Enlightening Revolutions a collection of outstanding essays by highly prominent scholars examines the different ways in which the relation between politics and philosophy has been understood and enacted over the ages. The volume sheds light on key theoretical and historical issues: the intriguing position and historical influence of medieval Jewish and Islamic rationalism; the advent of modernity in the thought of Machiavelli and Hobbes; the prospects for greatness in modernity as seen by Adam Smith, Jonathan Swift, the Founding Fathers, and Alexis de Tocqueville; and the prospects for...

The essays collected in this volume make a serious, enlightened contribution to the history of political philosophy. While offering striking new interpretations of crucial texts and events in the history of the West, they illuminate fundamental questions of politics, religion, and philosophy.

Francis Bacon's "Inquiry Touching Human Nature" is an engagement at a fundamental level with the political and philosophic thought of one of the founders of modernity, Francis Bacon. Bacon had a comprehensive vision of the human situation. And because he saw the costs or dangers of modern life as clearly as he predicted its achievements and boons, Bacon is a thinker who addresses directly and deeply our own perplexities.

Ranging from ancient Greek thought to contemporary quantum mechanics, Mastery of Nature investigates to what extent nature can be conquered to further human ends and to what extent such mastery is compatible with human flourishing.