Books by Thomas M. Kavanagh

Thomas M. Kavanagh argues that Enlightenment culture and its tensions, contradictions, and achievements flow from a subversive attention to the present as present, freed from the weight of past and future.

Novelists, artists, and philosophers of the eighteenth century understood pleasure as a virtuea gift to be shared with ones companion, with a reader, or with the public.In this daring new book, Thomas Kavanagh overturns the prevailing scholarly tradition that views eighteenth-century France primarily as the incubator of the Revolution. Instead, Kavanagh demonstrates how the art and literature of the era put the experience of pleasure at the center of the cultural agenda, leadingto advances in both ethics and aesthetics.Kavanagh shows that pleasure is not necessarily hedonistic or opposed to Enlightenment ideals in general; rather, he argues that the pleasure of individuals is necessary for the welfare of theircommunity.

Kavanagh argues that the history of gambling as a cultural practice provides new and important insights into how French culture has responded to the challenge of understanding what identity, responsibility, and freedom can mean in a world ruled largely by chance.