Book review: Uncivil mirth: ridicule in enlightenment Britain by Ross Carroll

In Uncivil Mirth: Ridicule in Enlightenment Britain, Ross Carroll offers a new study of ridicule’s function in public debate in Britain in the 1700s, exploring how laughter and humour were seen as ambiguous and fraught. Drawing on primary sources and modern historiography, this scholarly book will leave readers marvelling at the significance of debates on ridicule in eighteenth-century Britain, and within the Scottish Enlightenment in particular, writes Mark G. Spencer. Uncivil Mirth: Ridicule in Enlightenment Britain. Ross Carroll. Princeton University Press. 2021.