Amazon.com
While returning the Enlightenment to Britain, Porter also provides a persuasive general defense of the movement against its Foucauldian, feminist, and/or postmodern critics who still "paint it black." It was perpetually dismissed as "anything from superficial and intellectually naïve to a conspiracy of dead white men in periwigs [who] provide the intellectual foundation for Western imperialism," and one of the book's strengths is that after reading it, one finds it hard to understand how these "critiques" gained such influence in intellectual circles. The major shortcoming of the book--as Porter is well aware--is that "too many themes receive short measure": literature and the arts, political debate, the forging of nationalism, and more. Several chapters, if not all, deserved book-length treatment, making this work of nearly 500 pages seem quite short. But if Enlightenment leaves the reader unsatisfied, it is in the best possible way--one would have liked to hear more from Porter rather than less. Word has it he's already planning an encore. --Larry Brown, Amazon.co.uk --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .
