BOURGEOIS MODERNITY VERSUS THE HISTORICAL ARISTOCRACY IN CHRISTOPH MEINERS'S POLITICAL THOUGHT

• Published in: The Historical journal 2019-12, Vol.62 (4), p.943-966
• Main Author: GOLF-FRENCH, MORGAN
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 19th century; Aristocracy; Bourdieu, Pierre (1930-2002); Bourgeoisie; Classification; Conservatism; Culture; Enlightenment; French Revolution; History; Jewish people; Middle class; Modernity; Nobility; Philosophy; Race; Radical groups; Radicalism; Social theories; Values
• ISSN: 0018-246X; 1469-5103
• DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X18000456

Christoph Meiners (1747–1810), a major historian and philosopher of the German late Enlightenment, has received increasing recognition as a significant thinker in the emergence of nineteenth-century racial theories. The scholarly focus on Meiners's hierarchical view of race and its legacy has led to the classification of his broader oeuvre as conservative, or even reactionary. By examining his Geschichte der Ungleichheit der Stände unter den vornehmsten europäischen Völkern (1792), written in response to the French Revolution and the contemporary circumstances of the Holy Roman Empire, this article sheds new light on his work, as well as on an under-researched line of thought in the 1790s. Rather than a conservative or reactionary work, this text is a radical critique of the German aristocracy that ultimately recommends the abolition of most significant aristocratic privileges and the overhaul of its membership in favour of the bourgeoisie. This article presents not only a more complex understanding of Christoph Meiners's ideas, but also calls for a reappraisal of the categories applied to late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century intellectuals both in Germany and in Europe more broadly.