A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy

A leading historian reveals the radical origins of humanity's most cherished secular values

Democracy, free thought and expression, religious tolerance, individual liberty, political self-determination of peoples, sexual and racial equality—these values have firmly entered the mainstream in the decades since they were enshrined in the 1948 U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. But if these ideals no longer seem radical today, their origin was very radical indeed—far more so than most historians ...