Here a distinguished American historian challenges the belief that the eighteenth century was essentially modern
in its temper. In crystalline prose Carl Becker demonstrates that the period commonly described as the Age of Reason
was, in fact, very far from that, that Voltaire, Hume, Diderot, and Locke were living in a medieval world; and
that these philosophers "demolished the Heavenly City of St. Augustine only to rebuild it with more up-to-date
materials." In a new Foreword, Johnson Kent Wright looks at the book's continuing relevance within the context
of current discussion about the Enlightenment.
Table of Contents
I. Climates of Opinion
II. The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God
III. The New History: Philosophy Teaching by Example
IV. The Uses of Posterity
