French Literature Reviews - 2026
Stéphane Van Damme, Les voyageurs du doute
History, Politics and Society
Following in the footsteps of the traveling scholars of the 18th century, Stéphane Van Damme offers a global history of skepticism during the making of France-as-Empire, and uncovers a lesser-known scientific challenge to Western universalism—an early precursor to alter-globalization.
From the conquests of Alexander the Great, which sparked the rise of Pyrrhonism on the banks of the Ganges, to Montaigne's Renaissance critique of the devastation wrought by colonization, skeptical thought has frequently emerged during periods of imperial expansion.
Geography, astronomy, medicine, cartography, chemistry, geology, botany, and even archaeology: freethinkers utilized every discipline available to critique this new French globalization driven by the absolutist monarchy. Yet, in doing so, they also championed an alternative worldview, countering the logic of domination and appropriation with the promise of genuine encounter.
Carriers of an unprecedented scientific critique of Western universalism, these travelers of doubt laid the groundwork for the earliest form of alter-globalization.
Stéphane Van Damme is a professor in the Department of History at the École normale supérieure (Paris). His research focuses on modern sciences and European culture from the xvie to the xixe century. In 2020, he published Seconde Nature. Rematérialiser les sciences entre Bacon et Tocqueville with Presses du Réel.
Browse the Table of Contents and read the beginning of the book…
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An article dedicated to this book can be read on en-attendant-nadeau.fr:
"Not Exactly Homebodies: Skeptics Abroad", by Pascal Engel (published online September 5, 2023).
Stéphane Van Damme describes a movement of erudite, skeptical freethinkers who critiqued French globalization during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, his conception of skepticism is so broad and vague that one might wonder whether we are truly dealing with "skeptical knowledge."
Skepticism has a long intellectual history intersecting with periods of territorial conquest and cross-cultural encounter, from classical antiquity through the Renaissance reflections of figures like Montaigne. In the early modern era, debates over geography, cartography, and natural philosophy frequently provided a vocabulary for questioning absolute authority and dominant political systems. Within the broader tradition of intellectual history, scholarly inquiries into European globalization often examine how travelers, observers, and scholars engaged with foreign environments and alternative worldviews outside the metropolitan center.
Readers interested in the history of science, early modern intellectual movements, and the critical perspectives that accompanied European expansion may find this volume relevant. Stéphane Van Damme describes a movement of erudite, skeptical freethinkers who critiqued French globalization during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.