In an elegant, eminently readable wo r k, one of our most distinguished intellectual histo r ians gives us a brilliant revisionist histo r y. The Roads to Modernity reclaims the Enlightenment–an extrao r dinary time bursting with new ideas about human nature, politics, society, a nd religion--fr om histo r ians who have downgraded its impo r tance a nd fr om scholars who have given preemi In an elegant, eminently readable wo r k, one of our most distinguished intellectual histo r ians gives us a brilliant revisionist histo r y. The Roads to Modernity reclaims the Enlightenment–an extrao r dinary time bursting with new ideas about human nature, politics, society, a nd religion--fr om histo r ians who have downgraded its impo r tance a nd fr om scholars who have given preeminence to the Enlightenment in France over concurrent movements in Engla nd a nd America.Contrasting the Enlightenments in the three nations, Himmelfarb demonstrates the primacy a nd wisdom of the British, exemplified in such thinkers as Adam Smith, David Hume, a nd Edmund Burke, as well as the unique a nd enduring contributions of the American Founders. It is their Enlightenments, she argues, that created a social ethic–humane, compassionate, a nd realistic–that still resonates strongly today, in America perhaps even mo r e than in Europe.The Roads to Modernity is a remarkable a nd illuminating contribution to the histo r y of ideas.

fr om the Trade Paperback edition.