{"product_id":"the-conversions-of-edward-gibbon-a-modern-biography-martha-saxton-hardcover","title":"The Conversions of Edward Gibbon: A Modern Biography -- Martha Saxton, Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA new feminist biography of the incomparably influential English historian Edward Gibbon, author of \u003ci\u003eThe History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Enlightenment-era, six-volume epic \u003ci\u003eThe History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire\u003c\/i\u003e is to history what \u003ci\u003eIn Search of Lost Time\u003c\/i\u003e is to fiction. Edward Gibbon's chronicle of the late Roman period continues to be, nearly 250 years after its original publication, the best-known work of history written in the English language. Gibbon's flights of lyricism, his ironic observations, his unflagging devotion to reason over piety, come to form a captivating history of the Imperial Roman world and an epochal model of historiography with which all subsequent historians must contend. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Conversions of Edward Gibbon\u003c\/i\u003e, the last work of the celebrated feminist historian Martha Saxton, we come to know the man and the methods. Saxton's illuminating biography--the first in twenty years--follows Gibbon from his unhappy childhood in Surrey, to his time at Oxford and his flirtation with deism, through his writing life and his physical suffering in later age. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eGibbon is in some respects everything Saxton seeks to turn against in her own work, and while she writes unsparingly of the historian's foibles and cruelties, her interest comes from a place of deep curiosity, to understand why Gibbon, unlike many other Enlightenment thinkers who generally regarded their female contemporaries as potential allies in building the more equitable civil society that they envisaged, remained so personally barbed and cold to the women in his life and work. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhat emerges is a portrait of a complex historian and a decaying antique empire, all bathed in the light of the tumultuous eighteenth century.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Martha Saxton\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Farrar, Straus and Giroux\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/24\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 304\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.00lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 1.00d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780374604554\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 03\/15\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMartha Saxton\u003c\/b\u003e (1945-2023) was a historian and biographer. She wrote \u003ci\u003eBeing Good: Women's Moral Values in Early America \u003c\/i\u003eand biographies of Mary Washington, Louisa May Alcott, and Jayne Mansfield. Saxton received a PhD from Columbia University before joining the faculty at Amherst College, where she taught history and women's studies for twenty years.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Martha Saxton","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":68298109976804,"sku":"9780374604554","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0611\/9587\/8628\/files\/9780374604554.jpg?v=1794642369","url":"https:\/\/bookandmortar.com\/products\/the-conversions-of-edward-gibbon-a-modern-biography-martha-saxton-hardcover","provider":"BookandMortar","version":"1.0","type":"link"}