What makes the Enlightenment an object of history like no other, still so illuminating as to inspire debate and controversy for more than two centuries? This is the question that Antoine Lilly faces in his commencement speech at the Collège de France, chair of the history of the Enlightenment in the 18th-21st centuries since 2022. The resulting text can be read not only as a rich and powerful essay (to use the title of one of Antoine Lilty’s most important books) on the legacy of the Enlightenment, but also as a fascinating “discourse on method” of the historian’s profession today.
Shake up theories
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