“With great learning lightly worn, Lilti brilliantly shows how many of the Enlightenment’s postcolonial critics unwittingly draw upon the intellectual inheritance of this movement. In this and other respects, The Legacy of the Enlightenment mounts a sophisticated argument for the relevance of the Enlightenment in a moment when many of its critics, both left and right, would prefer to bury it.”

Paul Cheney, University of Chicago

“This book is a must-read for scholars and students of eighteenth-century European thought and culture. Written by one of the world’s great authorities on the subject, it is an erudite, eloquent, and satisfyingly nuanced account of a contentious topic: how to make sense of Voltaire and company from the vantage point of today. But this is also a book for anyone who likes to think about history—how we compose it, what we do with it, what it can do for us.”

Sophia Rosenfeld, author of The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life

“Lilti’s engaging and thought-provoking book recovers the truly revolutionary aspects of the Enlightenment, not as a fixed canon of values and ideas to be celebrated, but as an enduring intellectual project that asks questions, answers them, and then critiques its own answers. This is a timely and compelling work that speaks directly to the challenges of the present day.”

Paul Friedland, Cornell University