The Portable Enlightenment Reader

More than forty years ago, when I was a college undergraduate, I ran across several lists books that were recommended reading for anyone who wanted to be truly educated. Those lists invariably included books such as Rousseau's "The Social Contract," The Federalist Papers, Voltaire's "Candide," and many other writings from the Enlightenment era (as well, of course, as other time periods). I dutifully noted the titles, and, wanting to consider myself an educated person, fully intended to read all of them. Well now I'm 62, and it's time for me to admit that I'm almost certainly never going to read "The Social Contract." This volume is for me and others like me, who are suffering from the "So Many Books, So Little Time" syndrome. The book contains a broad selection of writings from the major thinkers of the Enlightenment, which the editor defines roughly from the 1680's to the 1790's. What a marvelous time it must have been to be an intellectual! The barriers erected by the authority of the kings, priests, and classical writers were being shattered. The ability to ask new questions and propose new answers produced an almost intoxicating sense of infinite possibilities for the improvement - even the perfection - of human society. Some of the pieces in this book will seem hopelessly naive to our modern cynical minds; on the other hand, some of the points being made so excitedly and even belligerently are now taken for granted - and we are likely to read them and say, "What's the big deal? Everyone knows that." And then there are the debates about the most fundamental questions - such as the source of knowledge - that have yet to be resolved, and probably never will be. If you read this, you will almost certainly get caught up in the excitement of the exploration of the ideas. You will almost certainly have your own thoughts stimulated, and your own opinions challenged. And you can smugly pretend that you have read Roussseau, Locke, Hume, Kant, and Voltaire - and no one (except real scholars) will be the wiser.

This well organized collection of extracts from Enlightenment Era thinkers is valuable on many levels. This edition does not restrict the reader to a narrow selection of French and English writers (important as they may be); it includes American, German and Italian authors and provides the reader with a sense of the scope of this important era. The anthology is divided into topical sections and the selections are important because the selected content provides readers with even the very flawed thinking of some of these great minds, particularly on matters of race and women's rights -- issues that later generations would have to tackle. The introduction is well written too. The Enlightenment Era's optimism was based upon assumptions that have not always proven too true and though the editor is certainly devoted to this great era in philosophy and political progress he is not an iconodule unwilling to present criticism of this era or honestly discuss the shortcomings of the Enlightenment Era. It is impossible to present a comprehensive understanding of anything when compiling an anthology, but this selection is a good starting point. Readers would do well, and I suspect it is the desire of the editor, to select writers of this era to enjoy in the unabridged editions of their individual works.

The Age of Enlightenment, the Rise of Science, the art, and literature of the eighteenth century has always been an interest of mine. So you can imagine how amazed and elated I was when I came across this gold. It has all the big enlightenment writers such as Voltaire, Diderot, Leibniz, Paine, Addison, Pope, Montesqieu, Franklin and many more. It gives a great run down of the wit, the result of the evolution of thought, politics, society and reason as seen in the words of these great minds. The only thing that I didn't like about this is that there is no Hobbes, which is only a minor quibble. I just thought that since there is Descates, who is not of the eighteenth century enlightenment (17th century and dryer than dust), but a major influence (like Hobbes was included, Hobbes, who was a major link from Descartes to Locke should be included and the provacative and ENLIGHTENING words from The Leviathan should grace the pages of this indispensible book and yet another superb volume from the Viking Portable Library.

The eighteenth century Enlightenment is one of the most interesting and exciting periods of intellectual history. The thinkers of that age had a sizable impact on concepts of science, nature, politics, religion and society. How do we become immersed in the wealth of writing of that period, however, without giving up job and family in order to read the works of the Enlightenment authors? This reader is an excellent book for novices and experienced readers alike. It is an excellent 600+ page book filled with short, pithy excerpts from the key thinkers of the period. Actually the writings go back as far as 1620 with an excerpt from Francis Bacon where he puts down the Greek philosophers and introduces what is to become the scientific method. Beccaria comes up with novel thinking on crime and punishment. Does the death penalty deter crime? How about the punishment fitting the crime instead of being meted out at the whim of some aristocrat?Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau and Paine weigh in with their political philosophy. The skeptics speak up with their religious criticisms. Manners, morals, art, war, and gender and race issues are all discussed by the likes of Mary Wollstonecraft, David Hume, Reynolds, Pope, and Bentham.Bite sized as these entries are, they give the flavor of Enlightenment thought. And, importantly for the general reader, they are all mentally digestible. You don't have to read every paragraph six times in order to get a glimmer of the authors' meanings. The represented authors are not just from France either. The best thinkers from France, Italy, Germany, the United States and Great Britain are represented.

This was the most helpful anthology when I needed to write a research paper on seventeenth century religion. It has sections for almost all aspects of life and contains various selections that truly show the Enlightenment spirit!