The Party of Humanity Essays in the French Enlightenment [Paperback]

Often the target of uninformed or hostile criticism, the Enlightenment has been characterized as shallow and pretentious intellectualism and unreasonable contempt for authority and tradition. In this provocative book--at once a scholarly study and a vigorous polemic--Peter Gay sets out to shatter old myths, to sort out illusion from reality, and to restore the men of the Enlightenment--Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot--to the esteem they deserve.