Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Since the 5th century BCE Persia has played a significant part in representing the "Other" against which European identity has been constructed. What makes the case of Persia unique in this process of identity formation is the ambivalent attitude that Europe has shown in its imaginary about Persia. Persia is arguably the nation of "the Orient" most referred to in Early Modern European writings, frequently mentioned in various discourses of the Enlightenment including theology, literature, and political theory. What was the appeal of Persia to such a diverse intellectual population in Enlightenment Europe? How did intellectuals engage with the 'facts' about Persia? In what ways did utilizing Persia contribute to the development of modern European identities? In this volume, an international group of scholars with diverse academic backgrounds has tackled these and other questions related to the Enlightenment's engagement with Persia. In doing so, Persia and the Enlightenment questions reductionist assessments of Modern Europe's encounter with the Middle East, where a complex engagement is simplified to a confrontation between liberalism and Islam, or an exaggerated Orientalism. By carefully studying Persia in the Enlightenment narratives, this volume throws new light on the complexity of intercultural encounters and their impact on the shaping of collective identities.

Since the publication of the first edition of Richard Popkin's classic The History of Scepticism in 1960, skepticism has been increasingly recognized as a major force in the development of early modern philosophy. This book provides a review of current scholarship and significant updated research on some of the main thinkers and issues related to the reappraisal of ancient skepticism in the modern age. Special attention is given to the nature, importance, and relation to religion of Montaigne's and Hume's skepticisms; to the various skeptical and non-skeptical sources of Cartesian doubt; to the skeptical and anti-skeptical impact of Cartesianism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; and to philosophers who dealt with skeptical issues in the development of their own various intellectual interests.

This book brings out the profound influence of the tradition of philosophical skepticism on political thought. It shows that many of the root ideas of liberalism in early modern thought were a product of engagement with the skeptical tradition.
The book begins with the first extended discussion in the literature of the political implications of ancient skepticism, asking the question, "Can Skeptics Live a Skeptical Politics?" The following sections explore the influence of skepticism on the political thought of Montaigne, Hume, and Kant. The case is made that some forms of liberalism derived from these thinkers have been historically closely bound up with skepticism.

This is the first book to bring together studies of a wide variety of millenarians who were active in the 17th and 18th centuries in France, The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and eastern Europe. It provides much food for thought for students and teachers of early modern ideas, the history of philosophy and religion, and the making of the modern world. It opens up many avenues for further work.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This volume contains English translations of two important early French and German defences of freedom of the press. Almost unknown in the English-speaking world, these texts demonstrate that freedom of the press was an important issue in other parts of Europe in the early modern period, giving rise to articulate theories. Elie Luzac's "Essay on Freedom of Expression" (1749) defended freedom of the press for atheists on natural law and other grounds. Carl Friedrich Bahrdt's "On Freedom of the Press and its Limits" (1787) drew on natural law, religious rhetoric, and political journalism to make the case for understanding freedom of the press as a human right. Together, these texts show that the French and German traditions included their own intellectual resources for defending modern rights, before the American Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man.

The essays in this volume portray the debates concerning freedom of speech in eighteenth-century France and Britain as well as in Austria, Denmark, Russia, and Spain and its American territories. Representing the views of both moderate and radical eighteenth-century thinkers, these essays by eminent scholars discover that twenty-fi rst-century controversies regarding the extent of permissible speech have their origins in the eighteenth century. The economic integration of Europe and its offshoots over the past three centuries into a distinctive cultural product, the West, has given rise to a triumphant Enlightenment narrative of universalism and tolerance that masks these divisions and the disparate national contributions to freedom of speech and other liberal rights.

In this collection, thirteen distinguished contributors examine the influence of the ancient skeptical philosophy of Pyrrho of Elis and Sextus Empiricus on early modern political thought. Classical skepticism argues that in the absence of certainty one must either suspend judgment and live by habit or act on the basis of probability rather than certainty. In either case, one must reject dogmatic confidence in politics and philosophy. Surveying the use of skepticism in works by Hobbes, Descartes, Hume, Smith, and Kant, among others, the essays in Skepticism and Political Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries demonstrate the pervasive impact of skepticism on the intellectual landscape of early modern Europe. This volume is not just an authoritative account of skepticism's importance from the Enlightenment to the French Revolution, it is also the basis for understanding skepticism's continuing political implications.