Enlightenment values, including an emphasis on human rights and belief in rationalism and progress, aspire to be universals, yet at the same time they are concepts grounded in the eighteenth century. Since the French Revolution we have grappled with the concepts of Enlightenment, Lumière, Aufklärung, in an attempt to understand how these eighteenth-century concepts continue to shape and influence modern notions of liberal culture.

This collection of essays approaches these important questions in a resolutely European and multi-lingual perspective. Ranging from Victor Cousin to Peter Gay, different chapters consider Tocqueville and the Hegelian school (Bruno Bauer, David Friedrich Strauss, Hermann Hettner), the intellectual currents in Europe around 1900 (Wilhelm Dilthey, Gustave Lanson), the thinkers of the Weimar Republic (Ernst Cassirer) and of the Frankfurt School (Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno), and the debates after the Second World War (Franco Venturi). While the principal focus is on writing in French, German and English, the book also treats the Russian- and Italian-speaking worlds.

This important contribution to the history of ideas helps us to redefine the Enlightenment. These essays do not merely describe historical assessments of an eighteenth-century movement of ideas: they contribute to the ongoing debate about the very nature of the concept of Enlightenment.