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 intriguing view of the philosophes, their world and their ideas.
Peter Gay was a Sterling Professor of History, emeritus, at Yale University, the author of more than 30 widely respected books, and the winner of the National Book Award for The Rise of Modern Paganism, the first volume of his definitive work on the Enlightenment. Gay is also the author of Why the Romantics Matter, Modernism: The Lure of Heresy: from Baudelaire to Beckett and Beyond, Schnitzler's Century and many other titles.
View titles 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 intriguing view of the philosophes, their world and their ideas.
Author
Peter Gay was a Sterling Professor of History, emeritus, at Yale University, the author of more than 30 widely respected books, and the winner of the National Book Award for The Rise of Modern Paganism, the first volume of his definitive work on the Enlightenment. Gay is also the author of Why the Romantics Matter, Modernism: The Lure of Heresy: from Baudelaire to Beckett and Beyond, Schnitzler's Century and many other titles.
View titles by Peter Gay
