cover image Enlightening the World: Encyclopedie, the Book That Changed the Course of History

Enlightening the World: Encyclopedie, the Book That Changed the Course of History

Philipp Blom. Palgrave MacMillan, $40 (372pp) ISBN 978-1-4039-6895-1

In the dark corners of Paris's bohemian cafes, salons and theaters, some of the greatest European thinkers of the 18th century congregated, and it was here that the Encyclopedie was born. The most enormous publishing effort of the day, the Encyclopedie would be neither the first of its kind nor ultimately the largest. But in this meticulously researched historical narrative, journalist and historian Blom (To Have and to Hold) argues that the Encyclopedie represents a turning point in the tide of intellectual history and is the last veritable record of Europe's ideas, traditions, politics, economics, tools and restrictions before the French Revolution. The bulk of Blom's narrative is driven by the drama that occurred among the work's many contributors and between them and the society in which they lived. The writers, many of whom stood for free thought and secularism, struggled with censorship, exile and even prison. And, as is revealed here through epistolary exchanges, on a personal level, the famed band of philosophes-including Diderot, D'Alembert, Voltaire, Grimm and Rousseau-were divided by mistresses, money, manipulation and, most of all, ego. Blom takes the reader through these events and through the Encyclopedie itself in a thorough and engaging way, and he makes a strong case for the work's importance in shaping philosophy and political thought for years to come. This book is a welcome read for European historians and for those interested in learning about one of the foremost works of the Enlightenment.