Breeding: A Partial History of the Eighteenth Century

Jenny Davidson

December, 2008
Cloth, 312 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-13878-9
$32.50 / £22.50

"Breeding: A Partial History of the Eighteenth Century is one of the most compelling examples of the importance of literary studies I've come across in ages. An original and valuable contribution that will engage readers from a variety of fields." — Helen Deutsch, University of California, Los Angeles

"Jenny Davidson's new book reopens the rich tradition of debate on the relation between nature and culture in the long eighteenth century. It is hard to know what to praise most: Davidson's deep learning (worn lightly), the effervescent clarity of her presentation, or the generosity with which she lets us listen to a host of voices—some familiar, many not—that speak to a question that has lost none of its disturbing force today." — Ian Duncan, University of California, Berkeley

Related Subjects

• Cultural Studies
• European and British Literature
• European History
• Literary Criticism and Theory

About the Author

Jenny Davidson is an associate professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University. She is the author of two novels, Heredity and The Explosionist, and a critical work, Hypocrisy and the Politics of Politeness: Manners and Morals from Locke to Austen.

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