The Enlightenment: An Interpretation

The Enlightenment: An Interpretation is an influential two-volume history of the Age of Enlightenment by Peter Gay, published between 1966 and 1969. The first volume, subtitled "The Rise of Modern Paganism," won the National Book Award in 1967. The second volume, subtitled “The Science of Freedom," was published in 1969. The first volume, "The Rise of Modern Paganism," focuses on foundations of Enlightenment thought, covering the influence of Greek philosophers, pagan belief, and Christian theology. The second volume, "The Science of Freedom," describes how this system was then applied to various spheres, particularly the social sciences, including political economy, history, and sociology. Gay presents the Enlightenment as the unified work of a small group of men, "the little flock," who share a critical method and knew and admired one another's work. These thinkers are dominated by French figures, including Montesquieu, Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Jean le Rond d'Alembert, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, and the Marquis de Condorcet. Gay also refers to Britons John Locke and David Hume, the Genevan Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the German-born Immanuel Kant, and the American Benjamin Franklin. Gay emphasizes the empirical attitudes of these thinkers, and praises their liberal attitudes (while glossing over aspects of their belief that undermine his argument, including anti-semitism and a willingness to suppress religious freedoms).

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