ABSTRACT
Europe of the eighteenth century bequeathed to the nineteenth a rich and complex legacy. It included not only political revolution in France and industrial revolution in Britain but also challenges from two broad currents in the realm of ideas. One became known as the Enlightenment, the other as the Romantic Movement. Their moods were in some ways mutually irreconcilable. Yet there were significant points of convergence too, especially where they each called into question many entrenched habits of eighteenth-century life and thought, society and government. This essay will outline something of their ambivalent interrelationship, and of their dual influence upon European social and political thinking down to the revolutions of 1830.
