Abstract This article analyses to what degree Benjamin Robins's discoveries in his book New Principles of Gunnery , 1742, affected the British mathematical, military, and educational world of the mid‐eighteenth century. While it drew praise and critique from Europe, especially from the notable mathematician Leonhard Euler, his mathematical theories were not quickly adopted in Britain. This article will highlight the analysis by the professors at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and how that affected the education of cadets at the academy. Furthermore, this article will investigate whether Robins had any influence on the efficacy of British artillery in combat during the Seven Years War, particularly in its campaigns in Germany.
Abstract This article traces evolving Chinese perceptions of Britain in the years leading up to the Macartney Embassy by examining not only imperially commissioned court compilations and published writings but also records formed in the course of key real‐life encounters. Over time, Britain was disentangled from being labelled as part of Hongmao Guo [red‐haired countries] and increasingly recognized as a distinct polity of strong power. This gradual differentiation was accompanied by raised caution against potential collusion between Chinese subjects and foreign powers, as well as growing concerns of a military nature. By foregrounding the Chinese‐language materials, this article attempts to show how the Chinese actively constructed a narrative about Britain and thereby to complement current studies in the field that have been largely shaped by the English‐language perspective.
Abstract There is a growing body of scholarship on the history of religious toleration; nevertheless, historians have largely treated toleration as a matter of governmental policy and legal principle. This article broadens that account by examining John Wesley and George Whitefield's vision of evangelical unity across denominational lines. Articulated in a theological vocabulary of fellowship, catholicity and mutual burden‐bearing and oriented towards revival and evangelism, their vision extended beyond toleration understood merely as a legal or political arrangement. In this respect, I argue, it represented a distinctive model of pluralism that departed not only from older forms of latitudinarianism but also from the more radical anti‐establishment arguments for toleration advanced across the Atlantic. This article expands our understanding of religious pluralism and toleration in the eighteenth century to encompass toleration not only as a matter of government policy or legal principle but also as an ecclesiastical attitude and practice.
Abstract ‘Dent was probably an amateur and nothing is known of his life’, state Bryant and Heneage. Despite contributing to caricature's ‘golden age’, William Dent remains overlooked compared to contemporaries like James Gillray. Dent's extensive portfolio (1782–93) and rumoured role as a Pittite propagandist have not secured his place in the canon of visual satire. Unlike the professional Gillray, Dent's amateurism is evident in the crudeness of his style, content, and daring use of double‐entendres. Only Srividhya Swaminathan has dedicated a work to Dent, focusing on his proslavery stance, while scholars like Diana Donald and Vic Gatrell merely mention him in passing. This article seeks to offer the first study of Dent's career and political affiliations as artist and publisher using his surviving prints, newspapers, and legal documents. The focus spans his key political works, from Fox's coalition of 1783 to Dent's sudden disappearance in 1793 amid the Revolutionary Wars.
Two descriptions of the Habsburg embassy to the Sublime Porte, led by Count von Ulfeldt, offer invaluable information on Balkan ancient monuments and the understanding of the historical geography of those parts of the former Roman Empire. Unpublished manuscripts in the Austrian National Library record the travelogues of Johann von Kempelen and Captain Schad, who submitted their diaries to the Imperial Chancellery on returning to Vienna. Kempelen, the embassy's secretary and historiographer, was judged more valuable. Travelling different routes, both kept diary-form accounts detailing routes, settlements, meetings, sights, and particularly antiquities. Their entries, accompanied by drawings and inscriptions, reflected Western travellers' perceptions and served Habsburg propaganda. Though part of a long tradition of noting ruins dating back to the fifteenth century, these works are notable for approaching antiquities with explicit research aims, attempting explanation and dating of the ruins encountered. Their manuscripts remain valuable yet understudied archival sources today.
Abstract This afterword frames eighteenth‐century rape culture and scholarship through our current political moment and reflects on the concerns raised by the essays in this special issue. Twenty‐first‐century interest in the cultural histories of sexual violence has been galvanized by motivational presentism, an increasingly explicit sense that ‘what matters to us about the past has everything to do with […] what we think is important—to us, here and now, in the present'. U.S. President Donald Trump's crass articulation of financial, masculinist, and racial privilege updates the entitlement of the eighteenth‐century rake. Reading contemporary rape culture through the lens of the eighteenth century allows us to reframe the mainlining of misogyny in the Trump era not as a tragic failure of ‘the enlightenment', but as a by‐product of the eighteenth‐century age of insensibility.
