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The Wreckage of Intentions: Projects in British Culture, 1660–1730 by David Alff (review)

In a critical climate dominated by New Historicism, studies of eighteenthcentury English culture can sometimes seem derivative, particularly in their choice of topic. Our process of selecting a topic to historicize can blindly fall into binarythinking (if happiness has been historicized, then why not sadness?) or feel like a critical chore (isn’t a certain topic “due for” historicizing?). So a book-length study of failure during the eighteenth century might appear, at first glance, formulaic. Refreshingly, David Alff’s The Wreckage of Intentions: Projects in British Culture, 1660–1730 is not one of these books.