Review

Textbooks, Readers, and References

Margaret Jacob's book on the Enlightenment presents a thoughtful and highly informative introduction to accompany a wonderful compilation of texts. Upper level high school or introductory university history or philosophy classes devoting a good deal of time to the Enlightenment will find this book very useful, while teachers who are pressed for time will find much of value in the excerpts from highly interesting texts and also new ways of approaching the Enlightenment. The variety of texts would make possible some interesting assignments like creating DBQs, and offers a compelling alternative to reading a single work like Candide. The author is a highly regarded and prolific scholar who has worked extensively on the scientific revolution, particularly examining the societal elements of that cosmological transformation. Her introduction to The Enlightenment is an illuminating overview of the various antecedents, the progression and the consequences of what she calls the "culture of light." Jacob locates the political origin of the Enlightenment in reactions to two events of 1685: the ascension of James II to the throne in England and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV, which led to an international campaign against absolutism waged by mostly Protestant émigré Frenchmen and English intellectuals, Jacob analyzes how deists, skeptics, pantheists, Freemasons, and Quakers joined them to create an atmosphere of inquiry, transforming philosophy and political and religious discourse, helped by Dutch publishers who disseminated controversial works. She describes this "clandestine universe" of freemasonry and anonymous publications, and compares it to England, the model of the modern state. Jacob fully acknowledges the women who were visible as scholars, teachers and authors and who fostered education and public organizations for women in London and in Paris, cities which, by the middle of the 18th century, had replaced Amsterdam as the center of the an "international republican conversation." Jacob ends her introduction with a perceptive transition to the pending Industrial Revolution by discussing James Watt's contact with the Enlightenment.	1
What is refreshing about Jacob's selections of texts is that while most of the authors are predictable, the particular excerpts are not. One document, which was completely new to this reviewer, is an anonymously published and unrelenting attack on religion called The Treatise of the Three Impostors. Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed are presented as impostors, tricksters, even traitors, who preyed upon human ignorance, prejudice and superstition and convinced imbeciles to follow them. Students may well be shocked by the boldness of the accusation that religion is nothing more than "crudely woven imposture." This juicy document opens one's eyes to the many less famous works, often published anonymously, and to the popular culture, of the period. Another document readers will like is Some Thoughts Concerning Education by John Locke, which reveals his delightful and often surprising ideas about children, including concrete data on what's to be carved on a child's "tabula rasa." Students will especially relish three other documents. One is Denis Diderot's Supplement to Bougainville's Voyage, an idyllic picture of noble and sexually liberated Tahiti and a harsh criticism of European imperialism. There is a lucid debate on sexual freedom between a European chaplain and a Tahitian leader whose offer of his wife or daughters to the chaplain and his defense of adultery will certainly surprise many a contemporary reader. Equally fresh is Moses Mendelssohn's Jerusalem: Or on Religious Power and Judaism. Calling for complete religious toleration and the avoidance of both fanaticism and atheism, it illuminates the Jewish Enlightenment. Finally, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's letters about her travels offer a lively and laudatory portrayal of Ottoman palaces and social customs. Her adventurous nature pervades every page of the letters, a useful antidote to stereotypical notions of women of the time, and her discussion of smallpox inoculation, which she brought to England from Turkey, reveals the role women played in science. These letters are a fitting and concrete example of the essential spirit of the Enlightenment,	2
In all, this short treatment of a huge topic is a rich source for both students and teachers, even if they can delve only briefly. It's particularly valuable for its inclusion of texts with a focus beyond Christian Europe. The Enlightenment is revealed to be less a movement of a select few philosophes in Parisian salons, and more a complex, international, multi-layered movement of diversified and energized individuals sharing a great élan. Readers of this book may wish to tarry longer in the Enlightenment, a compliment to Jacob's thoughtful compilation and lively discourse, and we can only hope that it will soon be available in paperback.	3
Poly Prep Country Day School, Brooklyn, New York Louise Forsyth

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