The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment is a collection of essays which deal with the influence of Ibn Tufayl, a 12th-century Arab philosopher from Spain, on major European thinkers. His philosophical novel, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, could be considered one of the most important books that heralded the Scientific Revolution. Its thoughts are found in different variations and to different degrees in the books of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Isaac Newton, and Kant. But if Ibn Tufayl's fundamental values, such as equality, freedom and toleration, which the thinkers of the European Enlightenment had adopted as theirs, paved the way to the French Revolution, they certainly marked the end of the age of reason in southern Spain and the rest of the Islamic world. Ibn Tufayl's philosophy was appropriated, subverted, or reinvented for many centuries. But the memory of the man who wrote such an influential book was buried in the dust of history. The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment reexamines Ibn Tufayl's momentous book and its continued influence over contemporary philosophy. This intriguing book will appeal to those interested in comparative literature and religion.

In contrast to traditional Enlightenment studies that focus solely on authors and ideas, Gary Kates' employs a literary lens to offer a wholly original history of the period in Europe from 1699 to 1780. Each chapter is a biography of a book which tells the story of the text from its inception through to the revolutionary era, with wider aspects of the Enlightenment era being revealed through the narrative of the book's publication and reception. Here, Kates joins new approaches to book history with more traditional intellectual history by treating authors, publishers, and readers in a balanced fashion throughout. Using a unique database of 18th-century editions representing 5,000 titles, the book looks at the multifaceted significance of bestsellers from the time. It analyses key works by Voltaire, Adam Smith, Madame de Graffigny, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume and champions the importance of a crucial innovation of the age: the rise of the 'erudite blockbuster', which for the first time in European history, helped to popularize political theory among a large portion of the middling classes. Kates also highlights how, when, and why some of these books were read in the European colonies, as well as incorporating the responses of both ordinary men and women as part of the reception histories that are so integral to the volume.

"Draws together the work of thirty-nine leading international experts on the European Enlightenment (c1660-1800) to offer informed, comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of this period as both an historical epoch and a cultural formation".--BOOKJACKET.

A compelling reevaluation of the Enlightenment from one of its leading historians In this concise and powerful book, one of the world's leading historians of the Enlightenment provides a bracing and clarifying new interpretation of this watershed period. Arguing that philosophical and historical interpretations of the era have long been hopelessly confused, Vincenzo Ferrone makes the case that it is only by separating these views and taking an approach grounded in social and cultural history that we can begin to grasp what the Enlightenment was—and why it is still relevant today. Ferrone explains why the Enlightenment was a profound and wide-ranging cultural revolution that reshaped Western identity, reformed politics through the invention of human rights, and redefined knowledge by creating a critical culture. These new ways of thinking gave birth to new values that spread throughout society and changed how everyday life was lived and understood. Featuring an illuminating afterword describing how his argument challenges the work of Anglophone interpreters including Jonathan Israel, The Enlightenment provides a fascinating reevaluation of the true nature and legacy of one of the most important and contested periods in Western history. The translation of this work has been funded by SEPS—Segretariato Europeo per le Pubblicazioni Scientifiche.

Based on the most recent scholarship, this book provides students and interested lay readers with a basic introduction to key facts and current controversies concerning the Enlightenment. One of the most significant developments in world history, the Enlightenment transformed Europe by promoting reason over faith and advancing skepticism, the scientific method, and intellectual inquiry. It reshaped political and cultural history and formed the foundation for many of today's institutions. The Enlightenment: History, Documents, and Key Questions is a one-stop reference that serves high school and undergraduate students in learning about the background of the Enlightenment. The book also provides readers with key insights into the distant origins of American democracy and technology-based innovation. The text's coverage of the Enlightenment from the late 17th century to the late 18th century in both Europe and its American colonies supports Common Core critical thinking skills for English Language Arts/World History and Social Studies. The inclusion of primary source documents and original argumentative essays work in conjunction with secondary material such as topical entries to engage readers' minds and to give them a fuller understanding the myriad factors that led to the Enlightenment as well as its lasting effects.

The flourishing of radical philosophy in Baron Thierry Holbach's Paris salon from the 1750s to the 1770s stands as a seminal event in Western history. Holbach's house was an international epicenter of revolutionary ideas and intellectual daring, bringing together such original minds as Denis Diderot, Laurence Sterne, David Hume, Adam Smith, Ferdinando Galiani, Horace Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, Guillaume Raynal, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In A Wicked Company, acclaimed historian Philipp Blom retraces the fortunes of this exceptional group of friends. All brilliant minds, full of wit, courage, and insight, their thinking created a different and radical French Enlightenment based on atheism, passion, reason, and truly humanist thinking. A startlingly relevant work of narrative history, A Wicked Company forces us to confront with new eyes the foundational debates about modern society and its future.

Questioning the very legitimacy of Western liberalism and the modern secular civilization it has given rise to, Dr. Gregorios critically examines the values of the European Enlightenment of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the corporate drive of European peoples by which they have dominated the external world. He shows that both Capitalism and Marxism, as well as Modern Science and Technology are creations of the same spirit, he argues. The powerful light of Critical Rationality emitted by the European Enlightenment is like the light of the sun. It is bright and helpful for seeing this world in detail, but too bright to let us see the night sky and the vast expanses of the universe. This "light too bright" eclipses the Transcendent. Dr. Gregorios invites us to appropriate the other Enlightenment of the overall-religious-cultural outlook in a new way and to relate it to the valid insights of the European Enlightenment.