Enemies of the Enlightenment: The French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity

By Darrin M. McMahon

Book Overview

Critics have long treated the most important intellectual movement of modern history--the Enlightenment--as if it took shape in the absence of opposition. In this groundbreaking new study, Darrin McMahon demonstrates that, on the contrary, contemporary resistance to the Enlightenment was a major cultural force, shaping and defining the Enlightenment itself from the moment of inception, while giving rise to an entirely new ideological phenomenon-what we have come to think of as the "Right." McMahon skillfully examines the Counter-Enlightenment, showing that it was an extensive, international, and thoroughly modern affair.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195158938
• ISBN13: 9780195158939
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.2" x 9.2"