{"product_id":"dark-side-of-the-light","title":"Dark Side of the Light","description":"Enlightenment thinkers such as Rousseau and Montesquieu are best known for their humanist theories and liberating influence on Western civilization. But as renowned French intellectual Louis Sala-Molins shows, Enlightenment discourses and scholars were also complicit in the Atlantic slave trade, becoming instruments of oppression and inequality. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTranslated into English for the first time, \u003ci\u003eDark Side of the Light \u003c\/i\u003escrutinizes Condorcet's \u003ci\u003eReflections on Negro\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eSlavery\u003c\/i\u003e and the works of Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Diderot side by side with the \u003ci\u003eCode Noir\u003c\/i\u003e (the royal document that codified the rules of French Caribbean slavery) in order to uncover attempts to uphold the humanist project of the Enlightenment while simultaneously justifying slavery. Wielding the pen of both the ironist and the moralist, Sala-Molins demonstrates the flawed nature of these attempts and the reasons given for this denial of rights, from the imperatives of public order to the incomplete humanity of the slave (and thus the need for his progressive humanization through slavery), to the economic prosperity that depended on his labor. At the same time, Sala-Molins uses the techniques of literature to give equal weight to the perspective of the \"barefooted, the starving, and the slaves\" through expository prose and scenes between slave and philosopher, giving moral agency and flesh-and-blood dimensions to issues most often treated as abstractions. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoth an urgent critique and a measured analysis, \u003ci\u003eDark Side of the Light\u003c\/i\u003e reveals the moral paradoxes of Enlightenment philosophies and their world-changing consequences. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLouis Sala-Molins is a moral and political philosopher and emeritus professor at the University of Toulouse. He is the author of many books, including \u003ci\u003eLe Code Noir, ou Le calvaire de Canaan\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eL'Afrique aux Amériques\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn Conteh-Morgan is associate professor of French and Francophone, African-American, and African studies at Ohio State University. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eTheatre and Drama in Francophone Africa: A Critical Introduction. \u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"University of Minnesota Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54245430853976,"sku":"9780816643899","price":23.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9780816643899_b6162a3c-ec53-4789-afb4-a1618b55e4b3.jpg?v=1778595335","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/dark-side-of-the-light","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}