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Published Feb 2021
1008 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
A magisterial history that recasts the Enlightenment as a period not solely consumed with rationale and reason, but rather as a pursuit of practical means to achieve greater human happiness.
One of the formative periods of European and world history, the Enlightenment is the fountainhead of modern secular Western values: religious tolerance, freedom of thought, speech and the press, of rationality and evidence-based argument. Yet why, over three hundred years after it began, is the Enlightenment so profoundly misunderstood as controversial, the expression of soulless calculation? The answer may be that, to an extraordinary extent, we have accepted the account of the Enlightenment given by its conservative enemies: that enlightenment necessarily implied hostility to religion or support for an unfettered free market, or that this was "the best of all possible worlds." Ritchie Robertson goes back into the "long eighteenth century," from approximately 1680 to 1790, to reveal what this much-debated period was really about.
Robertson returns to the era's original texts to show that above all, the Enlightenment was really about increasing human happiness – in this world rather than the next – by promoting scientific inquiry and reasoned argument. In so doing Robertson chronicles the campaigns mounted by some Enlightened figures against evils like capital punishment, judicial torture, serfdom and witchcraft trials, featuring the experiences of major figures like Voltaire and Diderot alongside ordinary people who lived through this extraordinary moment.
In answering the question 'What is Enlightenment?' in 1784, Kant famously urged men and women above all to "have the courage to use your own intellect." Robertson shows how the thinkers of the Enlightenment did just that, seeking a well-rounded understanding of humanity in which reason was balanced with emotion and sensibility. Drawing on philosophy, theology, historiography and literature across the major western European languages, The Enlightenment is a master-class in big picture history about the foundational epoch of modern times.
"[A] sweeping study of the Enlightenment...Thanks to Robertson's elegant prose and lucid analyses, this massive and deeply erudite work serves as a stimulating and accessible introduction to a watershed period in the intellectual development of the West." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Except for the near absence of politics, war, and trade, this is a magisterial history of Europe and the West during [the Enlightenment] offering delightful analyses of its ideas, individuals, and controversies...An entirely absorbing doorstop history of ideas." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Robertson does not talk down to his audience, and this information-rich volume, with its giant cast of characters and intensive philosophical discussions, is no introductory work. A giant tome that will be indispensable for advanced students and readers of history, especially those wishing to learn more about this pivotal era." - Library Journal
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in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ritchie Robertson is Professor of German at Oxford University, a fellow of the British Academy, and a lead reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement.
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