A bold and brilliant reclamation of the Enlightenment from scholars who have given the movement pre-eminence in France over concurrent movements in England and America. This is a contrast of the Enlightenment in three different countries and tries to show how the abstracted idealisation of Man characterised by the French has wrongly been given primacy. Exceptionally well written and clever.' - The Washington Post Book World 'Supported with great passion and wide-ranging scholarship.' - San Francisco Chronicle'