The End of Enlightenment

A landmark study of the Enlightenment from an eminent historian

The End of Enlightenment offers a radical re-evaluation of one of the most important moments in human history. Tracing around the world the changing perspectives of economists, philosophers, politicians and polemicists, historian Richard Whatmore argues that, for figures as diverse as David Hume, Edmund Burke, Adam Smith and Mary Wollstonecraft, the Enlightenment was a profound failure. They had strived to replace superstition with reason, fanaticism with toleration, but witnessed instead terror and revolution, corruption, gross commercial excess and the continued growth of violent empire.

Returning us to the tumultuous events and ideas of the eighteenth century, and digging deep into the thought of the men and women who defined their age, The End of Enlightenment is a lucid exploration of disillusion and intellectual transformation, a brilliant meditation on our continued assumptions about the past, and a glimpse of the different ways our world might be structured.