'Margaret L. King has put together a highly representative selection of readings from most of the more significant - but byno means the most obvious - texts by the authors who made up the movement we have come to call the 'Enlightenment.'They range across much of Europe and the Americas, and from the early seventeenth century until the end of theeighteenth. In the originality of the choice of texts, in its range and depth, this collection offers both wide coverage andstriking insights into the intellectual transformation which has done more than any other to shape the world in which welive today. It is simply the best introduction to the subject now available.' - Anthony Pagden, UCLA, and authorof The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters