Enlightenment History

Denis Diderot is often associated with the decades-long battle to bring the world's first comprehensive Encyclopedie into existence. But his most daring writing took place in the shadows. Thrown into prison for his atheism in 1749, Diderot decided to reserve his best books for posterity - for us, in fact. In the astonishing cache of unpublished writings left behind after his death, Diderot challenged virtually all of his century's accepted truths, from the sanctity of monarchy, to the racial justification of the slave trade, to the norms of human sexuality.

This absorbing account of the political and social reformations that transformed the lands of Islam during the 19th and early 20th centuries offers a game-changing assessment of the Middle East. Beginning his account in 1798, de Bellaigue demonstrates how the Middle East has long welcomed modern ideals and practices, including the adoption of modern medicine, the emergence of women from seclusion, and the development of democracy.

The Enlightenment is one of the formative periods of Western history, yet more than 300 years after it began, it remains controversial. It is often seen as the fountainhead of modern values such as human rights, religious toleration, freedom of thought, scientific thought as an exemplary form of reasoning and rationality and evidence-based argument. Others accuse the Enlightenment of putting forward a scientific rationality which ignores the complexity and variety of human beings, propagates shallow atheism and aims to subjugate nature to so-called technical progress.

A majestic work of intellectual and cultural history, The Secular Enlightenment demonstrates how secular values and pursuits took hold of 18th-century Europe, spilled into the American colonies, and left their lasting imprint on the Western world for generations to come.

The study of ancient Greek history has been central to the western conception of history since the Renaissance. The Muse of History traces the shifting patterns of this preoccupation in the last three centuries, in which each generation has reinterpreted the Greeks in the light of their contemporary world, through times of revolution, conflicting ideologies and warfare. It aims to offer a new history of Greek historiography from the Enlightenment to the present, and to acknowledge the continuing spiritual importance of the ancient Greeks for European culture.

Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Penelope Drayton Spence has been hired by two of the world’s richest men to track down and interview enlightened people who may have arrived at the Fourth Awakening. The problem, as fast she can locate a potential candidate, they have a nasty habit of mysteriously vanishing. These “Chronicles” are written in the "Serial Novel" format Charles Dickens famously used for the “Pickwick Papers” and many of his later books. It is also the format magazines such as “The Saturday Evening Post” made popular not that long ago. THIS FOUR PART SERIES OF ...

Richard of England was known as ‘Lionheart’. He was a King unbeaten in battle. His sword carved out a godlike legend from the battlefields of France to the blood-soaked sands of the Holy Land. He was England’s most romantic and heroic king, a passionate and sensitive man, great warrior, poet and musician, and a charismatic leader, blindly adored by the knights he commanded, deeply loved by more than one woman. But one woman captured his heart. She was a woman unchallenged in the lists of love. Blondelza, as daringly independent as she was beautiful. She lived by her wits and talent on...

The Enlightenment has been nothing if not divisive, being blamed for bloody disasters - Auschwitz, the gulags, Islamic terrorism - as well as being heralded as the harbinger of reason and equality. To this day historians disagree over when it was, where it was, and what it was. Kieron O’Hara deftly traverses these conflicts, presenting the history, ideology, culture, and social life of the Enlightenment, not as a simple set of easily enumerated ideas, but rather as an evolving conglomerate that spawned a diverse set of thinkers.

Can you imagine how the world would be different today if there had been no Enlightenment era? The Age of Enlightenment, which lasted throughout the 18th century, brought about fundamental changes in people’s thinking and transformed the entire fabric of society. Even ordinary people began to question their entrenched beliefs and dogmas. They wanted education, justice, freedom, and progress. They struggled to eliminate despotic rulers and desired to be governed by democratically elected representatives.

In 2012, American journalist Theo Padnos, fluent in Arabic, Russian, German, and French, traveled to a Turkish border town to write and report on the Syrian civil war. One afternoon in October, while walking through an olive grove, he met three young Syrians - who turned out to be al Qaeda operatives - and they captured him and kept him prisoner for nearly two years. On his first day, in the first of many prisons, Padnos was given a blindfold - a grime-stained scrap of fabric - that was his only possession throughout his horrific ordeal.

Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Penelope Drayton Spence has been hired by two of the world’s richest men to track down and interview enlightened people who may have arrived at the Fourth Awakening. The problem, as fast she can locate a potential candidate, they have a nasty habit of mysteriously vanishing. These “Chronicles” are written in the "Serial Novel" format Charles Dickens famously used for the “Pickwick Papers” and many of his later books. It is also the format magazines such as “The Saturday Evening Post” made popular not that long ago. THIS FOUR PART SERIES OF ...

We're all on a journey trying to move toward greater awareness, peace, joy, and love. Yet, daily life is full of endless distractions, upsets, and challenges. Best-selling author and frequent Oprah guest Jonathan Robinson set out to find the best ways he could find inner peace by studying with over 100 well-known spiritual teachers. In his multidecade quest, Robinson interviewed everyone from the late Mother Teresa to Ram Dass. By practicing over 50 spiritual methods and philosophies, he learned what really worked to deliver him to lasting inner peace.

Finally understand the life-altering knowledge of the Hermetica! Imagine obtaining the wisdom of the ancient Egyptian philosophers. How different would your life be if you had access to their secret teachings on life, its origins, and its Creator? In what ways would your own life be transformed?

The flourishing of radical philosophy in Baron Thierry Holbach’s Paris salon from the 1750s to the 1770s stands as a seminal event in Western history. Holbach’s house was an international epicenter of revolutionary ideas and intellectual daring, bringing together such original minds as Denis Diderot, Laurence Sterne, David Hume, Adam Smith, Ferdinando Galiani, Horace Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, Guillaume Raynal, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In A Wicked Company, acclaimed historian Philipp Blom retraces the fortunes of this exceptional group of friends.

Listen to this audiobook now and unlock the door to Europe's magnificent past, vibrant present, and promising future!

Descubra los acontecimientos históricos más importantes de la historia europea moderna, como la Revolución Industrial y la Revolución francesa, la Primera y la Segunda Guerra Mundial, el Holocausto, la Gran Depresión, el movimiento por el sufragio femenino, la Guerra Fría y mucho más. Desde las revoluciones hasta las guerras, la historia cobra vida con datos divertidos, imágenes y mapas fascinantes. Además, pondrá a prueba sus conocimientos con atractivas actividades. Tampoco debe preocuparse por las palabras más complicadas.

In this engaging history, James MacGregor Burns brings to vivid life the two-hundred-year conflagration of the Enlightenment, during which audacious questions and astonishing ideas tore across Europe and the New World, transforming thought, bringing down governments, and inspiring visionary political experiments that would ultimately reach every corner of the globe. Unlike most historians, Burns pays particular attention to America's intellectual revolution, beginning and ending his story on American soil.

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!

Noah Archer is a renowned neurosurgeon, with an impressive success record. He has a happy home with his beloved wife, Moira, their two adopted sons, and a dog who’s a very good girl. But Noah keeps a dark secret, shared only with his old friend Father Perry Cavanaugh. When he was just a boy, he was possessed by a demon - and it was only thanks to the exorcist priest that he survived.

La vida de un científico eminente durante la Revolución Científica y la subsiguiente Ilustración no era fácil. En nombre de la Iglesia católica, fueron asesinadas personas con ambiciones debido a sus trabajos científicos y filosóficos, que a menudo eran considerados como heréticos. Con el paso del tiempo, sin embargo, las verdades de la investigación y la exploración científica se han mostrado una y otra vez, y el punto de vista colectivo de la población comenzó a alejarse del dogma religioso para aproximarse hacia el método científico lógico.