The Enlightenment, Volume 1: The Rise of Modern Paganism

The Enlightenment: An Interpretation #1

by Peter Gay

The eighteenth-century Enlightenment marks the beginning of the modern age, when the scientific method and belief in reason and progress came to hold sway over the Western world. In the twentieth century, however, the Enlightenment has often been judged harshly for its apparently simplistic optimism. Here a master historian goes back to the sources to give us both a more sophisticated and a more intriguing view of the philosophes, their world and their ideas.

Genres: History, Philosophy, Nonfiction, European History, Religion, Science, 18th Century

555 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

Peter Joachim Gay was a German-American historian, educator, and author. He was a Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and former director of the New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers (1997–2003). He received the American Historical Association's (AHA) Award for Scholarly Distinction in 2004. He authored over 25 books, including The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, a two-volume award winner; Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (1968); and the widely translated Freud: A Life for Our Time (1988).
Gay was born in Berlin in 1923, left Germany in 1939 and emigrated, via Cuba, to the United States in 1941. From 1948 to 1955 he was a political science professor at Columbia University, and then a history professor from 1955 to 1969. He left Columbia in 1969 to join Yale University's History Department as Professor of Comparative and Intellectual European History and was named Sterling Professor of History in 1984.
Gay was the interim editor of The American Scholar after the death of Hiram Haydn in 1973 and served on that magazine's editorial board for many years. Sander L. Gilman, a literary historian at Emory University, called Gay "one of the major American historians of European thought, period".

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good review should be short and user friendly. To do this book justice I cannot do either, so I'll sacrifice doing it justice and keep my remarks brief.

This is a very detailed exploration into the philosphers of the Enlightenment. It's not a new book, and in certain circles considered something of a standard text on the subject. I would call it a must-read for anyone with an abiding interest in men like Hume, Voltaire, Diderot, Gibbon, Kant, or Holbach. You will learn much about their relationships and intellectual influences, and about the literary environment they shared. Not all of it is positive-the analysis is pretty even handed-so you get to look at their work from several different angles.

However, if you are a relative novice on the subject I'm inclined to suspect that the weight of detall might sink your boat of enjoyment. It's rather a lot of detail.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Current events have been bumming me out lately so I decided to read something old... I found this really ratty copy of The Enlightenment (1964) on my shelves – it had been snoozing there for years - I probably picked it up for 50 cents at a library sale. I did vaguely remember hearing very good things about Peter Gay and now I know why. I'm a decent amateur historian of the past two centuries, but remain unschooled regarding the details of the classics, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Gay is a magnificent scholar and in The Enlightenment, he weaves a stunning tapestry, linking the philosophes of the enlightenment back to the classics and the humanists of the Renaissance, who laid the groundwork for the mighty thinkers of the 1700s.

I read this book slowly, as I tend to do with very good books. I suppose I like to savor them - and put off coming to the end.

Peter Gay summarizes thusly, “While the variations among the philosophes are far from negligible, they only orchestrate a single passion that bound the little flock together, the passion to cure the spiritual malady that is religion, the germ of ignorance, barbarity, hypocrisy, filth and the basest self-hatred.” As stated by Voltaire, “God, God! …once that name had been pronounced, men begin hate each other, and to cut one another’s throats.” Ah Voltaire, the humorless and devastating critic.

The philosophers of the 18th century were by no means the original freethinkers. Gay weaves the background of the philosophes of the 1700s to their roots in classical Rome and Greece and acknowledges the preparation of the intellectual ground by the scholars of the Middle Ages. The reader learns the generally powerless nature of the church of the 18th century, caused by the corruption of Catholics and the in-fighting of the Protestants. [The self-same sources of powerlessness in the 21st century churches, plus of course the generalized paganization of western societies.]

And I learned a definition of philosophy both simple and deeply satisfying, “Philosophy is criticism.”

The philosophers despised Magical Thinking, a position I relate to closely. Here is one example where magical thinking can take you, when coupled with the brilliantly evolved human brain capacity for rationalization:

In the now-infamous 47-percent video that destroyed any hope Mitt Romney had of being president, candidate Romney tells his sympathetic audience of millionaires about visiting a Chinese sweat-shop, recently purchased by his company, Bain Capital. He acknowledged the abominable working and living conditions, but then went on to explain that the guards and barbed wire fence were not to keep the [slave] laborers inside, but to keep the trouble-makers outside from breaking in. His audience undoubtedly nodded in their herd-like understanding. And if Mitt Romney could believe this, how did he come to be in such a state of credulity? Here’s how… if you believe your scriptures were delivered by God thru an angle on gold tables in New York State in the 19th century, then you can believe anything. If you believe the Kingdom of God will be fulfilled in Missouri, you can believe anything.

This is Magical Thinking. This is the world the philosophers called to do battle. Magical Thinking can lead you to ignore the science and believe vaccinations cause autism. Magical Thinking can make you ignore the science and believe genetically modified foods are killing us. Magical Thinking makes us believe tens of thousands of evolutionary biologists are simply agents of the devil…. and Magical Thinking will lead you to believe that 99% of the earth’s climate scientists are colluding in a world-wide conspiracy, the largest in the history of the world. Magical Thinking allows you to believe the unbelievable. Religion compels you to believe the unbelievable. The Enlightenment philosophers of the 18th century were the first to go to open warfare with Magical Thinking. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and James Madison were part of that army. The founders of the United States were men of the Enlightenment – nowhere in the US Constitution will you find the words God or Jesus. They knew their history and they’d learned their lessons. They had seen Christian religious wars devastate Europe for a thousand years and they weren't about to repeat those mistakes here.

Peter Gay makes learning fun. “The Enlightenment” is a marvelous book and a must-read for anyone desiring to be educated. Gay’s encyclopedic knowledge is in evidence in the entire work. His bibliographical essay alone runs to more than 120 pages.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book steps the reader through the development of the Enlightenment thinkers themselves. In addition to learning about the development of thought during the 18th century, I learned about Greek thinkers (stoic, skeptics and Epicureans), the Roman thinkers (especially Cicero), and the Renaissance period of thought.

This is an amazing book. It probably should not be a readers first introduction to the Enlightenment period, but it can be the reader's second. The book is very erudite and I was constantly looking up words and people or schools of thought on my Kindle, the author does presume the reader is very familiar with the philosophers of the Enlightenment and who they read. I would not have been able to finish this book in book form because of the constant stream of new concepts the author uses, but, on the Kindle (or equivalent device) this book is a delight to read. Wikipedia tells me the book was originally published in 1967 and was revised in the 1990s, but basically as I was reading the book it became apparent almost all of the citations were pre-1967. That gives the modern reader an interesting perspective on how the scholar from the 60s saw the thought of the 1700s.

[Brett Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great ZOT, this man can write!

At age 90 - and still with us - we hope Peter Gay remains another sixty to seventy years so we might garner another half dozen books from him. While "The Enlightenment" was written in 1966, the ancients of 2300 years ago haven't changed much, nor have those Enlightenment philosophers of 300 years past that brought them back to life. In other words, the subjects of Gay's analysis and his stunning synthesis in this book remain relevant in any time, and what a book it is. So impressed is this reader I intend to read all of Gay's twenty-some odd productions, including those half-dozen on Freud (despite my dismissal of Freud). This interest in psychology - as slippery as it is - is apparent in Gay's "Enlightenment" revealing nuance after nuance with a sagacity and precision those in the field must wish they could approximate. Gay's treatment of the philosophes virtually rebuilds them whole with their biases, friendships, venom, insights, vulnerabilities, courage and persistence that freed the rest of us in the here-and-now. Note taking from this book may exceed its length due to the rareness of blank space left on a page after marginalia and highlights, and not infrequently for the joy of Gay's writing skills (noted simply so I can combine words the way he did). Metaphors and similes make this read like a novel. "The dozen-odd captains of the movement," writes Gay, "whose names must bulk large in any history of the European mind, were abetted by a host of lieutenants." When referring to Augustine's "Confessions", Gay adds it is "the exclamation of a tormented soul weary of mere thought, weary of autonomy, yearning for the sheltering security found in dependence on higher powers." And on Voltaire's lessons from ancient philosophy, Gay writes, "Men are thrown into the world to suffer and to dominate their suffering. Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats; life is a desert, but we can transform our corner into a garden." How a human could encompass so much knowledge (and at the time he was 43) then spit it out like Bach would compose a symphony is the rarest of things and Gay does that.

[Rusty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not written for a general audience, this work by Peter Gay is an excellent study on Enlightenment thinkers and their relationships with religion. Kant viewed the Enlightenment "as man's claim to be recognized as an adult, responsible being" (3). Reason and science replaced faith and tradition. But Gay illustrates how even though Enligtenment thinkers shed orthodox Christianity, most were not willing to reject a belief in God altogether. Gay also demonstrates how disparate these philosophers were in their thinking.

This book is not for the uninitiated in philosophy. And while it is a challenging read, it is worth the extra effort for those studying philosophy, Eighteenth-century Europe, or even the roots of modern political thought.

[Lee Butterfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece of scholarship.

[Emily Ignatius · Rating 3 out of 5]

“...the philosophes were missionaries, exceptional in being witty, typical in being humourless, and that for the sake of their calling they were ready to exploit the best the enemy had to offer, without mercy and without gratitude.”

The above quote is just one example of the excellent, engaging writing in this very thorough survey of Enlightenment thought. Gay also takes the reader through the intellectual movements before the Enlightenment that influenced the philosophes. But that is part of my problem with his approach. Gay presents the Enlightenment as the culmination of reason beginning with the pagans, suppressed by Christianity, but ultimately resurfacing through the pens of philosophers to triumph over barbarism and superstition. This is the modern myth of progress, and although Gay does acknowledge the value and intellectual prowess of Christian thinkers, he ultimately equates neo-paganism with reason and justice and Christianity with backward superstition and intolerance. This an extremely outdated view of western history. Gay also fails to consider the grave influence of the Reformation and the Wars of Religion and the need for tolerance as a motivating factor for the Enlightenment; instead he prefers to portray it as a merely intellectual battle between reason and religion. He further fails to acknowledge the disastrous consequences of Enlightened politics on the French Revolution, and makes no mention of the Romantic critique of Enlightenment values. From the perspective of today we should see that the Enlightenment is not a triumph of progress, but a complicated historical era plagued by change and instability.

[Jonathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gay provides an interesting dialectical model: the philosophes opposed ancient paganism to medieval Christianity in order to create an autonomous "modern paganism" (vol. I). And his writing is beautiful.

Ultimately, though, his picture of the Enlightenment is thoroughly teleological and at times cartoonish. In Gay's account, for example, deism and natural law are just an earlier stage in the evolution of atheism and utilitarianism (I, p. 18). (Their respective exponents would have been very surprised to hear it.) And when the Enlightenment came along, it banished the darkness of Christianity with a "spectacular career of the natural sciences, advances in medicine, the improvement of manners and growth of humanitarian sentiment, the slow crumbling of traditional social hierarchies, and revolutionary changes in the production of food, the organization of industry, the pattern of population -- all pointing in the same direction" (II, 8).

So inexorable is this change, apparently -- the philosophical changes being "inevitable" results of the economic and cultural change (II, ix) -- that the New Deal was incipient in the ancien regime: "Rational public administration and rational statistics were in their infancy, but they foreshadowed the modern welfare state. While the decay of the guilds and the decline of clerical orders redounded mainly to the advantage of industrial and commercial capitalism, behind the troops of laissez-faire marched the clerks of government regulation" (II, 8).

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe the most important book I own. Read and re-read. Keep next to your bed.

[Christopher Potter · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like wading through thick waist-deep mud.

[Elliott Bignell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gay apparently spent several years on this book, and it shows in a work or painstaking and dramatic erudition. He provides, and clearly grasps, the context of the Enlightenment. To provide context in time he discusses the fall of classical paganism and the eclipse of reason in the Christian period. He covers the modes of thinking that arose during the Middle Ages and the elements of classical reason and creativity which are now increasingly accepted to have obtained during this traditionally dark episode of European history. He works through the rise of reason that had already started to occur with the Renaissance and on which the Enlightenment was built, indicating that the courage of the Enlightenment's revolution was not as visceral as it is sometimes portrayed; in effect, the Enlightenment philosophes were both surfing and fanning a wave whose relentless motion had already started, with the Church playing Canute before them.

To provide context in place he works through the sometimes startlingly bitter conflict in which the philosophes saw themselves as being engaged, a conflict for no less than the hearts and minds of all Western civilisation. They saw themselves, make no mistake, as in a struggle for survival with Christianity.

Here Gay is in my opinion almost too scrupulous, since he makes clear that the philosophes fought a tiger whose teeth were already falling out and thereby diminishes their courage, while at the same time impugning their fairness. Executions for blasphemy were not unknown in their Europe, but in practical effect the philosophes, and certainly the late philosophes, were not really in danger of their lives. For purely partisan reasons this almost leads me to dock a star off my rating, since this was a battle which had to be fought and from which we have all benefitted, while at the same time even now the beast of unreason stirs fitfully. Gay's philosophes were irascible, cantankerous and utterly combative, and regarded their battle too sententiously to be appealing as individuals. (Apart from the relentlessly cheerful Hume.) In fact, they remind me eerily of Richard Dawkins, which seems fittingly non-coincidental since he continues their battle.

As Gay indicates, this was the rise of modern paganism. Not the invention of paganism. Not the invention of reason. The Greeks and the Romans were there first. Not the invention of the social contract, nor the rights of man, nor the scientific method, nor the republic. All these grew from seeds already sown. What it was, instead, was the restoration and the ascendancy of these concepts. While we do not owe many concepts of Enlightenment thought fully to the originality of the philosophes of the Enlightenment, we owe it to them that these concepts and values have become so unquestioned a part of our world that the primacy of reason is barely noticed for the historical anomaly it is. This is no small debt.

Gay's work is of startling and prodigious erudition. It took me two tries to read it, the first time being unprepared for such a wealth of historical detail. On the second try, more widely read, I devoured the book with joy. Gay is fair, in my opinion sometimes too fair, and he gives the Christian adversaries of the Enlightenment much credit for reasonableness and for greater intellectual sophistication than the philosophes alleged. This made it all the more worth reading, since it forced me to justify my own parallel tendency to the same simplifications. At the same time he paints a more nuanced picture of the aggressive and sometimes devious nature of the philosophes than is customary. My distaste for the establishment tormentors remains undiminished but perhaps more subtly coloured. Gay's fairness is a challenge, and a greatly rewarding one at that.

[Mr_wormwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a great read, confirmed my appreciation for the influence of greek culture on the development of the proper critical philosophic mentality.

[Praveen Kishore · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a classic, and you realize it once you read it.
A must for everyone.

[Salahuddin Hourani]

ملاحظة لي - لم اقرا الكتاب بعد

عن تطور الافكار وتغيرها وتبدلها عبر الزمن من عصر التنوير الى الحداثة الحاللية

[Adam Carnehl · Rating 2 out of 5]

A masterpiece of historiographical propaganda that only retains its moderate value as a negative example for twenty-first century historians of the eighteenth century. This is not to say Gay was an amateur or a 'bad' historian; in his erudition and wide-ranging interests, he was one of the most impressive and significant historians in the post-war years working in America, but, his major theses of the eighteenth century are not in vogue and, indeed, have mostly been discredited. Many of his ideas amount to historiographical caricatures which are rooted in his progressive, urbanite, "sixties" optimism, which saw the "Enlightenment" as a specific 'thing' that brought liberation and freedom and was coming to full fruition only after World War II with the modern welfare society.

In his simplistic narrative, this "Enlightenment" was the full-fledged birth of a non-religious, rational age, ushered in by the mostly French philosophes and their mistresses. These critics saw through the darkness of Christian superstition and tirelessly fought for the freedom of every man, woman, and child. These philosophes, but especially Voltaire and Diderot, were lovers of humanity and brave critics, who sought the truth above all else and who repudiated the non-scientific, irrational ways of Christendom. In this utterly new situation of the eighteenth century, the English were the trailblazers, specifically Bacon and Newton in natural philosophy, Locke in politics and education, and Toland and the other deists in religion. There were others, including many figures working out of open-minded Holland such as Pierre Bayle and Spinoza, but the English left the most immediate, tangible, and direct impact on the French thinkers. Then, as the French were working towards equality and toleration, the backwards Germans were starting to pick up on some things, until the full-fledged Enlightenment thinker Kant emerged from the dim mists of Lutheranism.

The philosophes were pursuers of modernity (8), and in their dialectical relation to their Christian upbringings they demonstrated how, as Lessing later suggested, Christianity was a pedagogue for a new age, an age ruled not by a pope, priestly caste, and "divine right' monarchs, but by men in full capacity of their reason and utilizing all of the latest innovations. In short, the philosophes were the Enlightenment and the Enlightenment was theirs. Together they were a family, a group of misfits who often argued, but who loved each other, and who advanced a common program.

This picture is mostly the one that American and probably European schoolchildren received after World War II. But really in the early twenty-first century, with the blossoming of this triumphalist approach of a 'radical Enlightenment' (that Gay advanced) in the work of Jonathan Israel, backlash, critique, and serious revision became more common. In works by Thomas Munck and J. C. D. Clark, and in many others including S. J. Barnett and William Bulman, across historical, social, philosophical, and theological disciplines - scholars pointed out that the 'Enlightenment' as it is popularly presented is mostly a myth - something conjured up by eager historians in the twentieth century while reading the propagandistic boasts of the philosophes and taking them too seriously. For every radical philosophe who rejected 'mysticism' in the century, there were ten brilliant Christian thinkers across Europe who embraced it. For every one philosophe who embraced reason and denounced superstition, there were ten published clergyman who had already written the very same thing. The Eighteenth Century is a complex time of social, political, and religious change; any notion of a 'radical Enlightenment' might fit into the historical reality alongside many other figures and movements, but it does not exhaust the meaning of the historical reality.

[Natan Bedrosian · Rating 4 out of 5]

With just a week remaining before the start of my semester—and in anticipation of a class on the origins of Western secularism—I decided to read this book to gain a deeper understanding of the foundations of the Enlightenment, the driving force behind our modern, secular age.
What I particularly appreciated was the book’s emphasis on pre-Enlightenment philosophical debates and scientific discoveries that laid the groundwork for the Enlightenment itself.
Gay then skillfully traces the intellectual development of key Enlightenment thinkers and highlights their contributions to the broader movement, which made the book all the more compelling.

[Christy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary read. Peter Gay’s elegant writing and fairness inspired a fair amount of trust in me as the reader. He mainly analyzes the relationship of the 18th c philosophers in their interaction with antiquity and with Christianity. He is charitable to the Christian faith and doesn’t champion the philosophers but describes their beliefs and ideas with distinctive detail. There is not much on the legacy of the Enlightenment into the 19th and 20th centuries - another book is needed for that. Otherwise, this should be a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the Enlightenment.

[Carlos Hidalgo · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books ever written about the philosophical, cultural and scientific program of "The Enlightenment". Simply superb. In the second volume the author explores the social context of the Enlightenment in such a way that not only the "philosphes", as he calls them, are presented in a pellucid way, but also the historical situation in which these philosophes had to write and think. Perhaps my only criticism —but I must confess that it's simply a luxury— is that the author could have presented in a more defined manner the difference between the French Siècle des Lumières, the English Enlightenment and the German Aufklärung. Movements that share important and fundamental principles, theories and contexts but that also present certain differences that should, at least, be noted.

[Kristy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the fact that I read this for a class, I found it very . . . well, enlightening! It's actually very readable and interesting and if you just go with the flow and don't stress about every new name or idea that's thrown at you it works really well.

[cindy]

rec: Evan

[Iggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me start off by saying that I took way too long to finish reading this book (about 8 months) - reading other books in between and just taking multiple breaks from reading. So the views I express in this review will be somewhat colored by my discontinuous reading.

To say that this is a difficult book to get through is an understatement. Indeed it is the chief reason why I got distracted several times from reading it. It is certainly not for the uninitiated in the history of the enlightenment period (which unfortunately I was); and it is far from a chronological narrative. Rather it is an intellectual history of the period, and as such it is an interpretation of ideas predominantly of the 17th and 18th centuries.

The book is organized more by subject, rather than strictly by chronology. Although some semblance of chronology is there, the author consistently jumps back and forth between different time periods as relevant to the subject he is discussing. As the author is of Germanic origin (he emigrated to the US when he was 18) the prose is somewhat difficult due to the uncommon placement of verbs, twisted use of language and somewhat archaic grammar (keeping in mind that the book was published in the 1960's). However, that is not to say that the prose is not at all fluid. The flow stoppers, at least for me, were the constant and numerous references to different people, their works and the occasional vocabulary words I had to look up.

The reader gets introduced to the "little flock of philosophes", who were the chief players during the enlightenment period. But far from being a synthesis of their respective philosophies, the author's focus is on the various influences upon the philosophes, from intellectual to sociological. In that sense, it's as much a social history as it is an intellectual history. Instead of, say, analyzing Voltaire's ideas and his contribution to the enlightenment, the focus is mainly on what Voltaire himself read, who and which schools of thought influenced him, his interaction with his peers and contemporaries and etc.

The first half of the book focuses and analyzes the influences that the antiquities had on the philosophes, from Plato to Cicero and Lucretius, to Erasmus and the philosophers and scientists of the middle ages. The second half of the book analyzes the stance of the philosophes toward Christianity and the various different ways in which that interaction and relationship manifested. The book finishes with analyzing David Hume and the methods he employed, with much success, in mounting his opposition to, and ultimately decidedly destroying Christianity and other revealed religions, and their accompanying doctrines.

All in all, the book is very scholarly, learned, erudite and sophisticated. However, it is not to be taken lightly or skimmed. And if one loses focus, better to reread the relevant passages than to keep heading down the black hole. As mentioned, although the prose is not the most fluid, it's far from a pedantic or a dull read. Indeed, the writing at times is witty, sarcastic and sharp. So, don't be put off too much by the prose and its occasional difficulty, but be prepared to do some heavy lifting at times. The knowledge gained from this book will be of high quality and satisfying, and the decision to read the book unregrettable.

[Eric Gilliland · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first of Peter Gay's two-volume history of the Enlightenment published in 1966, The Rise of Modern Paganism delves into the influences and tensions that influenced the philosophes of Europe during the 18th Century. Gay was a professor of History at Columbia and Yale and the prolific author of a wide variety of books ranging from intellectual, social, to cultural history.
The prose of this work is first rate, written with grace and precision, earning the National Book Award. Dense. but never overwhelmingly so, Gay skillfully synthesizes and bridges philosophic ideals across the centuries. The primary thesis posits the 18th century philosophes determination to make a clean break with Christianity and restore "pagan" philosophies of the ancients including tolerance, idealistic, a recovery of nerve against the overwhelming power of the Church.

Gay skillfully juggles varying figures and ideas. When thinking of the Enlightenment, the typical names are Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, and Diderot - but there are so many figures who made contributions. Neither were they uniform in their programs and ideas, there was a wide spectrum of thought. Applying criticism to everything was one tool all had in common. Few of them came up with original ideas or invented their own philosophic systems, they were primarily interpreters who believed in the power of reason to refine and reshape society for the better.

Much of the book deals with the historical influences that shaped the philosophes. To them, it was in the words of Cicero or Lucretius (just to mention a few) where true wisdom was to be found. Edward Gibbon's epic history The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is fountain of Enlightenment ideals about the past, his history juxtaposed the rise of Christianity with the Empire's fall.

This volume also traces the course of thought through the rise of Christianity and the Middle Ages. Philosophes popularized the skewed view of "Dark Ages" as a time of regression and ignorance, they scoffed at attempts of synthesize Christianity with ancient philosophy. The Renaissance of the 15-16th centuries was still ensnared with religion but provided a new intellectual climate to set the stage for a return to secular ideas by the efforts of Erasmus and others to translate ancient texts from their original forms.

The erudition, quotation, and insight packed into this book are impressive. Gay is the kind of writer who makes the reader feel smarter. My copy is full of notations I wrote. The ideas, conflicts, and individuals in the book still speak to the 21st Century. Gay makes an argument for their relevance in the modern era as harbingers of free thought, although their legacy remains a point of contention among philosophers and historians. Th Rise of Modern Paganism mostly concerned with their intellectual inheritance, while the next volume The Science of Freedom deals more directly with them as contemporary figures living in the 18th Century.

[Yasmine · Rating 1 out of 5]

I felt like Peter Gay was monopolizing knowledge by using an overwhelming amount of large words, when he really could have what he meant. The book in informative, if you like his writing style though, and he goes into extreme detail about everything. I suggest reading a sample of it before you buy it though. I was very unhappy with my purchase and was unable to finish the book completely, because of how boring I found it to be.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Volume 1 of 2. This is the standard work on the conventional view of the Enlightenment--significantly, published in the late 60s, before the linguistic turn took hold. Gay is refreshingly clear.

Gay represents the Enlightenment, at its core, to be a rejection of traditional, orthodox Christianity. The constructive aspect to the Enlightenment project was to fill the void.

[John Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This and its companion volume are together a good deal longer than Ernst Cassirer's study (The Philosophy of the Enlightenment) but are just as valuable. Having read these at some distance in time, I won't attempt now to say anything more about them.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a struggle for me and when I was finished I felt like starting over again--that I hadn't understood it enough. I think that I would "get it" better the second time around and don't want to start the second volume until I do.