Introducing the Enlightenment

Introducing The Enlightenment is the essential guide to the giants of the Enlightenment - Voltaire, Diderot, Adam Smith, Samuel Johnson, Immanuel Kant, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson.

The Enlightenment of the 18th century was a crucial epoch in human history - a vast moral, scientific and political movement, the work of intellectuals across Europe and the New World, who began to free themselves from the triple tyranny of despotism, bigotry and superstition and find their vocation to change the world.

Introducing The Enlightenment is a clear and accessible introduction to the leading thinkers of the age, the men and women who believed that rational endeavour could reveal the secrets of the universe.

Lloyd Spencer is Senior Lecturer in the School of Media at Trinity and All Saints, a college of the University of Leeds. He has written Introducing the Enlightenment and a biographical study of Walter Benjamin.