This text is a study of cosmopolitan approaches to the past. It reappraises the work of five narrative historians: Voltaire, Hume, Robertson, Gibbon and Ramsay,... » 

This text is a study of cosmopolitan approaches to the past. It reappraises the work of five narrative historians: Voltaire, Hume, Robertson, Gibbon and Ramsay, and investigates the nature and degree of their intellectual investment in the idea of a common European civilization. «