What is the Enlightenment’s place in European history? Why did ideas about progress become so attractive in the eighteenth century? Which origins had the Enlightenment’s core ideas? And how can we understand the radicalisation tendencies in the second half of the eighteenth century? This book gives a new account of both the origins and the dynamics of this reform movement. It claims that the Enlightenment became so influential because it was further developing ideas from the dominant intellectual tradition initiated by university scholars. It emerged as a result of the tensions between two incompatible worldviews at the centre of Christianity, consistently expanding on one to criticise the other. This enabled intellectuals to claim they were fostering progress, to accumulate prestige and to gain patronage from leading court figures. Yet this success also created a fierce competition on the intellectual market. The result was an overbidding that radicalised ideas on politics, morality and religion. Endeavours to radically reform society, religion and political systems flourished in the latter eighteenth century, preparing the ground for revolution.
