Synopses & Reviews
The 18th-century Enlightenment was one of the most exciting and significant currents of European culture. Battling against tyranny, ignorance, and superstition, it formulated the ideals of thought, religion, and expression, the value of science, and the pursuit of progress. Enlightenment thinkers undermined the
ancien regime and provided the ideas for the French Revolution. Modern scholarship, however, has shown it was a more complex and ambiguous movement than commonly recognized. This book, now in a fully updated second edition, sympathetically explores the complexities of the Enlightenment. Synthesizing and evaluating the latest scholarship, it offers a new and comprehensive vision of this many-faceted movement.
Synopsis
The eighteenth-century Enlightenment was one of the most exciting and significant currents of European culture. Battling against tyranny, ignorance and superstition, it formulated the ideals which still inform our society today: a belief in reason, criticism, freedom of thought, religion and expression, the value of science, the pursuit of progress. Enlightenment thinkers undermined the ancien regime and provided the ideas for the French Revolution. Modern scholarship, however, has shown it was a more complex and ambiguous movement than commonly recognized. This book, now in a fully updated second edition, sympathetically explores the complexities of the Enlightenment. Synthesizing and evaluating the latest scholarship, it offers a new and comprehensive vision of this many-faceted movement.
Synopsis
The 18th-century Enlightenment was one of the most exciting and significant currents of European culture. Battling against tyranny, ignorance, and superstition, it formulated the ideals of thought, religion, and expression, the value of sci
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 70-83) and index.
About the Author
Roy Porter is Professor in the Social History of Medicine at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine.
Table of Contents
What Was the Enlightenment? * The Goal: A Science of Man * The Politics of Enlightenment * Reforming Religion by Reason * Who Was the Enlightenment? * Unity or Diversity? * Movement or
Mentalité ? * Conclusion: Did the Enlightenment Matter?