The Enlightenment

Download or Read eBook The Enlightenment PDF written by Ritchie Robertson and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 1008 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
The Enlightenment
Author :
Publisher : HarperCollins
Total Pages : 1008
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780062410672
ISBN-13 : 0062410679
Rating : 4/5 (72 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The Enlightenment by : Ritchie Robertson

Book excerpt: 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.


The Enlightenment Related Books

The Enlightenment
Language: en
Pages: 1008
Authors: Ritchie Robertson
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-02-23 - Publisher: HarperCollins

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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 ac
The Enlightenment and the Book
Language: en
Pages: 842
Authors: Richard B. Sher
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2008-09-15 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The late eighteenth century witnessed an explosion of intellectual activity in Scotland by such luminaries as David Hume, Adam Smith, Hugh Blair, William Robert
Tolerance
Language: en
Pages: 146
Authors: Caroline Warman
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-01-04 - Publisher: Open Book Publishers

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Inspired by Voltaire’s advice that a text needs to be concise to have real influence, this anthology contains fiery extracts by forty eighteenth-century autho
The Enlightenment
Language: en
Pages: 222
Authors: Dan Edelstein
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2010-12-15 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this concise, bold, and innovative book, Dan Edelstein offers us an original account of the Enlightenment. It convincingly argues that the Enlightenment is a
Enlightenment Now
Language: en
Pages: 578
Authors: Steven Pinker
Categories: Psychology
Type: BOOK - Published: 2018-02-13 - Publisher: Penguin

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR "My new favorite book of all time." --Bill Gate