Los intrincados caminos hacia el progresodebates, discursos sobre civilización, guerra y sensibilidad en la Ilustración

Abstract

The strong link between military art and the notion of patriotism in the framework of European debates on civilization and barbarism work as a prominent role in Enlightened political discourses. This work aims to analyze the conception and representations of war by translators, journalists and jurists directly related to war values. War served as a rule to determine the degree of civilization of European society, its condition of progress and modernity compared to other cultures considered savage. The reflections on the war and the myths it produced –the use of weapons, the practices associated with battles, the cult of the fallen soldier– were another dimension of the problem of civilization. I pretend to enrich the debats of civilization, a concept with multiple and complex prisms, from the development of historiography to the relationship and debate between the sexes. The interpretation of the war from the rationalist philosophy of the Enlightenment and sensitivity –attitudes of humanity and generosity and public happiness– did not prevent the exaltation of the war as the engine of the empire and the image of the soldier killed by the homeland, united to the rhetoric of emotions.