Volney

1807 · SW1692 — Paris:: Courcier 1807. 1807. 2 volumes. 8vo. 6 x 487 1; iv 492 pp. Half-titles 5 folding engraved plates including detailed engravings of the Sphinx and the Pyramids of Giza 3 folding maps incl. frontis. a folding map of Egypt p. 288 Syria II p. 400 Turkey ads in front & rear. Original full mottled calf gilt spine red leather spine labels; joints rubbed but strong. Ownership Signature of Benjamin B. Wood. Very good. Fourth edition first issued in 1787 here printed with additional plates. This is a key source for the study of Ottoman Egypt Syria and modern day Lebanon sometimes called the Levant. Volney describes the geography of the region the climate its history cultures the militia economy and trade diseases the monuments natural history politics people law religions farming and agriculture craftsmen merchants commerce arts sciences and character of the inhabitants. All this is set within the presence of the years just prior to the outbreak of the French Revolution which started in 1789. "In 1783 Volney gave up the thought of following any particular profession and set out for the East. He arrived at Cairo ostensibly on a scientific mission although many there regarded him as a spy he was later accused of spying on America by John Adams' administration. In order to master Arabic he shut himself away in a convent for eight months then journeyed to the pyramids at Giza and moved to Suez where he lived with the Bedouin. While there he entertained the notion of constructing a canal to link the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. Sailing from Alexandria in September 1783 he visited Syria and the Lebanon concluding his journey at Acre =Akko in 1785. After a brief halt at Alexandria he returned to France where his documents turned out to be of enormous value in the planning of Napoleon's campaign to Egypt. Volney however persistently opposed such intervention despite producing a pamphlet which uncannily anticipated French involvement in the region." – Encyclopedia of Exploration to 1800 V61. / "The French author and traveller Constantin-Francois de Chasseboeuf 1757–1820 adopted the pen name Volney which combined the name of Voltaire and Ferney where the great philosopher lived. A friend of Thomas Jefferson and other Enlightenment figures Volney used an inheritance to further his education by travelling to Ottoman Egypt and the historical region of Syria visiting areas of present-day Lebanon and Israel. He chose these lands as he believed he would gain political and philosophical insights from their ancient heritage. Very little had been written in the West about these areas before he published this two-volume account in 1787. It enjoyed great popularity and even accompanied Darwin aboard the Beagle on his own voyage of discovery decades later. Reissued here is the revised and corrected French second edition which also appeared in 1787. The volumes explore geography history ethnic divisions religious beliefs commerce politics and customs." – Cambridge University Press 2014. / De Volney was a French philosopher and historian and a member of the Estates-General during the French Revolution. Alexander Cook who believes that Volney's influence is as a "key thinker" though often forgotten in today's sense of that history examines this books as a specimen of geo-politics of both French anti-imperialist thought and French imperial practice in North Africa and the Levant where France was seeking to expand its global influence and power during the following decades. Cook is at Australian National University School of History received his PhD from University of Cambridge. CONTENTS: Volume 1: Preface; - Part I. Etat physique de l'Egypte: - 1. De l'Egypte en general et de la ville d'Alexandrie; - 2. Du Nil et de l'extension du delta; - 3. De l'exhaussement de delta; - 4. Des vents de l'Egypte; - 5. Du climat et de l'air d'Egypte; - Part II. Etat politique de l'Egypte: - 6. Des diverses races des habitans de l'Egypte; - 7. Precis de l'histoire des Mamlouks; - 8. Precis de l'histoire de d'Ali-bek; - 9. Precis des evenemens arrives depuis la mort d'Ali-bek jusqu'en 1785; - 10. Etat present de l'Egypte; - 11. Constitution de la milice des Mamlouks; - 12. Gouvernement des Mamlouks; - 13. Etat du commerce; - 14. De l'isthme de Suez; - 15. Des douanes et des impots; - 16. De la ville du Kaire; - 17. Des maladies de l'Egypte; - 18. Tableau resume de l'Egypte; - 19. Des ruines et des pyramides; - Part III. Etat physique de la Syrie: - 20. Geographie et histoire naturaelle de la Syrie; - 21. Considerations sur les phenomenes des vents des nuages des pluies des brouillards et du tonnerre; - Part IV. Etat politique de la Syrie: - 22. Des habitans de la Syrie et de la langue usitee; - 23. Des peuples errans ou pasteurs en Syrie. Volume 2: - 24. Des peuples agricoles ou sedentaires de la Syrie; - 25. Precis de l'histoire de Daher; - 26. Distribution de la Syrie par pachalics; - 27. Du pachalic d'Alep; - 28. Du pachalic de Tripoli; - 29. Du pachalic de Saide; - 30. Du pachalic de Damas; - 31. De la Palestine; - 32. Resume de la Syrie; - 33. Du gouvernement des Turks en Syrie; - 34. De l'administration de la justice; - 35. De l'influence de a religion; - 36. De la propriete et des conditions; - 37. Des paysans et de l'agriculture; - 38. Des artisans des amrchands et du commerce; - 39. Des arts des sciences et de l'ignorance; - 40. Des habitudes et du caractere des habitans de la Syrie. PROVENANCE: Benjamin B. Wood unknown as there are many with this name. / See: Alexander Cook "The Great Society of the Human Species': Volney and the Global Politics of Revolutionary France" Intellectual History Review Volume 23 2013 - Issue 3: Discourses of Humanity in the Enlightenment: Local Mediations of a Global Aspiration; Alexander Cook "Volney and the Science of Morality in Revolutionary France" Humanities Research Vol. 16 No. 2 May 1 2010; Samir Khalaf Protestant Missionaries in the Levant: Ungodly Puritans 1820-1860 Routledge 2012. Courcier, 1807. hardcover books