Enemies of the Enlightenment : The French Counter-Enlightenment and the Making of Modernity

In a consistently even-handed and lucid manner, McMahon details the evolution of a vital strain of modern thought with roots in the age of Enlightenment, one that Keith Baker and other historians of political discourse have largely ignored. ― Journal of Modern History

… sophisticated and vividly written. ― Journal of Modern History

His [McMahon’s] book is well grounded on solid research in French archives, and it is remarkably well written. It takes the Enlightenment out of the salons. ― Cecilia Miller, Times Literary Supplement

Thoughtful and well-written. ― History

Enemies of the Enlightenment presents a useful genealogy of a brand of conservatism that remained influential through the mid-20th century, and, more pressingly, a rough template for a host of counter-Enlightenment ideas that are with us still today, from Cambridge to Kabul. ― Jerry Z. Muller, The Wall Street Journal

McMahon’s argument is deeply versed in recent scholarship; his prose is polished, and the book is illustrated with compelling examples of visual propaganda. ― Publishers Weekly

“[I]n this sophisticated deconstruction of conservative opposition to the Enlightenment, McMahon…reenvisions intellectual history from 1750 to 1830 as an ideological dialectic foreshadowing the culture wars of our own time and helping to define modernity.”–Publishers Weekly

“This well-researched and beautifully written study applies insights of recent Enlightenment historiography to the heretofore neglected area of the anti-philosophes.” —Choice