Yeah, it's really unfortunate that the work he had put into his next book (which was going to be called The Republic of Knowledge) was lost when he died (at 45!). For a while after his death a website of his was still accessible, but it's gone now. I haven't been able to locate it on the Wayback Machine.
The overall dates, I think, because they stretch from the middle of the Revolutionary War (when writings like newspapers and Common Sense were very influential) to the middle of the Second Great Awakening. It's always a bit arbitrary, choosing "periods" in which to organize our ideas. As for the banding of the estate inventories in his data, I imagine that was influenced by the data he was able to find.
What a fascinating book and a brave undertaking. Out of curiosity, why did he choose those dates?
Yeah, it's really unfortunate that the work he had put into his next book (which was going to be called The Republic of Knowledge) was lost when he died (at 45!). For a while after his death a website of his was still accessible, but it's gone now. I haven't been able to locate it on the Wayback Machine.
The overall dates, I think, because they stretch from the middle of the Revolutionary War (when writings like newspapers and Common Sense were very influential) to the middle of the Second Great Awakening. It's always a bit arbitrary, choosing "periods" in which to organize our ideas. As for the banding of the estate inventories in his data, I imagine that was influenced by the data he was able to find.
What a loss. What a brave historian.