Jesse Norman

The Enlightenment was a many-splendoured thing

Ritchie Robinson describes how its philosophy spread to literature, the arts, commerce, agriculture, science and medicine

Robert Edge Pine’s portrait of Catharine Macaulay, whose History of England rivalled that of Hume. Credit: Bridgeman Images 
issue 19 December 2020

  • The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790

    Ritchie Robertson

    Allen Lane, pp. 1008, £30

History used to be so much easier. There were the Wars of the Roses, then the Reformation, the Civil War, the Enlightenment and finally the Victorians. Each one had its own century and its distinctive tag. Throw in Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, garnish with a few zealots and adventurers, some glorious triumphs and some grisly deaths.

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