The Enlightenment

Can a movement as varied and diffuse as the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century be contained within the covers of a short pamphlet? The problem would certainly have appealed to the intellectuals of that time. Generalists rather than specialists, citizens of the whole world of knowledge, they relished the challenge of grand themes and thought no subject to learned or technical to be simplified and made accessible to a wider readership. Two centuries on, it would be tempting to try to emulate their talent for popularization...