment that is at the same time fresh and yet reaffirming of its special character.(Scotia) Potkay is thorough, methodical, and very very serious.(The Wordsworth Circle) Potkay sees in Hume and in the period, a deep ambivalence toward eloquence.... While Hume is at the center of this book, much of Potkay's analysis concerns other writers, notably Pope, Thomas Gray, Sterne, and Macpherson.... Potkay's work is ambitious, capacious, and erudite by any standard; as a first book it is astonishingly so.(Studies in English Literature) Potkay's treatment of Johnson and Hume's encounters, lives, and selected works is even-handed, indeed eudaimonic. Slight and instructive adjustments illuminate various biographical and intellectual parallels.- Alan T. McKenzie (Eighteenth-Century Studies) This highly recommended study manifests a sure grasp of political and cultural history, familiarity with current critical approaches, and a lucid and often witty style.(Choice)

Adam Potkay is Professor of English at the College of William and Mary. He is the author of The Passion for Happiness: Samuel Johnson and David Hume, also from Cornell, and coeditor of Black Atlantic Writers of the Eighteenth Century: Living the New Exodus in England and the Americas.

Potkay aspires to reach beyond the groves of academe to a wider reading public. Certainly, the aim of affording readers a glimpse of a less fragmented learned world... is an admirable one, and Potkay's efforts are to be applauded.... Potkay offers a perspective on the Enlightenment that is at the same time fresh and yet reaffirming of its special character.(Scotia) Potkay is thorough, methodical, and very very serious.(The Wordsworth Circle) Potkay sees in Hume and in the period, a deep ambivalence toward eloquence.... While Hume is at the center of this book, much of Potkay's analysis concerns other writers, notably Pope, Thomas Gray, Sterne, and Macpherson.... Potkay's work is ambitious, capacious, and erudite by any standard; as a first book it is astonishingly so.(Studies in English Literature) Potkay's treatment of Johnson and Hume's encounters, lives, and selected works is even-handed, indeed eudaimonic. Slight and instructive adjustments illuminate various biographical and intellectual parallels.- Alan T. McKenzie (Eighteenth-Century Studies) This highly recommended study manifests a sure grasp of political and cultural history, familiarity with current critical approaches, and a lucid and often witty style.(Choice)

Adam Potkay is Professor of English at the College of William and Mary. He is the author of The Passion for Happiness: Samuel Johnson and David Hume, also from Cornell, and coeditor of Black Atlantic Writers of the Eighteenth Century: Living the New Exodus in England and the Americas.

Potkay aspires to reach beyond the groves of academe to a wider reading public. Certainly, the aim of affording readers a glimpse of a less fragmented learned world... is an admirable one, and Potkay's efforts are to be applauded.... Potkay offers a perspective on the Enlightenment that is at the same time fresh and yet reaffirming of its special character.(Scotia) Potkay is thorough, methodical, and very very serious.(The Wordsworth Circle) Potkay sees in Hume and in the period, a deep ambivalence toward eloquence.... While Hume is at the center of this book, much of Potkay's analysis concerns other writers, notably Pope, Thomas Gray, Sterne, and Macpherson.... Potkay's work is ambitious, capacious, and erudite by any standard; as a first book it is astonishingly so.(Studies in English Literature) Potkay's treatment of Johnson and Hume's encounters, lives, and selected works is even-handed, indeed eudaimonic. Slight and instructive adjustments illuminate various biographical and intellectual parallels.- Alan T. McKenzie (Eighteenth-Century Studies) This highly recommended study manifests a sure grasp of political and cultural history, familiarity with current critical approaches, and a lucid and often witty style.(Choice)