Suggested Readings: Modernity

The Empire of Reason: How Europe Imagined and America Realized the Enlightenment
By Henry Steele Commager
ISBN: 0-385-12003-6

"In The Empire of Reason, Professor Commager succeeds in showing how the idea of liberty became the blessings of liberty. He goes far beyond political notions, touching the naturalists, scientists, and artists of every kind who contributed to the new nation. Defining the dream, he rediscovers the roots of revolution."
— The New York Times

The Lunar Men: Five Friends Whose Curiosity Changed the World
By Jenny Uglow
ISBN: 0-374-19440-8

The Lunar Men is a grand story—imagine a kind of historical version of Atlas Shrugged set in 18th-century England . . . Of course, here James Watt, with the help of the industrialist Boulton, starts, rather than stops, the engine of the world. Like Rand's heroes, these over-reachers—several of whom began their careers as boy apprentices—were not merely gifted, they were determined and indefatigable.
—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson
By Daniel J. Boorstin
ISBN: 0-226-06496-4

"The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson is not an account of Jeffersonian political philosophy, but of something which has received less attention: the view of the world which underlay it and which has survived to condition a great many other aspects of American life and thought. . . . It is a major contribution not only to Jefferson studies but to American intellectual history.
— Richard Hofstadter, South Atlantic Monthly

The Portable Enlightenment Reader
Edited by Isaac Kramnick
ISBN: 0-14-02-4566-9

"In championing radical ideas, such as individual liberty and an empirical appraisal of the universe through rational inquiry and natural experience, Enlightenment philosophers in Europe and America planted the seeds for modern liberalism, cultural humanism, science and technology, and laissez-faire capitalism. This volume brings together the era's classic works, with more than a hundred selections from a broad range of sources."
—Publisher's description