Histoire des deux Indes
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| Author |
Guillaume-Thomas Raynal Denis Diderot Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach Jacques-André Naigeon Jean de Pechméja Jean-François de Saint-Lambert Joseph-Louis Lagrange Jacques-André Naigeon and others |
|---|---|
| Original title | Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes |
| Working title | Histoire des deux Indes |
| Country | France |
| Genre | Encyclopaedia |
| Published | 1770 |
The Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes, more often known simply as French: Histoire des deux Indes ("History of the two Indias"), is an encyclopaedia on commerce between Europe and the Far East, published anonymously in Amsterdam in 1770 and attributed to Abbot Guillaume-Thomas Raynal. It achieved considerable popularity and went through numerous editions. The third edition, published in 1781, was censored in France.
The Histoire des deux Indes filled a public need for knowledge in the Age of Enlightenment, answering questions that preoccupied the minds of those in the late 18th century, around the time of the French Revolution.
Raynal's idea was to write a history of European enterprises in the East Indies and the New World, having observed the influence of the great explorations on European civilisation.
The book first discusses the Portuguese and their oriental colonies, going on to give a history of British and French enterprises, then Spanish and Dutch, in the Orient. It then turns its attention to European conquests in the Americas, giving an account of atrocities against slaves in New Guinea and presenting a table of French and British colonies in North America, after which there is a series of essays on religion, politics, war, commerce, moral philosophy, belles-lettres, and so on.
The Histoire des deux Indes lacks consistency in its style: Raynal limited himself to collecting articles provided by friends and pieces borrowed from existing published texts, without taking the trouble to rework them.
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