The Enlightenment
The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790
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A magisterial work of intellectual 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 of European history 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.
Go beyond the myths of the so-called Age of Reason to discover the real Enlightenment:
A Pursuit of Happiness: Discover why the period’s great thinkers were more concerned with human well-being in this life than in the next.Reason and Emotion: Explore how the era’s philosophy sought a well-rounded humanity, balancing intellect with sensibility.Voices of the Enlightenment: Follow the campaigns of Voltaire, Diderot, and Kant as they challenged judicial torture, serfdom, and persecution.A Foundation for Modern Values: Understand the origins of religious tolerance, freedom of thought, and evidence-based argument that shape our world today.
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The so-called "Age of Reason" also put emotion and conscience at the center of a new social ideology, according to this sweeping study of the Enlightenment. Robertson (Goethe: A Very Short Introduction), a professor of German at Oxford University, defends Enlightenment thinkers against criticisms from the reactionary right and the postmodern left. Rather than preaching an arid rationalism, he contends, "Enlighteners" extolled sympathy and innate moral feelings as "the glue holding society together" and played on human emotions to support the abolition of capital punishment and slavery. They also were eager to reconcile science with belief in God; preferred persuasion and reform to violent change and state regimentation (most, Robertson claims, were antagonistic to the French Revolution); put empirical evidence and individual freedom above doctrine and authority; and held out happiness as the ultimate goal of inquiry and policy. Robertson's far-flung thematic survey probes the work of philosophers and ideologues, among them Thomas Jefferson, Voltaire, and Immanuel Kant, and expertly interprets the period's art and literature, including Samuel Richardson's melodramatic novel Clarissa, which set all of Europe to weeping. 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.
