Description

In the wake of the Scientific Revolution, the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the complete demolition of traditional structures of authority, scientific thought, and belief by the new philosophy and the philosophers, including Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. The Radical Enlightenment played a part in this revolutionary process, which effectively overthrew all justification for monarchy, aristocracy, and ecclesiastical power, as well as man's dominance over woman, theological dominance of education, and slavery. Despite the present day interest in the revolutions of the eighteenth century, the origins and rise of the Radical Enlightenment have received limited scholarly attention. The greatest obstacle to the movement finding its proper place in modern historical writing is its international scope: the Racial Enlightenment was not French, British, German, Italian, Jewish or Dutch, but all of these at the same time.

In this wide-ranging volume, Jonathan Israel offers a novel interpretation of the Radical Enlightenment down to La Mettie and Diderot, two of its key exponents. Particular emphasis is placed on the pivotal role of Spinoza and the widespread underground international philosophical movement known before 1750 as Spinozism.

Features

• focuses scholarly attention on the Radical Enlightenment, which has previously not received much scholarly attention
• paperback version of strong selling cloth volume.

Reviews

"His vast--and vastly impressive--book sets out to redefine the intellectual landscape of early modern Europe....Magnificent and magisterial, Radical Enlightenment will undoubtedly be one of the truly great historical works of the decade."--John Adamson, Sunday Telegraph

"[A] magnificent...study of the impact of Spinoza and his philosophy on European cultural history at the hinge of the 17th and 18th centuries....Sumptuous in the energy, clarity and breadth of its scholarship."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Mr. Israel's lucid, engrossing account of the Enlightenment's formative period explains why we want our intellectual histories rewritten for every generation, for this Enlightenment overflows with our favorite things."--The Scriblerian

Product Details

832 pages; 23 b/w photos, 5 line illus.; ISBN13: 978-0-19-925456-9ISBN10: 0-19-925456-7

About the Author(s)