The Age of Voltaire, the ninth volume of the Story of Civilization, is an in-depth examination of France and England in the first half of the eighteenth century. In this masterful work, listeners will encounter

• the English ideas that inspired the Enlightenment in France—skepticism, scientific experiment, constitutional government, "natural rights," and individual liberty; • the salons of Paris, where the wits and thinkers of all Europe gathered to exchange ideas; • the philosophes—intellectuals, playwrights, and poets who consulted and consorted with kings and queens; • Voltaire himself—the incarnation of the Enlightenment and a devotee of reason who still defended religious faith; • Mme. Pompadour, patron of the philosophes, who seduced King Louis XV and through him influenced French policy; • the Augustan Age in English literature—Alexander Pope's poetry, Jonathan Swift's satires, and the novels of Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding; and • the growing parasitism of the aristocracy and rising power of the commercial class.

© 2015 Blackstone Publishing (Audiobook): 9781504600378

Release date

Audiobook: 31 August 2015