Summary Of Jonathan Israel: A Revolution Of The Mind

Jonathan Israel, A Revolution of the Mind. Reviewed by Casandra Bolan Jonathan Israel if the author of A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy; the book was published in 2009, by Princeton University Press. He received his PHD from Oxford University and to this day Israel is a Professor at Princeton University and teaches modern European history. Israel has many published books with a wide rang of historical topics and the significant of these time periods. The main thesis of The Revolution of the Mind is that; the only way the revolution was possible because people changed the way they thought and opened their mind to new ideas thus causing their minds to go through a mental revolution. He ties in philosophy into the book to bring the mental and physical aspects of the revolution. He goes into the two types of enlightenment, (radical and moderate) and explains how to tell them apart. He also mentions that authors of that time period had a big part in making the revolution what it was. “But without the unprecedented surge of egalitarian literature during the 1770s and 1780s there would have been not ground for a “ General Revolutions.”” (Israel 87)

He uses the two types of enlightenment and explains how they are completely different and he uses this argument to explain how each method of enlightenment is taken and how people react to them. He backs up his argument by saying that people like d’Holback had much to do about the revolution as well know Kant. By reading this book it is obvious that Israel has a lot of knowledge about this time in history that he has done his research. Israel seems to like looking at people or events that have been over looked by others and contribute those things to why a major event