[.ca] What's Left of Enlightenment?: A Postmodern Question (ISBN 0804740267)

A Brilliant Anthology:
This remarkable book reexamines the intellectual history of eighteenth century France and Germany in order to bring to light a richer, more nuanced view of this pivotal period. More specifically, many writers, commonly characterized as "post-modernist," have used the European Enlightenment as a "whipping boy" in order to promote their own vision of the history of ideas. The editors use a very judicious strategy in order to analyze this tendency to attenuate the richness of 18th century European culture: they choose essays that are about the Enlightenment; they also choose essays that expose how the dubious dichotomy, "Postmodernity v. Enlightenment" came into being. Every one of the essays in this collection is of great intellectual rigor and constitutes a serious contribution to the enduring question, "What is Enlightenment?" This volume deals frontally with the important issue of the role of women during this time. The essays in this book are energetically, interestingly argued, and the editors have chosen a very stimulating organizational approach; they have divided the book into three sets of problems: "Enlightenment or Postmodernity?," "Critical Confrontations," and "A Postmodern Enlightenment." Essays dealing with postmodernism tend to be arcane or incomprehensible; the essays in this book are difficult, challenging, and wonderfully readable.