A01=Antoine Lilti
Author_Antoine Lilti
Category=DSB
Category=NH
Category=NHB
Category=QDHM
Category=QDHR
civilization
Denis Diderot
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_new_release
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
historiography
Jonathan Israel
Michel Foucault
modernity
postcolonial criticism
The Enlightenment
universalism
Voltaire
Product details
- ISBN 9780226820613
- Weight: 567g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 15 Jan 2026
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Going against the grain, this refreshing book argues for a non-ideological portrait of the Enlightenment as having been, above all else, a self-critical enterprise.
The Enlightenment has come under substantial attack over the past several years, with some going so far as to recommend leaving behind its thinkers and their Eurocentric prejudices. In response, the most orthodox defenders of the Enlightenment have insisted that its values are not just foundational but indispensable and that abandoning them would mean opening the door to nihilism and relativism. For Antoine Lilti, one of the leading scholars of the French Enlightenment, both sides are wrong.
In this tactfully argued series of essays, Lilti emphasizes a non-dogmatic, non-ideological view of the Enlightenment—one that sees its legacy as a critical, attentive approach that can and should serve as its own best critic. Along the way, he engages with everyone from Rousseau and Kant to Foucault and Habermas, as well as prominent contemporary voices, such as Jonathan Israel. The result is a remarkable new reading of the Enlightenment that redraws the stakes of old debates and offers an alternative way to engage with both canonical thinkers and later scholarship that is both honest about the past and useful for the future.
The Enlightenment has come under substantial attack over the past several years, with some going so far as to recommend leaving behind its thinkers and their Eurocentric prejudices. In response, the most orthodox defenders of the Enlightenment have insisted that its values are not just foundational but indispensable and that abandoning them would mean opening the door to nihilism and relativism. For Antoine Lilti, one of the leading scholars of the French Enlightenment, both sides are wrong.
In this tactfully argued series of essays, Lilti emphasizes a non-dogmatic, non-ideological view of the Enlightenment—one that sees its legacy as a critical, attentive approach that can and should serve as its own best critic. Along the way, he engages with everyone from Rousseau and Kant to Foucault and Habermas, as well as prominent contemporary voices, such as Jonathan Israel. The result is a remarkable new reading of the Enlightenment that redraws the stakes of old debates and offers an alternative way to engage with both canonical thinkers and later scholarship that is both honest about the past and useful for the future.
Antoine Lilti is professor at the Collège de France, where he holds the chair in the History of the Enlightenment, 18th to 21st century. He is the author of several books, including, most recently, The Invention of Celebrity.
C. Jon Delogu is professor in the English Department at Université Jean Moulin-Lyon 3. He has translated over a dozen books, fiction and nonfiction, and is the author of three of his own on Emerson, Tocqueville, and the temptations fascism poses during vulnerable times.
C. Jon Delogu is professor in the English Department at Université Jean Moulin-Lyon 3. He has translated over a dozen books, fiction and nonfiction, and is the author of three of his own on Emerson, Tocqueville, and the temptations fascism poses during vulnerable times.
