The Battle of Gods and Giants Redux is a collection of 14 original essays by leading scholars in the field. Part One includes figures and topics associated with Descartes, the chief idealist in the story, including Leibniz, Spinoza, and Malebranche; Part Two includes figures and topics that fall on the Gassendist materialist side of the battle, including Hobbes, Bayle, and Locke. In organizing these varied discussions along these themes and lines, something more than the sum of the parts emerges. The reader will gain a breadth and depth of insight into the battle of ideas in early modern thought—historical, philosophical, and interpretive.

Contributors are: Margaret Atherton, Martha Brandt Bolten, Patricia Easton, Lorne Falkenstein, Nicolas Jolley, José Maia Neto, Steven Nadler, Alan Nelson, Lawrence Nolan, Donald Rutherford, Tad Schmultz, Kurt Smith, Julie Walsh, and Richard Watson.