In theory the CMPS was set up to enshrine the human and social studies that were at the heart of Enlightenment culture. Staum illustrates, however, that the Institute helped transform key ideas of the Enlightenment in order to maintain civil rights while upholding social stability, and that the social and political assumptions on which it was based affected notions of social science. He traces the careers of individual members and the factions within the Institute, arguing that the discord within the CMPS reflects the unravelling of Enlightenment culture. Minerva's Message presents a valuable overview of the intellectual life of the period and brings together new evidence about the social sciences in their nascent period.

Martin S. Staum, Associate Professor of History at the University of Calgary, is the author of Cabanis: Enlightenment and Medical Philosophy in the French Revolution and a contributor to scholarly periodicals and serials such as French Historical Studies in History of Biology.

Martin S. Staum's profile page

"A very clear, systematic, and thorough analysis. No one I know has a better command of the intellectual life of France in the period from the reign of Terror to the eve of the First Empire, nor is anyone better able to discuss this period in light of the intellectual life which preceded or followed it. Minerva's Message brings together a mass of evidence about the social sciences in their nascent period and shows what happened to the key ideas of the Enlightenment after the violent upheaval of the Revolution including the Terror. It is a valuable overview of the intellectual life of the period and raises questions which concern us still." James Leith, Department of History, Queen's University. "Minerva's Message would be important were it no more than an exposition and analysis of the CMPS but Staum goes further. It is an excellent analysis of the membership of the CMPS and their intellectual traditions, making it an important contribution to the institutional history of the French Revolution." Roderick Phillips, Department of History, Carleton University.