The Enlightenment
The vast literature on the Enlightenment encompasses a variety of historiographical approaches. Peter Gay, The Enlightenment, an Interpretation, 2 vol. (1966–69, reprinted 1996), is a magisterial work that has long served as one of the pillars of the study of the subject. Among the most-rewarding considerations of the Enlightenment that are grounded in social history is J.G.A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, 6 vol. (1999–2015), a multivolume study of historian Edward Gibbon, whom Pocock uses as a foundation upon which to construct wider discussions of the nature of the Enlightenment that are contextualized in a careful characterization of the law, religion, and society of the period. Franco Venturi, The End of the Old Regime in Europe, 1768–1776: The First Crisis, trans. from Italian by R. Burr Litchfield (1989), and Italy and the Enlightenment: Studies in a Cosmopolitan Century, trans. from Italian by Susan Corsi (1972), take a similar social historical approach.
A number of historians have argued that, rather than a single Enlightenment, there were many separate national enlightenments, including John Robertson, The Case for the Enlightenment: Scotland and Naples, 1680–1760 (2005), which focuses on the development of the discipline of political economy in Scotland and southern Italy. Surveying popular discourse ranging from journalism to rumour mongering, Robert Darnton, The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie, 1775–1800 (1979), The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (1982), and George Washington’s False Teeth: An Unconventional Guide to the Eighteenth Century (2003), investigate the “low” Enlightenment, partly shaped by ideas that filtered down from the philosophes. James Van Horn Melton, The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe (2001), also studies Enlightenment manifestations in the broader society.
Returning to a focus on intellectual history, Jonathan I. Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650–1750 (2001), Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity. and the Emancipation of Man (2006), and A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy (2010), differentiate between “Counter-Enlightenment,” the “moderate mainstream” Enlightenment of Locke, Hobbes, Descartes, and Voltaire—which was willing to compromise with the church and the monarchial power structure—and the atheist, democratic, “radical” Enlightenment of Benedict de Spinoza and his intellectual disciples. Likewise, Anthony Pagden, The Enlightenment: And Why It Still Matters (2013), concentrates on high intellectual history as it finds cosmopolitanism to be the defining contribution of the Enlightenment
Other useful works include Edward Andrew, Patrons of Enlightenment (2006); Liana Vardi, The Physiocrats and the World of the Enlightenment (2012); A. Rupert Hall, From Galileo to Newton, 1630–1720 (1963, reprinted 1981); Anthony Kenny, Descartes: A Study of His Philosophy (1968, reprinted 2009), Maurice Cranston, John Locke: A Biography (1957, reissued 1985); Frank E. Manuel, A Portrait of Isaac Newton (1968, reprinted 1990); Paul Hazard, The European Mind: The Critical Years, 1680–1715 (1953, reissued 2013; originally published in French, 1935); Alan Charles Kors and Paul J. Korshin (eds.), Anticipations of the Enlightenment in England, France, and Germany (1987); and Ira O. Wade, The Intellectual Origins of the French Enlightenment (1971, reissued 2015).
Compressed summaries are given in Dorinda Outram, The Enlightenment, 2nd ed. (2005); Margaret C. Jacob, The Enlightenment: A Brief History with Documents (2001); Paul Hyland, Olga Gomez, and Francesca Greensides (eds), The Enlightenment: A Sourcebook and Reader (2003); Norman Hampson, The Enlightenment, new ed. (1990); and Robert Anchor, The Enlightenment Tradition (1967, reissued 1979). A broader picture is presented in Roy Porter and Mikuláš Teich (eds.), The Enlightenment in National Context (1981). Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (1951, reissued 2009; originally published in German, 1932), considers the metaphysical basis of 18th-century thought. Important studies of individual thinkers include Elisabeth Labrousse, Pierre Bayle (1963–64, reissued 1985); Robert Shackleton, Montesquieu: A Critical Biography (1961, reprinted 1970); Ira O. Wade, The Intellectual Development of Voltaire (1969); Ronald Grimsley, The Philosophy of Rousseau (1973); Roy Porter, Edward Gibbon: Making History (1988); and S.C. Brown (ed.), Philosophers of the Enlightenment (1979). Peter Gay, The Party of Humanity: Essays in the French Enlightenment (1964, reissued 1971), is a good introduction to the philosophes.
Intellectual life in its broader aspects is explored in Ole Peter Grell and Roy Porter (eds.), Toleration in Enlightenment Europe (2000); Marshall Berman, The Politics of Authenticity: Radical Individualism and the Emergence of Modern Society, new ed. (2009); and Alfred Cobban, In Search of Humanity: The Role of the Enlightenment in Modern History (1960). The production and distribution of the Encyclopédie is examined in J.L. Talmon, The Rise of Totalitarian Democracy (1952, reprinted 1985), which sees the Enlightenment as hostile to the idea of freedom; also iconoclastic is Lester G. Crocker, An Age of Crisis: Man and World in Eighteenth Century French Thought (1959). George Boas, “In Search of the Age of Reason,” pp. 1–19 in Earl R. Wasserman (ed.), Aspects of the Eighteenth Century (1965, reprinted 1967), discusses difficulties in interpreting words such as “reason” and “nature.” R.R. Palmer, Catholics & Unbelievers in Eighteenth Century France (1939, reissued 1970), describes the religious counterattack against the Enlightenment. Other views are expressed in Lynn Hunt (ed.), The French Revolution in Culture (1989); and Dena Goodman, The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (1994).
Good general accounts of the experience of other countries include Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff (eds.), Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment (1983, reissued 1985); Walter H. Bruford, Germany in the Eighteenth Century (1935, reissued 1971); Henri Brunschwig, Enlightenment and Romanticism in Eighteenth-Century Prussia (1974; originally published in French, 1947); Stuart J. Woolf, A History of Italy, 1700–1860: The Social Constraints of Political Change (1979, reprinted 1986); Richard Herr, The Eighteenth-Century Revolution in Spain (1958, reprinted 1973); and Henry F. May, The Enlightenment in America (1976). Interaction of thinkers and “enlightened” absolutism is explored in C.B.A. Behrens, Society, Government, and the Enlightenment: The Experiences of Eighteenth-Century France and Prussia (1985); Leonard Krieger, Kings and Philosophers, 1689–1789 (1970); and H.M. Scott (ed.), Enlightened Absolutism: Reform and Reformers in Later Eighteenth-Century Europe (1990). Geoffrey Russell Richards Treasure