The Enlightenment

The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790

By: Ritchie Robertson

Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble

A magisterial history that recasts the Enlightenment as a period not solely consumed with rationale and reason, but rather as a pursuit of practical means to achieve greater human happiness.

One of the formative periods of European and world history, the Enlightenment is the fountainhead of modern secular Western values: religious tolerance; freedom of thought, speech, and the press; of rationality and evidence-based argument. Yet why, over 300 years after it began, is the Enlightenment so profoundly misunderstood as controversial, the expression of soulless calculation? The answer may be that, to an extraordinary extent, we have accepted the account of the Enlightenment given by its conservative enemies: that enlightenment necessarily implied hostility to religion or support for an unfettered free market, or that this was “the best of all possible worlds”. Ritchie Robertson goes back into the “long 18th century”, from approximately 1680 to 1790, to reveal what this much-debated period was really about.

Robertson returns to the era’s original texts to show that above all, the Enlightenment was really about increasing human happiness - in this world rather than the next - by promoting scientific inquiry and reasoned argument. In so doing Robertson chronicles the campaigns mounted by some Enlightened figures against evils like capital punishment, judicial torture, serfdom, and witchcraft trials, featuring the experiences of major figures like Voltaire and Diderot alongside ordinary people who lived through this extraordinary moment.

In answering the question "What is Enlightenment?" in 1784, Kant famously urged men and women above all to “have the courage to use your own intellect”. Robertson shows how the thinkers of the Enlightenment did just that, seeking a well-rounded understanding of humanity in which reason was balanced with emotion and sensibility. Drawing on philosophy, theology, historiography, and literature across the major western European languages, The Enlightenment is a master-class in big picture history about the foundational epoch of modern times.

©2020 Ritchie Robertson (P)2020 HarperAudio

Detailed and extremely well researched

Detailed and extremely well researched title. The narration was excellent. One recommendation would be to divide into two parts for easier downloading.

Fascinating review of the arguments that shaped capitalism and modern America

The ideas are presented clearly. Only for about three hours did I wonder where this was going. Afterward, my mind wandered only from fatigue.

It's a lot, as it should be

Excellent, detailed, well researched. It's a good book, but one I'm glad I listened to instead of trying to read. It's dense and occasionally plodding but all for the better understanding of the subject. Vital for understanding the modern world.

Great overview

This was better than expected as author knows how to tell history stories in a compelling way, not always emphasizing what you’d expect.
Only quibble is narrator who has lovely voice but mangles Latin & French & even English at times, w/o losing confidence as he glibly repeats errors & makes new ones.
The book’s good enough to stay with it even so, tho it is irritating & amazing —he must have assured Audible that he is a polyglot but maybe reading/writing, not speaking. Ouch.

So great.

I learned so much, and there was so much that was relevant to things I've been thinking about, and for the world today.

An amazing book; a great read

I have read many books and articles about the development of the Enlightenment. This one, however, is one of the very few which approaches the problem not from the backward looking perspective of the ideas we now have and how we came to have them but rather mostly from the forward looking perspective of the millions of ideas being put forward in that time of intellectual turmoil and how they struggled with one another, pushing some to the fore, ignoring or throwing others away, mashing some togther creating results not anticipated, until out of the fabric of that human comedy of ideas something was ultimately stitched together making the world of thought which we call today. Delightful and awe inspiring in its breadth of knowledge.

Excellent. Enlightening.

Learned a great deal. A super overview of the movement and survey of Enlightment thinkers.

A must read on the history of Enlightement

I greatly enjoyed this book. The huge erudition of the author and the depth of the analysis is enormously valuable to understand this historic period, especially for Europeans. I bought also the paper version to come back to some sections that were particularly interesting or (see below) difficult to understand. Overall, a rare gem in the landscape of cultural histories.

Unfortunately the narrator leaves much to be desired. Especially the pronunciation of the numerous German, Latin and French citations is simply atrocious (especially for someone who speaks all three languages) and ruins entire sections of the book where the listener has to mentally stop to think what the narrator meant, instead of following the narration.

One of the best books I’ve read

You will come out of this understanding the time period like you lived there, this was an absolute tour de force

Remarkable performance of this challenging book

Jonathan Keeble gives a remarkable performance. He exemplifies discipline and tenacious professionalism. This is a sophisticated book on the subject requiring experience. Keeble got me through the reading. I felt lost throughout and am left with incomprehension despite urging myself that I could gain some perspective and understanding if I just got through day after day. But any short-fall is on me.