Reassessing the Radical Enlightenment comprises fifteen new essays by a team of international scholars that reevaluates the characteristics, meaning and impact of the Radical Enlightenment.

This collection examines aspects of the Radical Enlightenment between 1660 and 1825, spanning England, Ireland, the Dutch Republic, France, Germany and the Americas. In addition to dealing with canonical authors and celebrated texts such as Spinoza and his Tractus theologico politicus, authors discuss many less well-known figures and debates from the period. Divided into three parts, this book:

• Considers the Radical Enlightenment movement as a whole, including its defining features and characteristics and the history of the term itself.
• Traces the origins and events of the Radical Enlightenment, including in-depth analyses of key figures including Spinoza, Toland, Meslier, and d’Holbach.
• Examines the outcomes and consequences of the Radical Enlightenment in Europe and the Americas in the eighteenth century. Chapters in this section examine later figures whose ideas can be traced to the Radical Enlightenment, concluding with three chapters examining the role of the period in the emergence of egalitarianism.

This collection of essays is the first stand-alone collection of studies in English on the Radical Enlightenment. It is a timely and comprehensive overview of current research in the field while presenting new studies and research on the Radical Enlightenment.