Enlightenment
reason takes the throne
The Inheritance
a spectacular gift and a frightening implication
the setting, ~1680
The English Laboratory
a king on a leash and a theory of the blank mind
1685–1700
The Republic of Letters
the network that could not be decapitated
1680–1750
The Newtonian Gospel
turning a proof into a faith
1700–1745
Voltaire
the writer as a one-man check on church and crown
1694–1778
The Science of Society
Montesquieu builds a machine that stays free
1721–1755
The Great Machine
a reference book engineered to rewire authority
1745–1772
The Enemy Within
Rousseau turns the method against the movement
1749–1778
The Hotbed of Genius
a poor country's cheap universities
1740–1790
The Wealth of Nations
the Newton of wealth, and what he actually said
1750–1776
God on Trial
a prosecution divided against itself
1690–1780
The Philosopher Kings
reform from above, and why it failed
1740–1796
The Aufklärung
Kant defines the movement and draws its edge
1750–1804
The Half-Light
the universalism tested against its own conduct
1750–1800
Reason in the New World
the library goes outside
1760–1791
1789
the ideas meet a bankrupt monarchy
1787–1791
The Republic of Virtue
the project that killed its idealists
1792–1794
The Rights of Man at the Limit
the sentence tested without an exemption clause
1791–1804
Reason in Uniform
the Enlightenment's executor and undertaker
1799–1815
The Argument
a verdict still genuinely open
the legacy